Patrick Modiano - In the Café of Lost Youth

He lit the candles of a candelabrum on the mantel then took his seat behind the desk. We occupied the chairs facing him, that girl, me, and a couple in their early forties whom I was meeting for the first time, both of them meticulously dressed and rather bourgeois-looking.

I turned my head toward her and our eyes met. Guy de Vere was still talking, his chest leaned forward slightly but still naturally, almost as if he was having a casual conversation. At each one of his lectures, he read to us from a text of which he later provided photocopies. I still have the handout from that night. I had a reference point. She had given me her phone number and I had written it on the bottom of the page with a red ballpoint pen.

“Maximum concentration is best reached lying down, the eyes closed. At the first sign of an external manifestation, dispersion and diffusion will commence. Upright, the legs eliminate a portion of the required strength. Open eyes diminish concentration levels.”

It was all I could do to hold in a fit of laughter, and I remember it with certainty because that was the first time it had happened to me there. But the candlelight lent the reading far too much solemnity. My eyes often met those of the girl. Apparently she didn’t feel like laughing. Quite the opposite. She seemed very respectful, even worried that she might not understand the meaning of the words. She ended up passing that gravity on to me. I was almost ashamed of my initial reaction. I hardly dared think of the scene I would have caused if I had burst out laughing. And in her gaze, I thought I could see some sort of a cry for help, a question. Am I worthy of being among you? Guy de Vere had folded his hands. His voice had grown even more resolute and he was looking fixedly at her as if she were the only one he was addressing. It petrified her. Perhaps she was afraid he would ask her an unexpected question, something along the lines of “And you, I’d love to hear your opinion on this.”

The lights came back on. We lingered in the office a short while longer, which was unusual. The lectures always took place in the living room and gathered together about a dozen people. That evening we were but four, and most likely de Vere had preferred to receive us in his office because of our small number. And the whole thing had been arranged thanks to a simple time and place, without the invitation that was customarily delivered to your home or that you might be given if you were a regular at the Vega bookstore. Like some of the photocopied texts, I’ve kept a few of those invitations, and yesterday I came across one of them.

Dearest Roland,

Guy de Vere would be delighted to receive you Thursday, January 16th, at 8 p.m.

5 Lowendal Square (15th)

2nd building on the left

4th floor, left door

The white bristol board card, always of the same size and with the same filigreed lettering, could have been announcing a social gathering, a cocktail party, or a birthday.

That evening he accompanied us back down to the door of the apartment. Guy de Vere and the first-time couple all had at least twenty years on us. As the elevator was too small for four people, she and I took the stairs.

A private street lined by identical buildings with beige and brick façades. Same wrought-iron doors under the same old-fashioned streetlights. Same rows of windows. Once through the gate, we found the square at rue Alexandre Cabanel before us. I wanted to write that name down, because that was where our paths first crossed. We lingered a moment in the middle of the square, trying to think of something to say. I was the one to break the silence.

“Do you live in the neighborhood?”

“No, over by Étoile.”

I was looking for an excuse not to leave her right away. “We could walk partway together.”

We walked under the viaduct, along boulevard de Grenelle. She had suggested we follow the stretch of the Métro that runs above ground towards Étoile. If she got tired, she could always take the Métro the rest of the way. It must have been a Sunday night or a holiday. There was no traffic, all of the cafés were closed. In any case, as I remember it, that night we were in a deserted city. Our having met, when I think about it now, seems like the meeting of two people who were completely without moorings in life. I think that we were both alone in the world.

“Have you known Guy de Vere long?” I asked her.

“No, I just met him at the beginning of the year, through a friend. And you?”

“Through the Vega bookstore.”

She wasn’t familiar with that bookstore, a shop on boulevard Saint-Germain whose windows bore, in blue lettering, the inscription: “Orientalism and Comparative Religion.” That was where I first heard Guy de Vere speak. One evening, the bookseller had given me one of the bristol board invitation cards, telling me that I was welcome to attend the lecture. “It’s totally for people like you.” I would have liked to ask him what he meant by “people like you.” He was looking at me with a fair amount of kindness and it didn’t necessarily have to be pejorative. He even offered to “put in a good word” for me with this Guy de Vere.

“Is it any good, this Vega bookstore?”

She had asked me the question with a hint of irony in her voice. Although maybe it was her Parisian accent that gave me that impression.

“You can find all sorts of interesting books there. I’ll take you sometime.”

I wanted to know what sort of books she read and what had drawn her to Guy de Vere’s lectures. The first book that de Vere had recommended to her was Lost Horizon . She had read it very carefully. She had arrived at the previous lecture before the others, and de Vere had led her into his office. He hunted through the shelves of his library, which occupied two full walls, for another book to lend her. After a moment, as if an idea had suddenly come to him, he had gone over to his desk and taken up a book that lay among the disorderly heaps of folders and letters. He told her, “You can read this one. I’d be very curious to know what you think of it.” She had been extremely intimidated. De Vere always spoke to others as if they were as intelligent and as cultivated as he was. How long could that go on? At some point he would realize that we didn’t measure up. The book that he had given her that night was called Louise, Sister of the Void . No, I wasn’t familiar with it. It related the life story of Louise of the Void, a seventeenth-century nun, and included all the letters she had written. She wasn’t reading it from front to back, she just opened it at random. Some pages really made an impression on her. Even more so than Lost Horizon . Before meeting de Vere, she had read science fiction novels like The Dreaming Jewels . And books about astronomy. What a coincidence. I too had a thing for astronomy.

At Bir-Hakeim station, I wondered if she was going to take the Métro or if she wanted to keep walking and cross the Seine. Above our heads, at regular intervals, the clattering of the trains. We stopped on the bridge and continued our conversation.

“I live up by Étoile, too,” I told her. “Maybe not too far from your place.”

She was hesitating. She seemed to want to tell me something that was bothering her.

“To be honest, I’m married. I live with my husband in Neuilly.” You would have thought she was confessing to a crime.

“Have you been married long?”

“No, not very long. Since last April.”

We had resumed walking. We reached the middle of the bridge, where the stairs led to the allée des Cygnes below. She entered the stairwell and I followed her. She made her way down the steps confidently, as if she were on her way to meet someone. And she spoke more and more quickly.