Missing Person (8 page)

"Yes."

"Well, I'm going to give you this ..."

He pointed to the box.

"They're keepsakes of Freddie... Little things I was able to put aside when they came along to impound the old place..."

He was really moved. I even think there were tears in his eyes.

"I was very fond of him... I knew him as a youngster... He was a dreamer. He always told me he'd buy a yacht... He used to say: 'Bob, you'll be my first mate...' God knows where he is now... if he's still alive ..."

"We'll find him," I said.

"He was too spoiled by his grandmother, you see ..."

He took the box and handed it to me. I thought of Styoppa de Dzhagorev and the red box he too had given me. It certainly seemed everything ended with old chocolate or biscuit or cigar boxes.

"Thank you."

"I'll walk you to the station."

We took a forest path and he shone the beam of his flashlight ahead of us. Was he losing his way? It felt to me as though we were penetrating deeper and deeper into the forest.

"I'm trying to remember the name of Freddie's friend. The one you pointed out in the photograph ... the South American..."

We were crossing a clearing, the foliage phosphorescent in the moonlight. A clump of umbrella pines. He had switched off his flashlight, because it was almost as bright as daylight here.

"This is where Freddie used to come riding with another friend of his ... A jockey ... He never spoke to you about the jockey?"

"No."

"I can't remember his name any more... And yet he was well known . . . He'd been Freddie's grandfather's jockey, when the old man had a racing stable ..."

"Did the South American know the jockey too?"

"Of course. They used to come here together. The jockey played billiards with the other... I even think it was he who introduced the Russian woman to Freddie ..."

I was afraid I would not remember all these details. I should have been noting them down on the spot.

The path sloped gently upward and it was not easy walking, because of all the dead leaves underfoot.

"So, do you remember the South American's name?"

"Just a moment... it's coming back ..."

I hugged the biscuit box to my hip, anxious to find out what its contents were. Perhaps I would discover some answers to my questions. My name. Or the jockey's name, for instance.

We were at the edge of a slope, at the bottom of which lay the station square. The station, with its bright neon-lit entrance hall, seemed deserted. A cyclist crossed the square slowly and stopped in front of the station.

"One moment... his first name was ... Pedro ..."

We stood at the edge of the slope. He had taken out his pipe again, and was cleaning it with a strange little instrument. Inwardly I repeated this name I'd been given at birth, this name by which I had been called throughout a whole section of my life and which, for a number of people, had conjured up my face. Pedro.

12

N
OT
MUCH
HERE
, in the biscuit box. A flaking lead soldier with a drum. A four-leaf clover adhering to the center of a white envelope. Some photographs.

I appear in two of them. No question that it is the same man as the one standing beside Gay Orlov and old Giorgiadze. A tall, dark-haired man, me, the only difference being that I've no moustache there. In one of the photographs, I am with another man as young as myself, as tall, but fair-haired. Freddie? Yes, as someone has written in pencil on the back of the photo: "Pedro - Freddie - La Baule." We are at the seaside and both wearing beach robes. Evidently a very old photograph.

In the second photograph, there are four of us: Freddie, myself, Gay Orlov, whom I recognized at once, and another young woman, all sitting on the floor, leaning against the red velvet sofa in the summer dining room. To the right, you can make out a billiard table.

A third photograph shows the young woman who is with us in the summer dining room. She is standing in front of the billiard table, holding a cue in her two hands. Fair hair falling to below the shoulders. The one I used to bring along to Freddie's château? In another photograph, she is leaning her elbows on the railings of a veranda.

A postcard addressed to "Mr. Robert Brun, c/o Howard de Luz, Valbreuse, Orne," showing the port of New York. It reads:

"My dear Bob. Regards from America. See you soon. Freddie."

An odd document under the heading of:

Consulado General

de la

Republica Argentina

No. 106

The Consulate of the Republic of Argentina in France, in charge of Hellenic interests in the occupied zone, certifies that the archives of the Municipality of Salonica were destroyed by fire during the 1914-18 War. Paris, 15 July, 1941.

Consulate of

the Republic of Argentina

in charge of Hellenic Interests.

A signature, and under it:

R. L. de Oliveira Cezar

Consul General.

Me? No. His name is not Pedro.

A small newspaper cutting:

H
OWARD
DE
L
UZ
F
ORECLOSURE
:

At Valbreuse (Orne) Château Saint-Lazare

7
and 11th April,

By order of The Estate Management

Sale by public auction

of an important collection of

Objets d'art and furniture

antique and modern

Pictures - Porcelain - Ceramics

Carpets - Bedding - Household linen

Érard Grand Piano

Frigidaire etc.

Viewing: Saturday, 6th April,
2:00-6:00
P
.
M
.

and
10:00-12:00
on the days of sale.

I open the envelope with the four-leaf clover. It contains four passport-size photographs: Freddie, myself, Gay Orlov, and the fair-haired young woman.

I also find an uncompleted passport of the Dominican Republic.

Casually turning over the photograph of the fair-haired young woman I discover the following, written in blue ink, in the same untidy handwriting as on the postcard from America:

Pedro:
ANJ
OU
15-28.

13

How
MANY
engagement books still contain this telephone number which used to be mine? Was it simply the number of an office where I was to be found only one afternoon?

I dial ANJou 15-28. It rings and rings but no one answers. Are there any traces left of me in the deserted apartment, the room uninhabited for a long time, where this evening the telephone rings in vain?

I do not even need to call information. All I have to do is flex my calf muscle and spin Hutte's leather chair. In front of me, the rows of directories and year-books. One of them, smaller than the others, bound in pale-green goatskin. This is the one I need. All the telephone numbers in Paris for the last thirty years are itemized here, with the corresponding addresses.

I turn the pages, my heart thumping. And I read:

ANJou 15-28 -10
A
, Rue Cambacérès, 8th arr.

But the street directory for the year does not list this telephone number:

C
AMBACÉRÈS
(Rue) 8th.

14

A
MAN
WHOSE
Christian name was Pedro. ANJou 15-28. 10
A
, Rue Cambacérès, eighth arrondissement.

It seems he worked for a South American legation. The clock Hutte had left on the desk points to two in the morning. Down below, in Avenue Niel, only an occasional car passes and I can hear wheels squealing from time to time at the red lights.

I leaf through the old directories in the front of which are lists of embassies and legations, with their numbers.

Dominican Republic

Avenue de Messine, 21 (Vlllth). Tel. CARnot 10-18.

N ... Special Envoy and Plenipotentiary.

Dr. Gustavo J. Henriques. First Secretary.

Dr. Salvador E. Paradas. Second Secretary.

(and Mrs.), Rue d'Alsace, 41 (Xth).

Dr. Bienvenido Carrasco. Attaché.

R. Decamps, 45 (XVIth), Tel. TRO 42-91.

Venezuela

Rue Copernic, 11 (XVIth). Tel. PASsy 72-29.

Chancellery: Rue de la Pompe, 115 (XVIth). Tel. PASsy 10-89.

Dr. Carlo Aristimuno Coli, Special Envoy and Plenipotentiary.

Mr. Jaime Picon Febres. Counsellor.

Mr. Antonio Maturib. First Secretary.

Mr. Antonio Briuno. Attaché.

Colonel H. Lopez-Mendez. Military Attaché.

Mr. Pedro Saloaga. Commercial Attaché.

Guatemala

Place Joffre, 12 (Vllth). Tel. SÉGur 09-59.

Mr. Adam Maurisque Rios. Chargé d'Affaires.

Mr. Ismael Gonzalez Arevalo. Secretary.

Mr. Frederico Murgo. Attaché.

Ecuador

Avenue Wagram, 91 (XVIIth). Tel. ÉTOile 17-89.

Mr. Gonzalo Zaldumbide. Special Envoy and Plenipotentiary (and Mrs.).

Mr. Alberto Puig Arosemena. First Secretary (and Mrs.).

Mr. Alfredo Gangotena. Third Secretary (and Mrs.).

Mr. Carlos Guzman. Attaché (and Mrs.). Mr. Victor Zevallos. Counsellor (and Mrs.), Avenue d'Iéna, 21 (XVth).

El Salvador

Riquez Vega. Special Envoy.

Major J. H. Wishaw. Military Attaché (and daughter).

F. Capurro. First Secretary.

Luis...

The letters dance before my eyes. Who am I?

15

Y
OU
TURN
LEFT
and it is amazing how silent and deserted is this section of Rue Cambacérès. Not a single car. I walked past a hotel and my eyes were dazzled by a chandelier, all its crystals blazing, in the lobby. It was sunny.

10
A
is a narrow, four-story building. Tall windows on the first floor. A policeman stands on sentry duty on the pavement opposite.

One half of the double door to the building was open, the hall light on. A long vestibule with gray walls. At the end, a door with small glass panels which I found hard to open. A carpetless stairway leading to the upper floors.

I stopped in front of the first floor door. I had decided to ask the tenants on each floor if ANJou 15-28 had been their telephone number at any time, and there was a tightness in my throat, as I was aware of the oddness of this request. On the door, a brass plate, which read:
H
ÉLÈNE
P
ILGRAM
.

A high-pitched bell which was so worn, it rang only intermittently. I pressed on it as long as possible. The door opened a crack. A woman's face, her ash-gray hair cut short, appeared in the opening.

"Excuse me ... I wonder if you could tell me ..."

Her very clear eyes fastened on me. Impossible to say what her age was. Thirty, fifty?

"Was your old phone number ANJou 15-28, by any chance?"

She frowned.

"Yes. Why?"

She opened the door. She was wearing a man's black silk dressing-gown.

"Why do you want to know?"

"Because ... I lived here once ..."

She had moved out on to the landing and was staring at me fixedly. Her eyes widened.

"But... you're ... Mr.... McEvoy?"

"Yes," I said on the off-chance.

"Come in."

She seemed quite overcome. We stood, the two of us, facing each other, in the middle of a lobby with damaged parquet flooring. Some of the pieces had been replaced with strips of linoleum.

"You haven't changed much," she said, smiling.

"Nor have you."

"Do you still remember me?"

"I remember you very well," I said.

"That's nice ..."

Her eyes lingered affectionately on me.

"Come..."

She preceded me into a very large, very high-ceilinged room, whose windows were the ones I had noticed from the street. The parquet, damaged as in the hall, was hidden here and there under white wool rugs. Through the windows, the autumn sun lit the room with an amber light.

"Do sit down ..."

She pointed to a long wall-sofa with velvet cushions. She sat down on my left.

"It's funny to see you again so ... unexpectedly ..."

"I happened to be in the district," I said.

She looked younger to me than she had seemed in the doorway. Not a line at the junctions of the lips, around the eyes, or on the brow, and this smooth face contrasted with her white hair.

"It seems to me you've changed your hair color," I hazarded.

"No, I haven't... My hair's been white since I was twenty- five ... I preferred to keep it that color ..."

Apart from the velvet sofa, there was not much furniture. A rectangular table against the opposite wall. An old dressmaker's mannequin between the two windows, the torso covered with a piece of dirty beige material. The unlikely presence of this object made one think of a dressmaker's workshop. Besides, I noticed, in a corner of the room, a sewing machine on a table.