The Black Notebook by Patrick Modiano Read Free Book Online Page B

“And she probably couldn’t understand how I could just up and leave one day without a word. But I’d rather make a clean break. I don’t like goodbyes.” I wondered if that was the truth or if she was trying to mollify me and avoid further questions. Why, if it was an “old woman,” had she initially said “they”? No matter. There in that café, I didn’t feel the need to ask her any questions. Rather than always subjecting others to interrogation, it’s better to accept them as they are, without comment. Besides, I might have had a vague premonition that I would be asking myself those same questions later on.
    And in fact, three or four years later, I was in a car one evening at the Rond-Point Mirabeau and saw Rue de la Convention stretching in front of me. I had the illusion that if I just stepped out of the car, left it there in the middle of the blocked traffic and started down that street on foot, I would finally be in the open air, weightless. I would trip effortlessly down the right-hand sidewalk. On the way, I would light a candle in the church of Saint-Christophe-de-Javel. And a little farther on I would find myself between the café and the metro entrance. The waiter wouldn’t be surprised to see me, and without my even asking, he’d bring me two Cointreaus, setting the glasses side by side. I would ring at the door of the apartment to retrieve her clothes. The problem was that I didn’t know the exact address of the building, and the façades and entrances in that part of Avenue Félix-Faure looked too much alike for me to recognize the right one. That same evening, I thought I heard her slightly husky voice telling me, “An old woman I rented a room from,” and that voice sounded so near . . . An old woman . . . I consulted the street directory to try to find the address. I remembered walking past a hotel and a large display window, in which I was surprised to see rows of telephones gleaming in the twilight. One afternoon when she’d gone to get her mail, she had arranged to meet me in the café, and I strolled along Avenue Félix-Faure toward the building where we had entered like thieves a few evenings before. Parents were waiting on the sidewalk outside a girls’ school. The street directory confirmed my recollections. Burgunder telephones. Hôtel Aviation—that was before the building, I was certain of it. But the girls’ school at number 56? Before or after? In any case, the building came before the intersection where the avenue met Rue Duranton. I wanted to verify it firsthand. But what was the use? All those façades looked too much alike. “An old woman I rented a room from.” In the directory, there was, in fact, at number 62, a Mme Baulé.
    She had handed me the book with the red cover,
Rupert of Hentzau
by Anthony Hope, so I could stash it in the carrier bag with the records and record player. I asked her if she’d read it. Yes, once, as a child, all the way to the end, without understanding a word. After that, she read chapters at random. It was getting on nine o’clock. The waiter said the café was about to close. We found ourselves outside in the rain. I was carrying the bag, and one of her coat pockets was distended from all the papers she’d crammed into it. We waited a long time for the metro, and even longer for the transfer at La Motte-Picquet. At that hour, the train was empty. She dug into her pocket and sorted what looked like calling cards from among the papers. When she realized I was watching with some curiosity, she said, smiling, “I’ll show you all this . . . You’ll see . . . It’s not very interesting.”
    The prospect of returning to her room in Montparnasse didn’t seem to appeal. It was that evening, in the metro, that she alluded for the first time to a country house where we might go, but I mustn’t mention