Ring Roads Read online

  ‘What about you, are you interested in politics?’

  I told him I was, and that I felt we needed a new broom.

  ‘A new cosh would serve just as well!’

  And, as an example, he told me again about Schlossblau defiling the Promenade des Anglais. Apparently Schlossblau was now back to Paris and holed up in an apartment, and, he, Lestandi, knew the address. A little mention was all it would take for some armed thugs to come knocking. He was congratulating himself in advance on his good work.

  It was getting dark. I decided to get on with it. I took a last look at Lestandi. He was chubby. A gourmet, certainly. I imagined him tucking into a plate of brandade de morue. And I thought of Gerbère too, with his schoolboy lisp and quivering buttocks. No, neither of them were firebrands and I mustn’t let them scare me.

  We were walking through dense thickets.

  ‘Why bother going after Schlossblau?’ I said. ‘There are Jews all round you . . .’

  He didn’t understand and gave me a questioning look.

  ‘That man who had a glass of champagne thrown in his face just now . . . you remember?’

  He burst out laughing.

  ‘Of course . . . We, Gerbère and I, thought he looked like a swindler.’

  ‘A Jew! I’m surprised you didn’t guess!’

  ‘Then what the hell’s he doing here with us?’

  ‘That’s what I’d like to know . . .’

  ‘We’ll ask the bastard to show us his papers!’

  ‘No need.’

  ‘You mean you know him?’

  I took a deep breath.

  ‘HE’S MY FATHER.’

  I grabbed his throat until my thumbs hurt. I thought of you to give me strength. He stopped struggling.

  It was silly, really, to have killed the fat slob.

  I found them still at the bar at the auberge. As I went in, I bumped into Gerbère.

  ‘Have you seen Lestandi?’

  ‘No,’ I answered absent-mindedly.

  ‘Where can he have got to?’

  He looked at me sharply and blocked my way.

  ‘He’ll be back,’ I said in a falsetto voice, quickly clearing my throat to cover my nervousness. ‘He probably went for a walk in the forest.’

  ‘You think so?’

  The others were gathered round the bar while you sat in an armchair by the fireplace. I couldn’t see you very well in the dim light. There was only one light on, on the other side of the room.

  ‘What do you think of Lestandi?’

  ‘Great,’ I said.

  He remained glued to my side. I couldn’t get away from his slimy presence.

  ‘I’m very fond of Lestandi. He has the mind, the soul of a “young Turk”, as we used to say at the École Normale.’

  I nodded.

  ‘He lacks subtlety, but I don’t give a damn about that! We need brawlers right now!’

  His words came in a torrent.

  ‘There’s been too much focus on niceties and hair-splitting! What we need, now, are young thugs to trample the flowerbeds!’

  He was quivering from head to foot.

  ‘The day of the assassins has come! And I say, welcome!’

  He said this in a furiously aggressive voice.

  His eyes bored into me. I sense he wanted to say something but didn’t dare. At last:

  ‘It’s extraordinary how much you look like Albert Préjean . . .’ He seemed to be overcome with languor. ‘Has no-one ever told you how like Albert Prejean you are?’

  His voice cracked to become a poignant, almost inaudible whisper.

  ‘You remind me of my best friend at ENA, a marvellous boy. He died in ’36, fighting for Franco.’

  I scarcely recognized him. He was getting more and more spineless. His head was about to drop on my shoulder.

  ‘I’d liked to see you again in Paris. That would be nice, wouldn’t it? Wouldn’t it?’

  He shrouded me in a misty gaze.

  ‘I must go and write my column. You know . . . “Jewish tennis” . . . Tell Lestandi I couldn’t wait any longer . . .’

  I walked with him to his car. He clung to my arm, muttering unintelligibly. I was still mesmerized by the change which, in a few brief seconds, had seen him transformed into an old lady.

  I helped him into the driving seat. He rolled down the window.

  ‘You’ll come and have dinner with me on the Rue Rataud . . .?’ His puffy face was imploring.

  ‘Don’t forget, will you, mon petit . . . I’m so lonely . . .’

  And he shot off at top speed.

  You were still in the same place. A black mass slumped against the back of the chair. In the dim light one might easily wonder whether it was a person or a pile of overcoats? Everyone was ignoring you. Afraid of drawing attention to you, I kept my distance and joined the others.

  Maud Gallas was telling how she had had to put Wildmer to bed dead drunk. It happened at least three times a week. The man was ruining his health, Lucien Remy had known him back when he was winning all the big races. Once, at Auteuil, a crowd of regulars at the racetrack had carried him off in triumph. He was called ‘The Centaur’. Back then, he only drank water.

  ‘All sportsmen become depressives as soon as they stop competing,’ observed Marcheret.

  He quoted examples of retired sportsmen – Villaplane, Toto Grassin, Lou Brouillard . . . Murraille shrugged:

  ‘We’ll soon stop competing, ourselves, you know. A little matter of twelve bullets, pursuant to Article 57.’

  They had just listened to the last radio bulletin and the news was ‘even more alarming than usual’.

  ‘As I understand it,’ Delvale said, ‘we should be preparing the speeches we’ll make in front of the firing-squad . . .’

  For nearly a quarter of an hour, they played this game. Delvale thought that ‘Vive la France catholique, all the same!’ would have the best effect. Marcheret swore he’d shout ‘Try not to ruin my face! Aim for my heart and try not to miss, it’s broken!’ Remy would sing ‘Le Petit Souper aux chandelles’, and if he had time, ‘Lorsque tout est fini’ . . . Murraille would refuse the blindfold, insisting he wanted to ‘see the comedy through to the end’.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said finally, ‘to be talking about such stupid things on Annie’s wedding day . . . ’

  And, to lighten the atmosphere, Marcheret made his ritual joke, about ‘Maud Gallas having the finest breasts in Seine-et-Marne’. He had already begun to unbutton her blouse. She did not resist, she went on leaning at the bar.

  ‘Look . . . Take a look at these beauties!’

  He pawed them, popped out of her brassiere.

  ‘You’ve no need to be jealous,’ Delvale whispered to Monique Joyce. ‘Far from it, my child. Far from it!’

  He tried to slip his hand into her blouse but she stopped him with a nervous little laugh. Annie Murraille, greatly excited, had subtly hiked up her skirt allowing Lucien Remy could stroke her thighs. Sylviane Quimphe was playing footsie with me. Murraille filled our glasses and said in a weary voice that we seemed in good spirits for men about to be shot.

  ‘Have you seen this pair of tits!’ Marcheret was saying again.

  Moving across to join Maud Gallas behind the bar, he knocked over the lamp. Shouts. Sighs. People were taking advantage of darkness. Eventually someone – Murraille, if I remember rightly – suggested that they’d be much better off in the bedrooms.

  I found a light-switch. The glare of the lights dazzled me. There was no one left except us. The heavy panelling, the club chairs and the glasses scattered across the bar filled me with despair. The wireless was playing softly.

  Bei mir bist du schön . . .

  And you had fallen asleep.

  please let me explain . . .

  With your head slumped forward, and your mouth open.

  Bei mir bist du schön . . .

  In your hand, a burnt-out cigar.

  means that you’re grand.

  I tapped you
gently on the shoulder.

  ‘Shall we go?’

  The Talbot was parked in front of the gates of the ‘Villa Mektoub’ and, as always, Marcheret had left the keys on the dashboard.

  I took the Route Nationale. The speedometer read 130. You closed your eyes, because of the speed. You had always been scared in cars, so to cheer you up, I passed you a tin of sweets. We roared through deserted villages. Chailly-en-Biere, Perthes, Saint-Sauveur. You cowered on the passenger seat beside me. I tried to reassure you, but after Ponthierry, it struck me that we were in a decidedly precarious position: neither of us had papers, and we were driving a stolen car.

  Corbeil, Ris-Orangis, L’Haÿ-les-Roses. Finally, the blacked-out lights of the Porte d’Italie.

  Until that moment, we hadn’t spoken a word. You turned to me and said we could telephone ‘Titiko’, the man who was going to get you across the Belgian border. He had given you a number, to be used in an emergency.

  ‘Be careful,’ I said in an even voice. ‘The man’s an informer.’

  You didn’t hear. I said it again, to no effect.

  We pulled up by a café on the Boulevard Jourdan. I saw the woman behind the counter hand you a telephone token. There were some people still sitting at the tables outside. Beyond them the little metro station and the park. The Montsouris district reminded me of the evenings we used to spend in the brothel on the Avenue Reille. Was the Egyptian madame still there? Would she still remember you? Was she still swathed in clouds of perfume? When you came back, you were smiling contentedly: ‘Titiko’, true to his word, would be waiting for us at 11.30 p.m. precisely in the lobby of the Hôtel Tuileries-Wagram on the Rue des Pyramides. Clearly it was impossible to change the course of events.

  Have you noticed, Baron, how quiet Paris is tonight? We glide along the empty boulevards. The trees shiver, their branches forming a protective vault above our heads. Here and there a lighted window. The owners have fled and have forgotten to turn off the lights. Later, I’ll walk through this city and it will seem as empty to me as it does today. I will lose myself in the maze of streets, searching for your shadow. Until I become one with it.

  Place du Châtelet. You’re explaining to me that the dollars and the pink diamond are sewn into the lining of your jacket. No suitcases, ‘Titiko’ insisted. It makes it easier to get across the border. We abandon the Talbot on the corner of the Rue de Rivoli and the Rue d’Alger. We’re half an hour early and I ask you if you’d like to take a walk in the Tuileries. We were just going coming to the fountain when we heard a burst of applause. There was an open-air theatre. A costume piece. Marivaux, I think. The actors were bowing in a blue glow. We mingled with the groups of people heading for the refreshment stand. Garlands were hung between the trees. At an upright piano, near the counter, a sleepy old man was playing ‘Pedro’. You ordered coffee and lit a cigar. We both remained silent. On summer nights just like this, we used to sit outside cafés. We watched the faces round us, the passing cars on the boulevard, and I cannot remember a single word we said, except on the day you pushed me under the train . . . A father and son probably have little to say to each other.

  The pianist launched into ‘Manoir de mes rêves’. You fingered the lining of your jacket. It was time.

  I can see you sitting on a plaid-upholstered armchair in the lobby of the Tuileries-Wagram. The night porter is reading a magazine. He did not even look up when we came in. You look at your wrist watch. A hotel just like those where we used to meet. Astoria, Majestic, Terminus. Do you remember, Baron? You had the same look of a traveller in transit, waiting for a boat or train that will never come.

  You didn’t hear them arrive. There are four of them. The tallest, wearing a gabardine, demands to see your papers.

  ‘Monsieur was planning to go to Belgium without telling us?’

  He rips the lining of your jacket, carefully counts the notes, pockets them. The pink diamond has rolled on to the carpet, He bends down and picks it up.

  ‘Where d’you steal that?’

  He slaps you.

  You stand there, in your shirt. Ashen. And I realise that in that moment you have aged thirty years.

  I’m at the back of the foyer, near the lift, and they haven’t noticed me. I could press the button, go up. Wait. But I walk towards them and go up to the bleeder in the raincoat.

  ‘HE’S MY FATHER.’

  He studies at us both and shrugs. Slaps me listlessly, as if it were a formality, and says casually to the others:

  ‘Get this scum out of here.’

  We stumble through the revolving doors which they push round at top speed.

  The police van is parked a little way away on the Rue de Rivoli. We sit, side by side, on the wooden benches. It’s so dark I can’t tell where we’re going. Rue des Saussaies? Drancy? Villa Triste? Whatever happens, I’ll stay with you to the end.

  As the van rounds corners, we’re thrown against each other, but I can barely see you. Who are you? Though I’ve followed you for days on end, I know nothing about you. A shadow in the half-light.

  Just now, as we were getting into the van, they gave us a bit of a beating. Our faces must look pretty comical. Like those two clowns that time at the Cirque Medrano . . .

  Surely one of the prettiest and most idyllically situated villages in Seine-et-Marne: on the fringes of the Forest of Fontainebleau. In the last century, it was the refuge of a group of painters. These days, tourists regularly visit and a number of Parisians have country houses here.

  At the end of the main street, l’auberge du Clos-Foucré, built in the Anglo-Norman style. An air of propriety and rustic simplicity. Distinguished clientele. Towards midnight, you may find yourself alone with the barman clearing away bottles and emptying ashtrays. His name is Grève. He has worked here for thirty years. He is a man of few words, but if he takes a shine to you and you offer him a plum brandy from Meuse, he is prepared to recall certain memories. Oh, yes, he knew the people I mentioned. But how can a young man like me have heard of these people? ‘Oh, you know . . .’ He empties the ashtrays into a square tin. Yes, that little gang used to come to the auberge a long time ago. Maud Gallas, Sylviane Quimphe . . . he wonders what became of them. With women like that, you never know. He even has a photo. Look, the tall thin one there is Murraille. A magazine editor. Firing squad. The other one, behind him, who’s sticking out his chest and holding an orchid between his finger and thumb: Guy de Marcheret, known as Monsieur le Comte, used to be in the Legion. Maybe he went back to the colonies. Oh, that’s right, they are not around any more . . . The fat one, sitting in the armchair, in front of them, he disappeared one day. ‘Baron’ something or other . . .

  He has seen dozens like them, propped at the bar, dreaming, who vanished later. Impossible to remember all the faces. After all . . . sure . . . if I want the photo, I can have it. But I’m so young, he says, I’d be better off thinking about the future.

  ALSO AVAILABLE BY PATRICK MODIANO

  LA PLACE DE L’ÉTOILE

  WINNER OF THE NOBEL PRIZE FOR LITERATURE

  The narrator of this wild and whirling satire is a hero on the edge, who imagines himself in Paris under the German Occupation. Through his mind stream a thousand different possible existences, where sometimes the Jew is king, sometimes a martyr, and where tragedy disguises itself as farce. Real and fictional characters from Maurice Sachs and Drieu La Rochelle, Marcel Proust and the French Gestapo, Captain Dreyfus and the Petainist admirals, to Freud, Hitler and Eva Braun spin past our eyes. But at the centre of this whirligig is La Place de l’Étoile, the geographical and moral centre of Paris, the capital of grief.

  With La Place de l’Étoile Patrick Modiano burst onto the Parisian literary scene in 1968, winning two literary prizes, and preparing the way for The Night Watch and Ring Roads.

  ‘A Marcel Proust for our time’ Peter Englund, Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy

  THE NIGHT WATCH

  WINNER OF THE NOBEL PRIZE FOR LITERATURE

/>   When Patrick Modiano was awarded the 2014 Nobel Prize for Literature he was praised for using the ‘art of memory’ to bring to life the Occupation of Paris during the Second World War.

  The Night Watch is the story of a young man of limited means caught between his work for the French Gestapo informing on the Resistance and his work for a Resistance cell informing on the police and the black market dealers whose seedy milieu of nightclubs, prostitutes and spivs he shares. Under pressure from both sides to betray the other, he finds himself forced to devise an escape route out of an impossible situation – how to be a traitor without being a traitor.

  ‘Modiano is the poet of the Occupation and a spokesman for the disappeared, and I am thrilled that the Swedish Academy has recognised him’ Rupert Thomson

  WWW.BLOOMSBURY.COM/PATRICKMODIANO

  A NOTE ON THE AUTHOR

  PATRICK MODIANO was born in Paris in 1945 in the immediate aftermath of World War Two and the Nazi occupation of France, a dark period which continues to haunt him. After passing his baccalauréat, he left full-time education and dedicated himself to writing, encouraged by the French writer Raymond Queneau. From his very first book to his most recent, Modiano has pursued a quest for identity and some form of reconciliation with the past. His books have been published in forty languages and among the many prizes they have won are the Grand Prix du Roman de l’Académie française (1972), the Prix Goncourt (1978) and the Austrian State Prize for European Literature (2012). In 2014 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.

  BY THE SAME AUTHOR

  La Place de l’Étoile

  The Night Watch

  First published in Great Britain by Victor Gollancz in 1974

  This electronic edition published in 2015 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

  Originally published in France 1972 by Éditions Gallimard, Paris, as Les boulevards de ceinture