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brought him to Rue de l’Aude several times, but I think that was much later. My recollections are hazy. Aghamouri had written in his letter: “Don’t tell anyone about this meeting. Especially not Dannie. It’s strictly between us. You’ll understand why.” That “you’ll understand why” had worried me.
    It was already dark. While waiting, I walked around the wasteland in front of the new university building. That evening, I had brought along my black notebook, and to pass the time I jotted down the fading inscriptions that still clung to a few buildings and warehouses slated for demolition that bordered the empty lot. I read:
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Sommet Brothers—Leathers and Pelts
    B. Blumet & Son—Forwarding Agents for Leathers and Pelts
    Beaugency Tanneries
    A. Martin & Co.—Rawhide
    Salting and Tanning—Paris Leather Exchange
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    As I wrote down those names, I began to feel queasy. I think it shows in my handwriting, which is choppy, almost illegible by the end. Later, I added in pencil, in a steadier hand:
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Hundred Maidens Hospital
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    It was an obsession of mine to want to know what had occupied a given location in Paris over successive layers of time. That evening, I thought I could smell the nauseating odor of pelts and rawhide. The title of a documentary came to mind, one that I’d seen when I was too young and that had marked me for life:
The Blood of Beasts.
They slaughtered animals in Vaugirard and La Villette, then brought their skins here to be sold. Thousands upon thousands of anonymous beasts. And of all that, there remained only an empty back lot and, for just a little while longer, the names of a few vultures and murderers painted on those half-crumbled walls. And that evening, I had written them down in my notebook. What was the use? I would much rather have known the names of those hundred maidens from the hospital that used to stretch over this plot of land well before the days of the leather exchange.
    â€œYou’re pale as a ghost . . . Is something the matter?”
    Aghamouri was standing in front of me. I hadn’t seen him come out of the university building. He was wearing his camel coat and carrying a black briefcase. I was still absorbed in my notes. He said with an embarrassed smile:
    â€œYou do recognize me, don’t you?”
    I was about to show him the names I had just jotted down, but back then I always felt people became suspicious if they realized you were writing something, standing over there by yourself. No doubt they were afraid you were stealing something from them, their words, fragments of their life.
    â€œWas your class interesting?”
    I had never been to university, and I imagined him in a classroom like that in a primary school, lifting his desktop to take out his grammar text and notebook and dipping his nib in the inkwell.
    We walked across the empty lot, avoiding the puddles. His camel coat and black briefcase only reinforced my opinion: he couldn’t be a student. He looked like someone on his way to a business appointment in a hotel lobby in Geneva. I’d thought we would go as usual to the café on Place Monge, but we took the opposite direction, toward the Jardin des Plantes.
    â€œYou don’t mind if we have a quiet chat while we walk, do you?”
    He spoke in a casual, friendly tone, but I could sense some awkwardness, as if he were searching for the right words and expected to find himself on foreign ground where he would not meet anyone he knew. And, in fact, Rue Cuvier stretched before us, deserted and silent all the way to the Seine.
    â€œI wanted to warn you . . .”
    He had said these words with great seriousness. Then, nothing. Perhaps, at the last minute, he had lost his nerve.
    â€œWarn me about what?”
    I had asked the question too bluntly. While I kept a “low profile,” as Paul Chastagnier said, I had never followed others’ advice. Never.