Missing Person

by Patrick Modiano

  "Oh... ! They've all gone now," said Sonachidze gloomily. "Except for you, sir... I'm delighted to have been able to... to place you ... You were in Styoppa's crowd ... You were lucky!... Those were much better times than now, and people were better class too ..."

  "And what's more, we were younger," said Heurteur, laughing.

  "When are you talking about?" I asked them, my heart pounding.

  "We're not good at dates," said Sonachidze. "But, in any case, it goes back to the beginning of time, all that..."

  Suddenly he seemed exhausted.

  "There certainly are some strange coincidences," said Heurteur.

  And he got up, went over to a little bar in a corner of the room, and brought back a newspaper, turning over the pages.

  Finally, he handed me the paper, pointing to the following notice:

  The death is announced of Marie de Rosen, on October 25th, in her ninety-second year.

  On behalf of her daughter, her son, her grandsons, nephews and grand-nephews.

  And on behalf of her friends, Georges Sacher and Styoppa de Dzhagorev.

  A service, followed by the interment in the Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois Cemetery, will take place, on November 4th, at 4:00 P.M. in the cemetery chapel.

  Ninth Day Divine Service will be held on November 5 th, in the Russian Orthodox Church, 19 Rue Claude-Lorrain, 75016, Paris.

  "Please take this announcement as the only notification."

  "So, Styoppa is alive?" said Sonachidze. "Do you still see him?"

  "No," I said.

  "You're right. One must live in the present. Jean, how about a brandy?"

  "Good idea."

  From then on, they seemed completely to lose interest in Styoppa and my past. But it made no difference, since at last I was on the track.

  "Can I keep the paper?" I asked casually.

  "Certainly," said Heurteur.

  We clinked glasses. All that was left of what I had once been, then, was a dim shape in the minds of two bartenders, and even that was almost obliterated by the memory of a certain Styoppa de Dzhagorev. And they had heard nothing of this Styoppa since "the beginning of time," as Sonachidze said.

  "So, you're a private detective?" Heurteur asked me.

  "Not any more. My employer has just retired."

  "And are you carrying on?"

  I shrugged and did not answer.

  "Anyway, I should be delighted to see you again. Come back any time."

  He had got to his feet and held out his hand to us.

  "Excuse me for showing you out now, but I still have my accounts to do ... And those others with their ... orgy."

  He gestured in the direction of the pond.

  "Good-bye, Jean."

  "Good-bye, Paul."

  Heurteur looked at me thoughtfully. Speaking very softly:

  "Now that you're standing, you remind me of something else..."

  "What does he remind you of?" asked Sonachidze.

  "A customer who used to come every evening, very late, when we worked at the Hôtel Castille ..."

  Sonachidze, in his turn, looked me up and down.

  "It's possible," he said, "that you're an old customer from the Hôtel Castille after all..."

  I gave an embarrassed smile.

  Sonachidze took my arm and we crossed the restaurant, which was even darker than when we had arrived. The bride in the pale blue dress was no longer at her table. Outside, we heard blasts of music and laughter coming from across the pond.

  "Could you please remind me what that song was that this ... this ..."

  "Styoppa?" asked Sonachidze.

  "Yes, which he always asked for ..

  He started whistling the first few bars. Then he stopped.

  "Will you see Styoppa again?"

  "Perhaps."

  He gripped my arm very hard.

  "Tell him Sonachidze still thinks of him a lot."

  His gaze lingered on me:

  "Maybe Jean's right after all. You were a customer at the Hôtel Castille ... Try to remember ... The Hôtel Castille, Rue Cambon..."

  I turned away and opened the car door. Someone was huddled up on the front seat, leaning against the window. I bent down and recognized the bride. She was asleep, her pale blue dress drawn up to the middle of her thighs.

  "We'll have to get her out of there," said Sonachidze.

  I shook her gently but she went on sleeping. So, I took her by the waist and managed to pull her out of the car.

  "We can't just leave her on the ground," I said.

  I carried her in my arms to the restaurant. Her head lay against my shoulder and her fair hair caressed my neck. She was wearing some highly pungent perfume which reminded me of something. But what?

  3

  IT WAS a quarter to six. I asked the taxi driver to wait for me in the little Rue Charles-Marie-Widor and proceeded on foot until I reached Rue Claude-Lorrain, where the Russian Church was.

  A detached, one-story building, with net curtains at the windows. On the right, a very wide path. I took up my position on the pavement facing it.

  First I saw two women who stopped in front of the door opening on to the street. One had short brown hair and wore a black woollen shawl; the other was a blonde, very made up, and sported a gray hat which was shaped like a Musketeer's. I heard them speaking French.

  A stout, elderly man, completely bald, with heavy bags under his Mongolian slits of eyes, extracted himself from a taxi. They started up the path.

  On the left, from Rue Boileau, a group of five people came toward me. In front, two middle-aged women supported a very old man by the arms, an old man so white- haired, so fragile, he seemed to be made of dried plaster. There followed two men who looked alike, father and son no doubt, both wearing well-cut, gray striped suits, the father dandified, the son with wavy blond hair. Just at this moment, a car braked level with the group and another alert, stiff old man, enveloped in a loden cape, his gray hair cut short, got out. He had a military bearing. Was this Styoppa?

  They all entered the church by a side door, at the end of the path. I would have liked to have followed them, but my presence among them would have attracted attention. I was having increasing qualms that I might fail to identify Styoppa.

  A car had just pulled to one side, a little further off, on the right. Two men got out, then a woman. One of the men was very tall and wore a navy blue overcoat. I crossed the street and waited for them.

  They come closer and closer. It seems to me that the tall man stares hard at me before starting up the path with the two others. Behind the stained glass windows which look out on to the path, tapers are burning. He stoops as he passes through the door, which is much too low for him, and I know it is Styoppa.

  The taxi's engine was running but there was no one at the wheel. One of the doors was ajar, as if the driver would be returning any moment. Where could he be? I glanced about me and decided to walk round the block to look for him.

  I found him in a café close by, in Rue Chardon-Lagache. He was seated at a table, with a glass of beer in front of him.

  "Are you going to be much longer?" he asked

  "Oh ... another twenty minutes."

  Fair-haired, pale-skinned, with heavy jowls and protruding eyes. I don't think I have ever seen a man with fleshier ear lobes.

  "Does it matter if I let the meter run?"

  "It doesn't matter," I said.

  He smiled politely.

  "Aren't you afraid your taxi might get stolen?"

  He shrugged his shoulders.

  "Oh, you know ..."

  He had ordered a pâté sandwich and was eating with deliberation, gazing at me gloomily.

  "What exactly are you waiting for?"

  "Someone who'll be coming out of the Russian church, down the road."

  "Are you Russian?"

  "No."

  "It's silly . . . You should have asked him when he was leaving ... It would have cost you less ..."

  "Never mind."
/>
  He ordered another glass of beer.

  "Could you get me a paper?" he said.

  He started searching in his pocket for the change, but I stopped him.

  "Don't worry..."

  "Thanks. Get me Le Hérisson. Thanks again ..."

  I wandered about for quite a while before finding a newsstand in Avenue de Versailles. Le Hérisson was printed on a creamy green paper.

  He read, knitting his brows and turning over the pages after moistening his index finger with his tongue. And I contemplated this fat, blond, blue-eyed man, with white skin, reading his green paper.

  I didn't dare interrupt him in his reading. At last, he consulted his tiny wrist watch.

  "We must go."

  In Rue Charles-Marie-Widor, he sat down behind the wheel of his taxi and I asked him to wait for me. Again, I stationed myself in front of the Russian church, but on the opposite side of the street.

  There was no one there. Had they, perhaps, left already? If so, there was no hope of my tracking down Styoppa de Dzhagorev again, since his name was not in the Paris directory. The tapers still burned behind the stained glass windows which looked out on to the path. Had I known the ancient lady for whom this service was being held? If I had been one of Styoppa's frequent companions, he would probably have introduced me to his friends, including, no doubt, this Marie de Rosen. She must have been far older than us at the time.

  The door they had entered by and which must have led into the chapel where the ceremony was taking place, this door which I was keeping under constant watch, suddenly opened, and the blonde woman in the Musketeer's hat stood framed in it. The brunette in the black shawl followed. Then the father and son, in their gray striped suits, supporting the plaster figure of the old man, who was talking to the fat bald-headed man with the Mongolian features. And the latter was stooping, his ear practically touching his companion's lips: the old gentleman's voice must certainly have been hardly more than a whisper. Others followed. I was watching for Styoppa, my heart pounding.

  Finally, he emerged, among the last. His great height and navy blue overcoat allowed me to keep him in sight, as there was a large number of them, forty at least. They were mostly getting on in years, but I noticed a few young women and even children. They all lingered on the path, talking among themselves.

  The scene resembled a country school playground. The old man with the plaster appearance was installed on a bench, and each of them in turn came up to greet him. Who was he? "Georges Sacher," mentioned in the newspaper notice? Or an ex-graduate of the School of Pages? Perhaps he and Marie de Rosen had lived out some brief idyll in Petersburg, or on the shores of the Black Sea, before everything fell to pieces? The fat bald-headed man with the Mongolian eyes was surrounded by people as well. The father and son, in their gray striped suits, circulated, like a pair of dancers at some society ball, moving from table to table. They seemed full of themselves, and the father kept breaking into laughter, throwing back his head, which I found incongruous.

  Styoppa, for his part, was talking soberly with the woman in the gray Musketeer's hat. He laid his hand on her arm and on her shoulder in a courtly and affectionate manner. He must have been a very handsome man. I put him down as seventy. His face was a little bloated, his hair receding, but the prominent nose and the set of the head I found extremely noble. Or such was my impression from a distance.

  Time passed. Almost half an hour had gone by and they were still talking. I was afraid that one of them would finally notice me, standing there on the pavement. And the taxi driver? I strode back to Rue Charles-Marie-Widor. The engine was still running and he was seated at the wheel, deep in his yellowy green paper.

  "Well?" he asked me.

  "I don't know," I said. "We might have to wait another hour."

  "Hasn't your friend come out of the church yet?"

  "Yes, but he's chatting with the others."

  "You can't ask him to come?"

  "No."

  His large blue eyes stared at me in consternation.

  "Don't worry," I said.

  "It's for you ... I have to keep the meter running ..."

  I returned to my post, opposite the Russian church.

  Styoppa had advanced a few feet. As a matter of fact, he was no longer standing at the end of the path but on the pavement, in the center of a group consisting of the blonde woman in the Musketeer's hat, the brunette in the black shawl, the bald-headed man with the slanted Mongolian eyes, and two other men.

  This time I crossed the street and stationed myself close to them, my back turned. The soft bursts of Russian filled the air and I wondered if a deeper, more resonant voice among them was Styoppa's. I turned around. He gave the blonde woman in the Musketeer's hat a long embrace. He was almost shaking her, and his features contracted in a painful grin. Then, in the same fashion, he embraced the fat bald-headed man with the slant eyes, and each of the others in turn. The time for farewells, I thought. I ran back to the taxi and jumped in.

  "Quick . . . straight ahead ... in front of the Russian church..."

  Styoppa was still talking to them.

  "Do you see the tall guy in navy blue?"

  "Yes."

  "We'll have to follow him, if he's in a car."

  The driver turned round, stared at me, and his blue eyes opened wide.

  "I hope it's not dangerous, sir."

  "Don't worry," I said.

  Styoppa detached himself from the group, walked a few paces and, without turning, waved his arm. The others, standing still, watched him. The woman in the gray Musketeer's hat stood slightly to the front of the group, arched, like the figurehead of a ship, the large feather of her hat fluttering gently in the breeze.

  He took some time opening the door of his car. I think he tried the wrong key. When he was seated at the wheel, I leaned forward to the taxi driver.

  "Follow the car which the guy in navy-blue just got into."

  And I hoped I wasn't on the wrong track, since there was nothing really to indicate that this man was Styoppa de Dzhagorev.

  4

  IT WAS NOT very hard to follow him: he drove slowly. At the Porte Maillot, he ran a red light and the taxi driver did not dare follow suit, but we caught up with him again at Boulevard Maurice-Barrès. Our two cars pulled up side by side at a crosswalk. He glanced across at me absentmindedly, as motorists do when they find themselves side by side in a traffic jam.

  He parked his car on Boulevard Richard-Wallace, in front of the apartment buildings at the end, near the Pont de Puteaux and the Seine. He started down Rue Julien-Potin and I paid off my taxi.

  "Good luck, sir," said the driver. "Be careful..

  And I felt his eyes following me as I too started down Rue Julien-Potin. Perhaps he thought I was in some danger.

  Night was falling. A narrow road, lined by impersonal apartment buildings, built between the wars, which formed a single long façade, on each side and all the way along Rue Julien-Potin. Styoppa was ten yards ahead of me. He turned right into Rue Ernest-Deloison, and entered a grocery store.

  The moment had come to approach him. But because of my shyness it was extremely hard for me, and I was afraid he would take me for a madman: I would stammer, my speech would become incoherent. Unless he recognized me at once, in which case I would let him do the talking.

  He was coming out of the grocer's shop, holding a paper bag.

  "Mr. Styoppa de Dzhagorev?"

  He looked very surprised. Our heads were on the same level, which intimidated me even more.

  "Yes. But who are you?"

  No, he did not recognize me. He spoke French without an accent. I had to screw up my courage.

  "I . . . I've been meaning to contact you for ... a long time..."

  "What for?"

  "I am writing... writing a book about the Emigration... I..."

  "Are you Russian?"

  It was the second time I had been asked this question. The taxi driver too had asked me. And, actually, perhaps I had
been Russian.

  "No."

  "And you're interested in the Emigration?"

  "I . . . I . . . I'm writing a book about the Emigration. Some . . . someone suggested I come to see you . . . Paul Sonachidze..."

  "Sonachidze?..."

  He pronounced the name in the Russian way. It was very soft, like wind rustling in the trees.

  "A Georgian name ... I don't know it..."

  He frowned.

  "Sonachidze ... no ..."

  "I don't want to be a nuisance. If I could just ask you a few questions."

  "I'd be happy to answer them ..

  He smiled a sad smile.

  "A tragic tale, the Emigration ... But how is it you call me Styoppa? ..."

  "I... don't... I..."

  "Most of those who called me Styoppa are dead. The others, you can count on the fingers of one hand."

  "It was ... Sonachidze ..

  "I don't know him."

  "Can I... ask... you ... a few questions?"

  "Yes. Would you like to come up to my place? We can talk."

  In Rue Julien-Potin, after we had passed through a gateway, we crossed an open space surrounded by apartment buildings. We took a wooden elevator with a double latticework gate and, because of our height and the restricted space in the elevator, we had to bow our heads and keep them turned toward the wall, so we didn't knock brows.

  He lived on the fifth floor in a two-room flat. He showed me into the bedroom and stretched out on the bed.

  "Forgive me," he said, "but the ceiling is too low. It's suffocating to stand."

  Indeed, there were only a few inches between the ceiling and the top of my head and I had to stoop. Furthermore, both he and I were a head too tall to clear the frame of the door leading into the other room and I imagined that he had often bumped his forehead there.

  "You can stretch out too ... if you wish ..." He pointed to a small couch, upholstered in pale blue velvet, near the window.

  "Make yourself at home ... you'll be much more comfortable lying down ... Even if you sit, you feel cooped up here ... Please, do lie down ..."

  I did so.

  He had switched on a lamp with a salmon-pink shade, which was standing on his bedside table, and it gave out a soft light and cast shadows on the ceiling.