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

The more he read, the more he had the sense that this “dossier” was a sort of ragbag in which bits and pieces from two different investigations that had not taken place in the same year had been thrown together, since the date was now given as 1952. However, between the notes from 1951 dealing with the murder of Colette Laurent and those on the two last pages, he thought he could detect a slender unifying thread: “Colette Laurent” had visited “a house in Saint-Leu-la-Forêt” where “a certain Annie Astrand” lived. This house was apparently under police supervision — but for what reason? Among the names mentioned, those of Torstel, his mother, Bugnand and Perrin de Lara. Two other names were not unknown to him. Roger Vincent and in particular that of the woman who lived in the house at Saint-Leu-la-Forêt, “a certain Annie Astrand”.

He would have liked to put these muddled notes into some sort of order, but this seemed beyond his powers. What is more, at this late hour of the night, one often comes up with some peculiar notions: the target whom Gilles Ottolini had in mind when he had gathered all the notes in his file, well it was not some old news item, but he himself, Daragane. Of course, Ottolini had not found the angle to fire from, he groped around, he got lost along crossed paths, he was incapable of reaching the heart of the matter. Daragane could sense him prowling around him in search of a way in. Perhaps he had gathered together all these disparate elements in the hope that Daragane would react to one of them, like those police officers who begin an interrogation with petty remarks in order to lull the suspect’s defences. Then, when the person feels safe, they suddenly fire the crucial question at him.

His eyes settled once more on the leaves of the hornbeam tree and he felt ashamed of such notions. He was losing his composure. The few pages he had just read were merely an inept draft, an accumulation of details that concealed what was most important. One name alone disturbed him and drew him like a magnet: Annie Astrand. But it was barely legible amid these words jumbled together without double-spacing. Annie Astrand. A faraway voice picked up late at night on the radio and you persuade yourself that she is speaking to you in order to give you a message. Someone had told him one day that you forget the voices of those whom you have been close to in the past very quickly. Yet if he were to hear the voice of Annie Astrand today, in the street, he was certain he would recognise it.

When he was next in Ottolini’s company, he would be very careful not to draw attention to this name: Annie Astrand, but he was not sure whether he would see him again. If need be, he would write a very brief note to give him the sparse information about Guy Torstel. A man who looked after a bookshop in the Galerie de Beaujolais, adjoining the Palais-Royal gardens. Yes, he had met him only once, almost fifty years ago, one Sunday evening in autumn at Le Tremblay. He could even carry kindness a step further by providing him with a few additional details about the two others, Bugnand and Perrin de Lara. Friends of his mother, as Guy Torstel must have been. In the year when he read the poems in Arbre, mon ami and when he felt envious of that girl of his own age who was the author, Bugnand and Perrin de Lara — and perhaps Torstel too — always carried a book in their pocket, like a missal, a book to which they appeared to attach great importance. He remembered its title: Fabrizio Lupo . One day, Perrin de Lara had said to him in a solemn voice: “When you’re grown up, you too will read Fabrizio Lupo ”, one of those remarks that will continue to sound mysterious until the end of one’s life, because of its resonance. Later on, he had searched for this book, but unfortunately he had never found a copy of it and he had never read Fabrizio Lupo . He would not need to bring up these minute recollections. The likeliest outcome was that he would eventually be rid of Gilles Ottolini. Telephone calls that he would not answer. Letters, some of which would be registered. Most annoying of all would be that Ottolini would station himself outside the building and, since he did not know the code, he would wait for someone to push open the porte cochère and slip in behind him. He would come and ring at his door. He would also have to disconnect this bell. Every time he left his home, he would run into Gilles Ottolini who would accost him and follow him in the street. And he would have no alternative but to take refuge in the nearest police station. But the cops would not take his explanations seriously.

It was almost one o’clock in the morning, and he reckoned that at that time of day, in the silence and solitude, one begins to worry unduly. He gradually calmed down, and even burst out into a fit of mad laughter at the thought of Ottolini’s face, one of those faces that are so narrow that even when they are standing opposite you, you would think they were in profile.

The typed pages were scattered over his desk. He picked up a pencil that had red lead at one end and blue lead at the other, which he used to correct his manuscripts. He scored through the pages with the blue pencil as he went along and he drew a circle in red round the name: ANNIE ASTRAND.

AT ABOUT TWO O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING, THE TELEPHONE rang. He had fallen asleep on the sofa.

“Hello. . Monsieur Daragane? This is Chantal Grippay. .”

He hesitated for a moment. He had just had a dream in which Annie Astrand’s face had appeared to him, and that had not happened to him for more than thirty or so years.

“You’ve read the photocopies?”

“Yes.”

“Forgive me for phoning so late. . but I was so eager for you to give me your opinion. . Can you hear me?”

“Yes.”

“We must see one another before Gilles returns. May I call at your home?”

“Now?”

“Yes. Now.”

He told her the address, the entry code, the floor. Had he surfaced from his dream? Annie Astrand’s face had seemed so close a moment ago. . She was at the wheel of her car, outside the house at Saint-Leu-la-Forêt, he was sitting on the front seat beside her, and she was speaking to him, but he could not hear the sound of her voice.

On his desk, the photocopies, in a muddle. He had forgotten that he had scored blue lines through them. And the name: Annie Astrand, which leapt out at you, because it was circled in red. . He would have to avoid showing that to Gilles Ottolini. This red circle might give him a lead. Any cop would have put the question if he had come across it, after slowly leafing through the pages.

“Why have you highlighted this name?”

He glanced over at the hornbeam whose leaves were motionless, and this reassured him. This tree was a sentry, the only person who watched over him. He went and stood at the window overlooking the street. No cars went by at this time and the streetlamps gleamed pointlessly. He saw Chantal Grippay who was walking along the pavement on the opposite side, and she seemed to be looking at the numbers of the buildings. She was holding a plastic bag in her hand. He wondered whether she had walked here from rue de Charonne. He heard the porte cochère shutting suddenly and her footsteps on the staircase, a very slow footstep, as though she were hesitating to come up. Before she rang the bell, he opened the door and she gave a start. She was still wearing a black blouse and black trousers. She seemed to him as shy as she had been the first time, at the café on rue de l’Arcade.

“I didn’t want to disturb you so late. .”

She stood at the doorstep with an apologetic air, not moving. He took her arm to lead her in. Otherwise, he had the feeling that she would have done an about-turn. In the room he used as a study, he pointed her to the sofa where she sat down, and she placed her plastic bag beside her.