The Pathfinders (The Falsifiers Book 2)

By Antoine Bello

In this second installment of the Falsifiers trilogy, the stakes have gotten higher. Sliv is tasked with daunting missions: help a small Asian country gain its independence, chase a rogue CFR agent, and convince the Bush Administration that Saddam Hussein no longer possesses weapons of mass destruction. Yet, in a post 9/11 world, Sliv and his colleagues are not the only ones tampering with reality.
The Pathfinders was awarded the prestigious Prix France Culture Telerama in 2009. It is preceded by The Falsifiers and followed by The Showrunners but can be read independently.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Antoine Bello
• Release date: May 5, 2016
• ISBN: 9781311743381

Antoine Bello

Antoine Bello est un auteur de langue française, né à Boston en 1970. Il vit à New York. En 1996, il publie un recueil de nouvelles, Les funambules, aux Editions Gallimard. Couronnés du prix littéraire de la Vocation Marcel Bleustein-Blanchet, ces cinq textes mettent en scène des personnages surhumains lancés à la poursuite d'une perfection inaccessible. Le premier roman d'Antoine Bello, Eloge de la pièce manquante (1998) remporte un grand succès et est traduit dans une dizaine de langues. L'histoire se déroule dans l'univers fictif du puzzle de vitesse. Le roman se présente sous la forme de cinquante pièces - articles de journaux, rapports, interviews - sans cohérence apparente. Suivent deux romans formant un dyptique, Les falsificateurs (2007) et Les éclaireurs (2009), qui content l'ascension d'un jeune Islandais, Sliv Dartunghuver, au sein d'une organisation secrète internationale qui falsifie la réalité et réécrit l'histoire. Les Eclaireurs ont reçu le Prix France Culture - Telerama. En 2010, Enquête sur la disparition d'Emilie Brunet joue avec les codes du roman policier en rendant hommage à Agatha Christie et Edgar Poe. En 2012, il publie sur amazon deux nouvelles, L'Actualité et Légendes, initialement conçues pour figurer dans Les falsificateurs. Antoine Bello travaille actuellement à son prochain roman, l'histoire d'un jeune footballeur prodigieusement doué qui décline les offres des plus grands clubs pour jouer dans le championnat universitaire et décrocher le titre que son père était sur le point de gagner avant sa mort. Dans une vie précédente, Antoine a créé, développé puis revendu la société Ubiqus, qui propose des services de comptes rendus aux organisateurs de réunions. (Photo : Christopher Michel)

Book preview

PART ONE

Dili

1

As always happened whenever I opened the heavy glass door of the Baldur, Furuset & Thorberg offices, I thought briefly about the turn my life had almost taken ten years earlier, the day I had answered an ad for the post of project manager in environmental studies. If Gunnar Eriksson, the Director of Operations of the firm that had hired me, hadn’t seen something in me that would make be more suited to another kind of activity, I’d probably be evaluating the risks of river pollution associated with the building of an incineration plant in the suburbs of Copenhagen.

The receptionist, who was busy dealing with a delivery man, threw me a smile. Thinking of me as a freelance consultant who occasionally worked for the firm, she was surprised neither by my long absences nor by my erratic schedule. This cover, which Gunnar and I had set up after I left the Academy, was perfect for both of us: it avoided too much prying by the Icelandic tax authorities, and it explained why I was always traveling to the four corners of the earth.

Sliv, how good to see you! Gunnar cried, giving me a big hug. I was wondering if you might have forgotten our address. How long is it since you last paid us a visit?

The tone in which he asked this question was too light-hearted to be totally innocent. Gunnar’s wife Kristin had died a year earlier of a terrible pulmonary embolism. Gunnar had been quite unprepared for her death, and it had taken him a while to recover. He had no children other than the thirteen agents he had recruited during his career. As I was the closest to him, and the only one still living in Reykjavík, I went to see him at least once a week, except, obviously, when I was on assignment abroad.

Too long. I just got back from Sydney, I flew in this morning. Before that, I was in London, then Toronto, and then Los Angeles.

That’s terrible, Gunnar muttered. I’ll have to have a word with Yakoub, we don’t want you ruining your health.

We both knew he wouldn’t do anything. Special Operations had fewer than a hundred agents and couldn’t do without any of them. Besides, my occasional complaints didn’t fool anyone, especially not Gunnar: I loved my life as a class 3 agent, and I wouldn’t have swapped it for anything in the world.

Why did you need to go to Los Angeles anyway? Couldn’t they have sent Lena? She lives in Hollywood, if I’m not mistaken.

The wound Lena Thorsen had opened in severing off contact with Gunnar had never completely healed. She had left Reykjavík ten years earlier without a word of gratitude to the man who had taught her everything. She had never been in touch with him since—not even to send him a Christmas card.

The last I heard, she was still there, I replied. But my assignment wasn’t exactly within her remit. I heard she was specializing in computer piracy.

Now there’s a field that seems to me made for her. Sitting in front of a computer all day long, no risk of rubbing shoulders with anyone less intelligent than her. Did you get in touch with her?

He sounded like my mother when she told me off for not phoning my sister more regularly. Strange how, with age, you worry less about your own relationships than other people’s.

No. To tell the truth, I’ve only seen her once since we finished at the Academy. It was at a seminar. She didn’t open her mouth once, and yet, by the evening, some of my colleagues would have happily whispered sweet nothings in her ear.

There was actually a mystery in all this that I found hard to fathom. By the laws of statistics, we should have met more often. François Bérard, the director of the Paris Center, had recently complained when I was there that he had never yet met Lena. He had several times asked for her personally, citing her expertise in matters of ancient civilizations. Every time—feeling perhaps, as I did, that Bérard’s intentions weren’t entirely honorable—the planning section of Special Operations had told him that Agent Thorsen was unavailable.

Don’t just stand there, sit down. Would you like some tea? I’ve just received a consignment from Ceylon. I want you to tell me what you think.

One sugar, I replied mechanically, collapsing into one of Gunnar’s comfortable leather armchairs. I’ve made two or three discoveries I’d like to share with you.

I opened my briefcase and took out a bundle of papers covered with notes. I arranged them into several different piles, while behind me Gunnar cursed his secretary Margret.

She’s filched my sugar bowl again, it’s exasperating! If she thinks I’m getting fat, she should at least tell me to my face.

As it happens, Gunnar had gained about ten kilos since Kristin had died. His shirt stuck out of his trousers, and I noticed out of the corner of my eye that he had made an extra hole in his belt. But I carefully refrained from making any comment.

Gunnar placed a cup in front of me and sat down in the second armchair. So tell me, have you identified the sixth member of the ExCom?

On my return to Reykjavík, Gunnar had thrown down a challenge: If no one will let you in on the purpose of the CFR, why don’t you try to guess it? As you’re well aware, only the six members of the Executive Committee know the secret of the CFR. Begin by finding out the identities of these members, then study their dossiers and their actions. That’s sure to give you vital clues as to their motivation.

It wasn’t a bad idea at all, especially as my current position was an ideal vantage point. As a Special Operations agent, I was entitled to examine any dossier I liked, provided I knew of its existence (the proviso was an important one: I couldn’t just pull out all the dossiers produced by a particular agent, unless I was suggesting that that agent was endangering the organization and had to be put under surveillance). But I enjoyed another, even greater advantage. Three years earlier, Angoua Djibo, the director of the Plan, had asked me to go around the main branches of the CFR and present a major reform I had initiated: quite simply, the abandoning of physical falsification. I had been the first to put forward the idea that developments in technology were bound to make old-style forgeries obsolete. A fake map like the one of Vinland, on which I had worked, might have fooled the experts at the time but, sooner or later, science would make it possible to determine its provenance beyond any possible doubt, thereby calling attention to the means by which it had been circulated. The CFR would do better, I had written, to concentrate on electronic falsification, which was both more effective and less risky. I carried out Djibo’s mission with an energy that surprised even him. In less than six months, I had personally met with the directors of the fourteen CFR centers and the heads of almost two-thirds of the bureaus. Obviously, I was convinced of the importance of my mission, but I had seen it above all as an opportunity to make contact with the middle management of the CFR, the men and women who piloted the ship on a daily basis and who were the most likely to satisfy my insatiable curiosity.

Unfortunately not, I replied. Nor am I at all sure of the other five.

Let’s go over this. What do you know with certainty?

With absolute certainty? Not a great deal. I know Angoua Djibo is part of the ExCom. You told me that one day, and he’s never denied it whenever I’ve mentioned it in his presence.

You can take that as read. And apart from him?

Since Djibo is also in charge of the Plan, I’m inclined to think that Yakoub Khoyoulfaz and Claas Verplanck, who run Special Operations and the General Inspectorate respectively, are also part of the ExCom.

Yes, I see, Gunnar said meditatively, blowing on his scalding-hot tea. The directors of the three main bodies are assured of a place on the ExCom: that seems logical.

After that, I can only speculate. The first possible angle of attack is the hierarchy. I don’t claim to know the structure of the CFR in detail, but all the same I do have a relatively clear idea. Each of the main bodies has several deputy directors.

Do you know their names?

Yes, I said, consulting my notes. Ching Shao, Jim Lassiter and Per-Olof Andersen in the Plan, Martin De Wet and Carolina Watanabe in Special Operations, and Diego Rojas and Lee-Ann Mulroney in the General Inspectorate.

So there aren’t the same number of deputies in all the main bodies?

Not as far as I know. De Wet and Watanabe are the only two in Special Operations, that much I’ve established. I’ve worked out there are at least three deputies in the Plan, but then that is the biggest of the bodies. As for the General Inspectorate, there aren’t many more of them than there are of us: they must be able to function with only two deputies.

That still gives you seven candidates for three places, Gunnar calculated.

Which was what gave me the idea of taking a look at the operational departments: Human Resources, Finances and I.T. After all, when agents leave the Academy they either go into one of the main bodies or one of the operational departments.

But you know as well as I do that the highest-ranked students invariably choose the main bodies. The operational departments don’t have much of a reputation.

I wouldn’t say that. They’re less prestigious only because they’re more standard. What’s the point of joining the CFR if you’re going to work in Human Resources or I.T.? But these departments fulfil a vital role, so I don’t think it’s absurd to suppose they would be represented on the ExCom.

I don’t know, Gunnar said, pensively sipping his tea. Human Resources at a pinch, but Finance and I.T., no, honestly, I find that hard to believe.

I had learned to trust Gunnar’s intuition. Even though officially he was very low down in the hierarchy of the CFR—he wasn’t even head of a branch—he knew its structure better than anyone. I penciled a cross next to the name of the director of Human Resources, Zoe Karvelis. Unwittingly, Gunnar had just confirmed one of my theories.

"Now I come to my second angle of attack: balance. I suspect that the make-up of the ExCom is carefully balanced in terms of – ’

Race and gender, Gunnar cut in. Yes, I’ve often thought the same thing.

Probably religion, too. Let’s start with gender. Based on recent graduates from the Academy, I’d say there are currently almost as many women as men in the CFR.

That wasn’t always the case, Gunnar said. The first five agents I recruited were all men.

That’s as may be. But I’d be surprised and even a bit shocked, to be honest, if the ExCom didn’t include at least two women. As Djibo, Khoyoulfaz and Verplanck are men, that would leave two women for the three remaining seats.

I think we can rule out there not being any at all, Gunnar admitted. I’d say one or two. Certainly not three.

Now, let’s take race and religion. The CFR is a genuine multinational, active on all five continents. The ExCom almost certainly reflects that diversity. Djibo is African: he told me once that he was brought up as an animist, but I don’t think he practices any religion. Khoyoulfaz is an Azeri and a Muslim. Verplanck is white and a Catholic. What do we still lack?

I find your question somewhat dubious, Gunnar said with a frown. It assumes that the make-up of the ExCom has more to do with geographical considerations than the actual abilities of the candidates. But let’s say you’re right. He put down his cup of tea, sat back in his armchair, and closed his eyes. What we lack is a pure-blood Asian, a South American, another white person, probably North American, I’d say, and perhaps a second black person, preferably Muslim. My God! he cried, opening his eyes again. If they could only hear us!

If it’s any comfort, I was thinking along pretty much the same lines. Now let’s put those four criteria together: position within the hierarchy, gender, race and religion.

Gunnar thought for a few moments. I understand now what you were getting at when you mentioned the operational departments. Zoe Karvelis certainly seems to tick several of those boxes: she doesn’t belong to one of the main bodies, she’s Greek, a woman, white, and as for her religion, what is it, Orthodox?

Touché, I replied with a smile.

Ah-hah! Gunnar said triumphantly, getting into the spirit of the game. Now, for the second woman, Carolina Watanabe seems a good bet to me. Deputy Chairman of Special Operations, Japanese parents, born in Brazil. Catholic or Buddhist?

Buddhist, but her children attend a Catholic school in Rio.

Gunnar looked at me in astonishment. Good Lord, you really know your stuff!

Would you like the names of her two cats? Seriously, though, I have a problem with Watanabe. She’s never lived in Asia. As far as I’m concerned, the two genuine Asian candidates are the Chinese woman Ching Shao, Deputy Director of the Plan, and the Indian Marvan Nechim, director of I.T.

Forget I.T., Gunnar snapped: he clearly had little respect for computer geeks. Shao’s your second woman. I met both Watanabe and Shao on my journey. Shao struck me as more enigmatic than Watanabe, partly due, I’m sure, to the fact that I didn’t understand half of what she said when she spoke in English.

I put a cross next to her name. That would leave us two serious contenders for the last seat: Jim Lassiter, who’s black, and an American, deputy director of the Plan—

A second member from the Plan? Cross him off your list.

Or Parviz Shajarian, an Iranian, a Muslim, financial director of—

Gunnar shook his head. The CFR is worth billions, I don’t see why the ExCom would lumber itself with an accountant. No, the most likely thing is that the sixth member is an exceptional agent you’ve never even heard of. You know what would be awful?

What?

If he’s a Scandinavian! Gunnar guffawed. If there’s a grain of truth in your balance theory, you could say goodbye to any idea of getting on the ExCom.

That prospect had obviously crossed my mind, but another recent discovery had alarmed me even more: among my seven or eight favorites, only one—Lassiter—was over sixty. There presumably wasn’t an official retirement age on the ExCom, but I couldn’t help thinking that the youth of the current membership didn’t bode well for me.

Let’s forget the sixth man for a moment, Gunnar resumed, as if to stop me giving in to despair, and consider the dossiers by the five supposed members. How many did you find?

The answer to that question isn’t as simple as it seems. We have to rule out the dossiers produced by each member before he was co-opted onto the ExCom, in other words, before he was let in on the purpose of the CFR. But—

Gunnar finished my sentence. The dates when they were appointed haven’t been made public.

Exactly. We can still try to find them out, though. Djibo, for example, apparently produced two dossiers a year until 1988. I say ‘apparently’ because I can’t find a list in the records. Then he didn’t publish anything between 1989 and 1991—or at least nothing that’s come to my notice—and only one dossier a year on average since 1992.

In other words, what you’re saying is that his new duties took up all his time in the first two years. It’s not much of an argument.

Especially as there are other explanations for his silence, I conceded. He might have taken on other responsibilities that year—running the Plan, for example—or taken a sabbatical year, or whatever. But anyway, I’ve managed to establish a theoretical starting date for each of my five favorites: 1988 for Djibo, 1990 for Khoyoulfaz, 1986 for Verplanck, 1996 for Shao and 1997 for Karvelis. From what I’ve been able to find out, between them they’ve produced twenty-six dossiers.

Is that all?

Actually, I think it’s a lot. It takes weeks to come up with a good dossier. I wonder how they manage to fit it into their schedules. Actually, I think I’ve worked it out. The leaders of the CFR are still agents before anything else. Producing dossiers is their life. In a standard organization, those who rise from the ranks are generally only too happy to give up their everyday chores for what are considered worthier tasks. The CFR is quite the opposite: the senior executives have fought to preserve the right to take on the work of rank-and-file agents.

They must have help, Gunnar muttered. I can’t imagine Djibo calling Berlin and asking them to put together a legend for him. But that’s neither here nor there. What have you gathered from the dossiers?

Nothing very specific, I’m afraid. There are all kind of subjects, from serious ones like the war in Rwanda to completely trivial ones like the disappearance of an imaginary language similar to Aramaic, called Mlahsô.

Do the dossiers at least fall into broad categories? Gunnar asked.

Not really. Two of them are about territorial conflicts. Khoyoulfaz has concocted some arguments to support Azerbaijan in its dispute with Nagorno-Karabakh over the Lachin Corridor—

Never heard of it.

It’s the shortest route through the mountains between Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh. A bitterly contested route, but not exactly of major strategic importance. Ditto for the other conflict, over Kutsuzov Island, which is claimed by both China and Russia—

Let me guess, Gunnar cut in. Shao comes down in favor of China?

I nodded.

In other words, he commented scornfully, everyone’s flying their national flag... You’re barking up the wrong tree there.

I have three dossiers that could fall into the ‘Reform of capitalism’ category, I continued.

That sounds more interesting, Gunnar said, sitting forward in his armchair and pouring himself another cup of tea.

Verplanck has created false evidence for the European Union to use in its action against Microsoft for abusing their market dominance; Karvelis is helping the union of artistic creators in their campaign to have the period of copyright extended by twenty years; Verplanck, again, is moving America to tears over three cases—all fabricated—of children who died because of a lack of medical care, in order to speed up the passage of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program.

Gunnar was thinking, trying hard, just as I had done a few weeks earlier, to find some connection between these three dossiers.

An attack on monopolies, a fair reward for intellectual work, he said at last. It sounds like a return to the origins of capitalism. But obligatory medical cover for children: now that puzzles me.

Perhaps an attempt to cross Anglo-Saxon capitalism with a little European-style humanism, I ventured, although I didn’t really believe it myself.

What else?

A very good dossier by Djibo on the illegitimate children Thomas Jefferson is supposed to have had with one of his slaves, Sally Hemings—

Stories about slavery are his hobby horse, Gunnar cut in. Actually, he does them very well.

An almost exact repetition of the Laika report, about the launch of Kwangmyongsong, the first North Korean satellite. The rocket never left the launch pad, but the Koreans claim that the satellite has been whizzing around above our heads since September 1998. On the same lines, Karvelis has embellished the story of Hugo Chávez’s imprisonment between 1992 and 1994.

I didn’t know he’d been in prison. What was it for?

After the total failure of his attempted coup against President Pérez, Chávez went on TV, live, and won the hearts of millions of Venezuelans by claiming to be the alternative to Pérez’s kleptocracy. He spent two years in prison, and when he came out he had a fleshy excrescence on his eye that affected his sight. Karvelis claims that Chávez caught it during his imprisonment, implying that it wasn’t properly treated and thereby reinforcing his image as a martyr. In fact, that carnosity of his goes back to his adolescence, but until then it had been kept within reasonable proportions.

What’s the connection between Chávez’s eye and a North Korean satellite? Gunnar asked, clearly skeptical.

In both cases, the CFR supported declared enemies of the United States. There are also two reports about the rise of China. One of them aims to give the impression that the People’s Republic is further advanced that it in fact is in building a nuclear aircraft carrier. The other one brings together several young Chinese artists under the banner of an imaginary movement called cynical realism.

Hard to know what to think of that. Has the CFR been furthering the expansion of China with its reports, or simply going along with it?... Yes, come in!

A young woman opened the door, her arms laden with a stack of files that looked as if it were about to collapse. I rushed forward to relieve her of part of her burden and froze when I saw her face, which was half hidden by a long lock of blonde hair. She had recognized me, too.

Nina Schoeman! I cried. What are you doing here?

Temping, she replied. I started last week. She turned to Gunnar, who had remained in his seat. I’ve photocopied the first three files, I’ll do the others tomorrow.

Thank you, Miss Schoeman, Gunnar said in his most dignified tone, putting down his cup of tea. I’m well aware that the Icelandic constitution guarantees you a certain number of basic rights, but do you think you could possibly dress in a slightly more classic fashion in future? We regularly receive clients in these offices, and I would hate for your, shall we say, cutting-edge style of clothing to make some of them redirect their budgets to more traditional firms.

What a pity I didn’t have a chance to warn Gunnar. I would have spared him the scathing rejoinder that followed.

Then I think you should choose your clientele more carefully, Nina retorted sourly. How can you accept money from those polluters from Molenberg who dismantle their asbestos-filled factories and rebuild them in Third World countries? This reference to Baldur, Furuset & Thorberg’s oldest client almost made Gunnar choke. I signaled to him that I’d be back for my things and bundled Nina out of the office.

2

Nina Schoeman was one of those people you should never meet without prior warning. The intensity of her gaze, the openness of her gestures, her level of commitment in conversation grabbed you by the throat and made you regret you hadn’t prepared what to say.

I had met her at the end of the 1980s while doing my master’s in geography at the University of Reykjavík. We were both following second courses in parallel: she in political science, I in history. That was the extent of what we had in common: I was from Húsavík, a little village in the north-east of Iceland where my mother raised sheep; she had arrived from South Africa a few years earlier, her mother having chosen an Icelander as her second husband. I had never left Europe; she had traveled in all the continents. I never talked to anyone; she spoke loudly, and was always the first to open her mouth.

She wasn’t a conventional beauty. I couldn’t say if her features were delicate or coarse, if her face was round or triangular. That wasn’t the kind of detail you noticed when you looked at Nina. What struck you more than anything else was the energy that emanated from her. She seemed sometimes to be standing on tiptoe, her muscles tense, ready to leave, like those high jumpers who have one foot on the plank, their bodies already preparing to wipe out the obstacle. At other moments, she made me think of someone doing karate, solidly planted on her supports, awaiting her opponent, sure of the explosive force accumulated in her fists. At yet others, a methodical rower whose every stroke of the oar makes the muscles in her shoulders bulge. She was neither a doll nor a dancer but an athlete, whose deliberately provocative clothes could not conceal her almost perfect figure.

I considered Nina the most brilliant student in our year, but few of her fellow students and even fewer of her teachers shared my opinion. She had average grades—well below mine—and ended up with two unremarkable diplomas. She skipped most of the lectures but, unlike the others, it wasn’t because she slept late. She had set up base camp in the library, where she gorged on the international press, foreign novels, and historical works by authors I had never even heard of. She had found a corner for herself on the edge of the German literature section, where she left her things: a khaki-colored canvas rucksack, a pair of running shoes, an umbrella, a bottle of water, and a box of biscuits. I wouldn’t have been surprised to also find a sleeping bag there. She read with her elbows on the table, her head between her fists, scribbling notes from time to time in a large black exercise book that she never let out of her sight. When the time came for a class that interested her, she would stand up abruptly, leaving everything where it was, knowing that the librarian would make sure her sanctuary was kept intact. The two women had been firm friends ever since Nina had protested against a plan to close the library during vacations. The Dean of the University, who had hoped to make a few savings by this measure, had had to yield to the revolt mounted by Nina under a few hard-hitting slogans, such as My brain doesn’t take vacations, or, Swap three permanent lecturers for a good librarian.

For it was in militant action that Nina gave the full measure of herself. She belonged to all the debating groups on the campus, from the collective against acid rain to the association for the education of Muslim girls. The confidence and determination with which she expressed herself gained her many supporters. She had a gift for always finding the right words to electrify her audience or a historical perspective that raised the most topical cause to the level of a matter vital to the future of civilization. The gradual extinction of the loggerhead sea turtle, for example, could be explained by the over-exploitation of the marine depths, while the demolition of a squalid mosque in Hamburg threatened the peaceful coexistence of the religions of the Book. Nina had built for herself over the years a network of correspondents throughout the world. Iceland not being large enough to quench her thirst for justice, she took up ever more exotic and improbable causes: the protection of the Patagonian guanaco and the independence of the territory of Aceh in Indonesia are two that spring to mind ten years later, but they weren’t the only ones.

I hadn’t been friends with Nina at the time, but I respected her, and I think I can say that the feeling was mutual. She had warmly congratulated me on the way out of the lecture theatre one day after I had underlined Alexander Du Toit’s contribution to the theory of continental drift. Du Toit was a South African geologist, who in Nina’s opinion hadn’t received the attention he deserved. From that day on, we started nodding to each other in greeting when we met. Prudently, that was as far as I took it, for fear that she might drag me into her militant activities, which I suspected might be terribly time-consuming.

But I was really pleased to see her again now. My two best friends lived several thousands of miles away, I had lost touch with almost all my former colleagues, and—why not admit it?—I’m a sucker for nostalgia.

Come, I said, drawing her with me as we closed the door of Gunnar’s office, there’s a bar downstairs.

I won’t say no. Anyway I’ve finished.

She put on her coat and slipped her rucksack over her right shoulder. I wasn’t surprised to notice that it was the same one she had had ten years earlier. I sensed that Nina’s loyalty manifested itself in a thousand different ways.

We ran down the stairs like two college students and plunged into an American bar that had just opened. Nina gave a start when she saw the menu.Do you realize that a caffè latte costs the daily wages of a Madagascan worker?

It’s on me, I said, immediately cursing myself for my stupidity.

I hope you’re joking!

She paid for her order by disposing of her small change. As soon as we were sitting, I ran to Gunnar’s defense.

You know, despite appearances, he’s not a bad fellow.

What got into him, dammit? Nina grunted. He pays peanuts anyway, so he surely can’t expect me to dress in Donna Karan!

I observed her surreptitiously. She was wearing orange jeans held up by a studded belt, a white T-shirt with the photograph of an Oriental teenage girl with a sad smile and the caption: Save Sonia, sold at the age of nine by her parents to the pimps of Patpong for the pleasure of Western males, and a pair of black Rangers. Without being a specialist in fashion, I told myself that there surely existed a middle way between Nina’s style of clothing and that of a London banker.

He’s a bit overworked at the moment, I advanced.

Oh, really? He doesn’t do a damned thing. Don’t you think I’ve noticed his little trick? He gets in at ten o’clock, hands out files before lunch, and only comes out of his office to go to the kitchen and fill his teapot.

He lost his wife recently.

I saw her expression change radically. I could follow every little detail of her thought process. Compassion was about to win out over the class struggle.

Oh no! she moaned as if, as a child, she had been bounced up and down on Kristin Eriksson’s lap.

He’s trying to get over it but it isn’t easy, I went on, without the feeling that I was telling too big a lie.

He needs to fight back. She had recovered her composure and was already elaborating a battle plan. The first weeks are the hardest but we’re going to get him out of it.

I abruptly changed the subject in order not to have to reveal to her that Gunnar had been a widower for sixteen months now. She would have taken him for a weak man, which he absolutely wasn’t.

So, what’s up with you? Are you looking for a job?

I assumed she had lost her previous job and had registered with a temping agency until she found a new position.

"No, why? Do you have something to offer me? Oh, I see what you’re thinking: how can she still be temping at her age? That’s it, isn’t it? Well, let me tell you, I’ve been doing all kinds of things for the last ten years: secretary, receptionist, hostess, anything I could find. I never stay more than three months in the same place. Any longer, and I’d feel I was becoming too attached, which would distract me from the main thing.

The main thing? A few ideas went through my mind: Family? Sport? Religion?

The struggle! she exclaimed at last as if she were talking to a moron.

Oh, so you’re carrying on the way you did at university? I asked without realizing that I was making my case worse with every new question.

Nina looked right through me with her metallic blue eyes. You really make me laugh, you people! As if there was an age for everything! So is that what life is for you? You go to school until you’re twenty, you join a student union to hand out leaflets and meet girls, and then when you’ve found mummy, you quickly put a ring on her and give her two kids, you abandon activism the way you dropped Spanish, you find a job in the private sector and work like a slave to pay off your mortgage?

I haven’t—

The struggle never stops, Sliv! You know what kills me? It’s that every time a nice guy like you gives up, those bastards they’ve won.

Bastards? What bastards?

You know perfectly well who I’m talking about: the bastards who are bleeding the planet dry, who mutilate little girls’ genitals, who set us against each other to sell us arms and three-point locks. She must have read incomprehension on my face, because she suddenly changed tone and gave me a big smile. I’m sorry, I get carried away sometimes.

So I see.

I absolutely must be more careful, she continued as if referring to watching her figure or her consumption of whiskey. "Let’s talk about you.