Lieutenant Deschamps locked the door to his office. Time to escape before Major Renard called him back for more work. Why was it the major always found new jobs for him at five o’clock?
It had happened today as he was about to leave. Renard called him into his office with its deep-red Aubusson carpet and fine Sèvres porcelain. He stood in front of the man’s desk waiting to see what he wanted. Renard kept him standing there, of course, without looking up, pretending he had something to finish before he could attend to Deschamps.
The games the man played, learnt on Petain’s General Staff during the war. Political games, not war games. Renard knew nothing of war, but he knew a lot about the petty humiliations, studied insolence and partial truths of bureaucracy. He was a master at it.
Eventually, the major picked up his pen and signed the bottom of the document with a flourish. ‘Lieutenant, how many years have you worked in the French Concession?’
‘Four years in the Surete, sir. I came here in 1926.’
‘Good. You will be the perfect man for this job.’ He pushed a bulky file across his desk. ‘Paris has asked for the numbers and variety of hats issued to the French police in the Concession.’
‘Hats, sir?’
‘Yes, hats, Lieutenant. The things you put on your head.’
‘Why would they want to know, sir?’
Major Renard shrugged his shoulders in a typically Gallic manner. ‘Why does Paris want to know anything?’
Deschamps picked up the bulky file. ‘I’ll start work on it, sir.’
‘Good.’
Major Renard began rereading the document he had signed. Lieutenant Deschamps knew the interview was over. He saluted, turned and walked across the lush carpet to the exit.
‘Oh, Deschamps…’
The lieutenant stopped in his tracks.
‘Paris needs the figures by tomorrow morning.’
Putain. Espèce de con.
Deschamps then did what all good bureaucrats do when faced with an impossible deadline for a meaningless task: he made the figures up.
Of course, they were couched in a cloud of caveats and subjunctive clauses, referencing obscure documents and statistics, but made up they were. He calculated that, by the time Paris had checked the figures against its own, had twelve meetings about the discrepancy and finally asked for clarification, it would be 1933 and Deschamps would be long gone. When that time came, if it ever did, another poor lieutenant could make his own figures up.
Deschamps smiled at his cleverness as he left Renard’s office and walked the long corridor on the third floor of the Surete. Only seven o’clock; he had managed to type the document quickly, leaving the file on Renard’s desk.
An Annamese constable saluted as he left the building and he returned the salute, still smiling broadly.
Rossana would be waiting.
His lovely Rossana.
It wasn’t her real name but he didn’t care. He had discovered her one night in a brothel on rue Doumer. She was waiting for customers in the living room and he had gone there to relax after a particularly trying day with the major. He hadn’t intended to indulge in the favours of any of the ladies that evening, but as soon as he saw her his commitment to celibacy disappeared.
She was Russian, of course, with long chestnut hair and those cat-like eyes that are a peculiar feature of women from the Caucasus. Her French was charming; just enough to make conversation without becoming boring. She claimed to be the daughter of a prince, as they all did. But he didn’t care. She could have been the daughter of a street sweeper for all it mattered to him; he wasn’t screwing her lineage.
A short time later, he had set her up not far from his office, in a small flat on rue du Consulat. She spent a small fortune making it look ‘just so’ but he didn’t care. In her arms and body, he found a refuge from the petty games of Major Renard. That escape was priceless.
Occasionally, he wondered if he was Rossana’s only lover. Did she share her charms with others? But as soon as the question crept into his mind, he dismissed it. What did it matter if there were others? Such petty jealousies were for the likes of Renard, not for him.
He stopped in front of a flower stall on the street. The shopkeeper produced a bowl of lilies of the valley.
She loved their rich scent and bell-shaped flowers against the verdant green of the leaves. He loved the fact that, in November in Shanghai, he could buy a flower reminding him of May Day in France.
He paid the woman and carried the bowl up the steps of Rossana’s apartment block in rue du Consulat. One of the apartments built in the new Art Deco style, all the rage in Paris and a fashion statement of modernity in Shanghai. Out with the old and in with the new was the city’s motto. If only that applied to Major Renard too.
Balancing the pot of flowers in one hand, Lieutenant Deschamps took out his keys and let himself into the apartment. Strange – Rossana usually ran to greet him as soon as the door opened. ‘Rossana,’ he shouted.
The apartment was silent.
‘Rossana, I’m home.’
Again no response.
Damn the woman, she’s supposed to be here waiting for me. He stomped into the living room. Empty. A pile of fashion magazines lay strewn on the couch alongside the morning’s paper.
Odd. The apartment was usually so tidy when he came home.
He walked into the bedroom. The curtains were drawn and it was dark. But he could see the shape of a body lying on the bed. ‘Rossana, why didn’t you answer when I called?’
Silence.
‘Rossana, are you ill?’
He stepped into the dark room and walked over to the bed. Rossana was lying on top of it, fully clothed, her eyes closed. He reached out to touch her shoulder, to gently wake her up.
No response.
He moved his arm along the shoulder to touch her face.
Still no response.
‘Rossana won’t be providing her usual favours this evening, Lieutenant.’
Before Deschamps could turn around, he felt the sharp jab of a needle in his neck between the ear and the top of his uniform collar. He tried to grab the arm that held it, but either he moved too slowly or it was too quick.
His vision was blurring already. He wanted to turn his body to confront the voice behind him but he couldn’t. He tried to move his legs but they remained rooted to the spot like plane trees. His throat was suddenly parched. Why was he so thirsty?
Before he could answer his own question, he felt himself falling forward into the unloving arms of his mistress. The last thing he felt before he lost consciousness was the smoothness of her skin against his cheek.
As smooth as death, he thought as he closed his eyes.