Missing Person (6 page)

Strange people. The kind that leave the merest blur behind them, soon vanished. Hutte and I often used to talk about these traceless beings. They spring up out of nothing one fine day and return there, having sparkled a little. Beauty queens. Gigolos. Butterflies. Most of them, even when alive, had no more substance than steam which will never condense. Hutte, for instance, used to quote the case of a fellow he called "the beach man." This man had spent forty years of his life on beaches or by the sides of swimming pools, chatting pleasantly with summer visitors and rich idlers. He is to be seen, in his bathing costume, in the corners and backgrounds of thousands of holiday snaps, among groups of happy people, but no one knew his name and why he was there. And no one noticed when one day he vanished from the photographs. I did not dare tell Hutte, but I felt that "the beach man" was myself. Though it would not have surprised him if I had confessed it. Hutte was always saying that, in the end, we were all "beach men" and that "the sand" - I am quoting his own words - "keeps the traces of our footsteps only a few moments."

On one side, the building faced an open space that seemed deserted. A large clump of trees, bushes, a lawn that had not been cut for a long time. A child was playing there alone, quietly, in front of a mound of sand, on this sunny late afternoon. I sat down by the lawn and lifted my head toward the building, wondering if Gay Orlov's windows looked out on this side.

9

I
T
is
NIGHT
and the opaline light in the Agency is reflected in the leather top of Huttes desk. I am seated at this desk. I am going through old street-and-trade directories, more recent ones, and noting down what I find as I go along:

H
OWARD
DE
L
UZ
(Jean Simety)
and
M
ME
,
born
M
ABEL
D
ONAHUE
at Valbreuse, Orne.
T.
21 and 23, Rue Raynouard,
T. AUT.
15-28.

—
CGP
-
MA
 

The social directory where this is to be found goes back thirty years. Does it refer to my father?

The same reference in successive directories. I look up the list of signs and abbreviations.

means: Military Cross.

CGP
:
Club du Grand Pavois,
MA
:
Motor Yacht Club of the Cote d'Azur, and
: owner of yacht.

But ten years later the following disappear: 23, Rue Raynouard T. AUT. 15-28. Also:
MA
and 
.

The following year, all that remains is:
H
OWARD
DE
Luz,
M
ME
,
born
M
ABEL
D
ONAHUE
at Valbreuse, Orne. T. 21.

Then nothing at all.

Next, I consult the Parisian year-books of the last ten years. Each time, Howard de Luz's name appears in the following form:

H
OWARD
DE
L
UZ
, C.
3 Square Henri-Paté. 16th - MOL50-52.

A brother? Cousin?

No reference to him in the social directories of the same years.

10

M
R
.
H
OWARD
is expecting you."

No doubt the proprietress of this restaurant in Rue de Bassano: dark hair, pale eyes. She motioned to me to follow her, we went down some stairs and she led me toward the back of the room. She stopped in front of a table where a man was sitting on his own. He rose.

"Claude Howard," he said.

He motioned to the chair opposite. We sat down.

"I'm late. Forgive me."

"Not at all."

He stared at me with curiosity. Did he recognize me?

"Your telephone call intrigued me a great deal," he said.

I tried to smile.

"And particularly your interest in the Howard de Luz family... of which I am, my dear sir, the last representative ..."

He had spoken these words in an ironic, self-mocking tone of voice.

"Besides, I call myself Howard, quite simply. It's less complicated."

He handed me the menu.

"You don't have to order the same as I do. I'm a gastronomical columnist... I have to try the house specialities... sweetbread and the fish bouillon ..."

He sighed. He really seemed to be at a low ebb.

"I've had enough of it... Whatever's going on in my life, I'm always obliged to eat..."

They were already bringing him some meat pie. I ordered salad and a piece of fruit.

"You're lucky... I have to eat... I have to write my piece this evening. I've just returned from the Golden Tripe Competition... I was one of the judges. We had to swallow a hundred and seventy pieces of tripe over a period of one and a half days ..."

I could not tell his age. His hair, which was very dark, was brushed backward, his eyes were brown, and there was something negroid about his features, in spite of the extreme pallor of his complexion. We were alone at the back of this section of the restaurant, in the basement, with its decor of pale blue paneling, satin, and crystal ware, all of which gave it a kind of gimcrack eighteenth-century air.

"I've been thinking about what you told me on the telephone ... The Howard de Luz you're interested in can only be my cousin Freddie ..."

"You really think so?"

"I'm sure of it. But I hardly knew him ..."

"Freddie Howard de Luz?"

"Yes. We played together a few times when we were little."

"Have you a photo of him?"

"Not one."

He swallowed a mouthful of meat pie and suppressed a heave of the stomach.

"He wasn't even a first cousin ... but once or twice removed ... There were very few Howard de Luz's... I believe we were the only ones, dad and I, and Freddie and his grandfather ... It's a French family from Mauritius, you see ..."

He pushed away his plate with a weary gesture.

"Freddie's grandfather had married an extremely wealthy American woman ..."

"Mabel Donahue?"

"That's the name... They had a magnificent estate in the Orne district..."

"In Valbreuse?"

"My dear fellow, you're a veritable encyclopedia."

He threw me an astonished look.

"And then afterward, I think they lost everything ... Freddie went to America ... I can't give you any more precise information... I only know this from hearsay... I don't even know if Freddie is still alive ..."

"How could one find out?"

"If my father were here... I used to get news of the family from him ... Unfortunately..."

I took the photo of Gay Orlov and old Giorgiadze out of my pocket and pointed to the dark-haired man who looked like me:

"Do you know this fellow?"

"No."

"Don't you think he looks like me?"

He bent over the photograph.

"Perhaps," he said without conviction.

"And the blonde woman, do you know her?"

"No."

"And yet she was a friend of your cousin Freddie."

He seemed to suddenly remember something.

"Just a moment... it's coming back to me ... Freddie went to America. And it seems that there he became the confidant of the actor John Gilbert..."

John Gilbert's confidant. This was the second time I was being given this piece of information, but it did not lead anywhere in particular.

"I know, because he sent me a postcard from America at the time ..."

"Did you keep it?"

"No, but I still remember what it said by heart: 'Everything fine. America is a beautiful country. I've found work: I'm John Gilbert's confidant. Regards to you and your father. Freddie.' It made an impression on me ..."

"You didn't see him, when he returned to France?"

"No. I didn't even know that he had returned to France."

"And if he were sitting opposite you now, would you recognize him?"

"Maybe not."

I did not dare suggest to him that Freddie Howard de Luz was myself. I did not yet have formal proof of that, but I was full of hope.

"The Freddie I knew was ten years old... my father took me along to Valbreuse to play with him ..."

The wine-waiter had stopped at our table and was waiting for Claude Howard to make his choice, but the latter did not notice his presence and the man stood there very stiff, looking like a sentry.

"To tell you the truth, I think Freddie is dead ..."

"You shouldn't say that..."

"It's kind of you to take an interest in our unfortunate family. We didn't have much luck ... I think I'm the sole survivor and look what I have to do to earn my living ..."

He banged his fist on the table, while waiters brought the fish bouillon and the proprietress of the restaurant came up with an ingratiating smile.

"Mr. Howard... Did the Golden Tripe go well this year?" But he had not heard and leaned toward me. "Really," he said, "we should never have left Mauritius..."

11

A
LITTLE
OLD
railway station, yellow and gray, with elaborate cement barriers on either side, and beyond these barriers the platform onto which I disembarked from the rail-car. The station square was deserted except for a child roller-skating under the trees on the raised strip.

I've played there too, I thought, a long time ago. This quiet place really did remind me of something. My grandfather, Howard de Luz, used to meet me on the Paris train or was it the other way round? On summer evenings, I used to wait on the station platform accompanied by my grandmother, born Mabel Donahue.

A little further, a road wide as an autoroute, but with very few cars passing. I skirted some public gardens surrounded by the same cement walls I had seen on the station square.

On the other side of the street, shops under a kind of awning. A cinema. Then an inn, hidden among trees, at the corner of a gently ascending avenue. I stepped out unhesitatingly, as I had studied the map of Valbreuse. At the end of this tree-lined avenue, a surrounding wall and an iron gate on which was a rotting board with the half-obliterated words:
E
STATE
M
ANAGEMENT
. Beyond the gate stretched a neglected lawn. At the far end, a long brick and stone structure, in the style of Louis XIII. In the middle, a pavilion, one story higher, stood out, and the façade was completed at either end by two side pavilions with cupolas. The shutters of all the windows were closed.