Affairs of State

Saturday 7 December

In a little studio flat belonging to Mado in a quiet apartment building in the well-heeled 16th arrondissement, Karim sits naked in a low, deep, winged armchair smugly contemplating his bulging paunch, the line of curly black hairs running down from his navel and his flaccid penis resting on the red and white striped velvet. An afternoon and a night spent fucking two of Mado’s girls, perfect as always. And he’d been masterful, he gloats, scratching his testicles. One of the girls brings him a tray which she sets down on the coffee table beside him. She’s wearing a short navy-blue silk pyjama shirt, with nothing underneath it. He slips his hand between her thighs and fondles her crotch, then attacks his breakfast. English-style. His favourite: astringent tea, bitter-tasting, toast and marmalade, freshly-squeezed grapefruit juice. A sigh of contentment. The girls have vanished into the bathroom.

Another reason for his complacency is yesterday’s meeting with Bornand, not half as tough as he’d expected. The lost plane was an excuse to edge him out. He proved to be a real pushover. That was unexpected.

Better watch the time: he mustn’t miss the flight to Beirut.

He gets up and ambles lazily into the bedroom, dragging his feet, calls the other girl, the one wearing a basque revealing her generous breasts, and has her dress him while he buries his face and hands in her bosom. Then he sends her away with a slap on the buttocks.

‘Call me a taxi.’

Alone in the bedroom, he checks the contents of his leather briefcase: the papers he’d been planning to use to put pressure on Bornand. He hadn’t needed them. A few hours’ work in Beirut, and the whole affair will be closed. He checks his appearance in the mirror: impeccable.

‘A white Mercedes will pick you up within a few minutes,’ says the girl.

He says his goodbyes, his hands roaming everywhere, and leaves, feeling elated.

Outside the building, a white Mercedes is waiting, its engine idling. The driver steps out and opens the door for him.

‘Roissy.’

‘Very good, sir.’

He gets in, the door slams, and the taxi pulls away quickly. Karim vaguely notices that there’s a glass partition between him and the driver, which is unusual for a Parisian taxi. He opens his leather briefcase, leafs through some papers, reliving the night he has just spent. Mado’s establishment really is top class.

The taxi doesn’t seem to be taking the most direct route. Usually … He leans over to the glass partition. It’s fixed shut. He raps twice. The driver doesn’t respond. He looks at it more closely. Toughened glass. Sits down again. The rear windows are tinted and appear to be of toughened glass too. He presses the control switch. Nothing moves. Grabs a door handle. Locked. A moment of panic. Bangs the windows and rattles the handles, in vain. Sits back. What’s going on? The taxi: the girl called it. The girls: work for Mado. Mado: a great friend of Bornand’s. And her pimp, caught sight of him a couple of times, a notorious gangster … Is it possible?

The Mercedes drives fast, there’s little traffic on a Saturday morning, they’re already on the motorway heading south. The driver turns off onto an empty secondary road heading deep into the forest.

Scared out of his wits, Karim pisses himself.

At the wheel of his metallic grey Porsche, Nicolas Martenot heads for home. He drives slowly in the direction of Paris. An eighteen-hole round of golf at the Saint-Cloud club, a session in the sauna, a quick lunch, then a long game of bridge with plenty of booze which he’d won hands down. And yet, alone in his luxury car, he has a sense of unease triggered by the call from the police yesterday informing him of his ex-wife’s suicide. He says her name out aloud: Laura Luccioni. She slit her throat. Remorse? … It was her choice. As it had been her choice to be a magistrate. And to believe in it. Good, evil. Frigid. Her icy distance scared me, fascinated me even. The ultimate inaccessible woman, and morally upright into the bargain. He can still hear Bornand’s voice, in the spacious lounge in his apartment at the foot of the Eiffel Tower: ‘Your wife is an uptight pain in the arse. She’ll make your life a misery.’ He’ll have to cancel all his appointments on Monday and go to the funeral. Half the law courts will be there. Her throat slit. Martenot shudders. And sees Françoise’s face, contorted by something akin to hatred. Hatred. Why hatred? For me? Women’s violence, impossible to cope with. The feeling of unease grows more acute. Bornand’s doing. A snatch of a refrain keeps going round and round, like the chorus of a ditty: power, politics, sexual dysfunction.

I don’t think it’s my thing.

Irritated, he turns on the radio. Newsflash: ‘Two fire bombs have exploded in Paris department stores. One went off in the china department of the Galeries Lafayette, at five thirty p.m., and the other, in the leather goods department of Au Printemps, twenty minutes later. Initial reports state that around fifty people have been injured, ten of them seriously. No one appears to have been killed. The bombs were homemade incendiary devices. The police think it was probably the act of a loner or someone mentally unstable, or an act of vengeance.’ Come off it! Disinformation or incompetence? In the heat of the moment it’s guesswork, of course, but after all, it’s barely a week since the plane disappeared. Iran’s at war with France again. ‘Given that the bombs exploded at peak shopping time on a Saturday afternoon, two weeks before Christmas, it is a miracle that the toll, albeit provisional, is no higher. The police estimate that there were nearly a hundred thousand people in and around the stores, making it difficult for the emergency services to get through. By eight p.m., all the wounded had been evacuated, but the area is still completely sealed off, and the police are currently urging motorists driving through the centre of Paris to avoid the right bank.’

Feeling powerless and bitter, Martenot switches off the radio and bangs the steering wheel with the palm of his hand in rage. What a mess. That’s it. I’m dropping Bornand. He’s finished. My firm’s interests first. It’ll be a relief.

He smiles: the ritual murder of the father. About time too, at my age.