Patrick Modiano - Young Once

“They’re fascinating, your photos,” she said. “Do you look at them often?”

“No. They depress me.”

“Why?”

“It’s sad to think about all those beautiful boys, all old now, or dead. And I’m still here, like a rotting old hulk that has seen them all come and go. Nothing’s left but their photos. I wanted to make another album, of all the dogs I’ve had in my life, but I don’t have the strength.”

His voice was hoarse. He let himself sink into a chair and took Odile’s hand.

“You’re still too young to understand, my dear. But when I look through this album and see them, one after the other, I have a feeling of waves, approaching and breaking, then another, then another…”

Louis was stunned. He couldn’t believe his eyes. Under the shining plastic sheet was a photo of Brossier and Bejardy, next to each other, Brossier’s face round and still partly a child’s, Bejardy barely twenty-five, with wavy black hair and the face and smile of a charmer.

“Did you know them?” Louis asked, wiping off the condensation that the dog’s breath had left on the plastic.

Bauer pulled the album onto his lap for a look.

“Yes, yes… The short one, there, who looks like Roland Toutain, I told him to go take an acting class.” His finger was pointing to Brossier. “Nothing came of it. I even got him a job working with me at an antique shop. Later, I think he became a flight attendant. Air Brazzaville. The other one, that’s different. He tried to sell me paintings… He turned out badly. He went on trial for killing an American. Acquitted. I kept the articles from the papers, if you’re interested… He ended up running a restaurant on a boat, in Neuilly. Even wanted me to do the decorations, something ‘pirate-themed.’ Do you want the press clippings about him?”

“Sure, thank you,” Louis said, pretending it didn’t much matter to him.

Slipping a hand under the photograph, Bauer pulled out an envelope and handed it to Louis, who slipped it into his pocket right away, as though it were a bag of cocaine.

“I’m so glad these things of the past still interest you,” Bauer said.

“Where did you meet them?” Odile asked, stunned.

“Meet them? I don’t know anymore. At Tonton’s place, maybe. I’m losing my memory… All right, children, that’s enough for now.”

He abruptly closed the album and put it back in the sideboard drawer.

“If you’re good, I’ll give you that album someday.”

Louis stood up, in a state of great confusion. He stood stock-still, dazed by his discovery.

“Allow me,” Bauer said, making a sign for him to sit back down.

He had a camera in his hand and was attaching a tiny flash.

“I just bought it. You can get a color photo instantly… Move closer, you two. Guy, you too.”

Louis turned around, and Bauer smiled.

“Guy is my dog.”

Guy pressed his muzzle into Odile’s wrist. Bauer looked through the viewfinder.

“Very nice. I’ll get all three of you.”

The flash made Louis blink. He thought about Bejardy and Brossier. But he also repeated in his mind Bauer’s little phrase: “waves, approaching and breaking, then another, then another…” No doubt Bauer would stick their photo in his album, with the date, and then Odile and he and the dog would have been nothing but one wave coming after all the others.

•

The envelope contained a yellowed newspaper clipping:

In a family pension in Neuilly, rue Charles-Lafitte, federal police investigators last night arrested Roland Chantain de Bejardy, age 25, the alleged murderer of the American, Parker.

It is now known that Parker, who came to France in early 1946, had had serious trouble with the law in his own country. An inquiry has been opened in France into the trafficking in surplus American products Parker organized with an accomplice working for the Saint-Cloud post exchange. Tractors, tarpaulins, and radio equipment were among the items in question, and Chantain de Bejardy was one of the men assigned by Howard Parker to dispose of the merchandise.

The young man apparently acted as a private secretary for Parker, who was around twenty years older. According to some witnesses, they were often seen together at the Stage on rue Pierre-Charron, a bar where Parker used to meet people. They were seen together at the Stage a few hours before the murder.

Roland Chantain de Bejardy, from an excellent family, claims to be an art dealer. At the Liberation, he was serving in de Lattre’s army, where his heroic conduct earned him the Médaille militaire at age twenty-three. His father was known in equestrian circles and was a longtime president of Tattersalls in France and the Biarritz Polo Club. The family ran into difficulties upon his death, and Chantain de Bejardy lived with his mother in the pension in Neuilly where he was arrested.

Two of his close friends, Hélène Mitford and Jean-Claude Brossier, age nineteen, who likewise lived at the pension on rue Charles-Lafitte, have been questioned by the federal police. The evidence against Chantain seems overwhelming, and enabled the authorities to identify him within forty-eight hours. First, the testimony of Jean Tolle, a garageman from Meriel, who saw the murderer and gave the authorities a detailed description: He was approximately twenty-five years old, tall, and very elegant. The man in question bought two containers of gasoline from Monsieur Tolle. Madame Seck, living in Garches, also gave a description of the murderer, which matched Tolle’s. She was walking her dogs in the woods, heading toward Rueil, when she heard two shots fired quickly. A car started and drove by her a few yards away, so close that she had time to see the driver: a man about twenty-five years old, like the one who had bought gas in Meriel, and like him with black hair and delicate features, clean-shaven. A man was collapsed next to him, leaning on his shoulder. Something seemed wrong, and Madame Seck wrote down the license plate number, 9092 RM: the dark red Delahaye 12 CV that Chantain de Bejardy drove and which was often seen parked in front of the Neuilly pension.

At first, it was hard to explain what might have led Chantain de Bejardy to murder Parker. Maybe it was a disagreement between them about something to do with their trafficking operation.

Stuck to the back of the article was a newspaper headline:

CHANTAIN DE BEJARDY

ACQUITTED — REASONABLE DOUBT

His colonel and one of his old comrades in the 1st French Army testified on his behalf

The word “DOUBT” was double-underlined in red and three exclamation points were written next to it in the same red ink, in nervous handwriting, hard enough to puncture the paper. The handwriting was clearly Bauer’s.

HE ENDED up deciding on Paris-Nord, a large brasserie with a brown façade on rue de Dunkerque. Louis and Odile walked in behind him.

Bejardy seemed to know the place and he led them to a table in the back, where a frosted-glass wall let in daylight filtered pale green. The room was empty. They could see a corner of Gare du Nord from where they sat.

Bejardy looked at his watch. “Twenty more minutes…”

He had no luggage except for a leather bag and a briefcase, which he put on a seat next to him.

“We’ll meet in Geneva the day after tomorrow at ten a.m. sharp, in the lobby of the Richmond Hotel. Here are the two round-trip tickets to Annecy. I checked, there’s a bus from Annecy to Geneva at five o’clock. Since the train gets into Annecy around three, that will leave you two hours free.”

He turned to Odile: “Do you mind taking this trip?”

“Not at all.”

“This is the last thing you’ll do for me. Here.”

He put the briefcase on Louis’s lap.