Patrick Modiano: Young Once

“It’s not holiday time yet,” Louis says. “Just wait, in two weeks…”

The child circles the roundabout and pedals harder and harder. Odile has put on her sunglasses and is flipping through the magazine, holding the pages tight because of the wind.

•

In his sleep, he hears the children’s shouts getting closer and farther away and closer again, and for him this corresponds to the intensities of the different lights, the plays of shadow and sunlight. But he always has the same dream. He is sitting in an empty velodrome, in a seat at the very top, watching his father clutch the handlebars and cycle slowly around the track.

Someone says his name and he opens his eyes. His daughter is standing in front of him, smiling at him. She is almost as tall as Odile.

“Papa… The guests are here.”

She is wearing a red dress and that surprises Louis. She is thirteen years old. He is just coming out of his dream and, still drowsy, he is surprised that his daughter could be so tall.

“Papa…”

She gives him a reproachful smile, takes him by the hand, and tries to pull him off the sofa. Louis resists. After a moment he lets himself be dragged upright, stands up, and kisses her on the forehead. He goes out onto the deck. It’s not dark yet and he sees, through the row of pine trees, a group coming up to the chalet. He recognizes Allard’s deep voice and Martine Viterdo’s laugh. Over there, the red cable car glides slowly along the slope of the Foraz, a ladybug in the grass.

•

All the lights in the dining room have been turned off. Louis, Odile, Viterdo and his wife, Allard, and the children are waiting around the table. Louis’s daughter comes out of the kitchen carrying the cake, with eight candles shining on it: three for the decades, five for the years. She walks toward them and they sing, in English: “ Happy Birthday to you …”

She puts the tray down in the middle of the table. Everyone takes turns giving Odile a kiss.

“Well,” Viterdo says, “what’s it like being thirty-five?”

“I’m almost old enough to be a grandmother,” Odile answers.

“Don’t be silly, Odile.”

“You have to blow out the candles, Mama.”

Odile leans over the cake and blows.

“First try!”

They clap and someone turns the lights back on.

“A song! A song!”

“Odile will now sing for you ‘La Chanson des rues,’ ” Louis says.

“No, no. No way.”

She cuts the cake. The children have left the table and all five of them are standing in a group at the edge of the deck. Odile and Louis bring them each a piece of cake on a little napkin.

“They won’t want to go to sleep,” says Martine, Viterdo’s wife.

“It doesn’t matter. This is a special day,” Allard says in his deep voice. “You don’t turn thirty-five every day.”

Viterdo checks his watch.

“I think we have to go, Louis. I’m very sorry for the inconvenience.”

He has to take the night train to Paris, the 11:03, and Louis has offered to drive him to the station.

“Let’s go,” Louis says.

Allard, Viterdo’s wife, and Odile are sitting on the deck, chatting. Allard’s voice dominates the conversation. The night is warm and there’s the sound of a storm brewing, far away.

Viterdo, standing in the middle of the living room, opens his black briefcase. He seems to be checking that he hasn’t forgotten anything in the rush. The children are bustling on the stairs and the noise of their hurried footsteps fades as they cross the large upstairs rooms. Odile has left the deck and rejoined Louis just when he is about to follow Viterdo out of the chalet.

“Happy birthday,” Louis says.

“Oh, enough already,” Odile says.

“What’s it like being thirty-five?”

She shakes him by the shoulder. “Enough already. It’ll be your turn soon too.”

He hugs her to him and they burst out laughing. This is the first time in their life that they are celebrating one of their birthdays. It’s a silly thing to do, but maybe the children will like it…

•

Viterdo puts his bag and black briefcase on the seat in back, then gets in and sits next to Louis.

“I really am sorry, Louis.”

“It’s nothing. Really. We’ll be at the station in five minutes.”

Louis pulls out slowly. After a moment, he turns off the engine and the car travels down the straight little road in silence.

“When are you coming back?” Louis asks.

“Next weekend. I want to spend August here with Martine and the kids. You get to stay here in the mountains all year.”

“I don’t think I could live in Paris,” Louis says.

He grabs the knob on the radio and turns it on, the way he always does when he’s driving.

“How long have you lived here?” Viterdo asks.

“Thirteen years.”

“It’s barely six years since we bought our place…”

“I feel like you’ve been here longer.”

Viterdo is the same age as Louis. He works at an import-export business in Paris. Every year, at Christmas and Easter, he and Martine come to go skiing with their three children, whom they often leave with Odile and Louis so that they can play with the other kids at Sunny Home.

“So, you’re done with the home?”

“We’re done,” Louis says with a smile. “Now we’ll have the chalet all to ourselves. The kids will be able to roller skate in the rooms.”

“And you, what are you going to do now?”

“Maybe start a restaurant and teahouse for the cable-car people, with Allard.”

“You’re doing the right thing, really,” Viterdo says. “I wish I could drop everything and live out here too.”

The first turn in the road. To the left, the wall surrounding the Hotel Royal. Louis restarts the car’s engine.

“The kids are definitely happier here than they’d be in Paris,” he says. “What I want is for my son to become a ski instructor.”

“Really? What about your daughter?”

“Oh, you never know with girls.”

He has rolled down the window. The storm seems to be moving in.

“Did you ever live in Paris?” Viterdo asks.

“Yes. It was a long time ago.”

He stops the car outside the station, opens the door, and picks up Viterdo’s bags.

“Louis, please.”

They cross the small, empty station hall, lit by fluorescent lights. Viterdo slips his ticket into the machine that stamps it.

“They’re more and more complicated, these machines,” Louis says. “Luckily, I don’t travel anymore.”

The train is already in the station.

“Bye, Louis. See you Friday.”

Louis walks him to the platform and helps him stow his bag and black briefcase in the sleeping-car compartment. Viterdo, smiling, opens the window and leans out.

“Till Friday, then. I’m leaving Martine and the children in your hands. Be strict…”

“Very strict, same as always.”

Crossing the station hall again, Louis notices a candy machine next to the closed ticket counters. He puts two coins into the slot. Something falls down, wrapped in red and gold paper — one of those chocolates called rochers , rocks. Huh, they still have those… Odile used to buy them all the time at the bakery on rue Caulaincourt. This would be his birthday present for her.

On the other side of the square, behind the café windows, several motionless silhouettes face a TV screen. The voice of a singer reaches him. Only the voice, a little husky, he can’t understand the words. A warm wind starts blowing. On the road back, the first drops of rain…

•

It rained for days on end in Saint-Lô, that fall fifteen years ago, making large puddles in the barracks yard. He had accidentally stepped in the middle of one and felt an icy shackle grip his ankles.