The Black Notebook by Patrick Modiano Read Free Book Online

café, we turned onto Avenue Félix-Faure, taking the right-hand sidewalk. As we approached the building, she said, “I’m going to show you the apartment . . . I’ve kept the key.” She had no doubt planned this visit, as she was carrying the key with her. She also said, after darting a glance at the black window of the concierge’s studio: “The concierge always goes out for a bit at this time of day, but try not to make any noise on the stairs.” She didn’t turn on the hall light. We made our way in the dull glimmer of a night-light on the ground floor. She leaned on my arm. We walked up the stairs pressed against each other, and I thought of an expression that made me want to laugh: “pussyfooting.”
    She opened the door in the dark, then shut it gently behind us. She felt around for the light switch, and a yellowish glow fell from the ceiling in the foyer. She cautioned me to speak only in a whisper and not to turn on any other lights. Immediately to the right, the half-open door to a bedroom that she said had been hers. She pulled me into the hallway in front of us, scarcely brightened by the overhead foyer light. To the left was a room with a table and sideboard. The dining room? To the right was the living room, judging from the couch and the small, glass-doored cabinet containing ivory figurines. Since the curtains were drawn, she switched on a lamp on a side table. It gave the same yellowish, muted glow as the ceiling light. To the back, a bedroom containing a large brass bed and wallpaper with sky-blue patterns. A few books were piled on one of the bedside tables. I was suddenly afraid of hearing the entry door slam and the person who lived there catching us. She opened the drawers of the night tables one by one and rummaged through them. From each she pulled out a few papers that she shoved into the pocket of her coat. And I remained standing, stiff, watching her, expecting the door to slam at any moment. She opened one glass door of the cabinet facing the bed, but its shelves were empty. She closed it. “Aren’t you afraid someone might come?” I murmured. She shrugged. She scanned the titles of the books on the bedside table. She took one, with a red cover, and slid that into her coat pocket as well. She must have known the person who lived here, since her key still opened the apartment door. She switched off the bedside lamp and we left the room. At the other end, the yellowish glow from the ceiling and living room lights accentuated the old-fashioned look of the place, with its dark wood sideboard, its ivory figurines in their display case, the worn carpets. “You know the people who live here?” I asked. She didn’t answer. They couldn’t have been her parents, since she had arrived from the provinces or abroad, at the Gare de Lyon. Someone who lived alone and had sublet a room to her?
    She guided me back toward that room, to the left before the foyer. She didn’t switch on the light. She left the door wide open. We could see well enough by the light from the foyer. A much smaller bed than in the back bedroom, a bare box spring. The curtains were drawn, the same black drapes as in the hotel where we had stayed near the Val-de-Grâce. Against the left-hand wall, opposite the bed, a folding table on which sat a record player in a leather-covered case and two or three LPs. With the back of her hand she wiped the dust off the record sleeves. She said, “Wait here a minute.” I sat on the box spring. When she returned, she was holding a carrier bag in which she put the record player and records. She sat down next to me on the box spring and seemed to be thinking, as if afraid she’d forgotten something. “It’s too bad we can’t just stay in this room,” she said aloud. She gave me a slightly tense smile. Her voice echoed strangely in the small, empty apartment. We shut the bedroom door behind us. I