The man praised the patience of those animals. He too would buy a dog, one day, an animal that wanted him to watch it while it shat.
The man was tall, loose-limbed, with greyish-blond hair and blue eyes. The man was forty-five years old. He wore a beige raincoat. He was sitting on a wooden bench, legs apart.
Another handful of grain. A flurry of wings and beaks trying to get to the front.
The swans stretched their necks. The ducks pushed from underneath. The pigeons hopped about on the margins, looking for gaps.
The birds were fat and clumsy.
The duckling bobbed towards the shore. It was a yellow dot in the midst of the dank green of the lake. A grey shadow appeared beneath it and for a moment the chick disappeared under the water. Then it re-emerged, drenched and breathless.
‘It won’t make it.’
‘I say it will. It’s too big, it won’t be able to swallow it.’
‘On the contrary, those creatures are pretty impressive. I don’t even know what they are.’
The little bird swam towards the middle of the lake, so frightened that it had lost its bearings. The shadow followed it and dragged it underneath again.
This time it stayed under for longer. It re-emerged once more
‘It can’t possibly make it.’
‘Five hundred francs says it will.’
‘Done. What time is it?’
‘Quarter to five.’
‘If it’s still afloat by five to five you’ve won.’
‘Fine, ten minutes, then.’
The duck went on swimming, but was starting to tire.
The fish dragged it under for a third time.
On the bridge the two spectators held their breath.
The duckling re-emerged.
The duckling was breathless now.
‘It’s had it.’
‘It’s too big a mouthful, it can’t eat it.’
‘Doesn’t matter. It’ll pull it under, drown it and eat it one piece at a time.’
‘It isn’t as simple as you think.’
‘I know that, but the fish doesn’t. It’s just hungry. I’m betting on its ignorance. And it’s enormous, didn’t you see its shadow?’
‘Water distorts proportions, it makes everything look bigger. And time is passing.’
‘While we’re on the subject, what time’s the meeting?’
‘Five.’
‘Bench?’
‘Bench.’
The duckling was running out of strength.
It was starting to get too tired to swim.
The fish pulled it under again, and this time it took a long time to come back up to the surface. It had taken on more water than the Titanic.
The duckling threw up, tried to quack, but no sound came out.
One leg was half eaten.
The duckling was starting to get too tired to live.
‘One minute and you’ve lost.’
‘Wait.’
A massive shadow, much bigger than the other one, emerged from the bottom of the lake like an ink stain. An impressive mouth gaped beneath the bird and swallowed it up with a sinister sucking sound.
‘Won!’
‘Far from it, my dear fellow.’
‘Because?’
‘Because you were betting on another fish.’
‘But what the hell are you saying? You were betting on the duckling and the duckling is kaput, finished, sunk. Get out your money.’
‘I bet on the duckling. You bet on the fish. You said that you were betting on its ignorance. Your fish lost, like my duckling. So it’s a draw. No winners.’
‘You’re a con artist.’
‘I had a good teacher. It’s late! Let’s get moving, or he’ll be gone.’
The man saw two guys approaching.
He recognised them by their straw hats. Then he noticed their loud suits, the orchids in their buttonholes, their showy bow ties. Affected manners à la Wilde, tuppeny literary quotations. He had been told that was the style of the two Italo-Frenchmen.
They sat down beside him, on the bench, looking at the swans.
‘Good evening. Did you choose your clothes to avoid being conspicuous?’
‘On the contrary, Monsieur Verne, in order to be recognised.’
‘You must be Monsieur Azzoni.’
‘As I live and breathe.’
‘And you will be Monsieur Mariani.’
‘How did you guess? A fine name, Verne, did you choose it with reference to any particular work? Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea? The First Men in the Moon? Do you think we’ll ever get to the moon? Who’ll get there first, them or us? And what about the centre of the earth?’
‘I want to talk about work, not literature, if you don’t mind.’
‘Certainly, that’s what I’m doing, Monsieur Verne. Do you know Waiting for Godot, by that Irish genius Samuel Beckett? Jean and I saw it on the stage in Paris a year ago. A masterpiece!’
The man didn’t take his eyes off the lake. ‘I don’t follow you, Monsieur Mariani.’
‘Neither you nor anyone else, luckily. Ok, you see, despite our Italian origins, he and I are rather like those two characters, Vladimir and Estragon, who wait and wait for someone who never comes.’
‘I was told about your eccentric ways, Monsieur Mariani.’
‘And were you informed of the cost of our loans?’ the other man replied.
‘You make it sound like a sinister kind of prostitution, Monsieur Azzoni.’
‘And isn’t it?’
‘They assured me that you weren’t short of idealistic motives.’
‘You see, Monsieur Verne, what my friend Lucien here was trying to say is that you have kept us waiting too long, and our hopes of a world of equals have, how would one put it, rather subsided. Hope is always the last to die, that is true, but in the meantime we also have to live. And it is better to live well. So, at the point at which we are now, it is easier to act for money than for passion. That provides better guarantees for you, too, among other things. A mercenary cannot be disappointed because he has no illusions. You will never be able to disappoint us, Stalin’s already thought of that. What my friend and I do we will do for money alone. We thought it best to be clear about that.’
‘Well said, Jean.’
‘Thank you, Lucien.’
The man chuckled and threw another handful of grain to the ducks.
‘You are right to clear the field of misunderstandings, Monsieur Azzoni. You will be paid on time.’
Mariani handed him a little piece of paper.
‘This Geneva bank account, please.’
‘Certainly. How do you plan to proceed?’
Mariani gestured elaborately to let his friend pick up the conversation.
‘The Emperor is already ours. We chatted him up at the casino, and he was easier than a dockland whore, if you’ll forgive the expression. The Emperor plays big-time. The Emperor loses big-time, very big. Given that the money isn’t his. Fees from American taxpayers rolling on to the green table. He has a court of prostitutes that he puts on the CIA expense account under the heading ‘Imperial Cinematographic Troupe’. Then, let me think: two dwarfs, a pack of dogs that piss and shit all over the place, four bodyguards who look like Sumo wrestlers, three cooks, a food taster, two drivers, a butler, a wardrobe assistant, a tailor. am I forgetting anyone, Lucien?’
‘The masseuse and the masked man.’
‘That’s right. And now us too.’
The man brushed grains from his raincoat. ‘And could you say he likes you?’
‘Like us? He dotes on us. We are his favourite humorists. He won’t leave us alone for a moment. He even maintains that Lucien brings him good luck at chemin de fer.’
‘And Jean at roulette.’
‘And what does the Emperor think about the Geneva conference?’
‘The Emperor wakes up at two o’clock in the afternoon, eats his breakfast, has someone read him the newspaper headlines, has a bath, has sex between three and five, takes the dogs to piss, comes back at half-past six, has a game of chess with one of the whores, has dinner at half-past eight, shows up at the casino at ten on the dot and stays there until dawn. When would he have time to think about the conference?’