“Do you have your driver’s license?”
“It must be in my handbag,” she said. “Have a look.”
Her handbag was sitting on the dashboard. There wasn’t much in it and I immediately located the license. I was tempted to read it, so that I would finally know her name, address, and date and place of birth. But, out of discretion, I didn’t.
“What about the registration—do we have that?”
“Probably … check in the glove compartment.”
She shrugged. She seemed not to care about all the dangers I dreaded for us. She had switched on the radio, and gradually the music calmed me down. I felt confident again. We hadn’t done anything wrong. What could anyone hold against us?
“We should head to the South with this car,” I said to her.
“I thought you wanted to go to Rome.”
Up until then, I had imagined traveling to Rome by train. Now I tried to imagine us driving along the highway. First we would go to the South of France. Then we’d cross the border at Ventimiglia. With just a little luck, everything would go smoothly. Since I was underage, I’d draft a letter supposedly signed by my father, authorizing a trip abroad. I was an old hand at this type of forgery.
“Do you think they’d lend us the car?”
“Sure … Why wouldn’t they?”
She didn’t want to give me a straight answer.
“Well, you haven’t known them very long …”
She remained silent. I returned to the attack.
“That fellow, Jacques—did you meet him through Ansart?”
“Yes.”
“And what does Jacques do for a living?”
“He and Ansart are in business together.”
“So how did you meet Ansart?”
“In a café.”
She added:
“Jacques lives in a very nice apartment on Rue Washington. His full name is Jacques de Bavière …”
After that, I often heard that name on her lips: Jacques de Bavière. Did I mishear? Wasn’t it a more prosaic name, like de Bavier or Deba-viaire? Or simply a pseudonym?
“He’s a Belgian national, but he’s been living in France forever. He lives with his stepmother on Rue Washington.”
“His stepmother?”
“Yes, his father’s widow.”
We had arrived at the Pont de la Concorde. Instead of turning onto Boulevard Saint-Germain, she crossed the Seine.
“I prefer taking the quays,” she said.
“This Jacques de Bavière … He seems to be in love with you …”
“Perhaps. But I don’t want to live with him. I want to retain my independence.”
“You prefer living in Saint-Leu-la-Forêt?”
I had adopted a sarcastic tone, as if I didn’t believe in the existence of that house in Saint-Leu-la-Forêt.
“I have a right to my own life …”
“Someday you’ll have to take me to Saint-Leu …”
She smiled.
“Are you making fun of me?”
“Not in the slightest. I’d be very curious to see your house …”
“Unfortunately I stopped living there yesterday—as you know very well …”
The Pont-Neuf. We followed the same route that we’d taken on foot the evening before. She parked the car in the recess on Quai de Conti, at the corner of the cul-de-sac.
The windows of both the office and the adjacent bedroom were lit. This time, we wouldn’t be able to avoid Grabley, and the prospect made me nervous. I said:
“We’ll go in on tiptoe.”
But just as we were crossing the foyer in the semidarkness, Grabley opened the door to the bedroom.
“Who’s there? Is that you, Obligado?”
He was wearing his plaid bathrobe.
“You could at least introduce me …”
“Gisèle,” I said in an unsure voice.
“Henri Grabley.”
He had moved toward her and held out a hand that she didn’t shake.
“Delighted to meet you. Please forgive me for greeting you in this attire.”
He was playing master of the household. Moreover, his entire person corresponded so perfectly to that empty apartment …
“Mister Grabley is a friend of my father’s,” I said.
“His oldest friend.”
With a gesture, he bade us enter the room, adjacent to the office, that had never had a very determinate function: sometimes it was a living room—the furniture used to consist of a midnight-blue sofa, two wing chairs of the same color, and a coffee table—sometimes a “guest room.”
The curtainless windows looked out on the quay.
“I was getting fed up with my view of the courtyard, so I moved in here. Do I have your permission, Obligado?”
“Make yourself at home.”
He had walked into the room, but she and I remained on the threshold. A mattress was lying on the floor, in the left-hand corner. Light came from a naked bulb in a lamp base. There wasn’t any furniture left. On the marble mantelpiece were a large radio and the black oilskin bags Grabley sometimes used for his morning shopping.
“Shall we go into the office instead?”
He kept his eyes fixed on her, a fatuous smile on his face, his head slightly raised.
“You’re very lovely, Miss …”
She didn’t react, but I was afraid she would leave because of him.
“I hope you won’t hold my frankness against me, Miss.”
Our silence was making him feel awkward. He turned to me.
“I haven’t been able to reach your father. The phone number he gave me doesn’t answer.”
No surprise there. I could even foresee that number ringing in the void for all eternity.
“Just keep trying,” I told him. “He’ll answer eventually.”
He looked hapless, standing there before us like an old ham who can’t win over the audience.
“Hey, what if the three of us had dinner tomorrow?”
“I don’t know if Gisèle is free.”
I looked to her for support.
“That’s very kind of you, sir, but I’m afraid I won’t be able to come in to the city tomorrow evening.”
I was grateful to her for adopting that courteous tone—I’d been afraid she would answer much more cuttingly. I suddenly felt sorry for Grabley, with his blond mustache and shopping bags on the mantelpiece; for my father, who had hightailed it … Today, I again see that scene, from a distance. Behind the panes of a window, in muted light, I can make out a blond man in his fifties wearing a plaid bathrobe, a girl in a fur coat, and a young man … The light bulb in the lamp base is too small and too weak. If I could go back in time and return to that room, I would change the bulb. But in brighter light, the whole thing might well dissolve.
In the fifth-floor bedroom, she was lying against me. I could hear muted music and an announcer’s droning voice.
Grabley was listening to the radio downstairs.
“There’s something weird about that guy,” she said. “What does he do?”
“Oh, he’s a bit of a jack of all trades.”
One day, I had come across a wallet he’d left in the office. Among the other documents it contained, one very old one in particular had raised my eyebrows: an application to be listed in the Business Register as a greengrocer in the produce market in Reims.
“And what about your father? Is he like that too?”
For the first time, she had used the familiar tu.
“No, not exactly …”
“Did he go to Switzerland because he was in trouble here in France?”
“Yes.”
None of this seemed to bother her much.
“What about you? Do you have any family?” I asked her.
“Not really.”
She looked me in the eye and smiled.
“I have a brother named Lucien …”
“But what do you do for a living?”
“A little of everything
…”
She knitted her brow, as if searching for the right words. She finally said:
“I was even married once.”
I pretended not to have heard. The slightest word or movement might interrupt this confidence. But she fell silent again, eyes fixed on the ceiling.
Reflections skidded across the walls. Their shape and movement were like foliage rustling and trembling in the wind. It was the last tour boat passing by, its searchlights aimed at the building façades along the quays.
The next day was Saturday. The sunshine and blue sky contrasted with the gray and cloud cover of the day before. One of the booksellers on the quay had already opened his stall. I experienced a holiday atmosphere that I’d already felt on the rare Saturdays in my past when I awoke in this same room, surprised to find myself far away from the boarding school dormitory.
That morning, she seemed more relaxed than the previous day. I thought of our upcoming departure for Rome and decided to buy myself a map of the city as soon as possible. Then I asked if she’d like to take a walk in the Bois de Boulogne.
Grabley had left a note in the office:
Dear Obligado,
I have to go back to Boulevard Hausmann to get rid of the rest of the papers your father left behind. This evening I make my “rounds.” If you and your friend would like to join me, let’s meet at eight o’clock at the Magots. That girl is really quite charming … Try to bring her along … I would be delighted to introduce you this evening to someone who isn’t too bad herself.
H. G.
She went to make sure the suitcases were still in the storage closet. Then she told me she had to go get something before noon somewhere near the Quai de Passy. That worked out well, as it was on the way to the Bois de Boulogne.
As we were getting into the car, I asked her to wait for me a moment and I ran to the bookseller’s stall. In a row of books about travel and geography, I found an old guide to Rome, and this coincidence struck me as auspicious.
We were now used to this car, and I even felt as if it had always belonged to us. There was very little traffic that Saturday morning, as during those vacation weeks when most Parisians have left the city. We crossed over to the Right Bank via the Pont de la Concorde. The quays were even emptier on that side. After the gardens of Trocadéro, we stopped at the corner of Rue de l’Alboni, beneath the elevated metro.
She said she had to go on alone. She would meet me in an hour at the café on the quay.
She turned around and waved good-bye.
I wondered if she was going to vanish for good. The evening before, I’d had a reference point: I had seen her enter a building. But now, she didn’t even want me to accompany her all the way. I was never sure of anything with her.
I preferred to walk rather than just sit and wait in that café, and one by one I took the neighboring streets and the stairways with their balusters and streetlamps. Later, I would often return to that area, and each time the stairways on Rue de l’Alboni reminded me of the Saturday when I had walked around there, waiting for her. It was November, but in my memory, because of the sun that day, a summer light bathes the neighborhood. Dappled sunlight on the sidewalks and shadows beneath the metro viaduct. A dark, narrow passageway that was once a rustic path rises through the buildings up to Rue Raynouard. At night, at the exit of the Passy metro stop, the streetlamps cast a pale light on the foliage.
The other day, I wanted to reconnoiter the area one last time. I emerged into that zone of administrative pavilions on the banks of the Seine. They were demolishing most of them. Heaps of rubble and dilapidated walls, as if after a bombardment. The bulldozers cleared away the debris with sluggish movements. I headed back via Rue Charles-Dickens. I wondered what the address could have been, where she’d gone that Saturday. It was surely on Rue Charles-Dickens. When we had parted, I’d seen her turn left and, an hour later, I started heading to the café on the quay where we were to meet. I was walking along Rue Frémiet toward the Seine when I heard someone call my name. I turned around: she was coming toward me, holding a black Labrador on a leash.
The dog, when it saw me, started wagging its tail. It rested its two front paws on my legs. I petted it.
“That’s funny … It’s like he knows you.”
“Is this your dog?” I asked.
“Yes, but I left him with someone for a while because I couldn’t take care of him.”
“What’s his name?”
“Raymond.”
She seemed delighted to have the dog back.
“So now, is there anything else you have to go get?”
“No, not for the moment.”
She gave me a smile. She had probably noticed I was gently teasing her. The suitcases, the fur coat, the dog … Today I understand better those constant displacements to try to gather up the scattered pieces of a life.
The dog jumped into the car and lay down on the back seat as if this were his usual spot. She said that before we went to the Bois de Boulogne, she had to stop by Ansart’s. She wanted to ask Jacques de Bavière if we could keep the car. Ansart and Jacques de Bavière always saw each other on Saturday, at the apartment or at Ansart’s restaurant. So these people had their habits, and now I had more or less become one of them, without really knowing why. I was the traveler who boards a departing train and finds himself in the company of four strangers. And he wonders whether he hasn’t got on the wrong train. But no matter … In his compartment, the others start making conversation with him.
I turned around toward the dog.
“And does Raymond know Ansart and Jacques de Bavière?”
“Oh, yes, he knows them.”
She burst out laughing. The dog raised his head and looked at me, perking up his ears.
She’d had the dog when she met them for the first time. She still lived in Saint-Leu-la-Forêt then. The people to whom she’d entrusted the dog, after that, had a house near Saint-Leu and an apartment in Paris. They had brought the dog back to Paris for her today.
I wondered if I should believe her. These explanations sounded at once too extensive and incomplete, as if she were trying to bury the truth under a wealth of detail. Why had she stayed there for an hour if it was just to pick up her dog? And why hadn’t she let me come with her? Who were these people?
I sensed it wasn’t worth asking. I had only known her for forty-eight hours. It would just take a few days of intimacy for the barriers between us to crumble. Pretty soon, I’d know everything.
We stopped in front of the building on Rue Raffet and crossed the courtyard. She hadn’t put the leash on the dog, but he followed us obediently. It was Martine, the blonde girl, who opened the door for us. She kissed Gisèle on the cheeks. Then she kissed me, too. I was startled by the familiarity.
Ansart and Jacques de Bavière were both sitting on the couch, looking at photographic enlargements, some of which were scattered on the rug at their feet. They didn’t seem surprised to see us. The dog hopped onto the couch and was all over them.
“So, are you happy to get your dog back?” said Jacques de Bavière.
“Very.”
Ansart shuffled together the photos and set them on the coffee table.
“Any problems with the car?” asked Jacques de Bavière.
“Not a one.”
“Have a seat for two minutes. Take a load off,” Ansart said with his slightly blue-collar accent.
We sat in the armchairs. The dog went to lie down at Gisèle’s feet. Martine sat on the floor, between Jacques de Bavière and Ansart, her back resting against the front of the couch.
“I was wondering if we could hold on to the car a while longer,” said Gisèle.
Jacques de Bavière smiled sarcastically.
“Of course. Keep it as long as you like.”
“On just one condition …” said Ansart.
He raised his finger to ask for our attention. With his face split by a smile, it was as if he was going to tell a good joke.
“On cond
ition that you do me a favor …”
He took a cigarette from the pack on the coffee table, then lit it nervously with a lighter. He looked me straight in the eye, as if I was the one he was addressing and Gisèle was already more or less in the know.
“So … It’s very simple … You just have to deliver a message for me …”
Jacques de Bavière and Martine stared at the dog, which remained in its sphinxlike position at Gisèle’s feet, but I had the feeling it was mainly to keep from looking awkward and not meet my gaze. Perhaps they were afraid I’d be shocked by Ansart’s offer.
“It’s nothing very complicated … Tomorrow afternoon, you’ll go into a café—I’ll tell you the one … You’ll wait for this fellow to come in …”
He picked up one of the photos on the coffee table and showed it to us from where he sat. The face of a dark-haired man in his forties. Gisèle didn’t seem very surprised by this proposal, but Ansart had surely noticed my distrust. He leaned toward me:
“Don’t worry. It’s the most ordinary thing in the world … This man is a business relation of mine … When he’s settled at his table, one of you will go up to him and just say: ‘Pierre Ansart is waiting for you in the car on the corner …’”
He smiled again, with a large, childlike smile. His face certainly radiated candor.
I would have liked to know what Gisèle thought of all this. She had leaned forward and picked up the print that Ansart had laid back on the coffee table. We both studied it. It looked like a blow-up of an ID photo. A face with regular features. Dark hair brushed back. Bare forehead.
Martine and Jacques de Bavière also looked at the other photos, which showed the same man from various angles, alone or with others.
“So what does he do?” I asked in a shy voice.
“A highly honorable profession,” Ansart said, without elaborating. “So, you wait for this man to show up and you give him my message. This will take place in Neuilly, right near the Bois de Boulogne.”
“And what happens afterward?” Gisèle asked.
After the Circus Page 4