Out of the Dark Read Online Free PDF Page A

But I couldn't spend the whole day outside, surrounded by these people with their leather briefcases and satchels, headed for the lycées, the Sorbonne, the École des Mines. I lay down on the bed. The room was too small for anything else: there were no chairs.
    The church steeple was framed by the window, along with the branches of a chestnut tree. I wished that I could see them covered with leaves, but it would be another month before spring came. I don't remember if I ever thought about the future in those days. I imagine I lived in the present, making vague plans to run away, as I do today, and hoping to see them soon, him and Jacqueline in the Café Dante.

THEY INTRODUCED ME to Cartaud later on, at around one in the morning. I had waited for them in vain at the Café Dante that evening, and I didn't have the nerve to stop by their hotel. I had eaten in one of the Chinese restaurants on the Rue du Sommerard. The idea that I might never see Jacqueline again killed my appetite. I tried to reassure myself: they wouldn't move out of the hotel just like that, and even if they did, they would leave their new address for me with the concierge. But what particular reason would they have for leaving me their address? No matter; I would spend my Saturdays and Sundays hanging around the casinos of Dieppe and Forges-les-Eaux until I found them.
    I spent a long time in the English bookstore on the quai, near Saint-Julien-le-Pauvre. I bought a book there: A High Wind in Jamaica , which I had read in French when I was about fifteen, as Un cyclone à la Jamaïque . I walked aimlessly for a while, finally ending up in another bookstore, also open very late, on the Rue Saint-Séverin. Then I came back to my room and tried to read.
    I went out again and found myself heading for the café where we had met that morning, on the Rue Cujas. My heart jumped: they were sitting in that same booth, near the window, along with a dark-haired man. Van Bever was on his right. Then I could only see Jacqueline, sitting across from them, alone on the bench, her arms folded. She was there behind the glass, in the yellow light, and I wish I could travel back in time. I would find myself on the sidewalk of the Rue Cujas just where I was before, but as I am today, and it would be simple for me to lead Jacqueline out of that fishbowl and into the open air.
    I felt sheepish approaching their table as if l were trying to surprise them. Seeing me, Van Bever made a gesture of greeting. Jacqueline smiled at me, showing no surprise at all. Van Bever introduced me to the other man:
    'Pierre Cartaud …'
    I shook his hand and sat down next to Jacqueline.
    'Were you in the neighborhood?' asked Van Bever in the polite tone of voice he would have used for a vague acquaintance.
    'Yes … Completely by chance …'
    I was very determined to stay where I was, in the booth. Jacqueline was avoiding my gaze. Was it Cartaud's presence that was making them so distant toward me? I must have interrupted their conversation.
    'Would you like a drink?' Cartaud asked me.
    He had the deep, resonant voice of someone who was practiced at speaking and influencing people.
    'A grenadine.'
    He was older than us, about thirty-five. Dark, with regular features. He was wearing a gray suit.
    Leaving the hotel, I had stuffed A High Wind in Jamaica into the pocket of my raincoat. I found it reassuring always to have with me a novel I liked. I set it on the table as I felt deep in my pocket for a pack of cigarettes, and Cartaud noticed it.
    'You read English?'
    I told him yes. Since Jacqueline and Van Bever were still silent, he finally said:
    'Have you known each other long?'
    'We met in the neighborhood,' said Jacqueline.
    'Oh yes … I see …'
    What exactly did he see? He lit a cigarette.
    'And do you go to the casinos with them?'
    'No.'
    Van Bever and Jacqueline were still keeping quiet. What could they find so troubling about my being here?
    'So you've never seen them play boule for three hours