Don Winslow: Satori

“The doctor said that I could do it,” Solange said.

“Now?” Nicholai asked.

“If you wish.”

Nicholai shrugged. It would be nice to have the bandages off, certainly, but he wasn’t really all that curious about his face. He had sat in solitary confinement for those years, where it really didn’t matter what one looked like – there was no one there to react except the guards.

But suddenly he felt a twinge of anxiety, which surprised and displeased him. Suddenly it did matter to him what he looked like, and he realized that it was because of her.

I care what she thinks, he marveled to himself. I’m afraid of how she’ll react when the bandages come off and I am still ugly. He didn’t know that such feelings still resided in him.

Remarkable, he thought.

“I’m ready,” Nicholai said.

They went into the bathroom. She sat him down on a stool in front of the mirror, stood behind him, and gently unwrapped the bandages.

He was beautiful.

There is no other word for it, Solange thought. He is a beautiful man. His emerald green eyes stood out now against the high, sharp cheekbones. His long jaw was strong, his dimpled chin cute without being at all effeminate. And he was youthful-looking – far younger than his twenty-six years, even with all he’d been through.

“Bravo, Doctor,” Solange said. “Are you pleased?”

I’m relieved, Nicholai thought, seeing the smile on her face. She would have feigned the smile in any case, but he was relieved that the surgeon’s apparent skill had saved them both that indignity. He said, “I’m not sure that I recognize myself.”

“You are very handsome.”

“You think so?”

“Listen to you, fishing for a compliment,” Solange said. “Yes, I think so. You are very handsome. But now you make me feel so old.”

“You’re beautiful and you know it.”

“But fading,” she says. “Perhaps I should go see this doctor…”

HAVERFORD CAME that afternoon.

He inspected Nicholai’s face as if it were a product to be testmarketed and then pronounced it satisfactory. “He did a good job.”

“I’m pleased that you’re pleased,” Nicholai answered.

They sat down in the dining room. Haverford spread a file out on the table and without preamble began, “You are Michel Guibert, twenty-six years old, born in Montpellier, France. When you were ten years old your family moved to Hong Kong to pursue your father’s import-export business. You survived the Japanese occupation because your family were residents of Vichy France and therefore at peace with the Axis powers. By the time the war ended you were old enough to go into the family business.”

“Which was?”

“Arms,” Haverford said. “La famille Guibert has been in the weapons black market since the ball-and-musket era.”

“Is there an actual Guibert family,” Nicholai asked, “or is this a total fiction?”

“Papa Guibert is quite real,” Haverford answered.

“And does he have a son?”

“He did,” Haverford answered.

He spread out photographs of what certainly could have been a young Nicholai happily playing in a Chinese courtyard, helping the cooks, smiling over a birthday cake. “Sadly, Michel was in a terrible car crash. Disfiguring, I’m told. Requiring massive reconstructive surgery. He looks somewhat like his old self.”

“Did you arrange for this ‘accident’.?” Nicholai asked.

“No,” answered Haverford. “My God, do you think we’re monsters?”

“Mmmmmm… The mother?”

“She died just recently. You were very torn up about it.”

“You amaze and appall me,” Nicholai said.

“You’ve matured quite a bit,” Haverford continued. “You used to have quite the reputation as a gambler and ladies’ man and Papa banished you back to France for the last three years. You blew a shitload of the family’s money at Monaco, repented of your profligate ways, and have returned to redeem yourself.”

“How so?” Nicholai asked.

“You don’t need to know yet,” Haverford answered. “Study the file. Solange will help quiz you on the details. When you’re thoroughly conversant with your new past, I’ll brief you on your new future.”

My “new future,” Nicholai thought. What a uniquely American concept, perfect in its naïve optimism. Only the Americans could have a “new” future, as opposed to an “old” one.

“Now we need to take some photos,” Haverford said.

“Why?”

Because they were assembling a file on Guibert, explained Haverford. No one in the arms trade would go very long in this day and age without acquiring a jacket in every major intelligence service in the game. The photos would be placed in CIA, Deuxième Bureau, and MI-6 files, then leaked to the Chinese through moles. Photos of Michel Guibert would be inserted into old Kuomintang police files that the Reds were currently sifting through. The “wizards in the lab” would make Guibert appear on streets in Kowloon, casinos in Monaco, and the docks of Marseille.

“By the time we’re done,” Haverford chirped, “you’ll believe you’re Michel Guibert and that you sat out the war in Hong Kong. As a matter of fact, from now on you answer to ‘Michel’ and only Michel. Not ‘Nicholai.’ Got it, Michel?”

“As difficult a concept as that might be,” Nicholai answered, “I believe I have a grasp of it, yes.”

Solange came back into the room carrying a stack of clothes that she draped over the back of a chair. “Your new wardrobe, Michel. Très chic .”

She went back out to get more.

Nicholai examined the clothes, which appeared to be secondhand. Of course they were, he thought. It makes perfect sense – when you step into someone’s life, you step into his clothes, and those clothes would be worn, not new. He examined the labels. Some of the older clothes were from a tailor in Kowloon, but most were French, and mostly from expensive-sounding shops in Marseille. A few of the shirts and two of the suits came from Monaco. All of them were expensive and of lightweight fabrics – silk and cotton. There were several pairs of twill khaki trousers, pleated, of course. It seemed that Michel favored white and khaki suits with colorful shirts and no ties.

And the clothes smelled – of sweat, tobacco, and cologne. You have to give the devil his due, Nicholai thought. Haverford had been nothing if not thorough.

Solange returned with more clothes, stood with the tip of her index finger to her lips and contemplated the wardrobe and Nicholai. “Let me see, what shall you wear for the first shot? It is set in Hong Kong, no?” Her serious concentration on this make-believe was quite charming. She selected a shirt, put it back, chose another, and matched it with a suit. “This, yes? Oui-parfait. ”

She handed the selections to Nicholai and ordered him to go change. When he came back from the bedroom dressed as Michel, Haverford had a camera ready. They went out in the garden to get a “blurred, outdoor” background. In what became a painfully tedious afternoon for Nicholai, they repeated this process numerous times, Solange having a wonderful time, however, selecting Michel’s ensembles.

“That was excruciating,” Nicholai said after Haverford finally left.

“It was fun,” Solange answered. “I love fashion, and Michel has a sense, no?”

“You chose all those clothes, didn’t you?”

“Of course,” she said. “You don’t think I’d let them dress you out of fashion, do you?”

After a dinner of suprêmes de poulet à l’estragon with green beans à la provençale, a dessert of tarte aux poires et à la frangipane, and the requisite espresso, cognac, and cigarette, Nicholai studied the Guibert file. The fiction was impressive in its volume and detail, but Nicholai had no trouble memorizing apparently important trivia such as which tabac Michel favored in Montpellier, his father’s choice in whiskey, or his mother’s maiden name. His mind crammed with such detail, he changed into his gi, went to the garden to perform his kata, bathed, and went to bed.