Hubert Aquin - Next Episode

“You know Simenon’s theory? Fascinating, absolutely fascinating. He maintains that Balzac may have been impotent …”

“But that theory has two flaws, dear friend: first, it’s completely unverifiable; and second, it’s inconsistent with the facts. Remember Balzac’s affair with Madame Hanska … That happened right here in Geneva — and not on paper! Their subsequent correspondence contains precise references to their amorous meetings in Geneva …”

“But that’s just it, it was his use of verbal extravaganzas to describe simple meetings that Simenon thought were fishy. Once a man has possessed a woman, he no longer needs to write to her in the persuasive mode. One persuades the woman first …”

“Unless a man has left a woman with child, there’s always room to suspect impotence. It’s a terrible nuisance …”

“I also find it hard to believe that Geneva was harmful to Balzac and that it was in our city that he experienced such a humiliation. It’s nothing to be proud of. As well as the fact that this unfortunate rumour would be bad for tourism …”

There was a burst of laughter at the other table while I rested from my mad race by gazing at the inert space of the lake, waiting to kill the time of a man of whom all I knew was his ability to change identities. What wonderful moments I spent on that terrace, waiting for one of my numerous neighbours to get up and go to the blue Opel parked along the Quai du Général-Guisan. Geneva struck me as the pleasantest spot in the world for a terrorist to wait for the man he’s going to kill. Antechamber of revolution and anarchy, the ancient city constricted by the Rhône enchanted me because of its sweetness, its nocturnal calm, and its lights reflected in the lake. I felt great, even wonderful. My thoughts were flying off in every direction.

I could see Balzac sitting where I was seated as he dreamed up the Story of the Thirteen , ecstatically imagining an elusive and pure Ferragus, conferring on the fictitious übermensch the powers that, according to my nameless neighbours, had been cruelly lacking in the novelist himself. The triumphal potency of Ferragus avenged his own shameful debacle, and the virile action that lit up those blazing pages stood in for acts that had not taken place in a melancholy bed in the Hôtel d’Arc or somewhere else. Ferragus haunted me that evening in this city that had treated the novelist badly; Balzac’s fictitious and enigmatic avenger slowly entered me, inhabiting me as a secret society might infiltrate a corrupt city, transforming it into a citadel. The shadow of the great Ferragus shielded me, his blood injected an inflammable substance into my veins: I too was ready to avenge Balzac no matter what by draping myself in his character’s black cape.

I was ready to strike, impatient even, when I saw two silhouettes cross the street and go up to the blue Opel parked across from the lake. In the time it took me to drop a few Swiss francs on the table, H. de Heutz had opened the Opel’s door. I was at the wheel of my Volvo and I’d started it when H. de Heutz’s car began to move rather slowly along the Quai du Général-Guisan. Despite the distance I kept between the Opel and me, I saw that there was a woman with him. The road H. de Heutz took was fairly complicated, travelling along nearly deserted streets that posed problems of discretion for me; finally he parked on Place Simon-Goulart, which fortunately I was familiar with, so I was able to park unnoticed. From a distance I saw him get out of the car with the woman; they started slowly along the sidewalk, arm in arm, heading for the Quai des Bergues. I followed them, careful not to attract their attention. In any case, my dear expert on Scipio Africanus wasn’t behaving like a hunted man. I was unsure what to make of the woman whose arm he was holding, nor did I know how to put her inside the parentheses of zero hour. I was still thinking about it when events compelled me to linger unwisely over the movements of the clocks displayed in every shop window. Then, at the corner of rue du Mont-Blanc, the woman disappeared as if by magic, making me realize that her departure was even more puzzling than her cumbersome presence; H. de Heutz continued strolling, his pace more agile now. In fact, he was going much too quickly for me. I found it hard to follow him without adopting his hurried rhythm and thus attracting attention.

I’d have been better off staying in the Volvo and tailing him in peace. Too late now to retrace my steps. There was something unrealistic, insane about this nighttime stroll. H. de Heutz and I were proceeding towards the Carouge neighbourhood, once a refuge for Russian revolutionaries, almost at a run. H. de Heutz was leading me despite myself into the river of the great revolution. And while I was dreaming of the famous exiles who had roamed the narrow, desperate streets of Carouge long before us, just when I least expected it, I took a blow on my back and another, harder one on my neck. A crack developed in the Geneva night, and I felt I was being manipulated by a great many skilful hands.

THE ROOM I was in was magnificent: three big French windows opened onto a charming garden, and at the very end of the landscape, a shimmering surface that made me think I was still in Switzerland, in a salon, what’s more — and what a salon! I was fascinated by the large armoire with its marquetry angel figures, wood on wood. Perfectly stunning. Mechanically, I asked:

“Where am I?”

“At the chateau.”

“Which chateau?”

“The chateau of Versailles, idiot.”

“Ah …”

Little by little I was emerging from a comatose sleep and at the same time becoming aware of a throbbing pain in the back of my neck, which immediately drove away the amnesia from which I’d been suffering. I realized that the night was over. Twenty-four hours had elapsed since dawn in the Hôtel d’Angleterre. I was lost, truly lost and — this I realized when I made an automatic move — unarmed.

“So your mind is working again?”

The man stood facing me with his back to the light so that I couldn’t make out his face. But I realized that he knew what he was talking about and that if I wanted to have a useful exchange with him, I’d better get my wits back as quickly as possible.

“I’d like a glass of water …”

“Here there is nothing to drink but champagne … So we’re playing spy, are we? Wandering around at night with a gun, pursuing honest taxpaying citizens who have all their papers in order? What a disgrace for Switzerland.”

“I think there’s been a misunderstanding.”

“If that’s so, you’d better start explaining …”

I had to be quick and confident or I’d never be able to pull myself out of this faux pas. I needed to think up a quick retort, and since I no longer had a weapon to draw, I’d have to empty my dialectical magazine on this stranger who was standing between me and the daylight. Alas, the seconds of silence that were mounting up restored neither my reflexes nor my presence of mind. My speech was still slurred and I couldn’t even reason clearly in the hope of resuming control of the situation. Right now I can’t even whisper to my double the formulaic remarks that would get him out of this jam. The other man’s para-helical silhouette is blocking me; outrageously, he fills the entire landscape where I dream confusedly of running along streams to the enchanting lake. I’m paralyzed by something that resembles a thrombosis; and I can’t take myself out of the national catatonia that has me frozen here on a Louis xv armchair — or maybe it’s Regency — before a placid stranger who doesn’t even know what I’m doing in his life, whereas I, who know all too well, have to silence him and above all, yes, above all, and as soon as possible, come up with another explanation, improvise on the spot a scenario that will get me out of this place …