Little Jewel

~ ~ ~

SHE LEFT VERY early the next morning. I had to go to Neuilly that afternoon to look after the little girl. I rang the doorbell of the Valadier home at around three o’clock. Véra Valadier opened the door and seemed surprised to see me. It was as if I’d woken her up and she’d had to get dressed quickly.

‘I didn’t know you came on Thursdays as well.’

And when I asked if the little girl was there, Véra Valadier said no. Her daughter wasn’t home from school yet. Even though it was Thursday and there was no school. But she explained that on Thursday afternoons the boarders played in the playground and the little girl was with them. I had noticed that neither Véra Valadier nor her husband ever called her by her name. They both referred to her as ‘she’. And when they called out for their daughter, they merely said, ‘Where are you? What are you doing?’ They never uttered her first name. After all these years, I couldn’t tell you now what that name was. I’ve forgotten it, and I wonder if I ever even knew it.

She took me into the ground-floor room where Monsieur Valadier usually made his phone calls, sitting on the corner of his desk. Why, I couldn’t help asking, on her daughter’s day off school, had she left her there with the boarders?

‘But she really enjoys staying back there on Thursday afternoons…’

In the past, my mother used to say things like that, and always when I was so distraught that all I wanted to do was inhale the bottle of ether.

‘You can go and collect her later…Otherwise she’ll be perfectly happy to come home by herself. Will you excuse me for a moment?’

Judging by her voice and her expression, she seemed to be somewhat upset. She disappeared in a hurry, leaving me in that room without a single chair. I was tempted to sit, like Monsieur Valadier, on the corner of the desk. It was gigantic, leather-topped, made out of light-coloured wood, with two drawers on either side, and not a single sheet of paper or even a pencil on top. Only a telephone. Perhaps Monsieur Valadier kept his files in the drawers. My curiosity got the better of me and I opened and shut the drawers in turn. They were empty, except that at the back of one I found a few business cards with the name Michel Valadier, but the address was not in Neuilly.

Sounds of an argument were coming from upstairs. I recognised Madame Valadier’s voice, and I was surprised to hear her shouting and swearing, but, every now and again, her voice became plaintive. There was the sound of a man’s voice answering her. They passed in front of the doorway. Madame Valadier’s voice became softer. Now they were speaking very quietly in the lobby. Then the front door banged shut and, from the window, I watched as a dark-haired, quite short young man wearing a suede jacket and a scarf headed off.

Madame Valadier came back into the study. ‘My apologies for deserting you…’ She approached me and I could tell by her expression that she wanted to ask me something. ‘Would you be able to help me do some tidying up?’

She led me to the stairs and I went up to the first floor behind her. We entered a big bedroom, at the end of which was a wide, low bed. It was the only item of furniture in the room. The bed was unmade, and there was a tray resting beside it, with two champagne glasses and an open bottle of champagne. A cork lay conspicuously in the middle of the grey carpet. The bedspread was hanging off the end of the bed. The sheets were tangled, the pillows scattered all over the bed, where a man’s dressing-gown in dark-blue silk had been tossed, along with a camisole and knickers and a pair of stockings. An ashtray filled with butts was on the floor.

Madame Valadier went to open the two windows. There was a sickly smell hanging in the air, a mixture of perfume and Virginia tobacco, the smell of people who have spent a long time in the same room and the same bed.

She picked up the blue dressing-gown. ‘I have to put this back in my husband’s wardrobe,’ she said.

When she came back, she asked if I wanted to help her make the bed. She pulled up the sheets and blanket. Her movements were abrupt and rapid, as if she was frightened of being caught out by someone, and I had trouble keeping up with her. She hid the lingerie and stockings under a pillow. As we finished straightening the bedspread, she caught sight of the tray.

‘Oh, yes, I’d forgotten about that…’

She picked up the bottle of champagne and the two glasses and opened a wardrobe where lots of pairs of shoes were lined up on shelves. I had never seen so many shoes: different-coloured court shoes, ballerina flats, boots…She shoved the bottle and glasses at the back of the top shelf and shut the wardrobe. She looked like someone rushing to hide compromising evidence before the police arrived. All that was left now were the ashtray and the champagne cork. I picked them up. She took them out of my hands and went into the bathroom. The door was open and I heard the noise of the toilet flushing.

She looked at me strangely. She wanted to say something, but she didn’t have time. Through the open windows, we could hear a diesel engine. She leaned out one of the windows. I was right behind her. Down below, Monsieur Valadier was getting out of a taxi. He was carrying an overnight bag and a black leather briefcase.

When we went down to join him, he was already on the phone, sitting on his desk, and he greeted us with a wave. Then he hung up. Madame Valadier asked him if his trip had gone well.

‘Not great, Véra.’

She shook her head, absorbed. ‘But you’re not worried, are you?’

‘Overall, things are fine, but there are still a few sticking points.’

He turned to me and smiled. ‘Isn’t she at school today?’

He was referring to his daughter, but I got the impression that he wasn’t really interested and that he was merely asking out of politeness to me.

‘I let her stay at school with the boarders,’ said Madame Valadier.

Monsieur Valadier took off his navy-blue coat and placed it on his overnight bag, on the floor by the desk.

‘You know, she can just as easily come home by herself…’ He spoke softly, still smiling at me. He had the same attitude as his wife.

‘There’s something we want to discuss with you about our daughter,’ said Madame Valadier. ‘She’d like to have a dog.’

Monsieur Valadier was still sitting on the corner of his desk. He was swinging one leg in a steady rhythm. Where on earth could people sit if they came to meet him in this office? I wondered. Although I was pretty sure that no one ever came here.

‘You’ll have to explain to her that it’s not possible,’ Véra Valadier said. She seemed aghast at the idea that a dog might turn up in the house. ‘Will you tell her later?’

She looked so anxious that I couldn’t help myself from saying, ‘Yes, madame.’

She smiled at me. That had clearly taken a load off her mind.

‘I’ve already asked you to call me Véra, not madame.’

She was standing next to her husband, leaning against the desk.

‘In fact, it would be much simpler if you just called us Véra and Michel.’

Her husband was smiling at me, too. There they were, across the room, with their smooth, unlined faces, still quite young.

For me, the evil curse and the bad memories all centred on one face, that of my mother. The little girl had to contend with these two individuals whose smiles and smooth skin were of the kind we’re sometimes shocked to see on the faces of murderers who have long remained unpunished.

Monsieur Valadier removed a cigarillo from the top pocket of his jacket and lit it with his lighter. He took a puff and exhaled thoughtfully.

‘I’m counting on you to sort out this dog business.’

I saw the little girl at once. She was sitting on the bench, reading a magazine. Around her, twenty or so older girls were scattered about the schoolyard. The boarders. She wasn’t paying them the slightest attention, as if she had been waiting there all day without any idea why. She seemed surprised that I had come to collect her so early.

We went down Rue de la Ferme.

‘We don’t have to go home straightaway,’ she said.

We had reached the end of the street and we set off into the section of the Bois de Boulogne where there are pine trees. It was odd to be walking on a late-November afternoon among trees that were reminiscent of summer and the sea. When I was her age, I didn’t want to go home either. And could you even call it a home, that gigantic apartment where I had ended up with my mother, without it ever being clear to me why she was living there? The first time she took me there, I thought it belonged to some friends of hers, and I was surprised when the two of us stayed the night—‘I’m going to show you your room,’ she announced. And I was anxious when I had to go to bed. In that big empty room with the oversized bed, I expected someone to come and ask me what I was doing there. It was as if I had intuited that my mother and I were not really supposed to be on the premises.

‘Have you been living in that house for long?’ I asked the little girl.

She had been there at the beginning of the year. But she couldn’t remember exactly where she was living before that. What had struck me, the first time I went to the Valadier house, were all those empty rooms, which reminded me of the apartment where I’d lived with my mother when I was the same age as the little girl. I recalled that, in the kitchen, there was a board stuck on the wall, with white panels that lit up, the words in black lettering: DINING ROOM, STUDY and so on. I also recalled the words CHILDREN’S BEDROOM. Who could those children possibly be? They were probably going to come back at any moment and ask me why I was in their bedroom.

It was dusk and the little girl was still keen to delay our return. We had headed off in the other direction from her parents’ home. But was it really their home? Twelve years on, who still knew, for example, that my mother had also lived in Avenue Malakoff, very near the Bois de Boulogne? That apartment didn’t belong to us. I found out later that my mother was staying there while the owner was away. Frédérique and one of her women friends talked about it one evening at Fossombronne-la-Fôret, over dinner, when I was at the table. Certain words stick in children’s minds and, even if they don’t understand them at the time, they understand them twenty years later. It’s a bit like the grenades we were told to watch out for at Fossombronne-la-Fôret. Apparently, ever since the war, there were one or two buried in Kraut’s Field, and there was still a chance they could explode after all this time.

Yet another reason to be frightened. But we couldn’t resist slipping out to that overgrown vacant block and playing hide-and-seek. Frédérique had gone to the apartment to try to find something my mother had forgotten when she left.

We had arrived at the edge of the little lake where people came to ice-skate in winter. The twilight was beautiful. The trees were outlined against a blue and pink sky.

‘So, you’d like a dog.’

She was embarrassed, as if I had revealed her secret.

‘Your parents told me.’

She frowned and pursed her lips, pouting. ‘They don’t want a dog,’ she said.

‘I’m going to try to speak to them about it. They’ll come round sooner or later.’

She smiled at me. She seemed to trust me. She believed that I’d be able to persuade Véra and Michel Valadier. But I was under no illusion about those two: they were as tough as the Kraut. I had suspected as much from the beginning. With Véra, it was immediately obvious. She had a fake first name. And, in my opinion, his name wasn’t Michel Valadier, either. He must have already gone by several other names. And, indeed, there was a different address on his business card. I wondered if he wasn’t even more devious and more dangerous than his wife.

Now we had to head home, and I was regretting my empty promise to her. We were walking along the riding tracks to get back to the Jardin d’Acclimatation. I was certain that Véra and Michel Valadier wouldn’t give in.

He opened the front door and went straight back to his study on the ground floor, without saying a word to us. I heard gales of raucous, vicious laughter. Madame Valadier — Véra — was yelling, but I couldn’t make out what she was saying. Their voices were indistinguishable, each trying to shout over the top of the other. The little girl opened her eyes wide. She was frightened, but I sensed that she was used to this fear. In the lobby, she stood still, frozen; I should have taken her off somewhere else. But where? Madame Valadier came out of the study, looking calm and composed.

‘Did you have a nice walk?’ she asked.

Once again, she looked like those cold, mysterious blondes who glide through old American movies. Then Monsieur Valadier came out. He was also very calm. He was wearing an elegant black suit and there were big scratches down one of his cheeks, most likely from fingernails. Véra Valadier’s fingernails? She kept hers rather long. The two of them were standing next to each other in the doorway, with their smooth faces of murderers who would remain unpunished, for lack of evidence. It looked as if they were posing for a photo, not for an official identity shot but for the cameras at the beginning of a soirée, as the guests arrive.

‘Did mademoiselle explain about the dog?’ asked Véra Valadier. Her tone was distant, not at all like the voices you hear around Rue de Douai, where she’d told me she was born. With another first name.

‘Dogs are sweet,’ she said. ‘But they’re very dirty.’

‘Your maman is right,’ Michel Valadier added, in the same tone as his wife. ‘It would really not be a good idea to have a dog in the house.’

‘When you’re a big girl, you’ll be able to have all the dogs you like…But not here and not now.’

Véra Valadier’s voice had changed. She sounded bitter. Perhaps she was imagining a time in the future — time passes so quickly — when her daughter would be grown up and when she, Véra, would roam the corridors of the metro forever and ever, in a yellow coat.

The little girl didn’t say a thing. She merely stared, wide-eyed.

‘You see, with dogs you get diseases,’ Monsieur Valadier said. ‘And, well, they bite, too.’

Now he had a shifty look and an odd way of speaking, like an illegal street peddler keeping an eye out for the police.

I was finding it hard to remain quiet. I would gladly have stood up for the little girl, but I didn’t want the conversation to get poisonous and for her then to get scared. Nevertheless, I couldn’t stop myself from looking Michel Valadier straight in the eye. ‘Did you hurt yourself, sir?’

I touched my finger to my cheek, the same spot where the long scratches ran down his cheek.

‘No…Why?’ he muttered.

‘You really should put some disinfectant on that. It’s like a dog bite. You can catch rabies.’

This time, I could tell he was out of his depth. And Véra Valadier was, too. They were looking at me warily. Under the glare of the chandelier, thrown off course, they were nothing but a suspicious couple who had just been rounded up in a raid.

‘I think we’re late,’ she said, turning to her husband.

She had recovered her cold voice. Michel Valadier checked his bracelet watch.

‘Yes, we must go,’ he agreed, also feigning indifference.

‘There’s a slice of ham for you in the fridge,’ she said to the little girl. ‘I think we’ll be home late tonight…’

The little girl drew nearer to me and took my hand, squeezing it like someone who wanted to be guided through the darkness.

‘It would be better if you left,’ Madame Valadier said. ‘She has to get used to being by herself.’ She took the little girl by the hand and pulled her away. ‘Mademoiselle is going to leave now. You’re to have dinner and put yourself to bed.’

The little girl looked at me once more, her eyes wide, as if she would never again be astonished by anything. Michel Valadier had moved in closer, and the little girl was now standing motionless between her parents.

‘See you tomorrow,’ I said to her.

‘See you tomorrow.’

But she didn’t seem very sure about it.

Outside, I sat down on a bench beside the path that runs along the Jardin d’Acclimatation. I had no idea what I was waiting for. After a while, I saw Madame and Monsieur Valadier leave the house. She was wearing a fur coat; he had on his navy-blue coat. They didn’t walk close together. When they reached the black car, she got in the back seat and he took the wheel, as if he were her chauffeur. The car headed off towards Avenue de Madrid, and I realised that I would never know anything about these people, neither their real first names nor their real surnames, nor why a troubled look sometimes came over Madame Valadier, nor why there were no chairs in Monsieur Valadier’s study, nor why the address on his business card was different from that of his office at home. And the little girl? She, at least, was not a mystery to me. I intuited what she might have been feeling. I had been, more or less, the same sort of child.

A light came on in her room on the second floor. I was tempted to go and keep her company. I thought I saw her shadow at the window. But I didn’t ring the doorbell. I was feeling so miserable around that time that I scarcely felt up to helping someone else. What’s more, the business with the dog had reminded me of an incident in my own childhood.

I walked to the Porte Maillot, relieved to get out of the Bois de Boulogne. During the day, when I was with the little girl at the edge of the skaters’ lake, I could just about bear it. But, now that it was night, I felt a sensation of emptiness which was far more horrific than the vertigo that overwhelmed me on the pavement in Rue Coustou, outside Zone Out.

On my right, the first trees marked the entrance to the Bois de Boulogne. One November evening, a dog went missing in that park; it was something I would be haunted by for the rest of my life, at times when I least expected it. During sleepless nights and lonely days, and even during summer. I should have explained to the little girl how dangerous it was, this business of having a dog.

When I entered the schoolyard earlier and saw her sitting on the bench, I thought back to another schoolyard. I was the same age as the little girl and there were older boarders in that schoolyard, too. They took care of us. Every morning, they helped us to get dressed and, in the evening, to get ready for bed. They mended our clothes. My ‘big girl’ was called Thérèse, like me. She had dark hair and blue eyes, and a tattoo on her arm. As I recall, she looked a bit like the pharmacist. The other boarders, and even the nuns, were wary of her, but she was always kind to me. She stole chocolate from the kitchen and sneaked it to me at night in the dormitory. During the day, she sometimes took me to a studio, not far from the chapel, where the big girls were learning how to iron.

One day, my mother came to collect me. She told me to get in the car and I sat on the front bench seat, next to her. I think she told me that I was never going back to that boarding school. There was a dog on the back seat. And the car was parked almost at the same spot where I’d been knocked down by the truck, not long before. The boarding school can’t have been far from the Gare de Lyon. I remember, when Jean Borand used to wait for me outside the boarding school on Sundays, we would walk to his garage. And the day my mother took me away in the car with the dog, we went past the Gare de Lyon. In those days, the streets were deserted and I had the impression that the two of us in the car were the only people in Paris.

That was the day I went with her, for the first time, to the huge apartment near the Bois de Boulogne, the day she showed me MY ROOM. Before then, the few times Jean Borand took me to see her, we went by metro to the Place de l’Étoile, where she was still living in a hotel. Her room was smaller than my room in Rue Coustou. In the metal box, I found a telegram addressed to her at that hotel and in her real name: Suzanne Cardères, Hôtel San Remo, 8 Rue d’Armaillé. I was relieved every time I discovered the actual address of those places I only vaguely remembered, but which appeared in my nightmares over and over again. If I knew their exact location and studied their façades, I was convinced they would become less threatening.

A dog. A black poodle. Right from the start, he slept in my room. My mother never looked after him and, moreover, would have been no more capable of looking after a dog than a child. No doubt someone had given her the dog as a present. For her, it was nothing more than a fashion accessory that she must have got bored with quickly. I still wonder by what twist of fate that dog and I ended up together in the car. Now that she was living in the huge apartment and her name was Sonia O’Dauyé, she probably needed a dog and a little girl.

I used to go for walks with the dog, beyond the apartment block and all the way along the avenue, down to the Porte Maillot. I can’t recall the dog’s name. It wasn’t a name my mother had given him. It was around the beginning of the time I went to live with her in the apartment. She hadn’t yet enrolled me in the Saint-André school and I wasn’t yet known as Little Jewel. Jean Borand collected me on Thursdays and took me to his garage for the whole day. And I kept the dog with me. I knew already that my mother would forget to feed him. I was the one who got food ready for him. When Jean Borand came to collect me, we took the metro, and smuggled the dog onto the train, too. We walked from the Gare de Lyon to the garage. I wanted to remove his leash. There was no chance of him getting run over; there were no cars in the streets. But Jean Borand warned me not to take off his leash. After all, I had almost got run over by a truck in front of the school.

My mother enrolled me in Saint-André. I walked there alone every morning, and I came home every evening at around six. Unfortunately, I couldn’t take the dog to school, even though it was very close to the apartment, on Rue Pergolèse. I found the exact address on a scrap of paper in my mother’s diary. Cours Saint-André, 58 Rue Pergolèse. On whose advice did she send me to that place? I stayed there all day long.

One evening, when I got home to the apartment, the dog wasn’t there. I thought my mother had gone out with him. She had promised me that she’d walk him and feed him, tasks I’d already asked the cook to do, the Chinese man who prepared dinner and brought my mother a breakfast tray to her room every morning. My mother came home a bit later, without the dog. She said she’d lost it in the Bois de Boulogne. She had the leash in her bag and she handed it to me as if to prove that she wasn’t lying. Her voice was very calm. She didn’t look sad. She seemed to think it was all quite normal. ‘You’ll have to make up a lost-dog notice tomorrow, and perhaps someone will return him.’ She took me to my room. But her tone was so calm, so blasé, that I had the feeling she was preoccupied with something else. I was the only one who thought about the dog. No one ever brought him back. I was too scared to turn out the light in my room. Since the dog had been sleeping with me, I wasn’t used to being by myself at night, and now it was even worse than at boarding school. I pictured him in the darkness, lost in the middle of the Bois de Boulogne. That same evening, my mother went out, and I still remember the dress she was wearing. It was a blue dress with a veil. That dress has appeared in my nightmares for a long time, always worn by a skeleton.

I kept the light on all that night, and every other night. I never stopped being frightened. It would be my turn after the dog’s, I was sure of it.

Strange thoughts came into my mind, so muddled that I waited ten or so years for them to take shape, before I could put them into words. One morning, sometime before seeing the woman in the yellow coat in the corridors of the metro, I woke up with a sentence running through my head, one of those sentences which seem incomprehensible, because they are the last shreds of a forgotten dream: You had to kill the Kraut to avenge the dog.