Vue Directe - Voie Directe
30. The urgency
The Master perceived the urgency for speedy action. Hiro had reported to him the intervention of the young White in the courtyard of fight.
- He has brought a huge mess into their minds, outraged the Master of killing.
- Are you sure of that? asked the Master while smiling.
- Of course I am sure… They have forgotten to greet while leaving the workspace!
- To greet “who”? asked the old man.
- Well… “me!”…. I am the teacher… The reference! ….
Hiro did not understand the Master anymore. He seemed to make fun of him with this curious smile on his lips.
- But, Master… There are all the values which will go when there is no more respect for the elders… and especially for the Masters…
-… who give their lives for the well being of the others and in particular that of the pupils… the old man continued himself.
Hiro looked at him with his insane look… the one that he has when faced with death and his body does not know anymore but to charge right onto the beast opposite him.
The old man smiled at him to defuse the bomb that his old friend had become.
- you do not give your life for them… You give it to you! …
- I do not understand, said the Mongol.
The Master sighed. He had a child in front of him since the young White had howled his force into the monastery.
- what the young White makes known to the “others”… those that you call pupils… is the handling that we exert on them in order to keep and to contain them in a reduced space which is appropriate for us …
- I still do not understand! Hiro said.
- Then I will express it once again to you differently: he says that we organize a space in which they are controlled… Which is perfectly right since in this monastery we train killers.
- But of “Lords” of Death! … Hiro howled.
- But killers! said the old man once again… We need killers, not minds which think for themselves…. Beings which carry out a task that we give them and who are certain to achieve a Divine Duty…
- But…
- No! … No “but” from you, my friend… You have understood our function and our action in this very special place very well… We provide them with a space in which a form of consciousness can evolve… Even if it is a space which forms the allowed evolution! …
He let his breath move in his belly.
- do you understand what he “really” said to the monks and not only to Heidi and Tong?
… Because these two are only incidents of which he made use and which allowed him to give this teaching which is like gunpowder on a burning fire… Be certain, my friend, that the trail is progressing in their body because it questions the memory of the World that they have in their cells… and this young man, still a teenager of just twenty years, has this capacity to stir up and to activate this memory… here is exactly where the difficulty and the danger is located ….
- I still do not understand… Except that we must quickly get rid of this insane young person! Hiro howled.
- we could not get rid of him just like that… It would be confirmation for everybody that we handle the space so that the obviousness of their conclusion settles in the obvious space that we have created.
- Obviousness…?
- Well, let us not pose the problem thus… Maybe you cannot follow the meanders of my reflection…
The Master remained silent for a long moment in the room of the temple. He looked for assistance in the eyes and the belly of the Buddha… But for a few days now the statue had remained closed to him… Just a piece of wood covered by the patina of time and the worship of the monks.
- Tell me instead how the monks were afterwards… asked the old man.
- They seemed relieved… A monk came to tell me that in the kitchens it is told that this teaching has removed a weight from them and they do not understand why… But they feel it! … Thus they talk… And we must put an end to these “wandering thoughts” because they will explode in our face! … I feel it in all the fibres of my body.
- you are right, my friend… It is necessary to put an end to the actions of this young boy… but in another way.
- I do not understand, says Hiro
- it is necessary to change the object of his attention …
- I still do not understand!
- we must lead him to look at the others and at the universe differently… and I am busy with that every night in the Secret Room…
The Master killer remained speechless.
- but what you are saying to me now will oblige me to accelerate the movement of transformation of his energy… But he will feel it because he is very clever… So I need your help, my friend.
- Well, said the Master killer… happy to have a territory in front of him in which to act… I am ready to kill him!
- I do not need the Master killer to help me with that… I need the Master cook, said the Master gently… and in the end the Master doctor…
Hiro stared at him in amazement.
- I need your knowledge of the plants and of the products of the Earth so that the Earth remains earth.
- I do not understand…
I will work on him from the Secret Room and with the Forces which are in It… He will feel this action and will know how to withdraw from it … Then you have to find some products of your invention to send his mind to bed without him being able to realize this reduction in his attention.
The Master still called upon the Buddha, which continued to remain impassive as a witness … not concerned by the destiny of the men.
- Do you have that on your shelves? … my friend.
- A sleeping pill?
- No, he would realize that because it affects the body… We need a drug which acts on the brain… with gentleness…
He kept his words for himself… then added:
- I must be able to have in front of me, i.e. in him, a field onto which I can insert seeds without him being able to perceive that I am putting a virus into his mind… That is what I need… my friend.
Hiro rose and left without waiting any longer.
- I will look in the books, he said.
The Master let him reach the door of the temple. When Hiro opened the door and before he put his foot on the first flagstone, he called:
- you also forget to greet the Master… The one who teaches you everything and without whom you would be nothing!
Hiro remained speechless…
The old man burst out laughing in the silence of the Temple…
- Go ahead, he called to the monk who wanted to come back and to greet… No, said the Master… The moment has passed now and nothing can be repaired… So go to your work and find!
Alone in the darkness of the temple, with a single candle between the thighs of the Buddha, the old man let his years bend his shoulders. His forehead rested on the thigh of the Buddha. But for the first time the contact of the wood did not penetrate into his flesh to nourish him.
“It is time to act… I must bring him back to his élan of love for Men from his “previous” life … I must give this memory to him again so that his new thinking has another support!
… I have to succeed… because he is just twenty years old! … His YAM consciousness has perhaps not yet formed… Perhaps he does not yet have a full consciousness of himself.
… I must make him come back into Bam… our future depends on that! … or else it will be our destruction”
He rose and walked around the Buddha statue. The door of access to the staircase which led to the Secret room was hidden in the wood of the back of the Buddha.
He had this night in front of him to accelerate the radiation being able to transform his son of “now”.
Extract from the Book of the Shin Family.
6. The COLA family
He brought with him the odour of Yoko and her tenderness as if she had given them to him in supplement to the blooming of her body. Mixed with the odours of the leather of the Jaguar he enjoyed a relaxation which he liked.
He climbed the stairs in the rue Emile Level with this peace, which made him not take things too seriously.
- Mister Colas?
- Yes, what is it?
“AH!”… it will be necessary to go back to work!
The father Cola.
Not easy, the guy.
There must be something in my karma!
You will laugh.
He is a Postmaster!
So a guy who succeeded!
And who can still do better. At forty five, one is not yet finished. Not even with the Post.
Unnecessary to describe him to you. Look at the mug of the postmaster of your area. All the same mould. Well defined profile. Just like the condescending pout of the guy who has to explain the same thing fifty times a day to different people. That they are different could perhaps whisper to his fleshy and hairy ear that there is a problem. Perhaps of communication, after all!
But these customers who are ALWAYS there! Could they not do their dealings elsewhere, the dudes! Should really be left alone among themselves!
And well, you can believe me if you want, but it is the very truth: even after having established schedules of closing times when the others are free, there are STILL some there!
It is really not possible! Is it not outrageous?
After these difficult anguishes with the customers, as opposed to private structures, one is astonished that they do not have a sallow complexion, a sticky mouth, a smile between their buttocks, a resigned eye.
How malicious people are! One could leave them in peace behind their bars.
And not forget to send their complete wages to them on an exact date, allowances in addition, payments of the kind not appearing on the pay slip, such as, for example, the free parking space at the municipal car park. You know? The one just opposite the post office where you must give 10 francs to go to withdraw your mail from the P.0. Box. Unless you accept a 20 minute walk.
Come on! You are right.
One has bad intentions to think that all this is furbished, that they are not coincidences. All free and unexpected.
Like this traffic warden who paces up and down just on the steps of the worthy administration and rushes as soon as she sees a guy going directly from the car to the Post office.
No! She is there by the most extraordinary coincidence! Surely a blister on her foot prevents her from going further. “But no! SIR, realize ! Have thought nothing. Am even less calculating. Come on! Drive. There is nothing to see.” Even less to understand.
And the taciturn, sometimes downright grumpy faces of the employees of the Post … letting it out on us… that’s the way it is nowadays!
And father Cola lives nowadays.
You really see that I did not waste my time to describe him. Direct to the centre of the core.
Well! To make kids, it is necessary to be two. You had realized that?
- It is an honour that a man such as you, Mister Superintendent Special Chief of… deals with us. Our hearts are warmed to note that Justice still exists, she says.
-… and that the Mr. President of the Republic undoubtedly sends us one of his best sleuthhounds, which, I am certain, He would need more elsewhere… retorts the father.
The only thing, with which I agree in this grand-sounding title, is that I truly am “special”. I will leave the remainder for you to judge.
And I am there to listen. Their interior furnishing from shelf n° 26 in the furniture store. English style in false leather, false wood, false… But I will not go into every little detail here.
- My dear little one did not have enemies! At that age! … I do not understand, the mother wails.
A woman who is too much of everything. If I were malicious, which I am not, you admit, I would say that she has the weight of her mind. You know these wives of doctors who are more doctor than their husband, more lawyer than…
- ABSOLUTELY! … Probably a crime of a prowler, doubtless! And besides, WE did not appreciate these inspectors and this young police chief who questioned us on our relations with our son and who supposed…
- Exactly! … You should have seen their insinuations! Inadmissible!
Extract from the Book of the Shin family
“It was on a summer evening. An important figure had succeeded in obtaining an appointment with the Roshi. The three monks in charge of the reception had invited him with great courtesy to enter into the bungalow for the visitors. He appreciated the rustic quality but nonetheless comfortable features of the building, the veranda, in front of which a small well maintained garden revealed flowers, rockeries, a watercourse and carefully raked sand. The peace of place seduced. It was obvious. He could not mask a sigh of satisfaction while flopping down in the cane armchair.
The three monks brought him tea and small soya cakes.
- The Master will be there in half an hour, announced the oldest monk, in a gracious reverence.
The delicate custom was thus preserved. The visitor had half an hour to make himself comfortable and perhaps to recover from the tiredness of the voyage… because the last hour could be done only by foot or riding a mule. No road suitable for motor vehicles reached the monastery. The present Roshi and the previous Masters had always paid a lot of attention to this isolation and had known how to use all their powers to preserve it.
The traveller accepted thus this small respite with very good grace.
Thirty minutes later, a small vigorous man, of about fifty years, not more, entered into the garden by a low door in the lateral surrounding wall, between two splendid climbing roses. While he crossed the garden, which he did slowly in his rice straw sandals, he was only concerned with the beauty of the flowers, with the radiation of the stones, with the sound of the brook. Not a glance at the bungalow; even less at the visitor who extracted himself from the armchair with some difficulty, because his stoutness was at the same level as his power.
When he stood in front of the three wooden steps leading to the veranda, he raised his head and looked at the visitor straight in the eyes. Perhaps it did not last for more than a quarter of a second. However, the large man jumped. Trying to mask his bewilderment, he bowed, hands joined in front of his face. The Master returned his greeting just as courteously and kneeled, heels under his buttocks, on the thick cushion that one of the monks, before withdrawing, had placed next to the steps.
The important visitor assessed this delicacy. In this position, the Master allowed himself to continue to enjoy the beauty of the garden.
The Roshi knew that this big man, important in the government, wanted to ask him some questions about life in general, the future of the society… and perhaps about his interest in exerting a political and administrative position of power. He had surely prepared his questions a long time ago. So, hardly sitting in the rattan armchair again, his short and fat legs not allowing a kneeling position on a cushion without a manifesting discomfort - another delicacy of the monks to have offered this seat to him - his forehead wrinkled, his face contracted.
“He is organizing his speech once again …”!
The Master left him plenty of time to pull himself together. His entire attitude radiated benevolence.
When the big man leant forward, ready to bring the first words of his interrogations, The Roshi stopped him with a fast movement of his left hand.
- Have you anything else to say to me, other than you are not happy, that you do not feel well with your occupation, that your subordinates do not help you sufficiently with your work, that your bosses do not assess your occupation at its true value, that your wife cheats on you, that your children are following a path that does not please you, that money is not sufficient… that the world is going downhill, he asked.
The eyes of the Master stared at the big man with an extraordinary keenness. The latter took this in gradually. With a concerned wrinkle on his forehead, his brain was trying to notice, to categorize, to distinguish in an unrestrained attempt to establish a rapid synthesis, which was why he was so well paid, and to find a satisfactory answer, circumventing the delicate and unfavourable dangers for him and reinforcing with pleasure the theories which he liked. After two to three minutes he approved and a smile spread over his fat face.
Suddenly, he had forgotten that the Roshi was in front of him. His entire brain functioned as if he was at a political rostrum, having to seduce and to convince.
He opened his mouth to formulate his first word, but there too, the Master stopped him.
- Have you anything else to say to me, than that you are a happy man, content with your work, satisfied with the efforts of your subordinates to help you with your work, heard and respected by your bosses who assess, at their true value, all your efforts; that your wife is loving and that you too love her, that your children follow a way, which you recognize to be beautiful, that you largely have enough money to carry out all your hopes… and that the world is heading towards constant wellbeing ?”
This time, the big man was dumbfounded. He could not mask his agitation. His audience was not as he had imagined. Nothing happened as usual. The ordinary was not even disordered. Suddenly, neither one nor the other existed.
The question passed on to another level!
Do you have anything else to say than that? … much respected governor, asked the small man.
The governor remained open-mouthed, for some very long seconds. He could not breathe, even his big belly twitched… the old man continued to stare at him.
- I thus think that the meeting is finished, he said.
The big man could not say a word, nor make a gesture. His mouth still open, his eyes wide open, he looked at him rising, greeting him with courtesy and, with small precise and fast steps, taking the return path through the garden.
He had long disappeared through the small door of the surrounding wall when he realized his mouth was open.
Incidentally it was with much difficulty that he succeeded in closing it…
- He looked like a frog trying to catch a fly! … laughed Angel, who told the story to the head cook.
Hiro knitted his eyebrows.
- So you were there?
The young man shrugged his shoulders, took on the face of a merry child who has just made a good joke. Hiro knew well that this small curious White had benefited from a gap which existed in the surrounding wall, masked by a laurel, in order not to miss anything of the situation and of the discussion. He did not try to reprimand him. For the three years that he had been with them, he had learned that he had a thick skin and a really obstinate head. He just smiled.
- You are mistaken a lot, little one… It could not be a frog, he says.
Now it was Angel who became interrogative. Hiro accentuated his ironic smile.
- The exact attitude of a true monk is that of a frog!
Hiro went back to his kitchens. Angel looked at him moving away, with a wide open mouth…”
End of the extract
Hey! And here comes the “Little Father” who is sticking his oar in.
Must recognize that he is right. With what the Colas teach me! And then the Roshi of this bloody family is ticking me off. I know how to read between the lines!
You want to know what he tells me while recalling this story from at least 7 years ago to him?
“My adored son, as I expected it, you appear as a complete idiot.
It is not worthwhile to have been plagued for nine long and hard years to get you out of the forest, almost dead, to have worked for your health, then to have trained this young white body which smells so bad to my delicate oriental nostrils, to arrive here.
You dishonour me, my son!
I have taught you how to walk without noise, to kill properly, to listen to the breathing of the other, to smell his odour.
I have brought you to the gardens of the bliss of sounds and colours.
I have taught you their vibrations.
I have not only given my bones and my blood to your impetuous youth.
I presented you my marrow.
And what do you do with this generous gift?
You question like a poor cop!
To believe that you have lost all your gifts of perception of the Energies!
You shame me.
HIRO joins me. ”
Your adored father.
Let’s leave it at that. There remains just to swallow that. And to say that the old, not so beautiful man is right!
Thus I will quickly leave the Cola, after having seen the room of Steph. Shelf n° 12, standard Swedish. Made of reconstituted wood.
- The police officers went over everything with a fine-tooth comb and did not find anything, Mister Chief Superintendent detached at…
I am not listening anymore and hurtle down the staircases, my ears filled with the reprimand of the “Little Father”.
End of the extract.
The old man took some breaths. The moon entered into the Secret Room. The book between his hands vibrated with the Force of his son “of before”.
“It is not sufficient!!! Not enough! … I must touch him even more strongly… Immediately!!!!
Then he placed his hands flat on the following pages and sent their message and their radiation.
He pushed strongly in his belly and his entrails groaned.
Extract from the Book of the Family
7. Resignation.
Exactly. I played the cop. But I do not have this suspecting vein. I am a killer. A nuance!
There remains just to operate like a killer. To do as if Stephan was alive and that I have to bag him.
“Little Father” has however repeated to me a thousand times that the art of the killer is not to kill but “to penetrate”. There remains just to penetrate the child. I will know then who has killed him.
I get into my car again, parked in front of the public park. Half on the pavement. While doing this, I take the three papers laid out carefully by the cop in charge of the area. Just have to slightly lower the window in front of the manhole under the interested eye of a tapestry decorator who is closing his workshop.
Must wait for the night. My field lies in action.
And as I do not know what to do with my bones while waiting, entirely filled with the words of the “Little Father”, I go up the avenue and arrive at Clichy Place. Neon lights, noise, the rabble, which begin their night…
I decide not to go further. I want to stay in vibratory relation with what I now regard as my field: the space of Steph.
To park a car has never been a problem for me. Either I had stolen it. Or it was not mine! To double-park is for me usual behaviour. And if a guy hoots, because he is blocked, I am as deaf as a post. It compensates for the times where he has done idem.
You see, that is what being a killer is. To redistribute the data according to God. Not to give a damn about men being made fun of.
That is the constant dissension between US, the cops and the psychiatrists. One is not talking about the same problem.
Thus to act. And I will down a drink in the select boozer at the corner. I have spotted a guy with dark glasses there. Not the season, not the hour. You know how I am. Always checking out whatever is new. I will thus sit down beside him, a little slantwise.
Who do you think there is beside the guy? A chick, of course! With leather pants and a blouse of which she has omitted to button the first four. Which leaves a respectable margin. The look does not have to seek. It finds all alone.
And the guy, behind his glasses, is pretending to read the ‘Nouvel Obs’.
She is sipping some stuff full of colours with a straw.
He does not say anything, does not see anything, is not astonished by anything. Not concerned at all, is he. His glasses are used to closing him. If his trousers are stretched at the level of his fly, this is only a congenital malformation. And if it stirs up a little in his surroundings when a guy slows down in front of their table and eyes up the chest of the lady, he reads the same line again for a fifth time to be certain to have understood it. A serious man!
So serious is he, very concerned about his culture, that I hear him to say to his escort:
- Lean a little forward… yes… the elbow resting on the table!
And the lady of about 30 years of age takes the pose under the smile of the waiter who registers my order.
- Albert! … Think of table three. They have been calling you for 5 minutes!
The Albert makes a detour, just to check if the right breast is in conformity with its neighbour, slips between the two tables to give the neighbouring table a wipe.
If his elbow deviates too much and runs up against the shoulder of the lady, it is only sheer coincidence.
- Forgive me, Madam! … I did not spill anything?
One hardly finds waiters in a café anymore, who are so concerned with their customers. Now, the owners go putting a sign above the bar: “Be polite to the staff, esteemed customers”.
And this Albert, he is a pearl. Nothing else to say! He even will check with his hand that he has made no damage to the table. The lady, with a small cheeky pout, lets him work and does not feel the need to move back. He takes his time, Albert, his eyes plunging deep. So why rush if the lady does not move back when he takes his hand back while lifting it perhaps a little too high, whereby it is necessary to understand the conditions of the service, while passing very close to the points of the naked breasts through the fabric of the blouse.
The lady thanks him with a gracious smile. He does not really need to know what for what. Me neither. You perhaps?
- Could you bring me another round, please?
- Of course, Madam, I’ll be right with you.
And here is table three, which continues to call Albert, and here the lady who is served again. This guy has made his list badly!
But he knows where to stand so as to serve. A look at the low neckline, plunging and vertiginous perception of the abyss, right hand which slips under the armpit, which is not convenient to place the glass on the table, you will agree with this, but practical to massage the tit on the way back. You will agree with this too.
And as the woman keeps her faraway smile, it is genuinely worth it to try to bring her to a right comprehension of the present moment. Let us do some Zen!!
The other hand also slips into a remarkable action worthy of the most deserving general. But contrary to the law of the small soldiers, the lady does not give herself up. Which obliges the worthy general, reluctantly, of course, to conduct the delicate action of slipping the left hand towards the point of the breast, to seize it with the end of his fingers, to turn it very slightly. The guy has thus with a firm hold the right tit of the chick in his hand.
Who of course does not shout.
And the guy behind his specs who is reading the same word for the twentieth time again.
After this stress, there remains nothing to do but just to empty ones bladder. Hers. His too. Albert, of course! Table three can wait. Having got this far! Direction lower ground floor.
I, I admire the consistency of the guy with the specs. Not easy, this game. Not to lose a crumb of the actions and… all of this with delicacy.
Why do you think he wears these dark glasses? You think that he is a special case? No! A well matured piece of fruit for the shrinks.
As one is always taken in twice, he will have to go back there. To the shrink. Well, I will explain that to you another time. For the moment, my plexus is heating up. I know this. I am not pals with God for nothing. This guy, HE never makes me waste my time. HIS manner is to dump me into situations. If I do not look elsewhere, if above all, I do not let my thoughts make a film, there is teaching in the air. And as I am on the Steph case, it is also about him. Do not think that I am relaxing during one of these spectacles… No no! I assure you… Well! If you really insist! I would not like to take your solitary pleasures. I am good lad. Let us take part and let us cut the apple in two. OK!
I would not like to become boring, but tracking a dead person is not easy.
And there is a little something with the blonde lady which attracts me. So I also go to the bog…
I do not need to propose to you to accompany me, I feel you already all trembling. Hey! I already told you that there was work for the shrinks. The disgusting thing in this story, is that it is they who have dropped the bombshell. Since they only work with their brain. This bitch, she has a unique manner about her! She creates a problem for you, in order to then propose to solve it. She alone, it appears, can solve this problem. Result guaranteed! You take out a subscription.
You see that it is not so simple to want to solve your business according to the standards of men. Heaven is less complicated. It is the shrink who delays you by telling you about all the obstacles that you will meet. Then a bird in hand is worth two in the bush, and you prefer to remain on earth.
But try a little harder. You will discover that the one who invented this saying, he had the power and intended to keep it.
And you, you are the pantry. Vampirism is not only in films.
While I talk to you, I have crossed the room under the interested eye of the guy with the dark glasses, and, noiseless as you know me, my rubber soles hardly touched the steps. I have not even disturbed the air. Even less Albert and the chick.
I can thus let you take part live. The truth, only the truth!
The blonde lady is washing her hands at the washbasin. Albert, he is watching, leaning against the wall with his shoulder. It is as if he did not exist for her. That her leaning forward position opens her low neckline of the blouse, is obvious. The white tits under, with the brownish aureole, ditto. All very normal.
As is very normal that Albert now advances from behind after having checked out well from the side. Must say that the mirror throws the scene back to him.
Neither one, nor two. No “you have a beauty spot there. Allow me to look at it better”.
Nothing at all. Only hands which pass under the armpits, which pull on the edge of the fabric, revealing the two breasts entirely. He does not even rush to take them in his hand. He almost waits.
Affirmative. He waits. The absence of reaction, thus tacit agreement. Indeed, the lady does not move. But Albert neither!
It is for God’s sake not possible. And you? Would you stay there, waiting at a stone’s throw away from a pair of well-built tits without throwing yourself on them? Come on! Do not crow. You would already have your mouth on top of the nipple and would be taking a small sip of warm milk from the source! And you would be really right! It is delicious.
But Albert does not move, his look gazing at the mirror, riveted to that of the woman. In my opinion the life of a waiter in Clichy enriches mans thirst for understanding. Because surely not that of God, I ask you!
And then, very gently, he advances with wide open hands. And he stops just in front of the nipple. Without removing his look from the lady.
He has bet, he has won.
It is the breasts of the lady which makes the last centimeter.
It is she who moves her breasts gently so that her nipples caress the palm of the boy.
Funny reversal of moving, you will say! The world upside down.
And there, my stomach becomes tied. I still do not understand but I KNOW that the lesson is beginning. The gestures are nothing. But the energy which covers this thing, this is important.
All ones attention must be put into this moment. It will not occur so soon again. When a chance passes by, one must seize it directly. Comprehension comes later. When one is full with energy.
But since we are two, you and me, and as you are lolling in your armchair while waiting for me to do all the work, I will have to use words. However, believe me, in this type of thingummy, they are not of any use.
She swivels her hips slightly so that the nipples reach the end of the fingers which open to trap them in a squeezing movement. They harden slightly. Just enough so that the nipples remain in place when the woman draws her chest aside.
Then, when he half-opens his fingers, she returns against the palm to be pressed against it.
They stay looking into each other’s eyes.
And Albert’s hands now slip to each side of the earlobes, caress towards the armpits, go down to the waist, are tightened on the belly, meeting at the first button of her trousers.
The whole in an uninterrupted slow gesture.
Then, he waits. Hands lying flat on the belly of the blonde young woman.
And as she does not react, his flat hands go up over the belly, then the chest, caresses the breasts on the way, go up to the shoulders, go down along the arms, to the hands.
Without a word, without leaving her look in the mirror, he pushes her hands onto her belly. Just where his hands were before. Above the first button of the trousers.
It is his fingers which activate her fingers. Until her fingers make the first button pop open.
And I wonder what I am doing there! But this energy that I know so well pins me there, in the tiny broom cupboard at the bottom of the spiral staircase.
If Albert is still guiding her fingers to open the second button, he withdraws his hands when she slips open the third.
His hands go up on the belly, then the chest, then…
And his eyes do not leave those of the woman in the mirror.
And his mouth is stretched with thin lips when her fingers, free from his fingers, release the third button. After a hesitation which appears interminable.
And it is at this moment here that I perceive a gleam at the bottom of her eyes. Behind a little vague faraway look, further still, hardly expressed, but still quite there, there is resignation.
And suddenly, an avalanche falls on my head!
You have had the luck to know It, I hope, for yourself. Because without It, there does not exist any possibility of getting out of the labyrinth of thought, of the walls built by men.
And I understood what had led me to it, to play the voyeur in a tiny broom cupboard. Resignation!
Then I softly go up the steps, leave the café, because I always pay what I order when I am served, and go up the avenue towards Pigalle, without concern for the noise, the clashes, the blinking of the lights.
“I can not manage to resist anymore!”
Five of the words of the letter from Stephan to “Father Christmas”. He did not know how to say NO. He COULD NOT!
I walk in the drizzle with the emotion that this discovery has brought to me.
End of the extract from the Book.
The old man raised his forehead from the stone slabs. He needed this coldness to compensate for the volcano inside him.
“For the sake of the all the Kamis! … How you make me suffer, my son! …”
But that is not enough! … The young White could still escape. He needed other children with him to guide his steps.
“When the bird is caught, it should be strangled!”
So he continued to touch the pages with his flat hand, his entrails on fire.
Extract from the Book of the Shin Family.
8. The children
She, this blonde woman, will she be able one day to say “no”? With time, the structures crystallize. The more one lets it pass, the more the difficulty increases. Time is not a friend of Man.
But Steph, he was twelve years old! And at this age, one cannot. One is under complete domination of the adults!
And it is with hurried steps that I go down the boulevard again, to join the Jaguar haloed once again with two papers on the windshield. Same direction as the others. But into a manhole, because I am a perfect ecologist who knows that cleanliness starts with the candy paper which one does not throw at ones feet.
“He did not know how to say NO!” I guarantee you that there will be trouble in a flat on rue Paul Bodin!
And the Jag, which feels my mood like a perfect nag, takes advantage from it to go through two red lights. A small pressure on the accelerator, and I leave the cuckolds with their warning signals behind me. Letting off steam like this is not too tiring. It would be better if they looked with precaution when they pass a green light. Really!
They should know in the end that if it is not a cop who is whistling to them, a guy like me crosses a red light! Really!
I keep in my heart the rebuke of the “Little Father”. It is bloody true, he is a terrific guy.
I drive around the public park which borders rue Paul Bodin and Emile Level, and park on the pavement on other side.
Still a little early for a domiciliary checking of a murderous method. Ten o’clock in the evening... The prats are still turning into idiots in front of the telly.
And the park is very near with its scents in the drizzle that is falling on Paname.
Neither one, nor two. A jump over the fence. At the bottom, three generous trees will protect me from the rain. For the remainder, I will cope. I will stay there for two hours. At least.
But you know, as soon as there is a little bit of some greenery, even buried in asphalt, I can stay in meditation for hours. Remains just to find a large stone to sit on.
Extract from the Book of the Shin Family
The Master said to him:
Never lose contact with Nature… It will be your safeguard. Outside of Nature everything is dead, everything is only an intellectual construction, with an apparent frame but without marrow. The difficulty of the current world, stress and suicide in your countries that you believe to be evolved, is only the result of this cut with Nature. You make an intellectual hypertrophied world. You seek to create a work of art on only one basis of thought. Silly fools! You give your entire life into the hands of thought. You do not know what thoughts are!
You accept them such as they are, as mistresses, without having seen and even without you being interested only once in knowing what they really are in the general cosmic order.
And these thoughts, which remember having tasted it, try to make you believe that they will lead you to supreme satisfactions, to cosmic pleasure… But despite all their promises, they are long in showing you this realization, they have created substitutes for you, an imagery… Like one gives sweetened candies to children to force them to be quiet… And you called this God, Allah, Vishnu, Buddha…
But there is nothing in all that but a slow death. Thoughts are unable to lead you to the pleasure of the cosmic order for a very simple fact: they are only one ELEMENT. It is the WHOLE which includes the PARTICULAR. The PARTICULAR cannot include the WHOLE… Have you understood me?
They are only the decoders of the memory.... do you remember, my son?
Then, please… My young man… do not take your thoughts too importantly. Let them flow as they wish to, do not oppose yourself to them, let them go where they want. Do not force anything… But above all do not nourish anything. Let your thoughts die out themselves for lack of combustion. To be opposed to thoughts is still thought… Let them die out like a fire into which one does not put any more wood… Do not be concerned with them… And never in a month of Sundays! feel guilty in any way of all their movements, which moreover will become increasingly disordered and aggressive like an animal becoming quarrelsome, when one does not give it food any more… Let them be agitated like the small monkey that they are…
And you will see that thoughts are able to see themselves. Try this miracle! If they are able to mislead others, they cannot lie to themselves and this is their chance to come into their true place: one of a splendid tool of shaping, of a unique and priceless material, which can bring something into form…
Please… My young man… Do not try to destroy or break your thoughts as so many religious orders do. It is incredible how access to God goes through destruction! … They still believe that hardships, afflictions of any kind, in fact, all that the mind and the thought can invent to do itself harm and to destroy, is a path of the cosmic order. These madmen create only artificial visions, results of hardships and frustrations, by attacking the first of the human brains, the original one, the one which you White call, I believe, reptilian.
He sighed then, astounded by the foolishness which he observed. He had to prick his ears to continue to hear him, he muttered almost:
It is incredible… Completely incredible… None of them ever asked the question, was never concerned with knowing why, when they were Christians, they had visions of Jesus or the Virgin Mary, or of another Saint…, that when they were Hindu, it was Vishnu or another… my God! … How men like to be deluded!
What sadness… What sadness…
After a long moment of contemplation, he shifted his look to this young White in front of him, sitting in the lotus position, on a large flat stone. This small White, who listened to him with a lot of attention, a true attention… but above all, above all with an emotional intelligence.
From time to time, he stretched the hand out as to caress his cheek or his shoulder, but invariably, his arm fell down inert, along his body. There was a mystery with that. The young White had accepted it once and for all, telling him that it would appear in its right place, at a good moment.
You see, he continued, Nature can only be your only guide. Nature is the expressed side of the Cosmic Energy. Destroying it, which I believe is the result of your disordered actions in your White countries, is in fact your own destruction. Because without It, you will never be able, NEVER, to go up to the Creative Source. Without IT, your body will NEVER be able to find its right place between Earth and Heaven; and without your body perfectly placed, this splendid tool will be lost forever, to go from the Earth to the Heaven and from the Heaven to the Earth. TEN and CHI will not have any consciously perceptible relations anymore, because the beauty of man, you see, my young man, is that he is the only living being on this Earth, able to have conscious access to the beauty of the Heaven, that is, to consciously join together TEN and CHI, the Earth and the Heaven, and to become TEN to radiate the love onto CHI.
In my young age… a small mischievous smile on his old mans much wrinkled face … I noticed some of your religious texts. One talks a lot about mountains in them, I think! He raised himself up on his two crossed legs and like an old monkey, mimed on four legs a man climbing the hillside of a steep mountain, shoulders bent under the load, sweating under the effort, dazed by it… And who, if he did not die on the way of exhaustion, or worse, if his spirit was not desiccated, arrives on top of the mountain. The old man then takes the right attitude of a Lord looking at his lands, hands in a shield above his eyebrows, turning in all directions with a sovereign look… and then goes down the mountain again, all cheerful… “Is that good?” the old man asked the young White, who is laughing hilariously.
- Just so, Little Father!
And the old man becomes reflective again. The White, once more, pricked up his ears to pick up his muttered words:
“How can they write such things? … To go up and go down a mountain as a symbol of realization and of perception of God… how can they say such things? … While destroying the rhythm of the Earth! ”
He knelt in front of the young White, their faces ten centimeters apart. The eyes of the old Asian were riveted to those of the young White.
- Listen attentively to me, my young man… understand that well Ange…
His look became insistent. Ange felt shaken, all of a sudden the double vision ceased; the observer disappeared. There was thus no observed anymore, only a present moment of enormous intensity.
… They are lying…»
End of the extract from the book
Hey! “Little Father”, you think that I have not understood? No need to go out of your way to ram the point home. I had understood in your first letter that the Colas had lied to me. Hey! Why, according to you, am I meditating in the rain? Two steps from their apartment.
I rather have the impression that you are beginning to believe that my book is yours! Okay, we are joint authors. But the principal author is really ME. Do not try to pinch my pages from me! The editor gave me a precise number of pages not to be exceeded, or else, he says, he will not recover his expenses. Ok! Do not laugh. I know that he too is laying it on a bit thickly. Not profitable! I don’t believe it! With the offices which he has and the wages which he gives himself!
And then, what kind of manners are these.... to call upon my readers as witnesses of my foolishness as soon as I have turned my back? That’s no way to behave! Not worthy of an old and very uptight Asian!
And then, if I am in the park, it is ALSO because I have felt the same vibration there as in Stephs room. You think that I am asleep or what?
The kid ALSO liked this corner.
And then… But listen! Can’t you understand? Come off it!
If I remember correctly, it is you who taught me how to listen to the grass growing and the gliding of the snakes. Are you hard of hearing or are you pretending to be stupid? Just listen!
Someone is talking at the other end of the park. Very quietly, but clear for cauliflower ears like ours. Listen! And, please, very humbly, with all the sincere friendship that I have for you, yes! I assure you… you know well that I love you with the only true love! … so, be sympathetic… Do not bug me anymore.
- Give me a light.
- Again!
- These corn papers, they are always going out! …
- Just inhale it, you dope! the third voice says.
- Mind your own business! the first begins again.
- And the gas from the lighter, what are you doing with it, hey, Bebert?
A growl of satisfaction follows the noise of the flint under the fag-end. A small gleam comes through the bushes.
I climb over the railing, go round the park, place myself behind behind them. I know how not to make a noise. The training from “Little Father” is first-class, believe me. Moreover, you have already seen me at work. No need to send you my calling card.
A cough takes hold of Bebert when he tries to swallow the smoke.
- You cannot manage, hey!
- You are forcing yourself! You’re not capable!
- Shut up, I will manage.
I crawl close, just two shrubs apart from them. Remains just to stay hidden. Until they find me. With kids, one must leave them to it. If they do not do stupid things now, they will do them later. When they are fifty years old, for example.
No need to explain why I am an adult who should tell them off, but that deep down I am not an adult like the others, and that I do not want to harm them, although I am an adult, but that I like kids… but if they could tell me who killed Stephan, I will not say anything to their parents about the fags that they smoke secretly, but that as a responsible adult, I have nevertheless to pinch the packet from them because it is very harmful for ones health… shit! It is not the brand that I smoke!
What do you think? That you can deceive them?
And when, older, as adults, you know! they return the ball to you that they have kept for years in their pockets, with a handkerchief over it, you call it a scandal.
Just because you went through that, there is no necessity to rewrite history ad vitam eternam. Amen!
You know, life is a ‘jokari’ (fr.ball game). There is a beautiful elastic attached to the ball. You will always get it back. Right in the face.
There is no squirming about it. It is useless to flee. The return is registered in your head.
And if you want to escape from it, it is not with the foolishness of man that you will succeed.
But above all, never on your life would I want to bother you with these things.
Tell me... Is the double whiskey good? Keep a drop for later, because we are not at the end of our troubles.
Thus I wait to be found. Curious situation for a murderer whose B.A. /BA of the trade is to pass unperceived. But with kids, it is preferable to pass as an idiot that as a grump.
And then, I will tell you quietly, the art of murder lies in the penetration. Without wanting to upset you, I think that you would have a hard job of it if I only sent you the foolishness with reference to “the truth, only the truth”. What do you say to that?
You always have an express mail service at hand. You know? That which arrives quicker than that what is not delayed.
Perhaps your letter will arrive before I have finished with this mission to kill a killer.
The ambiguity has not escaped you, hey! I know you... as cunning as a fox.
I do not know what “Little Father” has in his head, but I really have the impression that I am interested in counting on my body if I want to pack up again for a Singapore Airlines aircraft.
He is talking crap, the guy, and he is omnipresent in this business. Must have something there. Perhaps something which he has not digested. Unless it is me. Who knows!
To tell you everything about this case, I have the impression to have to delve deeply inside of me to find what I am still hiding. And I do not like this very much. You have noticed that I am not masochistic.
It is to pass the time that I am telling you these things. I have already opened and closed the zipper of my suede jacket three times to catch their attention. Not likely... This piece of clothing, which I bought in Madras, does credit to the reputation of the capital of Indian leather. I should have supplied myself at the new Parisian galleries. The zipper would have already snapped twice with my fingers inside. That will teach me to be correctly dressed.
Cannot ask them for a drag. My lungs would spit it out right away. I would pass for a half portion.
So I slide slightly towards the alley for…well!
Always this destiny which makes one run in circles like an idiot until the time when one least expects it.
Here is Bebert, who stands up, lowers the closing of his trousers, takes his hairless tiny willy, takes three steps to sprinkle the lawn. I have just time to roll to the side not to get the jet right in my face.
If Bebert had his eyes on the sky, he brings them back to the ground right away. Pisses also on his leg with this stupid reflex to hold back quickly in the event of a draft. Yet another of the incorrect pieces of information that one puts in your heads as soon as you are able to piss all alone.
- Mind your willy when the cat passes!
Therefore the guy finishes his operation on his trousers.
- Come on! Guys! … Am I dreaming or what? He is sick, this guy, Hey! … I’ve never seen the likes, hey, guys! … You wanted to suck me or what, hey, guy! … There are vicious people around nowadays, it is unbelievable!
The others turn up while hiding their fags behind their half-opened palms. It is a reflex.
- For God’s sake! What are you doing there, guy?
- You wanted to hide yourself from the cops?
- He has a good face, do not do anything to him, Bebert.
- Thank you, that’s nice, I say.
And here I trump them!
One must also be able to say thank you. If you ALSO know how to hold out your hand. You will really simplify your life, guys. You will cease to turn in circles. You know, one must not be pretentious. Life is one second after another.
- Come on! Are you hiding from the cops? Bebert asks me, his voice infuriated.
- Oh no, I reassure him while dusting the pile of my trousers...
- So, what are you doing there?
- I am listening to the grass growing, I say.
So they eye me up curiously, wondering where they stand.
- You’re making fun of us, aren’t you?!
As Bebert is the boss, nobility obliges that he kicks me between the legs, probably to check if my voice did not break too early.
At this age, one is active; one has energy, enthusiasm. One goes straight to the target.
The only thing that Bebert had not thought of was that I could withdraw from his path. I promise you! I did not help him when he passed beside me. Or just a little! Almost not at all!
- Blast! ”
They do not believe their eyes seeing the “boss” in the thorns with his posterior in the appropriate position for… but you know how I am well educated.
What is earned is the look of the kid. Not out of the thorns yet, he eyes me up straight:
- What do you want, guy, you have a problem?
He will go far. Sure. How about YOU, is this the reaction that you would have had after having sailed into the bushes?
The difference exists in the direct facts. Not in warmed up patter. Reheated fried eggs give you an indigestion of words, of explanations, of theories. This is why the arts of combat have always attracted me. Immediate response to a stupidity. Not possible to mask. Nothing thus to do with a “culture”, which is always trying to prolong the time, just to see if there is a means not to pay the bill.
Bebert has already understood the subject. Street life makes one mature beyond one’s years.
So, what do you think that I can do in front of this kid? Tell the truth, of course. At least, almost. I become a private detective that Steph had engaged and who turned up too late, due to the chick whom it was necessary to urgently take care of on the French Riviera, and who was at risk of losing face on the Promenade des Anglais, in Nice.
- Keeping face is important! Bebert reassures me.
- What a pity for Steph, says the smallest looking one, pointing out airs of a nouveau riche.
- Come here, Bebert pulls me by the sleeve.
We go to the three stones to which a fourth is added. The fags are taken out. They are astonished that I do not smoke.
- You are a funny private cop.
- And you are not very hefty.
- If Stéph engaged you, then you are a good guy! The boss Bebert rescues me with a tone that does not stand for an answer.
- It is true that Stéph was decent.
- I liked him, announces Marco.
- A cissy! Bebert settles.
- Unhappy, rectifies Marc Antoine, the nouveau-riche one.
Ants come into my hands. I know this. Another part of the case comes to me.
- Unhappy? I say…
Marc Antoine eyes me up confidently. I had not paid attention to his eyes. A blue spotted with green with sadness at the bottom of them.
- Well yes… of course! Among the unhappy, one recognizes oneself. No need for words.
Obviously! Words are for those who do not know.
- He always had a sad story to tell, that is right, confirms Bebert… are you an idiot or what? Do you need a drawing?
- With this dirty bitchy girl of sister…
- And Jose’s band on his back…
- Hey! Don’t talk so much or I will kill you.
- He was afraid, it was bound to happen!…
- Of course!
- So he had enemies, I ask gently, not to break the charm.
- Jose’s band is anything else but nice.
- And the sister who slogs with him and who asks Stéph to cover for her with his folks.
- Not funny, the folks …
- Especially the old woman, it appears…
- What a whinging bitch, that one. Always complaining everywhere.
- The tradesmen are also fed up with her. And she is pretentious at that!
- And? I ask.
- I do not know whom Steph was most afraid of… I think it was of the old woman.
- But…
- It is not really the old woman who killed him!
- Who knows…? Curious, this fishy business. Doors of the building locked; no scratches on the lock…
- must have been a good copy of the key not to leave traces if the killer came from the outside.
- Or it happened from inside.
- Unless it was Steph who opened the door to his killer.
- As he did every night for his sister who had been with Jose… adds Marc Antoine.
- That is to say he had an appointment! … That is exactly what I said, Bebert growls. ”
If, after this tirade, you still think that kids do not have logic, it will be necessary for you to go back to evening classes.
- And this Jose, where can one find him, I ask, without letting on anything.
Their eyes give each other meaningful looks and say a lot about their relations.
- We see him around…
- Earning a bit of cash…
- For example, this Jaguar parked on the pavement…
- may not be there tomorrow morning…
- If Jose finds out…
- Shut up, he is nevertheless a cop.
- But a private one.
- That’s almost the same difference.
- But he works for Steph.
- True… But I am the boss! I do not want anyone talking without my permission!
And the two others check if their shoes are well waxed. Bebert turns towards me.
- Good, we trust you. You can come clean. What do you want to know? ”
You know me. Always really easy-going. I just ask for a description of Jose, where he lives, the nature and the importance of his band, his relations with the sister of Steph, his description, what the folks know, why the cops did not discover anything of all this, the moods, the tastes, the attractions of Steph, their assessment of him, their opinions on what happened, their addresses, in case… what they were doing at the time of the murder, and where they were… the usual blah blah, completely normal and which does not shock anybody, which does not frighten anybody…
- Come on, you want a description of their faces and the number of teeth that they still have after all their fights? Bebert launches.
One with the other, with good will, we managed. The most reticent was Marc Antoine and our eyes met several times. His look drifted and it seems to me as if there was a flame of reproach in it.
I wanted to erase this look while laughing, once again. Before leaving them, I asked them not to indicate the Jaguar to Jose.
- You understand, guys… it is mine!
A lout, who would not have had a mother as a teacher like me, would have been able to place a packet of fags into Bebert's mouth, without the packaging having touched his teeth. The other kid laughed.
Marc Antoine frowned and his eyes drifted onto the grass in front of him.
I left to walk towards Jose’s bar. I left the kids behind with sorrow.
For them too, it is late. They go back to smoking their fags behind the bushes, not in a hurry to go home.
Not funny.
End of the extract from the Book of the Shin Family
-Now, my son is held. “I feel him well in my hand!”
The old man lay on the skin of the mountain lion. He covered himself with a warm cover. He closed his eyes.
Thus his eyes did not see the water which flowed on his cheeks.
******************