Suspended Sentences Read Online Free PDF Page A

had noticed the two notebooks, the large register, the open suitcases and piles of photographs. She asked if I was working for Francis.
    “I’m trying to catalogue all the pictures he’s ever taken.”
    “Ah, I see … You’re right, that’s a good idea.”
    There was an awkward pause. She broke the silence.
    “I don’t suppose you know where he is?”
    She’d said it in a tone that was at once timid and rushed.
    “No … He comes here less and less often …”
    She took a cigarette case from her bag, opened it, then shut it again. She looked me in the eye.
    “Couldn’t you speak to him on my behalf, ask him to see me one last time?”
    She laughed briefly.
    “Have you known him long?”
    “Six months.”
    I wanted to know more. Had she shared a life with Jansen?
    She cast curious glances around her, as if she hadn’t been here in an eternity and wanted to see what had changed. She must have been around twenty-five. She had brown hair and very pale eyes, perhaps light green or gray.
    “He’s a strange guy,” she said. “He can be very sweet and then, from one day to the next, he disappears … Has he done that with you, too?”
    I answered that I often didn’t know where he was.
    “For the last two weeks he’s refused to see me or even take my calls.”
    “I don’t think he’s trying to be cruel,” I said.
    “No … No … I know … It happens now and again. He has these absences … He goes into hiding … And then he resurfaces.”
    She took a cigarette from her case and offered it to me. I didn’t want to tell her that I didn’t smoke. She took one as well. Then she lit mine with a lighter. I took a puff and coughed.
    “How do you explain that?” she suddenly asked.
    “What?”
    “That strange need of his to go into hiding?”
    I hesitated a moment, then said, “Maybe it’s because of events in his past …”
    My gaze had fallen on the picture of Colette Laurent hanging on the wall. She was about twenty-five as well.
    “I must be keeping you from your work …”
    She was about to get up and leave. She would no doubt hold out her hand and give me another futile message for Jansen. I said:
    “No, no … Stay a bit longer … You never know, he could be back any minute now.”
    “And you think he’ll like finding me here?”
    She gave me a smile. For the first time since she’d entered the studio, she was paying real attention to me. Until that moment, I’d been in Jansen’s shadow.
    “Will you take responsibility for that?”
    “I’ll take full responsibility,” I told her.
    “In that case, he might be in for a nasty surprise.”
    “No, not at all. I’m sure he’ll be very glad to see you. He has a tendency to withdraw into himself.”
    I suddenly became talkative, to hide my shyness and embarrassment. She was staring at me with those pale eyes. I added:
    “If someone doesn’t twist his arm, he could end up going into hiding for good.”
    I closed the notebooks and register that were lying on the floor and stored the piles of photos in one of the suitcases.
    “How did you meet him?” I asked her.
    “Oh … By chance … Not far from here, in a café …”
    Was it the same café on Denfert-Rochereau where my girlfriend and I had first met him?
    She knit her eyebrows, which were brown and contrasted with her pale eyes.
    “When I learned what he did for a living, I asked him to take some pictures of me. I needed them for work. He brought me here … And he took some beautiful shots of me.”
    I hadn’t come across them yet. The most recent ones I’d catalogued were from 1954. Maybe he hadn’t kept anything after that year.
    “So if I’ve got this straight, he hired you to be his secretary?”
    She was still staring at me with her transparent eyes.
    “Not at all,” I said. “He doesn’t need a secretary anymore. These days he barely has a business to run.”
    The evening before, he’d invited me to dinner at a small restaurant near the studio. He was carrying