The Influence Peddlers Page 11

  “Are you joking? Everyone knows we’re lovers!”

  “Yes, but they’re pretending they don’t, and we must help them pretend.”

  “And so it’s to help them that you make that whore think that you want to jump on top of her . . .”

  “Jump on top, that’s a bit much . . . It seems she always likes to be on top.”

  He shouldn’t have said that, not an image like that. Thérèse doesn’t like that image at all. He could see that right away, her mouth in a scornful arc, eyelids getting narrower, and the face as white as a porcelain sink. Marfaing remembers the remark of one of his Paris friends: There is nothing more dangerous than being involved with a woman in a small town. He’s suddenly afraid of the way his mistress looks. He regrets everything, but is also amused to see her in such a state. It’s a professional revenge. She has caused so many baseless scenes with Marfaing that he takes pleasure in provoking one for which for once he knows the reason, a nice jealousy, murderous, but held in check by the presence of her guests, her cheeks red now, her ears, too, under the pink of the hat. She looks good, and she controls herself. She’s the hostess of the event. A hostess can do anything except create a scandal. Thérèse understands:

  “And do you believe that I will hesitate to put my hand on your face? Or on that of your fat whore?”

  “She’s not really fat, tall, rather . . .”

  Thérèse doesn’t say anything, she becomes white again—that’s bad. Marfaing changes his tone: he says that he’ll stop, no, he is absolutely not trying to . . . sleep with that Parisian woman. He pronounced the verb with a pleasure that upsets Thérèse—don’t upset her:

  “No, I’m not a hypocrite.” Marfaing is seeking a concession, the avowal of a venial sin:

  “Okay, I was having a bit of fun, not paying attention, a bit of picnic flirting.”

  “You think it’s funny, to make me ill?” Thérèse isn’t getting any calmer. Don’t let her start with illness, don’t let her climb onto her own words: take the initiative. She is also going to say that I infuriate her, so:

  “I just wanted to make you jealous, just a little bit . . . It’s sweet . . .”

  Marfaing could add that he was jealous of how friendly Thérèse is toward Cavarro every time she runs into him, but he doesn’t. He’s never mentioned that. Maybe Thérèse doesn’t even realize what she is doing with the actor—no need to wake a sleeping dog. And anyway Marfaing knows that with Cavarro, who isn’t even there today, there is no risk. The police reports are clear. So he is content to admit his sins. He will be pardoned, say to Thérèse that she’s beautiful when she’s like that, almost as beautiful as when she’s in his arms. He knows that when Thérèse is jealous she thinks she’s ugly, and her jealousy becomes uglier and uglier. That’s dangerous because a jealousy that thinks it’s ugly can seek to sully everything. Luckily, with Thérèse you just need to reassure her: “You have never been so beautiful, you have the loveliest backside of all the guests at the picnic.” Thérèse thinks she has a large behind. Marfaing adds that she is splendid. All the men want her—she just has to look around: “Your husband is coming over. He’s not like you. He at least knows that I love you. He has no doubt, and that makes him dangerous.” That’s what he needs to do, put Thérèse on alert, in the face of a danger greater than that of a lover who flirts: a husband who revolts. Pagnon approaches the couple, slowly, looking even more like a boar than usual. It’s not his fault. He never learned how to be pleasant with anyone. He knows that it sometimes hurts him in his profession, a surgeon with a head like the guardian of the gates of hell . . . That’s why I decided not to work in the private sector, he sometimes says, but on the other hand, it makes me look serious. A doctor doesn’t have to sell his wares on the street: we’re not fishmongers.

  13

  AN EYE ON EVERYTHING

  “Now there’s a triangle that’s becoming dynamite, if you’ll allow me a mixed metaphor,” Ganthier said to some other guests who were observing from a distance. He didn’t like the game Gabrielle and Marfaing were playing. She’s pretending to be interested in him to get me to react, and when I react she sends me packing, she doesn’t like anyone, she only likes what she does: show up, dig around, write, provoke, disappear. Around Ganthier, people were silently delighted. Pagnon’s face was more sinister than usual. The scandal was going to explode, but no, that would have been too good to be true; in two months the elections for the Grand Conseil were taking place, and no one could play around with that, neither the contrôleur civil nor a notable like Pagnon, and Thérèse knew it. This wasn’t the time to blow everything up in public. Anyway, scandal for Thérèse was a gun with one bullet, and the presence of all the people would hold her back. “No,” said the most impatient of onlookers, “The crowd may prevent the incident today, but when one of them decides things need to blow, we will make a wonderful echo chamber.” At some point the group of observers changed the subject to compliment a child who went by wearing a golden yellow dress:

  “You’re not afraid?”

  “No, he’s really nice, I even gave him a fly.”

  She was walking a lizard with a string attached around its middle.

  Pagnon was approaching the couple while thinking, That idiot Marfaing is upsetting Thérèse, and I’m the one who’s going to suffer for it later, he can’t just be happy sleeping with my wife, he has to go and infuriate her.

  “So, dear contrôleur, what did our big Gabrielle have to say? Be careful, you know those Parisian women, they’re all hysterics, real ones, and all those openings . . .” Pagnon was oozing fury, but not at what everyone thought. He was furious at his wife’s dress, too low-cut. She’s showing too much breast, and what she hides she allows to be guessed at. You can see everything underneath the fabric. She’s standing in front of that idiot Marfaing, and you can see everything. Marfaing also noticed what was going on. The two men were thinking the same thing. She must have gotten one of those American bras, an unspeakable vulgarity. That’s why Pagnon immediately sank to a smutty level, to be even more vulgar than that bra, Marfaing tensing up, Pagnon thought he was still in the staff room. The contrôleur civil forced himself to smile at what the doctor had said, to show his manly complicity, but not too much. They didn’t know how Thérèse would react. Her face had become a mask, the corners of her mouth rising even so, for the gallery. She’s standing there, a bottle in her hand.

  The head surgeon was enjoying himself:

  “Beautiful Gabrielle, you flirt with her right in the middle of the picnic, and she’ll ask you to perform the Duc d’Aumale position in the field over there . . .”

  Now Thérèse’s chin starts to tremble. She hesitates. She doesn’t know whom to attack. Pagnon adds that with those crazy ones, one should be able to give them a poke where they need it. He can feel that his wife is about to explode. He continues:

  “And what’s more, my dear, that Gabrielle, she’s your fault!” He’s silent a moment: “You do too much with her. You talk to her, you invite her. She must think you are making advances. One of these days you know what she’s going to do? She’s going to leave Marfaing and throw herself on you, or even on me, although everyone knows I only like the young ones.” A benevolent smile from Pagnon to his wife. He puts his hand on her shoulder. Don’t push her over the edge: she must continue to preside over the picnic. Pagnon knows how to host. People feel good when they’re in a group with him. They will remember that at the time of the elections. It’s not easy to get elected by the colonials when you’re a doctor, even when you have a farm, but it should happen, thanks to Thérèse, to his connections, and with Marfaing’s support. Pagnon smiles at his wife and at the contrôleur civil.

  “I must leave you, I need to keep an eye out everywhere, well . . . almost.”

  It was perhaps a final jab at the lovers, but Pagnon’s eye really was drawn by what was going on over by the parking area, far behind it. He went into his house and came back out on the veranda with his hunting bi
noculars. About a half a mile away a man was climbing a mound of stones, then running, followed at a distance by three men. At one point the runner turned around. Pagnon recognized him: Mohand, one of the workers on the farm, not the worst, and Mohand recognized the large white shape on the veranda. He had started to run when he saw the three men coming toward him with a rope. He immediately understood: there were two bottles of wine missing from the hundred fifty that had been taken out for the picnic. He had heard Saïd, Pagnon’s right-hand man, count the empties and the full ones, recount while swearing, order a search, without luck. No one likes stories of theft, especially where the French are concerned. In the opinion of the French, when Arabs are present a French person can’t steal—it would be too shameful. It’s always an Arab who is blamed, and now, seeing the three men, Mohand understood that they wanted him, That will teach me to agree to take care of the bottles, I should have done like the others, talk about religion, they would have found a Maltese to take care of them, I wanted to please . . . Mohand running, far from the people, far from the picnic, the smells of méchoui, merguez, sardines, far from the laughter. The three behind him weren’t in a hurry. They were auxiliaries, soldiers for small tasks, not very well trained, but who knew in advance what would happen when the sky is blue, the sun is still hot, when the stones on the ground are there to cut, when one’s side hurts, when nothing in the entire countryside likes escapees. Mohand could go left, go back down to the bed of the wadi, run on the soft ground, barefoot, faster. He doesn’t go there. After five minutes he has slowed down, stopped. He is gasping for breath. It doesn’t do any good to run. It makes them mad. It’s better to be caught after a little run. The three guys will seem to have accomplished a serious mission. They’ll be in a good mood. Maybe they won’t beat him as hard. Mohand picks up a large stone, makes sure there isn’t anything underneath, sits down, and puts his sandals back on.

  They caught him and brought him back without excessive violence to the party, but at a distance from it, in the middle of the parked cars. They tied his hands to a luggage carrier on a roof, in the sun. He couldn’t sit. Saïd, Pagnon’s foreman, didn’t ask him anything. He put a rag in his mouth and began to beat him with a knotted club. Then Pagnon arrived, looking angry:

  “Did you need to do that? What good will it do? You steal and you run away, and when you’re caught you don’t admit it? Are you sick? Are you hot? It’s going to be cold tonight, Mohand. If you don’t admit it, you know Saïd, he’ll give you to the soldiers, all night, and tomorrow everyone will be talking about it.” Mohand finally confessed. He was untied. He could sit on the ground, with his back against a car tire. Saïd gave him back his gag so he could wipe his face.

  Later, Neil Daintree said to Pagnon:

  “You told me you don’t beat your employees,” Pagnon responding that he didn’t, it was Saïd, his right-hand man, who took care of that. In the past, Saïd had also stolen, and was sentenced to a term of six years of forced labor for aggravated theft. It was Pagnon who kept him from going to prison, his suspension being on the condition that he would work for Pagnon. Saïd was efficient and devoted—it was rare—and what’s more, he had an eye:

  “We Europeans should never strike the natives. We must show that we are not like they are. When I beat my dog, it is always with the leash. It thinks that it’s the leash that is beating him. From time to time he chews up a leash, but he continues to love me.”

  Saïd was Pagnon’s leash, and Mohand wasn’t too angry with him. He knew that those were his orders.

  “And since I’m not the one doing the beating, and it stops when I arrive, he isn’t too angry at me, either.”

  “What are you going to do with him?”

  Mohand had confessed. Pagnon was wiping the slate clean. Mohand would work without pay for a month or two, probably two, but at least he could stay on the property.

  “If I fire him he would die in three weeks.”

  Standing around the méchoui, some had followed everything, discreetly. They had seen a man chased at a distance, then brought back behind the cars. They had lost sight of him. They had imagined what had happened next. They didn’t really know what had happened. They didn’t ask. Maybe he had gone to watch the women in the toilets. No, no, it was a theft, probably money, from a car. Then Pagnon had talked with one of the officers. People heard some of what they were saying: Bottles of wine, that’s the worst, you know, because they don’t know how to control themselves. Wine is forbidden by their religion, so when they have some, they drink it all as quickly as possible, thinking it won’t be noticed, neither here nor on high. Those things have to be punished right away, very hard, the club, anyway, they like justice, you know! Those who heard about Mohand’s story chuckled about it while stuffing their mouths with pieces of meat and slices of bread dipped in the cooking fat and oil. The méchoui is good, I’m taking advantage. Next month I’m going on the Vichy diet.

  An hour later, the youngest son of the gendarme captain, Marchal, vomited in front of everyone, and his older brother went over to a tree to do the same; it smelled like sour wine, those kids, thirteen and fifteen years old. And the rumor circulated among the more alert, not because it proved Mohand’s innocence, but because it was a good boost to the festivities at the gendarmes’ expense, with another good laugh for conversation, happiness for the officers of the Legion and the Spahis, who couldn’t stand the gendarmes. The rumor was quickly denied, but wine, when it goes through the warm entrails of a human being, has a distinctive odor.

  Pagnon knew that Daintree knew. He hadn’t tried to cover it up—Daintree was worthy of the truth—and without preliminaries:

  “In fact, it was those young fools . . . My innocent worker, I’m relieved, truly. I will pay him his salary, with a bonus.”

  “What about the thieves?”

  “An escapade, two kids, two bottles! We’ve all done that, but we weren’t the sons of gendarmes, incapable of doing something stupid without throwing up! We’ll forget them.”

  As for Mohand, he would be forgotten, too. He would be paid. No, not exactly exonerated. Here you could never admit that you had punished the wrong man—you would lose face. You have the right to be blind, but not to be wrong. To excuse yourself is a loss of authority.

  “He is innocent,” Pagnon added, “but we were right to punish him.”

  “He’s going to be known as a wine thief?” asked Daintree.

  “No, everyone already knows he’s innocent . . . the Arab telephone . . . He didn’t steal anything, he won’t lose face, nor will we. I know, it’s not really fair, but for him it’s destiny. He was there at the wrong time, mektub. You know what that means . . .”

  “I know, the great book . . .”

  “Exactly . . . their fatalism.”

  Daintree had joined Raouf and Ganthier. He reported his conversation, citing Pagnon’s mektub. Raouf became lost in contemplating a plant with large, velvety green leaves that spread out a few inches above the ground. They were covered with white crystals that shone in the last rays of the sun. He commented without raising his head:

  “Mektub helps them control people . . . They criticize us for it, but they know how to use it . . . and if we try to escape it, they say we’re revolutionaries.”

  Ganthier continued: “And in your families they say that you have become atheists, dear youth caught in the trap of history!”

  Daintree had dust on his shoes. He wanted to wipe them off with the green leaves. He decided not to, seeing Raouf contemplating them, and asked:

  “What is that plant that can thrive on rocks?”

  “It must have a scientific name,” Ganthier had said, “but here they call it the ‘glacial grass,’ a strange name for here. The crystals are water, and you can eat it in a salad, with oil.”

  At a distance Pagnon was watching the three men in conversation. He said to his wife that it was bizarre, those three. They had every reason to hate each other, and they spent their time talking:

&n
bsp; “The one I like least is the young bicot, with his air of a little chief. He shouldn’t be here, Ganthier never should have brought him. Ganthier is playing a strange game. He’s more of a colonist than all the colonists, but always hanging around with Arabs, and he talks to them in Arabic. When he’s not with the son, he’s talking with the father.”

  In Pagnon’s opinion, Ganthier wasn’t providing a good example, his land regrouping plan that he let linger . . . The natives saw that and they began to linger, too.

  “Presumably, he respects her, that widow What’s Her Name, or maybe there’s something else . . . He’s known her since she was a kid . . . He claims that he supports strong-arm tactics, but when one is a supporter of strong-arm tactics you don’t interact like that with these people.” Thérèse pointed out that her husband spent his life taking care of those people.

  “Maybe, but it pays, and I’m getting experience for when I’m in private practice. And it shows them that they need us.”

  14

  TWO HATREDS

  Yes, Samuel Katz answered Ganthier, the third trial was in March, about a month before we took the boat to come here. That gave the Vigilantes weeks and weeks to attack movies all over the country. In the studios they were beginning to say that you couldn’t let one rotten apple ruin the whole basket, and the press kept talking about the ice! As soon as the new trial began, McNab quickly announced that his client, Mr. Arbuckle, would testify on the stand. The district attorney then had Doctor Wakefield, the head of the clinic, testify. He repeated that the tear in the bladder could only have come from an external force. McNab cross-examined Wakefield:

  “Did you participate in the autopsy?”

  “Absolutely, it was my clinic.”

  “Did you have the right to do so?”

  “No, but . . .”

  “Isn’t that a punishable offense?”