Night Rounds (5 page)

Mais ton amie est en voyage

Pauvre Swing Troubadour…..

The Lieutenant. Was it a fantasy fostered by my exhaustion? On certain days I could remember him talking to me like an old and close friend. His arrogance had dissolved, his face was sunken. Before my eyes there was just a very old lady looking at me tenderly.

En cueillant des roses printanières

Tristement elle fit un bouquet…….

Weariness and confusion took hold of him as if, suddenly, he realized that he couldn't help me. He kept repeating: "Your little shopgirl's heart…" He meant, I suppose, that I wasn't a "bad egg" (one of his expressions). At those times, I would have liked to thank him for his many kindnesses, he who was so abrupt and usually so overbearing, but I couldn't get the words out. After a moment I managed to stammer: "My heart is back at Batignolles," hoping the phrase would indicate my real self: a rough sort of fellow, emotional – no, restless – underneath and pretty decent on the whole.

Pauvre Swing Troubadour

Pauvre Swing Troubadour…..

The record has stopped. "Dry vermouth, young man?" Lionel de Zieff inquires. The others gather round me. "Feeling queasy again?" the Marquis Baruzzi asks. "You look awfully pale." "Suppose we give him a breath of fresh air?" suggests Rosenheim. I hadn't noticed the large photo of Pola Negri behind the bar. Her lips are still, her face relaxed and serene. She gazes indifferently on this scene. The yellowed print heightens her faraway look. Pola Negri can't help me a bit.

The Lieutenant. He walked into Zelly's bar with SaintGeorges around midnight, as arranged. Everything happened so quickly. I motion to them with one hand. I don't dare meet their eyes. I draw them outside the bar. The Khedive, Gouari, and Vital-Léca instantly encircle them, revolvers drawn. At that moment I look them square in the eye. They stare at me dazedly at first, then
with a kind of triumphant scorn. Just as Vital-Léca is about to slip on the handcuffs, they break away, running for the boulevard. The Khedive fires three shots. They crumple at the corner of Avenue Victoria and the square.

Arrested during the next hour are:

At each door I rang the bell and, as reassurance, gave my name.

THEY'RE ASLEEP. Coco Lacour has the largest room in the house. I put Esmeralda in a blue room which was probably used by the owners' daughter. The owners left Paris in June "owing to circumstances." They'll return when things are back to normal – next year maybe, who knows? – and they'll throw us out of their house. I'll admit in court that I entered their home illegally. The Khedive, Philibert, and the others will appear with me. The world will wear its familiar colors once more. Paris will again be known as the City of Light, and the courtroom spectators
will pick their noses as they listen to the list of our crimes: denouncements, beatings, larceny, murder, illegal traffic of every description – things which, as I write these lines, are daily occurrences. Who will be willing to speak up for me? The Montrouge fortress on a December morning. The execution squad. And all the monstrosities that Madeleine Jacob will write about me. (Don't read them, Mama.) In any case, my accomplices will kill me even before Morality, Justice, and Humanity return to earth and confront me. I would like to leave a few memories behind: hand down to posterity, if nothing else, the names of Coco Lacour and Esmeralda. Tonight I'm watching over them, but how much longer? What will happen to them without me? They were my only companions. Gentle and silent as gazelles. Defenseless. I remember clipping out of a magazine the picture of a cat that had just been saved from drowning. Its fur drenched and dripping with mud. A noose around its neck with a stone at one end. I've never seen an expression that radiated such goodness. Coco Lacour and Esmeralda are like that cat. Don't misunderstand me: I don't belong to the Animal Protection Society or the League for the Rights of Man. What kind of work do I do? I wander about a deserted city. In the evening, after nine o'clock, it's buried in the blackout, and the Khedive, Philibert, all the rest of them form a circle around me. The days are white and fevered. I must find an oasis or I shall die: my love for Coco Lacour and Esmeralda. I suppose Hitler himself was feeling the need to unwind when he petted his dog.
I PROTECT THEM
. Whoever intends to harm them will have to reckon with me. I finger the silencer the Khedive gave me. My pockets are bulging with cash. I've got one of the most enviable names in France (I stole it, but that doesn't matter in times like these). I weigh
215
pounds on
an
empty stomach. Velvety eyes. A "promising" youngster. Promising what, though? All the good fairies hung over my cradle. They'd been drinking, undoubtedly. You're tackling a tough customer. So
KEEP YOUR HANDS OFF THEM!
I met them for the first time at the Grenelle métro, and I realized that a word, a gesture was enough to break them. I wonder what miracle brought them there, still alive. I thought of that cat saved from drowning. The blind red-headed giant's name was Coco Lacour, the little girl – or the little old lady – Esmeralda. In the presence of those two creatures, I felt pity. A wave of bitterness and violence caught me in its swell. It broke and left me reeling: push them onto the tracks. I had to dig my nails into my palms and stiffen my whole body. The tide swept over me again, its surf so gentle that I surrendered to it with closed eyes.

Every night I open the door of their rooms a crack, as softly as I can, and watch them sleeping. I have the same dizzy spell as that first time: draw the silencer from my pocket and kill them. I'll break adrift and reach that North Pole where tears no longer exist even as a comfort for solitude. They freeze on the rim of the lashes. Unwatered sorrow. Two eyes staring at barren ground. If I'm still hesitant about getting rid of this blind man and this little girl – or this little old lady – will I at least betray the Lieutenant? What counts against him is his courage, his self-assurance, and the bald flourish that accompanies his every gesture. His steady blue eyes exasperate me. He belongs to that nuisance breed of heroes. Still, I can't help seeing him as a very old and indulgent lady. I don't take men seriously. Someday I'll find myself looking at them – and at me – the same way I look at Coco Lacour and Esmeralda. The toughest, the proudest ones will seem like frail creatures that need to be protected – or killed as a favor to themselves.

They played their game of mah-jongg in the living room before going to bed. The lamp cast a soft glow on the bookshelves and the life-sized portrait of M. de Bel-Respiro. They moved the pieces ever so slowly. Esmeralda had her head bowed and Coco Lacour was gnawing on his forefinger. Silence, everywhere around us. I closed the shutters. Coco Lacour drops off to sleep very quickly. Esmeralda is afraid of the dark, so I always leave her door ajar and a light in the hallway. I read to her for about half an hour, usually from a book I found in the nightstand of her room when I took over this house:
How to Raise Our Daughters
, by Madame Léon Daudet. "In the linen closet, more than anywhere else, the young girl will begin to sense the gravity of household responsibilities. For, indeed, is not the linen closet
the most imposing symbol of family security and stability? Behind its massive doors lie the orderly piles of cool sheets, the damask tablecloths, the neatly folded napkins; for me, 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 piano in the living room. I lean up against the window.
A tranquil square such as you find in the
16
th arrondissement.
The leafy branches of the trees nudge the windowpane. I'd like to believe the house is mine. I've grown attached to the bookshelves, the lamps with their rosy shades, and the piano. I'd like to cultivate the virtues of domesticity, as Madame Léon Daudet advises, but I won't have time. The owners will return, sooner or later. What saddens me most is that they'll turn out Coco Lacour and Esmeralda. I don't feel sorry for myself. The only feelings I have are Panic (because of which I'll commit an endless chain of cowardly acts) and Pity for my fellow men; though their contorted faces frighten me, I find them very moving all the same. Will I spend the winter among these maniacs? I look awful. My never-ending circuits from the Lieutenant to the Khedive, the Khedive to the Lieutenant, are wearing me out. I want to placate them both at once (so they'll spare my life), and this double game demands a kind of physical stamina I don't have. Suddenly I want to cry. My indifference gives way to a state of mind the English Jews call a nervous breakdown.
I stumble through a maze of thoughts and reach the conclusion that all these people, divided into two opposing camps, have leagued together secretly to destroy me. The Khedive and the Lieutenant are but a single person, and I myself only a terrified moth fluttering in panic from one lamp to the next, scorching its wings a little more each time.

Esmeralda is crying. I'll go comfort her. Her nightmares are brief, and she'll go back to sleep right away. I'll play mahjongg while I wait for the Khedive, Philibert, and the others. I'll take a last look at the situation. On one side, the heroes "crouching in the shadows": the Lieutenant and his plucky little band of Saint-Cyr brains. On the other, the Khedive and his gangsters. I'm in the middle, tossed back and forth between the two, with my ambitions, very modest ones to be sure:
BARTENDER
at some country inn outside Paris. A heavy gate, a graveled driveway. A park all around and an encircling wall. Under clear skies, you could see from the third-floor windows the Eiffel Tower's searchlight sweeping the horizon.

Bartender. You get used to it. Sometimes it's painful. Especially after about twenty years when a more brilliant future appears to beckon. Not for me. What do you do? Make cocktails. On Saturday nights the orders start to pour in. Gin Alexander. Pink Lady. Irish coffee. A twist of lemon peel. Two rum punches. The customers, in swelling numbers, besiege the bar where I stand mixing the
rainbow-tinted liquids. Don't keep them waiting. I'm afraid they'll lunge at me if there's a moment's delay. By filling their glasses in a hurry I try to keep them away. I'm not especially fond of human contact. Porto Flip? Whatever they want. I'm serving up drinks. As good a way as any to protect yourself from your fellow creatures and, let's face it, to get rid of them. Curaçao?
Marie Brizard? Their faces are turning blue. They're lurching, and it won't be long before they collapse stone drunk. Leaning on the bar, I'll watch them fall asleep. They won't be able to harm me any more. Silence, at last. My breath still coming short.

Behind me, photos of Henri Garat, Fred Bretonnel, and a few other pre-war celebrities whose smiles have faded over the years. At arm's length, an issue of
L'lllustration
on the liner
Normandie.
The grill, the chairs along the afterdeck. The nursery. The smoking lounge. The ballroom. The sailors' charity ball on May
25
under Madame Flandin's patronage. Swallowed up, all of it. I know what it's like. I was on the
Titanic
when it sank. Midnight. I'm listening to some old songs of Charles Trenet:

Bonsoir

Jolie madame…..

The record is scratched, but I never tire of hearing it. Sometimes I play another one:

Tout est fini, plus de prom'nades

Plus de printemps, Swing Troubadour…..

The inn, like a bathyscaphe, is washed ashore in a sunken city. Atlantis? Drowned men glide along the Boulevard Haussmann.

…..Ton destin

Swing Troubadour…..

They linger round the tables at Fouquet. Most of them have lost all semblance of humanity. Their vitals are barely visible under gaudy tatters. In the waiting room at Saint-Lazare station, bodies drift about in clusters and I see some disappearing through the windows of suburban trains. On the Rue d'Amsterdam, they're coming out of the Monseigneur nightclub, sickly green but much better preserved than the ones before. I continue my route. Élysée-Montmartre. Magic City. Luna Park. RialtoDancing. Ten thousand, a hundred thousand drowned men with labored, listless movements, like the cast of a slow-motion film. Silence. Now and then they brush against the bathyscaphe and their faces come to rest against the porthole, glassy-eyed, open-mouthed.

…..Swing Troubadour….

I shan't be able to surface again. The air grows thin, the bar lights waver, and I find myself back at Austerlitz station in the summertime. Everybody's leaving for the Southern Zone. They jam the ticket windows and board the trains bound for Hendaye. They'll cross the Spanish border. Never to return. Some still stroll along the platforms but will fade away any second. Hold them back? I'm walking west in Paris. Châtelet. Palais-Royal. Place de la Concorde. The sky is too blue, the foliage much too tender. The gardens of the Champs-Élysées are like a verdant spa.