Authors: Malcolm Bradbury
But if this was right, that meant the money I was holding in my hand was funny money, not the kind of money I ought to be holding in my hand at all. How much was there, what was it worth? I went
down to the lobby, peered over the dour receptionist, and checked the
Change
board on the wall. Then I went into the terrace café and checked through my wallet again. The stuff I had
in there came to more than forty thousand pounds, a vast amount more than even Ildiko could possibly have drawn on my credit-card accounts, even if just for luck you added in a high rate of
interest. I glanced round, looked at it again. There lay the great wad of notes, paper that was so much more than paper; folded into them was the other note she had left there. Both paper texts
were, I realized, equally hard to interrogate, decipher, deconstruct. Both of them could be read in two quite different ways. Perhaps they were both deeds of love, acts of fondness, expressions of
a generosity far greater than any I had managed to show to her. Or perhaps they were gifts under the table in a rather different sense. Could it be that I was being bought off, welcomed into the
same world that, I now began suspecting, Bazlo Criminale had been living in for years? Was the point that I should really learn how to be Hungarian – keep silent, ask no more questions, take
my winnings, disappear home?
So what could I – a fine upstanding young man, remember – do with this suspect, perhaps poisoned chalice? Sitting there on the same terrace where I had sat with Ildiko just the
evening before, I found it strangely hard to decide. I could of course go to Cosima Bruckner, apparently available either by day or night just along the promenade at the Hotel Movenpick. But that
meant betraying Ildiko Hazy, and that was not something I cared to do. Or I could go along the promenade in the other direction to the Hotel Beau Rivage Palace and hand the money to Bazlo
Criminale, presumably its rightful owner. But was he its rightful owner? If he was, why was Cosima Bruckner investigating his accounts with such zeal? The more I thought things over, the more I saw
I’d been blind in almost every way. While I’d been conducting my small quest for Bazlo Criminale, far more serious and terrible pursuits had been happening, one of them right under my
nose. As the note in my hand said, both Bazlo and Ildiko were far more interesting – their lives far more complex, obscure, and no doubt deceitful – than I had troubled, in my
innocence, to imagine.
*
Later that night I walked along the promenade towards the Beau Rivage Palace, visiting its splendours for the very first time. I went into the bright downstairs brasserie, the place where the
jeunesse dorée
of Lausanne evidently gathered, as you could tell at once from the exotic machinery lined up outside. There they all were, the beautiful young, talking and laughing and
kissing and groping each other with what, by strict Swiss standards, must surely have been the gayest abandon. I ordered a beer, then several more. Well, why not? For once I was not on a very tight
budget, and could freely afford it. I wasn’t, in fact, in the least sure just what I meant to do next. But, after a while and a beer or several, I got up and walked through into the main
lobby of the hotel. White-robed sheikhs passed by; a frock-coated clerk stood dignified behind the vast reception desk. There, posing as exactly what I really was, a visiting British journalist, I
explained that I’d just come a long way to arrange an interview with Doctor Bazlo Criminale, who was, I understood, a guest in the hotel.
The clerk looked at me, said, ‘Un moment, m’sieu,’ and opened a thick register on the desk. Behind him on the wall was a large board, headed ‘Rates of Exchange’; I
looked down it and considered the value of my wallet again. More than forty thousand pounds; for once I was entitled, entirely entitled, to be a client of the Beau Rivage Palace. ‘Doctor and
Madame Criminale, oui?’ said the clerk, looking up. ‘Actually if he’s not there it doesn’t really matter,’ I murmured. ‘No, m’sieu, I am afraid you are
just a little too late,’ said the clerk, ‘They checked out of the penthouse suite this afternoon. It was a little sudden, I understand.’ ‘Really,’ I said, ‘My
editor will be disappointed.’ ‘Quel dommage, m’sieu,’ said the clerk. ‘I don’t suppose you know where they’ve gone?’ I asked, opening my wallet wide.
The clerk glanced inside and said, ‘Well, m’sieu, I believe to India. I think if you go there you will find them somewhere.’ ‘Thank you,’ I said, handing over a note.
‘You are most gentil, m’sieu,’ said the clerk; evidently I had been extraordinarily generous. ‘It’s nothing,’ I said, and walked out of the hotel and across to
the lakeside promenade.
So, I thought, leaning on the rail and looking out over the great black lake, they’d all gone: Ildiko Hazy, the beautiful Miss Belli, and the confusing, the enigmatic Bazlo Criminale. For
a moment I wondered if they could all have gone together, but that made no sense, no sense at all. What I knew was that my trail had died. I might have forty thousand pounds sitting in my wallet,
but I had come to the end of the quest for Bazlo Criminale. I’d asked the wrong questions. I’d found an obscure solution, and it was really no solution at all. The life, the loves, the
friends, the enemies, the plot, the design – none of them had shape or sense. I was stuck, blanked out, gapped, aporia-ed, no idea what to do next. There was one thing I could do: go to
Cosima Bruckner. Perhaps she would explain everything. On the other hand, she’d also doubtless relieve me of my wallet at the same time. Then I remembered the person who, in trouble, I was
always supposed to turn to, the one who’d brought me here in the first place. I went back to the lobby of the Hotel Beau Rivage Palace, found a telephone, and called the Delphic oracle in
Vienna.
This time Lavinia was there in her room. I could hear an operatic tape playing in the background, glasses tinkling somewhere, the sound of German chatter. I began talking; she cut me off.
‘Look, I’m afraid there’s bad news, Francis,’ she said, ‘I tried calling you at Barolo but they deny you even exist.’ ‘Of course they do,’ I said,
‘Barolo was weeks ago, I’m here in Lausanne.’ ‘You’re so damn hard to keep up with,’ said Lavinia, ‘Even when I’m sober.’ ‘All right,
what bad news?’ I asked. ‘I’m sorry, Francis,’ said Lavinia, ‘But it’s all off.’ ‘What’s off?’ I asked. ‘The Criminale
programme,’ said Lavinia, ‘It’s finito, kaput. We’re not doing it any more.’ ‘You don’t mean bloody old Codicil . . .’ I asked. ‘He’s
nothing to do with it,’ said Lavinia, ‘He’s come back to Vienna, by the way, absolutely furious, according to dear old Franz-Josef. Isn’t that right, Franz-Josef
darling?’ I could hear fond chatter at the other end; I interrupted. ‘If it’s not Codicil, who?’ I cried.
‘Eldorado TV, that’s who,’ said Lavinia, ‘They’re cancelling all their arts programming. Apparently they’ve had it up to here with Thinking in the Age of
Glasnost.’ ‘They can’t have, Lavinia,’ I said, ‘This Criminale story is fantastic. It’s got secret police chiefs, obscure Swiss bank accounts, it’s got
everything.’ ‘Nice try, Francis,’ said Lavinia, ‘Sorry, though, it’s just no good. Philosophy’s too far upmarket. The Eldorado franchise is up for renewal, so
they’ve decided to explore the wonders of cheap television.’ ‘What wonders of cheap television?’ I asked. ‘Well, the first wonder would be if anyone was fool enough to
watch it at all,’ said Lavinia, ‘Sorry, darling, but things are changing.’ ‘An era has ended,’ I said. ‘Exactly,’ said Lavinia, ‘So your work is
done. Just get to the nearest airport and buy a ticket back to London. Don’t ask for any more of the recce budget, by the way, there isn’t one. Apparently quite a lot of the production
costs have disappeared down the plughole in Vienna. God knows how, you know how frugal I am.’
‘You mean I’m finished again, I don’t have a job?’ I asked. ‘Well, not if I wrote your contract properly, you don’t,’ said Lavinia. ‘I bet you
did, Lavinia,’ I said. ‘Believe me, I’m as sorry as you are, darling,’ she said, ‘I haven’t seen so much good opera for yonks.’ ‘Thank you very much,
Lavinia,’ I said, putting down the phone. The frock-coated receptionist, watching me, bowed. Yes, it was the end. Lavinia, I knew,
had
written my contract properly; after all, people
signed anything for Lavinia. And there I stood, no job, no income, no future, no prospects, nothing to investigate, nothing truly found out. All I had was a massive credit-card debt at home and a wallet in Lausanne stuffed with funny
money. I had not found a plot, and the world seemed no better: history was in disorder, the universe was going nowhere, and the new era that had started about ten days ago already seemed to be
coming rather suddenly towards its end.
I went back into the brasserie bar, among the beautiful people, sat down and ordered another beer. I felt . . . well, I felt strangely pure, as if I had suddenly grown up, emerged from
something, passed from deep smart youthful wisdom into a perfect adult innocence. I had been deceived, I had been betrayed; but I also had it in my power to betray others. Perhaps I had learned
something, after all, from Bazlo Criminale – that thoughts and deeds never come to us plain, pure and timeless, but are born in conflict and deception, shaped by history, grow from obscurity,
misfortune and evasion. They are slippery and inexact, contradictory and subject to sudden change; they are just like life itself. In fact I never felt closer to Criminale than I did at that
moment. And I began to wonder what, if he were in my circumstances, which were probably just the sort of circumstances he always had been in, he would do next.
As for what I did next . . . well, if you had tried to trace me the next morning (supposing, say, you were writing my life story, a few years from now – but why should you, I am no great
philosophical elephant, only an investigative flea?), then you would have found me in the manager’s office at . . . well, let’s, for purposes of fiscal secrecy, just call it the
Crédit Mauvais of Lausanne. I had entered the bank with a perfectly simple request. However, to my surprise a quiet cashier had taken me behind the counter, ushered me to a hidden
glass-fronted lift, unlocked its door with a key on his chain, and ridden me up to the very top floor of the building, where I sat in a suite with splendid designer furniture and a perfect long
view of the lake. Now Herr Stubli, the manager, was staring at me over his gold-rimmed half-spectacles. ‘A special numbered account?’ he enquired, ‘Then I am afraid I must ask
first if you don’t mind it just a few little questions.’
‘I thought in Swiss banks it was no questions asked,’ I said. ‘We are discreet, of course, but this is no longer quite true exactly,’ said Herr Stubli, ‘I am afraid
in these difficult days when banking is so political a little more is asked even of a Swiss bank. We like to be quite careful. After all we may soon join the Europe Community. This money you
mention, it is all cash?’ ‘Yes, it is,’ I said. ‘And it came by you how?’ asked Herr Stubli. ‘Well, it was just a windfall,’ I said. ‘Bitte?’
asked Stubli, ‘
Eine Windfalle?
’ ‘A windfall is when apples fall off trees,’ I said. ‘Ah, ja, ja,’ said Herr Stubli, ‘It was an agricultural
transaction. Kein problem! But I do need your identity, please. We must have a name, a signature.’ ‘Yes, of course,’ I said, ‘It’s Francis . . . It’s Franz
Kay.’
Herr Stubli stared at me over his spectacles. ‘Ja, I understand,’ he said finally. ‘Very well, I will put you down as Mr K. Willkommen to our excellent services. If you can
make me one little signature here, and here, also here.’ ‘There’ll be no enquiries?’ I asked. ‘No, this is Schweiz, we are always very honest here,’ said Herr
Stubli, ‘Your affairs could not be put into a safer place. Now, the guard will take you below, and you can deposit all these
Windfalle
you like to. And if there is anything else, if
you like perhaps to start a small private company, we have some very useful arrangements of this kind.’ ‘Not just yet, I’m only just starting,’ I said, ‘Thank you very
much, Herr Stubli.’ ‘And thank you also very much, Mr K.,’ said Herr Stubli, shaking my hand, ‘You will please to know you join many excellent and famous
customers.’
Just a little later on that December morning, K. left the bank and walked into the Lausanne street. He looked round. All seemed normal, except that two men washing a window seemed to glance at
him in a peculiar way, and a young man who oddly resembled Hans de Graef was taking photographs further down the street. Carrying his small amount of luggage, K. hurried to the railway station,
where he boarded an express which took him directly to Geneva International Airport. Here he bought some cheese, a new overcoat, and a club-class ticket on the noon flight to London. He was last
seen going through passport control, one of a long line of people, quite evidently no longer looking for Doctor Bazlo Criminale.
In the April of 1991 I found myself, believe it or not (certainly I hardly could), in the Argentine capital of Buenos Aires, no longer looking for Bazlo Criminale in any way
whatever. The visit came at the end of a long row of disorienting and inconsequential events that happened, as it happened, pretty much like this. When I got back to London from Lausanne, life took
a definite turn for the worse. Lavinia, of course,
had
written my contract properly, so effectively that I not only found myself jobless, redundant, superfluous, in excess of requirements,
but also due no money at all from the Criminale Project. The whole affair dissolved into legal bitterness, with very expensive letters from even more expensive solicitors flying this way and that.
To make matters worse, Lavinia had evidently passed on to Ros some scurrilous rumour, probably from Codicil via Gerstenbacker, that my stay at Barolo had not been entirely celibate, which meant
that I never saw Ros or her little town house behind Liverpool Street station ever again.
But these were only a few of my worries. Though my trip seemed to me to have taken years, my flat, in the basement under the basement, had actually been empty only a few weeks. But as home it
proved to be no home at all. Cats were squatting in the bedroom; many of the contents including my Amstrad word processor and CD player, had departed, taken off either by local thieves or good
friends with big pockets who knew exactly where I hid the key. In a few weeks, the whole world had changed; and so had I. Thanks to the Great Thatcherite Economic Miracle, Britain was now enjoying
a deep recession. War fever was growing worse, international shuttle diplomacy was proving useless with Saddam and his moustaches, and conflict seemed certain. Newspapers were folding by the
handful, and jobs in the media were disappearing – unless you were the kind of journo who didn’t mind being targeted by smart bombs while being chased by Baghdad security police, or
living in a fox- or camel-hole in the desert under fire and strict military censorship.