Aurorarama - Jean-Christophe Valtat [53]
“I do not know him,” lied Gabriel.
“That’s not what the dedication suggests,” said Mugrabin, patting the book.
“Are you a professional policeman or just an informer?”
Mugrabin went mad at this. Jumping to his feet and advancing threateningly, he flourished a Nagant gun that made Gabriel shiver as it was agitated under his nose. “If there is one thing that would give me as much pleasure as killing a cop,” howled Mugrabin, his face even more noticeably red, “it is killing someone who calls me a cop. I may not look like it but I have some self-respect, you see.”
“I’m sorry if I was mistaken,” said Gabriel grimly, as he was more than fed up with people menacing him. “I see more policemen than I would like to these days.”
“Ah, who doesn’t?” said Mugrabin, who now settled down quickly. “It makes my heart bleed that you do not trust me. What can I do to prove my friendship to you? Oh! I know. What if those two pigs I have seen going out of your building had an accident? You know, some little explosion of their Bollée sled car?”
“I do not know much about Russian terrorism, but enough to know that some infiltrated agents do no hesitate to kill policemen or even state ministers.”
Mugrabin laughed at this.
“Those SR clowns, really! They were too naïve with that Azev thing. I am an anarchist, Mr. d’Allier. I live on highly different moral grounds.”
“I’m sure of that.”
Mugrabin nodded his head.
“I admire your loyalty, to speak frankly. I would even have been disappointed in you if you had told me who wrote that book. Imagine it as a test. We will contact you, and in the meantime, if you’re in need, you will find us.”
“Us?”
“It’s more impressive when put that way, isn’t it?” said Mugrabin with a smile that revealed his ceramic teeth.
And with that he suddenly dashed toward the door, with, Gabriel noticed, the vodka bottle bulging in his coat pocket.
“Drink to my health, Mr. Mugrabin.”
“I certainly will do that. I hope it will be more beneficial to yours that it is to mine,” he chuckled while putting on his rubbers. “I’m not like this character in one of our greatest novels, who thinks he should have gone to the North Pole because he had the vin mauvais and wanted to get rid of the habit.”
Gabriel nodded, though the reference eluded him. However, he would have plenty of time to look through his books while tidying up the mess.
“Who sent you?” he asked again, his head whirling with fatigue.
“You’ll know. Or you won’t. Da svidania.”
Gabriel could sleep a little at last, and soon found himself in a strange dream. It was about a polar expedition that was abandoning ships (though the ships seemed to be inside a gigantic cavern or underground cave). The sailors and officers were filling up trunks and crates, not with food or any kind of gear, but with the icicles dangling from the masts and ropes, as if they thought these were precious diamonds and did not realize they would melt inside their crates.
When he woke up, night had fallen again, and his oozing brain seemed stuck to the pillow. What had awakened him was not the dream but a pulsating void he could feel in himself and identified as the absence of Stella. It had been nagging him all day, and as soon as he had allowed himself to unwind, it had come back to the surface and it was now punching holes in his guts with its clenched little fists. His brain lit up like a Stellarama, repeating endlessly the same recorded loops of memories and fantasies. What he was doing here, away from her, he could no longer understand. The stars above his head were a cruel mockery compared to her celestial tattoo.
He got up, and turning on the lights descended drowsily into the maelstrom of his scattered books. The apartment had been desecrated