So You Don't Get Lost in the Neighborhood

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AT ABOUT NINE O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING, THE telephone rang. He had just woken up.

“Monsieur Daragane? Gilles Ottolini.”

The voice sounded less aggressive than the previous day.

“I’m sorry about yesterday. . I feel that I annoyed you. .”

The tone was courteous, and even deferential. None of that insect-like insistence that had so irritated Daragane.

“Yesterday. . I wanted to catch up with you in the street. . You left so abruptly. .”

A silence. But this one was not threatening.

“You know, I’ve read a few of your books. Le Noir de l’été in particular. .”

Le Noir de l’été. It took him a few seconds to realise that this was actually a novel that he had once written. His first book. It was so long ago. .

“I liked Le Noir de l’été very much. This name that is mentioned in your address book and that we spoke about. . Torstel. . you used it in Le Noir de l’été.”

Daragane had no memory of it. Nor of the rest of the book, for that matter.

“Are you sure?”

“You simply mention this name. .”

“I must reread Le Noir de l’eté. But I haven’t a single copy of it left.”

“I could lend you mine.”

The tone of voice struck Daragane as more terse, almost insolent. He was probably mistaken. When you have been too long on your own — he had not spoken to anyone since the beginning of the summer — you become suspicious and touchy towards your fellow men and you risk assessing them incorrectly. No, they are not as bad as all that.

“We didn’t have time to go into any detail yesterday. . But what is it you want to know about this Torstel. .?”

Daragane had rediscovered his cheerful voice. It was just a matter of talking to someone. It was a bit like gymnastic exercises that restore your suppleness.

“Apparently he was involved in some old news item. . The next time we see each other, I’ll show you all the documents. . I told you that I was writing an article about it. .”

So this individual wished to see him again. Why not? For some time he had felt some reluctance at the notion that newcomers might enter into his life. But, at other times, he still felt receptive. It depended on the day. Eventually, he said to him:

“So, what can I do for you?”

“I have to be away for two days because of my work. I’ll phone you when I’m back. And we can arrange to meet.”

“If you like.”

He was no longer in the same mood as he was yesterday. He had probably been unfair with this Gilles Ottolini and had seen him in an unfavourable light. This was to do with the telephone ringing the other afternoon, which had roused him suddenly from his semi-slumber. . A ringing sound heard so rarely in the past few months that it had given him a fright and had seemed to him just as threatening as if someone had come and knocked on his door at daybreak.

He did not want to reread Le Noir de l’été, even though reading it would give him the impression that the novel had been written by someone else. He would quite simply ask Gilles Ottolini to photocopy the pages that referred to Torstel. Would that be enough to remind him of anything?

He opened his notebook at the letter T, underlined “Guy Torstel 423 40 55” in blue ballpoint pen and added a question mark alongside the name. He had recopied all these pages from an old address book, crossing out the names of those who had died and the out-of-date numbers. And this Guy Torstel had probably slipped to the very top of the page because of a momentary lack of concentration on his part. He would have to find the old address book, which must date from about thirty years ago, and perhaps he would be reminded of him once he saw this name alongside other names from the past.

But today he did not have the courage to rummage around in cupboards and drawers. Still less to reread Le Noir de l’été. Besides, for some time his reading had been reduced to just one author: Buffon. He derived a great deal of comfort from him, thanks to the clarity of his style, and he regretted not having been influenced by him: writing novels whose characters might have been animals, and even trees or flowers. . If anyone were to have asked him nowadays which writer he might have wished to have been, he would have replied without hesitation: a Buffon of trees and flowers.