After the Circus Read Online Free PDF Page B

could make out the Champ-de-Mars, like a prairie gently sloping toward the Seine. She continued straight ahead. The dark mass and surrounding wall of a barracks. At the end of the street, I saw the viaduct of the elevated metro. We stopped in front of a building on Rue Desaix.
    â€œWill you wait for me? I won’t be long.”
    She had left the key on the dashboard. She disappeared into the building. I wondered whether she’d ever return. After a while, I got out of the car and planted myself in front of the entrance, a glass door with wrought iron. There might have been a rear exit. She would vanish, leaving me with this useless automobile. I tried to talk sense to myself. Even if she did give me the slip, I had several reference points: the caféon Rue Washington where Jacques was a regular, Ansart’s apartment, and especially the suitcases. Why was I so afraid she might disappear? I had met her only twenty-four hours ago and knew almost nothing about her. Even her name I’d learned through others. She couldn’t keep still; she flitted from place to place as if running from some danger. I didn’t think I could hold on to her.
    I was pacing back and forth on the sidewalk. Behind me, I heard the entrance door open and close. She walked up quickly. She was no longer wearing her raincoat, which she had folded over her arm, but a full-length fur.
    â€œWere you going to leave?” she asked. “Had you gotten tired of waiting?”
    She gave me a worried smile.
    â€œNot at all. I thought you’d skipped out on
me.”
    She shrugged.
    â€œThat’s ridiculous … Whatever made you think that?”
    We walked to the car. I had taken her raincoat and was carrying it over my shoulder.
    â€œThat’s a nice coat,” I said.
    She seemed embarrassed.
    â€œOh, yes … It’s a lady I know … She lives here … a seamstress … I’d given her the coat so she could resew the hem.”
    â€œDid you tell her you’d be coming over so late?”
    â€œIt was no bother … She works at night …”
    She was hiding the truth from me and I was tempted to ask more specific questions, but I held back. She would eventually get used to me. Little by little she’d learn to trust me and tell me everything.
    We were back in the car. I laid her raincoat on the back seat. She pulled away from the curb, gently this time.
    â€œMy hotel is right near here …”
    Why had she chosen a hotel in this neighborhood? It wasn’t just chance. Something must have kept her around here, like an anchor point. Perhaps the presence of that mysterious seamstress?
    We took one of the streets that led from Avenuede Suffren toward Grenelle, on the border of the 7th and 15th arrondissements. We stopped in front of a hotel, its façade bathing in the glow from the lit sign of a garage at a bend in the road. She rang at the door, and the night porter came to open for us. We followed him to the reception desk. She asked for the key to her room. He shot me a suspicious glance.
    â€œCan you fill out a registration? I’ll need to see some ID.”
    I didn’t have my papers on me. In any case, I was still a minor.
    He had put the key on the reception desk. She picked it up nervously.
    â€œThis is my brother …”
    The other hesitated for a moment.
    â€œWell, you’ll have to show me some proof. I need to see his papers.”
    â€œI forgot to bring them,” I said.
    â€œIn that case, I can’t let you go up with the young lady.”
    â€œWhy not? He’s my brother …”
    Staring at the two of us in silence, he remindedme of the detective from the day before. The light accentuated his square jaw and balding head. A telephone sat on the counter. At any moment, I was expecting him to pick up the receiver and alert the nearest police station to our presence.
    We made an odd couple and we must have looked rather suspicious, she