by Pryor, Mark
“What is there to worry about?”
“Well, for one thing, he wasn’t supposed to be coming. Head of the Foreign Relations Committee Jonty Railton was the original choice.”
“Oh, yes, I remember reading something about his tires getting slashed.”
“Yeah, and not known to the public were some fairly specific messages he was getting. Threats, to be precise, telling him to stay out of France.”
“From?”
“No one knows. Anyway, he’s one of our more spineless politicians, which is saying something, and he has decided to do as those anonymous notes told him.”
“So he chickened out and we get Lake instead.”
“I don’t like the guy, but he has a decent ‘fuck-you’ attitude, and he’s not likely to be bullied.”
“Yeah, I gather he’s a handful. If the newspapers are to be believed.”
“Twenty years ago the guy was probably wearing a white hood and burning crosses. His current incarnation is as our nation’s leading isolationist. He’s free-market, anti-government, and anti-foreigner.”
“A lot of people are. You think he has a real chance to be president?”
“Yes, otherwise I wouldn’t be so upset.” The ambassador leaned forward. “He’s very smart and comes across like a nice, all-American guy. I think he’s done a good job burying his true feelings and beliefs, although,” Taylor smiled wryly, “there’s an outside chance I’m making him sound worse than he is. Maybe he just rubs me the wrong way.”
“Politicians can do that.”
“Damn right. But for crying out loud, the guy has even made fun of the British. The British. Who doesn’t like them? They’ve been our allies in every war, economic crisis, and trouble spot since we gave them the boot three hundred years ago.”
“What’s his problem with them?”
“Again, trying to be fair, I think it comes down to the monarchy, the idea that someone can be born into royalty and have all those trappings for life, no matter what.”
Hugo shrugged. “He has a point.”
“Maybe he does, and he’s also been very critical of the class structure back home, the sons and nephews of our nation’s leaders stepping into their fathers’ and uncles’ shoes, and not making it through their own merit.”
“The more you talk, the more I like him. And he can’t be such an outlier to have gotten this far.”
“Maybe he’s not such an outlier, is all I can think. And he has this, ‘I am who I am’ shtick going. Doesn’t try to please everyone all of the time and seems to relish finding his foot in his mouth, just says that people need to take him at face value as a man who doesn’t play the Washington games other politicians play.”
“If he means it, I’ll give him credit for that, too.”
Taylor narrowed his eyes. “You a secret Lake supporter or something?”
“Don’t know the man,” Hugo said. “We can discuss after I’ve met him. I just know that sometimes you get a bee in your bonnet about things and people—”
“He’s a hypocrite, too,” Taylor interrupted, sounding a little like a pouty child.
Hugo tried not to smile but said, “Fine, I’ll indulge you. Why is he a hypocrite, Mr. Ambassador?”
“Because he’s just like any other politician. He has his cadre of rich backers, a half-dozen or so, who’ve latched onto his isolationist claptrap for their own purposes and he’s happy as can be to take their money while acting like he’s his own man.”
“You know, it is possible to take someone’s money and not be at their beck and call, to have a mind of your own.”
“Not in Washington it’s not.”
“Maybe. But to get this far, he must have some redeeming qualities. He grow roses for old people or play with kittens a lot?”
Ambassador Taylor grimaced. “He does have a certain . . . charm, I suppose.” He waved a hand. “Ah, you’ll see for yourself, you can make up your own mind.”
“Why thank you.” Hugo frowned. “I guess my main question is, if he’s such a—”
“Xenophobe?” Taylor offered.
“—isolationist, I was going to say. What’s he doing in our fair city? What’s his stake in the Guadeloupe business?”
“Trying to establish some foreign policy credentials. Other than, you know, ‘screw the outside world.’ People in Washington know he’s on the way up so he’s been given a chance to dial back his anti-Franco image and solve a massively unimportant crisis.”
“I’m so glad I never went into politics,” Hugo said. “I’ll never understand who gets to do what, or why.”
“Count yourself lucky. My guess is that as many people are waiting for him to screw it up as solve it. From here, though, it’s a little hard to tell who’s on whose side.” The ambassador rose. “And sometimes I like it that way. Well, have fun with it, his schedule’s on your desk. Excuse the footprints, and thanks for the coffee.” He turned to leave but stopped at Hugo’s question.
“Hang on, when’s he coming in?”
“Oh, right. There’s a dinner tomorrow night at a chateau just outside Paris, where the talks will be held. Fancy bash for those involved in the negotiations, you know, French foreign ministers and bureaucrats. You’ll be driving him there. And dining.”
Hugo raised an eyebrow. “Tomorrow?”
“Told you it was a surprise.”
“You did, but how can I prepare a safe itinerary in less than a day?”
“You can’t.” Taylor smiled. “Remember, you’re not security, you’re the babysitter.”
Several times a year, Hugo woke up between three thirty and four in the morning and knew immediately he wouldn’t be going back to sleep. It was an affliction that began at his first post in London and continued ever after. He’d fought it the first few times, tossing and turning for hours only to fall out of bed at six o’clock rumpled and grumpy. For the past couple of years, though, he’d embraced it. Perhaps it was Taylor’s promise of spending the next few days with a blowhard politician that did it, but the day after their meeting, Hugo woke on the dot of three thirty and knew that his night was done.
He rolled out of bed and dressed slowly, opening the large window looking over Rue Jacob to test the air. Cool and a little breezy, but the autumn hadn’t swept away the summer entirely; a perfect morning for a walk.
He checked his watch as he closed the door behind him. He had a good two hours until he needed to be back, and the best bit: at least one hour before the rest of the city started waking up.
The sky was still black as he headed north toward the River Seine, alone on the quiet streets until he passed a bakery as its metal grill clattered up. The magnetic aroma of fresh bread enveloped him, a taunting siren call that he resisted by promising himself a reward on the other side of the river. He crossed the Seine on the Pont Des Arts, stopping midway to lean on the balustrade and watch the water. To his right was the facade of the Institute of France, built as a college three hundred and fifty years before and on his left sat, part of it anyway, the ever-impressive Louvre, once palace, now palatial museum.
He looked down at the water, blacker than the sky above him, running slick and fast beneath his feet. His eyes adjusted to the deeper darkness and he turned his head a fraction to watch the jumble of swirls and eddies at each bank where the current slowed, snagged and ruffled by the barges that were lashed to the impenetrable stone banks. Beneath him, movement caught his eye and he watched several heavy logs, dark brown and greasy, sweep past. Images forced themselves into his head, conjured from the darkness that was real and memories that were recent, and he shivered as he saw the human forms that this treacherous river had swallowed and spit out, the bouquinistes who’d been his friends, gentle men and women doing no more than selling books, posters, and postcards, making their meager living beside the river when they were targeted for death.
He shook away the image and walked on, turning his eyes to the waist-high crisscross of wire that made up the sides of this bri
dge, almost every strand holding onto a padlock. He didn’t know when this had started but it had caught on, for locals and tourists alike. Padlocks of all description, many heart-shaped, each one with the name of a couple in love. Most were written in permanent marker but some, quite a few actually, had been professionally engraved. The idea, he’d been told, was to affix the lock and then toss the key into the water, thereby securing one’s love forever. It was, Hugo thought, a charming if touristy place of semipermanent whimsy, and as he came to the end of the bridge he knelt and looked more closely at some of the locks. He smiled at the names Natalie, Henry, Nicola, on one side, their parents’ names on the other. English? he wondered. American? Beside them, another quandary, a mix of Welsh and German: Glynn and Elke.
A thought bubbled up and he indulged it, wondering if he’d ever lock his name to the bridge and, if so, who’d be there with him. His first wife, yes, the love of his life who’d been killed in a car accident. She would have locked their names together and kissed the key before dropping it into the river, laughing all the while.
What about Christine? He’d married her hoping to fall in love again, wanting to, but found himself with a cultured and, it turned out, somewhat spoiled woman who was either unable or unwilling to temper her lifestyle for someone else. A woman who had replaced him with the shrink who’d taken Hugo’s money to address that very issue. No, Christine would have found this bridge mildly amusing and rolled her eyes at any suggestion of a padlock for them, even for fun. She didn’t do silly.
And Claudia? Hugo ran his fingers over an empty square of mesh and thought about Claudia. They’d met while he was hunting for his friend Max, the first of the bouquinistes to go missing, a chance encounter that had bloomed and then seemed to wither, their natural attraction and compatibility held back by . . . well, he thought, mostly by circumstances.
The gentle growl of an early morning barge reached his ear, the world starting to come alive, and he watched the long boat press its nose into the current, resolute and determined. Claudia, he thought, was fun and spontaneous, yet as a journalist she’d forged her own career and she’d been the one to pull away from Hugo just when they’d been falling . . . getting close, anyway. Being locked into anything wasn’t Claudia’s nature, it seemed, but on the other hand he’d seen her do silly.
Hugo stood and watched the barge pass under the bridge, aware now of a strip of misty yellow that had breached the horizon. The late-September morning making its way toward the city, and the thousand padlocks that faced the coming day seemed to glow in its soft light. Watching them, Hugo smiled to himself. The truth was, he had absolutely no idea what Claudia might think of this bridge and of the romantically naïve custom that had swarmed it.
Hugo looked at his watch and was surprised to see how long he’d spent on the bridge, recalculating his path to account for the lost time and the empty feeling in his stomach. He waited to cross the main road toward the Louvre with a new objective in mind: coffee and croissants.
As his foot hit the sidewalk, the phone in his pocket buzzed. He checked the number but didn’t recognize it. He answered anyway.
“Hugo Marston.”
“Marston, Charles Lake. Wasn’t expecting you to answer—I’m an early bird so I hope I didn’t wake you. Early bird yourself, eh?”
Lake’s voice was gentler than Hugo had expected, not the harsh and angry rasp of a divisive politician.
“Sometimes, yes. How can I help?”
“Wanted to get with you to discuss the schedule. I’m not really planning on being here longer than I have to,” Hugo heard a smile in the man’s voice. “You’ve probably heard that about me. The wine’s OK but the breakfasts suck, so when you’re free, come by the Hotel Crillon and we can get this show on the road.”
“Yes, sir, will do.”
“And sooner rather than later, eh?”
“Absolutely,” Hugo said. “See you in a little bit, Senator.” He hung up and smiled to himself. I like the breakfasts here, so it’ll be right after coffee and croissants.
Charles Lake was on the phone when Hugo spotted him in the lobby of the Hotel Crillon, the closest hotel to the US Embassy and one of the finest in Paris. Two dark-suited figures stood behind the seated congressman and watched Hugo approach, edging toward their charge as Hugo got closer.
He pulled out his embassy credentials and the Secret Service agents, a man and a woman, visibly relaxed.
“Mr. Marston,” the woman said, checking his identification.
“Call me Hugo.”
“If she doesn’t, I will.” Lake tucked away his phone, rose to his feet, and grinned. “And you can call me Charles. Not big on formalities.”
“You’ll have to rethink that if you become president,” Hugo said.
“Well, until then,” he said, offering his hand. “The young lady is Agent Emma Ruby, the fellow is Agent Charles Rousek.”
Hugo nodded at the agents and shook hands with the congressman. Hugo appraised his new charge, trying to forget most of the things Ambassador Taylor had said. He’d seen Lake on television a few times, Hugo remembered now. Lake was over six feet, maybe an inch shorter than Hugo, and had the body of a long-retired boxer. Heavy, running to fat, he’d long ignored the advisors who’d told him voters preferred their candidates slender and fit. Rumor had it he’d slapped his belly and promised, “This is the only pork you’ll see from me in Congress.” Whether this story or Taylor’s complaints were true or not, Hugo suspected that any reputation for speaking frankly would win him more friends off the Hill than on it. His receding hair, swept back on his skull by meaty hands rather than expensive hairdressers, served to emphasize his best features, a pair of wide-set and intelligent brown eyes and a frequent and artificially whitened smile.
“Welcome to Paris,” Hugo said.
“Thanks, first time. Last, too, if it all works out.”
“That’d be a shame, it’s a wonderful place.”
“So I’ve heard, but so’s America and I think I like being there better. Still, the coffee’s good, I just ordered some.” Lake gestured to the plush seating. “Sit, join me.”
“Thanks, I fueled up already. I have some questions about the schedule, though.”
The two men sat while behind them the Secret Service agents walked small circles, eyes moving constantly.
“Fire away,” Lake said.
“Just to confirm. Drive out to Chateau Tourville today, two nights there and two days of talks on the Guadeloupe thing, then back to Paris.”
“Right. You know anything about the place, Guadeloupe?”
“I don’t. The ambassador said something about pineapples.”
“Columbus is supposed to have discovered them there,” Lake said, “like no one in the history of the world had seen the damn things before. That man gets a lot of credit for a lot of shit, if you ask me.”
So not big on Italians, either, Hugo thought. The two men sat in silence as a waiter arrived with a silver coffee pot and two cups. The aroma of fresh coffee tempted Hugo into letting the waiter pour for him. He stirred in sugar, Lake took his neat.
“Anyway,” Lake continued, “Guadeloupe is tucked in amongst islands most people have actually heard of. Barbados, Martinique, Saint Lucia. Closer to Venezuela than America, but closer to us than the French. The island is its own French . . . what do they call it, department?”
“Department, yes.”
“Right. Along with a couple other pieces of rock right next to it, called Marie-Galante, La Désirade, and the Îles des Saintes. They are included in Guadeloupe and together have always had a chip on their shoulder.”
Lake spoke with authority and Hugo was surprised. The man knew an awful lot for an anti-French isolationist, even if he’d learned it rote from a textbook.
“A chip?” Hugo prodded.
“Long history of unhappiness with mother France, some of it recent. Hence the petition to tag along with us. Puerto Rico is nearby, I guess they like the look of that de
al.”
“And, if I may ask, what do you care?”
“Me?” He winked at Hugo and lowered his voice. “Personally, I don’t give a rat’s ass. Hell, maybe it’s a nice place to vacation and I could always use more of those. But professionally, politically, I care. I mean, what better way to promote democracy around the world than to have the people of an island like Guadeloupe exercise their voting power and become American?” He leaned forward. “And if we stick it to the French at the same time, even better.”
“I guess I’m just surprised that people care enough to have meetings and dinners and, frankly, for you to come all the way over.”
“Yeah, best I can tell it’s a matter of timing. The world stage is pretty quiet, in terms of actual events grabbing headlines, but at the same time tensions are high in North America and Europe thanks to the crappy economy. Plus, as you learn early in politics, the squeaky wheel gets the grease.”
“And Guadeloupe is squeaking right now.”
“Like a mouse with its balls in a vise.”
“Well,” Hugo said, “with that image in mind, shall we head out? You can ride with me, Rousek and Ruby can follow.”
“Sure thing.” Lake stood. “Think they’ll serve snails down there? For some reason, I’ve always wanted to try them. Probably just the garlic butter and bread, but still.”
Hugo smiled. “I’ll make a call. If they’re not on the menu, I can’t imagine it’d take long to catch a couple for you.”
Lake chuckled and slapped Hugo on the back. “Gonna take a leak before we go.” He beckoned to special agent Rousek. “Come on, Charlie, walk me to the head.”
The professor approached the house at dusk, following the stone path that looped from the front of the minichateau to the back, where wide green lawns fell away into darkness to the right. It was, in the way of many old French houses, a burglar’s delight. Windows sat loosely in their frames and the doors were heavy but rarely locked. Owners, such as the Bassin family here, relied on remoteness and a history of safety to stave away any fear of thieves.