Out of the Dark (9 page)

She asked what region of France we were from. She spoke slowly, as if she were hesitating over every word, so it was easy to have a conversation with her in English. She seemed surprised that we were living in one of those seedy Sussex Gardens Hotels. But we explained that we had no other choice because we were both underage.

The next day we found her in the same place again, and she came to sit down at our table. She asked if we would be staying long in London. To my great surprise, Jacqueline told her we planned to stay for several months and even to look for work here.

'But in that case you can't go on living in that hotel….'

Every night we longed to move out because of the smell that hung in the room, a sickly sweet smell that might have come from the drains, from a kitchen, or from the rotting carpet. In the morning we would go for a long walk in Hyde Park to get rid of the smell, which impregnated our clothes. It went away, but during the day it would come back, and I would ask Jacqueline:

'Do you smell it?'

It was depressing to think that it would be following us for the rest of our lives.

'The worst thing,' Jacqueline told her in French, 'is the smell in the hotel…'

I had to translate for her as best I could. Finally Linda understood. She asked if we had some money. Of the two small bundles in the suitcase, only one was left.

'Not much.' I said.

She looked at us both in turn. She smiled. I was always amazed when people were kind to us. Much later, I found the Photomat picture from Holland Park at the bottom of a shoebox full of old letters, and I was struck by the innocence of our faces. We inspired trust in people. And we had no real qualities, except the one that youth gives to everyone for a very brief time, like a vague promise that will never be kept.

'I have a friend who might be able to help you,' Linda told us. 'I'll introduce you to him tomorrow.'

They often arranged to meet in this café. She lived nearby, and he, her friend, had an office a little way up the street on Westbourne Grove, the avenue with the two movie theaters Jacqueline and I often went to. We always saw the last showing of the evening, as a way of delaying our return to the hotel, and it scarcely mattered to us that we saw the same films every night.

THE NEXT DAY, about noon, we were with Linda when Peter Rachman came into the café. He sat down at our table without even saying hello. He was smoking a cigar and dropping the ash onto the lapels of his jacket.

I was surprised at his appearance: he seemed old to me, but he was only in his forties. He was of average height, quite fat, round face, bald in front and on top, and he wore tortoise-shell glasses. His childlike hands contrasted with his substantial build.

Linda explained our situation to him, but she spoke too quickly for me to understand. He kept his little creased eyes on Jacqueline. From time to time he puffed nervously on his cigar and blew the smoke into Linda's face.

She stopped talking and he smiled at us, at Jacqueline and me. But his eyes were still cold. He asked me the name of our hotel on Sussex Gardens. I told him: the Radnor. He burst out in a brief laugh.

'Don't pay the bill … I own the place … Tell the concierge I said there would be no charge for you …' He turned to Jacqueline.

'Is it possible that such a pretty woman could be living in the Radnor?'

He had tried to sound suave and worldly, and it made him burst out laughing.

'You're in the hotel business?'

He didn't answer my question. Again he blew the smoke from his cigar into Linda's face. He shrugged his shoulders. 'Don't worry …,' he said in English.

He repeated these words several times, speaking to himself. He got up to make a telephone call. Linda sensed that we were a little confused, and she tried to explain some things for us. This Peter Rachman was in the business of buying and reselling apartment houses. Maybe it was too great a stretch to call them 'apartment houses'; they were only decrepit old tenements, scarcely more than hovels, most of them in this neighborhood, as well as in Bayswater and Notting Hill. She didn't understand his business very well. But despite his brutish appearance, he was  – she wanted us to know from the start – really a lovely fellow.

Rachman's Jaguar was parked a few steps down the street. Linda got into the front seat. She turned to us:

'You can come and stay with me while you wait for Peter to find you another place …'

He started up the car and followed along Kensington Gardens. Then he turned onto Sussex Gardens. He stopped in front of the Hotel Radnor.

'Go pack your bags,' he told us. 'And remember, don't pay the bill…'

There was no one at the front desk. I took the key to our room from its hook. For the whole of our stay here, we had kept our clothes in our two bags. I picked them up and we went straight downstairs. Rachman was pacing in front of the hotel, his cigar in his mouth and his hands in the pockets of his jacket.

'Happy to be leaving the Radnor?'

He opened the trunk of the Jaguar and I put in our bags. Before starting up again, he said to Linda:

'I have to go by the Lido for a moment. I'll drive you home afterwards …'

I could still smell the sickly odor of the hotel, and I wondered how many days it would be before it disappeared from our lives forever.

The Lido was a bathing establishment in Hyde Park, on the Serpentine. Rachman bought four tickets at the window.

'It's funny… This place reminds me of the Deligny pool in Paris,' I said to Jacqueline.

But once we were inside, we came to a sort of riverside beach, with a few tables and parasols set up around the edge. Rachman chose a table in the shade. He still had his cigar in his mouth. We all sat down. He mopped his forehead and his neck with a big white handkerchief. He turned to Jacqueline:

'Take a swim, if you like ...'

'I don't have a suit,' said Jacqueline.

'We can get hold of one ... I'll send someone to find you a suit ...'

'Don't bother,' Linda said sharply. 'She doesn't want to swim.'

Rachman lowered his head. He was still mopping his forehead and his neck.

'Would you care for some refreshment?' he offered.

Then, speaking to Linda:

'I'm to meet Savoundra here.'

The name conjured up an exotic silhouette in my imagination, and I was expecting to see a Hindu woman in a sari walk toward our table.

But it was a blond man of about thirty who waved in our direction, then came and clapped Rachman on the shoulder. He introduced himself to Jacqueline and me:

'Michael Savoundra.'

Linda told him we were French.

He took one of the chairs from the next table and sat down beside Rachman.

'Well, what's new?' Rachman asked, staring at him with his cold little eyes.

'l've done some more work on the script … We'll see ...'

'Yes … as you say, we'll see ...'

Rachman had taken a disdainful tone. Savoundra crossed his arms, and his gaze lingered on Jacqueline and me.

'Have you been in London long?' he asked in French.

'Three weeks,' I said.

He seemed very interested in Jacqueline.

'I lived in Paris for a while,' he said in his halting French. 'In the Hôtel de la Louisiane, on the Rue de Seine … I tried to make a film in Paris ...'

'Unfortunately, it didn't work out,' said Rachman in his disdainful voice, and I was surprised that he had understood the sentence in French.

There was a moment of silence.

'But I'm sure it will work out this time,' said Linda. 'Right, Peter?'

Rachman shrugged. Embarrassed, Savoundra asked Jacqueline, still in French:

'You live in Paris?'

'Yes,' I answered, before Jacqueline could speak. 'Not very far from the Hôtel de la Louisiane.'

Jacqueline's eyes met mine. She winked. Suddenly I longed to be in front of the Hôtel de la Louisiane, to walk to the Seine and stroll past the stands of the secondhand book dealers until I reached the Quai de la Tournelle. Why did I suddenly miss Paris?

Rachman asked Savoundra a question and he answered with a great flurry of words. Linda joined in the conversation. But I wasn't trying to understand them anymore. And I could see that Jacqueline wasn't paying any attention to what they were saying either. This was the time of day when we often dozed off, because we never slept well at the Hotel Radnor, barely four or five hours a night. And since we went out early in the morning and came back as late as possible at night, we often took a nap on the grass in Hyde Park.

They were still talking. From time to time Jacqueline closed her eyes, and I was afraid that I would fall asleep as well. But we gave each other little kicks under the table when we thought that the other one was about to drift off.

I must have dozed for a few moments. The murmur of their conversation blended in with the laughter and shouts coming from the beach and the sound of people diving into the water. Where were we? By the Marne River or the Lake of Enghien? This place reminded me of another Lido, the one in Chenevières, or of the Sporting in La Varenne. Tonight we would go back to Paris, Jacqueline and I, by the Vincennes train.

Someone was tapping me heavily on the shoulder. It was Rachman.

'Tired?'

Across the table from me, Jacqueline was doing her best to keep her eyes wide open.

'You must not have slept much in that hotel of mine,' said Rachman.

'Where were you?' asked Savoundra in French.

'In a place much less comfortable than the Hôtel de la Louisiane,' I told him.

'It's a good thing I ran into them,' said Linda. 'They're going to come and live with me ...

I wondered why they were showing us such kindness. Savoundra's gaze was still fixed on Jacqueline, but she didn't know it, or pretended not to notice. He bore a strong resemblance to an American actor whose name I couldn't quite recall. Of course. Joseph Cotten.

'You'll see,' said Linda. 'You'll be right at home at my place ...'

'In any case,' said Rachman, 'there's no lack of apartments. I can let you use one starting next week ...'

Savoundra was examining us curiously. He turned to Jacqueline:

'Are you brother and sister?' he asked in English.

'You're out of luck, Michael,' said Rachman icily. 'They're husband and wife.'

Leaving the Lido, Savoundra shook hands with us.

'
I hope to see you again very quickly,' he said in French. Then he asked Rachman if he'd read his script.

'Not yet. I need time. I scarcely know how to read ...' And he let out his short laugh, his eyes as cold as ever behind his tortoise-shell glasses.

Trying to fill the awkward silence, Savoundra turned to Jacqueline and me:

'I'd be very pleased if you would read the script. Some of the scenes take place in Paris, and you could correct the mistakes in the French.'

'Good idea,' said Rachman. 'Let them read it … That way, they can write up a summary for me ...'

Savoundra disappeared down a walkway through Hyde Park, and we found ourselves back in the rear seat of Rachman's Jaguar.

'Is his script any good?' I asked.

'Oh yes ... I'm sure it must be very good,' said Linda. 'You can take it,' said Rachman. 'It's on the floor.' There was a beige folder lying beneath the rear seat. I picked it up and set it on my knees.

'He wants me to give him thirty thousand pounds to make his movie,' said Rachman. 'That's a lot for a script I'll never read ...'

We were back in the Sussex Gardens neighborhood. I was afraid he would take us back to the hotel, and once again I smelled the sickly odor of the hallway and the room. But he kept on driving, in the direction of Notting Hill. He turned right, toward the avenue with the movie theaters, and he entered a street lined with trees and white houses with porticoes. He stopped in front of one of them.

We got out of the car with Linda. Rachman stayed behind the wheel. I took the two bags from the trunk and Linda opened the iron door. A very steep staircase. Linda walked ahead of us. Two doors on the landing. Linda opened the one on the left. A room with white walls. Its windows overlooked the street. No furniture. A large mattress on the floor. There was a bathroom adjoining.

'You'll be comfortable here,' said Linda.

Through the window, I could see Rachman's black car in a patch of sunlight.

'You're very kind,' I told her.

'No, no ... It's Peter ... It belongs to him ... He has loads of apartments ...'

She wanted to show us her room. Its entrance was the other door on the landing. Clothes and records were scattered over the bed and the floor. There was an odor here too, as penetrating as the one in the Hotel Radnor, but sweeter: the smell of marijuana.

'Don't look too closely,' Linda said. 'My room is always such a mess ...'

Rachman had got out of the car and was standing before the entrance to the house. Once again, he was mopping his neck and forehead with his white handkerchief.