Vue Directe - Voie Directe
34. The race against the life
Hiro served the Master’s evening meal in the Secret Room.
The old man showed his tiredness. He has black eyes.
In his look which carried an interrogation because the Master killer had observed the young White all day long leading the bodies of the monks in the courtyard of combat, Hiro answered:
- He is not yet ready… He is not yet weakened enough… He staid in this very curious state that he calls “ zero point” and it is like that he remains in constant lucidity…
The Master sighed.
- It is what I feel in my projections of energy… He resists.
- More than that, says Hiro… He is reinforced even more! … As if the poison that I mix in his soup gives him even more force!
I will give this night the last movement of “the old”… throw him in the “joy” of action. Perhaps I will be able thus to handle him.
- By the Joy? … asked Hiro which did not understand.
- Yes… by the “joy” of action… By the “joy” of the movement… Because the Joy is a Force of his Universe, of his Dimension…
The old man spent some moments in silence.
- Perhaps he will not realize that the Joy I will develop in his heart is a joy from the past… thus a joy which comes from Bam.
- I still need a few hours to prepare the last “drug” says Hiro while smiling… Can you wait for the moon to be on top of the crests to throw your last movement?
- Yes, said the Master… I must prepare myself to throw an untrue joy because coming from the past.
- To hang him to the past?
- To make him return in the past, the Master corrected… To change his vibration of “now”.
- The urgency is there, stressed the Master killer.
- I know, said the old man… I know! … Go now, I need to be only.
When the moon passed the crests, the Master threw his last weapon: the joy of action.
Extract from the Book of the Family.
Yoko
He is hungry and does not need to look at his watch to know that midday approaches. He wants to see YOKO, to feel her heat close to him, the quiet smile of the woman who has ceased to look at herself.
- It is me.
A pointed laughter answers him, this laughter of the women of Asia.
- I will have suspected it. Do you want me to join you for lunch?
- Yes.
- Where are you?
- At the top of the Boulevard de Clichy.
- Well… Three quarters of an hour. Time to make come a watchman… You know that we cannot leave the terminal unsupervised…
- Yes…
- See you soon…
Curious Steph… Curious fellow!
- A glass of Vichy water with strawberry syrup, please.
- Well Mister… Is this to eat?
- Yes, two places but I await… three quarters of an hour…
- Well Mister…. A glass of Vichy water with strawberry syrup directly.
- Yes…Please! you who are very near… The Cola’s case, you know ?
- Who does not know here, Mister. It is almost he was from the area.
- So! … What do you think about it?
- I do not think anything about it, Mister… I find only that it is a real shame that this nice fellow be there!
- Nice?
- Yes Mister… He was often by there and always a small hello… it is not everyday that nowadays young people…
- You have been here for a long time?
- Yes mister, thirty years… But why do you ask me these questions, you are not from the Police force?
- Yes.
- Curious… Generally, I spot you from a distance… The habit. You know the area!
The boy, a man of about sixty looked at him with a little suspicion, the tray in one hand, the cloth in the other. He supervised the room and made sign to a couple at the end of the terrace that he had seen them.
- Perhaps is this you who take again this case everyone is talking about these days?
- I would like that one speaks a little less of me and that one speaks to me a little more!
- As I understand you, Mister… But here, you know, you know the area. It is a little special and people do not speak a lot.
- And you?
- What, me? … I do not understand, Mister.
- YES, you, you talk?
- I am sorry Mister… The table of the bottom calls me.
Bret became sullen in the rattan chair, the legs stretched out in front of him. The desire for messing things up on all the sides came up in him. It was necessary to break this silence which surrounded this kid. The one of the family, of the district, of the cops… Even the waiter who did not want to speak!
And well, Stephan, you are a curious guy, I tell it direct to you. You have already realized that I do not lose my time in verbiage, haven’t you? Then, guy, I will say to you what bothers me in your thing… your things, I should say.
Firstly, you see, your notebook, it is not a true diary. You speak about your states of heart, it is well, but it is always information on the outside. Nothing on you and your family. Come on, you do not find the thing curious?
Me yes! you see; because a guy who moves himself so much in outside, it is that there is a void somewhere in interior. Understand?
Thus, I would have liked to know this interior there and I must say to you that is to go in there that I will mess up with your notebook. While THEY are occupied with this shit that I make burst, I will have the free field to penetrate you. To penetrate you! , you understand guy? And I will say to you, I do not have the impression that it will please you because, you see, since one speaks between buddies, without sending disgusting things to the face, I have the impression that you hide me a essential thing… Come on, I will not bug you! …
- You dream?
Yoko is in front of me in her black velvet trouser. I know that iher breasts are naked under the polo neck jumper. She has slipped a light leather jacket. It has not rained anymore since this morning but the covered time does not bode well. She sits down on the rattan chair that I draw towards me and leans the head on my shoulder.
- It is this child?
- Yes.
She smiles.
- You will not tell me that you who are so strong to handle people, you will be stuck in front of a kid! What is there?
- I believe, that he lies me.
- But he is dead!
- Precisely
He thought of an investigation that he had carried out years against a koan. That was well before the Roshi finds him almost dead in the forest. He did not say anything on him, never gave date… Sometimes “Small Father” observed him with a funny look, the half-closed eyes, looking as if he was seeking in this thin body a trace which he wanted to recognize but of which he did not manage to find the track.
“The tracker of Silence, it is you, my son… But by all the Kamis! what you disconcert me ”
Angel smiled, without realizing it, as he did it now, because he did not have anything to answer and than this sentence slipped on him like water on window.
As the dumb interrogation of the young Japanese woman who raised the eyes while wrinkling the forehead because she maintained the head in the hollow of the armpit.
It was a stupid story, of those which concern the Impossible one. However, it had an answer, he was sure of that and he had sought it.
It was: “A man is held by the teeth, fixed on a cord. He is over a precipice and connot cling to anything by the hands and the feet. Somebody passes and asks him this question: What does the arrival of the Master in China means ? ”
If he answers, he will have to open the mouth and to thus release the cord. He will die in his fall and the precipice will swallow him.
If he does not answer, the other will be able to say of him that he is a man without education…
So, what can he do at this critical moment? ”
- What do you think of?
- At you, my darling… I need somebody in the band of Jose and Tonio…
- You want me to see to it myself or I send somebody of the team?
- You… The guys from here look at you… They must appreciate the well curvy jap. Take advantage of it! … And then, it is the movement of this band which I want… Useless a complicated and long penetration.
- Therefore, I let myself being chatted up.
- Completely.
- And… Until where?
- Until where you want.
- You know. I have not yet very well understand if you are the best of men or the worst of bastards.
- You waste your time with these complications…
- My answer, if I found it, would annoy you?
- Yes… If you concluded that I am the MUST, I would no more know where to place me and I would find it a pity.
- Ah! … because your place, in this moment, it is where?
- Between your thighs, my bird.
- Bastard!
- I like that better… Ok, you start immediately. Their bar is a little lower on the Avenue… By the way, kids have spotted you… but I do believe that they will keep their mouth shut… And then, you know how to defend yourself.
- Coffee? … misters, misses.
- No, bill! … You pay, Yoko?
- Hey! I believed that I was invited?
- I put you direct in the mood…
- I do not ask myself any more questions. You are right and you can sleep quiet.
- Ah, yes?
- You are a true bastard!
- You… revolting! Hold on!, the Roshi is really right to prevent me not to trust you one little bit!
- He has telexed you.
- Yes, this morning.
- To say to you?
- To do not trust you… He finds that you are too calm and that there must be something fishy going on…
- Well, this all wrinkled old bloke still seeks to impede my progress.
- But, it is of the ROSHI about who you speak!
- No, of the caretaker of the monastery.
- It is dreadful! … you thus do not have any respect for anybody.
- Yes, for me. Largely sufficient.
- But…
- Hey, tart… It is you who will come in my coffin?
- I do not understand you my darling.
- And well, for the moment be satisfied to be the darling of the others.
- Bastard!
- Hello.
And he left under the interested eye of some men who ate alone. He took again the jaguar, passed in front of the brewery. Yoko conversed with a man about forty years which had lunched at three tables of them. He was now on the seat that Bret had left. The young Japanese woman saw him passing and threw to him a black look.
The police superintendent
He descended the Avenue and went to the police station of the district. He asked the superintendent and the policeman stood to attention when he presented his card. The superintendent, a young person, came immediately.
- I awaited your visit, Mister the Chief Superintendent…
Naturally! … The Director of the Police force… He guessed him behind him, spying on, seeking to guess what he will well be able to discover.
- You wish to have my opinion, if I have well understood?
He has not say anything yet. Who has made him understand? Still these people! A curious case. Simple apparently but which made quiver without reasons. Reasons, it must have some… He felt it. Yoko was going to step in to continue the mess. She had understood her part.
- No… I just came to see the mouth of the prick who dealt with this kid.
- I…
- You do not understand? it is that! , do not worry, I understand for two.
- But…
- Nothing. No “But”. Nothing. Shut up… So, thus, this dear Head of the Police warns you that I could have to come to shake you the pins… Hey, what has he said to you to tell me?
- But…
- No “But”, I have already told you… You are still young in the job. He has spoken about advancement the old man who have a wank three times per day in the loneliness of his office.
- I…what! what happens to you! … Mister the Head has well informed me that…
- You see, sufficed to say it directly. So, thus, he warned you of what, hey, my little superintendent of the district which wants advancement…
- Please, Mister the Chief Superintendent… Come in my office…
- Why, good-looking guy? … Your policemen bother you. Not me… Look at a little as they have their cauliflower ears well cupped for not missing one scrap, because you see, them, contrary to you who wants advancement, they do not agree of a dropping the case for this kid who had a lovely reputation in the area.
- Please! …
- No, no “please”; it is for polite people but you are not one of them. The minimum courtesy is not to close the eyes on a disgusting thing.
- But…
- As if you did not know that one had given the AIDS to this kid, by revenge, even not ten days before his death.
- please… Come…
- No. Thus you do not want that your guys learn your filths. But no need to hide anymore. The rag of the evening will mention it and I promise to you that two hours later, it is the mob of the journalists at you.
- But… YOU do not have a proof! I will defend myself!
- You see, you acknowledge. Suffice to push you a little. Your policemen are all ears. Look at their disgusted faces; they suspected well a thing of this kind.
- They will not be able to give evidence! … They are under oath…
- Divvy, you! No need of them. The kid had a “diary”. Now, it is the hacks who have it in had and believe me, it is not tomorrow that they will release you. Your advancement, it is in the deep Perigord that you will have it.
- You have done that ! … But you…
- Nothing, I say to you! Me, I roll for a kid killed at twelve year.
- But…
- As you say…” But” you will have to tell them, to the hacks who will be made an obvious pleasure to plunge the hands to the elbows in this bleeding shit, WHO has given you the order to drop the case. And this WHO, will still have to say WHY and WHO… You have understood, little head! in which mess you are… I do not even ask you WHO. I will just have to read the Press… Bye, guy. I get going, what a stink here.
Marc Antoine and kids
He was not yet 3 O’Clock p.m. and he went away happy with a supple stride on the pavement. “Small Father” was right, he was too calm these times.
The sun, although shy managed to pierce the mass of clouds. It had not rained any more for this morning and the dry pavement had taken again its odors of summer, a mixture of urine and of food because people kept their windows opened. He wanted to calm his thoughts in the public garden next to the building of the kid. He felt this place like one of those of STEPH.
At this hour, the garden is deserted. Yesterday, he has noticed a wood bench at some steps of a tree which seems to him very old. The green painting of the planks of the bench is very peeled off and in places it does not exist any more. The naked ground of the floors still lasts of the rain of the night and a dog which passed a moment ago through the shrubs left from there all wet. Two street sweepers passed in front of his bench, throwing a short without interest look to him. One of them, black, asks the other, white what it is that the alternative current? The other answered: it is like you! once you work, once you rest. They passed and continued their discussion, but Bret did not understand any more the meaning of the words.
- You are unemployed, or what?
The Marc Antoine bugs me at two lengths of legs. Does not you look at ease, the kid. I unfold my pins and make him sign that he can be placed beside me, while tapping on the bench. He settles gently, like a tired old man. I listen to his breathing. It fills hardly the third of the lungs. Must have a big trouble somewhere. These breathings, that should be only for the pregnant women.
- You want to take me on?
- Do not talk crap, he does.
Then, it is the silence of the evening which settles around us. Only around. Because between us, there are words non told, vibrations of sorrow, a hard job to live.
- You cleared out of your home?
He raises the shoulders while rejecting the head behind. As it would throw the world a little too heavy for him. The Steph too. He spoke about it in each page of his diary.
- It is funny…
I wait for the continuation. His mouth has hardly opened. He breathes TO TELL ME, perhaps his only breath. I cannot do a lot of thing for him. At least not yet. It is necessary that he REALLY wants to open up. Otherwise it is pulp for dog, with the reason to help.
“One cannot take from somebody what he does not want to give. One cannot give to somebody what he does not want to take.” You see, Small Father, that I have well retained my lessons!
- you sit down on the same bench than Steph.
He does not look at me. He stares at the tree opposite. A pretty trunk, well cut. An old one. Very knotty. With wrinkled bark.
- He looked at this tree too…
The atmosphere is impregnated with Stephan, this small kid who did not know to say NO, but who had courage to resell. But not to know to say NO is the worst things. Energy runs away. Remains only a so small breathing than it can die out constantly. Marc-Antoine hardly breathes, him too.
“Well! , between unhappy, one recognizes oneself”.
He said that yesterday evening. Me, I saw his eyes sad to look at too much. And not to know what to do. The sadness of the child is well in his acquiescing at the adult. He cannot even create himself. Does not have the means yet. He should breathe the odor of the old people. And try to puke the quicker as possible in order not to be asphyxiated. I would like to increase the capacity of his lungs. He did not ask anything. He will not ask anything. Perhaps that a day he will know that it is the roof of the world, the coordinator and the regulator of all the viscera. Thus he will be able to follow the movement of his body, to canoe on its energy, to see the direct relationship between the lungs and the spleen, this famous earth; then the heart, this famous SHEN, the dash of the life, the raison d'être of the man on earth: to enjoy consciously GOD.
No SHEN, no GOD. Or only one unconscious God, the one of the animals. But the destiny of this man will be lost for the humanity. He will enter very lugubrious his coffin.
It will have made dough. Perhaps even not!. Thus he will have made of the violence, an aggressiveness to defend his structure. Cannot tell him all this stuff, to Marc Antoine, this kid of half-rich person, perhaps the worst. They do not know where they have the feet, finally. If it were God who interested them, over all, passionately, with madness, they would not need to raise the question. It would not exist any more. Wind!
And their kid would not be sitting beside me, under the rain with me, to speak about Stephan because he does not dare to speak about him.
- You have the same teacher?
- Yes.
- she is what, like girl?
He raises the face up at the sky without star and emits a long whistle, pursing his lips.
- So much than that? , I smile.
- Worse! … a kid of 25 years who is preaching all the time and which reddens crayfish as soon as “a draft” raises her skirt higher than the semi-thigh!
- And the drafts, it is always the wind?
- Not always… he laughs.
- What is her name?
- Martine… something… you know, for us, it is Martine… Well, it is not the whole. It is not that I am bored with you, but I have date with Bebert.
He eyes me up in a funny way.
- By the way… yesterday, the trouble at Tonio, and the Jose, he has copped a lot!
I agree. He smiles.
- You did well! … Hey! if you want another hand … you know where to find us… Bebert really laughed when we told the thrashing that you gave them… We tell ourselves that the Steph, he had well chosen.
He holds ou the hand to me while jumping from the bench. I take carefully it to him. Then, while trying that he does not realize anything, I press to him with the inch the point “go koku”, halfway between the two metacarpus of the inch and the index. More known under the n°4 of the large intestine. It has a lovely name: “convergent mounts”. Very important for general health. Since he asks me nothing! I put all my KI there. I however have the impression that he suspects something. He withdraws in a curious way. Much more collected on him. I notice that the foot is placed better, with a strong pressure on the big toe.
He looked at him leaving and he smiled; of that one which stretches curiously the lips towards the ears without letting the teeth appear. This child was double. Sometimes he spoke like a provocant adult; at other times, like now and the first evening, it was the kid who did not dare to say his sorrow.
He knew that he will not be able to do much for him. This morning he maltreated him because he played a too large part for him which was going to kill him. He did not speak again about it, now. Had he understood? Not sure, even improbable, but that does not have any importance. One should not want to understand everything. Some souls are made for that, not others; often it is a question of the positioning of the desire… But he had followed with interest the rhythm that Bret blew to him…
The teacher.
Now, he came naturally across the teacher. Martine. He did not want to rush because he had died and now, he was entitled to have his time. This time which it had missed, he was sure of that now…
Her address is at the back of the file. Martine!
It is very near. He does not know yet what he will say. He never knows; it is instinct according to the vibrations of the space of the moment. The building is in the middle of the street with its shops on the ground floor. The carriage entrance leads to a dark court with the dustbins in a corner. Third left.
At the ring he hears the sound of a radio which one lowers.
- What is it?
He wants already to set off again. A voice getting hoarse by the chalk dust, low, already weary.
- I am Police superintendent and I continue the investigation about the death of Stephan.
A chain which one places, the door unbolt, then the door which is half-open.
- You can prove what you say?
A little face which seems hardly twenty years, with freckles around the eyes. She looks at the card which he gets out of his pocket… She holds out the hand through the free space and seizes it quickly to return in the security of the apartment. He wants to leave. He already knows everything. He feels the disappointment of Stephan when he came; it is said in his diary.
“A very idiotic living room, made of whitewood and cloth seats, white too. Her skirt was even shorter than at school and she pulled on it down permanently. I saw that she did not carry pants… I did not talk a lot, I left quickly. I disturbed her “.
He had also to go through the chains, lock, the door which half-opens to be closed again afterwards, in order to remove the chain… Then, especially, this fearful voice, this “what is it?”
- I beg you to excuse me for this visit one Saturday afternoon, one of your days of rest, and I beg you doubly because I know the enormous task which is yours in preparation of the works for your pupils, having me also had the very great opportunity to live in an environment of teachers, but you see, the urgency…
He looks at her the smile on his lips, a little contrite of this disturbance. Firstly she has frowned, then has asked him to press on the timer of the corridor at two meters so that she can check the photography and she has sighed when she had to acknowledge that he was well what he said being. Not really a sigh; an exhalation of the breath which showed her concern. He, he had perceived it.
The opposite mechanism of the door left him in the dark because the timer had just died out and he did not want to go to press again on the grimy button.
Immediately, he spoke to her about the beauty of the teaching environment. He hardly looked in the apartment and sat down on a straw-bottomed chair. She took an cloth armchair opposite him and he saw that she did not carry either of pants.
I interest her right away. Besides, you have seen the syntax, and all! I put out all the stops at it.
- Ah! You are also from an environment of teacher… It is the most beautiful, isn't it?
Here she gets going on her hobbyhorse: the education and the world of those which think it, put it into practice, these people who are like all the others but however not completely, considering the exceptional destiny which is theirs….
- My mother, I make laconic.
- Oh! your mother… What a unforgettable experiment that must be to be taught by his own mother… because of course! she managed with the Academy so that it is her which has the right to teach you in your first school years, I suppose?
- Completely, I make… unforgettable experiment! You are completely right, dear colleague of my mother.
- You thus know all the problem to exert this job… I think that we will be able to understand each other since you start again the investigation about this poor Stephan… I do not think I made me very well understand by the two inspectors who dealt with this case before.
- Difficulties?
- Not strictly speaking. Let us rather say a dialectical kind of incomprehension which puts an end to the subtelties of judgment… You see? … All that can make it possible to understand a situation with intuition.
- I see very well… And for this kid… that thus your intuition said to you, dear Misses the teacher.
- Oh!, call me Martine like all of them, Mister Superintendent… You know, now in the teaching, we have evolved a lot. We are not any more prudes.
… yes, to answer very precisely to your question, I have always found this boy quite uncommunicative… You know? … of these kids who always receive the same kind of annotation on the school book or notebooks: serious, but can do better do!
I saw very well. You also I hope. A good guy, this kid. Kept in check.
- He was a long time under your control?
- Oh! it is a great word… We supervise from afar the evolution of a child without wanting to show us too interventionist… And well, he arrived towards 8:45, the class starting at 9 a.m.. It ceases at 5 p.m.. He staid at the canteen at midday. Also to study in the evening… What makes, not to tell you silly things, that he left the school towards 6.45 p.m..
- A hard day!
- What do you want, it is the lot of many others. He does not constitute an exception in these many children who spend the most clearly of their time at school. It is also necessary to put oneself in the parents place of which obligations…
- And during all this time there, you see him only “serious, can do better do”?
- What else can we do with the classes overloaded with 40 pupils!
- He came to ask you advices in particular, or perhaps to try to be closer to you?
- It was a boy who was always rather close to his teachers… As if he looked for protection. Sometimes one fells him tears in his eyes… Recently? Yes. He tries to discuss… or at least to engage a type of discussion which would always start with “what you would do if…” you know? in such type of situation… He always revolved round these interrogations that he presented straight out to you, often at the most awkward times for you.
- For example?
- Well, for example… when you put away your things and you prepare to leave the classroom… It is as if he tried to retain you! …
- Irritating, isn't this? … But, did he have other possibilities of drawing attention to himself, without disturbing?
- Of course yes!
- Which ones?
- And well, for example… yes... no, there! … you must know that we are really overflowed… no, there either…
She suddenly looks at me with a certain animosity, the forehead wrinkled in its middle.
- You ask me curious questions… Mister the Superintendent.
- Oh, you know! … Me, I only seek to know with whom he had possibility of speaking, this kid.
- You want to know in whom he could have confided?
- Yes… To you perhaps?
She thinks a long moment and her glance from below did not say anything that I could trust.
- He came here… It is what you want to know? … Mister the Superintendent.
- It is not in the file… Only that you had sent a word to the parents, explaining to them that Stephan told everywhere that ONE wanted to kill him. And that it was advisable to put an end at this state of thing which could only disturb a class.
- I see that you have well studied this file, Mister the…
- And you tell me now that he came here! … When?
- You do not wish a cooling, or an alcohol, as this evening progresses… I have friends, do not think! So I have some strong alcohols which the Sirs like… Me, for my part, I am satisfied with fruit juice. I think that it is better for health, don't you believe ? … Ah, yes… your question… let us say that I think not to say silly things… I believe well… yes… two days before his death…
- Days or nights? He conversed with you during the day or the evening?
- He came here, I said to you! I am there only the evening… It was thus two days before the evening of his death…
- It was the first time?
- Yes.
- How did he know your address? I do not think that it is in the practices of the teaching body to provide the personal addresses.
- Everything is known very quickly. Paris is a small town. I live in the area. One has seen me shopping… It is not the first time that a pupil knocks on the door, you know! He will not be either the last one.
- You receive them then, when they come to ring.
- No… That's all we need! To be on duty all the time, we would be!
- So, you sent him away…
- No… that is to say… You see, he has so much insisted. He said that it was about life or death.
- Thus you listened to him…
It is necessary to sqeeze a word out of her to this teacher. Of course! She is embarrassed. A kid comes to see her to tell her that one wants to kill him. She sends him back home while sending a poisonous note to the parents. The kid dies two days later!
But, hey? The role of teacher, what is it really? To learn how to read to write and to count, no need for all this tiff.
- And well, he was rather confused… Nothing was correct in his explanations… I asked him for explanations which he was unable to provide me… He did not reach any conclusion! Nothing clear… As if one can trust only on the instinct and yet it is what he asked!
- He asked WHAT, really?
- I did not understand very well… He was too confused. Nothing of…
- He staid for a long time?
- No, not very… He was a little like you. He rang. Then then, he hesitated to come in.
- Your door was barricaded in the same way?
- Of course! … What do you believe?, that it is possible to have confidence? It looks like you do not know what it is to be a single woman in Paris… Or elsewhere!
- How long did he stay?
- Ten minutes, perhaps… at the most, fifteen minutes.
- And during this time, how long did he speak?
- What do you want to know! … A quite curious investigation, that you carry out there, Mister Superintendent.
I give her my smile N°? I do not know how much, but which is part of the card: “put yourself there that I frighten you”.
- It is that, dear young lady teacher, regarding the law, not to take concern of what a child says, even confused, when he is such a long time under your responsibility, and that what is more when this child tries to explain a thing that he feels but is not very clear for him… how to say to you? … One could call that a failure to assist a person in danger! … And you know how, in this case, the public is hungry of a culprit, or at least of somebody to eat.
- But… I have do what I could! …
- Are you really sure? … You see… a child who remains with you such a long time then even comes to chase you up at your place… Really! … the public and the magistrates can appreciate that… like your superiors… I do not find your position quite advantageous…
- But…
- That will not be enough.
- But… my good faith…
- Ah! that, it is a very curious commodity, almost speculated on the stock exchange each day. According to the lighting, to the arrangement, the “good faith” fluctuates according to proportions sometimes alarming… Besides you realize it during the corrections of works, isn't it ?
- But… No… The rigor of the work, the developed of…
- Thus you think yourselves sure in your position of appreciation, and each day is identical to yesterday and idem for tomorrow…
- Of course!
- Then, dear Miss the teacher, you are going to have some big surprises. You will note that those who will judge you will have a completely astonishing fluctuation of appreciation.
- But, the Justice…
- Which Justice! … The decision is that of the one who has the power. You had very well realized that in your job !
- Yes… well… no.
- Then, I am well afraid that you go towards discoveries.
- But, I have always been honest!
- Do you thing? … Perhaps only, very formal in your judgments by repeating the record printer in your brain during the long training of the child, then of the teenager and finally of the pupil teacher, to finish with the final job. The whole, of course, without interruption, any access to another world of work and of behavior, another manner of placing your consciousness in the situations… You have made the complete cycle from the pupil to the instructor, haven't you? Without stop.
- Yes… like many others… I do not see what one could reproach me on this subject.
- If you, you do not see, others will see. But be sure ! They will not be more honest than you.
- But…
- It is simple… You will be judge again. And this judgment, I really thing, will let you a strange taste in the mouth.
- But what! … What will one reproach me?
- Simple. To have appreciated a conflict situation only compared to your small personal comfort, while at the same time the child you are responsible chases you up in your residence and declares to you straight away that one wants to kill him… Here what one will reproach you.
- But… I could not make differently, considering the lack of arguments.
- Precisely!
I really believe that I am shaking her Hebrew. Hey, guys. You have well seen how I am not gifted to report you discussions. Even as I wonder whether I am gifted for some stuff. One could may be… I could perhaps report you succinctly how I butter a slice of bread for her in order to scare her stiff. 0k!
You are nice. For the moment, your express mail service has arrived in time. I do not even know how they have made with the Small Wo... PT.T.
PRECISELY! … What one has learned to you at this school from pupil teacher! But yes, you will understand.
It is funny, you will see! What is curious about this type of case, is that your instructors, those who have taught you “to teach” yourself, will never ever acknowledge that they have not taught you the relation that the kid has with time. You get it!
No. I can really see. Will be necessary to dot the i's and cross the t's for you.
The kid, he is not in a relation of time, but an energy unfolding.
I will say the things differently. The kid, he is not able to know what the futurewll be for him, he is satisfied TO FEEL what he wants, needs, attracts him… etc…
Also you are a large disgusting person, Miss the teacher, to ask a kid “to explain himself”. A true rotten swine, you are. Because HE cannot. It is that, precisely, the state of child.
He can only say that he does not like, that he does not feel well in the stuff that one presents to him.
But YOU, what do you do? You question, you ask for explanations. You affirm that you are ready “to collaborate”, “to understand”, to sympathize, just to suffer, to raise the sword of the aid, assistance, to establish the front of defense of… But you need to have EXPLANATION.
And it is there, splendid bitch, that the kid got nicked by you. And moreover, you make him feel guilty. Of course! It is your fault, kid, not to have been able to obtain the assistance which you claimed. You did not know to explain yourself. You knew only to say what you felt, what frighten you.
Each time, you are sure to win with this little game. What is more, you reinforce your power. Hey, Miss the teacher, I am not there for your continuing and accelerated education. Me I am here to defend a kid who did not know to defend himself. And to leave behind me such trace of fear, that it is a long way off that all those one who bug Stephan, will want to start again with another.
What is sad, it is that when the comprehension does not exist, and either the interest to discover what one does not know, what has not been taught to us, quite simply because the “instructors” do not know either, and either are not interested … and well… there is only the solution to frighten. Sad, no! To prevent that from starting again in front of you. Only this stuff! Because behind, it will be down again.
You see well that one should not hesitate to hit again, today. Not to postpone until tomorrow. And you know why? Because it is a duty. A DUTY.
“My son, I allow myself to interrupt you. I can see that you blow up and you become confused about it in your explanations. Why do you believe that I sent you for this case which ultimately seems to be only a matter for the simple police force, that you conclude murder or accident or suicide. You do not believe, perhaps, that this vicious seed which you always still have in you and who makes you sometimes go through states of anger unworthy of the Noble Man could not come from this very particular relation of your mother who is teacher and who takes her son in her class in the first years of his schooling? and that in a school of girls!
Thus do not transfer your moods on this child girl which seems to me all what is of good and worthy, and allow the old man who I am to warn you that when the ladies wear very short skirts and no pants under, it is that the weather is hot, quite simply. What do you let believe!
Your father whom you adore.”
Hey, old bloke very wrinkled, remains in your perch! You come to interrupt an interrogation in my personal manner and I don't give a fuck of your remarks… Ok, right… it is not so idiot than that!
I recognize. But, hey, you have seen the chick? It is teacher, this thing? Ok, I withdraw some hasty words that I have just hurled at you, but you know well that I do not like that you fall down on my pork rind when I am moved. You realize the thing for the Stephan who comes to seek of aid!
Good, ok, I replug her and give her the word back.
- Really, I do not see anything of what you insinuate, Mister the Superintendent… and I believe well that I will refer my hierarchically superiors of this discussion which… takes surprising tricks…
- Hey! bitch… It was not surprising when he said to you, the kid, that the AIDS, one has given it to him intentionally in punishment… It is well at you that he said that this famous evening… It is in the file… and that was not worthwhile to try to understand what he seemed to want to say, the kid?
- Come on!
- Nothing at all. The kid, he came towards his teacher, because it is her who teaches to him the perfect control in the world… and the little kiddy, he did not know anymore how to behave. Thus he comes towards you… And what do you make of it, hey?
- Go away!
She stands up, and shows me the door with the finger.
Hey, between us, you do not believe that I really gave her her chance? Hey?
- Not before you FINALLY said me the truth.
And I remain sitted very quiet, but the Martine she understands that if she does not stay correct, has the desire for running towards the door, for calling for help!, for telling me tall stories… There is sometimes a funny look which slips of my eyelids.
- I was afraid… afraid… AFRAID! … you understand that?
She bursts out sobbing on the divan. A stuff won. She does not think anymore of folding back her skirt. However, this time, she would have a good reason with the fabric which is just level with the hair. I do not want anymore to help her too much.
- You cannot understand what it is a woman alone in Paris. He told me what occurred. What he did. Why one had sodomized him with a carrier of AIDS… I was afraid. I did not want anymore to hear him… I throw him out.
- What else has he told you. What is not in the file of the Police force.
- That… that… his mother… oh, my God! … She came to sleep in his bed the nights when she fought with her husband…often… I think to have understood.
- And it is to them that you sent a note complaining about Stephan… Have you said everything, in this note?
- Yes, I have.... everything.
I smile.
- Thank you for the information, dear Miss the teacher… This note was destroyed by the parents, a simple gesture of sending to the dustbin… apparently. One did not know very well what the kid had really said to you. This is now done.
She bites her lips. Believed that we were in the know. A thing which worried me. This note. Everyone spoke about it. Nobody really knew what there was inside.
The teacher had thus exactly reported the confidences of the kid. Not only the stories of streets, that of the AIDS, but ESPECIALLY for the parents, their personal stories, those which do not have, never ever to leave the house. Come on! A so close couple. And the kid who will tell these things outside!
Which treason. Some people were hung for less than that.
- Did the parents come to see you?
- Yes… the following day evening she articulated with difficulty.
There are some people who do not like to see the truth arriving too close. She is one of these, the Martine. With the eyes looking from underneath.
- And you have agreed together that it would be good to bring the kid to heel and to pass over his confidences in silence, haven't you ?
I make the text for her. No the desire for continuing to waste time. Besides she seems to understand. She also wants to finish as quickly as possible.
- They have decided to send him in a very strict boarding school… something which looks like a reformatory, if I have well understood.
- But… He had done nothing! … Is necessary to have swipe,… and other trifles, to be in these false schools which are only prisons for kids.
- They said that they would find an arrangement…
The bastards!
- And you?
- But… what do you want that I make? … I am only the teacher!
The one who sends the confidences to the parents. Only the teacher.
- And the Stephan, he knew the decision taken. Curious, don't you find? Just the day before the evening of his death.
- Yes. I have… he was irritating this very day! … I believe that I get crossed a little by saying that I was going to be soon get rid of him…
- And…
- Perhaps I let myself tell… indiscretions on the decisions taken by the parents…
- When?
- The evening… the evening of his death… Oh! how I am cross with me! …
That it appears! Yes, you are cross with you. For the remainder, I trust you. You will fall down on your legs very quickly.
One dead more or one dead less in your life, do you care about it? Hey? how many of then have you already? And you?
Madam Broussard
He is not happy. Step by step, he has paved the way. Yoko, the Police force, the journalists and the teacher. He has perceived his breathing at the end: panic-stricken. He has counted the vibrations: it missed many. Thus she lied partly.
One should know. She has dumped ballast to hide a stuff even more enormous than the reformatory for Steph. For the moment, that is enough for him. He is not in a hurry, contrary to his practice which pushes him to accelerate the events to go back to the monastery. It is difficult for him to live with the men, the compatibility of their effort, their measurement…
This weariness with life, he has found it around Steph… in his diary too. He also finds the lies, this manner of throwing out outside, of causing the look of the other. He is no longer in a hurry. The monastery will wait. He has folded his dress of monk with a lot of care before leaving. He had the impression that he went away for a long time. This feeling was maintained still now in the circulation of Paris at eighteen hours, with all these people…
Contrary to what he could have believed, he was not constrained. That recalled to him the story of a begging monk, a big head of temple who escaped while giving up everything to join a group of leprous beggars… To a disciple who ran after him he says: “… to follow me? … then gives up everything!” Steph made him release some clothing that he had still kept. Marc Antoine held him by the hand. He, he helped to breathe. The teacher pointed out his mother, although she, she would not have shown her pubic hairs, on the contrary!
He went back in the time where, for the first time, he had seen that a little of white liquid left his sex; he called it at the time the “willy”, he had asked her. She felt sick and lips pinched, a quasi permanent practice at her, she exclaimed: “do not touch to it! it is dirty… Ask your father! ”… The father did not explain anything. The following day he came in his room and he has placed a pile of book on the desk.
- all is there, he said.
Then he left
Stephan, he, asked for another thing. Times change.
He did not have his answer either. He is not in a hurry any more because he wants to know if the kid could have slided into an escape of imaginary… His only chance. He wants to know. Absolutely! He knows that he will kill.
He has thrown his first paving stone which will leave this evening. He will do so that Chity has another bone to eat for the edition of tomorrow morning. The newspapers must remain in suspense. He will feed them and the truth will go out of this disorder, like always.
He leaves the Ring road and enters the outer suburbs. He goes where this old woman who supervises the Exchange of the SHIN dans Family all France lives and with whom he had worked in the Dupond case
- Hello Madam Broussard.
- Come in, I waited for you my boy, the Roshi informed me.
- Hmmm… He anticipates my decisions. If I am not mistaken, I took this one only half an hour ago.
- See with him, sonny…, Come in you know the places.
She laughed at her remark and her small wrinkled face, completely round, looked younger. He found her merrier, lighter than eight months ago now. He says it to her.
- Because I went up the slope! … You cannot know in what a state of mental decay that you had left me!
- Ah, me!
- It is that! … it is that! … Hey, to be with you only once, one learns for at least a whole life. So, do not make the monkey with me. I have learned to my cost what a twisted manipulator you are!
- Me?
- Incredible! … To see you like that, one would give you the good Lord without confession and by love! you are able to make me doubt. The Roshi is quite right !
- He has just teletexted you ?
- Of course! … How I know your arrival?
- But he did not know it yet.
- You please me, sonny… There would be thus somebody who is at least as strong as you! That it is my old friend the Roshi brings me an endless joy.
- Oh! , you know… Quite malignant the one who say which one handles the other.
- Hmmm? And that is your theory on that… Take this armchair which you know and I have made an herbal tea which is still hot.
- It is simple Yoko said to him that I put her at work on this case. Logical deduction: I will solicit you for the intendance that she will not be capable to assume anymore.
- I prefer not to discuss with you! I lose the few of my certainties. Take cookies, home made… What can I do for you?
The old woman looked at him behind her glasses, the look at the same time concerned and delighted because she had already seen him at work and he had frightened her of his power of penetration in the consciousness of the man.
He did not know suddenly anymore. The picture of the man hung with his cord by the teeth frozed under his eyelids and he saw only it; it that he has deciphered step by step, like a hieroglyph, during years because he knew in deepest of him than an answer existed. And he has found it.
But it is the extraordinary magnet which that has constituted to clarify the energy of blockings which prevented from SEEING, which returns to him at present. The action was more important than the result!
In front of this small old woman, he suddenly has had the desire to give up the fight, to tell himself “What's the use! What that will change! …” He felt empty. Then this picture of the man held by the teeth above the chasm came…
He knows that he will have to fight all his life! Because one needs it so that the flame does not die out, even at the price of his always dreamed peace. Then, he lengthily explained to her what he wanted and she did not interrupt him.
The attack
“ASK the "FIGARO"… ASK!
SPECTACULAR NEW DEVELOPMENT IN THE CASE COLA…
The CHILD ACCUSES! …
ASK…”
The article in two columns of first page said that their special investigator had been able to put the hand on the “DIARY” of the child and that: ABERRATION… One KNOWS, by the hand of the victim, that he was sodomized by a carrier of AIDS ten days before his death… That the POLICE FORCE knows BUT THAT ONE DID NOT TAKE IT INTO ACCOUNT IN THE FILE ! …
A pack of interrogations followed on the misinformation of the PUBLIC, that perhaps of the President of the Republic… unless the mission of the Superintendent BRET, coming back especially from China where he assisted the Police services within the environment of a formation to the new methods, is only one added mask for hiding essential truths…
One made it clear that the special investigator of the FIGARO still kept a good number of information in his pocket … a story which is far from being finished.
One spoke about the Police chief of the district which would have received orders to cover up the case… One was going to know WHO… At least, if the reader…
He got by well Chity.
The Leading article of the Editor takes again the subject up, denounces the Authorities, attacks the Police force frankly, requires sanctions and declares straightforwardly that it will not be useful to spend the money of the taxpayers for a supplement of investigation, because THE FIGARO will go UNTIL the END and will provide ITSELF to the PUBLIC the totality of the file.
The war is open. In this calm period in the news, Bret is certain that each one will go with his articles and that tomorrow morning, five newspapers will make headlines with them. With the continuation which he has programmed, the first page will be devoted to STEPHAN COLA for an end of time. Besides, why to wait longer.
-THE FIGARO… I listen.
- Let me talk to Chity, please. On behalf of the man whom he saw this afternoon for the Colas case.
- Hold on…
- Hey, it is TERRIFIC this “paper”! You have red the article!
- Yes.
- 0k like that?
- Completely.
- Hey, I made the max… The writings of the kid can make two articles, may be three, but not more. Not enough explicit! He speaks too much about his states of heart… Not enough concrete facts I will be quickly short.
- Not my intention to let you speechless while you are doing so well.
- I had well believed to understand.
- But yes, my guy, it is for me that you work… Continue in this direction and I provided to you the necessary.
- I would not like to run down, but I find you a funny of cop, all the same! … If I really understand, you want that one centers for the moment on “THE INCOMPREHENSIBLE SILENCES OF THE POLICE FORCE”… It is the title of the article of tomorrow morning.
- Always at the front page?
- Absolutely! You cannot know all the phone calls which one receives, the standard is blocked! It is a case which will stir up the heart of French people who does not have anything to eat since ages…
- Then, does that suit you?
- Yes… let us say, for tomorrow evening you could…
- No. Not the evening. It is a supplement which one has left to you today… just to draw poeple…
- Ok, the day after tomorrow, normal edition… Tell that the EVENING OF HIS DEATH, he went to see his teacher, a so-called Martine, you will find the name in the file, to tell her that ONE wanted to killhim and that SHE KICKED HIM OUT!
- Shit… It is true?
- CHITY! … If you want to continue to follow this case, avoid this kind of question!
- Sorry… Hey, by the way, how I must call you. I have the impression that we will often see ourselves these days and the title with extension which equips you, me, that would rather give me buttons.
- Said “Mister the Prince “. I will be satisfied with it.
- Shit ! … My prince… You clean yourselves the bottom every morning with a silver spoon?
- Exact.
- Well, if you have the means… Then, this information, it is the honest truth?
- No… And MOREOVER, you will make it clear that the kid went to her TO INQUIRE.
- OK… The honest truth either?
- An interrogation at most but you will close by saying that from DEFINITE sources you know that this teacher was in VERY close relation with the parents TO PREVENT the CHILD FROM MAKING REVELATIONS… Promise your readers information for the next day.
- Shit! … Terrific! … All is true, ok… except the interrogation… Eh? What remains, you really think of having it?
- I have it already.
- Bastard! … You want us to be gasping, eh my Prince!
- Let us say that I like the dedicated and devoted collaborators and that I give myself the means.
- You will tell me so! … Good… For now, one makes perspire the cops, isn't it? … After tomorrow, one tackles teacher and family side… I have understood everything, Boss?
- Chity, you are adorable. I kiss you on the node.
- I would rather prefer your girlfriend !
Mr Tarin
The sun from went away behind the buildings but it had not rained today and the sky was cleared from its clouds. He wanted to rest. This night, he will have to work and the jet lag was felt. The third day was always the hardest. The practice.
The apartment of the street Mouftard is empty. He does not know this place without Yoko and that gives him a curious feeling. The young woman must work on Jose and his group. He can use as he wants this place, refuge and center of the Family in Paris, but a sense of profanation retains him. It is Yoko's; it must remain the same even if she likes to know him there, at her. He will not always be there. It is astonishing besides that he is twice in a year in Paris. He had not known any more his country for ten years, since he had left for Asia after having said some strong words to his parents… to all these instructors!
Then, he packed his bag up with the kimono and the hakama, then his saber and the stick. He will ring in the place of the Korean, not very far. He will not need the car.
He bow on the edge of the tatami, greeting the wall of honor with its altar of small divinities, then, swiveling on the knees, he hit the forehead on the rice straw in front of his host who had settled in an angle.
The Korean, a man of around fifty, quite round and not very tall, looked at him doing, without a word, without a frown, as if he did not exist.
Bret has started with karate, then he has cherished his heart with the saber… That has lasted two hours. The kimono streamed of his sweat.
The Korean greeted with him the wall of honor. Then he faced him, both still squatted on the tatami.
- The last time… Eight or nine months, I think… I allowed me to ask you WHO had taught you and you agreed to tell me a splendid sentence “That there are still fires on the Mountain “…
He waited until a truck passes in the street and that silence spread out again between them, then he continued, the eyes on those of the young man facing him.
- But… May I tell you “thank you” ; it is of such a satisfaction to see you acting.
He said “ acting “… No “to train “… Thus he saw a small little something. So, perhaps, life behind appearance of things is also for him…
He has staid under the shower for a long time. The room was empty when he left the cloakrooms. He drew the door behind him. Now, at twenty and one hour, he could go to the Japanese restaurant, nearby. He hoped that they had raw fish. Then, he will be time to go to see Jose. Yesterday, the interrogation was curtailed.
They had good fish and his stomach told him thank you, with the rice bowl accompanied by green tea. He has taken his time. The waiter was astonished by his dexterity with the rods; even more when he carried the bowl against the lips. A manner of eating like a country Asian who was not found a lot here, in this luxury restaurant. It is the owner who brought to him the bill with a big low bow.
The night was fresh and he closed the zipper of his deer jacket. He was anxious for Yoko. A dangerous play, but he did not want to look at it too much. He liked to say that each one must look after oneself, but… There was this “but “sometimes quite embarrassing. He hoped that she coped easily with this curious Jose. Moreover, why did he decide to go and see over there? He could have worked as much on other tracks. There were numerous! For example, the jeweller who was informed of a break-in by the Jose's group, a research of people to who HE had said that one was going to steal their car this night… the teacher, the priest… to go back to ring the bell at the police station to question the agent which had received the kid…
The tracks do not miss. But he goes towards Jose because by there, there is also Yoko whom he is a little anxious.
- Carefull, there are people!
He did not answer and took the left hand out of the pocket of the jacket. Another hand slipped into there and he closed again the fingers. They went up on the pavement, in the dark part of opposite. The shutters of the bar had their metal closings but one saw light by the interstices. A man with a leather jacket leant against the wall, very close to the closed door. We saw another one, with an identical strange appearance, pacing up and down in the corner.
- By behind, it is idem, said Marc Antoine.
They passed without rushing on the pavement of opposite and they did not pay attention to them: a man who went back home holding his son by the hand.
- You saw an Asian young woman?
- The Jap of the street Mouftard? … Yes, this afternoon…
- Where?
- I do not know. They have left for one hour. They were in the back room then HE came with his bodyguards. Everyone escaped by the other door. I did not see Jose leaving. He must be with the Boss.
- The jap?
- going with the others.
- Sure?
- Sure there is even a large arse which snogged her on the pavement.
- going together.
- No… I saw her beating it all alone towards the underground entrance.
- Well… Who is this, the Boss?
- You will see, he says while laughing… Because you are going there, aren't you?
The young man lowered the look towards Marc Antoine and they smiled to each other.
- You know a means of entering without passing by the guards?
- Same way that yesterday, if you are not afraid to dirty you.
- Correct… You stay on duty, here?
- I awaited you.
- How did you know that I would come?
- You went to the teacher!
- Do not understand.
- Because you are still too young in the trade, answers Marc Antoine to him, tit for tat…
It would seem that the boy likes these exchanges of short sentences, to say things that perspir friendship under hard out appearances.
- Fortunately I have you as teacher!
- As you say… fortunately.
- Still do not understand!
- After HER, you are obliged to come to see HIM, if you has understood a little of the thing.
- Bah! , one will see well. HE, HER, HIM, US, YOU, THEM. What a difference!
- You are funny, you know… I do not know if STEPH was right to choose you… I have sometimes the feeling that you walk beside your shoes…
- And you, they suit you well your shoes?
- I do not know… Not sure.
- Come on, let me pass first.
- Hello, guys! I tell to the stunned assistance.
Hey, silence in the room. Sudden death of the conversations. Must say that they are not numerous. Five in all, of which a woman between two ages behind the counter. I have the feeling that it is her who closed the bar yesterday evening after the descent of the cops. For the remainder, there is Jose, with a broad plaster on the mouth and surely a good binding of the ribs, considering the stiffness which is his on his stool. The big one that I hit yesterday, sprawling behind his table where lied around ten empty bottles of beer.
And the most interesting, it is the fifth. A guy very well dressed. Not the kind small-time crook which has succeeded. Him, he has succeeded immediately. He did not need to go up on the scale. Born the gilded bottom, he surely is. His three-piece suit does not mislead. Neither its perfect cut, nor especially the manner of carrying it. About forty years, he is a beanpole. Because I did not say to you that he is nearly two meters, the guy. As he is held right, even a little stiff, of those who are accustomed to ordering and being seen obeying, he makes undoubtedly about two meters and half. At least he is the impression that he gives to me.
But the impression that I make on him does not seem to please him.
To tell you, he does not ask me by where I came… where the guys behind are … which my intentions are … Lastly, all the things which I see passing in the peepers of Jose who hides suddenly behind the guy with a suit.
He observes me, as one would do it with a small mouse, or the steak which the head waiter has just been served to you to check if you will like it. He does not ask me either WHO I am. He knows. A good description of me, of course; a good relation of the situations, TOO; but nevertheless brave to ask NOTHING. He knows.
He makes me well understand that he knows. And waits for being sure that you also know you know with WHOM you deal. To talk, afterwards. The management, it is not his thing. It is higher than that, the guy! Nevertheless I would not like to be in the place of the head of team which was to intercept me. Will have strap for his arse. The man does not have an easy look. He does not ask me what I did of the guys.
- They is thus YOU! … he articulated when he was quite sure that I had understood everything.
Me, you begin to know me, at this kind of introduction which throws you a line big as a rotted ham, I do not answer. Must not be idiot. I have already explained you in “the swirl” how one kill you with this kind of stuff. And that it works because you must be a bit masochistic.
And the guy, he is not used to it. A small flame in his look tells me that I must not turn the back to him. Oh! not in the physical meaning. It is not the guy to punch me the ticket of the life. He has guys for that. That he should pay the index-linked guaranteed minimum wage, included the complementary disease, the fund for the executives, the old-age pension. Because do not think! The pimps, the small-time crooks… like all the others assisted of the tit, they only think of their security of old man.
Well, my Stephan, I really think that you would like this mood. You know! must not believe it. Since I arrived at Paname, via Singapore, I roll for you. Exclusively. And if, at certain times, you could have believed that I was wandering, it is that you has not had enough confidence.
You see, I managed to make move the world. That one which seemed so hard for you, motionless. As a wall which one cannot jump, nor circumvent. Nor to push back. You broke your teeth on it. However, you had courage. I begin to foresee why, in spite of your determination, you broke your gob. So much so that one has decided to kill you.
Now the evening starts. The BIG evening. The one where you make jump what you want. I am a ninja, an assassin of the night. This night, my Steph, it will be yours.
Because, you see, Steph… if you had understood “the motionless point”… and well, how to say, the thing without hurting your feelings… well… let us say quite simply that you would not have died.
Hey! I do not want to hurt your feeling. Look at rather the not fresh foodstuff which moves for you, this evening. Because it is for you, that HE moved. Must not believe it!
For the moment, he looks at me curiously, the important guy in his three-piece suit. He is surely not used to having no answer to his calls of the foot.
You see, my Steph, it is a thing which one did not teach you: immobility. Because in this “fixed point”, one cannot touch you. And all the education that you received, it is precisely to know where to touch you straight. You understand? What interests them … ok, let us shorten… all those which take part in education, it is to control your movement, to always know, at any time, where you are. THEY just have any to shoot. The arrow will touch its goal. Not means to miss. You see, the only means that you had to escape, it is the immobility in the instant. You have moved atoo much. One has killed you.
- We would be very eager to know your exact intentions… announces the well dressed guy, the jaw already open by the condescending pout of the guy ready to hear the stupidities of the century, with duty to make undersand lengthily that his interlocutor has really got all wrong and that he is missing the dinner that one has prepared to him in a reception of friends and that he had to have to set the record straight with a guy like me…
What would you have done, Steph? But no! … DO NOT MOVE. Must not help the guy who want to kill you to do it! Drop your masochist once good for all, I pray you! Let him come. It is a “kamae” of combat, a position of waiting. Will he have sufficient determination to continue his play without my participation. Without OUR participation. Interesting, no? I hope, between us, that you understand all what I do for you. Because the play is risky. Outside there are still the guys seeking me, them knife in the mitt. I went behind the guy at the door. Easy. One always thinks motionless guys, attentive to the least draft. As if the guy he did not want to piss in a corner. As if the guy, he did not want of a cig, and with the small wind, he must, there again, go in a corner… like if the idiot stake, he did not let his thoughts to rove, to distract him, hey! There are even moments when he is really not there. Worse than to move away to piss.
You see, you made a world of everything. Must say that you were helped.
Ok! you have understood how I entered quiet like Baptiste. The only thing, it is that the guys, they are still to turn and that it would not be healthy for my health that I lasted for ever in these places. Hey! you do not find that I make progress of conjugation? Must never despair!
- WE would wish a serious discussion, and to finish with these childishnesses… WE have ALSO made our investigation, Mister the Superintendent… at least if it is the true title of your functions, that of what WE doubt taking into consideration your manners… So, what do you seek HERE?
And here it is. You see that it is moving. Stay motionless and it is the guy opposite who will give you the information. THEY are... in short... THEY have tried to find who picked a quarrel with them. But the hassle for them, it is that THEY have something to hide. Otherwise THEY would have called the cop house, direction service, “to be astonished, to exclaim, to show their the most complete and shocked incomprehension of so unconstitutional method. ”…
Instead of that, although knowing me Superintendent, even “special”, I am still Superintendent; THEY have decided to make me a skewer in the belly and to laugh around, as hara kiri, cat which cries.
And if the guy speaks to me at present, from the top of his size astonished, well more and more, you had realized there too? , it is that his doors sword-carriers missed me, and that he wonders in which refrigerator I put him. And if he can still count on them.
And then, you remember, THEY awaited me. The thing impresses me. I spoke with nobody about me coming to the bar. But to you… TO YOU… Hey! guys… there would not have a blow of swindles somewhere? …
- I invite you to explain you, Mister the Superintendent.
HE starts to take my immobility badly. Does not have a drum in front of him to make him the return of the sound. Damn. It's a pity that you did not take knowledge of the report on the Dupond case, which was reported under the title of “the swirl” by the writers of the Shin Family. He would have explained you everything on the bloody pernicious dynamics in the system question-answer. You would have perhaps begun to understand the supreme principle of the immobility.
HIM, HE starts to be irritated. You have seen? HE passed in a few minutes from ONE, to US, and now it is I. You see that one can make easily waltz people…
Ok, a small moment and I am with you. There is the large bacon full of beer which did not digest the trashing of yesterday. He seems to want one again. He thinks to make believe that he scrapes the thorny crotch and that in no case I can believe that he is seeking a knife hidden in the top of his cowboy boot. There are idiots. Then, polished as you know me, I pass in front of the well dressed one, sends him a small smile of excuse while passing, like the guy who asks for the permission to go to piss in the smallest room in the house, drives out my legs laterally and at the same time, which you know I have fine and light, I make him meet my heel with his chin. I know well that his thick and oily beard has made shock absorber, but all the same! He fell down on his chair that he had just left, the knife in hand… Still one who believed that he can surprise me. You know, I am not pretentious. But I have sufficiently taken clouts on the mug to know what I am worth.
But by the way! … Is this really Carlos? The guy about which you speak in your diary. The one who adores to frighten, to play the hard guy, to kiss the chicks nearby… The one who bug you. Even to blubber if I have well understood. I did not ask you. I hope that there is not mistaken. Because his jaw has made tilt, with the teeth in premium.
I must say to you that I thought a little of you when I unfolded my leg in “yoko cured”, a super penetrating trick with the hip which swivels and pushes fully. You really have the feeling that it is your belly that you enters into his. It is a little a trick like that which you wanted, if I have understood your literature well?
I will not mess integrally things up in some strides. You really agree that we will make them to perspire? Thus I do not insist when the big Carlos makes exit against the wall. Naturally, my very low position of the shoulders when I have given the blow of shoe in the chin of the guy…Ok!, a normal thing, what! ,… especially fora super lazy as muggins here… what did you want that I make? A smile while the mug of the well-dressed guy passed, with proposal of lollipop? The very normal one, that I say to you.
It is true. He had an unquestionable difficulty to deaden the flight, the well-dressed guy. His head has hurted hard on the corner of the marble table. Must say to his defense! … because remember Steph, for the future, that one should not run down of the guys all the time, is necessary to try to understand the why of the how… that there was a good excuse to behave in such a manner. What did you believe that he could do with an ankle in my hand, and this hand going up towards the head. Could only go backwards. Especially when my other arm passed under his leg in a flight and accompanied him under the knees. Must understand the guy. All is not his fault.
Thus, you see, one looks only at the frontage, the behavior of the guy, his manner of talking, the sounds which he leaves, those which remain blocked… But it is not right, this thing. Must understand him. For example, not to bugg you, believe me…, yes, you! … it is well to you that I speak… YOU, thus, who started to laugh when he made “phew!”, then nothing more at all, slipping of the table after having pissed his blood there… It is true that the red trail on the white marble, that made not clean, I recognize… but, you… yes,YOU… was not necessary to laugh like an idiot. Because the guy, he has not made purposely. His misfortune, tonight, is to have met a guy in my kind. A first class shit-stirrer.You do agree with me?
You got it? If had not hoped to see one day guys like Carlos and the guy dressed in three-piece suit being shooted down like that, believe me, you would be still alive at this hour. And not because you would have resigned of human cleanliness. No… NO, I say to you. No need to gaze blanky at me like a fried whiting which does not find the oil tasty. Must say that it could carry a complaint to the service of competition and prices, which this time, would be used fully and advisedly. You speak! To be made brown with an engine oil of recovery. I believe well that it is a matter of keeling over.
Please, for the moment, does not turn yours, Steph. Ok, while I talk cock to allow you to breathe again, you have seen the why of the how of my question which is not so silly than that, please trust me a little!
Oh, Steph… You are not idiot. Make an effort. I agree to make them perspire for you, but you must help. The minimum, for you in YOUR case, since it is really about this thing, is to know why you died. A minimum. So do not make bastard and prude not as soon as I talk to you. Give up in the case them “me? meeeeee…” Do not make the pipette. Hey, you have well seen that you died because you lived in the future. Eh… Ah! you had not seen? Ok. Well, listen, Steph… let us switch on another subject. I do not want to be responsible for the bumps that you make to you in your coffin. Nor of the tears that you transfer on your satin pillow.
I only wanted to explain you that as soon as you go away from the time and the space of the moment, you are dead. Not always dead, physically. But it is a blow for nothing. A turn of horse-gear without ticket. Hey? , you see a little what I want to tell you? No.
OK. You are right. Let us pass to another thing.
Me, I like the time which passes quiet. Time at natural speed, all in all. What could be more banal. Thus, while talking to you, I put my hands in the pockets of the dressed in three-pieces suit; I went direct right side. It is there that these guys placed their wallet. A crocodile skin pure guarantee. A pretty business card. A legal adviser. A certain Paul TARIN. Office in the l6th. The residence also teaches me the indentity card. Added the age: 36 years. For the sex, I jumped quickly made. I believe to have understood without the paper.
During the tasting of the guys and the excavation, the Jose, he remained quite nice. Like tetanized. He needed the wall not to keel over. If he wants to make receipt in being in the prostitution, would be necessary that he puts himself in the picture and does not turn the nose as soon as a little grape is spread out over the carpet. At least, it is my opinion and I agree with it.
You also, Steph? And then now he suddenly desires to leave us, to throw himself by the door of the nick, to arch his legs as if he had fire at the arse, to open the mouth to shout “ fire… quickly, firemen”, and what is more, the most petty, the very abominable, he does not think of going to pay the boss for the drink which still lies around on the bar. Really very curious, not polite.
Bloody. Guys like that, I do not understand how that can run about the streets. There are really inefficient services of cleaning.
Thus, once more, I must stick my oar in it. Hey, Steph… Why do you laugh?
Is it my fault if while running he has let his legs lying behind him. And while opening the mouth to shout “fire”, he has let his tongue outside. And then, finally! , if he does not know, at his age, finally! , that one does not run like lightning while giving oneself blows of elbow in the body. To be able to crack his coasts! Hey, it is not the believable. You do agree with me. Moreover, the most bugged, it is me. Who will clean?
Ah, it is true. You are right. I had forgotten it, that one, behind her counter. Must say for her defense that she does not take large place. Is not an exuberant of the movement, nor of the screeching. Rather a recluse who is satisfied all alone. At least, it is what I conclude, personal, seing her smile and the wrinkling of the eyes. Especially when they pass and linger on the three-pieces suit.
- What is your name? I tell her while approaching the bar. While pulling Jose by the shoes to let him falling in front of bar. I have thought that to let him across the door, a half on the pavement, especially with his tongue which slipped a little to one meter… that did not make neat. You see well that you can continue to want me for son-in-law. Guys like me, it is now increasingly rare. Clean and all.
Then, you have seen, and you also Steph? as I am a silent.
Come on, how many words that I have said since I entered this bar?
It is to make correct that I talk to her, the chick. My mother of teacher always said to me that one must be discovered when a woman is in the room. And to do everything for her. Because it is a weak creature lost in the jungle of the men and that it is necessary to go straight to help her, even when she asks for nothing. She does not know yet that she is in danger. Quite simply. Thus necessary to pass over. And if one takes the leaf of the door on the conk, to say thank you, because it is an incommensurable richness to receive a slice of bread from a weak woman who is unaware of being weak.
Because if I had not guessed that it is the woman of Tonio, I should have taken quickly holidays to regenerate my understanding. With phosphorus in bulk.
And if I had not understood that she is laughing in large, and that for the moment, but to see later? I do not have to worry for her, and that she will tip me off quickly made, well done, just in point on gas… then, I believe well that it would be this bloke of asiat that I have the condescending kindness to call “Small Father”, to please him because he likes to believe to be my father, therefore, to finish quickly, because I start to find the time long, perhaps you too? , therefore, as I said it to you live, quickly made on gas…
- It is the right-hand man of ZAIMI… The chief of this band of thicks who believes to be the prize pimps… she tells me with the singing and fluid voice of the rogue who smokes three packets of Gitanes without filter per day. You see well that I am gifted to turn the stupidities in kindness. In spite of what the editor who spends his time to moan on my “spelling” tells.
As if it were this thing which had importance. Hey, do you understand me?
Ok, you say. Ok, Steph, do not excite you. What do you believe? That I mess around in useless and idiot discretions. But not at all. Not at all! Perhaps you think that I am not interested in. That the investigation, I make a pig's ear of it. That… And well, I will tell you in private that… and shit! We will not quarrel. Besides, you are right. I do not care of her pieces of gossip. What do you believe that she will deliver me, the rogue? The same thing that I would hear if I were going to do my shopping while pushing the trolley of the super market.
That life is a true disgusting thing; that if she had known she would have followed the advices of her mother, three times married with cuckold farmers; that her varicose veins make her being in agony every night, but that she must go to gain her… grub on the street if she does not want a caress from her pimp in kind of trip hammer, that… All this thing, it is well known. Not interesting.
Neither what she can tell me on the three-pieces guy who starts to open the eye and to be astonished by his incongruous position… nor on his boss.
If you have not understood that I am not a cop like the others! Moreover, nothing to hide you, I am cop at all. I am an assassin. And I roll for you, Steph.
Come on, my guy, Steph… Since I entered this furbished bar, I heard only you laughing. Not vibrating. Not howling. Then? What do you say of it? Hey, Steph. What is the strange carry-on that you hide me? Would your diary be not“entirely “just?
Nor honest. Hey, Steph? You see that I am not a cop like the others. He! STEPH. Do not take off. Do not believe! That does not mean you will be free.
Slaughter
- Come… What do you have? … Hurry up!
The child looked at Bret with terror. He stared at this blocked face, the lips thin and strongly tightened on the teeth, these eyes almost closed which seemed to see everything with a ferocity which frightened him.
- Come, they are coming!
He heard the guards which ran in the street, the one of the door which was moaning on Jose. Did Bret realize that he struck him down with a knock of elbow when he rushed over Jose who left flying on the pavement?
Marc Antoine is afraid of the pale face of hardness in front of him, which looks at everything as if he did not see anything…
” Come “. He takes him by the hand. They have just time to go up the scale… Bret is as a big cat which lets itself be leading. Marc Antoine feels death ready to spout out.
Extract of the Books from the Shin Family.
- I saw Ange passing … concerned and lighter at the
same time. In the shade of the veranda, Hiro, the Chef, turns towards the Roshi, sitting on his cushion, nearby him.
- He starts to make his problem going out, slipped the Master at the night.
- Do you believe that he will succeed?
A few seconds ticked by in silence.
- It is a strong man.., he will prefer to die to be incomplete.
- A death is not used for nothing anymore, Hiro breathes.
- Not him… Him, he will not be used for nothing, if he is not complete.
Hiro meditates on these words. Silence, again, wrappes them.
- His destiny cannot be satisfied with a middle term...
isn't it? The Roshi nods.
- The water of the torrent must join the sea… so that the sea becomes again the water of the torrent.
So the Master the monastery spoke.
− Thus it is t his last stage?
The Master does not answer; it is obvious.
−The Master-cook, who during months, took so many care of this young White, nine years ago already, to bring him back to life when the Master found him almost dead in the forest, has the heart which tightens with hope but also with concern.
- He can always die of it?
- Yes… he can always, answers the Roshi.
- You have well reported, in the writings of the monastery, all our observations on this young White?
- Yes, day after day, Hiro ensures.
The Roshi thinks one moment.
- It will be necessary to keep that very secret… if he dies…
- And if he does not die? asks Hiro.
A smile opens out on the lips of the Roshi, a smile of Buddha. ”
End of the extract from the Book.
He did not want to flee by the roofs. He did not want, it is all. Even if Marc Antoine drew him by the hand, was gripping his arm, panic-stricken of the race which came from the street. They arrived together, the second lookout having informed the others at the back. They could perhaps have fled by there, but Bret did not want, without explanation, the mask hard, almost brutal with the skin drawn on the bones.
Marc Antoine was afraid. He did not know anymore of what, in fact of those who arrived, that he already felt on them, or of HIM, with this head of corpse, pale, of which only the eyes lived although motionless, but with an alarming gleam.
Him, he was frightened!
It was almost a relief when the first arrived, the knife in the fist, the body stretched out in front, scanning the lit room as if he expected to find a slaughter, the unthinkable one! Behind him another silhouette was profiled, then another… Voices which ran up, were questioned with anguish, of that before the fight which can be unsure.
The first one opened the lips in a rictus of spite, like a man sure of what is was doing and who already prepares to give his thrashing to the other and wants to make him knowing that he is already lost. The second giggled and somebody asked what occurred… “ A dropout. Alone…” Sniggers answered.
Marc Antoine released the hand of Bret. He felt that it was necessary to do so, he did not know why. He was not afraid anymore: the irreparable was there! Nothing more to do and he already felt the brutal pressure of the others on his body which he knew was lost.
He released the hand of Bret and moved two steps backwards towards the wall. He did not know why; even not an instinct. That was to be thus! However Bret did not move; He did not push him back. He is motionless, a little stiff, as in a dream with the look in front of him, on the ground.
Marc Antoine wanted to close the eyes, but he could not. He looked at, as if he were in a cinema. However he knew that he was him who was there, him which was going to receive blows which will be fatal. But nothing to do! He could, neither to move back, neither to advance, nor to close the eyes. He did not think of shouting.
And HIM, Bret! … Motionless, like elsewhere, with this face of pale corpse!
The first springs with force, the blade ahead, ready to perforate the side of Bret. A cry of rage and victory left his large open mouth.
It was his very last yell. Death mowed him down on the carotid. However, Bret had moved only one arm, the left, by mowing the wrist, then, gathering the throat by the section of the opened stiffened hand. The second did not understand, tightening too closely the other and the same hand crushed his cervical vertebrae.
Bret had not moved yet; only one arm! He always stared at the ground in front of him with his dead look. Two others remained in front of the door, undecided, the knife and the American fist, slightly curved ahead.
Bret broke his alarming immobility. The eyes which he lifted up made moving back the two men who ran up in the passing of the door. One heard questions, anxious voices.
- Come.
He stretched out the hand to Marc Antoine who approached without thinking. He knew that it had to do it. To do it thus, without anything else. He did not take the hand; he settled at the left side, a half pace behind. He also knew that it had to be thus.
He followed Bret who advanced towards the door. He looked without knowing too much. He saw a strong man in his black leather jacket bending double in a yell then heard a neat noise, like deadwood which one breaks. He passed very near the body on the ground and thought that his neck made a funny angle.
He heard noises, voices which were alerted…
“Carefull… Gustave! … Shit, he has had him! … On the right… Bob! …”
Marc Antoine followed a hot body at a half pace in front of him; it is the only certainty that he had; although one could not call that a certainty! , rather a movement which he could not break, without knowing why.
He felt the metal threshold of the closing of the door under his sole, then the macadam of the pavement. He walked, he knew it… He saw… Movements around, in front of, on the right-side… He felt the wall on the left. There was an odd odor of stone and of wet coating. It seemed to him to feel flowers behind, in the garden which he knew existed. He stepped over a body which twisted, the hands on its belly; it groaned in a little raucous way, as if it could not leave sounds anymore. A red liquid left its open mouth. He perceived a dark silhouette which flew on the right, almost on the level of his shoulder. He felt the contact of cranium of the other with the stone of the wall and his head was painful. He carried the hand to his forehead, in reflex which he found idiotic, just at the place where the red hole widened between the eyes of the man.
- Goes up!
He did not know how he had descended the Avenue and was now in front of the door of the jaguar.
One moment ago, they were other noises, fast steps, in a hurry… Voices which told to each others that the night was fresh and that it was necessary to return because the baby-sitter was to be back home for midnight and that it still had to see her home. He felt the flexible leather under his thighs, but it is especially the odor which says to him that he was saved. Then, he cried. He kept the hands well flat on the knees and felt the presence of the bones below and was astonished by that. A salted taste entered him mouth.
Street Mouftard, he did like Bret; he leant towards the windshield, the head ahead. He followed the look towards the stages of the top. Light was on the third floor. Bret had not left anything lit when he left.
Marc Antoine followed and he did not know why. There was nothing else to do. He did not ask himself. The curious look of a couple when he left the Jaguar… He noted the desire in the eyes, especially that of the man. He was astonished to feel no emotion. He followed the thin silhouette of Bret which circumvented the car by the front and was surprised to think that Stephan had well chosen. He did not know why he thought that suddenly, in this street where people still passed, surely coming from Saint Germain… He thought that it was nice that it does not rain anymore and he did not know either why. The hand flat of Bret pushed him in the staircase, well flat on his kidneys. He felt the hot contact and as for his knees, a moment ago in the car, he was astonished by the so precise contact of the bones, of the articulations. It was as if the things were dissociated… That there was a multitude… He does not know anything anymore.
- Come in… I waited for you… You come with people to eat, she smiles while seeing Marc Antoine who had put himself naturally behind when the door opened.
They entered without a word. He perceived the astonished look that she thrown out towards him when he passed in front of her.
Yoko added a place on the coffee table. Marc Antoine was clumsy with rods between the fingers. She showed him how to hold them and they laughed.
Bret had found his usual eyes, a little mocking and with gaiety at the deep bottom. It is besides them which made people yield in front of him; Marc Antoine realized that currently, him which had just lived the transformation.
He clung to this gaiety.
He liked the meal made of rice and algae with a soya sauce. No the first course, nor of dessert. Nothing, and this “nothing” pleased him. He did not know why but when Bret says that he was going to sleep here, he found that completely normal.
Yoko was alarmed:
− But…the parents… They will worry!
− No.
Bret had spoken categorical and Marc Antoine smiled without still understanding him… He was still astonished of the fluidity which ran in him. Bret was withdrawn. Marc Antoine and Yoko remained very late without speaking to each other. She had the head in the hollow of his shoulder.
The priest
It was the morning. The sky was going to show its sun because it had driven out its clouds. The fresh air slightly coloured the cheeks of the early risers which hurried on the pavements.
“ASK THE FIGARO… the NEWSPAPER WHICH TELLS YOU EVERYTHING ON THE CASE COLA… NEW DEVELOPMENT… THE POLICE FORCE IMPLICATED!!! … ASK…”
He was descended in the street at the small day because he liked that and wanted to live like the other people at the rhythm of the news of the newspaper, since it was like that he had wanted it.
At the boozer of the corner, the life turned around that.
- A tea, please.
He listened, attentive to the vibrations…
- You realize!. The Police force! … What a bitch… I had always said it that it was impossible to close this case without its agreement!
- All rotten swines… Must have a big scheme behind, which will wet high society! …
- And this very special Superintendent! … What is he doing in it! … To make somebody to come from China! … One will not removed of my spirit that…
He red the article in three columns on the first page. Chity did well. A logical development of the current knowledge of the facts, while implying that one awaited others discoveries which could come to change the analysis… He said and covered himself… Good.
The important thing is that he kept in suspense on a future repercussion.
The chief editor had still made his Editorial of it. The implication of the Police force was concretized and was no longer open to misinterpretation. IT WAS ESTABLISHED.
He finished well… “… and the man of the street, the citizen of this country, does not have only the right to know WHO has closed the case! It is an imperative moral requirement which supports its claim that he is ready to carry to the highest level: so, Mister THE PRESIDENT! … WHO gave this order? ”
- You realize! …! He must not run away once more this one!
- Apparently he announces a press conference for this afternoon.
- yes, I heard it on the radio while coming.
- Come on! , he would be well advised!
The sharp air made him good after this confinement in the angle of the bench at the bottom of the boozer. He saw them passing in front of the bar. They ordered a coffee for the majority; some of them started already with a “little glass of white wine, boss!”
The Cola case were on their lips after the handshake or the first hello. It is what he wanted and he went down towards the Seine.
He liked to walk. Also, he crossed the Ile de la Cité, passed the two bridges with muddy water under part because it had had to rain upstream.
He skirted the quays on the other side, quays still wet of the dew of the night. There was few people and he hurried down which relaxed him. It is not that he felt queasy, but him, he could have gone much more quickly to close this case. It was for Steph! He took his time, forcing himself to lounge around, like now, to look at the water running.
The kid was entitled to His Time. He was entitled so that one carries a look at him, a concerned and interrogative look, one of those which really looks for understanding what HE really wanted to tell!
It is for that he unchained the Press. It is for that also that in a moment he was going to move the priest… It is for that… A courageous kid who went at the end of himself, too far, too far… He did not realize.
But he needed so much to be seen seriously! “Can better do! …”
- What can I tell you, my dear Mister? … A kid apparently without problem, alive in an easy environment…
- You do not understand?
- No… I must acknowledge that his death left me…
- He had come towards you, I think?
- Yes… But, you see…
- Yes, I see.
- But what? … I told you nothing yet!
- It is your Superior who asked you to be so…cautious in your words?
- I do not see what you want to say, my brother!
- He spoke to you?
- Yes… I said to you that he…
- He was anxious?
- But… I would like to finish my sentences and…
- Yes, I see… He was boring, wasn't he?
- But, lastly…
- Lastly, he died, wasn't he?
The cook, surely a woman doing everything in the presbytery, came again to fulfill the cups with a coffee smelling strongly the chicory. The priest, named DUJARDIN, one between two ages so much that it was impossible to give him one, had received Bret with a disconcerting ease, immediately very relaxed by this subject which he made a point of handling with lightness… “These newspapers!, you understand”… No more serenity!
- It is well the Bischop who dictates your behaviour, isn't this?
- But ! What are you insinuating….
- Nothing, I notice and say it.
- But… You notice what, at the end?
- That a priest who knows very well a kid who has just died takes that relaxed… Serenity…!
- I do not understand what you insinuate.
- Neither relaxation, nor serenity… Not possible for a priest. His kid, “the one of which he was in "charge of in front of GOD” died either assassinated, or committed suicide. Where do you see “serenity”?
- I…
- You have thus received very precise orders… The Bishop, isn't it ?
- I would not like to continue this conversation in this direction, Mister the Superintendent.
- That does not do anything… You will continue it with the journalists… As all those who make the Law of Silence.
- I would not like you to think that I try to hide something… I want to say quite simply and My Lord is quite conscious of it…
- “My Lord”! … You will remain always the same ones, chickens!
- Sorry! … My Lord believes that…
- You will explain all that to the journalists…
- But in the end, what do you want?
- You! , says Bret with brutality.
- Sorry… I fear not to understand.
- Without importance, Dujardin, priest when he wants… You throw away a kid who came to say to you that one was going to kill him. He died. Hey, according to you, where is the problem ?
- I do not understand.
- It is really the “DIFFICULTY ”.
- But…
- Speak me about the kid, since it is the only thing My Lord has authorized you to tell.
-!!!!!!
- It is all?
- Mister the Superintendent, I could ensure you that the Director of the Police force with whom My Lord maintains cordial relations of good Christians, will be informed without delaying anymore of your unqualifiable processes!
- Do not take this trouble. HE is not any more DIRECTOR of anything before a long time.
- But… What do you say!
- Very simple. ALL THOSE who have touched this case will be very quickly made put on the sidelines unless needing your good offices for a burial.
- But… I do not understand anything to what you say!
- Simple: the case COLA will blow like a bomb because the kid had put the finger on an enormous thing and YOU KNOW THAT!
- Mister… My Lord! …
- He is not there anymore to dictate your answers. Then, I wait… If you want an advertizing, I can ring journalists so that they are present during the meeting.
- I… I do not know anymore about it! You are the Devil!, you mix everything!
- I am the one who looks for the Truth.
The belly already quite rebounded which had difficulty to be hold with the belt of the trousers was agitating. Bret did not want to look at the hands nor at the little oily face of those who eat well and do not have a physical activity. He followed the jumpings of the belly and he felt it ready to crack. He was going soon to give up the fight, to forget “My Lord“. Like each and everyone, it is of his skin that he was going now to think with the fear of the journalists, of the articles… The looks in the street… Especially those of the women… The whispers during the mass. There was already so few people!
- I… he says.
- Yes, Mister the Priest, I say.
The belly had a last sudden start of resistance, then it becomes shapeless.
- He spoke about his family… of his mother especially!
- Ah!
- Nothing precise… As an environment.
- Did he say that she quarrelled with her husband?
- Yes.
- The evening, especially?
- Especially… the night. She cried and came to tell him in his room.
- She remained there?
- I… I think that she asked him to be pushed a little in the bed…
- Come on, that bothers you!
- You know… a child! … The parents do not know how to behave any more nowadays. They always have to find somebody to tell themselves.
- I know something about it!
- How did he take that ?
- Badly, I think… He smothered.
- However, you have warned the parents!
- Yes… For his good!
- Look… Explains Dujardin and well, perhaps priest at his hours.
- Thank you…
- It is what “MY LORD” does not want that you say?
- Yes… I break a promise… My God!
- A kid died, do not forget it!
- Yes… You are right… Not the “Law of Silence”… Not that! My God!
- Then, you write to the parents, isn't it?
- How do you know it?
- Because the “file” got into a muddle on that. The Police chief has badly read again the statement written by his agent. He spoke “about the notes”. Not about only one. Thus, after the teacher, there was another… Logical.
- Yes… I wrote a long letter where I pointed out to them their duties of parents to bring their child in the clarity of the spirit until the adulthood, moment when they will be released from their load by the Good Lord who…
- I see. You reminded them that their stories, they should keep them for them and not to share them with a kid of twelve years.
- Yes, it is quite that… with more…
- More unctuous movements with the hands blessing bottoms with shit.
- I… I would not say that! … In front of Our Good Lord who gave us his son for…
- And the parents asked you to deal with your onions.
- How do you know that?
- Logical… As the mother it is a prize bloody nuisance and that she wants to be on top in front of the others, it is a short note to “My Lord”.
- But you are the Devil!
- No, another think but you cannot understand…Must an order “from the top” to prevent you from saying these thinks to the police officers…
- By delegation, the Good Lord used the ways of My Lord…
Logical.
- Yes… It was initially given to me the order to withdraw what I have said and to calm the child who trusted me… My Lord suggested that these confidences could be done under the seal of the confession. What made their communication impossible…
- But, he did not confess himself, the kid. He spoke to you as you and me are doing it…
- Yes… But perhaps, in his spirit, it was like a confession and in the Law of the Good Lord, which counts it is “the Intention”… My Lord was right, in my opinion, to draw my attention to the subject.
- With the result that the Mother could openly tell all what she wanted and that nobody has the right to contradict her!
- Yes… Especially in front of me… The poor child!
- And, YOU surrounded by other people who were ears wide open, isn't it?
- Alas!
- And by your OBLIGED silence, you validated what was said… according to the principle “who stays silent gives consent “.
- My God! … You cannot know what my suffering was…
- You have heard that one was going to put it in a Reformatory?
- Remand home, it seems to me… The parents…
- One likes to play with the words in your job.
- I do not dare to answer you… You are really right…
- Because it is when you learned his death that you started to ask you… Before, it was just management!
- My God! … You are the Devil!
- Just?
- I… It was horrible! You cannot know the doubts which attacked me!
- Yes… But “not a word”, as the kids say.
- My God, it was horrible… These days to carry these thoughts… It was too heavy!
- And it is there that you opened to “My Lord” who, in good union representative of the Good Lord, told you to stay completely silent.
- You are the Devil!
- Perhaps… or his buddy. Moreover, without wanting to be malicious gossip, I wonder seriously if his company is not worth yours and by far.
- I…
- No, nothing. Do not tell anything. You are too disgusting because it is AFTER that all these things of conscience came.
The BEFORE and the DURING, it is the comfort which counts. I will say to you, Mister the priest Dujardin, you did not care of the kid Cola, even now! What counts, in fact it is the worries that fall on your face because the worst, it is that PEOPLE KNOW! The worst! To be unvealed! The remainder, you do not care…
- My son! …
- Hey, My Father! … Leave this thing to those who enjoy to be conned. I will say to you what one will put in bold in the newspapers “THE LAW OF SILENCE EVEN IN THE MAFIA BISCHOPRIC.!!! …”
I pass the continuation on to you and it serves you right! If you did not have the repercussions of them, you would not care that he died, the STÉPH; as your first nun that you have fuck.
- My son!
- Bye, my Father!
end of the extracts of the Books from the Shin Family
The old man collapsed. His head ran up against the flagstones of the Room.
The moon changed into dirty yellow on the top of the crests.
The night-birds reached their shelters and said the violence which arrived.
The wind pushed in tornado on the glazings of the bay opening on the chasm and broke them.
The noise did not touch the ears of the old man who had lost consciousness.
The fragments of glass scratched his cheeks and blood ran gently.
The fury of the Breath was engulfed in the room.
The Books quivered under its violence.
The one still held by the fingers of the lying old man was torn off from his hand.
A cry opened the mountain which was fractured.
The Monks started and left while running in the courtyard to look at the wall of the mountain which tore.
Heidi precipitated towards the pavilion of the young White.
The bed was empty.