MONDAY, JUNE 28, 2021
HANGAR B, McGUIRE AIR FORCE BASE
MR. VANNIER?” Jamy Pudlowski says a second time to the architect who’s standing by the one-way mirror of the control room. Lined up on the platform behind them are dozens of units, half cubes of steel and tinted glass with a single glazed door. A few meters below them is the hangar’s small multitude in all its noise and agitation.
“Do you understand the situation, Mr. Vannier?” “Insofar as that’s possible, yes.”
“Have you been shown the video with images from the cameras on both planes? The moment of divergence? And the short animated film made by the NSA putting forward the hypotheses? Have you been told that there’s another ‘you’ here in this hangar? Along with two hundred forty-two more ‘doubles,’ to be precise.”
André Vannier’s only reply is to put his hands on the guardrail and study the crowd. He thought he’d be able to spot ‘himself’ straightaway, but he’s searching in vain for his own figure. He’s even afraid that he’s seen himself without recognizing himself.
“Come with me,” says Jamy Pudlowski, and she takes him into one of the units, simply furnished with an oval table, four chairs, a camera, and a screen on the wall. The presence of windows and the ocher-and-claret colors of the walls remove a prisonlike feel from what is effectively a large cell. While Vannier sits down, Pudlowski scrolls calmly on her tablet.
“I see that your company, Vannier and Edelman, applied to be considered for the new FBI premises in Washington. Shame, the project was abandoned, lack of funding.”
“We did put together a proposal, yes. You know everything.”
“Sadly, no. For example, we didn’t know that you knew the French director of counterespionage. With a friend like that, you would never have secured that job…France is an ally, but you can’t be too careful.”
“What matters is taking part,” Vannier sighs. “Mélois and I attended the same grande école, I went into architecture, he diplomacy.”
Pudlowski moves her finger, and the screen shows a general view of the room.
“We’re filming illegally,” she says, and adds by way of an excuse, “but the circumstances are exceptional.”
Vannier looks at the camera positioned in the center of the room and realizes that she’s already recorded everything so far. Pudlowski nods, embarrassed.
“High-definition cameras and directional mics,” she says, more comfortable talking about the equipment. “The NSA have installed…quite a few. Passengers or members of the crew can get up and walk about, and the cameras are dedicated, they automatically follow them.”
She types something quickly, and the image of the other André, the “June” one, immediately appears. Another drumming of her fingers, and the screen divides in two: Lucie is in the second half.
Vannier is enthralled. Knowing something isn’t the same as living it.
“He” and Lucie are sitting idle at a table, talking. One last tap of Pudlowski’s finger and they can be heard, and their words appear, transcribed onto the screen. “Americano?” André June asks, making a face. “A merry car, no?” the subtitles say idiotically. The system has a way to go yet, André March reassures himself…
“I’ll leave you for a moment, Mr. Vannier,” says the woman from the U.S. Army’s Special Operations Command, getting up and leaving him alone facing the screen.
Captivated, flabbergasted, he studies this other André, his wrinkles, his gray eyes like milky sapphires, his sparse hair, and his withered cheeks with the beginnings of a white beard. André looks into the mirror to shave every morning, and the two of them have ended up taming each other. Here, though, the camera is incorruptible, there’s no indulgence in its high definition, no courtesy in its angle: this is an old man he’s seeing. A tired, worn, unattractive man. He scours “his” face for the immutable seal of youthfulness that he sometimes believes he incarnates, but can’t find it. Old age is in every detail, like a straitjacket of filth. He thinks he looks bloated too, fatter. He should go on a diet. So, aging definitely doesn’t simply mean you used to love the Stones and start preferring the Beatles.
There’s an angel sitting next to this man. The light pays homage to her. It’s still the Lucie of early March, a Lucie whose hair isn’t yet short, whose eyes are still tender, a Lucie who’s still his, whom he hasn’t yet driven away. When this other André takes Lucie’s hand, he feels no jealousy; fascination overrides everything. He watches the André he was then get up and head for the coffee machine, and—because he thinks him slow and stooped—he instinctively straightens his back and clenches his fists till they hurt.
As he stands in this connected cabin where he’s being watched by the NSA, not that he cares about that at all, André can think only of Lucie and this other him, and definitely not of any practical issues. Not for a moment does he consider Vannier & Edelman, which really can’t become Vannier, Vannier & Edelman; nor does he think about his daughter Jeanne, who now has two fathers, probably two too many, but it may well have its advantages; he doesn’t worry about the apartment in Paris that he will have to share, or the house in the Drôme…
No, he’s not yet thinking of any of that. He’s running aground on the disaster laid before him by the screen. He wishes he could take his eyes off them, but it’s a giddying whirl. Here in this small room, a great weight is crushing his chest, he’s short of air. They’re not a couple, far from it, rather an attentive and anxious old man quivering with love, and a distant young woman. This André is still caught up in the wonder of the early days, still reading Lucie’s reserve as caution, her tepid responses as signs of a certain wisdom. But André March now grasps that he never stopped worrying about frightening her away, about startling this adorable swallow that had consented to fly alongside such an old crow. Fuck it, love—the real kind—can’t be a ball of fear in your heart. He was never relaxed and, of course, this anxiety held within it their demise.
The André in the hangar returns, carrying two coffees; he smiles, and it’s the smile of an abject creature, but Lucie doesn’t look up from her book. The other André watching the screen is only too familiar with this detachment, this ability she has for being absent. Look at him, fuck it, forget your damn Romain Gary collection and turn your beautiful eyes on this rather ancient man instead, give him a bit of attention and tenderness. But no, nothing. Not everyone gets the chance to witness their own downfall from afar, to pity themselves without actually feeling self-pity.
A smirk of pain twists his lips. Deep down, he feels sorry for this earlier André. He knows what the poor man still has to live through, the humiliation and frustration. Age was always a contributory factor, but no one should ever love someone who feels so little love for them. Why was it so complicated?
As he sits watching the screen, André March breaks away from Lucie, as a dead leaf breaks away from a tree, or rather as a tree might abandon a dead leaf. Ten cruel minutes of detailed observation are worth months of painful loss. Up on the platform, André—who loathes himself for still loving Lucie—is already glad that he loves her less.
A movement in the crowd: several agents in civilian dress have ventured into the hangar, and everyone clusters around them, bombarding them with questions. One of them comes over to Vannier and slips a note to him. Vannier looks at it but doesn’t seem to understand, presses Lucie’s hand, and she smiles at him. Then he agrees to follow the man from the bureau.
From his windowed room, a disabused André watches a tired André walk away. He then notices a man at the far end of the table, a short, slight, dark-haired man in his thankless forties cramming a small black notebook with writing, a man who occasionally, sneakily, eyes Lucie. André March immediately recognizes something in the man’s eyes, that distinctive distraction whose only cause is the turmoil produced by attraction. Just another butterfly caught in the web that Lucie weaves in all innocence. Suddenly realizing who the man is, André is incredulous: it’s Victor Miesel. But he’s meant to be dead! Was he on that flight, then?
What was it he said again? Hope is the hallway to happiness, its accomplishment is the antechamber to unhappiness, or something like that. So, Victor Miesel is in that hallway, hoping to catch Lucie’s attention. Perhaps the aphorism even came to him when he was thinking about Lucie? The man gets up, and he too goes over to the drinks machine—what is it with all of them that they love that revolting mixture so much?—and Lucie doesn’t look up as he walks away. André’s infuriated with himself for feeling relief. But this annoyance reveals the gulf that’s opening up.
“Mr. Vannier?”
André jumps and turns around; Jamy Pudlowski is leaning against the door. How long has she been watching him? There’s a tall, stooped fiftysomething man standing beside her in that awkward way people have when they’re burdened by a body too big for them. The man comes toward him and proffers a hand from slightly too far away.
“Jacques Liévin, from the consulate. Commercial attaché.”
His voice is expressionless, his gesture hesitant. André smiles at the fear sweating from the man’s every pore: Liévin might as well be forming a cross with his fingers, or wearing a necklace of garlic. He realizes that Liévin has just been talking with the André from the grounded plane, and that—in his opinion—this second André is nothing short of a monstrosity.
“Quite a business, isn’t it, Mr. Commercial Attaché?” André asks playfully. “What do you think: am I the original or the copy?”
“I…A French military plane will be landing at McGuire in a few minutes, France is sending about twenty…agents, and Mr. Mélois from counterespionage is coming in person. Then all the French nationals are to leave with him. He asked me to come and say hello to you first.”
“Was that ‘you’ singular or plural? I mean are you saying hello to me and me?”
“Are you ready, Mr. Vannier?” Pudlowski interrupts, unamused by the game. “We can arrange for you to meet your ‘double.’ ”
“I insist on being left alone with him. It’s a private conversation, even if it is between me and myself…” “The…your…the other Vannier asked for that too. But you’re the first of the French passengers to…meet face-to-face, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has given me instructions to stay with the two of you the whole time. I have to submit a statement…”
“A statement stating the state of our relationship, would you say?” Vannier scoffs.
The architect points to the camera. The FBI agent makes one simple action and the green light immediately goes out. The indicator’s off, at least, Vannier thinks. He catches the man from the consulate surreptitiously staring at someone over to the left: on the far side of the wall of glass is another André, a disoriented André who snatches open the door and comes in.
They stand looking at each other without a word for a long time. It’s so disturbing: neither André is the one in the mirror. Nothing is familiar anymore, the inverted features make this other André a stranger, hostile. One is about to speak, but a gesture from the other delays the moment. André March turns to Liévin and Pudlowski, both standing there awkwardly. Pudlowki nods her head, and Liévin leaves the room with obvious relief. With the door closed, they study each other. Sartorial originality has never been André’s strong point: they’re wearing the same jeans, subtly more worn in one case; the same familiar and reassuring gray-hooded sweatshirt used for long flights; the same sturdy black walking shoes. Oh, actually no, not exactly the same, André June notices. The two Andrés still say nothing. But they surely won’t be satisfied with this for long. An Indian proverb says that those who beg in silence die of hunger in silence.
“New shoes?”
“Two weeks ago.”
They’re both surprised by the voice too. A higher timbre than either André thought, and not as gentle. He’s always heard himself “from the inside.” At conferences and in interviews he slows his delivery, enunciates carefully, and deepens the tone. Now he can hear his real voice.
“Jeanne?” André June asks after another pause.
“She’s fine. She doesn’t yet know, obviously.”
“Lucie? Lucie and me?”
“We split up.”
Then André March corrects this—you can always lie to yourself but what’s the point of lying to you?—by saying “She left me. Too little desire on her side, and too many frustrations on mine. And probably too many expectations, too much impatience. You suspected that, didn’t you?”
“Well, forewarned I’ll be twice the man.”
For a moment, just for a moment, André March has an idea, to win back this earlier Lucie, this Lucie from March who hasn’t yet rejected him. But he screws up his face, and it already melts into a smile. He managed to attract her when he was not as young and not as good-looking as all the others pursuing her, and never knew what his assets were. Competing with himself would be a novelty. But then again…one André is a thirty-year age gap, two Andrés and it’s a senior living facility. She’s bound to run for the hills, it’s obvious. He’d do better to wish André June good luck.
“I have just one piece of advice,” he adds. “Be gentle and attentive but at the same time pretend not to care too much. And don’t want her the whole time. You already know that but haven’t yet accepted it. I remember now.” We so rarely have an opportunity to coach ourselves. André June wants to take this lightly, but a knot is forming in his stomach. Within the hour he’ll be with Lucie again; how to tell her that their fate may already be sealed? Or how to hide the fact from her?
“And work?” André June asks, uncomfortable talking about Lucie.
“A problem with concrete at Surya Tower. It’s been dealt with. And do you remember a few months ago I was thinking of going part-time, retiring even? I’m a bit fed up with it, you know that.”
André March waves to the commercial attaché through the window; the man was pretending to stare at the metal floor but immediately sees the gesture and comes in.
“Did you say, sir, that France can offer a second identity?”
“Yes. A new identity for which one of you?”
“For me,” André March says, and then turns to June and adds, “you can go back to work. That’ll be better. I spent my whole time there for the three months that Lucie and I were together. Spending my time waiting for her would have driven me crazy. Because—you’ll find out soon enough—Lucie works a lot. You need to be busy. I’ll bring you up to speed on the latest progress at each build. I’ll go down to Drôme. I like it there. Actually…”
March’s voice trails off and he frowns.
“Let’s be pragmatic about this,” he says, turning to the commercial attaché. “What’s the government saying about practical considerations? I’ve heard that there are about seventy French people involved in this. They’re not going to share their apartments and split their savings. Could it be said that there’s been a…natural disaster? Get onto…insurance companies? The concept of virtual disasters might start featuring in their terms. What if I decide to retire, then what happens? Would I be taking my…my double’s retirement? Given the generosity of complementary pension schemes, I doubt they’d double the contributions I’ve made! Unless there’s a government order.”
The man from the consulate looks out of his depth. He peers at his cellphone, his lifeline.
“Ah, I just heard that Mr. Mélois’s arriving any minute.”
“It’s just the sort of problem he’ll love,” André June laughs.
“By the way, the other house, the old coaching inn in Montjoux that I couldn’t make up my mind about, it’s still for sale,” says André March. “I’ll buy it, whether or not we can get this idea of a ‘virtual disaster’ to work. We’d have a house each, ten kilometers apart. The friends who used to come to stay for vacations can share themselves between the two of us. We’ll see which of us is nicer.”