Free Honeymoon by Patrick Modiano Page B

furrowed with a studious, childish expression.
    "Jean, I find your attitude disconcerting."
    He seemed eager to understand, and so deferential towards me – I was older than he, after all – that I felt sorry for him.
    "It's very simple. I just feel tired of my life and my job."
    He was drinking in my words, and nodding solemnly.
    "You're still too young, Ben, to have that feeling. One starts out full of enthusiasm and the spirit of adventure, but after a few years it becomes a job and a routine … I don't want to discourage you, though. I'm really the last person to tell anyone what to do."
    "You don't realize, Jean … We thought you'd disappeared for good …"
    He hesitated for a few seconds, and then added:
    "That you were dead …"
    "So what?"
    He stared at me in consternation.
    "You don't know how much Annette loves you … The moment she found the bit of paper with the names of the hotels, she decided that life was worth living again …"
    "And Cavanaugh?"
    "She asked me to be sure to tell you that Cavanaugh has never counted for her."
    I felt a sudden repugnance at hearing my private life brought up, and embarrassed at seeing Ben Smidane involved in it all.
    "At your age, the main thing is to think of yourself and your future, Ben."
    He seemed amazed that in such circumstances I should concern myself with him. And yet I would have liked him to talk about the expedition he was planning to the Indian Ocean to search for the wreck of a Dutch galleon, and to share his dreams and illusions with me.
    "And you?" he asked. "Are you counting on staying here long?"
    He pointed despairingly at the Boulevard Soult outside the café window:
    "Then I can tell Annette to come and see you?"
    "Tell her not to come just yet … She wouldn't find me … We mustn't rush things."
    He frowned again, in the same studious way as before. He was trying to understand. He didn't want to thwart me.
    "Tell her to leave a phone message, or write me a note from time to time. That'll be enough for the time being. Just a message … Or a letter … Here, at the Dodds Hotel … or at the Fieve Hotel … Or at the other hotels on the list … She knows them all …"
    "I'll tell her … "
    "And you, Ben, don't hesitate to come and talk to me about your projects, since you and Annette are the only ones who know I'm still alive … But don't let anyone else know."
    •
    Ben Smidane went off in the direction of the Avenue Daumesnil, and I noticed a phenomenon that doesn't often happen to a man: several women turned round as he passed them.
    I was alone again. Naturally, I was expecting to get a message from Annette shortly. But I was certain that she wouldn't turn up unexpectedly. She knew me too well. For twenty years she had found me a good teacher in the art of concealing oneself, of avoiding bores, or of giving people the slip: cupboards you hide in as a last resort, windows you climb out of, back stairs or emergency exits you take at the double, escalators you race down in the wrong direction … And all those far-off journeys I had gone on, not to satisfy the curiosity or vocation of an explorer, but to escape. My life had been nothing but evasion. Annette knew that she mustn't rush things: at the slightest alert I was likely to disappear – and this time for good. But I would have been touched to receive a message from her from time to time, in all these places where we had lived in the old days and which I have now come back to. They haven't changed much. Why, when I was about eighteen, did I leave the centre of Paris and come to these suburban regions? I felt at ease in these districts, I could breathe here. They were a refuge, far away from the bustle of the centre, and a springboard to adventure and to the unknown. You only had to cross a square or walk down an avenue, and Paris was behind you. It was a pleasure to feel myself on the outskirts of the city, with all these lines of escape … At night, when all the street lights came on in the