by Anna Gavalda
The fire chief walked around the car. Really, he was impressed. He couldn’t help saying:
‘Such a beautiful car – that’s got to hurt.’
This next part is unbearable for those people who like nice things. …
One of the men went to get an enormous shotgun, a sort of bazooka. He moved away from the rest of the group and took aim. The pig and the window exploded at the same time.
The interior of the car was freshly painted: red.
Blood everywhere – even at the back of the glove compartment, even between the buttons on the carphone.
Alexander Devermont was in a daze. You’d have thought he wasn’t thinking anymore. At all. About anything. Or only about burying himself alive or turning the fireman’s bazooka on himself.
But no, he was thinking about the local gossips and about what a windfall this was going to be for the ecologists. …
It must be said that not only did his father have a magnificent Jaguar, but he’d also set his tenacious political sights on fighting the Greens.
The Greens wanted to outlaw hunting and create a Nature Park and whatever else besides, just when it would be a real pain for the big landowners.
It was a battle that he enjoyed enormously and that he’d nearly won up to this point. Just last night at the dinner table, while he was carving the duck, he’d said:
‘Look! Here’s one that Grolet and his bunch of arseholes won’t be seeing in their binoculars anymore! Ha, ha, ha!’
But this … the wild boar exploding into a thousand pieces in the future regional councillor’s Jaguar Sovereign – that’s got to chafe a little. Surely a little, doesn’t it?
There’s even fur stuck to the windows.
The firemen leave; the cops leave. Tomorrow a tow truck will come and take care of the … that … well … the metallic grey thing blocking the road.
OUR TWO FRIENDS walk down the road, dinner jackets tossed over their shoulders. There’s nothing to say. Anyway, at the point things are at, it’s not even worth thinking about it anymore, either.
Franck says:
‘You want a cigarette?’
Junior answers:
‘Yeah, I’d really like one.’
They walk like that for a while. The sun is coming up over the fields. The sky is pink and some stars are still lingering. There’s not the slightest noise – only the rustling of rabbits running through the grass in the ditch.
And then Alexander Devermont turns to his friend and says:
‘So? … This blonde, now, that you were telling me about … the one with the big tits. … Who is this girl?’
And his friend smiles at him.
For Years
FOR YEARS I believed that this woman was outside my life – not very far maybe, but outside.
That she didn’t exist anymore, that she lived far away, that she had never been all that beautiful, that she belonged to the world of the past. The world back when I was young and romantic, when I believed that love lasted forever and that there wasn’t anything greater than my love for her. All that foolishness.
I was twenty-six years old, and I was on the platform at a train station. I couldn’t understand why she was crying so much, and held her in my arms and buried my face in her neck. I thought she was sad because I was leaving, and she was letting me see her distress. And then a few weeks later, after I’d walked all over my pride like a fool on the phone and whined on and on in letters that were too long, I finally understood.
That she’d broken down that last day because she knew she was looking at my face for the last time. That she was crying over me – over my mortal remains. And that she wasn’t happy to see me that way.
*
For months, I bumped into everything.
I couldn’t focus on anything and I bumped into everything. The worse I felt, the more I bumped into things.
I was an absolute wreck, but I pulled it off pretty well. Day after empty day, I managed to put a good face on it. I’d get up, work ’til I was ready to drop, eat like I was supposed to, drink beer with the guys I worked with, and have a good laugh with my brothers. But that whole time, if any of them had so much as flicked his finger against my skin, it would’ve broken me clean in half.
But I’m not being entirely honest with myself. It wasn’t courage. It was stupidity – because I thought she’d come back. I really believed she would.
I hadn’t seen anything coming, and my heart had completely come apart on a train platform one Sunday night. I couldn’t come to terms with it, and I kept bumping into anything and everything.
The years that followed had no effect on me. Some days I’d be surprised to think:
‘You know? … That’s strange … I don’t think I thought about her yesterday. …’ But instead of congratulating myself, I’d wonder how that could have happened – how I’d managed to go a whole day without thinking of her. I was especially obsessed with her name. That and two or three very precise images of her – always the same ones.
It’s true. Every morning I put my feet on the ground, ate, showered, got dressed, and went to work.
Every now and then I’d see a girl naked. Every now and then, but without any tenderness.
Emotions: nil.
And then at last, in spite of all that, I got another chance – although by then I really didn’t care.
Another woman met me. A very different woman, with a different name. She fell in love with me and decided to make me a whole man. Without asking my opinion, she set me back on my feet and married me, less than a year after our first kiss, exchanged in a lift during a conference.
An unhoped-for woman. I have to admit: I was petrified. I no longer believe in any of it, and I must have frequently hurt her. I’d caress her stomach, and my mind would wander. I’d lift her hair and hope to find another scent there. She never said a word. She knew my phantom life wouldn’t last long. Not when I had her laughter, not when I had her skin, not when I had this whole jumble of basic, unconditional love that she was ready to give me. She was right: My phantom life let me live in peace.
She’s in the next room right now. She is sleeping.
On a professional level, I never could have guessed I’d be this successful. Maybe it pays to be hard, maybe I was in the right place at the right time, maybe I made some good decisions … I don’t know.
At any rate, I see clearly in the eyes of my old classmates, as much surprised as suspicious, that it all disconcerts them: the pretty wife, the fancy business card, the shirts tailor-made to fit … especially since I started out with so little. It’s perplexing.
Back then, above all, I was the guy who thought of nothing but girls … well, of nothing but this girl. I was the guy who wrote letters every day during lectures and who didn’t look at the arses or breasts or eyes or anything else on the café terraces. The guy who took the first train to Paris every Friday and who came back sad on Monday mornings, with circles under his eyes, cursing the distance and the conductor’s zeal. More harlequin than golden boy, it’s true.
Since I loved her, I neglected my studies. And since I was blowing off my studies, and vacillating on other things, she dumped me. She must have thought the future was too … uncertain with a guy like me.
When I read my bank statements today, I see very well that life is quite a joker.
So I went on with my life as if nothing had happened.
Of course, just for fun, every now and then my wife and I would talk about our student days, either on our own or with friends. We’d talk about the movies and books that had shaped us, and the loves of our youth – faces we’d forgotten over time, which some little coincidence happened to make us think of. The price of a cup of coffee and all that sort of nostalgia. … It was like that part of our lives was sitting on a shelf. We’d dust it off from time to time, but I never dwelled on it. Oh, no.
For a while, I remember, every day I passed a sign that had the name of the town where I knew she lived, with the numbe
r of kilometres.
Every morning on my way to my office and every night on the way back, I’d glance at the sign. I glanced at it – that’s all. I never followed it. I thought about it, but even the idea of flipping on my indicator seemed like spitting on my wife.
Still, I did glance at it, it’s true.
And then I changed jobs. No more sign.
But there were always other reasons, other pretexts. Always. How many times did I turn around on the street, my heart in a tailspin because I thought I’d caught sight of a silhouette that … or a voice that … or a head of hair like …?
How many times?
I thought I didn’t think about her anymore, but all it took was to be alone for just one minute in a more or less quiet place, and she’d come back to me.
On the terrace of a restaurant one day – it was less than six months ago – when the client I’d invited didn’t show up, I went looking for her in my memories. I loosened my collar and sent the waiter to buy me a packet of cigarettes – the strong, acrid ones I used to smoke way back when. I stretched out my legs and refused to let the waiter clear off the place setting across from me. I ordered a good wine, a Gruaud-Larose, I think … and as I smoked, eyes half closed, savouring a little ray of sun, I watched her coming towards me.
I watched and watched. I couldn’t stop thinking about her – and about what we’d done when we were together and slept in the same bed.
I never once asked myself whether I still loved her or what my exact feelings toward her were. That would serve no purpose. But I loved to find her at the detour of a moment of solitude. I must say it, because it’s the truth.
Fortunately for me, my life didn’t leave me many moments of solitude. Honestly, the only time it ever happened was if some client forgot me completely or if I was alone in my car at night, with nothing else to worry about. In other words, almost never.
And even if I wanted to let myself indulge in a good dose of blues, of nostalgia – to assume a joking tone, for example, and try to find her phone number on the Internet or some other nonsense of the sort – I know now that it’s out of the question, because for the past several years I’ve had some real safeguards. The fiercest kind: my kids.
I’m crazy about my kids. I’ve got three: a big girl, Marie, who’s seven; another who’ll soon be four, Josephine; and Yvan, the baby of the family, who’s not quite two. Besides, I’m the one who begged my wife to give me a third. I remember her talking about fatigue and the future … but I love babies so much, their gibberish and their wet kisses. ‘Go ahead,’ I told her, ‘make me another baby.’ She didn’t hold out for long – and for that alone, I know that she’s my only friend and that I’ll never leave her. Even if I do brush shoulders with a tenacious shadow.
My kids are the best thing that ever happened to me.
An old love story doesn’t count for anything next to that. Nothing at all.
SO THAT’S MORE or less how I’ve lived … and then last week, she said her name on the phone:
‘It’s Hélèna.’
‘Hélèna?’
‘I’m not interrupting?’
My little boy was on my knees, trying to grab the phone and squealing.
‘Well …’
‘Is that your kid?’
‘Yes.’
‘How old is he?’
‘… Why are you calling me like this?’
‘How old is he?’
‘Twenty months.’
‘I’m calling because I’d like to see you.’
‘You want to see me?’
‘Yes.’
‘What is this shit?’
‘…’
‘Just like that. You said to yourself, “Hey! … I think I’d like to see him again. …”’
‘Almost like that.’
‘Why? … I mean, why now? … After all these ye–’
‘Twelve years. It’s been twelve years.’
‘Okay. So? … What happened? It just hit you? What do you want? You want to know how old my kids are or if I’ve lost my hair or … or see what effect you’d have on me or … or just like that, to talk about the good old days?!’
‘Listen, I didn’t think you’d take it like this – I’m going to let you go. I’m sorry. I …’
‘How did you get my number?’
‘From your father.’
‘What!’
‘I called your father earlier and asked him for your number, that’s all.’
‘Did he remember you?’
‘No. Well … I didn’t tell him who I was.’
*
I put my son down and he went to join his sisters in their bedroom. My wife wasn’t at home.
‘Hold on, don’t hang up. … Marie! Can you put his booties back on, please? … Hello? Are you there?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well? …’
‘Well, what? …’
‘You want to get together sometime?’
‘Yes. Well, not for long. Just to have a drink or walk around for a little while, you know. …’
‘Why? What for?’
‘I just want to see you again – to talk to you for a little while.’
‘Hélèna?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why are you doing this?’
‘Why?’
‘Yes, why are you calling me? Why so late? Why now? You didn’t even ask yourself whether you might be throwing shit into my life. … You just dial my number and you – ’
‘Listen, Pierre. I’m going to die.’
‘…’
‘I’m calling you now because I’m going to die. I don’t know when exactly, but before very long.’
I pulled the phone away from my face as though to get a little air. I tried to stand up, but without success.
‘That can’t be true.’
‘Yes, it’s true.’
‘What’s the matter?’
‘Oh … it’s complicated. To cut a long story short, you could say that my blood is … Well, I don’t even know anymore just what it is now because the diagnoses are confusing. But in the end, it’s pretty serious.’
I said:
‘You’re sure?’
‘What? What do you think? You think I’d make up some over-the-top sob story just to have a reason to call you?!’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Okay.’
‘Maybe they made a mistake.’
‘Yes … maybe.’
‘You don’t think so?’
‘No. I don’t think so.’
‘How is this possible?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Are you in pain?’
‘Not really.’
‘Are you in pain?’
‘Well, a little.’
‘And you want to see me again one last time?’
‘Yes. You could put it that way.’
‘…’
‘…’
‘You’re not worried that I’ll disappoint you? You wouldn’t rather hold on to a … good impression?’
‘An impression from when you were young and handsome?’
I could hear her smile.
‘Exactly. When I was young and handsome and didn’t have grey hair yet. …’
‘You have grey hair?!’
‘I have five, I think.’
‘Ah! Okay, then – you had me worried! You’re right. I don’t know if it’s a good idea, but I’ve been thinking about it for a while … and I told myself that it was one thing that would really make me happy. … So since there aren’t many things that make me happy anymore … I … I called you.’
‘How long have you been thinking about this?’
‘For twelve years! No … I’m kidding. I’ve been thinking about it for several months. Since my last stay in the hospital, to be exact.’
‘You really want to see me again, you think?’
‘Yes.’
‘When?’
‘Whenever you want. Whenever you can.’
&
nbsp; ‘Where do you live?’
‘Same place. A hundred kilometres from you, I think.’
‘Hélèna?’
‘Yes.’
‘No, never mind.’
‘You’re right. Never mind. That’s how it is, that’s life. I’m not calling you to unravel the past or to build castles in the sky, you know. I …
‘I’m calling you because I want to see your face again. That’s all. It’s like when people go back to the village where they spent their childhood or to their parents’ house … or to whatever place touched their life.’
‘Like some kind of pilgrimage.’
I realised that my voice sounded different.
‘Yes, exactly – it’s like a pilgrimage. I guess your face is a place that touched my life.’
‘Pilgrimages are always so sad.’
‘Why do you say that?! Have you ever made one!?’
‘No. Yes. To Lourdes. …’
‘Oh, well, okay, then … okay, then, Lourdes, of course. …’
She forced herself to use a mocking tone.
I could hear the kids squabbling, and I didn’t feel like talking anymore. I wanted to hang up. I ended up saying:
‘When?’
‘You tell me.’
‘Tomorrow?’
‘If you like.’
‘Where?’
‘Halfway between our two towns – in Sully, for example. …’
‘Are you able to drive?’
‘Yes. I can drive.’
‘What’s in Sully?’
‘Well, not much, I would guess. … We’ll see. We can just meet in front of the town hall. …’
‘At lunchtime?’
‘Oh, no. I’m not much fun to eat with, you know. …’
She forced out another laugh.
‘… After lunch would be better.’
HE COULDN’T FALL asleep that night. He stared at the ceiling, eyes open wide. He wanted to keep them good and dry. Not to cry.
It wasn’t because of his wife. He was afraid of deceiving himself, of making a mistake – of crying more because of the death of his inner life than because of her death. He knew that if he got started, he wouldn’t be able to stop.
Mustn’t open the floodgates. Absolutely not. Because for so many years now he’d been a show-off, grumbling about people’s weaknesses. Other people’s. People who didn’t know what they wanted, who dragged all their mediocrity along behind them.
