“Do you have her new address?”
“No.”
“Then where do you forward her mail?”
“Mail? She never got any.”
“I’m sorry to be so insistent, but this is really important. You can’t just rent a car like that without having an address.”
“That’s enough of that, young man. Mademoiselle Kramsky lived here quite a while, and I know whom I can trust. As you said yourself, the car is parked right outside. Good day!”
Georg walked slowly down the stairs and stopped in front of the gate. He took a deep breath. This time the disappointment was not just a confirmation, it hit him full force. His anger was back. He would go to Bulnakov’s office and confront him.
He parked his car near the statue of the drummer boy and walked up the rue d’Amazone. The brass plaque next to the bell was no longer there-it was the right building, but the plaque was gone. A man in white overalls came walking up the street, told Georg the door was open, and went inside. Georg followed him up to the third floor. The door stood open. Here, too, Bulnakov’s plaque was gone, and the painters were at work.
“What’s going on?” Georg asked the man he had followed up the stairs.
“What does it look like? We’re painting.” He was a young man with a cheerful, cheeky face, who had been whistling all the way up the stairs.
“What about the people who had the office here?”
“Monsieur Bulnakov? He’s the one who hired us.” He laughed. “He paid us too.”
“Do you know the landlord or the owner of the building?”
“Oh, are you thinking of renting the place? Monsieur Placard lives on the ground floor.”
Georg knew what Monsieur Placard would say: Monsieur Bulnakov hadn’t left a forwarding address or any other contact information. Saturday afternoon he and some other men had vacated the premises. “He gave me all the furniture. My son and I brought it down to the cellar. Might you be interested in it?”
“In office furniture?” Georg shook his head and left. Like a nightmare, he thought, but like a nightmare it’s gone away.
18
BUT NOW HIS WHOLE LIFE TURNED into a nightmare.
It was at the office that Georg first noticed that everything had changed. The Mermoz job, for which he had been beaten up, had not only been the last in a series, but the very last. No more jobs came. He called Mermoz and asked what the matter was, but was put off. When he called again, he was told in no uncertain terms that Mermoz was no longer interested in his services. All his major accounts began to dry up, one after the other. Within a month his agency was ruined. Not that there weren’t any translation jobs, but there wasn’t even enough work to cover the rent or pay the secretary.
Then his problems with the police began. They had initially accepted that he didn’t know who had attacked him or why. The two officers who took his statement had been pleasant and sympathetic. But a few weeks later two other officers showed up. They wanted to know the exact particulars of the accident, the route he’d taken, what he had in his car. They asked him for his opinion about the attack: If he were going to rob anyone, would he choose to rob someone driving an old Peugeot? Why he had moved from Karlsruhe to Cucuron? What did he do for a living? What had he done for a living in Germany? No, they couldn’t drop the matter. They kept coming back, sometimes two officers, sometimes one, always asking the same questions.
The policeman in Cucuron also had his eye on him. The little town had only one policeman, everybody knew him and he knew everybody. Nobody held it against him when he took it upon himself to have a car towed that someone had left in the middle of the street in a drunken stupor, or if he stopped someone from burning trash in their backyard, or had a door broken down for the bailiff. Can one blame a dentist if he drills and there is pain? And like a dentist, Cucuron’s policeman didn’t inflict pain without good reason.
At first Georg wasn’t particularly concerned when the policeman didn’t return his greeting. I suppose he didn’t see me or didn’t recognize me, he thought, or maybe his mind was elsewhere, or perhaps he mistook me for one of those tourists passing through Cucuron.
One day he was sitting at a table outside the Bar de l’Étang. Gérard and Nadine were with him, and the bartender had come out to sit with them. The other tables were full too, as the morning market was over. He had parked his car where he always did, and where everyone else did too: among the old plane trees by the pond.
“Is that your car?” the policeman asked, towering before Georg and pointing at his yellow Peugeot.
“It is, but…” Georg wanted to reply that he knew well enough it was his car, and ask him what this was all about.
“You can’t leave your car there.”
Georg was more taken aback than outraged. “Why not? Everyone parks there.”
“I repeat, you’ll have to move your car.” The policeman had raised his voice, and everyone at the surrounding tables was watching and listening. Georg looked at the curious and indifferent faces. The bartender got up and went back behind the bar. Gérard stirred his espresso, avoiding Georg’s eyes. Nadine was fidgeting with her bag.
Georg controlled himself. “Could you tell me why I can’t leave my car there?”
“I will not repeat myself. Move it now.”
Georg again looked at the people sitting at the tables. He knew most of them, had chatted with many of them, played billiards or table-top football, had drunk Pernod with them. After two years in Cucuron, he felt that he belonged here, particularly now in summer when flocks of tourists were milling about the town. But he didn’t belong. There was spite in the faces, not just the indifference of not wanting to get involved. Georg got up and went over to his car. It was like running a gauntlet. He didn’t look for another parking spot, but drove home.
From that day on everyone’s behavior toward him changed: the baker, the butcher, the grocer, and the people he met in the post office, in the bar, and on the street. Or was he imagining things? The quick looking away that obviated the need to greet or be greeted, the slight hesitation of the baker’s wife from whom he bought a loaf of bread, the hint of condescension with which the café owner took his order. He couldn’t have proven any of this in court, but he felt it. What surprised him the least was that the branch manager of his bank asked him to step into his office. For months there had been a lot of activity in his account, and now there were no more deposits, only withdrawals. Needless to say, the bank had to check that everything was as it should be. As for his landlord-he had always been something of a psychopath. That he drove around his house every evening in his old Simca might have something to do with it. But now there were phone calls from the landlord’s wife, who had always been reasonable in the past. They were sorry, but their daughter was coming back from Marseille and wanted to move into Georg’s house. They would have to discuss terminating his four-year lease early.
Georg had nothing to say to any of this. All his strength, courage, and trust were gone. I’m an open wound, he thought.
There was nothing left with which he could ease his thoughts and longing for Françoise.
He was furious: I gave you my love and you took it, but for you it was only physical. You enjoyed our nights together as much as I did, gave yourself to me with as much abandon and pleasure as I gave myself to you. For me the passion I gave and took was a seal on our love, but for you it was only a passion each partner kindles and satisfies, a passion that doesn’t seal anything. If I could have been so wrong, if you could have deceived me like that, if such devotion cannot even act as a seal of love-what’s left for me to believe in? How am I supposed to ever love again? One silent reproach followed another. But even the most absurd accusations couldn’t bring her back. When someone leaves us, we accuse them so that they apologize and come back. In this way we are serious about the accusations, but are ready to agree to any conditions. Georg was aware of that.