The Black Notebook by Patrick Modiano

Author:Patrick Modiano [Modiano, Patrick]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

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.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.