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

I opened the window. A summer night so blue, so warm, that it could only be short-lived and immediately brought to mind phrases like ‘give up the ghost’ and ‘breathe a last sigh’. The world was dying of consumption. A gentle, lingering agony. The sirens announcing an air raid sobbed. Then all I could hear was a muffled drum. It went on for two or three hours. Phosphorus bombs. By dawn Paris would be a mass of rubble. Too bad. Everything I loved about the city had long since ceased to exist: the railway that once ran along the petite ceinture , the Ballon de Ternes, the Pompeian Villa, the Chinese Baths. Over time, it begins to seem natural that things disappear. The fighter squadrons would spare nothing. On the desk I lined up the mah-jongg tiles that had once belonged to the son of the house. The walls began to shudder. Any minute now, they might crumble. But I hadn’t finished what I was saying. Something would be born of my old age, my loneliness, like a bubble on the tip of a straw. I waited. In an instant, it took shape: a red-headed giant, clearly blind, since he wore dark glasses. A little girl with a wizened face. I named them Coco Lacour and Esmeralda. Destitute. Sickly. Always silent. A single word, a gesture would be enough to break them. What would have become of them without me? At last I found a reason to go on living. I loved them, my poor monsters. I would watch over them. . No one would harm them. The money I earned at Cimarosa Square for informing and looting assured them a comfortable life. Coco Lacour. Esmeralda. I chose the two most powerless creatures on earth, but there was nothing maudlin about my love. I would have broken the jaw of any man who dared to make a disparaging remark about them. The mere thought put me in a murderous rage. Red-hot sparks burned my eyes. I felt myself choking. No one would lay a finger on my children. My grief which I had suppressed until now burst forth in torrents, and my love took strength in it. No living thing could resist its erosive power. A love so devastating that kings, warlords, and ‘great men’ were transformed into sick children before my eyes. Attila, Napoleon, Tamburlaine, Genghis Khan, Harun al-Rashid, and others whose virtues I had heard extolled. How puny and pitiful they seemed, these so-called titans. Utterly harmless. So much that as I bent over Esmeralda’s face, I wondered whether it was not Hitler I saw. A little girl, abandoned. She was blowing bubbles with a device I had bought for her. Coco Lacour was lighting a cigar. From the very first time I met them, they had never said a word. They must be mutes. Esmeralda stared open-mouthed at the bubbles as they burst against the chandelier. Coco Lacour was utterly absorbed blowing smoke rings. Simple pleasures. I loved them, my little weaklings. I enjoyed their company. Not that I found these two creatures more moving or more helpless than the majority of humankind. The ALL inspired in me a hopeless, maternal compassion. But Coco Lacour and Esmeralda alone remained silent. They never moved. Silence, stillness, after enduring so many useless screams and gestures. I felt no need to speak to them. What would be the purpose? They were deaf. And that was for the best. Were I to confide my grief to a fellow creature, he would immediately desert me. And I would understand. Besides, my physical appearance deters ‘soul mates’. A bearded centenarian with eyes that seem to devour his face. Who could possibly comfort Lear? It hardly matters. What matters: Coco Lacour and Esmeralda. We lived together as a family on Cimarosa Square. I forgot the Khedive and the Lieutenant. Gangsters or heroes, those guys had worn me down. I had never managed to be interested in their stories. I was making plans for the future. Esmeralda would take piano lessons. Coco Lacour would play mah-jongg with me and learn to dance the swing. I wanted to spoil them, my two gazelles, my deaf-mutes. To give them the best education. I couldn’t stop looking at them. My love was like my feeling for maman. But she was safe now: LAUSANNE. As for Coco Lacour and Esmeralda, I kept them safe. We lived in a comforting house. One that had always been mine. My papers? My name was Maxime de Bel-Respiro. Before me hangs my father’s self-portrait. And there is more:

Memories

At the back of every drawer

perfumes

in every wardrobe . .

We really had nothing to fear. The turmoil and cruelty of the world died on the steps of No. 3 bis . The hours passed, silently. Coco Lacour and Esmeralda would go up to bed. They would quickly fall asleep. Of all the bubbles Esmeralda blew, one still floated in the air. It rose towards the ceiling, hesitantly. I held my breath. It burst against the chandelier. Now everything was over. Coco Lacour and Esmeralda had never existed. I was alone in the living room listening to the rain of phosphorus. I spared a last thought for the quays along the Seine, the Gare d’Orsay, the Petite Ceinture. Then I found myself at the edge of old age in a region of Siberia called Kamchatka. Its soil bears no life. A bleak and arid region. Nights so deep they are sleepless. It is impossible to live at such a latitude, and biologists have observed that here the human body shatters into a thousand shards of laughter: raucous, piercing like the slivers of broken bottles. This is why: in the midst of this polar wasteland you feel free of every tie that bound you to the world. All that remains is for you to die. Laughing. 5 a.m. Or perhaps it is dusk. A layer of ash covered the living-room furniture. I was looking down at the bandstand on the square, at the statue of Toussaint L’Ouverture. It felt as though I were looking at a daguerreotype. Then I wandered through the house, floor by floor. Suitcases lay strewn in every room. There had been no time to close them. One contained a hat from Kronstadt, a slate-gray woollen suit, a yellowed playbill from a show at the Théâtre Ventadour, an autographed photo of the ice-skaters Goodrich and Curtis, two keepsakes, a few old toys. I didn’t have the courage to rummage through the others. All around, trunks multiplied: in steel, in wicker, in glass, in Russian leather. Several trunks lined the corridor. 3 bis was becoming a vast left-luggage department. Forgotten. No one cared about these suitcases. They held the ghosts of many things: two or three walks in Batignolles with Lili Marlene, a kaleidoscope given to me for my seventh birthday, a cup of verbena tea maman gave me one evening I don’t recall how long ago. . All the little details of a life. I would have liked to make an itemised list. But what good would it do?

Le temps passe très vite

et les années nous quittent . .

un jour . .

My name was Marcel Petiot. Alone amid these piles of suitcases. No point waiting. No train was coming. I was a young man without a future. What had I done with my youth? Day followed day followed day and I piled them up at random. Enough to fill some fifty suitcases. They give off a bittersweet smell that makes me nauseous. I’ll leave them here. They will rot where they lie. Get out of this house as fast as possible. Already the walls are beginning to crack and the self-portrait of Monsieur de Bel-Respiro is starting to moulder. Industrious spiders are spinning webs among the chandeliers; smoke is rising from the cellar. Some human remains burning, probably. Who am I? Petiot? Landru? In the hallway, an acrid green vapour clings to the trunks. Get away. I’ll take the wheel of the Bentley I left in front of the entrance last night. One last look up at No. 3 bis . One of those houses you dream of settling down in. Unfortunately, I entered it illegally. There was no place there for me. No matter. I turn on the radio:

Pauvre Swing Troubadour . .

Avenue de Malakoff. The engine is silent. I glide across a still ocean. Leaves rustle. For the first time in my life I feel absolutely weightless.