Missing Person. Patrick Modiano
shook his head.
“You can’t give me a clue?” he asked.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t remember.”
He thought I was joking and, as if this were a game or a riddle, he said:
“All right. I’ll manage on my own. But can I have a free hand?”
“As you wish.”
“This evening, then, I’m taking you out to dinner at a friend’s.”
Before leaving, he pulled down the lever of an electric meter firmly and closed the heavy wooden door, turning the key several times in the lock.
His car was parked on the other side of the street. It was black and new. He opened the door for me courteously.
“This friend of mine manages a very pleasant restaurant on the edge of Ville-d’Avray and Saint-Cloud.”
“So far?”
“Yes.”
From Rue Anatole-de-la-Forge, we emerged into Avenue de la Grande-Armée and I was tempted to jump out. Ville-d’Avray seemed impossibly far to me. But I held myself back.
Until we reached Porte de Saint-Cloud, I had to struggle with the panicky fear that gripped me. I hardly knew this Sonachidze. Wasn’t he drawing me into a trap? But gradually, as I listened to his talk, I grew calmer. He told me about the different stages of his professional life. First he had worked in the Russian night clubs, then at Langer’s, a restaurant on the Champs-Elysées, then at the Hôtel Castille, Rue Cambon, and he had worked in other establishments too, before taking over the bar in Rue Anatole-de-la-Forge. Every time he would run into Jean Heurteur, the friend we were going to see, so that, over twenty years, the two of them had teamed up. Heurteur too remembered things. Together, they would certainly solve the “riddle” I was posing.
Sonachidze drove with extreme caution and it took us almost three-quarters of an hour to arrive at our destination.
A kind of bungalow, a weeping willow masking its left side. On the right, I could see a jumble of bushes. The interior of the restaurant was huge. A man came striding toward us from the back, where a bright light shone. He held out his hand to me.
“Glad to meet you, sir. I am Jean Heurteur.”
Then addressing Sonachidze:
“Hello, Paul.”
He led us toward the back of the room. There was a table, laid for three, with flowers in the middle.
He pointed to one of the french windows:
“I’ve got customers in the other bungalow. A wedding party.”
“You’ve never been here before?” Sonachidze asked me.
“No.”
“Show him the view, then, Jean.”
Heurteur preceded me on to a veranda which overlooked a pond. To the left, a small hump-back bridge, in the Chinese style, led to another bungalow, on the other side of the pond. The french windows were brilliantly lit up and I could see couples moving behind them. They were dancing. Snatches of music reached us.
“It’s not a large crowd,” he said, “and I have the feeling this wedding party is going to end in an orgy.”
He shrugged his shoulders.
“You should come here in summer. We dine out on the veranda. It’s pleasant.”
We went back inside the restaurant and Heurteur closed the french windows.
“I’ve prepared a simple little meal.”
He motioned to us to be seated. They sat side by side, facing me.
“What would you like to drink?” Heurteur asked me.
“You choose.”
“Château-Petrus?”
“An excellent choice, Jean,” said Sonachidze.
A young man in a white jacket waited on us. The light from the bracket lamp fell directly on me and dazzled me. The others were in shadow, but no doubt they had seated me there so as to be able to study me better.
“Well, Jean?”
Heurteur had started on his galantine and from time to time cast a sharp glance at me. He was dark-skinned, like Sonachidze, and like the latter dyed his hair. Blotchy, flabby cheeks and the thin lips of a gourmet.
“Yes, yes . . .,” he murmured.
The light made me blink. He poured us some wine.
“Yes . . . I do believe I have seen this gentleman before . . .”
“It’s a real puzzle,” said Sonachidze. “He won’t give us any clues . . .”
A thought suddenly seemed to strike him.
“But perhaps you’d rather we didn’t talk about it any more? Would you prefer to remain incognito?”
“Not at all,” I said with a smile.
The young man brought us a serving of sweetbreads.
“What business are you in?” asked Heurteur.
“For eight years I’ve been working in a private detective agency, the C.M. Hutte Agency.”
They stared at me in amazement.
“But I’m sure that’s got nothing to do with my previous life. So, don’t worry about it.”
“Strange,” announced Heurteur, gazing at me, “it’s hard to tell your age.”
“Because of the moustache, no doubt.”
“Without your moustache,” said Sonachidze, “perhaps we’d know you right away.”
And he held out his arm, placed the open palm of his hand just under my nose to hide the moustache and screwed up his eyes like a portrait painter in front of his model.
“The more I see of this gentleman, the more it seems to me he was in that crowd . . .” said Heurteur.
“But when?” asked Sonachidze.
“Oh . . . a long time ago . . . It’s ages since we’ve worked in the night clubs, Paul . . .”
“Do you think it goes back to the time we worked at the Tanagra?”
Heurteur stared at me more and more intently.
“Excuse me,” he said, “but would you stand up for a moment?”
I did as he asked. He looked me up and down a couple of times.
“Yes, you do remind me of a certain customer. Your height . . . Just a moment . . .”
He had raised his hand and was sitting quite still, as if trying to hold on to some fleeting memory.
“Just one moment . . . Just one moment . . . I have it, Paul . . .”
He smiled triumphantly.
“You can sit down . . .”
He was jubilant. He was sure of the effect of what he was about to say. Ceremoniously he poured out some wine for Sonachidze and me.
“You were always with a man, as tall as yourself . . . perhaps even taller . . . Do you remember, Paul?”
“What period are we talking about, though?” asked Sonachidze.
“The Tanagra, of course . . .”
“A man as tall as himself?” Sonachidze repeated. “At the Tanagra? . . .”
“Don’t you see?”
Heurteur shrugged his