The Client

• Pierre Assouline

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The Client is a novel full of unexpected twists, which makes us think about the superficial judgments we can have about the behavior of others, the story of a man possessed whose desire to understand almost brings him to the edge. It can be read in one breath, it opens anew the questions of the anatomy of evil and the power of prejudice, and questions morality during Nazism and the war. While researching the life of a writer, a biographer comes across thousands of letters of denunciation written during the Occupation, the authors of which were in principle exempt from criminal prosecution. One of them refers to his friend, a Jewish furrier whose family was deported to a concentration camp. Who is the author of that letter and what is his motive? The informer's name appears in the files, but not his reasons for the act. The culprit is someone close, very close... Revealing his identity would be rubbing salt in the wound because so many others would just like to forget everything. Also, it would mean uncovering long-buried secrets and opening old wounds. The Client takes place in a Parisian street in the 15th arrondissement, between three shops, a bistro, a church and a bus.

* * *

The 1940s became my second homeland. My adopted homeland, in a way. But I didn't inhabit it, it inhabited me. The occupation penetrated me. I was no longer human, I was a civil war. Sometimes my gaze would linger on a name, a date, a piece of information. Then it would wander off. False alarm. Until the moment when, at the top right of the letter, I automatically read the address from which I jumped and read it again. I let out a „What?“ that must have been loud enough to disturb the peace in the hall, because some of the researchers turned to me, looks full of reproach. I looked up. The large quartz clock showed four hours and eleven minutes. It was at that moment that everything shook.

* * *

My obsession sometimes turned into a hallucination. I was just talking about that, I was looking for the darkest hidden in the shadows in us. I enjoyed the scene that François told me. And I imagined him looking at that woman, so intensely that one look would imprint itself on the other, almost canceling him out. In my head, it wasn't about revenge at all. It doesn't matter if she was punished. I did not have the soul of a police assistant, nor an investigator. And even less the righteous. I heard from all sides: one should forgive, there is a time to repent... But who was I to be able to forgive?

Pierre Assouline

• ISBN: 978-953-369-053-7
• Dimensions: 142x205 mm
• Number of pages: 132
• Cover: paperback
• Year of the edition: 2024
• Original language: French
• Original title: La Cliente
• Translation: Dubravka Celebrini