Serpentine Page 16

  If ten friends had been asked to predict Marie-Andrée’s response, each would have surely said, “No.” Cautious, suspicious of impulse, Marie-Andrée considered the proposal for several minutes. Then she shook her head in enthusiastic agreement. “Yes,” she whispered. “Oh yes!” For days they voyaged through guidebooks and travel brochures, scanning the Caribbean and imagining tanned bodies and warm nights. But Marie-Andrée was not content. Having agreed to a trip she knew was totally outside her normal boundaries, she suggested to Bernard that the Caribbean was too predictable. If she were going to risk the collective gossip of Lévis, if she were going to spend a substantial sum of money—after the accident she had collected ten thousand dollars in a lawsuit and had hoarded it like a dowry—then she demanded enough memories to last a lifetime.

  Bernard was game. What did she have in mind? Marie-Andrée had been spinning the globe in her head all day. “India,” she answered. “The Taj Mahal. Bangkok.” All those places whose names excite the imagination and which seem forever out of reach. “All right,” agreed Bernard. He, too, was ready for a plunge into strange currents.

  Later, Marie-Andrée would marvel at the blur of the next weeks. In no time at all, the couple made reservations, informed their employers, cautiously told their families, obtained passports, bought hot weather clothing, and never once faltered at the enormity of their adventure.

  “No one really thought we would go through with it,” said Marie-Andrée when the plane left Montreal and began its awesome circle of the world. In her purse was a new Canadian passport, bearing the photograph of a young woman with tumbling, dark shiny hair, bright eyes, and a look of great expectation. She had taken her glasses off for the picture, and on the day that the passport came, she gazed at it proudly and squeezed it to her heart.

  There could be no denial. Marie-Andrée Leclerc was twenty-nine years old, and she was leaving home with a man—and she was finally beautiful.

  Book Three

  CHARLES AND HÉLÈNE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Their odyssey was first noticed, fittingly, on the island of Rhodes, where once Julius Caesar studied oratory, at the easterly edge of Homer’s wine dark sea. Since antiquity, the citizens of Rhodes have endured those who came to plunder, and the arrival of Charles Sobhraj in a semi-stolen sports car with a nauseated and pregnant wife in tow did not find its place in histories that marked the assaults of Cassius, Demetrius, and Philip of Macedonia. But police will long discuss the bizarre events of an early September morning in 1970. For a few hours it seemed that Rhodes had been invaded by a horde of criminals, when, as it would turn out, there was only one.

  The first to complain was the manager of the Plaza Hotel, who appeared at the police station to make complaint against a guest who had disappeared during the night without paying his bill of eight thousand drachmas. While the officer in charge was taking the details, the manager of a car rental agency burst in, furious, to accuse a customer of abandoning a hired car without paying the charges, also several thousand drachmas. The young officer directed the rental agent to wait his turn. Within minutes arrived the director of the casino at Rhodes, agonizing over having accepted a worthless check for five thousand French francs from a customer who had lost heavily at baccarat. He was told to take third place in the complaining line.

  Then, as topper, a dazed Englishman named Converse staggered into police headquarters, both hands holding an aching head, groggy from a long and enforced sleep. He was pale and trembling and with gratitude accepted a glass of thick sweet coffee. His story cleared matters up considerably. The night before, said the Englishman, he had been at the casino of Rhodes and had met an interesting young man with Oriental blood and a stunning French wife. They were by far the most striking couple in the casino. “Yes, yes, that’s him!” interrupted the casino director.

  The policeman held out his hands to shush everyone. The “Oriental-looking man” and his wife, who had hair the color of honey and a shy, clinging manner, were sitting at the bar when Converse struck up a conversation. The man introduced himself as Charles something and he was moaning over a substantial loss at the baccarat table. Converse had been more fortunate at roulette and foolishly bragged of winning. When the casino closed, the Englishman and the couple went to a nearby cafe for a nightcap. Two sips into his drink, Converse felt dizzy. Then his world turned dark.

  When he awoke in his hotel room the next morning—an hour before coming to the police station—Converse discovered he had been robbed of several thousand drachmas, his passport, forty-five British pounds in cash, two hundred British pounds in traveler’s checks, and an Olympic Airways ticket for London. By noon, police had determined that the same man had cheated the hotel, the car rental agency, the casino director, and had slipped a drug into Converse’s nightcap. And the man, it would be charged, was Charles Sobhraj.

  In the room where Charles and his wife had stayed at the Plaza Hotel, police found a curious-looking set of sticks, looking like sawed-off broom handles. Obviously great care had been paid to shaping them, but the investigators were baffled as to their purpose. At that moment the chambermaid entered the room with some pieces of writing paper that she had found in the wastebasket. Each was liberally stamped with official-looking entry and exit visas for Greece. Closer examination revealed that they were forgeries, made from impressions carved into the ends of the sticks. Police theorized that Charles had either purchased the “visa sticks” or else carved them himself, an elaborate undertaking particularly since they were in the Greek language.

  The hotel switchboard records showed that Charles had made long-distance calls in abundance—seven to Saigon, three to Calcutta, and a dozen to Paris. The operator assumed Mr. Sobhraj was an important man, for he spoke in several different languages and always shouted at her to complete his calls more quickly. Digesting all of this, Greek police teletyped all airports and border crossings to be on the alert, but by this moment the objects of their attention were already in Turkey, motoring toward Istanbul.

  It is doubtful that Hélène knew what was going on. A few weeks later, her parents in Paris received a cheery postcard postmarked Rhodes: “Chers Mama and Papa—We are in Greece having a lovely holiday. Charles is working hard on business, meeting people and making contacts. I have been seeing famous places like the site of the Colossus of Rhodes. The baby will be born in November. Probably in Saigon. Everything is fine. We send our love.”

  Later a Greek court sentenced Charles Sobhraj to one year in prison on various charges of fraud and theft. The conviction was in absentia.

  They arrived in Delhi by train, having sold the valiant MG at the Pakistan border to a camel trader for three thousand rupees. The monsoon season was ending and the capital of India sweltered under a blanket of verdant heat. Steam rose from the pavements and in the air was a sweet smell like that of rotting fruit. Now in the seventh month of pregnancy, Hélène was in good health, though frazzled by the exhaustive three-month drive from France. She was also apprehensive, for she had not visited an obstetrician in several weeks, save a hotel doctor in Afghanistan who was summoned in the middle of a frightening night when Hélène experienced what she thought were premature contractions but which turned out to be a gassy stomach.

  Charles promised they would stay in Delhi long enough for the baby to be born before proceeding to Saigon. But at the poste restante—where international travelers traditionally receive mail-several letters were waiting that plunged him into a foul mood. Félix had written, passing on the news of Charles being sentenced in Paris to one year in prison for bad checks. Enclosed was a letter from Charles’ father, the tailor, who threatened to notify authorities if the wandering couple turned up on his doorstep. There was another letter from Hélène’s parents, which told of a disturbing visit from an Interpol investigator, something about a series of crimes in Rhodes. Surely it was a case of mistaken identity, wrote the butcher and his wife. But probably Charles would want to notify Interpol that his name w
as being slandered.

  Gratefully, for she was not privy to the letters, Hélène fell into bed and slept two days and nights while her husband conducted “business” in Delhi. Then, suddenly, he appeared at her bedside, rousing her from a deep sleep, announcing that they must leave immediately for Bombay. Hélène protested feebly, but already she knew that her arguments had less influence on her impulsive husband’s erratic dashes than would be a cry at a storm to stop raging.

  The morning express for Agra bore the couple to the city of the Taj Mahal, where Charles wanted to show Hélène the exquisite tomb built from love. But as they pushed their way through the swarm of guides and beggars who infest the entrance plaza, through the great terra cotta arches into the grounds, and finally to the steps that commence a series of reflecting pools that lead like symmetrically placed jewels to the great monument, Hélène almost swooned from the blistering heat. Her stomach, heavy now, began to pitch. But Charles did not notice his wife’s discomfort, so busy was he rattling on about the history of the Taj and at the same time scrutinizing tourists as carefully as a carnival pitchman measures a customer’s weight and height. Hélène found a bench and sat down, mopping her soaked face with the hem of her skirt. She tried to appreciate the beauty before her eyes, but instead for a berserk moment wondered if she was about to give birth here, in the gardens of the world’s most famous work of art.

  A few days later, at the first light of a new sun on the morning of November 15, 1970, Hélène was delivered of a healthy baby daughter in Bombay’s finest hospital. The new father was theatrically ecstatic, filling his wife’s room with flowers and sobbing at her breast. The child was named Shubra, a Hindi word for “purity,” and she was blessed with dark curly hair, her mother’s eyes, and a hint of the Orient in her caste. On the hospital record, in the blank marked “father’s occupation,” Charles wrote “Businessman.” Which, in a sense, was true. Indeed he did have a new business, one that was ingenious, profitable, and illegal. More than one Indian detective would marvel not only at its audacity but at the enormous amount of work involved to make a dishonest rupee.

  As he was young, only twenty-six, and handsome, and seemingly sophisticated, and from Paris, and having a chic wife, Charles moved easily into Bombay’s international colony. It would become a pattern of his life that he always looked for French people to “befriend” in exotic places, they tending to embrace anyone who speaks the tongue of Voltaire among the savages. In Bombay he found immediate acceptance, even popularity at the Alliance Française. The associate director, Monsieur Mannet, offered the attractive émigré and his wife and baby a guest apartment, at modest rent, until Charles could find something more suitable. For three months, Charles lived as guest of Mannet and coincidentally was admitted to teas, cocktail parties, and official receptions for various dignitaries. Madame Mannet was always pleased to have Charles and Hélène at her soirées, for they added a flavor of cosmopolitan Paris. From daily readings of the important national newspapers of India, and Newsweek, and Time and Le Monde, and the Paris Herald Tribune, Charles’ conversation was au courant. “He could speak to a cabinet minister or a film star or a guru,” observed Madame Mannet. “He was a very fitting guest. And his wife was very attractive and well spoken.”

  Years later, when official attention was turned to analysis of the kaleidoscope that was Charles’ life, a lawyer in New Delhi became familiar with what the dashing Frenchman was really up to as he glided confidently through Bombay’s social waters.

  The lawyer, whose name was Rupinder Singh and who would one day become an important figure in the case of Charles Sobhraj, remembered:

  Charles was brilliant and hard-working. Before he came to India he studied the laws of this country and discovered some flaws. He made use of them. In Bombay, there were many wealthy people who wished to drive expensive or American automobiles. These were scarce and extremely expensive. A Chevrolet could cost $25,000 if obtained legally, and only then after a very long wait and eternal red tape.

  Through his contacts in the diplomatic world, Charles met many film stars and business executives who wanted cars and did not care how they were obtained. Charles would take an order for, say, a Mercedes, and request a $2,000 deposit in some hard currency like Swiss francs. He would then fly to Teheran, purchase a stolen Mercedes that had been driven there from Europe where it was picked off some Paris street. By now, new ownership papers had been created, and Charles became the ‘legal’ owner. He then drove the car across Pakistan, and into India at a place where few questions are asked, particularly if one’s outstretched hand has a few large bills in it. Proceeding to Bombay, Charles would enter the city and go to a garage where he and a mechanic stripped the Mercedes of its radio, air conditioning, spare tire, and most of the vital innards. Then, just barely able to drive it, Charles took the wounded car to a forest outside Bombay where he staged a minor wreck, a fender bash or something like that. He then called police and reported the car stolen. Pretty soon the police would find it, notify Charles, and he would curse and sigh and consign it to an auction dealer to sell as junk. Of course Charles would know the day and moment it was to be auctioned, and he would put in a secret bid in the name of his customer, buy the car for peanuts, put all the equipment back in, repair the fender, transfer the papers, and sell it for $20,000. All perfectly legal. I believe he accomplished this at least five or six times.

  His profits were such that Charles was able to lease a new apartment, on a fashionable street near the best beach with a spectacular view of the Bay of Bombay. For the early months of 1971, to be asked there was an invitation highly coveted.

  While Charles prospered, his wife suffered. The sophisticated people she met at cocktail parties were of no help to her disposition when she was left alone—and Charles was absent more often than not. He refused to tell her where he was going, what he was doing, or when he would return, blaming it all on the press of “business” and assuring Hélène that his labor was meant to enrich her life—and theirs. India assaults the senses of any newcomer, and Hélène was afraid to leave her apartment, even if she could have found a babysitter trustworthy enough to care for Shubra. The young Frenchwoman spoke only Spanish besides her native tongue, neither of much communicative value in a bewildering country where hundreds of dialects are heard and where English, peculiar-sounding English at that, is the “official” language.

  “Oh, Camille,” she wrote to a friend in Paris, “everything here is so confusing. The cleaning woman belongs to some strange caste and wears gauze over her mouth so she won’t accidentally swallow a gnat and kill it. I just point to things I need done. Nobody understands me … My beloved husband travels on business most of the time … Shubra is beautiful and my salvation. If I didn’t have my adorable daughter, I would be very unhappy …”

  New Year’s Eve, 1970, Hélène was alone with the baby in her Bombay apartment, weeping, gazing out at the Indian Ocean, wondering where her husband was this special night. She tried to telephone her parents in Paris, but the operator said it would take at least two days to get through. She was a prisoner of loneliness; waves of self-pity washed over her.

  On this night, Charles was at the casino of Macao, playing baccarat. Over several weeks of gambling, he was successful and in mid-January returned to Bombay with his pockets full of pacifying treasures—a gold necklace and ruby for Hélène, a petite string of pearls for Shubra, barely three months old. He had one more surprise. Apologizing for his erratic behavior since he had imported his wife to India, Charles announced a reward for her patience. They would leave soon for Hong Kong on a royal holiday—a suite at the Mandarin Hotel, a Mercedes limousine to fetch them at the airport, dinner aboard one of the floating restaurants in the harbor of Aberdeen amid the orderly chaos of a thousand junks. He was very close to nailing down a “major deal” in Hong Kong. With some associates, Charles would open a restaurant-boutique-discotheque, and after it was successfully launched, the plan was to duplicate the clubs in a doze
n world capitals from Hong Kong to Paris. They would all be called Chez Charles, and he wanted his wife to supervise the décor.

  But even as the exhilarated Hélène busied herself packing and anticipating two weeks in a lavish hotel suite with her seldom seen husband, Charles vanished again. He simply walked out of the apartment to attend to “business,” promised to return in an hour, and then sent a telegram from Iran. “Urgent business Teheran. Hilton Hotel. Back soon.” In anger Hélène wrote immediately to Teheran, but the letter was returned. Then came a crackling, middle-of-the-night call from Charles, who was in Kabul, Afghanistan, another cable from Istanbul, a call from Karachi. For several weeks, Charles crisscrossed Asia, blowing back and forth like the trade winds. Hélène’s diary, which later would fall into police hands, revealed her desperation:

  February 20, 1971: Waiting for my husband with impatience.

  February 21—I am a bit worried. Where is he?

  February 22. I am more than worried.

  February 23. I am very anxious.

  February 24. God help me and my baby. Where is our Charles? Please send him back to me.

  March 4. Finally news! My beloved is on his return journey.

  March 12. At last he is here! My heart sings!

  March 14. Despair. Gone again. Bombay to Hong Kong. Now we die a little until he returns.

  In April, Charles did take Hélène to Hong Kong on the promised trip. They dumped Shubra in the care of a Frenchwoman in the Bombay diplomatic community, promising they would return from a much-needed holiday in no more than a week. But when three weeks passed, and the parents had not returned, the baby-sitter grew anxious. She wrote, called, and sent telegrams to the Mandarin Hotel in Hong Kong, but there was no response. After six weeks, worried that the young couple had met foul play, she asked the French Consul in Bombay to launch a search. Promptly Charles showed up at her door, all apologies, charming, asking if the sitter could take care of the baby just a few more days. “I refused,” the Frenchwoman told authorities later. “I told Mr. Sobhraj that if he left this poor child with me another day, I would turn her over to the police.” With that, Charles thrust a small cassette tape recorder into the poor woman’s hands as full payment for six weeks of child care, took his baby daughter, and hurried away.