by Anna Gavalda
Everyone was happy, and I bought myself my first packet of fags. I swear, back then, I thought I was king. The king of jerks, maybe.
The owner says:
‘So? … Still in the army?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Good for you!’
‘Yeah …’
‘So come and see me some night after I close, so we can chat. … You know, I was in the Legion myself, and that was really somethin’ else. … They’d never have let us take a weekend off just like that, I can tell you.’
And he goes back to the counter to relive the war with his drunken cronies.
The Foreign Legion …
I’m tired. I’m fed up with this bag cutting into my shoulder and the street just keeps on going. When I get to my house, the gate is locked. Fuck, that does it. I could just about cry right there.
I’ve been on my feet since four a.m., I’ve just come halfway across the country in stinking carriages, and now it’s about time to cut me some slack, don’t you think?
The dogs are waiting for me. Between Bozo howling himself to death for joy and Micmac jumping ten feet in the air … it’s a party. Now that’s a welcome.
I throw my bag over the top and go over the wall like I used to back in my moped-riding days. The dogs pounce on me, and for the first time in weeks, I feel better. So there, there are still living creatures on this little planet who love me and are happy to see me. Come here, my sweet things. Oh, yes, you’re beautiful, you, oh, yes, you’re beautiful!
The house is dark.
I put my bag down on the doormat by my feet. I open it and start hunting for my keys, which are all the way at the bottom under kilos of dirty socks.
The dogs go in ahead of me and I go to turn on the hall light … no power.
Well, shiiiiiiit. Well, shit.
Just then I hear Marc, that fuckwit, saying:
‘Hey, show some manners in front of your guests.’
It’s still dark. I answer:
‘What is this shit?’
‘Aren’t you a delinquent second-class squaddie. Enough of the four-letter words. We’re not in the Hicksville barracks here, so watch your mouth or I won’t turn on the lights.’
He turns the lights on.
That’s all I need: All my friends and my whole family are there in the living room, holding on to their drinks and standing around under paper streamers, singing ‘Happy Birthday.’
My mother says:
‘Well, kiddo, put down your bag.’
And she hands me a drink.
No one’s ever done anything like this for me before. I can’t be looking all that great, standing there with a stupid expression on my face.
I go and shake everyone’s hand and kiss my grandmother and my aunts.
When I get to Marc, I mean to give him a slap round the ear, but he’s with a girl. He’s got his arm round her waist. And from the minute I see her, I already know I’m in love.
I give my brother a punch on the shoulder, and, jerking my chin at the girl, I ask:
‘That my present?’
‘Dream on, moron,’ he answers.
I’m still looking at her. It’s like there’s something playing the clown in my stomach. I feel sick, and she’s beautiful.
‘You don’t recognise her?’
‘No.’
‘Of course you do, it’s Marie, Rebecca’s friend . …’
‘???’
She says:
‘We went to summer camp together. At Glénans, don’t you remember? …’
‘Nope, sorry.’ I shake my head and ditch them. I go and get myself something to drink.
Damn right, I remember her. I still have nightmares about that sailing course. My brother, always first. He was the counsellors’ pet: tanned, muscular, laid-back. He read an instruction manual at night, and he understood everything as soon as he got on board. I can still see him going out on the trapeze and sending up a spray of water, yelling over the waves. He never capsized once.
All those girls with their little breasts and their vacant eyes staring like fish on a platter, thinking of nothing but the party on the last night.
All those girls who’d written their addresses on his arm with a felt-tip pen while he was pretending to sleep on the bus. And the ones who cried in front of their parents when they saw him heading toward our family Renault.
And me … getting seasick.
Yes, I remember Marie, all right. One night, she was telling some of the other kids that she’d surprised a couple of lovers kissing on the beach, and that she’d heard the sound of the girl’s pants snapping.
‘What did it sound like?’ I asked, just to put her on the spot.
She looked me straight in the eye. She pinched her underwear through the cloth of her dress, pulled it back, and let it go.
Snap.
‘Like that,’ she answered, still looking at me.
I was eleven.
Marie.
Damn right, I remember. Snap.
The later it got, the less I felt like talking about the army. The less I looked at Marie, the more I wanted to touch her.
I drank too much. My mother shot me a dirty look.
I went out in the garden with a couple of friends from technical school. We were talking about videos we wanted to rent and cars we’d never be able to buy. Michael had put a souped-up sound system in his Peugeot.
Almost two thousand francs to listen to techno. …
I sat down on the iron bench – the one my mother asks me to repaint every year. She says it reminds her of the Tuileries garden in Paris.
I smoked a cigarette, looking at the stars. I don’t know many by name. So whenever I have a chance, I look for them. I know four.
Another lesson from Glénans that didn’t quite take.
I saw her coming while she was still a way off. She smiled at me. I looked at her teeth and the shape of her earrings.
She sat down next to me and said:
‘May I?’
I didn’t answer because my stomach was hurting again.
‘So, is it true you don’t remember me?’
‘No, it’s not.’
‘You do remember?’
‘Yes.’
‘What do you remember?’
‘I remember that you were ten, that you were four foot three, that you weighed twenty-six kilos and that you’d had mumps the year before. I remember the medical. I remember that you lived at Choisy-le-Roi and at the time it would have cost me forty-two francs to go and see you by train. I remember that your mother’s name was Catherine and your father’s name was Jacques. I remember that you had a water turtle named Candy, and your best friend had a guinea pig named Anthony. I remember that you had a green bathing suit with white stars, and your mother had even made you a bathrobe with your name embroidered on it. I remember that you cried one morning because there were no letters for you. I remember that you stuck some sequins on your cheeks the night of the party, and you and Rebecca put on a show to the music from Grease. …’
‘Oh my God – it’s incredible that you remember those things!!’
She’s even more beautiful when she laughs. She leans back and rubs her hands on her arms to warm them up.
‘Here,’ I say, pulling off my sweater.
‘Thanks … but what about you? Won’t you be cold?!’
‘Don’t worry about me – go ahead.’
She looks at me differently. Any girl would have understood what she understood just then.
‘What else do you remember?’
‘I remember that one night in front of the Optimists’ shed you told me you thought my brother was a show-off. …’
‘Yes, that’s right! I said that, and you told me it wasn’t true.’
‘Because it’s not. Marc does a million things like it’s nothing, but he doesn’t show off. He just does them, that’s all.’
‘You always stuck up for your brother.’
‘Yeah, he’s my brother. Bes
ides, you don’t think he’s got all that many faults right now, either, do you?’
She got up. She asked if she could keep my sweater.
I smiled at her. Despite the bog of muck and misery I was flailing around in, I was happy as ever.
My mother came up while I was still smiling like a big, fat fool. She said she was going to sleep at my grandmother’s. The girls should sleep on the first floor and the boys on the second. …
‘All right, Mum, we’re not kids anymore, it’s okay. …’
‘And make sure the dogs are in before you lock up, and …’
‘All right, Mum. …’
‘I have a right to worry, you all drink like fish and you, you must be completely drunk. …’
‘You don’t say drunk in this case, Mum, you say “wasted”. See, I’m wasted. …’
She backed off, shrugging her shoulders.
‘At least put something on – you’ll catch your death.’
I smoked three more cigarettes, to give myself time to think, and then I went to find Marc.
‘Hey …’
‘What?’
‘It’s about Marie. …’
‘What?’
‘Let me have her.’
‘No.’
‘I’m going to smash your face.’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because you’ve had too much to drink tonight, and because I need to have my little angel face for work on Monday.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I’m giving a talk on the incidence of fluids in an established area.’
‘Oh?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Sorry.’
‘Don’t mention it.’
‘And about Marie?’
‘Marie? She’s mine.’
‘Don’t be so sure.’
‘What do you know about it?’
‘Oh! It … Call it an artillery soldier’s sixth sense.’
‘My arse it is.’
‘Listen, I’m up against it here – there’s nothing I can do. That’s just the way it is. I know, I’m an idiot. So let’s find a solution at least for tonight, okay?’
‘Let me think. …’
‘Hurry up. Later I’ll be too far gone.’
‘Foosball.’
‘What?’
‘We’ll play foosball for her.’
‘That’s not very chivalrous.’
‘It’ll be just between us, mister gentleman-wipe-my-arse who tries to steal other guys’ girls.’
‘Okay. When?’
‘Now. In the basement.’
‘Now??!’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘I’ll be right there. I’m going to make myself a mug of coffee.’
‘Make me one, too, please.’
‘No problem. I’ll even piss in it.’
‘Military moron.’
‘Go and warm up. Go and say good-bye to her.’
‘Die.’
‘It’s no big deal, go ahead. I’ll console her.’
‘Count on it.’
We drank our burning-hot coffees over the sink. Marc went downstairs first. Meanwhile, I stuck both my hands in a sack of flour. I thought about my mum making us breaded chicken.
Only now I had to piss. Wasn’t that brilliant. Holding on to it with two chicken cordon bleus … it’s not the most practical thing. …
Before I went down, I looked around for Marie. I needed to buck up my resolve, because if I’m a pinball-playing fiend, foosball’s more my brother’s thing.
I played like shit. The flour was supposed to keep me from sweating, but instead it just turned the tips of my fingers into little white meatballs.
Plus, Marie and the others came down when we were 6 all, and from then on, I lost it. I could feel her moving behind me, and my hands slipped on the handles. I smelled her perfume and forgot my attackers. I heard the sound of her voice, and I got slammed, goal after goal.
When my brother had moved the marker to 10 on his side, finally I could wipe my hands on my thighs. My jeans were all white.
Marc, the bastard, looked at me like he was really sorry.
Happy birthday, I thought.
The girls said they wanted to go to bed and asked to be shown to their room. I said I was going to sleep on the couch in the living room so I could finish off the dregs of the bottle in peace, without anyone bothering me.
Marie looked at me. I thought that if only she were still four foot three inches tall and twenty-six kilos right then, I could’ve tucked her inside my shirt and taken her with me everywhere.
And then the house got quiet. The lights went out, one after another, and I didn’t hear anything except a few chuckles here and there.
I supposed Marc and his friends were acting like imbeciles, scratching at the girls’ door.
I whistled for the dogs and locked the front door.
I couldn’t fall asleep. Of course.
I smoked a cigarette in the dark. The only thing visible in the room was the little red point, moving a little from time to time. And then I heard a noise – like paper rustling. At first, I thought it was one of the dogs getting into trouble. I called:
‘Bozo? … Micmac? …’
No response, and the noise was getting louder – now also with a scritch, scritch, like Sellotape being pulled off.
I sat up and reached out to switch on the light.
I’m dreaming. Marie is standing in the middle of the room, naked, in the process of covering her body with pieces of wrapping paper. She has blue paper on her left breast, silver on the right, and ribbon twisted around her arms. There’s some heavy paper that my grandmother had used to wrap the motorcycle helmet she gave me – she’s got that wrapped around her like some kind of loincloth.
She’s walking around half naked in the middle of all the thrown-away wrappers, among the full ashtrays and the dirty glasses.
‘What are you doing?’
‘It’s not obvious?’
‘Well, no … not really. …’
‘Didn’t you say earlier, when you first got here, you wanted a present?’
She kept smiling and tied some red ribbon around her waist.
I got up right away.
‘Hey, don’t get too wrapped up,’ I said.
Even as I said it, I wondered if ‘don’t get too wrapped up’ meant: don’t cover your skin like that – leave it for me, I beg you.
Or if ‘don’t get too wrapped up’ meant: don’t invest too much too fast, you know … not only do I still get seasick, but on top of that, I have to go back to Nancy tomorrow, to the base, so, you see …
Lead Story
I’D BE BETTER off just going to bed, but I can’t.
My hands are shaking.
Maybe I should write some sort of report.
I’m used to it. I write one every Friday afternoon for my boss, Guillemin.
This time I’ll do it for myself.
I tell myself: ‘If you retell the whole thing just the way it happened, if you really apply yourself, then afterwards when you read it back, maybe, just maybe, for two seconds you’ll be able to believe that fucking idiot in the story is someone else. And then maybe you’ll be able to judge yourself objectively. Maybe.’
So here I am. I’m sitting in front of the little laptop I usually use for work. I hear the noise of the dishwasher downstairs.
My wife and kids went to bed a long time ago. I know the kids must be asleep, but I’m sure my wife’s not. She’s waiting up for me, trying to make sense of it all. I think she’s afraid because she already knows she’s lost me. Women can sense those things. But I can’t just go and curl up with her and fall asleep – and she knows that as well as I do. I need to write it all down for the sake of the two seconds that could be so important if I can just pull it off.
I’ll start at the beginning.
I was hired at Paul Pridault on 1 September, 1995. Before that I was with a competitor, but there were too many little
things getting under my skin – like, for example, expense claims being paid six months late. So I packed it all in on a sudden whim.
I was out of work for almost a year.
Everyone thought I’d go nuts, sitting at home twiddling my thumbs and waiting for a call from the temp agency I’d signed up with.
But actually, I have a lot of good memories from that time. I was finally able to finish the house – all those things that Florence had been after me forever to get done. I hung all the curtain rods and fixed up a shower in the back storage room. I rented a rototiller, turned over the whole garden, and put down fresh turf.
In the afternoons, I’d pick up Lucas from the sitter’s, and then when school got out we’d collect his big sister. I’d make them huge snacks and hot chocolate. Not Nesquik – real stirred cocoa that gave them great big moustaches. Afterwards, we’d go and look at them in the bathroom mirror before they licked them off.
In June, it dawned on me that Lucas wouldn’t be going to Madame Ledoux’s much longer, now that he was old enough for nursery school. I started getting serious again about looking for work, and in August, I found it.
At Paul Pridault, I’m the sales rep for the whole western part of France. The company’s a major pork producer – like a butcher, sort of, but on an industrial scale.
Old man Pridault’s stroke of genius is his jambon au torchon, country ham wrapped in a real red-and-white-checked cloth. Of course, it’s a factory ham made from factory pigs, and the famous country cloth is made in China, but whatever – it’s what he’s famous for. Just ask any housewife behind her shopping trolley what the name Paul Pridault means to her, and she’ll tell you ‘jambon au torchon’ – all the market surveys prove it. And if you press the point, you’ll learn that our jambon au torchon is miles better than anybody else’s because it tastes more authentic.
Hats off to the artiste.
We have a net annual revenue of five million euros.
I spend the better part of the week behind the wheel of my company car. A black Peugeot 306 with a transfer of a grinning pig’s head on the sides.
People have no concept of what life’s like for these guys on the road, all the truck drivers and sales reps.
It’s like there are two worlds on the highway: those out for a drive, and us.
