Patrick Modiano - In the Café of Lost Youth

Around two in the morning, my mother came to fetch me. He told her that it wasn’t terribly serious. He was still fixing me with his attentive stare. Juvenile Vagrancy, that’s what had been written in their logbook. A taxi was waiting for us outside. When he had questioned me about my schooling, I had forgotten to tell him that, for a couple of months, I had attended a school a little further down the very sidewalk that led past the police station. I would wait at the canteen until my mother came to pick me up towards the end of the afternoon. Sometimes she would turn up late, and I would wait, sitting on a bench on the median. It was while waiting there one day that I had first noticed the street had a different name on either side of the intersection. She had come to pick me up near the school that night as well, except this time at the police station. An odd little street, that one, with its two names, always seeming to want to play a role in my life.

My mother shot an anxious look at the taxi meter from time to time. She instructed the taxi driver to stop at the corner of rue Caulaincourt, and when she dug the coins out of her change purse, I understood that she had just enough to cover the fare. We did the rest of the trek on foot. I walked faster than her and was leaving her behind. Then I stopped so that she could catch up. From the bridge that overlooked the cemetery, we could see our apartment building down below us. We stopped there for a long while, and I got the impression she was catching her breath. “You walk too fast,” she told me. I have since had a realization. Perhaps I was trying to incite her to go a bit beyond the sheltered life she led. If she hadn’t died, I think I might have succeeded in helping her expand her horizons.

In the three or four years that followed, it was the same itineraries, the same streets, although I continued to go farther and farther. Those first few times, I hadn’t even walked as far as place Blanche. I hardly even went all the way around the block. First that tiny cinema on the corner of the boulevard, a little ways down from our apartment building. The late show began at ten o’clock. Other than on Saturdays, it was empty. The films were set in far-off lands like Mexico and Arizona. I paid no attention to the plot, only the scenery interested me. Once I was back outside, I was left with a curious amalgam of Arizona and the boulevard de Clichy in my head. The coloring of the illuminated signs and the neon were the same as that in the film — orange, emerald green, midnight blue, sandy yellow — colors that were too violent and gave me the feeling I was still in the movie or in a dream. A dream or a nightmare, it depended on the evening. A nightmare at first, because I was afraid and I wasn’t bold enough to go much farther. And that wasn’t because of my mother. If she had caught me all alone on the boulevard at midnight, it’s likely she wouldn’t have chastised me. She would have told me to go back to the apartment, her voice calm, as if she wasn’t the least bit surprised to see me outside at such a late hour. I think I usually walked on the opposite sidewalk, the one that lay hidden in the shadows, because I felt that my mother could no longer do anything for me.

The first time they picked me up was in the ninth arrondissement, in the all-night bakery at the foot of rue de Douai. It was already one in the morning. I was standing at one of the tall tables eating a croissant. At that time of night, there are always some strange people in that bakery, and they often come over from the café across the street, the Sans-Souci. Two plainclothes cops came in to do an ID check. I didn’t have any identification and they wanted to know how old I was. I decided to tell them the truth. They made me get into the police van alongside a tall blond guy wearing a sheepskin jacket. He seemed to know the cops. Perhaps he was one himself. At one point, he offered me a cigarette, but one of the plainclothes cops stopped him, saying, “She’s too young. They’re bad for your health.” They seemed pretty familiar with each other.

In an office inside the police station, they asked me for my first and last name, my date of birth and address, and they made note of them in a logbook. I explained that my mother worked at the Moulin Rouge. “Well then, we’re going to have to give her a call,” said one of the two plainclothesmen. The one writing in the logbook gave him the telephone number for the Moulin Rouge. He dialed it, looking me straight in the eye. I felt very embarrassed. He said, “Could I please speak to Madame Geneviève Delanque?” He was still giving me a stern look and I lowered my eyes. And then I heard, “No. No need to disturb her.” He hung up. Now he was smiling at me. He had wanted to frighten me. “We’ll let it slide this time,” he told me, “but next time, I’ll have to notify your mother.” He got up and we left the police station. The blond fellow in the sheepskin jacket was waiting on the sidewalk. They made me get into the backseat of a car. “Hop in, I’ll give you a lift back home,” the plainclothes cop told me. Now he was being very casual with me as well. The blond guy in the sheepskin got out of the car at place Blanche, in front of the pharmacy. It felt quite strange to find myself in the backseat of a car driven by a cop. He came to a halt before the front door of our apartment. “Go get some sleep. And miss, no more of that, please.” His tone had grown official once again. I think I mumbled a “Thank you, sir.” I walked towards the coach entrance, and as I was about to open it, I turned around. He had killed the engine and didn’t take his eyes off me for a second, as if he wanted to make sure I actually went into the apartment building. I took a look out of my bedroom window. The car was still parked there. I waited, my forehead glued to the window, curious to see how long he would stay there. I heard the sound of the engine before the car turned the corner and disappeared. I once again experienced the feeling of anxiety that often overwhelmed me at night and was even more intense than fear — the sensation of being completely on my own, without anyone I could turn to. Not my mother, not anyone. I would have liked him to stay all night, on guard in front of the building, all night long and every night like a sentinel, or even better, watching over me like a guardian angel.

Other nights, however, the anxiety dissipated, and I impatiently waited for my mother’s departure so I could go out. I went down the stairs with my heart pounding, as if I were going on a date. There was no longer any need to lie to the concierge, to come up with excuses, or to ask permission. To whom? And what for? I wasn’t even certain that I would come back to the apartment. Once outside, I didn’t take the sidewalk that lay hidden in the shadows, but instead the one that led right past the entrance to the Moulin Rouge. The lights seemed even more violent than those in the movies at the Mexico. A feeling of intoxication came over me, so subtle and light. I had experienced a similar sensation the night I drank a glass of champagne at the Sans-Souci. I had my whole life ahead of me. How had I turned into such a wallflower, curled up in a little ball? And what was I afraid of? I would meet people. I just had to go into any café.

I knew a girl, a little older than me, named Jeannette Gaul. One night, in the grips of an awful migraine, I had gone into the place Blanche pharmacy to buy some aspirin and a vial of ether. As I went to pay, I realized that I hadn’t brought any money. A girl in a raincoat with short blond hair, whose eyes — green eyes — had met mine earlier, stepped forward toward the cash register and paid for me. I was embarrassed, I didn’t know how to thank her. I suggested she come back to the apartment with me so I could pay her back. I always kept a little money in my night table. She said, “No, no, next time.” She also lived in the neighborhood, but a little farther down. She looked at me, her green eyes smiling. She invited me to go get a drink with her near where she lived, and we ended up in a café—or a bar, rather — on rue de La Rochefoucauld. Not at all the same ambiance as the Condé. The walls were paneled in light wood, as were the bar and the tables, and a sort of stained-glass window looked out onto the street. Subdued lighting. Behind the bar stood a blond woman in her forties that this Jeannette Gaul must have known pretty well judging by the way she casually called her Suzanne. She served us two Pimm’s Royales.