Ring Roads

by Patrick Modiano

  ‘My friends, I want to make an important announcement: I’m getting married in three days! Chalva will be my witness! Honour to whom honour is due! Any objections, Chalva?’

  You screw your face into a smile. You murmur:

  ‘I’m delighted, Guy!’

  ‘To the health of Jean Murraille, my future uncle-in-law,’ roars Marcheret, throwing out his chest.

  I raise my glass with the others, but immediately set it down again. If I drank a single drop of this white Bordeaux, I think I’d throw up. I have to reserve my strength for the lobster bisque.

  ‘Jean, I’m very proud to be marrying your daughter,’ declares Marcheret. ‘She’s got the most unsettling derrière in Paris.’

  Murraille roars with laughter.

  ‘Do you know Annie?’ Sylviane Quimphe asks me. ‘Who do you like best, her or me?’

  I hesitate. And then I manage to say: ‘You!’ How much longer is this little farce going to last? She eyes me hungrily. Though I can’t be a very pleasant sight . . . Sweat trickles from my sleeves. When will this nightmare end? The others are showing exceptional staying powers. Not a sign of perspiration on the faces of Murraille, Marcheret and Sylviane Quimphe. A few drops trickle down your forehead, but nothing much . . . And you tuck into your lobster bisque as if we were in an alpine chalet in mid-winter.

  ‘You’ve given up, Monsieur Alexandre?’ cries Marcheret. ‘You shouldn’t! The soup has a velvety creaminess!’

  ‘Our friend is suffering from the heat,’ Murraille says. ‘I do hope, Serge, that it won’t prevent your writing a good piece . . . I warn you that I must have it by next week. Have you thought of a subject?’

  If I wasn’t in such a critical condition, I would hit him. How can this mercenary traitor think I will blithely agree to contribute to his magazine, to get mixed up with this shower of informers, blackmailers and corrupt hacks who have flaunted themselves for the past two years on every page of C’est la vie? Ha, ha! They’ve got it coming to them. Bastards. Shits. Shysters. Vultures. They’re living on borrowed time! Didn’t Murraille himself show me the threatening letters they receive? He’s afraid.

  ‘I’ve just thought of something,’ he says. ‘Suppose you hatch me up a story?’

  ‘All right!’

  I tried to sound as enthusiastic as possible.

  ‘Something spicy, if you catch my drift?’

  ‘Absolutely!’

  It’s too hot to argue.

  ‘Not pornographic exactly, but risqué . . . a little smutty . . . What do you think, Serge?’

  ‘With pleasure.’

  Whatever he wants! I’ll write under my assumed name. But first I need to show willing. He’s waiting for me to suggest something, so here I go!

  ‘It’s something I’d want you to run in instalments . . .’

  ‘An excellent idea!’

  ‘In the form of “confessions”. That makes it a lot more titillating. How about: “The Confessions of a Society Chauffeur”.’

  I’d just remembered this title, which I’d seen in a pre-war magazine.

  ‘Marvellous, Serge, marvellous! “The Confessions of a Society Chauffeur”! You’re a genius!’

  He seemed genuinely enthusiastic.

  ‘When can I have the first instalment?’

  ‘In three days,’ I tell him.

  ‘Will you let me read them before anyone else?’ Sylviane Quimphe whispers.

  ‘I simply adore filthy stories.’ Marcheret declares pompously: ‘You mustn’t let us down, Monsieur Alexandre!’

  Grève served the meat course. I don’t know if it was the heat, the blaze of the ceiling light boring into my head, the sight of the rich food set in front of me, but I was suddenly seized by a fit of giggles which quickly gave way to a state of complete exhaustion. I tried to catch your eye. Without success. I didn’t dare look at Murraille or Marcheret in case they spoke to me. In desperation, I focussed on the beauty spot at the corner of Sylviane Quimphe’s lips. Then I simply waited, telling myself that the nightmare would surely end.

  It was Murraille who called me to order.

  ‘Are you thinking about your story? You mustn’t let it spoil your appetite!’

  ‘Inspiration comes while eating,’ said Marcheret.

  And you gave a little laugh; why did I expect anything else of you? You stood by these thugs and systematically ignored me, the one person in the world who wished you well.

  ‘Try the soufflé,’ Marcheret said to me. ‘It melts in the mouth! Sensational, isn’t it, Chalva?’

  You agree in a sycophantic tone that breaks my heart. I should just leave here, you deserve no better, leave you with the malarial ex-Legionary, the hack journalist and the whore. There are moments, ‘papa’, when I’m sorely tempted to give up. I’m trying to help you. What would you be without me? Without my loyalty, my dogged vigilance? If I let you go, you would not make a sound as you fell. Shall we try? Be careful! I can already feel a comfortable listlessness creeping over me. Sylviane Quimphe has undone two buttons of her shirt, she turns and slyly flashes her breasts. Why not? Murraille languidly takes off his foulard, Marcheret props his chin pensively in his palm and lets out a string of belches. I hadn’t noticed the greyish jowls that make you look like a bulldog. The conversation bores me. The voices of Murraille and Marcheret sound like a slowed-down record. Drawn out, droning on relentlessly, sinking into dark waters. Everything around me becomes hazy as drops of sweat fall into my eyes . . . The light grows dimmer, dimmer . . .

  ‘I say, Monsieur Alexandre, you aren’t going to pass out, are you . . .’

  Marcheret wipes my forehead and temples with a damp napkin. The faintness passes. A fleeting malaise. I warned you ‘papa’. What if next time I lose consciousness?

  ‘Feeling better, Serge?’ asks Murraille.

  ‘We’ll go for a little walk before going to bed,’ Sylviane Quimphe whispers.

  Marcheret, peremptorily:

  ‘Cognac and Turkish coffee! Nothing better to buck you up! Believe me, Monsieur Alexandre.’

  In fact, you were the only one who did not seem concerned about my health and this realisation simply added to my misery. Nevertheless, I managed to hold out until dinner was over. Marcheret ordered a ‘digestive liqueur’ and regaled us again about his wedding. One thing bothered him: who would be Annie’s witness? He and Murraille mentioned the names of several people I didn’t know. Then they began making a list of guests. They commented on each and I was afraid the task would take until dawn. Murraille made a weary gesture.

  ‘Before then,’ he said, ‘we might all be shot.’

  He glanced at his watch.

  ‘Shall we go to bed? What do you think, Serge?’

  In the bar, we surprised Maud Gallas with Dédé Wildmer. They were both sprawled in an armchair. He was pulling her to him and she was making a show of resistance. They had clearly had too much to drink. As we passed, Wildmer turned and gave me a curious look. We had not hit it off. In fact, I felt an instinctive dislike for the ex-jockey.

  I was glad to be in the fresh air again.

  ‘Will you come up to the villa with us?’ Murraille asked me.

  Sylviane Quimphe had taken my arm before I could make any objections. You walked along, shoulders hunched, between Murraille and Marcheret. With the moon glinting on your bracelet watch, it looked like you were being led away in handcuffs by two policemen. You’d been taken in a roundup. You were being taken to the cells. This is what I dreamed about it. What could be more natural ‘given the times we live in’.

  ‘I look forward to “The Confessions of a Society Chauffeur”,’ Murraille said. ‘I’m counting on you, Serge.’

  ‘You’ll write us a lovely smutty story,’ added Marcheret. ‘If you like, I can give you some advice. See you tomorrow, Monsieur Alexandre. Sweet dreams, Chalva.’

  Sylviane Quimphe whispered a few words in Murraille’s ear. (I may have been mistaken but I had a nasty feeling it was about me.) Murraille gave a bare
ly perceptible nod. Opened the gate and tugged Marcheret by the sleeve. I watched them go into the villa.

  We stood in silence for a moment, you, she and I, before turning back towards the Clos-Foucré. You fell behind. She had taken my arm again and now rested her head on my shoulder. I was upset that you should see this, but didn’t want to annoy her. In our situation, ‘papa’, it’s best to keep people happy. At the crossroads, you said ‘good night’ very politely, and turned up the Chemin du Bornage, leaving me with Sylviane.

  She suggested we take a little walk, ‘make the most of the moonlight’. We passed the ‘Villa Mektoub’ a second time. There was a light on in the drawing-room and the idea of Marcheret sitting alone, sipping a nightcap in that colonial mansion, sent a cold shiver down my spine. We took the bridle path at the edge of the forest. She unbuttoned her blouse. The rustling of the trees and the bluish twilight made me numb. After the ordeal of dinner, I was so exhausted that I was incapable of saying a word. I made a superhuman effort to open my mouth but no sound came. Luckily she began to talk about her complicated love life. She was, as I had suspected, Murraille’s mistress – but they both had ‘broad-minded’ ideas. For instance, they both enjoyed orgies. She asked whether I was shocked. I said no, of course not. What about me, had I ‘tried it’? Not yet, but if the opportunity arose, I was keen to. She promised I could ‘join them’ next time. Murraille had a twelve-room flat on the Avenue d’Iéna where these get-togethers were held. Maud Gallas joined in. And Marcheret. And Annie, Murraille’s daughter. And Dédé Wildmer. And others, lots of them. It was crazy, the wild pleasures to be had in Paris at the moment. Murraille had explained to her that this was always the way on the eve of catastrophe. What did he mean? She had no interest in politics. Or the fate of the world. She thought only of coming. Hard and fast. After this statement of principle, she told me her secrets. She’d met a young man at the last party in the Avenue d’Iéna. Physically, he was a mixture between Max Schmeling and Henri Garat. Morally, he was resourceful. He belonged to one of the auxiliary police forces which had proliferated everywhere in recent months. He liked to fire his gun at random. Such exploits did not particularly surprise me. Were we not living through times when we had to thank God every minute for not being hit by a stray bullet? She had spent two days and two nights with him, and recounted all the details, but I was no longer listening. To our right, behind the high fence, I’d just recognized ‘your’ house, with its tower in the form of a minaret and its arched windows. You could see it better from this side than from the Chemin du Bornage. I even thought I saw you standing on one of the balconies. We were about fifty yards from each other and I had only to cross the overgrown garden to reach you. I hesitated a moment. I wanted to call or wave to you. No. My voice wouldn’t carry and the creeping paralysis I had felt since the beginning of the evening made it impossible to raise my hand. Was it the moonlight? ‘Your’ villa was bathed in a bright northern glow. It looked like a papier mâché palace floating in the air, and you a fat sultan. Eyes glazed, mouth slack, leaning on a balustrade overlooking the forest. I thought of all the sacrifices I had made to be with you: bearing no grudge for the ‘unfortunate incident in the George V métro’. Plunging into an atmosphere that sapped me mentally and physically; putting up with the company of these sickening people; lying in wait for days on end, never weakening. And all for the tawdry mirage I now saw before me. But I will hound you to the bitter end. You interest me, ‘papa’. One is always curious to know one’s family background.

  It is darker now. We have taken a short-cut which leads to the village. She’s still telling me about Murraille’s apartment on the Avenue d’Iéna. On summer evenings, they go out on to the big terrace . . . She brings her face close to mine. I can feel her breath on my neck. We stumble blindly through the Clos-Foucré and I find myself in her room, as I expected. On the bedside table, a lamp with a red shade. Two chairs and a writing-desk. The walls are papered with yellow and green striped satin. She turns the dial of the wireless and I hear the distant voice of Andre Claveau through the static. She stretches out on the bed.

  ‘Would you be kind and take off my boots?’

  I obey, moving like a sleepwalker. She passes me a cigarette case. We smoke. Clearly all the bedrooms in the Clos-Foucré are exactly the same: Empire furniture and English hunting prints. Now she’s toying with a little pistol with a mother-of-pearl handle and I wonder whether this is the first chapter of the ‘Confessions of a Society Chauffeur’ I promised Murraille. In the harsh light from the lamp, she looks older than I had thought. Her face is puffy with tiredness. There is a smear of lipstick across her chin. She says:

  ‘Come here.’

  I sit on the edge of the bed. She props herself on her elbows and gazes into my eyes. Just at that moment, there must have been an electricity cut. The room is framed in a yellow pall of the kind that glazes old photographs. Her face shifted out of focus, the outlines of the furniture indistinct, Claveau carried on singing faintly. Then I asked the question that had been dying to ask from the beginning. Curtly:

  ‘Tell me, what do you know about Baron Deyckecaire?’

  ‘Deyckecaire?’

  She sighed and turned towards the wall. Minutes passed. She had forgotten me but I returned to the attack.

  ‘Strange guy, isn’t he, Deyckecaire?’

  I waited. She did not react. I repeated, articulating each syllable:

  ‘Strange guy, Dey-cke-caire . . .!’

  She didn’t stir. I thought she had fallen asleep and I would never get an answer. I heard her mutter:

  ‘You find Deyckecaire interesting?’

  The flicker of a lighthouse in the darkness. Very faint. She went on in a drawl:

  ‘What do you want with that creature?’

  ‘Nothing . . . Have you known him long?’

  ‘That creature?’ She repeated the word ‘creature’ with that doggedness drunks have of repeating a word over and over.

  ‘Am I right in thinking he’s a friend of Murraille’s?’ I ventured.

  ‘His crony!’

  I planned to ask her what she meant by ‘crony’ but I needed to catch her off guard. She rambled on interminably, then trailed off, muttered a few confused phrases. I was used to this floundering around, to these exhausting games of blind-man’s-buff when you stretch out your arms but catch only empty air. I tried – not without difficulty – to steer her back to the point. After an hour I had at least succeeded in coaxing some information from her. Yes, you were certainly Murraille’s ‘crony’. You served as a frontman and general factotum in certain shady deals. Contraband? Black marketeering? Touting? Finally she yawned and said: ‘But it doesn’t matter, Jean is planning to get rid of him as soon as possible!’ That made things only too clear. We moved on to talk about other things. She fetched a little leather case from the desk and showed me the jewellery Murraille had given her. He liked it to be heavy and encrusted with stones, because, according to him, ‘it would be easier to sell in an emergency’. I said I thought it was a very sensible idea ‘given the times we’re living in’. She asked if I went out much in Paris. There were lots of stunning shows: Roger Duchesne and Billy Bourbon were doing a cabaret at Le Club. Sessue Hayakawa was in a revival of Forfaiture at the Ambigu, and Michel Parme with the Skarjinsky orchestra were playing an early evening set at the Chapiteau. I was thinking about you, ‘papa’. So you were a straw man to be liquidated when the time came. Your disappearance would create no more fuss than that of a fly. Who would remember you twenty years from now?

  She drew the curtains. I could only see her face and her red hair. I went over the events of the evening again. The interminable dinner, the moonlight walk, Murraille and Marcheret going back to the ‘Villa Mektoub’. And your shadow standing on the Chemin du Bornage. All these vague impressions were part of the past. I had gone back in time to find your trail and track you down. What year were we living in? What era? What life? By what strange miracle had I known you when you were
not yet my father? Why had I made so much effort, when a chansonnier was telling a ‘Jewish joke’, in a bar that smelled of shadows and leather, to an audience of strangers? Why, even then, had I wanted to be your son? She turned out the bedside light. The sound of voices from the next room. Maud Gallas and Dédé Wildmer. They swore at each other for a long time and then came the sighs, the moans. The wireless had stopped crackling. After a piece played by the Fred Adison orchestra, the last news bulletin was announced. And it was terrifying, listening to the frantic newsreader – still the same voice – in the darkness.

  I needed all the patience I could muster. Marcheret took me aside and began to describe, house by house, the red-light district of Casablanca where he had spent – he told me – the best moments of his life. You never forget Africa! It leaves its mark! A pox-ridden continent. I let him go on for hours about ‘that old whore Africa’, showing a polite interest. He had one other topic of conversation. His royal lineage. He claimed to be descended from the Duc du Maine, the bastard son of Louis XIV. His title, ‘Comte d’Eu’ proved it. Every time, pen and paper at the ready, he insisted on showing me in detail. He would embark on a family tree and it would take him until dawn. He got confused, crossed out names, added others, his writing steadily becoming illegible. In the end, he ripped the page into little pieces, and gave me a withering look:

  ‘You don’t believe me, do you?’

  On other evenings, his malaria and his impending marriage to Annie Murraille were the subjects of conversation. The malaria attacks were less frequent now, but he would never be cured. And Annie went her own way. He was only marrying her out of friendship for Murraille. It wouldn’t last a week . . . These realisations made him bitter. Fuelled by alcohol, he would become aggressive, call me a ‘greenhorn’ and ‘a snot-nosed brat’. Dédé Wildmer was a ‘pimp’, Murraille a ‘sex maniac’ and my father ‘a Jew who had it coming to him’. Gradually he would calm down, apologize to me. What about one more vermouth? No better cure for the blues.

  Murraille, on the other hand, talked about his magazine. He planned to expand C’est la vie, add a 36-page section with new columns in which the most diverse talents could express themselves. He would soon celebrate fifty years in journalism with a lunch at which most of his colleagues and friends would be reunited: Maulaz, Alin-Laubreaux, Gerbère, Le Houleux, Lestandi . . . and various celebrities. He would introduce me to them. He was delighted to be able to help me. If I needed money, I shouldn’t hesitate to tell him: he would let me have advances against future stories. As time went on, his bluster and patronising tone gave way to a mounting nervousness. Every day – he told me – he received a hundred anonymous letters. People were baying for his blood, he had been forced to apply for a gun licence. Broadly, he was being accused of being part of an era when most people ‘played a waiting game’. He at least made his position clear. In black and white. He had the upper hand at the moment, but the situation might turn out badly for him and his friends. If that happened, they would not get off lightly. In the meantime, he was not going to be bossed around by anyone. I said I agreed absolutely. Strange thoughts ran through my mind: the man was not suspicious of me (at least I don’t think he was) and it would have been easy to ruin him. It’s not every day that you find yourself face to face with a ‘traitor’ and ‘Judas’. You have to make the most of it. He smiled. Deep down, I rather liked him.