Farther on, the deserted arcades of the Palais-Royal. People had played here, once. But no more. I walked through the gardens. A zone of silence and mellow half-light where the memories of dead years and broken promises tug at the heart. Place du Théâtre-Francais. The streetlights are dazzling. You are a diver coming up too quickly to the surface. I had arranged to meet ‘papa’ in a caravanserai on the Champs-Élysées. We would get into the Talbot, as we always did, and sail across Paris.
Before me was the Avenue de l’Opéra. It heralded other boulevards, other streets, that would later cast us to the four points of the compass. My heart beat a little faster. In the midst of so much uncertainty, my only landmarks, the only ground which did not shift beneath my feet, were the pavements and the junctions of this city where, in the end, I would probably find myself alone.
Now, though it grieves me, I must come to the ‘distressing incident at the George V métro’. For several weeks my father had been fascinated by the Petite Ceinture, the disused railway-line that circles Paris. Was he planning to have it renovated by public subscription? Bank loans? Every Sunday, he would ask me to go with him to the outskirts of the city and we followed the path of the old railway-line on foot. The stations along the route were derelict or had been turned into warehouses. The tracks were overgrown with weeds. From time to time my father would stop to scribble a note or sketch something indecipherable in his notebook. What was he dreaming of? Was he waiting for a train that would never come?
On that Sunday, 17 June, we had followed the Petite Ceinture through the 12th arrondissement. Not without effort. Near the Rue de Montempoivre, the track joins those coming from Vincennes and we ended up getting confused. After three hours, emerging dazed from this labyrinth of metal, we decided to go home by métro. My father seemed disappointed with his afternoon. Usually when we returned from these expeditions, he was in excellent humour and would show me his notes. He was planning to compile a ‘comprehensive’ file on the Petite Ceinture — he explained — and offer it to the public authorities.
‘We shall see what we shall see.’
What? I didn’t dare ask. But, that Sunday evening, 17 June, his brash enthusiasm had melted away. Sitting in the carriage of the Vincennes-Neuilly métro, he ripped the pages from his notebook one by one, and tore them into minute scraps which he tossed like handfuls of confetti. He worked with the detachment of a sleepwalker and a painstaking fury I had never seen in him before. I tried to calm him. I told him that it was a great pity to destroy such an important work on a whim, that I had every confidence in his talents as an organizer. He fixed me with a glassy eye. We got out at the George V station. We were waiting on the platform. My father stood behind me, sulking. The station gradually filled, as if it were rush-hour. People were coming back from the cinema or from strolling along the Champs-Élysées. We were pressed against each other. I found myself at the front, on the edge of the platform. Impossible to draw back. I turned towards my father. His face was dripping with sweat. The roar of a train. Just as it came into sight, someone pushed me roughly in the back.
Next, I find myself lying on one of the station benches surrounded by a little group of busybodies. They are whispering. One bends down to tell me that I’ve had ‘a narrow escape’. Another, in cap and uniform (a métro official perhaps) announces that he is going to ‘call the police’. My father stands in the background. He coughs.
Two policemen help me to my feet. Holding me under the arms. We move through the station. People turn to stare. My father follows behind, diffidently. We get into the police van parked on the Avenue George V. The people on the terrace outside Fouquet’s are enjoying the beautiful summer evening.
We sit next to each other. My father’s head is bowed. The two policemen sit facing us but do not speak. We pull up outside the police station at 5 Rue Clement-Marot. Before going in, my father wavers. His lips nervously curl into a rictus smile.
The policemen exchange a few words with a tall thin man. The commissaire? He asks to see our papers. My father, with obvious reluctance, proffers his Nansen passport.
‘Refugee?’ asks the commissaire. .
‘I’m about to be naturalized,’ my father mumbles. He must have prepared this reply in advance. ‘But my son is French.’ In a whisper: ‘and a bachelier. .’
The commissaire turns to me:
‘So you nearly got run over by a train?’ I say nothing. ‘Lucky someone caught you or you’d be in a pretty state.’
Yes, someone had saved my life by catching me just in time, as I was about to fall. I have only a vague memory of those few seconds.
‘So why is it,’ the commissaire goes on, ‘that you shouted out “MURDERER!” several times as you were carried to the bench?’
Then he turns to my father: ‘Does your son suffer from persecution mania?’
He doesn’t give him time to answer. He turns back to me and asks point-blank: ‘Maybe someone behind pushed you? Think carefully. . take all the time you need.’
A young man at the far end of the office was tapping away at a typewriter. The commissaire sat behind his desk and leafed through a file. My father and I sat waiting. I thought they had forgotten us, but at length the commissaire looked up and said to me:
‘If you want to report the incident, don’t hesitate. That’s what I’m here for.’
From time to time the young man brought him a typewritten page which he corrected with a red pen. How long would they keep us there? The commissaire pointed towards my father.
‘Political refugee or just refugee?’
‘Just refugee.’
‘Good,’ said the commissaire.
Then he went back to his file.
Time passed. My father showed signs of nervousness. I think he was digging his nails into his palms. In fact he was at my mercy — and he knew it — otherwise why did he keep glancing at me worriedly? I had to face the facts: someone had pushed me so that I would fall on the tracks and be ripped to shreds by the train. And it was the man with the south-American appearance sitting beside me. The proof: I had felt his signet-ring pressing into my shoulder-blade.
As though he could read my mind, the commissaire asked casually:
‘Do you get on well with your father?’
(Some policemen have the gift of clairvoyance. Like the inspector from the security branch of the police force who, when he retired, changed sex and offered ‘psychic’ readings under the name of ‘Madame Dubail’.)
‘We get on very well,’ I replied.
‘Are you sure?’
He asked the question wearily, and immediately began to yawn. I was convinced he already knew everything, but simply was not interested. A young man pushed under the métro by his father, he must have come across hundreds of similar cases. Routine work.
‘I repeat, if you have something to say to me, say it now.’
But I knew that he was merely asking me out of politeness.
He turned on his desk lamp. The other officer continued to pound on his typewriter. He was probably rushing to finish the job. The tapping of the typewriter was lulling me to sleep, and I was finding it hard to keep my eyes open. To ward off sleep, I studied the police station carefully. A post-office calendar on the wall, and a photograph of the President of the Republic. Doumer? Mac-Mahon? Albert Lebrun? The typewriter was an old model. I decided that this Sunday 17 June would be an important day in my life and I turned imperceptibly towards my father. Great beads of sweat were running down his face. But he didn’t look like a murderer.