Patrick Modiano - After the Circus

On top of which, we were cut off, but I’m sure he’ll call back. Life in Switzerland must not be easy for him. I tried to convince him not to go there. It can be a tough place if you don’t have the cash …

We’re expecting you this evening without fail, at the Tomate. The last two shows are at eight and ten-thirty. Take your pick.

Afterward, we’re going to have a late supper in the neighborhood. I hope you can join us.

Henri

There was an open pharmacy on Rue Saint-André-des-Arts. We went to take the aspirin in a café on the quay, then walked to the Pont de la Tournelle after letting the dog off the leash.

It was nice out, as it had been the previous day, but colder, like a sunny day in February. Soon it would be spring. At least, I comforted myself with that illusion, as the prospect of spending the entire winter in Paris without knowing whether I could stay in the apartment made me uneasy.

As we walked, we began to feel better. We had lunch in a hotel on the Quai des Grands-Augustins called the Relais Bisson. When we saw how expensive the dishes were, we ordered just some soup, a dessert, and a little chopped meat for the dog.

And the afternoon drifted by in a gentle torpor on the bed in the fifth-floor bedroom, and, later, listening to the radio. We had plugged in the one in the office. I remember that it was a program about jazz musicians.

Suddenly, the charm evaporated: In an hour, we’d have to keep the appointment Ansart had set for us.

“How about if we just stood him up?” I asked.

She paused a moment. I could feel her giving in.

“If we do, we can never see them again, and we’d have to leave the car on Rue Raffet.”

She took a cigarette from a pack of Camels that Grabley had left behind. She lit it and sucked in a puff. She coughed. It was the first time I’d ever seen her smoke.

“It would be stupid to break it off with them …”

I was disappointed that she’d changed her mind. She stubbed out her cigarette in the ashtray.

“We’ll do what they want, and then I’ll ask Ansart for a lot of money so we can go to Rome.”

I had the impression she was only saying that to mollify me and didn’t really believe it. A last beam of sunlight bathed the tip of the Ile de la Cité, just at the end of the Vert-Galant park. There were only a few passersby left on the quay and the booksellers were closing their stalls. I heard the clock on the Institut chime five P.M.

We had decided to leave the dog in the apartment, intending to come back and get him as soon as we could. But the moment we shut the door, he started barking and whining incessantly, so we had to resign ourselves to taking him with us to the appointment.

It was still light when we arrived at the Bois de Boulogne. We were early, so we stopped in front of the old Château de Madrid. We walked in the clearing lined with umbrella pines up to the Saint-James pond, where I had watched the ice skaters one winter in my childhood. The smell of wet earth and the gathering dark again reminded me of bygone Sunday evenings, so much so that I felt the same muted anxiety as I used to feel at the thought of returning to boarding school the next morning. Of course, the situation was different now; I was walking in the Bois de Boulogne with her and not with my father, or with my pals Charell or Karvé. But something similar was hovering in the air, the same odor, and it was also a Sunday.

“Let’s get going,” she said.

She, too, looked anxious. To steady my nerves, I kept my eyes fixed on the dog running ahead of us. I asked whether we should take the car. She said it wasn’t worth it.

We walked down Rue de la Ferme. Now she had the dog on a leash. We went past the entryway of the Charells’ building, then past the Howlett riding stables, which looked abandoned. The Charells had surely moved away. They belonged to that category of people who never really settle anywhere. Where could Alain Charell have been this evening? Somewhere in Mexico? I heard a distant clacking of horseshoes. I turned around: two riders, visible only in silhouette, had just appeared at the end of the street. Was one of them the man we had to approach in a little while?

Gradually they moved closer to us. There was still time to turn back, take the car, leave it in front of the building on Rue Raffet, vanish with the dog and never be heard from again.

She gave my arm a tight squeeze.

“This won’t take long,” she said.

“You think so?”

“Once we’ve talked to this guy, we leave the café and let them sort out the rest themselves.”

The two riders had turned right, into narrow Rue Saint-James. The clacking of horseshoes faded away.

We had reached the café. Farther on, in the part of Rue de la Ferme nearer the Seine, I noticed Ansart’s car. Someone was sitting on one of the fenders. Jacques de Bavière? I wasn’t sure. Two silhouettes occupied the front seats.

We went in. I was surprised by how fancy the place was: I’d expected just a simple café. A bar and round tables made of mahogany. Armchairs of slightly worn leather. Wood paneling on the walls. In the brick fireplace, they had lit a fire.

We took our seats at the table closest to the door. Around us were a few patrons, but I didn’t recognize our man among them.

The dog had lain down submissively at our feet. We ordered two coffees and I paid the check, so that we could leave as soon as we had delivered our message to the unknown man.

Gisèle pulled Grabley’s cigarettes from the pocket of her raincoat and lit one. She inhaled, clumsily. Her hand was shaking.

I asked:

“Are you afraid?”

“Not at all.”

The door opened and three people walked in, a woman and two men. One of them was definitely the man in the photo: wide forehead, very dark hair, brushed back.

They were having a lively conversation. The woman burst out laughing.

They sat at a table in back, near the fireplace. The man had removed his navy blue overcoat. He was not wearing riding breeches.

Gisèle stubbed out her cigarette in the ashtray. She was looking down. Was she trying to avoid the man’s eyes?

He was facing us, over there, at the table in back. The other two, a brunette of about thirty and a blond man with a narrow face and aquiline nose, were in profile.

The woman had a loud voice. The man seemed younger than on the enlarged identity photo.

I stood up, my palms moist.

I moved forward. I was standing next to their table. They stopped talking.

I leaned toward him:

“I have a message for you.”

“A message from whom?”

He had a high-pitched voice, as if strangled, and he seemed annoyed that I should come bother him.

“From Pierre Ansart. He’s waiting for you in the car on the corner.”

I stood stiffly, straining to articulate the syllables as clearly as possible.

“Ansart?”

His face expressed the discomfiture of someone being reprimanded when and where he least expected it.

“He wants to see me right now?”

“Yes.”

He glanced anxiously toward the entrance.

“Excuse me for a moment,” he said to his two companions. “I just have to go say hello to a friend who’s waiting outside.”

The other two gave me a condescending once-over: was it because of my extreme youth and careless attire? It occurred to me that I could be identified later. Had they noticed Gisèle’s presence?

He stood up and slipped on his navy blue overcoat. He turned toward the blond man and said:

“Book a table for tonight … There’ll be eight of us …”

“That’s silly,” the woman said. “We could have dinner at my place …”

“Nonsense … Back in a minute …”