Paris Noir Page 19

  “Where does the one filmed by the surveillance camera of the Pentagon come from?”

  “A cousin who works for a security company in Washington … He pirated it before the FBI picked up every piece of material and embargoed it. He was asking a hundred thousand dollars for it. Carvel agreed right away, except I later found out that he was secretly negotiating to resell it for six times that much.”

  “Is that what you were talking about in the Mauvoisin? He didn’t want to back off, or return the tape … ?”

  “Correct.”

  At the end of the day, a special adviser from the State Department came to pick up the video showing the impact of AA Flight 77 on the Pentagon and return it to the American authorities. The only thing Lieutenant Mattéo was still wondering about was what the wino on rue du Gaz was going to do with all the loot she inherited from her son.

  DEAD MEMORY

  BY PATRICK PÉCHEROT

  Les Batignolles

  Translated by Carol Cosman

  I’m going to kill him and I don’t know why. Wait—“know” isn’t the right word. I certainly knowwhat led me to hold a pistol to his chest. You don’t just do things like that accidentally. To anyone at all. At least that’s what I think. Unless you weren’t brought up right. Which is not the case with me. Or you’re a serial killer. That’s what they’re called now, right? Whatever. I’m not a serial killer. Being like that must leave traces in you—an aftertaste of blood, a smell of death.

  The smell comes up without warning, like bile rising after you’ve been on a binge. It’s morning. These moments are always mornings. Dawns, to be precise. Precision is important. So it’s dawn. You wake up out of a troubled sleep, all nauseous. Opening your eyes is sometimes like a sudden need to throw up. In the half-light, the shape lies on the floor. A heap. Soft, of course. Soft? The idea came to you because you thought of a pile of laundry. Each time, you think of a pile of laundry. There; you took that from a bad book and you kept it. Otherwise, why? The body curled up at the foot of the bed is completely rigid, and you know it. And cold. Its muscles hardened, its tendons petrified. Its veins too. Blue under the ivory skin, they’re like ink cartridges in a pen with the ink dried out.

  You murdered him before you went to bed. You’d never seen him before, but some nights you have to do it just to get some sleep. There’s nothing to be done about it. At least you know why you’ve killed him. In order to sleep. That’s a reason, right? And a good one too. When you’ve watched the clock going around for days without getting any sleep, it’s understandable.

  But him—I don’t even remember why I’m going to kill him.

  A memory! That’s the word. There is a reason why he has to die, but I no longer remember what it is. His death is a necessity. Still, it’s embarrassing—his being there at one end of my pistol with me at the other. All the same, I can’t decently ask him why I’m killing him.

  “You want to kill me, Monsieur Robert? And why?”

  There, you can’t count on anyone. It’s not like I’m asking him for the moon. He’s going to die, so a little piece of information just in passing wouldn’t cost him much.

  “No big deal, really.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Oh, don’t make it worse.”

  “Make whatworse, Monsieur Robert?”

  “Everything. The situation, your dazed expression, your idiotic questions …”

  “Ah, I understand …”

  “You sure took your time …”

  “He’s tired, isn’t he?”

  “What?”

  “He’s not his best today …”

  “Who?”

  “It happens to everyone. Does he want to rest a little?”

  “For God’s sake, who are you talking about?”

  “Take my arm, I’ll help you over to the armchair. And give me that revolver—”

  “Pistol!”

  “That pistol. It must be very heavy.”

  “Not at all. Eight hundred and fifty grams. It’s clear you don’t know anything about weapons.”

  “Right.”

  “Obviously, you have to add the bullets, which takes us—with eight grams per bullet, at twelve per clip—to around a kilo.”

  “Bravo!”

  “Good! I can still carry that.”

  “No, I was saying ‘bravo’ because of your memory …”

  Maybe I have to kill him because he’s so irritating. It’s astonishing how irritating he is. Look at him, he’s happy with himself now. The guy is a moron. That’s another reason!

  “You see, Monsieur Robert, when you concentrate, your memory works. It’s important to exercise it. Do you want us to do some exercises?”

  He really is very dumb.

  “Shooting exercises?”

  “Ah! I like you better like that. When he jokes, it’s because he’s feeling good.”

  “But who the hell are you talking about? There’s only you and me in this room!”

  “Come close to the window. And your revolver—”

  “Pistol!”

  “Sorry. I’m not very sharp on this subject.”

  “That’s an understatement.”

  “Okay, fine. Your pistol, then, weighs more than eight hundred grams …”

  “One kilo plus ten grams. Don’t forget, it’s loaded.”

  “Can you point it in a different direction? … Thank you. What make is it?”

  “The make? It’s a Luger. Parabellum P-08.”

  “Perfect!”

  “Yes, it’s a fine weapon. A little capricious, but it passed the test.”

  “A collector’s piece …”

  “The Americans would give a truckload of chewing gum for one.”

  “The Americans?”

  “The guys who didn’t have the luck to get one off a dead Kraut.”

  “A Kr—Are you talking about the war?”

  “I have to spoon-feed you everything. Of course, the war. You haven’t noticed?”

  “The … lastwar?”

  “How should I know? They say that every time!”

  “Thirty-nine to forty-five?”

  “Another one of your lame games? You want me to add? Subtract? Three plus nine equals twelve. Four plus five equals nine … What do we have here? A logical equation?”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Young man, I can assure you that a Luger Parabellum P-08 gives you many urges, but rarely the urge to joke.”

  “I’m talking about the war that involved a good part of the world from 1939 to 1945.”

  “Hold your horses! Germany’s taking some serious hits, but really, nothing’s over. At least nothing you can put a date on. You might as well say ’46, it seems to me. Besides, open the window.”

  “The window?”

  “Go over there, what do you see?”

  “Nothing. Well, rue des Dames …”

  “Yet, the street! But what else?”

  “Um, okay, pedestrians, cars, the line at the bakery—”

  “The eternal problem of bread rations …”

  “Rations? Monsieur Robert, we’re in 2007, it’s 4:30 p.m., it’s the end of the school day, and the bakery is selling cakes to the kids like … like hot cakes, precisely!”

  I’ll kill him tomorrow. By then I’ll remember why. And I will be rested. He’s tired me out. People who are going to die are exhausting. Most people are no picnic. But with one foot in the grave, they become impossible. To the point of making you want to murder them, if you didn’t already feel like doing it. This one’s hit the jackpot. Fifteen minutes, and he’s worn me out! It’s the world upside down. Now I don’t even know what he came for. Or what he was telling me. A chatterbox, words coming out of his mouth like oatmeal. Mush. A swill of words that leave you parched.

  Pip, or in French pépie,from the Latin pituita, a bird sickness characterized by the presence of a thick coating on the tongue. Makes them terribly thirsty. Isn’t my memory impressive? Its whatchamacallits and what’s-his-
names, crammed like junk into a wicker trunk. Open it! Rummage around! Find stuff you like! A real treasure hunt.

  Parched. Or thirsty. Thirst, human sickness characterized by the presence of words you couldn’t swallow. Gets cured at the bar.

  The Renaissance Bar is just as good as any other. With its crooked façade like a down-turned mouth, it owes its name to Pétain. The owner saw the Maréchal and his National Revolution as a sign of recovery, rebirth. The return of values, of black coffee and white sauvignon. Yellow, too, the color of anisette. Yellow mainly leaked on the stars. As for the rest, cheap, adulterated wine and sawdust calvados. Finally, when he saw that nothing was changing and his big nose felt the wind turn, he removed Pétain’s mug from the wall. Everyone forgot the reason for the Renaissance. I didn’t. Dead memory … memories are the shreds of life that stick to you. They burst out of the depths of time when morning itself evaporates like water. Why this one? The Renaissance at the corner of rue des Dames. And the “dames” you see passing by are no spring chickens. But hell, streetwalker isn’t a profession that makes for eternal youth.

  “A Cinzano!”

  “I’m sorry, monsieur, we don’t have any.”

  “A dry day?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Is it an alcohol-free day?”

  “I’m not sure I understand you. Martini, cognac, Suze, I can bring you whatever you want. Except for drinks that are no longer sold.”

  “They’ve banned Cinzano?”

  “That’s funny. We don’t serve Cinzano because no one buys it anymore.”

  “Since when?”

  “I think I served the last one … let’s see. Twenty-five years ago?

  “Twenty-five years?”

  “And that was an old bottle and a very old client.”

  “A mandarin citron, then.”

  “I see … Monsieur wouldn’t prefer an absinthe? Or a Gallic beer? A good Gallic cervoise?”

  With his cloth over his shoulder, he’s as boring as the other one. The future dead man. You’d think they’d passed the word around to each other. If that’s the case, perhaps he knows why I have to kill him. But it’s not the kind of question you ask a man thrown off by the idea of a mandarin citron. He needs something basic. Counter level, you might say.

  “Garçon!”

  “Monsieur …”

  “Where have the girls gone?”

  “What girls?”

  There’s a confab at the espresso machine.

  “Are you the gentleman on the fourth floor?”

  “I haven’t counted floors, but that must be right.”

  “You went out alone?”

  “Yes. Well, it’s not exactly an exploit, it’s something that happens often, you know. Besides, I’m going to do it again right this minute. You’re really irritating, acting like you’ve just landed here from outer space.”

  A café without Cinzano, rue des Dames without dames—aren’t you surprised that memory has no memories? That’s not quite right, actually. I do have memories. And that’s the strangest thing. The neighborhood, for instance. I could tell you a lot about it. Like rue des Dames. The bars, the furnished rooms, the ankle-twisting pavement, and the sky you glimpse above the lopsided buildings. The street and the street girls—you might think they’re connected. Wrong, it owes its name to the nuns. They followed it to go up to their convent up there in Montmartre. That must have been in the time of musketeers and sedan chairs. Because I don’t recall meeting any nuns here. No musketeers either. Streetwalkers, yes. Fishnet stockings and slit skirts, with their weary saunter, exhausted from too much soliciting. Lips like embers that don’t want to die, and eyes that have seen everything. The laundresses, too, that was their spot. Rosy skin, hair wild in the steam of the workshops, their blouses opening to the movement of their naked arms. And those smells, making you hungry as a wolf, with a ferocious yen to bite hard. To howl like a tomcat. Blood boiling in your veins. Hot, red, and very thick. Blood …

  I shouldn’t forget to kill him. But who? That’s what escapes me. That man on the bicycle riding down from Place de Clichy, his briefcase strapped to the rack? I don’t think so. The pizza deliveryman, perhaps. I don’t much like pizza. Or that one walking along rue Darcet … He came out of the Hotel Bertha, at the corner of les Batignolles. Rue des Batignolles, les Epinettes Park. Names that sing like music boxes. You wind them up, and off you go up the boulevard. “C’est lajava bleue, la java la plus belle …”

  It’s a summer evening. The paving stones are still warm from the heat of the day. The air carries the scents of linden blossoms and white wine. That comes from Sainte Marie. The trees from the square and the outdoor cafés all around it, like garlands. They’ve set out the tables and chairs, and barrels when there are no tables left. We passed the bottles around, the nice fine wine with the stony taste—house reserve—and the sparkling wine that makes you sing. “C’est la java bleue, lajava la plus belle…” The grocer donned a fireman’s helmet, big Marcel found himself a rusty old gun, and the postman is proudly showing off two grenades in his mailbag. “Express parcel,” he says. And that makes him laugh. That was just before he fell. Bam! Bam!A flight of pigeons hid the sky. Someone cried, “Sniper!” and people threw themselves on the ground. Now we hear the whistle of a train rolling toward the Gare Saint-Lazare. Crouched behind a barrel, I’m watching life seeping out of the little postman. Blood is escaping from his chest. It runs onto his white armband, soaked like a sponge, the Lorraine cross becoming invisible little by little.

  That’s today. Or yesterday. It’s August 1944.

  “We’re in 2007, Monsieur Robert …”Tall tales. I know what I see. A great silence has covered the square. It’s Liberation Day, and a nice boy just got himself killed.

  Bam! Bam!It’s starting again. A bullet has shattered the window of the bookstore. The owner had displayed a fine copy of Poèmes saturniens.

  “Les sanglots longs des violons de l’automne blessent moncoeur d’une langueur monotone …”

  (“The long sobs / Of autumn / violins / Wound my heart /With a monotonous languor …”)

  —They’re landing! He was laughing. They’re landing. The Americans will soon be in Paris.

  In the window, Verlaine was shining like a sun.

  Bam!A bullet for the poet!

  Bam! Bam!

  “Oh, I’m sorry. I frightened you, monsieur. Nothing to be afraid of, I’m not going to murder you. Not you. I’ve never even seen you before. Killing people you don’t know is something that happens only in novels … Novels! It’s coming back to me. It’s because of novels that I have to eliminate him … Excuse me? Oh no, I’m not crazy! Don’t be rude, monsieur. After all, I might kill you too. It’s taking the first step that’s difficult. And looking at you now, I think you’d be a first step that wouldn’t cost much … Shut up! You’re worthless …”

  What an idiot! Listen … if you had to waste a bullet every time you met one … Eight grams of lead per fool; frankly, the joke would cost too much … No, I must stick to basics. And the basic thing here is that this guy has to die because of books.

  A writer? The bad ones bore you to death. Eliminating one from time to time is a case of self-defense. But I have trouble imagining he’s a writer. He’d be more convincing as a critic. The way he has of imposing his opinion. “Good. A little tired. Poor form.” Does one kill a critic? Authors must feel like it, but I’m not one of them. If I ever was one, I forget what I might have written, thus I’m not imperishable. And we’re not talking about my death but his. A bookstore owner? A librarian? It seems to me he’s lent me some books. I didn’t even ask him to.

  Here I am at Brochant. To the left, along the beltway where the no-man’s-land used to be, is the cemetery. To the right, Porte de Saint-Ouen, the field, and the flea market. I come here often. Should I say I used to come here? A second-hand clothes dealer. All sorts of old clothes, worn shoes, and for those in the know, coal, jerricans picked up at railway warehouses. You can find
everything at Riton’s in Clignancourt. Including, for those who know how to ask for them, parachute silk and weapons—Lugers?

  I got nabbed near his shop.

  “Papers, bitte!”

  As they pushed me in the car, I had time to glimpse the ticket office of the stadium, the guy inside, his cap and his embarrassment at having seen this. No more soccer match, I thought. At that moment, nothing could have been more important.

  They took boulevard Berthier. Outside, life was going on. At the red light, a woman on a bicycle looked at me with infinite tenderness. Green. The driver turned off toward Malesherbes to reach avenue de Wagram. Classy part of town. Rich-looking façades, broad sidewalks. People walk there, relaxed, important, between two business meetings handled with broad, elegant gestures. There are charming, rousing encounters from 5 to 7, and pleasant memories. The car stopped in front of Hotel Mercedes, number 128. Geheimfeldpolizei.

  I remember everything.

  The room with chipped porcelain tiles. The bloodstains on the floor. The metal chair, the naked lightbulb dangling from its wire. The hideous bathtub, its obscene pipes.

  They talked about Riton, the weapons, and the forged papers.

  “Who gives the orders?”

  A guy turned on the faucets in the bathtub. He was completely ordinary. I heard the water gushing from the faucet.

  “We’re going to refresh your memory!”

  I don’t remember anything.

  When I came to, they were smoking and chatting like three buddies sharing a good story. A really great dinner. A good place to go. The girl they had the night before in a very comfortable house. Two steps from Parc Monceau. The girls of the house were very clean. Hygiene—that’s the main thing … So many guys got the clap in sleazy whorehouses. They were no longer concerned with the bathtub, nor with the metal chair, nor with the basement with the foul smell of death. They were no longer concerned with me. They went into the next room. They headed out into the scent of chestnuts, on the beautiful, straight, pleasantly shaded avenues. With the perfume of women still lingering in the early-morning hours after they’ve left such a comfortable whorehouse, so typically Parisian.