Ring Roads by Patrick Modiano Read Free Book Online Page B

their house were among the bleakest in my life, so the less said about them the better.
    We climb the monumental steps. The maid opens the front door. I rush to the box-room where I had asked permission to leave a suitcase stuffed with books (novels by Bourget, Marcel Prevost, and Duvernois, strictly forbidden at school). Suddenly I hear Monsieur Pessac’s peremptory voice: ‘What are you doing here?’ He is talking to my father. Seeing me with the suitcase in hand, he scowls: ‘You’re leaving? But who is this gentleman?’ I hesitate, then manage to blurt out: ‘MY FATHER!’ Obviously, he doesn’t believe me. Suspiciously: ‘Unless my eyes deceive me, you were sneaking away like a thief?’ This sentence is burned into my memory, because it was true that we look just like a couple of thieves caught red-handed. Confronted by this little man with his moustache and his brown smoking jacket, my father remained silent and chewed his cigar to give the impression he was calm. For my part, I myself think of only one thing: how to get out of there as soon as possible. Monsieur Pessac had turned to my father and was studying him curiously. At that moment, his wife appeared. Followed by his daughter and his eldest son. They stood, staring at us in silence leaving me feeling as though we had broken into this bourgeois mansion. When my father let ash from his cigar fall on the carpet, I noticed their expressions of amused contempt. The girl exploded with laughter. Her brother, a spotty youth who adopted ‘English style’ (much in vogue in Bordeaux), piped up in a shrill voice: ‘Perhaps Monsieur might like an ashtray? . . .’ ‘Really, Francois-Marie,’ murmured Mme Pessac. ‘Don’t be so uncouth.’ As she said this last word she looked pointedly at my father, as if to make it clear that the adjective applied to him. M. Pessac maintained a disdainful equanimity. I think what had made them so unfriendly was my father’s pale green shirt. Faced with the blatant hostility of these four people, my father looked like a butterfly caught in a net. He fumbled with his cigar, not knowing where to stub it out. He backed towards the door. The others did not move, shamelessly revelling in his embarrassment. I suddenly felt a kind of tenderness for this man I barely knew, and went over to him and said in a loud voice: ‘Let me give you a hug, monsieur.’ And, having done so, I took the cigar from his hand and painstakingly crushed it on the inlaid hall table Mme Pessac so loved. I tugged my father’s sleeve.
    ‘That’s enough, now,’ I said. ‘Let’s go.’
    We went to the Hôtel Splendid to collect his bags. A taxi took us to the Gare Saint-Jean. In the train, we struck up a conversation of sorts. He explained that ‘business’ had made it impossible for him getting in touch, but that from now on we would live together in Paris and would never be apart again. I stammered a few words of thanks. ‘I suppose . . .,’ he said point-blank, ‘I suppose you must have been very unhappy . . .’ He suggested that I not call him ‘monsieur’. An hour passed in utter silence and I declined his invitation to go with him to the restaurant-car. I made the most of his absence to rummage through the black briefcase he had left on the seat. There was nothing in it but a Nansen passport. At least he and I shared the same surname. He had two Christian names: Chalva, Henri. He had been born in Alexandria, at a time – I imagine – when the city still shimmered with its own particular radiance.
    When he came back to the compartment, he handed me an almond cake – a gesture which I found touching – and asked if I was really a ‘
bachelier
’ (he pronounced ‘
bachelier
’ in a rather affected way, as though the very idea of passing the baccalauréat inspired in him a fearful respect). When I told him I was, he nodded gravely. I ventured to ask a few questions: why had he come to Bordeaux to fetch me? How had he tracked me down?