Forgetfulness (21 page)

Thomas nodded and did not reply. He was watching the boy, who was still, eyes closed.

The food isn't what it was, Bernhard said.

Thomas looked at him. What food?

Train food. Remember the old TEE? Trans Europe Express. Wonderful food in the dining car, linen tablecloth, nice flatware. Short wine list but very high quality, particularly the wines of Alsace. Once I went up to Brussels and back just to have lunch one way and dinner on the return. I had nothing better to do so I spent the day on the train. Very pleasant time, I remember it to this day. You go through Picardy, so many cemeteries visible from the train. I had dinner with a
NATO
colonel. Bernhard shook his head sadly.

Distant footsteps announced the Frenchman's return and presently he appeared at the loft stairs, still reading from his file. Thomas noticed that the folder was now an inch thick, so he must have added papers. He stood in front of the long table and removed his corduroy jacket and pulled up the sleeves of his turtleneck. His forearms were the size of hams and covered with black hair. Also, he sported a small tattoo just above his right wrist.

Now we'll see some action, Bernhard said.

Is there no way I can get out of here for some air?

There's a chair in the corner if you prefer not to watch.

I prefer, Thomas said. But he did not move.

So, the Frenchman said. And that was all he said as he wet his thumb and turned another page. He sighed once as he read, a sigh designed to signal disbelief, though the nature of the disbelief was mysterious. Now he nodded at the guards, who noisily took up places behind the prisoners, one guard back of each prisoner. The guards struck one bastinado-tap on the leg of each chair.

So so so, the Frenchman said.

The prisoners seemed to take care to stare into the middle distance.

So, the Frenchman repeated, his voice light, almost cheerful. He turned his head to look at the clock behind him and Thomas noticed that it read five. The Frenchman looked at it for a minute or more, giving the impression that time was infinite. It was eternal. The clock could read five, or ten, or two, or four; the numbers had no meaning. In the Frenchman's domain time meant what he wanted it
to mean, neither more nor less. He was his own time zone. Now he lowered his eyes to the file and began to read once again, except his posture was confidential, an attitude approaching intimacy. He had put his foot on the chair, leaning forward with the file in his thick hands, wetting his thumb again and again as he turned the mysterious pages.

Thomas felt the bottom go out of his stomach. His vision blurred and he was afraid he was going to be sick—the wretched breakfast aboard the train. He turned from the two-way mirror and stepped to the rear of the room. He removed his jacket and slung it over his shoulder, aware that he was being watched by the three French investigators. But Bernhard did not turn from the mirror and seemed unaware that Thomas was no longer beside him. A heavy drape covered the narrow window at the rear. Thomas pulled it back a half inch and looked into a nondescript street of warehouses and garages, an industrial street, paper in the gutters and a rundown café on the corner. The street was deserted and then he saw a figure hurrying alone, looking neither left nor right but down at the pavement. The pavement was his destination. Thomas remembered a description of one of the Stasi detention centers in East Berlin. People didn't walk on that street unless they had to, and then they rushed past without stopping and surely not looking because what went on in the building did not concern them. This reminded him of that. Then Thomas felt a hand on his shoulder and slowly the curtain eased back into place. The investigator pointed to the wooden chair in the corner and Thomas sat, waiting for the action that Bernhard promised.

He heard the slap of the bastinado, leather on flesh, and a howl. He heard it again and again. He stopped counting at eight, when the howling ceased. In the sudden silence he forced himself to recall who they were, the events that had brought them to this place, a room in a loft on a nondescript street in Le Havre. They were the men who sat by while Florette lay dying and then with the swift stroke of a knife had finished the job. He was unable to put the ordinary faces of these men to their actions. Did a man truly have
the face he deserved? He did not recognize anything about them. Yet one of them, surely the chief of the tribe, had put a knife to Florette's throat and cut—finding that he drew but a thin line of blood. They had been with her for hours while she froze to death, and then they walked away to complete whatever violent mission they had been assigned. Blood was on their hands. That was who they were.

Thomas, Bernhard said.

He looked up.

You should watch this.

Thomas rose and walked slowly to the mirror. The boy's face and shoulders were spotted with blood and he was crying, a soft choking cry of deep pain and something else, humiliation for showing weakness in front of his friends. No doubt he thought himself a coward for not standing up to the blows of the bastinado. But he had said nothing audible. Whatever secrets he had, he kept.

This is the dossier, the Frenchman said.

Here we go, Bernhard whispered.

I have what I need here. You are expendable. The Frenchman drew another Gitane from the pack on the table and lit it, exhaling a great plume of tobacco smoke that hung in the air longer than seemed possible. He said, I have details of four of your actions that have resulted in loss of life. And I have the set of plans for your proposed action, the one in Holland. The one that will never happen.

The chief is about to crack, Bernhard said. His laddie isn't so pretty anymore, is he? Face is pulp. Broken down psychologically. Yussef can't look at him. Yussef can't stand it.

Shut up, Bernhard.

Bernhard smiled thinly and fell silent.

Yussef said, In the name of God. Please stop.

Ah! the Frenchman said. The sphinx speaks!

Please stop, Yussef said again.

But I have no interest in what the sphinx says, the Frenchman said. I have no interest in the sphinx's thoughts except the thoughts that might relate to the events of—he looked closely at the dossier—November the fifteenth. The events on the mountain near the village of St. Michel du Valcabrère. And the days immediately before and the days immediately after. I have no interest in other things this afternoon. Later on we will explore the other things. For now I am interested in the fate of Florette DuFour.

Thomas looked again at Yussef, his doughy skin and his thick lips, his heavy nose and delicate hands. The fingernails were clean. He would not have been out of place in any souk in the world. His eyes were unnaturally bright now, and still Thomas could not connect him to Florette and the fifteenth of November or anything else. He was a man in a chair, his hands shackled.

With a turn of his head Yussef indicated the boy. He said, His name is—and the name, spoken in Arabic, eluded Thomas.

Yes, the Frenchman said. I'm sure it is.

He is from Rabat, as I am.

I see, the Frenchman said, looking again at the file in his hands.

He is nineteen years old.

An adult, the Frenchman murmured, not looking up.

He is my son, Yussef said.

I'll be damned, Bernhard said. How do you like that?

I ask you not to harm him.

We have no interest in your requests. You are not here to request. You are here to answer. The Frenchman turned a page of the file, neglecting to wet his thumb, and then he made a sudden motion with his right hand and the cigarette fell to the floor. It had burned his fingers.

Sir, Yussef began, but stopped when the guard slapped his shoulder. But Thomas thought he saw a ghost of a smile.

Silence! Be quiet! You are not to speak! The Frenchman resumed his circuit of the room, walking with the slow tread of a priest, and in a moment he had disappeared down the stairs. The prisoners could not see him and for all they knew he was still present. The guards remained at attention behind each prisoner and the room was quiet except for the on-again, off-again whimpering of the boy. He stole a quick glance at his father but Yussef did not acknowledge
it, instead raising his eyes to the ceiling and seeming to settle into a meditative state, staring into the heavens or the interior of the Great Mosque, some refuge from the world. Thomas watched him for a minute or more, trying without success to divine his thoughts and to place him in the everyday world. It was easy to see him now in a suit and tie, perhaps the owner of a jewelry store or a salesman of fine carpets, the owner of a small hotel or an arms merchant, the latest gadgetry from Czechoslovakia or the broken-down warehouses of the former Soviet Union. But his face gave nothing away and his thoughts were unreadable. Odd that he should have been trekking Big Papa. Yussef didn't look as though he could walk fifty feet without pausing for rest. Thomas watched him a while longer but learned nothing. The boy was silent also, and the other two were invisible men.

That will be it for now, Bernhard said. Antoine will want to think things over. I'd guess he'll be back in an hour or two. He turned to say something to one of the investigators, who looked at his watch and said, Yes, probably three o'clock. Not before. If it's earlier I can call you if you have a mobile. Bernhard gave him the number and the investigator wrote it down.

Would Antoine like company for lunch?

Antoine likes to dine alone, the investigator said.

Very well then, Paul—

Pierre, the investigator said.

Yes, sorry. Thomas? Shall we have lunch? Oysters at the port?

All right, Thomas said.

What did you think of this? Pierre and Paul and the other one were listening but Bernhard ignored them.

I didn't like it, Thomas said.

Of course not, Bernhard said. You're not trained. You have no experience in these matters. The technique is confusing at first, what's being done and why. The pauses and the silences, the pacing, the entrances and exits. The protocol. Did you know that Chaplin said the essence of performance was the entrance and the exit?
That's what he said. And he ought to know. It's a specialized skill and you should consider yourself lucky that you haven't had to learn it. So we've had a successful beginning. Antoine should receive a medal. You've just watched one of the best, Thomas.

Thomas supposed that was true, performance art in the afternoon, an ensemble, each actor with a role, and Antoine the star. Every society needed people to do their dirty work, taking care to keep the worst of it out of sight, unacknowledged, and deniable. Certainly there was a talent to it, interrogation and torture. Patience, of course, and something else. Thomas smiled to himself. Lebenslüge would be involved. Lebenslüge, he thought, was probably in first position.

Bernhard leaned close to him and whispered, Antoine's worked with the Comédie Française. A valued colleague, I'm told. Gifted at farce. He enjoys playing
Le Misanthrope.
Thrives on it. Can you believe it?

Is that the one where they use bastinados?

Sarcasm does not become you, Thomas. The bastinados cause no permanent damage.

They don't? It looked like they did.

They hurt like hell and there's some blood. Bruising, some scarring, but nothing truly serious. Bernhard turned suddenly to Pierre and inquired, Where do you get them from?

Corsica, I believe. It's the noise that unsettles. The slap.

But there's no permanent damage, Bernhard said.

No, that is correct, Pierre said. Of course you have to know how to use them properly. In the hands of an oaf anything is dangerous.

Bernhard said, They are most often used on the soles of the feet—

But we don't do that here, Pierre said.

It is outside the protocol, Bernhard said.

Those are our instructions, Pierre said.

You can ruin a man's feet. He'll never walk again.

So it's said, Pierre agreed.

Bernhard threw his arm around Pierre's shoulders and moved off
a little ways, a private discussion concerning the best restaurant in the port for oysters. When Bernhard mentioned one restaurant, Pierre shook his head and said it had a bad reputation. The freshness of the oysters was in question. There was another place, down the street, called Café Marine. Everyone goes there. Try the belons. While they discussed the merits of belons and papillons, Thomas looked again into the prisoners' room. Yussef continued his meditation, eyes closed. The boy stared glumly at the cigarette that remained at his place. The other two appeared to be dozing, unlikely as that seemed; in any event, their shoulders were slumped and their breathing was regular, their faces slack. In one corner a guard yawned and looked at his watch. Thomas tried to think of it as a picture but the composition was all wrong. A fly had entered the room and was careering here and there around the boy's head. When it lit, it lit in a path of blood and could not free itself. The boy never noticed.

We have our marching orders, Bernhard said, rubbing his hands together. The Café Marine it is.

Let's go now, Thomas said.

Monsieur Railles? Pierre approached him, hand out.

I'm very sorry, Monsieur Railles.

Thomas shook hands, having no idea what Pierre was talking about. He said, Yes—

Your wife, Monsieur Railles. I am sorry for what they did to her.

Thank you, Thomas said.

They are animals.

Yes, Thomas said.

Scum. And your wife was French?

Yes, she was.

We will find the truth.

I hope so, Thomas said.

We are very close now. Just this far. Pierre held his thumb and forefinger an inch apart. The old one, we break his balls. The old one and his so-called son.

Thomas said, The boy is not his son?

Of course not, Bernhard said.

I'm not asking you. I'm asking Pierre.

No, Pierre said. Of that we are quite certain.

Bernhard smirked. See? Quite certain.

Outside, the wind was raw and carried with it the acrid smell of the sea. Thomas shivered and set his shoulders against the wind. The air was filled with soot and woodsmoke from the shops and apartment buildings and boarding houses of the district. The neighborhood had the blank, horizontal look of a Hopper cityscape. They walked for a while, the only people on the street until they arrived at the Rue Georges Braque at Square St. Roch, where they encountered office workers and women pulling shopping baskets. And then Bernhard knew they had taken a wrong turn. They walked along the Rue Georges Braque until they arrived at the Place de l' Hôtel de Ville, a great vacant public space, the buildings dating only from the end of World War II. British bombing had destroyed most of the city in 1943. Le Havre had a strangely provisional look to it, a first rough draft of municipal life. Thomas paused to consider what the quarter might have looked like before the war but Bernhard was eager to find the restaurant and irritated that precious minutes had been lost.