The Black Notebook

by Patrick Modiano

  We walked through the vestibule and then through another patch of waste ground up to Rue Jussieu.

  “Here it is,” said Aghamouri.

  And he pointed out a café across the street, next to the Lutèce Theater. People were clustered on the sidewalk, waiting for the show to begin.

  We sat in a corner near the bar. Facing us, on the opposite side of the room, stood a row of tables with a few diners.

  Now it was my turn to take the initiative and get him to talk. Otherwise he might start having second thoughts.

  “Before, you said Dannie had done something serious . . . I’d really like to know more.”

  He paused for a moment.

  “She’s liable to find herself in deep trouble, of a legal nature . . .”

  He was searching for the right words—precise, professional terms, the words of a lawyer or policeman.

  “She’s fairly safe for now . . . But they could find out she was involved in an ugly incident . . .”

  “What kind of ugly incident?”

  “You’ll have to ask her that yourself.”

  There was a moment of silence between us. An awkward moment. I heard them ringing up the curtain in the theater next door, announcing the start of the play. Lord, how I would have loved to be in the auditorium with her that evening, among the spectators, and for her not to be involved in an ugly incident . . . I couldn’t understand Aghamouri’s resistance to telling me what that ugly incident was.

  “My sense is, you and Dannie are fairly intimate,” I said. He gave me an embarrassed look. “I saw you together one evening, very late, at the 66 . . .”

  He didn’t seem to know what the 66 was. I explained that it was a café toward the upper end of Boulevard Saint-Michel, near the Luxembourg station.

  “It’s possible . . . We used to go there when we still lived at the Cité Universitaire.”

  He smiled, as if trying to steer the conversation onto more neutral territory, but I wanted him to keep to the essentials. After all, it was he who had asked to meet. I was carrying his letter, its envelope bearing my name and address, 28 Rue de l’Aude. I had slipped it between the pages of my black notebook. Moreover, I still have it; I reread it earlier today, before faithfully copying down its contents on a sheet of the Clairefontaine stationery I’ve been using lately.

  “Don’t you think you should let your wife know Dannie is carrying identity papers in her name . . . ?”

  I could feel him “crack,” and never had that slang term seemed so appropriate. When I think back to that moment, I can even see a network of tiny fissures on the skin of his face. He seemed so worried that I felt like reassuring him. No, none of it was important.

  “If you could get back that card I gave her with my wife’s name, it would be a huge help . . .”

  He knew I wasn’t a bad sort. After all, the two or three times we had seen each other, in the evening after his courses at Censier, we would talk about literature. He was fairly knowledgeable about Baudelaire, and had asked to read my notes about Jeanne Duval.

  “Anyway,” he said, “the others made her false papers, so she doesn’t need that card anymore . . . But be sure not to mention I told you about it . . .”

  He looked so distressed that I resolved to do him this favor, without really knowing how. I had qualms about simply rummaging through Dannie’s handbag. At first, when I would go with her to the post office, she used to hand the clerk behind the window some kind of identity card. Was it in the name of Michèle Aghamouri? Was that the name on the false papers she had gotten from the gang at the Unic Hôtel? And which of them, precisely, had done her that favor? Paul Chastagnier? Duwelz? Gérard Marciano? Personally, my money was on Georges, the man with the moon face and ice water in his veins, who was older than the others and inspired fear in them—the one about whom Paul Chastagnier had said, in response to a question of mine: “He’s no altar boy, you know . . .”

  “I gather you and your wife have an apartment near the Maison de la Radio . . .”

  I was afraid he would think me indiscreet. But instead, he smiled, and I sensed he was relieved to have it out in the open.

  “Yes, that’s right . . . a tiny little place . . . We’d like to have you over sometime, my wife and I . . . but on condition that you forget I know Dannie, the Unic Hôtel, and the others while we’re there . . .”

  He had said “there” as if it were some faraway land, a neutral country where one was safe from harm.

  “So basically,” I said, “you only have to cross the Seine to forget all about what you’ve left behind.”

  “Do you really think so?”

  I could see he wanted some kind of comfort. I believe he trusted me . . . Whenever we were alone, or walking from Place Monge to Montparnasse, we talked about literature. It wasn’t as if he could do that with the others, the ones from the Unic Hôtel. I had a hard time imagining Paul Chastagnier, or Duwelz, or Georges taking an interest in the fate of Jeanne Duval. Gérard Marciano, perhaps? One day, he had confided to me that he wanted to try being a painter, and that he knew an “artists’ joint” on Rue Delambre, the Rosebud. Many years later, in the file that Langlais handed over to me, there was a police report on Marciano with two mug shots, front and profile, and the Rosebud was mentioned as one of his hangouts.

  Aghamouri raised his eyes to me.

  “Unfortunately, I don’t think it’s enough just to cross the Seine . . .”

  Once again he had that timid smile that threatened to fade at any moment.

  “Dannie isn’t the only one . . . There’s me, too, Jean—I’ve got myself in a hell of a mess . . .”

  It was the first time he called me by my given name, and I was touched. I kept quiet so that he’d go on talking. I was worried that a single word might cut short any further confidences.

  “I’m afraid to go home to Morocco . . . It would be the same as Paris . . . Once you’ve caught a finger in the works, it’s very hard to pull your hand out.”

  What “works” was he talking about? In the gentlest possible voice, almost a whisper, I asked him a question, a shot in the dark:

  “When you were living at the Cité Universitaire, didn’t you feel safe?”

  He knit his brow, giving his face a studious look—no doubt the face he made at the Censier branch to reassure himself he was just a simple student.

  “You know, Jean, there was a strange atmosphere in that place, the Cité, the Moroccan Pavilion . . . Frequent police checks . . . They wanted to keep an eye on the residents for political reasons. Certain students were opposed to the Moroccan government . . . and Morocco asked France to put them under surveillance . . . That’s all . . .”

  He seemed relieved to confide in me. Even a bit breathless. That’s all. After that preamble, it was surely easier for him to cut to the chase.

  “So you might say my position was rather delicate . . . I was caught between the two . . . I hung out with people on both sides . . . You could even say I was playing both sides . . . But it’s much more complicated than that . . . In the end, you can never play both sides.”

  He must have been right, since he confessed it with such gravity . . . Curiously, that sentence has lodged in my memory. Over the following years, when I was alone in the street, preferably at night and in certain areas in the west of Paris—one evening near the Maison de la Radio, in fact—I heard Aghamouri’s voice saying to me from afar: “In the end, you can never play both sides.”

  “I wasn’t careful enough . . . I let myself get mixed up in these plots . . . You know, Jean, some of the people who frequent the Unic Hôtel maintain close ties with Morocco . . .”

  As the time passed, the noise and number of people at the tables increased. Aghamouri spoke in a murmur, and I couldn’t make out everything he said. Yes, the Unic Hôtel was the rendezvous for certain Moroccans and the Frenchmen who were “in business” with them . . . What sort of business? That Georges with the moon face, the one Paul Chastagnier had said was “no altar bo
y,” owned a hotel in Morocco . . . Paul Chastagnier had spent many years living in Casablanca . . . And Marciano was born there . . . And he, Aghamouri, had found himself among these people because of a Moroccan friend who spent time at the Cité Universitaire, but who actually worked for the embassy as a “security adviser.”

  He spoke faster and faster, and it was hard for me to keep up with the flood of details. Perhaps he wanted to free himself of a burden, a secret he had carried too long. He suddenly said:

  “Forgive me . . . All this must seem incoherent . . .”

  Not at all. I was used to listening to people. And even when I didn’t understand a word they were saying, I opened my eyes wide and fixed them with a penetrating stare, which gave them the illusion they were addressing an especially attentive interlocutor. My mind would be elsewhere, but my eyes gazed steadily at them, as if I were drinking up their words. It was different with Aghamouri. He was part of Dannie’s entourage; I wanted to understand him. And I hoped he’d let slip a few clues about the ugly incident she was involved in.

  “You’re lucky . . . You don’t have to dirty your hands like we do . . . You can keep your hands clean . . .”

  Those last words contained a hint of reproach. Who did he mean by “we”? He and Dannie? I looked at his hands. They were delicate, much more delicate than mine. And white. Dannie’s, too, had impressed me with their refinement. She had very graceful wrists.

  “Except you have to be careful not to mix with the wrong people . . . However invulnerable you think you are, there’s always a chink in the armor . . . Always . . . Be careful, Jean.”

  It was as if he envied me for having “clean hands” and was anticipating the moment when I’d finally get them dirty. His voice grew increasingly distant. And, as I write these lines, that voice is as feeble as the ones that reach you very late at night on the radio, buried in static. I believe I already felt that way at the time. It seems to me that back then I saw them all as if they were behind the glass partition of an aquarium, and that glass stood between them and me. So it is that in dreams you watch others live through the uncertainties of the present, while you know the future. You try to persuade Mme du Barry not to return to France, to keep her from being guillotined. This evening, I think I’ll take the metro to Jussieu. As the stations roll by, I will travel back in time. I’ll find Aghamouri sitting at that same spot near the bar, in his camel coat, his black briefcase lying flat on the table—the black briefcase that might or might not have contained his course notes from Censier, which he said would help him pass his “foundation” exams. I wouldn’t have been surprised if instead he had pulled out wads of cash, a gun, or files to pass on to that Moroccan friend from the Cité Universitaire, the one who worked as a “security adviser” at the embassy . . . I’ll make him come with me to Jussieu station and we’ll take the opposite journey, forward in time. We’ll get off at Église-d’Auteuil, the end of the line. A quiet evening in a peaceful, almost rustic square. I’ll tell him, “This is the situation. You’re in the Paris of today. You no longer have anything to fear. Anyone who posed a threat is long dead. You’re out of harm’s way. There are no more phone booths. To call me, at any hour of the day or night, you use this thing.” And I’ll hand him a cell phone.

  “Yes . . . Be careful, Jean . . . When you were at the Unic Hôtel, I saw you talking a few times with Paul Chastagnier . . . He’ll get you involved in some nasty business too.”

  It was late. People were exiting the Lutèce Theater. No one was left at the dining tables facing us. Aghamouri seemed even more anxious than at the beginning of our conversation. I sensed that he was afraid to go outside, that he’d stay in this café until closing time.

  I asked him again:

  “And what about Dannie? . . . Do you really think that ugly incident you were talking about . . .”

  He didn’t leave me time to finish. He said sharply:

  “It could cost her dearly . . . Even with false papers, they could still find her . . . It was a mistake to bring her to the Unic Hôtel and introduce her to the others . . . but it was just to give her a break . . . She should have left Paris right away . . .”

  He had forgotten my presence. No doubt he repeated the same words to himself when he was alone at that hour of night. Then he shook his head as if snapping out of a bad dream.

  “I mentioned Paul Chastagnier . . . But the most dangerous one of all is Georges . . . He provided Dannie with the false papers. He has major backers in Morocco and knows that friend from the embassy . . . They want me to do something for them . . .”

  He was on the verge of telling me everything, but he stopped himself.

  “I don’t get why a boy like you should hang out with those people . . . I had no choice, but what about you?”

  I shrugged.

  “You know,” I said to him, “I don’t hang out with anyone. Most people I couldn’t care less about. Except for Restif de La Bretonne, Tristan Corbière, Jeanne Duval, and a few others.”

  “If that’s true, you’re very lucky . . .”

  And, like a detective who pretends to take your side the better to extract a confession:

  “When you get down to it, all this is really Dannie’s fault, don’t you think? If you want my advice, steer clear of that girl . . .”

  “I never take advice.”

  I forced myself to smile at him, a guileless smile.

  “Watch out for yourself . . . Dannie and I, it’s as if we had the plague . . . Around us, you’re in danger of catching leprosy . . .”

  What he was trying to tell me was that there was a tight bond between the two of them, common ground, complicity.

  “Don’t worry too much about me,” I said.

  When we left the café it was nearly midnight. He stood very stiff in his camel coat, black briefcase hanging from his hand.

  “Forgive me, I kind of lost my head tonight. Don’t pay any mind to what I said . . . It must be because of my exams. I never get much sleep . . . I have to take an oral in a few days . . .”

  He had recovered all his scholarly dignity and gravitas.

  “I don’t do nearly as well in oral exams as in written.”

  He forced himself to smile. I offered to accompany him to the Jussieu metro stop.

  “What an idiot I am . . . I didn’t even think to offer you dinner.”

  He was no longer the same man. He had completely regained his self-possession.

  We walked calmly across the square. We still had time before the last metro.

  “Forget everything I said about Dannie . . . It’s not as serious as all that . . . And anyway, when you’re fond of someone, you take their concerns way too personally and worry for no reason.”

  He said this in a clear voice, emphasizing every word. An expression occurred to me: he’s muddying the waters.

  He was about to go down the steps of the metro entrance. I couldn’t keep from asking:

  “Are you sleeping at the Unic Hôtel tonight?”

  He was not expecting the question. He paused for a moment.

  “I don’t think so. I took back my old room at the Cité Universitaire. It’s more pleasant, all in all.”

  He shook my hand goodbye. He was in a hurry to leave, and went down the steps very fast. Before diving into the corridor, he looked back, as if afraid I’d run after him. And I was tempted to do it. I imagined we were sitting side by side on one of those dark red benches on the platform, waiting for a train that would take a long time to arrive because of the late hour. He had lied to me: he was not going back to the Cité Universitaire or he would have taken the Porte d’Italie line. He was going to the Unic Hôtel. He would get off at Duroc. Once again, I tried to find out what “ugly incident” Dannie had drifted into. But he didn’t answer. There on the bench, he pretended not to know me. He stepped into the metro car, the doors shut behind him, and, his forehead pressed against the glass, he stared at me with dead eyes.

  That night, I returned to Rue de l’Aude on
foot. The long walk encouraged me to lose myself in my thoughts. On nights when Dannie joined me in my room, it was often around one in the morning. Sometimes she would say, “I went to see my brother,” or, “I was at my girlfriend’s in Ranelagh,” without offering many details. From what I had gathered, this brother—sometimes she referred to him as “Pierre”—did not live in Paris but came to town regularly. And the “girlfriend in Ranelagh” was so called because her home was near the Ranelagh gardens, in the sixteenth arrondissement. While she never offered to let me meet her brother, she did say she would introduce me to her girlfriend in Ranelagh. But the days went by and her promise remained unkept.

  Perhaps Aghamouri had not lied to me; perhaps, as I walked toward Rue de l’Aude, he was already back in his room at the Cité Universitaire. But Dannie? I could still hear Aghamouri’s voice, like a fading echo: “She’s done something pretty serious . . . She’s liable to find herself in deep trouble . . .” And I was afraid I would be waiting for her in vain that night. Then again, I often waited without knowing if she’d show. Or else she would come by when I wasn’t expecting her, at around four in the morning. I would have fallen into a light sleep, and the sound of the key turning in the lock would startle me awake. Evenings were long when I stayed in my neighborhood to wait for her, but it seemed only natural. I felt sorry for people who had to record appointments in their diary, sometimes months in advance. Everything was prearranged for them, and they would never wait for anyone. They would never know how time throbs, dilates, then falls slack again; how it gradually gives you that feeling of vacation and infinity that others seek in drugs, but that I found just in waiting. Deep down, I felt sure you would come sooner or later. At around eight in the evening, I heard my neighbor shut her door, her steps growing fainter down the stairs. She lived one flight up. On her door was a small, white square of cardboard on which she had written her first name in red ink: Kim. She was about the same age as us. She was performing in a play and had told me she was always afraid she’d arrive late, after the curtain went up. She had given us tickets, Dannie and me, and we had gone to a theater on the boulevards that today no longer exists. A taxi waited for her every evening, except Monday, at eight p.m. sharp, and on Sundays at two, in front of number 28 Rue de l’Aude. I watched through the window as she climbed into the cab, wearing a parka, and pulled the door shut. It was January; the weather had been very cold. Then a layer of snow had covered the street, and for a few days we were far away from Paris, in a mountain village. I don’t remember the title of the play or what it was about. She went onstage after intermission. I had recorded one sentence of her dialogue in my black notebook, along with the exact time—nine forty-five—that she spoke the line. If anyone had asked me why, I doubt I could have said. But today I understand it better: I needed reference points, the names of metro stations, street addresses, dogs’ pedigrees, as if fearing that from one moment to the next people and things would slip away or vanish, and I had to preserve at least some proof of their existence.