The Same River Twice (31 page)

She frowned over it noncommittally, but when she turned it data side up he saw her blanch for an instant. “Sure,” she said coolly, giving it back. “It’s a video disk. Why, is it counterfeit?”

“I did find it at that factory Broch operated in the tenth,” he admitted, “but it’s not one of the counterfeits.” He held it up for her further consideration. “See that amber coating?” He removed a photocopied document from the file and passed it to her. “It took my assistant most of yesterday to track down the author of this paper and me most of last night to understand what the guy was talking about. But now I have the gist, I think.”

Véronique examined the document warily. “‘Molecular Screening and the Digital Video Disk,’” she read aloud from the title page, then leafed through the paper without enthusiasm. “I have not the slightest idea what this ‘molecular screening’ means. Is it lucrative, I hope?”

Max laughed. “You are one focused woman,” he told her. “I won’t be surprised when your business plan kicks in.”

She granted him a luminous smile that, though fleeting, left a pleasant afterglow in its wake. When the waiter arrived with Max’s café-calva, Véronique relinquished her water and ordered a beer.

“What this paper describes,” said Max, “is a cheap and efficient method for using ordinary DVDs to profile a person’s entire genetic makeup, sequencing the DNA from a single sample—a drop of blood, an oral swab, whatever—and storing the results on disk. I’m told the technology has been around for awhile, but only recently perfected. Any of this sound familiar?”

She shook her head, but looked, Max thought, rather unhappy.

“Well, for instance.” He flashed the disk at her once more. “The sample here belongs to a blond European female, probably not you, given your eye color, which I remember as gray-blue.” He waited for her to lift her sunglasses, but she didn’t. “I found several of these disks at the loft Broch was renting, so I think it’s fair to assume that movie piracy wasn’t his only extracurricular interest.” He put both disk and document back in the folder, stowing it again under his chair. “Oh, and La Peau de l’Ours is incorporated in Malta as, among other things, a medical group. So maybe there really is a lucrative side to all this—not in the testing procedure, naturally, since that’s hardly a secret, but in whatever was being tested for, which could be anything.”

Véronique stubbed out her cigarette. “And you are telling me this why, exactly?”

“Because last time we talked you seemed interested. Also, you told me you were watching Broch’s office in case this guy you’re looking for, whoever he is, eventually showed up there, which leads me to wonder if he wasn’t working for Broch in, well, one capacity or another.” He shrugged. “But for me it’s academic now. I got the police to close down the bootleg operation, so my problems with La Peau de l’Ours are over. The rest is really none of my business.”

For some seconds Véronique stared at him through her dark glasses, absorbed in difficult mental calculations of a sort that didn’t seem entirely abstract. Then she pulled a cell phone from her backpack, excused herself, and, walking to a spot some twenty yards away, almost into the street, punched in a number.

Watching her—and as soon as she got a connection she began pacing up and down, gesticulating with her free hand, talking nonstop in a voice lost in the traffic’s heedless snarl—he experienced a moment of clarity that amounted to an insight. Its purport was that the visible world, to which he’d devoted most of his waking life, exercised its power over the human
imagination precisely because it had no meaning. What it had instead was detail, infinitely exfoliating, capable of lending itself to every human interpretation without losing any substance at all. A kind of magic, almost. A plenitude.

He kept his eye on Véronique as she abruptly snapped her cell phone shut, returned to the table, and sat down beside him. Still fuming, she sipped her beer in silence. “Is there anything you want to tell me?” Max asked.

Turning to him, she took off her sunglasses.

He was encouraged to see he’d been right about her eyes.

“This man I’m looking for,” she said, “he has something of mine, something personal.”

“You’ll find him,” Max said.

“I intend to,” she replied, putting her shades back on. “Now.” With her head tilted to one side, she considered him. “Tell me about your wife. You love her, I remember that. What else?”

“What do you want to know?”

She drank the rest of her beer and set the glass down on the table. Despite the other patrons and the heavy sidewalk traffic and the seething, anarchic swarm of vehicles circling the Bastille monument, it was as if the two of them were alone together, tête-à-tête in a place of suspended fortune.

“Tell me everything,” she said.

THROUGHOUT THE MORNING
, in countless small ways, Odile found herself inexplicably at odds with the physical world. She forgot to put water in the espresso maker and returned from taking out the garbage to find the apartment acrid with the smell of burnt metal. A crystal vase she was washing slipped through her fingers and shattered in the sink. Downstairs, when she switched on her studio lights, they flared out with a small pop, and when she turned on her desk lamp it, too, burned out. She cut herself sharpening her fabric shears.

When by noon she still hadn’t heard from Thierry, she felt a glimmer of doubt. Maybe it would be unwise to involve herself further in Thierry’s plans, instead letting him and the Russians settle their differences without her. Her motives seemed to shift with each passing minute, yet she told herself that the prospect of having the whole affair over and done with remained argument enough for seeing it through.

Going to the living-room bookcase, she reached behind Max’s collected
Chekhov and extracted the envelope Turner had given her the day before. She counted the contents—thirty thousand francs exactly—then sealed the envelope with tape and put it in her purse. Having thus committed herself, she took a set of linens from the hall closet and made up the bed in the guest room. Allegra’s imminent arrival had begun to occupy a small but definite place in her thoughts. It was hard to know exactly what to prepare for, since she hadn’t seen the girl in almost two years, but she doubted the visit would be entirely tranquil.

Then she emptied out the guest-room closet, vacuumed the tiny room, took down the curtains, and washed its single window. From her studio she brought up a small maple rocking chair, setting it in one corner, and a radio for the nightstand. She was contemplating additional improvements when the phone rang, and she hurried downstairs.

“Did you get it?” Thierry asked.

“It’s with me now.”

“Odile, you have no idea what a help this is. Thank you.”

She listened for birds but heard nothing.

“I want to make it easy for you,” he said. “There’s a news kiosk next to the taxi stand at Place de la Bastille. Put the money in an envelope with my name on it and leave it with the lady behind the counter, Madame Genève. She’ll see that I get it.” He paused. “Hello?”

“Yes, I’m here.”

“Can you do that?”

“When?”

“This afternoon. I need it today.”

She said nothing.

“What is it? What’s wrong?”

“I’m thinking,” she said. Thinking that she didn’t have to go to the newsstand at all. That she could call the Russians, tell them where to look for Thierry, return the money to Turner, and avoid all knowledge of what happened next. Yet she wavered. Maybe she’d have to be there anyway, just to be certain.

“My dear Odile, listen to me. There’s nothing to worry about, okay? I admit I was shocked to hear what happened to my cousin, but this has nothing to do with that, I promise you.” He sighed. “The fact is, I have a small debt to pay off. Nothing alarming, but there’s interest on it and I want to avoid defaulting.”

“A gambling debt?”

He paused. “So you know.” Another pause. “How interesting you know that. Yes, a gambling debt.”

“Actually, Thierry, I’d feel much more comfortable doing this if you told me what you were really up to. That side project of yours, for instance—it worries me. Can’t you give me some idea what it involves?”

“No,” he said immediately. Then, recovering: “Not on the phone. Just trust me for the moment. Can’t you do that?”

She left another silence. “I suppose so, if it’s that important.”

“Good. When can you get there?”

“I’m leaving now,” she said, and hung up before he could respond.

She went to the kitchen, hooked up the water purifier she’d bought the day before, and drank two glasses of filtered water in succession, having been thirsty without realizing it. In this thirst simultaneously discovered and quenched, she caught a glimpse of her present self, the one that Céleste had described, rightly or not, as capable of anything.
I feel like screaming
, she thought. Then, taking her purse from its spot by the landing, she descended the stairs and left the apartment.

The day was bright and mild, the warmest so far of the season. Correction officers with machine pistols had blocked off both ends of rue de la Santé while a bus carrying newly arrived detainees lurched into the prison, provoking jeers of welcome from those already interned. A lone black dog trotted down the sidewalk ahead of her. Otherwise Odile encountered only elderly people and young mothers with strollers as she walked the short distance to the Glacière métro stop.

On the train, which started out aboveground but soon plunged back into darkness, she sat behind two middle-aged women who talked endlessly about a trip they were taking to Biarritz for the summer music festival, gushing over the musicians they’d see. Their self-congratulatory tone grated unreasonably on Odile, and she was relieved when she had to change trains at Place d’Italie. Once seated in the connecting train, she took the envelope from her purse and wrote Thierry Colin’s name across it in block letters. It suddenly seemed important that she fulfill as much of her promise to him as possible, even though she was going to betray him and the money would almost certainly end up in the hands of the Russians.

At Bastille she emerged from the station onto rue de la Roquette, where she paused to take in her surroundings, shading her eyes against the sun. The traffic circling the monument, the cafés packed with afternoon idlers and tourists, the steps of the Opéra Bastille on which other idlers basked, the pickpockets and scam artists circulating in pairs among the pedestrians that thronged the sidewalks: all this Odile had seen innumerable times, yet in the space of half a second it was as if a veil had been lifted to reveal a scene completely new to her, one in which every particular was strange and
without precedent. She knew where she was, but each thing she saw was the first of its kind: the first bicyclist, the first wine carafe, the first woman to tie a sweater around her waist by the arms. The air shimmered. The first pigeon, the first waiter, the first menu to be snapped shut. The first book. She blinked. From where she stood she could see five news kiosks, and she went for the one by the taxi stand.

“Excuse me,” she told the gray-haired woman behind the counter. “I’m looking for Madame Genève.”

“Yes, that’s me.”

Odile took the envelope from her purse. “I was told I could leave this for Monsieur Thierry Colin. Do you know him?”

“Certainly, Madame.” The woman accepted the envelope and put it in a cigar box on the shelf behind her. “I’ll be sure to give it to him,” she said, nodding once, her eyes already on the next customer.

Odile thanked her and quickly walked to a spot beside the taxi stand, outside the woman’s line of sight but with a partial view of the kiosk. There she deliberated, pacing up and down, sorting through scenarios, wanting to be certain of what she was about to do, until at last she realized that her deliberations were beside the point, and she took out her cell phone and keyed in the number Dmitrovich had given her.

He answered on the first ring—not by saying hello but by unleashing a torrent of Russian that seemed to be the continuation of another call, one that her own had inexplicably interrupted or replaced. She listened in confusion for several seconds, wondering whom he thought he was addressing, before she could summon the force to interrupt. “Enough! Do you think I’m your Natasha?”

A brief silence ensued. Then, in English: “Madame Mével. What a welcome surprise. We were beginning to grow just a tiny bit discouraged.”

“He called me,” said Odile. “The guy in question.”

“Excellent. And he is where, please?”

“That I don’t know. But I can tell you where he soon will be, provided—”

“Yes?”

“Provided you don’t try to contact me or my friends again. No more surprise visits, no threats, no calls, nothing. All that’s finished, understand?” A traffic light changed, a phalanx of pedestrians advanced.

“You may be certain of it,” said Dmitrovich.

“I should hope so.” She resumed pacing. “He was calling about his fee for the Moscow trip, as you predicted. I got the money, he called again, we made arrangements for him to pick it up. He’ll be here any minute, so
you’ll have to hurry. Come to—” A patch of bright color caught her eye: a turquoise handbag, a sun-pinked shoulder.
Of course
, thought Odile.
How could I not have known?
The handbag was opened, the envelope went in, the bag’s owner stepped away from the kiosk: Gabriella, grimly efficient in a sand-colored dress and matching pumps.

“I’ll have to call you back,” Odile said, pressing the end button before he could protest.

Gabriella checked her watch and without a backward glance set out across the traffic island toward the streets radiating from the square to the south and east. After a prudent interval, keeping her distance, Odile followed.

Gabriella crossed at rue de Lyon, walked past the Opéra and the people scattered across its steps, then headed up rue de la Roquette. A series of small obstacles in Odile’s path—a flock of nuns, a boy on a bicycle, some workmen carrying a sheet of plate glass—caused her to fall farther and farther behind. When she lost sight of Gabriella altogether, she stepped into the street itself and began to run.