The Red Notebook (6 page)

‘Are you angry with me?’ simpered the woman, with the same intonation as a mother refusing her offspring another biscuit.

‘No, of course not,’ muttered Jean-Claude.

‘How long are you going to be watching that garbage?’ asked Laurent.

‘It’s not garbage, I love it,’ replied Chloé. Her mobile rang; her friend Charlène must be watching the same programme. ‘You’re right, totally, he looks like him, it is him,’ cried Chloé before going off into hysterical laughter.

Laurent recalled his conversations with Pascal on their parents’ phones when they had been at the lycée together. If there was one thing that defined adolescence it was hysterical laughter. You never laughed like that again. In adolescence the brutal realisation that the world and life were completely absurd made you laugh until you couldn’t catch your breath, whereas in later life it would only result in a weary sigh.

‘I’m not sure I can help you. I can’t really remember … Wait, yes … I do remember something. Yes … two weeks ago, perhaps a bit longer … behind Odéon; it was raining; she stopped me in the street to ask me to … sign her book. She took it out of her bag. She seemed a little shy, or … ill at ease. No, that’s not it either … it was obvious she wasn’t in the habit of doing that sort of thing; nor was I, for that matter. We were both of us a bit … you know … We weren’t quite sure … what to say to each other … There was a rather wonderful yellow light, probably a storm coming … She must have been about forty, she was wearing a sort of black raincoat, she had brown hair to her shoulders … very light-coloured eyes, grey maybe … and a pale complexion; she was very pretty. It was raining … her face was wet … she had a very beautiful smile, wasn’t very tall, with a beauty spot to the right of her upper lip. She wore lipstick … red, of course, but with a hint of coral and high-heeled shoes with straps. No tights … at least … that’s what I remember.’

He paused. Laurent stared at him. Only Patrick Modiano could tell you he didn’t remember the woman he had met in the street then immediately go on to give you a description that would have delighted any police force in the country. ‘Thank you,’ said Laurent in a low voice.

Modiano continued to look at him with that trademark
expression of concern. ‘But now I wonder why you’re asking … and why you waited for me in the Luxembourg Gardens. Has something happened to her?’

Why indeed? Laurent preferred not to think about that too much. What’s more he had had three espressos and a vin chaud at Le Rostand to give himself courage. It was the second day he had staked out the Luxembourg Gardens. He was like one of those passionate ornithologists who will watch a rare bird through their binoculars without even taking a photograph of it because the very sight of the creature is recompense enough for long days, or even long weeks of waiting. For Laurent, the rare bird was the winner of the 1978 Prix Goncourt. Yesterday, no Modiano had shown itself in the park and, on the stroke of nine-thirty, he had returned to his arrondissement. Today he had risen at dawn and had been hanging about the Orangerie since seven o’clock until the tall figure had appeared at the end of the path. Getting up from his bench, Laurent had experienced the racing heart of a true enthusiast finally setting eyes on the large-beaked warbler. Actually, it was even stronger than that: it was as if he had just spotted a specimen of the mythical dodo, unseen since the end of the eighteenth century.

The author of
Villa Triste
was ambling, hands in raincoat pockets, apparently looking towards some far-off point on the park horizon. A slight wind ruffled his now grey-white hair. Laurent, clutching a copy of
Accident Nocturne
, started to walk towards the author. He could not summon a suitable phrase with which to deflect Modiano from his onward path. He would have to start by catching the man’s eye, he was thinking, when the writer’s gaze met his own. Laurent smiled at him and was rewarded with a fleeting smile in return. Then the words seemed to speak themselves: ‘Good morning, excuse me,’ began Laurent
as Modiano stepped imperceptibly aside like a startled pet preparing to flee when you move to stroke it. Laurent held out his copy of
Accident Nocturne
like an ID card, right in front of Modiano. ‘Don’t be alarmed,’ he said, ‘I just have a question to ask you. My name is Laurent Letellier; I’m a bookseller, but it’s nothing to do with that. It’s just that I’m trying to find someone.’

Patrick Modiano smoothed the collar of his raincoat and looked at Laurent in mild confusion. ‘Oh? Yes, go on, I’m listening.’

Heart thumping, Laurent related the story of the bag he had found. ‘Yes, I see … a woman’s handbag … Abandoned … just sitting there.’ Anxiety started to show on Modiano’s face, as if he were highly disturbed by the story of the bag and would not be able to sleep because of it. Laurent had just upset one of the greatest living writers because of his amateur investigation. He apologised several times and with each passing second became more and more aware of the absurdity of his inititiative, then just as he was wishing he could vanish into thin air, Modiano had responded, ‘I’m not sure I can help you. I can’t really remember … Wait, yes … I do remember something.’

Now they were walking side by side. ‘Yes … we must find her to give her back her bag … that will complete the story,’ Modiano mused. They exchanged some banalities about the weather and the upkeep of the gardens in winter.

‘I haven’t really been any help to you …’

‘Oh, you have, you’ve been a big help,’ Laurent told him. ‘And thank you, thank you for all your books.’

‘Thank you,’ Modiano murmured quietly, looking at him, then, ‘Good luck with your search.’

They shook hands and Modiano added – purely out of politeness, Laurent felt sure – that he would perhaps drop into
the bookshop one day if he were passing that way. Laurent watched him walk away. A breeze had sprung up again making the author’s coat flap slightly. Then Modiano disappeared round the corner as though consumed by the railings.

He had done it. He had risen to his daughter’s challenge. In the enthusiasm of the moment, Laurent decided to go on a tour of the nearby dry-cleaners’. It was Thursday; the strappy dress would be ready. When he got back to Le Cahier Rouge, he told Maryse and Damien that he would be gone a couple of hours. Having identified nine dry-cleaners’ within a radius of roughly a kilometre, he printed out the Google map of the area, assiduously marked each dry-cleaner’s with a little cross and set off on the trail. If he used the Métro as well as walking, he would get round them all by midday.

But at eleven o’clock precisely, ahead of schedule, he was walking along the street carefully carrying a hanger from which dangled a white dress in a transparent dry-cleaning bag marked
Aphrodite Dry-cleaner’s: ‘We care about caring for your clothes’
. He had visited six dry-cleaners’. The first four had told him the ticket was not one of theirs, the fifth had brought Laurent seven ironed Hermès ties. Although incontestably the crème de la crème of leather working, the famous design house produced, in Laurent’s view, the most hideous ties in the world: motifs of foxes, snails, horses and little dogs on silk backgrounds of mustard and blue were spread out in front of him. His ticket’s number, 0765, did indeed correspond to the ticket on the ties. But on learning that the ties were not what Laurent was after, the dry-cleaner quickly
understood that the ticket was not in fact one of his. The woman in the sixth dry-cleaner’s had taken the ticket, brought the dress without comment, and asked him for twelve euros. In reply to the question Laurent had been burning to ask, the answer had been as simple as it was disappointing: no, she had no recollection at all of the person who had dropped the dress off, sorry.

So now Laurent had a first name, and a description: shoulder-length brown hair, pale complexion, very light eyes, possibly grey, a beautiful smile, not very tall and with a beauty spot to the right of her upper lip. But nothing at all to indicate her surname. Although Laurent had been galvanised by his meeting with Modiano and was very proud of ‘Operation Dry-cleaner’, he was forced to admit that he had now played all his cards. Returning to his apartment, he hung the dress on the door of the bookcase, stepped back, then took the dress down and held it by his side. Judging Laure’s approximate height, he held the dress well below the level of his shoulder. The glass door of the bookcase reflected back their image, like a daguerreotype of yesteryear in which the face and body of the woman had been effaced by time, leaving nothing but the image of the dress. The man had been preserved, a man and his phantom wife. Behind the glass you could see the spines of the novels Laurent collected, the old paperbacks, the first editions, the Pléiades classics, the books signed by authors who’d come to do events at Le Cahier Rouge. Although there were books elsewhere in the apartment, this was the bookcase where he displayed the books that meant the most to him. He even made sure not to shelve authors who did not get on next to each other. So he would never put Céline next to Sartre, or Houellebecq next to Robbe-Grillet. The image of him posing next to an empty dress could have been captioned
The Imaginary Girlfriend
, a title borrowed from John Irving.
(The book did not recount the tale of a bookseller who finds the bag of an unknown woman but was actually the memoirs of the student Irving, his first literature courses and his discovery of Greco-Roman wrestling.)

He hung the dress back on the bookcase and turned to the card table. Laid out were the little stones, the mirror, the make-up bag, the keys with their hieroglyphic fob attached, the
Pariscope
, the little notebook with her thoughts, the Modiano paperback, the Montblanc pen, the hair clip with the blue flower, the recipe for
ris de veau
, and the packet of liquorice sweets. He took one. He was not going to find her. The search was over. The thought of putting all those objects back in the bag and taking it to Rue des Morillons was as repellent as the idea of taking an animal to a rescue shelter on the pretext that you could no longer look after it. Laurent suddenly felt profoundly dejected. He seriously considered leaving Laure’s possessions on the table for good. Like those knick-knacks that collect dust, family souvenirs brought back from holidays that end up being part of the decor. He switched off the light, and went back down to Le Cahier Rouge. In the gloom, the dress gave off an almost phosphorescent glow.

It was a terrible idea. An idea that only Dominique could have come up with. To meet up with other people rather than have dinner alone when they could have talked to each other, and he could have explained the story of the bag and the hairgrip and soothed her fears. She, however, wanted a neutral encounter in a neutral environment. In a new wine bar – Le Chantemuse – opened by a couple of graphic designers who had moved into bistronomy. There were to be seven guests: a couple of journalists – both remarried – who were celebrating their wood wedding anniversary (five years), an architect, a junior minister, a press officer and the two of them.

When he arrived, they were already seated at the back of the restaurant, each with a glass of green kir royale – which was apparently champagne with basil liqueur. Laurent kissed Dominique perfunctorily on the lips then greeted the other guests and sat down opposite her. Dominique seemed pleased to see him.

‘We’re waiting for Pierre, but I don’t understand, he’s not answering his mobile,’ announced the junior minister with the annoyed air of one who juggles many case files and does not appreciate unforeseen problems.

Dominique suggested that since he was flying in from Madrid, maybe his flight had been cancelled; the female half of the anniversary couple hoped there had not been an accident; the
press officer was more inclined to think that Pierre must have got the wrong date, then Laurent joined them all in toasting the wood anniversary of the couple he didn’t know. The architect did not turn up and his chair remained empty all evening. Laurent imagined that Pierre had probably preferred to stay in Madrid and eat tapas with a flamenco dancer, but he decided not to share this opinion with his neighbours.

The conversation turned to the exhibitions that were currently on and to politics. From time to time he caught Dominique’s eye. They held each other’s gaze without saying anything, then turned away again. Their complicity during these fleeting exchanges seemed faked – it was a far cry from the look that had passed between them on the evening of the event at Le Cahier Rouge. That look in which they had promised each other, almost by telepathy, that nothing would stop them ending the night together. That had been a little over a year ago, which was a cotton anniversary, according to the wood anniversary couple. Would they celebrate the next anniversary together? As the dinner progressed, Laurent doubted it. Ephemeral relationships like that just happen, programmed from the outset to die after a brief period – but you only realise that as they are about to end.