The Black Notebook by Patrick Modiano

again, hoping it will finally divulge her secret: on the poor-quality photo booth image stapled to the left-hand margin, I recognize Dannie with shorter hair. And yet the form is in the name of one Mireille Sampierry, residing at 23 Rue Blanche, Paris 9th. It is dated the year before we met and bears the heading “Certificate of Authorization to Receive Correspondence and Telegrams General Delivery Without Surcharge.” Even then, it is not for the post office on Rue de la Convention, where I had accompanied her on several occasions, but for “Branch no. 84” at 31 Rue Ballu (9th). To how many general delivery addresses did she have her mail sent? How had this form fallen into the hands of Langlais or members of his squad? Had Dannie left it somewhere? And that name, Mireille Sampierry—is that the name Langlais had questioned me about in his office on the Quai de Gesvres? It’s funny how certain details of your existence, invisible at the time, are revealed to you twenty years later, as when you look at a familiar photograph through a magnifying glass and a face or object that you hadn’t noticed before jumps out at you . . .
    She pulled me to the right, under the arcades of Rue de Castiglione.
    â€œLet me take you to dinner . . . It’s not too far from here . . . We can walk . . .”
    At that hour, the area was deserted and the echo of our footsteps reverberated beneath the arcades. Around us reigned the kind of silence that ought to have been broken not by a passing car but by the clack of hooves from a carriage horse. I don’t know whether I thought this at the time or whether the idea occurred to me just now, as I write these lines. We were lost in the nocturnal Paris of Charles Cros and his dog Satan, of Tristan Corbière and Jeanne Duval. Traffic flowed around the Opéra, and we were once again in the Paris of the twentieth century, which today seems so far away . . . We followed Rue de la Chaussée d’Antin, which ended at Trinité Church, its dark façade like a giant bird at rest.
    â€œWe’re almost there,” she said. “It’s at the beginning of Rue Blanche . . .”
    Last night, I dreamed that we were following the same route, probably because of what I had just written. I heard her voice, “It’s at the beginning of Rue Blanche,” and I slowly turned toward her. I said:
    â€œAt number 23?”
    She appeared not to hear. We walked at a steady pace, her arm in mine.
    â€œI once knew a girl named Mireille Sampierry who lived at 23 Rue Blanche.”
    She didn’t react. She remained silent, as if I hadn’t said a word, or as if the distance between us in time was so great that my voice could no longer reach her.
    But that evening, I didn’t yet know the name Mireille Sampierry. We skirted the square in front of the church.
    â€œYou’ll see . . . It’s a place I really like . . . I used to go there a lot when I lived on Rue Blanche . . .”
    I remember that, by association, I thought of Baroness Blanche. I had taken notes about her several days earlier, in my notebook, copying a page from a history of Paris under Louis XV: it was a report that summarized the little information we possess about the baroness’s chaotic and adventurous life.
    â€œDo you know why the street is named that?” I asked her. “It’s because of Baroness Blanche.”
    A few days before, she had wanted to know what I was writing in my notebook, and I had read her my notes about that woman.
    â€œSo I used to live on ‘Baroness Blanche Street’?” she said with a smile.
    The restaurant was located at the corner of Rue Blanche and the small side street that led back to Trinité Church. The curtains were drawn behind its front windows. She went in ahead of me, as if entering a familiar place. A large bar all the way in back, and on either side a row