TWENTY-FIVE

The Place de la République was the seat of the municipal administration of a smallish French town; the ‘mairie’ or town hall; where you go to get born, married, or buried. During your life, many other things can happen to you, and to have permission for these, in a highly centralised state like the Republic, you must go to the regional apparatus of government. To pay taxes, say, or get a doctor’s bill reimbursed by Social Security.

     It was only five minutes’ walk from the Place d’Armes, but a different world. A different century for a start: nineteenth instead of eighteenth. Instead of being light and simple in proportions, it was sombre and top-heavy: leaden architecture, which strove for dignity and succeeded in being ponderous. However big the windows they would always repel light, instead of admitting it. It was not a theatre for bugle calls and the click of accoutrements, but a setting for public executions, conducted with the utmost parsimony in the middle of a grudging and petty existence.

     All these bureaux with ridiculous names are collectively termed the intendance, a contemptuous word. They are full of functionaries – another bad word. And these people are sometimes alive and intelligent. They can be courteous and charming. Even the police can be all four.

     Not of course the Petty Functionary. He is a bastard anywhere, intoxicated by his petty authority. He is the Postmaster from Przemysl, bawling out Turkish immigrants for daring to spell their names in Turkish. Inventing new sorts of rubber stamps. Atrophied both by his arrogance and his servility, he is scarcely alive at all.

     But there are superior functionaries too. They are sometimes alive.

     Castang had spent much of his life in these rabbit warrens, and tapped briskly down corridors.

     Equipment; subdivision Environment. Parks and Open Spaces. Waters and Forests. A Departmental Director for Sanitary and Social Action; he was getting warm. National Agency for Amelioration of Housing; chilly again. He turned a corner.

     Ah. Building Permits. Commercial, Industrial. Public Works. Last, Persons. He was a Person. Members of the Public Apply Next Door, but he knocked smartly and entered. A spruce elderly man looked up from a crowded desk.

     ‘You know,’ mildly, ‘this is a private office. It’s even written there, in large letters.’

     ‘Police,’ said Castang, producing a card. ‘I wanted it to be discreet.’

     ‘Well. Police Judiciaire I see. Monsieur Castang. Well. My name is Delalande. Sit down. No, that’s a bad chair; try this. I don’t smoke, but please do. So: a breath of excitement. I am agog.’ He didn’t look in the least agog, but he never would.

     The door to the communicating office opened and a fat man came in with papers, importance, a draught.

     ‘I think you see that I have a visitor,’ said Delalande. This mildness was more deadly than shouting: the fat person withdrew.

     ‘In what way can I serve you?’ Professional urbanity, and perhaps, too, a desire to be of service.

     ‘Do you have a young man called Lipschitz working in your service?’

     ‘Indeed I do. Today he is on a leave of absence. He lost his mother under tragic circumstances. Known as leave upon Family Affairs. I dare say that you know all about this.’

     ‘That’s right. I’m enquiring into this death, as you guess or already know. The family affairs; they’re a bit complicated. So it occurred to me to come and see you, for a character reference, in a sense. No, better, a different viewpoint. We tend to see things from too narrow an angle.’

     ‘It could hardly be narrower than mine,’ mildly. ‘I know nothing of his family affairs.’

     ‘Piercing spotlights from all angles,’ suggested Castang. ‘Even upon the front shown in working hours.’

     ‘I see. You might think of circulating a little memo, to point out the beauty of piercing spotlights. A means, for instance, of promoting broadened vision within the framework of interdepartmental intercourse. I’m thinking of the Sewerage people. Now they stand somewhat in need of broadened vision. However to your purpose: Monsieur Lipschitz: yes… He does me good, I dare say. He’s an intelligent young man. He provides, aha, an astringent element. Gingers me up, you know. Most valuable… On the other hand, it could perhaps be said of him that his horizons too stood in need of a little broadening.’

     ‘You’re thinking perhaps of getting him transferred to the Sewerage?’

     ‘Yes, they could do with an astringent element: there’s much to be said for that. However, as Promoter of the Faith I am bound to wage a just war.’

     ‘But a Holy War.’

     ‘I must remain scrupulous,’ said Monsieur Delalande, who had evidently a taste for mild civil-service jokes. ‘An act such as you describe would be contrary to the Geneva Convention. Much like poison gas. Or perhaps explosive bullets.’

     ‘An ultimate weapon.’

     ‘Not a bad description; he is rather a violent young man. Suffers from excess thyroid, to judge by his eyes. Says astonishing things. He told me the other day that honesty was a ridiculous concept. He’s all the plagues of Egypt – minus one if we admit the Sewerage. Well,’ dropping into his normal voice, ‘suppose we don’t dramatise. He’d be quite interesting to a pathologist. He can turn a polished phrase; produces indeed the most ingenious sophisms. Witness the example I gave you: asked to explain himself, he said that honesty being contrary to all human nature he found it a dishonest concept. He has an extreme fear of deprivation, which leads to naked covetousness. A perfect Attila of anarchy. And no notion of property at all: there isn’t a paperclip safe anywhere along the corridor. The entire office is plundered, and lives terrorised beneath his heel.’

     ‘Bar yourself.’

     ‘I have my methods,’ agreed Monsieur Delalande, with the French attachment to the works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

     ‘Do you feel sorry for him?’

     ‘It’s astonishingly difficult to feel sorry for him,’ ruefully. ‘Very immature, of course. Is it a psychopathic element? I hesitate to use other jargons than my own. An accomplished actor.’

     ‘That and the feeling of deprivation – you’ve quoted two classic symptoms.’

     ‘True. And the skill at self-justification.’

     ‘Would he commit a crime?’

     ‘No, no,’ smiling faintly, ‘you musn’t ask me that. I have no knowledge of anything beyond misdemeanour. But he’s not a good person. He can see, you understand, no need to be. He’s in the right, totally, at all times. Nothing will convince him of the contrary. An anarchist.’

     ‘He sounds, in official language, a sore trial.’

     ‘Family affairs,’ remarked Delalande elliptically. ‘Birthdays and boyfriends one leaves to the typists, in general, but I have gathered that he had a bad start. An orphan. And the elements, the metals and things in his composition: they’re at war with each other. If the metaphor is not too lurid for you he’s highly radioactive: he glows in the dark.’

     Castang was liking his new witness.

     ‘One would wish to be sorry for him, very much. Plainly he’s very unhappy. Equally, he’ll never get out of the…’

     ‘Shit.’

     ‘Quite. You see why the Sewerage couldn’t cope. Too much of their own.’

     ‘Can I seize on a few of the points you’ve made?’

     ‘By all means.’

     ‘The naked covetousness, honesty a ridiculous concept, anarchy, no notion of property – he doesn’t exactly sound cut out for public service.’

     ‘Just so. And of course I see where you are tending. I take precautions, naturally. I should in any case. No public service is ever altogether free of abuses and corruption. A fact one must always bear in mind when dealing with it.’

     ‘As witness,’ said Castang, ‘the police.’

     ‘The point is well taken. This particular service is vulnerable, building permits being a sought-after commodity. Let’s say that I see his claws are kept cut. Naturally, any abuse would see the end of him at once. It would be a pity really. His abilities are great, whereas one is never short of competent mediocrities. He knows, of course, that I wouldn’t give threepence for his future here. I don’t want to prejudice another future, elsewhere. I’ve been hoping that he would anticipate me. I’d be rid of a scourge. What can I tell you? – it will come, one way or the other, shortly; within weeks. This bereavement may help me avoid the obligation by making it unnecessary: there was a murmur about coming into some money.’

     ‘In confidence,’ said Castang, ‘can you tell me whether you have in fact had any small trouble?’

     ‘Not yet…’

     ‘Has there been any approach to your office for a permit to build on the Lipschitz property – from any quarter?’

     ‘Yes, there was, but eight or nine months ago. A house agent asking whether, theoretically, permission would be forthcoming.’

     ‘Monsieur Thonon?’

     ‘That’s correct. Nothing unreasonable – an informal approach. I told him naturally that if a technical dossier was presented with the usual architectural plans it would be considered in the normal way. There is no objection a priori, from the urbanisation angle.’

     ‘He was just checking up in a prudent way?’

     ‘No doubt, with a view to making an offer presumably. If you’re wondering whether there was or is any collusion with our young man – set that thought at rest.’

     ‘And – if you’ll forgive me – no effort at putting pressure on yourself?’

     ‘Such efforts are frequent,’ smiling thinly, ‘but not in this instance.’

     ‘Any personal opinion about Thonon that you’d feel able to give me? Hints have been made that he sails close to the law occasionally, and you might be well placed to judge of that.’

     ‘Not in specific terms. Most house agents dabble in building promotion if they see an opportunity to turn it to advantage. You know as well as I do that the profits are considerable. There’s evidently a temptation to small dishonesties in various shades of grey: that’s inevitable. Most promoters as a consequence get a reputation for being sharks. I do not need, I imagine, to say that I don’t go clapping telescopes to my blind eye, but I don’t hold their mouths open to look at their teeth, either. It’s the difference between a bit of wire and a bit of string. Some people are born bent; others have bentness thrust upon them.’

     ‘I’m obliged to you,’ said Castang.

     ‘I’m an experienced official,’ said Delalande mildly. ‘Where building permits are concerned, the skulduggery is a bottomless pit. I don’t make a parade of my skill in detecting it. That young man keeps me on my toes, but I’m accustomed to that.’

     ‘I don’t suppose I’m likely to create any troubles for you,’ said Castang. ‘If I see any likelihood I’ll give you a phone-call. I don’t like scandals any more than you do. And the judge has a holy horror of them.’

     The two shook hands, with polite, civil-service laughs.