Paris Noir by Aurélien Masson

Author:Aurélien Masson
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Translations Into English, Anthologies (Multiple Authors), Mystery & Detective, Detective and Mystery Stories, ebook, French, Fiction, General, Paris (France), Short Stories
ISBN: 9781936070404
Publisher: Akashic Books
Published: 2008-01-01T10:00:00+00:00

LA VIE EN ROSE

BY DOMINIQUE MAINARD

Belleville

Translated by David Ball

1.

On rue de Belleville, Japanese tourists who had come to see the steps on which Edith Piaf entered the world lingered under the April drizzle, protected by odd little hats of pink, translucent plastic with the logo of a travel agency on them. All the way to boulevard de Belleville, two hundred yards further down, the bright red signs in Chinese characters gleamed through the mist. Legendre turned left into the labyrinth of little cobblestone streets leading to the park, swung the wheel hard to avoid the kids playing soccer in the puddles. Arnaud was trying to drink out of the thermos of coffee his friend made when his radio had started crackling half an hour ago. They had gone to bed very late and he had a hard time waking up, but his heart jumped when he saw police cars stopped a few dozen yards up the street with their lights flashing.

Legendre parked the car at the end of the street and winked at Arnaud.

“I have to be careful,” he said. “They’ve seen me hanging around the neighborhood too much, one of them threatened to give me a ticket for obstruction of justice. You coming?”

When Arnaud hesitated, Legendre held out the car keys with a theatrical gesture.

“Okay, you’d rather stay warm,” he said. “That’s your problem. You’ll find CDs in the glove compartment. But I’m telling you, man, if you want inspiration for your book, this is the place to find it.”

Arnaud shrugged with a forced smile. He was almost sorry he’d told Legendre about it a few days ago, out of boredom, out of loneliness; but the truth is, even if he hadn’t seen the guy since college, there was no one else he could talk to about it. At the beginning of the winter, Arnaud had gone on unemployment insurance to start writing the novel he’d been thinking about for a long time; 181 days, he’d counted them, and he hadn’t even succeeded in finishing four chapters. All winter he’d paced through his apartment watching the leaves fall from the chestnut tree under his windows and onto the sidewalk, soon to become invisible. He’d felt himself sinking into the inertia and calm of his little town in the suburbs—what a cliché, he thought, a former Literature major, the ambitions, the powerlessness.

After a meal washed down with a lot of wine—he’d accepted the cigarette Legendre had offered him, and since he didn’t smoke very often he was dizzy and laughed as easily as if it had been a joint—he had dropped a few words, negligently, about this novel he’d given himself till spring to finish, adding that it was coming along, it was coming along nicely. Legendre had tried to get it out of him and finally he admitted it was a noir novel, but he didn’t want to say very much more. Even if he’d wanted to, he couldn’t. He had only said his hero would be a private

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