The Black Notebook by Patrick Modiano Page A

of round tables with white tablecloths. The walls looked dark red because of the muted light. There were only two diners—a man and a woman—at a table near the bar, behind which stood a dark-haired man of about forty.
    â€œWell, look who’s here,” he said to Dannie, as if surprised to see her.
    She seemed embarrassed. She said to him:
    â€œI’ve been away from Paris all this time.”
    He greeted me with a brief nod. She introduced me:
    â€œA friend.”
    He seated us at a table near the door, perhaps so that we’d be left in peace, away from the other couple. But those two spoke very little, and in low voices.
    â€œIt’s nice here,” she said to me. “I should have brought you here before.”
    It was the first time I saw her relax. Anywhere else in Paris I had been with her, I always noticed a hint of worry deep in her eyes.
    â€œI used to live a bit farther on . . . in a hotel . . . when I left the apartment on Avenue Félix-Faure . . .”
    As I write these lines, I read on the official form: “Mireille Sampierry, residing at 23 Rue Blanche, Paris 9th.” But number 23 isn’t a hotel: I checked. So why would she tell me she’d lived in a hotel? Why that seemingly innocuous lie? And that name, Mireille Sampierry? It’s too late to ask her now, except in my dreams, when different time periods merge together and I can ask whatever I please, thanks to what I gleaned from Langlais’s file. But there’s no point. She can’t hear me, and I experience that strange sensation of absence you feel when you dream about deceased friends and see them so near to you.
    â€œSo, what have you been up to all this time?”
    He was standing at our table. He had served us two glasses of Cointreau, no doubt figuring that we shared the same tastes.
    â€œTrying to find work . . .”
    He flashed me a sarcastic look, as if he wasn’t taken in by any of this and wanted an ally.
    â€œBut she hasn’t introduced us. André Falvet . . .”
    He shook my hand, still smiling. I stammered:
    â€œJean . . .”
    I was always embarrassed to introduce myself and enter into someone’s life in that abrupt, almost military way, which practically requires you to stand at attention. To keep things less formal, I dispensed with my family name.
    â€œSo, did you find any work?”
    The sarcasm wasn’t only in his look. It was as if he were talking to a child.
    â€œYes . . . A secretarial job . . . with him . . .”
    She pointed to me.
    â€œSecretarial?”
    He nodded in false admiration.
    â€œSome people were asking after you. In fact they asked me a lot of questions, but not to worry, I kept mum . . . I told them you’d gone abroad . . .”
    â€œWell done.”
    She looked around her, probably to verify that the decor hadn’t changed. Then she turned to me:
    â€œIt’s very peaceful in here . . .”
    It felt as if we were removed from everything, in a grotto that no one else could enter because a heavy red curtain had been drawn across the opening. The man and woman at the table in back had disappeared without my noticing, and now there was no way for me to know who they were.
    â€œYes, very peaceful,” he said to her. “You forgot it’s our day off . . .”
    He headed back to the bar and, before going through the door that must have led to the kitchen:
    â€œI wasn’t expecting anyone for dinner this evening . . . I have to warn you, it’ll be pot luck.”
    She leaned toward me and our foreheads touched. She whispered:
    â€œHe’s very nice . . . Nothing like those guys at the Unic Hôtel . . . You can trust him.”
    I did not understand at the time why she was trying to reassure me. The man’s name, André Falvet, appears in the file that Langlais gave me, and what a