by Anna Gavalda
This Man and This Woman
THIS MAN AND this woman are in a foreign car. The car cost forty-nine thousand euros, but, strangely enough, what made the man hesitate at the dealership was mainly the cost of the registration and taxes.
The windscreen washer on the passenger side isn’t working properly, and it’s driving him crazy.
On Monday, he’ll ask his secretary to call Salomon. For just a second he thinks about his secretary’s breasts, which are very small. He’s never slept with his secretaries. It’s vulgar, and these days it could cost you some serious money. Anyway, he doesn’t cheat on his wife anymore, not since the day he and Antoine Say entertained themselves during a round of golf by calculating just how much each of them would have to pay in alimony.
They’re headed to their place in the country – a very pretty farmhouse, out near Angers. Lovely proportions.
They bought it for next to nothing. The renovations, on the other hand …
There’s panelling in every room, and a fireplace they’d had dismantled and then put back together, stone by stone, after they fell in love with it at an English antique shop. Every window’s draped in heavy fabric, held in place with tiebacks. There’s a totally modern kitchen, with damask dish towels and grey marble countertops … as many bathrooms as bedrooms … not much furniture, but all period pieces. On the walls are huge, gilded frames that overwhelm the nineteenth-century engravings they hold – mostly hunting scenes.
It’s all kind of nouveau riche, but fortunately they don’t realise it.
The man’s in his weekend gear, old tweed trousers and a sky-blue cashmere turtleneck (a gift from his wife for his fiftieth birthday). His shoes are John Lobbs – nothing in the world would persuade him to change to another make. Obviously, his socks are made of lisle yarn and come up to his knees. Obviously.
He drives rather fast, lost in thought. When he gets there, he’ll have to talk to the caretakers about the property, the housework, pruning the beeches, poaching … and he hates all that.
He hates it when he feels someone’s taking him for a ride, and that’s exactly what happens with those two, who start work Friday morning, dragging their feet, because they know the boss will be showing up that night, and they have to give the impression they’ve done something.
He ought to just get rid of them, but he really doesn’t have the time to deal with it at the moment.
He’s tired. His partners annoy the crap out of him, he almost never makes love to his wife anymore, his windscreen is riddled with mosquitoes, and the washer doesn’t work properly on the passenger side.
The woman’s name is Mathilde. She’s pretty, but in her face you can see all the things she’s given up on in life.
She’s always known when her husband was cheating on her, and she also knows that, if he doesn’t do it anymore, it’s the same old story – money.
She’s in the death seat. She’s always very melancholy during these endless weekend drives to the country and back.
She thinks about how she’s never been loved, she thinks about how she never had any children, she thinks about the caretaker’s little boy, Kevin, who’s going to be three in January. … Kevin, what a horrible name. If she’d had a son, she’d have named him Pierre, like her father. She remembers that awful scene when she mentioned adoption. … But she also thinks about the nice little green tailored suit she saw the other day in the window at Cerruti’s.
They’re listening to the radio station FIP. It’s good, FIP: classical music that you can be proud of being able to appreciate, music from around the world that makes you feel you’re open-minded, and short little news flashes that barely leave enough time for the misery to come rushing into the car.
They’ve just passed the motorway toll. They haven’t exchanged a single word, and they still have a long way to go.
The Opel Touch
JUST AS YOU see me now, I’m walking down the rue Eugène-Gonon.
The whole deal.
What, no kidding? You don’t know the rue Eugène-Gonon? Hold on, are you having me on?
The whole street’s lined with these classic little stone-clad houses, with their little gardens and wrought-iron canopies. The famous rue Eugène-Gonon in Melun.
Oh, come on! You know, Melun … the place with the prison, the brie – its brie deserves to be better known – and the train crashes.
Melun.
Sixth zone on the Paris-area train network.
I take the rue Eugène-Gonon several times a day. Four in all.
I go to classes, I come back from classes, I eat, I go to classes, I come back from classes.
At the end of the day, I’m wiped out.
I know it doesn’t seem that bad, but you try it. Take the rue Eugène-Gonon in Melun four times a day to go to law school so you can take exams for ten years in order to have a career you don’t even want. … Years and years of civil law, penal law, course packs, articles, paragraphs, legal texts, you name it. And mind you, all for a career that already bores me.
Be honest. Admit that I’ve got good reason to be wiped out at the end of the day.
So anyway, as I was saying, I’m on trip number three. I’ve had lunch and once again I’m setting off with a determined step towards the law school, yippee. I light a cigarette. All right, I say to myself, last one.
I start to snigger under my breath. If that’s not the thousandth last one this year …
I walk along past the little stone-clad houses. Villa Marie-Thérèse, My Felicity, Sweet Nest. It’s spring and I’m starting to get seriously depressed. Not the big guns: crocodile tears, medication, loss of appetite and all that crap. Nothing like that.
It’s just … this trek down the rue Eugène-Gonon four times a day. It wipes me out. Let those who are able to understand.
I don’t see what that has to do with the springtime. …
Yeah, well. In the spring, you’ve got little birds squabbling among the poplar buds. At night, tomcats making an infernal racket, drakes chasing after ducks on the Seine, plus all the lovers. Don’t tell me you don’t see them, the lovers, they’re everywhere. Never-ending kisses with lots of saliva, hard-ons under jeans, roaming hands and every bench occupied. It drives me crazy.
It drives me crazy. That’s all.
You’re jealous? You want some of it?
Me? Jealous? Want some of it? Nononono, come on … you’ve gotta be kidding.
(…)
Hmpphh, whatever. That’s all I need is to be jealous of these little jerks who grate on everybody’s nerves with their lust. Whatever.
(…)
Hell, yes, I’m jealous!!! What, like it’s not obvious? You need glasses? You don’t see that I’m so jealous it’s killing me, you don’t see that I need loooovvve.
You can’t see that? Yeah, well, I wonder what’s wrong with you. …
I’m like a character out of a Bretécher comic strip: a girl seated on a bench with a sign round her neck: ‘I want love’, and tears spouting like two fountains from either side of her eyes. I can see it now. What a sight.
Well, no, only now I’m not on rue Eugène-Gonon anymore (I have my dignity, after all), now I’m at Pramod.
Pramod’s not hard to picture – they’re everywhere. A department store, full of inexpensive clothes, mediocre quality … let’s say passable, otherwise I might get fired.
It’s my daily grind, my moola, my smokes, my espressos, my nights on the town, my silky lingerie, my Guerlain, my blusher splurges, my paperbacks, my flicks. Everything.
I hate working at Pramod, but without it? What would I do, wear stinking Gemey for ninety-five cents, rent movies at the Melun Video Club, and add the latest Jim Harrison to the suggestion book at the municipal library? No, thanks, I’d rather die. I’d rather work at Pramod.
And anyway, when I stop to think about it, I’d rather take on a bunch of pudgy women than the stench of deep-fat frying at McDonald’s.
The problem is my co-workers. I know what
you’re going to say: Girl, the problem is always the coworkers.
Okay, but do you know Marilyne Merchandise? (No kidding, she’s the manager of the Pramod in central Melun and her name’s Merchandise. … Oh, destiny.)
No, of course you don’t know her, and yet she’s the most, she’s the most … managerial of managers of all the Pramods in France. And vulgar too, really vulgar.
I can’t begin to tell you. It’s not so much her looks, although … her dark roots and the mobile on her hip kill me. … No, it’s more a problem of the heart.
The vulgarity of the heart, that’s an inexpressible thing.
Look there, how she speaks to her employees. It’s the pits. Her upper lip is curling, she must think we’re sooo, sooo stupid. For me, it’s worse, I’m the brain. The one who makes fewer spelling errors than she does, and that really pisses her off.
‘Your going to love our new summer fashions!’
Hold on, big girl … there’s a problem.
No one ever taught you how to tell the difference between a possessive pronoun and a contraction? In your bleached little head you say to yourself, ‘I’m or he’s or she’s going to love our new summer fashions.’ See, it’s not hard, you just put the noun and the verb together! Isn’t that something!?
My, oh my, how she looks at me. Then she goes and redoes her sign:
‘You will love our new summer fashions!’ I gloat.
When she talks to me her lip stays in place, but it’s killing her.
Note that aside from the energy spent managing my manager, I do all right.
I don’t care what customer you give me, I’ll dress her head to toe. Accessories included. Why? Because I look at her. Before I give her any advice, I look at her. I like looking at people. Especially women.
Even the ugliest ones, there’s always something. At least the desire to be pretty.
‘Marianne, I can’t believe it, the summer bodysuits are still in the storeroom. You’d better go. …’ You have to tell them everything, it’s unbelievable. …
I’m going, I’m going. All the same.
I want love.
Saturday night, zee Saturday night fever.
The Milton is Melun’s cowboy saloon; I’m with my girlfriends.
I’m glad they’re here. They’re pretty, they laugh a lot, and they know how to handle themselves.
I hear the screech of GTIs in the car park, the putt-ut-uh putt-ut-uh of undersized Harleys, and the click of Zippo lighters. Someone hands us cocktails on the house, but they’re too sweet – they must have put in a ton of grenadine to keep down the costs on the good stuff. Plus, everyone knows, girls like grenadine. … But what the hell am I doing here? I’m a bundle of nerves. My eyes are stinging. Lucky me, I wear contacts, so with the smoke, go figure.
‘Hi, Marianne, how are you?’ asks a girl I knew in high school.
‘Hi!’ … leaning forward for the four kisses … ‘All right. Good to see you, it’s been a while. … Where’ve you been?’
‘You didn’t hear? I was in the States. Get this, you’ll never believe it, it was a hell of a deal. L.A., a mansion, you can’t imagine. Swimming pool, Jacuzzi, a stunning view of the ocean. And get this, the best part, it was with hyper-cool people, not the usual uptight Americans you see. God, no, it was too much.’
She shakes her California highlights to show her immense nostalgia.
‘You didn’t run into George Clooney?’
‘What … why do you ask?’
‘No, no, never mind. I thought, to top it all off, you’d have met George Clooney, that’s all.’
‘You’ve got a problem you know,’ she finishes, going off to romanticise her little au pair stint for the benefit of other, less candid souls.
Hey, look who’s there … it’s Buffalo Bill.
A skinny kid with a prominent Adam’s apple and a little, meticulously maintained goatee – everything I go for – comes up to my breasts and tries to brush up against them.
The guy: ‘Don’t we know each other from somewhere?’
My breasts: ‘…’
The guy: ‘Yes, of course! I remember now, weren’t you at the Garage on Halloween?’
My breasts: ‘…’
The guy, not giving up: ‘Are you French?’ And, in English, ‘Do you understand me?’
My breasts: ‘…’
Eventually, Buffalo raises his head. Oh, look, what do you know? … I have a face.
He scratches his goatee in defeat (scritch scritch scritch) and seems plunged in deep thought.
‘From where are you from?’
Wooowww, Buffalo! Vous parlez cowboy!
‘From Melun, 4 Place de la Gare, and I might as well tell you right now, I haven’t got a walkie-talkie stashed in my bra.’
Scritch scritch …
I have to go. I can’t see a thing anymore. Fuck these contacts.
Plus, you’re crude, girl.
I’m in front of the Milton, I’m cold, I’m crying like a baby, I wish I were anywhere but here, I wonder how the hell I’m going to get home. I look at the stars, and there aren’t even any. So I cry harder.
In cases like this, when the situation is desperate, the smartest thing I can do … is call my sister.
Dring driiiinng driiinng …
‘Hello …’ (husky voice)
‘Hey, it’s Marianne.’
‘What time is it? Where are you?’ (irritated voice)
‘I’m at the Milton, can you come and get me?’
‘What happened? What’s the matter?’ (worried voice)
I repeat:
‘Can you come and get me?’
Headlights flash at the far end of the car park.
‘Come on, hon, get in,’ says my sister.
‘What are you doing in that old-lady nightgown?!!’
‘I came as fast as I could, I’ll have you know.’
‘You came to the Milton in a see-through granny nightie!’ I say, laughing my head off.
‘First, I’m not getting out of the car like this, second, it’s not see-through, it’s lacework, didn’t they teach you that at Pramod?’
‘What if you run out of petrol? Not to mention, some of your old admirers are here. …’
‘No way … where?’ (interested)
‘Look, is that “Teflon Pete” by any chance?’
‘Move over a little. … Oh, yeah! You’re right. … God, he’s ugly, he’s even uglier than before. What’s he driving these days?’
‘An Opel.’
‘Oh! I see, “The Opel Touch”, it’s on the rear window.’
She looks at me, and we laugh like maniacs. We’re together and we laugh:
1) at the good old days
2) at ‘Teflon Pete’ (because whatever else he didn’t want to get attached)
3) at his customised Opel
4) at his fleece-covered steering wheel
5) at the Perfecto motorcycle jacket that he only wears at weekends, and at the impeccable crease in his 501 jeans that his mum achieves by bearing down really hard on the iron.
I feel better.
My sister, with her big yuppie car, leaves the Milton car park in a screech of tyres. Heads turn. She says, ‘Jojo’s going to have a fit, that ruins them. …’
She laughs.
I take out my contacts and tilt the seat back.
We go in on tiptoe because Jojo and the kids are sleeping.
My sister pours me a gin and tonic, without the Schweppes, and says:
‘So what’s up?’
So I tell her. But without getting my hopes up because my sister’s not much of a psychologist.
I tell her that my heart is like a big empty sack. The sack’s sturdy, it could hold a whole souk, and yet, there’s nothing inside.
*
I say a sack, but I’m not talking about those pathetic little bags they have at the supermarket that always split open. My sack … at least the way I picture it … it looks more like one of those big square white
-and-blue-striped contraptions that the big black mamas carry on top of their heads in Paris in the Barbès district.
‘Oh well … we’re in deep now,’ my sister says as she pours us each another glass.
Amber
I’VE FUCKED THOUSANDS of girls and most of them, I don’t even remember their faces.
I’m not saying that to be a smart-arse. The point where I’m at, with all the cash I’m making and all the arse-lickers I’ve got hanging around, you really think I need to run off at the mouth just for the hell of it?
I’m saying it because it’s true. I’m thirty-eight years old and I’ve forgotten just about everything that’s happened in my life. It’s true of the girls and it’s true of everything else.
I happened to come across an old magazine the other day, the kind fit to wipe your arse with, and I saw a picture of me with some bimbo on my arm.
So I read the caption and I learn that the girl in question is named Laetitia or Sonia or whatever, and I look at the picture again as if that’s going to help, like I’ll be able to say: ‘Oh, yeah, of course, Sonia, the little brunette from the Villa Barclay, the one with all the piercings and the vanilla-scented perfume. …’
But no. I can’t remember any of it.
In my head I keep repeating ‘Sonia’ like an idiot, and I put down the magazine to look for a cigarette.
I’m thirty-eight years old and I’m well aware that my life is going up in fucking smoke. The ceiling is flaking off oh-so-gently. One scratch of the fingernail and entire weeks are gone. Seriously, the other day I heard someone talking about the Gulf War. I turned around and said:
‘When was that, the Gulf War?’
‘In ’ninety-one,’ they answered, like I needed the Britannica for the details. … But the truth is, fuck it, that was the first time I’d heard anybody mention it.
The whole Gulf War, gone.
Never saw it. Never heard about it. A whole year that’s now useless to me.
In 1991, I wasn’t there.
In 1991, I was probably busy trying to find my veins and didn’t notice there was a war. What the fuck, it doesn’t matter. I’m talking about the Gulf War because it’s a good example.
I forget just about everything.
Sorry, Sonia, but it’s true. I don’t remember you.
