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

‘Who are you?’ demands Paulo Hayakawa.

‘An agent with the Intelligence Service,’ says Sophie Knout.

‘Explain yourself,’ says Otto da Silva.

‘I don’t much care for that ugly mug of yours,’ declares the elderly Baroness Lydia Stahl.

‘Why are you dressed as an SS officer?’ Jean-Farouk de Mérode asks me.

‘Show me your papers,’ orders M. Igor.

‘Are you a Jew?’ asks Lévy-Vendôme. ‘Come on, confess!’

‘Who do you think you are, you little thug, Marcel Proust?’ inquires the Marquise de Fougeire-Jusquiames.

‘He’ll tell us what we want to know in the end,’ declares Princess Chericheff-Devorazoff, ‘ tongues are loosened at Rue Lauriston .’

Bloch puts the handcuffs on me again. The others question me with renewed vigour. I feel a sudden urge to vomit. I lean against a doorway.

‘We don’t have time to waste,’ says Isaac, ‘March!’

‘Make an effort,’ says Commandant Bloch, ‘we’ll soon be there. It’s at number 93.’

I stumble and collapse on the pavement. They encircle me. Jean-Farouk de Mérode, Paulo Hayakawa, M. Igor, Otto da Silva and Lévy-Vendôme are all wearing striking pink evening suits and fedoras. Bloch, Isaiah, Isaac, and Saul are more austere in their green trench coats. The Marquise de Fougeire-Jusquiames, Princess Chericheff-Devorazoff, Sophie Knout and the elderly Baroness Lydia Stahl are each wearing a white mink and a diamond rivière.

Paulo Hayakawa is smoking a cigar and casually flicking the ash in my face, Princess Chericheff-Devorazoff is playfully jabbing my cheeks with her stiletto heels.

‘Aren’t you going to get up, Marcel Proust?’ asks the Marquise de Fougeire-Jusquiames.

‘Come on, Schlemilovitch,’ Commandant Bloch implores me, ‘We only have to cross the street. Look, there’s number 93. .’

‘He is an obstinate young man,’ says Jean-Farouk de Mérode. ‘If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to drink a whisky. I can’t bear to be parched.’ He crosses the road, followed by Paulo Hayakawa, Otto da Silva and M. Igor. The door to number 93 closes behind them.

Sophie Knout, the elderly Baroness Lydia Stahl, Princess Chericheff-Devorazoff, and the Marquise de Fougeire-Jusquiames quickly join them. The Marquise de Fougeire-Jusquiames wraps her mink coats around me, whispering in my ear:

‘This will be your shroud. Adieu, my angel.’

This leaves Bloch, Isaac, Saul, Isaiah and Lévy-Vendôme.

Isaac tries to haul me to my feet, tugging on the chain connecting the handcuffs.

‘Leave him,’ says Commandant Bloch, ‘he’s better lying down.’

Saul, Isaac, Isaiah and Lévy-Vendôme go and sit on the steps outside number 93. They stare at me and weep.

‘I’ll join the others a little later,’ Commandant Bloch says to me in a sad voice. ‘ The whisky and champagne will flow as usual on Rue Lauriston .’

He brings his face close to mine. He really is the spitting image of my old friend Henri Chamberlin-Lafont.

‘You are going to die in an SS uniform,’ he says. ‘You are touching, Schlemilovitch, very touching.’

From the windows of number 93, I hear a burst of laughter and the chorus of a song:

Moi, j’aime le music-hall

Ses jongleurs

Ses danseuses légères. .

‘Hear that?’ asks Bloch, his eyes misted with tears. ‘In France, everything ends with a song, Schlemilovitch! So keep your spirits up!’

From the right-hand pocket of his trench coat, he takes a revolver. I struggle to my feet and stagger back. Commandant Bloch does not take his eyes off me. Sitting on the steps opposite, Isaiah, Saul, Isaac and Lévy-Vendôme are still sobbing. I consider the façade of number 93 for a moment. From the windows Jean-Farouk de Mérode, Paulo Hayakawa, M. Igor, Otto da Silva, Sophie Knout, the elderly Baroness Lydia Stahl, the Marquise de Fougeire-Jusquiames, Princess Chericheff-Devorazoff, Inspector Bonny pull faces and thumb their noses at me. A sort of cheerful sadness washes over me, one I know only too well. Rebecca was right to laugh a while ago. I summon my last ounce of strength. A nervous, feeble laugh. Gradually it swells until it shakes my whole body, doubling me over. It hardly matters that Commandant Bloch is slowly coming towards me, I feel utterly at ease. He waves his revolver and roars:

‘You’re laughing? YOU’RE LAUGHING? Well, take that you little Jew, take that!’

My head explodes, but I do not know whether from the bullets or from my delirious joy.

The blue walls of the room and the window. By my bed sits Sigmund Freud. To make sure I’m not dreaming, I reach out my right hand and stroke his bald pate.

‘. . my nurses picked you up on the Franz-Josefs-Kai tonight and brought you to my clinic here in Pötzleinsdorf. A course of psychoanalysis will clarify things in my mind. You’ll soon be a healthy, optimistic, sporty young man, I promise. Here, I want you to read this insightful essay by your compatriot Jean-Paul Schweitzer de la Sarthe: Anti-Semite and Jew . There is one thing you must understand at all costs. THE JEW DOES NOT EXIST, as Schweitzer de la Sarthe so aptly puts it. YOU ARE NOT A JEW, you are a man among other men, that is all. You are not a Jew, as I have just said, you are suffering from delusions, hallucinations, fantasies, nothing more, a slight touch of paranoia. . No one wishes you harm, my boy, all people want is to be kind to you. We are living in a world at peace. Himmler is dead, how can you remember all these things? You were not even born, come now, be reasonable, I beg you, I implore you, I. .’

I am no longer listening to Dr Freud. And yet he goes down on his knees, arms outstretched, he pleads with me, takes his head in his hands, rolls on the floor in despair, crawls on all fours, barks, begs me again to let go of my ‘hallucinatory delusions’, my ‘Jewish neuroses’, my ‘Yiddish paranoia’. I am astonished to see him in such a state: does he find my presence so disturbing?

‘Stop the gesticulating.’ I say, ‘The only doctor I will allow to treat me is Dr Bardamu, Louis-Ferdinand Bardamu. . A Jew like me. . Bardamu. Louis-Ferdinand Bardamu. .’

I got up and walked with some difficulty to the window. The psychoanalyst lay sobbing in a corner. Outside, the Pötzleinsdorfer Park was glittering with snow and sunlight. A red tram was coming down the avenue. I thought about the future being offered me: a swift cure thanks to the tender mercies of Dr Freud, men and women waiting for me at the entrance to the clinic, their expressions warm and friendly. The world, full of amazing ventures, a hive of activity.

The beautiful Pötzleinsdorfer Park, there, close by, the greenness and the sunlit pathways.

Furtively, I slip behind the psychoanalyst and pat his head.

‘I’m so tired,’ I tell him, ‘so tired. .’

1‘I, Senora, your beloved, am the son of the learned and glorious Don Isaac Ben Israëç, Rabbi of the synagogue of Saragossa.’

2Latin grammar

3Himmler

4‘Go on, eat up!’

A burst of laughter in the darkness. The Khedive looked up.

‘So you played mah-jongg while you waited for us?’

And he scatters the ivory tiles across the desk.

‘Alone?’ asks Monsieur Philibert.

‘Have you been waiting for us long, my boy?’

Their voices are punctuated by whispers and grave inflections. Monsieur Philibert smiles and gives a vague wave of his hand. The Khedive tilts his head to the left and stands, his cheek almost touching his shoulder. Like a stork.