Out of the Dark Read Free

the Hôtel de Lima. I had altered the birth date on my passport to make myself one year older and no longer a minor.
    The week before I moved into the Hôtel de Lima I had no place to sleep, so they had left me the key to their room while they were out of town at one of the casinos they often went to.
    They had fallen into this habit before we met, at the Enghien casino and two or three others in small resort towns in Normandy. Then they had settled on Dieppe, Forges-les-Eaux, and Bagnolles-de-l'Orne. They always left on Saturday and came back on Monday with the money they had won, which was never more than a thousand francs. Van Bever had come up with a martingale 'around the neutral five,' as he said, but it was only profitable if he limited himself to small bets.
    I never went with them to the casinos. I waited for them until Monday, never leaving the neighborhood. And then, after a while, Van Bever began going only to 'Forges' – as he called it – because it was closer than Bagnolles-de-I'Orne, while Jacqueline stayed in Paris.
    The smell of ether was always hanging in their room when I spent the night alone there. The blue bottle sat on the shelf above the sink. There were clothes in the closet: a man's jacket, a pair of trousers, a bra, and one of the gray turtleneck sweaters that Jacqueline wore.
    I slept badly those nights. I woke up not knowing where I was. It took me a long time to recognize the room. If someone had asked me about Van Bever and Jacqueline, I would have had trouble coming up with answers or justifying my presence here. Would they ever come back? I began to doubt it. The man behind the dark wooden counter at the entrance to the hotel was never concerned to see me heading upstairs to their room or keeping the key with me when I went out. He greeted me with a nod.
    On the last night, I had awoken about five o'clock and couldn't get back to sleep. I was probably in Jacqueline's bed, and the clock was ticking so loudly that I wanted to put it away in the closet or hide it under a pillow. But I was afraid of the silence. I had got up and left the hotel. I had walked along the quai to the gates of the Jardin des Plantes and then into the only café open that early, across from the Austerlitz train station.
    The week before, they had gone off to gamble at the Dieppe casino and returned very early in the morning. It would be the same today. One more hour, two more hours to wait … The commuters were emerging from the Gare d'Austerlitz in greater and greater numbers, drinking a cup of coffee at the bar, then heading for the entry to the métro. It was still dark. I walked along the edge of the Jardin des Plantes again, and then along the fence around the old Halle aux Vins.
    I spotted their silhouettes from far away. Van Bever's herringbone overcoat stood out in the darkness. They were sitting on a bench on the other side of the quai, facing the closed display cases of the sidewalk book dealers. They were just back from Dieppe. They had knocked on the door of the room, but no one had answered. And I had left not long before, keeping the key in my pocket.
    In the Hôtel de Lima, my window overlooked the Boulevard Saint-Germain and the upper end of the Rue des Bernardins. When I lay on the bed I could see the steeple of a church whose name I have forgotten, framed by the window. And the hours rang throughout the night, after the traffic noise had fallen off. Jacqueline and Van Bever often walked me back to my hotel. We had gone to dinner at a Chinese restaurant. We had gone to a movie.
    Those nights, nothing distinguished us from the students on the Boulevard Saint-Michel. Van Bever's slightly worn coat and Jacqueline's leather jacket blended in with the drab backdrop of the Latin Quarter. I wore an old raincoat of dirty beige and carried books under my arm. No, there was nothing to draw attention to us.
    On the registration form at the Hôtel de Lima I had put myself down as a 'university student,' but this