Satori

“Is there an actual Guibert family,” Nicholai asked, “or is this a total fiction?”

“Papa Guibert is quite real,” Haverford answered.

“And does he have a son?”

“He did,” Haverford answered.

He spread out photographs of what certainly could have been a young Nicholai happily playing in a Chinese courtyard, helping the cooks, smiling over a birthday cake. “Sadly, Michel was in a terrible car crash. Disfiguring, I’m told. Requiring massive reconstructive surgery. He looks somewhat like his old self.”

“Did you arrange for this ‘accident’.?” Nicholai asked.

“No,” answered Haverford. “My God, do you think we’re monsters?”

“Mmmmmm… The mother?”

“She died just recently. You were very torn up about it.”

“You amaze and appall me,” Nicholai said.

“You’ve matured quite a bit,” Haverford continued. “You used to have quite the reputation as a gambler and ladies’ man and Papa banished you back to France for the last three years. You blew a shitload of the family’s money at Monaco, repented of your profligate ways, and have returned to redeem yourself.”

“How so?” Nicholai asked.

“You don’t need to know yet,” Haverford answered. “Study the file. Solange will help quiz you on the details. When you’re thoroughly conversant with your new past, I’ll brief you on your new future.”

My “new future,” Nicholai thought. What a uniquely American concept, perfect in its naive optimism. Only the Americans could have a “new” future, as opposed to an “old” one.

“Now we need to take some photos,” Haverford said.

“Why?”

Because they were assembling a file on Guibert, explained Haverford. No one in the arms trade would go very long in this day and age without acquiring a jacket in every major intelligence service in the game. The photos would be placed in CIA, Deuxieme Bureau, and MI-6 files, then leaked to the Chinese through moles. Photos of Michel Guibert would be inserted into old Kuomintang police files that the Reds were currently sifting through. The “wizards in the lab” would make Guibert appear on streets in Kowloon, casinos in Monaco, and the docks of Marseille.

“By the time we’re done,” Haverford chirped, “you’ll believe you’re Michel Guibert and that you sat out the war in Hong Kong. As a matter of fact, from now on you answer to ‘Michel’ and only Michel. Not ‘Nicholai.’ Got it, Michel?”

“As difficult a concept as that might be,” Nicholai answered, “I believe I have a grasp of it, yes.”

Solange came back into the room carrying a stack of clothes that she draped over the back of a chair. “Your new wardrobe, Michel. Tres chic.”

She went back out to get more.

Nicholai examined the clothes, which appeared to be secondhand. Of course they were, he thought. It makes perfect sense – when you step into someone’s life, you step into his clothes, and those clothes would be worn, not new. He examined the labels. Some of the older clothes were from a tailor in Kowloon, but most were French, and mostly from expensive-sounding shops in Marseille. A few of the shirts and two of the suits came from Monaco. All of them were expensive and of lightweight fabrics – silk and cotton. There were several pairs of twill khaki trousers, pleated, of course. It seemed that Michel favored white and khaki suits with colorful shirts and no ties.

And the clothes smelled – of sweat, tobacco, and cologne. You have to give the devil his due, Nicholai thought. Haverford had been nothing if not thorough.

Solange returned with more clothes, stood with the tip of her index finger to her lips and contemplated the wardrobe and Nicholai. “Let me see, what shall you wear for the first shot? It is set in Hong Kong, no?” Her serious concentration on this make-believe was quite charming. She selected a shirt, put it back, chose another, and matched it with a suit. “This, yes? Oui-parfait.”

She handed the selections to Nicholai and ordered him to go change. When he came back from the bedroom dressed as Michel, Haverford had a camera ready. They went out in the garden to get a “blurred, outdoor” background. In what became a painfully tedious afternoon for Nicholai, they repeated this process numerous times, Solange having a wonderful time, however, selecting Michel’s ensembles.

“That was excruciating,” Nicholai said after Haverford finally left.

“It was fun,” Solange answered. “I love fashion, and Michel has a sense, no?”

“You chose all those clothes, didn’t you?”

“Of course,” she said. “You don’t think I’d let them dress you out of fashion, do you?”

After a dinner of supremes de poulet a l’estragon with green beans a la provencale, a dessert of tarte aux poires et a la frangipane, and the requisite espresso, cognac, and cigarette, Nicholai studied the Guibert file. The fiction was impressive in its volume and detail, but Nicholai had no trouble memorizing apparently important trivia such as which tabac Michel favored in Montpellier, his father’s choice in whiskey, or his mother’s maiden name. His mind crammed with such detail, he changed into his gi, went to the garden to perform his kata, bathed, and went to bed.

9

HIS PROXIMITY SENSE woke him.

During his years in prison he developed an almost extrasensory awareness of the presence of another living being, a radarlike perception of the intruder’s exact distance and angle of approach.

Now someone was in the room.

In the space of a second, his mind ran through the possibilities and he selected the vase on the bedside table as the best, most easily reached weapon. Then he smelled the Chanel No. 5 and felt her presence. Enough moonlight came through the shutters to reveal Solange standing in the doorway, her body more revealed than hidden by the filmy black peignoir.

“Three years is a long time to be without a woman,” she said. “Too long, I think, no?”

Her perfume filled his head as she came to the bed and kissed his mouth, his ears, his neck, his chest, and then slid down. He was dizzy with pleasure as she did delicious things with her mouth and long elegant fingers and it wasn’t long before he gasped, “Solange, please stop. I’m afraid I’ll… and I don’t want to… before -”

Solange stopped, laughed gently, and said, “After three years, mon cher, I think you will recover quickly, no?” She resumed her ministrations and soon he felt the unstoppable wave roll through his body, his back arched like the most powerful samurai bow, and she held him tight with her full lips until he sank back onto the bed.

“Tres fort,” she whispered in his ear as she slid up his body.

“Well, after three years…”

She laughed and rested her head on his chest. Her hair felt wonderful on his skin. They rested for a little bit and then he felt himself recovering. “I told you so,” she said as her hand reached down to stroke him. “I want you inside me.”

“Are you…”

“Wet?” She guided his hand for him to feel for himself. “Oh yes, my darling, for weeks now.”

She lowered herself onto him.

Nicholai couldn’t believe her sheer beauty as he watched her rise and fall on him. Her blue eyes shone with excitement, pinpoints of sweat appeared on her long neck, her rich mouth smiled with pleasure. He reached up and caressed her heavy breasts, so different from the delicate Japanese women he had known, and she moaned her approval. Her loveliness, the wet heat of her, wrapped him in pleasure. He took her by the waist and turned her over so that he was on top of her, then pressed his lips into the crook of her neck and thrust into her, steadily and insistently but without hurry.

Vocal in her arousal, she throatily whispered and then shouted the dirtiest of French obscenities as she