Ring Roads (7 page)

And I remember we bought a second-hand car, an old Talbot, in which we took night-time jaunts through Paris. Before setting out, we had a ritual of drawing lots. Twenty slips of paper were scattered over the rickety drawing-room table. We would choose one at random, and this would be our itinerary for the evening. Batignolles-Grenelle. Auteuil-Picpus. Passy-La Villette. Otherwise, we would cast off and set sail for one of those
quartiers
with mysterious names: Les Épinettes, la Maison-Blanche, Bel-Air, l’Amérique, la Glacière, Plaisance, la Petite-Pologne . . . I have only to set foot in certain secret parts of Paris for memories to erupt like sparks from a fire. The Place d’Italie, for example, was a favourite port of call on our trips . . . There was a café there, the Claire de Lune. Towards 1 a.m., all the flotsam from the music-hall would gather there: pre-war accordionists, white-haired tango dancers trying to recapture the languorous agility of their youth on that tiny stage, haggard old crones with too much make-up singing songs by Fréhel or Suzy Solidor. Desolate street entertainers entertained during the ‘intermissions’. The orchestra consisted of Brylcreemed men in dinner
jackets.
It was one of my father’s favourite places; he took great pleasure in watching these ghostly figures. I never understood why.

And let’s not forget the illicit brothel at 73 Avenue Reille, on the edge of the Parc Montsouris. My father would gossip endlessly with the Madame, a blonde woman with a doll-like face. Like him, she was from Alexandria, and they would reminisce about the nights there, about Sidi Bishr, the Pastroudis Bar and various other places that have long since ceased to exist . . . We would often linger until dawn in this Egyptian enclave in the 14th
arrondissement
. But there were other places that called to us on our odysseys (or our escapes?). An all-night restaurant on the Boulevard Murat lost among blocks of flats. The place was always empty and, for some mysterious reason, a large photograph of Daniel-Rops hung on one of the walls. A pseudo ‘American’ bar, between Maillot and Champerret, the gathering point for a gang of bookies. And when we ventured as far as the extreme north of Paris – the region of docks and slaughterhouses – we would stop off at the Boeuf-Bleu, on the Place de Joinville, by the Canal de l’Ourcq. My father particularly liked this spot because it reminded him of the Saint-Andre district, in Antwerp, where he had lived long ago. We would go south-east to where the
tree-
lined streets lead to the Bois de Vincennes. We would stop by Chez Raimo on the Place Daumesnil, invariably open at this late hour. A gloomy ‘patissier-glacier’, of the sort you can still find in spa towns that no one – except us – seemed to know about. Other places come back to me, in waves. Our various addresses: 65 Boulevard Kellermann, with its view of the Gentilly cemetery; the apartment on the Rue du Regard where the previous tenant had left behind a musical-box that I sold for 30,000 francs. The bourgeois apartment building on the Avenue Félix-Faure where the concierge would always greet us with: ‘Here come the Jews!’ Or an evening spent in the run-down three-room flat on the Quai de Grenelle, near the Vélodrome d’Hiver. The electricity had been cut off. Leaning on the window-sill, we watched the comings and goings of the elevated métro. My father was wearing a tattered, patched smoking jacket. He point to the Citadelle de Passy, on the far bank of the Seine. In a tone that brooked no argument, he announced: ‘One day we’ll have a
hôtel particulier
near the Trocadéro!’ In the meantime, he would arrange to meet me in the lobbies of grand hotels. He felt more important there, more likely to succeed in his great financial coups. He would sit there the whole afternoon. I don’t know how many times I met him at the Majestic,
the
Continental, the Claridge, the Astoria. These places where people were constantly coming and going suited a restless and unstable spirit such as his.

Every morning, he would greet me in his ‘office’ on the Rue des Jardins-Saint-Paul. A vast room whose only furnishing were a wickerwork chair and an Empire desk. The parcels we had to send that day would be piled up round the walls. After logging them in an account book with the names and addresses of the addressees, we would have a ‘work conference’. I would tell him about the book I intended to purchase, and the technical details of my dedications I planned to forge. The different inks, pens or fountain pens used for each author. We would check the accounts, study the
Courrier des collectionneurs
. Then we would take the parcels down to the Talbot and packed them on the back seat as best we could. This drudge work exhausted me.

My father would then make the rounds of the railway stations to dispatch the cargo. In the afternoon, he would visit his warehouse in the Quartier de Javel and from among the bric-a-brac, choose twenty or so pieces that might be of interest to our clients, ferry them to the Rue des Jardins-Saint-Paul and begin to parcel them up. After which he would restock with merchandise. We had to satisfy the demands of our clients as
attentively
as possible. These lunatics were not prepared to wait.

I would take a suitcase and head off on my own, to scout around until evening, in an area bounded by the Bastille, the Place de la République, the
grands boulevards
, the Avenue de l’Opéra and the Seine. These districts each have a particular peculiar charm. Saint-Paul, where I have dreamed of spending my old age. All I would need was a little shop, some small business. The Rue Pavée or the Rue du Roi-de-Sicile, that ghetto to which I would be inevitably drawn back one day. In the Temple district, I felt my bargain-hunting instincts come to the fore. In the Sentier, that exotic principality formed by the Place du Caire, the Rue du Nil, the Passage Ben-Aiad and the Rue d’Aboukir, I thought about my poor father. The first four
arrondissements
sub-divide into a tangled multitude of provinces whose unseen borders I eventually came to know. Beaubourg, Greneta, le Mail, la Pointe Sainte-Eustache, les Victoires . . . My last port of call was a bookshop called Le Petit-Mirioux in the Galerie Vivienne. I got there just as it was getting dark. I scoured the shelves, convinced that I would find what I was looking for. Mme Petit-Mirioux stocked literary works of the past hundred years. So many unjustly forgotten books and authors, we agreed regretfully.
They
had taken so much trouble for nothing . . . We consoled each other, she and I, reassuring ourselves there were still fans of Pierre Hamp or Jean-José Frappa and that sooner or later, the Fischer brothers would be rescued from oblivion and on that comforting note, took leave of each other. The rest of the shops in the Galerie Vivienne seemed to have been closed for centuries. In the window of a music bookshop, three yellowing Offenbach scores. I sat down on my suitcase. Not a sound. Time had stood still at some point between the July Monarchy and the Second Empire. From the far end of the Galerie came the faint glow of the bookshop, and I could just make out the shadow of Mme Petit-Mirioux. How long would she remain at her post? Poor old sentinel.

Farther on, the deserted arcades of the Palais-Royal. People had played here, once. But no more. I walked through the gardens. A zone of silence and mellow half-light where the memories of dead years and broken promises tug at the heart. Place du Théâtre-Francais. The streetlights are dazzling. You are a diver coming up too quickly to the surface. I had arranged to meet ‘papa’ in a caravanserai on the Champs-Élysées. We would get into the Talbot, as we always did, and sail across Paris.

Before me was the Avenue de l’Opéra. It heralded other boulevards, other streets, that would later cast us to the
four
points of the compass. My heart beat a little faster. In the midst of so much uncertainty, my only landmarks, the only ground which did not shift beneath my feet, were the pavements and the junctions of this city where, in the end, I would probably find myself alone.

Now, though it grieves me, I must come to the ‘distressing incident at the George V métro’. For several weeks my father had been fascinated by the Petite Ceinture, the disused railway-line that circles Paris. Was he planning to have it renovated by public subscription? Bank loans? Every Sunday, he would ask me to go with him to the outskirts of the city and we followed the path of the old railway-line on foot. The stations along the route were derelict or had been turned into warehouses. The tracks were overgrown with weeds. From time to time my father would stop to scribble a note or sketch something indecipherable in his notebook. What was he dreaming of? Was he waiting for a train that would never come?

On that Sunday, 17 June, we had followed the Petite Ceinture through the 12th
arrondissement
. Not without effort. Near the Rue de Montempoivre, the track joins those coming from Vincennes and we ended up getting confused. After three hours, emerging dazed from this labyrinth of metal, we decided to go home by métro.
My
father seemed disappointed with his afternoon. Usually when we returned from these expeditions, he was in excellent humour and would show me his notes. He was planning to compile a ‘comprehensive’ file on the Petite Ceinture – he explained – and offer it to the public authorities.

‘We shall see what we shall see.’

What? I didn’t dare ask. But, that Sunday evening, 17 June, his brash enthusiasm had melted away. Sitting in the carriage of the Vincennes-Neuilly métro, he ripped the pages from his notebook one by one, and tore them into minute scraps which he tossed like handfuls of confetti. He worked with the detachment of a sleepwalker and a painstaking fury I had never seen in him before. I tried to calm him. I told him that it was a great pity to destroy such an important work on a whim, that I had every confidence in his talents as an organizer. He fixed me with a glassy eye. We got out at the George V station. We were waiting on the platform. My father stood behind me, sulking. The station gradually filled, as if it were rush-hour. People were coming back from the cinema or from strolling along the Champs-Élysées. We were pressed against each other. I found myself at the front, on the edge of the platform. Impossible to draw back. I turned towards my father. His face was dripping
with
sweat. The roar of a train. Just as it came into sight, someone pushed me roughly in the back.

Next, I find myself lying on one of the station benches surrounded by a little group of busybodies. They are whispering. One bends down to tell me that I’ve had ‘a narrow escape’. Another, in cap and uniform (a métro official perhaps) announces that he is going to ‘call the police’. My father stands in the background. He coughs.

Two policemen help me to my feet. Holding me under the arms. We move through the station. People turn to stare. My father follows behind, diffidently. We get into the police van parked on the Avenue George V. The people on the terrace outside Fouquet’s are enjoying the beautiful summer evening.

We sit next to each other. My father’s head is bowed. The two policemen sit facing us but do not speak. We pull up outside the police station at 5 Rue Clement-Marot. Before going in, my father wavers. His lips nervously curl into a rictus smile.

The policemen exchange a few words with a tall thin man. The
commissaire
? He asks to see our papers. My father, with obvious reluctance, proffers his Nansen passport.

‘Refugee?’ asks the
commissaire
. . .

‘I’m about to be naturalized,’ my father mumbles. He
must
have prepared this reply in advance. ‘But my son is French.’ In a whisper: ‘and a
bachelier
. . .’

The
commissaire
turns to me:

‘So you nearly got run over by a train?’ I say nothing. ‘Lucky someone caught you or you’d be in a pretty state.’

Yes, someone had saved my life by catching me just in time, as I was about to fall. I have only a vague memory of those few seconds.

‘So why is it,’ the
commissaire
goes on, ‘that you shouted out “
MURDERER!”
several times as you were carried to the bench?’

Then he turns to my father: ‘Does your son suffer from persecution mania?’

He doesn’t give him time to answer. He turns back to me and asks point-blank: ‘Maybe someone behind pushed you? Think carefully . . . take all the time you need.’

A young man at the far end of the office was tapping away at a typewriter. The
commissaire
sat behind his desk and leafed through a file. My father and I sat waiting. I thought they had forgotten us, but at length the
commissaire
looked up and said to me:

‘If you want to report the incident, don’t hesitate. That’s what I’m here for.’

From time to time the young man brought him a typewritten page which he corrected with a red pen. How
long
would they keep us there? The
commissaire
pointed towards my father.

‘Political refugee or just refugee?’

‘Just refugee.’

‘Good,’ said the
commissaire
.

Then he went back to his file.

Time passed. My father showed signs of nervousness. I think he was digging his nails into his palms. In fact he was at my mercy – and he knew it – otherwise why did he keep glancing at me worriedly? I had to face the facts: someone had pushed me so that I would fall on the tracks and be ripped to shreds by the train. And it was the man with the south-American appearance sitting beside me. The proof: I had felt his signet-ring pressing into my shoulder-blade.

As though he could read my mind, the
commissaire
asked casually:

‘Do you get on well with your father?’

(Some policemen have the gift of clairvoyance. Like the inspector from the security branch of the police force who, when he retired, changed sex and offered ‘psychic’ readings under the name of ‘Madame Dubail’.)

‘We get on very well,’ I replied.

‘Are you sure?’

He asked the question wearily, and immediately began
to
yawn. I was convinced he already knew everything, but simply was not interested. A young man pushed under the métro by his father, he must have come across hundreds of similar cases. Routine work.