Missing Person (15 page)

He shook his head. So, I had had a father who came to fetch me at "Luiza School." An interesting piece of information.

"And you?" I said. "Do you still work with horses?"

"I've found a job as instructor in a riding-school at Giverny..."

He adopted a solemn tone that impressed me with its force.

"As you know, from the time of my accident it's been downhill..."

What accident? I did not dare ask him ...

"When I accompanied you, Denise, Freddie, and Gay to Megève, things were already not going too well... I'd lost my trainer's job ... They lost their nerve because I was English ... They only wanted French ..."

English? Yes. He spoke with a slight accent that I had hardly noticed up to then. My heart started beating a little harder when he uttered the word: Megève.

"A funny idea, don't you think, that journey to Megève," I ventured.

"Why funny? What else could we have done?..."

"You think so?"

"It was a safe place... Paris was getting too dangerous..."

"Do you really think so?"

"But Pedro, just remember ... There were checks more and more often... I was English... Freddie had an English passport..."

"English?"

"Of course... Freddie's family was from Mauritius... And your position wasn't too wonderful either... And our bogus Dominican passports couldn't really protect us any longer ... Just remember ... Your friend Rubirosa himself..."

I could not catch the rest of his sentence. I think his voice failed him.

He sipped his drink and at that moment four people came in, regular customers, all of them ex-jockeys. I recognized them, I had often heard them talking. One of them still wore an old pair of riding breeches and a suede jacket stained all over. They tapped Wildmer on the shoulder. They were all speaking at once, roaring with laughter, and it made much too much noise. Wildmer did not introduce them to me.

They sat down on barstools and continued talking in very loud voices.

"Pedro ..."

Wildmer leaned toward me. His face was only a few inches from mine. He grimaced as though he were about to make a superhuman effort to utter a few words.

"Pedro ... What happened to Denise when you tried to cross the border?..."

"I no longer know," I said.

He looked at me fixedly. He must have been a bit drunk.

"Pedro . . . Before you left I told you you ought to be careful with that fellow..."

"What fellow?"

"The fellow who was going to get you across into Switzerland ... The Russian with the face of a gigolo ..."

He was purple-faced. He swallowed some of the liqueur.

"Don't you remember... I told you you shouldn't listen to that other one either ... The ski instructor ..."

"What ski instructor?"

"The one who was going to be your guide... You know... That Bob something... Bob Besson... Why did you go? ... You were all right with us at the chalet..."

What could I say to him? I nodded. He emptied his glass in a single gulp.

"His name was Bob Besson?" I asked.

"Yes, Bob Besson ..."

"And the Russian?"

He frowned.

"I don't remember now..."

His concentration was drifting. He had made a mighty effort to speak to me of the past, but it was over. Just like an exhausted swimmer who raises his head a last time above the waves and then lets himself sink slowly . .. After all, I hadn't been much help in this seance.

He rose and joined the others. He was slipping back into his routine. I heard him giving his opinion in a loud voice about a race which had taken place that afternoon at Vincennes. The man in riding breeches stood a round of drinks. Wildmer had found his voice again and was so vehement, so impassioned that he had forgotten to light his cigarette. It hung from his lips. If I had stood in front of him, he would not have recognized me now.

As I left, I said goodbye to him and waved, but he ignored me. He was wrapped up in another subject.

34

V
ICHY
. An American car stops by the Parc des Sources, opposite the Hôtel de la Paix. Its bodywork is spattered with mud. Two men and a woman get out and walk toward the hotel entrance. The two men are unshaven and one of the two, the taller, holds the woman by the arm. In front of the hotel, a row of wicker armchairs in which people sleep, their heads lolling, seemingly indifferent to the July sun which beats down upon them.

In the hotel lounge, the three of them have difficulty making their way through to the reception desk. They have to walk around armchairs and even camp beds where other sleepers sprawl, some of them in military uniform. Tight little groups of five or ten people huddle in the lounge at the back, call out to each other, and the hubbub is even more oppressive than the heat and humidity outside. Finally they reach the desk, and one of the men, the taller, hands the porter their three passports. Two are passports issued by the Legation of the Dominican Republic in Paris, one in the name of "Porfirio Rubirosa," the other in that of "Pedro McEvoy"; the third is a French passport in the name of "Denise, Yvette, Coudreuse."

The porter, his face bathed in sweat which drips from his chin, returns their passports, with a helpless gesture. No, there is not a single free hotel room in the whole of Vichy, "seeing how things are"... At a pinch, there might be a couple of armchairs which one might be able to take up to a laundry-room or put in a toilet on the ground floor... His voice is submerged in the confused hullabaloo of conversations, the metallic banging of the elevator door, the ringing of the telephone, the messages coming over the loudspeaker hanging above the reception desk.

The two men and the woman have left the hotel, walking somewhat unsteadily. The sky has suddenly grown overcast, with purplish gray clouds. They cross the Parc des Sources. On the lawns, under the covered walks, obstructing the paved lanes, stand groups of people, huddling closer together even than in the hotel. They all talk in very loud voices among themselves, some people run to and fro between groups, others gather in twos or threes on a bench or on the park's iron seats before rejoining the others ... It looks like a huge school playground and one finds oneself waiting impatiently for the bell to put an end to all this agitation and to the din of voices swelling from moment to moment. But no bell sounds.

The tall, dark man still holds the woman by the arm, while the other one has taken off his jacket. They walk and are jostled as they go by people running in all directions to find some person or some group which they have left for a moment, which has instantly dissolved and whose members have been snapped up by other groups.

The three of them find themselves in front of the terrace of the Café de la Restauration. The terrace is packed, but by a miracle five people have just left one of the tables, and the two men and woman drop into the wicker chairs. Somewhat dazed, they look over toward the casino.

A haze has enveloped the entire park and the arching foliage keeps it from dissipating, making it stagnate there. It is like the steam in a Turkish bath. It invades your throat, finally it blurs the groups standing in front of the casino, it muffles the din of their voices. At a neighboring table, an old lady bursts into sobs and says over and over that the border at Hendaye is closed.

The woman's head has toppled over on to the tall, dark man's shoulder. She has closed her eyes. She sleeps like a child. The two men exchange smiles. Then, again, they look at all the groups in front of the casino.

There is a sudden shower. Monsoon rainfall. It penetrates the cover of plane-trees and chestnuts, in spite of the density of the foliage. Over there, people are jostling each other, seeking shelter under the casino's glass canopy, while others hastily leave the terrace and enter the café, trampling on each other.

Only the two men and the woman have not moved, as the parasol over their table protects them from the rain. The woman still sleeps, her cheek resting on the tall, dark man's shoulder. He looks straight ahead vacantly, while his companion absentmindedly whistles the tune of
"Tu me acostumbraste."

35

F
ROM
THE
WINDOW
could be seen the expanse of lawn, with a gravel path skirting it. It sloped very gently upward toward the building where I was and which had reminded me of one of those white hotels on the shores of the Mediterranean. But when I had climbed the steps, my eyes had fallen on the inscription in silver lettering adorning the door: "Luiza and Albany School."

At the far end of the lawn, a tennis court. To the right, a row of birch trees and a swimming pool which had been emptied. The diving board had half collapsed.

He rejoined me in the window recess.

"Yes, as I thought... I am very sorry ... All the school records were burnt... There is nothing left..

A man of about sixty, who wore glasses with pale tortoise- shell frames and a tweed jacket.

"And in any case, Mrs. Jeanschmidt would not have authorized it... Since her husband's death, she won't discuss Luiza School at all..."

"Aren't there any old class photographs around the place?" I asked.

"No. As I said, everything has been burnt..."

"Have you worked here long?"

"The two last years of Luiza School. Then, our director, Mr. Jeanschmidt, died ... But the school was no longer the same as it used to be ..."

He looked out of the window with a pensive air.

"As a former student, I'd have liked to find some souvenirs," I said.

"I understand. Unfortunately..."

"And what will become of the school?"

"Oh, they'll auction everything off."

And with a listless gesture, he took in the lawn, the tennis court, the swimming pool.

"Would you like a last look at the dormitories and the class rooms?"

"There's no point."

He took a pipe from his jacket pocket and stuck it in his mouth. He did not leave the window recess.

"What was that wooden building on the left?"

"The changing rooms. They changed there for sports ..."

"Oh, yes, that's right..."

He filled his pipe.

"I've forgotten everything... Did we wear uniforms?"

"No, sir. A navy blue blazer was only required for dinner and on days off."

I approached the window. My forehead practically touched the glass. Below, in front of the white building, was a gravel-covered esplanade, with weeds already coming through. I could see us, Freddie and me, in our blazers. And I tried to imagine what he might have looked like, that man who came for us on one of the days out, who left his car and walked toward us, who was my father.

              36

Mrs. E. Kahan

22, Rue de Picardie

Nice

22nd November, 1965

I am writing to you, at Mr. Hutte's request, to tell you all I know about the man, "Oleg de Wrédé," even though to remember him is disagreeable for me.

One day I went into a Russian restaurant, in Rue François-I
er
, Chez Arkady, run by a Russian gentleman whose name I no longer recall. It was a modest restaurant, there were not many people there. The manager, a man prematurely aged, unhappy and sick-looking, stood at the zakuski table - this was some time around 1937.

I became aware of the presence of a young man of about twenty, who looked at home in this restaurant. Too well dressed, suit, shirt, etc. - impeccable.

His appearance was striking: a vitality, narrow china-blue eyes, a dazzling smile, always laughing. And behind it, an animal cunning.

He was at the next table to mine. The second time I came to the place, he pointed to the restaurant manager and said:

"Would you believe I'm that gentleman's son?" with a look of contempt for the poor old man who was, in fact, his father.

Then he showed me an identity bracelet on which was engraved the name: "Louis de Wrédé, Comte de Montpen- sier, (in the restaurant, he was called by the Russian name: Oleg). I asked him where his mother was. He told me she was dead. I asked him where on earth she could have met a Montpensier (connected with the younger branch of the house of Orléans, it seems). He answered: In Siberia. None of this made any sense. I realized he was a little blackguard who preyed on people of both sexes. When I asked him what he did, he told me he played the piano.

Then began an enumeration of all his society connections - that the Duchess of Uzès was running after him, that he was on the best of terms with the Duke of Windsor... I felt there was both truth and falsehood in his stories. People in "high society" were no doubt taken in by his "name," his smile, his glacial but really quite engaging manner.

During the war - I think it was between '41 and '42- I was on the beach at Juan-les-Pins when this man, "Oleg de Wrédé," came running up, in his usual form and laughing heartily. He told me he had been a prisoner and that a high- ranking German officer was taking care of him. Just now, he was spending a few days with his self-appointed godmother, a Mrs. Henri Duvernois, a widow. But he said: "She's so cheap, she won't give me any money."

He announced that he was returning to Paris, "to work with the Germans." "What at?" I asked. "Selling them cars."

I never saw him again and do not know what became of him. That, I am afraid, is all that I can tell you regarding this individual.

Respectfully yours,

E. Kahan

37

N
OW
,
ALL
I
NEED
DO
is close my eyes. The events preceding our departure for Megève come back to me bit by bit. The large, brightly lit windows of the former Zaharoff residence, in Avenue Hoche, and Wildmer's disjointed sentences, and the names, like the purple, scintillating one of "Rubirosa," and the pallid one of "Oleg de Wrédé," as well as other less tangible details - the sound of Wildmer's voice, rough, so low you could barely hear him - all these things serve as my Ariadne's thread.

The day before, in the late afternoon, I found myself, as it happens, in Avenue Hoche, on the first floor of Zaharoff's old mansion. A lot of people. As usual, they kept their coats on. I, for my part, was not wearing one. I crossed the main room, where I saw some fifteen people clustered about the telephones, or sitting in leather armchairs talking business, and slipped into a little office, closing the door behind me. The man I was supposed to meet was already there. He led me to a corner of the room and we sat down in two armchairs separated by a low table. I placed on it the gold 20-franc pieces wrapped in newspaper. He at once handed me several wads of bank notes which I did not bother to count and which I stuffed into my pocket. The jewelry did not interest him. We left the office together, then the large room where the hum of conversation and the coming-and-going of all these men in overcoats was somehow disturbing. In the street, he gave me the address of a possible buyer for the jewels, near Place Malesherbes, and suggested I tell the woman that he had sent me. It was snowing, but I decided to go on foot. Denise and I had often walked this way in the early days. Times had changed. It was snowing and I could hardly recognize the boulevard, with its bare trees, the dark façades of its buildings. No more scent from the privet hedges by the railings of the Pare Monceau, but a smell of damp earth and decay.