Did he read it first? Yes. Can he tell them what it’s about? Sort of. What’s it about? Silence.
Barthes asked him to learn the document by heart and destroy it immediately. Apparently, the semiologist believed that the southern accent was a mnemonic technique that facilitated memorization. Hamed did it because even if Roland was old and ugly with his paunch and his double chin, deep down he liked him, this old man who talked about his mother like a heartbroken kid, and anyway he was flattered that this famous professor should entrust him with a mission that didn’t, for a change, involve the insertion of a penis into his mouth, and also because Barthes had promised him three thousand francs.
Bayard asks: “Could you recite the text to us?” Silence. Simon has stopped his construction of a paper-clip necklace. Beyond the door, the clatter of typewriters continues.
Bayard offers the gigolo a cigarette, which he accepts with his gigolo’s reflex, even though he doesn’t like dark tobacco.
Hamed smokes the cigarette and remains silent.
Bayard repeats that he is clearly in possession of an important piece of information that has caused the deaths of at least three people and that until this information is made public his life is in danger. Hamed objects that, on the contrary, as long as his brain is the sole repository of this information, he cannot be killed. His secret is his life insurance policy. Bayard shows him the photographs of the dealer who was tortured in the toilets of the Adamantium. Hamed stares at them for a long time. Then he tips backwards on his seat and begins to recite: “Happy who like Ulysses has explored Or he who sought afar the golden fleece…” Bayard shoots a questioning look at Simon, who explains that it is a poem by Du Bellay: “When shall I hail again my village spires The blue smoke rising from that village see…” Hamed says he learned the poem at school and he still remembers it. He seems quite proud of his memory. Bayard makes it clear to Hamed that he can hold him in custody for twenty-four hours. Hamed tells him to go ahead and do it. Bayard lights another Gitane with the butt of the last one and mentally adjusts his tactics. Hamed cannot go back home. Does he have a safe place to stay? Yes, Hamed can sleep at his friend Slimane’s place, in Barbès. He should go there and lie low for a while, not go out to his usual haunts, not open the door to any strangers, be careful when he does go out, turn around frequently in the street … he should hide, basically. Bayard asks Simon to accompany Hamed in the car. His intuition tells him that the gigolo will confide more easily in a young non-cop than in an old cop, and anyway, unlike all those cops in novels and films, he has other cases on the go; he can’t devote 100 percent of his time to this one, even if Giscard has made it a priority, and even if Bayard voted for him.
He gives the necessary orders for them to be provided with a vehicle. Before he lets them leave, he asks Hamed if the name Sophia means anything to him, but Hamed says he doesn’t know any Sophias. A uniformed bureaucrat with one finger missing takes them to the garage and issues the keys to an unmarked R16. Simon signs a form, Hamed gets in the passenger seat, and they leave the Quai des Orfèvres in the direction of Chatelet. Behind them, the black DS, which had been waiting patiently, double-parked by the side of the road, without any of the policemen on guard duty taking the slightest notice, sets off. At the crossroads, Hamed says to Simon (in his southern accent): “Oh! A Fuego, con!” It is blue.
Simon crosses the ?le de la Cité, passes the law courts, and reaches Chatelet. He asks Hamed why he came to Paris. Hamed explains that Marseille is a tough place for queers; Paris is better, even if it’s no panacea (Simon notes the gigolo’s use of the word panacea): queers are treated better here, because in the provinces, being queer is worse than being Arab. And besides, in Paris, there are loads of queers with loads of money, and there’s more fun to be had. Simon drives through a yellow light at the Rue de Rivoli crossing and the black DS behind him runs the red to remain in close pursuit. The blue Fuego, though, stops. Simon explains to Hamed that he teaches Barthes at university and says carefully: “What’s it about, that document?” Hamed asks for a cigarette and says: “To be honest, I don’t know.”
Simon wonders if Hamed is stringing them along, but Hamed tells him that he learned the text by heart without seeking to understand it. His instructions were that if anything ever happened to Barthes, Hamed had to go somewhere to recite the text to one particular person, and no one else. Simon asks him why he hasn’t done this. Hamed asks what makes him think he hasn’t. Simon says he doesn’t believe Hamed would have gone to the police if he had. Hamed admits that he hasn’t done it, because the place is too far away: the person doesn’t live in France, and he didn’t have enough money. He chose to spend the three thousand francs Barthes gave him on other things.
In his rearview mirror Simon notices that the black DS is still behind them. At Strasbourg-Saint-Denis, he runs a red light and the DS does the same thing. He slows down, it slows down. He double-parks, just to be sure. The DS stops behind him. He feels his heart begin to pound a little. He asks Hamed what he wants to do later, when he has enough money, if that ever happens. Hamed doesn’t understand why Simon has stopped the car, to begin with, but he doesn’t ask questions and tells him that he’d like to buy a boat and organize trips for tourists, because he loves the sea, because he used to go fishing in little coves with his father when he was young (but that was before his father threw him out). Simon starts up suddenly, making his tires screech, and in his rearview mirror he sees the large black Citro?n’s hydraulic suspension lifting it up from the tarmac. Hamed turns around and catches sight of the DS and then he remembers the car parked below his apartment, and below the party in Bastille, and he realizes that it has been following him for weeks and that they could have killed him ten times by now, but that that doesn’t mean they won’t kill him the eleventh time, so he grabs hold of the handle above the passenger-side window and says simply: “Take a right.”
Simon turns without thinking and finds himself in a little side street parallel to Boulevard Magenta, and what scares him most now is that the car behind him is not even attempting to conceal its presence. And so, as it moves closer again, guided by a vague inspiration, he slams on the brakes and the DS crashes into the back of the R16.
For a few seconds, the two cars are immobile, one behind the other, as if they had lost consciousness, and the passersby, too, seem petrified, stunned by the accident. Then he sees an arm emerge from the DS and a shiny metallic object and he thinks: that’s a gun. So he shoves the car into gear, missing first, which produces a horrible crunching noise, and the R16 leaps forward. The arm disappears and the DS also takes off.