Ghosts of Saint-Michel by Jake Lamar

Author:Jake Lamar
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780312289256
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group

Would it be accurate to say that I saved Loïc Rose’s life? At least once? I suppose it’s not for me to judge. All I can do is try to recount what happened.

In the years just after his mother died, Loïc became radicalized. I figured it was just a passing fancy. He joined the Communist Party, started dating Jewish girls and North Africans, carried around Mao’s little red book and was always looking to provoke some sort of ideological debate. In short, Loïc was becoming a left-wing sap, a humorless bore. And I duly told the Authority all about it. Reassuring everyone, of course, that he was no threat to the Republic.

Then came October 17, 1961. Anyone with any sense stayed indoors that night. But Loïc was out there, marching with the Algerians who were protesting the imposition of a curfew on all Muslims and North Africans. The police responded to the march by going on a bloody rampage. For days, no one heard anything from Loïc. I feared he had wound up like the two hundred or so Algerian protesters who were shot or beaten to death. Or thrown into the Seine, wounded but still alive, flailing desperately until they drowned. Finally, a connection of mine in the Prefecture located Loïc. I went to see the poor fellow in his subterranean jail cell. His face was puffed up and bruised. He thought his ankle was broken but since he had not been allowed to see a doctor, he couldn’t be sure. With the French-Algerian war still raging, the cops might have kept an alleged agitator like Loïc in jail indefinitely. That was why I recruited him for the Authority. He was released from prison that very day.

Loïc, at that time, was too much of an idealist to admit that he was—wisely—trying to save his own skin. So he convinced himself that by informing on his radical friends he was actually protecting them, helping to keep them out of jail. Maybe there was some truth to that. Maybe Loïc was indeed saving his Commie pals just as I had saved Loïc. I think that once the war ended in 1962, Loïc thought the Authority would have no more use for him. He was dead wrong. He didn’t understand the nature of the beast. The beast devoured information, any information. And if you didn’t have any to give, the beast would devour you.

That same year, Marva Dobbs came to town. Wasn’t a brother in Paris—yours truly included—who didn’t want a taste of her. But Marva only had eyes for Loïc, at least in that first year or so. Loïc told me he’d experienced a coup de foudre—the thunderbolt of love at first sight. He said he wanted to make Marva his wife. Naturally, that did not stop him from informing on her to the Authority.

Marva whipped Loïc into shape, got him to grow up. He went back to school and got a law degree, started a lucrative practice as a tax attorney.

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