Villa Triste

by Patrick Modiano

  “You must come again,” he declared. “We have a lot of fun, the three of us. And you, you’re quite a comedian.”

  “That’s the truth,” Yvonne agreed.

  “You too, you’re a ‘comedian’ too,” I said.

  I would have liked to add, “and a comfort,” because his presence, his way of speaking, his gestures shielded me. In that dining room, between him and Yvonne, I had nothing to fear. Nothing. I was invulnerable.

  “Do you work a lot?” I ventured to ask.

  He lit a cigarette.

  “Yes, I do. I have to run this all by myself.” He gestured toward the hangar outside the windows.

  “Have you been doing it long?”

  He handed me his pack of Royales. “I started it with Yvonne’s father …”

  He was apparently surprised and touched by my attention and my curiosity. He didn’t often get asked questions about himself and his work. Yvonne’s head was turned, and she was holding out a piece of meat to the dog.

  “We bought this from the Farman aircraft company … We became the Hotchkiss dealers for the whole region … We had arrangements with Switzerland for luxury cars …”

  He reeled off those statements very quickly and almost in an undertone, as if fearful of being interrupted, but Yvonne wasn’t paying him the slightest attention. She was talking to the dog and petting him.

  “Things went well here, with her father …”

  He dragged on his cigarette, which he held between his thumb and index finger.

  “Does this interest you? It’s all in the past, all of it …”

  “What are you telling him, Unky?”

  “I’m talking about starting the garage with your father …”

  “But you’re boring him …” There was a touch of malice in her voice.

  “Not at all,” I said. “Not at all. What became of your father?”

  The question had slipped out, and there was no taking it back. An embarrassment. I noticed Yvonne was frowning.

  “Albert …”

  As he said that name, the uncle’s eyes glazed over. Then he snorted. “Albert got into some trouble …”

  I realized I’d hear no more from him on that subject, and in fact I was surprised he’d confided so much in me already.

  “And how about you?” He put a hand on Yvonne’s shoulder. “Everything going the way you want?”

  “Yes.”

  The conversation was about to bog down. I decided to mount a charge.

  “Do you know she’s going to be a movie star?”

  “Do you really think so?”

  “I’m sure of it.”

  She blew cigarette smoke in my face, but nicely.

  “You know, when she told me she was going to make a film, I didn’t believe her. And yet it was true … So your movie’s finished, Yvonne?”

  “Yes, Unky.”

  “When can we see it?”

  “It’s going to come out in three or four months,” I declared.

  “Will it come here?” He was skeptical.

  “Absolutely. It’ll be at the Casino cinema.” (My tone of voice was increasingly assured.) “You’ll see.”

  “Well then, we’ll have to celebrate it. Tell me … Do you think that’s a real profession?”

  “I certainly do. And in fact, she’s going to keep working. She’s going to be in another film.”

  The vehemence of my affirmation surprised even me.

  “And she’s going to be a star, Monsieur.”

  “Really?”

  “But of course, Monsieur. Ask her.”

  “Is it true, Yvonne?” There was a little hint of mockery in his voice.

  “Yes indeed, everything Victor says is the truth, Unky.”

  “As you see, Monsieur, I’m right.”

  This time I adopted an unctuous, parliamentary tone that made me feel ashamed, but the subject was too close to my heart, and if I wanted to talk about it, I had to use any means I could to overcome my elocution problems. I said, “Yvonne has enormous talent, believe me.”

  She was stroking the dog. The uncle gazed at me, the butt of his Royale stuck in the corner of his mouth. Again, the shadow of anxiety, the preoccupied look.

  “And you, you think that’s a real profession?”

  “The finest profession in the world, Monsieur.”

  “Well, I hope you make it,” he said gravely to Yvonne. “After all, you’re no fool …”

  “Victor will give me good advice, won’t you, Victor?”

  She gave me a look both tender and ironic.

  “You saw that she won the Houligant Cup, didn’t you?” I asked her uncle.

  “I was knocked out when I read that in the newspaper.” He hesitated a moment. “Tell me, is it important, the Houligant Cup?”

  Yvonne sniggered.

  “It can serve as a springboard,” I declared, wiping my monocle.

  He proposed we drink some coffee. I took a seat on the old bluish sofa while he and Yvonne cleared the table. Yvonne sang to herself as she carried the plates and silverware into the kitchen. Her uncle ran some water. The dog had fallen asleep at my feet. I can still see that dining room in great detail. The walls were covered with wallpaper in three patterns: red roses, ivy, and birds (I’m unable to say whether they were blackbirds or sparrows). The background was beige or white, the wallpaper a little faded. The hanging light fixture — wooden, circular — had ten bulbs with parchment shades. They shed a warm amber light. On the wall, a little unframed picture showed a woodland scene, and I admired the way the painter had profiled the trees against a clear twilight sky, and the patch of sunlight lingering at the foot of a tree. The painting helped to make the atmosphere of the room more peaceful. The uncle, by the phenomenon of contagion that makes you take up a tune you know when you hear it, was singing softly along with Yvonne. I felt great. I would have wanted the evening to go on indefinitely, so that I could sit there for hours and observe their comings and goings, Yvonne’s graceful movements, her indolent walk, her uncle’s swaying gait. And hear them murmuring the song’s refrain, which I dare not sing myself, because it would remind me of that precious moment in my life.

  He came and sat beside me on the sofa. Trying to continue the conversation, I pointed to the little picture and said, “Very pretty …”

  “It was Yvonne’s father who painted that … yes it was …”

  The picture must have been hanging in the same place for many years, but he still marveled at the thought that his brother had produced it.

  “Albert had a pretty brushstroke … You can see his signature at the bottom, on the right: Albert Jacquet. He was a funny guy, my brother …”

  I was about to ask an indiscreet question, but Yvonne came out of the kitchen, carrying the coffee tray. She was smiling. The dog stretched. The uncle coughed but kept the cigarette end in the corner of his mouth. Yvonne squeezed in between me and the arm of the sofa and laid her head on my shoulder. The uncle poured the coffee, all the while clearing his throat with what sounded like a series of roars. He held out a lump of sugar to the dog, who took it delicately between his teeth, and I knew in advance he wouldn’t chew up that morsel, he’d suck on it and stare into space. He never chewed his food.

  I hadn’t noticed a table behind the sofa. On it was a midsized white radio, a model halfway between a standard set and a transistor. The uncle turned a knob, and at once some quiet music came on. We each drank our coffee in little sips. From time to time, the uncle rested his head on the back of the sofa and blew smoke rings. He was quite good at it. Yvonne listened to the music, beating time with one lazy forefinger. We stayed like that, without saying anything, like people who’ve known one another forever, three people from the same family.

  “You should show him the rest of the house,” the uncle murmured.

  His eyes were closed. Yvonne and I got up. The dog gave us a sly look, got up too, and followed us. We were in the entrance hall, at the foot of the stairs, when Big Ben stru
ck again, but more incoherently and violently this time, so that I imagined a mad pianist pounding the keyboard with his fists and forehead. The terrified dog dashed up the stairs and waited for us at the top. A lightbulb hanging from the ceiling threw a cold yellow light. Yvonne’s pink turban and lipstick made her face look even paler. And I, under that light — I felt I’d been submerged in leaden dust. On the right, a mirrored armoire. Yvonne opened the door in front of us. A room whose window overlooked the road, as I could tell from the muffled noise of several passing trucks.

  She switched on the bedside lamp. The bed was very narrow. And all that was left of it was the box spring. There were shelves around it, and the ensemble formed a cozy nook. In the left-hand corner, a tiny washbasin with a mirror over it. Against the wall, a white wooden cupboard. She sat on the edge of the box spring and said, “This was my room.”

  The dog had stationed himself in the middle of a carpet so worn you couldn’t make out its pattern anymore. After a moment, he got up and left the room. I scrutinized the walls and inspected the shelves, hoping to discover some vestige of Yvonne’s childhood. It was much hotter here than in the other rooms, and she took off her dress. Then she lay across the box spring. She was wearing garters, stockings, a brassiere — all the things women were still encumbering themselves with back then. I opened the white cupboard. Maybe there was something inside.

  “What are you looking for?” she asked, propped up on her elbows.

  She squinted. I spotted a little schoolbag in the back of the cupboard. I took it out and sat down on the floor with my back against the box spring. She rested her chin in the hollow of my shoulder and breathed on my neck. I opened the schoolbag, slipped a hand inside, and pulled out half of an old pencil with a grayish eraser. A nauseating smell of leather and wax — or so it seemed to me — rose from inside the bag. On the eve of the summer holidays one year, Yvonne had closed it for good.

  She turned off the light. By what coincidences and what detours had I come to lie beside her on this box spring, in this small, disused room?

  How long did we stay there? Big Ben couldn’t be trusted; its chiming grew crazier and crazier, it struck midnight three times in the course of several minutes. I got up and in the semidarkness saw that Yvonne had turned to face the wall. Perhaps she wanted to sleep. The dog was on the landing, in his sphinx position, facing the armoire mirror. He was contemplating himself with bored disdain. When I passed, he didn’t flinch. His neck was very straight, his head slightly raised, his ears pricked. When I was halfway down the stairs, I heard him yawn. As before, the bulb shed a cold yellow light that numbed me. Through the half-open door of the dining room I could hear limpid, icy music, the kind you often hear on the radio at night, the kind that brings to mind a deserted airport. Yvonne’s uncle was listening to it, sitting in his armchair. When I came in, he turned his head toward me: “Everything all right?”

  “How about you?”

  “Me, I’m all right,” he answered. “And you?”

  “Everything’s all right.”

  “We can go on if you want … All right?”

  He looked at me, his smile fixed, his eyes heavy, as if a photographer were about to take his picture.

  He handed me the pack of Royales. I struck four matches, to no avail. Finally I got a flame, which I very carefully brought closer to the tip of my cigarette. And then I inhaled. I had the sensation that I was smoking for the first time. He was watching me closely and frowning.

  “I see you’re not a manual worker,” he remarked gravely.

  “I’m sorry about that.”

  “Why be sorry, my young friend? You think it’s fun to tinker around with engines?”

  He looked at his hands.

  “It must give you some satisfaction sometimes,” I said.

  “Oh, yes? Do you really think so?”

  “In any case, it’s a fine invention, the automobile …”

  But he wasn’t listening to me anymore. The music had stopped, and the announcer — his intonation was simultaneously English and Swiss, and I wondered what his nationality was — spoke some words I still occasionally repeat aloud, after so many years, when I’m walking by myself: “Ladies and gentlemen, Genève-Musique now ends its broadcast day. Until tomorrow, good night.” The uncle made no move to turn the radio off, and since I didn’t dare intervene, I heard a continuous crackle of static that eventually sounded like the rustling of the wind in the leaves. And the dining room was invaded by something fresh and green.

  “She’s a nice girl, Yvonne …”

  He blew a fairly successful smoke ring.

  “She’s a lot more than a nice girl,” I answered.

  He looked me straight in the eye, with interest, as if I’d just said something of major import.

  “What do you say we go for a little walk?” he suggested. “I’ve got pins and needles in my legs.”

  He stood up and opened the French window.

  “You’re not scared?”

  He pointed to the hangar, whose contours were shrouded in darkness. At regular intervals, you could make out a bulb, a small point of light.

  “This way you’ll be able to see the garage.”

  I’d barely set foot on the edge of that cavernous black space before I inhaled a smell of gasoline, a smell that has always excited me — for reasons I’ve never been able to identify precisely — a smell as sweet as the smell of ether, or of the silver paper that chocolate bars come in. He took my arm, and we plunged toward the garage’s darkest regions.

  “Yes … Yvonne’s a funny girl …”

  He wanted to initiate a conversation. He was circling around a subject close to his heart, one he certainly hadn’t discussed with many people. Maybe, in fact, he was bringing it up for the first time.

  “Funny, but very lovable,” I said.

  And in my effort to articulate an intelligible sentence, I produced a very high-pitched voice, an incredibly affected falsetto.

  “You see …” He hesitated one final time before he opened up, squeezing my arm. “She’s a lot like her father … My brother was so reckless …”

  We were walking straight ahead. I gradually got used to the darkness, which was pierced, every twenty meters or so, by a dim lightbulb.

  “She’s caused me a lot of worry, Yvonne has …”

  He lit a cigarette. Suddenly I couldn’t see him anymore, and since he’d let go of my arm, I followed the glowing tip of his cigarette. He started to walk faster, and I was afraid I’d lose him altogether.

  “I’m telling you all this because you seem to be a gentleman …”

  I coughed. I didn’t know how to answer him.

  “It’s obvious you’ve been brought up well …”

  “Oh, no,” I said.

  He was walking ahead of me, and I tried to keep my eyes on the red tip of his cigarette. There was no lightbulb in this part of the hangar. I stretched my arms out in front of me to keep from banging into a wall.

  “This must be the first time Yvonne’s met a young man from a good family …” A brief laugh. Then, in a muted voice: “Right, my boy?”

  He squeezed my arm very hard, around the biceps. He stood facing me. I could see the phosphorescent tip of his cigarette. We didn’t move.

  “She’s already done so many foolish things …” He sighed. “And now, there’s this movie business …”

  I couldn’t see him, but I’d seldom sensed in anyone so much weariness and resignation.

  “It’s no use trying to reason with her … She’s like her father … Like Albert …”

  He pulled me by the arm and we walked on. His hold on my biceps was getting tighter and tighter.

  “I’m talking to you about all this because I think you’re a nice young man … and well brought up.”

  The sound of our footsteps echoed throughout that vast space. I couldn’t understand how he managed to get his bearings in the dark. If he left me behind, I’d have no chance of finding my way.

&nb
sp; “Shall we go back?” I said.

  “You see, Yvonne has always wanted to live beyond her means … And it’s dangerous … very dangerous …”

  He’d released his grip on my arm, but to keep from losing him, I was clutching the bottom of his jacket. He didn’t mind.

  “When she was sixteen, she figured out some way of buying beauty products by the kilo …”

  He accelerated his pace, but I kept hold of his jacket.

  “She wasn’t interested in spending any time with people from around here … She preferred the summer holidaymakers at the Sporting Club … Like her father …”

  Three lightbulbs, all in a row above our heads, dazzled me. He forked left and started stroking the wall with his fingertips. The sharp click of a light switch. Very bright light, all around us. The entire hangar was lit up by floodlights fixed in the roof. The place looked even vaster than before.

  “I apologize, my boy, but the only place I can switch on the ‘floods’ is here …”

  We were at the back of the hangar. There were some American cars parked one beside the other, and an old Chausson bus whose tires were all flat. I noticed, to our left, a glassed-in workshop that looked like a greenhouse, and beside it some tubs of green plants arranged in a square. The floor in that space was gravel, and ivy was growing up the wall. There was even an arbor, a garden table, and some garden chairs.

  “So what do you think of my open-air café here, eh, my boy?”

  We pulled two of the garden chairs up to the table and sat facing each other. He put both his elbows on the table and his chin in the palms of his hands. He looked exhausted.

  “This is where I take a break when I’m sick of tinkering around with engines … It’s my bower …”

  He pointed at the American cars and the Chausson bus behind them. “You see that traveling junkyard?” He made an exasperated gesture, as if shooing away a fly. “It’s a terrible thing when you don’t love your work anymore …”

  I grimaced, or smiled, incredulously. “But surely —”

  “How about you? Do you still love your work?”

  “Yes,” I said, without any notion of what work we were talking about.

  “A young man your age is all fire and flame …”