Chez Max (6 page)

I'd been prepared for that, but not for what he'd just said. Because in spite of his unconcealed dislike of many aspects of present conditions, during the years we'd worked together Chen had seldom overstepped a certain line, and then only when he was drunk – which had always given me a good reason to forget the incident quickly. But the mere mention of certain global subjects ought to make me report him to Commander Youssef. Of course we could talk about the Fence – in fact we had to, since after all it was one of the duties of an Ashcroft agent to make sure it was maintained in good order and no one could get over it, and we did that by tracking down organizations that aimed to destroy it. A line had to be drawn, all the same. It wasn't laid down in law or stipulated in any decree, but everyone knew it. Commander Youssef had once put it this way in a lecture that he gave in-house: we had to think of the regions beyond the Fence as we thought of the Moon – politically speaking, there was just as little to be discussed. The Moon couldn't be liberated either, and no one was doing it any wrong. In the course of an Ashcroft investigation we could, of course, pretend to express certain views to a suspect for the purpose of gathering evidence, but otherwise the rule was: anything said about the regions beyond the Fence, other than the geographical facts, counted as propaganda and an attack on our Euro-Asian community of values.

That was the official formula in the Civil Code: ‘Attacks on our Euro-Asian community of values.' Quite a lot could come under that heading, and sometimes even I wondered if the point couldn't have been made a little more precisely. In most cases it depended on your personal judgement whether something was an attack or just thoughtless talk. Of course I knew that behind it all was the aim of bringing the population up to have a sense of responsibility, motivating citizens to think about what they did and said and examine it, instead of just stolidly keeping the rules. But an Ashcroft agent could sometimes find himself floundering. For instance, was my greengrocer's casually ironic throwaway remark about ‘A1 bananas from sunny Nantes' just a joke, or could it be seen as the beginnings of a verbal attack on the Euro-Asian community of values? Because of course Nantes was only one of the ports where fruits and other produce from South America and Africa arrived. But as both Africa and large parts of south America lay beyond the Fence, the only way of describing the origin of the bananas was by their last point of delivery, in this case the northern French port of Nantes with its heavy average rainfall. Then there was the lady who lived next door to me and mentioned her Senegalese grandfather whose native land she'd so much like to visit, adding bitterly that unfortunately Senegal was now under water, so she supposed her distant relations had evolved into fish. It was a fact that on official maps, like those shown on the TV news, all areas beyond the fence were plain blue, as if they were part of the oceans.

But talk about an alleged lack of food among the population living beyond the Fence – without a doubt, that was a deliberate attack on our joint Euro-Asian values. Because even if, on closer examination, living conditions there might be approaching some critical point or other, claiming hunger was ridiculous. After all, everyone knew that almost all our nutritional requirements were supplied by goods from South America, Africa and Asia. North America did make a contribution, but few thought much of its predominantly symbolic significance. Since the bankrupt USA had been excluded from Europe, European governments had always tried to point out the importance of North America as a supplier of grain and meat to the Euro-Asian world, for one thing in order to justify, to their own people, the huge subsidies granted annually to US agriculture, for another to encourage a sense of community with our ‘poor relation' Uncle Sam overseas. The logic of this increasingly escaped most Euro- Asians of the younger generation.

But being poor – or at least not as prosperous as the Euro-Asian community – didn't mean starving, not by a long way. Neither in North America nor in the areas commonly known as ‘the fluid regions' because they were shown in blue. On the contrary, even during the war or during periods of great over-population, farmers and herdsmen had naturally always been the last to run short of food. So what Chen had said was pure propaganda. Dangerous, too. I had no idea what was bugging him to make him say such a thing to me.

Chen had crossed his arms and was watching me with a lurking half-smile. I didn't know where to look. Why was he displaying such smug self-satisfaction now of all times? I felt like getting to my feet and saying, ‘Right, I'm going to visit Commander Youssef and tell him we have a terrorist cell here in Ashcroft Central Office.' Just to see Chen's face.

At that very moment his mouth stretched in a genuine grin, and he shook his head. ‘Sometimes I really wonder why they ever recruited you as an Ashcroft agent. You're easier to see through than my seven-year-old niece. But probably that's just why you're successful. No one can imagine that there's anything shady about you. Right now you're thinking of going to our superior officer. And what do you think I'll tell him myself?'

I noticed my nostrils beginning to twitch nervously.

‘Chen, normally it would be my duty…'

‘Oh, come on! I'll tell you what your duty is: familiarizing yourself with the arguments of international terrorists and the way they talk. How are you ever going to convict anyone or uncover a secret operation if you turn as pale as a Jesus-date the first time someone questions your nice little Chez Max world?'

I had to pull myself together so as not to let fly childishly. This wasn't the first time Chen had described me as a Jesus-date, and a woman I'd been courting a few months ago, with flowers and chocolates and all the rest of it, had made the same comparison the last time we met. Since North America, except for New York and the Los Angeles Museum of Post-Modern Life, had become an almost entirely agricultural area, the traditional Christian faith, already widespread there anyway, had developed into a kind of state religion among the population. Only the European government and its military presence in the area had so far prevented the New Testament from being adopted as the Civil Code between Kentucky and Death Valley. Various fundamentalist American groups were all the keener on sending missionaries to preach to the European population, putting pressure on our government over the legal status of the Bible, trying to get it to make a confession of faith. Armies of half-veiled young women preaching the Gospel were regularly sent across the Atlantic. You saw them swamping pedestrian zones, singing and praying, and they were known for their rather abstracted smiles and the composure that they showed, ranging from brave to slightly dogged, when their beliefs didn't meet with a suitably serious response. Because of the veils, sunlight seldom reached their faces, most of which were white, and if one of these young missionaries lifted her veil during a conversation designed to convert you, her skin was usually translucent with a faint tinge of pink. When such girls turned pale or blushed, it was extremely obvious, especially as the change was so very distinct from their otherwise sternly controlled and almost entirely unemotional facial expressions. One of the favourite slogans of these preachers of the faith, who concentrated on the young people of Europe in particular and were often not much older than twenty themselves, was: ‘I'm dating Jesus.' All this had led to the coining of the expressions ‘pale (or red) as a Jesus-date', which had now become part of the colloquial language. I cleared my throat and slowly and carefully clasped my hands on the table.

‘Maybe I'm just worrying. After all, not everyone in these offices knows you as well as I do, and I'm pretty sure few are as kindly disposed to you. I'm not shocked by what you said – nothing
you
say is going to shock me very easily – only by the idea that you might repeat such nonsense in front of one of our colleagues, someone who may be just waiting for a chance to get back at that arrogant arsehole Chen.'

To my surprise, he laughed. ‘That was fun, right? Calling me an arrogant arsehole with the best of intentions.'

‘Oh. Chen.' I closed my eyes briefly, as if exhausted. ‘Not everyone relishes strong language as much as you do. If I wanted to insult you, believe me, I'd know how to go about it more subtly than that.'

‘Sure, you'd know how to go about it if you wanted to…' He had pursed his lips and was batting his eyelids in a silly way like a parody of a prim and proper young girl. ‘Well, let's hope I understand what you're talking about if you're going to be so subtle about it. Maybe you're insulting me the whole time and I'm so thick I just think: wow, there goes Max, what a refined fellow he is, always well-behaved, ever so pernickety, never says a bad word… could he be beating the crap out of me and I just don't notice?'

Chen beamed cheerfully at me. If anyone had taken a photo of him, people seeing it at some future date would very likely have come to the conclusion that he had just that moment announced his engagement, or something similar.

I looked out of the window at the Eiffel Tower, and all at once a deep sense of kinship with the building came over me. As if I were at a party, surrounded by complete strangers, and suddenly saw a familiar, beloved face. For a moment the Tower seemed to free me from the fact that I had to sit in an office with a poisonous dwarf like Chen. And immediately I thought of Leon. He would have understood how I felt. I could have said to him, ‘The Tower is over a hundred and fifty years old and it still makes an architectural and aesthetic statement – isn't it a wonderful, uplifting thought to be part of a creation capable of erecting such a mighty building with all its beauty and elegance?'

And Leon, as a sensitive artist, would have known exactly what I meant.

‘Right,' I said, looking at the floor and nodding in an understanding way. ‘I suppose that brings down the curtain on our weekly performance. Can we get around to discussing our operations now, or do you want to go on familiarizing me with the arguments of international terrorists and the way they talk a bit longer?'

‘Tut-tut-tut.' Chen clicked his tongue in a friendly manner. ‘No sarcasm. I've said it a hundred times, that's why you don't get anywhere with women either. You want to emphasize your strong points instead of fretting about your weaknesses. And you want to keep well away from anything in the least like humour – it's simply not your bag. No one can do anything about that. Now I, for instance, don't know the first thing about soufflés.'

I looked out of the window at the Eiffel Tower again. Surely the Fête Arc-en-Ciel should be starting soon. Loud music, the rainbow, a boisterous atmosphere all over the city – those, I thought, would be suitable reasons for ending our meeting. There wasn't much to discuss on my side anyway. And then basically the meeting would have passed off very well. Because although Chen had staged his usual show, the blow below the belt I'd feared over Leon's arrest hadn't come. Perhaps he simply hadn't clicked on my list of candidates for examination plus descriptions of their cases over the last few days. It wouldn't have been so surprising; after all, there'd been nothing on my list for weeks on end. So perhaps he didn't even know about Leon's arrest.

I really must make sure I uncover something genuinely important some time soon, I thought, and then everyone else, more particularly Chen, could get lost!

‘Hey, Max, don't look so fierce. It was only a joke. Ha, ha, ha. Get the idea?'

‘Okay, Chen.' I sat up straight and pulled a pen and paper towards me. My sign that I wanted to get down to business at last. And then I mentioned the only thing I knew worth mentioning. ‘I suppose you've been informed about the building in the Rue de la Roquette, next to that Saffron Shop?'

‘The Saffron Shop,' he repeated slowly. ‘No, I haven't. Why should I, and who'd have informed me?'

‘It seems there are illegals living there.'

‘Aha.' He began picking his teeth with his fingers. ‘Who says so?'

‘Task-Force Safeguarding Peace. They've arrested an Iranian at the Fence who had a note with that address on it. They've been watching the house ever since. Funny they didn't tell you anything. But they probably think it all falls into my half of the area.'

In many places, the line between my area of operations and Chen's ran right through buildings. But instead of keeping double watch on these borderline buildings, I for one hardly bothered about them. Unconsciously, I was probably deliberately leaving them to Chen.

‘That's against all the rules.' He pulled a dark strand of something out of his mouth. ‘Suppose we were keeping watch on the place too, with a ploy of our own up our sleeve?'

‘Well, they've told us about it now.'

‘Not me.'

‘All right, I've told you now, I can't do more than that. Anyway, I check the building and that whole block regularly, but all the same I never noticed anything. So far as that goes, then, I'm actually grateful to the task force.'

‘Hmhm.'

Chen looked at the strand of whatever it was he'd removed from his mouth, flicked it out of the window and went on picking his teeth. He didn't look pleased. Did he by any chance feel he'd been passed over? Instead of informing Super-Chen they'd turned to unimportant Max Schwarzwald? Or had he in fact thought up a ploy, as he put it, and he was afraid our colleagues from the Safeguarding Peace outfit might muck it up for him? But what kind of a ploy, and why hadn't he told me about it? After all, we were both responsible for the building. Did he want to claim any success for himself alone? And did he think he needed more arrests to his credit? Because this morning, of course,
I
had clicked on
his
last week's list of candidates for investigation plus accounts of their cases. I wanted to know how his self-confidence was doing. After all, even Super-Chen must feel he was under pressure after a time when he didn't have too many results that really counted. And what had counted for him last month? A backyard workshop manufacturing simultaneous translation buttons for several banned African languages, a cosmetic surgeon who'd planned to kidnap a girl from the neighbourhood, give her the face of a famous Chinese actress, and keep her as a slave in his basement – the cell in the basement had already been equipped with costumes and screenplays – a woman trying to give her seventy-four-year-old husband a heart attack by strapping him into the sexomat suit whenever he was drunk and making him have sex for hours on end, and finally an ordinary burglar who had kept watch on a lawyer's city villa for several days.