Patrick Modiano - The Occupation Trilogy - La Place de l'Étoile – The Night Watch – Ring Roads

Night falls, the Marquise de Fougeire-Jusquiames passes beneath my window on horseback. She is the faerie Mélusine, she is La Belle aux cheveux d'or . Nothing has changed since those days when my English governess read to me. Miss Evelyn would often take me to the Louvre. We had only to cross the Seine. Claude Lorrain, Philippe de Champaigne, Watteau, Delacroix, Corot coloured my childhood. Mozart and Haydn lulled it. Scheherazade and Saint-Simon brightened it. An exceptional childhood, a magical childhood I should tell you about. Immediately, I begin The Fougeire-Jusquiames Way . On a sheet of vellum bearing the arms of the Marquise, in a nervous hand, I write: ‘It was, this “Fougeire-Jusquiames,” like the setting of a novel, an imaginary landscape which I could with difficulty picture to myself and longed all the more to discover, set in the midst of real lands and roads which all of a sudden would become alive with heraldic details. .’

This evening, they did not converse in front of the hearth as usual. The Marquise ushered him into a large boudoir papered in blue and adjoining her chamber. A candelabra cast a flickering glow. The floor was strewn with crimson cushions. On the walls hung bawdy prints by Moreau le Jeune, Girard and Binet, a painting in an austere style that might have been the work of Hyacinthe Rigaud depicted Eleanor of Aquitaine about to give herself to Saladin, the leader of the Saracens.

The door opened. The Marquise was dressed in a gauze dress that left her breasts free.

‘You name is Schlemilovitch, isn’t it?’ she asked in a coarse accent he had never heard her use. ‘Born in Boulogne-Billancourt? I read it on your identity card! A Jew? I love it! My great-great-uncle Palamède de Jusquiames said nasty things about Jews but he admired Marcel Proust! The Fougeire-Jusquiames, or at least the women in the family, are not prejudiced against Orientals. My ancestor, Eleanor, took advantage of the Second Crusade to cavort with Saracens while the miserable Louis VII was sacking Damascus! In 1720, another of my ancestors, the Marquise de Jusquiames, found the Turkish ambassador’s son very much to her taste! On that subject, I notice you have compiled a whole Fougeire-Jusquiames dossier! I am flattered by the interest you take in our family! I even read the charming little passage, no doubt inspired by your stay at the château: ‘It was, this “Fougeire-Jusquiames”, like the setting of a novel, an imaginary landscape. .’ Do you take yourself for Marcel Proust, Schlemilovitch? That seems ominous! Surely you’re not going to waste your youth copying out In Search of Lost Time ? I warn you now, I’m not some fairy from your childhood! Sleeping Beauty! The Duchesse de Guermantes! La femme-fleur . You’re wasting your time! Treat me like some whore from the Rue des Lombards, stop drooling over my aristocratic titles! My field Azure with fleurs-de-lis. Villehardouin, Froissart, Saint-Simon and all that lot! Snobbish little Jewish socialite! Enough of the quavering, the bowing and scraping! I find those gigolo good looks of yours devilishly arousing! Electrifying! Handsome thug! Charming pimp! Pretty boy! Catamite! Do you really think Fougeire-Jusquiames is “like the setting of a novel, an imaginary landscape”? It’s a brothel, don’t you see? The château has always been a high-class brothel. Very popular during the German occupation. My late father, Charles de Fougeire-Jusquiames, pimped for French intellectual collaborators. Statues by Arno Breker, young Luftwaffe pilots, SS Officers, Hitlerjugend, everything was arranged for the pleasure of these gentlemen! My father understood that sex often determines one’s political fortunes. Now, let’s talk about you, Schlemilovitch! Let’s not waste time! You’re a Jew? I suppose you’d like to rape a queen of France. I have various costumes up in the attic. Would you like me to dress as Anne of Austria, my angel? Blanche de Navarre? Marie Leszczynska? Or would you rather fuck Adélaïde de Savoie? Marguerite de Provence? Jeanne d’Albret? Choose! I’ll dress up a thousand different ways. Tonight, all the queens of France will be your whores. .’

The week that ensued was truly idyllic: the Marquise constantly changed her costume to rekindle his desires. Together with the queens of France, he ravished Mme de Chevreuse, the Duchesse de Berry, the Chevalier d’Éon, Bossuet, Saint Louis, Bayard, Du Guesclin, Joan of Arc, the Comte de Toulouse and Général Boulanger.

He spent the rest of his time getting better acquainted with Gérard.

‘My chauffeur enjoys an excellent reputation in the underworld,’ confided Véronique. ‘The gangsters call him The Undertaker or Gérard the Gestapo. Gérard was one of the Rue Lauriston gang. He was my late father’s secretary, his henchman. .’

His own father had also encountered Gérard the Gestapo. He had mentioned him during their time in Bordeaux. On 16 July 1942 Gérard had bundled Schlemilovitch père into a black truck: ‘What do you say to an identity check at the Rue Lauriston and a little spell in Drancy?’ Schlemilovitch fils no longer remembered by what miracle Schlemilovitch père escaped the clutches of this good man.

One night, leaving the Marquise, you surprised Gérard leaning on the balustrade of the veranda.

‘You like the moonlight? The still pale moonlight, sad and fair? A romantic, Gérard?’

He did not have time to answer you. You grabbed his throat. The cervical vertebrae cracked slightly. You have a distasteful penchant for desecrating corpses. With the blade of a Gillette Extra-Blue, you slice away the ears. Then the eyelids. Then you gouge the eyes from their sockets. All that remained was to smash the teeth. Three heel kicks were enough.

Before burying Gérard, you considered having him stuffed and sent to your poor father, but you could no longer remember the address of Schlemilovitch Ltd., New York.

All loves are short-lived. The Marquise, dressed as Eleanor of Aquitaine, will succumb, but the sound of a car will interrupt our frolics. The brakes will shriek. I will be surprised to hear a gypsy melody. The drawing room door will be suddenly flung open. A man in a red turban will appear. Despite his fakir outfit, I will recognise the vicomte Charles Lévy-Vendôme.

Three fiddle players will appear behind him and launch into a second czardas . Mouloud and Mustapha will bring up the rear.

‘What is going on, Schlemilovitch?’ the vicomte will ask. ‘We have had no news from you in days!’

He will wave to Mouloud and Mustapha.

‘Take this woman to the Buick and keep a close eye on her. My apologies, madame, for bursting in unannounced, but we have no time to lose! You see, you were expected in Beirut a week ago!’

A few power slaps from Mouloud will snuff out any vague inclination to resist. Mustapha will gag and bind my companion.

‘It’s in the bag!’ Lévy-Vendôme will quip as his henchmen drag Véronique away.

The vicomte will adjust his monocle.

‘You mission has been a fiasco. I expected you to deliver the Marquise to Paris, instead of which I was personally forced to come to Fougeire-Jusquiames. You are fired, Schlemilovitch! Now, let us talk of something else. Enough melodrama for one evening. I propose we take a tour of this magnificent house in the company of our musicians. We are the new lords of Fougeire-Jusquiames. The Marquise is about to bequeath us all her worldly goods. Whether she wishes to or not!’

I can still picture that curious character with his turban and his monocle exploring the château, candelabra in hand, while the violinists played gypsy airs. He spent some time studying the portrait of cardinal de Fougeire-Jusquiames, stroked a suit of armour that had belonged to an ancestor, Jourdain, a natural son of Eleanor of Aquitaine. I showed him my bedrooms, the Watteau, the Claude Lorrain, the Philippe de Champaigne and the bed in which Louis XIV and Mlle de La Vallière had slept. He read the short passage I had written on the emblazoned paper: ‘It was, this “Fougeire-Jusquiames”. .’ etc. He gave me a spiteful look. At that moment, the musicians were playing Wiezenleid , a Yiddish lullaby.