Vango

  “Sorry?”

  “NOT SO FAST!” roared the superintendent.

  And Ethel broke into a dazzling smile, unlike anything he’d seen from her.

  On a bend, she wanted to stop to show him the view. The pneumatics sank squeakily back down to the ground.

  His legs still trembling, Boulard took a few steps through the long grass behind Ethel.

  They could see Loch Ness in the distance.

  “It’s a fine sight,” said Boulard.

  Ethel sat down on a rock and was very quiet.

  The superintendent stayed standing. The countryside reminded him of his birthplace, Aubrac: the high plateau where he had grown up between the Aveyron, the Lozère, and the Cantal, with five months a year of snow underfoot.

  “How many kingdoms know us not,” Ethel murmured.

  Boulard frowned.

  Her eyes were closed.

  The sky was turning black toward the west.

  “It’s a phrase that was written on a scrap of material he always had on him,” Ethel explained. “‘Combien de royaumes nous ignorent.’”

  Coming to her senses again, she added in a different tone of voice, “I’m telling you that because it won’t be of any use to you.”

  “Thank you,” came Boulard’s sarcastic reply.

  It was the kind of clue that served no purpose except to look good in detective novels.

  “It’s a quote from Blaise Pascal’s Thoughts,” remarked Boulard, who never read detective novels.

  “Does the name ‘the Cat’ mean anything to you?”

  Ethel fell silent.

  “It’s the only clue I’ve been able to find,” the superintendent conceded. “The only one. Somebody came to ask for Vango Romano at the seminary the day after he’d fled. A fourteen-year-old girl. She told the caretaker to let Vango know the Cat was waiting for him. But when we turned up with two of my men, the girl was no longer there. . . .

  Ethel stared at the police officer.

  “Well, does that name mean anything to you?”

  “It’s time to go, Superintendent. But if you keep pestering me, I’ll have to leave you here.”

  She ran toward the car.

  She didn’t much like the idea of another girl looking for Vango.

  Twenty minutes later, they arrived at the station. The train was already there, ready to leave, and the platform was empty apart from the superintendent and the young lady.

  “I’ve never heard that name before,” Ethel conceded reluctantly, shaking Boulard’s hand. “But let me know if you find her.”

  He already had both feet on the train outboard.

  “You mean the Cat?”

  She nodded. A young man in a cap came out of the station and rushed onto the train just as it was pulling out. Two blows of the whistle cut through the chill of the May morning.

  When the train had gone, Ethel, alone on the station platform, was musing about how she would have loved to spend all night talking about Vango, sharing everything she knew, which is to say nothing apart from what she had experienced onboard the zeppelin.

  Vango. The way he opened and closed his eyes, the way he walked, the way he told stories, the way he pronounced certain words, like Brazil, the way he peeled potatoes by giving them eight perfect sides, the way he gazed at the waves down below, the way he recited short poems in unrecognizable dialects, the way he prepared French toast above the Pacific Ocean at two o’clock in the morning that was so good it made your teeth feel like they were sinking into a dream.

  She couldn’t have recounted anything other than those little memories because, during the precious few weeks she and Vango had spent together, she had lived only in the present. On the day when she had suddenly thought about the past and especially about the future, it was already too late.

  As the superintendent watched the girl on the platform shrinking, he felt curiously satisfied by his visit. He had gotten what he wanted, the trail that he’d been missing up until that point.

  He settled comfortably into his seat.

  That same morning, at breakfast, when Mary had brought him his tea, he had been able to ask what he needed to know, between two compliments about the blueberry muffins.

  The voyage that had made such a mark on Ethel and Paul had taken place between the tenth of August and the ninth of September 1929.

  “Yes, Mr. Poolard, the pair of them set off, those poor children. I can remember it only too well. Ethel was in such a bad way. So fragile since the death of her parents. She came back a completely different person.”

  “Better?”

  “Cured, Mr. Poolard! Cured!”

  Mary wiped her nose. The superintendent was listening.

  “It happened on board the zeppelin, five years ago. The grand world tour of 1929, you understand! They were even in the newspaper. Those poor little bairns . . .”

  “Poor little ones,” Boulard echoed joyously.

  That same zeppelin had flown over Notre Dame in Paris the day after the murder, as Vango was running away.

  It might not seem much. But for someone like Boulard, that kind of coincidence looked like the beginning of a solution.

  The Ritz, Place Vendôme, Paris, three days later

  Boris Petrovitch Antonov had shaved off his mustache.

  He was furious about this, but the orders had come from so high up that personal vanity was out of the question.

  Now he looked like a white-haired baby.

  “Is that all you’ve got?”

  Boris was leafing through a small notebook across the table from a student who was crumpling a cap between his ink-stained fingers. They were sitting in a bar at the hotel. Three old ladies were sipping tea. They gave off a scent of white lilies and bergamot.

  “Where’s the rest?”

  “In the Thames.”

  Boris smacked his hand against his forehead.

  “You threw the rest of the suitcase into the river?”

  “Those were my orders.”

  They were clearly Russian, but they were speaking in French to avoid drawing attention to themselves. A pianist was playing slow melodies in the adjacent room. The sound of footsteps rang out in the lobby.

  His complexion looking paler and more waxen than ever, Boris paused over a page in the notebook on which a portrait had been reproduced.

  “It’s a striking resemblance, isn’t it?” said the student, who had finally put his cap down on the table.

  Boris glared at him. It was a portrait of Boris Petrovitch Antonov himself, drawn by Ethel and copied into the notebook by Augustin Avignon.

  This portrait of the mysterious marksman at Notre Dame was in the hands of the police.

  Boris turned the page roughly, exasperated at seeing the sketched version of the mustache he’d had to sacrifice because of this kid, so as not to be recognized.

  “Did you at least see the girl?”

  “Only from a distance. It was impossible to get close to the castle. The place is buzzing with servants. When she goes out, it’s in her car or on horseback. You can’t see her for the cloud of dust. But she took the superintendent to the station at Inverness the next day. I followed him as far as Paris.”

  “Who?”

  “Boulard.”

  “Where does he live?”

  “Behind Saint-Germain-des-Prés.”

  “Alone?”

  “With his mother.”

  Boris grabbed a passing waiter and ordered two more coffees. Next to them, a little girl was eating an enormous bowl of ice cream, one scoop taller than she was.

  “So the bottom line is, you haven’t found anything?”

  “I haven’t found anything because they haven’t got anything,” the student explained.

  “You haven’t found anything,” Boris repeated.

  “I’m telling you . . .”

  “Be quiet. You took the suitcase too early. You should have stolen it on his return from staying with the girl, when he was passing through London again.
She might have said things to him. They would have been in the notebook.”

  “I took the suitcase when I could, Boris Antonov.”

  Livid, Boris banged his fist on the table. First his mustache had been sacrificed, and now his career and his life hung in the balance.

  “We already knew about the portrait. As for the rest, there’s nothing,” he declared, summarizing the situation. “Is that correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m disappointed in you, Andrei.”

  “I fulfilled my mission.”

  “Did you at least pay a visit to the monks?”

  “Yes. They buried Father Jean this morning. There were a lot of people. I went into his room last night. They’ve cleaned everything up. There’s nothing left.”

  The little girl knocked over her glass of water and nearly drowned the notebook. Andrei rescued his cap, but Boris felt his trousers soaking up the water. The pair of them stared at the girl. Blond and pretty, she apologized with a big smile before continuing the ascent of her ice cream via the north face.

  Boris gritted his teeth. How could people leave a child of twelve or thirteen all alone in the lobby of a hotel? He spat into his handkerchief, disgusted by French society.

  “So you haven’t got anything,” said Boris Antonov, returning to the subject.

  “I did what you asked me to. You found an address at the priest’s. Perhaps that will lead to something.”

  “It’s far away. Somewhere in the middle of the ocean. We’ve sent some of our men to go and check it out.”

  “Oh, and don’t forget, there’s also this name in the notebook.”

  Andrei took the notebook from Boris and showed him a page.

  “Yes,” said Boris, “I saw that. The Cat.”

  He sniggered.

  “A big thank-you for finding that. The Cat! Bravo! Now there’s a suspect, if ever there was one!”

  Boris stood up, clapping softly, then he shook Andrei’s hand. His fingers were icy.

  “Are you leaving?” the student asked anxiously.

  “Yes. I’m on a special mission.”

  Boris whispered something in his ear: “I’m going to the zoo at Vincennes, to ask the lions if they can tell me where to find the Cat.”

  Andrei smiled tensely.

  “Do you think it’s funny?” Boris barked.

  Andrei froze. The big man grabbed him by the ear.

  “Where will I find you if I need you?”

  The student kneaded his cap in his hands without giving an answer.

  “Where?” Boris pressed him, ready to rip off his ear.

  “Boris Petrovitch Antonov, I’ve been meaning to say . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “I think I’m going to have to stop . . .”

  “To stop?”

  “Working for you.”

  The man looked pityingly at him.

  “No? Really?”

  “I’ve been mulling it over. And I really do feel I should stop.”

  “Is that so?”

  Boris Antonov had let go of his ear and was using the tablecloth to wipe his wire-framed glasses clean. His nearsighted eyes were taking a hard look at Andrei.

  “I don’t think that’s a very good idea. You’re young, Andrei.”

  “Exactly. I need to consider what I’m doing with my life. I’m a violinist.”

  Boris couldn’t help smiling. Consider: the boy still thought he had a choice! He put a few coins down on the table.

  “I’m leaving. Have a drink on me. And don’t disappear, little one. I’m counting on you. And so is your family.”

  “I’m telling you, I want to stop everything.”

  Boris Antonov laughed and placed his index and middle finger on the boy’s forehead, so that his hand made the shape of a pistol.

  “Stop what? Living? There are some things we don’t stop doing, Andrei.”

  He pinched the young musician’s cheek and headed off with another guffaw.

  The student stayed sitting there for a long time, both hands gripping his cap to stop himself from falling over.

  He was thinking of his family in Moscow.

  He had come to Paris to study music. He had been surprised by the ease with which he’d been authorized to leave his country. But it had all become very clear once he’d been contacted by Boris Antonov. At the beginning, they’d talked to him about his family, who wasn’t well thought of in Moscow. Then, they’d started asking him to do things. As long as he obeyed, his family need fear nothing.

  How was it all going to end? How?

  “Do you want to finish this off for me?”

  He was startled.

  The little girl next to him had pushed her ice cream his way.

  “It’s too big for me,” she said. “I can’t eat it all.”

  He looked at her. She wasn’t so young after all. Fourteen, at least.

  “No, thanks, I’ve got to go.”

  He stood up and left.

  To pay for her ice cream, the girl piled up her coins on the table, a pile as tall as the column in the Place Vendôme, and then she left as well.

  The doorman nodded at her. “Good evening, Mademoiselle Atlas.”

  The head receptionist greeted her as she walked past.

  The baggage handler turned the revolving door for her. “See you soon, Mademoiselle Atlas.”

  Outside, the valet repeated the same words.

  She didn’t respond to any of them.

  Ever since she was a little girl, they had all insisted on calling her Mademoiselle Atlas, which she found ridiculous.

  She wandered off into the square.

  Her real name was the Cat.

  The Cat had met Vango eighteen months earlier, on December 25, 1932, at three o’clock in the morning, between the second and third levels of the Eiffel Tower.

  The place, the date, and the timing weren’t the most propitious: the final meters of the Eiffel Tower, on Christmas Day, at three o’clock in the morning. But up there, where there’s only one route, there’s a far higher chance of meeting other climbers than lower down, where the tower’s four legs multiply the options.

  “Hi.”

  “Hello,” answered Vango. “Are you all right?”

  “Yeah.”

  Vango wasn’t the sort to engage in small talk during his nocturnal escapades, and on the rare occasions when he’d encountered people on the roof of the Opera, in the clock at the Gare de Lyon or, years later, in the cables of the Brooklyn Bridge, he had hidden before anyone could see him.

  That night, the first thing that struck him was the Cat’s age. She looked like a little girl on a seesaw in a children’s playground. Except that she was sitting two hundred and twenty-five meters up, astride a metal arch.

  Despite the cold, the Cat wasn’t wearing gloves.

  It took a lot to get her to admit to being thirteen.

  “Do you come here often?” asked Vango.

  “Reasonably,” she replied, her gaze cool.

  Which meant this was the first time.

  “Would you like to continue together?”

  “I’m just having a bit of a rest, thanks.”

  Breathing heavily in the freezing air, she exhaled little round clouds of white steam.

  “Right.”

  Vango made a show of continuing his ascent. At this height, the paintwork had flaked beneath the frost. He had to check every handhold so as not to slip. He turned around again.

  “Are you sure you’re all right?”

  Vango hated insisting like this, but the girl didn’t seem comfortable. She didn’t answer. He lowered himself and took another look at her. She was wearing a silk scarf that was too long for her, so she’d wound it five or six times around her slender neck. The steel crossbars that framed them both weren’t well lit.

  “Your left foot’s hurting you,” he pointed out.

  “No.”

  And then she asked instinctively, “How did you know?”

  “Can
I take a look?”

  He took her foot, and she let out a yelp.

  “You’ve sprained your ankle.”

  “And?”

  “Can I help you move from here?”

  She stared at the lights in the distance and shrugged, like a polite child being offered a sweet.

  “Yes, please.”

  Carefully, he took her on his back. They could hear an owl, very close by. From the way she held on to his shoulders, he could tell that this girl was just like him, that she had known how to climb before she could walk.

  “I’m guessing you don’t want to take the steps,” he said.

  “No.”

  They both knew that on the stairs there was a guard with a scary black dog whose teeth glowed in the dark.

  “All right.”

  He started climbing.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Didn’t you want to go higher up?”

  “Yes . . .”

  She was warming to him.

  “So let’s go, then.”

  “Fine. Whatever you say.”

  They stayed at the top of the tower until sunrise.

  Vango got out some bread, which they shared. Seagulls came to screech around them. They played with Vango.

  “Do you know them?” the Cat asked, fascinated.

  Vango was watching them closely. Looking up from down below, a ring of feathers circling in the red of the rising sun would have been visible at the top of the tower.

  Vango pointed at an owl hovering just above them.

  “That one, yes, I’ve seen her before, where I come from, a long way away from here.”

  The young girl tried not to show her surprise.

  They could make out the forests beyond the city’s outskirts, and the Cat even claimed to be able to see the sea.

  “Perhaps,” said Vango.

  “Over there, look.”

  Clouds were stretched across the horizon.

  Her eyesight was good. You would expect no less of a cat.

  Neither of them shared their life story.

  He dropped her off in front of her house in the morning.

  “Why are you called the Cat?”

  “Because if I’m not at liberty to prowl, I suffocate.”

  Vango smiled.

  “Don’t laugh. I really do suffocate.”

  “I’m laughing because it’s given you a taste for luxury. Your home looks pretty big to me.”