"That is what the agent said."
"You have no other report?"
"None."
"Thank you, you are excused," said Renard.
After the case officer left, Renard steepled his long fingers and frowned deeply. Here was a conundrum. A possibly important fragment of intelligence had come across his desk, and he had two immediate choices: file and forget it or communicate this data to a higher authority.
After a moment's thought his duty appeared with a crystaline clarity. He would not file it. But even that simple choice led inevitably to another conundrum: to which higher authority did he report?
It was the director of the DGSE's duty to report directly to the president of France on matters of national security.
The question stood before him like an uninvited visitor. Was this mere national security or did it impact upon a greater concern? Namely the honor of France herself?
It was difficult, this conundrum, and so DGSE Director Remy Renard leaned back in his seat, closed his deceptively sleepy-looking eyes and meditated at length.
During that quiet meditation the minutes ticked by, and with it dissolved the immediate historical linkage between the new American Civil War and the Franco-American Conflict of 1995.
Finally he reached for his telephone.
WHEN HIS TELEPHONE RANG, French Minister of Culture Maurice Tourette answered it personally. He always answered his telephone personally. It was the culture minister's wish to receive all communications from his beloved citizens directly and free from interpretation. For the minister of culture fervently believed that the citizens of France were his citizens.
In other nations the title "minister of culture" was a bland euphemism for espionage chief or a mere honorific. Not in France. And least not after Maurice Tourette acquired the singular honor.
He saw his mission in life to purify France, much as Joan of Arc had in an earlier time with her unflinching sacrifice.
To Maurice Tourette the worst calamity in the proud history of his country was the liberation from Germany. Not for a moment did Maurice consider the German occupation a good thing. No. It had been a travesty. But the Germans in time would have withered and gone home to their heavy beers and their unpalatable bratwursts, and knockwursts and sauerbraten. It would have been possible to wait them out. And when they finally left, they would have been gone for good.
The liberators, on the other hand, had left their many stains on the proud soil they had supposedly liberated.
Maurice Tourette had grown up in post-liberation Paris and watched, helpless and impotent, over the decades as the foul and corruptive gangrene of Americanism crept across his beloved city of lights.
First it was the Ford cars, then the McDonald's hamburger kiosks with their hideous golden arches. American movies with their shallow emptiness of spirit began crowding Clavie and Depardieu and the treasure of France, Deneuve, from the cinemas. While Parisians laughed at the brilliant crudities of Jerry Lewis-as they should-they had let down their defenses and had embraced such ugly coinages as le marketing, le cash flow and that impossible neologism, le cheeseburger.
By the time the threat had made itself manifest, and Pompidou had created the High Committee for the Defense and Expansion of the French Language, the language had been swamped and the tide was all but irreversible.
And so it seemed when Maurice Tourette had taken over the culture ministry.
In his first public speech as culture minister, he vowed to rid France of junk-junk food and junk words. He went after the fast-food emporiums first, and succeeded in getting most of them closed down.
It was hailed as a magnificent triumph of French culture over Anglo-Saxon barbarism.
For Maurice Tourette saw the spread of American popular culture as nothing less than a dangerous hegemony that, unlike Nazism, would envelop the world and France in a cultural dark age from which it might never emerge.
After that first triumph, Maurice went after the advertising billboards that littered the Champs-Elysees with crude slogans such as Always Coca-Cola and Just Do It and the worst offender, Ford Vous Offre L'Airbag.
He coined a name for the horrid words that mangled French articles with Anglo-Saxon nouns. This, he told the press, was the abominination of abominations, Franglais. He drew up a list and called for such words to be outlawed.
A bill was put before parliament. It passed after much rancorous debate. Henceforth, foreign words were forbidden on television, radio, billboards, public signs and announcements. No work contract or advertisement could be written in anything but pure French, or the offender faced severe fines and six months in jail.
Oh, the multinational companies fought back, but their cause was already lost. Maurice Tourette himself composed a long list of acceptable alternatives to the hated Franglais. No more l'airbag or le video clip or the unpronounceable data processing. Instead, the linguistically acceptable sac gonfable, bande promo, and informantique were the law of the land.
Maurice Tourette felt justifiably proud of what Parisians called La Loi Tourette. He had begun the long battle to reclaim his nation from the hated liberators. It was only a matter of time before all who wished to enjoy the benefits of living in la Belle France learned to speak the lingua franca-or be summarily deported.
When his desk telephone in the culture ministry rang, Maurice Tourette picked it up and said, 'Allo?"
"I have most distressing news."
"I am steeled."
"The Blot. We may have an understanding of it."
"Tell me of this understanding," the culture minister invited.
"We have an agent in Ameri-"
The culture minister pinched the bridge of his nose painfully. "Do not enunciate that horrid name, please."
"The Uncouth Nation, I should say."
"Very good. Proceed."
"The agent code-named Arlequin."
"Ah, yes. An excellent lover. You have had her, I presume?"
"I daresay I have not."
"Pity. Go on."
"She reported the following-'The charade is perpetrated with bright colored lights.'"
"Bright colored lights?"
" 'Bright colored lights are the key,' was her last transmission. Then all communications ceased."
"Was she compromised?"
"In what way?"
"Why, in any way."
"I do not know."
"Advise me if you learn her fate, will you? I should hate to think that her charms should be denied us in the future."