Patrick Modiano - After the Circus

I felt like asking her point-blank if she was really Jacques de Bavière’s stepmother. She saw us to the door.

“If I see Jacques, is there something you’d like me to tell him?”

She had asked in a distracted voice, no doubt eager to return to her guests.

It was still early. People were lined up in front of the Normandie cinema for the second showing.

We walked down the avenue with the dog.

“Do you think she’s really his stepmother?” I asked.

“That’s what he says. He told me she runs a bridge club out of the apartment and he sometimes helps out.”

A bridge club. That explained the feeling of unease I had experienced. I wouldn’t have been surprised if the furniture was covered with slip-cases. I had even noticed magazines piled up on a coffee table, like in a dentist’s waiting room. So the apartment where Jacques de Bavière lived with his supposed stepmother was in fact nothing but a bridge club. I thought of my father. He too could easily have concocted a scheme like that, and Grabley would have acted as his secretary and doorman. They really did all belong to the same world.

We had reached the arcades of the Lido. I was suddenly seized by a violent desire to flee this city, as if I felt surrounded by a vague menace.

“What’s wrong? You’re pale as a sheet …”

She had stopped walking. A group of strollers jostled us as they went by. The dog, his head raised toward us, seemed worried too.

“It’s nothing … Just some passing dizziness …”

I forced a smile.

“Would you like to sit down for a bit, get something to drink?”

She pointed toward a café, but I couldn’t sit in the middle of that Saturday evening crowd. I would have suffocated. And anyway, there were no free seats.

“No … Let’s keep walking … I’ll be fine …”

I took her hand.

“What would you say to leaving for Rome right away?” I asked her. “Otherwise, I feel like it’ll be too late …”

She looked at me, eyes wide.

“Why right away? We have to wait for Ansart and Jacques de Bavière to help us out … We can’t do much of anything without them …”

“Well, what about crossing the street? It’s quieter on the other side …”

And in fact, there were fewer people on the left-hand sidewalk. We walked toward Etoile, where we had parked the car. And today, trying to remember that evening, I see two silhouettes with a dog, walking up the avenue. Around them, the passersby become scarcer and scarcer, the cafés empty out, the movie houses go dark. In my dream, I was sitting that evening at a table on the Champs-Elysées amid several late-hour customers. They had already turned off the lights in the main room and the waiter was stacking the chairs as a hint that it was time for us to leave. I went out. I walked toward Etoile and heard a distant voice say: “We have to wait for Ansart and Jacques de Bavière to help us out …”—her voice, deep and always a little hoarse.

At Quai de Conti, the office windows were lit. Had Grabley forgotten to turn off the lights before going out on his rounds?

As we were crossing the darkened foyer with the dog, we heard laughter.

We tiptoed forward and Gisèle held the dog by his collar. We were hoping to slip by to the stairs without attracting any attention. But just as we passed by the half-open door of the office, it suddenly swung open and Grabley appeared, glass in hand.

He jumped when he saw us. He remained standing in the doorway, staring in surprise at the dog.

“Well, now … I don’t believe I’ve met this one …”

Had he had too much to drink? With a ceremonial gesture, he ushered us in.

A small young woman with a round face and short brown hair was sitting on the couch. At her feet was a bottle of champagne. She was holding a glass, and she didn’t seem at all put out by our sudden appearance. Grabley introduced us.

“Sylvette … Obligado and Miss …”

She smiled at us.

“You might offer them some champagne,” she said to Grabley. “I don’t like drinking alone.”

“I’ll go fetch some glasses …”

But he didn’t find any in the kitchen. There were only two left: his and the girl’s. He would have to bring us teacups, or even those paper cups we’d been using for the past few weeks.

“No need,” I told him.

The dog went toward the small brunette. Gisèle pulled him back by his collar.

“Let him go … I love dogs …”

She petted his forehead.

“Guess where I met Sylvette?” asked Grabley.

“Do you really think they’re interested?” she said.

“I met her at the Tomate …”

Gisèle frowned. I was afraid she’d leave then and there.

The small brunette took a sip of champagne to hide her embarrassment.

“Do you know the Tomate, Obligado?”

I remembered walking past that establishment every Sunday evening on the way to picking up my mother, who was performing in a theater near Pigalle.

“I’m a dancer,” she said sheepishly, “and they hired me for a two-week engagement … But I don’t think I’ll stay … The show is kind of creepy …”

“Not in the slightest,” said Grabley.

She blushed and lowered her eyes.

It was ridiculous to feel self-conscious in front of us. I remembered those Sunday evenings when I crossed Paris on foot, from the Left Bank to Pigalle, and the neon sign at the end of Rue Notre-Dame-de-Lorette — red, then green, then blue.

LA TOMATE CONTINUOUS STRIPTEASE

A bit farther up was the Théâtre Fontaine. My mother was in a vaudeville show there: The Perfumed Princess. We would catch the last bus back to the Quai de Conti apartment, which was in almost as much disrepair then as now.

“To the Tomate!” said Grabley, raising his glass.

The small brunette raised hers as well, as if in defiance. Gisèle and I sat still. So did the dog. Their glasses clinked. There was a long silence. We were all under the wan light of the ceiling bulb, as if celebrating some mysterious birthday.

“Please excuse me,” Gisèle said, “I’m dead on my feet.”

“Tomorrow is Sunday, we can all go to the Tomate to watch Sylvette,” Grabley said.

And once again, I thought of all those bygone Sunday evenings.

I slept fitfully. Several times I awoke with a start, and reassured myself that she was still beside me in bed. I had a temperature. The room had turned into a train compartment. The silhouettes of Grabley and the small brunette appeared in the window frame. They were standing on the platform, waiting for us to depart. They were each holding a paper cup and they raised their arms in a toast, as if in slow motion. I could hear Grabley’s half-muffled voice:

“We can all meet tomorrow at the Tomate …”

But I knew full well we wouldn’t show up. We were leaving Paris for good. The train jerked to a start. The buildings and houses of the suburbs stood out one last time, black against a crepuscular sky. We were squeezed together in a couchette and the jostling carriage shook us violently. The next morning, the train would stop at a platform flooded in sunlight.

It was Sunday. We got up very late, feeling as if we had the flu. We had to find an open pharmacy in the neighborhood where we could buy some aspirin. And anyway, we needed to walk the dog.

Grabley had already gone out. He had left a note, lying conspicuously on the office couch.

My dear Obligado,

You aren’t up yet, and I have to go to eleven o’clock Mass at Saint-Germain-des-Prés.

Your father called this morning, but I could barely hear him because he was calling from an outdoor phone booth: the car horns and traffic covered his voice.