LITMIR.BIZ

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listen,’ I said.

      ‘What?’ said Byrd.

      The English writer was saying ‘… a violent Everyman in a violent but humdrum …’ he paused, ‘but humdrum world.’ He nodded agreement to himself. ‘Let me remind you of Baudelaire. There’s a sonnet that begins …’

      ‘So this bird wants to get out of the car …’ one of the photographers was saying.

      ‘Speak a little more quietly,’ said the English writer. ‘I’m going to recite a sonnet.’

      ‘Belt up,’ said the photographer over his shoulder. ‘This bird wanted to get out of the car …’

      ‘Baudelaire,’ said the writer. ‘Violent, macabre and symbolic.’

      ‘You leave bollicks out of this,’ said the photographer, and his friend laughed. The writer put a hand on his shoulder and said, ‘Look my friend …’ The photographer planted a right jab into his solar plexus without spilling the drink he was holding. The writer folded up like a deckchair and hit the floor. A waiter grabbed towards the photographer but stumbled over the English writer’s inert body.

      ‘Look here,’ said Byrd, and a passing waiter turned so fast that the half-bottle of whisky and the four glasses of ice were knocked over. Someone aimed a blow at the photographer’s head. Byrd got to his feet saying quietly and reasonably, ‘You spilled the drink on the floor. Dash me, you’d better pay for it. Only thing to do. Damned rowdies.’ The waiter pushed Byrd violently and he fell back and disappeared among the densely packed dancers. Two or three people began to punch each other. A wild blow took me in the small of the back, but the attacker had moved on. I got both shoulder-blades rested against the nearest piece of wall and braced the sole of my right foot for leverage. One of the photographers came my way, but he kept going and wound up grappling with a waiter. There was a scuffle going on at the top of the staircase, and then violence travelled through the place like a flash flood. Everyone was punching everyone, girls were screaming and the music seemed to be even louder than before. A man hurried a girl along the corridor past me. ‘It’s those English that make the trouble,’ he complained.

      ‘Yes,’ I said.

      ‘You look English.’

      ‘No, I’m Belgian,’ I said. He hurried after the girl. When I got near the emergency exit a waiter was barring the way. Behind me the screaming, grunting and breaking noises continued unabated. Someone had switched the music to top volume.

      ‘I’m coming through,’ I said to the waiter.

      ‘No,’ he said. ‘No one leaves.’

      A small man moved quickly alongside me. I flinched away from what I expected would be a blow upon my shoulder but it was a pat of encouragement. The man stepped forward and felled the waiter with two nasty karate cuts. ‘They are all damned rude,’ he said, stepping over the prostrate waiter. ‘Especially waiters. If they showed a little good manners their customers might behave better.’

      ‘Yes,’ I said.

      ‘Come along,’ said Byrd. ‘Don’t moon around. Stay close to the wall. Watch the rear. You!’ he shouted to a man with a ripped evening suit who was trying to open the emergency doors. ‘Pull the top bolt, man, ease the mortice at the same time. Don’t hang around, don’t want to have to disable too many of them, this is my painting hand.’

      We emerged into a dark side-street. Maria’s car was drawn up close to the exit. ‘Get in,’ she called.

      ‘Were you inside?’ I asked her.

      She nodded. ‘I was waiting for Jean-Paul.’

      ‘Well, you two get along,’ said Byrd.

      ‘What about Jean-Paul?’ Maria said to me.

      ‘You two get along,’ said Byrd. ‘He’ll be quite safe.’

      ‘Can’t we give you a lift?’ asked Maria.

      ‘I’d better go back and see if Jean-Paul is all right,’ said Byrd.

      ‘You’ll get killed,’ said Maria.

      ‘Can’t leave Jean-Paul in there,’ explained Byrd. ‘Close ranks, Jean-Paul’s got to stop hanging around in these sort of places and get to bed early. The morning light is the only light to paint in. I wish I could make him understand that.’

      Byrd hurried back towards the club. ‘He’ll get killed,’ said Maria.

      ‘I don’t think so,’ I said. We got into Maria’s E-type.

      Hurrying along the street came two men in raincoats and felt hats.

      ‘They are from the PJ crime squad,’ said Maria. One of the men signalled to her. She wound the window down. He leaned down and touched his hat in salute. ‘I’m looking for Byrd,’ he said to Maria.

      ‘Why?’ I asked, but Maria had already told them he was the man who had just left us.

      ‘Police judiciaire. I’m arresting him for the murder of Annie Couzins,’ he said. ‘I’ve got sworn statements from witnesses.’

      ‘Oh God,’ said Maria. ‘I’m sure he’s not guilty, he’s not the violent type.’

      I looked back to the door but Byrd had disappeared inside. The two policemen followed. Maria revved the motor and we bumped off the pavement, skimmed past a moto and purred into the Boul. St Germain.

      The sky was starry and the air was warm. The visitors had spread through Paris by now and they strolled around entranced, in love, jilted, gay, suicidal, inspired, bellicose, defeated; in clean cotton St Trop, wine-stained Shetland, bearded, bald, bespectacled, bronzed. Acned little girls in bumbag trousers, lithe Danes, fleshy Greeks, nouveauriche communists, illiterate writers, would-be directors – Paris had them all that summer; and Paris can keep them.

      ‘You didn’t exactly inspire me with admiration,’ said Maria.

      ‘How was that?’

      ‘You didn’t exactly spring to the aid of the ladies.’

      ‘I didn’t exactly know which ones were ladies,’ I said.

      ‘All you did was to save your own skin.’

      ‘It’s the only one I’ve got left,’ I explained. ‘I used the others for lampshades.’ The blow I’d had in my kidneys hurt like hell. I’m getting too old for that sort of thing.

      ‘Your funny time is running out,’ said Maria.

      ‘Don’t be aggressive,’ I said. ‘It’s not the right mood for asking favours.’

      ‘How did you know I was going to ask a favour?’.

      ‘I can read the entrails, Maria. When you mistranslated my reactions to the injections that Datt gave me you were saving me up for something.’

      ‘Do you think I was?’ she smiled. ‘Perhaps I just salvaged you to take home to bed with me.’

      ‘No, it was more than that. You are having some sort of trouble with Datt and you think – probably wrongly – that I can do something about it.’

      ‘What makes you think so?’ The streets were quieter at the other end of St Germain. We passed the bomb-scarred façade of the War Ministry and raced a cab over the river. The Place de la Concorde was a great concrete field, floodlit like a film set.

      ‘There’s something in the way you speak of him. Also that night when he injected me you always moved around to keep my body between you and him. I think you had already decided to use me as a bulwark against him.’

      ‘Teach Yourself Psychiatry, volume three.’

      ‘Volume five. The one with the Do-It-Yourself Brain Surgery Kit.’

      ‘Loiseau wants to see you tonight.

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