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  The blonde says it’s a good choice, and Berthet wants to tell her that he’d be glad to eat her pussy.

  “You’d be glad to eat her pussy, right?” says Counselor Morland.

  Strange and specific kinds of telepathy exist between men who have been together a long time in close contact with state secrets and violent death.

  Berthet thinks he’s going to die. Berthet knows he’s going to die, or is about to. The sudden hardness of his dick is a somatic sign that never fails to warn him. An even surer sign than Morland’s announcement.

  Berthet gets hard for anyone, for anything, when death is near.

  This began when Berthet was twelve years old, well before Saint-Cyr Coëtquidan military school, well before The Unit. His grandfather was being buried in a village in Picardy.

  They’d had to take a train, from Gare du Nord to be precise. Berthet was as sad as if he were the one who had died.

  Getting out of the taxi with his parents, Berthet had looked up through the rain at the statues with big boobs on top of the building. The statues represented international destinations. The ones lower down, in front of the vast windows, represented more local destinations. Their boobs were not so big, of course. Berthet had preferred the international ones. The big-boobs cities.

  Cities where Berthet would go later on behalf of The Unit—London, Berlin, Vienna, Amsterdam—cities where he would manipulate, destabilize, lie, torture, assassinate, and cities where after all this, he would fuck desperately, seeking out women who resembled those statues, women huge, massive, firm.

  To get to his grandfather’s funeral, they’d taken an old mainline train with sleeping compartments. Berthet, distraught by the first death in his life, had spent his time walking annoyingly back and forth past his sobbing mother to go jerk off in the train car’s toilet, mentally replaying to the rhythm of the tracks the images of the railway caryatids, their hard breasts, their arms against the gray sky.

  When they buried his grandfather in the rain, which played its role perfectly in that cemetery on the outskirts of Abbeville, Berthet wept hot tears because he liked his grandfather, but also because his martyred prick was bleeding a little and he was afraid it would show on his black corduroys.

  At the time, the Gare du Nord didn’t look like an airport you’d take to fly to the fourth dimension, a platform for freaks bound to the parallel worlds of dope, an accelerated state of homelessness, and social death. Their medieval-looking faces, their ulcers, their missing teeth, their foul smell of mass graves, their barely articulated speech, all of this was like living blame for thirty years of failure on the part of the welfare state.

  At the time, the trains at the Gare du Nord were not designed for high speed, for the exclusive use of global elites.

  Blue, gray, Bordeaux trains, phallic enough to make a Laca-nian laugh out loud. And from these trains, men and women pour every hour now, looking busy with their laptops, their cell phones, their bodies full of benzodiazepines, antidepressants, alcohol, come, shit, and the latest figures marking the return on their investments in start-ups in Amsterdam or Copenhagen. Their bodies full of all these things, but not nicotine. You’ve got to draw the line somewhere: Cigarettes stink and smoking can kill you.

  At the time, to intervene between those two mutant species, the Gare du Nord did not have mixed patrols of soldiers and uniformed cops, which always makes you think a coup is not far off. Besides, at The Unit, they know that a coup is never far off, that perhaps one is happening at this very moment, though no one knows it. A postmodern coup.

  At the time, there were no battalions of special riot police either, transformed into ninja warriors meant to make the new market gap materialize once and for all—a digital divide to the end of time, unbridgeable, an end of the war of all against all. Neck-protecting helmets, opaque visors, Kevlar vests, padding at the joints, walkie-talkies constantly crackling.

  And Berthet thinks that he has never liked the 10th ar-rondissement, and the Gare du Nord even less, the Gare du Nord as:

  antechamber of the coup

  prelude to civil war

  back room of electronic fascism

  warehouse of the death trade

  laboratory of the apocalypse

  Once again, Morland is telepathic: “When I arrived from Brussels a little while ago, I said to myself, walking along the platform, that everyone is now living in a permanent state of emergency and everyone thinks this is normal. No one can even remember what this place was like only twenty years ago. Better they don’t, or they would seriously start to panic.”

  Morland interrupts himself. Morland burps from the charcuterie, but discreetly because Morland is a high-level intelligence bureaucrat, a classy one, not a bum.

  “Fucking hell, Berthet, they’re really after your hide at The Unit …”

  The blond waitress brings the bottle of Dilettante.

  Berthet is still hard, Berthet tastes. The Vouvray is perfect, heartbreakingly perfect, even when you know that The Unit is ditching you and drinking wines like this one cannot go on much longer.

  “You know why?” Berthet asks.

  “Hélène. Hélène Bastogne,” says Counselor Morland.

  They bring the fricassées of langoustines with cèpes. Berthet and Counselor Morland sniff.

  It’s like a forest in autumn by the sea.

  And then the windows of Chez Michel explode.

  2.

  Berthet is lying on the ground. The fricassée is all over his suit. Berthet sees:

  Morland, his skull topped off like a soft-boiled egg, holding his glass of Dilettante halfway to his mouth;

  the well-endowed blond waitress, who has no more face but is still standing with a bottle of Châtel-don mineral water in her hand;

  the other couple who were having lunch at Chez Michel, quite dead, their shredded heads on their plates of grouse with foie gras, still tempting despite two manicured feminine fingers, cleanly cut off, lying on the meat; a cat right next to his face,

  a cat meowing as if to express its displeasure, but a cat that Berthet can’t hear.

  Berthet is thinking two things:

  first, cats are not democrats, which must be a vague, Baudelairean reminiscence;

  second, I’m deaf because of the explosion. Probably a defensive grenade. They’re going to come back to finish the job. Shit. Shit. Shit.

  Berthet gets up. Berthet stinks of langoustines and cèpes.

  Berthet is annoyed. Berthet has a romantic notion of the last-ditch stand. And it does not fit the image of a man in a ripped Armani suit that smells of langoustine.

  Hélène Bastogne, what do you know?

  A car somewhere blares its antitheft alarm.

  Counselor Morland’s topped-off head is dripping into the Dilettante from Cathy and Pierre Breton.

  Barbarians. Bunch of barbarians. To do that to a practically unadulterated wine.

  A motorbike makes a half-turn at the end of rue de Bel-zunce. Two guys in helmets. Petty subcontractors. The Unit subcontracts now, like any other big firm in the private sector. It’s pitiful. The driver of the bike leans against the buttress of Saint-Vincent-de-Paul church before skidding to a halt.

  The passenger pulls the pin out of a second grenade.

  Fucking subcontractors, I’m telling you.

  Professionals would have stepped right into Chez Michel, come up to Berthet and Counselor Morland’s table, shot them simultaneously through the back of the head with low-caliber weapons, like the Tanfoglio .22 against Berthet’s ankle.

  Farting noises. By the time everybody has reacted and understood that the strike wasn’t really a stroke, they’re far away.

  Come on! Stupid temps. Even The Unit has accountants now. Even The Unit is into budget cuts. Part-time work in the intelligence services. Assholes. Berthet knows that he’s living in a system in which, even on the day the world ends, there will be guys complaining about deficits.

  Berthet takes out his Glock. Berthet puts a cli
p in the barrel. The nondemocratic cat is still silently yowling at him. Berthet would have liked to be sure the bullet is properly in place. You can always tell by the sound, but Berthet is still deaf.

  Berthet opens fire. Berthet does not hear the irritated gunship-like noise the Glock lets out.

  Berthet hits the grenade-throwing passenger first. Who is theatrically thrown off, who falls, who explodes all by himself on the pavement of rue de Belzunce.

  Then Berthet changes his line of fire.

  Then Berthet shifts into a new target acquisition phase.

  Then Berthet thinks: Motherfucker!

  Then Berthet punches holes into the driver’s helmet. Four times.

  The bike wobbles, the body rolls over, the bike keeps going on its side and stops at Berthet’s feet.

  Now the enucleated waitress is sitting on the banquette, the Châteldon water is spreading, the Châteldon water is fizz-ing on the moleskin seat.

  Counselor Morland is still and forever waiting for the nervous impulse that would allow his arm to bring the glass of Dilettante to his lips, which move spasmodically.

  Berthet understands that his hearing has returned when Berthet hears:

  the yowling of the reproachful cat; Counselor Morland humming Sacha Distel’s song “La Belle Vie” through a reddish mush;

  the bike’s motor running in neutral; the police sirens.

  Hélène Bastogne. Shit.

  And to think that Berthet missed the grouse with foie gras.

  Berthet puts the Glock back in its holster, gulps down the last of the Dilettante directly from the bottle.

  And Berthet takes off.

  Hélène Bastogne.

  3.

  Unlike Berthet, Hélène Bastogne loves the 10th arrondisse-ment. Hélène Bastogne lives there. An apartment on Place Franz Liszt, beneath Saint-Vincent-de-Paul and the charming little Cavaillé-Coll park. Not very far from where Counselor Morland is almost done spilling the top of his skull into the Dilettante, where Berthet rushes out of the carnage scene and heads toward the Gare du Nord.

  Hélène Bastogne is an investigative journalist, and like all investigative journalists Hélène Bastogne is being manipulated. Hélène Bastogne does not know this, but even if Hélène Bas-togne did suspect it, Hélène Bastogne doesn’t give a damn because Hélène Bastogne is going to come.

  The solution would be a novel, thinks Hélène Bastogne. There is a blue sky out there. A novel in which Hélène Bas-togne would tell everything. The blue November sky and the wind in the trees of Cavaillé-Coll park.

  Hélène Bastogne concentrates on the cock inside her. A novel would be the solution for a number of problems. But Hélène Bastogne does not know the names of the trees. Hé-lène Bastogne regrets this. Actually, a novel would solve nothing. Hélène Bastogne feels the cock inside her getting soft.

  Hélène Bastogne is going to come.

  Let’s hope he doesn’t come before she does. The cock belongs to Lover #2. Lover #1 is a graying publisher from rue de Fleurus. Lover #2 is his editor-in-chief. Lover #2 has come to check on Hélène Bastogne’s work. Confessions of a secret service guy. Lover #2 has promised to take her to a new bar on Canal Saint-Martin. Hélène Bastogne doesn’t know the name of the bar. Hélène Bastogne doesn’t know anything right now, except her oncoming pleasure.

  A novel. A novel that would speak of pleasure, of the wind in the trees whose names she does not know. Of the bars along Canal Saint-Martin, of the 10th arrondissement, of Lover #2’s prick, Lover #1’s prick too.

  Hélène Bastogne is going to come.

  Lover #2’s prick is regaining some strength. Or perhaps it’s because Hélène Bastogne, who is riding it, has slightly changed her angle. And that’s better for him. Don’t go soft, please, don’t go soft.

  Explosive confessions, as they say. The guy came to the paper two weeks ago. The guy was wearing a beautiful Armani suit. Forty-five at most. Soft eyes, deep voice, close-cropped hair. The guy began to talk.

  Wind in the trees, wind in the trees of Cavaillé-Coll park, still. The top of the one Hélène Bastogne sees through the large window is moving to the same rhythm as Lover #2’s cock.

  Hélène Bastogne is going to come.

  The guy might have been a good lover too. The guy said really interesting things in this preelection period. From the Ivory Coast to the riots in the projects just outside Paris, the true, bloody poetry of secret intelligence.

  Names too.

  Then he left. Then he came back the next day. And he said really interesting things again, the game with the dormant Islamist cells, the journalists abducted in Iraq, and he gave names again, and numbers.

  Hélène Bastogne is going to come.

  Things come and go, which is normal in a consumerist society. The wind in the trees of Cavaillé-Coll park, Lover #2’s cock inside her, the confessions of the secret agent in the Armani suit, everything comes and goes in Hélène Bastogne’s world. A novel to say that. But Hélène Bastogne wouldn’t know how. Hélène Bastogne could almost kick herself for not knowing.

  Hélène Bastogne needs redemption. Quickly. Hélène Bastogne needs to come. Quickly. Like everyone else, she no longer believes in God. Perhaps a novel. But Hélène Bastogne wouldn’t know how. To begin with:

  she doesn’t know the names of trees;

  she doesn’t know how to pray;

  she doesn’t know if the spy hasn’t conned her a little;

  she doesn’t know if she can write.

  Hélène Bastogne is going to come.

  Yet Hélène Bastogne is no fool. Lover #2 is an editor-in-chief first and foremost. When he listened to the MP3 recording of the operative, he found it so wild that he danced around Hélène Bastogne’s office at the paper—“It’s a bombshell, baby!”—a pitiful parody of rappers by a fifty-, soon sixty-something baby boomer with an indecent income.

  And afterward, he had wanted to fuck Hélène Bastogne. Logical. For the moment Hélène Bastogne, thirty-two in a month, likes the cynical animality of it. Lover #2 is no longer that abstract power managing the editorial board like some tyrannical Nero, who makes trips to New York and back in one day, who meets tired and greedy faces in the drawing rooms of luxurious hotels, who takes telephone calls with a cell nickel-plated like a handgun.

  No, Lover #2 suddenly had a body. Hormones, adrenaline, cologne. Slightly trembling hands, moist temples: the flashes of amphetamines, the flashes of triumph, the flashes of his exultant gonads. A spy who’s ratting, a spy spilling names, dates, evidence, a spy who’s going to explode the paper’s circulation.

  Hélène Bastogne is going to come.

  A stronger gust of wind. The nameless trees in Cavaillé-Coll park are moving. Lover #2 is coming. By distilling all this little by little, they can double the sales over two weeks.

  Hélène Bastogne topples onto Lover #2’s torso. Then slips down beside him on a Bordeaux spread. Crumpled La Perla un- derwear. A Mac screen is pulsing. Hélène Bastogne buries her face in a sweaty neck, near a madly beating carotid artery.

  “So, baby, can I take you to this new bar? It’s on Quai de Jemmapes.”

  “If you like.”

  Lover #2 is a typical baby boomer. Lover #2 likes to exhibit girls who are half his age with a third of his income in lame places like Canal Saint-Martin, which has completely turned into a museum by now. Always in the hope of bumping into the ghost of Arletty. Asshole. For her trouble she’ll play the whore a little and get him to buy her some stuff at Antoine et Lili, a trendy clothing boutique a little farther down, on Quai de Valmy. The fact is, Hélène Bastogne is not in a very good mood.

  Because Hélène Bastogne did not come. As usual.

  4.

  “We missed Berthet, sir.”

  “You’re really dumb, Moreau. Did you subcontract again?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “With your tightwad savings, you’re going to land us up shit creek. Was that you, the killing in the 10th? I just heard it on France Info.�
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  “Yes, sir.”

  “Who are the dead?”

  “My two subcontractors, three civilians, and Morland.”

  “You killed the counselor? You’re so stupid, Moreau.”

  “If the counselor was with Berthet, it means the counselor was talking, right?”

  “You’re an idiot, an asshole, anda moron. And on top of that, you wrecked one of the nicest restaurants in Paris. Where are you calling from?”

  “From the Brady—”

  “The alley or Mocky’s movie theater?”

  “A movie theater, actually, yes, sir. The room is full of black guys jerking off, sir. Whose movie theater did you say this is?”

  “Mocky’s, Moreau, Mocky’s. You’re completely ignorant on top of it all. Stay there, Moreau, and wait for orders. I’m going to fix your dumb blunders.”

  They hang up.

  Moreau is not happy. Moreau is forced to sit in the dark movie theater.

  Moreau is forced to watch a film in black-and-white with the young Bourvil who steals from church collection boxes.

  Moreau is forced to stay there with black guys who are jerking off.

  Berthet will pay for this.

  5.

  Berthet goes into the Gare du Nord. The caryatids are making fun of him in the blue November sky. Especially the Dunkirk one, it seems to him. A train to Dunkirk, why not? And then a freighter.

  And then what?

  Berthet is totally losing it. Berthet knows he’s got to get a grip on himself, and fast. This isn’t Conrad. This isn’t Graham Greene.

  Berthet has The Unit after his ass. Berthet has a torn suit that smells of cordite and langoustine. Berthet still has one clip for his Glock, two for his Tanfoglio. Berthet knows that going home isn’t an option. The Unit is waiting for him, of course.

  Berthet doesn’t live far from here, though, Passage Truil-lot in the 11th, but rue du Faubourg du Temple, the border between the two arrondissements, suddenly seems to him impossible to cross, like the Berlin Wall must have been for Morland before. Poor Morland.