BOND Is the Name

From a Languish to a Damn

2006-12-21T23:15:00.000-05:00

After languishing in a torpid state through the early part of the summer, the latter half had perked up for me with the arrival of Moneypenny in August. Her visit here in Eze with her husband, Jacques, had been long in the planning, so much so that I had come to believe that it would never materialize. Much depended on the health of Jacques, of course, who has been in a more fragile condition intermittently since May. Over the years Penny and I had often discussed her visiting here, but it was always a topic mentioned lightly or in passing. Finally, when it was decided that she would be making the trip down for a five-day stay, I was absolutely delighted. I immediately offered her one of the spare rooms in my home, assuring her of the spaciousness, comfort and privacy she and Jacques would find with it. But she politely declined, preferring instead to stay at Les Terraces d’Eze. I was quick not to push it with her, but restated my offer of the room should she wish it.

There was much to show her and Jacques and we made the best of it. I met them at the Nice airport and drove them in the Bentley to their hotel to help them settle in and familiarize themselves with their surroundings. The scenic overview of the Mediterranean Sea from their room achieved its desired wondrous effect on Penny and Jacques. I made certain of that by speaking with Charles at the front office beforehand to ensure the room they would receive would have the finest spectacle of a view. Of course, there was no need to mention to Penny and Jacques that I had done so.

Over the course of their stay we explored the Cote d’Azur between Marseilles and Monaco. It was at the casino in Monte Carlo that Jacques managed to reap some winnings at the blackjack table, showing no sign of having lost his touch at his favourite card game. In fact, his winnings, which he had wisely walked away with rather than risk losing any or all of it on one more play, actually paid for their holiday expenses, with a few thousand pounds to spare. I had refrained from joining in the game myself, not wishing to jinx Jacques’ luck.

As leisurely as we were in our movements about the coast, Jacques still easily tired every now and then. He would look wan for a time and needed to rest for some hours before his color and energy would be restored. It concerned me that perhaps he might not have the strength to last out the intended five days, that Moneypenny might suddenly have to cut short the visit to return to England with him. But he held up admirably, and I suspect he did so for Penny’s sake. It made me envy the obvious love they still had for each other.

The end of their stay came much too quickly and before I knew it, I was driving them back to the airport in the Bentley. Penny rang me up once she arrived home to assure me that their return flight went safely and all was well. She thanked me for being a gracious host, and a patient one with regards to Jacques during his more frail moments. Her gratitude was unnecessary, as being with Moneypenny alone rekindled for me, as always, good memories of a past time.

When September arrived, once again so did Vivienne as my occasional boarder. The arrangement between us has proven to work very well, that of my allowing her to stay in a private room in my home once or twice a month, generally on weekends, in exchange for light housekeeping and gardening duties. She was back to resume her studies at the Université Aix-Marseilles, from which she commuted here by train, after another summer spent touring Italy with her best friend Emilia.

It was refreshing to have her reappear in my life. On her first weekend back, the weather had not been at all favourable, but the sunless day proved to be an ideal one for Vivienne and I to simply relax and entertain each other with stories, most of which were her own. One of her latest stories concerned a young man whom she had met last June while cavorting through the Italian countryside with Emilia. She seemed to be quite enamoured of him and I was amused by her recounting of her meeting with Dario, and also very much pleased for her joy. She spoke of him with such a thrill and passion that are reserved only for the young. She asked if I would like to meet him one day. I simply replied, “One day.” He has since visited her at the university twice, but he has yet to be introduced to me. I can only imagine that Vivienne wishes to make certain that he is worthy of just such an introduction. I have gleaned through our numerous conversations that she perhaps views me as a father figure without her outrightly ever telling me so, and I sense a respectfulness from her in that vein. The absence of her real father in her life, who had abandoned her at the age of four and her mother, explains some of that. I suppose I should feel a certain honour and privilege to be thought of in such a surrogate manner.

In mid-October, I was surprised to have received an unexpected call from Sean. He rang me up from Italy, where he was staying for a week to be the guest of honor for the first Rome Cinema Film Festival. He was to be awarded the Golden Marco Aurelio Prize in recognition of his lifetime work in film. He proposed that we meet over drinks and have ourselves a round of golf after he ended his participation with the festival. He suggested the Mandelieu and asked for Rene to join us. I was more than happy to agree to that. Aside through his films “The Rock” and “Entrapment,” I hadn’t seen Sean in over a decade, although we have exchanged the odd brief correspondence every couple of years.

When at the Nice airport I greeted Sean and his wife, Micheline, a tiny woman when next to him, he had already arranged an overnight stay for us in rooms at the West End, the century-and-a-half-old belle epoque hotel located nearby the old city. We spent a good deal of time in the terrace restaurant overlooking the Promenade des Anglais alongside Le Blue Beach, of the Baie des Anges stretch of beaches, amusing ourselves by updating our lives and relating a variety of other less-than-sordid tales of the last decade. Then before retiring early for the night, I confirmed with Rene by phone his arrival at the golf club the next day. He stated his every intention to be there promptly at 9 a.m. Sean appeared to eagerly anticipate the first tee in the morning.

It was a half-hour drive with Sean and Micheline in the Bentley to the Mandelieu Golf Course, being nearby Cannes. Its flat terrain runs parallel to the coast, between the Mediterranean Sea and the foothills of the Esterel range. The eighteen holes encircle four lakes in a splendid green of umbrella pines and mimosa. A quaint feature is the small ferry one takes on both the outward and return trip to cross the River Siagne which flows through the middle of the course. Sean, Rene and I each are fond of the course for its technical challenges, as the majority of the tee-shots require draw or fade. Precise flight control and exact club selection are crucial to get into the right position to line up the birdies that are often only dreamt of.

Being the skilled player that he is, Sean won the game handily, and then we relaxed afterward in the Norman club house for our drinks and chat. Micheline had elected to go shopping with an old friend who lives in Cannes, recognizing that ‘the boys’ needed their time together. Sean and I joked with Rene that he was soon to become a household name through his inclusion in the new film, “Casino Royale”. He had finally joined the ranks of the 007 film fraternity. “I never thought I would live to see the day,” was Rene’s reaction to that, adding, “And I am not at all adverse to who it is that plays me, either. I have enjoyed Giannini’s work over the years. I very much would like to see the film when it is released.” Sean asked what I had thought of the new actor to play me. I admitted to some healthy skepticism on the basis of his photos, not actually having seen any of his prior film work, but Sean assured me that I would find this Daniel Craig chap a revelation by all of what he has seen of him. “Excuse my bias,” I told Sean, “but it’s impossible for me to see myself in anyone else other than you. To this day I still marvel at how in just the first film alone you uncannily captured much of the essence of my persona and nuances at the time.” He acknowledged the compliment with his infamous smile, one defined by a perceptible slyness with a tinge of a sneer. So Bond-like.

In mid-afternoon Micheline rejoined us at the club house after parting company with her friend. Her purchases typically were new outfits, but also included charcoal sticks and a large sketch book. Being an artist, generally in the realist school, she insisted on some spontaneous quick renderings of Sean, I and Rene together and individually. We submitted to her wish and were not at all disappointed by her creations, which she happily gave Rene and I as gifts.

Following an entertainingly talkative dinner at the restaurant Pierrot 1er in the centre-ville of Cannes at the Old Harbour, our reunion then began to dissolve as the evening descended. Rene left for home and I drove Sean and Micheline back to the Nice airport for their return flight to their abode in the Bahamas. The time spent with them all was much enjoyed, and again much too fleeting.

Over the last decade it appears to have become a tradition to release a new 007 film on or about my birthday. “Casino Royale” continued the tradition as I marked my 82nd year. As timing would have it, Barbara at EON ensured that I received a personal copy of the film as yet another commemoration of my increasing maturation, delivered to me by special courier. I decided I would save viewing it for a later and more appropriate occasion.

For some reason I find it interesting that as I now enter my eighty-third year I am more at peace with my age. Throughout my seventies, and even as recently as eight months ago, I often had felt most unsettled and uncertain about what limited time was left me or, worse, about dreading succumbing to some miserable bed-ridden state for a good remainder of my life, if not for the rest of it. But it is only lately that I have embraced my eighties with an appreciation for however many additional days, weeks, months and perhaps even years I will still be generously allotted. It is quite remarkable, and never ceases to amaze me, that I still am in overall reasonably good health and that my mental faculties continue to be alert, and for that alone I should be most grateful. Actually, I have not felt this optimistic about myself in quite some time.

Some sad news fell on the 20th of November. Kevin McClory had passed on at the age of 80. I met him during the filming of “Thunderball” and “Never Say Never Again,” both of which he produced. They were the only two instances when our paths had crossed. He was a genial enough gentleman with me but we had never established a real rapport. And then I had learned on the 26th that a London court had posthumously awarded him an additional credit on all subsequent reprints of the “Thunderball” novel in addition to a retention of the film rights. Something for which he had repeatedly fought for half his life had finally been accorded him in less than a week after his death. Could the irony be any crueler? It appears the surviving members of his family would now be entrusted with those rights matters. I sent them my condolences through a sympathy card and a floral arrangement.

Last weekend I invited Rene, Madame Fournier and her husband Michel for the delayed private screening of “Casino Royale”. It was preceded by a delicious light dinner, prepared by La Madame herself, of salmon and spinach terrine with a special rice of bacon bits, sage and parmesan cheese. I must say, besides having our palates well satisfied, we also were certainly most impressed by the film. However, as admirable a job Craig may have done, I’m still afraid his portrayal of me was a mite too ... blunt, shall I say? Fine for the cinema, but unlike Sean, he didn’t entirely make his portrayal of me a personally relatable one. Just the same, a pleasing escape that met with universal approval among us all. A wonderful evening spent.

But then more grim news arrived yesterday. Moneypenny rang me up to tell me that Jacques did not survive his latest operation. It felt crushing to feel her loss and grief. I was embarrassed by my speechlessness in trying to console her, knowing full well that no words I could choose would begin to heal her pain at this time. I told her that I would fly to London Friday afternoon for the funeral on Saturday, and to be there for her.

Damn.

Disrepair and Despair

2006-04-03T04:06:00.000-04:00

After failing to reach me by phone numerous times, Vivienne had rung Madame Fournier expressing concern about me. Madame Fournier then came around the house only to find me lying on the living room floor in one of my drunken stupors. I suppose I appeared to her to have been in a state akin to a near coma, but I was more severely dehydrated from my excessive intake of Scotch over that entire weekend than in any dire predicament of near demise. She immediately took the necessary steps to pull me back into reasonable consciousness and alerted Rene Mathis of my condition. Rene arrived a few hours later and believed the best remedy for me would be a week’s stay in Paris under his watchful eye. I have since apologized to the ever-gracious Madame Fournier for having alarmed her so and put her through the trouble of reviving me.

Apparently, I had fallen into some disrepair and despair. Every once in a while I feel that something becomes somewhat amiss. Perhaps it is the fact that I am alone too much. At my age, maybe that’s not a good thing to be. Rene was right in convincing me that I needed to get away from myself. And so we made a leisurely drive of it in his Citroen to Paris, stopping for an overnight stay at a delightful bed and breakfast at La Villa Catalpa, fifteen minutes from Lyon. Rene had been there before but I had not and I found it an utterly peaceful locale, being set in a park with century-old trees and against the backdrop of Les Monts du Lyonnais. A swimming pool, tennis court and separate garden sitting-out area added to the relaxed nature and idyllic atmosphere of the small “hotel de charme” and its environs. Being in Rene’s company and having him expose me to this scenic countryside nearby the Beaujolais vineyards slowly helped me crawl out from under the weight of my ennui and malaise.

The next day we resumed our drive, taking the A6 directly to Paris. As timing would have it, Rene’s son, Francois, was in America for a few days on business and so his home in the Marais district was available. I have always enjoyed the lively area, home to renowned museums, including the Picasso Museum housed in the Hotel Salé, and art galleries, and nearby excellent restaurants and bars, along with an array of fashion boutiques. It has now become a favorite among the Gay set. Overlaid across the 3ieme and 4ieme arrondissements of Paris, the Marais (or "swamp", on which the area had been built) is characterized by its marvellously restored 17th century homes and mansions once owned by the nobility, and which only those wealthy enough can still afford to own.

As timing would also have it, we arrived in Paris during the protests against the proposed new French labour law aimed at young workers. So in my attempt to find some rest, it seems I had encountered sights of unrest. There are times when I fail to understand the logic of the French. Nearly a quarter of the youth are unemployed and still the government finds a need to enact a law that gives employers carte blanche in the firing of them without any reason. It is an excelled form of madness, especially in view of the earlier riots by young Muslims borne of an entirely different circumstance but still nevertheless rooted in the even higher unemployment rate among that youth. Sometimes I truly wonder why I continue to live in France. But then, Eze in the Cote d’Azur feels far removed from the mainstream of French life as to be an entirely different, and saner, country.

After the week in Paris had passed, with our last couple of days having been additionally entertained by Francois following his return, I found myself buoyed by much better spirits. When we finally left the city, Rene and I returned to La Villa Catalpa for a second overnight stay as I wanted to again embrace its calming surroundings. We then continued onward the next day on the A7, then A8 back to my home. Tired from the trip, Rene spent Saturday night as my guest and left mid-afternoon Sunday for his own home in Grasse. His stay ensured that I refrained from tempting myself into another self-destructive round of Scotch dowsing. As it was, I didn’t feel much for it anyway.

But I do now wonder how – alone once again – I will tackle tomorrow.

The Spy Who Would Be Me

2006-01-09T19:06:00.000-05:00

007 minus 1.

It is a week now since the holidays have passed. It was my turn for this new year to ring up Moneypenny and wish her well. I was happy to hear that she continues to remain in top form, as everyone else in her family. Actually, I had already spoken to her a month earlier.

“So I suppose you’re wondering why I’m calling you again only a few weeks later,” she said bouyantly. A few weeks after she had called to wish me well on my birthday back in November.

“Yes, Penny. Not that I mind, mind you.”

“Monsieur would like to know if you’d welcome a guest who’d very much like to meet with you.”

Monsieur is the code name used by M when he wants to establish contact with any retired double-0 agent from the Service. Madame is used by female M’s. The various M’s since my departure have been keenly aware that if they were going to be doing any contacting with me, doing so through someone as familiar to me as Moneypenny was my preferred route.

“Who would want to meet with me? And why?” I asked, clearly baffled.

“He’s a namesake of yours.” Namesake is also code for a double-0 agent. “Apparently he’s a rising star and owes much of that to you. Monsieur believes you really should meet him. At your convenience, of course.”

“Is anything special expected of me for this?”

“Only your affable nature.”

That elicited a grunt of a chuckle from me. I could always count on dear Penny for one of those.

“If Monsieur feels it would do us both good, then by all means,” I said. “How about if I ring you in a day or two to set a date. Unless there already is a specific date in mind.”

“None was mentioned. I’ll double-check, however, but I imagine it’s being left up to you to decide for when. Your interested visitor appears to have a fairly flexible month-long schedule ahead.”

The agreed-upon date was set for the evening of the 5th of January, on the Thursday past. I was curious to meet this namesake, wondering what exactly to make of this requested encounter. It was decided that the initial meeting would take place at Le Louis XV restaurant in the Hotel de Paris, where he planned to stay, at the Place du Casino in Monte Carlo. An excellent choice on his part, one that already assured me that I may just enjoy his company for his apparent discriminating taste alone.

I was pleased that he didn’t keep me waiting for too long. While I had arrived a few minutes early, he was only a few minutes late. This got things off to a good start as far as I was concerned.

“Mr. Bond,” he said with a brash smile, seeming to recognize me as if we were old friends.

So this was Derek Manning, I thought. He was a good-looking enough chap in a solidly masculine way. His physique was a sleek and fit six feet, his longish dark brown hair was combed back into subtle waves along the sides, his eyes were wide-set and an intense brown, and his fortyish face was lean, angular, and distinguished by a few finely etched lines across his forehead as well as short streaks at the corners of his eyes. In fact, he looked very much like the photo of him that I had received.

“Manning, is it?” I said, rising from my chair to greet him.

“Yes. Delighted to have finally met you. But do feel free to call me Derek.”

We shook hands in firm gentlemanly fashion and settled into our seats.

“You won’t mind if I warm up to you first before you can call me James?” I joked.

He laughed. “Of course not.”

After getting our meal orders out of the way, we began with our chat. I learned that he had joined the Service nineteen years ago. He had always had an interest in doing so since his exposure during his youth to the Bond films. Damned Bond films corrupting youth like that. Nevertheless, he started at the top of his class and stayed there throughout his training, then rose up the ranks rather quickly once fully in the Service. By age 25 he had undertaken several missions, both solo and in teams, in direct and indirect matters involving the Kuwait-Iraq situation prior to the first Gulf War. Tracking down notorious assassins, drug lords, arms dealers and double agents, along with the usual assortment of nefarious megalomaniacal figures bent on outright disruption of the status quo around the world, followed over the next fifteen years. His record has proven to be exemplary as each of his missions ended in success. Even I must admit how impressed I was by how much he had accomplished.

But his dealing with a particular nasty piece of vermin named Gregor Kiroff dominated the conversation over our dinner. This was a man of vague background and with loose ties to General Ratko Mladic, among others of his unseemly ilk, during the Croatia war in the early ‘90s. Upon learning that there was a British connection to certain suspicious activities involving Mladic, M sent Manning to dig into the matter. Manning tracked down Kiroff to Montenegro, but he didn’t expect to fall for one of his three girlfriends at the same time.

“It was simply overhelming,” he explained. “The moment I laid my eyes on her ... well, there is no other way to describe it than it was as if we were there to pick up from where we had left off in a previous life. You may think it foolish, but that’s precisely how it felt. The intensity of it seized me in such a way as to literally weaken me at the knees. Needless to mention, I knew this was going to complicate my mission to get Kiroff.”

“Yes, women can have that debilitating effect on one when a job needs to get done.”

“I debated with myself about whether I should continue with the mission or not, but I concluded that M would show me no mercy over whatever juvenile infatuation I had contracted. He would fully expect me to stay the course and, yes, get the job bloody well done, female interest or no female interest.”

“You got that right. Otherwise I imagine he would’ve banished you from the Service or thrown you into a cell for life.”

Manning laughed.

“Yes, I don’t doubt it. Anyway, it was an excruciating month to say the least as I walked the fine line of trying to lure Kiroff into my trap without letting him know that I was engaging in extracurricular activities with his little Sonya. But then there was a slip-up and he got wind of something going on between her and I. I thought this would end badly, but as luck would have it, Kiroff found Sonya to be the least to his liking of the three women that always accompanied him. Apparently, as he privately disclosed to me, she wasn’t willing to engage in some of the baser acts of satisfying his sick sexual appetite. But he kept her on for show because she made him look good whenever he wanted to impress important company.”

“This can only mean that Kiroff himself was hardly an ideal catch.”

“Yes, far from it. Average height but with a portly figure, pock-marked face, cleft-lipped, balding at the top front of his head, hairs freely growing out of his nose and ears with no shame about it, sweats a lot, your typical unkempt East European who makes vain attempts at dressing well but never looks comfortable in the expensive suits. If it weren’t for the money he amassed through his shady ventures as a middle man for suspect generals and politicians in the world’s strife-torn regions he might’ve found himself, and rather comfortably too, as a happy drunk hell-bent on drowning himself to death in cheap booze.”

“My favourite adversary, I might add.”

“Well, as it turned out, Sonya became a bargaining chip for me. I was to sell him some fake time-sensitive top secret documents. I played it close to their supposed expiry date of information relevance to put the pressure on him. He was still hesitant about the asking price, though, so that’s when I suggested reducing it by 20% in exchange for Sonya. With little time left for him to think it over much, the idea of saving half-a-million readily appealed to him, and so the fake secrets, the money and the girl changed hands the next day. The problem was that Sonya was in on it, she was still on his payroll. Kiroff was slyer than I expected. After we landed in Paris, she summoned one of Kiroff’s goons there to do a number on me to give back the money and return both it and the girl to Kiroff, with me left behind dead. It was a tough fight with this man, he was large and quite adept at choke holds, but I managed to get the best of him. As I was locked in one of those holds of his, which had me desperately gasping for air and nearly passing out, I managed to reach the inside pocket of my blazer for a pen I had and estimating my aim as best I could, I jabbed it directly into his right eye. The scream that he let out was unnerving even to me. It was then that I saw Sonya going for a gun. I knew I was going to be a goner if I didn’t act fast. I was already next to a fireplace with a poker hanging beside it. I took the poker and just as she had reached for her gun and turned to me, I threw it straight at her, spearing her in the sternum. The utter shock that registered in her face was one that burned itself into my mind. She was too surprised to even try to pull the trigger and merely fell to the floor. I could hear her expel a final breath, a death groan, in the second after she hit the ground. That haunted me for the longest time.”

Manning paused. I could tell he had just locked himself into a bad memory. But then he inhaled deeply to snap himself out of it.

“After that mission I asked M for a leave of absence of two months. It didn’t do me any good, though.”

“It rarely does in a situation like that. The best antidote is to lose yourself in the work.”

“I didn’t think I could do that with any effectiveness. Killing a woman appears to slay one’s soul. Even if she was out to kill me herself.”

“And what of Kiroff? What happened to him?”

“The fake secrets were obviously of no value to his buyer, especially considering that there was no margin of time left for whatever plans were being prepared, and so he paid dearly for that, with his life. Whatever it was these people he was dealing with were up to, it must’ve been really important to them to carry it out with the help of what they thought they were getting but Kiroff failed to deliver.”

“And so this girl, she was the only you’ve had the misfortune to do away with?”

“Mercifully, yes. But it was brutally tough just the same.”

“I can understand. The first is always the hardest, especially when you’re much younger. There had been four for me.”

“I had heard about that. Originally this was M’s idea for me to meet you, but the more he brought it up, the more he convinced me that I should see you. M has always felt we both share a lot in common. You are legend back at the office and M seems to see a parallel in our approaches to missions. He believes we share a certain kinship in the way we conduct ourselves as agents. I’m not so sure about that myself, but it certainly does flatter me, and it comes from one who I suppose I’m in no position to question.”

So M had sent this man for me to play learned mentor, father figure or some wizened sage to. If after over two decades of my retirement it was deemed necessary to present me with this one particular agent to counsel, then heeding the importance of this man to M and the Service was something I sensed I should take seriously.

“It’s a most unpleasant task, killing a woman.”

“How does one get past it? It’s already been fifteen years for me, the anniversary having just passed on Christmas Day, of all times. It still digs into me.”

We both held silent for a moment.

“You needn’t torture yourself, not especially after fifteen years. What’s done is done, and the choice is simple, really: you either cling to what will only sicken you further or you shed it to regain your health. It’s all in the mindset. It’s the only way to survive in the business.”

He looked at me as if he had just heard those words for the first time and found surprising utter simple truth in them. He sat back and gave a knowing smile. It didn’t take much to straighten him out. In fact, I didn’t think I would’ve been able to do that quick a job of it, but apparently he may’ve been open to some insight in a way he had never been before, and this meeting with me was what seemed to have facilitated it. I think I was now beginning to see what M saw in him – a little bit of me. I liked the way he grasped what I said easily and with an instinctive understanding.

The remainder of the dinner took on lighter notes and we capped off the evening at the adjacent casino, staying late into the night. I topped him at the baccarat table, but he displayed his own forte as an excellent player, having won only seven hundred under me.

Manning stayed another two days in Monte Carlo and we made good use of the time sharing in more stories of missions and comparing notes on female conquests. I think we each began to clearly see many identical aspects in the other. I developed a growing admiration of him during that time as I learned more about him. I felt confident that I was going to be returning him back to M fully intact, with any burdensome guilt he had been shouldering involving the girl now lifted from him. And as I accompanied him to the airport in Nice for his flight back to London, in some wistful way he made me long, if only briefly, for a return to Her Majesty’s Secret Service myself.

How Many Happy Returns?

2005-11-28T17:41:00.000-05:00

As November draws to a close, I find myself wondering more often than I should about how much time I still may have left on this earth. I tried to let pass another birthday without even the most minimal fanfare. To have now become 81 is an age that I find impossible to relate to, so abstract is the double-digit figure to me. Regardless, I am still in overall good health, but not without some aches in the lower back and in the knees. My hearing is still sharp, but lately I have found that my sight now requires light-strength reading glasses on occasion. My hair and teeth are mostly intact - and thank God I'm grateful for that - while my looks, even at this age, haven’t betrayed me too much in their wear and tear. For someone who had rough-and-tumbled it as much as I had through my prime, I think I’ve weathered fairly well. It could be far worse. Nevertheless, I can’t help but still feel the 35-year-old in me. Or is it 40-year-old? I never seemed to have outgrown it. And so I wonder if I truly have a few good years left ahead of me ... or would it be months, or days?

Vivienne had stayed the weekend two weeks ago. Her Italian friend Emilia, with whom she had spent the summer in Naples, was also a welcomed guest. The two had met at the Université Aix-Marseilles last spring, where both continue their studies, and quickly found a fast rapport with each other. One evening Vivienne asked when my birthday was. I lied when I told her that it had passed a few days earlier, when in fact it was to arrive a few days later. The girls expressed dismay over having missed it in the way girls normally do over such things, meaninglessly and melodramatically. They insisted on taking me out for dinner but I refused their offer. Acknowledging another year in any manner was something I tended to avoid. It certainly was considerate and generous of them to help me celebrate my birthday and I told them so, and I suppose I must admit to being touched by their attempt, but I knew it would only have the effect of dampening my spirits more than enlivening them. But they went out the next day and bought me a gift just the same. Now I have an easel and a full set of art supplies to thank them for. It was Emilia’s idea. She’s a good artist herself and she believed that painting for me would be a stimulating way to spend some of my time. When she had first visited with Vivienne in June, en route to Naples, she coaxed me into trying out some art on canvas. Surprisingly, I found I had a bit of a knack for it. I had never considered myself as an artist, but when it came to me with such relative ease I thought perhaps Emilia was right, that it possibly could be a pleasant pastime for me to engage in.

I have yet to begin any new artwork with the supplies, though. A fresh blank canvas still rests on the easel - perhaps as a reflection of the unknown, unimagined and unexpected that lie ahead as I creep into my 82nd year.

Not Bonding with My Self

2005-10-17T17:28:00.000-04:00

The inevitable question had arisen at Madame Fournier’s dinner tonight. In the course of the meal of braised veal with red peppers and potato cakes, her husband Michel announced, “So, James, I suppose you have heard on Friday of the new actor who is to now play you in the movies. It was in all the media. What do you think of him?”

Not being much of a cinema-goer nor one to keep up on the gossip of the film world, I knew nothing of the new actor recently chosen to now portray me in the film series.
However, I was keen on seeing what he looked like and sought out what photos there were of him on the internet. Well, I can’t say I much see the resemblance. He looks to be a bit of a ruffian, and certainly lacking in a cultured vein. I’m not sure what to make of this choice by the EON people. At least Cubby Broccoli and Harry Saltzman saw the brute in me with Sean Connery and some of the nuances of my persona with George Lazenby. Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton and Pierce Brosnan, however, were all largely hit-and-miss affairs.

But the selection of this Daniel Craig chap escapes me entirely. I find it too easy to say that this may be an ill-fated decision, but then, on the other hand, his portrayal may shake and stir things up to revive what had become for far too long a creatively flagging series. I can sense only an extreme outcome in this case: either “Casino Royale” will be an encouraging success or a dismal failure. And even if the result were to fall between the two, I would think that would still make it a failure, since it would only prove that either the actor couldn’t convince or the story couldn’t deliver.

I don’t envy Cubby’s daughter Barbara and stepson Michael, now rulers of the EON empire, in the decision they have made and the consequences that may face them. However, I must say I do feel somewhat slighted by the choice of Craig. So far, I've been able to more or less live vicariously through the previous screen versions of myself, but the absence that I see of any identifiable similarities with Craig makes me wonder if even I shall be able to recognize who it is he’ll be portraying. At this early stage, I’m afraid that I am not bonding with my self.

Doomsealer

2005-09-28T15:00:00.000-04:00

I am at a loss to explain this find, but I am amused by it nevertheless.

DOOMSEALER

I

“Respite Over”

It had been another necessary vacation for James Bond. The stay at the small cottage that lay reclusively sheltered within the heavily-treed, widely-spread beachfront property at the western tip of Jamaica could not have been more welcomed nor idyllic for him. It was owned by his good friend Felix Leiter, who suggested it to him as a retreat in exchange for some minor repairs and a repainting of the exterior on the home. The maintenance on it had been overlooked for one year too many.

The weather had been at its most favourable during the late May, early June three-week period Bond had chosen for his holiday. It was a time he had sorely needed for himself, a time to heal the wounds incurred by the constant and often unforgiving involvement in the affairs of his life and his work. It was a time when all the toxicity that had accrued within him for much too long had become well overdue for another purging. And that time was almost equally shared between tending to the repairs and the painting work, which he found to be remarkably therapeutic, and tackling the books he had long neglected to read as he relaxed on the verandah, often being distracted by, and losing himself in, the calming, expansive ocean view. He had made it a point to repeatedly refrain as much as he could from smoking, in the hope of encouraging himself into quitting – eventually. Daily inhaling the saline-fragrant air of the Atlantic waters alone seemed to help him forget half-a-pack a day’s worth. Occasional sips of wine substituted for what had, quietly over the last several months, become steadily increasing intakes of Scotch, insidiously supplanting his normally favoured Vodka martini. He knew he had to put a capper on that one, and the sooner, the better. Even women needed to be banished for a time. They, too, had become just as toxic as smoking and drinking and working. He needed to be free of their presence, their voices, their gazes, their aromas, and above all their issues, and even to go so far as to deliberately avoid meeting any of them casually altogether. As he reclaimed and embraced his solitude, he rediscovered his knack for preparing quick, light, nutritious meals for himself, sparing no sprinkling of a palate-delighting seasoning or spice. Domestic cuisine proved to be a pleasant change from the frequent dining at pricey restaurants. He looked forward to the leisurely walks into town for groceries and supplies, as well as to the solitary strolls along the shore against the setting orange sun at each twilight. And after twenty consecutive days of this exercise of shedding the scaly skin of his bruised and battered former self, he finally emerged from it wholly rested, well-tanned, and content and satisfied in having succeeded in his regenerative undertaking. Or at least, having succeeded about as well as he could in the allotted time that he had. Feeling replenished, James Bond was now prepared to once again return to the real world and to resume his familiar mode of living.

The taxi ride to the Sangster International Airport in Montego Bay was an entertaining twenty-minute drive on his final day on the island. The Rastafarian-looking driver was in a cheerful mood, regaling Bond with a tale of the wayward nature of his teenage daughter. Bond was amused by the account of the daughter’s wanton lifestyle with members of both genders, a story related with comic exaggeration, but also not without an underlying depth of a father’s dismay and concern. Although, it escaped Bond as to why the driver would want to freely share this personal matter with a stranger, and a paying fare at that. Seldom did Bond deal with the supposed joys and inevitable pangs of anyone’s fatherhood since his own world was so far removed from such a ... condition. Yet, in listening to the tawdry details of the daughter’s bawdy escapades, he was glad that there had never been an iota of a need to realize any paternal instincts he may have ever had. Besides, there was always the underlying fear or dread of suffering the cruel irony of siring a daughter himself. No, Bond had wisely chosen his true course in life: that of a secret agent who bedded other fathers’ daughters. The thought of that made him snicker under his breath.

“What am I to do?” the driver asked in exasperation as he parked the taxi at the departure station of the airport.

“Unfortunately, I have no experience in that area.” Bond felt disingenuous with his insubstantial reply. After all, with his own numerous dalliances with women, could he have not at least offered the driver a glimmer of wisdom or hope? No. He decided he wasn’t yet ready to engage in other people’s lives, even if simply to offer advice. He would instead stay the course and abide by his original plans, waiting until he arrived in London to begin to fully reconnect with the human race again.

The driver could only shrug and then stepped out of the taxi to pull Bond’s single suitcase out from the trunk, Bond joining him at the rear of the car.

“Good luck anyway,” Bond said, paying the driver the fare with an accompanying tip.
“Thank you, mister.” The driver accepted the payment with a tilt of his cap, his genial, broad smile displaying a gleaming gold front tooth. “I think I need it.”

Bond returned a curt smile of his own, took hold of his suitcase and turned for the airport entrance, but then stopped short and looked back to the driver.

“Driver,” Bond called to him. The driver halted before re-entering his taxi and looked to Bond, who moved to the passenger side of the vehicle and handed another monetary note across the car roof to the driver. “A little extra, for a good book on the subject.”

The driver beamed at the additional generous tip and tilted his cap again as he accepted it. “Thank you very much, mister. You just might be a lifesaver.” Bond could not restrain a second curt smile at the comment.

As Bond sought his seat on the plane, he hoped the duration of his flight would be unaccompanied by any passenger assigned to sit next to him or one intruding upon him. As prepared as he believed he was to soon face it all again, a little corner within him still yearned for a last few hours of invisibility. He found his seat next to a window near the centre of the plane and settled into it. And as luck would have it, precisely at 12:20 p.m. the jet began its taxi down the runway – mercifully without anyone seated beside him. Relieved, Bond then gazed out through the window at the tarmac to watch it begin to move past him, gradually rushing faster as the plane steadily gained in speed and momentum for its ascent. And then before he knew it, the five-hour flight approached its end. Looking ahead through the window, Bond saw the nearing late afternoon London skyline greet him like a warm, old friend. He felt the city tug at him as his vacation slipped into little more than an evaporated memory. He now anticipated the inevitable wear and tear of the metropolis below and the bestial work that awaited him once more. And then he knew it would be another year or so before he would feel just as ravaged as he had felt three weeks earlier.

Mors Pax Aeterna

2005-06-27T06:34:00.000-04:00

Over four months have lapsed since my last entry and I have spent a good part of the past month in agitated reflection. I still find myself somewhat unnerved by the outcome of the matter that had begun unexpectedly in February.

To give this some background, in the early 1960s there was the business of a SPECTRE tie-in with The Mechanics, a group of gangsters who operated out of Toronto. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police had got wind of their targetting a Russian defector in the city and I was sent in to help take care of the matter after the RCMP had informed M of the situation and its connection to SPECTRE. Apparently, SPECTRE had secured a contract from the Russians to do the job of eliminating the defector, a man named Boris. He was a top naval constructor in the elevated ranks of the Russian nuclear submarine team. An ex-Gestapo German named Horst Uhlmann served as the middleman for SPECTRE in hiring The Mechanics to do the actual hit. Long story short, they failed, and I had the distasteful yet obligatory task of riddling Uhlmann with several bullets after he had killed a Mountie, and a wounded one, no less. Uhlmann did not die promptly, but I’m sure he suffered sufficiently enough before his own departure the next morning.

It was after this Boris affair, while en route to Washington for a briefing with the CIA on the Toronto mission, that my hired car struck a puncture about 10 miles west of the Lake George area at the Adirondack Mountains in central New York state. In the driving rain of that mid-October night I managed to hobble the car to the first motel I could find, the Dreamy Pines Motor Court. It was there that I met Vivienne Michel. She had come from Quebec and by happenstance, while heading south, she was offered a temporary job as the motel keeper. But she also had had the misfortune of having herself encountered a pair of unseemly gangsters during her brief tenure there. I stayed long enough to ensure her safety and see her situation through. Fleming recounted that incident in what he claimed to be his experimental novel, "The Spy Who Loved Me." It was actually more of a mundane affair than an experimental one, but it was the last of Quebec, or at least anything or anyone remotely connected to it, that I would come into contact with - until last February.

I had just returned home late after an exceptionally good night of gaming at the casino in Monte Carlo. Entering by the carport, I noted the rear entry lock to my house had been tampered with. I could feel the hairs on the nape of my neck stand on end. I had one gun in my bedroom, but I also had one in the car, and so I made my way back to the Martin. Reaching into the glove compartment, I wrapped my hand around my old Walther PPK which produced an assured sigh of relief from me.

I returned to the house, gun at the ready. I kept the lights out as I entered by the kitchen. The night’s full moon shone enough light through the large windows of the house to aid me in maneouvering through the rooms without the risk of stumbling over any of the furniture. It was too eerily silent. I moved from the kitchen to the dining room and into the living room, keeping a keen ear and casting a wary eye all around. It was nearby the staircase at the living room's end that I heard a faint shuffle from the upper floor. Crouching a little, I stealthily climbed the stairs, keeping close along the wall, gun angled upward from my waist. Making to near the top, I stopped, back stiffening against the wall, and wondered which direction of the hallway to turn. In the dimness I couldn’t make out much ahead of me, so I peered around the corner of the wall to look behind, when an object suddenly slammed hard with a thud against its edge, missing my face by what must have been a literal centimetre! I could feel its wind. I reactively angled back against the banister, seeing the dark shadow of someone still wielding his weapon – a bat? – and moving towards me to strike again. No time to waste, I fired a shot at the intruder’s legs. Whichever one I hit would have suited me just fine. The shot immediately crippled the intruder. The tone of the gasped "arrghh" in reaction to being struck clearly was that of a male. As he fell to the floor and dropped his weapon beside him, I rushed up and kicked whatever it was well away from him. Standing over him, I began to apply some effective pressure with the weight of my foot on his wounded leg to keep him in check as I kept my gun trained on him. I flicked on the light switch behind me, but it still didn’t shed any light for me as to who he was. Blond-haired, he appeared to be in his forties and physically fit, but his face was a mystery.

"Now what’s this about?" I asked him sternly.

He refused to answer, gritting his teeth in an expression of pained agony as he clutched at his leg.

"I’m not a very patient man," I said, "and don’t let my age fool you." As I applied more pressure on his wounded leg, I added, "I can guarantee greater discomfort than this. Now why don’t we try to be civil."
"You are Bond," he said.
"What of it?"
"Yes. You are Bond," he repeated, this time with a certain resignation. "I came to kill you, James Bond. For killing my father."

Which father would that have been? I must have killed dozens.

"Who was your father?"
"You don’t see the resemblance in my face?"
"I’m in no mood for games."

He gave a short laugh of disdain.

"It is not necessary to keep your foot on my leg," he said. "I think you have effectively done your job to subdue me."

His trace of an accent had now registered with me. German. I eased my foot from his leg, feeling that in his impaired condition my gun alone would be enough to keep him disciplined. He slid himself back to the wall and propped himself against it, sitting up as comfortably as he could.

"My name is Hans Uhlmann. My father was Horst Uhlmann."

I recalled the name.

"Your father killed a man in cold blood. A wounded man, a member of a Canadian police regimen. And perhaps many other men, too."
"Liar!"

I saw some explaining and correction of facts were going to be in order. But first I gave him some bandages with which to wrap his wound, as I rather preferred he not bleed to death on my floor. I then offered him some Scotch and spare cigarettes I kept lying around for an occasion just as this. Nearly a half-hour had passed before I began to relate to him my experience with his father those many years ago. What he had been told instead was far different:

After Horst Uhlmann died, a friend of his, Wilhelm Rauss, began seeing Hans’ mother, Leyna. She was several months pregnant with Hans at the time, seeded by Uhlmann. Hans was raised by his mother and Rauss. And it was Rauss who, later in years, told Hans how his father had died and under what circumstance. Rauss fabricated a tale of Uhlmann having been an innocent man recruited by a British Secret Service agent named James Bond to work undercover behind the Berlin Wall in East Germany. The tale continued that Uhlmann reluctantly agreed because he was blackmailed into it. He took many risks with his life in stealing the secret information that Bond needed. But when, after a year, the day came that Bond ordered Uhlmann to kill the mistress of a top East German general and he refused to go along with it, Bond killed Uhlmann point blank – coldly, ruthlessly.

It was a neat, simple fantasy without any complex embellishments. When I asked Hans what Rauss did for a living, he replied that he used to be in the exporting business, but he never was clear about what Rauss actually exported. When Rauss tried to get him involved in the business, Hans, still in his 20s at the time, proved to be too young and too loose in his ways to be at all very much interested.

As we both sat there on the floor at the top of the stairs, facing each other across the hallway, our conversation by this point had become fairly relaxed, like that of between two old friends.

"What made you want to come here and do this?" I asked him. "I would think that some forty-odd years later would be a long time to bear a grudge, especially since you had never known your father."
"It is my initiation."
"Initiation?"
"You have heard of SPECTRE."

My hand tensed around the handle of the gun. "What of it?" I asked with feigned indifference.

"As I told you, I had no interest in joining Rauss’s export business when I was younger. But as I got older and I found that my irresponsible lifestyle wasn’t going to make me financially secure in my later years, I had second thoughts. So Rauss introduced me to his business. And then he introduced me to his other business. SPECTRE."

"Now it all fits," I said understandingly. "Your father and Rauss were both tied to SPECTRE. Rauss fed you some tall tale about your father having been an innocent man, which I believe I’ve just straightened you out on the details of that. But you must be joking that SPECTRE would send you to kill me."
"I elected to do so. They had another target in mind. In fact, they didn’t care who I killed, as long as I killed someone. When I suggested your name, because of what Rauss had told me about you, they didn’t refuse."
"Well, I must say your skills as an amateur are most underwhelming."
"What will you do with me now?"

I rang the police and followed it up with a call to MI-6. The ensuing interrogation of Hans Uhlmann over the next few days yielded some information of minimal value, including that Rauss, now 77, was residing in Montreal, Canada, in the province of Quebec. Apparently, Uhlmann had only barely gotten through the front door of SPECTRE to know at all much else about the organisation.

By week’s end I boarded a flight at Nice to London to meet with M and further discuss the results of the interrogation. Rather than show up at the office, M and I settled on a rendezvous for a late lunch at Blades. It had been quite some time since I had last visited it and M was gracious enough to oblige my request. I soaked in the nostalgic embrace of the Victorian atmosphere of the exclusive private card club as I was led down the black and white marble floor of the hall. Atop the wide staircase with its mahogany balustrade, the page led me past the tall doors to the gaming room, which stirred within me a vivid recollection of my first encounter with the boorish ogre Hugo Drax over a game of Bridge at the outset of the Moonraker affair. Across the well of the staircase was the next set of tall doors, one wing of which the page pushed aside and held open for me. Through it I entered the white and gold Regency dining room, where I found M seated at one of the tables at the far end.

Over a light meal of smoked salmon and a couple of relaxed rounds of the usual for each of us, M and I bantered over the Rauss matter. Apparently, Rauss was a low-level member of SPECTRE for the longest time, until shortly after I had left the Service. It was then, in the mid-1980s, that he began to inflict his most damage, illegally acquiring and indiscriminately supplying cash, drugs and armaments to any offensive lot of disreputable and disruptive elements around the world. His profiteering ventures had directly or indirectly cost the lives of hundreds of thousands, perhaps even millions, of people all over the globe, mostly through resulting deadly skirmishes, upheavals, military coups and civil wars made possible by his dealings. He had eluded detection of his unseemly services for nearly two decades, and by the time some degree of comprehensive intelligence was pieced together on him, it was fragmented at best and he had by then greatly curtailed his exporting involvement, if not retired from it altogether. But the interrogation of Hans Uhlmann helped add a few more pieces in further assembling the Rauss puzzle. One of those pieces was instrumental in verifying the delivery of a huge shipment of arms to Osama bin Laden as recently as 2000. It may have been only a single shipment that was ever made to bin Laden, but I found the deal reprehensible enough as to make Rauss a persona non grata in my view. On the basis of a favour still owed me, M discreetly revealed Rauss’s home and office addresses and telephone and cell numbers to me. I locked them all into my memory. M then casually let slip the name of a contact in Montreal - should I ever happen to wish to holiday in the city at some time in the near future.

Two days later, most of my flight time to Montreal was spent formulating plans in my mind on how I would dispose of this Rauss, but they only ended up being little more than rough sketches. The final draft, I knew, could only materialize itself once I was in the city and had my bearings.

Arriving at the Pierre Elliot Trudeau Airport, I was met by the contact M had named. Surprisingly, Herve Brossard was a short, rotund man in his mid-50s, quite genial in nature. Not at all who I had expected to meet. But then, I myself may have surprised him with my being 81. But still quite spry, if I must say so myself. Nevertheless, we greeted each other warmly and he led me to his vehicle in the airport’s car park. We engaged in some cheerful general chat during the 20-minute drive to the downtown of the city. After claiming my room reservation at the Ritz Carlton Hotel under the assumed name of Peter Franks, Herve and I found ourselves at the Altitude 737, a restaurant atop one of the city’s tallest buildings, Place Ville Marie. Over an early dinner of veal cutlets stuffed with portobella mushrooms we talked about Wilhelm Rauss.

"He is a very patient man, this Rauss," Herve said. "He doesn’t conduct business with just anyone who wishes to do so with him. Especially now when he seems to do very little of it. He takes his time, he studies his potential clients. You would do best to work out a plan that works with that patience of his. That is, if he still is in business."
"I’ve thought of some ideas on the plane here, but what do you propose?"
"I could be a middleman for you. I establish contact, I approach him, I explain the situation to him, all in your name. He will size me up, he will want to know more about you, he will no doubt investigate your background, and when he feels confident that you are legitimate, he will agree to a meeting with you. This way, the impression is that you are perfectly comfortable in having a subordinate take the time to arrange all the contact details for you, because you do not want to come across as too eager, and so, too suspicious. It will also give you an air of importance and credibility - in a detached sort of way."

Herve’s idea seemed a viable one and I liked it. Over a week had passed of detailing and fine-tuning the plan before we felt confident enough with the scheme we had drawn up. I then forwarded the plan to M, who had his team of strategists modify and firm it further over the next several days. In addition, the necessary corresponding documents, false background information and contacts to support the concocted story were also produced. Then M’s stamp of approval was given on the last of the drafts, and Herve and I were ready to go to work.

What we hadn’t factored into the plan was how extremely patient Rauss would really be in responding to our inquiry of a business arrangement. We wondered if perhaps he had not truly retired, in which case our plan would have had to have been completely revised or even entirely abandoned. It took four telephone conversations and two meetings with Herve over a three-month period before Rauss decided he would see me, but still without giving any firm commitment to it.

In the interim, I had grown increasingly restless during this time and became rather weary of the little that Montreal offered me by way of diversions. The largely francophone population annoyed me in particular, with their bastardized usage of the French language. I didn’t reveal this to Herve, but it was far from the elitist inflections and intonations spoken by the Parisian. The Quebec counterpart was plagued by pedestrian slangs and twangs and rushed speech that made its linguistic tongue often an embarrassment to its ancestral origin. And while, on the one hand, Montreal, an island city with its downtown core angled alongside the foot of its mountain backdrop, bore a certain European aura about it, on the other hand, it was frighteningly shallow in what it had to propose by way of escapes beyond merely fine restaurants and trendy shopping boutiques. Even the cinemas, theaters and night clubs were sparse in number, and the Casino de Montreal was the only game in town. The city had clearly seen its wilder days back in the 1920s through the 1940s. I decided to relieve my ennui by taking the hour’s flight to New York City and spending most of the rest of my time there instead to satisfy my craving for at least some occasional entertainment as I waited for Rauss’s decision to meet.

It was late May before things had finally fallen into place and Herve contacted me at the beachfront home of Felix Leiter’s son, where I had been staying on Long Island. The meeting was finally arranged for the 27th, and so I returned to Montreal on the 25th. One more phone call by Rauss was made to Herve on the 26th to disclose the time and place of the rendezvous.

On the 27th, a Thursday of intermittent rain, Herve and I arrived at the small car park outside the administration house at the Notre Dame-des-Neiges Cemetery. Its grounds spanned atop the northwest half of the city’s mountain. It was 4:45 p.m. "An odd time for a meeting," I remember telling Herve, since the cemetery was to close its gates at 5 p.m. Curiously, we found Rauss - tall, robust, with a bushel full of thick, white, wavy, longish hair, and looking distinguished in a grandfatherly way - waiting alone by his Mercedes. Ours were the only vehicles in that area of the car park.

"Do you find this peculiar?" I asked Herve. "No one’s with him."
"Maybe it is a trap. I will keep my eyes open."
"Wish me luck, then."

I stepped out of the back seat of the black limousine Herve had rented for appearance sake. Rauss watched me carefully, almost studying me with a pointed scrutiny as I approached him.

"Mr. Rauss," I said.
"Mr. Franks," he said.
"They say good things come to one who waits, and I believe I have waited long enough."

We shook hands.

"And there is much to be said about patience being a virtue, Mr. Franks. I am sorry for the protracted delay, but an unexpected matter had intervened so as to take up a good deal of my time. But we are here now, so come... we shall walk, and we shall talk."

I gave a look back to Herve, now standing outside of the limousine, and nodded him a signal that Rauss and I were about to embark on a stroll.

"Are you fond of cemeteries, Mr. Franks?" Rauss asked.
"Fond is hardly a word I'd apply to a cemetery."
"Myself, I like the tranquility of such grounds. I am especially fond of this cemetery. It is about 150 years old now and is the third largest one in North America. And to think that here they put it on top of a mountain, of all places. Did you know this mountain is a dormant volcano? Just imagine if it should ever become active again ... ka-boom! The dead will rise, so to speak."

The path-road we walked wound its way to a T-intersection. I took note of the lot numbers plate on a post at the corner of it: B479-514.

"Before we get to business," Rauss said, "you must indulge me in my eccentricity of showing you three of my favourite monuments here."
"Well, I’ve waited this long, so yes, of course."

We diagonally crossed the grounds of lot numbers B479-514, weaving our way between family plots marked by diversified headstones until finally stopping nearby another path-road, alongside which the three specific monuments were erected. I patiently listened to Rauss’s architectural appreciation and personal interpretation of each of the monuments he showed me. The first was that of a draped full-figured male lying flat atop a tomb, his head cradled in the lap of a female resting on her haunches. The second was another full-figured statue, that of a mourning woman kneeling with her face buried in her crossed arms over an altar. And the third was angled at the intersection of two of the path-roads.

"This one is my favourite of all," Rauss said. "Impressive in its understated grandiosity, yet simple in its definition by only three elements: the barrier, the epitaph, and the statue. The statue... She is marvellous to behold, don’t you think?"

The realistic-looking gowned female figure sat lifeless, with her head rolled to her right, and almost sprawled on a throne-like seat. A low, wide, curved, granite wall branched out from either side of her throne.

"Quite dramatic," I commented. "Almost something maternal about her."
"Yes. Yes, you are quite right. I hadn’t noticed that before. And see how she avails herself of her lap, almost as if inviting you to sit on it, even in her death. A welcoming gesture, wouldn’t you say?"

I looked at him, trying to gauge what he exactly meant by that.

"But now, Mr. Franks," he said with a grave turn in his voice. "Let us discuss your business."

I looked at my watch.

"The cemetery will be closing its gates in just a few minutes," I reminded him.
"Yes, I know," he said, undisturbed by the fact.

I gave a discreet passing look to my left, with a glance behind me over my shoulder. There was no one in view.

"You do realize what I am in the market for." The story was about acquiring a set of dirty bombs.
"Quite."

As I paced nonchalantly around him, I then gave a discreet passing look to my right and another glance behind me over my shoulder, again noting no one in sight.

"And this does not bother you in the least?"
"It is strictly business, Mr. Franks."

I felt a tenseness build within me as I approached closer to Rauss, as if to walk past him and toward the seated female statue. But I knew I needed to make my move there and then or lose my chance, so I quickly spun on my heel, catching him off guard, and got a grip of him from behind, grabbing and holding firm his left wrist and yanking it high up his back, then locking my right forearm against his throat. As I began to choke him unsparingly with the full pressure of my forearm against his throat, I dragged him the few feet to the statue. It all seemed quite surreal in the way Rauss did not appear surprised by my action, and what resistance he showed could not be described as either a genuine or determined one. I continued to extract the life out of him as I slowly lowered his body onto the statue’s lap, lowering myself as well to kneeling on one knee beside it. For a moment I could not help but feel the outright murderous nature of my act as I had never felt it before. Nevertheless, with a grit on my face that I knew was there, I finally exerted all the strength in me into one final crush of his windpipe. His body then suddenly went limp. It was almost too easy and too quick.

I slowly stood up and looked down at his dead face as he lay there on his back across the statue's lap. I thought I had been finished with this business of killing long ago, and I now had my doubts as to why I even engaged myself in it this time around.

"I must have better things to do than this," I muttered to myself.

I gave another quick look around the grounds to reassure myself that there had been no witnesses. Besides, it was closing time on a Thursday and it seemed unlikely anyone else would still be around at the last minute – aside from myself, Herve, Rauss, and whatever groundskeepers there may have been. The deed done, I hurried back to Herve and the limo. With my luggage in the trunk, I was already prepared to make my planned hasty departure for my flight back to London and the debriefing with M.

My time of reflection on all of this was borne out of what more I had learned from M shortly after I left London and returned home. It appeared that Rauss had already been handed a death sentence. He suffered from an incurable form of melanoma cancer. He had only learned of this midway through my stay in Montreal, at the beginning of April, which explained his prolonged delay in dealing with me. His own concern of mortality apparently was more important and he likely may have spent a good deal of time getting his affairs in order in preparation for the inevitable. If I hadn’t finished him off, he may have had another couple of months left in him. But maybe he didn’t want that. After all, he did come alone, without bodyguards or henchmen. Maybe he arrived prepared to die, having chosen his time and place. He came to the cemetery with which he had an affinity, as he claimed. He showed me his three preferred monuments, the last being his favourite, where it seemed he wanted to die. And I was there to facilitate that death for him. I even left him lying across the lap of the female statue and, appropriately enough, against the engraved words that spanned the monument’s wall behind her: Mors Pax Aeterna. It is Latin for Eternal Peaceful Death.

I can only believe that Rauss had decided that I would be his executioner. It was one thing to serve as an instrument for Queen and Country to kill someone who deserved to die. It felt entirely repugnant to be used as an instrument of death by someone who wished to die, as much as they may deserve their death. I am not even so sure that Rauss had not learned of my true identity through all of the delay. He may have actually found out who I really was and, in some perverse way, he may have felt honoured that he would die at the hands of the legendary James Bond. Perhaps I shouldn’t read much into it, but I do feel somewhat particularly unsettled by the numerical irony of a 77-year-old killed by a 007. There was something almost too personal in that. And again, in some twisted fashion, Rauss might have relished in the honour of that irony through his dying gasps.

Putrere in Barathrum Aeterna - may he eternally rot in hell.

The Royale Treatment

2005-02-05T03:04:00.000-05:00

It appears by The Times article today that the producers of the film series that is based on Ian Fleming’s writings of my former life in the Service have finally settled on their next entry, "Casino Royale." Admittedly, I am heartened to learn of this news, but it would be interesting to see how they will manage to pull this one off as palatable entertainment for the masses. Even to this day I shudder at the whipping I received from Le Chiffre and his twisted cane carpet-beater, so effectively applied to maximum stinging effect upon my genitals. The passage of more than half-a-century has not dulled the wincing memory of it.

Being the only novel not used for an official cinema version, the suggestion seems to be that the opportunity of working with the last remaining bonafide Fleming book title - and the first one at that - will help focus on getting things back on track, back to basics for the film series. Yes, indeed, there has been a veering off the rails for the longest time now. Poor Ian must have rolled over in his grave enough times in the last four decades to burrow a path to China. Merely hearing my own name mouthed by the succession of actors that have followed Sir Connery has increasingly struck me as belonging to that of someone entirely removed from myself as to be utterly alien to me. However, for the film to do any fair justice to things as they actually occurred, it will have to at least retain the cynicism and grimness of that mission, if none of the graphic brutality of my torture. Will I be approached to share my reminiscences for the screenplay? Not since the earliest films have the producers consulted me, "Thunderball" having been the last to include my modest input. I would be quite surprised if they sought me out for this one, but not at all disappointed if, yet again, I was ignored.

I wonder if they will finally use Rene as a character in the film. His appearance is long overdue and it would amuse him to no end to see a reasonable facsimile of his more youthful self on the screen. Featuring May for the first time also would be a nice touch. I have always felt that she would serve, if only in brief scenes, as a very human counterpoint to all of the extraordinary situations and broad characters. Perhaps dear Loelia Ponsonby as well, always sad as it is to recall the tragic circumstances of Lil’s passing. Certainly a return to basics would not be complete without a re-emergence of SMERSH - as they, after all, had never disappeared.

And Vesper. I still grit my teeth at her unforgivable duplicity and treachery. I would have thought my bitterness towards her would have diminished over time, that I would become more understanding of the nature and pitfalls of espionage to which all agents are exposed and to which some succumb, and so consequently maybe find myself think less harshly of her. But it is all still too intensely personal for me. She not only betrayed the Service and Britain, but also both my love for her and proposal of marriage by her admission to being a double agent and then taking her own life. Maybe I only thought I loved her. It is too easy to confuse lust with love when one becomes vulnerable to it. What had gotten into me back then to see her in that amourous way is either lost on me now, or I shall never know. It all feels like it happened centuries ago, but even in her present long-rotted skeletal state, she still seems to remain forever in my mind ... the bitch.

The Guilt and the Shame

2005-01-28T21:38:00.000-05:00

In sorting through some old papers and letters today, I happened upon a curious envelope tucked within them. It evidently bore some age to it and, oddly, had still remained sealed. Only my name was written on the face of the envelope, the handwriting unfamiliar. I wondered how it could have escaped me after all these years. How had it even ended up in the box I found it? Had May placed it there long ago and forgotten to tell me of it? It would have been so very much unlike dear May. Or maybe she had informed me of it and I still had simply ignored it for whatever oblivious or dismissive reason I may have had at the time. However it came to me and was disregarded, I now knew I needed to learn of its contents.

With a letter knife I ripped a clean slit through the edge of the envelope and extracted three neatly folded sheets of onion paper. I was surprised, and rather pleasantly so, to see that the first sheet was a brief note from Tiger Tanaka! When had I last seen him after the Magic 44 mission? Only once more, back in ’78, I believe. Or was it in ’79? I looked at the envelope again and found it absent of any date or postage stamp. Had he directly passed it on to me? Had he slipped it in my coat pocket? I shook off the guessing and read the note.

Dear Bondo-san,

Herein you will find a letter from Kissy Suzuki. She had asked me to submit it to you next time our paths crossed. For reasons of her own, she wished for me to be discreet about how I saw to it that you received it. My apologies for being sly in manner, but I promised her I would honour her request. Good to have seen you once again, old friend. We must meet again soon.

Tiger

The note was typed save for his signature, which I compared to the handwriting of my name on the envelope. It appeared to be very similar. I smiled at the memory of the man, but I was too eager to read Kissy’s letter next to think much more about him. Kissy’s penmanship on the next two pages impressed me with its even spacing and a feminine calligraphic flair that was punctuated by distinctive jagged-edged tails to the g’s and y’s.

February 10, 1978

My Dearest Taro-san,

It has been too many years since we had last seen each other. You are still often in my thoughts. I daily wonder why you did not keep in touch, but I always had to remind myself that you were in the duty of your Queen. I hear that you still are.

Much has happened to me since our final days together. Within two years after your departure I had met an admirable man, whom I grew to love and respect, as I very much would have done with you, but much more easily. His name is Yasuo. He has treated me with dignity and we have been blessed with two beautiful children, a girl and a boy. The girl I have named Takara, meaning treasure, and the boy my husband has named Ryo, meaning excellent. For our children’s education sake, we moved from Kuro to Osaka. We still reside there. My husband has been modestly successful with his wholesale seafood business while I have found peace with my role as mother to my children. They grow too fast.

You remember David, my cormorant? Unfortunately, he met with an accident shortly before I married my husband. I shall spare you the grim details. I found another cormorant soon after, whom I had named Niven. It is a testament to how nice the only person was to me during my brief time in Hollywood that I had named both birds after the same man, is it not? But David was my favourite, for he will always remind me of my months with you.

I have so much to tell you, but I feel I have neither enough time nor the volume of paper needed to write it all down. But, my dear Taro-san, I do have one thing I must share with you. It has been a secret of mine for longer than I cared to bear it, and I hope in revealing it to you, I can finally be free of the burden I have felt, as well as the guilt and the shame. If only I can summon enough courage to even begin to write the words, so much I have been haunted by it for the last fifteen years. Nevertheless, I must find those words. It is the right thing to do.

I had never told you, my dear Taro-san, that in the time we were together I had become pregnant with your child. Yes, it is true. It was in the course of the amnesia you suffered in your escape from the Castle of Death. It caused you to lose not only most of your memory, but especially of your recognition of me. Nevertheless, I nursed you through the following winter and spring months, during which you grew to accept me. But there was still a remoteness in you towards our lovemaking. I desperately sought to revive your passion and so I came upon a love potion. With phials of sweat of toad and some powder of dried lizard, I secretly sprinkled the ingredients into your dishes of food that I lovingly prepared for you to aid in exciting your senses. I must confess that I used the potion recipe numerous times. You may remember the Pillow Book I gave you, which happily had its desired effect of exciting your mind. With both your senses and mind excited, I claim myself as the author of most of those nights of our lovemaking and of the real love we finally came to have. And from that night of real love our daughter was conceived.

I had so very much wished to tell you this later in the spring of that year, even with the doubts I had that you would propose marriage. After all, you were still not entirely yourself with the amnesia and so, how could you feel certain in proposing marriage to a woman you knew but still could not recall? This is what I felt, and what I believed. And then you discovered the name Vladivostok on a cut strip of newspaper. The name stirred within you a vague association with it, making you determined to find its meaning in your life. It was then that I knew I would lose you. The Shinto priest had warned me that something like this would happen and advised me that I should not stand in the way of whatever decision you made. You still had your duty to your country.

And so after you left to unravel your mystery, it became my responsibility to bear your child alone and without your knowledge. But she is not the daughter I have now, who is by my husband. Sadly I must tell you that I failed to bring your daughter to life. She was stillborn. But even in her stillbirth, she shone with the beauty of an angel. Please forgive me for the misfortune, my dear Taro-san, but I myself still grieve the loss of her to this day, for I had lost not only you, but a part of you as well, leaving me with only memories. But memories are intangible.

In consolation, I shall tell you her date of birth, as in my mind she always was born and had lived, if only for a brief second, and also I will disclose her place of rest. As I write this, today is the anniversary of when she was conceived, Sunday, February 10, 1963. Her date of birth was on Saturday, November 16, 1963. And she lies in the cemetery behind Kuro, her place of rest marked by a simple cross with her name on it, Kumiko Suzuki Todoroki. Kumiko meaning eternal beautiful child. You may wish to make a private visit at some time.

I hope I have not distressed you much with this news, as it is not my intention. I shall understand if you choose not to respond to this. You have your reasons. But I could not let the rest of my life pass, nor yours, without our sharing the knowledge of the daughter we had. It is in honour of the memory of our love that I have done so.

Take very good care of yourself, my dear Taro-san. I will miss you always.

Respectfully,

Kissy Suzuki

It felt as if a train had barrelled into me senseless. I dropped the letter and slumped in my chair. How had this letter gone unnoticed for this long? Twenty-seven years... If only I had known... So much time lost... Japan... I must take a flight... A daughter... What had I missed...?

Then a cruel irony seeped into me. So many dangers I had survived through my life, and yet my daughter herself could not even embrace her own life – on the very same day and month of my birth...

Take It Easy, Mr. Bond

2005-01-18T05:21:00.000-05:00

Bloody hell. I am convinced that I had contracted the seed of my cold last week from somewhere in Geneva or en route back home with Rene. What followed has been three days ridiculously wasted on tending to the worst of the cold. I prefer to wallow in my own such misery in seclusion, but the ingratiatingly gracious Madame Fournier down the road stopped by on Thursday, the second day of my misery, and on seeing the wretched condition I was in, she immediately took matters into her own hands with the mission of comforting me as best she could. Her soulfully prepared hot homemade chicken noodle soup, with its savoury secret ingredient that I am still at a loss to define and she ever politely refuses to disclose, was more than welcome and utterly satisfying. Within an hour, the soup had its curative effect on me, as I could begin to feel a freeing of my heavily congested state and once more found reasons to live again.

We have been neighbours, Madame Fournier and I, for several years. She prefers to be called by her first name, Isabelle, but I somehow can not seem to get beyond the formality of Madame Fournier with her. It’s the Miss Moneypenny factor, I suppose. Already a few times she had volunteered to nurse me back to health, always managing to instinctively sense when I had succumbed to minor ills, since I would never tell her whenever I did. All she expected in return each time was my presence at a dinner in her home with her husband, Michel. And this is in addition to all her other dinner invitations when I am not ill. Considering her excellent culinary skills, it was a return favour always easily agreed to. She insisted on looking in on me again on Friday morning and I couldn’t, nor wouldn’t, argue with her, but I reminded her that Vivienne would be arriving in the afternoon for the weekend and that I was sure to be in good hands through then. On that, Madame Fournier decided on inviting both Vivienne and myself for a Saturday evening dinner, firmly believing I will have regained full health by then – such is the power of her soup. She had met Vivienne twice before and took very well to her, and so, there was no refusing Madame Fournier.

Yes, Vivienne. A mere 19 years of age, but a female splendour in her own forceful right. Interesting how we happened to meet. I had gone to Marseilles last August for some browsing and purchasing amidst the smart shops in and around the city’s 1ere arrondissement, or 1st Neighbourhood, by the old port. It was later, in mid-afternoon, while seated at an outdoor café, that I first heard Vivienne before I actually saw her. There was the screeching of car brakes immediately followed by a young female's voice unmistakably screaming out “Merde!” A cabbie had stopped mere centimetres short of running down Vivienne on the street. The next that followed was my seeing her begin to pelt the poor and clearly guilt-ridden cabbie with a cacophony of additional expletives and a barrage of hexes and curses. The cabbie appeared to sweat profusely and nervously kept apologizing to her, which appeared to have little effect on her. Or so it initially seemed. As she walked away from the cabbie, her ongoing verbal abuse towards him diminished in intensity, which was likely her way of grudgingly accepting his heartfelt apologies without making him feel as if she had.

Perhaps her reaction was a mite excessive, but her theatrically volatile spirit won me over, it striking me as more playful than serious in nature. As she leaped onto the sidewalk, our eyes locked and she simply continued to rail on to me about what had just happened, apparently oblivious to the fact that she was speaking to a total stranger six decades her senior. She ever so naturally approached my table and sat across from me, still spitfiring her entertaining venom. I found myself amused by her. Nevertheless, she needed some settling, so when I found the chance to interject myself between her spewing words, I asked her if she could do with a coffee. The offer stopped her dead in her tracks, she breathed a sigh of relief, smiled impishly, and replied that yes, she could, thank you.

Our ensuing conversation was quite relaxed and wide-ranging on a variety of topics. She was wonderfully engaging in her discussions with me. I was impressed by her candour, her genuineness, her intelligence, her biting wit, and her utter disregard of my age. And so, when at one point she complained of the problem-riddled flat she had rented prior to beginning her first year at the Universite Aix-Marseilles, craving for larger space, more privacy and simple silence, I thought it only natural to offer her the guest room at my Eze villa with its balcony overlooking the sea as an escape from her dire living conditions. But I explained it would be only for every second or third weekend, as she chose, as I valued my own privacy most of the time, and that it would be in exchange for some needed light housekeeping and gardening duties requiring only an hour or two of work. I told her the commute there by the Ter train from the St. Charles station would take about 3½ to 4 hours, depending on departure time, but that I would even cover the fare. I could see it in her grey-blue eyes, as they lit up, that she took an instant fancy to the idea without even questioning whatever possible motives that others would naturally have been suspicious about over the offer.

Eze - From a View to a Hill

And it has all worked out happily over the last five months. I did not expect another housekeeper like dear sweet May – I still do miss her endearing s’s tagged on the end of words, her way of respectfully calling me ‘sir’ when she refused to call any man so except English Kings and Winston Churchill ... "good morning-s" – but to date, Vivienne has proven herself well in performing her end of the bargain.

It had been five weeks since her last stay. She had gone home for the holidays and after returning to Marseilles three weeks ago, she has only now felt a need to escape again to what she calls her haven of a villa. I kept mostly to myself on Friday, not always being the best of company when ill, which Vivienne easily understood. But with my condition having much improved on Saturday, just as Madame Fournier confidently predicted, we spent some time on a leisurely stroll through the Jardin Exotique. In some odd way, each time I walk through it I am somehow always reminded of my frightful navigation through Blofeld’s Garden of Death at his Castle of Death on the southern Japanese island Kyushu. While no poisonous plants nor deadly creatures are to be found in the Jardin Exotique, I suppose there is something about the Jardin’s wide array of haphazardly grown cacti across the rock-laden landscape that makes the connection for me. One finds cacti in deserts, just as there are cacti in the Jardin (garden). Deserts can be death, just as the Garden (Jardin) of Death was. And I had my revenge on Tracy’s murder after surviving the dangers in the Garden of Death (Jardin Exotique) to go on and kill Blofeld.

I did kill him, didn’t I? Yes, of course, I did.

And so on this walk it finally dawned on me how 22 years ago I must have come to choose Eze as my permanent home. It is nearby the Jardin Exotique (Garden of Death). It is nearby the memory of Tracy and my revenge of her death.

Jardin Exotique (Garden of Death?)

Queen of Flowers

2005-01-11T05:22:00.000-05:00

Rene Mathis drove down from Grasse to see me last Wednesday. Long after his days with the Deuxieme Bureau were numbered, he had taken up residence there in 1976. He had agreed to enter his son’s burgeoning perfume business and had done quite well for himself, retiring in 1993. His son, Francois, had founded the business in 1967 and achieved quick success with his most notable line, Jaz, in 1973. It is still highly regarded as a classic, and is favoured among the more discerning women of privilege who are savvy enough to relate its exorbitant price with the perfume’s singular intrinsic value of imbuing one in a priceless extract of heaven’s scent itself.

Grasse came into prominence as a leather and tanning centre in the 13th century. Following the establishment of the French perfume industry in the 16th century, perfumed gloves became the vogue rage. When leather later fell out of fashion, perfume then went on to reign supreme in Grasse. Situated approximately 15-20 kilometres north of Cannes, resting at a hilltop altitude of up to 400 metres, the small medieval town is known for some of the most delicate flowers grown, particularly the Jasmin Grandiflorum - hence, Jaz. Five-petalled, like a pair of diagonally-crossed bow ties with a V-shaped tongue underneath, white, tubular and funnel-shaped, it is regarded in perfumery as the ‘Queen of Flowers,’ since there is hardly a fragrance that does not bear an element of its Jasmin notes. Yet, the genuine article itself is too dreadfully expensive for general perfumery. To produce only a single kilogram, 8,000 to 10,000 flowers must be picked. Nevertheless, Francois was clever in his approach in circumventing that problem as best he could and thus had managed to earn wide respectability among parfumeurs and consequently earning a steadily growing loyal female clientele that has kept him securely wealthy over the decades.

The Jasmin Grandiflorum was introduced to Grasse from Nepal circa 1560. It flowers daily from mid-July to mid-September and requires year-round tending. The flora of Grasse is nurtured by ideal amounts of sunshine and, combined with the town's hilly climate, the air in the region is injected with a fresher zest than at a beach in the thick heat of a summer’s day - which is the other reason why Rene had decided to settle there. After nearly 30 years of inhaling two packs of Caporals daily, the resulting self-inflicted punishment that had become his incessant coughing fits and general malaise had finally instilled some sense of rationality in him. And where better to kick his habit but in the ever floral fragrant air of Grasse? Remarkably, abandoning the demon weed had proved easier to do than he had thought. And now he finds himself, most agreeably, addicted to Jasmine-tinged air instead.

And so it was with pleasant surprise that Rene made his unannounced arrival at my home that Wednesday mid-afternoon. Still tall but lankier, with a slight haunch to his shoulders and a crown of wavy cotton-white hair that forever always seemed to be receding but probably had already receded as far back as it will ever do so, he bypassed the customary greetings for an immediate demand that we embark on a road trip to Geneva. It was for a funeral of a friend, but he refused to be morbid about the occasion. My company, it appeared, would help him see to that.

I wish I could take the time to recount our five-and-a-half day sojourn in his Citroen to, in, around and back from Geneva, but having returned just an hour earlier, and it now being quite late in the night as I feel the lead weight in my eyes, I’m afraid the calling of my bed at this moment has a stronger pull for me than my will to still continue writing. Oh, very well, then ... perhaps for next time.

Moneypenny from Home

2005-01-02T20:59:00.000-05:00

Moneypenny rang me up today. Wonderful woman she is. After all these years she still bears that wistful glint in her eye and cooing timber in her voice for me. Yet, as endearing as she has always been, and still is, I do believe she fared much better with the wealthy French industrialist she was ultimately fated to marry - Jacques. The irony of his name never ceases to humour me, though. But he has given her every level of happiness from the stately home and two admirable children, Simon and Emmaline, to an active social life and indispensable complementary love. She has had a full life, a grounded life. None of which would have been possible with me, of course. I was best left as her fanciful thought, a tease, a whim in her mind. I suspect every woman needs one of those to fill a certain void, and I suppose I still fulfill that role for her. Funny. Even in our mature stage of life, we still cling to aspects of our idealized youth and dreams as though we continue to remain just as young and wishful as then.

She called round about lunch. We had established a tradition long ago. After I had retired from the Service, we agreed that we would at least keep in touch on each New Year, if at no other time. But never on the first day of the New Year. That was solely to be my day. So we decided on the day after, each January 2nd, and that we would alternate in calling the other. This New Year it was her turn.

She was typically in top form, wished me well and asked how things had gone since last we spoke, which she reminded me was back in April. “Remarkably uneventfully,” I replied dryly. She then proceeded to carry the brunt of our conversation as I attentively listened to Jacques faring well as can be but needing to carefully tend to his weight, Simon, now 37, continuing to mine increasing success in his Internet ventures, and Emmaline, at 33, appearing to be drifting from a modest stage acting career into an unproven calling for writing children’s books, inspired no less by the recent birth of her first child, a daughter, Alexa. The wonder of it all - Moneypenny now a grandmother.

Having been kept apprised all these years of the activities of Moneypenny’s children has almost felt to me like following my own. And I am even sent photos of them twice yearly as well. I have come to admire Simon’s growing rugged handsomeness, and if Emmaline had not been Penny’s daughter, she would most certainly have registered as a prime conquest in my book. I am so glad for Moneypenny that all has gone as well as it has for her, and continues to do so. Our fortunes must be at the expense of other, and hopefully less deserving, souls. As always, it was so good to hear from her again.

Upon the call’s end, however, I had slumped into a somewhat moderately disconsolate mood. I had criminally allowed myself, but only briefly, to slip into that ephemeral state of wondering what life would have been like for me ... for us ... had Tracy lived.

007 Minus 2

2005-01-01T23:30:00.000-05:00

My name is Bond. James Bond. And yes, I am still alive, quite well and, comparatively so, fairly fit in this, my 81st year. As things are, and especially considering all that I had been through in my life, I should consider myself quite fortunate to have persevered this long. Although, I can’t imagine what much more I’d want to do beyond that which I have already been doing for at least the last decade - relaxing on the veranda of my villa overlooking the Mediterranean, here where I live in the south of France, and reading the books I had long neglected due to my dutifully having had served Queen and Country.

I suppose a certain settling in of a weariness or ennui is inevitable in one’s waning days. I perhaps should feel more enlivened than I do, but there always seems to be, as has been for quite some time now, a pervading pall of having before seen it all and done it all that overhangs my remaining time. Not to mention the physical aches that permeate my being from the abuse to which I had subjected my body in the field in my more robust years and from the unforgiving wear-and-tear of age itself of late, which collectively have taken a toll on me in their own insidious ways as daily reminders of one's vulnerabilities. There no longer are any new adventures for me to pursue nor vistas to explore with any of the lust and vigour of my youth, those days have long past, with only traces of them left as both fond and bitter reminiscences. Often I am left to feel as though I have become a hollow relic.

I suppose there is something to be said for mortality, however. After one has exhausted life’s experiences at some point, there appears to be little rationale to continue onward. But one does it nevertheless. Now I can understand how one may want to prolong one’s days rather than to live them. In my case, perhaps to see for how long I can futilely outmaneouvre my final and unvanquishable foe, the Grim Reaper. A quite flimsy reason for persisting forward, if you ask me, for doubtlessly I shall be defeated in the end. But as one’s hold on life is tenuous at best, perhaps the reasons one fabricates for oneself to continue onward can also only be tenuous - at best.

But I do think I should refrain from being much too introspective and philosophical for what should be a more festive frame of mind for me right now. It is, after all, a brand new day, the very first day, of a brand new year, 2005. And to that, accompanied by my ritualistic early evening glass of a medium vodka dry martini - shaken, of course, not stirred - I must declare, if only to myself, yet another Happy New Year.