I had passed the entrance gate that led to the gardens and was following the boulevard towards Port-Royal. One night, Louki and I had accompanied a boy of about our age along this stretch, someone we had gotten to know a bit at the Condé. He had pointed out the École des Mines buildings on our right, informing us in a sad voice, as if the admission had been weighing heavily on him, that he went to school there.
“Do you think it’s worth the effort?”
I had felt that he was seeking encouragement from us to pull the plug. I had told him, “Of course not, my friend, don’t bother with it. Time to get on with your life.”
He had turned towards Louki. He was waiting for her advice as well. She had explained to him that ever since she had been refused admission to the Lycée Jules-Ferry, she hadn’t put much stock in schools. I think that had managed to convince him. The next day, back at the Condé, he had told us that he was finished with the École des Mines.
She and I would often take that same route on our way back to her hotel. It was a bit of a detour, but we were in the habit of walking. Was it really out of our way? Well no, not when I think about it, it was more like a straight line heading inland. At night, all the way down avenue Denfert-Rochereau, it felt as if we were in a provincial town because of the silence and the doors of the religious hospices that came one after another. The other day, I walked along the plane trees and high walls of the road that cuts Montparnasse Cemetery in two. It was also the way to her hotel. I remember that she preferred to avoid it, which is why we usually took Denfert-Rochereau. But towards the end of those days, we were no longer afraid of anything and found that the road that cut through the cemetery had a certain charm to it at night as we passed beneath its canopy of leaves. There were no cars at that hour, and we never saw a soul. I had forgotten to record it on the list of neutral zones. It was more of a boundary. When we reached the end, we entered a land where we were shielded from everything. Last week, it hadn’t been nighttime when I walked there, but rather late afternoon. I hadn’t been back since the days we used to walk down that road together, since I would take it on my way to meet you at the hotel. For a moment, I got the feeling that once I passed the cemetery you would be there. Once I arrived, it would be the Eternal Return. The same routine as always to get the key to your room from the front desk. The same steep stairwell. The same white door with its number: 11. The same anticipation. And then the same lips, the same scent, your hair cascading down the same way.
I could still hear what de Vere had said to me about Louki, “I never understood why… When we really love someone, we’ve got to accept their role in the mystery.”
What mystery? I had been certain that we were so alike, she and I, because we could often read each other’s minds. We were on the same wavelength. Born the same year and the same month. And yet, believe it or not, there must have been a fundamental difference between us.
No, I can’t understand it either. Especially when I remember those final weeks. The month of November, the days growing shorter, the autumn rain, none of it managed to shake our morale. We were even making travel plans. On top of that, a joyful ambiance filled the Condé. I can no longer recall who had introduced Bob Storms among the regular customers, a man who claimed to be a poet and a stage director from Antwerp. Perhaps Adamov? Or Maurice Raphaël? He really made us laugh, that Bob Storms. He had a soft spot for Louki and me. He wanted us to spend the summer in his villa in Majorca. Apparently, he had nothing in the way of financial concerns. Rumor was he collected paintings. You know how people talk. And then people just vanish one day and you realize you didn’t know the first thing about them, not even who they really were.
Why is the imposing shadow of Bob Storms suddenly looming so prominently in my mind? In life’s most tragic moments, there is often a light note that sounds out of tune with the rest, a court jester, a Bob Storms who passes through and who might have been able to ward off any impending misfortune. He always stood at the bar, as if the wooden chairs might collapse beneath his weight. He was so big that his corpulence wasn’t even visible. Always wearing a kind of velvet doublet, the black of which contrasted with his red beard and hair. And a cloak of the same color. The evening we first noticed him, he made his way to our table and looked us over from top to bottom, Louki and I. Then he smiled, and leaning toward us, he whispered, “Companions in unpleasant times, I wish you the best of nights.” When he learned that I could recite a good many poems, he had insisted that we have a contest. The winner would be the one who had the last word. He would recite a line of verse, I would reply with another, and so on. It went on for quite some time. I didn’t really deserve any of it. I was more or less illiterate, lacking much in the way of general culture, I just happened to have retained some poetry, not unlike those people who can play any piece of music on the piano and yet don’t know the first thing about music theory. Bob Storms had one advantage over me: He also knew the entire repertoire of English, Spanish, and Flemish poetry. Standing at the bar, he defiantly sent forth his challenge:
Et que le cheval fit un écart en arrière.
“Donne-lui tout de même à boire,” dit mon père.
or:
Como todos los muertos que se olvidan
En un montón de perros apagados
or again:
De burgemeester heeft ons iets misdaan,
Wij leerden, door zijn schuld, het leven haten.
Sometimes I found him a bit tiresome, but he was a good guy, quite a bit older than we were. I would have loved to hear him talk of his past lives. He always answered my questions evasively. When he felt that too much curiosity was being directed his way, his exuberance melted away immediately, as if he had something to hide or wanted to cover his tracks. He wouldn’t respond, and then would finally break the silence with a burst of laughter.
•
One night Bob Storms hosted a soirée at his place. He invited Louki and me, along with the others: Annet, Don Carlos, Bowing, Zacharias, Mireille, La Houpa, Ali Cherif, and the guy we had convinced to quit the École des Mines. Other guests as well, but I didn’t know them. He lived on the Quai d’Anjou in an apartment whose upper floor was an enormous studio. He invited us there for a reading of Hop Signor!, a play he wanted to direct. The two of us arrived before the rest, and I was blown away by the candelabra that lit the studio, the Sicilian and Flemish marionettes hung from the crossbeams, the Renaissance mirrors and furniture. Bob Storms was wearing his black velvet doublet. A giant bay window gave onto the Seine. He protectively encircled Louki’s shoulders and my own, and he spoke his customary words:
“Companions in unpleasant times
I wish you the best of nights.”
Then he took an envelope from his pocket and held it out to me. He explained to us that it contained the keys to his house in Majorca, and that we ought to head there as soon as we were able. And stay until September. He thought we were looking a bit unhealthy. What a strange night. The play was only one act long and the actors read it rather quickly. We were seated around them in a circle. Once in a while, during the reading, on a cue from Bob Storms, we all had to cry out “Hop Signor!” in unison, as if we were part of a chorus. The alcohol flowed freely. As well as other intoxicants. A buffet had been set up in the middle of the large parlor on the lower floor. Bob Storms himself served drinks in elaborate goblets and crystal stemware. More and more people. At one point, Storms had introduced me to a man of about his age, although much smaller than he was, an American writer named James Jones whom he described as “his next-door neighbor.” Eventually Louki and I began to wonder what we were doing there among all of those people we didn’t know. All of those people who had in some way been mixed up with our early years, people who would never be aware of it and whom we wouldn’t even recognize later on.