At the time, of course, I didn’t realize how everything fitted together, and I had no clue that the black creature with the iridescent eyes could have given me the answer to at least one of my questions.
At that moment, absurdly, the only thing that came into my mind was an image from an old Preston Sturgis film, where a black cat runs through the scene and the woman asks the man what that means, and he says, “Depends what happens next!”
The rue de Bourgogne was absolutely dead and I didn’t see a soul on the rue de Varenne, either, as I made my way home, pensive and somewhat confused. There wasn’t even one of those inevitable guards who are usually standing outside the old government buildings with their sandstone facades. The newspaper and antiques stores, the little groceries, the boulangeries, which every morning gave off the tempting aroma of fresh baguettes, the pâtisseries with their fancy tartes and little cakes and the pastel-colored meringues, which remind you of clouds and dissolve into sweet particles at the first bite, the restaurants and cafés, the traiteurs, which served coq au vin with chicory and a glass of red wine for next to nothing all day long—their shutters were all down.
At this time of night, Paris was a deserted star. And I was its loneliest inhabitant.
Fifteen
“Yeah,” said Robert, obviously unimpressed, and spread his croissant with butter and jelly. “I told you it was a mistake not to ask for her telephone number. Now you’re up that proverbial creek. It doesn’t look good, if you ask me.”
Stupidly, I had asked him. I was the one who’d called him early in the morning and asked him to come. I needed to speak with a good friend. But the trouble with really good friends is that they don’t always say what you want to hear.
Since nine o’clock, we’d been sitting outside the little café by the Hôtel Danube on the rue Jacob and arguing. I waved to the waitress, a giantess of a woman whose head stuck forward in a very strange way and whose heavy, dark hair was worn in a chignon, and ordered my second café au lait, in the hope that it might bring my thoughts into some kind of order.
I’d slept badly, and of course it had been good of Robert to agree to come over on this morning when he had no lectures to listen to the events of the last night and the convoluted windings of my thoughts. I know I was ungrateful, but I’d been hoping for slightly stronger moral support. I stared indignantly at my friend as he chewed away without a care in the world.
“What are you saying, Robert? We don’t know enough to tell if it looks good or bad,” I replied, trying to gloss over my own doubts. “Good, at first sight it may seem strange that she didn’t turn up or call, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that she, that she…”
I swallowed and thought of the man I’d seen in the rue de Bourgogne. Had he been coming from Mélanie’s apartment? Or from any apartment at all? Was he the reason Mélanie hadn’t appeared at our rendezvous? Or did he just happen to live in the same building? The uncertainty stabbed me to the heart. I heaved a deep sigh.
Robert drank his coffee and swept a few crumbs from the table. “Why are you making things so difficult for yourself? Alain? I tell you, forget the chick. Believe you me, things are bound to be more complicated than you think.” He leaned forward and looked at me with his bright, incorruptible eyes. “That’s quite obvious.”
I shook my head. “I can’t be that wrong, Robert. You didn’t see the look she gave me as we parted. She intended to come. I know that for a fact,” I insisted. “Something very serious must have happened. Something that prevented her from coming or calling me.”
“Yeah, yeah, you’ve already said that.” Robert squirmed uncomfortably on his chair. “But the likelihood that your chick has been run over by a truck or fallen downstairs and broken a leg is extremely small.” He rolled his eyes and calculated. “A hundred thousand to one, I’d say. Of course you’re free to call every hospital and police station in Paris, but I don’t think much would come from that.”
“It doesn’t have to be an accident,” I said. “Perhaps it’s something else … something we just haven’t thought of yet.”
“Well, I’ve got some pretty clear ideas. Do you want to hear them?”
“No,” I said.
“Good,” he went on, taking no notice. “So, let’s leave your sixth sense and all your wishful thinking to one side and concentrate on the facts.” Robert raised a finger. “I’m a scientist. I see things as they really are.”
The giantess with the chignon came over, bringing fresh coffee. I held fast to my cup as Robert got into his stride. He did that very well, and I could see why his seminars were so popular. There was something very manipulative about him. It was barely possible to resist the magnetism of his words, the logic of what he was saying.
“So, to sum up: You talk to a woman you’ve had your eye on for some time. She’s obviously single, at least that’s what she says—didn’t she tell you she always ends up with the wrong guy, or something like that? Bon. You spend a great evening together, walk, kiss, cast searching glances, the whole caboodle, right?”
The way Robert described it made it seem a bit reductive, but in principle he was right. I nodded.
“You part. You make a date for the next”—he paused for effect—“Wednesday.”
“Because she’s going to see her aunt,” I interjected.
“Right. She’s going to see her old … aunt,” he repeated, and it suddenly sounded like a lie. “So, lots of schmoozing in the courtyard. It’s the middle of the night. Everything is hunky-dory. She doesn’t ask you up to her place. She doesn’t give you her telephone number.”
I said nothing.
“She’s off to spend a week with her aunt and doesn’t hit on the idea of giving you her number? When you’ve just fallen in love? I mean, at times like that, you spend every possible minute on the telephone. She’s a woman, my friend. Women love the telephone. And now, my friend, we come to the crux of the matter.” He pointed his knife at me. “She doesn’t want to be called. Perhaps it’s too dangerous. Someone might hear the call. Someone might check her cell phone.…”
“Baloney!” I said, beginning to feel a bit uneasy. “Honi soit qui mal y pense. Now you’re basing deductions about other people on your own character, mon ami. And stop waving that knife under my nose.” I leaned back in my chair. “Those are supposed to be facts? You’re just throwing out one assumption after another.”
“I know women,” he said baldly.
It wasn’t even boasting, he did really know a lot of women, and I often got the feeling that he studied them as assiduously as the stars in the Milky Way.
“This one is different,” I said.
He gave me a pitying look. “Fair enough. Let’s drop that subject. Let’s look a bit more deeply into our little story. Mélanie—”
“Mélanie writes me a letter,” I said triumphantly, interrupting him. “Why would she have done that? Why would she have written me a letter if she doesn’t care about seeing me again?”
Robert raised his hand. “One moment, please. That’s just another argument in favor of my theory. Just think about it! She writes you a letter, but she doesn’t want to telephone. Otherwise, she’d have asked for your number.”
“Okay, leave the letter aside,” I said, slightly miffed. “People like you probably don’t even know what a pen is anymore.”
“No insults, please.” Robert smiled winningly. “To each his own.” He banged on the table with his knife. “The fact is, she doesn’t call you all week, not even when she stands you up. And that’s even though she knows the address of your cinema. But perhaps she’s so old-fashioned that she can’t even find a telephone number on the Internet. She works in an antiques store, doesn’t she?”
“I’m astonished at how carefully you’ve been listening.”
“I always listen carefully, Alain. After all, you are my friend, and your joys and sorrows are very close to my heart.”
“If you have one, that is.”
Robert nodded earnes
tly and placed his hand on his chest. “Oh, yes, I certainly do. Healthy, red, and extremely lively. Do you want to feel it?”
I shook my head.
“Fact two: She doesn’t appear at your rendezvous even though she is—as you yourself later established—at home—”
“I’m not sure if it even was her apartment!” I said, interrupting again. “Good grief, I was only there once, and God knows I didn’t really notice if it was the first, second, or third floor.”
“Fact three: In the middle of the night, a strange man comes out of the building—probably even from her apartment. That would, of course, also explain why she had no time for you. That was probably one of those ‘wrong guys.’” Robert leaned back smugly. “I think your Mélanie was having you on with all her maidenly airs. Perhaps it’s a kind of number she does. She wanted to do a bit of two-timing and you turned up at just the right moment. The way I see it, she’d just had a bust-up with her boyfriend; then she went on holiday with him and everything was okay again. Or she was really in Brittany with her aunt and the guy just turned up. Big reconciliation in the grand lit, QED.”
He speared a chunk of baguette with his knife and held it up like a trophy. “Don’t make such a face, Alain, things like that have happened even to me. You get mixed up in a story and have no idea what’s happening to you. It’s not your fault. You had no chance from the very start.”
“No, no, no, Robert, I know it’s not like that,” I said, trying to free myself from the spell of his chain of argument. “Why do you always assume the worst?” I saw the giantess leaning against the café door, looking over at us with interest.
“My friend is a pessimist, you see,” I said in her direction. She smiled her broad Carmen smile, but she was too far away to catch what I was saying, and she made a sign in the air, asking if we wanted more coffee. I shook my head.
“Your friend is a realist,” said Robert.
“But we have no idea if it was her apartment,” I reminded him. “If the light wasn’t on in her apartment after all, then your theory falls apart.”
“Well then, there’s only one thing left to do,” Robert waved his trophy, looking indulgently at me. “Go back to the rue de Bourgogne and find out.”
“Just imagine: I’d already hit on that idea. I’ll do it this evening. And then we’ll see.”
Robert grinned. “So we will. At any rate, I hope you have a lot of fun with your bell ringing.”
“I’ll ask my way around, don’t you worry. It can’t be that hard.”
“Oh, no. I imagine it’ll be extremely entertaining. You’re sure to make a lot of new acquaintances.” Robert obviously got great pleasure from the thought of my standing by the row of bells, trying one apartment after the other.
“How great that you’ve only got her first name; otherwise, it would be far too easy.” He laughed.
“How great that you’re so witty!”
“Ah, here comes Melissa!” Robert jumped up and waved as a slim girl with long, straight red hair ran toward us. She was wearing jeans and bright sneakers and a brown suede jacket over her brightly patterned T-shirt. She was smiling.
“Melissa, this is my friend Alain. Sit down for a moment; we’ll be finished right away.” He put his arm around the redhead and kissed her on the lips.
Melissa nodded to me and let Robert pull her down onto the chair next to him. The most astonishing thing about her were her eyes—very clear and very green.
“Salut, Alain. Ça va? I’ve already heard a lot about you. Robert’s best friend. Oh là là!” She stressed the last three words, and I liked her jolly, friendly manner from the start.
I smiled, wondering what Robert might have told his new girlfriend about me. “I’ve heard a lot about you, too,” I replied, and her green eyes sparkled.
“Oh! Really?” With a cheeky gesture, she ruffled Robert’s hair. “What do you tell people about me, then, mon petit professeur? Nothing but good, I hope!”
“Of course, ma petite,” said Robert. “What else could I do?” He ignored the “petit professeur” with his usual aplomb and winked at me. His expression spoke volumes: Did I promise too much? Sensational, or what?
I grinned.
Robert reached playfully for Melissa’s hand and twined his fingers in hers. “My sweet, I hope you’ll forgive me for rushing off like that this morning, but this young man here has problems.”
“Oh. I’m so sorry. I hope it’s nothing serious.”
“It is, actually,” I said.
“It’s peanuts,” said Robert.
Melissa looked from one of us to the other in amazement.
“Alain was dumped last night by a woman he’s kissed only once, and he thinks this is the bitterest blow fate has ever dealt him,” explained Robert, spreading his hands in a theatrical gesture. “And unfortunately … unfortunately he knows only her first name—Mélanie. Do you know a Mélanie?”
“Mais oui!” Melissa laughed. “My cello teacher’s named Mélanie. Mélanie Bertrand, but I’m certain it’s not her. She has iron gray hair and saws away madly at her big cello. A skinny little witch. And when I play a wrong note, she always gives me a very stern look—like this!” She wrinkled her pretty forehead and narrowed her eyes. “‘Mademoiselle Melissa, you must practice, practice, practice. This will never do,’” she croaked in a disguised voice.
We laughed and I said, “No, that’s not the Mélanie I’m looking for, for goodness sake!”
“My good friend has taken it into his head to find this girl again. I advised him against it,” said Robert. “There are better ways of spending your time.” He put his hand on Melissa’s knee and smiled like a man who had a very good idea of better ways to spend his time.
“I’m going to look for her anyway,” I said, smiling like someone who knows even better. “Still, thanks for coming.” I got up and reached for my wallet.
“He’ll just never learn,” said Robert. “That’s what I value about him so much. No, no, this is on me, please.” He shoved my hand with the wallet aside. “But to be serious just for once, Alain. Hang loose! You could just relax and wait instead of getting so stressed out. She knows where your cinema is, and if she’s serious, she’ll get in touch, won’t she?” He looked at Melissa, expecting confirmation.
“Not necessarily,” replied Melissa, and I found I really liked her. She cradled her slender face in her hand and looked coquettishly up at me. With her gleaming eyes and her long center-parted hair almost completely covering her forehead, she looked a bit like a water nymph.
“Well, I find it all very romantic,” she said with a blissful little sigh. “Don’t give up, Alain. Keep searching!”
Sixteen
There were twenty names—all of them surnames. I stood at the green entrance gate in the rue de Bourgogne and studied the metal nameplates with their black engraving very carefully.
“This is more complicated than you think,” Robert had said, but he didn’t know what he was talking about. Nobody knew that. With hindsight, there is a certain degree of irony in the fact that my friend, in complete ignorance of the facts, had hit the nail right on the head. It was in actuality far more complicated—not to say complex—than any of us had thought. But that Thursday as I stared—uncertain but still determined and with a certain basic optimism—at the nameplates, there was a remnant of the day’s warmth in the narrow street, and I thought, Okay, this is a bit tedious, but still totally in the realm of possibility.
I had decided to proceed systematically. Since Mélanie’s apartment was probably on one of the upper floors at the rear of the building, I planned to concentrate first on the top row of nameplates. I glanced along the row—often enough, first name and surname can form a certain unity—and murmured them under my breath. “Bonnet, Rousseau, Martin, Chevalier, Leblanc, Pennec, Duvalier, Dupont, Ledoux, Beauchamps, Mirabelle…”
Mirabelle? Mélanie Mirabelle—they seemed to go well together.
But first I’d just ring any old bell
to get myself into the building under some pretext or other. That way, I could cross the courtyard and reach the rear of the building. I pressed firmly on the bell beside one of the nameplates on the lower floor, which appeared to belong to the front of the building, and waited. Nothing happened. I was just about to ring somewhere else when the intercom crackled.
“Hello?” It was a quavering voice, obviously an old lady’s. “Hello?”
I took a deep breath and tried to appear hurried and yet indifferent, like one of those UPS deliverymen who double-park their truck in the street with the hazards flashing. “I have a delivery for Mirabelle. Could you let me in please?”
“Hello?” The intercom crackled again. “I can’t hear anything.”
“Yes, hello!” I tried to speak louder. “Excuse me, madame, I have a delivery here for—”
“Hello? Dimitri? Dimitri, is that you? Have you forgotten the key again, darling?”
I stepped as close to the intercom as possible and shouted, “No, this is not Dimitri. It’s the delivery service! Could you please open the gate for me, madame?”
“Aaah…” The old lady gave a short cry and there was a suspicious crackle in the intercom. “For heaven’s sake, don’t shout like that. You scared me. I’m not deaf.”
There was silence, then slyly she asked, “Do you want to see Dimitri?”
“No,” I shouted back. “I have a—”
“Dimitri’s not here,” she shrieked, and I wondered who this Dimitri actually was. I felt like I was in a bad espionage thriller. And Dimitri was beginning to get on my nerves.
“That’s good,” I replied, trying to keep calm. “Because I’m not here to see Dimitri.”
“Hello?” she shouted again. “You’ll have to speak more clearly, young man. I can’t understand what you’re saying. Dimitri won’t be back till later. Do you hear? Come back later!”
The old woman was either deaf or crazy, or both. I decided to change tactics and reduce things to essentials. “I have a delivery for Mirabelle!” I said loudly. “Please open the gate for me, madame. I only want to deliver something.”
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