George Clemenceau Oufiri had been listening with only half an ear for the last moment or two. A Bentley had just come into the villa’s garden. Its high beams swept across the venetian blind behind which the marshal was installed. They made black stripes across his black skin. The Bentley pulled up. Slamming of car doors. Several people’s feet crunching on the gravel. The marshal peeked between two slats of the blind without parting them—you could never be too careful. One man, a bodyguard, was silhouetted in the headlights. He was overseeing the main arrival. The beams highlighted his Schleicher. Just then they went out.
Shortly, footsteps resounded in the hall. The marshal half opened his door and peered out. Reassured, he opened it wide. Colonel Jumbo, in civilian clothes, a very respectable English suit, came toward him. The two shook hands. You could have called the colonel moonfaced if the moon were black. He gave a full-throated laugh, exposing filed teeth like the marshal’s.
“What a shambles! My God, what a shambles!” he said as he entered the library.
Nervously, he tossed his jacket onto the sofa as the marshal closed the door.
“Since the middle of last night they’ve never stopped calling about the delivery of that package.”
He laughed. Oufiri chuckled along with him.
“We’re taking a plane in the morning,” said the marshal.
Jumbo looked at his watch. He pursed his lips.
“It’s too late to sleep. Don’t you have a little white meat?”
Oufiri was disconcerted. It never occurred to him that his subordinates could be subject to carnal desires. He made an apologetic gesture.
“Josyane isn’t here?” asked Jumbo.
Oufiri’s complexion turned gray.
“Yes, she is. Why?”
His tone was surly. Jumbo smiled scornfully.
“Special reserve till the end, huh?”
“There is no end,” said Oufiri. “I’m taking her back home with us.”
“Idiot! And your wife?”
“No one will know anything,” said the marshal. “And you, just can it!”
“A white bitch,” said the colonel. “It’s okay with me. You can do whatever you like, of course, you’re a big shot.”
Oufiri turned his back on him.
“Let me fuck her just once,” pleaded Jumbo, who was the head of the secret service.
“You corrupt bastard! How dare you get familiar with me!” yelled Oufiri, and struck his subordinate in the mouth.
Jumbo fell against the table. Blood ran from his split lip.
“You poor fool! The whole security team has screwed her. Everything except run a train on her.”
“Lies!”
Each grabbed the other by the lapels. They rolled onto the carpet hammering each other with kidney punches and snorting like seals. After a moment they got up bruised and breathless.
“I could fire you,” Oufiri proffered.
Jumbo sneered. He had enough in his dossiers to ruin the marshal. The two men calmed down. Jumbo glanced vaguely at the tape recorder.
“Butron’s confession,” Oufiri explained.
“What a stupid little white man he was,” said Jumbo.
Oufiri shrugged.
“About that package,” said Jumbo. “Where is it?”
Oufiri looked daggers at him.
“Okay,” said the colonel.
“In the cellar.”
“In what state?”
“Negative.”
“Man,” said Jumbo, who had studied Hegel while at the Sorbonne, “is a negative being who is only inasmuch as he destroys being.”
The two black men burst out laughing for no reason and poured themselves drinks.