Night Rounds by Patrick Modiano Read Free Book Online

nightstand of her room when I took over this house: How to Raise Our Daughters , by Madame Léon Daudet. "In the linen closet, more than anywhere else, the young girl will begin to sense the gravity of household responsibilities. For, indeed, is not the linen closet the most imposing symbol of family security and stability? Behind its massive doors lie the orderly piles of cool sheets, the damask tablecloths, the neatly folded napkins; for me, there is nothing quite so gratifying to the eye as a well-appointed linen closet…" Esmeralda has fallen asleep. I pick out a few notes on the piano in the living room. I lean up against the window. A tranquil square such as you find in the 16 th arrondissement. The leafy branches of the trees nudge the windowpane. I'd like to believe the house is mine. I've grown attached to the bookshelves, the lamps with their rosy shades, and the piano. I'd like to cultivate the virtues of domesticity, as Madame Léon Daudet advises, but I won't have time. The owners will return, sooner or later. What saddens me most is that they'll turn out Coco Lacour and Esmeralda. I don't feel sorry for myself. The only feelings I have are Panic (because of which I'll commit an endless chain of cowardly acts) and Pity for my fellow men; though their contorted faces frighten me, I find them very moving all the same. Will I spend the winter among these maniacs? I look awful. My never-ending circuits from the Lieutenant to the Khedive, the Khedive to the Lieutenant, are wearing me out. I want to placate them both at once (so they'll spare my life), and this double game demands a kind of physical stamina I don't have. Suddenly I want to cry. My indifference gives way to a state of mind the English Jews call a nervous breakdown. I stumble through a maze of thoughts and reach the conclusion that all these people, divided into two opposing camps, have leagued together secretly to destroy me. The Khedive and the Lieutenant are but a single person, and I myself only a terrified moth fluttering in panic from one lamp to the next, scorching its wings a little more each time.
    Esmeralda is crying. I'll go comfort her. Her nightmares are brief, and she'll go back to sleep right away. I'll play mahjongg while I wait for the Khedive, Philibert, and the others. I'll take a last look at the situation. On one side, the heroes "crouching in the shadows": the Lieutenant and his plucky little band of Saint-Cyr brains. On the other, the Khedive and his gangsters. I'm in the middle, tossed back and forth between the two, with my ambitions, very modest ones to be sure: BARTENDER at some country inn outside Paris. A heavy gate, a graveled driveway. A park all around and an encircling wall. Under clear skies, you could see from the third-floor windows the Eiffel Tower's searchlight sweeping the horizon.
    Bartender. You get used to it. Sometimes it's painful. Especially after about twenty years when a more brilliant future appears to beckon. Not for me. What do you do? Make cocktails. On Saturday nights the orders start to pour in. Gin Alexander. Pink Lady. Irish coffee. A twist of lemon peel. Two rum punches. The customers, in swelling numbers, besiege the bar where I stand mixing the rainbow-tinted liquids. Don't keep them waiting. I'm afraid they'll lunge at me if there's a moment's delay. By filling their glasses in a hurry I try to keep them away. I'm not especially fond of human contact. Porto Flip? Whatever they want. I'm serving up drinks. As good a way as any to protect yourself from your fellow creatures and, let's face it, to get rid of them. Curaçao? Marie Brizard? Their faces are turning blue. They're lurching, and it won't be long before they collapse stone drunk. Leaning on the bar, I'll watch them fall asleep. They won't be able to harm me any more. Silence, at last. My breath still coming short.
    Behind me, photos of Henri Garat, Fred Bretonnel, and a few other pre-war celebrities whose smiles have faded over the years.