Patrick Modiano: So You Don't Get Lost in the Neighborhood

“And where did you find this notebook?”

“On the floor, underneath a bench in the cafeteria at the gare de Lyon.”

He handed him the address book. Daragane thrust it into his pocket. He remembered, in fact, that on the day of his departure for the Côte d’Azur he had arrived early at the gare de Lyon and that he had sat down in the cafeteria on the first floor.

“Would you like something to drink?” asked the man called Gilles Ottolini.

Daragane wanted to be rid of them. But he changed his mind.

“A tonic water.”

“Try to catch someone to take the order. I’ll have a coffee,” said Ottolini, turning towards the girl.

She stood up immediately. Clearly, she was used to obeying him.

“It must have been annoying for you to have lost this notebook. .”

He gave an odd sort of smile which struck Daragane as insolent. But perhaps it was awkwardness on his part or shyness.

“You know,” said Daragane, “I hardly use the telephone anymore.”

The other man looked at him in astonishment. The girl came back to their table and sat down again.

“They’re no longer serving at this hour. They’re about to close.”

It was the first time Daragane heard this girl’s voice, a voice that was husky and that did not have the slight Southern accent of the man sitting next to her. Rather more of a Parisian one, if that still means anything.

“Do you work in the area?” asked Daragane.

“In an advertising agency in rue Pasquier. The Sweerts agency.”

“And you too?”

He had turned towards the girl.

“No,” said Ottolini, without allowing the girl time to reply. “She doesn’t do anything at the moment.” And once again that contorted smile. The girl also gave a flicker of a smile.

Daragane was in a hurry to get away. If he did not do so straight away, would he manage to get rid of them?

“I’ll be frank with you. .” He was leaning towards Daragane, and his voice was shriller.

Daragane experienced the same feeling as he had the previous day, on the telephone. Yes, this man had the persistence of an insect.

“I took the liberty of leafing through your address book. . simple curiosity. .”

The girl had looked away, as if pretending not to hear.

“You’re not angry with me?”

Daragane looked him straight in the eyes. The other man held his gaze.

“Why should I be angry?”

A silence. The man had eventually lowered his gaze. Then, in the same metallic voice:

“There’s someone whose name I found in your address book. I should like you to give me some information about him. .”

His tone of voice had become more humble.

“Forgive my inquisitiveness. .”

“Whom does it concern?” asked Daragane reluctantly.

He suddenly felt the need to get to his feet and to step out quickly through the open door onto boulevard Haussmann. And to breathe in the fresh air.

“A certain Guy Torstel.”

He stressed each syllable of the surname and the first name carefully, as if to awaken the other’s dormant memory.

“Who did you say?”

“Guy Torstel.”

Daragane took the address book from his pocket and opened it at the letter T . He read the name, at the very top of the page, but this Guy Torstel meant nothing to him.

“I can’t imagine who this could be.”

“Really?”

The man seemed disappointed.

“There’s a seven-digit phone number,” said Daragane. “It must date back at least thirty years. .”

He turned over the pages. All the other phone numbers were current ones. With ten digits. And he had only been using this address book for five years.

“This name means nothing to you?”

“No.”

A few years earlier, he would have displayed some of that politeness for which he was renowned. He would have said: “Give me a bit of time to throw some light on the mystery. .” But the words did not come.

“It’s to do with a news item about which I’ve gathered quite a lot of information,” the man continued. “This name is mentioned. That’s all. .”

He suddenly seemed to be on the defensive.

“What kind of news item?”

Daragane has asked the question automatically, as though he were rediscovering his former courteous reflexes.

“A very old news item. . I wanted to write an article about it. . You know, I used to do some journalism to begin with. .”

But Daragane’s attention was flagging. He really must get rid of them quickly, otherwise this man was going to tell him his life story.

“I’m sorry,” he told him. “I’ve forgotten this Torstel. . At my age, one suffers memory losses. . I must leave you unfortunately. .”

He stood up and shook hands with both of them. Ottolini gave him a hard stare, as though Daragane had insulted him and he was ready to respond in a violent way. The girl, for her part, had lowered her gaze.

He walked over towards the wide-open glass door that gave onto boulevard Haussmann, hoping that the man would not block his path. Outside, he breathed in deeply. What a strange idea, this meeting with a stranger, when he himself had not seen anybody for three months and was none the worse for it. . On the contrary. In his solitude, he had never felt so light-hearted, with strange moments of elation either in the morning or the evening, as though everything were still possible and, as the title of the old film has it, adventure lay at the corner of the street. . Never, even during the summers of his youth, had life seemed so free of oppression as it had since the beginning of this summer. But in summer, everything is uncertain — a “metaphysical” season, his philosophy teacher, Maurice Caveing, had once told him. It was odd, he remembered the name “Caveing” yet he no longer knew who this Torstel was.

It was still sunny, and a light breeze was cooling the heat. Boulevard Haussmann was deserted at this time of day.

Over the course of the past fifty years, he had often come here, and had done so even during his childhood, when his mother took him to Printemps, the large department store a little further up the boulevard. But this evening, his city seemed unfamiliar to him. He had cast off all the bonds that could still bind him to her, but perhaps it was she who had rejected him.

He sat down on a bench and took out the address book from his pocket. He was about to tear it up and scatter the shreds into the green plastic wastepaper bin beside the bench. Yet he hesitated. No, he would do so later, at home, when he had peace of mind. He leafed through the notebook absent-mindedly. Among these telephone numbers, there was not one that he would have wanted to dial. And then, the two or three missing numbers, those that had mattered to him and which he still knew by heart, would no longer respond.

AT ABOUT NINE O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING, THE telephone rang. He had just woken up.

“Monsieur Daragane? Gilles Ottolini.”

The voice sounded less aggressive than the previous day.

“I’m sorry about yesterday. . I feel that I annoyed you. .”

The tone was courteous, and even deferential. None of that insect-like insistence that had so irritated Daragane.

“Yesterday. . I wanted to catch up with you in the street. . You left so abruptly. .”

A silence. But this one was not threatening.

“You know, I’ve read a few of your books. Le Noir de l’été in particular. .”

Le Noir de l’été . It took him a few seconds to realise that this was actually a novel that he had once written. His first book. It was so long ago. .

“I liked Le Noir de l’été very much. This name that is mentioned in your address book and that we spoke about. . Torstel. . you used it in Le Noir de l’été .”