Patrick Modiano: Paris Nocturne

Then I had a dim memory of the accident and wanted to turn over and see if she was still there in the other bed. But I didn’t have the strength to make the slightest movement — the stillness put me at ease. I remembered the big black muzzle, too. It must have been the ether that put me in this state. I lay still and let myself drift along in the river’s current. Her face came to me with total precision, like a large identikit photograph: the even arches of her eyebrows, clear eyes, blonde hair, the cuts on her forehead, cheekbones and the hollow of her cheek. In my half-sleep the huge brown-haired man held up the photo, asking me if I ‘knew this person’. I was astonished to hear him speak. He kept repeating the question with the metallic voice of a talking clock. I studied the face until I thought, yes, I know this person. Or perhaps I had met someone who looked very similar. I could no longer feel the pain in my left foot. That evening I was wearing my old moccasins with crepe rubber soles and stiff leather, which I had cut with scissors because they were too tight and hurt my ankles. I thought about that shoe I had lost, the forgotten shoe left in the middle of the pavement. The shock of the accident brought back the memory of the dog that had been run over long ago, and I could see the sloping avenue in front of the house. The dog used to escape and go to the vacant lot at the end of the avenue. I was afraid that he might get lost, so I kept an eye out for him from my bedroom window. It was often evening when he came walking slowly back up the avenue. Why had this woman become associated with a house where I had spent part of my childhood?

Again, I heard him ask me the same question, ‘Do you know this person?’ His voice became softer and softer until it was a whisper, as if he was speaking right up against my ear. I stayed still and let myself be carried along by the river, perhaps the same river where we used to walk with the dog. Faces gradually appeared in front of me, and I compared them with the identikit photograph. Of course, that was it: she had a room on the first floor of the house, the last room at the end of the corridor. The same smile, the same blonde hair but worn longer. She had a scar across her left cheekbone, and I suddenly understood why I had thought I recognised her in the police van. The cuts on her face must have reminded me of the scar, only I hadn’t realised it then.

Once I had the strength to turn over to the side where she lay on the other bed, I would reach out and touch her shoulder to wake her. She would still be wrapped up in her fur coat. I would ask her all the questions I needed to ask. I would finally find out exactly who she was.

I couldn’t see much of the room: only the white ceiling and the window opposite me. Or rather, a bay window, on the right of which a branch swung to and fro. And the blue sky behind the windowpane, a blue so pure that I thought it must be a beautiful winter’s day. I had the impression I was in a hotel in the mountains. Once I was able to get up and walk over to the window, I would see that it looked out onto a field of snow, perhaps the start of a ski run. I was no longer carried by the river’s current, but was gliding over the snow, a gentle, endless slope, and the air I breathed had the coolness of ether.

The room seemed larger than the one last night in the Hôtel-Dieu, and I hadn’t noticed a bay window, or any other window in that kind of storage room where we had been taken after the waiting room. I turned my head. No camp bed, no one else but me. They must have given her a room next to mine, and I would soon see how she was. The huge brown-haired man who I feared would handcuff us to each other was surely not a policeman as I had thought, and we owed him no explanation. He could ask me all the questions he liked, interrogate me for hours; I no longer felt guilty of anything. I was gliding over the snow and the cold air made me slightly euphoric. The accident the night before did not happen by chance. It marked a breach in continuity. The shock was good for me, and it occurred in time for me to make a new start in life.

The door was to my right, beyond the small, white, wooden bedside table where they had left my wallet and passport. And on the metal chair against the wall, I recognised my clothes. At the foot of the chair, my one shoe. I could hear voices on the other side of the door, the voices of a man and a woman conversing calmly. I really had no desire to get up. I wanted to prolong this respite as long as possible. I wondered if I was still in the Hôtel-Dieu, but it didn’t feel like it, because of the silence, barely interrupted by the two reassuring voices on the other side of the door. The branch waved to and fro in the window frame. Sooner or later they would come and explain everything to me. I felt absolutely no apprehension, even though I had always been on edge. Perhaps I owed this sudden peacefulness to the ether they made me inhale the night before, or another drug that had eased the pain. In any case, the heaviness I had always felt bearing down on me had lifted. For the first time in my life, I was light and carefree, and that was my real nature. The blue sky at the window evoked one word for me: ENGADIN. I had always needed fresh air, and last night a mysterious doctor, after having examined me, understood that I had to leave for ENGADIN immediately.

I could hear their conversation on the other side of the door, and the presence of these two unseen and unknown people reassured me. Perhaps they were there to watch over me. Again the car appeared suddenly from the shadows, grazed me and collided with the arcade, the door opened and she stumbled out. While we were sitting on the sofa in the hotel lobby and until she squeezed my wrist in the police van, I thought she was drunk. In a police station, they’d say, an ordinary accident like one that was caused by someone ‘driving under the influence’. But now I was sure it was something else entirely. It was as if there was someone watching over me without my knowing or as if chance had put something in my path to protect me. And that night, time was running out. I had to be protected from some kind of danger, or be warned about it. A scene came back to me, probably because of the word ENGADIN. A few years earlier, I had seen a fellow hurtling down a steep ski slope and deliberately throw himself against the wall of a chalet and break his leg so he wouldn’t have to go to war, the war we called ‘Algerian’. In short, he was trying to save his life that day. As for me, apparently I didn’t even have a broken leg. Thanks to her, I came out of it relatively unscathed. I needed the shock. It gave me the opportunity to reflect on what my life had been up to that point. I had to admit that I was ‘heading for disaster’—to use the words I’d heard others say about me.

Once again my gaze landed on the shoe at the foot of the chair: the big moccasin I had split at the ankle. They must have been surprised when they removed it, before putting me in bed. They were kind enough to put it with the rest of my clothes and lend me the pyjamas I was wearing, blue with white stripes. Where did all this solicitude come from? She must have given them instructions. I couldn’t take my eyes off the shoe. Later on, when my life had taken a new course, I would always have to keep it in view, displayed on a mantelpiece or in a glass box, as a souvenir from the past. And to those who wanted to know more about it, I would reply that it was the only thing my parents had left me; yes, as far back as I could remember, I had always walked with one shoe. With this thought, I closed my eyes and sleep came to me in a burst of silent hysterical laughter.

*

A nurse woke me with a tray, which she told me was breakfast. I asked her where exactly I was and she seemed surprised that I didn’t know. At the Mirabeau Clinic. When I asked the address of the clinic, she didn’t answer. She studied me with an incredulous smile. She thought I was making fun of her. Then she consulted a form she had taken out of the pocket of her white coat and told me that I had to ‘leave the premises’. I repeated, which clinic? The floor pitched as it did in my dream. I had dreamed that I was a prisoner on a cargo ship in the middle of the sea. All I wanted was to reach solid ground. The Mirabeau Clinic, Rue Narcisse-Diaz. I didn’t venture to ask her which neighbourhood the street was in. Was it near the Hôtel-Dieu? She seemed to be in a hurry and closed the door behind her without giving me any further information. They had bandaged my ankle, knee, wrist and hand. I couldn’t bend my left leg, but I managed to dress myself. I put on my one shoe, thinking that it might be difficult to walk in the street but that there was sure to be a bus stop or metro station nearby and I’d soon be back at my place. I decided to lie down again on the bed. I still felt at ease. Would this feeling last long? I was afraid it would disappear as soon as I left the clinic. Looking at the blue sky framed by the window, I convinced myself that they had brought me to the mountains. I had avoided going over to the window, for fear of disappointment. I wanted to remain under the illusion for as long as possible that the Mirabeau Clinic was in a winter sports village in Engadin. The door opened and the nurse appeared. She carried a plastic bag, placed it on the bedside table and left without a word, in one swift movement. In the bag was the shoe I had left behind. They had taken the trouble to go all the way over there and retrieve it from the pavement. Or perhaps she had asked them to get it. I was surprised by such attention on my behalf. Now nothing was stopping me ‘leaving the premises’, as the nurse had instructed. I felt like walking in the open air.

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