Escape

CHAPTER FOUR

3 February

Filippo is wearing a clean white shirt when he walks into the bar, his breath tight, his mind numb. Yesterday, Cristina slid a note under his door. ‘Meet me tomorrow, 7.30 p.m. at the Café Pouchkine, the Russian bar two streets away. We’ll be able to have a quiet chat about your manuscript.’ He has been in a semi-comatose state of waiting ever since, feeling as though he has stopped breathing. The interior is very dark; he blinks, hesitates, spots a shape waving at him from the back of the room and makes his way over. Cristina is sitting at a table, a glass of lager in front of her.

‘Have a seat. Same?’

‘No, I’ll have a coffee.’

‘Bad idea, the coffee’s dreadful here.’ She signals to the barman, then leans towards him, amused and curious.

‘So tell me, this story, is it your story?’ Filippo feels himself blushing, and hangs his head.

‘It’s a story that I’ve written.’

‘I understand. It’s a novel. But the main character, Filippo, is that you? The same name, is that a coincidence? Filippo, head bowed, avoids her gaze for a while, then takes the plunge.

‘I could change the name.’

‘What about Carlo? I think I’ve identified him, he’s a former Red Brigades leader, isn’t he? Did you know him personally?’

‘Yes, I knew him.’ Filippo smiles. ‘You could put it like that. I knew him well. I was in jail with him — we were cellmates for six months. He was my friend. We escaped together, and now he’s dead.’

‘Like in the novel?’

‘Like in the novel.’

‘Was he Lisa’s boyfriend?’

‘I don’t know. He never talked to me about her.’

‘Have you told Lisa that?’

‘Yes … I think she was angry with me because of that…’

‘Understandably. When did you write all this?’

Filippo is taken aback by the question. The answer seems obvious.

‘At night. I’m a night watchman, as you know, in a tower, right near here. There’s not much to do — you have to stare at a wall of CCTV monitors and nothing ever happens. In eight months we haven’t had more than a dozen incidents, none of them serious. I’ve been writing every night since I’ve had the job, and I finished a few days ago. I didn’t know what to do with it, that’s why…’

He clears his throat and looks up, meeting her eye at last. This is the decisive moment.

‘I’m no expert, but I can tell you that I read your novel in one go. It’s good, maybe very good.’

Cristina stops, watches him. He gets his breath back, like a deep-sea diver surfacing. He relaxes, glances around the room, takes in the panelling, the banquettes and the heavy wooden armchairs with red leather cushions. He is on the verge of smiling. He really is charming, this young man whom she had taken for an almost completely tongue-tied illiterate. Author of a rather dazzling novel, or a small-time crook trying to pull off a scam? We’ll see. But a good-looking lad in any case, and touching. Cristina takes a sip of beer, finds it has a delicious slight aftertaste of adventure, a feeling that has been cruelly lacking since the departure of Giorgio, her partner, the brilliant journalist.

‘In any case, your story deserves to be published.’

‘I’d love that, but I don’t know how to go about it.’

‘I can help you. I’ve lived here in Paris for a long time, with a well-known Italian journalist. I’m very familiar with the world of the press, and publishing. If you let me have your manuscript, I can have it read and possibly find you a publisher.’

He wavers for a moment, and then: ‘I’m so thrilled that I don’t even know what to say.’

‘Don’t say anything. Drink your vile cup of coffee and leave it to me. I’ll probably be in touch next week.

20 February

Summoned by the publisher to whom Cristina had sent his manuscript, Filippo enters the ancient building in the heart of Paris’s Left Bank, fear in his belly and a vague sense of guilt. A warm welcome from the boss’s PA, a beautiful blonde soberly dressed in black.

‘Monsieur Zuliani, we’re expecting you. Would you like me to relieve you of your jacket?’

He jumps.

‘My jacket? No, I’ll hold on to it.’ They were expecting me… He wants to run away. Drop the whole thing. Impossible. Obsessive image of Cristina leaning towards him, a smile on her lips, her perfume and her beery breath. ‘This story is your story.’ He can’t let her down.

He forces himself to advance, putting one foot in front of the other, letting his mind go blank.

The boss of the publishing house is waiting for him in his office. When Filippo walks in, he rises and comes to greet him. A handsome man in his late fifties, tall and slim, with a magnificent mane of kempt white hair. He shows Filippo over to a deep armchair.

‘A coffee? Béatrice, would you kindly bring us two coffees.’

Then he turns to Filippo, and speaks to him in Italian, with relative fluency.

‘Well, my dear sir, Cristina Pirozzi, who is a good friend of mine, showed me your manuscript.’ A pause, Filippo says nothing. ‘Would you like to talk to me about it?’ Filippo hasn’t prepared anything, doesn’t know what to say, he can’t even remember what he’s written in that wretched manuscript. His mind a blank, he stammers: ‘No, I’d rather not … I can’t.’

The publisher raises his eyebrows, intrigued, but says nothing. The coffees arrive. They each take their cup, and Filippo becomes engrossed in watching the bubbles burst slowly on the surface of the coffee, with a sense of having ruined everything. The publisher gulps his coffee down, puts his cup back on the saucer and stares at Filippo belligerently.

‘Right, we’re interested in this story. But I’m going to be brutal, forgive me. If we work together, there has to be trust. Are you the author of this story? I mean are you the only author?’

Filippo is flabbergasted. He puts down his cup, looks up and finally dares meet the publisher’s eye. On this territory, he is sure of himself, he becomes articulate, almost loquacious.

‘Before going to jail, I’d never left Rome. My family, all my friends are there, and since my escape, all my ties have been broken. I’m alone in Paris, I don’t know anyone. I’ve spent almost a year without talking to a soul. I wrote at night, every night. Without my realising it, without my deciding it, writing became my only lifeline. Who could have written it for me, and why, for what purpose?’

‘Cristina?’

Filippo smiles.

‘Cristina Pirozzi put me up when I was completely broke and had no job, she helped me survive, and I’m very grateful to her, but the first time she spoke to me was when I gave her my manuscript.’

The publisher knows Cristina. Credible, very credible, what the young man is saying. Obvious even. Judiciously observed. And his passion is convincing. The opposite of what he had feared initially; in fact, it was la Pirozzi who was trying to get herself back into the saddle with the help of this young man. He is won over, and proffers his hand to Filippo, who shakes it after a slight hesitation.

‘Let’s say no more about it, but you know the publishing world is full of surprises … Right, let’s talk business. Your manuscript. We are agreed that it is definitely a novel. Let me make it plain: I don’t want to know any more. I want to be able to carry on thinking and saying that it’s a novel with total conviction. Are we agreed?’

‘Yes. It’s a novel.’

‘Excellent. What we like about this novel is the authenticity of the voice, the true-to-life experience on every page, and I’m convinced the critics will feel the same way. Some passages are particularly outstanding from that point of view. Like the section where you describe the different attitudes of Carlo and the narrator towards guns, flying in the face of all the clichés. Carlo, with his political background, is very familiar with them, he loves them, looks at them, caresses them, while the narrator, who is a petty criminal, is afraid of them and, at some points, even goes so far as to dismiss their existence. Wonderful, given the ending, but you skate over this relationship to guns a bit too quickly. You’ll need to go back to it, pad it out with action, dialogue, one or two anecdotes. Do you see what I mean?’

‘Yes, I see.’

‘Same for the affair between Carlo and Luciana. Nice touch to describe Filippo’s love for Carlo through the way he observes relations between the two lovers.’

Filippo gulps.

‘I didn’t write that Carlo and Filippo were in love with one another…’

‘Of course not, you couldn’t have written it so blatantly — it’s a feeling that neither of your characters can acknowledge. What you have done is much better. You can feel the emotion between them whenever they are in one another’s presence, and it’s excellent the way it is. You have written a novel about masculine friendship, a very particular form of love. I’m simply asking you to flesh out the scenes with the three of them — Luciana, Carlo and Filippo — in the same vein, if you feel you can.’

‘Yes, I can.’

The publisher seems satisfied. He picks up the telephone.

‘Béatrice, bring me the contracts. He turns to Filippo: ‘We have found you a very good translator. He loves your book, and he’ll help you to fine-tune it. I’ve discussed it with him, and he and I have the same approach. I think you’ll get on very well together, he’s charming. Oh, one thing, we’ve talked to our lawyers, and they recommend changing the first names and surnames, as well as the dates and place of the bank raid. As a precaution. The robbery that turned into a bloodbath and the violent death of Carlo Fedeli, whom you knew very well in fact, are too close in time, barely a year between them. You don’t object? It is a novel, isn’t it?’

Filippo leaves the publishing house in a daze. He pauses for a moment on the pavement outside and sees everything in a blur, the passers-by, the cars, despite the cold light of the bright winter sun. He sets off down the street and a cyclist knocks into him, swearing. That brings him to his senses. Telephone Cristina. He goes in search of a phone. Public telephone, the number of the occupational health centre at La Défense. Lisa answers. He recognises her voice, her Italian accent. Stuttering, he asks to speak to Dr Cristina Pirozzi. Lisa pauses briefly. Has she recognised him? He panics, then she puts him through, without a word. He breathes a sigh of relief.

‘Cristina, it’s done.’ In his excitement, he can’t get the words out fast enough. ‘I’ve signed a contract. The book’s coming out in May. I’m meeting the translator tomorrow to start polishing the text.’ He gets his breath back. ‘I wanted to thank you, sincerely. Without you…’

‘No, Filippo, don’t thank me. The publisher was swayed by your talent, not me. Look, I’ve got to see a patient now. Let’s meet this evening at 7.30 at the Café Pouchkine. You can tell me all about it then. I want to know everything, and we’ll celebrate your good news. All right?’

Filippo hangs up. My talent. He savours the words, letting them roll around his mouth. This evening at the Café Pouchkine. The stunning Cristina. The dream machine goes into gear.

He arrives at the Café Pouchkine early and heads for the back of the room, towards the same table as last time, and sits where she had sat, his eyes riveted on the door. In his head, jumbled thoughts, the thrill of success, my book’s going to be published, and apprehension about the coming encounter. He is no longer the lost kid who slipped a manuscript into Cristina’s letter box only two or three weeks ago. He is already a writer, but how does a writer behave? He has no idea how to inhabit the role. He loves the idea the publisher hinted at, that Cristina and he could have written the book together. It sets his mind to building a whole new world that belongs to just the two of them. They work in the same cramped room, seated facing one another on either side of a desk that fills almost the entire space, in an apartment that must belong to her, but which he can’t see clearly yet. They swap pages covered in corrections, their hands brushing, their eyes meeting, a comment from time to time, the smell of her hair. He loves these moments of intimacy, just the two of them, like the ones he experienced with Carlo in their poky cell. But it is a dream. He shivers with the almost painful desire to exist in Cristina’s eyes, re-lives the moment he first met her, one of the secret reasons, perhaps the most powerful one, that had spurred him to write in the first place, which seems completely beside the point. He can admit now, perhaps, at last. He repeats over and over, I’m a writer. I wrote the book to make her look at me. She will look at me. One day, I’ll win her, she’ll be mine. But he can’t bring himself to believe it completely, to imagine how they will get together, the first moves, a seduction strategy. He doesn’t order a drink, but sits absolutely still, devoting himself to waiting, relishing it, straining towards the woman who will soon be joining him.

When she arrives, her elegant form silhouetted against the street lights, she waves to him. His stomach is in knots. She walks towards him in the half light, wearing a loose-fitting camelhair coat, open to reveal a little tight-waisted dark brown suit jacket, a white blouse, full breasts — he can’t breathe. She sits down, raises her arms, adjusts two wooden slides holding the mass of her copper hair in a chignon and lets her hair down. Attractive. She is aware of it, she uses it, she knows what she is doing. He doesn’t want to be seduced, he wants to be the seducer, the conqueror. He is worried. Background music, the Gilbert Bécaud song:

Il avait un joli nom mon guide,

Nathalie…

She sings along.

Je pensais déjà

qu’après le tombeau de Lénine,

on irait au café Pouchkine,

boire un chocolat…

My guide had a pretty name,

Nathalie…

I was already thinking

That after Lenin’s tomb,

We’d go to the Pushkin café

And drink hot chocolate…

She smiles at him.

‘I adore the owner of this bar. He’s a Russian with a great booming voice who worked as a tourist guide in Moscow for years. And at the end of each tour, people would always ask him if they could go for hot chocolate at the Café Pouchkine, which only exists in Bécaud’s song. There’s no such café in Moscow. He got fed up and found a way to get out of Russia and come here. He opened this Café Pouchkine, which the French dreamed of, here in Paris. Now, it’s a haunt of the white Russians. It’s a lovely story, isn’t it? For a novelist … Because you are a novelist, now.’

She laughs, and changes the subject. She’s clearly in a talkative mood.

‘What shall we drink, my friend? Chocolate isn’t suitable for the occasion. Champagne here is a bit risky. I’ll have a vodka, what about you?’

Furious with himself, he stammers, ‘Same.’

She motions to the barman then turns back to him.

‘Right, now tell me. I want to know everything. How did it go?’

‘Very well, easy, fast. He gave me a coffee, the contracts were ready to be signed. I was expecting something different, more of a conflict. Some sort of battle.’

‘You said the book’s coming out in May. That’s very quick, but not a very good time of year. September, when all the major books are published would have been better. What’s the initial print run?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘It’s in the contract.’

‘I haven’t read it.’

‘You signed without reading it?’

‘There were a lot of pages. If I’d read it, I wouldn’t have understood anything.’ He is embarrassed. ‘And I was so overwhelmed that I couldn’t read.’

Inwardly he chides himself for parading his naivety and vulnerability in front of this woman who is so sure of herself and so seductive. The barman brings the vodkas, giving him the chance to collect himself. As they clink glasses, she gazes at him with new eyes. A smooth face with a strong bone structure. Pale complexion, a well-defined mouth, a mass of black hair, dark brown eyes. A youthful, offbeat look. He, a small-time crook whose fate had led him to flirting with guns, terrorism, death and now writing. And still clueless. Frankly attractive, why not admit it to herself? Now he has entered her world, a world he knows nothing about. He needs to be initiated, protected, and she knows she can do that. She even wants to. She might feel less alone, and life would be more fun. Mentor, Pygmalion, hundreds of references, a wonderful role. An opportunity for the taking.

Filippo, ill at ease under her gaze, lowers his eyes, takes a sip, tries to take back the initiative: ‘The thing the publisher wanted to know was whether I’d written the book myself, all by myself. He seemed to have doubts…’

‘Doubts? But I promised him you had.’

Filippo jumps.

‘Promised … but how can you be so certain. You don’t know me.’

Cristina leans towards him laughing, perfectly relaxed.

‘Do you imagine, young man, that I would have given a publisher friend a manuscript handed to me by a virtual stranger without being able to vouch for its authenticity, at the risk of damaging my own credibility? I found an excuse to ask Antoine, your work colleague, to come to my clinic for an occupational health check-up. We chatted, and he told me how you spent your nights writing.’

A pause.

‘Come on, relax.’ She places her hand over his, a soothing gesture of familiarity. ‘I’m delighted to say, I found your colleague entirely convincing.’

Filippo turns pale, bows his head and feels his heart contract in his breast. Cristina’s touch makes him burn, he moves his hand away sharply, and toys with his glass. The vodka is setting his guts on fire. This woman … His desire evaporates. The memory of what had happened in the mountains assaults him, clouds his vision. He had felt the same pang deep in his heart when Carlo abandoned him (the cold, the miserable bag of provisions, total solitude), without then being able to understand the source of that pain. He had repressed it, tried not to think about it any more. A wasted effort, it is still there. But right now, in this café, he knows. Carlo talked of his escape. He had told him: We part company here. He alone made the decisions. Whether or not he’d said that to protect Filippo, it made no difference. The man who had enthralled him with descriptions of meetings where each person’s view was taken into account and arose from a collective consciousness, the outbursts of violence and the elation of the anonymous and leaderless crowd that had given him so much to dream about — that man had no right to decide his fate for him and without him. That was his betrayal. Filippo now knows that in writing about the escape, he has created a Carlo faithful to himself, more real, a Carlo he could legitimately love. And now, this woman he is determined to vanquish is behaving like the Carlo of the past. Young man … vouch for its authenticity … not damage my credibility … I asked your colleague, Antoine, to come to my clinic… In her hands, he is a thing, and she had taken the liberty of inquiring about him behind his back. She still sees him as a lost kid; she talked about his past whereas he dreamed of cavalcades, invasions and victories.

Don’t get sucked in. Danger. She’ll destroy me, she’ll devour me. I know what I don’t want, but I don’t know how to get what I do want. Get out. Now. Run. Save my skin. Think later.

Filippo rises to his feet, his face inscrutable. He stammers: ‘Sorry, it’s late, I’m working tonight, I have to go.’

And he leaves her sitting there, dumbfounded, in front of the two vodkas that have barely been touched. In the background, Bécaud has given way to a double-bass duo.

It takes Cristina a few seconds to realise that Filippo has walked out, for good. Incredulity. She downs her vodka in one, to clear her mind and to try and regain her footing. I’ve just done him a huge favour, which he seemed to appreciate. Rude, really, very rude. Not surprising. Lout. No, not rude, ungrateful, that’s worse. Now he’s got what he wants, he dumps me.

Then, without seeing it coming, she is hit by a wave of despair. In her forties, loneliness. For ever? A life sentence? She drinks the vodka that Filippo barely touched.

I played the seductress, almost out of habit, and it didn’t work. I have to face facts, I’m no longer an attractive woman. What do I have left? A job that bores me…

She signals to the barman: another.

What was I expecting this evening? Hard to say, I don’t know. Romance, a young man to pamper, life, action, perhaps even a lover. An end to my loneliness. In any case, he owes me something.

She mulls over the evening to try and pinpoint the moment it had all gone wrong.

Arrival, Bécaud, he’d laughed, his account of the meeting with the publisher, so far so good. The publisher’s doubts as to whether Filippo could be the author of the book. But she had had no doubts, and told him so. No problem. And she placed her hand over his. Skin to skin. That was when everything fell apart. Filippo was profoundly disturbed. He lowered his head and jerked his hand away quite violently. And he departed. A doubt surfaces. So young, good-looking, prison, that passionate relationship with Carlo… He’s gay. Just my luck.

The barman brings her third vodka.