Dominique Manotti: Affairs of State

Bornand wakes up in a daze. Blood spurting in the telephone booth, strangers, their faces pressed to the glass, staring at him in curiosity, revulsion? He’s covered in blood . He gets up with difficulty, picks up a pretty Chinese lacquer box from the table behind the sofa and snorts two pinches of cocaine. Lies down again and breathes slowly, his eyes closed.

Dead. A man of around forty, who looks like an ordinary kind of man, a primary school teacher, three streets away from the Michel’s place, and a Communist before the war. ‘A man who supports the Resistance,’ said Michel. Five of them lay in wait for him, with coshes, under a porch on a street corner. In broad daylight. When he came out, they jumped on him. Bornand got him in the shoulder, he fell to his knees, more blows and he keeled over exposing the nape of his neck, and Bornand struck. A sound of snapping wood and the Communist’s body lay motionless on the ground. A few more kicks, to let off steam. Intense. No comparison with Flandin’s abstract murder. They return, accomplices and victors both. Then Thomas locks him in his bedroom. End of story.

He has always been attracted by killers. Flashback to Moricet walking through the streets of Beirut, his gun wedged into his belt in the small of his back, under his elegantly cut jacket. Killers with class. Even Cecchi … A lot of deaths recently. Karim … hardly a murder, more a vanishing shadow. Flandin, Cecchi … Cecchi whose corpse flashes into his mind, half his face blown away, on the pavement outside the Perroquet Bleu …

No doubt a gangland killing, even if I let Mado think I believe the Intelligence Service had him killed. In any case, his death came at an opportune moment, ridding me of a burdensome ally. I have to admit that in the end he had me completely at his mercy. This murder is a stroke of luck. Of course.

He gets up and sits down on the sofa, runs his hand through his hair and smoothes his moustache. The President also has his family secrets, and is very keen for them to remain secret. I am the man who knows. He can’t manage without me. I just need to lie low for a few days at my wife’s house, and I’ll be back.

He gets up and goes into the bathroom. A freezing shower and a handful of amphetamines to keep himself awake.

What do I do with Françoise? When she came to my place, the first time, blackmail and seduction, a real gift out of the blue. I fucked her and flaunted her. So, incest, it’s just a word. You get used to it, you get bored, as with everything else. Don’t want to fuck any more. Flashback to the blonde fury, the other day. I’m losing her. Almost relieved to leave her without a confrontation. When things have calmed down, I’ll set her up in a furnished apartment with an allowance. She’ll understand. She has no choice.

He gets into his Porsche, and drives alongside the Seine towards the west of Paris.

He is tailed by two cars from Intelligence. Departure 05.07. Erratic driving. Pont de Sèvres, 05.30, then he takes the N118. All good, he’s on his way. He accelerates suddenly, they lose him. Presumably he’s heading for Saumur, we’ll take the A10 motorway . Back on Bornand’s trail at the first service station. He fills up. The car is parked in front of the shop. Bornand buys razors, shaving foam. He goes into the toilets and shuts himself in a stall. Makes himself vomit. Then, standing bare-chested at the washbasins, he splashes himself with water, washes his face, rinses out his mouth and has a shave. Peering into the mirror, he is tense and on his guard. He trims his moustache with the razor and combs his hair. He goes into the shop, eats a sandwich, drinks three coffees, swallows two pills and gets back onto the motorway at 06.15. He drives at a steady, moderate speed. They have no difficulty keeping him in sight.

Another stop at Le Mans, where he calls his wife to announce his arrival. It is 07.45.

This is the chance Macquart’s been waiting for.

‘Ghozali, go and see Françoise Michel. She knows about Bornand’s business deals, we had proof of that in Geneva. Find a way of getting her to tell you all she knows. Woman to woman … I’m counting on you …’

He leaves the words hanging in the air.

On reaching the outskirts of Saumur, Bornand vaguely remembers having been there before when his wife bought the estate, but he gets lost. He asks the way, crosses the whole centre of Saumur, follows the Loire, drives up along the cliff and takes a dirt road between two big paddocks where the horses graze. At 08.50 he parks his car in a gravelled courtyard in front of a small eighteenth-century manor house built of white limestone with a blue slate roof. The front door opens into a hall that runs through the house and leads out via a French window to the terrace and the grounds. A man in his forties wearing brown velvet trousers and a heavy beige polo-neck sweater, greets him.

‘Madame Bornand is finishing off her inspection of the stables.’

Madame Bornand. He knew, of course, that she had kept her married name, but hearing it, today and in this house …

‘I’ll wait for her.’

He is shown into a sort of parlour, a small room adjoining the kitchen, all in white limestone, with a chequered white stone and slate floor, a tall narrow fireplace where a log fire burns lazily, a worn leather armchair in front of the fire, a big oak farmhouse table and a few straw-bottomed chairs. In a corner near the fireplace is a coat rack heaped with old raincoats, hats and leather chaps. There’s a smell of wet earth and horses. He goes over to the French window. In front of him is the end of the terrace, then a vast tree-fringed manicured lawn stretching down to the stables below. He puts a log on the fire, pokes it, then returns to the window. Facing him is a sandy avenue leading directly to the far end of the estate. She’ll come up this path to meet him. His mind goes back to an image of himself standing in the chancel of the church of Saint-Pierre-de-Chaillot, aged twenty-four, wearing morning dress. The church is packed out, there are probably hymns and organ music, but he can’t hear anything. He stares at the red carpet stretching straight ahead of him to the open porch, and in the pool of light, a couple is walking towards him. Thomas, a dashing fifty-something, very slim in his grey morning coat, his daughter on his arm, in her wedding dress, slowly approaching. Thomas watches him intently, only him, smiling. He stops in front of him, places his hand on his shoulder, Bornand closes his eyes. When he opens them again, the girl is now alone beside him, her face concealed by the white tulle veil. What did she look like that day? Impossible to remember. And today, what will she look like? A woman without a face.

He shudders. Nothing stirs in the park outside. He goes back to the fire and sinks into the armchair, resting the back of his neck against the leather, his eyes half closed. A few images, the moving curve of a very long, pear-shaped breast, dense pubic hair, the warmth of an armpit, but no face. From the catalogue of his mistresses, not a single face emerges. Even that of Françoise, always overcast by the ghost of her adolescent mother’s face, is hazy, uncertain. For me, women have been no more than territories where I’ve met men, men with whom I’ve made peace or war, men whom I’ve loved or fought, which amounts to the same thing , he thinks half dreaming.

Christine Bornand comes in through the kitchen door. He jumps. He must have dozed off. He looks at her with curiosity. Not very tall, a bit plump, a lively woman with short, curly chestnut hair, hazel eyes and chubby cheeks, pink from the cold. She’s about the same age as me and not a wrinkle . He gets to his feet, she gives him a cold stare, then begins to remove her anorak and leather chaps. The man who showed Bornand in brings a tray from the kitchen with two china cups, a big coffee pot and a basket full of little pastries, puts it down on the table and leaves the room. Christine Bornand sits down and motions him to do likewise.