âmemorandum of understandingâ could this have been? My father had an office in a large, ochre-colored building at 1 Rue Lord-Byron, where he headed the Société Africaine dâEntreprise, along with a secretary named Lucienne Wattier, a former model whom he addressed with the familiar
tu.
This is one of my first memories of the Paris streets: walking up Rue Balzac, then turning right onto Rue Lord-Byron. One could also reach this office by entering the Normandie cinema on the Champs-Elysées side and following a tangle of hallways.
On the mantelpiece of my fatherâs room were several volumes of âmaritime law,â which he was studying. Something to do with a cigar-shaped oil tanker he wanted to have built. My fatherâs Corsican lawyers: Maître Mariani, whom we would visit at home, and Maître Vizzavona. Sunday walks with my father and anItalian engineer, who held a patent for âpressure ovens.â My father became close friends with a certain M. Held, âwater diviner,â who always wore a pocket watch on a chain. One evening, on the stairs, my father said something that I didnât fully grasp at the timeâone of the rare instances when he opened up to me: âOne should never neglect the little details ⦠Unfortunately, Iâve always neglected the little details.â
In those years, 1957 and 1958, another of his cronies appeared, a certain Jacques Chatillon. I saw him again twenty years later, by which point he was calling himself James B. Chatillon. At the start of the Occupation he had married the granddaughter of a merchant whose secretary he was, and during that time he had been a horse trader in Neuilly. He sent me a letter in which he talked about my father: âDonât be upset that he died alone. Your father didnât mind being alone. He had great imaginationâthough to be honest, entirely devoted to his businessâthat he nourished carefully and that nourished his mind. He was never alone, for he wasalways âconspiringâ with some scheme or other, and thatâs what gave him that strange air that many found so unnerving. He was curious about everything, even things he didnât agree with. He managed to give an impression of calm, but he could easily turn violent. When something annoyed him, his eyes would flash. He opened them wide, instead of keeping them hidden under his heavy eyelids. Above all, he was a dilettante. What always shocked his contacts the most was his reluctance to speak, to make himself clear. He would mumble a few allusions ⦠punctuated with one or two hand gestures and a âthere you have itâ ⦠then clear his throat once or twice to top it off. Along with his reluctance to speak went his reluctance to set things down on paper, which he explained away as being due to his illegible handwriting.â
James B. Chatillon wanted me to write the biography of a friend of his, a Corsican mobster named Jean Sartore, who had just died and whoâd associated with the Rue Lauriston gangand its boss, Lafont, during the Occupation. âI sincerely regret that you couldnât write Jean Sartoreâs memoirs, but youâre wrong to think he was an old friend of Lafontâs. He used Lafont as a screen for his gold and currency smuggling, since the Germans were after him even more than the French. That said, he knew plenty about the Lauriston bunch.â
In 1969, after my second novel came out, he had phoned me and left a name and number where I could reach him. It was in care of a M. de Varga, who was later implicated in Jean de Broglieâs murder. I remember one Sunday when we walked around Mont Valérien, my father and I and this Chatillon, a stocky, brown-haired fellow, with lively black eyes under pale lids. He drove us there in an old Bentley with collapsed leather seatsâthe only asset he had left. After a while, he had to part with that, too, and would come to the
tu.
This is one of my first memories of the Paris streets: walking up Rue Balzac, then turning right onto Rue Lord-Byron. One could also reach this office by entering the Normandie cinema on the Champs-Elysées side and following a tangle of hallways.
On the mantelpiece of my fatherâs room were several volumes of âmaritime law,â which he was studying. Something to do with a cigar-shaped oil tanker he wanted to have built. My fatherâs Corsican lawyers: Maître Mariani, whom we would visit at home, and Maître Vizzavona. Sunday walks with my father and anItalian engineer, who held a patent for âpressure ovens.â My father became close friends with a certain M. Held, âwater diviner,â who always wore a pocket watch on a chain. One evening, on the stairs, my father said something that I didnât fully grasp at the timeâone of the rare instances when he opened up to me: âOne should never neglect the little details ⦠Unfortunately, Iâve always neglected the little details.â
In those years, 1957 and 1958, another of his cronies appeared, a certain Jacques Chatillon. I saw him again twenty years later, by which point he was calling himself James B. Chatillon. At the start of the Occupation he had married the granddaughter of a merchant whose secretary he was, and during that time he had been a horse trader in Neuilly. He sent me a letter in which he talked about my father: âDonât be upset that he died alone. Your father didnât mind being alone. He had great imaginationâthough to be honest, entirely devoted to his businessâthat he nourished carefully and that nourished his mind. He was never alone, for he wasalways âconspiringâ with some scheme or other, and thatâs what gave him that strange air that many found so unnerving. He was curious about everything, even things he didnât agree with. He managed to give an impression of calm, but he could easily turn violent. When something annoyed him, his eyes would flash. He opened them wide, instead of keeping them hidden under his heavy eyelids. Above all, he was a dilettante. What always shocked his contacts the most was his reluctance to speak, to make himself clear. He would mumble a few allusions ⦠punctuated with one or two hand gestures and a âthere you have itâ ⦠then clear his throat once or twice to top it off. Along with his reluctance to speak went his reluctance to set things down on paper, which he explained away as being due to his illegible handwriting.â
James B. Chatillon wanted me to write the biography of a friend of his, a Corsican mobster named Jean Sartore, who had just died and whoâd associated with the Rue Lauriston gangand its boss, Lafont, during the Occupation. âI sincerely regret that you couldnât write Jean Sartoreâs memoirs, but youâre wrong to think he was an old friend of Lafontâs. He used Lafont as a screen for his gold and currency smuggling, since the Germans were after him even more than the French. That said, he knew plenty about the Lauriston bunch.â
In 1969, after my second novel came out, he had phoned me and left a name and number where I could reach him. It was in care of a M. de Varga, who was later implicated in Jean de Broglieâs murder. I remember one Sunday when we walked around Mont Valérien, my father and I and this Chatillon, a stocky, brown-haired fellow, with lively black eyes under pale lids. He drove us there in an old Bentley with collapsed leather seatsâthe only asset he had left. After a while, he had to part with that, too, and would come to the