10.

REQUIEM, MY MERCHANDISE IS SACRED.

The beating he’d received outside of his performance at Tram 83 had confined him to bed. Seventeen stitches by the doctors’ count. Lucien momentarily halted the writing of his stage-tale. The ambitions he entertained disappeared with every passing nightmare. Headless men appeared, advising he climb aboard the first train or risk ending up in the morgue, his guts exposed, his eyes scraped out. The texts just couldn’t make any headway in such a climate. He no longer felt the pertinence of Che’s lines, or even Gandhi’s in negotiations with George Bush Junior, tableau 10, entitled “Baghdad Boogie And Other Lives To Come.” The dramatist’s drama remains the distractedness of the characters on whom the plot depends.

“Requiem, my merchandise, don’t you dare try and stiff me, or you’ll see what I’m really capable of!”

His day had got off to a bad start. Four dreams he’d had, the first two in the morning and the other two in the afternoon, common denominator: a railroad without tracks, miners engulfed, cherry-popped baby-chicks, and students wasted away by the strike, for-profit tourists heading back home, the busgirl with the fat lips stabbed by a mercenary … From the very first dream, he had a foreboding that something bad was going to happen to him.

He hung up without saying a word. He closed the shutters. He picked up a volume lying on a shelf of the small bookcase. Buried his nose in it.

Another phone call.

“Requiem, my merchandise is sacred!”

Ever since he’d been bed-bound, he regularly received calls for the Negus laden with death threats. He had even gotten adjusted to this rain of blackmail that fell every half hour. He hung up, returned to the publication. 7:16 P.M. Another phone call. He continued his reading. The telephone was insistent. He hesitated, then picked up the receiver, exhausted by these gymnastics.

“Good evening, Ferdinand Malingeau. May I speak with Mr. Lucien?”

“What do you want with me?”

He answered, after rather a long silence:

“Yes, Mister Lucien, I must first of all beseech your forgiveness for the other evening. Your friend gave me to understand that you were going through a bad patch and needed a little more money.”

“So?”

“I am still interested in your literature and I would like to meet to discuss things.”

“Can you leave me the hell alone?”

“Sir … It is for your benefit. Your friend told me all about the difficulties you’re currently experiencing. I thought, after the five thousand dollars, to come to your aid again.”

“What five thousand dollars?”

He was dumbstruck.

“The five thousand I gave to your friend as compensation!”

He was speechless.

“Do you have any other texts?”

Five thousand dollars, damn that Requiem! He shook with rage.

“Can you hear me, sir, see you at the Tram at 11 P.M. at the latest?”

“That’s perfect.”

He collapsed onto the couch. The phone rang:

“Hi, Lucien, Requiem here, I won’t be back this evening.”

For the past week, Requiem had been ringing to apologize for not being able to come home, on the pretext of some deal to tie up.

“Ok.”

“Hi, Lucien, what’s with you, my blood brother?”

“Nothing.”

He hung up surreptitiously for fear of uttering some idiocy. He nodded off.

The phone rang:

“Requiem, my merchandise or nothing, it’s a matter of life or death …”

He suddenly had a crazy idea. A leap into the void. He thought of Jacqueline, and replied without mincing his words:

“Requiem, my merchandise, Requiem, my merchandise, shut it!”

He got back to his reading. 7:47 P.M. He stood up, took the only beer sitting in the fridge, went out, his imitation-leather bag under his arm, and tried the broken-down elevators.