Suspended Sentences (20 page)

Behind me, the jukebox was playing an Italian song. The stench of burned tires floated in the air. A girl was walking under the leaves of the trees along Boulevard Jourdan. Her blond bangs, cheekbones, and green dress were the only note of freshness on that early August afternoon. Why bother chasing ghosts and trying to solve insoluble mysteries, when life was there, in all its simplicity, beneath the sun?

When I was twenty, I would feel relieved when I passed from the Left Bank to the Right Bank of the Seine, crossing via the Pont des Arts. Night had already fallen. I turned back one last time to see the North Star shining above the dome of the Institut de France.

All the neighborhoods on the Left Bank were only provinces of Paris. The moment I reached the Right Bank, the air felt lighter.

Today I wonder what I could have been fleeing by crossing over the Pont des Arts. Perhaps the neighborhood I had known with my brother, which wasn’t the same without him: the school on Rue du Pont-de-Lodi; the town hall of the sixth arrondissement, where they handed out the scholastic prizes; the number 63 bus that we waited for in front of the Café de Flore, which took us to the Bois de Boulogne … For a long time, I felt uneasy walking on certain streets of the Left Bank. At this point, the area has become indifferent, as if it had been rebuilt stone by stone after a bombardment but had lost its soul. And yet, one summer afternoon, turning onto Rue Cardinale, I rediscovered in a flash something of the Saint-Germain-des-Prés of my childhood, which resembled the old city of Saint-Tropez, without the tourists. From the church square, Rue Bonaparte sloped down toward the sea.

Once across the Pont des Arts, I walked beneath the archway of the Louvre, another domain with which I’d long been familiar. Beneath that archway, a musty odor of mildew, urine, and rotten wood wafted from the left side of the passage, where we’d never dared venture. Light fell from a filthy, cobweb-covered window, leaving in half-shadow heaps of rubble, wooden beams, and old gardening implements.
We were sure that rats were hiding in there, and we hastened our steps to emerge into the fresh air of the Louvre courtyard.

In the four corners of that courtyard, grass spurted between the loose cobblestones. There, too, were heaps of rubble, building stones, and rusty iron rods.

The Cour du Carrousel was lined with stone benches, at the foot of the palace wings that framed the two little squares. There was no one on those benches. Except for us. And sometimes a vagrant. In the middle of the first square, on a pedestal so high that you could barely make out the statue, General Lafayette vanished into the stratosphere. The pedestal was surrounded by a lawn that they never trimmed. We could play and lie around in the tall grass without a groundskeeper ever coming to reprimand us.

In the second square, among the copses, were two bronze statues side by side: Cain and Abel. The fence surrounding them dated from the Second Empire. Visitors crowded around the museum entrance, but we were the only children to frequent those abandoned squares.

The most mysterious zone stretched to the left of the Carrousel gardens along the southern wing that ends at the Pavillon de Flore. It was a wide alley, separated from the gardens by a fence and lined with streetlamps. As in the Louvre courtyard, weeds grew among the cobblestones, but most of the stones had disappeared, leaving bare patches of ground. Farther up, in the recess formed by the palace wing, was a clock. And behind that clock, the cell of the Prisoner of Zenda. No stroller in the Carrousel gardens ventured down that alley. We spent entire afternoons playing amid the broken birdbaths and statues, the stones and dead leaves. The hands of the clock never moved. They forever struck five-thirty. Those immobile hands enveloped us in a deep, soothing silence. We only had to stay in the alley and nothing would ever change.

There was a police station in the courtyard of the Louvre, on the right-hand side of the archway that led out to Rue de Rivoli. A Black Maria was parked nearby. Officers in uniform stood in front of the
half-open door, through which filtered a yellow light. Under the archway, to the right, was the main entrance to the station. For me, that was the border post that truly marked the passage from the Left Bank to the Right, and I felt my pocket to make sure I was carrying my identity card.

The arcades of Rue de Rivoli, along which ran the Magasins du Louvre. Place du Palais-Royal and its metro entrance. This led to a corridor featuring, in a row, small shoeshine booths with their leather seats, and shop windows displaying junk jewelry and souvenirs. At this point, one had only to choose the journey’s end: Montmartre to the north or the affluent neighborhoods to the west.

At Lamarck-Caulaincourt, you had to take an elevator to exit the station. The elevator was the size of a cable car, and in winter, when it had snowed in Paris, you could convince yourself it was taking you to the top of a ski slope.

Once outside, you walked up a flight of steps to reach Rue Caulaincourt. At the level of the first landing, on the flank of the left-hand building, was the door to the San Cristobal.

Inside reigned the silence and half-light of a marine grotto, on July afternoons when the heat emptied the streets of Montmartre. Windows with multicolored panes projected the sun’s rays onto the white walls and dark paneling. San Cristobal … The name of an island in the Caribbean, near Barbados and Jamaica? Montmartre, too, is an island that I haven’t seen in about fifteen years. I’ve left it behind me, intact, in the blue of time … Nothing has changed: the smell of fresh paint from the walls, and Rue de l’Orient, which will always remind me of the sloping streets of Sidi-Bou-Saïd.

It was with the Danish girl, the evening I ran away from school, that I went for the first time to the San Cristobal. We were sitting at a table in back, near the stained-glass windows.

“What will you have, old top?”

Over dinner, I tried talking to her about my future. Now that they’d no longer want me at school, could I still continue my studies? Or would I now have to find a job?

“Tomorrow is another day … Have some dessert.”

She didn’t seem to register the gravity of the situation. A tall blond
fellow wearing a glen plaid suit came into the San Cristobal and headed for our table.

“Hiya, Tony.”

“Hi.”

She seemed delighted to see him. Her face lit up. He sat down next to us.

“Let me introduce you to a friend who was all alone this evening,” she said, pointing to me. “So I decided to take him to dinner.”

“Well done.”

He smiled at me.

“Does the young gentleman work in music?”

“No, no …” she said. “He ran away from school.”

He knitted his brow.

“That’s a bit awkward … Doesn’t he have any parents?”

“They’re traveling,” I stammered.

“Tony is going to call your school,” said the Danish girl. “He’ll tell them he’s your father and that you’re safely back home.”

“You really think that’s a good idea?” asked Tony.

He gently rolled the end of his cigarette along the edge of the ashtray.

“Go do it, Tony.”

She had taken an imperious tone and was threatening him with a wagging index finger.

“Okay …”

It was she who called information for the school’s telephone number, which she jotted down on a scrap of paper.

“Your turn now, Tony …”

“If you insist.”

He stood up and, with a casual gait, walked toward the phone booth.

“You’ll see … Tony will fix everything …”

After a moment, he reappeared at our table.

“Uh, well … They said my son had been expelled and that I have to go pick up his things before the end of the week …”

He shrugged, looking apologetic. I must suddenly have turned very pale. He laid his hand on my shoulder.

“Don’t worry … They can’t bother you anymore … I told them you were home safe and sound.”

The three of us found ourselves on Rue Caulaincourt.

“I won’t be able to come to the movies with you,” the Danish girl said to me. “I have to spend a little time with Tony …”

She had planned to take me to the Gaumont-Palace to see
Solomon and Sheba
. She dug into her pocket and handed me a ten-franc bill.

“You’ll go to the Gaumont on your own, like a grown-up … And afterward, you’ll take the metro and come back to sleep at my house … Take the line that goes to Porte Dauphine and change at Etoile … Then the line to Nation and get off at Trocadéro.”

She gave me a smile. He shook my hand. The two of them got into his blue car, which disappeared around the first corner.

I didn’t go to the movies that evening. I walked around the neighborhood. Heading up Rue Junot, I came to the Château des Brouillards. I was sure that one day I would live around there.

I remember a car ride, five years later, from Pigalle to the Champs-Elysées. I had gone to see Claude Bernard in his bookstore on Avenue de Clichy and he offered to take me to the movies to see
Lola
or
Adieu Philippine
, which I remember fondly … It seems to me that the clouds, sun, and shadows of my twentieth year miraculously live on in those films. Normally we only spoke about books and movies, but that evening I alluded to my father and his misadventures under the Occupation: the warehouse on the Quai de la Gare, Pagnon, the Rue Lauriston gang … He looked over at me.

“A former sentinel from Rue Lauriston is now a doorman at a nightclub.”

How did he know that? I didn’t have the presence of mind to ask.

“Would you like to see him?”

We followed Boulevard de Clichy and stopped in Place Pigalle, next to the fountain. It was around nine in the evening.

“That’s him …”

He pointed out a man in a navy blue suit standing post in front of Les Naturistes.

At around midnight, we were walking up Rue Arsène-Houssaye, at the top of the Champs-Elysées, where Claude Bernard had parked his car. And we saw him again. He was still wearing his navy blue suit. And sunglasses. He stood immobile on the sidewalk, in the space between two neighboring cabarets, so that one couldn’t exactly tell which one he worked for.

I would have liked to ask him about Pagnon, but I felt awkward as soon as we passed in front of him. Later, I looked up his name
among the other members of the gang. Two young men had served as lookouts on Rue Lauriston: a certain Jacques Labussière and a certain Jean-Damien Lascaux. Labussière, at the time, had lived on Rue de la Ronce in Ville-d’Avray and Lascaux somewhere near Villemomble. They had both been handed life sentences. Which one was he? I didn’t recognize him from the blurry photos that had appeared in the newspapers at the time of the trials.

I ran into him again, around 1970, on the sidewalk of Rue Arsène-Houssaye, still standing at the same place, with the same blue suit and the same sunglasses. A sentinel for all Eternity. And I wondered whether he wore those sunglasses because after thirty years his eyes had worn out from seeing so many people go into so many sleazy places …

Several days later, Claude Bernard had rummaged in a closet at the back of his bookstore and taken out this letter that he gave me, which dated from the Occupation. I’ve kept it all these years. Was it addressed to him?

My dearest love, my adored man, it is one in the afternoon; I’ve woken up very tired. Business not so good. I hooked up with a German officer at the Café de la Paix, brought him to the Chantilly, did two bottles: 140 francs. At midnight he was tired. I told him I lived a long ways away, so he rented me a room. He took one for himself. I got a kickback on both and he gave me 300 francs. That got me my 25 louis. He’d made a date with me for last night in the lobby of the Grand Hôtel, but at seven, when we were supposed to meet, he showed up all apologetic and showed me his orders to ship out to Brest. After my failed date, I said to myself, “I’ll go to Montparnasse to the Café de la Marine and see if Angel Maquignon is there.” I went. No Angel. I was about to take the subway home when two German officers picked me up and asked me to go with them, but I could see they were idiots so gave them the brush.
I went back to Café de la Paix. Nothing doing. When Café de la Paix closed, I went to the lobby of the Grand Hôtel. Nada. I went to the bar at the Claridge. Bunch of officers having a staff meeting with their general. Nothing. I returned to Pigalle on foot. On the way, nothing. It was about one in the morning. I went into Pigalle’s, after checking in at the Royal and at the Monico, where there wasn’t anything. Nothing at Pigalle’s either. Heading back out, I ran into two hepcats who took me with them, we sank two bottles at Pigalle’s, so 140 francs, then we went to Barbarina, where I got another 140 francs. This morning at six-thirty I staggered home to bed, completely worn out, with 280 francs. I ran into Nicole at Barbarina, you should have seen her get-up … If you could have been there, my poor Jeannot, you’d have been ill …

Jacqueline

Who was that Angel Maquignon, whom this Jacqueline was going to meet at Café de la Marine? In the same café, a witness claimed to have seen Gisèle and Urbain T., that night in April when they’d mixed with bad company in Montparnasse.

The Champs-Elysées … It’s like that pond a British novelist talks about, at the bottom of which, in layered deposits, lie the echoes of the voices of every passerby who has daydreamed on its banks. The shimmering water preserves those echoes forever and, on quiet evenings, they all blend together … One evening in 1942, near the Biarritz cinema, my father was picked up by Inspector Schweblin and Permilleux’s stooges. Much later, toward the end of my childhood, I accompanied him to his meetings in the lobby of the Claridge and the two of us went to have dinner at the Chinese restaurant nearby, whose dining room was upstairs. Did he occasionally glance at the sidewalk across the avenue, where years earlier the Black Maria had been waiting to take him to the holding cell? I remember his office, in the ochre building with large bay windows at 1 Rue Lord-Byron. By following endless corridors, one could exit onto the Champs-Elysées. I suspect he had chosen that office for its double exit. He was always alone up there with a very pretty blonde, Simone Cordier. The telephone would ring. She’d pick up: