“Thanks very much, but I don’t need any money,” I said.
“Don’t be silly, my boy. One always needs money at your age …”
The man’s paternal tone, and the expression in his eyes, so gentle and so sad, suddenly made me feel warmly toward him.
~ ~ ~
There was bright sunshine all afternoon, but we were in that time of year when night falls at around five o’clock. Ansart proposed that we all go have lunch in his restaurant. It was located a bit farther north in the 16th arrondissement, on Rue des Belles-Feuilles. Ansart, Jacques de Bavière, and Martine got into a black automobile, and we followed them down the empty Saturday streets.
“Do you think we should do his favor for him?” I asked Gisèle.
“It doesn’t commit us to anything …”
“But aside from this restaurant, you don’t really know what he does for a living, do you?”
“No.”
“It would be useful to know …”
“You think so?”
She shrugged. We caught up with them at a red light on Boulevard Suchet. The two cars waited side by side. Martine was sitting in back and smiled at us. Ansart and Jacques de Bavière were absorbed in a serious conversation. With a tap of his index finger, Jacques de Bavière flicked the ash from his cigarette through the half-open window.
“Have you ever been to his restaurant?”
“Yes, two or three times. You know, I haven’t known them all that long myself …”
In fact, she had known them for only three weeks. There was nothing binding us to them, unless she was hiding something from me. I asked if she intended to keep seeing them. She explained that Jacques de Bavière had been very nice to her and had done her a huge favor the first time they’d met. He had even lent her some money.
“They’re not the reason the police called you in the other day, are they?”
The idea had suddenly occurred to me.
“No, no, of course not …”
She knitted her brow and shot me a wary look.
“Listen, they absolutely can’t find out that I was questioned …”
She had already urged the same thing the night before, without adding any details.
“Why? Will they get in trouble because of it?”
She had pressed on the gas pedal. The dog sat up on the back seat and leaned his head in the crook of my shoulder.
“They called me in because they found my name on a hotel register. But in any event, I would have gone to see them on my own …”
“How come?”
We had passed Ansart and Jacques de Bavière’s car. We were driving very fast, and it seemed to me we had run a red light. I could feel the dog’s breath on my neck.
“I left my husband and he’s looking for me. The last months I was with him, he was constantly threatening me … I told the whole story to the police.”
“Were you living with him in Saint-Leu-la-Forêt?”
“No.”
She had answered curtly. She was already regretting having taken me into her confidence. I ventured another question:
“What kind of man is your husband?”
“Oh … Average …”
I realized I’d get nothing more out of her for now. The others had caught up with us. Jacques de Bavière leaned out of the open window and shouted:
“You think you’re racing at Le Mans?”
And they sped past us, then slowed down. She did too. We were now driving behind them, so close that our bumpers were nearly touching.
“After lunch, can we go for a walk in the Bois de Boulogne?” I asked.
“Of course. We’re not obliged to stay with them …”
I was happy to hear her say it. I felt dependent on adults and their whims. The boarding school existence I’d known for six years and the threat of an impending departure for the army made me feel as if I were stealing every instant of freedom and leading a sham life.
“That’s true … It’s not like we owe them anything …”
My remark made her laugh. The dog was still breathing on my neck, and now and again he ran his coarse tongue over my ear.
~ ~ ~
The restaurant had the same name as the street: the Belles Feuilles.
A small dining room. Pale wood trim. A mahogany bar. Tables covered with white tablecloths and red imitation-leather seats.
When we entered, three patrons were having lunch. We were greeted by the waiter, a brown-haired man of about thirty-five in a white jacket whom they called Rémy. He gave us a table in back. Gisèle hadn’t removed her fur coat.
She said to Ansart:
“Do you think they could give the dog something to eat?”
“Of course.”
He called Rémy over and we each ordered the daily special. Ansart stood up and walked over to the table with the patrons. He spoke to them very courteously. Then he came back to join us.
“So, what do you think of my establishment?” he asked me, favoring me with his wide smile.
“I like it a lot.”
“It’s an old working-class café I used to hang out in when I was your age, during the war. At the time, I never would have imagined I could turn it into a restaurant.”
He was practically confiding in me. Because of my shyness? My attentive eyes? My age, which made him reminisce?
“From now on, you eat here on the house.”
“Thank you.”
Jacques de Bavière had gone to make a phone call at the bar. He was standing behind it, as if he owned the place.
“I have a very respectable clientele,” Ansart said. “People from the neighborhood …”
“And are you involved with the restaurant, too?” I asked Martine.
“She just helped me out a bit with the decoration.”
He rested an affectionate hand on her shoulder. I would have liked to know under what circumstances they had met, and also how Ansart and Jacques de Bavière had become acquainted. Ansart was a good ten years older. I pictured him at my age, one November evening, entering this café that probably wasn’t called the Belles Feuilles back then. What was he doing around here at the time?
After lunch, we stood awhile chatting on the sidewalk. Gisèle said we had to go walk the dog in the Bois. Ansart offered to drop Jacques de Bavière off at his place on Rue Washington. We told them there was no need, and that Jacques de Bavière could have his car back. But no, he insisted we hold on to it. It was very kind of him.
I asked Ansart where in Neuilly we were supposed to carry out our curious mission the next evening.
It was on Rue de la Ferme, at the edge of the Bois.
“Are you thinking of checking the place out? Good idea. It’s safer that way. Better to scope out all the exits in advance.”
And he clapped me on the shoulder, his face split by his candid smile.
After Porte Dauphine, we followed the road leading to the lakes and parked in front of the Pavillon Royal. A sunny Saturday afternoon in late autumn, like those Saturdays in my childhood when I used to arrive at that same spot at the same time of day, on the number 63 bus that stopped at Porte de la Muette. There was already a line of people at the boat rental concession.
We walked along the lake. She had let go the dog’s leash and he ran ahead of us in the alley. When he had gone too far ahead, she called him—“Raymond!”—and immediately he turned back. We passed by the landing dock where one could take a motorboat to the Chalet des Iles.
“Do we have to see them again later?”
She raised her face and looked at me with her pale blue eyes.
“It would be best,” she said. “They can help us … And besides, they lent us the car.”
“Do you really think we have to do what they asked?”
“Are you afraid?”
She had taken my arm and we followed the alley, which grew narrower and narrower, between the rows of trees.