Out of the Dark (3 page)

I too dreamt of leaving Paris when the snow melted on the sidewalks and I went out in my old slip-ons. 'Why wait until the end of winter?' I asked her.

She smiled.

'We got to have some money saved up first.'

She lit a cigarette. She coughed. She smoked too much. And always the same brand, with the slightly stale smell of French blond tobacco.

'We'll never save up enough from selling your books.' I was happy to hear her say 'we,' as if our futures were linked from now on.

'Gérard will probably bring back a lot of money from Forges-les-Eaux and Dieppe.' I said.

She shrugged.

'We've been using his martingale for six months, but it's never made us much money·.'

She didn't seem to have much faith in the 'around the neutral five' martingale.

'Have you known Gérard long?'

'Yes … we met in Athis-Mons, outside Paris ...'

She was looking silently into my eyes. She was probably trying to tell me there was nothing more to say on this subject.

'So you come from Athis-Mons?'

'Yes.'

I knew the name well, since Athis-Mons was near Ablon, where one of my friends lived. He used to borrow his parents' car and driv me to Orly at night. We would go to the movie theater and one of the bars in the airport. We stayed very late listening to the announcements of arrivals and departures for distant places, and we strolled through the central hall. When he drove me back to Paris we never took the freeway, but instead detoured through Villeneuve-le-Roi, Athis-Mons, other towns in the southern suburbs. I might have passed by Jacqueline one night back then.

'Have you traveled much?'

It was one of those questions people ask to enliven a dull conversation, and I had spoken it in a falsely casual way.

'Not really traveled,' she said. 'But now, if we could get our hands on a little money ...'

She was speaking even more quietly, as if she didn't want anyone else to hear. And it was difficult to make out what she said amid all the noise.

I leaned toward her, and again our foreheads were nearly touching.

'Gérard and I know an American who writes novels … He lives on Majorca … He'll find us a house there. We met him in the English bookstore on the quai.'

I used to go to that bookstore often. It was a maze of little rooms lined with books, where it was easy to be alone. The customers came from far away to visit it. It stayed open very late. I had bought a few novels from the Tauchnitz collection there, which I had then tried to sell. Shelves full of books on the sidewalk in front of the shop, with chairs and even a couch. It was like the terrace of a café. You could see Notre Dame from there. And yet once you crossed the threshold, it felt like Amsterdam or San Francisco.

So the letter she had mailed from the Odéon post office was addressed to the 'American who wrote novels ...' What was his name? Maybe I had read one of his books ...

'William McGivern ...'

No, I had never heard of this McGivern. She lit another cigarette. She coughed. She was still as pale as before.

'I must have the flu.' she said.

'You should drink another hot toddy.'

'No thanks.'

She looked worried all of a sudden.

'I hope everything goes well for Gérard ...'

'Me too ...'

'I'm always worried when Gérard isn't here ...'

She had lingered over the syllables of 'Gérard' with great tenderness. Of course, she was sometimes short with him, but she took his arm in the street, or laid her head on his shoulder when we were sitting at one of the tables in the Café Dante. One afternoon when I had knocked on the door to their room, she had told me to come in, and they were both lying in one of the narrow beds, the one nearest the window.

'I can't do without Gérard ...'

The words had come rushing out, as if she were speaking to herself and had forgotten I was there. Suddenly I was in the way. Maybe it was best for her to be alone. And just as I was trying to find an excuse to leave, she turned her gaze on me, an absent gaze at first. Then finally she saw me.

I was the one who broke the silence.

'Is your flu any better?'

.'
I need some aspirin. Do you know of a pharmacy around here?'

So far, my role consisted of directing them to the nearest post office or pharmacy.

There was one near my hotel on the Boulevard Saint­Germain. She bought some aspirin, but also a bottle of ether. We walked together for a few minutes more, to the corner of the Rue des Bernardins. She stopped at the door to my hotel.

'We could meet for dinner, if you like.'

She squeezed my hand. She smiled at me. I had to stop myself from asking if l could stay with her.

'Come and pick me up at seven o'clock,' she said.

She turned the corner. I couldn't help watching her walk toward the quai, in that leather jacket that was too light for this kind of weather. She had put her hands in her pockets.

I spent the afternoon in my room. The heat was off, and I had stretched out on the bed without removing my coat. Now and then I fell half asleep, or stared at a point on the ceiling thinking about Jacqueline and Gérard Van Bever.

Had she gone back to her hotel? Or was she meeting someone, somewhere in Paris? I remembered an evening when she had left Van Bever and me on our own. He and I had gone to see a movie, the late show, and Van Bever seemed nervous. He had taken me to the movies with him so that the time would pass more quickly. About one o'clock in the morning, we had gone to meet Jacqueline in a café on the Rue Cujas. She hadn't told us how she'd spent the evening. And Van Bever hadn't asked any questions, as if my presence were keeping them from speaking freely. I was in the way that night. They had walked me back to the Hôtel de Lima. They were silent. It was a Friday, the day before they usually left for Dieppe or Forges-les-Eaux. I had asked them what train they would be taking.

'We're staying in Paris tomorrow,' Van Bever had said curtly.

They had left me at the entrance to the hotel. Van Bever had said, 'See you tomorrow,' with no good-bye handshake. Jacqueline had smiled at me, a slightly forced smile. She seemed anxious at the prospect of being left alone with Van Bever, as though she wanted someone else around. And yet as I watched them walk away, Van Bever had taken Jacqueline's arm. What were they saying? Was Jacqueline trying to justify something she had done? Was Van Bever rebuking her? Or was I imagining it all?

Night had long since fallen when I left the hotel. I followed the Rue des Bernardins to the quai. I knocked on her door. She came to let me in. She was wearing one of her gray cable-knit turtlenecks and her black pants, narrow at the ankles. She was barefoot. The bed near the window was unmade, and the curtains were drawn. Someone had removed the shade from the bedside lamp, but the tiny bulb left part of the room in shadow. And still that smell of ether, stronger than usual.

She sat down on the edge of the bed, and I took the room's only chair, against the wall, next to the sink.

I asked if she was feeling better.

'A little better …'

She saw me looking at the open bottle of ether in the center of the nightstand. It must have occurred to her that I could smell the odor.

'I take that to stop my cough ...'

And she repeated in a defensive tone:

'It's true … it's very good for coughs.'

And since she realized that I was prepared to believe her, she asked:

'Have you ever tried it?'

'
No.
'

She handed me a cotton ball she had soaked in the ether. I hesitated to take it for a few seconds, but if it would bring us together … I inhaled the fumes from the cotton ball and then from the ether bottle. She did the same after me. A coolness filled my lungs. I was lying next to her. We were pressed together, falling through space. The feeling of coolness grew stronger and stronger as the ticking of the clock stood out more and more clearly against the silence, so clearly that I could hear its echo.

We left the hotel at about six o'clock in the morning and walked to the café on the Rue Cujas, which stayed open all night. That was where we had arranged to meet the week before on their return from Forges-les-Eaux. They had arrived at about seven in the morning, and we had eaten breakfast together. But neither of them looked like they had been up all night, and they were much livelier than usual. Especially Jacqueline. They had won two thousand francs.

This time Van Bever would not be coming back by train, but in the car of someone they had met at the Langrune casino, someone who lived in Paris. As we left the hotel, Jacqueline told me he might already be waiting at the café.

I asked whether she wouldn't rather go and meet him alone, whether my presence was really necessary. But she shrugged and said she wanted me to come along.

There was no one but us in the café. The fluorescent light blinded me. It was still dark outside, and I had lost my sense of time. We were sitting side by side in a booth near the plate glass window, and it felt like the beginning of the evening.

Through the glass, I saw a black car stop across from the café. Van Bever got out, wearing his herringbone overcoat. He leaned toward the driver before shutting the door. He looked around the room but didn't see us. He thought we were at the far end of the café. He was squinting because of the fluorescent light. Then he came and sat down across from us.

He didn't seem surprised to find me there, or was he too tired to be suspicious? He immediately ordered a double coffee and croissants.

'I decided to go to Dieppe ...'

He had kept his overcoat on and his collar turned up. He leaned over the table with his back curved and shoulders hunched, as he often did when he was sitting. In that position, he reminded me of a jockey. When he stood, on the other hand, he stood very straight, as if he wanted to look taller than he was.

'I won three thousand francs at Dieppe ...'

He said it with a slightly defiant air. Maybe he was showing his displeasure at finding me there with Jacqueline. He had taken her hand. He was ignoring me.

'That's good,' said Jacqueline.

She was caressing his hand.

'You could buy a ticket for Majorca,' I said.

Van Bever looked at me, astonished.

'I told him about our plan,' Jacqueline said.

'So you know about it? I hope you'll come with us ...'

No, he definitely didn't seem angry that I was there. But he still spoke to me with a certain formality. Several times I had tried to talk with him like friends. It never worked. He always answered politely but reservedly.

'I'll come along if you want me to,' I told them.

'But of course we want you to,' said Jacqueline.

She was smiling at me. Now she had put her hand over his. The waiter brought the coffee and croissants.

'I haven't eaten for twenty-four hours,' said Van Bever.

His face was pale under the fluorescent lights, and he had circles under his eyes. He ate several croissants very quickly, one after another.

'That's better ... A little while ago, in the car, I fell asleep ...'

Jacqueline seemed better. She had stopped coughing. Because of the ether? I wondered if l hadn't dreamt the hours I had spent with her, that feeling of emptiness, of coolness and lightness, the two of us in the narrow bed, lurching as if a whirlwind had come over us, the echo of her voice resounding more clearly than the ticking of the alarm clock. There had been no distance between us then. Now she was as aloof as before. And Gérard Van Bever was there. I would have to wait until he went back to Forges-les-Eaux or Dieppe, and there was no way to be sure she would even stay in Paris with me.

'And you, what did you do while I was gone?'

For a moment, I thought he suspected something. But he had asked the question absentmindedly, as if out of habit.

'Nothing in particular,
'
said Jacqueline. 'We went to the movies.'

She was looking at me as if she wanted me to join in this lie. She still had her hand over his.

'What movie did you see?'

'
Moonfleet
,' I said.

'Was it good?'

He pulled his hand away from Jacqueline's.

'It was very good.'

He looked at us closely one after the other. Jacqueline returned his gaze.

'You'll have to tell me all about it ... But some other time, there's no hurry.'

There was a sarcastic tone in his voice and I noticed that Jacqueline was looking slightly apprehensive. She frowned. Finally she said to him:

'Do you want to go back to the hotel?'

She had taken his hand again. She had forgotten I was there.

'Not yet … I want another coffee …'

'And then we'll go back to the hotel,' she repeated tenderly.

Suddenly I realized what time it was, and the spell was broken. Everything that had made that night extraordinary faded away. Nothing but a pale, dark-haired girl in a brown leather jacket sitting across from a character in a herringbone overcoat. They were holding hands in a café in the Latin Quarter. They were about to go back to their hotel. And another winter day was beginning, after so many others. I would have to wander through the grayness of the Boulevard Saint-Michel once again, among the crowds of people walking to their schools or universities. They were my age, but they were strangers to me. I scarcely understood the language they spoke. One day, I had told Van Bever that I wanted to move to another neighborhood because I felt uncomfortable among all the students. He had said to me: