The Guard (22 page)

178

How can he possibly not smell me? I've been following him for two hours now. I don't stink any less than him.

Does the pungency of walnut keep all other smells at bay?

I find it hard to believe he hasn't noticed anything. Sometimes I come very close to him, but not once does Harry stop for more than a few seconds to smell or listen.

Is he leading me somewhere?

Is he laughing to himself as his Flock comes down on the ground with yet another click?

179

It happens in a room filled with moonlight. In one continuous movement he goes from creeping to raising his pelvis, kneeling on
his left knee, bringing his other leg forward under his body, putting his foot flat on the ground and pushing himself up with his hands on his thigh. I expect him to speak to me and half raise my body, as if I'm ashamed at having followed him in silence, my partner, him and me at the same post together for so long. I kneel behind him and off to one side in the doorway of the study Harry is ignoring: he looks out of the window at the city deep below us. I see the moon shining through his beard, casting a glow around his head, and him staying motionless as if he's not really looking, not really seeing anything, just staring into the night in a dream. His Flock hangs in his hand beside his upper leg, index finger curled around the trigger. Now that we're no longer hugging the ground, the distance between us is ridiculous, just four or five steps. I see him blink. Once. A man who is calm and has himself under control, the master of the situation, certain of what will come next. I look a fool here on my knees. Is that why he keeps looking out, to give me time to stand up? Is he allowing me time to compose myself after this shameless pursuit over several long hours, letting me assume a pose worthy of a guard? Or is he giving me time to think about how he has got me into this position: on my knees high in the building, trapped? Is he glowing on the inside, glorying in his advantage? Is he telling me through his silence, by making a show of not turning around: Look at yourself. Here I am, Harry, in the uniform that's made for me, cap perched on my head the way it's supposed to be, headed for the elite, where I belong, and there you are, Michel, been to university and all, down on your knees like a mangy, desperate beggar. I should finish you off like this, without turning around.

A flick of his eyelashes ripples the hush, after which I feel like I detect a different expression around his eye, as if he's on the point of breaking into a regretful smile or shaking his head disbelievingly. Is he thinking back on the past few days? Is he thinking back on them as if none of it happened to him, but to a different Harry, a Harry he doesn't know as well as he'd always thought? Is he surprised by that Harry? Is he thinking, how could I have been so completely wrong about someone? Or is Harry surprised at
having stood on his feet for two full seconds without firing? Why wait any longer? Is there a word? Is there a word in the air in this study, ready to be spoken in the one correct tone, just a moment from now, a word that will defuse the situation, making space for a safe continuation, a second word that will introduce a third, a sentence that will end in a laugh? It must exist, if we both think hard enough. But maybe Harry's not thinking about anything in particular. Maybe he's looking out of the window and thinking I'm dead, and letting his thoughts wander wistfully through the past and the basement, set off by the moonlight, turning over distant memories and thinking: Back onto the ground in a minute, creeping along in search of the last resident, wherever he might live. But not just yet, not now. Harry doesn't move, it's like he's not there. In my position he wouldn't have a single doubt. How long did it take him to see through the guard? Could he have unmasked him any faster? All he needed was a porcelain cat, that one detail was enough. A porcelain cat! And I, Michel, actually saw the figurine before me, a white pussycat sitting on the shelf in his colleague's box. I saw the guard's empty shelf and his colleague's porcelain figurines, and Harry, he thought about it and smelt a rat. What would Harry make of it if
I
just disappeared, without so much as a signal, and didn't return to the spot where we lost sight of each other? Would I be allowed to flout an agreement? In the middle of an unauthorized operation? What would Harry do if I then allowed myself to be followed for hours and suddenly, without deigning to look at him, got up to stand there, unmoving, for three full seconds?

Harry doesn't move because he's waiting. He's waiting for me in the full light of the moon. He doesn't turn, knowing that the most innocent of movements will evoke other movements that will set off his instincts, instincts he has no control over, causing a chain reaction with an uncertain outcome. He's giving me time to think, briefly. He wants me to make the right decision, just as he would. I mustn't hesitate any longer. I must do what he has shown and taught me. I mustn't disappoint him. I want him to be proud of me. The old Harry. He's waiting for me. He's waiting out of love.

180

The study, which grew completely dark in the course of the night, regains its shape in the first timid daylight, its color too. I'm sitting under the window holding Harry's hand on my thigh. He's looking in the other direction. He's listened to me, although I've told him little. I explained to him that he was wrong, that Mr. Toussaint's car is white too. A big white car. And that Mr. Colet has nothing to do with the Olanos. I said, “Just believe me.” And, “I heard it from Claudia. She's the one who baked the frangipane.” At the word “frangipane” my mouth started to water. I repeated it a few times and drank my saliva. After a few times it stopped. Then I thought about the canister of fish food we found in a kitchen on the first floor, five or so meters from the goldfish. Just lying there in the kitchen cupboard. Printed cardboard with a shaker lid. I wondered what fish food could possibly be made of to make it inedible for humans. I considered the question seriously, but couldn't come up with anything and so decided, with a sense of victory, that the ingredients must all have organic origins. Nice and salty, to keep it from going off. I flicked the lid off with my fingernail and tipped the entire contents into my mouth, chewing on the dry flakes. Later, in the absolute silence, the sole of my foot started itching and I had to take my shoe off to scratch it. When I moved and let go of his hand, Harry seemed to softly squeeze my leg.

181

In my memory it was different: every time it seemed as if the Flock 28 was trying to take off, with the force of the recoil and the
resistance of my arm making the pistol kick up. This felt more like a neurological short circuit, an electric charge suddenly cramping my whole arm, all the way up to my shoulder. It didn't sound like a shot. It was a dry, penetrating thump. I can still hear it, or better, feel it: an indentation on the eardrum like a wound on the roof of your mouth you can't stop running your tongue over. On exiting his head, the bullet tore away a piece of his cheekbone. In the daylight I see that the injury is clean, a hole I could stick my little finger into with white, broken bone around the edges. Below that hole, untouched skin and the start of his beard. Above it, his lifeless eye, an encapsulated eyeball. In the window the deformed point of the bullet, which has dug into the thick glass like a worm, catches the sun.

Not so far away, on the roof of another tall building, I notice two white dots. They catch my eye because the white stands out against the dark background in a part of the view that is still shaded and as cold as night and does not include any other distinct white. After concentrating on them for a while, I make out two deckchairs in a place that is clearly not intended for sunbathing. They are arranged neatly parallel to each other.

182

It takes more than three hours for the spring sun to reach the deckchairs.

I push in the Flock 28's safety catch. Slide, recoil spring guide. Barrel with chamber, firing pin, sear. I mumble the names of the parts, as calming as a prayer. For lack of a brass rod, I try to clean the pistol by compressing air in my mouth and blasting it out in a well-directed jet.

I remove the cartridge clip from Harry's pistol.

After approximately four hours the shadow slides back over the white dots. I don't know how warm it was outside on the roof.

Perhaps it was still too cold.

183

I didn't find the last resident.

I put Harry's Flock in his hip holster, then closed it with the press stud. I laid his cap on his chest and put his hands together on his stomach. I cleaned his shoes with the sleeve of my uniform jacket. I took the flashlight from his trouser pocket. I closed his eyes and left him behind in the study; I didn't say a word. One instant I saw Harry, the next I saw something else and would never see Harry again. Like a piece of wreckage floating in the sea, I drifted through the building. Time swallowed me and spat me out, then picked me up again. I heard myself laugh, so loudly I thought it was funny. I went in search of a window that opened, convinced I was about to suffocate because the air had been used up. All the furniture I could lift was too light to break the glass. I must have slept. I remember looking at my watch and not understanding what I saw, dredging my memory as if searching for the name of an old acquaintance. In a bedroom, over the head of the bed, beneath a gilded frame, engraved on a minuscule copperplate: “Paul Cézanne. Nature morte. Les pommes.” I ran my finger over the apples, tracing their outline, imagining Cézanne's concentration. The banality of art above a bed. The sheets no longer smelt of anything, neither did the pillows. One afternoon my mind was so clear I saw everything at once. The feeling that all objects were converging, glittering, on my retina. I didn't need to focus, one meter away or ten, the sharpness and brightness of the world was overwhelming; I was its focal point. I stuffed a dark-green leaf
from a shriveled pot plant in my mouth, chewed on it briefly then quickly swallowed. I repeated my name in the dark. It appeared before my eyes, dangling there like a carrot on a string.

I didn't find the last resident.

The last resident found me.

184

I feel a hand on my shoulder. It is astonishing how much a hand on a shoulder can say. This one is as self-assured as the guard's bearlike paw, but lacks—despite the complete, breath-taking surprise—all semblance of hostility. It is as if the hand, through its purposeful touch, is conveying its apologies for the intrusion circumstances have compelled it to make. It pushes me down on the spot, not wrenching the joint but forcing me to think for a second without moving, so that I judge the gesture correctly and relax again immediately, at the very start of this imposed reflection, because I am not being overpowered at all—I mustn't think that—on the contrary, I am being invited to turn around calmly, without fear or aggression, to face someone who has emphasized their lack of malice.

Even before I've finished turning my head, I encounter the wave of air the resident has set off by moving in my direction and which now, with a delay, washes over me. The air is tinged with his cologne, a multi-layered scent, which is elegant and discreet, but as strong as an opiate: after a single breath it has reached my toes, intoxicating me, forcing me to surrender. Ginger first, followed closely by citrus, with pepper and, finally, wood adding an unfathomable depth.

I look into grayish-blue eyes without any particular expression. They are framed by heavy, angular glasses. Judging by the modern lines of the interior on the edges of my field of vision, the glasses
are deliberately old-fashioned, maybe even genuinely old, vintage, dating all the way back to the fifties or sixties of the previous century. That impression is strengthened by his gleaming bald head and pitch-black, tight-fitting turtleneck sweater.

“I'm Michel.”

The words tumble out of my mouth, bouncing like marbles on the concrete floor, and it's only when it's completely quiet again that the resident lays his hand on my shoulder for the second time. What this hand is saying, I don't know. I have no idea. I notice that the resident is slim but nowhere near skinny. His face is sharp, without protruding cheekbones or sunken cheeks. He hasn't been going hungry.

He looks remarkably healthy.

“Are you alright, Michel?”

He lowers his head a little to look deep into my eyes. He's about ten years older than me. Concern, that is what the hand on my shoulder is now conveying, clearly. He is concerned. He is taking pity on me.

“Would you like a glass of water?”

If I let myself go for a moment I would, finally, burst into tears. I would be inconsolable and unable to speak. Nothing would help. He would hug me and not know what to do. I would embarrass him as no one has embarrassed him before.

“Would you like a glass of water? Are you thirsty?” Without waiting for an answer he turns and disappears around the corner. “Come in,” I hear him say.

He is inviting me to enter his apartment. But I am already inside. I am standing in a kind of lobby, which I suspect also contains the elevator doors, a bit farther along. At the narrower hallway through to his apartment, there is an invisible line; beyond that line are his living quarters. It's a line I won't cross. I know my place. I'm on duty. Without my duties I would never have met the last resident. I pull the knot of my tie tighter and pat my shoulders, arms and chest. I straighten my jacket. Not wanting to be rude, I shuffle up a few steps until I'm at the start of the hallway.

A large bright space extends before me, enclosed on all sides by glass walls: blue sky and white clouds. The full-color print to the basement's negative. It seems to me as if this space no longer belongs to the apartment building, but is a part of nature. The ceiling is tightly strung sailcloth to protect against the rain and sun, although the bare interior seems designed to easily withstand the elements. The kitchen section in the far corner is gleaming stainless steel and looks more like a laboratory. There, in that same corner, I see green plants swaying on a large terrace. I see a crop and a long row of sticks, and on the ground I see plants coming up.