Read Online Out of the Dark by Patrick Modiano - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Patrick Modiano
Tags: Fiction
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the very near future.
IN LONDON THAT SPRING only married adults could get a room in a hotel. We ended up in a sort of family boardinghouse in Bloomsbury whose landlady pretended to believe we were brother and sister. She gave us a room that was meant to serve as a smoking room or a library, furnished with three couches and a bookshelf: We could only stay five days, and we had to pay in advance.
After that, by appearing at the front desk one after the other as if we weren't acquainted, we managed to get two rooms in the Cumberland, whose massive façade stood over Marble Arch. But there, too, we left after three days, once they had caught on to the deception.
We really didn't know where we would sleep. After Marble Arch we walked straight ahead, along Hyde Park, and turned onto Sussex Gardens, an avenue that climbed toward Paddington Station. One little hotel followed another along the left-hand sidewalk. We picked one at random, and this time they didn't even ask to see our papers.
DOUBT ALWAYS OVERTOOK us at the same time: at night, on the way back to the hotel, as we thought of returning to the room where we were living like fugitives, only as long as the owner allowed us to stay.
We walked up and down Sussex Gardens before we crossed the threshold of the hotel. Neither of us had any desire to go back to Paris. From now on the Quai de la Tournelle and the Latin Quarter were closed to us. Paris is a big city, of course, and we could have moved to another neighborhood where there would be no danger of running into Gérard Van Bever or Cartaud. But it was better not to look back.
How much time went by before we made the acquaintance of Linda, Peter Rachman, and Michael Savoundra? Maybe two weeks. Two endless weeks of rain. We went to the movies as an escape from our room and its mildewflecked wallpaper. Then we took a walk, always along Oxford Street. We came to Bloomsbury, to the street of the boardinghouse where we had spent our first night in London. And once again we walked the length of Oxford Street, in the opposite direction.
We were trying to put off the moment when we would return to the hotel. We couldn't go on walking in this rain. We could always see another movie or go into a department store or a café. But then we would only have to give up and turn back toward Sussex Gardens.
Late one afternoon, when we had ventured farther along to the other bank of the Thames, I felt myself being overcome by panic. It was rush hour: a stream of suburbanites was crossing Waterloo Bridge in the direction of the station. We were walking across the bridge in the opposite direction, and I was afraid we would be caught up in the oncoming current. But we managed to free ourselves. We sat down on a bench in Trafalgar Square. We hadn't spoken a single word as we walked.
'Is something wrong?' Jacqueline asked me. 'You're so pale …'
She was smiling at me. I could see that she was struggling to keep calm. The thought of walking back to the hotel through the crowds on Oxford Street was too much to bear. I didn't dare ask if she was feeling as anxious as I was. I said:
'Don't you think this city is too big?'
I tried to smile as well. She was looking at me with a frown.
'This city is too big, and we don't know anyone …'
My voice was desperate. I couldn't get another word out.
She had lit a cigarette. She was wearing her light leather jacket and coughing from time to time, as she used to do in Paris. I missed the Quai de la Tournelle, the Boulevard Haussmann, and the Gare Saint-Lazare. 'It was easier in Paris …'
But I had spoken so softly that I wasn't sure she'd heard me. She was absorbed in her thoughts. She had forgotten I was there. In front of us, a red telephone booth, from which a woman had just emerged.
'It's too bad there's no one we can call…,' I said.
She turned to me and put her hand on my arm. She had overcome the despair she must have been feeling a moment before, as we were walking along the Strand
IN LONDON THAT SPRING only married adults could get a room in a hotel. We ended up in a sort of family boardinghouse in Bloomsbury whose landlady pretended to believe we were brother and sister. She gave us a room that was meant to serve as a smoking room or a library, furnished with three couches and a bookshelf: We could only stay five days, and we had to pay in advance.
After that, by appearing at the front desk one after the other as if we weren't acquainted, we managed to get two rooms in the Cumberland, whose massive façade stood over Marble Arch. But there, too, we left after three days, once they had caught on to the deception.
We really didn't know where we would sleep. After Marble Arch we walked straight ahead, along Hyde Park, and turned onto Sussex Gardens, an avenue that climbed toward Paddington Station. One little hotel followed another along the left-hand sidewalk. We picked one at random, and this time they didn't even ask to see our papers.
DOUBT ALWAYS OVERTOOK us at the same time: at night, on the way back to the hotel, as we thought of returning to the room where we were living like fugitives, only as long as the owner allowed us to stay.
We walked up and down Sussex Gardens before we crossed the threshold of the hotel. Neither of us had any desire to go back to Paris. From now on the Quai de la Tournelle and the Latin Quarter were closed to us. Paris is a big city, of course, and we could have moved to another neighborhood where there would be no danger of running into Gérard Van Bever or Cartaud. But it was better not to look back.
How much time went by before we made the acquaintance of Linda, Peter Rachman, and Michael Savoundra? Maybe two weeks. Two endless weeks of rain. We went to the movies as an escape from our room and its mildewflecked wallpaper. Then we took a walk, always along Oxford Street. We came to Bloomsbury, to the street of the boardinghouse where we had spent our first night in London. And once again we walked the length of Oxford Street, in the opposite direction.
We were trying to put off the moment when we would return to the hotel. We couldn't go on walking in this rain. We could always see another movie or go into a department store or a café. But then we would only have to give up and turn back toward Sussex Gardens.
Late one afternoon, when we had ventured farther along to the other bank of the Thames, I felt myself being overcome by panic. It was rush hour: a stream of suburbanites was crossing Waterloo Bridge in the direction of the station. We were walking across the bridge in the opposite direction, and I was afraid we would be caught up in the oncoming current. But we managed to free ourselves. We sat down on a bench in Trafalgar Square. We hadn't spoken a single word as we walked.
'Is something wrong?' Jacqueline asked me. 'You're so pale …'
She was smiling at me. I could see that she was struggling to keep calm. The thought of walking back to the hotel through the crowds on Oxford Street was too much to bear. I didn't dare ask if she was feeling as anxious as I was. I said:
'Don't you think this city is too big?'
I tried to smile as well. She was looking at me with a frown.
'This city is too big, and we don't know anyone …'
My voice was desperate. I couldn't get another word out.
She had lit a cigarette. She was wearing her light leather jacket and coughing from time to time, as she used to do in Paris. I missed the Quai de la Tournelle, the Boulevard Haussmann, and the Gare Saint-Lazare. 'It was easier in Paris …'
But I had spoken so softly that I wasn't sure she'd heard me. She was absorbed in her thoughts. She had forgotten I was there. In front of us, a red telephone booth, from which a woman had just emerged.
'It's too bad there's no one we can call…,' I said.
She turned to me and put her hand on my arm. She had overcome the despair she must have been feeling a moment before, as we were walking along the Strand
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