hadnât been outside the school walls in three years. I also vaguely recall my bunkmate, a small red-haired kid, whom I spotted from afar two or three years later, on Boulevard Saint-Michel,in a privateâs uniform in the rain ⦠After lights out, a watchman came through the dormitories, lantern in hand, to make sure every bed was occupied. It was the fall of 1962, but also the nineteenth century and, perhaps, a time still farther in the past as well.
My father came only once to visit me in that institution. The headmaster gave me permission to wait for him on the entrance porch. That headmaster had a lovely name: Adonis Delfosse. The silhouette of my father, there, on the porchâbut I canât make out his face, as if his presence in those medieval monastic surroundings seemed unreal. The silhouette of a tall man with no head. I donât remember if there was a parlor. I think we spoke in a room on the first floor, the library or perhaps the social hall. We were alone, sitting at a table, opposite each other. I accompanied him back down to the porch. He walked away across Place du Panthéon. Heâd once told me that he, too, had hung around that part of town when he was eighteen. He had just enough money to buy himself a caféau lait and a couple of croissants at the Dupont-Latin, in lieu of a proper meal. In those days, he had a shadow on his lung. I close my eyes and imagine him walking up Boulevard Saint-Michel, among the well-behaved
lycée
pupils and the students belonging to Action Française.
His
Latin Quarter was the one of Violette Nozière. He must have run across her many times on the boulevard. Violette, âthe pretty schoolgirl from the Lycée Fénelon who raised bats in her desk.â
My father married the ersatz Mylène Demongeot. They lived on the fourth floor, right above my mother. The two floors formed a single apartment, from the time when my parents lived together. In 1962, the two apartments hadnât yet been separated. Behind a boarded-up doorway, there was still the interior staircase that my father had built in 1947, when heâd begun renting the third floor. The ersatz Mylène Demongeot was not keen on me being a day pupil or continuing to see my father. After Iâd spent two months as a boarder, he sent me this letter: â ALBERT RODOLPHE MODIANO 15 QUAI DE CONTI Paris VI. You came up this morning at 9:15 to inform me that you had decided not to return to school as long as I did not reverse my decision to keep you there as a boarder. At around 12:30, you again confirmed the above. Your behavior is beyond disgraceful. If you think that such pathetic attempts at blackmail will win me over, youâve got another think coming. Therefore I strongly advise you, for your own sake, to go back to school tomorrow morning, with a note for your headmaster excusing your absence due to a cold. I must warn you in no uncertain terms that if you do not, you will regret it. You are seventeen, you are still a minor, I am your father, and Iâm responsible for your education. I intend to have a word with your headmaster. Albert Modiano.â
My mother had no money and no theatrical engagements that October of 1962. And my father was threatening to discontinue my child support unless I moved back into the dormitory. Thinking about it today, I canât imagine I cost him very much: just modest room and board.But I remember seeing him in the late 1950s, so utterly âbrokeâ that he had to borrow the few francs my grandfather sometimes sent me from Belgium out of his retirement pension. I felt closer to him than to my own parents.
I continued to be âon strikeâ from the boarding school. One afternoon, my mother and I were walking in the Tuileries; we didnât have a cent. As a last resort, she decided to ask her friend Suzanne Flon for help. We went to Suzanne Flonâs on foot, having not even enough change for two metro tickets.
My father came only once to visit me in that institution. The headmaster gave me permission to wait for him on the entrance porch. That headmaster had a lovely name: Adonis Delfosse. The silhouette of my father, there, on the porchâbut I canât make out his face, as if his presence in those medieval monastic surroundings seemed unreal. The silhouette of a tall man with no head. I donât remember if there was a parlor. I think we spoke in a room on the first floor, the library or perhaps the social hall. We were alone, sitting at a table, opposite each other. I accompanied him back down to the porch. He walked away across Place du Panthéon. Heâd once told me that he, too, had hung around that part of town when he was eighteen. He had just enough money to buy himself a caféau lait and a couple of croissants at the Dupont-Latin, in lieu of a proper meal. In those days, he had a shadow on his lung. I close my eyes and imagine him walking up Boulevard Saint-Michel, among the well-behaved
lycée
pupils and the students belonging to Action Française.
His
Latin Quarter was the one of Violette Nozière. He must have run across her many times on the boulevard. Violette, âthe pretty schoolgirl from the Lycée Fénelon who raised bats in her desk.â
My father married the ersatz Mylène Demongeot. They lived on the fourth floor, right above my mother. The two floors formed a single apartment, from the time when my parents lived together. In 1962, the two apartments hadnât yet been separated. Behind a boarded-up doorway, there was still the interior staircase that my father had built in 1947, when heâd begun renting the third floor. The ersatz Mylène Demongeot was not keen on me being a day pupil or continuing to see my father. After Iâd spent two months as a boarder, he sent me this letter: â ALBERT RODOLPHE MODIANO 15 QUAI DE CONTI Paris VI. You came up this morning at 9:15 to inform me that you had decided not to return to school as long as I did not reverse my decision to keep you there as a boarder. At around 12:30, you again confirmed the above. Your behavior is beyond disgraceful. If you think that such pathetic attempts at blackmail will win me over, youâve got another think coming. Therefore I strongly advise you, for your own sake, to go back to school tomorrow morning, with a note for your headmaster excusing your absence due to a cold. I must warn you in no uncertain terms that if you do not, you will regret it. You are seventeen, you are still a minor, I am your father, and Iâm responsible for your education. I intend to have a word with your headmaster. Albert Modiano.â
My mother had no money and no theatrical engagements that October of 1962. And my father was threatening to discontinue my child support unless I moved back into the dormitory. Thinking about it today, I canât imagine I cost him very much: just modest room and board.But I remember seeing him in the late 1950s, so utterly âbrokeâ that he had to borrow the few francs my grandfather sometimes sent me from Belgium out of his retirement pension. I felt closer to him than to my own parents.
I continued to be âon strikeâ from the boarding school. One afternoon, my mother and I were walking in the Tuileries; we didnât have a cent. As a last resort, she decided to ask her friend Suzanne Flon for help. We went to Suzanne Flonâs on foot, having not even enough change for two metro tickets.
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