Ivan Georg had already seen policemen. He’d even seen them fairly close up. But never on his own initiative. They had always been the ones to take the first step.
And on that morning where, for the first time in his life, he had resolved to go and speak to a policeman, he didn’t quite know how to go about it. He wondered which subdivision of which specialized brigade he was supposed to contact in order to tell them a story like the one that was on his mind.
He had woken up very early in the morning and hadn’t managed to get back to sleep. At six o’clock he got up and headed out into the dark under a fine, icy rain, to go to the Odéon.
The bookstore would not open for another few hours, and he went straight up to his desk on the second floor. The big room seemed impossibly comfortable to him that morning, with its paneled walls, its white roughcast, and the sisal rug that covered the entire floor. Francesca had arranged it as she saw fit—I’ve always thought that it looked like her—perfect taste, monastic rigor, nothing conformist about it at all. Van had quickly left his mark upon it, in the piles of books waiting to be examined that sprung up here and there like baroque columns.
The office was impeccably soundproofed, so he could make his phone call safely sheltered from indiscreet ears. However, one hour, four coffees, and three beedies later, he still hadn’t made the call.
He switched on his computer, went onto the Internet, called up Google, and typed “novel police.” One million, one hundred and eighty thousand results in one second, all to do with crime novels, policemen in novels, the police as seen in detective fiction, police slang in noir novels, and police films.
Van typed “police publishing” and saw the first page of twenty-nine million six hundred thousand entries on instances where police had been involved in publishing (J.K. Rowling seemed to be a popular hit) and on the publishing (fairly specialized) of police publications, both technical and fantastical.
He got it. He typed “police,” took a quick glance at what came up, then typed “criminal investigation.” The first site, at the top of the first page, belonged to the Ministry of the Interior. Van scrolled through it rapidly. He skipped over “history of the criminal investigation department,” “organization,” “structure,” “key figures,” “results,”—although this last page might have been of some interest—and finally stopped at “struggle against organized crime.”
This serious criminality was in turn subdivided into sixteen categories, and Ivan went through them all. “Procuring,” “traffic in stolen vehicles,” “terrorism,” “narcotics,” “money laundering”: nowhere was there any mention of bookstores or novels. There was one section on “traffic in cultural goods.” Van had a look. It was about the theft and sale of fine art alone—to which category books do not belong.
“Sensitive substances”: Van hesitated. He got the impression that he himself was made solely of such matter, as was everything he loved in life—literature, poetry, snow, Anis, sweet peas, Sicilian granitas. Here, however, sensitive substances were solely being considered for their use, implying the traffic therein, perforce associated with that of arms and explosives.
The “struggle against counterfeit money and goods”: what better definition was there for the Good Novel bookstore’s very existence? But Van knew that for the Ministry of the Interior that struggle was the literal, not figurative, one—which, for Van, meant suffering, action, life.
He thought he was getting close when he came to “damage to individuals and property.” This particular division of the Criminal Investigation Department comprised some very specialized units (such as the “unit responsible for child victims of sexual abuse, and against the dissemination of child pornography,” or the “unit responsible for dismantling agencies producing false administrative documents”, and finally a “unit for general matters covering all sorts of offenses”). Van took note of the generous title of this unit and its unlimited mandate, by definition. At the very least, his problems must come under the heading “all sorts of offenses,” and for a moment he imagined it as some sort of back yard overflowing with dirty tricks and shaggy-dog stories. He decided he would call these general practitioners of the criminal investigation department for help.
He also read that the jurisdiction of the officers of the criminal investigation department was “not limited to the remit of a single tribunal” but “extended to the entire national territory.” This seemed just as well. He then learned that the criminal investigation department employed seven thousand eight hundred civil servants including, for the regional branch of Paris alone, two thousand three hundred and fifty-nine “policemen and administrative agents,” eighty-four police detective superintendents, and one thousand one hundred and forty-two officers.
Van printed out two pages of summary where there was a very legible organizational chart of the department and a list of their employees, and studied them carefully, pressing his lips.
There were so many people, it was too much for him. What he needed from the diagram and the list, far too abstract for him, was one person of confidence, one alone, who would listen to his story without raising an eyebrow or smiling or starting a criminal investigation straight off the bat, at this stage, but who would go for one of those secret preliminary investigations which, Van had just discovered, could be conducted “for an unlimited amount of time.”
He was prepared to believe that the detective superintendent placed in charge of the “unit of general matters” could be that ideal interface. But something told him that if he called and asked for that gentleman alone, they wouldn’t connect him just like that. Something told him that he would have to start off by going to see the basic policeman on duty at his local police station. And Van didn’t feel comfortable with that. He sensed that if he went to the local police station they would give him a knowing smile, and raise their eyebrows mockingly; worse yet was the risk of indiscreet and well-organized connections to the gutter press.
It was eight twenty-five. Van dialed Francesca’s number. She picked up on the first ring.
“Francesca?”
“Yes, Van?”
“Francesca, forgive me for calling you so early. I was afraid I would miss you later. Do you have some time this morning? I need to see you.”
“More . . . problems?”
“Yes, problems, of a new kind. Don’t worry. We’ll deal with them. But I would like to see you.”
“Are you calling from the office?”
“Yes.”
“I’m coming.”
“This is the best place to talk, without anyone hearing.”
Talk without anyone hearing . . . while waiting for Francesca to come from her home on the rue de Condé, Van went to the window nearest his desk and let his gaze drift over the courtyard. He once again heard their conversation that morning from six months earlier when, in this same office, they had spoken as never before, nor since.
That brief conversation, which had changed the course of their friendship, revealing a secret door in what had seemed an impregnable wall separating their lives, had taken place in April, 2005. The bookstore had been in operation for six months. The attacks had been going on for several months by then. They had become dreadful. Francesca was holding up. She had not disappointed Van, on the contrary, and the reverse seemed as well, because one morning in April, while they were discussing what was to be done with the requests for information from abroad—Van remembered it very clearly, he could see Francesca as she was that day, in a sober dress of off-white wool—she had asked, “Van, do you understand that I no longer view you as an associate?”
She gave a little laugh: “Or rather, that I view you as an associate in the most . . .”
She did not finish her sentence. Van saw her lovely, anxious eyes, so light in her long face.
No, he hadn’t understood a thing, and for a very good reason. They had been working together for over a year, and in all that time Francesca had let nothing show through of her change of attitude. On seeing her emotion, Van realized that while he had been informed of the major fractures in her life—very briefly, once, she had talked to him about her daughter, and two or three times she had mentioned her husband—she knew absolutely nothing about him and his affairs of the heart.
“You intimidate me,” he said before she could go any further. “I am so . . . ordinary, compared to you. I have told you nothing about myself. These days, my mind is filled with a young woman who . . . how to describe it? I have trouble understanding her. It’s not a simple story. Nor has there been”—he hesitated—“any resolution. I don’t know how things are going to develop. But this friend has, in her way, been active in our adventure at The Good Novel. She has always believed in it, she didn’t try to dissuade me from embarking on the project. On the contrary, even though it has put four hundred miles between us, she has supported me in the—”
Francesca interrupted him in turn. Van could still hear the note of contrition in her voice when she said, “Forgive me, I have nothing to ask you. Above all, don’t get me wrong, I am expecting nothing from you.”
She said again, “Forgive me.”
“What for?” asked Van.
Francesca had already taken herself in hand.
“It’s time for you to tell me a few things about yourself,” she said without replying. “What is the young woman’s name?”
“Anis.”
“That’s no ordinary name.”
“In fact, her name is Anne-Isabelle. She thinks the double name is ridiculous. So she made up the nickname.”
“Is she working?”
“She has several things going. She’s doing a Master’s in sociology, and she’s working, here and there. It’s not cheap to live in Paris. I get the impression she’s doing odd jobs.”
Van paused for a moment.
“I hardly know anything about how she spends her time.”
“Ivan,” said Francesca then, “two things would help me. First of all: the bookstore is keeping you busy ten hours a day, you have no time left to read. Would Anis agree to work at The Good Novel? Second thing: spare me any ridicule. Please. Don’t talk to anybody about my . . . effusiveness.”
“It’s a promise,” Van had said.
And he had kept his word. Only recently did I learn what they had said to each other that day, a conversation which further explained Francesca’s melancholy.