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a magnet: Annie Astrand. But it was barely legible amid these words jumbled together without double-spacing. Annie Astrand. A faraway voice picked up late at night on the radio and you persuade yourself that she is speaking to you in order to give you a message. Someone had told him one day that you forget the voices of those whom you have been close to in the past very quickly. Yet if he were to hear the voice of Annie Astrand today, in the street, he was certain he would recognise it.
    When he was next in Ottolini’s company, he would be very careful not to draw attention to this name: Annie Astrand, but he was not sure whether he would see him again. If need be, he would write a very brief note to give him the sparse information about Guy Torstel. A man who looked after a bookshop in the Galerie de Beaujolais, adjoining the Palais-Royal gardens. Yes, he had met him only once, almost fifty years ago, one Sunday evening in autumn at Le Tremblay. He could even carry kindness a step further by providing him with a few additional details about the two others, Bugnand and Perrin de Lara. Friends of his mother, as Guy Torstel must have been. In the year when he read the poems in
Arbre, mon ami
and when he felt envious of that girl of his own age who was the author, Bugnand and Perrin de Lara—and perhaps Torstel too—always carried a book in their pocket, like a missal, a book to which they appeared to attach great importance. He remembered its title:
Fabrizio Lupo
. One day, Perrin de Lara had said to him in a solemn voice: “When you’re grown up, you too will read
Fabrizio Lupo
”, one of those remarks that will continue to sound mysterious until the end of one’s life, because of its resonance. Later on, he had searched for this book, but unfortunately he had never found a copy of it and he had never read
Fabrizio Lupo
. He would not need to bring up these minute recollections. The likeliest outcome was that he would eventually be rid of Gilles Ottolini. Telephone calls that he would not answer. Letters, some of which would be registered. Most annoying of all would be that Ottolini would station himself outside the building and, since he did not know the code, he would wait for someone to push open the porte cochère and slip in behind him. He would come and ring at his door. He would also have to disconnect this bell. Every time he left his home, he would run into Gilles Ottolini who would accost him and follow him in the street. And he would have no alternative but to take refuge in the nearest police station. But the cops would not take his explanations seriously.
    It was almost one o’clock in the morning, and he reckoned that at that time of day, in the silence and solitude, one begins to worry unduly. He gradually calmed down, and even burst out into a fit of mad laughter at the thought of Ottolini’s face, one of those faces that are so narrow that even when they are standing opposite you, you would think they were in profile.
    The typed pages were scattered over his desk. He picked up a pencil that had red lead at one end and blue lead at the other, which he used to correct his manuscripts. He scored through the pages with the blue pencil as he went along and he drew a circle in red round the name: ANNIE ASTRAND .
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    AT ABOUT TWO O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING, THE TELEPHONE rang. He had fallen asleep on the sofa.
    â€œHello . . . Monsieur Daragane? This is Chantal Grippay . . .”
    He hesitated for a moment. He had just had a dream in which Annie Astrand’s face had appeared to him, and that had not happened to him for more than thirty or so years.
    â€œYou’ve read the photocopies?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œForgive me for phoning so late . . . but I was so eager for you to give me your opinion . . . Can you hear me?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œWe must see one another before Gilles returns. May I call at your