One Evening in Paris

by Nicolas Barreau

  She seemed to be listening carefully to what I said, and I could almost hear the cogs turning in her mind. Then she shouted, “Isabelle? Isabelle is not here, either!”

  I laughed out loud. Was I in a madhouse? Then, overcome by the black humor of the situation, I asked, “And Mélanie? Is Mélanie there? Does a Mélanie live here? Do you know?”

  “Mélanie?” she shouted back. “There’s no Mélanie here.” She muttered something incomprehensible. It sounded indignant. “Strange people keep ringing at my door and want me to tell them names. But I’ve just moved here—from the rue de Varenne. There’s no Mélanie here. I don’t know anything.” Her voice became shrill and took on a hysterical note. “Who are you anyway?”

  “Alain Bonnard,” I said loudly. “Open the gate for me!”

  “Never! Go away!”

  There was another crackle in the intercom, and then deathly silence. I hoped I hadn’t scared the old lady to death. Or she’d be lying in the hall until Dimitri came back and found her.

  With a sigh, I pressed the bell beside the next nameplate. The name was Roznet. This time, the reply was quicker. Within a couple of seconds, I heard a sonorous masculine voice. It sounded a bit halting, but otherwise it was totally normal. I breathed a sigh of relief.

  “Oui?”

  “I have a delivery for Mirabelle at the back of the building,” I said slowly and clearly. “Would you kindly open the gate for me?”

  “Sure. No problem.”

  A moment later, the buzzer went off and the gate slid open. The staircase at the rear of the building was cool and dark and there was a strong smell of peaches. The cleaner had obviously just finished. There was an elevator, but it seemed not to work. I ran up the worn steps, determined to begin my inquiries on the top floor. It was 6:25 in the evening. My heart thudded. I rang Mirabelle’s bell.

  I could hear light footsteps behind the apartment door. Then a woman’s voice. “Someone’s rung the bell. Could you get the door?”

  Pattering feet sounded in the hall. The heavy wooden door flew open. A little blond girl with a ponytail stood in the doorway and looked at me curiously. She must have been about five. “Are you the drinks deliveryman?” she asked me.

  Could it be that Mélanie had failed to tell me she had a daughter?

  “Marie? Who’s there?”

  “A man,” replied Marie truthfully.

  There was a clatter in one of the rooms at the back of the apartment and then a woman in a flowered dress came into the hall. She’d quickly wound a towel around her wet hair and was fixing the dark blue turban on her head as she approached. She looked at me and smiled expectantly. “Yes?”

  It would have been just too good if I’d hit the jackpot at the first try.

  “Bonsoir, madame,” I said. “Please excuse the intrusion. I had hoped to find a woman called Mélanie here. She works in an antiques store,” I added clumsily.

  Madame Mirabelle gave me a friendly look and then shook her head. She obviously found me likable. “I’m afraid not. My husband and I and our daughter are the only people living here. What’s the lady’s surname? Perhaps you’ve made a mistake about the floor.”

  I shrugged. “That’s precisely my problem: I don’t know her surname.”

  “Oh,” said Madame Mirabelle.

  “She’s in her mid- to late twenties, dark blond hair, brown eyes, wears a red coat,” I said.

  Madame Mirabelle shook her head regretfully. Marie wound her arms around her mother’s legs. “Is that a riddle, Maman?”

  Madame Mirabelle stroked her daughter’s hair. “Shh—I’ll explain it to you later.” Then she turned to me again. “I’m afraid I can’t be much help. We haven’t lived here very long. I’ve never seen a young woman in a red coat in the building. But that doesn’t necessarily mean anything. Perhaps you could try Madame Bonnet on the ground floor—I’m sure she sees more than we do up here. And she used to be the concierge.”

  “Yes, thanks,” I said miserably.

  “I’m really sorry,” said Madame Mirabelle sympathetically. “We have visitors coming; otherwise, I’d have asked you in for a coffee.”

  I thanked her and turned to go. There was another door on the opposite side of the landing.

  “That’s just Monsieur Pennec and his wife,” she said. “A grouchy adman. He already complained when Marie was having her birthday party. But it’s certainly not his wife you’re looking for.” She pulled comic grimace as she shut the door. “They’re both really awful!”

  On the second floor, nobody answered at the Leblanc apartment. I heard a strange scratching behind the door, then meowing. I pressed the bell once more, longer this time. I was suddenly convinced that the window with the lights on must have been on the second floor. I waited a moment, then rang one last time.

  A door flew open behind me. I turned in surprise and found myself looking directly into the hate-filled eyes of a little Japanese man who was scrutinizing me suspiciously through the thick lenses of his glasses.

  “How many more times are you going to ring, monsieur? You can see there’s no one in,” he shouted.

  I seized the moment. “I’m looking for a young woman with dark blond hair. Her name is Mélanie. Do you know if she lives here? Mélanie … Leblanc?” I pointed to the door, and for some reason it enraged the little man.

  “Mademoiselle Leblanc is not there,” he spat. “You can keep ringing as long as you like. She’s never there in the evening, and when she gets back in the middle of the night, she always slams the door and wakes me up.”

  There was excited meowing from behind the apartment door, the little Japanese man was swearing like a trooper, and I could hardly suppress a smile. Was it Miss Holly Golightly who lived there?

  “I’m sorry about that. Could you possibly tell me if Mademoiselle Leblanc’s first name is Mélanie?”

  “No idea,” growled the Japanese man. “Why do you want to know that—is she wanted?”

  “Only by me,” I assured him.

  “Are you her boyfriend?”

  “You might say that.”

  He sniffed. “Don’t get your hopes up. No one lasts very long with her. She’s the type that drives men to ruin.”

  “Aha,” I said. This was beginning to get to me. “Who says that?”

  “Monsieur Beauchamps, my landlord, told me.”

  I took a step closer and glanced at the nameplate. “Aren’t you Monsieur Beauchamps?”

  He looked at me as if I were crazy. “Do I look like a Beauchamps? I’m Tashi Nakamura.” He pulled himself up to his full height, but he still only reached my chest. “Pierre Beauchamps was a colleague of mine at Global Electronics.”

  “Was?” I was understanding less and less.

  He nodded. “Until that little black-haired witch drove him out of his mind. Her nose is too long for my taste, but so what? Anyway, he got himself posted to Michigan for two years and sublet the apartment to me.” He shook his head. “After she broke up with him, he couldn’t bear to stay here—with their doors facing each other.”

  “I see,” I said. I was sorry for that Beauchamps guy, but I was even sorrier for myself. Mélanie had a totally normal nose, and although I know that Asian people think that all whites have big noses—they call us “long noses” behind our backs—and everything is relative anyway, even the size of a nose—the woman I was looking for definitely didn’t have black hair.

  In spite of that, I asked, “Does she sometimes wear a red coat?”

  “I’ve only ever seen Mademoiselle Leblanc in black.”

  I sighed in disappointment. “And I suppose her name isn’t Mélanie, either?”

  He thought for a moment. “No idea. Or—no, wait a moment—I had to take in a package for her once. It was … it was…”

  “Yes?”

  “Lucille or Laurence or Linda—something beginning with L at any rate.” Tashi Nakamura waved his index finger decisively.

  “Hmm. I was afraid of that.” I could have sworn
that the light that had gone on and off the week before had been on the second floor. I was wrong.

  Monsieur Nakamura nodded to me and started to disappear back into his apartment.

  “Oh, Monsieur Nakamura?” He sighed. “You don’t happen to know another Mélanie in this part of the building?”

  He looked at me, narrowing his eyes until the dark irises were hardly visible. “Tell me, monsieur—what exactly is the matter with you? Does it have to be a Mélanie? You seem a bit obsessive to me.”

  I kept smiling.

  “No,” he said finally. “And if I did, I wouldn’t care anyway. I’m not that interested in women.” With these words, he slammed the door, leaving me standing outside.

  No one was in at the Dupont apartment on the first floor, so I rang at the second door: Montabon. It took a little while until the door was opened very carefully. In front of me stood a distinguished-looking elderly gentleman in a light gray suit. The curly white fringe of hair around his brown pate, which was speckled with age spots, suggested that he once must have had very thick hair. In spite of the fact that it was evening and that the landing was quite dimly lit, he was wearing dark sunglasses. He straightened them with a wiry, freckled hand and said nothing. He was obviously waiting for me to speak first.

  “Monsieur Montabon?” I asked.

  “I am he,” he said. “What can I do for you?”

  I knew at once that I’d rung the wrong bell. Nevertheless, I asked my question.

  Monsieur Montabon was an extremely courteous man, and he invited me to come in, because it was not his nature to hold conversations on the doorstep. He lived alone, liked listening to the music of Ravel, Poulenc, and Débussy, and played chess. He had been ambassador in Argentina and Chile for a long time but had retired from the Diplomatic Service fifteen years ago. He had a housekeeper who came in every day, kept the apartment in order, did his washing and shopping, and cooked for him. Her name was not Mélanie, but Margot.

  I’m sure that if it had been in any way possible, this friendly gentleman would have helped me. But Monsieur Montabon had not seen a woman in a red coat. Jacob Montabon was practically blind.

  By this time, it was eight o’clock, and my mood had noticeably worsened. All those conversations had been effortful and not very productive. This was to change as I trudged dejectedly down the stairs to the ground floor and fell into the arms of a rather plump woman of about sixty, who was standing in the hall in a black skirt and purple cardigan, as if she had been waiting for me. In view of the weight she must have been carrying, her feet were surprisingly dainty. They were clad in well-worn little purple ballet flats. The lady in purple greeted me in a friendly way, and so, without ringing any bells, I made the acquaintance of Madame Bonnet.

  Francine Bonnet’s favorite color was indubitably purple. When, with lively gestures, she began chatting to me, I noticed that even her earrings, which dangled like raindrops beneath her short silver-gray curls, were made of purple glass beads.

  In an earlier life, Madame Bonnet had been the concierge in one of the old town houses on the place des Vosges. Then her husband had gotten pancreatic cancer, died within a few months, and left her with a handsome pension.

  “Poor Hugo—it all happened so quickly.” She sighed sadly.

  She hadn’t needed to work since then. But she knit brightly colored scarves for a little fashion store in the rue Bonaparte (silk and wool mix, mainly in shades of purple, of course), and these scarves, each one a unique creation with an oval label saying Les Foulards de Francine in script, were obviously very popular. In this way, Madame Bonnet had something useful to occupy her and could still stay at home all day. And she also knew things about the inhabitants of the rue de Bourgogne. As soon as I mentioned the name Mélanie, she remembered that was Madame Dupont’s (Madame, not Mademoiselle, but dark blond, pretty, and single) first name, too.

  “A delightful person, Mélanie Dupont,” she told me. “Although she hasn’t had much luck in her life.”

  I felt an inward surge of elation.

  “But she’s not at home. I’ve rung her bell,” I said.

  “I know,” replied Madame Bonnet, the soft jangling of her earrings underlining her words. “Madame Dupont won’t be back until tomorrow, or very late tonight. She had to go away for a couple of days, and she asked me to collect her newspapers from her mailbox.”

  I could hardly contain my joy. This was Mélanie, no doubt of it! I clenched my fists in my pockets to conceal my excitement. After what had admittedly been a somewhat laborious start, I had now finally found Mélanie. And the reason why she hadn’t come to the cinema was also clear. She just hadn’t returned from Brittany. Who knows what had held her up there. At least it wasn’t a strange man in a dark coat! It looked as if he’d actually been coming from Mademoiselle Leblanc’s apartment. I suppressed a chuckle. I was also becoming very familiar with the old house on rue de Bourgogne and its inhabitants.

  I decided to leave a message for Mélanie, a letter. And after I’d rushed excitedly across to the stationer’s, almost getting run down by a car that was definitely traveling too fast along the narrow street, and then discovering that they were closed, Madame Bonnet was friendly enough to help me out with a sheet of paper and an envelope.

  I hastily scribbled a few lines on the paper and put it in the envelope. Then I went past the old chestnut tree for the fourth time that evening. I hesitated for a moment, toying with the idea of pinning the letter, which was simply addressed “For Mélanie from Alain,” to the old tree—I found the idea that Mélanie would come into the courtyard late that night or early the next morning and find my letter on the tree deeply romantic. By now, I was feeling the same way the young Goethe had felt in the film of the same name—a lover who gallops, or practically flies, across a vast green landscape, prepared to do anything at all to get to his girl. The film Goethe!—a German production with young, almost unknown actors—had run in the Cinéma Paradis only a couple of months before.

  I’m sure Goethe would have pinned the letter to the old chestnut tree. But I didn’t feel that was safe enough. The letter might fall off or even be taken by someone else, even though it seemed highly unlikely to me that in this building, where the majority of the tenants seemed not really to know one another, or, if they did, not to be on speaking terms, there could be another Mélanie.

  I crossed the courtyard, went into the front of the building, and stood by the black mailbox for a moment with my letter in my hand. This is what I’d written:

  Dear Mélanie,

  You didn’t turn up on Wednesday, and I was beginning to worry. I would have called you, but I don’t have your number. Now I’ve been told that you’re only coming back this evening or tomorrow morning.

  I hope everything’s all right. I was so delighted by your little letter and have read it at least a hundred times. I’ve just been standing under the old chestnut tree where we kissed. I miss you! Please get in touch when you get back, my little nonadventuress. I await your call with tender impatience.

  Alain

  I’d written my telephone number at the bottom of the message. I pushed the letter through the little metal flap of the mailbox with the name Dupont on it and heard the rustle as it fell down inside. Now all I had to do was wait.

  Looking back, I’ve often thought that it might probably have been better to do what Goethe would have done and follow my initial instinct.

  About an hour after I had left the building in the rue de Bourgogne, feeling so lighthearted, someone walked past the old chestnut tree—a person who would have known what to do about the addressee and the sender of the letter. If I had pinned my billet-doux to the old tree, it might possibly have reached the hand of the woman it was intended for a very short time later. I might have saved myself a lot of hassle.

  Possibly.

  Seventeen

  The moment the telephone rang, I knew it was Mélanie. That afternoon I’d actually intended to make a new selection of films for th
e next few late-night Les Amours au Paradis shows. I was just watching Benjamin or the Diary of a Virgin with Catherine Deneuve when the theme tune from The Third Man, which I’d chosen as my ringtone, began to play. I grabbed for the telephone on the table in the projection room, almost knocking my soda over in the process.

  There was a crackle on the line, then “This is Mélanie.”

  My heart was thumping madly.

  “Mélanie! At last,” I said hoarsely. “Oh, it’s you!” Goodness, was I glad to hear her voice.

  “Am I talking with … Alain?” The voice at the other end sounded hesitant. It was a musical female voice; it sounded a bit strange to me, but that was probably because of the line.

  “Yes!” I said. “Yes, of course. This is Alain. Did you get my letter? Goodness, am I glad you’ve called. What happened?”

  A long silence followed, and I was alarmed. Something awful must have happened. Perhaps her old aunt had died.

  “Mélanie?” I asked. “You sound so funny. What’s up? Are you at home? Should I come over?”

  “Oh…” The woman sighed. “I knew it must be a misunderstanding.”

  I listened in confusion. A misunderstanding? What did that mean? “What’s that?” I asked.

  “I’m not Mélanie,” said the voice.

  What was she saying? She was Mélanie and she wasn’t Mélanie? I pressed the handset to my ear and had a definite feeling that our conversation was going in totally the wrong direction.

  “I mean, yes, I am Mélanie—Mélanie Dupont. But we don’t know each other.”

  “Don’t know each other?” I echoed, completely lost.

  “I found your letter this morning,” she said. “I don’t know who you are, Alain, but I fear you’re confusing me with another Mélanie.”

  My heart sank with every word. It was gradually dawning on me that the strangeness in her voice wasn’t due to the connection. It was a different voice, but I simply didn’t want to accept it.