There were thirty seconds to go: the interviewer came to the topic on everybody’s mind.
“Monsieur Bidermann, your expertise is beyond question, and there’s talk of you taking over the highest position in the country. What’s your reaction to that?”
“The only thing I’ve ever wanted over the last fifty years is to serve my country and Europe.”
“So are you ready?”
“Since last night.”
“Excuse me?”
“Last night, I got my wife Rose’s permission. She gave me the go-ahead to devote my time and energy to serving the nation.”
“Won’t she be jealous?”
“She promised to be patient, but for her sake, and your sake, and all our sakes, I’d better succeed quickly.”
The interviewer smiled, delighted that the program was ending on a personal note, paying tribute to wives, which gave the show a human dimension. When the credits started rolling, accompanied by percussive music, she thanked him profusely.
“Well done! You were wonderful.”
“Thanks to you, mademoiselle.”
They were both thinking of their own interests, which, for the time being, coincided: a brilliant guest meant a brilliant show.
As she got up from her stool, and before the audience rushed to ask for autographs, the interviewer switched off her microphone and whispered in his ear, “I’m a great friend of Carmen Bix.”
It was her way of implying that she knew everything about his torrid relationship with the Spanish woman. He took in the message, narrowed his eyes, and said in a velvety voice, “You choose your friends well, mademoiselle.”
At that moment, the interviewer understood why this man was so seductive: what made him handsome was that he thought women were beautiful.
That evening, Rose Bidermann had organized a reception in Place d’Arezzo, to celebrate her husband’s progress to power. As far as his supporters were concerned, Belgium’s most-watched TV program was already a political triumph for Zachary Bidermann: in the days that followed, he would step onto the national stage as prime minister.
In the hallway of their town house, Rose beamed as she welcomed her first guests. She’d always believed that one day she would stand here proudly on the arm of the most powerful man in the country. When she had fallen in love with Zachary, her passion had been genuine, but also served her stated ambitions: this brilliant economist would take her to the very top.
Rose was one of those women who find power erotic.
She believed that a man had to excel at all things: authority, money, culture, intelligence, sex. Those who had known Zachary in the past described him as exceptionally gifted but an amateur, even lazy; at the time, he didn’t exploit his talents because he was too fond of living. She had changed him. Because she had seen him as a superman, he had tried hard to become one. Since Rose, thanks to her or because of her, he had been obsessed with success. He wanted the best, because he hoped to live up to the way she saw him. On occasion, nothing pleased Rose more than an old friend of Zachary’s commenting on the progress he had made and congratulating her on her influence on him. Nevertheless, she hardly suspected the collateral damage of their mutual ambition.
Since she could only see him as the best—the best economist, the best politician, the best statesman—the idler had been replaced by a workaholic, the hedonist by a distinguished official. With pressure had come compulsion. Zachary was plagued by an all-pervasive fear of not living up to expectation. Several times a day, in the midst of his activities, he would plunge into depression; it wasn’t fatigue he felt, it was anxiety. The only way he could fight it was with orgasms. Pleasure wiped out his dark thoughts, the sensual waves spreading through his body calmed him. At first, Rose had sufficed for his pressing needs; but as his capacity for work and success grew, his sexual requirements increased. His meteoric rise had led him to adultery, to frequenting prostitutes, and, sometimes, to making sudden passes at any representative of the fair sex.
Rose was not only unaware of this obsession, she denied it if anyone so much as hinted at it. How could a husband who made love to her so often—once or twice a day—be leading a double life? In addition, her faith in destiny made her trust Zachary; because he hadn’t made any mistakes in his race to power, she imagined him to be inexhaustibly virtuous. And so the most cheated-on wife in Brussels displayed the radiant serenity of a woman who believes she is the one and only . . .
The reception rooms of the town house were becoming more crowded by the minute. European commissioners, technocrats, ministers, and would-be ministers pressed in, so that later they could say, “I was there.”
Rose and Zachary had given up standing in the hallway to welcome everyone. Letting the staff direct the new arrivals, they circulated, separately, from group to group.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Zachary said in a low voice to a sixty-year-old man in a checkered cap and a tweed hunting suit, with a nose that showed the effects of alcohol.
“Surprised to see Dédé?”
Zachary Bidermann grimaced.
Dédé from Antwerp managed several brothels in Belgium. He pointed to Rose, who was laughing with Léo Adolf some distance from them. “Look at that, I never knew your lady was so buxom! Congratulations, old man: you’ve ticked all the right boxes, haven’t you?”
“What the hell are you doing here?”
“I’ve come for a drink because, believe it or not, I’m soon going to be the buddy of the Prime Minister.”
“Don’t go bragging about it.”
“Come on, you know Dédé. If you’re not discreet in my line of work, you won’t last long. No, I dropped by because I was thinking . . . Now that you’re taking the top job, maybe you could help to ease my tax problems.”
“Really?”
“Let me tell you. They’re asking for four—”
Zachary put a hand on his shoulder. “Look, Dédé, let’s be quite clear about this, man-to-man. The fact that I know you is neither here nor there. I’m not going to help you. In fact, I won’t help anybody. In a few days’ time, I won’t be me anymore, I’ll be the Prime Minister. Impartial and without a blemish.”
“Fine words . . . ”
“Dédé, you’re the first to say politics is rotten.”
“Of course, but—”
“You’ve had my final word on this, I won’t change my mind. But I’ll still come to your establishments and pay without haggling over the price, because you’ve got some terrific girls. That’s my only promise to you.”
Dédé, who cried easily, became misty-eyed and, suddenly full of admiration, stammered, “You’re a great guy, Zachary.”
He seized his hand and shook it. Dédé couldn’t have thanked him more if he had actually helped him. He, the king of wheeler-dealers, the prince of cheats, slippery as an eel, was fascinated by the image of an incorruptible man: he felt as if he was on friendly terms with King Solomon.
As he walked away, Zachary smiled at the thought that, if the elections were brought forward, he would at least get the vote of the greatest crook in Belgium.
He greeted his neighbor, the widower François-Maxime de Couvigny, who stood there looking tense and drawn, spoke to him for a few seconds about the recapitalization of the banks, then approached another group.
He gave a sweeping glance around to see if his famous neighbor, the writer Baptiste Monier, had snubbed him as usual. Zachary was shocked at the way Monier kept himself to himself and rejected social life. Why was such an internationally renowned novelist always stuck at home? Why didn’t he have any friends? The worst of it was that in a few decades, Zachary Bidermann and all the politicians here would be forgotten, but people would still be reading Baptiste Monier, who would by then be considered a true witness of his century, even though he hadn’t seen anything of it.
He was sighi
ng when a man he didn’t know came up to him. “Good evening, Monsieur Bidermann. Sylvain Gomez.”
“Have we met?”
“Yes, at Mille Chandelles.”
Zachary didn’t flinch at the mention of the swingers’ club. “Did my wife invite you?”
“I took the liberty of coming. I’d like to speak with you.”
“Gladly. Give me five minutes.”
Casually, Zachary walked away, isolated himself for a moment in a room closed to the guests, called his loyal Singer, and conferred with her.
Affably, he returned to the hallway, where Sylvain Gomez was waiting for him. “Shall we adjourn to my office, monsieur?”
Unfazed, Sylvain Gomez followed Zachary to his office, which overlooked the square with the birds. Tonight, the usual chorus of parrots and parakeets was drowned by the hubbub of the reception.
Zachary Bidermann sat down behind his solid desk and waited for the man to speak.
Embarrassed by the silence, Gomez cleared his throat and began, “You must be wondering why I’m bothering you.”
Zachary Bidermann continued to stare at him without answering.
“I was at Mille Chandelles the other night, and inadvertently took a few pictures.”
The word “inadvertently” sounded a false note: the owners of Mille Chandelles demanded that you leave any recording device at the entrance, it being the rule in such places to respect everyone’s anonymity. Clearly, the man had cheated.
“I have some photographs of you. Would you like to see them?”
Zachary remained impassive.
Gomez persisted, scrolling through the snapshots on the screen of his cell phone. “Don’t you like souvenirs?”
“I prefer my own.”
Zachary’s metallic voice had resounded, clear and abrupt in the large room.
The man grinned. “Let’s see, who would be interested in these photographs? Your wife, perhaps?”
Zachary said nothing.
“Your friends in the Party? Or your political enemies? You’ve got lots of those.”
Zachary looked up wearily at the ceiling.
Disconcerted, the man grew resentful. “Or the press? Yes, the press loves that kind of scoop.”
Slowly, Zachary drank the aperitif he was holding.
“You’re not exactly helping me,” the man growled. “You should ask me how much.”
Immediately, Zachary’s voice echoed without conviction, “How much?”
“Ten thousand.”
“Is that all?”
“For now.”
“Oh, that’s reassuring.”
The man was nervous and uneasy. The conversation wasn’t going according to plan.
Zachary leaned forward. “I’m going to offer you something better than that.” He held out a bowl of peanuts. “I’m going to offer you a peanut.”
“Excuse me?”
“A peanut for your photographs. Then you won’t have come all the way here for nothing.”
The man stood up, humiliated, and took a couple of steps around the chair, then, finding new inspiration, sneered in exasperation, “You don’t seem to realize the kind of tsunami I can unleash.”
“And neither do you, monsieur. You keep this up, and as early as tomorrow morning, Monsieur Sylvain Gomez, you’ll be subjected to a tax audit on all four of your companies: Lafina, Poliori, Les Bastonnes, and Découverte asiatique. In addition, I’ll take the liberty of calling my friend Meyer, the Finance Minister of Luxembourg, just to check if you have any accounts there, a favor he won’t hesitate to grant, believe me. Then, if I don’t find any morsels there, I’ll call my contacts in Switzerland, Panama, the Cayman Islands. You’d be amazed at how many friends one has when one’s a European commissioner for competition, there’s really no need to become prime minister.”
Gomez had turned pale with fright. “But . . . that’s blackmail.”
“Who started it?”
“You don’t scare me,” Gomez said, trying to brazen it out.
“Oh, really?”
“No. Because you seem to think I’m dishonest.”
“I don’t think. I have proof.”
Because Zachary had brought up the possibility of blackmail, Gomez concluded that Zachary was already in possession of compromising information.
He swallowed and sat back down. “All right, I’ll stop with the photography.”
“Excellent idea, you don’t have a talent for it. Are you sure you wouldn’t like a peanut?”
Zachary Bidermann stood up and ordered Gomez to leave the room with him. “I shan’t see you out: you can find your own way.”
The man slipped away.
With a confident stride, Zachary Bidermann returned to his guests, sneaking Rose a passing kiss.
Léo Adolf detached himself from the group he was talking with and caught Zachary by the arm. “A great success tonight, a success that sweeps away any remaining hesitations. I’ve spoken with the heads of the various groupings in Parliament and they’ve agreed to provide you with a coalition majority. All we need now is for poor Vanserbrock to resign, which will happen in the next couple of days. So basically, starting tomorrow, we’re going to set in motion the procedure that will make you prime minister. Congratulations.”
“Thank you.”
Léo Adolf suddenly dropped his voice and led Zachary into a quiet corner. “Politicians have such a damaged reputation nowadays that we’re taking a big risk. A leader must be seen to be beyond reproach. Even when he is, people will be as quick to hate him as to love him. We’ve got the life expectancy of a paper handkerchief. I don’t think there’ll be one idiot left to take the job twenty years from now.”
“What are you getting at?”
“You’re our last hope, Zachary. If you fail, the political class will be rejected. But if you stumble before you’ve succeeded, that’ll be even worse. All trust will disappear.”
“‘Stumble?’”
“Swear to me that your behavior will be exemplary. I am, of course, referring to women.”
Zachary burst out laughing. “I swear.”
“You say it very easily, but I know how hard it is to change.”
Zachary felt a painful little contraction in his heart. “How do you know? Maybe my flitting around is just an expression of unfulfilled ambition. Now that I won’t be denied power as much as I was before, it may be that I’ll give up on these compensations.”
Leo was sure this was all just talk on the part of Zachary, but he chose to be prudent and refrain from insisting: after all, if there was one chance in a million that Zachary believed in what he was saying, Léo wouldn’t be the one to disabuse him. “Even if you do change, Zachary, there may be charges that can be dredged up from the past.”
“You’re really paranoid!”
“In other words, Zachary, how well could you stand up to blackmail?”
The way I did ten minutes ago, Zachary thought. Out loud, he said reassuringly, “Well, I’ve managed up until now.”
“The higher you climb, the more of a target you are.”
“The higher the target, the harder it is to reach.”
“I wish I could share your optimism.”
“It’s because you don’t share it, my dear Léo, that they want to give me this position, not you.”
Léo took it on the chin, in a spirit of fair play. The two men had been running side by side in the political race for twenty-five years, often in opposition, sometimes as allies, always keeping an eye on each other. A camaraderie of rivals had developed between them: they loved their country, they were building Europe, they frequented the same people among the powerful and the powerless. Throughout their careers, whenever one of them experienced a failure, he would think about the failures the other man had overcome; when they had a victory, th
ey remembered how fragile it was. Both now in their sixties, different as they were, they felt a sense of brotherhood, the brotherhood of a generation that had navigated the same dangers together.
Léo was conciliatory by nature, whereas Zachary was an attacker. The former excelled in analysis and synthesis, the latter in inventiveness. One managed while the other created. In these chaotic times, men like Léo Adolf weren’t enough: the nation needed more than an administrator, it needed a visionary, an artist, someone positive and optimistic who offered people a future.
“All right, now you’d better go and flatter Costener, Zachary, it’ll oil the wheels.”
“Your wish is my command, Monsignor.”
Zachary resumed his journey from guest to guest, polite, approachable, both casual and regal. Outwardly, he acted with ease, but deep inside him his usual depression was coming on. His conversation with Léo had made the prospect of power concrete, and that was starting to eat away at him. He might have played scenes from a comedy with Dédé from Antwerp and Gomez, but now they were giving him the leading role in a tragedy: the country’s finances. Would he be able to get the necessary measures through? He would have to convince everyone, from cleaning ladies in Hainaut to Flemish parliamentarians. Wasn’t that impossible?
He felt a strong urge for sex. Rose? She wouldn’t leave her guests. He looked for Dédé and found him by the stock of champagne.
“Dédé, do you have any supplies with you?”
“What do you need?”
“The minimum.”
“A blow job?”
“Yes.”
“Sorry, Zachary, I didn’t bring anyone. Have a look around. At this kind of party, there’s no shortage of whores, if you ask me.”
Zachary climbed one step and looked over his guests. Too bad it was only men who waved at him, eager to congratulate the hero of the day.
His migraine was getting worse. At that moment, a waitress scurried past him on her way down to the cellar to fetch more bottles of champagne. She was short, blonde, and placid-looking, the perfect victim, a bird without wings.