"This was Freddie's favorite room ... All four of them, Freddie, the Russian woman, the South American and the other girl, used to sit up here very late in the evening ..."
The divan was no more than a soft blur and a lattice work of shadows danced on the ceiling in diamond shapes. I tried in vain to recapture the echoes of our evenings together.
"They put a billiard table in here ... The South American's girlfriend was the one who particularly liked billiards ... She won every time ... I can tell you because I played her several times ... The table's still here, by the way..."
He led me into a dark corridor, switching on a flashlight, and we emerged into a tiled hall with a majestic staircase sweeping up from it.
"The main entrance ..."
Under the stairs, there was, indeed, a billiard table. He shone his flashlight on it. A white ball, in the center, as though the game had been interrupted and would start again at any moment. And as though Gay Orlov, or I, or Freddie, or the mysterious Frenchwoman who accompanied me here, or Bob, were already leaning forward, to take aim.
"You see, the billiard table's still there ..."
He swept the majestic staircase with his flashlight.
"It's no use going up to the other floors ... The whole mess is under seal..."
I thought - Freddie had a room up there. A child's room, then a young man's room with bookshelves, photographs on the wall, and - who knows? - perhaps one of them showing all four of us, or the two of us, Freddie and me, arm in arm. He leaned against the billiard table to relight his pipe. I, for my part, could not help staring at this great staircase which it was no use climbing, because up there, everything was "under seal."
We left by the small side door, which he closed, turning the key twice in the lock. It was dark.
"I've got to catch the train to Paris," I told him.
"Come with me."
He gripped my arm and we followed the surrounding wall until we reached the old stables. He opened a glass- fronted door and lit an oil lamp.
"They cut off the electricity ages ago ... But they forgot to cut the water ..."
We were in a room, in the middle of which was a dark, wooden table and some wicker chairs. On the walls, earthenware plates and some copper dishes. A stuffed boar's head over the window.
"I'm going to give you something."
He crossed the room to a cupboard at the other end, and opened it. He took out a box which he placed on the table, with the words "Biscuits Lefebvre Utile - Nantes" on its lid. Then he stood in front of me.
"You were a friend of Freddie's, weren't you?" he said in a voice full of feeling.
"Yes."
"Well, I'm going to give you this ..."
He pointed to the box.
"They're keepsakes of Freddie... Little things I was able to put aside when they came along to impound the old place..."
He was really moved. I even think there were tears in his eyes.
"I was very fond of him... I knew him as a youngster... He was a dreamer. He always told me he'd buy a yacht... He used to say: 'Bob, you'll be my first mate...' God knows where he is now... if he's still alive ..."
"We'll find him," I said.
"He was too spoiled by his grandmother, you see ..."
He took the box and handed it to me. I thought of Styoppa de Dzhagorev and the red box he too had given me. It certainly seemed everything ended with old chocolate or biscuit or cigar boxes.
"Thank you."
"I'll walk you to the station."
We took a forest path and he shone the beam of his flashlight ahead of us. Was he losing his way? It felt to me as though we were penetrating deeper and deeper into the forest.
"I'm trying to remember the name of Freddie's friend. The one you pointed out in the photograph ... the South American..."
We were crossing a clearing, the foliage phosphorescent in the moonlight. A clump of umbrella pines. He had switched off his flashlight, because it was almost as bright as daylight here.
"This is where Freddie used to come riding with another friend of his ... A jockey ... He never spoke to you about the jockey?"
"No."
"I can't remember his name any more... And yet he was well known . . . He'd been Freddie's grandfather's jockey, when the old man had a racing stable ..."
"Did the South American know the jockey too?"
"Of course. They used to come here together. The jockey played billiards with the other... I even think it was he who introduced the Russian woman to Freddie ..."
I was afraid I would not remember all these details. I should have been noting them down on the spot.
The path sloped gently upward and it was not easy walking, because of all the dead leaves underfoot.
"So, do you remember the South American's name?"
"Just a moment... it's coming back ..."
I hugged the biscuit box to my hip, anxious to find out what its contents were. Perhaps I would discover some answers to my questions. My name. Or the jockey's name, for instance.
We were at the edge of a slope, at the bottom of which lay the station square. The station, with its bright neon-lit entrance hall, seemed deserted. A cyclist crossed the square slowly and stopped in front of the station.
"One moment... his first name was ... Pedro ..."
We stood at the edge of the slope. He had taken out his pipe again, and was cleaning it with a strange little instrument. Inwardly I repeated this name I'd been given at birth, this name by which I had been called throughout a whole section of my life and which, for a number of people, had conjured up my face. Pedro.
12
NOT MUCH HERE, in the biscuit box. A flaking lead soldier with a drum. A four-leaf clover adhering to the center of a white envelope. Some photographs.
I appear in two of them. No question that it is the same man as the one standing beside Gay Orlov and old Giorgiadze. A tall, dark-haired man, me, the only difference being that I've no moustache there. In one of the photographs, I am with another man as young as myself, as tall, but fair-haired. Freddie? Yes, as someone has written in pencil on the back of the photo: "Pedro - Freddie - La Baule." We are at the seaside and both wearing beach robes. Evidently a very old photograph.
In the second photograph, there are four of us: Freddie, myself, Gay Orlov, whom I recognized at once, and another young woman, all sitting on the floor, leaning against the red velvet sofa in the summer dining room. To the right, you can make out a billiard table.
A third photograph shows the young woman who is with us in the summer dining room. She is standing in front of the billiard table, holding a cue in her two hands. Fair hair falling to below the shoulders. The one I used to bring along to Freddie's château? In another photograph, she is leaning her elbows on the railings of a veranda.
A postcard addressed to "Mr. Robert Brun, c/o Howard de Luz, Valbreuse, Orne," showing the port of New York. It reads:
"My dear Bob. Regards from America. See you soon. Freddie."
An odd document under the heading of:
Consulado General
de la
Republica Argentina
No. 106
The Consulate of the Republic of Argentina in France, in charge of Hellenic interests in the occupied zone, certifies that the archives of the Municipality of Salonica were destroyed by fire during the 1914-18 War. Paris, 15 July, 1941.
Consulate of
the Republic of Argentina
in charge of Hellenic Interests.
A signature, and under it:
R. L. de Oliveira Cezar
Consul General.
Me? No. His name is not Pedro.
A small newspaper cutting:
HOWARD DE LUZ FORECLOSURE:
At Valbreuse (Orne) Château Saint-Lazare
7 and 11th April,
By order of The Estate Management
Sale by public auction
of an important collection of
Objets d'art and furniture
&
nbsp; antique and modern
Pictures - Porcelain - Ceramics
Carpets - Bedding - Household linen
Érard Grand Piano
Frigidaire etc.
Viewing: Saturday, 6th April, 2:00-6:00 P.M.
and 10:00-12:00 on the days of sale.
I open the envelope with the four-leaf clover. It contains four passport-size photographs: Freddie, myself, Gay Orlov, and the fair-haired young woman.
I also find an uncompleted passport of the Dominican Republic.
Casually turning over the photograph of the fair-haired young woman I discover the following, written in blue ink, in the same untidy handwriting as on the postcard from America:
Pedro: ANJOU 15-28.
13
How MANY engagement books still contain this telephone number which used to be mine? Was it simply the number of an office where I was to be found only one afternoon?
I dial ANJou 15-28. It rings and rings but no one answers. Are there any traces left of me in the deserted apartment, the room uninhabited for a long time, where this evening the telephone rings in vain?
I do not even need to call information. All I have to do is flex my calf muscle and spin Hutte's leather chair. In front of me, the rows of directories and year-books. One of them, smaller than the others, bound in pale-green goatskin. This is the one I need. All the telephone numbers in Paris for the last thirty years are itemized here, with the corresponding addresses.
I turn the pages, my heart thumping. And I read:
ANJou 15-28 -10A, Rue Cambacérès, 8th arr.
But the street directory for the year does not list this telephone number:
CAMBACÉRÈS (Rue) 8th.
14
A MAN WHOSE Christian name was Pedro. ANJou 15-28. 10A, Rue Cambacérès, eighth arrondissement.
It seems he worked for a South American legation. The clock Hutte had left on the desk points to two in the morning. Down below, in Avenue Niel, only an occasional car passes and I can hear wheels squealing from time to time at the red lights.
I leaf through the old directories in the front of which are lists of embassies and legations, with their numbers.
Dominican Republic
Avenue de Messine, 21 (Vlllth). Tel. CARnot 10-18.
N ... Special Envoy and Plenipotentiary.
Dr. Gustavo J. Henriques. First Secretary.
Dr. Salvador E. Paradas. Second Secretary.
(and Mrs.), Rue d'Alsace, 41 (Xth).
Dr. Bienvenido Carrasco. Attaché.
R. Decamps, 45 (XVIth), Tel. TRO 42-91.
Venezuela
Rue Copernic, 11 (XVIth). Tel. PASsy 72-29.
Chancellery: Rue de la Pompe, 115 (XVIth). Tel. PASsy 10-89.
Dr. Carlo Aristimuno Coli, Special Envoy and Plenipotentiary.
Mr. Jaime Picon Febres. Counsellor.
Mr. Antonio Maturib. First Secretary.
Mr. Antonio Briuno. Attaché.
Colonel H. Lopez-Mendez. Military Attaché.
Mr. Pedro Saloaga. Commercial Attaché.
Guatemala
Place Joffre, 12 (Vllth). Tel. SÉGur 09-59.
Mr. Adam Maurisque Rios. Chargé d'Affaires.
Mr. Ismael Gonzalez Arevalo. Secretary.
Mr. Frederico Murgo. Attaché.
Ecuador
Avenue Wagram, 91 (XVIIth). Tel. ÉTOile 17-89.
Mr. Gonzalo Zaldumbide. Special Envoy and Plenipotentiary (and Mrs.).
Mr. Alberto Puig Arosemena. First Secretary (and Mrs.).
Mr. Alfredo Gangotena. Third Secretary (and Mrs.).
Mr. Carlos Guzman. Attaché (and Mrs.). Mr. Victor Zevallos. Counsellor (and Mrs.), Avenue d'Iéna, 21 (XVth).
El Salvador
Riquez Vega. Special Envoy.
Major J. H. Wishaw. Military Attaché (and daughter).
F. Capurro. First Secretary.
Luis...
The letters dance before my eyes. Who am I?
15
YOU TURN LEFT and it is amazing how silent and deserted is this section of Rue Cambacérès. Not a single car. I walked past a hotel and my eyes were dazzled by a chandelier, all its crystals blazing, in the lobby. It was sunny.
10A is a narrow, four-story building. Tall windows on the first floor. A policeman stands on sentry duty on the pavement opposite.
One half of the double door to the building was open, the hall light on. A long vestibule with gray walls. At the end, a door with small glass panels which I found hard to open. A carpetless stairway leading to the upper floors.
I stopped in front of the first floor door. I had decided to ask the tenants on each floor if ANJou 15-28 had been their telephone number at any time, and there was a tightness in my throat, as I was aware of the oddness of this request. On the door, a brass plate, which read: HÉLÈNE PILGRAM.
A high-pitched bell which was so worn, it rang only intermittently. I pressed on it as long as possible. The door opened a crack. A woman's face, her ash-gray hair cut short, appeared in the opening.
"Excuse me ... I wonder if you could tell me ..."
Her very clear eyes fastened on me. Impossible to say what her age was. Thirty, fifty?
"Was your old phone number ANJou 15-28, by any chance?"
She frowned.
"Yes. Why?"
She opened the door. She was wearing a man's black silk dressing-gown.
"Why do you want to know?"
"Because ... I lived here once ..."
She had moved out on to the landing and was staring at me fixedly. Her eyes widened.
"But... you're ... Mr.... McEvoy?"
"Yes," I said on the off-chance.
"Come in."
She seemed quite overcome. We stood, the two of us, facing each other, in the middle of a lobby with damaged parquet flooring. Some of the pieces had been replaced with strips of linoleum.
"You haven't changed much," she said, smiling.
"Nor have you."
"Do you still remember me?"
"I remember you very well," I said.
"That's nice ..."
Her eyes lingered affectionately on me.
"Come..."
She preceded me into a very large, very high-ceilinged room, whose windows were the ones I had noticed from the street. The parquet, damaged as in the hall, was hidden here and there under white wool rugs. Through the windows, the autumn sun lit the room with an amber light.
"Do sit down ..."
She pointed to a long wall-sofa with velvet cushions. She sat down on my left.
"It's funny to see you again so ... unexpectedly ..."
"I happened to be in the district," I said.
She looked younger to me than she had seemed in the doorway. Not a line at the junctions of the lips, around the eyes, or on the brow, and this smooth face contrasted with her white hair.
"It seems to me you've changed your hair color," I hazarded.
"No, I haven't... My hair's been white since I was twenty- five ... I preferred to keep it that color ..."
Apart from the velvet sofa, there was not much furniture. A rectangular table against the opposite wall. An old dressmaker's mannequin between the two windows, the torso covered with a piece of dirty beige material. The unlikely presence of this object made one think of a dressmaker's workshop. Besides, I noticed, in a corner of the room, a sewing machine on a table.
"Do you remember the apartment?" she asked. "You see ... I've kept some of the things ..."
She motioned toward the mannequin.
"Denise left all that..."
Denise?
"No, it hasn't really changed much ..." I said.
"And Denise?" she asked impatiently. "What happened to her?"
"Well," I said, "I haven't seen her for a long while ..."
"Oh..."
She looked disappointed and shook her head as though realizing she should not say anything further about this "Denise."
"Actually," I said, "you knew Denise a long time, didn
't you?..."
"Yes ... I knew her through Léon ..."
"Léon?"
"Léon Van Allen."
"Of course," I said, responding to her tone of voice which was almost reproachful when the name "Léon" had not instantly evoked "Léon Van Allen" for me.
"What's he doing, Léon Van Allen?" I asked.
"Oh ... I've not had any news of him for two or three years ... He'd gone to Dutch Guyana, Paramaribo ... He started a dancing school there ..."
"Dancing?"
"Yes. Before he was a couturier, Léon danced ... Didn't you know that?"
"Yes, I did. But I had forgotten."
She threw herself back, leaning against the wall, and retied the belt of her dressing-gown.
"And what about you? What have you been doing?"
"Oh, me?... Nothing ..."
"You no longer work at the Dominican Embassy?"
"No."
"Do you remember when you offered to get me a Dominican passport?... You used to say that one had to be ready in life and always have several passports, as a precaution..."
This memory amused her. She gave a short laugh.
"When did you last have any news of... Denise?" I asked her.
"You'd left for Megève with her and she dropped me a line from there. Since then, nothing."
She stared at me questioningly, but no doubt did not dare ask me directly. Who was this Denise? Had she played an important part in my life?
"You see," I said, "there are times when I feel as though I'm in a complete fog ... There are gaps in my memory... Periods of depression ... So, since I was passing, I thought I'd come up ... to try to find the ... the ..."
I was looking for the right word in vain, but it did not matter at all, since she smiled and this smile showed that my approach was no surprise to her.
"You mean: to try to find the good times again."
"Yes. That's it... The good times ..."
She picked up a gilt box on a small low table at the end of the sofa and opened it. It was filled with cigarettes.
"No thanks," I said.
"You don't smoke any more? They're English cigarettes. I remember you used to smoke English cigarettes... Whenever the three of us met here, you, me and Denise, you used to bring me a bag full of packs of English cigarettes ..."
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