There are a good many reasons why I shall not forget the evening I spent in that luxurious restaurant in the Grand’ Place, head to head with Cosima Bruckner. Beyond its windows the Belgian people went about their usual lives: eating chocolates, crashing their fine cars, and wondering whether Belgium was really a country at all. Inside the splendid Eurocrats ate and pondered the future of us all. To the side of our quiet table in the window, a silver cart laden with huge pink crustaceans was rolled. Skilled deferential surgeons appeared with complex instruments and reduced the creatures to rubble. Other black-coated minions came, handed us silver weaponry, and tied plastic bibs around our necks. The surgeons stacked the crustaceous flesh on crested plates and capped them with silver covers. Then Armand, the maître d’, one hand behind his back, put the plates reverently before us, and, with a flourish, lifted off the covers — to reveal, like some failed magician, that what was underneath was exactly what we had seen was underneath. ‘Wunderbar,’ said Cosima Bruckner.
It was the thought that certain other covers were coming off that excited and worried me. It was not easy to be back in the strange, conspiratorial world of Fräulein Bruckner, with her gift for making a mystery out of everything, of finding plots where I hadn’t. I was not sure (I’m still not) whether I believed a word she ever said. But I had to admit her version of what happened in Lausanne did have a strange consistency. I liked Ildiko greatly (I still do), and I think she liked me; but I could see how likely it was she had teased and used me. I admired Criminale deeply (I still do), and found his absences and wanderings consistent with his life in a high mode of thought; but his actions also fitted the life of a man who was being pursued and persecuted. I couldn’t quite accept the world of Cosima Bruckner, but I couldn’t quite deny it either. After all, she had been remarkably shrewd about myself, and I wasn’t off the hook yet either.
‘I can’t believe it, Cosima,’ I said, when the waiters had gone, ‘Surely Criminale was far above money.’ ‘Oh yes, they paid him to be,’ said Cosima, sitting there in her bib. ‘Why would the Communists want to put their money in the West?’ I asked. ‘Naturally, it was the only way Communism could survive in the East,’ said Cosima. ‘Come on, you’re not telling me capitalism was handing out mortgages to Communism,’ I said. ‘Why not?’ asked Cosima, ‘Communism never had a proper economy, Lenin forgot to invent one. It all worked by bribes, barter, and black market. If you made some money, would you keep it in a Russian bank? The Party people needed the West to be their bankers. And to get it here they needed people like Criminale.’
‘In that case, why did we need a Cold War?’ I asked. ‘How else could we have unified Europe?’ said Cosima, ‘It was the Russians who did it for us.’ ‘All right, then, why was there détente?’ I asked. ‘Why not?’ asked Cosima, ‘Maybe it is okay to nuke another country, but a bit crazy to bomb your own bank account, I think.’ ‘You certainly have an original vision of modern history,’ I said, ‘How is it I only hear these conspiracy theories when I talk to you?’ ‘It is because you are not European,’ said Cosima, ‘The North Sea is a big problem for you, I think. Don’t you realize West Germany paid to keep the DDR in existence?’ ‘It did what?’ I asked. ‘Of course,’ said Cosima, ‘And when the DDR needed money, it picked up some political prisoners and sold them for hard currency to the West. You see there was always unification, even before there was unification.’
‘But why keep all this money in the West?’ ‘Why?’ asked Cosima, ‘Many reasons. For one, economic espionage. The Stasi had a whole division devoted to economic blackmail. They had to have patents, buy forbidden military technologies, weapons and computers, yes? Then to pay all the agents. Remember, half the middle-aged secretaries in the Bundestag found a little romance by selling photocopies to the East. But the money went everywhere, for blackmail, for influence. To politicians, businessmen, Western bureaucrats, even some in this room.’ ‘Oh, come on, Cosima,’ I said, poking at my lobster anxiously. ‘Of course the money was there for other reasons also,’ said Cosima, ‘All those Eastern Party officials needed their nice little accounts in the West. Maybe they liked a German car or a villa in Cannes, or just liked to feel safe when things changed. Maybe they are keeping it there to pay for a coup one day. Some was just for good investment, some of them had very nice portfolios, you know. So money was coming here all the time.’
‘And it was coming in through the accounts of Criminale?’ I asked. ‘Oh, there were many ways, many accounts,’ said Cosima, ‘But we traced quite a lot of things to him.’ ‘He knew all about it, then?’ I asked. ‘It would not be necessary,’ said Cosima, ‘It was more useful if he just did his philosophy and let his accounts be used by some others. He had his freedom, they had their way to the West.’ ‘And Ildiko was the bag lady?’ I asked. ‘She was a publisher, she moved book money around, she had access to those accounts, you saw that very well,’ said Cosima. ‘So she was working all the time for the Communist Party,’ I said, ‘And Hollo too.’ ‘It’s possible,’ said Cosima, ‘But these things were much more complicated.’ I’ll say,’ I said. ‘She could be on that side, or the other,’ said Cosima.
‘What other?’ I asked. ‘Naturally since the Wende everyone has been after this money,’ said Cosima, ‘It still comes in, and it is billions, you know.’ ‘Billions?’ ‘Like the Nazi billions after the war, you remember. Everyone wants it. The Party people say it is theirs. The new regimes say it was robbed from the people and really it is theirs. The apparatchiks who hid it want it back to pay for their nice villas or start up new lives. There are those in the West who smuggled it, and like their share. There are politicians and people in governments who need it hidden, now the security files are opening in the East. Then there are the fraud investigators who want to know what has been hidden, how it was used.’ ‘So a lot of people are fighting over the same cash,’ I said. ‘Yes, and you saw quite a lot of them at Barolo,’ said Cosima.
I looked up. ‘At Barolo’?’ I asked, The great congress on Literature and Power in the Age of Glasnost?’ ‘Where we first met, you remember,’ said Cosima. ‘Of course I remember,’ I said, ‘But what had that got to do with it? Those people were writers, politicians.’ ‘Not all of them were what they seemed,’ said Cosima. ‘Oh, come on,’ I said, ‘Susan Sontag? Martin Amis? You’re not saying they were in on these fancy games?’ ‘No, we think those two were almost who they say they are,’ said Cosima, ‘It was the others you know very well.’ ‘What others?’ I asked. ‘You saw the Russians were there?’ ‘What, Tatyana Tulipova?’ I asked. ‘Did you ever see a word she wrote in her life?’ asked Cosima, ‘The Americans too. Those critics from Yale.’ ‘Please, Cosima,’ I said. ‘Professor Massimo Monza, he lives a little too nicely, don’t you think?’ ‘I don’t believe it,’ I said. ‘And of course your Otto Codicil. Oh, how is the lobster, by the way?’
The lobster? Oh, fine,’ I said, ‘Why do you ask?’ ‘Because I like you to enjoy it,’ said Cosima, ‘I wished to give you a nice reward.’ ‘Reward for what?’ I asked. ‘Because I discovered so much of this from you,’ said Cosima. ‘How could you?’ I asked, ‘I’m not a part of it, Cosima, really. I told you, I knew nothing at all. I thought Ildiko was a girl-friend, I thought Criminale was a philosopher. The whole thing is news to me. In fact I’m not sure I believe any of it.’ ‘Yet you did your work well,’ said Cosima. ‘What work?’ I asked, ‘What did I do that was worth the death of one poor old lobster?’ ‘You pointed out to us Professor Otto Codicil,’ said Cosima, The key of it all, the missing link of our chain. He was the mastermind, as you warned us. And once we had realized this, all the other things were clear.’
‘I hate to tell you this, Cosima,’ I said, though I didn’t hate it at all, ‘I think you’ve got the wrong man. I only fingered Codicil because he was trying to destroy my television programme. I know nothing about him, nothing at all. Except he eats too much cake and never sees his students. Apart from that he’s probably as white as the driven snow.’ ‘No, he is part of it,’ said Cosima. ‘I just hope you can prove that,’ I said, ‘Because that man is a friend of ministers. He has lawyers hanging off his shirt-tails. He’s a nasty enemy, believe me. He’ll have you fired or in jail, if you aren’t careful.’ Then you didn’t know?’ asked Cosima. ‘Didn’t know what?’ I asked. ‘Codicil tried to fled the coop,’ she said. ‘He tried to do what?’ I asked. ‘Flee the coop,’ said Cosima, They picked him up at Frankfurt airport as he tried to fly to South America.’
‘No, this is too much,’ I said, The rest is possible, this I don’t believe. Was he dressed in women’s clothes as well?’ ‘No, a red wig,’ said Cosima. ‘Otto Codicil in a red wig?’ I said, ‘Cosima, don’t you think a red wig is a bit over the top, as it were?’ ‘He had also a false passport,’ said Cosima, ‘And a false-bottom suitcase with two hundred thousand Deutschmark.’ ‘Please,’ I said. ‘Now he is held in Germany and he is singing like a canary,’ said Cosima, ‘He has told us nearly everything. He was recruited after the war, when Vienna was the runnel of East and West.’ ‘I always thought he was more the SS officer type,’ I said. ‘Earlier,’ said Cosima. ‘But you’re absolutely certain?’ The report was delivered in my office today,’ said Cosima, ‘Don’t you like to know why he was going to South America?’
The remains of the lobster were taken away. The second fine Sauvignon gave way to two pungent old Armagnacs. ‘I suppose he was going to join Martin Bormann and Ronald Biggs,’ I said, ‘And one day they’ll all come back as a football team and win the World Cup.’ ‘He was expected to collect the money from the Criminale accounts and take it to the right people,’ said Cosima, ‘However your Hungarian agent got a lot of it first.’ ‘Good for her,’ I said, and then a thought began to strike me, ‘Where in South America? Who was he taking them to?’ ‘I think you begin to understand,’ said Cosima. ‘Yes, well,’ I said, swirling my brandy thoughtfully, ‘I suppose it does cost a lot of money to run a big hacienda in Argentina. What with 130 per cent inflation and a very unreliable rate of exchange.’ ‘Yes, I think so,’ said Cosima Bruckner.
‘So,’ I said, ‘Codicil and Gertla, those two are old friends?’ ‘I thought this is what you came to Brussels to tell me,’ said Cosima, ‘Then perhaps we could slip the last piece into place.’ ‘No, that wasn’t why,’ I said, ‘It was something else, but you probably know it anyway.’ ‘Tell me, please,’ said Cosima, ‘I like to know everything.’ ‘I can see that,’ I said, ‘Gertla simply told me she got Bazlo working for the Hungarian secret police back in 1956. All the time he was travelling in the West he was reporting to her. She passed it on to the authorities. And if it got to the Hungarians it certainly must have reached the Russians.’ ‘Oh, that is all,’ said Cosima. ‘All?’ I said, ‘This a man who was seeing Reagan, Bush, Genscher, Thatcher, everyone. He must have had access to enormous information. If this got out it would destroy his entire reputation.’
‘Well, in this world there are few reputations you cannot destroy,’ said Cosima, ‘You know that very well, you are a journalist.’ ‘As a journalist, let me ask you, is it true? Can you confirm it? You know everything?’ ‘I don’t know,’ said Cosima, ‘But did you never ask why he was allowed so much to travel?’ ‘Of course,’ I said, ‘But surely not everyone who travelled worked for the regime.’ ‘They generally made their arrangements,’ said Cosima, ‘In that world to get one thing you gave another. That was understood, the regime used you, you used the regime. Everyone had a file. Go to Prague now and look. Doctors had code names, archbishops had official ranks in the secret police. If you managed these things cleverly, you could lead the charmed life. And I think Criminale always managed to lead the charmed life.’
‘A great philosopher,’ I said. ‘Even a great philosopher lives in history,’ said Cosima. ‘So what Gertla said was really true?’ I asked. ‘I cannot tell you, I only say it would not be surprising. But I think anyone in the West who was wise would know that.’ ‘You mean anyone except me,’ I said. ‘He could go where diplomats could not,’ said Cosima, ‘He could make deals and pass information both ways. I expect both sides used him. He was too big to waste on little things.’ ‘It would still destroy him,’ I said, ‘And why would Gertla want to? It damages her reputation too.’ ‘You don’t know?’ asked Cosima. ‘No, Cosima, I don’t know,’ I said, ‘I don’t know anything. Please enlighten me.’
‘It happened before, in Germany in 1945, in France after j collaboration, in Hungary in 1956, in Russia always,’ said ‘ Cosima, ‘It happens now, it will happen again. The files that were shut come open, so everyone runs for cover. To protect themselves, they settle scores with others. Those old Party people are bitter these days. They were promised history for ever. They made their deals and bought their houses and now they feel cheated. But they mean to survive, to start again. They know the world cannot live without them. All they must do is show they know too much. For this they must sacrifice a few. Why not a famous man, up there on his pedestal? He has had his charmed life, they helped him make it. Well, it is not so hard for them to take it away again. He was no worse than others, maybe no better either. So do you think you will help them? Do you publish your article?’
I thought for a moment. ‘I don’t think so,’ I said, ‘His work’s too important. He’s been a great influence. His ideas will die too.’ ‘He impresses you,’ said Cosima. ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I suppose he’s a friend.’ ‘And for a friend you would keep silent,’ said Cosima. ‘If I thought it was important, yes,’ I said. ‘And then, if in twenty years they write the life of Francis Jay, what do you think they say of you?’ asked Cosima, ‘He knew the truth and kept it quiet.’ ‘I’m not important enough,’ I said, ‘Anyway, the world doesn’t have to know everything.’ ‘And you are a journalist?’ asked Cosima. ‘Even journos can be human,’ I said, ‘Some of them, anyway.’ ‘And are you silent also over the others?’ asked Cosima, ‘Gertla, Monza, Codicil?’ I‘ll just stick to the book pages,’ I said. ‘And life and crimes have nothing to do with the book pages?’ asked Cosima.
I looked at her. ‘I’m not sure whose side you’re on,’ I said. ‘Oh, poor Francis,’ said Cosima, ‘He has stumbled on things he cannot understand. I think the world is a bit stranger place than you imagined.’ ‘You know, Cosima,’ I said, ‘you could really be very attractive, if you didn’t speak all the time in that sonorous sort of way.’ ‘I do not think I speak all the time in a sonorous sort of a way,’ said Cosima, and I saw with surprise she was blushing a little, ‘Unless you mean because I am German my English is not the best.’ ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, ‘I didn’t mean that. I meant you make everything seem so conspiratorial, all so plotted and planned. You turn the world into a spy story. Whenever I talk to you, everything is conspiracies and scams and treacheries and tricks. I’m not even sure there was a plot.’
‘Of course,’ said Cosima, ‘The world is full of them. Don’t you think our postwar world has been often a spy story? Don’t you know that when the Eastern European files were opened, people everywhere asked that they be shut again, because so many Western careers would be finished? What kind of story do you like it to be?’ ‘I suppose a more philosophical story, a more humane story,’ I said, ‘Closer to the way most things really are.’ ‘And you know how they really are?’ asked Cosima, ‘Then maybe you should not have got so interested in Bazlo Criminale. If you had asked no questions, you would not have found these answers you don’t like.’ ‘That’s true,’ I said. ‘And you would not be here with me in La Rochette,’ she said. ‘That’s true too,’ I said. ‘And I would not have found out so much about you,’ said Cosima Bruckner, ‘I think our stories are not so different after all.’
Just then Armand appeared, bearing a folded paper on a silver tray. ‘Time to pay,’ said Cosima, ‘Europe will get it, Francis.’ I watched Cosima take out some Euro-credit card and put it on the tray. ‘Thank you, Cosima,’ I said, ‘An excellent meal.’ ‘We like you to be satisfied,’ said Cosima, ‘Now, where is your hotel?’ ‘Hotel?’ I asked, ‘I don’t have one yet.’ ‘Didn’t I tell you to book a hotel, when I gave you your instructions?’ asked Cosima, ‘Brussels has a very bad problem of hotels.’ ‘You didn’t, Cosima,’ I said, ‘I’d better call round before it’s too late.’ ‘I think already it is too late,’ said Cosima, glancing at her watch, ‘Brussels is full just now. The European Ministers meet. The NATO generals meet. There is a big fashion show, the Rolling Stones are in town.’ ‘Wonderful,’ I said, ‘An evening out at one of Europe’s great restaurants, then a night on a bench at the railway station.’ ‘Oh no,’ said Cosima, ‘You have been very helpful. Europe is going to find you something.’
We went out to the lobby, where I exchanged my excellent tie for my graceless anorak. ‘My dear Mam’selle Bruckner, you are charmante as usual,’ said someone behind us. There stood the small, bird-eyed man who Cosima had said was Deputy-President of the European Commission. ‘Bonsoir, Monsieur Villeneuve,’ said Cosima. ‘I had no idea you dined in such expensive restaurants,’ said Villeneuve, ‘You know, I can hardly afford them myself ‘I need to make certain investigations, you understand,’ said Cosima. ‘Really?’ asked Villeneuve, ‘And you are tête-à-tête, I see.’ ‘Ah, ja, this is Francis Jay, a journalist from London,’ said Cosima. ‘Enchante, monsieur, Jean-Luc Villeneuve,’ said Villeneuve, ‘You are from Britain? Not, I hope, another piece about the faceless bureaucrats of Brussels. As you see, my dear fellow, Mam’selle Bruckner and I do have quite interesting faces, when you get to know us a little better.’
‘Of course, Mr Villeneuve,’ I said. ‘Monsieur Villeneuve,’ said Villeneuve, ‘I am afraid, you know, that you in Britain have never understood the great dream that is Europe. Yes, we must be bureaucrats, we live in a bureaucratic age, but we can be idealists too, I hope.’ ‘I hope so too,’ I said. ‘Look round here, and what do you see?’ said Villeneuve, ‘Luxe et volupté. When I come here and see such things, I always ask myself, how can there be such luxe et volupté, unless there is also rêve et desir? I am European, but also French, you know.’ ‘I know,’ I said. ‘And we French are just a little bit philosophe,’ said Villeneuve, ‘We are the land of Pascal and Montaigne and Descartes and Rousseau, after all.’ ‘And Foucault and Derrida,’ I said. ‘Those also,’ said Villeneuve unenthusiastically, ‘And we believe in thought and dreams, rêve et desir, ideals and purpose. N’est-ce pas, Mam’selle Bruckner?’ ‘Oui, Monsieur Villeneuve,’ said Cosima.
‘Bon,’ said Villeneuve, ‘And now, Mam’selle Bruckner, may I take just a moment of your excellent time? Tomorrow morning, would you kindly visit my office? I have been reading your papers on this certain fraud matter, you know? Evidently you have conducted investigations with your customary astuteness.’ Thank you,’ said Cosima. ‘There are just one or two small problems,’ said Villeneuve, ‘These matters are serious, but we must not allow anything to threaten our relations with our good Eastern European friends, who cry out so loudly to join us one day soon.’ ‘I understand, Monsieur Villeneuve,’ said Cosima Bruckner. ‘Well, I must keep the Romanian President waiting no longer,’ said Villeneuve, ‘Enchanté, Monsieur Jay. Ten o’clock tomorrow, Mam’selle Bruckner.’
We walked out into the floodlit Grand’ Place; Cosima waved for a taxi. ‘And what do you think to my boss?’ she asked. ‘Quite an idealist,’ I said. ‘If you think Caligula was an idealist, Machiavelli an idealist,’ said Cosima, This man wants the whole world in his hands. When he talks of the Great Super-Europe, you can know there is something in it for him.’ ‘You mean a role in history?’ I asked. ‘Or perhaps a roll in the bank,’ said Cosima. A taxi came over; we got in the back, and Cosima said something to the driver. Then she said: ‘So you didn’t see who was with him at his table?’ The Romanian President?’ I asked. ‘Maybe,’ said Cosima, ‘But also someone else you know a little better. Professor Monza.’ The Prince of Announcements?’ I asked, surprised, ‘What was he doing there?’ ‘Evidently he knows my boss,’ said Cosima, as we drove out of the brightly lit Grand’ Place, ‘I tell you, Villeneuve is not what he seems.’ ‘You’re not saying the Deputy-President of the European Community is a part of it, surely,’ I said. ‘A part of what?’ asked Cosima Bruckner.
This perhaps explains why, twenty minutes later, as I ascended an elevator to the top of some expensive apartment block, evidently on one of Brussels’s better residential districts, I was in a somewhat confused state of mind. I was bewildered by what Cosima had told me: how much of it was true? All of it? Some of it? None of it? Exposure to the ambitions of Super-Europe seemed to have given her an extraordinary taste for scandal. The events of the entire evening had moved far too fast’for me. I was in the state I think scientists call redundancy: an excess of messages and signals, a superfluity of mixed information. It didn’t help that I’d drunk quite a litreage of the best champagne, finest Sauvignon and most pungent Armagnac modern European viticulture could offer, that my own small unit of Ildiko’s possible billions had come close to being uncovered, that even the Berlaymont seemed a part of it now.
This is very nice,’ I observed, looking round the elevator, carpeted not only on its floor but its walls and ceiling. This is very nice too, where are we?’ I asked, as we stepped from the elevator into a large, plant-filled lobby. A fire extinguisher I leaned against for support while Cosima felt for keys fell off the wall, for some reason. ‘Please be quiet,’ said Cosima, ‘My neighbours are very bourgeois.’ ‘Your neighbours?’ I asked, This is your apartment?’ ‘Please, this is no place to discuss deeds of property,’ said Cosima, unlocking some door. ‘It’s really kind to bring me back to your apartment at this time of night,’ I said. Another door opened nearby and someone stared furiously out. ‘Come inside, you do not know who is listening,’ said Cosima. As I’ve said, it was curious how, when Cosima instructed, one always obeyed.
The apartment we entered was large and fine, with a wonderful view of the lighted domes of Brussels, but it was also clear that Cosima led a somewhat ascetic existence. The living-room was lined with bookless bookshelves and random prints. There was a wide sofa, a coffee-table stacked with files. The kitchenette was filled with compact, colourless German appliances, the bedroom had one large mattress laid across the floor. ‘Excuse me, this is not so tidy for you,’ said Cosima, shifting files and papers, ‘I did not really expect if to expect you.’ ‘The Prince of Announcements?’ I asked. ‘Bitte?’ ‘Monza was really in the restaurant?’ ‘You didn’t see?’ asked Cosima, removing a vacuum cleaner from a very tidy broom cupboard, ‘Monza is a friend of Villeneuve, and Codicil is a friend of Monza. I suppose they are all masons together, something like that.’
She began hoovering the apartment furiously. ‘So what does it mean?’ I called, ‘Look, there’s no need to start doing housework now.’ ‘It means when I go to his office on floor thirteen tomorrow, he will wave my report and say it is fine,’ cried Cosima, bitterly, ‘However we must not stain the destiny of the New Europe, ruin our Ostpolitik. And so the destiny of the New Europe will be the same as the destiny of the Old Europe, I think, don’t you?’ ‘Turn that off,’ I said. ‘The files I have worked on for two years will disappear,’ shouted Cosima, ‘Codicil will be released and go back to Vienna to his students.’ ‘If he can find them,’ I said. ‘Lift up your feet, please,’ said Cosima, ‘And so it will go on, and on. The old men will remain, in new hats. The young ones will learn the same lesson. The nomenklatura will live on forever. Lift up your feet again.’
‘Cosima, turn that off,’ I said. ‘And I will get a nice congratulation for my investigations, and they will move me elsewhere,’ said Cosima, ‘Maybe the Beef Mountain, where I can do less harm. Well, I tell you this, I hate the Beef Mountain. I shit on the Beef Mountain.’ ‘Cosima, calm down,’ I said, holding her ‘Look, the place is fine, I’ve never seen a cleaner apartment. Why all this?’ ‘Because if we are going to bed together I like my place to be really nice for you,’ said Cosima. ‘What did you say?’ I asked, ‘Turn it off, Cosima.’ ‘I said, I like my place to be really nice for you,’ said Cosima, switching off the machine. ‘The conditional clause,’ I said. ‘Our bed together?’ asked Cosima ‘Maybe you don’t like to. There is the sofa also, I will tidy it for you.’
‘Come here a minute, Cosima,’ I said, ‘Do you mean you’d like to?’ ‘Didn’t you know it all the time?’ ‘I told you,’ I said, ‘I don’t know anything.’ ‘But that is why I really followed you at Barolo,’ said Cosima. ‘No, that was Criminale,’ I said. Then I was not interested in Criminale,’ said Cosima, ‘It was Monza. Because he was a friend of Villeneuve. I followed Criminale because you did. And because you lied about your newspaper and because I liked to be with you. But all the time you were with the Hungarian agent, except on the night of the storm. I checked on her, of course. You know she went to Cano to meet Codicil?’ ‘She did? Why?’ I asked. ‘He wanted her to help him to those accounts,’ said Cosima. ‘Well,’ I said, ‘Perhaps you’re right. Our stories have more in common than I realized.’ ‘Please, I tidy the bedroom,’ said Cosima. The bedroom,’ I said, ‘looks great as it is.’
As far as what then did or did not happen during the rest of my visit to Brussels, I am, as it happens, prepared to say nothing at all. My reasons are roughly as follows. Not much later, I happened to be lying on a mattress in a stripped, bare, uncurtained, perfectly tidy bedroom somewhere above the bright illuminated domes of Brussels. A bathroom door opened close by; in a shaft of light stood Cosima Bruckner, shower-wet where before she had been dry, unveiled where before she had been veiled. Her dark hair was up; there was a gold chain round her neck; she came and stood splendid, shy, in front of me. ‘Francis,’ she said, looking down at me, ‘Do you realize there are at least four hundred and fifty unidentified Stasi agents still working in the Western governments?’ ‘Don’t say a thing, Cosima,’ I said, ‘Just come here.’ ‘You really promise me something?’ asked Cosima. ‘I’m sure I do,’ I said. ‘If anything happens in this room, you will say nothing to anyone?’ asked Cosima, ‘It is between us only?’ ‘Definitely,’ I said, ‘This meeting does not take place.’
As a result of that promise, no more of this scene (and who says it occurred anyway?) can be reported. In any case, the fact is that most sex in stories is only for the children anyway. Adults know perfectly well what happens in such cases, when anything happens at all. There is ordinariness, and something exceptional. There is talk, there is silence. There is pleasure, there is disappointment. There is attachment, there is separateness. There is self, and loss of it. There is thought, there is rest. There is being, there is nothingness. There is the room here, the bigger world out there. There is growing up, and staying the same. These are issues the philosophers usually discuss for us, or they did when we had any. And if they have trouble with such matters, why should I or anyone else do better? In any case, surely, even in this tolerant, permissive, late, liberal, over-investigated world of ours, we all have a right to occasional silence. And if there is Heidegger’s silence, and Criminale’s silence, who can object, for once, to Jay’s silence?
So that’s really that. But there is one last item from my brief visit to Brussels that deserves a mention. The next morning, outside an expensive apartment block not unlike the one referred to earlier, you might have observed Cosima Bruckner, in her black trousers again, standing on the pavement as I was about to enter a taxi destined for Zaventem airport. ‘You will really write nothing?’ she was saying. ‘I don’t think I will,’ I said, ‘For me he’s still a great man. He’s the elephant, the others are just fleas. Appendixes, footnotes. And he’s suffered quite enough. Gertla’s after his reputation, the others have taken all his money.’ ‘You may be right about his reputation,’ said Cosima, ‘I think you don’t worry too much about his money. I am sure his rich girl-friend will not let Criminale starve.’
I had just got into the back seat; I wound down the window. ‘You mean Miss Belli?’ I asked, ‘She’s rich and powerful as well as everything else?’ ‘Of course not Miss Belli,’ said Cosima, ‘She was just the assistant of the Prince of Announcements, there to get him to the bank.’ ‘But he ran away to Lausanne to be with her,’ I said. ‘No,’ said Cosima, ‘Don’t you know who was really waiting there at the Beau Rivage Palace?’ ‘No idea, Cosima,’ I said. ‘Mrs Valeria Magno,’ said Cosima, ‘She flew her jet down there and they went off to India together.’ The time was logged quite precisely,’ I said. ‘Of course,’ said Cosima, ‘I think they have been lovers for years.’ ‘You’re wonderful, Cosima,’ I said. She touched her lips to mine. ‘I hope so,’ she said. ‘Good luck with Villeneuve,’ I said. ‘I don’t think so,’ said Cosima, ‘I think I will have a different job soon. But do you still promise to call me if you ever find anything out?’ ‘Definitely,’ I said. Then the taxi pulled away and I set off for the airport, knowing at last I had not another thing to say on the whole strange affair of Bazlo Criminale.