After the Circus

~ ~ ~

The taxi dropped us off at the corner of Avenue des Champs-Elysées and Rue Washington. She insisted on paying the fare.

We walked up Rue Washington on the left-hand side, then entered the first café we came to. Patrons were clustered around the pinball machine near the window, and while one of them was playing, the others chattered noisily.

We crossed the room. In the back, it narrowed to the dimensions of a corridor, along which, as in the restaurant car of a train, was a row of tables and benches in reddish imitation leather. A brown-haired man of barely thirty stood up as we approached.

She made the introductions.

“Jacques … My brother, Lucien …”

With a wave of his hand, he invited us to take the bench, facing him.

“We could eat here, if you like …”

And without even waiting for a reply, he raised his arm toward the waiter, who came to take our order. He chose the daily special for us. She seemed not to care about what she would eat.

He stared at me curiously.

“I wasn’t aware that you existed … I’m very glad to know you …”

He stared at her in turn, then turned back toward me.

“It’s true … I can see the resemblance …”

But I sensed some doubt in his remark.

“Ansart couldn’t make it. We’ll see him after dinner.”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I’m feeling a bit tired, and we have to go all the way back to Saint-Leu-la-Forêt.”

“No problem. I can drive you back in my car.”

He had a pleasant face and a gentle voice. And there was a certain elegance to his dark flannel suit.

“So, what do you do for a living, Lucien?”

“He’s still a student,” she said. “Literature.”

“I was a student, too. But in medicine.”

He said this with a note of sadness in his voice, as if it were a painful memory. We were served a plate of smoked salmon and other fish.

“The owner is Danish,” he said to me. “Perhaps you don’t like Scandinavian food?”

“No, no, I like it very much.”

She burst out laughing. He turned toward her.

“What’s so funny?”

He used the familiar tu with her. How long had he known her and under what circumstances had they met?

“Lucien is what’s funny.”

She jerked her head at me. What exactly was their relationship? And why was she passing me off as her brother?

“I would gladly have had you over to my place,” he said. “But I had nothing in the kitchen.”

Having eaten only a few bites, she pushed away her plate.

“Aren’t you hungry?”

“No, not right now.”

“You look like something’s bothering you …”

He took her wrist with a tender gesture. She tried to free herself, but he held fast and she ended up giving in. He held her hand in his.

“Have you known each other long?” I asked.

“Hasn’t Gisèle ever mentioned me?”

“My brother and I haven’t seen much of each other lately,” she said. “He’s been away a lot.”

He gave me a smile.

“Your sister was introduced to me about two weeks ago by a friend … Pierre Ansart … Do you know Pierre Ansart?”

“No,” she said, “he hasn’t met him.”

She seemed tired all of a sudden, ready to leave the table. But he was still holding on to her hand.

“Don’t you know what’s going on in your sister’s life?”

He had spoken this last sentence in a suspicious tone.

She opened her handbag and took out a pair of sunglasses. She put them on.

“Gisèle is very private,” I said casually. “She doesn’t confide much.”

It felt odd to say her name for the first time. Since yesterday, she hadn’t even told me what it was. I turned toward her. Behind her shades, she seemed detached, distant, as if she hadn’t been following the conversation, which, in any event, didn’t concern her.

He checked his wristwatch. It was ten-thirty.

“Will your brother be coming with us to Ansart’s?”

“Yes, but we won’t stay long,” she said. “I have to go back with him tonight to Saint-Leu-la-Forêt.”

“In that case, I’ll drive you there, then come back to see Ansart.”

“You don’t seem happy …”

“Nonsense,” he said curtly. “I’m perfectly happy.”

Perhaps he didn’t want to argue with her in front of me.

“There’s no point in you having to go so far out of your way,” she said. “We can take a cab back to Saint-Leu.”

We climbed into a navy blue car that was parked in the service lane of the Champs-Elysées. She sat in front.

“Do you have a driver’s license?” he asked me.

“No. Not yet.”

She turned back toward me. I could sense her pale blue gaze behind the dark shades. She smiled.

“It’s funny … I can’t imagine my brother behind the wheel …”

He started up and drove slowly down the Champs-Elysées. She was still turned toward me. With an almost imperceptible movement of her lips, she blew me a kiss. I leaned my face closer to hers. I was on the verge of kissing her. The man’s presence didn’t deter me at all. I had such a desire to feel her lips on mine, to caress her, that he no longer mattered.

“You should persuade your sister to use this car. It would save her having to take subways and taxis …”

His voice made me jump and brought me back to reality. She turned away.

“You can have the car whenever you like, Gisèle.”

“Can I have it tonight to get home to Saint-Leu-la-Forêt?”

“Tonight? If you insist …”

“I’d like to have it tonight. I need to get used to driving it.”

“As you wish.”

We skirted the Bois de Boulogne. Porte de la Muette. Porte de Passy. I had lowered the window slightly and was breathing in a draft of fresh air, the smell of wet earth and leaves. I would have liked to go walking with her down the alleys of the Bois, along the lakes, around the Cascade or the Croix Catelan, where I often went by myself in the late afternoon, taking the metro to escape the center of Paris.

He turned onto Rue Raffet and parked at the corner of Rue du Docteur-Blanche. I would come to know this area better several years later, and more than once I passed by the apartment house where we saw Ansart that evening. It was number 14, Rue Raffet. But topographical details have a strange effect on me: instead of clarifying and sharpening images from the past, they give me a harrowing sensation of emptiness and severed relationships.

We crossed the courtyard of the apartment house. In back was a small, one-story outbuilding. He rang at the door. A stocky, dark-haired man of about forty appeared. He was wearing an open-throated shirt under a tan cardigan. He kissed Gisèle on the cheeks and gave Jacques a hug.

We were in a white room. A blonde girl, twenty-something, was sitting on a red couch. Ansart held out his hand with a wide smile.

“This is Gisèle’s brother,” Jacques said. “And this is Pierre Ansart.”

“Pleased to know you,” Ansart said to me.

He spoke in a deep voice, with a slight working-class accent. The blonde girl stood up and went to kiss Gisèle.

“This is Martine,” Ansart said to me.

The blonde greeted me with a slight nod and a shy smile.

“So, you’ve been hiding this brother of yours from us?” said Ansart.

He gazed at the two of us, at her and me, with a sharp eye. Was he taken in by the ruse? All three of us sat in armchairs colored the same red as the couch. Ansart sat on the couch and put his arm around the blonde girl’s shoulder.

“Did you have dinner on Rue Washington?”

Jacques nodded. A staircase spiraled up at the back of the room. Via the closed trap door, one could access what was probably the bedroom. To the left, the living room communicated with a large kitchen that must also have served as dining room, in which I noticed, from my chair, the whiteness of the gleaming new appliances.

Ansart caught me looking.

“It’s a former garage that I converted into an apartment.”

“It’s very nice,” I said.

“Would you like something to drink? Some herb tea?”

The blonde girl got up and walked to the kitchen.

“Four herb teas, Martine,” Ansart said with paternalistic authority.

His eyes were still fixed on me, as if he were trying to gauge whom he was dealing with.

“You’re very young …”

“I’m twenty-one.”

I repeated my lie from the day before. She had removed her sunglasses and was staring at me as if seeing me for the first time.

“He’s a student,” Jacques said, looking at me as well.

I was embarrassed to be the focus of their attention. I started wondering what I was doing there, amid these people I didn’t know. Even she — I didn’t know her any better than the others.

“A student of what?” Ansart asked.

“Literature,” said Jacques.

The blonde girl came out of the kitchen, carrying a tray that she set on the carpet among us. With graceful movements, she handed each of us a cup of tea.

“And when will you be finished with your studies?” Ansart asked me.

“In two or three years.”

“Meantime, I suppose it’s your parents who provide for you …”

His eyes were still fixed on me, as if I were some kind of curious specimen. I thought I discerned in Ansart’s voice an amused contempt.

“You’re lucky to have such good parents to help you out …”

He’d said it with a touch of bitterness and his gaze clouded over.

What could I reply? I briefly thought of my father and his escape to Switzerland, Grabley, the empty apartment, Dell’Aversano, my mother somewhere in southern Spain … All things considered, it was better to have him think of me as a nice young man being supported by his parents.

“You’re wrong,” she said suddenly. “Nobody’s helping him out. My brother’s making his own way …”

I was moved that she’d come to my rescue. I had forgotten we were brother and sister, and so naturally we had the same parents.

“Besides, we don’t have any family left. It simplifies things …”

Ansart gave us a wide smile.

“My poor children …”

The atmosphere relaxed. The blonde girl poured some more tea into our empty cups. She seemed very fond of Gisèle and called her tu.

“Are you going by the restaurant this evening?”Jacques asked.

“Yes,” said Ansart.

Gisèle turned to me.

“Pierre owns a small restaurant in the neighborhood.”

“Oh, it’s nothing much,” Ansart said. “The place was on the skids and I took it over, no good reason, just for fun …”

“We’ll take you for dinner there some evening,” said Jacques.

“I don’t know if my brother will come. He never goes out.”

She had used a firm tone of voice, as if she wanted to protect me from them.

“But it would be so nice to go out, just the four of us,” the blonde girl said.

She rested her candid gaze first on Gisèle, then on me. She seemed to wish us well.

“Lucien and I have to get back to Saint-Leu-la-Forêt,” Gisèle said.

“Can’t you stay just a little longer?” Jacques said.

I took a deep breath and said in a firm voice, “No, we really should be going. My sister and I have been having problems with the house …”

She had surely mentioned the house in Saint-Leu-la-Forêt. Perhaps she had told them details I didn’t know about.

“So, are you taking the car?” Jacques asked.

“Yes.”

He turned to Ansart.

“I’m lending her my car. You don’t mind if I borrow one of yours, do you?”

“Sure. We’ll go get one from the garage later on.”

We stood up, she and I. She gave the blonde girl a kiss. I shook hands with Ansart and Jacques.

“When will I see you again?” Jacques asked her.

“I’ll call you.”

He seemed dismayed that she was leaving.

“Take good care of your sister.”

He handed her the car keys.

“Careful on the road. If there’s no answer at my place tomorrow, call me at the restaurant.”

For his part, Ansart was looking me over carefully, as he’d done when we arrived.

“I’m very pleased to know you. If you ever need anything …”

I was surprised by his sudden solicitude.

“It can be hard, being your age. I know all too well — I’ve been there myself …”

His eyes wore a sad expression that clashed with his resonant voice and energetic bearing.

The blonde girl saw us to the door.

“We could get together tomorrow, if you like,” she said to Gisèle. “I’ll be home all day.”

On the threshold, in the dim light of the courtyard, the girl’s face looked even younger. It occurred to me that Ansart was old enough to be her father. We crossed the courtyard and she remained standing there, following us with her eyes. Her silhouette stood out against the lit doorway. She looked as if she wanted to come with us. She raised her arm in good-bye.

We had forgotten where the car was parked. We walked down the street, searching for it.

“What if we just take the metro?” she said. “That car is complicated to drive … and besides, I think I’ve lost the keys.”

Her casual tone made me break out in hysterical laughter, which then seized her as well. Soon we couldn’t control ourselves. Our howls echoed down the silent, empty street. When we reached the end of it, we started back up in the opposite direction, on the other sidewalk. We finally found the car.

She opened the door, after trying out all four keys on the keychain. We settled into the leather seats.

“Now we just have to get it moving,” she said.

She managed to start the engine. She made a sudden jerk backward, then braked just as the car had reversed onto the sidewalk and was about to ram into the door of a building.

She drove off in the direction of the Bois de Boulogne, bust rigid, face straining slightly forward, as if she’d never been behind a wheel before.