The woman pointed to the glass door to the left of the counter.
‘Take this corridor,’ she said, ‘then the next corridor to the right.’
‘Thanks.’
She was already staring at her screen again. Servaz went through the swinging door.
His steps rang out on the varnished floor; otherwise, there was complete silence. Another door. Another corridor. At the end of it was a luminous sign: ‘Emergencies’.
There was only one person in the cluttered office, its walls covered with planning charts with columns full of coloured stickers.
Once again he took out his badge.
‘Gustav,’ he said; he didn’t have the courage to use the last name. ‘The boy who came in this afternoon.’
She looked at him, not understanding. She looked so tired. Then she stood up, stepped out of her tiny office, and pointed to a door.
‘Third on the right.’
A beep rang out somewhere and she turned and went in the other direction.
He stepped forward, his legs as wobbly as jelly. He had a persistent sensation of unreality. The door she’d shown him was only 4 metres away. He stifled the voice inside that was whispering to him to turn and run.
His heart was pounding in his ears, a wind of panic in his skull.
Three metres.
Two.
One.
The sound of ventilation; the door wide open. A figure in the room sitting on a chair, his back to him. A man’s voice saying: ‘Come in, Martin. I’ve been waiting for you. Welcome. It’s been so long. It took you a while – our paths crossed hundreds of times, and a hundred times you didn’t see me. But now you’re here, at last. Come in, don’t be shy! Come closer. Come and see your son.’
MARTIN AND JULIAN
37
A Child Makes You Vulnerable
‘Come in, Martin.’
That same voice: an actor’s, an orator’s. Deep, warm. Those same worldly tones. He had almost forgotten.
‘Come in.’
Servaz moved closer. In the bed on the left, Gustav was asleep (Servaz felt a heavy thud in his chest), looking peaceful and carefree, but his cheeks were flushed from the heat in the room. Through the window at the back the light from the streetlamps painted horizontal streaks between the blinds.
There was no other light.
He could hardly make out the seated figure with its back to him.
‘You won’t arrest me, will you? Not until we’ve had time to talk.’
He said nothing, but took another step, keeping Hirtmann on his left. Servaz gazed at his profile. He was wearing glasses, his hair fell over his forehead, and his nose had changed shape. If he’d passed him on the street he wouldn’t have recognised him.
But when Hirtmann turned his head and raised his chin to look at him, Servaz recognised his smile and his slightly feminine mouth.
‘Hello, Martin. I’m glad to see you.’
He still didn’t say anything, and wondered whether Hirtmann could hear the pounding in his chest.
‘I sent the Labarthes home. They’re good little soldiers, but they’re as thick as they come. He’s a real idiot. His book is worthless. Did you read it? She’s far more dangerous. You know they had the nerve to drug Gustav.’ His voice suddenly sounded like a flow of icy water. ‘They think they’ll just get a ticking-off. But you know it won’t be like that.’
Servaz said nothing.
‘I’m still not sure how I’ll deal with it. We’ll see. I prefer spontaneity.’
Servaz listened carefully. Tried to detect other sounds behind the voice. There were none. Everything was calm.
‘Do you recall our first conversation?’ said Hirtmann suddenly.
Of course he remembered. As a matter of fact, there had not been a single day in eight years that he had not thought about that moment in one way or another. Sometimes only for a few seconds, sometimes more.
‘Do you remember the first word you said?’
Servaz remembered. But he let Hirtmann say it.
‘Mahler.’
Hirtmann smiled, and his face lit up as he looked at him.
‘You said “Mahler”. And that’s when I immediately understood that something was happening. Do you remember the music?’
Oh yes, he remembered.
‘The Fourth, first movement,’ Servaz replied, his voice gravelly, as if he had not spoken for days.
Hirtmann nodded with satisfaction.
‘Bedächtig … Nicht eilen … Recht gemächlich …’
He lifted his hands and they fluttered, as if he could hear the music.
‘“Moderately, not rushed, rather leisurely”,’ translated Servaz.
‘I have to admit you made quite an impression on me that day. Yes. And I’m not someone who is easily impressed.’
‘Are we here to talk about the good old days?’
Hirtmann gave a good-natured little laugh. Almost a cough. Then he turned to the bed.
‘Don’t speak so loudly. You’ll wake him up.’
Servaz felt his stomach lurch.
‘Who is this child?’ he asked.
For a moment neither one of them spoke.
‘Can’t you guess?’
He gulped.
‘Did I ever tell you that once, in my previous profession, I found a child’s dead body?’ continued Hirtmann. ‘I was young, I had started work at the court in Geneva three weeks earlier. The police called me in the middle of the night. The guy on the phone seemed very upset. I went to the address they’d given me. It was a depressing place; a miserable little house where some junkies were squatting. When I went inside I immediately noticed the odour: a stench of vomit, cat piss, food, shit, tobacco, filth, but also burned aluminium foil. There were cockroaches in the corridor and in the kitchen; it was infested. I went into the living room. They were all completely high, sprawled on the sofas; the mother was lying across two guys’ laps, her head wobbling, and one of the guys was insulting the police; there were still tourniquets and syringes on the coffee table. The kid was in her room at the end of the corridor, lying on her bed. At the time I thought she was around four or five years old. In fact she was seven. But years of abuse and malnutrition had made her look much smaller and frailer than her age.’
He glanced over at the bed.
‘The pathologist was a guy close to retirement, someone who had seen worse, but he went very pale. He was examining her very gently, as if to make up for the rage with which she had been beaten. The emergency services were still outside the house. One of them had gone to throw up in the grass. They had done everything they could to resuscitate the little girl – cardiac massage, defibrillator … One of the guys wanted to go in and beat the living daylights out of the parents. The cops had to hold him back. The little girl’s room was full of rubbish, like all the rest of the house: bottles, cans, food mouldering in boxes; stains everywhere, even on the bed.’
Hirtmann fell silent, lost in thought.
‘We eventually arrested the person who’d killed her – not one of the wasters on the sofa, but the father, every bit as high, who had shown up and found the mother asleep with the other two. So he took his revenge on the kid. I killed the mother two months later. After torturing her. I didn’t rape her. She was too disgusting.’
‘Why are you telling me all this?’
Hirtmann didn’t seem to have heard.
‘You have a daughter, Martin. You’ve known for a long time.’
Servaz felt himself stiffen.
Don’t you talk about my daughter, you bastard.
‘I’ve known what?’ he asked, his voice icy.
‘That when you have a child, you stop reasoning the way you used to. When you have a child, the world becomes dangerous again, doesn’t it? Having children means learning all over again that we are fragile. A child makes you vulnerable. But you know all this, of course. Look at him, Martin. What will happen if I disappear? If I die? If I go to prison? What will become of him? Who w
ill look after him?’
‘Is he your son?’ asked Servaz, with a lump in his throat.
Hirtmann looked away from Gustav to stare at Servaz through his glasses, eyes narrowed.
‘Yes, he is my son. I raised him, I watched him grow. You cannot imagine what a wonderful kid he is.’
He paused.
‘Gustav is my son, and he is also yours. I raised him as my own son – because that’s what he is – but it’s your DNA he has in his cells. Not mine.’
Martin was no longer listening. His ears were buzzing. His throat seemed to be lined with sandpaper.
‘Can you prove it?’ he asked suddenly.
Hirtmann took out a transparent plastic bag. Inside was a lock of hair. Blond. Identical to the one he had in his own pocket.
‘I thought you might ask me that. Here, go ahead, do the test. But I’ve already done it for you: I wanted to find out whether he was yours or mine …’
Hirtmann paused.
‘Gustav. Your son. He needs you.’
‘Does he? Oh, so that’s why …’
‘That’s why what?’
‘We found him so easily. You arranged it all so that we would find him, in fact.’
‘You’re clever, Martin. Very clever.’
‘But not as clever as you, is that it?’
‘I am fairly clever, that’s true. You know me well enough to be aware that I don’t often make mistakes, as a rule. It should have started you thinking.’
‘It did. But even if I did think that you were pulling the strings, that you were behind it all, I figured you must have your reasons – and that the puppeteer would eventually come out of hiding. I was right, was I not?’
‘Very good. So, here we are.’
‘The problem is that all the exits to this hospital are being watched by the police. There’s no escape.’
‘I don’t think so. Are you going to arrest me? Here? In the room of your ailing son? To be honest, I think that’s in very poor taste.’
Servaz looked at Gustav, his blond hair still glued to his brow with sweat, his lips parted, his narrow ribcage rising gently beneath the flannel pyjamas. His blond lashes lay against his closed eyelids like the whiskers of a brush.
Hirtmann stood up to his full 1 metre 88. Servaz noticed he had put on a few pounds. He was wearing an old-fashioned Fair Isle jumper and shapeless corduroy trousers. But he still emanated something magnetic and formidable.
‘You’re tired, Martin. I suggest we—’
‘What’s wrong with him?’ interrupted Servaz, his voice altered.
‘Biliary atresia.’
Servaz had never heard of this disease.
‘Is it serious?’
‘Mortal if nothing is done.’
‘Explain it to me,’ he said firmly.
‘It will take a while.’
‘I don’t care. I have all the time in the world.’
‘It’s a nasty disease that starts even before the child is born, in its mother’s womb. Basically, the ducts which allow the liver to evacuate bile shrink and become blocked, and the bile retained in the liver causes irreparable damage which, if left untreated, will prove mortal. You’ve heard of cirrhosis of the liver, which alcoholics get. Well, that’s what happens here: the presence of bile in the liver causes fibrosis, then a secondary biliary cirrhosis. That is what the child dies of: good old cirrhosis of the liver.’
Hirtmann paused and glanced at Gustav before continuing.
‘The cause is unknown. Children who have it suffer from constant health problems. They are smaller than average, and often catch infections. They have abdominal pain and swelling, jaundice, sleep issues, and gastrointestinal bleeding. In short, as I said, a nasty disease.’
There was no particular emotion in his voice, merely the brutal enunciation of facts.
‘The initial treatment consists in restoring the flow of bile. This operation is known as the Kasai procedure, from the name of the surgeon who developed it. Gustav has had this operation. One out of three operations are successful. In his case, it seems to have failed.’
He paused.
‘From this point on, liver failure develops and the child is in danger of dying.’
Servaz got the impression the silence reigning in the hospital was producing a sort of vibration – or was it his ears?
‘Is there any other treatment?’
Hirtmann looked deep into his eyes.
‘Yes. A liver transplant.’
Servaz waited for what came next, his heart in his throat.
‘Biliary atresia is the primary reason for liver transplants among children,’ explained Hirtmann. ‘The main obstacle to the transplant – as you can imagine, Martin – is the lack of donors in this age group.
‘And, in Gustav’s case,’ continued Hirtmann, ‘it would involve a lot of formalities; bringing him out of hiding, which would no doubt mean he would end up in a foster family – strangers, for fuck’s sake. People I would have no control over, people I haven’t chosen.’
Servaz refrained from pointing out that his choice of the Labarthes hardly seemed optimal.
‘But there is another option – for Gustav, in fact, the only one: a transplant from a compatible living donor. Roughly 60 to 70 per cent of a healthy donor’s liver is removed, and this is not a problem, because the liver grows back. And it is transplanted to the child. But not just any donor will do. It has to be a close relative: a brother, a mother, a father …’
So that was it. Servaz resisted the urge to grab Hirtmann by the collar. Marianne, he thought suddenly. He had said, ‘a mother, a father’. Why not Marianne?
‘Why not his mother, Marianne? Why not her?’ he asked, his voice hoarse. ‘Why can’t she donate her liver?’
Hirtmann stared at him gravely; he seemed to be groping for the right words.
‘Let’s just say that her liver is not available.’
Servaz took a deep breath.
‘She’s dead, is that it?’
Hirtmann’s gaze was full of feigned compassion, and again Servaz wanted to grab him by the throat.
‘And if I refuse?’ he said. ‘What then?’
‘Well, in that case, your son will die, Martin.’
‘Why?’ he said suddenly.
‘Pardon?’
‘Why didn’t you kill him? Why did you raise him as your son?’
They both gazed at the sleeping boy; his lips were moving in silent speech.
‘I don’t kill children,’ answered Hirtmann coldly. ‘And fate placed this kid in my hands. Did I tell you that when I found out Marianne was pregnant, I was livid? For weeks I starved her, hoping she would lose it. I didn’t want to kill the child, I wanted it to die a natural death. But the little devil clung on for dear life. Except that with all the drugs I was making her take, Marianne was in a pitiful state. I had to wean her off them, feed her, and inject her intravenously with vitamins.’
‘In Poland?’ asked Servaz.
Hirtmann looked at him.
‘Marianne never set foot in Poland. That was just so I could see you squirm. I added her DNA to the others’, that’s all.’
‘How did she die?’
‘When the boy was born, I took a paternity test and found out he wasn’t mine,’ continued Hirtmann, ignoring Martin’s question. ‘I realised he must be yours. So I came to Toulouse and, without you realising, I got hold of a bit of your DNA. It wasn’t hard. No harder than borrowing your gun. In both cases, all I had to do was break into your car.’
Servaz held his breath; he was trying to think.
‘Because it was indeed your gun that killed Jensen,’ Hirtmann confirmed. ‘And I’m the one who pressed the trigger. I borrowed it the night you pursued me in the gardens at the thermal baths. I replaced it with another, identical one, then put it back a few days later.’
Servaz thought of the perfume he had smelled in the car, the day he came out of the therapist’s office, then of his weapon in Rimbaud’s hands, and the te
st firing they would soon be carrying out. He looked at the child in the bed.
‘At the same time, I checked to see whether your blood groups were compatible,’ added Hirtmann.
Servaz listened to his words, unable to shake off an impression of unreality. He felt as if he were dreaming, that he would eventually wake up.
‘Just supposing … just supposing I do it, how can I be sure you won’t finish me off after the operation?’
The pale light above the bed was reflected in Hirtmann’s glasses, like a reflection on the surface of a pond at night.
‘You can’t,’ he replied. ‘But after that, Gustav will owe you his life. A life for a life. Let’s just say that will be my way of paying my debts. Of course you’re not obliged to believe me. I might change my mind and finish you both off. It would make my life a lot simpler.’
‘I have one condition,’ said Servaz after a moment.
‘I don’t think you’re in a position to negotiate, Martin.’
‘How could you entrust him to those idiots, the Labarthes, for God’s sake!’ he said, in a sudden burst of anger.
Hirtmann started but didn’t say anything.
‘So who do you suggest?’ he asked, looking surprised.
‘He’s my son, after all.’
‘So?’
‘It’s my duty to bring him up.’
Hirtmann stared at him, flabbergasted.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘You heard me. Where will the operation take place?’
He sensed that Hirtmann was thinking.
‘Abroad. It’s too risky here, both for him and for me.’
Now it was Servaz’s turn to be surprised.
‘Where abroad?’
‘You’ll see.’
‘And how do you plan to get him out of the country?’
‘So, will you do it?’ asked Hirtmann without replying.
Servaz did not take his eyes off Gustav. He was sick with fear. A fear that reminded him of when Margot was Gustav’s age.
‘I don’t really have any choice, do I?’
Night Page 29