The Same River Twice (43 page)

Although technically there was no reason for him to attend the auction at all, since he was serving as an unnamed seller rather than a house representative, he thought it desirable to keep an eye on the action. Even at a small sale like this one, bidding irregularities were far from unknown. He wanted no surprises.

At home, shaving, it occurred to him that absolutely anyone with an interest in his whereabouts would know where to find him that night. He stared at his face in the mirror, making a mental list of people who might interfere with his well-being or his project’s. Then he went into the bedroom, retrieved the nine-millimeter pistol from the bottom of the laundry basket, where Odile had tossed it, and put it on the bed.

It was a precaution only, he told himself. A small but advisable prudence.

With electrician’s tape and two belts buckled together, he rigged a shoulder holster that positioned the weapon inconspicuously against his left side, under his arm. He buttoned his shirt over it, tucked the shirttails into his suit trousers, put on his tie and jacket, and considered himself in the mirror. Armed, he felt no better than before but no worse, either. At six thirty he left the apartment.

His nascent optimism, which he went to some pains to conceal, even from himself, soon began to animate his every step. His blistered foot had healed nicely. He no longer brooded over Odile’s failure to return the messages he’d left that morning. Naturally, with her husband’s daughter visiting, the opportunities for calling would be scarce, as she’d said. Besides, had she not come home with him just the other afternoon, home to bed, despite trying to think of every reason not to? In his experience, this was a good sign.

As for Gabriella and Thierry, it was a pity they’d provoked the Russians, whom he himself heartily loathed, though he wasn’t quite ready to close the books on Kukushkin, for whom he reserved a grain of admiration. Thierry had somehow crossed Kukushkin, Gabriella had tried to help Thierry, so the two would have to save themselves. Gabriella was an extraordinarily resourceful young woman. He wished them well.

Arriving at the auction house, he found Horst Wieselhoff, catalog tucked under his arm, waiting on the inconspicuously secured ground floor with the clear intention of intercepting him.

“Horst. Glad you could make it.”

“As am I,” said the Swiss, his eyes shining. He looked quickly around the room and lowered his voice. “Unfortunately, everyone else is here too—a number of big collectors, mindless speculators, readers of art magazines, even our friends Balakian, Baxter, and a few other members of the Manhattan art cartel.”

“Well, Horst, what can I say? It’s open to the public.”

On the staircase, a woman Turner didn’t recognize raised a glass of champagne to toast him and smiled before continuing her ascent.

“Yes, of course,” Wieselhoff went on. “I was simply wondering whether three lots in particular couldn’t be withdrawn from auction to be settled privately between—”

“Don’t say it, Horst.”

The man smiled guiltily. “Ah, too bad. But I had to try, didn’t I?”

Turner squeezed the man’s shoulder, wished him luck, and started up the stairs.

Even though his name didn’t appear on tonight’s program, Turner was
known in the Parisian art world and, as he moved through the crowd loitering on the fourth floor, was waylaid several times by friends and acquaintances who frequently seemed to find their own presence there obscurely confirmed by his. This, he thought, boded well.

His social obligations discharged, he entered the hall and made for his favorite seat, in the third row, against the wall. From there, he could position himself sideways to the room and see, without drawing anyone’s attention, who was bidding in-house, whether the phone bank was active, and where the auctioneer’s eyes, which missed nothing, focused their interest. It was never less than enlightening to study people’s behavior when money was in play.

The remaining bidders began coming in and taking their seats. He thumbed through his catalog impatiently. Then something—an instinct, a tic, a trick of the mind—made him look up again just in time to see Max Colby stride by unaccompanied, headed up the middle aisle, apparently without noticing him.

At first Turner thought he must be mistaken. Odile would never have allowed this to happen; it could not happen. But a moment later, when Max was almost halfway to the back of the hall, he was accosted by a young woman seated on the aisle, someone Turner didn’t know. She was blond, self-possessed, even bold, and when she stood to kiss Max hello, he noticed a tattoo on her upper arm, a finely delineated wheel of many spokes. She gave a short laugh of what seemed to be delighted surprise. The man she was with—older, charming in demeanor, well dressed in a boxy suit—rose to be introduced, smiling as though in anticipation of a rare and almost certainly instructive pleasure. He and Max shook hands vigorously—two men who’d been informed of each other’s talents, which they’d now be able to judge for themselves.

Turner looked away, his blood gone cold in his veins.

Kukushkin.

WHEN ODILE GOT HOME
, she knew right away by the faint scent of cologne that she’d missed Max, that he’d gone to the auction after all, and that later there would be things to discuss. She called upstairs for Allegra but got no response. Probably she’d already left for her party with Dominique.

Suddenly loath to be alone in the apartment, she went back out into the courtyard, no clear destination in mind. Passing the anarchists’ door, however,
she saw it was propped open a few inches with a cobblestone, and, as if this were a sign somehow meant solely for her, she stepped forward without thought or hesitation and knocked loudly. Chantal’s face appeared, looking concerned at first, then brightening into a dazzling smile. “Odile! What a surprise!”

“Am I interrupting?”

“Not at all. Anyway, the others are out right now. Please, come in.”

Odile nudged the cobblestone aside with her foot, and the door shut behind her.

“Would you like a beer,” Chantal said, “… a beer?”

“Thanks, that would be perfect … perfect.”

At first Odile thought the echo was the effect of their voices bouncing off the walls of the almost unfurnished room, but then she realized it was in her head—a symptom of fatigue, she supposed—and immediately it ceased. The computers, she noticed with some relief, were turned off.

“Make yourself at home,” Chantal said over her shoulder as she took the stairs two at a time. Odile had just settled into a torn and tufted settee when her host rushed back down, now holding a six-pack of German lager and two mason jars. “Did you hear what happened at La Santé this afternoon?” she asked, handing her a jar and a beer.

“I heard the alarm and helicopter. What did happen, exactly?”

“Three prisoners escaped,” Chantal said with demure satisfaction. “The media are keeping it quiet on government orders, because no one wants to look incompetent or stupid, you know? Pretty funny at this late date. Anyway, that’s what I was told.” She drank deeply of her beer.

“Incredible! But how’d these guys get out? I thought La Santé was supposed to be totally exit proof.”

“It is. But underneath are all these tunnels and sewers and stuff—like the catacombs. Somehow these guys must’ve broken through the basement level and into the passages. My friend says they came out through a manhole cover in the middle of Arago, right into traffic. Can you imagine?”

“Now
that’s
something I would’ve liked to have seen,” Odile told her.

“Me too,” Chantal agreed merrily. She finished her beer and opened another, while Odile sipped hers politely. “Ever been into the catacombs?”

“What for?” Odile said. “To meet tourists?”

“No, I mean the real ones. Three hundred kilometers of passages, chambers, loose bones, even a movie theater—right here under our feet. The underground Paris.”

Instantly, Odile’s mind played back for her at quintuple speed the slide
lecture she’d seen when attempting to deliver Thierry to the Russians. Right away, without even wanting to know this, she understood that the catacombs were where Gabriella, and very likely Tregobov and Thierry too, were hiding.

“But I thought the police had closed up all the entries,” she lied sheepishly. “You know, because of terrorists and so on.”

Chantal laughed and gestured with her mason jar toward the room’s far corner. The dining table had once again been relieved of its top, which was propped against the wall beside it. “You know the police will say anything that makes it seem like they’re in control. Go on, have a look. And this is hardly the only one in the arrondissement.”

The flared and ribbed wooden pedestal that ordinarily supported the tabletop was, Odile discovered, hollow at its core, leading to a kind of stone-aggregate shaft fitted with U-shaped rebar ladder rungs that descended into darkness and beyond. “How far down does it go?”

“Right here, only eight or nine meters. But then, if you follow the tunnels, you can go practically anywhere in Paris. There are many levels down—six, we think. Some of the passages are a tight squeeze, and you have to crawl, but a lot of them are not. You’ve heard the stories, no?”

“Of course. Not that I always know quite what to believe.”

“How could you? The police also spread a lot of misinformation to make their job easier. But a lot goes on down there anyway.” Chantal finished the second beer. “Tonight, for example, there’s a big party, still secret, I hope, in the so-called Bunker, under a high school near the Jardin du Luxembourg. That’s where the others have gone. Would you like to come with me?”

Odile froze, seized suddenly by the sense that events had been tending in this direction for a long time. Then she said, “Thanks, it’s so nice of you to ask, but I’m supposed to go to a dinner at le quai de la Tournelle tonight. Some friends who own a houseboat are—”

“Le quai de la Tournelle? That’s perfect! There’s an exit right nearby, not the tourist one, but much better. I’ll show you. Besides …” Then she paused.

Odile thought uneasily of the basement steps in her father’s house, uneasily of darkness. “Yes?” she heard herself say.

“Okay, I probably should’ve asked you first, but the girls were so eager to go, to the party, I mean—”

“The girls?”

“Allegra and Dominique. They went with the first group, led by Fabien. You remember, the guy with the mustache?”

Odile sighed. “Oh, yes. Fabien.” She ran one hand over her newly cut and just gelled hair. “Okay, let’s go. Right away.”

“You’re coming? That’s so cool!” Chantal jumped to her feet and, heading briskly up the stairs again, called down, “I’ll just get our coveralls, boots, lights, and stuff. Five minutes max!”

Darkness was only an idea, Odile tried telling herself. Or possibly it was relative, on a continuum with light, which diluted it and kept it an idea. Or whatever.

Chantal returned with the equipment, which they donned silently, in somewhat military fashion. Once down the ladder, with miner’s lamps on their heads and thigh-high rubber boots on their legs, they projected beams of light in the direction they were looking—crazily at first, as they got their bearings in the vaulted chamber where they’d arrived, then in parallel when they entered the surprisingly spacious tunnel connected to it.

They walked for awhile in silence. From time to time Chantal directed her headlamp at points of danger: fissures, pits, decades-old machinery. There was also garbage left by previous visitors: plastic water bottles, food tins, depleted batteries. Side passages ran off in all directions, but Chantal seemed to know her route.

“No map?” asked Odile.

“We’re not going that far, and I’ve been there before. But there’s a makeshift map in my pack, just in case.”

“Ah, that’s good.”

Chantal laughed. “You know the one about the guy and his wine cellar?”

“I don’t think so.”

“This guy’s looking for a particular bottle of Bordeaux, which he thinks might be at the back of the cellar, and then he sees a door he’s never noticed. He opens it and discovers a tunnel completely new to him. Who knows what treasures might be found there? The house has been in his family for generations, and the wine cellar was once very famous. So, leaving the door open for a bit of light, he enters the tunnel. Within minutes, he gets lost. Not just sort of lost—completely lost. It takes him two days to find a path back out. He barely survives.”

Odile shivered. “The rule of threes.”

“The rule of threes? This I don’t know.”

“A human being can survive three minutes without air, three days without water, three weeks without food. At the maximum.”

Chantal looked Odile directly in the face, momentarily blinding her. “Is this true?”

“I think so. My father told me about it. He knows that kind of thing.”

“But that’s extraordinary.”

“Alas, no. It’s very, very ordinary.”

“Oh,” Chantal said, “I see your point. It applies to everyone.”

They said nothing more for some time.

Later, as the tunnel narrowed, Chantal took the lead and began to make a series of zigzag turns—left, right, left again—of which Odile soon lost track in her effort to keep up. Her old fears of subterranean darkness quivered at the edges of her consciousness like ghostly fingers, but she forced herself to concentrate on the glow of Chantal’s headlamp to hold her fears at bay. Turning back, probably never a realistic option, was now out of the question. How often one had to relearn this simple truth. If indeed it was simple, or the truth.

The tunnels narrowed further, growing mazelike and inclining steadily downward, so that soon the two women were wading through water. At first there was just three or four inches of it, but as they progressed it deepened. Six inches, nine inches, a foot and a half. At two feet Odile began to panic.

“How much farther?” she asked, as coolly as she could.

“Don’t worry. This is the hardest part, because of the water. Then we go up again, and there’s a resting place. After that, maybe twenty minutes.”

Over and over in her mind, trying to contain her panic, Odile rehearsed a litany of self-indictment:
How could I have let this happen? How? I knew Allegra was lying about the party. I knew. Everything’s going to pieces. Everything. And what am I going to tell Max?
But before long, the words lost their sense completely, becoming little more than a means to regulate breath—which, she soon supposed, was as good a use for them as any.