Patrick Modiano - Invisible Ink

Invisible Ink

English translations of works by Patrick Modiano

From Yale University Press

After the Circus

Family Record

Invisible Ink

Little Jewel

Paris Nocturne

Pedigree: A Memoir

Sleep of Memory

Such Fine Boys

Sundays in August

Suspended Sentences: Three Novellas (Afterimage, Suspended Sentences, and Flowers of Ruin)

Also available

The Black Notebook

Catherine Certitude

Dora Bruder

Honeymoon

In the Caf of Lost Youth

Lacombe Lucien

Missing Person

The Occupation Trilogy (The Night Watch, Ring Roads, and La Place de lEtoile)

Out of the Dark

So You Dont Get Lost in the Neighborhood

28 Paradises (with Dominique Zehrfuss)

Villa Triste

Young Once

A Novel

Patrick Modiano

Translated from the French

by Mark Polizzotti

The Margellos World Republic of Letters is dedicated to making literary works from around the globe available in English through translation. It brings to the English-speaking world the work of leading poets, novelists, essayists, philosophers, and playwrights from Europe, Latin America, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East to stimulate international discourse and creative exchange.

English translation copyright 2020 by Mark Polizzotti. Originally published as Encre sympathique Editions GALLIMARD, Paris, 2019. All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustrations, in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press), without written permission from the publishers.

Yale University Press books may be purchased in quantity for educational, business, or promotional use. For information, please e-mail (U.K. office).

Set in Baskerville type by Tseng Information Systems, Inc.

Printed in the United States of America.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020935048

ISBN 978-0-300-25258-3 (hardcover: alk. paper)

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. This paper meets the requirements of ANSI / NISO Z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper).

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Whoever wants to remember himself must entrust himself to forgetfulness, to the risk that absolute forgetfulness is, and to the beautiful chance that memory then becomes.

Maurice Blanchot

Invisible Ink

There are blanks in this life, white spaces you can detect if you open the case file: a single sheet in a sky-blue folder that has faded with time. That ancient sky blue has itself turned almost white. And the words case file are written across the middle of the folder. In black ink.

This is my only remnant of the Hutte Detective Agency, the only trace of my passage in that old three-room apartment whose windows looked out on a courtyard. I was no more than twenty. Huttes office occupied the room in back, along with a cabinet in which he stored the archives. Why this file rather than another? No doubt because of the blanks. And besides, it wasnt in the cabinet, but sitting abandoned on Huttes desk. A case, as he called it, that hadnt yet been solvedwould it ever be?and the first one he talked about on the evening when hed hired me on a trial basis, to use his expression. A few months later, on another evening at the same hour, when I had given up this job and left the Hutte Agency for good, I had, unbeknownst to Hutte and after saying my good-byes, slid into my briefcase the fact sheet in its sky-blue folder that was lying on his desk. As a souvenir.

Yes, my first assignment from Hutte was related to that fact sheet. I was to ask the concierge of an apartment building in the 15th arrondissement whether shed heard from a certain Nolle Lefebvre, a person who posed a dual problem for Hutte: not only had she suddenly disappeared, but we werent certain of her true identity. After seeing the concierge, Hutte instructed, I was to go to a branch of the post office, with a card hed given me. On it was Nolle Lefebvres name, address, and photo, and it was used for retrieving mail at the General Delivery window. The aforesaid Nolle Lefebvre had left it behind. After that, I should go to a particular caf to ask if anyone had seen Nolle Lefebvre lately, sit at a table, and stay there for the rest of the afternoon, in case Nolle Lefebvre showed up. All this in the same neighborhood and on the same day.

The concierge at the apartment house took a long time to answer. I knocked more and more insistently on the glass door of her lodge. The door opened onto a drowsy face. At first, it seemed like the name Nolle Lefebvre meant nothing to her.

Have you seen her lately?

Finally, in a curt voice: No, sir... I havent seen her in over a month.

I didnt dare ask anything further. I wouldnt have had time, as she immediately slammed the door.

At the General Delivery window, the man scrutinized the card Id handed him.

But, sir, youre not Nolle Lefebvre.

Shes away from Paris, I told him. She asked me to pick up her mail.

At that, he got up and walked to a row of pigeonholes. He examined the few letters they contained. He came back toward me, shaking his head.

Nothing addressed to Nolle Lefebvre.

The only remaining step was to go to the caf Hutte had mentioned.

An early afternoon. No one in the small interior, except one man, behind the bar, face buried in a newspaper. He didnt see me come in and continued reading. I didnt know exactly how to formulate my question. Simply hand him the General Delivery card in Nolle Lefebvres name? I was embarrassed by the role Hutte was making me play, which clashed with my natural shyness. He raised his eyes.

You wouldnt have seen Nolle Lefebvre lately, would you?

I felt like I was speaking too fast, so fast that I mumbled.

Nolle? No.

He had answered so briefly that I was tempted to ask more questions about the woman. But I was afraid of rousing his suspicions. I sat at one of the tables on the small terrace that spilled out onto the sidewalk. He came to take my order. It was the opportunity to try and find out more. Innocuous phrases crowded into my head, which might have elicited concrete answers.

I think Ill just wait for her... You never know with Nolle... Do you think shes still living in the neighborhood?... Wouldnt you know, she said shed meet me here... Have you known her long?

But when he served my grenadine, I said nothing.

I took out the card Hutte had lent me. And now that were in the next century, Ive stopped writing for a moment on receive, without surcharge, correspondence addressed to bearer c/o General Delivery.

The photo is much larger than a simple photo booth picture. And too dark. You cant tell the color of her eyes. Or her hair: brown? light chestnut? On the caf terrace that afternoon, I stared as intently as I could at that face whose features I could barely distinguish, and I wasnt sure Id be able to recognize Nolle Lefebvre.

I remember it was early spring. The small terrace was in the sun and now and again the sky clouded over. An awning above the terrace protected me from rain showers. When a silhouette who might have been Nolle Lefebvre came down the sidewalk, I followed her with my gaze, waiting to see whether she entered the caf. Why hadnt Hutte given me more clues about how to approach her? Youll figure it out. Shadow her so I know if shes still hanging around the area. The expression shadow her had made me laugh. And Hutte had looked on in silence, brows knit, as if dismayed by my frivolity.