"A decent fellow, Coudreuse ... I often ate with them, upstairs ... His wife, she spoke Flemish ..."
"You've no news of them since then?"
"He died ... His wife returned to Antwerp ..."
And he made a broad, sweeping gesture across the table.
"It's the dim and distant past, all that..."
"You say she used to come for her father's cigarettes ... What was the brand again?"
"Laurens."
I hoped I'd remember the name.
"A funny kid... at ten, she was already playing billiards with my customers ..."
He pointed to a door at the back of the café which must have led to the billiard room. So, that was where she had learned the game.
"Wait a moment," he said. "I'll show you something..."
He rose heavily and walked over to the bar. Again he eased aside all those who were in his way. Most of the customers were wearing sailors' caps and speaking some strange language, Flemish no doubt. I thought that it was because of the barges anchored below, by the Quai d'Austerlitz, which must have come from Belgium.
"Here ... Look..."
He had sat down opposite and handed me an old fashion magazine, the cover of which showed a girl, with chestnut- brown hair and limpid eyes, and with something Asiatic in her features. I recognized her at once: Denise. She was wearing a black bolero and holding an orchid.
"That was Denise, Coudreuse's daughter . . . See ... A pretty little thing ... She became a model... I knew her when she was just a kid ..."
The magazine cover was spotted and streaked with whisky.
"I still remember her as she was when she used to come for the Laurens ..
"She wasn't a dressmaker, was she?"
"No, I don't think so."
"And you really don't know what became of her?"
"No."
"You haven't got her mother's address, in Antwerp?"
He shook his head. He looked broken-hearted.
"It's all over and done with, my friend ..."
What did he mean?
"Would you lend me this magazine?" I asked him.
"Yes, pal, but you must promise to return it."
"It's a promise."
"I'm attached to it. It's like a family souvenir."
"What time did she come for the cigarettes?"
"Always at quarter-to-eight. Before going to school."
"Which school?"
"Rue Jenner. Sometimes her father took her."
I stretched out my hand for the magazine and snatched it up quickly, my heart beating hard. He might, after all, change his mind and decide to keep it.
"Thanks. I'll bring it back tomorrow."
"Mind you do, huh?"
He looked at me suspiciously.
"But why are you interested? Are you family?"
"Yes."
I could not resist studying the magazine cover. Denise seemed a little younger than in the photograph I already had. She was wearing earrings, her neck half hidden by fern leaves which rose above the orchid she was carrying. In the background, there was a carved wooden angel. And at the bottom, in the left-hand corner of the photograph, in tiny red lettering which stood out well against the black of her bolero, were the words: "Photo by Jean-Michel Mansoure."
"Would you like something to drink?" he asked.
"No thanks."
"Well, the coffee's on the house."
"That's very kind of you."
I rose, holding the magazine. He walked ahead of me, opening up a path for me through his customers, who were growing thicker and thicker around the bar. He spoke to them in Flemish. It took us a while to reach the glass door. He opened it and mopped his nose.
"You won't forget to give it back, will you?" he said, pointing to the magazine.
He closed the glass door and followed me out into the street.
"You see. They lived up there... on the second floor..."
The windows were lit up. At the back of one of the rooms, I could make out an armoire of dark wood.
"There are other tenants ..."
"When you used to eat with them, what room was it?"
"That one ... on the left..."
And he pointed to the window.
"And Denise's room?"
"It looked out on the other side... On the courtyard..."
He looked thoughtful, standing there next to me. Finally I held out my hand.
"Good-bye. I'll return the magazine."
"Good-bye."
He went back into the café. He looked at me, his big red head pressed against the door. The smoke from the pipes and cigarettes submerged the customers at the bar in a yellow fog and this big red head, in its turn, grew more and more hazy, because of the blur his breath left on the glass.
It was night. The time Denise returned from school, if she stayed for night classes. What route did she take? Did she come from the right or the left? I had forgotten to ask the café owner. At that time, there was less traffic and the leaves of the plane-trees formed an arch over the Quai d'Austerlitz. The station itself, further off, must have looked like the station of some town in the southwest. Beyond that, the Botanical Gardens and the darkness and profound silence of the Wine Market added to the peacefulness of the neighborhood.
I entered the building and flicked on the time-switch. A corridor with old black and gray tiles. A door-mat, made of iron. Letter boxes on the yellow wall. And the everlasting smell of lard.
If I closed my eyes, I thought, if I concentrated, placing my fingers against my forehead, perhaps I would manage to hear, far off, the slap of sandals on the stairs.
18
BUT I THINK it was in a hotel bar that Denise and I met for the first time. I was with the man who appears in the photographs, my childhood friend, Freddie Howard de Luz, and Gay Orlov. They had been living in the hotel for some time, because they had come back from America. Gay Orlov told me she was waiting for a friend, a girl she had just got to know.
She walked toward us and her face struck me at once. An Asiatic face, although she was almost blonde. Almond eyes, very clear. High cheekbones. She wore a strange little hat, shaped somewhat like a Tyrolean one, and her hair was cut rather short.
Freddie and Gay Orlov told us to wait for them a moment and went up to their room. The two of us were left, facing one another. She smiled.
We did not speak. She had clear eyes, with a greenness that came and went in them.
19
Mr. Jean-Michel. 1, Rue Gabrielle, XVIII. CLI 72-01.
20
YOU MUST forgive me," he said when I sat down at his table in a café in Place Blanche where he had suggested, over the telephone, that I join him at around 6 o'clock. "You must forgive me, but I always arrange to meet people out... Particularly the first time... Now we can go to my place..."
I had recognized him easily, as he had indicated that he would be wearing a dark green velvet suit and that his hair was white, very white, and cut short. This severe cut contrasted strongly with his long black eyelashes, which fluttered ceaselessly, his almond eyes and the feminine shape of his mouth: upper lip sinuous, lower tense and imperious.
Standing, he seemed to be of medium height. He put on a raincoat and we left the café.
When we were standing in Boulevard de Clichy, he pointed to a building, near the Moulin Rouge, and said:
"In the old days, I'd have arranged to meet you at Graff's ... Over there ... But it no longer exists ..."
We crossed the street and took Rue Coustou. He quickened his pace, glancing furtively over at the sea-green bars on the left-hand side of the road, and by the time we reached the big garage, he was almost running ... He did not stop until we had reached the corner of Rue Lepic.
"Forgive me," he said, out of breath, "but this street has some odd memories for me ... Forgive me ..."
He had really been frightened. I believe he was even trembling.
"It gets better from now on ... I'm all right now..."
He
smiled, looking at Rue Lepic rising before him with its market stalls and the well-lit food stores.
We set off along Rue des Abbesses. He walked in a calm and relaxed manner. I wanted to ask him what "odd memories" Rue Coustou had for him but I did not wish to be indiscreet or reduce him once again to that nervous state which had so surprised me. And suddenly, before we had reached Place des Abbesses, he picked up speed again. I was walking on his right. As we were crossing Rue Germain- Pilon, I saw him cast a horrified look at that narrow street with its low, dark houses, which descends rather steeply to the boulevard below. He held my arm very tightly. He clung to me, as though in an effort to tear his gaze away from this street. I drew him across to the other pavement.
"Thank you ... You know... it's very funny..."
He hesitated, on the edge of confiding something.
"I... I feel dizzy every time I cross this end of Rue Germain-Pilon ... I... I have the urge to walk down it... It's stronger than I am ..."
"Why don't you walk down it?"
"Because ... Rue Germain-Pilon ... Because once there was ... There was a place ..."
He broke off.
"Oh...," he said with an evasive smile. "It's idiotic of me ... Montmartre has changed such a lot... It would take ages to explain ... You didn't know the old Montmartre ..."
How could he be so certain?
He lived in Rue Gabrielle, in a building overlooking the gardens of the Sacré Cœur. We used the back stairway. It took him a long time to open the door: three locks and a different key for each one, which he turned deliberately and with the concentration needed to open a complicated safe.
A tiny apartment. It consisted only of a drawing-room and bedroom, which must have originally been one room. Pink satin curtains, held back by cords of silver thread, separated the two rooms. The drawing-room walls were covered in sky-blue silk and the only window was hidden by curtains of the same color. Black lacquer pedestal-tables on which stood ivory or jade objects, tub easy-chairs upholstered in pale green, and a settee covered with a floral design material of a still paler green, gave the whole room the appearance of an ice-cream parlor. The light came from gilt bracket-lamps on the wall.
"Sit down," he said.
I sat down on the flowered settee. He sat beside me.
"So ... let me see it..."
I extracted the fashion magazine from my pocket and showed him the cover, on which Denise appeared. He took the magazine from me and put on glasses with heavy tortoise-shell frames.
"Yes... yes... Photo by Jean-Michel Mansoure... That's me, all right... There's no doubt about it at all..."
"Do you remember the girl?"
"I don't. I rarely worked for this magazine ... It was a small fashion journal ... I worked mainly for Vogue, you understand..."
He wanted to make the distinction clear.
"And you can't tell me anything else about this photo?"
He looked at me with an amused expression. In the light from the bracket-lamps, I could see that the skin of his face was covered with tiny lines and freckles.
"My dear chap, I can tell you straight away..."
He rose, the magazine in his hand, turned the key in a door which I had not noticed until then, because it was covered with sky-blue silk, like the walls. It led into a small storage room. I heard him pulling out numerous metal drawers. After a few minutes, he emerged from the room, closing the door carefully behind him.
"Here," he said. "I have an index slip with the negatives. I've kept everything, from the beginning... It's arranged by year and in alphabetical order ..."
He sat down beside me again and studied the slip.
"Denise ... Coudreuse ... That's the one, isn't it?"
"Yes."
"She never had any other photo sessions with me . . . Now I remember the girl. . . She did a lot of photos with Hoyningen-Huene ..."
"Who?"
"Hoyningen-Huene, a German photographer ... Yes, of course... That's it... She did a lot of work with Hoyningen- Huene ..."
Each time Mansoure pronounced this name with its plaintive, lunar resonance, I felt Denise's clear eyes on me, like that first time.
"I have the address she gave me then, if it's of any interest..."
"It is," I answered in an eager voice.
"97, Rue de Rome, Paris, XVIIth arrondissement. 97, Rue de Rome ..."
Suddenly he raised his head and looked at me. His face was frighteningly white, his eyes wide open.
"97, Rue de Rome ..."
"What's the matter?..." I asked.
"Now I remember the girl very well... I had a friend who lived in the same building ..."
He looked at me in a suspicious manner and seemed as agitated as when he had crossed Rue Coustou and the top of Rue Germain-Pilon.
"An odd coincidence ... I remember it very well... I picked her up at her place, in Rue de Rome, to take the photos and I took the opportunity of dropping in on this friend ... He lived on the floor above."
"You went to her place?"
"Yes. But we took the photos in my friend's apartment... He stayed with us ..."
"Who was the friend?"
He was growing paler and paler. He was frightened.
"I'll... explain ... But first I must have a drink ... to steady myself..."
He rose and walked across to a little table on casters, which he wheeled over in front of the settee. On the upper tray were some small carafes with crystal stoppers and silver labels engraved with the names of the liqueurs, like the chains the Wehrmacht musicians used to wear around their necks.
"I've only got sweet liqueurs ... Do you mind?"
"Not at all."
"I'm going to have a little Marie Brizard ... how about you?"
"I'll have the same."
He poured the Marie Brizard into narrow glasses and when I sipped this liqueur, it blended in with the rather cloying satins, ivories and gilt around me. It expressed the very essence of this apartment.
"This friend of mine who lived in Rue de Rome ... was murdered..."
He had uttered the last word hesitantly and was clearly making an effort on my account, or he would not have had the courage to use so unambiguous a word.
"He was a Greek from Egypt... He wrote poetry, and a couple of books ..."
"And do you think Denise Coudreuse knew him?"
"Oh . . . She must have run into him on the stairs," he said impatiently, since this detail was of no significance to him.
"And ... Did it happen in the building?"
"Yes."
"Was Denise Coudreuse living in the building at the time?"
He had not even heard my question.
"It happened at night... He had brought someone up to his apartment... He brought anyone up to his apartment..."
"Was the murderer found?..."
He shrugged.
"That kind of murderer is never found... I was sure this would happen to him in the end... If you'd seen what some of those boys he invited up there in the evening looked like ... I'd have been scared even during the day..."
He gave a strange smile, wracked with emotion and at the same time full of horror.
"What was your friend's name?" I asked him.
"Alec Scouffi. A Greek from Alexandria."
He got up suddenly and pulled aside the sky-blue silk curtains which covered the window... Then he returned to his place beside me on the settee.
"You must forgive me... But there are times when I get the feeling someone is hiding behind the curtains ... A little more Marie Brizard? Yes, a drop more ..."
He forced himself to sound jolly and gripped my arm as if to prove to himself that I was really there, beside him.
"Scouffi had set up in France ... I knew him in Montmartre ... He wrote a very nice book called Ship at Anchor..."
"But Mr. Mansoure," I said in a firm voice, articulating each syllable clearly, so that this time he would have to respond to my question, "if, as you tell me, Denise Coudreuse lived on the floor
below, she must have heard something unusual that night... She must have been questioned as a witness ..."
"Perhaps she was."
He shrugged his shoulders. No, it was clear that this Denise Coudreuse who meant so much to me and whose every movement I would have liked to have known, didn't interest him at all.
"The most awful thing about it is that I know the murderer . . . You wouldn't have believed it, because he'd the face of an angel... But when he looked at you with those hard, gray eyes ..."
He shivered. It was as though the man he was talking about was there, in front of us, and was transfixing him with his gray eyes.
"A vile little rotter ... The last time I saw him was during the Occupation, in a basement restaurant in Rue Cambon ... He was with a German …"
His voice trembled at the memory, and even though I was obsessed with thoughts of Denise Coudreuse, this shrill voice, this passionate protest, as it were, impressed me in a way I could hardly justify to myself, and which made it clear that he was, in fact, jealous of his friend's fate and resented the man with the gray eyes for not having murdered him.
"He's still alive ... Still in Paris ... I found out through someone ... Of course, he no longer has that angel face ... Would you like to hear his voice?"
I had no time to respond to his surprising question: he had picked up the telephone, on a red leather pouf next to us, and was dialing a number. He handed me the receiver.
"You'll hear it... Listen... He calls himself 'Blue Rider'..."
At first all I heard were the short bursts of ringing which indicated that the line was busy. And then, in the intervals between the ringing, I began to make out the voices of men and women sending messages to each other: "Maurice and Josy would like René to phone ..."; "Lucien is waiting for Jeannot at Rue de la Convention..."; "Mrs. du Barry is looking for a partner ..."; "Alcibiades is alone this evening ..."
Skeletal conversations, voices seeking each other out, in spite of the ringing which obliterated them at regular intervals. And all these faceless beings trying to exchange telephone numbers, passwords, in the hope of some rendezvous. Finally I heard a voice that was more distant than the others and which kept repeating:
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