Free Villa Triste by Patrick Modiano Page A

“Roland-Michel” several times. Finally, “Grayblue Waves” — that’s what I’ll call him — steps up to a microphone and announces in an icy voice: “Ladies and gentlemen, in one minute, we are going to give you the results of this year’s Houligant Elegance Cup.”
    I feel faint again. Everything gets blurry around me. I wonder where Yvonne and Meinthe can be. Are they waiting in the place where I left them, alongside the tennis court? What if they’ve abandoned me?
    “By five votes to four” — Grayblue Waves’s voice gets higher and higher — “I repeat: by five votes to four cast for our friends the Roland-Michels” (he stresses
our friends
, hitting the syllables hard, and now his voice is as high-pitched as a woman’s), “who are well known and appreciated by all, and whose good sportsmanship I cannot commend enough … and who deserved — in my personal opinion — to win this Elegance Cup …” (he bangs his fist on the table, but his voice breaks more and more) “… the Cup has been awarded” (he marks a pause) “to Mademoiselle Yvonne Jacquet, escorted by Monsieur René Meinthe.”
    I admit it, I had tears in my eyes.
    They had to make one last appearance before the jury to receive the Cup. All the children left the beach, joined the other spectators, and waited with great excitement. Themusicians of the Sporting Club orchestra had taken up their usual position, under the big green-and-white striped canopy in the middle of the terrace. They were tuning their instruments.
    The Dodge appeared. Yvonne was half reclining on the hood. Meinthe drove slowly. She jumped to the ground and walked very timidly toward the jury. There was a great deal of applause.
    Hendrickx came down to her, brandishing the Cup. He gave it to her and kissed both her cheeks. And then other people gathered to congratulate her. André de Fouquières himself shook her hand, and she had no idea who the old gentleman was. Meinthe rejoined her. He glanced around the terrace of the Sporting Club and spotted me at once. He called out, “Victor … Victor …” and waved vigorously. I ran to him. I was saved. I would have liked to kiss Yvonne, but she was already quite surrounded. Some waiters, each carrying two trays of glasses filled with champagne, tried to make their way through the press. The whole crowd was toasting, drinking, chattering in the sun. Meinthe remained at my side, mute and impenetrable behind his dark glasses. A few meters away, a very agitated Hendrickx was introducing the brunette, Gamonge (or Ganonge), and two or three other people to Yvonne. She was thinking about something else. About me? I didn’t dare believe that.
    Everybody was having more and more fun. They were laughing, calling out, pressing against one another. The orchestra leader asked Meinthe and me to tell him what “piece” he ought to perform in honor of the Cup and “its lovely winner.” We were stumped for a minute, but sincemy name was provisionally Chmara and I felt I had a gypsy heart, I asked him to play “Dark Eyes.”
    A “soirée” had been arranged at the Sainte-Rose to celebrate this fifth Houligant Cup and Yvonne, the conquering heroine. For the occasion, she’d selected a lamé dress the color of old gold.
    She’d put the Cup on the night table, next to the Maurois book. The Cup was, in reality, a statuette of a dancer
en pointe
on a little pedestal engraved in Gothic letters: HOULIGANT CUP. 1ST PRIZE, with the year inscribed below.
    Before we left, she caressed it with her hand and then flung her arms around my neck. “Don’t you think it’s marvelous?” she asked.
    She wanted me to wear my monocle and I agreed to do so, because this was an evening unlike any other.
    Meinthe had on a pale green suit, very soft, very new. Throughout the trip to Voirens, he made fun of the members of the jury. “Grayblue Waves’s” real name was Raoul Fossorié, and he was the head of the tourist information office.