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big handwriting of the illiterate that she was.
Darling,
I miss you. Cavanaugh never leaves me for a second
and I have to send you this letter without him knowing.
You can trust Smidane and give him a message for me.
I want to see you. I'll try to be at the Cite Veron every
day at about seven. Phone me. Otherwise, I'll phone
you, when I know which hotel you're staying in. I could
come and meet you there, like we used to a long time
ago. I'll do that without Cavanaugh knowing. I'm not
telling anyone that you're still alive. I love you, darling.
Annette
I put the letter in my pocket.
"Have you got a message for her?" Ben Smidane asked me
anxiously.
"No."
Ben Smidane's brow furrowed with a studious, childish
expressiOn.
"Jean, I find your attitude disconcerting. "
He seemed eager to understand, and so deferential towards
me - I was older than he, after all - that I felt sorry for him.
"It's very simple. I j ust feel tired of my life and my job. "
He was drinking in my words, and nodding solemnly.
"You're still too young, Ben, to have that feeling. One starts
out full of enthusiasm and the spirit of adventure, bur after a
few years it becomes a job and a routine . . . I don't want to
discourage you, though. I'm really the last person to tell any­
one what to do. "
"You don't realize, Jean . . . We thought you'd disappeared
for good . . ."
He hesitated for a few seconds, and then added:
"That you were dead . . . "
"So what?"
He stared at me in consternation.
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"You don 't know how much Annette loves you . . . The
moment she found the bit of paper with the names of the
hotels, she decided that life was worth living again . . ."
"And Cavanaugh?"
"She asked me to be sure to tell you that Cavanaugh has
never counted for her. "
I felt a sudden repugnance at hearing my private life brought
up, and embarrassed at seeing Ben Smidane involved in it all.
"At your age, the main thing is to think of yourself and
,,
your future, Ben.
He seemed amazed that in such circumstances I should con­
cern myself with him. And yet I would have liked him to talk
about the expedition he was planning to the Indian Ocean to
search for the wreck of a Dutch galleon, and to share his
dreams and illusions with me.
"And you?" he asked. "Are you counting on staying here
long? "
He pointed despairingly at the Boulevard Soult outside the
cafe window:
"Then I can tell Annette to come and see you?"
"Tell her not to come just yet . . . She wouldn't find me
. . . We mustn't rush things."
He frowned again, in the same studious way as before. He
was trying to understand. He didn't want to thwart me.
"Tell her to leave a phone message, or write me a note
from time to time. That'll be enough for the time being. Just
a message . . . Or a letter . . . Here, at the Dodds Hotel . . .
or at the Fieve Hotel . . . Or at the other horels on the list . . .
She knows them all . . ."
"I'll tell her . . . "
"And you, Ben, don't hesitate to come and talk to me about
your projects, since you and Annette are the only ones who
know I'm still alive . . . But don't let anyone else know."
"
Ben Smidane went off in the direction of the Avenue Daumes­
nil, and I noticed a phenomenon that doesn't often happen to
a man: several women turned round as he passed them.
I was alone again. Naturally, I was expecting to get a mess­
age from Annette sho ly. But I was certain that she wouldn't
turn up unexpectedly. She knew me too well. For twenty years
she had found me a good teacher in the a of concealing
oneself, of avoiding bores, or of giving people the slip: cup­
boards you hide in as a last resort, windows you climb out of,
back stairs or emergency exits you take at the double, esca­
lators you race down in the wrong direction . . . And all those
far-off journeys I had gone on, not to satisfy the curiosity or
vocation of an explorer, but to escape. My life had been noth­
ing but evasion. Annette knew that she mustn't rush things:
at the slightest alert I was likely to disappear - and this time
for good.
But I would have been touched to receive a message from
her from time to time, in all these places where we had lived
in the old days and which I have now come back to. They
haven't changed much. Why, when I was about eighteen, did
I leave the centre of Paris and come to these suburban regions?
I felt at ease in these districts, I could breathe here. They
were a refuge, far away from the bustle of the centre, and a
springboard to adventure and to the unknown. You only had
to cross a square or walk down an avenue, and Paris was
behind you. It was a pleasure to feel myself on the outskirts
of the city, with all these lines of escape . . . At night, when
all the street lights came on in the Porte de Champerret, the
future beckoned to me.
That was what I had tried to explain to Annette, who was
amazed that I wanted to live so far out. She had finally under­
stood. Or had pretended to. We had lived in several hotels on
the outskirts of Paris. I spent my days vaguely dealing in
antiquarian books, but she earned more than I did: two thou-
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