So You Don't Get Lost in the Neighborhood

by Patrick Modiano

  “Apparently he was involved in some old news item . . . The next time we see each other, I’ll show you all the documents . . . I told you that I was writing an article about it . . .”

  So this individual wished to see him again. Why not? For some time he had felt some reluctance at the notion that newcomers might enter into his life. But, at other times, he still felt receptive. It depended on the day. Eventually, he said to him:

  “So, what can I do for you?”

  “I have to be away for two days because of my work. I’ll phone you when I’m back. And we can arrange to meet.”

  “If you like.”

  He was no longer in the same mood as he was yesterday. He had probably been unfair with this Gilles Ottolini and had seen him in an unfavourable light. This was to do with the telephone ringing the other afternoon, which had roused him suddenly from his semi-slumber . . . A ringing sound heard so rarely in the past few months that it had given him a fright and had seemed to him just as threatening as if someone had come and knocked on his door at daybreak.

  He did not want to reread Le Noir de l’été, even though reading it would give him the impression that the novel had been written by someone else. He would quite simply ask Gilles Ottolini to photocopy the pages that referred to Torstel. Would that be enough to remind him of anything?

  He opened his notebook at the letter T, underlined “Guy Torstel 423 40 55” in blue ballpoint pen and added a question mark alongside the name. He had recopied all these pages from an old address book, crossing out the names of those who had died and the out-of-date numbers. And this Guy Torstel had probably slipped to the very top of the page because of a momentary lack of concentration on his part. He would have to find the old address book, which must date from about thirty years ago, and perhaps he would be reminded of him once he saw this name alongside other names from the past.

  But today he did not have the courage to rummage around in cupboards and drawers. Still less to reread Le Noir de l’été. Besides, for some time his reading had been reduced to just one author: Buffon. He derived a great deal of comfort from him, thanks to the clarity of his style, and he regretted not having been influenced by him: writing novels whose characters might have been animals, and even trees or flowers . . . If anyone were to have asked him nowadays which writer he might have wished to have been, he would have replied without hesitation: a Buffon of trees and flowers.

  THE TELEPHONE RANG IN THE AFTERNOON, AT THE same time as the other day, and he thought that it was Gilles Ottolini once again. But no, a female voice.

  “Chantal Grippay. Do you remember? We saw each other yesterday with Gilles . . . I don’t want to disturb you . . .”

  The voice was faint, muffled by interference.

  A silence.

  “I should very much like to see you, Monsieur Daragane. To talk to you about Gilles . . .”

  The voice was clearer now. Evidently, this Chantal Grippay had overcome her shyness.

  “Yesterday evening after you left, he was worried that you might be angry with him. He’s spending two days in Lyon for his work . . . Could we see one another in the late afternoon?”

  The tone of voice of this Chantal Grippay had become more confident, like a diver who has paused for a few moments before jumping into the water.

  “Some time around five o’clock, would that suit you? I live at 118 rue de Charonne.”

  Daragane jotted down the address on the same page that contained the name Guy Torstel.

  “On the fourth floor, at the end of the corridor. The name’s written on the letter box down below. It says Joséphine Grippay, but I’ve changed my first name . . .”

  “At 118 rue de Charonne. At six in the evening . . . fourth floor,” Daragane repeated.

  “Yes, that’s right . . . We’ll talk about Gilles . . .”

  After she had hung up, the phrase she had just uttered, “We’ll talk about Gilles”, echoed in Daragane’s head like the ending of an alexandrine. He must ask her why she had changed her first name.

  A brick building, taller than the others and slightly set back. Daragane preferred to climb the four storeys on foot rather than take the lift. At the end of the corridor, on the door, a visiting card in the name of “Joséphine Grippay”. The first name “Joséphine” was scratched out and replaced, in violet ink, by “Chantal”. He was on the point of ringing, but the door opened. She was wearing black, as at the café the other day.

  “The bell doesn’t work anymore, but I heard the sound of your footsteps.”

  She was smiling and she remained standing there, in the doorway. It was as though she were unsure whether to let him enter.

  “We can go and have a drink somewhere else, if you like,” said Daragane.

  “Not at all. Come in.”

  A medium-sized room and, on the right, an open door. It apparently led to the bathroom. A light bulb was hanging from the ceiling.

  “There’s not much room here. But it’s easier for us to talk.”

  She walked over to the small pale wooden desk between the two windows, drew out the chair and placed it by the bed.

  “Do sit down.”

  She herself sat on the edge of the bed, or rather of the mattress, for the bed did not have a base.

  “It’s my room . . . Gilles found something larger for himself in the 17th, square du Graisivaudan.”

  She looked up to speak to him. He would have preferred to sit on the floor, or next to her, on the edge of the bed.

  “Gilles is counting on you a great deal to help him write this article . . . He’s written a book, you know, but he didn’t dare tell you . . .”

  And she leant back on the bed, reached out her arm and picked up a book with a green cover on the bedside table.

  “Here . . . Don’t tell Gilles that I lent it to you . . .”

  A slim volume entitled Le Flâneur hippique, the back cover of which indicated that it had been published three years earlier by Sablier. Daragane opened it and glanced at the contents list. The book consisted of two main chapters: “Racecourses” and “School for Jockeys”.

  She gazed at him with her slightly slanting eyes.

  “It’s best that he doesn’t know we’ve seen one another.”

  She stood up, went to close one of the windows that was half-open and sat down again on the edge of the bed. Daragane had the impression that she had closed this window so that they should not be heard.

  “Before working for Sweerts, Gilles wrote articles on racecourses and horses for magazines and specialist papers.”

  She paused like someone who is about to let you into a secret.

  “When he was very young, he went to the school for jockeys at Maisons-Laffitte. But it was too tough . . . he had to give it up . . . You’ll see, if you read the book . . .”

  Daragane listened to her carefully. It was strange to enter into people’s lives so quickly . . . He had thought that this would be unlikely to happen to him any longer at his age, through weariness on his part and because of the feeling that other people slowly grow away from you.

  “He used to take me to race meetings . . . He taught me to gamble . . . It’s a drug, you know . . .”

  All of a sudden, she seemed sad. Daragane wondered whether she might be seeking some sort of support from him, material or moral. And the solemnity of these words that had just crossed his mind made him want to laugh.

  “And do you still go and place bets at race meetings?”

  “Less and less since he’s been working at Sweerts.”

  Her voice had dropped. Perhaps she feared that Gilles Ottolini might walk into the room unexpectedly and catch them both by surprise.

  “I’ll show you the notes that he put together for his article . . . Perhaps you’ve known all these people . . .”

  “What people?”

  “For instance, the person whom he spoke to you about . . . Guy Torstel . . .”

  Once again, she leant back on the bed and took from beneath the bedsi
de table a sky-blue cardboard folder which she opened. It contained typewritten pages and a book which she handed to him: Le Noir de l’été.

  “I’d prefer you to keep it,” he said brusquely.

  “He marked the page where you mention this Guy Torstel . . .”

  “I’ll ask him to photocopy it. That will save me from having to reread the book . . .”

  She seemed astonished that he should not want to reread his book.

  “In a moment, we’ll also go and make a photocopy of the notes he made so that you can take them with you.”

  And she pointed to the typewritten notes.

  “But all this must remain between ourselves . . .” Daragane was feeling slightly uncomfortable sitting on his chair and, so as to appear more composed, he leafed through Gilles Ottolini’s book. In the chapter on “Racecourses”, he came across two words printed in capital letters: LE TREMBLAY. And these words triggered something in him, without him quite knowing why, as though he was gradually being reminded of a detail that he had forgotten.

  “You’ll see . . . It’s an interesting book . . .”

  She looked up at him and smiled.

  “Have you lived here long?”

  “Two years.”

  The beige walls that had certainly not been repainted for years, the small desk, and the two windows that overlooked a courtyard . . . He had lived in identical rooms, at the age of this Chantal Grippay, and when he was younger than her. But at the time it was not in the eastern districts of the city. Rather more to the south, on the outskirts of the 14th or the 15th arrondissement. And towards the north-east, square du Graisivaudan, which by a mysterious coincidence she had mentioned earlier. And also, at the foot of the butte Montmartre, between Pigalle and Blanche.

  “I know that Gilles called you this morning before setting off for Lyon. Did he say anything in particular?”

  “Just that we would be seeing one another again.”

  “He was frightened that you might be angry . . .”

  Perhaps Gilles Ottolini was aware of their meeting today. He was reckoning that she would be more persuasive than he at encouraging him to talk, like those police inspectors who take over from one another during an interrogation. No, he had not left for Lyon and he was listening to their conversation behind the door. This thought made him smile.

  “I’m being inquisitive, but I wonder why you’ve changed your first name.”

  “I reckoned that Chantal was simpler than Joséphine.” She had said this seriously, as if this change of names had been carefully considered.

  “I have the impression that there are no Chantals at all nowadays. How did you come across this name?”

  “I chose it from the almanac.”

  She had placed the sky-blue folder on the bed, beside her. A large photograph was half protruding from it, in between the copy of Le Noir de l’été and the typewritten pages.

  “What’s this photograph?”

  “A photo of a child . . . you’ll see . . . It belonged in the dossier . . .”

  He did not care for this word “dossier”.

  “Gilles was able to get some information from the police about the news item that interests him . . . We knew a cop who used to bet on horses . . . He searched around in the archives . . . He came across the photo as well . . .”

  Once again she was speaking in that same husky voice, surprising in someone of her age, that she had used the other day in the café.

  “Do you mind?” asked Daragane. “I’m too high up in this chair.”

  He came and sat on the floor, at the foot of the bed. Now they were on the same level.

  “Not at all . . . you’re uncomfortable there . . . Come onto the bed . . .”

  She leant over to him, and her face was so close to his that he noticed a tiny scar on her left cheek. Le Tremblay. Chantal. Square du Graisivaudan. These words had travelled a long way. An insect bite, very slight to begin with, and it causes you an increasingly sharp pain, and very soon a feeling of being torn apart. The present and the past merge together, and that seems quite natural because they were only separated by a cellophane partition. An insect bite was all it took to pierce the cellophane. He could not be sure of the year, but he was very young, in a room as small as this one with a girl called Chantal—a fairly common name at the time. The husband of this Chantal, one Paul, and other friends of theirs had set off as they always did on Saturdays to gamble in the casinos on the outskirts of Paris: Enghien, Forges-les-Eaux . . . and they came back the following day with a bit of money. He, Daragane, and this Chantal, spent the entire night together in this room in square du Graisivaudan until the others returned. Paul, the husband, also used to go to race meetings. A gambler. With him it was not merely a matter of doubling up on your losses.

  The other Chantal—the present-day one—stood up and opened one of the two windows. It was beginning to get very hot in this room.

  “I’m waiting for a phone call from Gilles. I’m not going to tell him you’re here. You promise me that you’re going to help him?”

  Once again he had the feeling that they had agreed, she and Gilles Ottolini, not to allow him any breathing space and to make appointments with him each in turn. But to what purpose? And to help in what way, precisely? To write his article on this old news item about which he, Daragane, still knew nothing? Perhaps the “dossier”—as she had said a moment ago—that file, there, beside her on the bed in its open cardboard folder, would provide him with some explanations. “You promise me you’ll help him?”

  She was more persistent and was shaking her index finger. He was not sure whether this gesture was a threat.

  “On condition that he informs me exactly what it is he wants from me.”

  A loud ringing sound came from the bathroom. Then, a few notes of music.

  “My mobile . . . That must be Gilles . . .”

  She went into the bathroom and closed the door behind her, as though she did not want Daragane to hear her talking. He sat down on the edge of the bed. He had not noticed a hat stand, on the wall by the entrance, from which hung a dress that looked to him as though it was made of black satin. A gold lamé swallow had been sewn on either side, beneath the shoulders. Zips shone from the hip and at the wrists. An old dress, probably picked up at the flea market. He imagined her in this black satin dress, with the two yellow swallows.

  Behind the bathroom door, long periods of silence and, each time, Daragane thought the conversation was over. But he heard her say in her husky voice: “No, I promise you . . .” and this phrase was repeated two or three times. He also heard her say “No, it’s not true” and “It’s much simpler than you think . . .” Apparently, Gilles Ottolini was blaming her for something or telling her about his anxieties. And she wanted to reassure him.

  The conversation went on, and Daragane was tempted to leave the room without making any noise. When he was younger, he used the slightest opportunity to slip away from people, without his being able to understand very clearly why he did so: a longing to break free and to breathe in the fresh air? But today, he felt the need to let himself go with the tide, without pointless resistance. From out of the sky-blue cardboard folder he took the photograph that had caught his attention a moment ago. At first sight, it looked as though it was an enlargement of a passport photograph. A boy of about seven years old, with short hair cut in the style of the early fifties, though it could also be a present-day boy. One lived in a period when all the fashions, those of the past, yesterday and today, merged together, and perhaps, for children, it was a return to this earlier style of cutting. He would have to clear this up and he was keen to examine the way children’s hair was cut, out there on the streets.

  She emerged from the bathroom, her mobile in her hand.

  “Forgive me . . . That went on a long time, but I put him in a much better mood. Sometimes, Gilles sees the gloomy side of everything.”

  She sat down next to him, on the side of the bed.

  “That’s
why you have to help him. He would be so pleased if you could remember who this Torstel was . . . You don’t have any idea?”

  Yet more questioning. How late into the night would this go on? He would never get out of this room. Perhaps she had locked the door. But he felt very calm, just a little tired as he often did in the late afternoon. And he would gladly have asked her permission to lie down on the bed.

  He kept repeating a name to himself and could not get it out of his head. Le Tremblay. A racecourse in the southeastern suburbs where Chantal and Paul had taken him one Sunday in the autumn. Paul had exchanged a few words in the grandstand with a man who was older than them and he had explained to them that this was someone he occasionally used to meet at the casino at Forges-les-Eaux and that he too used to attend race meetings. The man had offered to drive them back to Paris in his car. It was real autumn weather, and not like today’s Indian summer, when it was so hot in this room, and he was not at all sure when he would be able to leave . . . She had closed the sky-blue cardboard folder and had laid it on her lap.

  “We must go and make photocopies for you . . . It’s near here . . .”

  She glanced at her watch.

  “The shop closes at seven o’clock . . . we’ve got time . . .”

  Later on, he would try to remember the precise year of that particular autumn. From Le Tremblay, they had followed the Marne and crossed the Vincennes woods at dusk. Daragane was sitting next to the man who was driving, the other two in the back. The man had appeared surprised when Paul had introduced them—Jean Daragane.

  They spoke about this and that, about the last race at Le Tremblay. The man had said to him:

  “Your name’s Daragane? I think I met your parents a long time ago . . .”

  This term “parents” surprised him. He felt as though he had never had any parents.

  “It was about fifteen years ago . . . At a house near Paris . . . I remember a child . . .”

  The man had turned towards him.

  “The child, it was you, I imagine . . .”