Salim Bachi - Paris Noir

The cop puts on round glasses, a white smock complete with a stethoscope in the breast pocket, and hides a combat knife at his back, stuck inside his belt. The woman at the desk is not from Africa. She stops reading muck about stars in Voici .

“Doctor Granger. I’m in charge of Vania, the young woman you placed in intensive care.”

“She’s been transferred. She’s in a private room now.”

“I’m so happy. Doctor Varant told me I could come by and visit her this evening. Is that okay?”

“Certainly, doctor, but I don’t have anyone to take you there. She’s in room 24, on the second floor. Will you be able to find your way?”

“No problem.”

The second floor is drowsy. In front of room 24, Lhostis grabs his knife, holds it tight inside his arm, opens the door.

Vania is lying in the dark. All wrapped up in bandages. Her mouth is free but her eyes are closed. The cop moves slowly forward, slipping the weapon into his hand.

Keller’s Tokarev goes plok and its slug rips the policeman’s left eye out. A splash of blood, the body sinks down. The chauffeur takes two leaps forward, catches the cop, and drags him to the sink. What he sees there under the light satisfies him. He filches Lhostis’s wallet, then draws near Vania. He turns on a lamp that casts a subdued light. She’s not asleep. Leaning over her, he runs his finger lightly across her lips. That mouth lets out a murmur.

“Keller... take me away.”

The chauffeur nods, puts his gun away, and lifts the fragile body up in his arms. The rain has stopped, the scenery behind the window stands out sharply.

Keller knows an island far away, east of Sweden.

It rains all the time there and fish are a staple. For now, that will do.

Ménilmontant

It’s the last thing Luc said to me on his way out: “Don’t be stupid, Sonia, take your pills.” I nodded. I should have started my medication again but I thought I was stable and I was sick of gulping down all that shit every day. Outside, along our windows, the first hyacinths were cutting through the soil in their ceramic pots. We went out in the courtyard and I felt a surge of affection for the two cherry trees that were dying in front of the concierge’s apartment and for the grass blades pushing their chlorophyll between the lopsided cobblestones. Even the faded look of the façades, I liked.

“Don’t worry,” I said.

He hugged me, or more exactly, I hugged him. That’s how we were, us two. An inverted couple. I was taller, heavier. Luc had nothing athletic about him, and I had been a swimming champ as a teenager. Eighteen years later, I still had biceps, shoulders, and thighs to show for it. I think this is what Luc had liked: the masculine side of me. But that day, everything was over. Luc was leaving to face another opponent. We kissed on the cheek.

I watched him go. I knew I wouldn’t take the time to get used to someone else again. Too much work, no more patience. As for Luc, he had started a new slalom without even bothering to train for it. So between the two of us, I was the one who smiled the most. Luc knew that by leaving he was doing a bigger favor for me than for himself. Which didn’t prevent him from feeling guilty. That almost pained me.

He stepped outside the courtyard gate. I pictured him climbing into the overloaded van. He was probably feeling remorseful at that moment: He hated material problems. The inconvenience of moving was going to destabilize him for a long time.

I went back to my Greek salad dressing; I added some lemon and a pinch of ground oregano. I tasted it. Not bad. I entered the recipe, list of ingredients, and all the numbered steps into the computer. I named that banal escarole-tomato-feta-black olives salad G reek Summer Salad . As with everything else, a new title is enough to make an old recipe sound fresh.

Looking out the window, I saw that the cobblestones in the courtyard were less dark, the day brighter than during the previous weeks. Spring was on its way. I felt a kind of exhilaration, suddenly convinced that freedom and spring could be a beautiful wedding celebration if I wanted.

I had not decided to call Jérôme. I’m fine, thanks! Despite what Luc says, I’m polite, especially with my clients, and Jérôme happened to be my main one: I created most of the recipes for his magazine, Foodgourmet . Swamped as usual, more than usual even, he was negotiating the sale of a Chinese edition of his magazine to a publishing conglomerate in Shanghai, and given that he was capable of selling his soul cut up in little pieces to decorate key chains, he was going berserk. One billion three hundred million potential clients. Even a thousandth of that godsend would have been a fortune.

I knew right away he was asking for a favor. It took me longer to understand what kind: For the last three days, he had been playing guide to a Chinese man. Devotedly, and for a good reason: He was the cousin of the guy he was dealing with in Shanghai! But now, honestly, it’s too much. Could you possibly take charge of this burden until 9 p.m. tonight in Orly when the cumbersome character flies off to Milan? He gave me one of his I’ll make it up to you, the future of the company is at stake, or, I’m so overwhelmed by work, I’ll pay you the equivalent of three recipes, you can’t say no . I said no, I couldn’t say no.

Besides, taking a Chinese tourist around the capital wasn’t worse than tinkering with recipes from photographs: If you used your imagination this could pass as a tomato, that as a Béarnaise sauce, and the whole thing as a slice of calf’s head. Because that was exactly what my job had become: I looked at totally lame pictures of totally lame dishes and concocted plausible recipes from them. To tell the truth, you ended up losing your appetite, even me, and I do love to eat.

Without this new turn of events, I would have e-mailed him my autopsy of a salad and stayed home; so I printed my page without any qualms, all excited to go out and look spring straight in the eye.

I saw him right away as I was stepping into the offices of Foodgourmet. What a shock! My Chinese guy stood out against a lovely light and the greenery cascading down the slopes of the Parc de Belleville. In the background, misty Paris bowed down before such beauty, golden skin and turned-up lips, a true piece of China to which amber tea would have given the color of brown sugar. This is when I knew I should have taken my pills. I was losing it. And yet I wasn’t really attracted to Asian men. Too smooth, not sexy at all. There was a kind of eunuch quality about them, I thought, although I had never checked the facts. I probably associated them with the servants in the imperial court of China, castrated so His Highness wouldn’t have rivals under his roof. In short, I had no use for Chinese men. No, it was hoodlums who gave me my thrill: hairy hunks who fill out their shirtsleeves, display shoulders broad enough for two, thick arms and large, rugged hands, surly men who wheedle you into the underbrush with their tenor voices... But on that day, all of my prejudices evaporated. I would have needed heavy medication to restore my judgment which had quickly gone down the drain.

All melted, my legs like cotton, my heart sunk between my thighs and raging as if inside a nest of red ants, I had a hard time resisting the temptation to jump on him and eat him up alive, and yet I hadn’t raped anyone in years.

This fellow smelled of strawberries, the kind you find in woods, not in supermarkets; it activated my saliva like crazy, a sign that I hadn’t completely lost my appetite. His perfect lips flashed me an irresistible smile. The scoundrel wasn’t scared: He had no idea of the risks he was running.