authenticity, but it’s too risky to do that regularly.’
‘Whom do you work for?’
‘Never mind who I work for. Do you want them or not?’
M. Datt nodded, smiled grimly and said, ‘Agreed, my friend. Agreed.’ He waved an arm and called for coffee. ‘It’s just curiosity. Not that your documents are anything like my scientific interests. I shall use them merely to stimulate my mind. Then they will be destroyed. You can have them back …’ The courier finished his coffee and then went upstairs, trying to look as though he was going no farther than the toilets on the first floor.
I blew my nose noisily and then lit a cigarette. ‘I don’t care what you do with them, monsieur. My fingerprints are not on the documents and there is no way to connect them with me; do as you wish with them. I don’t know if these documents connect with your work. I don’t even know what your work is.’
‘My present work is scientific,’ explained Datt. ‘I run my clinic to investigate the patterns of human behaviour. I could make much more money elsewhere, my qualifications are good. I am an analyst. I am still a good doctor. I could lecture on several different subjects: upon oriental art, Buddhism or even Marxist theory. I am considered an authority on Existentialism and especially upon Existentialist psychology; but the work I am doing now is the work by which I will be known. The idea of being remembered after death becomes important as one gets old.’ He threw the dice and moved past Départ. ‘Give me my twenty thousand francs,’ he said.
‘What do you do at this clinic?’ I peeled off the toy money and passed it to him. He counted it and stacked it up.
‘People are blinded by the sexual nature of my work. They fail to see it in its true light. They think only of the sex activity.’ He sighed. ‘It’s natural, I suppose. My work is important merely because people cannot consider the subject objectively. I can; so I am one of the few men who can control such a project.’
‘You analyse the sexual activity?’
‘Yes,’ said Datt. ‘No one does anything they do not wish to do. We do employ girls but most of the people who go to the house go there as couples, and they leave in couples. I’ll buy two more houses.’
‘The same couples?’
‘Not always,’ said Datt. ‘But that is not necessarily a thing to be deplored. People are mentally in bondage, and their sexual activity is the cipher which can help to explain their problems. You’re not collecting your rent.’ He pushed it over to me.
‘You are sure that you are not rationalizing the ownership of a whorehouse?’
‘Come along there now and see,’ said Datt. ‘It is only a matter of time before you land upon my hotels in the Avenue de la République.’ He shuffled his property cards together. ‘And then you are no more.’
‘You mean the clinic is operating at noon?’
‘The human animal,’ said Datt, ‘is unique in that its sexual cycle continues unabated from puberty to death.’ He folded up the Monopoly board.
It was getting hotter now, the sort of day that gives rheumatism a jolt and expands the Eiffel Tower six inches. ‘Wait a moment,’ I said to Datt. ‘I’ll go up and shave. Five minutes?’
‘Very well,’ said Datt. ‘But there’s no real need to shave, you won’t be asked to participate.’ He smiled.
I hurried upstairs, the courier was waiting inside my room. ‘They bought it?’
‘Yes,’ I said. I repeated my conversation with M. Datt.
‘You’ve done well,’ he said.
‘Are you running me?’ I lathered my face carefully and began shaving.
‘No. Is that where they took it from, where the stuffing is leaking out?’
‘Yes. Then who is?’
‘You know I can’t answer that. You shouldn’t even ask me. Clever of them to think of looking there.’
‘I told them where it was. I’ve never asked before,’ I said, ‘but whoever is running me seems to know what these people do even before I know. It’s someone close, someone I know. Don’t keep poking at it. It’s only roughly stitched back.’
‘That at least is wrong,’ said the courier. ‘It’s no one you know or have ever met. How did you know who took the case?’
‘You’re lying. I told you not to keep poking at it. Nin; it colours your flesh. Jean-Paul’s hands were bright with it.’
‘What colour?’
‘You’ll be finding out,’ I said. ‘There’s plenty of nin still in there.’
‘Very funny.’
‘Well who told you to poke your stubby peasant fingers into my stuffing?’ I said. ‘Stop messing about and listen carefully. Datt is taking me to the clinic, follow me there.’
‘Very well,’ said the courier without enthusiasm. He wiped his hands on a large handkerchief.
‘Make sure I’m out again within the hour.’
‘What am I supposed to do if you are not out within the hour?’ he asked.
‘I’m damned if I know,’ I said. They never ask questions like that in films. ‘Surely you have some sort of emergency procedure arranged?’
‘No,’ said the courier. He spoke very quietly. ‘I’m afraid I haven’t. I just do the reports and pop them into the London dip mail secret tray. Sometimes it takes three days.’
‘Well this could be an emergency,’ I said. ‘Something should have been arranged beforehand.’ I rinsed off the last of the soap and parted my hair and straightened my tie.
‘I’ll follow you anyway,’ said the courier encouragingly. ‘It’s a fine morning for a walk.’
‘Good,’ I said. I had a feeling that if it had been raining he would have stayed in the café. I dabbed some lotion on my face and then went downstairs to M. Datt. Upon the great bundle of play-money he had left the waiter’s tip: one franc.
Summer was here again; the pavement was hot, the streets were dusty and the traffic cops were in white jackets and dark glasses. Already the tourists were everywhere, in two styles: beards, paper parcels and bleached jeans, or straw hats, cameras and cotton jackets. They were sitting on benches complaining loudly. ‘So he explained that it was one hundred new francs or it would be ten thousand old francs, and I said, “Gracious me I sure can understand why you people had that revolution.”’
Another tourist said, ‘But you don’t speak the language.’
A man replied, ‘I don’t have to speak the language to know what that waiter meant.’
As we walked I turned to watch them and caught sight of the courier strolling along about thirty yards behind us.
‘It will take me another five years to complete my work,’ said Datt. ‘The human mind and the human body; remarkable mechanisms but often ill-matched.’
‘Very interesting,’ I said. Datt was easily encouraged.
‘At present my researches are concerned with stimulating the registering of pain, or rather the excitement caused by someone pretending to have sudden physical pain. You perhaps remember that scream I had on the tape recorder. Such a sound can cause a remarkable mental change in a man if used in the right circumstances.’
‘The right circumstances being that film-set-style torture chamber where I was dumped after treatment.’
‘Exactly,’ said Datt. ‘You