Salim Bachi - Paris Noir

Big Brother was playing tour guide, pointing to the façade of one of the most famous universities in the world. As for Rachid, he was watching the female students who were coming out of their last classes of the day.

Night had fallen and only the cafés around the Sorbonne lit up the square where these long-haired enigmas were walking by. They intrigued Rachid.

Blondes, brunettes, redheads, tall ones, small ones, some wrapped up in warm clothes, some undressed in spite of the cold or because of the cold, with pink cheeks — they flashed by, their legs like rockets, flashed by like mercury to catch their bus, or to get swallowed up by the Metro, to disappear forever from the face of the earth for at least one night; for the next day, with the first gleam of light, these early-blooming bouquets would swing into motion again, stems in the morning wind.

Rachid was beginning to have a poetic soul. Was he getting all emotional from the contact with Paris, the City of Lights? Were Big Brother’s lectures beginning to bear fruit?

As for Big Brother, he didn’t give a shit about women, cared for them about as much as his first VD, which he got at fifteen from the wife of the super of his building, avid for youth and exoticism. Since then he’d had no time to waste on all that. He didn’t even have the means to do it anymore.

They stationed themselves in front of the first building on rue Gay-Lussac at the corner of boulevard Saint-Michel. Big Brother played the keyboard of the access code box, the big door opened, and they moved into the lobby. A friend in the post office who owed him one had given him the code. Life is hard for those men of letters and a little white powder livens up the deadest days. And then, everybody knows a mailman’s salary doesn’t cover the needs of a runny nose and a brain above it in withdrawal.

The superintendent wouldn’t be in, his cokehead friend had assured him. And it was true.

Big Brother looked up a few names on the mailboxes. He pushed a button on the intercom and waited. Nothing. They shouldn’t hang around too long, he knew. He tried another name. Silence. Then a crackle. He heard a sleepy, slow Yes , no doubt the voice of an old woman.

“Package for you, madame.”

“At this late hour?” said a suspicious voice.

“You are Madame Hauvet, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Special delivery, madame.”

“Fourth floor, first door on the left.”

The glass door gave out a shrill sound and opened.

They took the ancient cherrywood elevator. A little seat was folded up against one of the walls. There was hardly any room for Rachid and him. They hoped nobody had called the elevator on the second or third floor. It had already happened once. Big Brother had to look at his shoes without saying a word for a few seconds which seemed like centuries.

The car rose, then stopped at their floor. Nobody else had called it.

A second miracle was waiting for them on the landing: The door to the apartment had been opened for them.

What was the point of all those armored doors, codes, intercoms with cameras, if you let your guard down at the last minute, when the danger was at its height?

They walked into the apartment and closed the door behind them without a sound. They heard the old lady asking them to put the package on the table and leave.

Big Brother and Rachid did not have a package to put on the console table with a Carrera marble top. They weren’t about to leave the apartment either. Instead, they walked down the long hallway and entered a huge living room, to the great displeasure of the lady; her snow-white, carefully waved hair undoubtedly displayed the finest art of a very chic hairdresser.

“Ah, you probably want a little something?”

The woman got up, lifted her bag, and took out a purse. She opened it in front of them without noticing that they were not dressed like delivery men. She pulled out a five-euro bill and handed it to Rachid. He seemed the most approachable, perhaps because of his youth.

“We don’t want a tip,” said Big Brother, walking toward her. “We don’t want your charity.”

The voice that had uttered these words was sinister. The old lady realized this and her mouth opened wide.

“Whatever you do, madame, don’t scream.”

He showed her his hands and closed them in an oddly gentle way, as if they were already squeezing the woman’s neck. Then he motioned to Rachid, who walked over to their prey and began unwinding the string they’d bought in the Everything One Euro store a little further down the boulevard. He tied her hands behind her back, laid her out on the couch, and then tied her ankles together. They did not gag her.

“If you yell, you’re dead, you get me?”

The woman nodded, her mouth open and empty. Something couldn’t get through, the words remained stuck in her throat.

Big Brother walked out of the living room to explore the rest of the apartment. He went into a big kitchen and walked over to the counter. He opened a drawer and took out a large knife. Then he headed to the end of the hall, opening all the bedroom doors. In one of them, in the back, near the bathroom, he made a discovery that seemed to him, all things considered, rather natural. He came back to the living room and spoke to Rachid in a low voice.

It was Rachid’s turn to go out. He crossed the hallway, passed by the kitchen, saw a second living room full of ugly vases and statuettes, then walked into the bedroom darkened by royal-blue cloth covering the walls. His eyes had to get accustomed to the lack of light to finally understand why he had to be there.

At the same time, Big Brother was pacing up and down the huge room with the knife in his hand, examining the paintings on the walls, the little Native American figurines, and even a Berber vase he picked up from its stand.

“That comes from Algeria,” said the quavering voice. “You can take it if you like. I’ll give it to you. It’s my father... You know, he loved that country. We had property over there.”

Big Brother put the vase down and walked up to the paintings.

“Jean Dubuffet,” he said, pointing to a portrait; it was highly simplified, almost mad — broken lines traced by a child of genius.

“You can take that too, you can take everything.”

Madame Hauvet was getting more and more restless on her couch. She was coming back to life. She thought she had identified a ransom. Everything would be all right again soon. He would take the painting and go away with his horrible sidekick. Perhaps she would offer him a few trinkets and it would all be over with.

“It’s fine right where it is,” Big Brother answered. “I won’t touch it. These works have a soul, madame. They belong to no one. They should be in a museum. And museums should be free.”

She didn’t understand: These drawings belonged to her and she could wipe herself with them if she wanted to. Her ransom had been devalued by those stupid words. These guys were total morons!

“You see, madame, I was sent to Yugoslavia during the war.”

“Oh! It must have been frightful,” she said, feigning great compassion. “You must have suffered a great deal.”

“Me? Oh no, don’t worry. But the Bosnian farmers, yes. They suffered a great deal, as you say.”

He stopped talking for a moment.

“Have you read Dante, madame?”

“When I was young. How boring!”

“Too bad,” he said, very curtly.

She was sorry she’d given her opinion about Dante. She had almost forgotten she was at their mercy. At his mercy. He terrified her. He was not like the others. Not like the ones you see on TV. The ones who had burned cars for two months. Those people were far from her world, far from her. This one was getting too close to be harmless, like the sun to the earth. He was in her home! In her home, my God! She’d been so dumb she felt like crying.