Patrick Modiano - Young Once

•

When they entered the theater, the man in the blue raincoat was standing stiffly next to the cash register. He led them to their seats personally, flashlight in hand. There were never many people in the audience, on the dark brown wooden seats.

While the film was showing, the man walked up and down the center aisle, always in his cap. He sat down every once in a while, and looked around, at a different place each time. At the end of the movie, he would station himself at the cash register again and stare hard at the spectators, one by one, nodding a greeting to Odile and Louis. This was when they should have asked him about his work as a “cinema detective,” but his serious, concerned look intimidated them. Louis even felt he should give the man a present in return, to thank him for the free tickets.

They asked Axter what “cinema detective” might mean. Axter had no idea — this was the first time in his life he had heard of such a profession.

•

When they got back to Boscombe College, the large ground-floor window was often still lit. One night, when they were starting up the stairs, Axter, who had seen them walking across the lawn, waved them over and invited them in for a drink.

They walked into a spacious lounge filled with leather sofas and armchairs, their footsteps sinking into the wool carpet. There were paintings of hunting scenes on the walls, and an engraving that Louis particularly noticed: the members of a family standing around a horse-drawn carriage with a melancholy young man inside. The scene was labeled: Going Off to College.

“My wife,” Axter said.

A large, sturdy blonde with a severe face and blue eyes, who looked much older than Axter. She was sitting with another woman on one of the sofas.

“Louis and Odile Memling.”

Axter had always pretended to believe that they were brother and sister.

“Enchantée ,” she said.

She smiled distractedly at them.

“And this is the wife of my friend Harold Howard.”

She hardly looked at them. She was as tall as Mrs. Axter, with very short brown hair and a square, mannish face. She kept shoving a cigarette holder between her teeth with a jerky gesture. The two women continued their conversation without paying any further attention to Odile and Louis. Axter, embarrassed by their cold reception, coughed slightly. Louis, to save face, admired the engraving.

“It’s lovely.”

“But sad too, don’t you think?” Axter said. “Leaving for college. Can you believe I sometimes still have dreams about going off to college. At my age, you understand…”

“Michel is a damned sentimentalist,” a voice behind them said in nearly perfect French.

They had not heard anyone come in and all three of them turned around.

“May I introduce my friend, Harold Howard.”

He was a colossal redhead with age spots on his face, in a dark red turtleneck sweater, a thick tweed jacket, and wide, green velvet trousers.

“Howard is an old friend from Trinity College.”

Axter took them over to the part of the lounge as far away as possible from where the two women were talking.

Howard sat down in an armchair and rested his long legs on a windowsill.

Axter leaned toward him. “Guy Burgess sent a postcard,” he said, in French, in a low voice.

“Guy? No! Impossible!” Howard said, dumbfounded.

Axter glanced furtively in the direction of the two women, as though needing to keep this important event a secret from them. Then he took the postcard out of his inside jacket pocket and handed it to Howard, who stared at it for a long time, clearly shaken.

“Wonderful old boy! He must be unhappy there.”

“You know perfectly well that Guy always wanted to be unhappy,” Axter said.

Still feeling the shock of the news, Howard mechanically handed the postcard to Louis. It showed a public park in Moscow, and on the back, these simple words:

With kind regards

from

GUY

Louis handed the postcard to Axter, who tucked it back into his pocket. Many years later, at Sunny Home, Louis read about the adventures of Burgess and his friends, and that name, Guy Burgess, was enough to bring back the whole atmosphere of Bournemouth, the rhododendrons, the Boscombe beach, the cool freshness of the ivy, the “cinema detective,” Odile’s lavender perfume.

“Let’s have a drink, to Guy,” Axter declared. “ What’s your poison?”

“That means ‘What would you like to drink?’ ” Howard said.

But Axter was already pouring a drink into their tiny glasses without waiting for an answer: a liquor glinting a dark red that matched Harold Howard’s sweater.

“To Guy!” Axter said gravely.

“To Guy!” Odile repeated, laughing.

“To good old Guy!” Harold said.

They drank.

“Guy was the oldest in our group at Dartmouth and Cambridge,” Axter said.

Harold looked at Odile and Louis with an engaging smile.

“And what do you do?”

“Not much,” Louis said.

“They’re still too young to have done anything bad in life,” Axter said.

Odile laughed. “Or anything good.”

Axter and Howard, in an almost perfectly synchronized gesture, had taken their pipes out of their pockets. Axter stuffed his pipe while Harold didn’t take his eyes off Odile and Louis.

“Yes, that’s true,” Axter said dreamily. “You’re both still children…”

The lamps cast a harsh light on Odile and Louis, and they moved very close to each other on the sofa. Axter and Harold watched them. Two motionless butterflies, pinned to a piece of cloth, observed by amateur butterfly collectors.

Meanwhile, Harold and Axter had put their pipes in their mouths. The women’s whispers from the other end of the lounge were barely audible. Maybe the men were taking advantage of their wives’ distance to relax and get comfortable, feel the way they had felt back in their rooms at Trinity College. Axter had unbuttoned the collar of his shirt and draped his calves over one of the arms of the chair. Harold Howard was still leaning his legs on the windowsill, and his tan wool socks, too large for him, slipped slowly down to his ankles.

“You should really see something of England… If you want, Michael and I can take you on a drive,” Harold said. “Don’t you think so, Michael? We could take you to Cambridge, for instance.”

“I’d be glad to. But I think they’re going back to France.”

Yes, they were leaving the day after tomorrow. Louis was seized with a feeling of helplessness. What were they going to do in Paris? He felt the need to confide in these Englishmen, even ask their advice. No one had ever once given him and Odile advice. They were alone in the world.

“Really? You have to leave?” Harold said. And he emptied his pipe by nervously knocking it against the heel of his shoe. “Why do you have to go?”

Louis was struck by his childish disappointment, but also by the concern and affection visible in Harold Howard’s face. They were in strange contrast with his colossal build, the rough tweed, the velvet corduroy, the acrid smell of pipe that enveloped him.

•

Axter took them to Southampton in the bus he had used to fetch them. The three of them, sitting in the back of the empty bus, did not speak. Axter pensively smoked his pipe. The weather was overcast and gloomy.

The bus parked on the departure pier in front of the customs hangar. Axter was carrying their bags, which he himself presented to the customs officer. Just when they were leaving to board the Normania , he caught Louis by the shoulder.

“Still, you should be careful with Roland. Don’t let yourself get caught up. He’s a charming man, but also a… a…” He tried to find the right word. “A kind of adventurer.”