The Black Notebook by Patrick Modiano Page A

robust build: a moonlike face and dreamy eyes, but before long you noticed that his features harbored as much violence as his body. And when he shook your hand, you had a sudden sensation of cold, as if his veins were filled with ice water. We walked toward them, and I heard Paul Chastagnier’s metallic voice:
    â€œSo, you been out shopping?”
    And he stared at the carrier bag I was holding in my left hand.
    â€œYes . . . Yes . . . We’ve been out shopping,” Dannie said in a very gentle tone. She was probably trying to bolster her courage. Her composure astounded me, given how worried she’d been only moments before, as we approached the hotel. The one called Georges pondered the two of us with his moonlike face and pale skin, so pale he seemed to be wearing pancake makeup. He raised his eyebrows in an expression of curiosity and distrust that I had noticed on him every time he faced someone. Perhaps he was the one Dannie was afraid of. The first time I’d met him in that lobby, she had introduced him: “Georges.” He had remained silent and merely raised his eyebrows. Georges: the sound of that name took on a disturbing, cavernous quality that matched his face. When we’d left the hotel, Dannie had said to me, “I hear that fellow is dangerous,” but she hadn’t explained in what way. Did she even know? According to her, he was someone Aghamouri had met in Morocco. She had smiled and shrugged: “Oh, you know, best not to get mixed up in all that . . .”
    â€œWon’t you join us for a drink?” Paul Chastagnier offered.
    â€œIt’s kind of late,” said Dannie, still in that gentle voice.
    Aghamouri, who hadn’t risen from the armrest of Gérard Marciano’s chair, stared at the two of us in astonishment. It seemed to me his face had gone pale.
    â€œToo bad you can’t stay a little while. You could have told us all about your shopping adventures.”
    This time, Paul Chastagnier was speaking directly to me. Clearly, the carrier bag aroused his curiosity.
    â€œWill you help me bring these things up to my room?” She had turned to me, now using the formal
vous
and pointing at the bag. It was as if she were expressly drawing their attention to it, rubbing it in.
    I followed her toward the elevator, but instead she took the stairs. She went up ahead of me. On the first-floor landing, when they could no longer see us, she moved closer and murmured in my ear:
    â€œIt’s better if you leave. Otherwise I’m going to have trouble with Aghamouri.”
    I walked her to her room. She took the carrier bag from me. She said under her breath, as if they might hear:
    â€œTomorrow at noon at the Chat Blanc.”
    That was a rather dreary café on Rue d’Odessa, with a back room where one could sit unnoticed amid the few billiards players: Bretons wearing fisherman’s caps.
    Before closing the door, she said, even more softly:
    â€œIt would be good if we could go to that country house I told you about.”
    To go back down, I took the elevator. I didn’t want to meet one of them in the stairwell. Especially not Aghamouri. I was afraid he’d ask questions and demand an explanation. Once again, I experienced that lack of self-confidence, that timidity that Paul Chastagnier had noticed, and that had made him remark one day as we were walking in the gray streets behind Montparnasse:
    â€œIt’s funny . . . A kid with your talent and sensitivity . . . How come you keep such a low profile?”
    In the lobby, they were still sitting in their armchairs. I had to walk past them to exit the hotel, and I didn’t feel like talking to them. Aghamouri looked up and gave me a cold stare, which was unusual. Perhaps he’d been keeping an eye on the elevator to see whether I was staying in Dannie’s room. Paul Chastagnier, Duwelz, and Gérard Marciano were all leaning toward