Paris
Invasion Of Privacy - Introduction
He has not been harmed. He has not been touched. None are aware but for one. One in a bathroom, drugs of forcible relaxation coursing through veins, arteries, his heart, which continues to pump regardless of grand illusions of emotion, truth, beauty and love across the world. There shall be no illusions surrounding the man who will awake amidst a gentle, exhausted interrogation: "Monsieur, tu est bien?" Then someone will come in, someone fat, who works in this place, and they shall not seek an understanding, for there shall be a mere upper-middle-class prejudice, even after two deaths, and that fat man, or woman, who works here shall say: "Laissez-le. Il travaille ici, il était fatigué." And that label of "il était fatigué" shall soil, shall become, that man's occupation for the rest of his life. Though the man himself may think there shall be some majestic wisdom, intrinsic knowledge, in his nudity and placing inside a metal container, none shall agree.
His clothes were required, that is all. And his clothes with no unusual fingerprints upon them are in a neat pile next to the metal container.
Now the man stands on an uncomfortably metallic piece of scaffolding. Little exertion was required but for holding his breath as he, the faux soldat, entered and practiced briefly, even during his break. The wardrobe was uncomfortably small, but not overly so.
Tosca herself is absent from this rehearsal. Probably an arrogant Lyons sluttish soprano (of sorts) who could not stand the slightest touch of dust, publicly fearing some sort of lung disease, but more than likely the slightest contact with the rough, foul-mouthed builders carrying out renovations here. Every briefly hateful excuse to stoke a class hatred. The man wonders what "class" a millionaire whose millions are all dirty money falls into.
There are a multitude of pretensions here. First and foremost, there is the pretension that this, an opera, constitutes some sense of reality any more than reality itself does. Theatre is only somewhat better in that it does not set its peddling, melodramatic or excessive slush to music. Secondly, there is the pretension within the play itself. Taking the term of meticulous research to new extremes, he had hunted down scraps of information concerning the opera itself. "Tosca" by Puccini, Puccini himself most famous in popular culture for the overused "Nessun Dorma". He had gathered that in this, the concluding portion of the final act, the eponymous character had been led to believe that her lover was to be executed by firing squad which was armed with unloaded weaponry; in the case of this rehearsal, which lacked its title character among dozens of extras, the firing squad was as miniscule as an individual and, so it may be hoped, exceedingly accurate. As it turns out in the end of the final act, all of the faux soldats (in this case one) have real weapons and have been told to shoot to kill, leading to an obligatory teary conclusion.
And so does the reality play with, overlap on and ultimately destroy the fantasy.
Next there are the pretensions of those performing the play. The one he must kill goes by many names, two among them Philippe Berceuse and Alvaro d'Alvade. An old trick, using another name to throw off the connotations of the true one. But no name can hide the sins of this pitiful well-kept wretch standing and singing in front of the man, even if "sin" is nothing more than a subjective religious label.
But even as a pitiful well-kept wretch he certainly can sing.
But even as a pitiful well-kept wretch of a tenor he certainly did horrific things to the young.
Now the rehearsal is reaching its climax. It has reached its climax dozens of times in the past two hours and he would be a pretentious, eager fool if he were to believe that this one was any different. The men are tired, as is the recording of the voice of Tosca.
Further pretensions are manifest and manifold, connected not directly to the opera. The ambassador watching the play with feigned interest but wishing his boyfriend could have had a more down-to-earth career, like an accountant. But then, in Western popular culture a French accountant is not something we all like to look upon. They always seem to be license-less taxi drivers, police officers, relatives of the dead with little clothing, singers.
Or assassins.
But that motif of never seeing a French accountant… well it was wrong to apply the term "Western" to it, when "American" fits so much better. He can see them down there, tourists the lot of them in practical, tasteless worn clothing. Commencing every introduction with "Yes, we're American" as if to confer some type of status (where in fact it has only no effect or the opposite one) upon themselves, and when asked why, when in Paris, they went not to an opera but to an opera REHEARSAL, they would reply. The man could see them now, reporting having seen Madame Butterfly and nothing else, and using the adjective "beautiful" twenty times in as many words. He could already see them getting bored like spoilt children, becoming restless in their spacious seats. But he supposed a poor understanding of any type of cultural endeavour was not really the sole fault of the American. It was the fault of the tourist above all else. Which, the man supposed, was what he was. He was the father of all tourists in that when he went to a country he went everywhere, whether he was allowed to or not. In Columbia he had travelled to a heavily restricted drug lab, in St. Petersburg to an underground military base. He was the father of all tourists and yet he was not, as for him globetrotting was part of his profession.
Now the true climax, the true tired, bored climax of this particular rehearsal had arrived. He supposed if it had been a case of this being the last rehearsal for the night so that the performers might put all of their effort into it, it might have leant the death of d'Alvade some dignity. But no, at the conclusion of the rehearsal only a few minutes before this one, d'Alvade, affirming to the man his violent penchant for perfectionism, had screamed: "Il était TRÉS mal! MERDE! Tu était terrifiant! Unique feuilles jusqu'à ce qu'il soit parfait!" So now he alone would perhaps be the only one to make any sort of particular effort in this iteration of the final act. Except he would not: he was already utterly aware of his own lack of potential for improvement. For how can one improve upon perfection?
He deserved to die for a multitude of reasons, but his tremendous arrogance that would stick within the man's mind; until he arrived at his flat.
The faux soldat raised his gun and -
The gun was real.
-pulled the trigger.
There comes the tragicomic moment when everyone is impressed by the incredible realism of d'Alvade's fall to the ground, how his eyes widen in shock and terror before coming to a close, how even a spray of red liquid they had not noticed before emerges from the "wound".
The faux soldat had not noticed it before either.
At this point all the faux soldats would abandon the stage and Tosca would sneak on, telling d'Alvade to stop playing around and wake up, that the man who had ordered his staged execution was now dead by her hand.
Tosca was not here. Only the faux soldat to shake d'Alvade's shoulder, to tell him to wake up, wake up, to put his finger to the spray of red still dribbling out of a very real wound, a wound that he himself had caused, to dab at the puddle of red on the stage, to check the pulse, wrist and neck. To scream out to the audience "Il est mort!"
Screams fill the house.
The ambassador raises his opera glasses to his eyes, unbelieving. He stands and looks again, looking more closely. He drops the glasses and they fall. Down, down to the floor, the tastelessly bland red carpet, barely making an impression upon it. It, too, will be replaced during this renovation.
The ambassador flees out of his small box which, in all truth, does not really give one a better view of the stage, merely enhances the self-gratifying opinion that one is excluded from the masses. Of course not by one's wealth but by one's STATUS.
He runs, faster than a man of that girth ever could under any but these circumstances. The man observing all this on the scaffolding, the cause of it all but essentially detached from it, is aware down to the millisecond of the reaction speed of the device he is about to send a message to at this distance. He has already estimated, reconsidered and estimated again.
Seventh row from the front… sixth row from the front… fifth row from the front… FOURTH
A contraction of thumb muscles and the switch is depressed. That is all.
And a loud sound, louder even than the gunshot onstage and the subsequent screams of terror at the sudden, unexpected violence, is heard by none but the man on the scaffolding. The cause of it, but essentially detached from it.
No one fails to notice the huge, monstrously large chandelier ripping wire, concrete and everything from this building, crashing down, down to the floor. A plaster, glass and crystal leviathan of lethal standards.
Lethal it proves. According to eyewitness reports, notoriously unreliable as they may be, when the chandelier struck the ambassador it struck him headfirst. Some claimed that it seemed that his entire head seemed to just sink into his shoulders, others that it shattered in a shower of blood. The latter was definitely untrue as the corpse was intact; the important point was simply that it was a corpse.
An explosion causing something to fall down and down until the end, ripping bits and pieces of others with it. This was the career of Alvaro d'Alvade, promising as it was, high above the world, ready to succeed and succeed again, never to fail and also to be an example for others who might choose to sing for their supper. Then the explosion; cruel love of men, cruel love of those younger. And the falling, the falling down and down, with him bringing pieces of his family and friends. Hitting the ground, the end was immediate.
Climbing the scaffolding, picking up a red toolbox along the way inside the dome, or what remained after the inner dome had been devastated by the bomb's destructive work. Down the metal stairs, through the corridor, back through the green, tall rooms, now somewhat emptier after all had surrounded the two bodies.
Into a bathroom. Drop the toolbox, briefly wash face. Into a cubicle, remove jumpsuit. Trousers, shirt, tie, jacket, gloves. Straighten up, obligatory twiddle of the tie, red with pale stripes.
Gone. A brief confident smile at what one might call a job well done. Though confident, well, it is not quite the correct term. Satisfied, true. Anticipating the hundreds of thousands of American dollars he will receive briefly, true. Aware of his own talent and capabilities, true. Certain of the safety surrounding him, true.
He never heard it, the sly click as the gun was cocked, even within the surprisingly deserted Parisian street.
The sound of the gun as it fired was only exaggerated in his mind afterwards, after the symbolism of it was deeply, horribly impressed upon him. The gendarme fired just at the end of the street on which the opera house, where two men lay dead, was built. He ran. Only moments before he had thought that the sound of the German pistol as it fired, louder than any imitation firearm had a right to be, was deliciously loud and crisp. Upon hearing the sharp explosion of the gendarme's pistol he thought it was little more than a cough. Then he felt a fiery pain in his belly, the sharp lead bullet the epicentre of an earthquake of blood, staggering, shaking, vibrating out of his skin like a full glass of wine next to a huge speaker blasting out the sound of that gunshot, over and over again. The significance of that gunshot, among all the hundreds he had heard in his lifetime, made the sound seem so much louder in his memory. The gunshot firing the only bullet that had ever struck him.
When the pain became slightly less unbearable, he thought about it, staggering towards room 306. "He knew me. Actually recognized me. He looked me in the eyes and he expected me. As if... no, it's impossible." At long last, after dozens of staggering, cautious steps and false alarms where he thought the wound would tear further and the blood that had already escaped would be miniscule by comparison, he reached the door and collapsed on the floor of his room.
In a neverworld between reality and delirious loss of mind, he calmly placed the end of a piece of hard silver against a half-dead head, one very much like his own.
And fired.