I Wish Someone Were Waiting for Me Somewhere

by Anna Gavalda

  ‘She knew everything. That it was a younger woman. She knew how long it had lasted and understood why I was always away from home now. She couldn’t take it any longer. I was a monster. Did she deserve this much contempt? Did she deserve to be treated this way? Like a scullery maid? At first, she had looked the other way. She suspected something, but she trusted me. She thought it was just one of those things, a thrill, the need to seduce. Something to bolster my virility. And then there was my job. My work, so exhausting, so hard. And she – she had been occupied with setting up the new house. She couldn’t manage everything at once. She couldn’t fight every fire! She had trusted me! And then I had fallen ill and she had looked the other way. But now, now she couldn’t take it anymore. No, she couldn’t take me anymore. My egotism, my contempt, the way in which – At that exact moment, the waiter interrupted her and, within a split second, she had switched masks. With a smile, she asked him a question about the tortellini something-or-other. I was fascinated. When he turned to me, I managed to stammer out, “The … the same as Madame.” I hadn’t given the damn menu a single thought, you see. Not for a second …’

  ‘That was when I took the full measure of Suzanne’s strength. Her immense strength. She’s like a steam-roller. That was when I knew that she was by far the sturdier of the two of us, and that nothing could really touch her. In fact, all of this was about her personal timetable. She was taking me to task because her beach house was finally finished. The last picture had been hung, the last curtain rod put up, and she finally turned in my direction and had been horrified by what she had discovered.

  ‘I barely said a word, I defended myself half-heartedly. As I told you, I had already lost Mathilde by that point …’

  *

  ‘I looked across the table at my wife getting upset in a miserable pizzeria in the fifteenth arrondissement in Paris, and I turned off the sound.’

  ‘She gesticulated, let big tears roll down her cheeks, blew her nose, and wiped her plate with a piece of bread. All the while, I twirled two or three strands of spaghetti around my fork without ever managing to raise them to my mouth. I also wanted very much to cry, but I stopped myself …’

  ‘Why did you stop yourself?’

  ‘A question of upbringing, I suppose … And I still felt so fragile … I couldn’t take the risk of letting myself go. Not there. Not then. Not with her. Not in that awful place. I was … How can I put it … barely in one piece.

  ‘Then she told me that she had gone to see a lawyer to start divorce proceedings. Suddenly I started paying attention. A lawyer? Suzanne was asking for a divorce? I never imagined that things had gone that far, that she had been hurt that much … She went to see a woman, the sister-in-law of one of her friends. She had hesitated but on the way back from a weekend here, she had made up her mind. She had decided in the car, when I hadn’t spoken to her once except to ask if she had change for the motorway toll. She had invented a sort of conjugal Russian roulette: if Pierre speaks to me, I’ll stay; if he doesn’t, I’ll divorce him.

  ‘I was disconcerted. I never thought she was the gambling type.

  ‘She pulled herself together and looked at me more self-confidently. Of course, she wanted to lay it all out. My trips, ever longer and more frequent, my lack of interest in family life, my neglected children, the report cards I never signed. All the lost years she had spent organising everything around me. For my well-being, for the company. The company that belonged to her family, to her, incidentally, the sacrifices she had made. How she had cared for my poor mother right up until the end. Everything really, everything she needed to say, plus everything that lawyers like to hear in order to put a price tag on the whole mess.

  ‘But with that, I felt my old self again. We were now on familiar territory. What did she want? Money? How much? If she had given me a figure, I would have had my chequebook on the table.

  ‘But no, she had my number, did I think I could get out of it that easily? I was so pathetic … She started to cry again between mouthfuls of tiramisu. Why couldn’t I understand anything? Life wasn’t just about power struggles. Money couldn’t buy everything. Or buy everything back. Was I going to pretend that I didn’t understand anything? Didn’t I have a heart? I was really pathetic. Pathetic …

  ‘“But why don’t you ask for a divorce?” I finally blurted out, exasperated, “I’ll take all the blame. All of it, you hear? Even how awful my mother was, I’ll be glad to sign something and acknowledge it if that would make you happy, but please don’t drag the lawyers into it, I beg you. Tell me how much you want instead.”

  ‘I had cut her to the quick.

  ‘She lifted her head and looked me in the eye. It was the first time in years that we had looked at each other that long. I searched for something else in her face. Our youth, perhaps … A time when I didn’t make her cry. When I didn’t make any woman cry, and when the very idea of sitting at a table and hashing out one’s love life seemed inconceivable.

  ‘But there was nothing there, only the slightly sad expression of a defeated spouse who was about to make a confession. She hadn’t gone back to see the lawyer because she didn’t have the heart. She loved her life, her house, her children, her neighbourhood shops … She was ashamed to admit it, and yet it was true: she didn’t have the courage to leave me.

  ‘The courage.

  ‘I could run after women if that pleased me, I could have affairs if that was reassuring, but she – she wasn’t leaving. She didn’t want to lose what she had. Her social standing. Our friends, our relations, our children’s friends. And then there was her brand-new house, where we hadn’t even spent one night … It was a risk she didn’t want to take. After all, what good would it do? There were men who had cheated on their wives … Lots of them, even … She had finally told her story and had been disappointed by how banal it was. That’s just how things were. The fault lay in what hangs between our legs. She just had to grin and bear it, let the storm pass. She had taken the first step, but the idea of no longer being Mrs. Pierre Dippel had drained her of her courage. That was how it was, and too bad for her. Without the children, without me, she wasn’t worth much.

  ‘I offered her my handkerchief. “It’s all right,” she added, forcing herself to smile. “It’s all right … I’m staying with you because I couldn’t think of a better idea. For once, I was badly organised. Me, the one who always anticipates everything. I … It was too much for me, I suppose.” She smiled through her tears.

  ‘I patted her hand. It was finished. I was here. I wasn’t with anyone else. No one. It was over. It was over …’

  ‘Over coffee we chatted about the owner’s moustache and how awful the décor was.

  ‘Two old friends covered with scars.

  ‘We had lifted up a huge rock and had let it fall back immediately.

  ‘It was too awful to look at what was crawling underneath.’

  • • •

  ‘That night, in the darkness, I took Suzanne chastely in my arms. I couldn’t do any more than that.

  ‘For me, it was another sleepless night. Her confession, instead of reassuring me, had left me completely shaken. I have to say, I was in a terrible way at the time. Terrible, really terrible. Everything set me on edge. I found myself in a completely depressing situation: I had lost the woman I loved and had just learned that I had hurt the other one. What a scene … I had lost the love of my life to stay with a woman who would never leave me because of her cheese shop and her butcher. It was impossible, everything was destroyed. Neither Mathilde nor Suzanne had deserved that. I had ruined everything. I had never felt so miserable in all my life …

  ‘The medications I was taking didn’t make things any easier, that’s for certain, but if I had had more courage, I would have hanged myself that night.’

  He tipped his head back to drain his glass.

  ‘But Suzanne? She’s not unhappy with you …’

  ‘Oh, you think so? How can you say something like that? Did she say
that she was happy?’

  ‘No. Not like that. She didn’t say it, but she gave me to understand … Anyway, she’s not the type of woman to stop for a moment to ask herself if she is happy …’

  ‘You’re right, she isn’t the type … That’s where her strength lies, by the way. You know, if I was so miserable that night, it was really on account of her. When I see what she has turned into … So bourgeois, so conventional … If you could have seen what a little number she was when I met her … I’m not happy with what I did, really, it’s nothing to be proud of. I suffocated her. I wilted her. For me, she was always the one who was there. Within reach. Close to hand. On the end of the phone. With the children. In the kitchen. A sort of vestal who spent the money that I earned and made our little world go around comfortably and without complaining. I never looked any further than the end of my nose.

  ‘Which of her secrets had I found out? None. Did I ask her about herself, about her childhood, her memories, her regrets, her weariness, our physical relations, her faded hopes, her dreams? No. Never. Nothing. I wasn’t interested.’

  ‘Don’t take it too much to heart, Pierre. You can’t carry all the blame. Self-flagellation has its charms, but still … You don’t make a very convincing Saint Sebastian, you know …’

  ‘I like that, you don’t let me get away with anything. You’re the one who keeps me straight … That’s why I hate to lose you. Who’s going to take a shot at me when you’re no longer here?’

  ‘We’ll have lunch together every once in a while …’

  ‘Promise?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You say that but you’ll never do it, I know …’

  ‘We’ll make a ritual out of it, the first Friday of the month, for example …’

  ‘Why Friday?’

  ‘Because I love a good fish dish! You’ll take me to good restaurants, right?’

  ‘The best!’

  ‘All right, now I’m reassured … But it won’t be for a long time …’

  ‘A long time?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How long?’

  I said nothing.

  ‘Fine. I can wait.’

  I poked at a log.

  ‘To come back to Suzanne … Her bourgeois side, as you say. You had nothing to do with it, and it’s a good thing. There are some things that are all hers without any of your help. It’s like those English products that proclaim “By appointment to Her Majesty the Queen.” Suzanne became who she is without any need for your “appointment”. You can be annoying, but you’re not all-powerful! That Lady Bountiful routine of hers, chasing after sales and recipes, she didn’t need you to create that whole show for her. It comes naturally, as they say. It’s in her blood, that I dust, I remark, I judge, and I forgive side of her. It’s exhausting; it exhausts me, anyway – the parcelling out of her good deeds, and God knows she has plenty of good deeds, right?’

  ‘Yes. God knows … Would you like something to drink?’

  ‘No, thanks.’

  ‘Some herbal tea, perhaps?’

  ‘No, no. I’m fine getting slowly drunk …’

  ‘All right then, I’ll leave you in peace.’

  ‘Pierre?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I can’t get over it.’

  ‘Over what?’

  ‘What you’ve just told me …’

  ‘I can’t either.’

  ‘And Adrien?’

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘Will you tell him?’

  ‘What would I tell him?’

  ‘Well … all of that …’

  ‘Adrien came to see me, believe it or not.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Last week, and … I didn’t tell him about it. I mean, I didn’t talk about myself, but I listened …’

  ‘What did he tell you?’

  ‘What I told you, what I already knew … That he was unhappy, that he didn’t know where he was going anymore …’

  ‘He came to confide in you?!’

  ‘Yes.’

  I began to cry again.

  ‘Does that surprise you?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘I feel betrayed. Even you … You … I hate that. I would never do that to someone, I – ’

  ‘Calm down. You’re mixing everything up. Who said anything about betrayal? Where is the treason? He showed up without warning, and as soon as I saw him I suggested that we go out. I switched off my mobile and we went down to the parking garage. As soon as I started up the car, he said to me, “I’m going to leave Chloé.” I remained calm. We drove up into the open air. I didn’t want to ask questions, I waited for him to speak … Always this problem of which thread to pull … I didn’t want to rush things. I didn’t know what to do. I was a bit shaken up, to tell you the truth. I turned on to the Paris ring road and opened the ashtray.’

  ‘And then?’ I added.

  ‘And then nothing. He’s married, he has two children. He had thought it over. He thought that it was worth – ’

  ‘Shut up, please shut up … I know the rest.’

  I got up to get the roll of paper towels.

  ‘You must be proud of him, eh? It’s great what he did, right? There’s a man for you! What courage. What sweet revenge – he really got you there! What sweet revenge …’

  ‘Don’t use that tone of voice.’

  ‘I’ll use any tone I want, and I’m going to tell you what I think … You’re even worse than he is. You, you ruined everything. Oh yes, beneath your high-minded attitude, you’ve ruined everything and you’re using him, using his sleeping around to comfort yourself. I think that’s pathetic. You make me sick, both of you.’

  ‘You’re talking nonsense. You know that, don’t you? You know that you’re talking nonsense?’

  He spoke to me very gently.

  ‘If it was just a question of sleeping around, as you say, we wouldn’t be here, and you know it …

  ‘Chloé, talk to me.’

  ‘I’m a royal bitch … No, don’t contradict me for once. It would make me very happy for you to not contradict me.’

  ‘Can I make a confession? A very difficult confession?’

  ‘Go ahead, given the state I’m in …’

  ‘I think that it’s a good thing.’

  ‘That what’s a good thing?’

  ‘What’s happened to you …’

  ‘Becoming a royal bitch?’

  ‘No, that Adrien left. I think that you deserve better … Better than this forced happiness … Better than filing your nails in the Métro while flipping through your diary, better than Firmin-Gédon Square, better than what the two of you had become. It’s shocking that I’m telling you this, isn’t it? And what business is it of mine, anyway? It’s shocking, but too bad. I’m not going to pretend, I care about you too much. I don’t think that Adrien was in your class. He was a little out of his league with you. That’s what I think …

  ‘I know, it’s shocking because he’s my son and I shouldn’t talk about him that way. But there you are, I’m an old bastard and I don’t give a damn about appearances. I’m telling you this because I believe in you. You … You weren’t really properly loved. And if you could be as honest as I am right this minute, you’d act offended, but you’d think exactly the same thing.’

  ‘You’re talking nonsense.’

  ‘And there you are. That little offended air of yours …’

  ‘So now you’re a psychoanalyst?’

  ‘Haven’t you ever heard that little voice inside that pokes you from time to time, to remind you that you weren’t really properly loved?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘All right. I guess I’m wrong …’

  He leaned forward, pressing on his knees.

  ‘I think that someday you should come up out of there.’

  ‘Out of where?’

  ‘That basement.’

  ‘You really do have an opinion about everyt
hing, don’t you?’

  ‘No. Not about everything. Why are you slaving away in the basement of a museum when you know what you’re capable of? It’s a waste of time. What is it you do? Copies? Plaster casts? You’re tinkering. Who cares? And how long are you going to do it? Until you retire? Don’t tell me you’re happy in that hellhole stuffed with civil servants …’

  ‘No, no,’ I said ironically, ‘I would never say that, rest assured.’

  ‘If I were your lover, I would grab you by the scruff of the neck and drag you back up into the light. You’re really talented with your hands and you know it. Accept it. Accept your gifts. Take responsibility. I would sit you down somewhere and tell you, “It’s up to you now. It’s your move, Chloé. Show us what you’re made of.”’

  ‘And what if there’s nothing?’

  ‘Well, it would be the moment to find out. And stop biting your lip, it hurts me.’

  ‘Why is it you have so many good ideas for other people and so few for yourself?’

  ‘I’ve already answered that question.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘I thought I heard Marion crying.’

  ‘I didn’t h – ’

  ‘Shhh.’

  ‘It’s okay, she’s gone back to sleep.’

  I sat back down and pulled the blanket over me.

  ‘Shall I go and see?’

  ‘No, no. Let’s wait a little.’

  ‘And what do you think I deserve, Mr. Know-It-All?’