Out of the Dark

by Patrick Modiano

  There was no one at the front desk. I took the key to our room from its hook. For the whole of our stay here, we had kept our clothes in our two bags. I picked them up and we went straight downstairs. Rachman was pacing in front of the hotel, his cigar in his mouth and his hands in the pockets of his jacket.

  ‘Happy to be leaving the Radnor?’

  He opened the trunk of the Jaguar and I put in our bags. Before starting up again, he said to Linda:

  ‘I have to go by the Lido for a moment. I’ll drive you home afterwards….’

  I could still smell the sickly odor of the hotel, and I wondered how many days it would be before it disappeared from our lives forever.

  The Lido was a bathing establishment in Hyde Park, on the Serpentine. Rachman bought four tickets at the window.

  ‘It’s funny…. This place reminds me of the Deligny pool in Paris,’ I said to Jacqueline.

  But once we were inside, we came to a sort of riverside beach, with a few tables and parasols set up around the edge. Rachman chose a table in the shade. He still had his cigar in his mouth. We all sat down. He mopped his forehead and his neck with a big white handkerchief. He turned to Jacqueline:

  Take a swim, if you like….’

  ‘I don’t have a suit,’ said Jacqueline.

  ‘We can get hold of one…. I’ll send someone to find you a suit….’

  ‘Don’t bother,’ Linda said sharply. ‘She doesn’t want to swim.’

  Rachman lowered his head. He was still mopping his forehead and his neck.

  ‘Would you care for some refreshment?’ he offered.

  Then, speaking to Linda:

  ‘I’m to meet Savoundra here.’

  The name conjured up an exotic silhouette in my imagination, and I was expecting to see a Hindu woman in a sari walk toward our table.

  But it was a blond man of about thirty who waved in our direction, then came and clapped Rachman on the shoulder. He introduced himself to Jacqueline and me:

  ‘Michael Savoundra.’

  Linda told him we were French.

  He took one of the chairs from the next table and sat down beside Rachman.

  ‘Well, what’s new?’ Rachman asked, staring at him with his cold little eyes.

  ‘I’ve done some more work on the script…. We’ll see….’

  ‘Yes… as you say, we’ll see….’

  Rachman had taken a disdainful tone. Savoundra crossed his arms, and his gaze lingered on Jacqueline and me.

  ‘Have you been in London long?’ he asked in French.

  Three weeks,’ I said.

  He seemed very interested in Jacqueline.

  ‘I lived in Paris for a while,’ he said in his halting French. ‘In the Hôtel de la Louisiane, on the Rue de Seine. … I tried to make a film in Paris….’

  ‘Unfortunately, it didn’t work out,’ said Rachman in his disdainful voice, and I was surprised that he had understood the sentence in French.

  There was a moment of silence.

  ‘But I’m sure it will work out this time,’ said Linda. ‘Right, Peter?’

  Rachman shrugged. Embarrassed, Savoundra asked Jacqueline, still in French:

  ‘You live in Paris?’

  ‘Yes,’ I answered, before Jacqueline could speak. ‘Not very far from the Hôtel de la Louisiane.’

  Jacqueline’s eyes met mine. She winked. Suddenly I longed to be in front of the Hôtel de la Louisiane, to walk to the Seine and stroll past the stands of the secondhand book dealers until I reached the Quai de la Tournelle. Why did I suddenly miss Paris?

  Rachman asked Savoundra a question and he answered with a great flurry of words. Linda joined in the conversation. But I wasn’t trying to understand them anymore. And I could see that Jacqueline wasn’t paying any attention to what they were saying either. This was the time of day when we often dozed off, because we never slept well at the Hotel Radnor, barely four or five hours a night. And since we went out early in the morning and came back as late as possible at night, we often took a nap on the grass in Hyde Park.

  They were still talking. From time to time Jacqueline closed her eyes, and I was afraid that I would fall asleep as well. But we gave each other little kicks under the table when we thought that the other one was about to drift off.

  I must have dozed for a few moments. The murmur of their conversation blended in with the laughter and shouts coming from the beach and the sound of people diving into the water. Where were we? By the Marne River or the Lake of Enghien? This place reminded me of another Lido, the one in Chenevières, or of the Sporting in La Varenne. Tonight we would go back to Paris, Jacqueline and I, by the Vincennes train.

  Someone was tapping me heavily on the shoulder. It was Rachman.

  Tired?’

  Across the table from me, Jacqueline was doing her best to keep her eyes wide open.

  ‘You must not have slept much in that hotel of mine,’ said Rachman.

  ‘Where were you?’ asked Savoundra in French.

  ‘In a place much less comfortable than the Hotel de la Louisiane,’ I told him.

  ‘It’s a good thing I ran into them,’ said Linda. They’re going to come and live with me….’

  I wondered why they were showing us such kindness. Savoundra’s gaze was still fixed on Jacqueline, but she didn’t know it, or pretended not to notice. He bore a strong resemblance to an American actor whose name I couldn’t quite recall. Of course. Joseph Cotten.

  ‘You’ll see,’ said Linda. ‘You’ll be right at home at my place. …’

  ‘In any case,’ said Rachman, ‘there’s no lack of apartments. I can let you use one starting next week….’

  Savoundra was examining us curiously. He turned to Jacqueline:

  ‘Are you brother and sister?’ he asked in English.

  ‘You’re out of luck, Michael,’ said Rachman icily. They’re husband and wife.’

  Leaving the Lido, Savoundra shook hands with us.

  ‘I hope to see you again very quickly,’ he said in French.

  Then he asked Rachman if he’d read his script.

  ‘Not yet. I need time. I scarcely know how to read….’

  And he let out his short laugh, his eyes as cold as ever behind his tortoise-shell glasses.

  Trying to fill the awkward silence, Savoundra turned to Jacqueline and me:

  ’I’d be very pleased if you would read the script. Some of the scenes take place in Paris, and you could correct the mistakes in the French.’

  ‘Good idea,’ said Rachman. ‘Let them read it…. That way, they can write up a summary for me.…’

  Savoundra disappeared down a walkway through Hyde Park, and we found ourselves back in the rear seat of Rachman’s Jaguar.

  ‘Is his script any good?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh yes… I’m sure it must be very good,’ said Linda.

  ‘You can take it,’ said Rachman. ‘It’s on the floor.’

  There was a beige folder lying beneath the rear seat. I picked it up and set it on my knees.

  ‘He wants me to give him thirty thousand pounds to make his movie,’ said Rachman. That’s a lot for a script I’ll never read….’

  We were back in the Sussex Gardens neighborhood. I was afraid he would take us back to the hotel, and once again I smelled the sickly odor of the hallway and the room. But he kept on driving, in the direction of Notting Hill. He turned right, toward the avenue with the movie theaters, and he entered a street lined with trees and white houses with porticoes. He stopped in front of one of them.

  We got out of the car with Linda. Rachman stayed behind the wheel. I took the two bags from the trunk and Linda opened the iron door. A very steep staircase. Linda walked ahead of us. Two doors on the landing. Linda opened the one on the left. A room with white walls. Its windows overlooked the street. No furniture. A large mattress on the floor. There was a bathroom adjoining.

  ‘You’ll be comfortable here,’ said Linda.

  Through the window, I could see Rach
man’s black car in a patch of sunlight.

  ‘You’re very kind,’ I told her.

  ‘No, no … It’s Peter. … It belongs to him. … He has loads of apartments….’

  She wanted to show us her room. Its entrance was the other door on the landing. Clothes and records were scattered over the bed and the floor. There was an odor here too, as penetrating as the one in the Hotel Radnor, but sweeter: the smell of marijuana.

  ‘Don’t look too closely,’ Linda said. ‘My room is always such a mess….’

  Rachman had got out of the car and was standing before the entrance to the house. Once again, he was mopping his neck and forehead with his white handkerchief.

  ‘You probably need some spending money?’

  And he held out a light blue envelope. I was about to tell-him we didn’t need it, but Jacqueline casually took the envelope from his hand.

  Thanks very much,’ she said, as if this were all perfectly natural. ‘We’ll pay you back as quickly as possible.’

  ‘I hope so,’ said Rachman. With interest… Anyway, I’m sure you’ll find some way to express your gratitude….’

  He laughed out loud.

  Linda handed me a small key ring.

  There are two keys,’ she said. ‘One for the front door, the other for the apartment.’

  They got into the car. And before Rachman drove off, Linda lowered the window on her side:

  ‘I’ll give you the address of the apartment, in case you get lost….’

  She wrote it on the back of the light blue envelope: 22 Chepstows Villas.

  Back in the room, Jacqueline opened the envelope. It held a hundred pounds.

  ‘We shouldn’t have taken this money,’ I told her.

  ‘Yes we should have…. We’ll need it to go to Majorca….’

  She realized I wasn’t convinced.

  ‘We’ll need about twenty thousand francs to find a house and to live in Majorca…. Once we’re there, we won’t need anyone anymore….’

  She went into the bathroom. I heard water running in the tub.

  This is marvelous,’ she called to me. ‘It’s been so long since Fve had a bath….’

  I stretched out on the mattress. I was trying hard not to fall asleep. I could hear the sound of her bathing. At one point, she said to me:

  ‘You’ll see how nice it is to have hot water….’

  In the sink in our room at the Hotel Radnor we’d only had a thin stream of cold water.

  The light blue envelope was sitting next to me on the mattress. A gentle torpor was coming over me, dissolving my scruples.

  About seven o’clock in the evening, the sound of Jamaican music coming from Linda’s room woke us up. I knocked on her door before we went downstairs. I could smell marijuana.

  After a long wait, she opened the door. She was wearing a red terrycloth bathrobe. She stuck her head out.

  ‘I’m sorry…. I’m with someone….’

  ‘We just wanted to say good evening,’ said Jacqueline.

  Linda hesitated, then finally made up her mind to speak:

  ‘Can I ask you to do me a favor? When we see Peter, you mustn’t let him find out that I have someone here…. He’s very jealous. … Last time, he came by when I wasn’t expecting him, and he was this close to smashing the place up and throwing me out the window.’

  ‘What if he comes tonight?’ I said.

  ‘He’s away for two days. He went to the seaside, to Blackpool, to buy up some more old dumps.’

  Why is he so kind to us?’ Jacqueline asked.

  ‘Peter’s very fond of young people. He hardly ever sees anyone his own age. He only likes young people….’

  A man’s voice was calling her, a very quiet voice, almost drowned out by the music.

  ‘Excuse me…. See you soon…. And make yourselves at home….’

  She smiled and closed the door. The music got louder, and we could still hear it from far away in the street.

  ‘That Rachman seems like an odd type,’ I said to Jacqueline.

  She shrugged.

  ‘Oh, he’s nothing to be afraid of….’

  She said it as if she’d already met men of his sort, and found him completely inoffensive.

  ‘At any rate, he likes young people….’

  I had spoken those words in a lugubrious tone that made her laugh. Night had fallen. She had taken my arm, and I no longer wanted to ask questions or worry about the future. We walked toward Kensington down quiet little streets that seemed out of place in this huge city. A taxi passed by, and Jacqueline raised her arm to make it stop. She gave the address of an Italian restaurant in the Knightsbridge area, which she had spotted during one of our walks and thought would be a good place to go for dinner when we were rich.

  The apartment was quiet, and there was no light under Linda’s door. We opened the window. Not a sound from the street. Across the way, under the boughs of the trees, an empty red phone booth was lit up.

  That night we felt as though we had lived in this apartment for a long time. I had left Michael Savoundra’s script on the floor. I began to read it. Its tide was Blackpool Sunday. The two heroes, a boy and a girl of twenty, wandered through the suburbs of London. They went to the Lido on the Serpentine and to the beach at Blackpool in August. They came from modest families and spoke with a Cockney accent. Then they left England. We next saw them in Paris, and then on an island in the Mediterranean that might have been Majorca, where they were finally living ‘the good life.’ I summarized the plot for Jacqueline as I went along. According to his introduction, Savoundra hoped to film this script as if it were a documentary, casting a boy and girl who weren’t professional actors.

  I remembered that he’d suggested I correct the French in the part of the script that took place in Paris. There were a few mistakes, and also some very small errors in the street names of the Saint-Germain-des-Prés neighborhood. As I went further, I thought of certain details that I would add, or others that I would modify. I wanted to tell Savoundra about all this, and maybe, if he was willing, to work with him on Blackpool Sunday.

  Chapter 15

  For the next few days I didn’t have a chance to see Michael Savoundra again. Reading Blackpool Sunday had suddenly given me the desire to write a story. One morning I woke up very early and made as little noise as possible so as not to disturb Jacqueline, who usually slept until noon.

  I bought a pad of letter paper in a shop on Notting Hill Gate. Then I walked straight ahead along Holland Park Avenue in the summer morning light. Yes, during our stay in London we were at the very heart of the summer. So I remember Peter Rachman as a huge black silhouette, lit from behind, beside the Serpentine. The strong contrast of shadow and sunlight makes it impossible to distinguish his features. Bursts of laughter. Sounds of diving. And those voices from the beach with their limpid, faraway sound, under the effect of the sun and the hazy heat. Linda’s voice. Michael Savoundra’s voice asking Jacqueline:

  ‘Have you been in London long?’

  I sat down in a caféteria near Holland Park. I had no idea of the story I wanted to tell. I thought I should put down a few sentences at random. It would be like priming a pump or getting a seized-up engine started.

  As I wrote the first words, I realized how much influence Blackpool Sunday had on me. But it didn’t matter if Savoundra’s script served as my springboard. The two heroes arrive at the Gare du Nord one winter evening. They’re in Paris for the first time in their lives. They walk through the neighborhood for some time, looking for a place to stay. On the Boulevard de Magenta they find a hotel whose concierge agrees to accept them: the Hôtel d’Angleterre et de Belgique. Next door, at the Hôtel de Londres et d’Anvers, they were turned down because they weren’t adults.

  They never leave the neighborhood, as if they were afraid to risk wandering any farther. At night, in a café just across from the Gare du Nord, on the corner of the Rue de Compiégne and the Rue de Dunkerque, they are sitting at a table next to a stran
ge couple, the Charells, and it is not quite clear what they are doing here: she is a very elegant-looking blonde, he a dark-haired man with a quiet voice. The couple invites them to an apartment on the Boulevard de Magenta, not far from their hotel. The rooms are half-lit. Mme Charell pours them a drink….

  I stopped there. Three and a half pages. The two heroes of Blackpool Sunday, on arriving in Paris, immediately find themselves in Saint-Germain-des-Prés, at the Hôtel de la Louisiane. Whereas I prevented them from crossing the Seine, letting them sink in and lose themselves in the depths of the Gare du Nord neighborhood.

  The Charells were not in the script. Another liberty I had taken. I was in a hurry to write more, but I was still too inexperienced and lazy to keep my concentration for more than an hour, or to write more than three pages a day.

  Chapter 16

  Every morning I went and wrote near Holland Park, and I was no longer in London but in front of the Gare du Nord and walking along the Boulevard de Magenta. Today, thirty years later, in Paris, I am trying to escape from this month of July 1994 to that other summer, when the breeze gently caressed the boughs of the trees in Holland Park. The contrast of shadow and sun was the strongest I have ever seen.

  I had managed to free myself from the influence of Blackpool Sunday, but I was grateful to Michael Savoundra for having given me a sort of push. I asked Linda if I could see him. We met one evening, he, Jacqueline, Linda, and I, at the Rio in Notting Hill, a popular bar among Jamaicans. We were the only white people there that evening, but Linda knew the place well. I think this was where she got the marijuana whose smell impregnated the walls of the apartment.

  I told Savoundra I’d corrected the French in the section of his script that was set in Saint-Germain-des-Prés. He was worried. He was wondering whether Rachman was going to give him the money, and whether it might not be better to get in touch with some producers in Paris. They were ready to place their faith in Young people’…

  ‘But I hear Rachman likes young people as well,’ I observed.

  And I looked at Jacqueline, who smiled. Linda repeated pensively: