Special Envoy
Page 21
Saturday morning: looks like a nice day. Bright sun, cloudless sky, fairly warm. Constance, having woken early, goes out for a walk. After a brief hesitation, she sets off southward down Rue du Temple, toward the Seine. When she reaches Rue de Rivoli, she heads west. Her gait is more assured now, and her objective appears to take shape as she crosses the Jardin des Tuileries, where the buds quiver impatiently on branches and stalks, like runners braced in their starting blocks. Blackbirds, crows, and gulls, flying upriver, squawk or shriek in the trees, and soon children are squawking too, their Baby-Style and Maclaren strollers pushed forward rapidly, clouds of dust mingling around the large pond.
Coming out of the gardens, Constance avoids Place de la Concorde, walks up the Champs-Élysées to the traffic circle, turns left onto Avenue Montaigne (glancing at the windows of the overpriced clothing stores), and joins Avenue du Président Wilson (glancing at nothing). She looks like she knows where she’s going. Yes, she does know. She’s headed straight for Trocadéro. So this was not really a walk in the classical, looping sense, but a curved line following closely to the course of the river.
In the storefront window of the real estate agent on Rue Greuze, everything has changed: places for sale, places to rent . . . a whole bunch of properties that she has never seen before. And hers: still there, still without a photograph, but yellowed by a year of sunlight now. She goes inside, and the agent, Philippe Dieulangard, smiles at her sudden reappearance. After all this time, he rejoices. I was beginning to worry. Constance smiles back at him without replying. I had several inquiries regarding your apartment, but you were absent so I didn’t call them back. You did the right thing, Constance said approvingly, because I want to take it back. I’ll go and get your keys right away, says Dieulangard, rushing off.
Emerging from the agency, Constance walks around the square for a while, delaying the moment when she will go home. Distractedly she deciphers the golden phrases of Paul Valéry, engraved on the Palais de Chaillot. Hesitates outside the gates of the Passy Cemetery. And finally goes in, walks around, comes out again, stops, and sees a man walk past. Distinguishing features: not bad at all, nice shoulders and strong jawline, carrying a briefcase. He is busy deciphering the names on the plaques at the street corners. As she looks at him for a moment too long, the man smiles at her, walks over, asks her if she might tell him where Rue Pétrarque is, and Constance says: Of course.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jean Echenoz won France’s prestigious Prix Goncourt for I’m Gone (The New Press). He is the winner of numerous literary prizes, among them the Prix Médicis and the European Literature Jeopardy Prize. He lives in Paris.
ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR
Sam Taylor is an acclaimed translator and novelist who lives in Texas. His translations include A Meal in Winter by Hubert Mingarelli (The New Press), The Arab of the Future by Riad Sattouf, and the award-winning HHhH by Laurent Binet.
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