Patrick Modiano - Young Once

JUST AFTER the Russian Orthodox Easter, which they celebrated with Mary, Brossier set up an appointment for them at the “French-English Youth Exchange” office across the street from the Opéra Comique. He was signing them up to spend their holidays in Bournemouth, the seaside resort in Hampshire.

In a narrow room cluttered with folders, they were received by a Mr. “A. Stewart,” according to the name they saw on a brass plate on the door. He was in his eighties, with wrinkles around his eyes and mottled skin. All their papers were ready. Louis and Odile only had to give their dates of birth.

“I said that you’re students,” Stewart said in the voice of an insect. “It’s better that way.”

“You’re right,” Brossier said.

“Of course you’re not obligated to stay to the end,” Stewart said.

“I know,” Louis said.

“How’s Roland?” Stewart asked.

“He’s fine.”

He walked them to the door.

“I knew Roland de Bejardy’s father very well,” Stewart said, suddenly serious, turning to Odile and Louis. “We were close friends.”

•

Brossier had things to do and asked Louis to take Bejardy’s car, which the three of them had used to go to the Youth Exchange office on rue Favart. Odile and Louis walked at random and sat down at an outdoor café table on rue Réaumur, near the window. There was a copy of the financial newspaper, Cote Desfossés , on the table.

Louis, for appearances’ sake, flipped through the paper and his eyes were drawn to the Unlisted Securities section. The time had come to tell Odile the reason for this trip to England, but he didn’t know how to bring up the delicate subject.

“Is that interesting?”

She held out her hand with a smile for the Cote Desfossés , and put it aside on the bench next to her. Louis looked at her, uncertainly.

“What are you thinking about?”

“Nothing. The stock market. Look.”

He pointed to the Bourse on the other side of the street, with its colonnade and the stairs with the groups of businessmen walking down them. It was raining. More and more customers came into the café and gathered at the counter. Most of them were carrying black briefcases. At the table next to theirs, a man, still quite young but red in the face, with sparse black hair combed back, looked up occasionally from the folder he was studying and rudely stared at Odile.

“So, this trip to England. It’s to do something for Bejardy.”

Taking a deep breath, he gave her the details in a rush, as though afraid she might interrupt him. All the details. That he was supposed to bring almost five hundred thousand francs in cash into England for Bejardy, that he would get a percentage of it, and that the trick was to join a French-English Youth Exchange group to avoid customs. Stewart, the director of the youth exchange, was in on the scheme, it seemed.

She listened with her eyes wide, and when he was finished they were silent for a moment.

“They must have been planning this from the start. I’m sure of it,” she said.

“Yes, definitely…”

Louis shrugged. They’d just have to see what happened. He knew she was thinking the same thing.

“Well, it’s nothing too bad, all this.”

They were living through one of those moments when you feel the need to grab on to something stable and solid, the longing to ask someone for advice. But there wasn’t anyone. Except for the gray silhouettes with their black briefcases crossing rue Réaumur in the rain, coming into the café, having their coffee or drink at the counter, and leaving. Their movements made Odile and Louis feel numb. The ground was shifting under their feet.

•

They walked through the concourse at Gare Saint-Lazare, and Brossier wanted to stop at the little café in the passageway between the station and the Hotel Terminus.

“No, I think it’d be better for us downstairs,” Louis said. “Near the departure platform.”

Odile looked at him and smiled.

“This place has bad memories for us,” he said.

So they headed for the cafeteria at the back and sat down. The meeting place was at the entrance to the passageway leading to the departure platforms. A group of young people was standing a few feet away. Louis looked at his watch: It was almost the meeting time.

“That’s the youth exchange group, isn’t it?” Louis asked Brossier.

“It must be.”

Brossier tried and failed to suppress a laugh, and Odile caught it.

“You think it’s funny?” Louis asked. But in the end he laughed too.

“I hope you study hard,” Brossier said. “Learn a lot of English, with the others.”

Louis had put a large canvas backpack, with lots of pockets, on a chair next to him. It contained some of the bundles of banknotes, hidden in shirts and sweaters. The rest of the money was concealed at the bottom of Odile’s cardboard valise.

“Time to join the others now,” Brossier said.

He helped Louis put on his blue backpack, like a camper’s or mountaineer’s. Odile carried her little cardboard suitcase herself.

They went over to the edge of the group, with Brossier.

“You’ll call us when you get there, right?” Brossier said.

“You really think there won’t be any problems?” Louis said.

“None. I’ll leave you now. Give me a kiss.”

The suggestion surprised him, coming from Brossier, who exchanged kisses on the cheek with Odile too. Then he left. He turned around at the top of the stairs and waved, before he disappeared.

“You’re with us?” a young man with very large lips and a crew cut asked Odile.

“Yes.”

“Great. Over here…”

They shook hands with about ten young people who introduced themselves by first name. The crew-cut guy seemed to be in charge of the group.

“Here, stick these on your luggage and the back of your jackets.”

He showed Odile and Louis little triangular labels saying YOUTH EXCHANGE, and attached them himself to their coats, backpack, and suitcase.

“If they come off, I’ll give you more.”

Most of their traveling companions already knew each other. They brought up a previous stay in Bournemouth and talked about someone named Axter, whose name Louis had heard from Bejardy.

“Who’s Axter?” Louis asked the guy he thought of as the group leader from then on.

“Mr. Axter is the head of the school where we’ll be taking courses.”

“Courses?”

“Yes, every morning.”

“Is this the first time you two are going to England with the youth exchange?” a brunette with blue eyes asked.

“Yes,” Louis said.

“It’s really great, you’ll see.”

“Well, I think it’s time,” the crew-cut guy with the big lips said.

The train to Le Havre was waiting on the platform. The crew-cut guy handed a group ticket to the ticket controller.

“How many?”

“Twelve.”

The controller distractedly counted them as they proceeded onto the platform.

“Can I go buy some magazines?” Odile asked.

“Hurry,” the crew-cut guy said. “And if you see Science and Life , buy me one?”

“I’ll go with you,” Louis said.

They walked quickly. As they left the platform, they showed the ticket controller their Youth Exchange stickers.

At the kiosk, Louis bought Elle, Candide, Match, Paris-Presse , and Science and Life. Odile waited, sitting on her suitcase, absentmindedly watching the people come and go, more and more of them since rush hour was approaching. Suddenly her heart was pounding and she was almost suffocating: She had seen the fat blond, the policeman who had used her as bait. He walked by not far from her and slowly headed for the entrance to the café.