The Night Watch Read Free

hiss and hiccup, and once again I see the face of the man they dragged into the living room, his hands bound with a belt. Playing for time, at first he pulled pleasant faces as through trying to distract them. When he could no longer control his fear, he tried to arouse them: made eyes at them, bared his right shoulder with rapid, twitching jerks, started to belly-dance, his whole body trembling. We mustn’t stay here a minute longer. The music will die after one last spasm. The chandeliers will gutter out.
    ‘A game of blind man’s buff?’ ‘What a good idea!’ ‘We won’t even need blindfolds!’ ‘It’s dark enough.’ ‘You’re it, Odicharvi!’ ‘Scatter, everyone!’
    They creep around the room. You can hear the closet door open. They’re probably plannning to hide there. It sounds as if they’re crawling around the desk. The floor is creaking. Someone bumps into a piece of furniture. A face is silhouetted against the window. Gales of laughter. Sighs. Frantic gestures. They run around in all directions. ‘Caught you, Baruzzi!’ ‘Hard luck, I’m Helder.’ ‘Who’s that?’ ‘Guess!’ ‘Rosenheim?’ ‘No.’ ‘Costachesco?’ ‘No.’ ‘Give up?’
    ‘We’ll arrest them tonight,’ says the Khedive. ‘The Lieutenant and all the members of the ring, EVERY LAST ONE. These people are sabotaging our work.’
    ‘You still haven’t given us Lamballe’s address,’ murmurs Monsieur Philibert. ‘When are you going to make up your mind,
mon petit
? Come on now . . .’
    ‘Give him a chance, Pierrot.’
    Suddenly the chandeliers flicker on again. They blink into the light. There they are around the desk. ‘I’m parched.’ ‘Let’s have a drink, friends, a drink!’ ‘A song, Baruzzi, a song!’ ‘“Il était un petit navire”
.
’ ‘Go on, Baruzzi, go on!’ ‘“
Quin’avaitja-ja-ja-ja-maisnavigué . . .”
’
    ‘You want to see my tattoos?’ asks Frau Sultana. She rips open her blouse. On each breast is a ship’s anchor. Baroness Lydia Stahl and Violette Morris wrestle her to the ground and strip her. She wriggles and struggles free of the clutches, giggling and squealing, egging them on. Violette Morris chases her across the living room to the corner where Zieff is sucking on a chicken wing. ‘Nothing like a tasty morsel now rationing is here to stay. Do you know what I did just now? I stood in front of the mirror and smeared my face with foie gras! Foie gras worth fifteen thousand francs a medallion!’ (He bursts out laughing.) ‘Another cognac?’ offers Pols de Helder. ‘You can’t get it any more. A half-bottle sells for a hundred thousand francs. English cigarettes? I have them flown in direct from Lisbon. Twenty thousand francs a pack.’
    ‘One of these days they’ll address me as
Monsieur le Préfet de police
,’ the Khedive announces crisply. He stares off into the middle distance.
    ‘To the health of the
Préfet
!’ shouts Lionel de Zieff. He staggers and collapses onto the piano. The glass has slipped from his hands. Monsieur Philibert thumbs through a dossier along with Paulo Hayakawa and Baruzzi. The Chapochnikoff brothers busy themselves at the Victrola. Simone Bouquereau gazes at herself in the mirror.
    Die Nacht
    Die Musik
    Und dein Mund
    hums Baroness Lydia, doing a quick dance.
    ‘Anyone for a session of sexuo-divine paneurhythmy?’ Ivanoff the Oracle whinnies, his voice like a stallion.
    The Khedive eyes them mournfully. ‘They’ll address me as
Monsieur le Préfet
.’ He raises his voice: ‘
Monsieur le Préfet de police!
’ He bangs his fist on the desk. The others pay no attention to this outburst. He gets up and opens the left-hand window a little. ‘Come sit here,
mon petit
, I have need of your presence, such a sensitive boy, so receptive . . . you soothe my nerves.’
    Zieff is snoring on the piano. The Chapochnikoff brothers have stopped playing the Victrola. They are examining the vases of flowers one by one, straightening an