The Truth about Marie

by Jean-Philippe Toussaint

  Waiting for Marie in the lobby, Jean-Christophe de G. settled final matters pertaining to the horse’s transport. He was sitting on a couch in the lobby in the company of four Japanese men, each with a laptop and electronic planner, sent there to replace the former trainer’s crew and to make sure the horse made it to the airport and past customs safe and sound. The four Japanese men all wore navy-blue blazers with pockets bearing the crests of various private clubs and were discussing practical matters with Jean-Christophe de G., shuffling through paperwork and certificates that they studied in a whisper. The horse trailer was parked at the hotel’s entrance, its long and still silhouette could be seen through the lobby’s bay windows, its aluminum body just the same as a rock star’s trailer, with two barred windows on each side, the whole grooved mass gleaming under the golden lights of the hotel’s entrance. The trailer’s back door was open and its ramp lowered to air out the rear and give the thoroughbred some fresh air, and three men in light jackets, hired hands or assistants, stood guard at the trailer’s entrance next to the driver, an old Japanese man in a jumpsuit, starched and gray, opened at the neck to reveal the knot of his tie, smoking a cigarette as he surveyed the hotel’s surroundings. As the wait went on longer than anticipated, the workers took advantage of the lull to change the horse’s water, one of the elegant Japanese men in a navy-blue pocket-crested blazer quietly slipped away into the lobby with a metal bucket, new and shiny, engraved with a blazon and initials, similar in color to the trailer, as though it was an accessory of the latter, one piece of a larger set, and he returned from the lobby with a slow-moving, ceremonial gait, carrying the bucket back to the trailer, his hands covered in clear antiseptic gloves (who knows whether he filled up the bucket in the hotel restroom, or if he had emptied out its contents, manure and urine-soaked hay, thus cleaning out the bed of the trailer).

  As soon as Jean-Christophe de G. saw Marie enter the lobby — she was walking slowly, her course unswerving and her eyes pale in the chandelier’s light, a vacant look on her face, trailing in her wake a host of hotel employees in black livery who followed her with two golden luggage carts, a varied heap of bags piled high on each — he interrupted his improvised meeting and stood up quickly to greet her, politely offering to carry her small plastic sack of fugu sashimi. We have to leave right now, we’re late, he told her, uncertain of what he should do with the sack of fugu sashimi he now held in his hand, and Marie didn’t respond, she didn’t say anything, followed him silently, insouciantly — Marie, fixing her gaze on nothing in particular, in skirt and black boots, her long leather coat draped over her arm, its loose belt dangling and dragging on the floor behind her. A rented Japanese limousine awaited them outside the hotel (with large cream leather seats, small embroidered coverings over the headrests, and an adjustable armrest with electronic buttons inscribed with the word MAJESTA), and several hotel employees assisted in unloading Marie’s many and disparate bags, placing them in the trunk and front seat of the limousine, while the four Japanese men in navy-blue pocket-crested blazers gathered their belongings and got into a small minibus parked nearby, its doors bearing some sort of golden insignia. There were so many bags on the luggage carts that the employees had to load some in the minibus. Sitting shoulder to shoulder in their narrow seats, impassive among a growing mass of beribboned boxes, designer handbags, tiny frilled sleeves for small precious items, the four Japanese men watched as the bellhops continued to place bags by their sides. Perhaps they were lawyers or jurists, or members of a Japanese horse-racing society, one of them had his hair dyed and sported a pocket handkerchief of bright mauve, which spilled elegantly out of his chest pocket (the sign of an artist, bohemian, veterinarian?).

  The convoy began on its way, slowly winding down the hotel’s private access road, the small minibus leading the pack, followed by the limousine and the imposing aluminum horse trailer, which struggled around the bends and made wide turns with infinite precaution. They drove on for a quarter mile without any difficulties, enough time to leave Shinjuku’s administrative center behind them, before speeding onto the freeway in the direction of Narita. But, almost right away, they were caught in traffic. They crept along, stopping and starting in traffic, before being stopped for a longer period in the evening’s gray drizzle. Through the foggy rear window, Marie saw the aluminum trailer’s monumental silhouette, its powerful headlights piercing through the rain in the day’s waning light — the trailer at a near stop, majestic, rocking slightly on the wet pavement, its tires and axles creaking. Marie looked at the trailer immobile behind her in the rain, this immense and incongruous vehicle, dark and mysterious, run aground in the Tokyo traffic, with its two barred windows on each side, behind which reigned the living presence, quivering, hot, of an invisible thoroughbred.

  Jean-Christophe de G. hadn’t taken off his coat, hadn’t even removed his scarf. Sitting back in his seat, separated from Marie by a large adjustable armrest, he made call after call, speaking to various people in English, his knee shaking steadily, frantically tapping the ground in time with his foot, then, hanging up — without however putting the phone away, already poised to dial another number — flashing a tense smile at Marie and tenderly touching her bare arm, unconvincingly, almost mechanically, his leg still twitching nervously, uncontrollably. Jean-Christophe de G. knew the customs office at the cargo zone at Narita closed at seven and there would be no possibility of extending their hours (theirs were inflexible hours, Japanese hours), arriving late wasn’t an option, the slightest derogation of policy was out of question. In other words, either they get the horse to the airport before seven and board the plane, or they arrive late and the horse remains stuck in customs in the cargo zone of Narita Airport with all the attendant consequences.

  Jean-Christophe de G. knew the horse’s papers were in order, its vaccinations records updated, its permission for transport validated, but he feared a final complication with customs, some required document of which he was perhaps unaware, and, all while sharing his concerns with Marie, he dialed more numbers on his phone. In fact — and Marie only realized this at the present moment — the people with whom he’d been speaking one after another since they’d left the hotel were none other than the four Japanese men just ahead of them in the minibus. He spoke with them without interruption, not with one of them in particular, a sort of designated spokesman, but with all four alternately, depending on the question at hand or the specialization of each, their phones rung or vibrated incessantly in the small minibus, forcing them to answer in turn, striving to reassure Jean-Christophe de G. with the same few words incessantly repeated, always agreeing, never saying no, favoring an ambiguous or oxymoronic yes (yes, I don’t know), which only alarmed him even more.

  Traffic had cleared, the rain had picked up violently and was now accompanied by gusts of raging wind, whose assaults rocked the metal body of the trailer as it sped down the freeway. Narita Airport was in sight, indicators of its imminent approach thronged the freeway, on one side the Narita Hilton, on the other a giant billboard with an ANA advertisement glowing in the rain and night. The airport itself was surrounded by a double row of metal fencing topped with barbed wire, behind which stretched a vast, deserted space, the dark and mysterious extremities of the airport. The convoy slowed down as it approached the airport and moved into one of the lanes of the police checkpoint. Several police officers wearing transparent jackets directed traffic in the rain in front of a large gate, similar to those of highway tollbooths, waving vehicles forward with fluorescent batons. One officer stepped into the minibus to quickly check the passports of the Japanese men, which they had out and ready, and he wasted no time, pointing at each passport as he passed down the aisle before getting out of the vehicle, while another officer stepped out of a kiosk and walked over to the limousine. Jean-Christophe de G. rolled down the automatic window with an electronic button on the armrest and handed the officer his passport in the night, as well as the horse’s passport, because the horse had a pa
ssport too, a personal ID, official, coated in plastic, impossible to forge (with picture, birth date, and pedigree). The officer opened Jean-Christophe de G.’s passport, looked at his picture, and returned it to him, then he opened the horse’s passport and leaned into the car to take a quick look at Marie’s face (but, even in the dark, it was impossible to confuse Marie with a horse). Jean-Christophe de G., realizing the misunderstanding, asked Marie — Marie, aloof, distracted — to please show the officer her passport. But Marie could never find her passport when she needed it, and, suddenly roused from her reverie, as if caught off guard, her face already betraying the tiresome futility of the search to come, she was overcome by a mad frenzy, that strange mix of panic and goodwill she displays when looking for something, desperately digging through her purse, turning and shaking it in every which way, taking out credit cards, letters, bills, her phone, dropping her sunglasses on the ground, trying to stand in the limousine and twisting around to check her skirt’s back pocket, the pockets of her leather coat, of her sweater, positive she had it with her, that damn passport, but not knowing in which pocket she’d put it, in which bag it could possibly be, twenty-three bags exactly (without counting the plastic sack with the fugu sashimi, in which she also glanced just to be sure) — all in vain, the passport was nowhere to be found. She had to get out of the limousine — Jean-Christophe de G. kept his cool, telling her not to worry in a calm tone, checking his watch in a panic — and she opened the trunk in the rain, took out her bags, and dug through them on the wet ground, under the officer’s cold, indifferent gaze. I must have left it at the hotel, Marie said, and she said this without the slightest trace of concern, almost with excitement, as though to imagine the worse — being at a security checkpoint in Narita without her passport — thrilled her, intoxicated her even, already aware of how funny this would all be in hindsight. This whimsy, this lightness of being, this ravishing insouciance, enchanting and radiant, a clear display of Marie’s charm at its best, was delightful as long as one wasn’t directly involved. Jean-Christophe de G., for his part deeply involved at the moment, grabbed her firmly by the arms (his gallantry beginning to crack), and he asked her to think about where she’d put her passport. I have no idea, Marie told him — he was beginning to annoy her now with all his questions — and she suggested it might be in her leather suitcase with her plane ticket. She took out this suitcase from the trunk and found her passport immediately, which she presented to the officer, who hardly looked at it before approving (after all, it was only a routine security check for people entering the airport).

  They got back into the limousine and the convoy headed toward Narita’s cargo zone, following the arrows on the big green signs lit up in the night, Cargo Building n° 2, Cargo Building n° 3, ANA Export, Common Import Warehouse, IACT. The three vehicles followed one another down a deserted road lined with official buildings. On either side of the road, blue and white runway lights speckled an otherwise vast expanse of darkness. They drove on in the night, the road was no longer lit, silhouettes of immobile planes could be seen parked here and there in the distance. They drove onto a soaked hardstand, the three vehicles slowly following each other, their headlights piercing the darkness, moving past a row of giant hangars through whose immense doors shone a green-tinted artificial light. Each hangar bore huge stenciled letters indicating the different cargo zones, E, F, G, and the convoy stopped at the entrance of unit F.

  Narita Airport’s customs office closed in less than ten minutes, and the four Japanese men quickly got out of their vehicle and ran into the hangar, carrying paperwork and official documents under their arms. Jean-Christophe de G. and Marie followed at their heels, Marie in skirt and black boots, her leather coat folded over her arm, which she put on without breaking stride to protect herself from the cold drafts in this dark, humid space. The hangar, a vast space of more than twenty thousand square feet, looked like an abandoned fish market after closing time when the stands are shut and the workers are spraying down the floor with hoses. The lights were turned off in most of the sections, there were boxes covered with tarps, there were empty shelves, a freight elevator was stationed nearby, duckboards strewn on the floor. Here and there forklifts moved to and fro through empty alleys, driven by workers in hardhats and white gloves transporting goods to the few open sectors, tiny islets of bustling activity violently lit by white fluorescent lights, where warehouse workers carried boxes toward lifts, boxes of goods of all sorts, vacuum-sealed or in worn cardboard boxes riddled with tags, crates of fresh produce poorly tied. The customs office was at the back of the hangar, at the center of a space reserved for airlines, their check-in counters empty, nothing remaining but a few makeshift signs posted here and there on the walls, KLM Cargo, SAS Cargo, Lufthansa Cargo.

  In the customs office the four Japanese men talked to a customs official, a man with a sickly pallor, his face livid, emaciated, wearing an official’s hat bearing the airport’s insignia and a masuku over his mouth, a mask of white gauze that covered his mouth and nose to protect him from microbes. He was going over a document concerning the transportation of the thoroughbred when, seeing Jean-Christophe de G. come into the office, he dropped what he was doing and bowed to offer his apologies, telling Jean-Christophe de G. in English through the thin layer of gauze covering his mouth that he was sorry for making him wait in the cargo zone and that he’d try to board the horse without further delay. Jean-Christophe de G. considered the officer incredulously, realizing from his hissed apologies, filtered twice over (by the language barrier and the thickness of the mask material), that getting the thoroughbred through customs successfully, which project had caused him such anxiety, and whose success, only seconds earlier, he believed to be compromised, had just been taken care of without any complications.

  Jean-Christophe de G. had stepped out of the hangar and was waiting for the horse’s travel stall to arrive so that they could proceed with the boarding. The trailer’s driver had opened the back door of the vehicle and lowered the metal ramp in the rain, while the other workers gathered around the back end of the trailer. Two of them looked like Yakuzas or young Japanese thugs, wearing belted bomber jackets with orange lining, while the third worker, wide-framed, stocky, entirely bald, his neck wide and thick, his skin like buffalo horn, was perhaps just as Japanese as the others, but would have fit in in any of the world’s cities, Moscow, New York, with his rock star’s bodyguard look and the tiny, international slits of his eyes, a natural citizen of the world. Apparently they weren’t authorized to touch the horse, they were only there to look after the horse’s safety, prevent anyone from getting too close. And they didn’t do any more than what was asked of them, pleased as they were to keep watch by the vehicle, their imposing presence alone acting as a strong deterrent. The travel stall hadn’t arrived yet, and two of the four Japanese men had stepped inside the trailer to try to calm the horse, to appease it, gently petting its neck. Since after the firing of Zahir’s trainer that same morning, and not only the trainer but the whole crew, including the traveling “head lad” (which, in hindsight, was a grave mistake, even Jean-Christophe de G. had to admit this), the thoroughbred no longer had a stable-hand, it had lost its regular stable-hand, its trustworthy stable-hand who had traveled with it since its birth, who had always been by its side, who fed it in new settings and led it around the paddock before races, the only one with whom the horse felt comfortable.

  The travel stall finally reached the lot, borne aloft on a flat trailer like a parade float, towed by a small electric vehicle that carried it in its wake. The tow vehicle went around the various cars parked near the warehouses and came to a stop by the minibus at the hangar’s entrance. Lufthansa’s station manager was to oversee the handling of the horse, walkie-talkie in hand, wearing a black slicker over his suit in the rain. Two technicians stepped out of the tow vehicle and climbed onto the trailer, unbolted the doors, and set up an inclined plane by means of which the horse could reach the travel stall, a sort of watert
ight caisson, metallic and ridged, on whose surface bits of yellowish orange Lufthansa stickers remained partially stuck. Marie had taken shelter from the rain in the hangar and observed the proceedings from a distance. All the doors were open, but the horse remained invisible in the depths of the trailer, where all eyes were now fixed. There was no sign of the thoroughbred’s presence apart from a few quiet whinnies coming from inside the trailer and a strong horse smell, a pungent mix of hay and manure, combining with the smell of rain and the stench of kerosene.

  Then, slowly, the thoroughbred’s croup emerged — its black croup, smooth and shiny — as it stepped backward, its back hooves seeking holds on the ramp, loudly clinking on the metal and stamping in place, wildly nervous, shying to the side before being brought back on track. Its only form of harness consisted of a halter and a lead, and it wore a short rug of luxurious purple velvet on its back, its legs carefully wrapped with protective bandages and Velcro-strapped travel boots, the bulbs of its heels and its tendons double wrapped to prevent cuts and scrapes. Eleven hundred pounds of fury, of strained nerves, and of excitement had just appeared in the night. Its coat black with a fine sheen, its muscles pronounced, it was descending the ramp backward, the two Japanese men in navy-blue blazers pushing all their weight into its shoulders lest it slip, holding on to the lead, tugging it and keeping it taut. The horse wasn’t cooperating, the stubborn beast, turning its head in an attempt to break loose, snorting, fighting, shivers spontaneously shaking its mane like visible waves of tension and excitement. Its physical strength was astonishing, a beastly electric energy emanated from its body. The two Japanese men seemed overwhelmed by their task, losing their footing, their blazers swinging open and their ties thrown over their shoulders, they grunted and groaned out stifled and vain calls for help, their hands and faces trembling, their emotions on edge. Immobile on the ramp, the thoroughbred stood stock still, stepping neither forward nor backward in spite of the men’s efforts, who continued to pull on the lead to no avail. Lufthansa’s station manager, walkie-talkie in hand, walked up to the trailer and no one moved, not the horse, stationed mid-ramp — immobile, furious, imperial — nor the onlookers, entranced by the sheer force of this unflinching stallion, its long and powerful muscles, tense, bulging, and the contrast marked by the graceful step of its legs, the finesse of its pasterns, skinny and narrow, delicate like a woman’s wrists.