Free Paris Nocturne by Patrick Modiano Page A

spent a long time poring over Fossombronne—it was really important to me, and it made me forget my loneliness. Square de l’Alboni. Fossombronne-la-Forêt. I was about to learn something important about myself that would perhaps change the course of my life.

ON THE QUAY at the beginning of Rue de l’Alboni were two cafés facing each other. The busier was the one on the right, which sold cigarettes and newspapers. I ended up asking the boss if he knew a certain Jacqueline Beausergent. No, the name didn’t ring a bell. A blonde woman who lived in the area. She’d had a car accident. No, he didn’t think so, but perhaps I could try at the big garage, further along the quay, before the Trocadéro Gardens, the one that specialised in American cars. They had a lot of clients in the area. She had injuries on her face? That kind of thing would stand out. Go and ask at the garage. He wasn’t surprised by my question and he had replied in a courteous, slightly weary voice, but I regretted having said Jacqueline Beausergent’s name in front of him. You have to let others approach at their ownpace. No sudden movements. Remain still and silent and blend into the background. I always sat at the most secluded table. And I waited. I was the type of person who would stop at the edge of a pool at dusk and allow my eyes to adjust to the darkness until I could see all the agitation beneath the surface of the still water. Going around the neighbouring streets in the area, I became more and more convinced that I would be able to find her without asking anyone anything. I had to tread carefully in this zone. It had taken me a long time to gain access to it. All my journeys across Paris, the travels during my childhood from the Left Bank to the Bois de Vincennes and the Bois de Boulogne, from south to north, the meetings with my father, and my own wanderings over the years, all of it had led me to this neighbourhood on the side of a hill, right by the Seine, a neighbourhood you could characterise simply as ‘residential’ or ‘nondescript’. In a letter dated some fifteen years ago, but which I received only yesterday, someone had arranged to meet me here. But it wasn’t too late: there was still someone waiting for me behind one of these windows, all identical, on façades of apartment buildings that all looked the same.
    *
    One morning when I was sitting in the café on the right, at the corner of the quay and Rue de l’Alboni, two men came in and sat at the counter. I recognised the huge brown-haired man straightaway. He was wearing the same dark coat he’d worn on the night of the accident and when I left the Mirabeau Clinic.
    I tried to keep calm. He hadn’t noticed me. I could see both of them from behind, sitting at the counter. They were speaking quietly. The other man was taking notes in a pad, nodding from time to time as he listened to the huge brown-haired man. I was at a table quite close to the counter, but I didn’t catch a word of what they said. Why had he seemed like a ‘huge brown-haired man’ the first time I’d seen him, when the woman and I were side by side on the sofa in the lobby and he’d walked towards us? The shock of the accident must have blurred my vision. And the other day, leaving the clinic, I still wasn’t quite feeling myself. In fact, he had a certain elegance, but his low hairline and features had something brutal about them and reminded me of an American actor whose name I’ve forgotten.
    I hesitated for a few moments. But I couldn’t let the chance slip by. I got up and propped my elbows on the counter next to him. He half-turned his back to me and Ileaned over to attract his attention. It was the other man who noticed that I wanted to talk to him. He tapped him on the shoulder and pointed at me. He turned to face me. I remained silent, but I don’t think it was only out of timidity. I was trying to