Paris Nocturne by Patrick Modiano Page A

light was white, the brightness of the northern lights: the black dog would have been visible from a distance. But it had disappeared. I felt a sensation ofemptiness with which I was familiar and which I had forgotten for a few days, thanks to the calming effect of reading
The Wonders of the Heavens
. I regretted not having made a note of the phone number on the dog’s collar.
    *
    I slept badly that night. I dreamed of the dog that had sprung out of the past only to disappear again. In the morning, I was in good spirits and I was sure that neither the dog nor I were in danger of anything anymore. No car could ever knock us over again.
    It was not quite seven o’clock. One of the cafés on the quay was open, the one where I had come across Solière. On that occasion, my father’s old address book was stuffed into the pocket of my sheepskin jacket. I always kept something in my pockets: the copy of
The Wonders of the Heavens
or the Michelin map of Loir-et-Cher.
    I sat at a table close to the bay window. Over on the other side of the bridge, metro carriages disappeared one after the other. I leafed through the address book. The names were in inks of different colours—blue, black, purple. The names in purple seemed to be the oldest and in more carefulhandwriting. A few of them had been crossed out. I noticed rather a lot of names, which, to my surprise, had addresses in the neighbourhood I was in at that moment. I kept the notebook and here is the transcription:
    Yvan Schaposchnikoff, 1 Avenue Paul-Doumer
    KLÉBER 73 46
    Guy de Voisins, 23 Rue Raynouard JASMIN 33 18
    Nick de Morgoli, 14 Square de l’Alboni
    TROCADÉRO 65 81
    Toddie Werner, 28 Rue Scheffer PASSY 90 90
    Mary Tchernycheff, 30 Quai de Passy JASMIN 64 76
    And again, 30 Quai de Passy: Alexis Moutafolo,
    AUTEUIL 70 66
    In the afternoon, out of curiosity, I went to some of these addresses. Again, the same pale façades with bay windows and large terraces, like 4 Avenue Albert-de-Mun. I assume these apartments were said to have ‘modern comforts’ and certain features: heated flooring, marble tiles instead of parquet, sliding doors, giving the impression of being on a stationary cruise ship in the middle of the ocean. And the void behind the luxury all too visible. I knew thatsince his childhood, my father had often lived in this type of building, and that he didn’t pay the rent. In winter, in the empty rooms, the electricity would be cut off. He was one of those transients who were forever changing their identity, never settling anywhere, never leaving a trace. Yes, the type of person whose existence one would have trouble proving later on. It was useless to collect precise details: phone numbers, letters of the alphabet marking different stairwells in courtyards. That’s why I felt discouraged the other night on Avenue Albert-de-Mun. If I went through the porte-cochère, it wouldn’t lead anywhere. It was this, rather than the fear of being arrested for prowling, that held me back. I was conducting a search around streets where everything was an optical illusion. My task seemed as vain as that of a surveyor trying to draw up a plan in an empty space. But I said to myself: is it really beyond me to track down this Jacqueline Beausergent?

I REMEMBER THAT night I had taken a break from reading
The Wonders of the Heavens
, in the middle of a chapter on constellations of the southern hemisphere. I left the hotel without handing in my room key—there was no one at the reception desk. I wanted to buy a packet of cigarettes. The only
café
-
tabac
still open was on Place du Trocadéro.
    From the quay, I climbed the steps and, after passing the little station, I thought I heard the rasping voice of the parrot from La Closerie repeating:
Sea-green Fiat, sea-green Fiat
. There was light at the window. They were still playing their card game. I was surprised by how warm the air was for a winter’s night. It had been