Forgetfulness by Ward Just Page A

But what's to smuggle on the trail of Big Papa in St. Michel du Valcabrère? Don't you see? It all adds up. And Thomas had replied, That idea is insane, not bothering to enumerate the reasons why because the reasons why were obvious. Bernhard, offended, had said what he always said in defense of coherence, his word for conspiracy.
    Well, it's possible, isn't it?
    Coherence demanded that Florette die for Thomas's sins, the message conveyed from one place to another, the document read upside down on the interior minister's desk, the surreptitious drawing of the valet attending the Saudi banker, the seascape drawn to scale at Antibes, boats in the harbor, one boat in particular. The yachtsman bought the painting and invited Thomas on board for a drink and dinner and he stayed for a week, the vagabond artist-in-residence watching the comings and goings aboard ship. His odd jobs were like that, the small change of snooping, though Bernhard preferred the word "espionage." Look, can you do us a small favor, won't take much time, no danger involved, we'd be grateful ... And there was excitement in it, the technique similar to portraiture, slipping into an alter ego of your own making, a not-quite-authentic doppelgänger, observing closely, enjoying the performance for the most part, assured that the consequences, whatever they might be, were not momentous. Meaning: no one will get hurt. Meaning: you are not responsible. Naturally he was not fully informed but there were advantages to that, too. Meanwhile, there was nothing at all to
be done about Bernhard in his search for coherence. His suggestion was monstrous but that would not keep him from full pursuit because in the world he lived in, anything and everything was possible and if you did not believe that, you were a naif who subscribed to a child's history of the world. Only chaos was inadmissible.
    Thomas stood in the chill of the evening, his hands plunged deep in his pockets. This tiny domain, a smallholding in a remote province, was what was left of his world. In his lifetime he had visited all the continents and had traveled the great oceans and seas, and he knew this place better than any of them, perhaps because there was less to know, perhaps because village life was lived on a subterranean level, life at its most personal. In any case, he had lived longer in St. Michel du Valcabrère than anywhere else in his adult life. His traveling days were ended and he had difficulty remembering how he had managed it, traveling and working, now here, now there, moving from hotels to rented studios; truly a vagabond's life, entertaining as far as it went, a life without strings. Thomas strained his eyes, squinting, and made out the wan glow of the town square. He imagined the café, crowded at this hour, its windows misted over and tearing, the villagers playing cards and the pinball machine, gossiping all the while. Surely they would have words to say about Florette's funeral, her American husband and his American friends alone in the front pew. Monsieur Railles did not move during the service. He sat with his eyes fixed on the plain pine casket yet at the same time did not appear to be engaged; no doubt his mind was elsewhere. When the service ended, his American friends had to nudge him twice. It's over, Thomas, time to go to the cemetery. It was true he had been elsewhere during the formalities, remembering the patients in his father's waiting room in LaBarre and how Bernhard Sindelar seemed to enjoy watching the hands of those who were very ill, not long for the world. Years later one of his father's patients actually did die on the examining table. She had said she was not herself, feeling tired and unusually forgetful. Why, some mornings she could barely get herself out of bed, and when she did she was out of breath. The doctor was scanning an x-ray and when, alarmed at what he saw, he turned to speak to his patient, she was gone. It took
him a minute to understand