After the Circus

Published in 1992, this brief, polished, ultimately poignant story is classic Modiano: the superbly lean, undemonstrative style withholds as much as it tells; the characters leave much unsaid; the atmosphere is moody, even noir; a troubling ambiguity leads to creeping unease; and the present and past are enfolded sentence by sentence, just as the past is never really shaken out of our lives, even if it sometimes gets submerged. Just 18, rooming with the lascivious friend of his absent father, and preparing to go to Rome for work, the callow protagonist meets the somewhat older Gisèle when they are both interrogated by the police for unclear reasons. He ends up bringing Gisèle to his apartment, where she stashes a suitcase, then meets some shady friends of hers, one of whom agrees to lend them his car if they do him a small favor. The favor starts looking questionable, and as Gisèle's possibly unsavory past starts unwinding (we can't be sure the details are true), our hero wonders what he's gotten himself into—yet commits to Gisèle wholeheartedly, ever worried that she will vanish.