Night Rounds

by Patrick Modiano

  In the drawers, two or three yellowed snapshots, old letters. A withered bouquet on Mme de Bel-Respiro's desk. In a trunk she left behind, several dresses from Worth. One night I slipped on the most beautiful among them: a peau-de-soie with imitation tulle and festoons of pink morning-glories. I've no penchant whatever for transvestism, but at that moment my situation seemed so hopeless and my solitude so vast that I determined to cheer myself up by putting on some nonsensical act. Standing in front of the Venetian mirror in the living room (wearing a Lambelle hat replete with flowers, plumes, and lace), I really felt like laughing. Murderers were reaping a harvest in the blackout. Pretend you're playing their game, the Lieutenant had told me, but he knew perfectly well that one day I'd join their ranks. Then why did he desert me? You don't leave a child all alone in the dark. It frightens him at first; he gets used to it and winds up shunning the sunlight altogether. Paris would never again be known as the City of Light, I was wearing a dress and hat that would have made Emilienne d'Alençon green with envy, and thinking about the aimlessness and superficiality of my existence. Wasn't it true that Goodness, Justice, Contentment, Freedom, and Progress called for far more effort and vision than were mine to give? Musing thus, I began to make up my face. I used Mme de Bel-Respiro's cosmetics: kohl, and an Oriental type of henna which, so they say, gives the courtesans their fresh and velvety skin. Professional zeal carried me to the point of dotting my face with beauty marks, heart-, moon-, or comet-shaped. Then, to while away the time, I waited till dawn for the apocalypse.

  Five in the afternoon. Sunlight, vast curtains of silence descending on the square. I thought I saw a shadow at the only window where the shutters were not drawn. Who's still living at No. 3 bis? I ring the bell. Someone's coming down the stairs. The door opens a crack. An old woman. She asks me what I want. To walk through the house. She snaps back that this is out of the question, since the owners are away. Then shuts the door. Now she's watching me, her face hard against the windowpane.

  Avenue Henri-Martin. The first paths entering the Bois de Boulogne. Let's go as far as the Lower Lake. I often went over to that island with Coco Lacour and Esmeralda. Ever since then I pursued my ideal: examining from afar – the farthest possible – people, their ceaseless activity, their pitiless scheming. The island seemed a suitable place, with its lawns and its Chinese pavilion. A little farther on. The Pré Catelan. We came there the night I denounced the whole ring. The orchestra was playing a Creole waltz. The elderly gentleman and the elderly lady at the table next to ours … Esmeralda was sipping a grenadine, Coco Lacour was smoking his cigar… Soon the Khedive and Philibert would be badgering me with questions. A chain of figures dancing round me, faster and faster, clamoring louder and louder, and I'll finally give in so they'll let me alone. Meanwhile, I didn't waste those precious moments of respite. He was smiling. She was blowing bubbles through her straw … I see them as dark silhouettes against the light. Time has passed. If I didn't record their names, Coco Lacour, Esmeralda, there'd be no trace of their presence on earth.

  A little beyond, to the west, La Grande Cascade restaurant. We never went that far: there were guards on the Pont de Suresnes. It must be a bad dream.

  Everything is so still now all along the path bordering the water. Someone on a barge waved to me … I remember feeling sad when we came exploring this far. Impossible to cross the Seine. We had to come back into the Bois. I realized that a hunting party was on our track and they'd finally drive us into the open. The trains weren't running. Too bad. I would have liked to get them off my back once and for all. Reach Lausanne, in a neutral country. Coco Lacour, Esmeralda, and I are strolling along the Lake of Geneva shore. There in Lausanne, all our fears are gone. It's the end of a lovely summer afternoon, like today. Boulevard de la Seine. Avenue de Neuilly. Porte Maillot. After leaving the Bois we sometimes stopped at Luna Park. Coco Lacour liked the ball-throwing stands and the gallery of distorting mirrors. We got into the "Sirocco" caterpillar that whirled faster and faster. Laughter, music. A platform with an inscription in luminous letters: "ASSASSINATION OF THE PRINCESS DE LAMBALLE." You could see a reclining woman. Above the bed, a red target at which the would-be marksmen were aiming their revolvers. Each time they hit the bull's-eye, the bed teetered and out fell the shrieking woman. Other bloody attractions. We weren't old enough for those things and became frightened, like three children abandoned at the height of some lunatic affair. What's left of all this frenzy, tumult, and violence? A wasteland adjoining the Boulevard Gouvion-Saint-Cyr. I know the district. I used to live there. Place des Acacias. A sixth-floor room. In those days everything was rosy: I was eighteen, and I was drawing a naval pension with forged papers. Apparently no one wished me ill. A handful of human contacts: my mother, a few dogs, two or three old men, and Lili Marlene. Many an afternoon spent reading or walking the streets. The boys my age, so full of life, astounded me. They held nothing back. Their eyes sparkled. My idea was that the less one was seen, the better. Painfully shy. Neutral-colored suits. That's what I thought. Place Pereire. On warm evenings I'd sit outside at the Royal-Villiers café. Someone at the next table smiled at me. Cigarette? He held out a package of Khedives and we started to talk. He and a friend of his ran a private detective agency. They offered me a job at their place. They liked my honest looks and good manners. My job was shadowing. After that, they put me to work in earnest: investigations, information-gathering of all sorts, confidential missions. I had an office all to myself at the agency's headquarters, 177 Avenue Niel. My bosses didn't have an ounce of respectability: Henri Normand, known as "the Khedive" (because of his brand of cigarettes), was a former convict; Pierre Philibert, a top police inspector who'd been cashiered. I realized that they were giving me "slightly off­color" jobs. Yet it never occurred to me to quit the place. In my office on the Avenue Niel I took stock of my responsibilities: first and foremost, to look after Mama since she had little to live on. I was sorry I had neglected my role as family provider up to that point, but now that I was working and bringing in a steady salary, I'd be a model son.

  Avenue de Wagram. Place des Ternes. The Brasserie Lorraine on my left, where I'd made an appointment with him. He was being blackmailed and counted on our agency to get him off the hook. Myopic eyes. His hands trembled. Stammering, he asked me whether I had "the papers." Yes, I replied, very softly, but he'd have to give me twenty thousand francs. Cash. After that we'd see. We met again the next day at the same place. He handed me an envelope. Everything was there. Instead of turning over "the papers," I got up and took off. You don't like to use those tactics, but they become a habit. My bosses gave me a 10 per cent commission on this type of business. In the evening I'd bring Mama tumbrels of orchids. My affluence worried her. Perhaps she guessed that I was wasting my youth for a handful of cash. She never questioned me about it.

  Le temps passe très vite, et les années vous quittent.

  Un jour, on est un grand garcon…

  I would rather have devoted myself to a worthier cause than that so-called private detective agency. I'd have liked to be a doctor, but open wounds and the sight of blood make me ill. On the other hand, moral ugliness doesn't bother me. Innately suspicious, I'm apt to single out the worst side of people and things so I won't be caught off guard. I was perfectly at home then at the Avenue Niel, where there was talk of nothing but extortion, breach of confidence, larceny, swindles, corruption of all sorts, and where the customers we dealt with were real sewer rats. (On this last score, my employers came no better recommended.) The only positive factor: I was earning fantastic sums of money, as I've already said. It's important to me. It was in the pawnshop on the Rue Pierre Charron (my mother and I often went there; they refused to take our imitation jewelry) that I decided once and for all that poverty was a pain in the neck. You'll think I have no principles. I started out with infinite innocence of heart and mind. It gets lost along the way. Place de l'Étoile. Nine in the evening. The lights along the Champs-Élysées sparkle as they always have.
They haven't kept their promise. This avenue, so seemingly majestic from afar, is one of the vilest sections of Paris. The Claridge, Fouquet, Hungaria, the Lido, the Embassy, Butterfly… at each stop I met new faces: Costachesco, the Baron de Lussatz, Odicharvi, Hayakawa, Lionel de Zieff, Pols de Helder… Adventurers, abortionists, sharpers, bogus journalists, sham lawyers and accountants who gravitated toward the Khedive and Mr. Philibert. Supplemented by a whole battery of demimondaines, strip-teasers, drug addicts… Frau Sultana, Simone Bouquereau, Baroness Lydia Stahl, Violette Morris, Magda d'Andurian… My two bosses launched me into this underworld. Champs Élysées: the Elysian Fields. That's what they called the joyous abode of the righteous and heroic dead. So I wonder how the avenue where I'm standing came by that name. I do see ghosts there, but only those of Mr. Philibert, the Khedive, and their acolytes. Walking arm in arm out of the Claridge come Joanovici and the Count de Cagliostro. They wear white suits and platinum rings. The shy young man crossing the Rue Lord Byron is Eugene Weidmann. Motionless in front of Pam-Pam stands Thérèse de Païva, the Second Empire's most beautiful whore. On the corner of the Rue Marbeuf, Dr. Petiot smiled at me. The Colisée's outdoor café: a group of black marketeers are gulping down champagne. Including Count Baruzzi, the Chapochnikoff brothers, Rachid von Rosenheim, Jean-Farouk de Méthode, Otto da Silva, a host of others … If I can reach the Rand-Point, maybe I can lose these phantoms. Hurry. The silence and greenery in the gardens of the Champs-Élysées. I often used to stop there. After working all afternoon in bars along the avenue ("business" appointments with the above-mentioned persons), I'd walk over to this park for a breath of clean air. I'd sit on a bench, short of breath. Pockets full of cash. Twenty thousand, sometimes a hundred thousand francs.

  Our agency was, if not approved of, at least tolerated by the Police Department: we furnished whatever information they asked for. Moreover, we were running a racket with the above-mentioned persons. They believed they were buying our silence and protection, since Mr. Philibert had close ties with his former colleagues, Inspectors Rothé, David, Jalby, Jurgens, Santoni, Permilleux, Sadowsky, François, and Detmar. My job, as a matter of fact, was to collect the racket money. Twenty thousand, sometimes a hundred thousand francs. It had been a rough day. Bargaining and more bargaining. I could see their faces: sallow, oily, standard brands in a police line-up. Some of them tried to hold out and I was obliged to – yes, in spite of all my timidity and softheartedness – raise my voice, threaten to go straight to the police at the Quai des Orfèvres if they didn't pay up. I told them about the files my bosses had me keep with a record of each and every name and life history. Nothing very special, those files. They would dig out their wallets, and call me a "squealer." The word stung.

  I was alone on the bench. Some places invite reflection. Public gardens, for instance, lost kingdoms in Paris, fading oases amid the roar and the callousness of humanity. The Tuileries. The Luxembourg. The Bois de Boulogne. But never did I do so much thinking as in the Champs Élysées gardens. What really was my profession? Blackmailer? Police spy? I counted the cash and took out my 10 per cent. I'd go over to Lachaume and order a whole thicket of red roses. Pick out two or three rings at Van Cleef & Arpels. Then buy fifty-odd dresses at Piguet, Lelong, and Molyneux. All that for Mama – blackmailer, bum, informer, finger man, perhaps killer, but a model son. That was my only consolation. It was getting dark. The children were leaving the park after one last ride on the carousel. Along the Champs-Élysées the street lights went on all at once. It would have paid – I told myself – to stick close to the Place des Acacias. Make sure to avoid the main streets and boulevards because of the noise, the unpleasant encounters. What a foolhardy idea to be sitting outside at the Royal-Villiers café, Place Pereire, I who was so discreet and wary, so anxious to avoid being seen. But you have to start out somewhere in life. You can't buy it off. In the end it sends round to you its recruiting sergeants: the Khedive and Mr. Philibert, as it happened. On some other evening I could have fallen among more honorable companions who might have encouraged me to enter the textile field or become a writer. Having no particular bent for any profession, I waited for my elders to decide what I would do. Up to them to figure out what they'd like me to be. I left it in their lap.

  Boy scout? Florist? Tennis pro? No:

  Employee of a phony detective agency.

  Blackmailer, finger man, extortionist.

  Still, it was rather surprising. I didn't have the equipment for this kind of work: an ugly temperament, lack of scruples, a relish for sordid company. I dug into it conscientiously, the way others go for a boilermaker's license. Funny thing about guys like me: they can just as easily end up in the Pantheon as in Thiais cemetery, dumping-ground for spies. They become heroes. Or rats. Nobody will ever know that they got dragged into some foul mess to save their own skins. What they really cared about: their stamp collection, and a bit of peace and quiet, on the Place des Acacias, so they could breathe.

  Meanwhile, I was turning out a miserable piece of goods. My apathy and indifference made me doubly vulnerable to the Khedive's and Mr. Philibert's influence. I remembered the words of a doctor, a neighbor on my floor at the Place des Acacias. "After you reach twenty," he told me, "you start to rot. Fewer and fewer nerve cells, my boy." I jotted this remark down on an engagement calendar, for we should always heed the experience of our elders. He was right, I now realized. My illegal activities and unsavory associations would rob me of the bloom of youth. My future? A race, with the finish line in no man's land. Being dragged to a scaffold without a chance to catch my breath. Someone whispered in my ear: All you'll have had from life is this whirlwind you let yourself be caught up in gypsy music, wilder and wilder, to muffle my screams. This evening the air is decidedly balmy. As in the past, always at the same time, the donkeys are leaving the main path and heading home to the stables. All day long they've had to walk the children to and fro. They disappear around the corner of the Avenue Gabriel. No one will ever hear about their suffering. Such reticence was impressive. As they went by, my peace of mind returned, my indifference. I tried to gather my thoughts together. They were few and far between, and all extremely commonplace. I'm not the thinking sort. Too emotional for that. Lazy. A couple of quick efforts always brought me to the same conclusion: I'll die sooner or later. Fewer and fewer nerve cells. A lengthy process of putrefaction. The doctor had warned me. I should add that my work inclined me toward perverse pleasures: police informer and blackmailer at the age of twenty, that narrows one's sights a bit. A funny odor permeated 177 Avenue Niel from the antiquated furniture and the wallpaper. The light was never steady. Behind the desk with the wooden files where I kept the records on our "customers." I indexed them by names of poisonous plants: Inky Coprinus, Belladonna, Satanic Boletus, Henbane, Livid Entoloma … The slightest contact with them made me start to decalcify. My clothes reeked of Avenue Niel's stifling odor. I let myself be contaminated. This disease? An accelerated aging process, a physical and moral decay just as the doctor had said. Yet I have no relish for morbid situations.

  Un petit village

  Un vieux clocher

  was the pinnacle of my fondest hopes. Unfortunately, I was in a city, a kind of sprawling Luna Park where the Khedive and Mr. Philibert were driving me from shooting galleries to roller coasters, from Punch and Judy to "Sirocco" caterpillars. Finally I lay down on a bench. I wasn't meant for this sort of thing. I never asked a soul for anything. It was they who came after me.

  A little farther along. On the left, the Ambassadeurs theater. They're performing an operetta that nobody would remember. There can't be much of an audience. An elderly lady, an elderly gentleman, two or three English tourists. I pass along a grassy stretch, the last of the hedges. Place de la Concorde. The street lights were blinding. I stood still, breathing hard. Overhead, the Marly horses were rearing, straining every nerve to resist the will of man. Ready to bolt across the square. A magnificent, sweeping view, the only place in Paris that leaves you with the
giddiness of mountain peaks. A landscape of stone and sparkling lights. Over by the Tuileries, the Ocean. I was on the quarter-deck of a liner bound for the Northwest, carrying with it the Madeleine, the Opera, the Berlitz Palace, the Church of La Trinité. It was about to sink. Tomorrow we'd be resting on the ocean floor, three thousand fathoms deep. My shipmates no longer filled me with dread. The gaping mouth of the Baron de Lussatz; Odicharvi's cruel eyes; the treacherous Chapochnikoff brothers; Frau Sultana twisting a strap around her left arm to make the vein bulge and injecting herself with 30 cc. of morphine; Zieff with his vulgarity, his gold chronometer, his pudgy fingers encased in rings; Ivanoff and his sessions of sexuo-divine pan eurhythmics; Costachesco, Jean-Farouk de Méthode, and Rachid von Rosenheim discussing their abortive frauds; and the Khedive's gangster crew of hirelings: Armand le Fou, Jo Reocreux, Tony Breton, Vital-Léca, Robert le Pâle, Gouari, Danos, Codébo. … Before long all those sinister creatures would be meat for octopi, sharks, and moray eels. I'd share their fate. Readily. I had realized this quite suddenly one night when, with arms spread to form a cross, I was going along the Place de la Concorde. My shadow projected all the way to the Rue Royale, my left hand extended to the Champs-Élysées gardens, my right hand to the Rue Saint-Florentin. The idea of Jesus Christ might have occurred to me, but I thought of Judas Iscariot. No one had understood him. It took a good deal of humility and courage to shoulder the crushing burden of mankind's disgrace. To die of it. Alone. Like a great man. Judas, my big brother. Born skeptics, both of us. Not an ounce of trust did we place in our fellow men, in ourselves or in any likely savior. Shall I .find the strength to follow you to the very end? A difficult path. Night was coming on, but my job as informer and blackmailer made me used to the darkness. I put aside my unpleasant thoughts about my shipmates and their crimes. With a few weeks of hard work behind me at the Avenue Niel, nothing surprised me any more. Even if they came up with a new set of facial expressions, it wouldn't make any difference. I watched them moving about on the promenade deck, along the gangways, noting their coarse frivolity. A waste of time when you consider that water was already pouring into the hold. The main lounge and the ballroom would be next. With the ship about to capsize, my pity went out to the most savage passengers. Hitler himself could have come rushing into my arms crying like a child. The Arcades along the Rue de Rivoli. Something ominous was afoot. I had noticed the endless stream of cars along the outer boulevards. They were fleeing Paris. Probably the war. A sudden disaster. Coming out of Hilditch & Key, where I'd just picked out a tie, I examined this strip of fabric men loop around their necks. A blue-and-white striped tie. That afternoon I was also wearing a tan suit and crepe-soled shoes. In my wallet, a photograph of Mama and an expired ­métro ticket. I'd just had a haircut. These details were of no interest to anyone. People were bent only on saving their own skins. Chacun pour soi. Before long there wasn't a soul or a car on the streets. Even Mama had left. I wanted to cry, but the tears wouldn't come. This silence, this deserted city, symbolized my state of mind. I examined my tie and shoes again. The sun was nice and warm. The words of a song came back to me: