Read Online After the Circus by Patrick Modiano - Free Book Online

know you had a dog,” she said to Gisèle.
    She led us into a large living room, its French windows opening onto a garden. From the next room, we heard the hubbub of conversation.
    â€œI’m having some friends over for cards. But Jacques isn’t here this evening …”
    She didn’t ask us to take off our coats. I sensed she was about to leave us in this room and go join the others.
    â€œI’m not sure when he’ll be back …”
    There was an anxious expression in her eyes.
    â€œHave you seen him today?” she asked Gisèle.
    â€œYes, we had lunch together. Mister Ansart took us to his restaurant.”
    The blonde woman’s face relaxed.
    â€œI didn’t see him this morning … He went out very early …”
    She was a pretty woman, but I remember that that evening she already seemed old to me, an adult my parents’ age. I had felt something similar about Ansart. As for Jacques de Bavière, he reminded me of those young people who headedoff to fight in the Algerian War when I was sixteen.
    â€œYou’ll forgive me,” she said, “but I have to go rejoin my guests.”
    I glanced rapidly around the living room. Sky-blue paneling, folding screen, pale marble mantelpiece, mirrors. At the foot of a console table, the carpet showed signs of intense wear, and on one of the walls I noticed discoloration where a painting had been removed. Behind the French windows, bouquets of trees stood out in the moonlight, and I couldn’t see where the garden ended.
    â€œIt’s like being in the country, isn’t it?” the blonde woman said to me, having followed my gaze. “The garden stretches all the way to the buildings on Rue de Berri …”
    I felt like asking her point-blank if she was really Jacques de Bavière’s stepmother. She saw us to the door.
    â€œIf I see Jacques, is there something you’d like me to tell him?”
    She had asked in a distracted voice, no doubt eager to return to her guests.
    It was still early. People were lined up in front of the Normandie cinema for the second showing.
    We walked down the avenue with the dog.
    â€œDo you think she’s really his stepmother?” I asked.
    â€œThat’s what he says. He told me she runs a bridge club out of the apartment and he sometimes helps out.”
    A bridge club. That explained the feeling of unease I had experienced. I wouldn’t have been surprised if the furniture was covered with slip-cases. I had even noticed magazines piled up on a coffee table, like in a dentist’s waiting room. So the apartment where Jacques de Bavière lived with his supposed stepmother was in fact nothing but a bridge club. I thought of my father. He too could easily have concocted a scheme like that, and Grabley would have acted as his secretaryand doorman. They really did all belong to the same world.
    We had reached the arcades of the Lido. I was suddenly seized by a violent desire to flee this city, as if I felt surrounded by a vague menace.
    â€œWhat’s wrong? You’re pale as a sheet …”
    She had stopped walking. A group of strollers jostled us as they went by. The dog, his head raised toward us, seemed worried too.
    â€œIt’s nothing … Just some passing dizziness …”
    I forced a smile.
    â€œWould you like to sit down for a bit, get something to drink?”
    She pointed toward a café, but I couldn’t sit in the middle of that Saturday evening crowd. I would have suffocated. And anyway, there were no free seats.
    â€œNo … Let’s keep walking … I’ll be fine …”
    I took her hand.
    â€œWhat would you say to leaving for Romeright away?” I asked her. “Otherwise, I feel like it’ll be too late …”
    She looked at me, eyes wide.
    â€œWhy right away? We have to wait for Ansart and Jacques de Bavière to help us out … We can’t do much of anything