The Flanders Panel

“Especially the writing desk, Princess.” Cesar was swinging his umbrella, delighted with the deal he’d made. “As you know, there’s a certain social class, blessings be upon them, who cannot live without a bed that once belonged to Empress Eugenie or the desk where Talleyrand signed his perjuries. Well, now there’s a new bourgeois class of parvenus who, in their attempts to emulate them, feel they simply have to have a Biedermeier as the supreme symbol of their triumph. They come to you and ask you straight out, without specifying whether they want a table or a desk; what they want is a Biedermeier whatever the cost and whatever it is. Some even believe blindly in the historical existence of poor Mr. Biedermeier and are most surprised when they see that the piece of furniture is actually signed by someone else. First, they give me a disconcerted smile, then they nudge each other and immediately ask if I haven’t got another Biedermeier, a real one.” Cesar sighed, no doubt deploring the difficult times in which he lived. “If it wasn’t for their chequebooks, I can assure you that I’d be tempted to send a few of them chez les grecs.”

“I seem to remember that on occasion that’s exactly what you have done.”

Cesar sighed again, with a pained grimace.

“That’s my daring side, my dear. Sometimes my character just gets the better of me; it’s the scandalous old queen in me, I suppose. A bit like Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Just as well hardly anyone these days speaks decent French.”

They reached Julia’s car, parked in an alley, just as she was telling him about her encounter with Max. The mere mention of the name was enough to make Cesar frown.

“I’m only glad I didn’t see him, the pimp,” he remarked crossly. “Is he still making treacherous propositions?”

“Nothing serious. I suppose that deep down he’s afraid Menchu would find out.”

“That’s where it would hurt the little rat. In the wallet.” Cesar walked round the car towards the passenger door. “Look at that! They’ve slapped a fine on us.”

“They haven’t, have they?”

“Oh, yes, they have. It’s stuck under the windscreen wiper.” Irritated, he banged the ground with his umbrella. “I don’t believe it. Right in the middle of the Rastro and the police spend their time giving out fines instead of doing what they should be doing, arresting criminals and other riffraff. It’s a disgrace!” He repeated it loudly, looking about him defiantly: “An absolute disgrace!”

Julia removed the empty aerosol can someone had placed on the bonnet of the car and picked up the piece of paper, which was in fact a small card, about the size of a visiting card. Then she stood utterly still, thunderstruck. The shock must have shown on her face, because Cesar, alarmed, hurried round to her side.

“You’ve gone quite pale, my dear. What’s wrong?”

When she spoke, she didn’t recognise her own voice. She felt a terrible desire to run away to some warm, secure place where she could hide her head and close her eyes and feel safe.

“It isn’t a fine, Cesar.”

She held out the card, and Cesar uttered a word no one would expect to hear from him. Because there, in a now all too familiar format, someone had typed the sinisterly laconic characters:

Pa7 x Rb6

As she stood, stunned, she felt as if her head were spinning. The alley was deserted. The person nearest to it was a seller of religious images, who was sitting on a wicker chair on the corner, about twenty yards from them, watching the people walking past the merchandise she’d laid out on the ground. “He was here, Cesar. Don’t you see? He was here.”

She realised that there was fear in her words but not surprise. Now – and the realisation came in waves of infinite despair – she was not afraid of the unexpected, her fear had become a kind of gloomy sense of resignation, as if the mystery player and his close, threatening presence were becoming an irremediable curse under which she would have to live for the rest of her life. Always supposing, she thought with lucid pessimism, that she had much life left to live.

Ashen, Cesar was turning the card round and round. He could barely speak for indignation:

“The swine… the blackguard.”

Julia’s thoughts were suddenly distracted from the card. What claimed her attention was the empty can she’d found on the bonnet. She picked it up, feeling, as she bent to do so, as though she were moving through the mists of a dream. But she was able to concentrate long enough on the label to understand what it was. She shook her head, puzzled, before showing it to Cesar.

“What’s that?” he asked.

“An aerosol for repairing flat tyres. You stick it in the valve and the tyre inflates. It’s got a sort of white paste in it that repairs the puncture from inside.”

“What’s it doing here?”

“That’s what I’d like to know.”