Paris Noir

by Aurélien Masson

  of the two incompetent bikers

  of the bum in the john at the Gare du Nord café

  of Berthet

  of Moreau

  of the emasculated editor-in-chief

  of Hélène Bastogne

  Then the Voice walked out.

  Autumn was still warm in the 10th arrondissement.

  And the Voice said to himself that, all things considered, the operation had been rather successful.

  PART II

  LIBERATION LOST

  LIKE A TRAGEDY

  BY LAURENT MARTIN

  Place de la Nation

  Translated by David Ball

  I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano;

  A stage where every man must play a part,

  And mine a sad one.

  —William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice

  1.

  Still the same smell same view same disgust. Nothing’s changed.

  My bedroom window looks out on the night. The night where the lights of the city all around are shining. The night where hidden men are patiently waiting for the next day. When I was a kid, I used to think dead lights left the earth and went up to the sky in the form of stars. Dinner’s over. They’ve left. My sister Sophie and her husband. In actual fact they’re getting married tomorrow. That’s why I’m here.

  A few groggy steps around my room. Nothing’s changed. The worn-out furniture. The wallpaper. The dreary smell. Took a whole day to get here. The fatigue and boredom of being here, I’m going to collapse.

  When I got here, the table was already set. They had already come. His name is Patrick and my sister’s in love. That’s all I know. Mom made soup for us. Soup’s a family tradition. It’s lasted thirty years. “Eat while it’s hot.” Mom doesn’t look any older. Or hardly any. Still something sad in her eyes, and pink cheeks and jet-black hair. Not like me, verging on brown and now white. Man, do I look older. Dinner. Pretend to be interested in Patrick. With a bitch of a headache. Patrick is tall and kind of good-looking. My sister’s pretty too. The years seem to have made her look even better. Say anything at all to fill up the time and now Sophie’s urging me to tell them some of my adventures. My adventures, when I was in the submarine corps. “That’s such a different life!” “So tell us about it.” So I tell about it. The dives, the trips, the ports of call. The dangerous situations that make you shudder when you have no idea how a submarine works. I worked in the engine room. A very important job and Patrick thought I was interesting. Everybody was happy I was back, happy with my stories, and I played the prodigal son come home, as if nothing had happened, whereas I would have liked to have been very far away from here. Patrick asked me why I’d left Paris. “To see how it is somewhere else.” He could feel I was lying. There are stories I’d rather not tell. Discreetly, Sophie thanked me for coming. “Without you, something would have been missing from my wedding.”

  We all separated. Till tomorrow. I was alone again in my lousy room where I spent so many shitty years looking at the stars leaving the earth, wondering if someday I’d have the courage to leave. I had to have a good reason to run away from this city and find myself in a submarine, sealed in half the time. No wonder I already have white hair and tired eyes.

  2.

  The first morning. Up early, first one. A Navy habit. Six o’clock, every day, never lose crappy habits. Mom’s still sleeping. I feed the cat. He must be fifteen or sixteen. I’m the one who found this cat. Lost and wet right outside the building. The only good deed I’ve ever done. I believe. I make myself a cup of coffee. Mom’s coffee’s still just as bad. From the kitchen window you can also see the city the railroad tracks the high-rises that stand out and try to wake up. It’s still almost night. I grab an old issue of the paper lying on the table. Pages are missing. I skim through some news items as I drink my coffee.

  In the silence of the early hours I look for the iron. It hasn’t moved. In the hall closet. Nothing has moved. I wonder if I really left, if it’s not the morning after a rocky night of drinking that made me think I’d disappeared for ten years. My only suit has to be ironed. Keep up appearances. Patrick’s parents have money. They rented a big room in a restaurant in the Bois de Vincennes that has a little garden. We don’t have the money for that. So we keep up appearances. A family tradition. Like the soup. But I don’t hold it against her: Mom did what she could when my father died. A perfectly pressed suit. A wedding in September when the days are getting shorter, what an idea. I put it in my room on the bed and I close the door so the cat won’t come in and sleep on it.

  Mom’s up now. She’s surprised. She forgot I was here. Yet it’s the first time I’ve been here in ten years.

  “Did you sleep well?” “Yes! You left the room just like it used to be.” “What did you expect me to do with it?” “I don’t know.” She grabs a cup and helps herself and takes a sip. “Your coffee is very strong.” “That’s the only way I like it.” She adds a little water. “I ironed my suit for the wedding.” “I could have done it for you.” “I’m used to it. We did everything ourselves in the subs.” “So it’s not like it used to be.” She smiles sadly and adds: “Are you okay?” What can I answer? I lie: “Sure! Work, life … everything’s okay.” She finishes her cup. I tell her I’m going out for a walk. “Do you need something?” “No! I feel like taking a walk.” “You’ll see, there’ve been some changes.” “I’ll bet.”

  I walk downstairs. Fifth floor. Fifty-seven steps. I still remember the jerky tempo of the descent. Back in the day, the light used to go on the fritz a lot and you had to keep count of the steps in your head so as not to fall. Outside. A kind of square where two buildings face each other. Ours and Olivier’s. Olivier was a friend of my father’s. Anyway he doesn’t live there anymore. The air is cool. A strange feeling that this new old world is much smaller than the one I left. A few shouts in the distance, and the background noise that never goes away. A mix of all the activities of the city. Never have I heard silence around here. I go up rue de Fécamp, cross boulevard Daumesnil, and I take rue de Picpus to reach the little park where I used to hang out a lot. The place where I smoked my first cigarettes with Marco and the other guys. The mix of new and old apartment buildings gives a rhythm to what I see. Nothing has really changed, but everything is different. Ten years is an eternity. After the little park I walk up to Place de la Nation. I leave the neighborhood. Our neighborhood our universe where we thought we dominated the city and the world. What a laugh. We were just fragile little insects running around in a space that was too vast and noisy for us.

  And the back streets around there, like little islands, where life was organized around a café. That’s where we would meet, in those cafés. We rarely went any further away. Rarely to the other neighborhoods—for us that was elsewhere, too far away. I gulp down a cup of coffee in one of those cafés. I don’t know if the sign has changed. It’s a little blurry in my memory. A few old guys are talking over a beer. They were already there in the same spot ten years ago, a hundred years ago.

  Store after store, like everywhere else. The same signs, the same colors. Standardization settling in and taking over. Just shadows. Buildings, cars, men, women, these people. Just shadows I ignore.

  I walk back toward Daumesnil, until I find another sad café to sit down in. A young woman barely twenty comes to take my order. Just a coffee. This return to the past is awful. It forces me to think about myself, and all I’ve done so far is hide, in order to forget myself. I’m the same. Nothing has changed. The main thing is the only thing you hold onto. Thick heavy vapors coming from the souls of things. Light, superficial, intoxicating things … I’ve forgotten all that. I come up to the surface again, suffering from a painful illness. Stinging nostalgia.

  Mom was getting worried. “You could have said where you were going.” “What for? I’m here.” “The wedding.” “D’you think I’ve come six hundred miles to miss my sister’s wedding?” She made me a dish of meat in sauce. I hardly ate any. “I
t’s not good?” “I’m not really hungry.” “But it’s sauté of veal, you used to like that.”

  Yes! I used to like that. She thinks I’m pale for someone who lives on the Riviera. “You know, at my job we’re not outside a lot.” And she makes some comments about my white hair and my father who didn’t have any at my age.

  We get ready for the wedding. Mom doesn’t want to be late. She has even ordered a taxi. “We’re not going to your sister’s wedding by bus!” “She could’ve left us her car.” “She still needed it.” Mom bought herself a dress for the occasion. She asks what I think of it. I say it’s fine without looking.

  3.

  About a hundred guests. Eight to a table. I’m entitled to the table of honor. I occupy the seat of the father of the bride. The worst table at a wedding. I listen politely to what Patrick’s parents say. Real assholes who own a business. “Our children are so charming!” Sure! He’s their only son, so they wanted to do things right. And you can tell. A band. Food, and more food. Drink, and more drink. At this moment I hate my sister but I send her loving smiles. Between two yeses and two meaningless comments, I look the guests over. All of them from Patrick’s class. A business school. You can’t change yourself. I don’t know any of them. And a few of my sister’s friends I met years ago; their faces are totally dark in my memory. Time. The feeling that I’m falling headfirst into what I wanted to leave for good. I gulp down wine, good wine, to get drunk. Patrick plays the nice brother-in-law. I gulp down wine. I hardly listen at all. I gulp.

  And suddenly I see her.

  Sitting at a table, vaguely smiling at the people around her. She wasn’t there at the start of the celebration. She just came in. The same somber face, the same sad smile, and her short hair shorter. I ask my sister: “Is that Valerie over there, in blue?” “Yes.” “You still in touch with her?” “A little. Why?” “Just curious.” A strange emotion in my sister’s face. Fear, almost. I don’t know why. My heart stirs, jumps, the way it jumped ten years ago. I watch Valerie for the rest of the meal. I’m pretty sure she has seen me too.

  Before dessert, we’re entitled to a pause for the champagne. I take a bottle and two glasses. I get up. Valerie is there, alone, absent. I walk up to her. A feeling of staggering, plunging into a bottomless pit, one of the dark places alcohol generously throws you into before it asks you to pay the toll. Charon works on earth now. Three breaths. I’m at her table.

  [He walks over to her with a bottle in his hand. She’s sitting at a table.]

  HIM: Hello.

  [She jumps.]

  HER: Hello … I haven't had the courage to go up to the table of honor yet … You came back?

  HIM: For the occasion. That's all.

  HER: I didn't think I'd see you again. Sophie hardly ever talks about you.

  HIM: I've been kind of quiet these past few years. I have some champagne. Want some?

  HER: Yes, please.

  [He serves her. They drink to cover their embarrassment.]

  HER: What are you doing now?

  HIM: Not much. A few years in submarines. Now I'm working at a garage in Toulon. How about you?

  HER: I stayed here. Not much either. It's a nice wedding.

  HIM: I don't know what “a nice wedding” means.

  HER: Your sister and mother seem happy.

  HIM: That's true. Are you alone? No escort?

  HER: No! No one.

  [Silence.]

  [They cross glasses.]

  HIM: Cheers.

  HER: Cheers.

  [The potion acts.]

  We spend the rest of the night together. Talking a little about our memories. She talks to me about submarines. What’s with all these people with their submarines? Valerie. Years ago, we went out together. She was a friend of my sister’s. She was beautiful. She still is. A rather sophisticated charm that contrasted with my raw, almost animal state. We finish the bottle of champagne, we take another one. The world fades out around us. We’re alone, surrounded by the deafening crowd that sings, howls. A nice wedding.

  I agree to dance with my sister. She’s worried. I’m merry. I wish her moments of happiness. “Just moments?” “Could be worse, right?”

  In the restaurant garden. With Valerie. Outside, drunk, staggering, facing infinity and fresh air. She takes my hand.

  4.

  I remembered her body perfectly. And yet we only stayed together for a few weeks. It was just before I left this city. But her body is deeply engraved inside me. With acid, almost.

  I watch her slow breathing. Then she wakes up. It is 6 a.m. We’ve only slept a few minutes. The emotional silence of our first morning. Bodies still palpitating. Hands graze each other, push each other away, are pulled toward each other. Doubts. Questions. Who will dare to speak first?

  [They are lying pressed against each other. Silence.]

  HER: I have to go.

  HIM: Already?

  HER: Yes. It's late. It's early. I'll call you today or tomorrow. I really have to leave.

  [She gets up, gets dressed, and scurries offstage. He remains alone.]

  She goes away. I don’t move. I hear the door slam. Close your eyes. Forget. Dream. But nothing happens. Except for this need, here.

  She didn’t call, not that day, not the days after.

  Hanging around the house, and outside. Looking for her name in the phone book. Nobody with the name of Valerie Mercier. See and see again the place she lived before. Near boulevard Michel Bizot. A guy tells me he doesn’t know her. She doesn’t live here anymore. My sister is on her honeymoon on an island in the Caribbean, I’m not going to bug her about this.

  Slow to come to life again after the death that accompanies Valerie’s painful silences.

  5.

  Marco. He learns I’m back. “You could’ve told me.” “I was going to.” Marco. The guy, the friend, the near brother I used to see all the time before I left. Not the kind of guy you really want to be seen with, though. If I hadn’t left, I might have really turned out badly with him.

  We’ll meet at Place Daumesnil. A square where we used to hang out when we were younger. A square like in my memory. Sad and gray.

  Cars are driving around a fountain where stone lions are spitting out water. He’s late. I walk around a little. Emptied out, tired from the nights spent turning over in my bed, waiting, feverishly, for the phone, for Valerie’s voice, her breath. That fucking need. He arrives in a pretty little English car. Marco hasn’t really changed. A tall blond guy with a smile in his eyes. We kiss each other on both cheeks. “Glad to see you.” “Me too.” We look for a café to have a drink.

  “So! How are you, what’s up?” “I managed to integrate into society, like they say. I run a security agency. I supply tough guys for big parties, concerts, things like that.” “You didn’t have any problem getting started?” “No, I knew some people who helped me.” “That’s good.” “How about you?” “I tinker around. I spent a long time in the submarine corps, in Toulon.” “Your mother told me, at the time.” “Now, with my savings, I bought a little apartment and I found a job in a garage.” “A calm life.” “Kind of. Kind of too calm.” “Why don’t you come back here? I’ll fix you up with something.”

  “You know that’s not possible.” “Anything’s possible. Especially now.” We talk about years past. Lost years. “I’m going out tonight. Want to come along?” “Sure.” A fine clear night. It’s for us, to celebrate our reunion. That’s it.

  Everything, or almost everything, has changed around Bastille. We start at a spot with a tropical atmosphere and a touch of class. Then a new bar with an Indian theme. We end up in a big three-story club. Marco knows everybody. He introduces me as his childhood friend who’s come home. I’m treated with respect. From time to time I see him talking discreetly with people. Marco must be a little more than just the head of a security agency. I don’t ask him about it because it’s none of my business. We got real drunk. Especially me. I want to forget I exist. To forget Valerie exis
ts. But it’s not easy to forget things like that.

  We find ourselves at the place of a friend of his. He’s having a party in a big, completely renovated loft near rue Crozatier. I sprawl out for an hour on a leather couch with a bottle of rum in my hand. I’m flying, until I go vomit somewhere. I can sense the friend’s been kicking up a fuss. Marco tells him to calm down and we walk out.

  Car at the shore of the lake in the Bois de Vincennes, outside the city. Day’s dawning. Drunkenness going slowly away, giving way to beatitude. The sound of water. The sound of steps. The sound of urban silence. Marco in front of me. Suddenly he stops. “Look!” A field mouse, at the edge of the water. Marco grabs an old piece of wood lying there. He walks forward, stops, then starts to hit the poor beast. The surprised mouse bursts into pieces. Marco keeps going. “What are you doing?” No answer. He keeps hitting. Again and again. Then I understand we don’t belong to the same world anymore. Our minds have grown apart. Finally he stops. He’s breathing heavily. “Want to go home to bed?” “Yes!”

  On the way back, the question. The question I didn’t dare ask. “You didn’t get into trouble?” “About what?” “Ten years ago.” “No! Nothing. I forgot all about that business.” “I didn’t forget it.” “You were wrong. And you shouldn’t’ve left. Nothing happened.” “We had no idea. And leaving was good for me. I don’t know what would have become of me if I had stayed here.”

  6.

  Marco calls me up. “What’re you doing tonight?” “Nothing, nothing much.” “I’m taking you along. I’ll come by and pick you up around 10.” “That late?” “Yeah.” He hangs up.

  I spend the end of the day with Mom. She needs help wallpapering her bedroom. She was hesitant. I advised her to do it. “Your father liked this wallpaper.” “My father died over fifteen years ago.” “Yes, that’s true.”