Bed of Nails Read online

  They had spoken a bit about the past and the present, studiously avoiding the future. Then Alan had fallen silent, locked up somewhere with his demons. Just the same old Al as in L.A., when he had shown up at John’s place. This time too, he had just sat there, watching as John hung up his socks to dry, chopped wood, lit the fire and prepared dinner. He had watched him shooting with the bow, and his only comment had been: “Want me to stand in front of the target, then you might hit it?” He had followed him round all day, cracking jokes now and then, shivering in his hoodie jacket, with his tattoos from the South Sea Islands. John knew that there was nothing to be said. He was the person Alan opened up to more than anyone else, so he knew when it was possible or desirable. All day long, he’d let Alan follow him round, pierced lips closed, unable to say what he had come all this way to say.

  They had eaten some fish and rice, by the light of an oil lamp, and Alan had cursed the fish bones. After the meal, which he had hardly touched, the L.A. junkie rolled himself up, fully dressed, in an Indian blanket, and turning his face to the canvas wall of the tent had said:

  “It’s good to see you, John. Goodnight and good luck, man.”

  He had seemed on the point of adding something, leaning up on one elbow, then had dropped back without saying it. John had watched him shivering inside the blanket, as the withdrawal symptoms started to kick in. Alan was going to ask him, for the nth time, to help him get off drugs. He wouldn’t hesitate. Even if the sight of his friend vomiting, biting and screaming was the last thing he wanted to see again. Even if Alan had already broken hundreds of promises and dropped John in the shit more times than he cared to remember.

  Because nobody, before Alan Mustgrave, had ever entrusted their soul to him with such confidence and hope.

  The first night at least would be calm, despite the sleeplessness. John had just been wondering how you would stop a fakir coming off drugs escaping from a tepee.

  But in the morning, the problem was solved. Alan had vanished.

  On the copy of John’s Ph.D. thesis, beside the fire, Alan had scribbled in English under the title.

  “I borrowed money from the café in the village to pay the taxi. I said you’d be in to pay them. I’ll make it up to you. Thanks, old man, and don’t think about me too much!”

  On the paper there was still an echo of Alan’s smile where he had signed it: Your best friend, Big A.

  By checking his most recent memories, John had reached the end of the story. A story that would end with a disappearance, one more, in Alan Mustgrave’s life. Or was it the opposite, the last time Alan was turning up without notice? He gritted his teeth, and blinked back his tears, before falling asleep in the van.

  An hour later, waking up drenched in sweat, facing a wall of amnesia, he leaped out of the van, walked in the darkness to the centre of the field and drew his bow horizontally with all his strength, before loosing an arrow straight up in the air over his head.

  Breathing out slowly, he waited, looking up.

  He heard the arrow lose height, then more and more clearly, the gentle whistling of its fall to earth.

  He felt a slight breath on his face. He judged the impact to be a few metres behind him. Then he smiled as he heard the metal tip – it must have been one of his hunting arrows – pierce the van’s bodywork.

  When he woke again at dawn and opened his eyes, he saw directly above his head the arrow’s vertical tip pointing downwards, through the Renault’s roof. The red feathers on the black-painted arrow were like a kind of medieval pennant on top of the van as it took off again towards Paris. He smiled as he imagined the arrow embedded over his head, moving across a map of time indicating the present. You are here. He told himself, as he left for his last meeting with Alan, that destiny might be no more than an idea of ourselves that never ages. Just an idea, following us, going ahead of us and surviving after us.

  *

  John had a good memory for places, not so good for the itineraries that connected them, let alone for the one-way streets that separated them. So he drove haphazardly round Paris – with the heat gauge of the Renault on the point of exploding – until he found a boulevard that seemed familiar. He thought it must be the boulevard Saint-Germain, his hunch confirmed when he arrived unexpectedly on the place Saint Sulpice. After driving three times round the block, he finally parked his heap of rust on a delivery space on the rue de Tournon. The holed exhaust gave a few sharp burps and the engine died with a throaty rattle. His head was swimming. He pressed his nose to the windscreen and watched the passers-by on the pavement. Two months earlier, he had been hiding behind a tree and surprising a visitor to his camp. The close proximity of the crowds and the buildings rising far into the sky above him oppressed his chest. He felt as if he were diving deep under water into a foreign and densely peopled environment. Half an hour’s drive through the city’s crazy traffic had left his nerves jangling. Five kilometres! Back home, he would have had time to go into Lentillac, do the shopping, shoot a couple of fish, start them off grilling and still have had time for five minutes’ relaxation in his hammock. Feeling breathless and sick, he got out of the car, his mouth tasting of exhaust fumes, his back and head aching, and his legs as wobbly as skittles. He stretched, breathed in deeply and almost retched on the polluted city air.

  He thought of locking the doors, then remembered what the farmer who had sold him the van had said: “Son, I don’t use the keys no more. Round here, anyone takes your car it’s when you’ve had too much to drink, say the opening of the hunting season, and they’re taking you back home.” So John swung his things onto his back and walked away. He turned round after a few yards, worrying that he might never find the van again, then decided he didn’t care. If he had to, he’d leave the city by train, or hitching, or on foot. The arrow was still planted in the roof like a bait, making him believe he was still under its tip.

  After walking for a few minutes, his legs came back to him and he remembered growing up in San Francisco. These streets too were full of women, and he too was a townie. Though to judge by the reactions of the Parisians, that wasn’t the way he looked. They parted as he approached, like the Red Sea before Moses.

  Glancing at a shop window, John Nichols viewed his reflection, with a creeping new anxiety. Alongside a suit priced at 400€, he saw a Marlboro cowboy crossed with an Indian on the warpath and a Canadian fur-trapper, all three of them influenced by the Beat generation. The bow was protruding from the rolled Indian blanket on his back. Heavy boots, patched combat trousers, check flannel shirt, blond stubble and a fringed bandana round his head. He wondered when he had developed the face of a hungry beast. How long did it take, and to what extent, he wondered, did your personality change, if you didn’t bother about your appearance. He trudged on, not daring to look at any of the women. What had Alan said, as he watched him peg out his underclothes on the line: “Man, soon you’ll be losing the power of speech.”

  At a bar-tabac, he bought a pack of filter-tipped Gitanes, a phone card and a map of Paris to make up for the gaps in his knowledge. The tobacconist had looked alarmed at his appearance. Oddly, though, John’s resurfacing American accent had seemed to reassure him. In the street, he forced himself to think in French, as if it would show on the outside.

  At a phone booth, he called enquiries for the number and address of the U.S. embassy. A secretary told him that Frank Hirsh wouldn’t be in the office before 4.00 p.m. John gave his name and the voice said that Hirsh would see him as soon as he got back. The only person he would have wanted to see in Paris was waiting for him in the morgue, and the only one who could take him there was away somewhere.

  He began seriously hoping that the van would be able to start again.

  Consulting his map, John set off along the streets towards the Seine. Having managed to keep all his painful thoughts at bay as long as possible, now he began to imagine how Alan had died. At once, the image came into mind of a skeletal body collapsing in the lavatories in some café, with
a syringe in his arm. It pursued him at every step he took, and he walked faster and faster to try to leave its stench behind him. Sometimes he managed to change the setting. Alan dead, lying on a bed with the shadow of a smile on his lips; Alan passing out while completely high (this image was ridiculous) on top of some tall building at sunset. But every time, Alan had a needle planted in an infected scab on his arm. Whatever scenario he imagined, his own dirty shirt, drenched with sweat, seemed to stick of piss and vomited beer. He thought of the stream below his camp and of the cool water he would have liked to dive into.

  There had been a day once, when John had found Alan on Venice boulevard, sitting in his own shit between two dumpsters; the fakir from Kansas had told him that dope would never kill him, because he had died long ago from an overdose of corn. John forgot what he had said in reply, something stupid about the will to live. He could remember only that he hadn’t believed what he said, and that day, he hadn’t had the heart to believe in it. Maybe it was his fault that Alan had given up the fight. When he had come down to the tepee in the winter, John had just let him go. Perhaps he had been slow to react, but he didn’t really think that now. He knew what was going to happen. He couldn’t have done much about it, but that didn’t change anything. He walked even faster.

  On the place du Carrousel, by the Louvre, he splashed some of the greasy water from a fountain over his face. Hundreds of tourists were taking pictures of the Louvre pyramid. Africans on short-stay visas were selling mechanical birds, winding up their tiny springs and throwing them in the air. The toys flapped about for a while then ran out of steam and crashed pitifully to the ground. The Africans smiled at the tourists, between anxious glances to see if there were any police about. It was a fine day, and the sky was light grey without any dark clouds.

  John cut across the Tuileries Gardens and felt better once he was among vegetation. Spring was further on here than in the Lot, boosted by the artificial warmth and the carbon monoxide cloaking the city. He sat down for a moment on a metal chair. At the far end of the gardens, but immobile at that time of day, the giant ferris wheel reared up above the trees. Women pushed buggies along the dusty paths, and a one-legged pigeon perched on the head of a Henry Moore statue, a long curved shape. The pigeon skidded on the bronze, and flapped its wings furiously trying not to fall off.

  In the arcades along the rue de Rivoli, the luxury shop windows succeeded one another like the links in D.N.A. He had to cross the rue Saint-Florentin and the rue Royale, before he saw the embassy building with its huge stars and stripes flapping on the facade. On the place de la Concorde, the cars seemed to choose where they went, travelling in all directions.

  At the door to the embassy, a marine with a Texan accent hesitated to let him in, even after he had shown his U.S. passport.

  “I have an appointment with Frank Hirsh.”

  The marine pressed an interphone button and asked for confirmation. John looked up at the huge flag drooping over his head. Where was the spring that was holding it horizontal?

  The soldier, having checked, gave him the nod but vetoed the rucksack, and directed him to a café further down the avenue Gabriel where he could leave it. John trudged off, wondering whether it was the same for everyone, or whether his bow was the problem. On the window of the sandwich bar, a notice said in English, “Luggage deposit, 2€ an hour”. So perhaps the rule applied to everyone. Once inside, before he could open his mouth, a waiter in a maroon apron and cap pointed towards a door. John left his bag in the middle of piles of drinks crates and an assortment of other suitcases and rucksacks. A nice little business that cost nothing and must have brought in a tidy amount of cash for the owner. When he came out of the room, the waiter gave him a date-stamped ticket.

  The Texan marine looked askance at his clothes once more, then reacted a little more warmly to his fur-trapper identity. No doubt sensing that John was a fellow hunter, the youngster was nostalgic for road trips in an S.U.V. with his mates, drinking Budweisers and blasting antelopes with M.16s.

  “The visitors’ entrance, sir, in back and on your left”.

  Going through the porch, John reached the inner courtyard. A queue of about thirty people waiting for visas. Men and women of every origin, dressed in their Sunday best. John, looking like a backwoodsman, walked past them all with his U.S. passport. He found the visitor’s entrance at the left. The three G.I.s at the door made him empty his pockets and pass through the security archway. They put his keys and Swiss army knife in a plastic bag, asked if he had a mobile, and gave him a numbered badge. While a young woman was checking his appointment once more against a list, Hirsh came towards him, holding out his hand. He showed no hesitation or surprise on seeing this Franco-American lumberjack.

  “Thank you for coming so quickly, Mr Nichols. Forgive me for keeping you waiting, but I wasn’t sure when you’d get here.”

  Hirsh had not let go of his hand and hardly moved his lips when speaking, keeping his sympathetic smile intact. John’s first impression, formed from their telephone conversation, was confirmed. This immaculate young man of a good family, thirty to thirty-two, international haircut, with a well-moisturised and mildly tanned complexion, was not just in love with French literature. He was a fellow traveller of Alan’s, of a different type.

  John managed to construct a smile he had not used before, one combining gratitude, seriousness and fellow-feeling, though unsure of the result. Frank Hirsh blinked, trying to find an adequate reaction. In the end he simply said.

  “I understand.”

  Well, if so, hell, he was the only one.

  “We’ve got a car waiting, if you could follow me, Mr Nichols.”

  They retraced the way he had come in, and John collected the keys and knife, before passing out in front of the marine on the door.

  A big black S.U.V. with C.D. plates was standing under the flag. A blond crewcut driver, about John’s height, was at the wheel. The other two got into the back and the car started.

  As they passed the sandwich bar, John turned round. “Wait, my bag.”

  “Stop the car please.”

  He came back out a minute later, as the driver waited with the boot open. John loaded his scruffy rucksack and archery materials, and the blond giant slammed down the tailgate: his neck was oddly short, almost as wide as his shoulders. Readjusting his uniform, and smiling slightly, he was estimating John’s weight with an expert eye. John got back in, intrigued by the bodyguard’s aggressive stance.

  “Where are we going?”

  “The Medico-Legal Institute. The, er, Mr Mustgrave’s body is under the authority of the French police, until we can repatriate it to the States.”

  “So what’s all this about his parents?”

  “Umm.” Hirsh shifted his athletic shoulders under the well-cut suit. “It seems they either don’t want to make the trip, or they can’t. To be honest, it’s not all that clear, and I haven’t spoken to them directly. They’ve gone through all the legal formalities, using a lawyer in Kansas City, and they decided to ask you to carry out anything required this end. It’s not exactly regular, because it seems you weren’t informed they’d chosen to do this, umm, nor were you told about Mr Mustgrave’s death. Have you any idea why they did it this way, Mr Nichols?”

  “Well, for one thing, it was me that got Alan to come to Paris.”

  “Any reason why they wouldn’t want to come themselves?”

  Hirsh was more ill at ease than he should have been. John was irritated by his hesitations, his careful precautions and the tinted windows of the smooth-running car.

  “Alan didn’t get on with his folks. For a long time now, I’ve been the one who sent news of him home. But that doesn’t mean they actually like me.”

  Hirsh was looking fixedly straight ahead.

  “What’s going on?”

  By raising his voice, John had been hoping to surprise him. The driver glanced eagerly into the rear mirror, but Hirsh didn’t rise to the bait.

  “
We’ll soon be there, Mr Nichols.”

  “How did he die?”

  Hirsh half choked, turning it into a diplomatic fit of coughing.

  “You know the kind of work Mr Mustgrave did, don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “It was a dangerous way of earning a living, one where, how shall I put this, accidents could happen.”

  “Can you just give it me straight,” John said in French, using the familiar “tu”. Hirsh tugged at the knot in his tie and no doubt put the tutoiement down to Nichols’ imperfect French.

  “Mr Mustgrave died during his act, Mr Nichols. He died on stage.”

  John felt a wave of heat go through him, and the stench of death that had been following him since he set out for Paris started to alert his nostrils. He pressed a button to lower his window. The inside of the car was suddenly lighter, and beads of sweat were visible on Frank Hirsh’s tanned temples.

  The driver parked the car outside a dusty brick building near the Seine. The four-storey box was squeezed between the river bank and the overhead metro. The rails swooped down from a metal bridge across the river and vanished underground, after a large curve encircling the Institute. The building looked sad and gloomy, even if you didn’t know it was full of corpses.

  The sudden proximity of Alan’s body made John feel off-balance as he got out of the vehicle. He could have done with a shot of alcohol before going inside.

  Hirsh walked in front of him to the entrance, visibly shrinking. It was almost as if John were going to have to support him, rather than the other way round.

  “You’ve already been here?”

  “Correct, Mr Nichols.”

  He could hardly be fond of morgues, after all. It must be a part of the job that a degree from Harvard or Yale didn’t prepare you for. Not that John had ever seen a whole lot of corpses at U.C.L.A.

  Behind a small counter, a man with the complexion of some underground mollusc raised his head from a newspaper.

  “Can I help you?”

  The white-coated employee opened a metal door, and slid out a gurney. Without pausing, he pulled back the sheet to uncover the head.