Paris Noir - Aurelien Masson [82]
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,