So You Don't Get Lost in the Neighborhood (7 page)

The weather was hot and this Indian summer would probably extend into November. He decided to go out instead of waiting in his study until sunset, as he usually did. Later on, when he returned, he would try to decipher with the aid of a magnifying glass the photocopies that he had read through too quickly the previous day. Perhaps in this way he would have the opportunity to learn something about Annie Astrand. He regretted not having asked her these questions when he had seen her again fifteen years after the Photomaton shop episode, but he had very soon realised that he would not receive any response from her.

Outside, he felt more carefree than he had on previous days. He may have been wrong to immerse himself in this distant past. What was the point? He had not thought about it for a number of years, and so eventually it seemed to him that he saw this period of his life through a frosted window. It allowed a vague clarity to filter through, but you could not make out the faces or even the figures. A glazed window, a sort of protective screen. Perhaps, thanks to deliberate forgetfulness, he had managed to protect himself from this past for good. Or else, it was time that had subdued its more intense colours and rough edges.

There, on the pavement, in the light of the Indian summer that lent the Paris streets a timeless softness, he once again had the feeling that he was floating on his back. He had not experienced this sensation since last year, and he wondered whether it might not be linked to the onset of old age. When he was very young, he had known those moments of semi-slumber when you allow yourself to drift—usually after being up all night—but today it was different: the sense of free-wheeling down a slope, when the motor has stopped. How far would you go?

He glided, swept along by a breeze and by his own weight. He bumped into pedestrians who were coming in the opposite direction and had not moved out of the way quickly enough as he passed by. He apologised. It was not his fault. Normally, he displayed far greater vigilance when he walked in the street, ready to change pavements if he saw someone in the distance whom he knew or who might accost him. He was aware that you very seldom met anyone you really had wanted to meet. Twice or three times in a lifetime?

He would happily have walked to rue de Charonne to take Chantal Grippay's dress back to her, but he risked coming across Gilles Ottolini. And if he did? It would provide an opportunity to be better informed about the uncertain existence of this man. Chantal Grippay's remark came back to him: “They want to make him redundant at the Sweerts agency.” Yet she must know that the Sweerts agency did not exist. And the book,
Le Flâneur hippique
, the copyright of which dated from before the war? Had Ottolini taken the manuscript to Éditions du Sablier in a former life and under a different first name? He, Daragane, deserved a few explanations about these matters, after all.

He had reached the arcades of the Palais-Royal. He had walked without any particular aim. But, in crossing the Pont des Arts and the courtyard of the Louvre, he was following a route that was familiar to him from his childhood. He walked along what is known as the Louvre des Antiquaires and he remembered the Christmas windows of the Grands Magasins du Louvre in the same spot. And now that he had paused in the middle of the Galerie de Beaujolais, as though he had reached the end of his walk, another memory came back to him. It had been buried away for so long and so deeply, far from the light of day, that it seemed new. He wondered whether it really was a memory or whether it was a snapshot that no longer belonged to the past, having detached itself like a free electron: his mother and he—one of the rare occasions when they were together—entering a shop that sold books and paintings, and his mother speaking to two men, one of whom was sitting at a desk at the back of the shop while the other stood with his elbow propped against a marble fireplace. Guy Torstel. Jacques Perrin de Lara. Frozen there, until the end of time. How could it be that on that Sun-day in autumn when he had returned from Le Tremblay with Chantal and Paul, in Torstel's car, this name should not have reminded him of anything, any more than his visiting card did, despite the fact that the address of the shop was printed on it?

In the car, Torstel had even referred to “the house on the outskirts of Paris” where, as a child, he had seen him at Annie Astrand's house. He, Daragane, had stayed there for almost a year. At Saint-Leu-la-Forêt. “I remember a child,” Torstel had said. “That child was you, I suppose . . .” And Daragane had replied to him curtly, as though this was nothing to do with him. It was the Sunday when he had begun to write
Le Noir de l'été
after Torstel had dropped him at square du Graisivaudan. And not for a moment had he had the presence of mind to ask him whether he remembered the woman who lived in this house, at Saint-Leu-la-Forêt, “a certain Annie Astrand”. And whether he happened to know what had become of her.

He sat down on a garden bench, in the sunshine, near the arcades of the Galerie de Beaujolais. He must have walked for over an hour without even noticing that it was hotter still than on the other days. Torstel. Perrin de Lara. But yes, he had met Perrin de Lara one final time, in the same year as that Sunday at Le Tremblay—he was barely twenty-one—and this meeting would have vanished into
la nuit froide de l'oubli
—as the song goes—had it not been to do with Annie Astrand. One evening, he happened to be in a café on the Rond-Point des Champs-Élysées, one that had been converted into a “Drugstore” in the years that followed. It was ten o'clock. A pause before continuing his walk to square du Graisivaudan, or rather to a room in rue Coustou that he had been renting for some time at six hundred francs a month.

He had not immediately noticed the presence, that night, of Perrin de Lara, in front of him, sitting on the terrace. Alone.

Why had he spoken to him? He had not seen him for over ten years, and this man would certainly not recognise him. But he was writing his first book, and Annie Astrand was filling his mind in an obsessive way. Perhaps Perrin de Lara knew something about her?

He had stood in front of his table, and the man had looked up. No, he did not recognise him.

“Jean Daragane.”

“Ah . . . Jean . . .”

He smiled at him, a faint smile, as though he were embarrassed that someone should recognise him at that time of night, on his own, in such a place.

“You've grown taller over the years . . . Sit down, Jean . . .”

He pointed to the chair, opposite him. Daragane hesitated for a fraction of a second. The glazed terrace door was ajar. All he had to do was say what he normally said: “Wait . . . I'll be back . . .” Then go out into the open air of the night, and take a deep breath. And, most importantly, avoid any further contact with a shadow, who would be waiting over there, alone, on a café terrace, for all eternity.

He sat down. Perrin de Lara's Roman-statue face had become bloated and his hair had acquired a greyish tinge. He was wearing a navy-blue linen jacket that was too flimsy for the season. In front of him, a half-drunk glass of Martini, which Daragane recognised by its colour.

“And your mother? It's years since I've been in touch with her . . . You know . . . we were like brother and sister . . .”

He shrugged, and there was an anxious expression in his eyes.

“I've been away from Paris for a long time . . .”

It was clear that he would have liked to tell him about the reasons for this long absence. But he remained silent.

“And have you seen your friends Torstel and Bob Bugnand again?”

Perrin de Lara seemed surprised to hear these two names coming from Daragane's lips. Surprised, and suspicious.

“What a memory you have . . . do you remember those two? . . .”

He stared at Daragane, whose gaze made him feel uncomfortable.

“No . . . I don't see them anymore . . . It's incredible what good memories children have . . . And you, what's new?”

Daragane could sense a note of bitterness in this question. But perhaps he was mistaken, or else in Perrin de Lara's case was it simply the effect of a Martini drunk on his own, at ten o'clock at night, in autumn, on the terrace of a café?

“I'm trying to write a book . . .”

He wondered why he had admitted this.

“Ah . . . like the time when you were jealous of Minou Drouet?”

Daragane had forgotten this name. But yes, this was the little girl of his own age who had once published the anthology of poems,
Arbre, mon ami
.

“Literature's a very difficult thing . . . I suppose you must have realised this already . . .”

Perrin de Lara's voice had taken on a moralising tone that surprised Daragane. The little he knew of him and the childhood memory he retained of him would have led him to think that this man was rather frivolous. The sort of person who perches his elbow on marble fireplaces. Had he, like his mother and Torstel, and possibly Bob Bugnand too, belonged to the “Chrysalis Club”?

He eventually said to him:

“So, after all this time away, you've come back to Paris for good?”

The man shrugged and looked at Daragane with a haughty expression, as though the latter had lacked respect.

“I don't know what you mean by ‘for good'.”

Daragane did not know either. He had simply said that for the sake of conversation. And the man was very touchy . . . He felt like standing up and saying to him: “Well, good luck, monsieur . . .” and, before going through the glazed terrace door, he would smile and wave to him, as though on a railway station platform. He restrained himself. Patience was required. He may know something about Annie Astrand.

“You used to give me advice about reading . . . Do you remember?”

He did his best to speak with emotion. And it was true, after all, that when he was a child this shadowy figure had given him La Fontaine's
Fables
in the Classiques Hachette collection with their pale green covers. And some time later, the same man had recommended that he read
Fabrizio Lupo
when he was older.

“You really do have a good memory . . .”

His tone had softened, and Perrin de Lara was smiling at him. But the smile was slightly strained. He leant over towards Daragane:

“I have to tell you . . . I no longer recognise the Paris in which I lived . . . Five years away were enough . . . I feel as though I'm in a foreign city . . .”

He clenched his jaws as if to prevent the words tumbling from his lips in a confused stream. He had probably not spoken to anyone for a long time.

“People no longer reply to telephone calls . . . I don't know whether they're still alive, whether they've forgotten me, or whether they don't have time anymore to take a call . . .”

His grin had grown broader, his expression gentler. Perhaps he meant to cushion the sadness of his words, a sadness that was in keeping with the deserted terrace where the lighting created pools of dim light.

He seemed to regret having confided these matters. He sat up straight and looked over towards the glazed terrace door. In spite of the coarsening of his face and the grey curls that now made his hair look like a wig, he retained that statuesque stillness that he often displayed ten years ago, one of the rare images of Jacques Perrin de Lara that Daragane remembered. And he also had the habit of frequently turning his head in profile when speaking to people, as he did at this moment. He must have once been told that he had a rather fine profile, but all those who had told him so were dead.

“Do you live in the neighbourhood?” Daragane asked him. Once again, he leant over towards him and was hesitant in his reply.

“Not very far away . . . in a small hotel in the Ternes district

“You must give me the address . . .”

“Would you really like me to?”

“Yes . . . I'd be happy to see you again.”

He was now going to get to the heart of the matter. And he felt some apprehension. He cleared his throat.

“I'd like to ask you for some information . . .”

His voice was hollow. He noticed the surprise on Perrin de Lara's face.

“It's to do with somebody you may have known . . . Annie Astrand . . .”

He had spoken this name quite loudly and articulated the syllables carefully, as you do on the telephone when interference is likely to muffle your voice.

“Tell me the name again . . .”

“ANNIE ASTRAND.”

He had almost yelled it out and he felt as though he had been sending out a call for help.

“I lived at her home for a long time in a house at Saint-Leu-la-Forêt . . .”

The words he had just uttered were very clear and sounded metallic in the silence of this terrace, but he thought they made no difference.

“Yes . . . I see . . . we went to visit you there once, with your mother . . .”

He stopped speaking, and he would say nothing further on the subject. It was purely a distant memory that did not concern him. One should never expect anyone to reply to one's questions.

Nevertheless, he added:

“A very young woman . . . the night-club dancer sort . . . Bob Bugnand and Torstel knew her better than I did . . . and your mother too . . . I believe she had been in prison . . . And so why are you interested in this woman?”

“She meant a great deal to me.”

“Ah, really . . . Well, I'm sorry not to be able to give you any information . . . I had vaguely heard of her through your mother and Bob Bugnand . . .”

His voice had taken on a sociable tone. Daragane wondered whether he was not imitating someone who had impressed him in his youth and whose mannerisms and way of speaking he had practised imitating, in the evening in front of a mirror, someone who for him, a decent, slightly naive lad, represented the height of Parisian elegance.