Read Online Little Jewel by Patrick Modiano - Free Book Online Page A

I took a whiff from the bottle so I felt brave enough to go to her. It was all too much to explain now. I just wanted to lie there, without speaking, my legs up on the stool.
    â€˜Do you feel a bit better?’
    I had never met anyone who was so gentle and assured. I had to tell her everything. Did my mother really die in Morocco? The more I went through the biscuit tin, the more doubts crept into my mind. It was the photos that made me uneasy. And especially the one that my mother wanted taken of me in the studio near the Champs-Élysées. She asked the photographer who had just taken a series of shots of her in various poses. I remembered that afternoon well. I was there from the beginning of the session. And the detail in the photos reminded me of the particular accessories that had, I would go so far as to say,
branded
me. Theloose-fitting tulle dress that my mother wore belted at the waist; the tight-fitting velvet bodice; and the veil that made her look, under those bright, white camera lights, like a fake fairy. And me, in my dress: I was a fake child prodigy, a poor little circus animal. A toy poodle. Years later, looking at those photos, I finally understood that she was so keen to push me onto the dance floor because then she could make a fresh start herself. She had failed, but it was up to me to become a
star
. Was she really dead? The same old threat was still hanging over my head. But now I had the chance to talk it all through with someone. I didn’t even need to say anything. I would show her the photos.
    I got up from the armchair. Now was the moment to say something, but I had no idea where to begin.
    â€˜Are you sure you’re steady on your feet?’
    So attentive, her voice so calm. We had left the little room and were back in the shop.
    â€˜You should see a doctor. Perhaps you’re anaemic.’ She looked me in the eye, and smiled. ‘The doctor will prescribe vitamin B injections for you. I’m not giving them to you right now…Come back and see me.’
    I stood in front of her. I was trying to delay the moment when I’d walk out of the chemist and find myself alone again.
    â€˜How are you getting home?’
    â€˜On the metro.’
    At that time of evening there were plenty of people in the metro. They were on their way home after a movie or a stroll down the Grands Boulevards. I no longer felt up to the metro trip back to my room. This time I was frightened of getting lost for good. And then there was the other problem: if I had to change trains at Châtelet, I did not want to risk coming across that yellow coat again. Everything was going to happen all over again, in the same places, at the same times, until the end. I was trapped in the same old chain of events.
    â€˜I’ll come with you.’
    She saved my life; it was a close call.
    She turned off the lights in the chemist and locked the door. The neon sign stayed on. We walked side by side, something I was so unaccustomed to that I could scarcely believe it. I was terrified that, at any moment, I’d wake up in my room. Her hands were in the pockets of her fur coat. I was too scared to take her arm. She was taller than I was.
    â€˜What are you thinking about?’ she asked.
    And she took my arm.
    We had reached the intersection that I had crossedearlier and we were now going down the street at the end of which I could see the Gare de Lyon and the clock.
    â€˜I think you’re really nice and that I’m wasting your time.’
    She turned towards me. The collar of her fur coat brushed her cheek.
    â€˜Of course not. You’re not wasting my time at all.’ She paused for a second. ‘I was wondering if your parents are still alive.’
    I told her that I still had a mother, who lived in the suburbs.
    â€˜And your father?’
    My father? He must have been somewhere in the suburbs, too, or in central Paris, or somewhere far away in the big wide world. Or else he died a