Patrick Modiano: After the Circus

I had arrived at the Tournon at six o’clock, and by six-thirty she still wasn’t there. Chester Himes was sitting on the bench next to the window, in the company of two women. One of them was wearing sunglasses. They were having a lively conversation in English. Customers drank their drinks, standing at the bar. To calm my nerves, I tried to follow the conversation between Himes and his friends, but they were talking too fast, except for the woman with a Scandinavian accent whom I could understand a little. She wanted to change hotels and was asking Himes the name of the place where he’d stayed when he’d first arrived in Paris.

I watched for her through the window. It was dark outside. A taxi halted in front of the Tour-non. She got out. She was wearing her raincoat. The driver got out as well. He opened the trunk and handed her a suitcase, smaller than the one from last night.

She came toward me, suitcase in hand. She seemed glad to see me. She was just back from Saint-Leu-la-Forêt, where she’d been able to recover the rest of her effects. She had found a hotel room for the night. She asked me only to bring the suitcase back to my apartment. She preferred to leave it there, “in a safe place,” with the other one. Again I told her these suitcases must be full of gold bricks. But she answered that they were merely objects of no particular value to anyone, except her.

I stated, trying to be persuasive, that she had been wrong to take a hotel room, since I could easily put her up at the apartment for as long as she liked.

“I’m better off at a hotel.”

I sensed a certain reserve. She was hiding something from me, and I wondered whether it was because she didn’t fully trust me or because she was afraid I’d be shocked if she told me the truth.

“And what about you, what have you been up to?”

“Nothing much. I sold some furniture from the apartment to get some money.”

“Did it work out?”

“Yes.”

“Did you need money?”

Her pale blue eyes stared at me.

“That’s stupid. I could lend you some, if you like.”

She smiled. The waiter came to take our order. She asked for a grenadine, and I followed suit.

“I’ve put some money aside,” she said. “You can have it.”

“That’s very kind of you, but I think I’ve found a job.”

I told her about Dell’Aversano’s offer: to work in a bookstore in Rome. I hesitated a moment, then took the plunge:

“You could come with me …”

She didn’t seem surprised by my suggestion.

“Yes … That might be a good idea. Do you know where you’d be living in Rome?”

“The bookseller I’ll be working for is finding me a place.”

She took a sip of grenadine. Its color went very well with the pale blue of her eyes.

“And when are you leaving?”

“In a month.”

Silence fell between us. Like yesterday, in the café on Ile de la Cité, I had the impression she’d forgotten my presence and that she might just stand up and leave.

“I’ve always dreamed of going to live in London or Rome,” she said.

Her gaze rested on me once more.

“You can feel safe in a foreign city … No one would know us …”

She had already made a similar remark in the metro yesterday evening. I asked if there was someone in Paris out to harm her.

“Not really. It’s because of that interrogation yesterday … I feel like I’m being watched. They ask so many questions … They questioned me about people I used to know, but haven’t seen in ages.”

She shrugged.

“The problem is they didn’t believe me. They must figure I still see those people …”

Some patrons sat down at the table next to ours. She leaned toward me.

“What about you? How many were there when you were questioned?”

“Just one. The one who was there when you went in …”

“I had two. The second one came in later. He pretended just to be dropping by, but he started in with his own questions. The other kept on as well. I felt like a ping-pong ball.”

“But who are these people you used to know?”

“I never knew them very well. I just met them once or twice.”

She could see her answer didn’t satisfy me.

“It’s like you, when they told you your name was in an address book. You didn’t even know whose it was …”

“So now you feel like you’re being watched?”

She knitted her brow and gave me a strange look, as if she’d had a flicker of suspicion. I could guess what she was thinking: she had first seen me coming out of a detective’s office, and three hours later I was still in the neighborhood, sitting at that café table.

“Do you think I’ve been assigned to keep an eye on you?” I asked with a smile.

“No. You don’t look like a cop. And you’re too young.”

She didn’t take her eyes off me. Then her face relaxed and we both burst out laughing.

This suitcase wasn’t as heavy as the first. Following Rue de Tournon and Rue de Seine, we returned to the river. No lights on in the windows of the apartment. It was about seven-thirty, and Grabley, in the office at 73 Boulevard Haussmann, must still have been organizing those “papers” whose existence I hadn’t even suspected. I had always thought the premises were as empty as the inkwells on the desk and that my father occupied them like a waiting room. And so I’d been surprised, thirty years later, to discover a tangible trace of his presence on Boulevard Haussmann, in the form of that envelope with the name of the ore refining company. But it’s true that a name on the back of an envelope doesn’t prove much of anything: you can read it over and over, and you’re still in the dark.

I wanted to show her where I had stashed the first suitcase and we climbed the small stairway to the fifth floor. The door of the storage closet opened on the left, just before the bedroom. The closet smelled faintly of leather and sandalwood. I set the suitcase I’d been carrying next to the other and turned off the light. The key to the storage closet was in the lock. I gave it two turns and held the key out to her.

“You keep it,” she said.

We went down to the office. She wanted to make a phone call. She dialed a number but there was no answer.

She hung up, looking disappointed.

“I’m supposed to have dinner with someone tonight. Would you mind coming along?”

“If you like.” I had called her by the familiar tu without realizing it.

She started to add something, but was visibly embarrassed.

“Could I ask you a big favor? I’d rather you didn’t mention yesterday’s interrogation. And also say you’re my brother.”

I wasn’t surprised by her request. I was prepared to do anything she asked.

“Do you actually have a brother?”

“No.”

But that was unimportant. The “someone” we were meeting for dinner was not a longtime acquaintance, and it was plausible that she hadn’t yet told him about this brother who lived not far from Paris. Let’s say in Montmorency, right near Saint-Leu-la-Forêt.

The telephone rang. She jumped. I answered. Grabley. He was still at 73 Boulevard Haussmann and he had put a lot of “files” in order. He had just had my father “on the line” and the latter had instructed him to get rid of all those papers as quickly as possible. He was hesitating between two possible alternatives: either wait until the concierge at number 73 put the building’s garbage out on the curb and then stuff the “files” into the cans, or else simply chuck them down a manhole he’d spotted on Rue de l’Arcade. But in either case, he was afraid of attracting attention.

“My poor Obligado, I feel like I have to dispose of a corpse …”

He asked for news of my “girlfriend.” No, the three of us couldn’t get together this evening. She was having dinner at her brother’s, somewhere between Montmorency and Saint-Leu-la-Forêt.