Ring Roads (4 page)

He took out a large handkerchief and mopped his forehead, and I suddenly remember that this is one of his favourite tics. He falls silent. As do I. The light is failing. Over there the other three are talking in hushed voices. I think Marcheret is saying to Murraille:

‘I had a phone call from your daughter. What the fuck is she doing in Paris?’

Murraille is shocked by such coarse language. A Marcheret, a d’Eu, talking like that!

‘If this carries on,’ the other says, ‘I shall break off the engagement!’

‘Tut-tut . . .’ Murraille says, ‘that would be a grave error.’

Sylviane breaks the ensuing silence to tell me about a man name Eddy Pagnon, about how, when they were in a night-club together, he had waved a revolver at the terrified guests. Eddy Pagnon . . . Another name that
seems
naggingly familiar. A celebrity? I don’t know, but I like the idea of this man who draws his revolver to threaten shadows.

My father had wandered over and was leaning on the balustrade of the veranda railing and I went up to him. He had lit a cigar, which he smoked distractedly. After a few minutes, he began blowing smoke rings. Behind us, the others went on whispering, they seemed to have forgotten us. He, too, ignored my presence despite the fact that several times I cleared my throat, and so we stood there for a long time, my father crafting smoke rings and I admiring their perfection.

We retired to the drawing-room, taking the French windows that led off the veranda. It was a large room furnished in colonial style. On the far wall, a wallpaper in delicate shades showed (Murraille explained to me later) a scene from
Paul et Virginie
. A rocking-chair, small tables, and cane armchairs. Pouffes here and there. (Marcheret, I learned, had brought them back from Bouss-Bir when he left the Legion.) Three Chinese lanterns hanging from the ceiling spread a wavering light. On a whatnot, I saw some opium pipes . . . The whole weird and faded collection was reminiscent of Tonkin, of the plantations of South Carolina, the French concession of Shanghai or Lyautey’s Morocco, and I
clearly
failed to conceal my surprise because Murraille, in an embarrassed voice, said: ‘Guy chose the furnishings.’ I sat down, keeping in the background. Sitting around a tray of liqueurs, they were talking in low voices. The uneasiness I had felt since the beginning of the evening increased and I wondered whether it might be better if I left at once. But I was completely unable to move, as in a nightmares when you try to run from a looming danger and your legs refuse to function. All through dinner, the half-light had given their words, gestures, faces a hazy, unreal character; and now, in the mean glow cast by the drawing-room lamps, everything became even more indistinct. I thought my uneasiness was that of a man groping in the dark, fumbling vainly for a light-switch. Suddenly I shook with nervous laughter, which the others – luckily – didn’t notice. They continued their whispered conversation, of which I couldn’t hear a word. They were dressed in the normal outfits of well-heeled Parisians down for a few days in the country. Murraille wore a tweed jacket; Marcheret a sweater – cashmere, no doubt – in a choice shade of brown; my father a grey-flannel suit. Their collars were open to reveal immaculately knotted silk cravats. Sylviane Quimphe’s riding-breeches added a note of sporting elegance to the whole.

But
it was all glaringly at odds with this room where one expected to see people in linen suits and pith helmets.

‘You’re all alone?’ Murraille asked me. ‘It’s my fault. I’m a terrible host.’

‘My dear Monsieur Alexandre, you haven’t tried this excellent brandy yet.’ And Marcheret handed me a glass with a peremptory gesture. ‘Drink up!’

I forced it down, my stomach heaving.

‘Do you like the room?’ he asked. ‘Exotic, isn’t it? I’ll show you my bedroom. I had a mosquito net installed.’

‘Guy suffers from a nostalgia for the colonies,’ Murraille said.

‘Vile places,’ said Marcheret. Dreamily: ‘But if I was asked to, I’d re-enlist.’

He was silent, as though no one could possibly understand all that he’d like to say on the subject. My father nodded. There was a long, pregnant pause. Sylviane Quimphe stroked her boots absent-mindedly. Murraille followed with his eyes the flight of a butterfly which had alighted on one of the Chinese lanterns. My father had fallen into a state of prostration that worried me. His chin was almost on his chest, drops of sweat beaded on his forehead. I wished that a ‘boy’ could come with shuffling steps to clear the table and extinguish the lights.

Marcheret
put a record on the gramophone. A sweet melody. I think it was called ‘Soir de septembre’.

‘Do you dance?’ Sylviane Quimphe asked me.

She didn’t wait for an answer, and in an instant we’re dancing. My head is spinning. Every time I wheel and turn, I see my father.

‘You ought to ride,’ she says. ‘If you like, I’ll take you to the stables tomorrow.’

Had he dozed off? I hadn’t forgotten that he often closed his eyes, but that it was only pretence.

‘You’ll see, it’s so wonderful, taking long rides in the forest!’

He had put on a lot of weight in ten years. I’d never seen his complexion so livid.

‘Are you a friend of Jean’s?’ she asked me.

‘Not yet, but I hope to be.’

She seemed surprised by this reply.

‘And I hope that we’ll be friends, you and I,’ I added.

‘Of course. You’re so charming.’

‘Do you know this . . . Baron Deyckecaire?’

‘Not very well.’

‘What does he do, exactly?’

‘I don’t know; you really should ask Jean.’

‘I find him rather odd, myself.’

‘Oh, he’s probably a black marketeer . . .’

At
midnight, Murraille wanted to hear the last news bulletin. The newsreader’s voice was even more strident than usual. After announcing the news briefly, he gave forth a kind of commentary on a hysterical note. I imagined him behind his mike: sickly, in black tie and shirtsleeves. He finished with: ‘Goodnight to you all.’

‘Thanks,’ said Marcheret.

Murraille led me aside. He rubbed the side of his nose, put his hand on my shoulder.

‘Look, what do you think . . . I’ve just had an idea . . . How would you like to contribute to the magazine?’

‘Really?’

I had stuttered a little and the result was ridiculous: Re-re-really? . . .

‘Yes, I’d very much like to have a boy like you working on
C’est la vie
. Assuming you don’t think journalism beneath you?’

‘Not at all!’

He hesitated, then in a more friendly tone:

‘I don’t want to make things awkward for you, in view of the rather . . .
singular
. . . nature of my magazine . . .’

‘I’m not afraid to get my hands dirty.’

‘That’s very courageous of you.’

‘But what would you want me to write?’

‘
Oh, whatever you like: a story, a topical piece, an article of the “Seen & Heard” variety. Take your time.’

These last few words he spoke with a curious insistence, looking me straight in the eye,

‘All right?’ He smiled. ‘So you’re willing to get your hands dirty?’

‘Why not?’

We rejoined the others. Marcheret and Sylviane Quimphe were talking about a night-club which had opened in the Rue Jean-Mermoz. My father, who had joined in the conversation, said he liked the American bar in the Avenue de Wagram, the one run by a former racing cyclist.

‘You mean the Rayon d’Or?’ Marcheret asked.

‘No, it’s called the Fairyland,’ said my father.

‘You’re wrong, Fat Man! The Fairyland is in Rue Fontaine!’

‘I don’t think so . . .’ said my father.

‘47 Rue Fontaine. Shall we go and check?’

‘You’re right, Guy,’ sighed my father. ‘You’re right . . .’

‘Do you know the Château-Bagatelle?’ Sylviane Quimphe asked. ‘I hear it’s very amusing.’

‘Rue de Clichy?’ my father wanted to know.

‘No, no!’ Marcheret cried. ‘Rue Magellan! You’re
confusing
it with Marcel Dieu-donné
.
You always get everything mixed up! Last time we were supposed to meet at L’Écrin on the Rue Joubert, Monsieur here waited for us until midnight at Cesare Leone on the Rue de Hanovre. Isn’t that right, Jean?’

‘It was hardly the end of the world,’ grunted Murraille.

For a quarter of an hour, they reeled off the names of bars and cabaret clubs as though Paris, France, the universe itself, were a red-light district, a vast al fresco brothel.

‘What about you, Monsieur Alexandre, do you go out a lot?’

‘No.’

‘Well then, my boy, we shall introduce you to the “heady pleasures of Parisian nightlife”.’

They went on drinking, talking of other clubs some of whose names dazzled me: L’Armorial, Czardas, Honolulu, Schubert, Gipsy’s, Monico, L’Athénien, Melody’s, Badinage. They were all talking volubly as though they would never stop. Sylviane Quimphe unbuttoned her blouse, and the faces of my father, Marcheret and Murraille flushed an unsettling crimson hue. I dimly recognised a few more names: Le Triolet, Monte-Cristo, Capurro’s, Valencia. My mind was reeling. In the colonies – I thought – the evenings must drag on interminably
like
this. Neurasthenic settlers mulling over their memories and trying to fight back the fear that suddenly grips them, that they will die at the next monsoon.

My father got up. He said he was tired and had some work to finish that night.

‘Are you planning to become a counterfeiter, Chalva?’ asked Marcheret, his voice slurred. ‘Don’t you think, Monsieur Alexandre, that he’s got the face of a forger?’

‘Don’t listen to him,’ my father said. He shook hands with Murraille.

‘Don’t worry,’ he murmured to him. ‘I’ll take care of all that.’

‘I’m relying on you, Chalva.’

When he came up to say goodbye to me, I said:

‘I must go, too. We could walk part of the way together.’

‘I’d be delighted.’

‘Must you go so soon?’ Sylviane Quimphe asked me.

‘If I were you,’ Marcheret quipped, wagging a finger to my father ‘I wouldn’t trust him!’

Murraille walked us out on to the veranda.

‘I look forward to your article,’ he said. ‘Be bold!’

We walked in silence. He seemed surprised when I turned up the Chemin du Bornage with him rather than going straight on, to the
auberge
. He gave me a furtive
glance.
Did he recognize me? I wanted to ask him outright, but I remembered how skilled he was at dodging awkward questions. Hadn’t he told me himself one day: ‘I could make a dozen prosecutors throw in the towel’? We passed beneath a street lamp. A few metres farther on, we found ourselves once more in darkness. The only houses I could see looked derelict. The wind rustled in the leaves. Perhaps in the intervening decade he had forgotten that I ever existed. All the plotting and scheming I had done just so that I could walk next to this man . . . I thought of the drawing-room of the ‘Villa Mektoub’, of the faces of Murraille, Marcheret, and Sylviane Quimphe, of Maud Gallas behind the bar, and Grève crossing the garden . . . Every gesture, every word, the moments of panic, the long vigils, the worry during these interminable days. I felt an urge to throw up . . . I had to stop to catch my breath. He turned to me. To his left, another streetlight shrouded him in pale light. He stood motionless, petrified, and I had to stop myself reaching out to touch him, to reassure myself that this was not a dream. As I walked on and I thought back to the walks we used to take in Paris long ago. We would stroll side by side, as we were tonight. In fact in the time we had known each other, this was all we have ever done. Walked, without either of us breaking the silence. It was
no
different now. After a bend in the path, we came to the gate of the ‘Priory’. I said softly: ‘Beautiful night, isn’t it?’ He replied abstractedly: ‘Yes, a lovely night.’ We were a few yards from the gate and I was waiting for the moment when he would shake hands and take his leave. Then I would watch him disappear into the darkness and stand there, in the middle of the road, in the bewildered state of a man who may just have let slip the chance of a lifetime.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘this is where I live.’

He nodded shyly towards the house which was just visible at the end of the drive. The roof shimmered softly with moonlight.

‘Oh? So this is it?’

‘Yes.’

An awkwardness between us. He had probably been trying to hint that we should say goodnight, but saw that I was hesitant.

‘It looks like a beautiful house,’ I said, in a confident tone.

‘A lovely house, yes.’

I detected a slight edginess in his voice.

‘Did you buy it recently?’

‘Yes. I mean no!’ He stammered. He was leaning against the gate and didn’t move.

‘
So you’re renting the place?’

He tried to catch my eye, which I noticed with surprise. He never looked directly at people.

‘Yes, I’m renting it.’

The words were barely audible.

‘You probably think I’m being terribly nosy?’

‘Not at all, monsieur.’

He gave a faint smile, more a tremor of the lips, as though afraid of being hit, and I pitied him. This feeling I had always experienced with regard to him, which caused a burning pain in my gut.

‘Your friends seem charming,’ I said. ‘I had a lovely evening.’

‘I’m glad.’

This time, he held out his hand.

‘I must go in and work.’

‘What at?’

‘Nothing very interesting. Accounting.’

‘Good luck,’ I murmured. ‘I hope I’ll run into you again soon.’

‘It would be a pleasure.’

As he opened the gate, I felt a sudden panic: should I tap him on the shoulder, and tell him every detail of the pains I had taken to find him? What good would it do? He trudged up the driveway slowly as though completely
exhausted.
For a long moment, he stood at the top of the steps. From a distance, his figure looked indistinct. Did it belong to a man or to one of those monstrous creatures who loom over you in feverish dreams?

Did he wonder what I was doing there, standing on the other side of the gate?