Brussels Noir Page 5

  Lea mixes her soup to break up the chunks of powder. “I hate Vibert!” she spits.

  Sebastien joins them, setting his tray on the table. “We’ve all come to this!” he says in his sardonic, biting tone. “I can’t stand my Decider any longer. Christ, sometimes I want to grab him by the collar of his polo and chuck him out the window.”

  “When is your interview?” Lea asks.

  “Next week,” he says, his voice suddenly sounding desperate, ashamed. “I can’t stay here much longer anyway. Soon I won’t be able to look at myself in the mirror.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The Council of Strategies has signed a secret ‘cleansing’ protocol. The army will enter Matongé tonight. During the blackout.”

  * * *

  The afternoon goes by in a blur of strategic and administrative tasks. Valère Vibert thinks, Lea takes note; Valère Vibert doubts, Lea divides the syntactic segment in half; Valère Vibert weighs pros and cons, Lea dreams of the day when she’ll wake after sunrise. She glances at the time displayed in the right corner of her glasses. 4:30! One hour and thirty minutes until the blackout. Lea takes off her glasses and puts them away in their case. The microdrone rotates around her, whispering metallic notes into her ear.

  Valère Vibert sighs, vaguely registering the movement in front of him. “Leaving already.” It’s not really a question, not really a statement; it’s somewhere between the two.

  Lea starts putting on her jacket. Suddenly, a soft ping announces the arrival of a new e-mail. Lea puts her glasses back on; the lens projects the message on the holographic screen. She reads it, leaning over the back of her rickety chair, one arm already in the sleeve of her jacket.

  “Ah, yes, actually, Lea . . .” begins Valère Vibert.

  She doesn’t know why, but these words give her a bad premonition.

  From: Department of Inspection of Backup Generators

  Subject: Dismissal with Immediate Effect

  Dear Lea,

  Today the Department of Inspection of Backup Generators noted six (6) infractions in your function’s code of ethics, leading to a conflict in loyalty with aggravated circumstances. Please vacate the building as quickly as possible and leave all materials belonging to the Council of Decisional Logics behind so that your replacement can take over your dossier.

  We wish you the best of luck in future endeavors.

  Lea has to read the message several times before it sinks in. Her hands suddenly feel cold, the smell of the office is unbearable, and the ticking of her watch resonates like a pitiless gong. She is stunned, petrified, and it’s finally Valère Vibert who interrupts her silence, in the moment between two ticks of the second hand on her watch.

  “You’re fired.”

  “But . . . why? I did what you asked me to do!”

  “Open the attachment,” he orders.

  Lea extracts the video sequence from its zipped file. Scenes from the day play out before her eyes: she sees herself rushing into the entrance hall, late; talking in the elevator with Sebastien: “I can’t stand it anymore, either. But what can you do, Seb?” In the cafeteria: “I hate Vibert!”

  Lea watches herself as she would an actor in a film, incredulous, eyes fixed on the microdrone. “You’re not allowed to film us during our breaks!”

  “What is said between these walls belongs to the Department of Inspection of Backup Generators.”

  Lea grabs the microdrone in midair and points the camera’s eye directly in front of her. The metal wings move between her fingers like a trapped insect trying to free itself.

  “Well, you know what you asked me to do today? It was illegal!”

  Valère Vibert opens the second part of the attachment. An analysis report on Lea’s body language throughout the day. Various photos are annotated with little white tabs—on her lips, her forehead, her eyes, her hands, her shoulders.

  Valère Vibert reads them aloud in a deep, accusing voice: “Frustration! Anger! Doubt!” He moves on to the next photo. “Contempt, there, on your mouth, while I’m speaking to you! Your disgust is obvious, Lea, and the last straw, really, the last straw, I’m beside myself . . . there, right there, in the crease on your forehead, when you frown, there’s a homicidal urge.”

  Lea feels this very same urge coursing through her veins now, and Vibert can sense it. He steps back into the space behind his desk.

  “The conflict of loyalty is undeniable. Clear your desk and leave the building.”

  Two security guards enter the office.

  “You bribed me!” she spits at him. “I tampered with the history for you! I’ll tell the Department of Inspection!”

  “You’re a memo. I’m a Decider. You have no power, my dear.”

  Valère Vibert watches her closely as the security guards drag her toward the exit. Her colleagues look on, stunned, as she is escorted down the hallway and into the elevator, past the entrance, and, finally, pushed out the door. The guards leave her in front of the rotunda at the entrance to the metro, where policemen observe her with suspicion.

  “Go back home, mademoiselle,” says one of the security guards. “There’s nothing left for you to do here.”

  Lea is abandoned amid the stream of commuters rushing down into the station. Far away, on the other side of the barriers surrounding Matongé, the protestors are chanting: “Udhalimu! Injustice! Udhalimu!” It’s a chant that erupts from the belly of Matongé, from place Fernand-Cocq, a chant that ricochets off the facades of the crumbling yet stately buildings on the chaussée d’Ixelles before making its way to Lea. Yes, Udhalimu! She trembles with a sudden rage. The commuters jostle around the growing fleet of patrol cars. The beams of their revolving lights sweep across the night sky.

  Lea’s telephone vibrates in her pocket, snapping her out of her daze. A text from Lucas: Hope you had a good day. One more toward your telecommuting license. Good luck with the train.

  Her train! Lea checks the time: 4:48, one hour and twelve minutes before the next blackout. She’s lost time. She runs up the escalator, elbowing past a crush of commuters to the right, then is forced to slow her pace as she weaves her way through the crowded platform. A man presses himself up against her. She turns around, horrified, and meets his amused glance. He rubs his crotch against her butt. Disgusted, she tries to move toward the edge of the platform. The train finally arrives. People hurry to board as soon as the doors open. Once more, Lea feels the man’s body straining toward her; an erection confirms his perverse intentions. She jolts forward, tries to board the train. She swipes her AboScan card, but the man gets on with her and presses her against the wall of the car. The heat, her anguish and disgust, the man’s hands on her waist—it’s too much, and she leaps out of the car before the doors close. The last glimpse she has of him is his satisfied smile and a lewd gleam in his eye as he shouts, “Go on, whore!”

  She’s sweating. She wipes her forehead. She runs toward another platform to take a different train heading toward Brussels-Midi. 4:59, one hour and one minute until the next blackout. Another car. The doors open. The stream of commuters begins flowing in. Lea swipes her AboScan card. Access denied. She swipes it again. The terminal displays: This card has already been validated in metro #78–34, direction Brussels-Midi, at 4:58 p.m. To report a found AboScan card, please call . . . The line of commuters behind Lea pushes forward. She steps out of the way, exasperated.

  She looks at her watch: 5:00. Sixty minutes until the next blackout.

  Lea splits in two. A primary instinct takes command of her body; anger numbs her brain. She sees Valère Vibert’s cracked, dry lips repeating over and over: You have no power, my dear. She walks back through the stream of commuters toward the Porte de Namur station exit. The army division descends pompously on the quarter in an all-terrain vehicle with massive treads. She can’t take the chaussée d’Ixelles, there are too many policemen. Determined, she walks down avenue de la Toison d’Or under a fine, icy rain. The passersby move beneath the neon lights of lux
ury shops, cinemas, and chic restaurants. Hard to believe that the insurgents’ headquarters are only a few hundred meters away. Lea turns onto avenue Louise and its array of riches, passing women with tiny dogs and men in suits. The windows of jewelry shops at place Stéphanie shine fiercely under the streetlights. Lea walks along rue du Prince Royal. The insurgents’ chant grows stronger: “Udhalimu!” A barrage of policemen blocks the street. She ducks under a portico and walks down a short alley that leads to a deserted parking lot. The building seems abandoned. She shimmies over a low wall, jumps down, and lands in the garden of the neighboring house under construction. She goes in by the back door and climbs through a window to make her way onto rue Keyenveld. On her right, the police barrage she’s just avoided is preparing to intervene; on her left, the street hums with anxious demonstrators. Lea slips into a back alley and keeps walking until she reaches the building that appears to be the nerve center of Matongé. Wedged between two crumbling buildings, the Hôtel le Berger still has all the dignity of early-twentieth-century architecture.

  This former hotel once served as a refuge for adulterous lovers. The half-timbered facade is cracked right through; torn curtains hang from what remains of the windows, velour and silk rags. The art nouveau furniture was plundered long ago, the dark rooms stripped of their secrets. A throng of demonstrators converge on this narrow street perpendicular to the chaussée d’Ixelles. Lea has to weave through them to try to enter the hotel and find Amani Mutamba. She has to yell over the noise to a man who seems to be guarding the entryway: “I have to speak to Amani Mutamba!”

  Her voice is swallowed by the din of the protest. She repeats herself but the man ignores her and bursts into the hotel, shouting orders at his insurgents.

  She turns to someone else, repeats: “I have to speak to Amani Mutamba!”

  The chaos gives her vertigo. She follows rue du Berger and ends up on the chaussée d’Ixelles, swarming with demonstrators. No one listens to her, no one hears. “The army is coming!” she calls out. “They’re going to launch an attack!” It is 5:32 and she’s in the middle of a neighborhood about to be razed by the European army. There are twenty-eight minutes until the blackout, and she’s the one who’s made this nightmare possible. “Udhalimu!” Her body is thrown from one side of the crowd to the other. Fists raised, the people refuse to leave the neighborhood. From windows and balconies, from the threshold of every door, flags are hung, banners wave. Matongé will not be European. Matongé will remain bruxellois. “Udhalimu!” Lucas is waiting for Lea while she’s stuck here on the chaussée d’Ixelles, unable to board a train for twenty-four hours, and she’s lost her job. She’s lost her job and the ground has collapsed under her feet. Only darkness before her eyes. No bearings. No perspective. A young woman crashes into her with full force.

  “We have to go up to place Sainte-Boniface to reinforce the ranks!” the woman yells in a harsh, piercing voice.

  “The army is coming!” Lea cries.

  “We have to join the barricades to keep them out!”

  Lea examines this girl with her sharply defined features, her black curls tied in a messy ponytail, wearing a frayed vest stained with blood and pointing with her bruised fingers to show Lea the way.

  “Saint-Boniface, a hundred meters that way, go!”

  Lea takes her by the shoulders. “No! We have to leave here!”

  The girl looks at Lea as if she’s just insulted her. “What are you saying? We have to stay!”

  The crowd, indifferent, moves around them; the two women stare at each other like two species meeting for the first time. And yet, they’re wearing the same clothes. They’re not so different from one another.

  “The army’s about to enter Matongé and raze the neighborhood—do you know what that means? You have to leave!”

  The young woman shakes herself free, disgusted. “We’re already doomed! Tell me—should we eat or bathe? Which of our children should we send to school? And it’s not just Matongé, it’s all the Regions of Europe! It’s a racket on a continental scale. And now we have proof! I can’t back down. This is the only choice I have left.”

  Lea feels her phone ringing in her pocket. It vibrates over and over, she doesn’t answer, and finally it stops. She can’t turn away from this stranger’s eyes.

  “And you,” asks the curly haired young woman, “what choice do you have?” Then she backs away, smiling faintly, and runs off toward Saint-Boniface.

  The insurgents are racing to the various strategic locations in Matongé; everyone to the barricades. The army is assembling. Lea grabs her phone and calls Lucas. He answers on the first ring. She can hardly speak.

  “Lea? Lea, is everything okay?”

  Her lips tremble as the noise of the street floods the line, causing Lucas to panic four hundred kilometers away.

  “What’s going on?” he demands.

  “I missed the train,” she tells him. “Don’t wait for me.”

  “Where are you going to sleep?”

  The question, so pragmatic, makes the distance between them seem unfathomable. “Lucas, I’m about to do something terrible.”

  “Stay where you are, I’ll find a way to get a car, I’ll come and get you, just find a place to stay for a few hours. You’re not going back there again. I don’t give a shit, you’ll find work here. Don’t move. I promise you, it’s over, it’s the last time, everything will be okay.”

  Megaphones are blaring orders to the barricades, sirens exploding all through Matongé, while Lucas, so far away, tries to reason with Lea.

  “Where are you? I can come get you, I’ll find—”

  “I’m already too far away.”

  She silences Lucas’s pleas with the press of a button and puts the phone back in her pocket. She starts running toward the chaussée de Wavre, hoping there’s still time. She looks at her watch: 5:38, twenty-two minutes before the next blackout.

  * * *

  At Porte de Namur, rows of protestors face the assembly of policemen on horseback. Faces hidden by scarves and foulards, they’re armed with makeshift weapons: baseball bats, iron bars. Despite the determination in their eyes, they’re not equipped to protect themselves from water cannons and teargas. Lea stands by what was once the display window of a fast-food chain, of which there remains only broken glass in the puddles of grease spreading over the ground. The sound of a helicopter drowns out the warnings shouted from a megaphone. The demonstrators refuse to leave, will not be intimidated. Breathless, Lea climbs the stairs of the deserted fast-food joint. She reaches the rooftop littered with bricks and debris. Matongé stretches out beneath her feet. Out of the white smoke, police barricades rise. An annex of the Council of Decisional Logics directly overlooks the rooftop; Lea grabs a brick and uses it to strike until, fingers bleeding, she manages to stick her arm beneath the annex window and open it from inside. She crawls into the building of the European Administration. All the lights are turned off. She reaches the long hallway that leads to her office, strides down it quickly, like a thief, without crossing paths with anyone. 5:49, eleven minutes until the next blackout. She has to initiate Daedalus before they cut off the power. She enters Valère Vibert’s office, praying that her access codes are still valid. She brushes her hand over the lens and applies the sensors to her fingertips. Glasses on, she plunges into Daedalus.

  She follows the tortuous routes of Valère Vibert’s mental map until she finds a syntactic segment where the president of the Council of Logics of Urban Development appears. She leaps into his mental map by pirating his backup generator’s access, as she had earlier in the day. While she searches for the right segment, she begins to sweat. Exploring the hall of symbols, she turns to the left, moves up two branches, moves down again, feels around; colored words pass in front of her eyes, flickering on either side of her field of vision; she takes the wrong path and has to retrace her movements, leaving a silver thread behind her so as not to lose her way. In the corner of her glasses, she watches the minutes tick by:
5:53, seven minutes until the next blackout. And then she finds it: the dossier on today’s hearing. She moves up the arborescence that she programmed herself as one enters a silent temple, following the branches that connect the keywords leading to the dossier code-named Udhalimu. The sickening irony.

  She hears only her own gasping breath. 5:55, five minutes until the next blackout. She grasps the virtual threads that lead to all the false arguments, the minutes from meetings that never took place, and holds two years’ worth of lies in her hands.

  Suddenly, the lights go on in the office. Valère Vibert’s face appears on the display screen and a police squad bursts into the room, yelling at her to remove her sensors. Startled, Lea is caught between two realities, two worlds, and beneath the surface of the labyrinthine mental map of the president of the Council of Logics of Urban Development, the silhouettes of six armed men come into focus.

  “Lea, release the syntactic segment and exit Daedalus.”

  5:57, three minutes until the blackout. Lea stands, still holding the syntactic segment. She has only to crush it like a handful of dry leaves. The barrels of their guns do not frighten her.

  “You’re a liar!”

  “Exit Daedalus,” repeats Valère Vibert.

  Lea cries out in a desperate voice: “I was just doing my job!”

  She clenches the virtual words in her fists. Valère Vibert smiles. 5:58. Two minutes until the blackout.

  “I’ll give you your telecommuting license,” he says, attempting to calm her. “The Council of Decisional Logics wants to make up for its mistake. We should never have fired you. I’ll give you your two points and more. You’ll have your telecommuting license and a company car.”

  Lea swallows. She can hear the cries of the protestors outside: “Udhalimu!” Her phone vibrates in her pocket: Lucas.

  “Let go of the segment, Lea. And starting tomorrow, you won’t have to commute. Or be my backup generator. I’ll promote you to Decider of the Walloon Regional Council. You’ll have a car. And you’ll be able to work from Liège.”