The flicker of a lighthouse in the darkness. Very faint. She went on in a drawclass="underline"
‘What do you want with that creature?’
‘Nothing. . Have you known him long?’
‘That creature?’ She repeated the word ‘creature’ with that doggedness drunks have of repeating a word over and over.
‘Am I right in thinking he’s a friend of Murraille’s?’ I ventured.
‘His crony!’
I planned to ask her what she meant by ‘crony’ but I needed to catch her off guard. She rambled on interminably, then trailed off, muttered a few confused phrases. I was used to this floundering around, to these exhausting games of blind-man’s-buff when you stretch out your arms but catch only empty air. I tried — not without difficulty — to steer her back to the point. After an hour I had at least succeeded in coaxing some information from her. Yes, you were certainly Murraille’s ‘crony’. You served as a frontman and general factotum in certain shady deals. Contraband? Black marketeering? Touting? Finally she yawned and said: ‘But it doesn’t matter, Jean is planning to get rid of him as soon as possible!’ That made things only too clear. We moved on to talk about other things. She fetched a little leather case from the desk and showed me the jewellery Murraille had given her. He liked it to be heavy and encrusted with stones, because, according to him, ‘it would be easier to sell in an emergency’. I said I thought it was a very sensible idea ‘given the times we’re living in’. She asked if I went out much in Paris. There were lots of stunning shows: Roger Duchesne and Billy Bourbon were doing a cabaret at Le Club. Sessue Hayakawa was in a revival of Forfaiture at the Ambigu, and Michel Parme with the Skarjinsky orchestra were playing an early evening set at the Chapiteau. I was thinking about you, ‘papa’. So you were a straw man to be liquidated when the time came. Your disappearance would create no more fuss than that of a fly. Who would remember you twenty years from now?
She drew the curtains. I could only see her face and her red hair. I went over the events of the evening again. The interminable dinner, the moonlight walk, Murraille and Marcheret going back to the ‘Villa Mektoub’. And your shadow standing on the Chemin du Bornage. All these vague impressions were part of the past. I had gone back in time to find your trail and track you down. What year were we living in? What era? What life? By what strange miracle had I known you when you were not yet my father? Why had I made so much effort, when a chansonnier was telling a ‘Jewish joke’, in a bar that smelled of shadows and leather, to an audience of strangers? Why, even then, had I wanted to be your son? She turned out the bedside light. The sound of voices from the next room. Maud Gallas and Dédé Wildmer. They swore at each other for a long time and then came the sighs, the moans. The wireless had stopped crackling. After a piece played by the Fred Adison orchestra, the last news bulletin was announced. And it was terrifying, listening to the frantic newsreader — still the same voice — in the darkness.
I needed all the patience I could muster. Marcheret took me aside and began to describe, house by house, the red-light district of Casablanca where he had spent — he told me — the best moments of his life. You never forget Africa! It leaves its mark! A pox-ridden continent. I let him go on for hours about ‘that old whore Africa’, showing a polite interest. He had one other topic of conversation. His royal lineage. He claimed to be descended from the Duc du Maine, the bastard son of Louis XIV. His title, ‘Comte d’Eu’ proved it. Every time, pen and paper at the ready, he insisted on showing me in detail. He would embark on a family tree and it would take him until dawn. He got confused, crossed out names, added others, his writing steadily becoming illegible. In the end, he ripped the page into little pieces, and gave me a withering look:
‘You don’t believe me, do you?’
On other evenings, his malaria and his impending marriage to Annie Murraille were the subjects of conversation. The malaria attacks were less frequent now, but he would never be cured. And Annie went her own way. He was only marrying her out of friendship for Murraille. It wouldn’t last a week. . These realisations made him bitter. Fuelled by alcohol, he would become aggressive, call me a ‘greenhorn’ and ‘a snot-nosed brat’. Dédé Wildmer was a ‘pimp’, Murraille a ‘sex maniac’ and my father ‘a Jew who had it coming to him’. Gradually he would calm down, apologize to me. What about one more vermouth? No better cure for the blues.
Murraille, on the other hand, talked about his magazine. He planned to expand C’est la vie, add a 36-page section with new columns in which the most diverse talents could express themselves. He would soon celebrate fifty years in journalism with a lunch at which most of his colleagues and friends would be reunited: Maulaz, Alin-Laubreaux, Gerbère, Le Houleux, Lestandi. . and various celebrities. He would introduce me to them. He was delighted to be able to help me. If I needed money, I shouldn’t hesitate to tell him: he would let me have advances against future stories. As time went on, his bluster and patronising tone gave way to a mounting nervousness. Every day — he told me — he received a hundred anonymous letters. People were baying for his blood, he had been forced to apply for a gun licence. Broadly, he was being accused of being part of an era when most people ‘played a waiting game’. He at least made his position clear. In black and white. He had the upper hand at the moment, but the situation might turn out badly for him and his friends. If that happened, they would not get off lightly. In the meantime, he was not going to be bossed around by anyone. I said I agreed absolutely. Strange thoughts ran through my mind: the man was not suspicious of me (at least I don’t think he was) and it would have been easy to ruin him. It’s not every day that you find yourself face to face with a ‘traitor’ and ‘Judas’. You have to make the most of it. He smiled. Deep down, I rather liked him.
‘None of this really matters. .’
He liked living dangerously. He was going to ‘go even further’ in his next editorial.
Sylviane Quimphe took me to the stables every afternoon. During our rides, we often encountered a distinguished looking man of about sixty. I wouldn’t have paid him any particular attention had I not been struck by the look of contempt he gave us. No doubt he thought it disgraceful that people could still go riding and think about enjoying themselves ‘in these tragic times of ours’. We would not be fondly remembered in Seine-et-Marne. . Sylviane Quimphe’s behaviour was unlikely to add to our popularity. Trotting along the main street, she would talk in a loud voice, shriek with laughter.
In the rare moments I had to myself, I drafted the ‘serial’ for Murraille. He found ‘Confessions of a Society Chauffeur’ entirely satisfactory and commissioned three other stories. I had submitted ‘Confidences of an Academic Photographer’. There remained ‘Via Lesbos’ and ‘The Lady of the Studios’ which I tried to write as diligently as possible. Such were the labours I set myself in the hope of developing a relationship with you. Pornographer, gigolo, confidant to an alcoholic and to a blackmailer — what else would you have me do? Would I have to sink even lower to drag you out of your cesspit?
Now, I realize what a hopeless enterprise it was. You become interested in a man who vanished long ago. You try to question the people who knew him, but their traces disappeared with his. Of his life, only vague, often contradictory rumours remain, one or two pointers. Hard evidence? A postage stamp and a fake Légion d’honneur. So all one can do is imagine. I close my eyes. The bar of the Clos-Foucré and the colonial drawingroom of the ‘Villa Mektoub’. After all these years the furniture is covered with dust. A musty smell catches in my throat. Murraille, Marcheret, Sylviane Quimphe are standing motionless as waxworks. And you, you are slumped on a pouffe, your face frozen, your eyes staring.