Sundays in August Read online

  PRAISE FOR SUSPENDED SENTENCES:

  “Vividly translated by Mark Polizzotti . . . [and] as good a place as any to enter the long, slow-moving river of Modiano’s fiction.”

  ALAN RIDING, New York Times Book Review

  “A timely glimpse at [Modiano’s] fixations. . . . In Mark Polizzotti’s spare and elegant translation, the writing conveys a sense of dreamy unease in which the real, the hypothesized, and the half-forgotten blend into a shimmering vagueness.”

  SAM SACKS, Wall Street Journal

  “Mr. Modiano writes clear, languid, and urbane sentences in Mr. Polizzotti’s agile translation. . . . These novellas have a mood. They cast a spell.”

  DWIGHT GARNER, New York Times

  “Elegant . . . quietly unpretentious, approachable. . . . Though enigmatic and open-ended, Modiano’s remembrances of things past and his probings of personal identity are presented with a surprisingly light touch. He is, all in all, quite an endearing Nobelist.”

  MICHAEL DIRDA, Washington Post

  PRAISE FOR PARIS NOCTURNE:

  “This novel provides a superb and—at 160 pages—accessible entry to [Modiano’s] writings. . . . The narrator’s search for Jacqueline propels the novel forward with the intensity of a noir. But Modiano is not writing mere pulp; the novel’s true center is the past’s pull, the way memories lay dormant for years only to explode ‘like a time bomb.’”

  Publishers Weekly

  PRAISE FOR AFTER THE CIRCUS:

  “[After the Circus] transposes Modiano’s favorite themes into a taut, hard-boiled crime story. . . . Modiano is writing metaphysical mystery stories, in which the search for answers is never afforded an easy solution. The more of Modiano’s work you read, the more familiar and inevitable his peculiar set of obsessions starts to feel—which is one sign of a major writer.”

  ADAM KIRSCH, Daily Beast

  PRAISE FOR LITTLE JEWEL:

  “Patrick Modiano has never better expressed the quintessence of his art than in this somnambulistic novel. . . . Flaubert, we know, dreamed of writing a book ex nihilo, one that holds by sheer force of style, responds to the laws of pure rhetoric, can’t be reduced to the author’s life, and is, finally, superior. Little Jewel is Modiano’s Bovary.”

  JÉRÔME GARCIN, Le Nouvel Observateur

  PRAISE FOR PEDIGREE:

  “Compelling, . . . highly effective. . . . Mr. Modiano depends for effect not on rhetorical declaration or emotional outburst but on the accumulation of minor details. He is a writer unlike any other and a worthy recipient of the Nobel.”

  JAMES CAMPBELL, Wall Street Journal

  PRAISE FOR YOUNG ONCE, TRANSLATED BY DAMION SEARLS (NEW YORK REVIEW BOOKS):

  “Modiano’s transitional novel, first published in 1981, that marked an end to literary experimentation in favor of his largely unadorned though deeply atmospheric style. . . . Quiet but powerful; fans of Modiano’s smoky, humid postwar world will enjoy this slowly unfolding mystery.”

  Kirkus Reviews

  “The most gripping Modiano book of all.”

  Der Spiegel

  Sundays in August

  ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS OF WORKS BY PATRICK MODIANO

  From Yale University Press

  After the Circus

  Little Jewel

  Paris Nocturne

  Pedigree: A Memoir

  Such Fine Boys

  Sundays in August

  Suspended Sentences: Three Novellas (Afterimage, Suspended Sentences, and Flowers of Ruin)

  Also available or forthcoming

  The Black Notebook

  Catherine Certitude

  Dora Bruder

  Honeymoon

  In the Café of Lost Youth

  Lacombe Lucien

  Missing Person

  Out of the Dark

  So You Don’t Get Lost in the Neighborhood

  The Occupation Trilogy (The Night Watch, Ring Roads, and La Place de l’Etoile)

  A Trace of Malice

  Villa Triste

  Young Once

  Sundays in August

  PATRICK MODIANO

  TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH BY DAMION SEARLS

  YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS NEW HAVEN & LONDON

  The Margellos World Republic of Letters is dedicated to making literary works from around the globe available in English through translation. It brings to the English-speaking world the work of leading poets, novelists, essayists, philosophers, and playwrights from Europe, Latin America, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East to stimulate international discourse and creative exchange.

  English translation copyright © 2017 by Damion Searls. Originally published as Dimanches d’août. © Editions Gallimard, Paris, 1986. All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustrations, in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press), without written permission from the publishers.

  Yale University Press books may be purchased in quantity for educational, business, or promotional use. For information, please e-mail [email protected] (U.S. office) or [email protected] (U.K. office).

  Set in Electra and Nobel types by Tseng Information Systems, Inc.

  Printed in the United States of America.

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2017940994

  ISBN 978-0-300-22333-0 (paper : alk. paper)

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992

  (Permanence of Paper).

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  FOR JACQUES ROBERT

  FOR MARC GRUNEBAUM

  Sundays in August

  Eventually our eyes met. It was in Nice, at the start of Boulevard Gambetta. He was standing on a kind of platform in front of a display of leather coats and jackets, and I had slipped to the front of the group of people listening to him tout his wares.

  When he saw me, his salesman’s patter faltered. He spoke more drily, as though wanting to establish a certain distance between himself and his listeners, to convey to me that this job he was doing on an outdoor platform was beneath him.

  He hadn’t changed much in seven years—his face seemed more flushed, that was all. It started to get dark and a gust of wind rushed down Boulevard Gambetta bearing the first drops of rain. A woman with curly blond hair was trying on a coat next to me. He leaned down from his platform toward her and gave her an encouraging look.

  “It looks great on you.”

  His voice still had its metallic tone, a metal that had rusted a little over the years. The crowd was already dispersing, because of the rain, and the blonde took the coat off and placed it timidly on the edge of the display shelf.

  “It’s a real bargain, ma’am. American prices. You should . . .”

  But without giving him time to finish, she turned quickly away, hurrying off with the rest of the crowd. She looked like someone embarrassed to hear a stranger on the street making obscene suggestions.

  He came down from his platform and walked over to me.

  “What a nice surprise. I’ve got an eagle eye, I spotted you right away.”

  He seemed self-conscious, almost shy. I, on the other hand, felt calm and relaxed.

  “It’s funny seeing each other again here, isn’t it?” I said.

  “Yes.”

  He smiled. He had regained his confidence. A van stopped at the curb in front of us and a man in a red jacket got out.

  “You can take it all down,” he said, then he looked me straight in the eye. “Come have a drink?”

  “If you want.”

  “I’m going to have a drink with him at the Forum,” he sa
id. “Come get me in half an hour.”

  The other man started loading the coats and jackets from the display stand into the van, while a steady stream of customers flowed past us out the doors of the large department store on the corner with Rue de la Buffa. A high-pitched sound announced closing time.

  “Too bad . . . It’s hardly raining anymore.”

  He was wearing a thin leather bag on a shoulder strap.

  We crossed the boulevard and walked down the Promenade des Anglais. The café was nearby, next to the Forum Cinema. He picked a table at the bay window and dropped onto the bench.

  “What’s new?” he said. “You’re here on the Riviera?”

  I wanted to put him at ease. “It’s funny,” I said, “I saw you the other day on the Promenade des Anglais.”

  “You should have said hello.”

  His enormous silhouette, the long Promenade, that shoulder bag some men like to wear when they hit fifty, with jackets that are too tight, to try to look young . . .

  “I’ve been working around here for a while. Trying to unload leather goods.”

  “How’s business?”

  “Not too bad. What about you?”

  “I have a job around here too,” I said. “Nothing interesting.”

  Out the window, the tall streetlamps on the Promenade were gradually coming on. First, a wavering violet glow that any breath of wind could put out like a candle. But it didn’t go out. In an instant, the unsteady light turned white and hard.

  “So, we’re working in the same neck of the woods,” he said. “I’m staying in Antibes. But I travel a lot . . .”

  His bag opened the way a schoolboy’s satchel does. He took out a pack of cigarettes.

  “You haven’t been back to Val-de-Marne, have you?” I asked.

  “No. That’s over.”

  There was an awkward moment between us.

  “And you?” he asked. “Have you been back?”

  “Never.”

  The mere thought of finding myself back on the banks of the Marne made me shudder. I looked out at the Promenade des Anglais, the darkening orange sky, the sea. Yes, I was really in Nice. It made me breathe a sigh of relief.

  “I wouldn’t go back there for anything in the world,” I said.

  “Me neither.”

  The waiter put the orange juice, brandy and water, and glasses on the table. I focused entirely on my every gesture, and he on his; it was as if we were trying to delay the moment of restarting our conversation for as long as possible. Finally it was he who broke the silence.

  “I wanted to clear something up with you.” And he looked at me through narrowed eyes. “Sylvia and I weren’t actually married. My mother opposed the marriage . . .”

  For a fraction of a second, I could see Madame Villecourt’s shape before me, on the landing on the Marne.

  “You remember my mother. She wasn’t an easy woman. There were money issues between us, and she would have cut me off if I had married Sylvia.”

  “I don’t believe it.”

  “Well, there it is.”

  I thought I was dreaming. Why had Sylvia lied to me? I remembered she even wore a ring.

  “She wanted people to think we were married. It was a matter of pride for her. And I acted like a real coward . . . I should have married her.”

  I had to face facts: this man was nothing like the man I knew seven years ago. There was none of the arrogant rudeness that had made me hate him then. On the contrary, he was resigned now, quiet. His hands had changed. He no longer wore that thick chain bracelet.

  “If I had married her, everything would have been different.”

  “You think so?”

  He was obviously talking about someone other than Sylvia. Things meant something different to him in retrospect than they did to me.

  “She never forgave me for being such a coward. She loved me. I’m the only man she loved.”

  His sad smile was as surprising as his leather shoulder bag. No, this wasn’t the same man as the one from the Marne. Maybe he had forgotten whole stretches of the past, or had gradually convinced himself that certain events, with such serious consequences for us both, had never happened. I felt an irresistible desire to shake him.

  “And your plan for the restaurant and swimming pool on the little island off Chennevières?”

  I had raised my voice and leaned my face right up close to his. But the question didn’t faze him; he just kept his same sad smile.

  “I don’t know what you mean . . . I used to look after my mother’s horses, you remember. She had two trotters she entered in races in Vincennes.”

  He sounded so innocent that I couldn’t argue.

  “You saw that guy loading my coats into the van? He gambles on horses. There can never be anything but misunderstandings between men and horses, if you ask me . . .”

  Was he making fun of me? No—he had never had the least sense of humor. And the weary, serious expression on his face was only accentuated by the neon light.

  “Things rarely work out between men and horses. I’ve tried to tell him not to bet on the races, he keeps doing it but he always loses money . . . Anyway, what about you? Are you still a photographer?”

  He had pronounced the last word of his question in that metallic voice of his from seven years ago.

  “I didn’t really understand the photography book you were planning to do back then.”

  “I wanted to take pictures of the beaches along the rivers near Paris,” I said.

  “The beaches along the rivers? Is that why you were staying in La Varenne?”

  “Yes.”

  “But there isn’t really a beach there.”

  “No? There was Le Beach . . .”

  “Well I guess you never had time to take your photographs?”

  “Yes I did. I can show you some of them if you want . . .”

  Our conversation had become relaxed. It was strange to be expressing ourselves this way—implicitly, with insinuations.

  “In any case, I certainly learned a lot. It was a very educational time for me.”

  He didn’t react to my comment at all, even though I had made it quite aggressively. I insisted: “You too, I imagine. You must have bad memories of all that?”

  But I immediately felt bad for trying to provoke him. It slid right off him anyway, and he gave me a sad smile.

  “I don’t remember anything anymore,” he said. He glanced at his watch. “He’ll be here to get me soon . . . Too bad, I would have enjoyed sitting here with you a while. But I hope we’ll see each other again?”

  “You really want to see me again?”

  I felt dizzy. At least if he were the same man as he was seven years ago, that would have been less disconcerting.

  “Yes. I’d like it very much. We could meet up now and then to talk about Sylvia.”

  “Do you really think there’s any point?”

  How could I talk to him about Sylvia? I wasn’t even sure whether, after seven years, he was confusing her with someone else. He remembered that I had been a photographer, but there are always some scraps of the past that survive in old men who’ve lost their memory: the taste of a childhood birthday cake, the words of a lullaby once sung to them . . .

  “Don’t you want to talk about her? Get it through your head . . .”

  He gave the table a blow with his fist, and I was waiting to hear the threats and blackmail he used to come out with—diluted by time, of course, like the things doddering war criminals say in court when they’re captured forty years after their misdeeds.

  “Get it through your head that nothing would have happened if she and I had been married. Nothing. She loved me. The only thing she wanted was for me to show her I loved her too. And I couldn’t . . .”

  Seeing him sitting there in front of me, listening to these words of a repentant sinner, I wondered if I hadn’t been unfair to him after all. He was rambling, but he had made progress. Back then, he would never have been able to pursue a ch
ain of reasoning like this.

  “I think you’re wrong,” I said. “But it doesn’t matter. Your intentions are good in any case.”

  “I am absolutely not wrong.” And he drunkenly pounded his fist on the table again. I was afraid he might turn back into his brutal and nasty old self. Luckily, just then, the man from the delivery van walked into the café and put a hand on his shoulder. He turned around and stared at him as though he didn’t recognize him.

  “Yes. Coming.”

  We stood up and I walked them back to the van, which was now parked in front of the Forum Cinema. He slid open the back door, revealing a row of leather coats on hangers.

  “Help yourself.”

  I didn’t move. He looked through them one by one, taking down hangers one at a time and then putting them back on the rods.

  “This one should be your size.”

  He handed me the coat with the hanger still in it.

  “I don’t need a new coat,” I said.

  “Please, go ahead, I want you to have it.”

  The other man was sitting on the van’s fender, waiting.

  “Try it on.”

  I took the coat and put it on in front of him. He looked at me with the sharp eye of a tailor during a fitting.

  “It’s not too tight at the shoulders, is it?”

  “No, but I’m telling you I don’t need a coat.”

  “Take it, as a favor to me. I insist.”

  He buttoned it himself. I stood stiff as a wooden mannequin.

  “It fits you well. The thing about me is I have a lot in large sizes . . .”

  I took it so that I could be free of him faster. I didn’t want to keep talking. I was in a hurry to see him leave.

  “If there’s anything wrong with it, come exchange it for another one. I’ll be at my stand tomorrow afternoon. Boulevard Gambetta . . . Anyway, I’ll give you my address.”

  He reached into an inside jacket pocket and handed me a business card.

  “Here—my address and phone number in Antibes. I’m counting on you . . .”

  He opened the van’s side door, climbed in, and sat on a bench. The other man took his seat behind the wheel. He rolled down the window and leaned out.