He decided to get out as fast as possible, for fear other enigmas might come to complicate the problem further. As it was, he had already enough of them for several hours of reflection. But, at any rate, the more he thought it over, the less he could find the guiding thread.
He went downstairs. On the ground floor, the facsimile of Djinn was still in its place, casually leaning against the same crates, both hands in the pockets of her trench coat, an imperceptible smile frozen on her waxen lips. The figure upstairs was, therefore, a second mannequin, in all respects identical. The thin mocking smile, on her lips, no longer at all resembled Jane Frank’s. Simon had only the unpleasant feeling that someone was making fun of him. He shrugged, and walked to the half-glass door opening onto the courtyard.
. . . Even before he had passed the door, the phony mannequin straightened up a little, and her smile widened. The right hand came out of the trench-coat pocket, moved up to her face, and slowly removed the dark glasses. . . . The seductive pale green eyes reappeared. . . .
It was Simon himself, who, while on his way, imagined this ultimate mystification. But he didn’t bother to turn around, to destroy completely its feeble likelihood, so certain did he remain that he had, this time seen only a waxwork American girl. He crossed the yard, passed through the outside gate; then, at the very end of the alley, he turned, as expected, onto the wide avenue teeming with passersby. Simon felt intensely relieved, as though he were at last returning to the real world, after an interminable absence.
It might have been close to noon, to judge from the position of the sun. Since Simon had not rewound his watch in time, the previous night, it had of course stopped; he had just noticed it. In full possession of himself now, he walked with a brisk step. But he could see no café or bistro, although, in his memory, they were plentiful all along the avenue; cafés, probably, started in fact a little farther on. He walked into the first one he saw.
Simon immediately recognized the place: this was where he had already drunk a black coffee, upon leaving, for the first time, the abandonned workshop. But many patrons had taken up places there today, and Simon had trouble finding a free table. Eventually, he spotted one, in a dark corner, and sat there, facing the room.
The taciturn waiter of the day before, in his white jacket and black trousers, was not on duty today, unless he had gone to the kitchen for some hot dish. A middle-aged woman, wearing a gray smock, was replacing him. She came over to the new arrival to take his order. Simon told her he wanted only a cup of black coffee, very strong, with a glass of tap water.
When she returned, carrying on a tray a small white cup, a carafe and a large glass, he asked her, looking as indifferent as he could, whether the waiter wasn’t there today. She didn’t answer right away, as though she was thinking the question over; then she said, with something like concern in her voice:
“Which waiter are you talking about?”
“The man in the white jacket, who works here, usually.”
“I am always the one who works here,” she said. “There is no one else, even during busy hours.”
“But yesterday, however, I saw . . .”
“Yesterday, you could not see anything: that was the day we close.”
And she walked away, pressured by her work. Her tone of voice was not really unpleasant, but full of weariness, sadness even. Simon observed his surroundings. Was he confusing this establishment with another one similarly arranged?
Putting aside the presence of numerous patrons, workmen and office workers of both sexes, the resemblance was, in any case, disconcerting. The same glazed partition separated the room from the sidewalk, the tables were the same, and lined up in identical fashion. The bottles, behind the bar, were lined up in the same way, and the same signs were posted above the upper row of bottles. One of them offered the same fast foods: sandwiches, croque-monsieur, pizza.
“Although they no longer serve pizza here, and haven’t for some time,” thought Simon Lecoeur. Next, he wondered that such a certainty had come to him, with such sudden conviction. He drank his coffee in a single gulp. Since the posted signs listed the price of pizzas, he could no doubt order some. Why had Simon suddenly believed differently? He evidently possessed no special information that might allow such a thought.
But, while he was examining the other signs posted behind the bar, his attention was drawn to a fairly small photo portrait, framed in black, which had also been hung there, off to the side a little, next to the ordinance forbidding the sale of alcoholic beverages to minors. Seized with a curiosity that he himself couldn’t explain every well, Simon Lecoeur stood up, feigning a trip to the men’s room, and took a few steps out of his way, in order to pass in front of the photo. There, he stopped, as though by chance, to examine it more closely.
It showed a man about thirty, with strange pale eyes, in the uniform of a naval officer, or more exactly of a noncommissioned officer. The face reminded Simon of something. . . . Suddenly he understood why: it was the waiter who had served him the day before.
A sprig of boxwood, slipped under the black wood frame, protruded substantially on the right side. Withered by the years, the dusty stems had lost half their leaves. Under the photograph, in the yellowed margin, someone obviously lefthanded had penned this dedication: “For Marie and Jean, their loving Papa.”
“Is it the uniform you find puzzling?” said the waitress.
Simon had not heard her coming. The woman in the gray smock was wiping glasses, behind the counter. She went on:
“That’s my father you’re looking at. He was a Russian.”
Simon, who hadn’t noticed it, acknowledged that the uniform, indeed, did not belong to the French navy. But, since the man wasn’t wearing his cap, the difference wasn’t obvious. In order to say something, he asked, rather stupidly, whether the sailor had died at sea:
“Lost at sea,” the lady corrected him.
“And your name is Marie?”
“Of course!” she said with a shrug.
He walked down to the basement level, where the ill-smelling toilets were located. The walls, painted a cream color, were being used by the regulars to inscribe their political opinions, their business appointments and their sexual fantasies. Simon thought that, perhaps, one of these messages was meant for him; for instance, that phone number, insistently repeated, written in red crayon, in every direction: 765-43-21. The figures were, in any case, easy to remember.
Walking back to his seat, his eyes stopped on the recessed angle formed by the imitation wood paneling, just behind the chair he occupied. A white cane, like those used by the blind, was leaning in the corner. That wall, very poorly lit, had not captured his attention when he first arrived. The cane must have been there already. Simon Lecoeur sat down again. As the sad waitress passed by, he beckoned to her:
“I’ll have a pizza, please.”
“We haven’t been serving them for months,” answered the gray woman. “The health authorities have forbidden us to sell them.”
Simon drained his glass of water and paid for the coffee. He was heading for the door, when he remembered something. “Well,” he said to himself, “here I go, forgetting my cane.” No other table was close enough to the thing, so that it could not belong to another patron. Simon retraced his steps rapidly, picked up the white cane without hesitation and crossed the crowded room, looking serene, holding it under his left arm. He left, without arousing any suspicion.
In front of the café door, a street vendor was displaying on the sidewalk fake tortoiseshell combs and other assorted cheap merchandise. Although they seemed greatly overpriced to him, Simon Lecoeur bought sunglasses, with very large and very dark lenses. He liked the frames, because of their close fit. The bright spring sun hurt his eyes and he didn’t want its slanting rays to penetrate through wide side openings. He immediately put on the glasses; they fit him perfectly.
Without knowing why—simply as a game, perhaps—Simon closed his eyes, sheltered behind the dark lenses
, and started to walk, feeling the pavement in front of his feet, with the iron tip of his cane. This gave him a sort of restful feeling.
As long as he remembered the disposition of his surroundings, he was able to progress without too much difficulty, although he was forced to slow down more and more. After about twenty steps, he no longer had any idea of the obstacles around him. He felt completely lost and stopped, but did not open his eyes. His status as a blind man protected him from being jostled.
“Sir, would you like me to help you cross?”
It was a young boy who addressed him thusly. Simon could easily guess his approximate age, because his voice was obviously just beginning to change. The sound originated from a clearly definable level, indicating further the height of the child, with a precision that surprised the phony invalid.
“Yes, thank you,” answered Simon, “I would like that.”
The boy grabbed his left hand, gently and firmly.
“Wait awhile,” he said, “the light is green and cars go fast, on the avenue.”
Simon concluded that he must have stopped just at the edge of the sidewalk. He had therefore strayed considerably, in a few yards, from his original direction. Yet, the experiment still attracted him, fascinated him, even; he wanted to carry it out until some insurmountable difficulty put an end to it.
He easily located, with the iron tip, the edge of the stone margin and the difference in level, that he would have to negotiate in order to reach the surface of the street. His own idiotic obstinacy surprised him: “I must have one hell of an Oedipus complex,” he thought smiling, while the kid pulled him forward, cars having finally given way to pedestrians. But soon his smile vanished, replaced by this inward thought:
“I mustn’t laugh: it is sad to be blind. . . .”
The hazy image of a little girl in a gathered white dress, cinched at the waist with a wide ribbon, after wavering momentarily in an indefinable recollection, finally settles behind the screen of, his closed eyelids. . . .
She stands motionless in the frame of a doorway. It is so dark around her that practically nothing is visible. In the dim light, only the white gauze dress, the blond hair, the pale features emerge. The child carries, in front of her, in both hands, a large three-branched candelabrum, polished and shiny: but its three candles are out.
I wonder, once more, where these images might come from. This candelabrum has already appeared in my memory. It has been placed on a chair, lit that time, at the head of a young boy lying on his deathbed. . . .
But we have now reached the other side of the street, and I fear that my guide might abandon me. Since I am not yet comfortable in my part as a blind man, I wish that we might continue to walk together, for a few extra minutes. In order to gain time, I question him.
“What’s your name?”
“My name is Jean, sir.”
“You live around here?”
“No, sir, I live in the fourteenth district.”
We are, however, at the other end of Paris. Although there might be a number of reasons to explain the presence here of that child, I am surprised that he wanders around, this way, so far from his home. About to question him on this subject, I suddenly fear that he might find my indiscretion strange, that it might alarm him, and that it could even cause him to flee. . . .
“Rue Vercingétorix,” specifies the kid, in that voice of his that breaks from sharp to low, and in the middle of a word as well.
The name of the leader of the Gauls surprises me: I think there is, to be sure, a rue Vercingétorix that opens onto this avenue, and I don’t think there is another one elsewhere, not in Paris in any case. It is impossible that the same name would be used for two different streets in the same city, unless there are also two Vercingétorixes in French history. I convey my doubts to my companion.
“No,” he answers, without an hesitation, “there is only one Vercingétorix and only one street by that name in Paris. It is in the fourteenth arrondissement.”
I must then be confusing it with another street name? . . . It happens rather often this way, that we believe in things that are quite false: it is enough that some fragment of a memory, come from elsewhere, enters into some coherent pattern open to it, or else that we unconsciously fuse two disparate halves, or still that we reverse the order of the elements in some causal system, to fashion in our minds chimerical objects, having for us all the appearances of reality. . . .
But I put off until later the solution to my problem of topography, for fear the kid might eventually tire of my questions. He has let go of my hand, and I doubt that he wants to go on serving as my guide for much longer. His parents are perhaps expecting him for the midday meal.
As he hasn’t said anything else for a fairly long time (long enough for me to be aware of it), I even fear for a moment that he has already gone, and that I may, henceforth, have to go on alone, without his providential support. I must look rather forlorn, for I hear his voice, reassuring to me in spite of its strange sonorities.
“It doesn’t seem that you’re accustomed to walking alone,” he says. “Do you want us to stay together a little longer? Where are you going?”
I am at a loss to answer. But I must keep my improvised guide from noticing my embarrassment. In order not to let him find out that I do not myself know where I am going, I answer with assurance, without thinking:
“To the Gare du Nord.”
“In that case, we shouldn’t have crossed over. That’s on the other side of the avenue.”
He is right, of course. I give him, again quickly, the only explanation that comes to mind:
“I thought this sidewalk would be less crowded.”
“As a matter of fact, it is less crowded,” says the kid. “But in any case, you were supposed to make a right turn immediately. You’re taking the train?”
“No, I am going to meet a friend.”
“Where is he coming from?”
“He is coming from Amsterdam.”
“At what time?”
I have once again ventured upon dangerous ground. Let’s hope there is really such a train in the early afternoon. Fortunately, it is quite unlikely that this child would know the train schedules.
“I don’t remember the exact time,” I say. “But I am sure that I am quite early.”
“The express from Amsterdam pulls into the station at 12:34,” says the kid. “We can be there on time if we take the shortcut. Come on. Let’s hurry.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
“We’ll take the alley,” says the kid. “It will be faster. But you’ll have to be careful where you put your feet: the paving stones are quite uneven. On the other hand, there won’t be any more cars or pedestrians.”
“Good,” I say, “I’ll be careful.”
“I’ll guide you as well as I can between the holes and the bumps. When we come to some particular obstacle, I’ll squeeze your hand harder. . . . Well, here we are: we have to turn right.”
I’d better open my eyes, of course. It would be safer, and at any rate, more convenient. But I have decided to walk like a blind man for as long as possible. This has to be what is known as a losing bet. It looks, after all, as though I’d be behaving like a scatterbrain or a child, a behavior that is hardly customary for me. . . .
At the same time, this darkness to which I am condemning myself, and which I doubtlessly enjoy, seems to me to fit perfectly the mental uncertainty in which I have been struggling since waking up. My self-imposed blindness would be some sort of metaphor for it, or its objective correlative, or a redundancy. . . .
The kid pulls me vigorously by the left arm. He advances with long steps, light and sure, and I can barely keep pace with their rhythm. I should let go, take more chances, but I don’t dare: I feel the ground in front of me with the tip of my cane, as though I feared to find myself suddenly in front of some chasm, which would be, after all, quite unlikely. . . .
“If you don’t walk any faster,” says the kid, “you won’t get there
on time for the train, you’ll miss your friend, and then we’ll have to look for him all over the station.”
The time I get there hardly matters to me, and for good reason. Yet, I follow my guide with confidence and earnestness. I have the funny feeling that he is leading me towards something important, of which I know nothing, and which might well have nothing to do with the Gare du Nord and the Amsterdam train.
Propelled, most likely, by this obscure idea, I venture more and more boldly on this surprise-laden ground to which my feet are getting accustomed little by little. Soon, I feel quite comfortable here. I almost feel as if I were swimming in a new element. . . .
I didn’t think that my legs would function so easily and by themselves, without: control, so to speak. They would like to go even faster still, pulled along by a force in which the kid has no part. I would run, now, if he asked me to. . . .
But it is he who suddenly stumbles. I don’t even have time to hold him back, his hand slips out of mine, and I can hear him falling heavily, just in front of me. I could almost, carried along by my impetus, fall too on top of him, and we would roll together in the dark, one on top of the other, like characters out of Samuel Beckett. I burst out laughing at that image, while struggling to regain my balance.
As for my guide, he does not laugh at his misadventure. He doesn’t speak a word. I don’t hear him move. Could he be injured through some unlikely bad luck? Could his fall have caused some trauma to his skull, his head having hit a raised cobblestone?
I call him by his first name, and I ask him if he’s been hurt: but he answers nothing. A great silence has suddenly descended, and it goes on, which is beginning to concern me seriously. I feel the stone with the iron tip of my cane, taking infinite precautions. . . .
The body of the kid lies across our path. He seems motionless. I kneel down and I bend over him. I let go of my cane in order to feel his clothes with both hands. I get no reaction, but, under my fingers, I feel a sticky liquid, the nature of which I cannot determine.
La Maison de Rendez-Vous and Djinn Page 6