I Wish Someone Were Waiting for Me Somewhere

by Anna Gavalda

  I didn’t answer; I was too busy watching my step, trying to avoid the puddles.

  THE GIRLS WENT to bed without supper. Too many sweets.

  Babar left the Old Lady. She was alone. She cried. She asked herself, ‘When will I see my little Babar again?’

  Pierre was also unhappy. He stayed in his study a long time, supposedly looking for his brother’s drawings. I made dinner. Spaghetti with bits of Suzanne’s homemade gésiers confits.

  We had decided to leave the next day before noon. This was going to be the last time I would cook in this kitchen.

  I really loved this kitchen. I threw the pasta into boiling water, cursing myself for being so sentimental. I really loved this kitchen … Hey, get a grip, old girl, you’ll find other kitchens …

  I bullied myself, even though my eyes were filled with tears. It was stupid.

  He put a small watercolour on the table. A woman, reading, seen from behind.

  She was sitting on a garden bench. Her head was slightly tilted. Perhaps she wasn’t reading. Perhaps she was sleeping or daydreaming.

  I recognised the house. The front steps, the rounded shutters, and the white wisteria.

  ‘It’s my mother.’

  ‘What was her name?’

  ‘Alice.’

  I said nothing.

  ‘It’s for you.’

  I started to protest, but he made an angry face and put a finger to his lips. Pierre Dippel was someone who didn’t like to be contradicted.

  ‘You always have to be obeyed, don’t you?’

  He wasn’t listening to me.

  ‘Didn’t anyone ever dare to contradict you?’ I added, placing Paul’s drawing on the mantelpiece.

  ‘Not one person. My entire life.’

  I burned my tongue.

  • • •

  He pushed himself up from the table.

  ‘Bah. What would you like to drink, Chloé?’

  ‘Something that cheers you up.’

  • • •

  He came back up from the cellar, cradling two bottles as if they were newborn babies.

  ‘Château Chasse-Spleen … appropriately enough. Just exactly what we need. I took two, one for you and one for me.’

  ‘But you’re crazy! You should wait for a better occasion …’

  ‘A better occasion than what?’

  He pulled his chair closer to the fire.

  ‘Than … I don’t know … than me … than us … than tonight.’

  He had his arms wrapped around himself to keep his spirits up.

  ‘But Chloé, we’re a great occasion. We’re the best occasion in the world. I’ve been coming to this house since I was a boy, I’ve eaten thousands of meals in this kitchen, and believe me, I know a great occasion when I see one!’

  There was a little self-important tone in his voice. What a shame.

  • • •

  He turned his back and stared at the fire, motionless.

  ‘Chloé, I don’t want you to go …’

  *

  I tossed the noodles into the strainer and a dish towel on top.

  ‘Look, I’m sorry, but this is too much. You’re talking nonsense. You’re only thinking about yourself, and it’s a bit tiresome. “I don’t want you to go.” How can you say something so stupid? It wasn’t me who left, okay? You have a son, remember him? Well, he was the one who left. It was him, didn’t you know? It’s a good story. It goes like this – it’s a killer. So, it was … When was it, anyway? Doesn’t matter. The other day, Adrien, the wonderful Adrien, packed his bags. Try and put yourself in my place – I was shocked. Oh right, I forgot to mention, it turns out I’m this boy’s wife. You know, a wife, that practical thing you drag around everywhere, and that smiles when you kiss it. So, I was a bit surprised, as you can imagine … there he was with our suitcases standing in front of the lift, already groaning, looking at his watch. He was complaining because he was stressed out, the poor dear! The lift, the suitcases, the missus, and the plane, what a dilemma! Oh, yes! It seems he couldn’t miss his plane because his mistress was on board! You know, a mistress, that young impatient thing that gets on your nerves a little. No time for a scene, you’re thinking … And then, domestic quarrels are so tiresome … You never learn that at the Dippels’, do you? Yelling, making scenes, moodiness, all so vulgar, don’t you think? That’s it, vulgar. With the Dippels, it’s “never complain, never explain”, and then on to the next thing. Now that’s class.’

  ‘Chloé, stop that at once!’

  I was crying.

  ‘Don’t you hear yourself? Do you hear the way you talk to me? I’m not a dog, Pierre. I’m not your goddamned dog! I let him leave without ripping his eyes out, I quietly shut the door, and now I’m here, in front of you, in front of my children. I’m holding on. I’m just about holding on, do you understand? Do you understand what that means? Who heard me howl in despair? Who? So don’t try to make me feel sorry for you now with your little problems. You don’t want me to go … Oh, Pierre … I am unfortunately obliged to disobey you … It’s with great regret … It’s …’

  He had grabbed hold of my wrists and was squeezing them as hard as he could. He held my arms immobile.

  ‘Let me go! You’re hurting me! This entire family is hurting me! Pierre, let me go.’

  He barely had time to loosen his grip before my head fell on his shoulder.

  ‘You’re all hurting me …’

  • • •

  I cried into his neck, forgetting how uncomfortable it must have made him. Pierre, who never touched anyone. I cried, thinking occasionally about how the spaghetti was going to be inedible if I didn’t add some oil. He said, ‘Now, now …’ He said, ‘Please forgive me.’ And he said, ‘I’m just as sad as you …’ He didn’t know what to do with his hands anymore.

  Finally, he moved aside to lay the table.

  ‘TO YOU, CHLOÉ.’

  I clinked my glass against his.

  ‘Yes, to me,’ I repeated with a crooked smile.

  ‘You’re a wonderful girl.’

  ‘Yes, wonderful. And then there’s dependable, courageous … What did I leave out?’

  ‘Funny.’

  ‘Oh, right, I was forgetting. Funny.’

  ‘But unfair.’

  I said nothing.

  ‘You are being a bit unfair, don’t you think?’

  Silence.

  ‘You think that I only love myself?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, then, you’re not only unfair, you’re being stupid.’

  I held out my glass.

  ‘Oh, that, I knew that already … Pour me some more of that marvellous nectar.’

  ‘You think that I’m an old bastard, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  I nodded my head. I wasn’t being mean, I was unhappy.

  He sighed.

  ‘Why am I an old bastard?’

  ‘Because you don’t love anyone. You never let yourself go. You’re never there, never really with us. Never joining in our conversations and foolishness, never participating in dull dinner-table talk. Because you’re never tender, because you never talk, and because your silence looks like disdain. Because – ’

  ‘Stop, stop. That will do, thanks.’

  ‘Excuse me, I was answering your question. You ask me why you’re an old bastard, and I’m telling you. That being said, you’re not as old as all that …’

  ‘You’re too kind.’

  ‘Don’t mention it.’

  I grinned at him tenderly, baring my teeth.

  ‘But if I’m the way you describe, why would I bring you here? Why would I spend so much time with you, and – ’

  ‘You know very well why.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because of your sense of honour. That high-mindedness of good families. For seven years I’ve tagged along after you, and this is the first time you’ve taken any notice of me. I’ll tell you what I think. I don’t find you either benevolent or chari
table. I can see exactly what’s going on. Your son has done something stupid and you – you come along behind, you clean up and repair the damage. You’re going to plaster over the cracks as best you can. Because you don’t like cracks, do you, Pierre? Oh, no! You don’t like them one bit …

  ‘Let me tell you something. I think you brought me here for the sake of appearances. The boy has messed up, well, let’s grit our teeth and sort things out without making a fuss. In the past, you’d buy off the locals when the little shit’s sports car made a mess of their beet fields, and today you’re distracting the daughter-in-law. I’m just waiting for the moment when you put on your sorrowful act to tell me that I can count on you. Financially, I mean. You’re in a bit of a difficult spot, aren’t you? But a big girl like me is harder to buy off than a field of beets …’

  He got up. ‘So yes … It’s true. You are stupid. What a terrible thing to discover … Here, give me your plate.’

  He was behind my back.

  ‘You can’t imagine how much that hurts. More than that, you’ve wounded me deeply. But I don’t hold it against you – I blame it on the pain you are feeling …’

  He set a steaming plate in front of me.

  ‘But there is one thing you can’t get away with saying, just one thing …’

  ‘What’s that?’ I asked, lifting my gaze.

  ‘Whatever you do, don’t drag beets into this. You’d be hard-pressed to find a single beet field for miles around …’

  He was smugly pleased with himself.

  ‘Mmm, this is good … You’re going to miss my cooking, aren’t you?’

  ‘Your cooking, yes. As for the rest, thanks but no thanks … You’ve taken away my appetite …’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You had me worried there!’

  ‘It would take more than that to keep me away from this marvellous pasta …’

  He dug into his plate and lifted up a forkful of sticky spaghetti.

  ‘Mmm, what do they call this? Al dente …’

  I laughed.

  ‘I love it when you laugh.’

  • • •

  For a long moment we didn’t speak.

  ‘Are you angry?’

  ‘No, not angry. Confused, really …’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘You see, I feel as if I’m facing something impenetrable. A sort of enormous knot …’

  ‘I’d like – ’

  ‘Hold on, hold on. Let me speak. I have to sort it out now, it’s very important. I don’t know if you’ll understand, but you must listen to me. I need to follow a thread, but which one? I don’t know, I don’t know how or where to begin. Oh God, it’s so complicated … If I choose the wrong thread or pull too hard, it might tighten the knot even more. It might become so badly knotted that nothing could be done, and I’ll leave you overwhelmed. You see, Chloé, my life, my whole life is like this closed fist. Here I am before you in this kitchen. I’m sixty-five years old. I’m not much to look at. I’m just an old bastard you were shaking a while ago. I have understood nothing, and I never went up to the sixth floor. I was afraid of my own shadow, and here I am, facing the idea of my own death and … No, please, don’t interrupt me … Not now. Let me open this fist. Just a little bit.’

  I refilled our glasses.

  ‘I’ll start with what’s most unfair, most cruel … That is, with you …’

  He let himself fall back against the back of his chair.

  • • •

  ‘The first time I saw you, you were completely blue. I remember how impressed I was. I can still see you standing in that doorway … Adrien was holding you up, and you held out a hand that was completely stiff with cold. You couldn’t greet me, you couldn’t speak, so I squeezed your arm in a sign of welcome, and I can still see the white marks that my fingers left on your wrist. Suzanne was panicking, but Adrien told her, laughing, “I’ve brought you a Smurfette!” Then he took you upstairs and plunged you into a scalding-hot bath. How long did you stay there? I don’t remember; I just remember Adrien repeating to his mother, “Take it easy, Mum, take it easy! As soon as she’s cooked, we can eat.” It’s true, we were hungry. I was hungry, anyway. And you know me, you know how old bastards are when they get hungry … I was just about to say that we should start eating without you, when you came in, with wet hair and a shy smile, wearing one of Suzanne’s old nightdresses.

  ‘This time, your cheeks were red, red, red …

  ‘During dinner, you told us that you had met in the queue for the cinema, which was showing A Sunday in the Country, and that there were no more seats and that Adrien, the show-off – it runs in the family – offered you a real Sunday in the country, standing there in front of his motorcycle. It was a take-it-or-leave-it offer, and you took it, which explained your advanced state of frostbite because you had left Paris wearing only a T-shirt under your raincoat. Adrien was eating you up with his eyes, which was difficult for him since you kept looking down at the table. I could see a dimple when he spoke about you, and we imagined that you would smile at us … I also remember those incredible sneakers you wore …’

  ‘Yellow Converses, oh God!’

  ‘Right. That’s why you have no right to criticise the ones I bought for Lucie the other day … That reminds me, I have to tell her … “Don’t listen to her, sweetie; when I met your mother, she was wearing yellow sneakers with red laces …”’

  ‘You even remember the laces?’

  ‘I remember everything, Chloé, everything. The red laces, the book you read underneath the cherry tree while Adrien fixed his engine …’

  ‘Which was what?’

  ‘The World According to Garp, right?’

  ‘Exactly right.’

  ‘I also remember how you volunteered to Suzanne to clear away the brush from the little stairway that led down to the old cellar. I remember the loving glances she threw you as she watched you wear yourself out over the thorns. You could read “Daughter-in-law? Daughter-in-law?” in big, flashing neon lights in front of her eyes. I drove you to the Saint-Amand market, you bought goat cheeses, and then we drank martinis in a café on the square. You read an article, about Andy Warhol I think, while Adrien and I played table soccer …’

  ‘It’s unbelievable, how is it possible that you can remember all that?’

  ‘Uhh … I don’t deserve much credit … It’s one of the few things that we share …’

  ‘You mean with Adrien?’

  ‘Yes …’

  ‘Yes.’

  I got up to get the cheese.

  ‘No, no, don’t change the plates, it’s not worth it.’

  ‘Of course it is! I know how you hate to eat your cheese from the same plate.’

  ‘I hate that? Oh … It’s true … Another thing old bastards do, right?’

  ‘Ummm … Yes, that’s right.’

  He grimaced as he held out his plate.

  ‘The hell with you.’

  A dimple showed.

  ‘Of course, I also remember your wedding day … You took my arm and you were so beautiful. You played with your hair. We were crossing that same square at Saint-Amand when you whispered in my ear: “You should kidnap me; I’d throw these horrible shoes out the window of your car and we’d go to Chez Yvette and eat seafood …” Your little joke made my head spin. I tightened my gloves. Here, serve yourself first …’

  ‘No, no, you first.’

  ‘What else can I tell you? I remember one day, we had arranged to meet in the café downstairs from my office so I could take back a ladle or some other such thing that Suzanne had lent you. I must have seemed disagreeable to you that day, I was in a hurry, preoccupied … I left before you had finished your tea. I asked you questions about your job and probably didn’t pay attention to the answers. That night at dinner, when Suzanne asked me, “What’s new?” without really believing it, I answered, “Chloé is pregnant.” “She told you?” “No, and I’m not sure that she knows it her
self.” Suzanne shrugged her shoulders and rolled her eyes, but I was right. A few weeks later, you told us the good news …’

  ‘How did you guess?’

  ‘I don’t know … It seemed to me that your complexion had changed, that your fatigue was caused by something else …’

  I said nothing.

  ‘I could go on and on like this. You see, you’re not being fair – what were you just saying? That all this time, all these years, I never took an interest in you. Oh, Chloé, I hope you feel ashamed of yourself.’

  Jokingly, he gave me a stern look.

  ‘On the other hand, I am egotistical, you’re right there. I told you I don’t want you to go because I don’t want you to go. I’m thinking of myself. You are closer to me than my own daughter. My daughter would never tell me that I’m an old bastard, she would just think to herself that I’m an idiot, period!’

  He got up to get the salt.

  ‘Hey now … what’s the matter?’

  ‘Nothing. It’s nothing.’

  ‘Yes, it is. You’re crying.’

  ‘No, I’m not crying. Look, I’m not crying.’

  ‘Yes, you are. You’re crying! Do you want a glass of water?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Oh, Chloé … I don’t want you to cry. It makes me unhappy.’

  ‘There, you see! It’s about you! You’re just impossible …’

  I tried for a playful tone, but bubbles of mucus came out of my nose. It was pitiful.

  I laughed. I cried. This wine wasn’t cheering me up at all.

  ‘I should never have talked to you about all that …’

  ‘No, it’s okay. They’re my memories, too … I just have to get used to all this. It might be hard for you to understand, but this is totally new for me. Two weeks ago, I was still your garden-variety wife and mother. I flipped through my diary on the Métro, planning dinner parties, and I filed my nails while thinking about holidays. I asked myself, “Should we take the girls, or go away just the two of us?” That kind of thing …

  ‘I also said to myself, “We should find another apartment; this one is nice, but it’s too dark …” I was waiting for Adrien to feel better, because I could see that he hadn’t been himself recently … Irritable, touchy, tired … I was worried about him; I thought, “They’re killing him at work, what’s with the impossible hours?”’