Patrick Modiano - The Night Watch

Mais ton amie est en voyage

Pauvre Swing Troubadour. .

The Lieutenant. Was it a hallucination brought on by exhaustion? There were days when I could remember him calling me by my first name, talking to me like a close friend. His arrogance had disappeared, his face was gaunt. All I could see before me was an old lady gazing at me tenderly.

En cueillant des roses printanières

Tristement elle fit un bouquet. .

He would be overcome by a weariness, a helplessness as through suddenly realising that he could do nothing. He kept repeating: ‘You have the heart of a starry-eyed girl. .’ By which, I suppose, he meant that I wasn’t a ‘bad sort’ (one of his expressions). At such times, I would have liked to thank him for his kindness to me, he who was usually so abrupt, so overbearing, but I could not find the words. After a moment I would manage to stammer: ‘I left my heart back at Batignolles,’ hoping that this phrase would expose my true self: a rough and ready boy, emotional — no — restless underneath and pretty decent on the whole.

Pauvre Swing Troubadour

Pauvre Swing Troubadour. .

The record stops. ‘Dry martini, young man?’ Lionel de Zieff inquires. The others gather round me. ‘Feeling queasy again?’ Count Baruzzi asks. ‘You look terribly pale.’ ‘Suppose we get him some fresh air?’ suggests Rosenheim. I hadn’t noticed the large photo of Pola Négri behind the bar. Her lips are unmoving, her features smooth and serene. She contemplates what is happening with studied indifference. The yellowed print makes her seem even more distant. Pola Négri cannot help me.

The Lieutenant. He stepped into Zelly’s café followed by Saint-Georges around midnight, as arranged. Everything happened quickly. I wave to them. I cannot bring myself to meet their eyes. I lead them back outside. The Khedive, Gouari, and Vital-Leca immediately surround them, revolvers drawn. Only then do I look them square in the eye. They stare at me, first in amazement and then with a kind of triumphant scorn. Just as Vital-Leca is about to slip the cuffs on them they make a break for it and run towards the boulevard. The Khedive fires three shots. They crumple at the corner of Avenue Victoria and the square. Arrested during the next hour are:

Corvisart:

2 Avenue Bosquet

Pernety:

172 Rue de Vaugirard

Jasmin:

83 Boulevard Pasteur

Obligado:

5 Rue Duroc

Picpus:

17 Avenue Félix-Faure

Marbeuf and Pelleport:

28 Avenue de Breteuil

Each time, I rang the doorbell and, to win their trust, I gave my name.

They’re sleeping now. Coco Lacour has the largest room in the house. I’ve put Esmeralda in the blue room that probably once belonged to the owners’ daughter. The owners fled Paris in June ‘owing to circumstances’. They’ll come back when order has been restored — next year maybe, who knows? — and throw us out of their house. In court, I’ll admit that I entered their home illegally. The Khedive, Philibert, and the others will be there in the dock with me. The world will wear its customary colours again. Paris will once more be the City of Light, and the general public in the gallery will pick their noses while they listen to the litany of our crimes: denouncements, beatings, theft, murder, trafficking of every description — things that, as I write these lines, are commonplace. Who will be willing to give evidence for me? The Fort de Montrouge on a bleak December morning. The firing squad. And all the horrors Madeleine Jacob will write about me. (Don’t read them, maman.) But it hardly matters, my partners in crime will kill me long before Morality, Justice, and Humanity return to confound me. I would like to leave a few memories, if nothing else, to leave to posterity the names of Coco Lacour and Esmeralda. Tonight I can watch over them, but for how much longer? What will become of them without me? They were my only companions. Gentle and silent as gazelles. Defenceless. I remember clipping a picture of a cat that had just been saved from drowning from a magazine. Its fur was soaked and dripping with mud. Around its neck, a noose weighted at one end with a stone. Never have I seen an expression that radiated such goodness. Coco Lacour and Esmeralda are like that cat. Don’t misunderstand me: I don’t belong to the Animal Protection Society or the League of Human Rights. What do I do? I wander through this desolate city. At night, at about nine o’clock, when the blackout has plunged it into the darkness, the Khedive, Philibert and the others gather around me. The days are white and fevered. I need to find an oasis or I shall die: my love for Coco Lacour and Esmeralda. I suppose even Hitler himself felt the need to relax when he petted his dog. I PROTECT THEM. Anyone who tries to harm them will have to answer to me. I fondle the silencer the Khedive gave me. My pockets are stuffed with cash. I have one of the most enviable names in France (I stole it, but in times like these, such things don’t matter). I weigh 90kg on an empty stomach. I have velvety eyes. A ‘promising’ young man. But what exactly was my promise? The Good Fairies gathered around my cradle. They must have been drinking. You’re dealing with a formidable opponent. So KEEP YOUR HANDS OFF THEM! I first saw them on the platform at Grenelle métro station and realised that it would take only a word, a gesture to break them. I wonder how they came to be there, still alive. I remembered the cat saved from drowning. The blind red-headed giant’s name was Coco Lacour, the little girl — or the little old lady — was Esmeralda. Faced with these two people, I felt pity. I felt a bitter, violent wave break over me. As the tide ebbed, I felt my head spin: push them onto the tracks. I had to dig my nails into my palms, hold by whole body taut. The wave broke over me again, a tide so gentle that I closed my eyes and surrendered to it.

Every night I half-open the door to their rooms as quietly as I can, and watch them sleep. I feel my head spinning just as it did that first time: slip the silencer out of my pocket and kill them. I’ll break my last moorings adrift and drift towards the North Pole where there are no tears to temper loneliness. They freeze on the tips of eyelashes. And arid sorrow. Two eyes staring at parched wasteland. If I hesitate at the thought of killing the blind man and the little girl — or the little old lady — how then can I betray the Lieutenant? What counts against him is his courage, his composure, the elegance that imbues his every gesture. His steady blue eyes exasperate me. He belongs to that ungainly breed of heroes. Yet still, I can’t help seeing him as a kindly elderly lady. I don’t take men seriously. One day I’ll find myself looking at them — and at myself — the way I do at Coco Lacour and Esmeralda. The toughest, the proudest ones will seem like frail creatures who need to be protected.

They played mah-jongg in the living room before going to bed. The lamp casts a soft glow on the bookshelves and the full-length portrait of Monsieur de Bel-Respiro. They moved the pieces slowly. Esmeralda tilted her head while Coco Lacour gnawed on his forefinger. All around us, silence. I close the shutters. Coco Lacour quickly nods off. Esmeralda is afraid of the dark, so I always leave her door ajar and the light on in the hallway. I usually read to her for half an hour from a book I found in the nightstand of this room when I appropriated this house: How to Raise Our Daughters , by Madame Léon Daudet. ‘It is in the linen closet, more than anywhere else, that a young girl begins to sense the seriousness of domestic responsibilities. For is not the linen closet the most enduring symbol of family security and stability? Behind its massive doors lie orderly piles of cool sheets, damask tablecloths, neatly folded napkins; to my mind, there is nothing quite so gratifying to the eye as a well-appointed linen closet. .’ Esmeralda has fallen asleep. I pick out a few notes on the living room piano. I lean up against the window. A peaceful square of the kind you only find in the 16th arrondissement . The leaves of the trees brush against the windowpane. I would like to think of this house as mine. I’ve grown attached to the bookshelves, to the lamps with their rosy shades, to the piano. I’d like to cultivate the virtues of domesticity, as outlined by Madame Léon Daudet, but I will not have the time.