Graeme Burnet - The Disappearance of Adèle Bedeau

Manfred ordered his final glass of wine of the evening. A bottle was kept behind the bar for him and Pasteur drained the remaining contents into a fresh glass and placed it on the counter. Manfred always drank the whole bottle, but he ordered by the glass. This arrangement meant that he paid twice as much for his drinks than if he simply ordered the bottle, but out of habit he never did. Once, he had calculated how much he would save over the course of the year if he were to change his practice. It had been a sizeable amount, but he stuck to his routine. He told himself that it was coarse to stand alone at the bar with a bottle. It would suggest that he came in with the intention of getting drunk, not that that would concern the other patrons of the restaurant. Manfred also felt that this habit might account for Lemerre and his friends’ reserved attitude towards him, as if by ordering by the glass he was setting himself above the three men who drank carafes. It gave the impression that he thought he was better than them. This was in fact true.

Pasteur never remarked on Manfred’s drinking habits. Why should he? It was no skin off his nose if Manfred wanted to pay twice as much as necessary for his wine.

As the clock ticked towards ten o’clock, Adèle became more animated in her movements. She swept around the tables with something approaching gusto, and even exchanged some sort of joke with the men by the door. Lemerre made a remark, which must have been lewd, because Adèle playfully wagged an admonishing finger at him, before turning on her heel and sashaying back towards the bar. Manfred had never seen her behave in this flirtatious fashion before, but she still lowered her eyes as he stepped back to allow her to pass through the hatch. She disappeared into the back and returned a few minutes later. She was wearing the same skirt as before, but had changed into black tights and high heels, and was now wearing a denim jacket over a tight black top. She had applied mascara and lipstick. She bid Pasteur goodnight. He glanced up at the clock and nodded a grudging farewell. Adèle appeared unaware of the impact of her transformation on the remaining patrons of the bar. She glanced neither left nor right as she made her exit.

Manfred drained the remains of his wine and put the money on the pewter salver upon which Pasteur had placed his bill a few moments before. Manfred always made sure he had the precise amount in his pocket. If he paid with a large note, it meant waiting for Pasteur to rummage in his pocketbook for change, and then having to ostentatiously leave a tip.

Manfred put on his raincoat, which had been hanging on the hat-stand next to the door to the WC, and left with a curt nod to Lemerre and his cronies. It was the beginning of September and the first autumnal chill was in the air. The streets of Saint-Louis were deserted. As he turned the corner into Rue de Mulhouse, he spotted Adèle a hundred metres or so ahead. She was walking slowly and Manfred found himself catching up with her. He could hear the clacking of her heels on the pavement. Manfred slowed his pace — he could hardly stride past her without making some kind of greeting and this would lead to them falling into inevitably awkward conversation. Perhaps Adèle would think he had followed her. Or perhaps her flirtatious display in the restaurant had actually been for his benefit and she had deliberately walked in this direction to contrive a meeting.

No matter how much he slowed his pace, Manfred continued to gain ground. The closer he got, the slower Adèle seemed to become. At one point, she stopped and, steadying herself on a lamppost, adjusted the ankle-strap of her shoe. Manfred was now barely twenty metres behind her. He bent down and pretended to tie his shoelace. He hunched his head over his knee, hoping that Adèle would not spot him. He listened to the clack of her heels on the pavement grow fainter. When he looked up she was no longer in sight. She must have turned off or entered a building.

Manfred resumed his normal brisk pace. Then, as he approached the little park in front of the Protestant temple, he saw Adèle standing by the low wall that separated the park from the pavement. She was smoking a cigarette and appeared to be waiting for someone. By the time Manfred spotted her it was too late to take evasive action. He contemplated crossing the street, in which case a brief wave would constitute adequate acknowledgement of his passing, but Adèle had already seen him and was watching him approach. Manfred was not drunk, but, under her scrutiny, he suddenly felt a little unsteady on his feet. It crossed his mind that she might be waiting for him, but he immediately dismissed the thought.

‘Good evening, Adèle,’ he said when he was a few metres away. He stopped, not because he wanted to, but because it would have seemed rude to walk straight past as if she was a mere waitress unworthy of a few pleasantries.

‘Good evening, Manfred,’ she replied.

Until that moment Manfred was not even aware that she knew his first name. And for her to use it suggested some familiarity between them. In the restaurant she had only ever addressed him as Monsieur Baumann. Had he even detected a flirtatious tone in her voice?

‘It’s chilly,’ Manfred said, because he could think of nothing else.

‘Yes,’ said Adèle. With her free hand she pulled her jacket closed over her chest, either to attest to Manfred’s remark or to conceal her cleavage.

There was a pause. ‘Of course, it’s always cooler at night when the sky is clear,’ Manfred continued. ‘The clouds act as insulation. They trap the heat, just like a blanket on a bed.’

Adèle looked at him for a moment and then nodded slowly. She blew a smoke ring. Manfred regretted mentioning bed. He could feel the colour rising to his cheeks.

‘Are you waiting for someone?’ he asked when it became apparent that she was not going to add anything. It was none of his business what she was doing, but again he could think of nothing else to say. And what if she replied that, no, she wasn’t waiting for anyone. What would he do then? Invite her to his apartment or to one of the bars in town that stayed open late and about which he knew nothing?

Before she had the chance to answer, and to Manfred’s relief, a young man pulled up on a scooter. He nodded curtly in Manfred’s direction. Manfred acknowledged him and bid goodnight to Adèle.

‘Good night, monsieur,’ she replied.

As he walked off, Manfred stole a glance over his shoulder in time to see Adèle throw her leg over the seat of the scooter. He imagined the young man asking who he was. Some guy from the restaurant, would be her likely response.

Manfred lived ten minutes’ walk away, on the top floor of a four-storey 1960s apartment block set back from Rue de Mulhouse. The apartment consisted of a small kitchen, a bedroom, a living room that Manfred rarely used, and a small shower room. The kitchen overlooked a small leafy park surrounded by other similar apartment blocks. There were benches for the residents and a children’s play park. There was a small balcony outside the kitchen window, which caught the sunlight in early evening, but Manfred rarely sat out for fear that the other residents might think he had an unhealthy interest in the play park below. People often thought ill of single men in their thirties, especially those who chose to keep themselves to themselves. Manfred kept his apartment scrupulously clean and tidy.

Once home, Manfred poured himself a nightcap from the bottle on the kitchen counter and knocked it back. He poured himself a second and took it with him to bed. He lifted the book from his bedside table, but did not open it. His encounter with Adèle had left him unsettled, excited even. It was not just she had used his first name, so much as the fact that when her companion arrived, she had reverted to ‘monsieur’, as if concerned to give the impression that there was nothing between them. Manfred had never thought there was anything between them, but she could easily have bid goodnight without using either form of address. It was a deliberate act to conceal the intimate moment they had shared from her boyfriend.