"It's nothing, you see. If I had the part, I could do it myself."
"A taxi would have to come out from Meaux."
"A bicycle? If it's not too far…"
"In this? You're sure?"
One of the girls in the kitchen had one. She thought I was crazy, because of the rain, but wouldn't take any money. Her machine, not exactly a velo, was padlocked to a drainpipe in behind the restaurant: a lady's bicycle, old and squeaky, with a red plastic basket on the front handlebars. I got onto it and wobbled off, and found that people are right, you never forget: it's not your memory, just thirty years of food and booze and cigarettes that keep you from being a kid again. But at least the road was downhill, carrying me down to the Marne. I rattled on; fell into a rhythm: push, push, and pant, and every third time around, a quick squint into the rain. The wheels juddered through potholes, the saddle delivered unladylike prods, my pants were soaked so completely that they molded to my thighs. I passed a farm and a couple of cottages, but in this weather no one was out, and I didn't see a single car. For twenty minutes or so, I struggled ahead. Then the road narrowed and the surface changed to hard-packed gravel, and I entered a dark lane of huge oaks, so dense that even without their leaves they kept the rain off. The grade steepened; I sat back, coasting. It was very dark, and a sort of hush fell, or at least a peculiar kind of resonance: close to, filling my ears, were the sounds of my panted breaths and the constant soft crunch of the wheels over the gravel, but beyond these sounds was a vast zone of silence, enclosed in turn by the patter of the rain in the branches high overhead. The light here was soft, dim, silvery; as if everything was reflected in a misted mirror. Leaves were thickly matted in the ditches; on both sides, the woods seemed dense. I started pedaling again, then coasted some more as the road grew even steeper. I glided round a curve, and it was just at this point, as the road straightened out, that I saw the yellow Dodge.
It was in the ditch: tilted sharply over on the right, with its big snout crumpled against one of the oaks.
I braked, hard. The bike slewed round. I got my feet down and straddled it, and stared down the dark, wet road.
Nothing was moving. The Dodge just lay there, like a huge piece of road junk. It was hard to be certain, but I didn't think anyone was still inside. The driver's door was ajar, the passenger's wide open — like an arm that was trying to brace the car and keep it from flipping over completely. I listened. All I could hear was the rain. With the doors open like that, there should have been a warning buzzer if the keys were still in the ignition.
The boy had driven his car off the road. Unhurt, he'd taken the keys out and was walking for help… Yes, that was possible; but I didn't like it. There was nothing tricky about this road, unless you took it too fast; and despite his tight jeans and fancy boots, I would have said the kid was a cautious driver. Besides, I hadn't passed him, and the restaurant was the first place he'd think of for help. No; I didn't like this at all, and felt a queasiness that was becoming all too familiar. But could Subotin be here? I just wasn't sure. Coming out of Paris, on the peripherique, I'd been working too hard to see out the front window without worrying about the back, and once we were on the N3 it would have been easy for someone to follow us without being spotted.
Reluctantly, I got back on the bicycle.
Jiggling and rattling, I came up to the car. There was nobody in it. And there was no blood, which was the next thing I looked for. I walked around to the front. The right side was jammed hard against the oak, having gouged a white, gleaming wound out of the trunk. As an accident, it was more than a fender bender, but nothing spectacular; although the fancy grille resembled a crushed beer can and there was a drip from the radiator, I doubted that he'd been going fast enough to hurt himself.
But that was assuming it had been an accident.
And when I stepped back, and saw the scraped patch above the right front wheel well, I wondered again.
A crow squawked in the woods. Its call drew my eyes there. These woods were very dense, for between the huge, ancient oaks, many smaller trees — birches and little pines — were growing. The rain had beaten the leaves from their branches and they lay in great piles around the trunks… except for the wavy path where something had been dragged through them, pushing them to one side and turning up the leaves underneath in wet, matted patches.
I stared at that path the way you look at a door you don't want to open. And just as I'd felt in that garage in Detroit, I now had an urge to call out, to see if anyone was there. But I kept my mouth shut and stood very still, listening to the slow, steady drip of coolant out of the radiator.
A minute passed. There was no getting away from what I had to do. I stepped around the car and over the ditch. The wet leaves were spongy underfoot, and each step released a Pungent smell of mold. Everywhere, there was the drip and trickle of water over vegetation, and a gust of wind spattered down more rain from the branches above. You couldn't move without making a hell of a lot of noise. Every few yards, I stopped and listened. Birds clucked and rustled around me, and high up, somewhere in the gray lattice of sky beyond the trees, a single-engine plane was droning along. I pushed past a wet pine bough. Everything I touched was wet; soaking already, I was soaked again. My feet began to itch inside my wet socks and my crotch was chafing… sensations I now concentrated on just the way, as a child, I'd concentrated on the cracks in the sidewalk as I ran down a dark, frightening street.
I was thankful that I didn't have to go far; they'd simply wanted to get him out of sight from the road. He was sitting in a little hollow, at the base of a birch tree. His legs were stuck out in front of him, his fancy snakeskin boots buried in dirty leaves, while his arms were tied behind him, lashed around the trunk. His head too was tied back to the tree. They'd used his belt; they'd looped it around his neck and the tree trunk, and then they'd jammed a stick through the loop, twisting it tight, as if they were winding up the rubber band on a kid's model airplane. His face was very bloody. He didn't move, and a sick, guilty feeling began to spread through the pit of my stomach. There was no way to duck it. It was partly my fault. I could have stopped him — at the quai, at Hamilton's apartment, in the restaurant… but then — thank God, thank God — his eyes opened, glittering, and his whole body strained toward me. With a tremendous sense of relief, I skidded down a slope of mud and leaves and reached him.
He was groaning. The belt had dug a red furrow into his throat and was tight enough to stop him from speaking. When I got it off, he gave a hoarse gasp, and then I undid his hands. With a single quick look, a child's imploring look of helplessness and shame — like a child who can't stop soiling himself— he toppled onto on his side and just breathed… huge, deep breaths, sucked in, released, over and over…
I waited, kneeling in the muddy leaves. Despite the blood, I thought — as with Berri — that he was more frightened than hurt. Lying there, he drew his knees up to his belly, his breaths came in long, trembling gasps, and the tears made glistening tracks through the blood on his cheeks. Giving him a chance to recover, I looked away. And only then realized that the ground all around the boy's feet was littered with money, fresh, bright leaves among the old — French and Swiss francs, Swedish crowns, British pounds…
He got his breath back. He gave me one quick look — almost furtive — but then looked away. His voice was soft and trembling as he said, "I thank you. I thought no one would come. I thank you very much."