Every night I half-open the door to their rooms as quietly as I can, and watch them sleep. I feel my head spinning just as it did that first time: slip the silencer out of my pocket and kill them. I’ll break my last moorings adrift and drift towards the North Pole where there are no tears to temper loneliness. They freeze on the tips of eyelashes. And arid sorrow. Two eyes staring at parched wasteland. If I hesitate at the thought of killing the blind man and the little girl — or the little old lady — how then can I betray the Lieutenant? What counts against him is his courage, his composure, the elegance that imbues his every gesture. His steady blue eyes exasperate me. He belongs to that ungainly breed of heroes. Yet still, I can’t help seeing him as a kindly elderly lady. I don’t take men seriously. One day I’ll find myself looking at them — and at myself — the way I do at Coco Lacour and Esmeralda. The toughest, the proudest ones will seem like frail creatures who need to be protected.
They played mah-jongg in the living room before going to bed. The lamp casts a soft glow on the bookshelves and the full-length portrait of Monsieur de Bel-Respiro. They moved the pieces slowly. Esmeralda tilted her head while Coco Lacour gnawed on his forefinger. All around us, silence. I close the shutters. Coco Lacour quickly nods off. Esmeralda is afraid of the dark, so I always leave her door ajar and the light on in the hallway. I usually read to her for half an hour from a book I found in the nightstand of this room when I appropriated this house: How to Raise Our Daughters, by Madame Léon Daudet. ‘It is in the linen closet, more than anywhere else, that a young girl begins to sense the seriousness of domestic responsibilities. For is not the linen closet the most enduring symbol of family security and stability? Behind its massive doors lie orderly piles of cool sheets, damask tablecloths, neatly folded napkins; to my mind, there is nothing quite so gratifying to the eye as a well-appointed linen closet. .’ Esmeralda has fallen asleep. I pick out a few notes on the living room piano. I lean up against the window. A peaceful square of the kind you only find in the 16th arrondissement. The leaves of the trees brush against the windowpane. I would like to think of this house as mine. I’ve grown attached to the bookshelves, to the lamps with their rosy shades, to the piano. I’d like to cultivate the virtues of domesticity, as outlined by Madame Léon Daudet, but I will not have the time.
Sooner or later the owners will come back. What saddens me most is that they’ll evict Coco Lacour and Esmeralda. I don’t feel sorry for myself. The only feelings I have are Panic (which causes me to commit endless acts of cowardice) and Pity for my fellow men; although their twisted faces frighten me, still I find them moving. Will I spend the winter among these maniacs? I look awful. My constant comings and goings between the Lieutenant and the Khedive, the Khedive and the Lieutenant, are beginning to wear me down. I want to appease them both (so they’ll spare my life), and this double-dealing demands a physical stamina I don’t have. Suddenly I feel the urge to cry. My indifference gives way to what English Jews call a nervous breakdown. I wander through a maze of thoughts and come to the conclusion that all these people, in their opposing camps, have secretly banded together to destroy me. The Khedive and the Lieutenant are but a single person, and I am simply a panicked moth flitting one lamp to the next, each time singeing its wings a little more.
Esmeralda is crying. I’ll go and comfort her. Her nightmares are short-lived, she ’ll go back to sleep right away. I’ll play mah-jongg while I wait for the Khedive, Philibert, and the others. I’ll assess the situation one last time. On one side, the heroes ‘skulking in the shadows’: the Lieutenant and his plucky little team of graduates from Saint-Cyr Military Academy. On the other, the Khedive and his thugs in the night watch. Tossed about between the two and I and my pitifully modest ambitions: BARMAN at some auberge outside Paris. A wrought-iron gate, a gravel driveway. Lush gardens and a bounding wall. On a clear day, from the third-floor windows, you might catch a glimpse of the searchlight on the Eiffel Tower sweeping the horizon.
Bartender. You can get used to such things. Though it can be painful sometimes. Especially after twenty years of believing a brilliant future beckoned. Not for me. What does it entail? Making cocktails. On Saturday nights the orders start to pour in. Gin Fizz, Brandy Alexander, Pink Lady, Irish coffee. A twist of lemon. Two rum punches. The customers, in swelling numbers, throng the bar where I stand mixing the rainbow-coloured concoctions. Careful not to keep them waiting for fear they’ll lunge at me if there’s a moment’s delay. By quickly filling their glasses I try to keep them at bay. I’m not especially fond of human contact. Porto Flip? Whatever they want. I’m serving up cocktails. It’s as good a way as any to protect yourself from your fellow man and — why not? — to be rid of them. Curaçao? Marie-Brizard? Their faces flush. They reel and lurch, before long they will collapse dead drunk. Leaning on the bar, I will watch them as they sleep. They cannot harm me anymore. Silence, at last. My breath still coming short.
Behind me, photos of Henri Garat, Fred Bretonnel, and a few other pre-war stars whose smiles have faded over the years. Within easy reach, an issue of L’Illustration devoted to the Normandie: The grill room, the chairs along the afterdeck. The nursery. The smoking lounge. The ballroom. The sailors’ charity ball on 25 May under the patronage of Madame Flandin. All swallowed up. I know how it feels. I was aboard the Titanic when she sank. Midnight. I’m listening to old songs by Charles Trenet:
. . Bonsoir