The Way I Found Her (35 page)

I didn't feel like talking. I just watched the wedding people and the stupid photographer with his huge camera on a tripod, diving in and out of his black head-cover, like photographers of long ago. He reminded me of my dream of the tunnel and this made me shiver. Alice was carrying a soft little blue cardigan and she put this round my shoulders. With this on and my wimpy-feeling legs and my eyes that kept watering in the sun, I felt like a girl.

My hands were cold and I put them into my pockets, and in my right-hand pocket I found my sifflet du chasseur. Without letting Alice see, I put it into my mouth and began my lark-practice. I saw Alice turn and stare at me in amazement. This is probably why people can make a living out of selling bird whistles – because everyone on earth has a secret longing to amaze.

‘How are you doing that?' said Alice.

I just shrugged, pretending I was able to sound like a lark unassisted.

The mother-in-law woke up and looked at me. The thing about the cry of the lark is that it sounds like two little stones being crushed together in your hand. This could be the unlikely reason why it has a world-wide effect on the human heart.

‘Mon Dieu,' said the mother-in-law. But I don't know if she was admiring my skill or if her heart was breaking.

I didn't want to talk to anyone, in any language, so I got up, leaving the cardigan behind on the bench, and walked to the children's carousel and watched the smart little babies being whirled around in miniature cars and miniature fire engines and miniature spaceships. One kid was whirling and trying to eat a toffee apple at the same time, and when I arrived the toffee apple flew off its stick and landed on the gravel at my feet. From then on, although her body kept moving forwards, her eyes remained fixed on the lost apple. She didn't cry or anything, but just kept staring round and back at the apple, like she wanted her head to fall off and be with the apple in the dust.

Moinel called in to see me. He'd bought me a little bunch of anemones, wrapped in yellow paper. He told me he'd been photographing an English Carolinian mortuary chair for an international periodical.

When Alice left the room, I told him about Valentina's plagiarism and showed him the passages I'd noted down in my Concorde book. I said: ‘I've begun to believe she's in Kiev.'

Moinel took out some tiny little glasses and put them on. I knew he was one of those people who was older than he wanted to be. After a while, he looked up and said: ‘I suppose she thought Grigory's book would never be published outside Russia?'

‘Yes, I guess so.'

‘And
her
books never appear
in Russia
. She thought no one would ever make a connection – provided Grisha never saw her text. Except she knew his book was out in France.'

‘Yes.'

‘So why did she go on with the plagiarism, once she knew that?'

I picked up the anemones. They didn't really have any scent, but I liked them. They looked like a little clutch of people all having a bad-hair day. I said: ‘I think she went on with it because she was running out of ideas. Alice said this was her worst fear – to run out of stories.'

Moinel nodded, as if he knew exactly what this might feel like. Then he took off his glasses and said gravely: ‘Despite all this, I don't think Valentina is in Russia, Louis. I think we may have got close to something at the hospital. You know, I believe that last receptionist was Russian . . .'

I then told Moinel about my return visit, based on the same conclusion, and my meeting with Dr Bouchain and Moinel said: ‘To have taken Valentina from the hospital would have been easy – provided the register was safely amended to make everyone believe she never arrived. If you have a hospital appointment and someone calls your name, you follow that person, whoever it may be. You believe, automatically, that the person is going to take you to an X-ray room or a consulting room or whatever. You don't question anything. I believe she went to the hospital that afternoon and checked in at
Radiologie
, and someone was waiting for her there and called her away before Dr Bouchain was ready to see her. And now, because you and I made our enquiry and you went back there again on your own, whoever took her believes they're in danger of being discovered. This is why they tried to frighten you.'

I nodded. In their separate lonely spaces, Moinel's brain and mine had arrived at identical theories. If it hadn't been for Grisha's book, I would have been certain we were close to uncovering the truth.

Then Moinel sighed. He looked at me sternly. ‘You must listen to me now, Louis,' he said. ‘I believe that you must stop all your enquiries. You must cease them absolutely. OK? Are you listening to me? You must tell everything you know to Inspecteur Carmody and leave the rest to him. Will you promise me you will do this?'

‘No,' I said. ‘Why should I stop when we could be getting close? Don't you care about Valentina?'

He sighed again. He put his glasses away. ‘We all care. But anything we can do can be done better by the police . . .'

‘That's not true. The police are too visible.'

‘
You
are visible now. They know who you are and that puts you in danger. Who knows what that man on the roof was trying to do.'

‘You're as bad as Alice,' I said. ‘She wants to send me home.'

‘Well, perhaps that isn't such a terrible idea? Perhaps you should try to forget about Valentina and—'

‘Forget about Valentina?'

‘I don't mean “forget”. I know this can't be forgotten. I only mean I think you should leave it to someone else now.'

‘No,' I said. ‘I can't do that.'

Then I laid the anemones aside. I felt tired suddenly and I had nothing more to say to Moinel. I closed my eyes, pretending to sleep, and after a moment I heard him tiptoe out. Then I summoned Valentina's face to my mind and laid my cheek against hers, which was smooth and cool. Something touched my neck and it was one of her long dangling earrings, made of silver.

‘Don't worry,' I said to her, ‘I am Porphiry Petrovich: I am François Seurel: I never give up.'

Part Three

  

Things happen in ways you never expect. When I was a child, my imaginary German in the cellar suddenly left a turd down there. The turd was small but it was real and had a human smell.

And the next thing happened like this: a note came, addressed to me. It had been posted in Paris, in the 9th Arrondissement, and it was written in English on squared paper, like we used for maths at school, torn out of a spiral notebook. It said:
Lewis, Meaulnes can tell you where to meet Valentine. You work it out by Thursday. You are safe if you do not go to the police
.

We were in the kitchen at the time, Alice and Violette and I, and Alice said to me: ‘Who's your letter from?'

I said it was private. I wanted to add: ‘You're not the only one with a secret life, Alice.' But I didn't. I went straight up to my room. I still couldn't think of this guest room, where I'd once imagined Grisha making love to Valentina, as mine, but Alice referred to it this way. ‘My room' would always be the attic with the round window. That room would contain part of me in it for ever.

I sat down at the little bureau and spread the note out in front of me. It was written in biro and the writing was large and loopy, a bit childish. There was no date or other word on it. I wished I was Sherlock Holmes and had a magnifying glass in my pocket with which to examine it.

Then I picked up my copy of
Le Grand Meaulnes
. It was a long time since I'd read it. I'd been too preoccupied by Grisha's text and Valentina's novel. And I couldn't remember what was happening, except that Meaulnes had left Sainte-Agathe for ever. He was in Paris, searching for Yvonne de Galais.

I held the book in my hands. It had only 177 pages and somewhere in them lay the answer to where Valentina was. I thought, whoever sent me this note already knows something about me: he's set me a puzzle and he knows I'll solve it, because that's what I'm good at, solving puzzles. And this
proves
that he (or she) is the person holding Valentina. He's given me proof of his credentials by revealing what he knows about me.

I thought this was neat. I almost admired him, whoever he was – just as long as Valentina was safe. ‘OK,' I said to him in my mind, ‘I'll play your game.'

I knew I should start reading straight away, but I was almost afraid to begin. Because it depended on my accurate translation from French, this puzzle just might prove too difficult for me. Suppose I just couldn't work anything out from the
Meaulnes
text? The kidnapper didn't seem to have thought about this. Suppose the clue was so obscure that I missed it and Thursday came and I just didn't know what to do or where to go?

The chapter I was on was called
Je trahis
 . . . and I remembered now that, as soon as Meaulnes has left, François takes up with his old friends again and tells them everything he was meant to be keeping secret. Then he knows he's betrayed Meaulnes and feels bad.

I finished this chapter and began the next, in which François gets a letter from Meaulnes in Paris. The letter says:
Dear François, Today, as soon as I arrived in Paris, I went to the house. But there was nothing to be seen. No one was there. No one will ever be there
 . . .

My heart was beating faster at the realisation that I could already be near the clue. The clue would have to be in Paris, not at Sainte-Agathe, which is an invented place miles away in the middle of France somewhere. The letter went on:
The house Frantz told us about is small, two-storey. Mademoiselle de Galais' room must be on the first floor. These windows are hidden by trees, but from the pavement one can see them clearly. All the curtains are drawn and one would have to be mad to hope that one day, between these curtains at last drawn back, the face of Yvonne would appear
 . . .

Alice appeared in my room. She starded me and I felt irritated at being interrupted. She sat down on my bed without asking for any kind of permission.

‘That was Mrs Gavrilovich on the telephone,' she said.

‘Yeah?'

‘Carmody called her. They've found the person travelling under the name of Marya Narishkin, and it's not Valentina.'

I only nodded. Part of me wanted to show off, to say that I already knew, because of the note, that Valentina wasn't in Russia, but I didn't say this. I thought, I wonder whether Alice and I will ever again be like we used to be before we came to Paris.

I wanted her to leave then, but she didn't. She sat very still on my bed, staring at me, but I could tell just by the look on her face that it wasn't really me she was staring at, but into her own mind, packed with its lies and secrets. And I knew for certain that the moment had come when she was going to tell me about Didier. Parents think they can time everything to suit themselves: they just don't see what they might be burdening you with. As Alice opened her mouth, I said: ‘Don't!'

I thought she'd understood by now that I didn't want to hear any words coming out of her lips on this particular subject, but she hadn't. She blundered on: ‘Listen, Lewis, you'll realise, when you're older, that things happen sometimes . . . things you never intended . . . and they seem terribly, obsessively important at the time . . . but they don't necessarily last and they don't necessarily disturb the way one's life is going to—'

‘I don't want to hear about it, Alice,' I said icily. ‘Don't confide in me. I'm your son and I don't want you to say anything more.'

She looked really surprised. I guess when people are about to make a confession, they're too preoccupied with what they're going to say to take into consideration the state of mind of the confessee.

‘Lewis,' said Alice. ‘All I want to do is explain . . .'

‘Don't explain,' I said. ‘I'm not listening. I'm just bricking up my ears!'

I'd enfolded my head with my arms and shut my eyes. I thought, if she says another word, I am going to start screaming.

I had supper in Moinel's apartment. He invited Alice as well but Alice said she was having dinner with Dominique. I thought, that's a good alibi she's found – these supposed meetings with the editor from Bianquis.

Moinel was a brilliant cook and this was the first proper meal I'd eaten for about four days. I was so hungry, I couldn't talk for a while. We had roasted goat's cheese with olives and then pasta with tomatoes and clams. Moinel's dining table was made of a slab of glass, attached in some invisible way to a sawn-off stone Corinthian column. He said he'd bought it in London.

I showed him the note when we were halfway through the clams.

He stared at it for a minute and then put down his fork and said: ‘Valentine is the clue.'

‘Why? They mean Valentina, don't they?'

‘No. They mean Valentine in the story. Don't you remember who Valentine is?'

‘There isn't anyone called Valentine.'

‘Yes, there is. You haven't got to the end, have you?'

‘No . . .'

Moinel got up. He passed a bowl of salad towards me and I began helping myself distractedly to red and green leaves.

Moinel returned with a battered copy of
Le Grand Meaulnes
and began leafing through it. I chewed on the leaves, waiting. Then he found Chapter XIV, called
Le Secret
. It was very near the end of the book. He didn't take the time to explain to me everything that happened between Meaulnes' first letter from Paris and this chapter, but told me only that François finds an exercise book in his attic, in which Meaulnes has written an account of his time in Paris, spent searching for Yvonne de Galais. Then he began to read: ‘. . . 
On the quay I met the girl who, like me, had been waiting in front of the closed house last June and who told me about it
.