I Wish Someone Were Waiting for Me Somewhere
Page 22
‘Christine undressed me that day.
‘I couldn’t move … For a month I stayed in bed, nauseous and exhausted. When I was thirsty, I waited until someone came in and held out a glass, and when I was cold, I didn’t have the strength to pull up the coverlet. I no longer spoke. I forbade people to open the shutters. I had become an old man. Everything exhausted me: Suzanne’s kindness, my powerlessness, the whispering of the children. Could someone please close the door once and for all and leave me alone with my sorrow? Would Mathilde have come if … Would she … Oh … I was so tired. And all of my memories, my regrets, and my cowardice just knocked me down even more. With half-closed eyes and stomach churning, I thought about the disaster my life had been. Happiness had been mine, and I had let it slip away in order to not complicate my life. And yet it was so simple. All I had to do was hold out my hand. The rest could have been settled one way or another. Everything falls into place when you’re happy, don’t you think?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘But I know. Believe me, Chloé. I don’t know much, but I know this. I’m not more psychic than the next person, but I’m twice your age. Twice your age, do you realise that? Life is stronger than you are, even when you deny it, even when you neglect it, even when you refuse to admit it. Stronger than anything. People came home from the camps and had children. Men and women who had been tortured, who had watched their loved ones die and their houses burn to the ground. They came home and ran for the bus, talked about the weather, and married their daughters off. It’s incredible, but that’s the way it is. Life is stronger than anything. And who are we to be so self-important? We bustle about, talk in loud voices, and for what? And then what happens, afterward?
‘What happened to little Sylvie, for whom Paul died in the next room? What happened to her?
‘The fire is going out.’
He got up to put another log on.
And me, I thought, where do I fit into all of this?
Where am I?
He crouched in front of the fireplace.
‘Do you believe me, Chloé? Do you believe me when I say that life is stronger than you?’
‘Certainly …’
‘Do you trust me?’
‘That depends on the day.’
‘What about today?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then I think that you should go to bed now.’
‘You never saw her again? You never tried to find out how she was? Never called her?’
He sighed.
‘Haven’t you had enough?’
‘No.’
‘I called her sister, of course, I even went there in person, but it didn’t do any good. She had flown the coop … To find her, I had to know in which hemisphere to start looking … And then, I had promised I would leave her alone. That’s one of my outstanding qualities, by the way. I’m a good loser.’
‘What you’re saying is completely ridiculous. It’s not about being a good or bad loser. That’s completely stupid reasoning, stupid and childish. It wasn’t a game, after all … or was it? Was it all a game?’
He was delighted.
‘Really, I don’t have to worry about you, my girl. You have no idea how much I respect you. You are everything that I’m not, you are my star and your good sense will save us all …’
‘You’re drunk, is that it?’
‘You want to know something? I’ve never felt so good in my life!’
He lifted himself to his feet by holding on to the mantelpiece.
‘Let’s go to bed.’
‘You haven’t finished …’
‘You want to hear me ramble on some more?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I love a good story.’
‘You think that this is a good story?’
‘Yes.’
‘Me too …’
‘You saw her again, right? At the Palais-Royal?’
‘How did you know that?’
‘You told me yourself!’
‘Oh really? Did I say that?’
I nodded.
‘Well, then, this will be the last act …
‘That day, I invited a group of clients to the Grand Véfour. Françoise had organised everything. Good vintages, flattery, excellent dishes. I pulled out all the stops. I had been doing the same thing forever, it seems … The lunch was utterly boring. I’ve always hated that sort of thing, spending hours at the table with men I don’t give a damn for, being forced to listen to them go on about their work … And in addition, I was the killjoy of the group because of my liver. For a long time, I didn’t drink a drop of alcohol and asked the waiters to tell me exactly what was in each dish. You know the type of pain in the arse I mean … Plus, I don’t really care for the company of men. They bore me. They’re the same as they were at boarding school. The braggarts are the same, and so are the brownnosers …’
‘So, there I was at that point in my life, in front of the door of a fancy restaurant, a bit sluggish, a little weary, tapping another big cigar, dreaming of the moment when I could loosen my belt, when I caught sight of her. She was walking fast, almost running, and dragging a small, unhappy boy behind her. “Mathilde?” I murmured. I saw her turn pale, and the ground open under her feet. She didn’t slow down. “Mathilde!” I said more loudly, “Mathilde!” And then I ran after her like a crazy thing. “Mathiiilde!” I nearly shouted. The little boy turned round.’
*
‘I invited her for a coffee under the arcades. She didn’t have the strength to refuse; she … She was still so beautiful. I tried to act naturally. I was a bit awkward, a bit stupid, a bit too playful. It was difficult.
‘Where was she living? What was she doing here? I wanted her to tell me about herself. Tell me how you are. Do you live here? Do you live in Paris? She answered grudgingly. She was ill at ease and gnawed the end of her coffee spoon. At any rate, I wasn’t listening, I had stopped listening. I was looking at this little blond boy who had collected all the leftover bread from nearby tables and was throwing crumbs to the birds. He had made two piles, one for the sparrows and one for the pigeons, and was busily organising this little world. The pigeons were not supposed to take the crumbs from the smaller birds. “Go away, you!” he yelled in English, giving them a kick. “Go away, you stupid bird!” When I turned back toward his mother, about to speak, she cut me short:
“Don’t bother, Pierre, don’t bother. He’s not five years old … He hasn’t turned five, do you understand?”
I closed my mouth.
“What’s his name?”
“Tom.”
“He speaks English?”
“English and French.”
“Do you have other children?”
“No.”
“Do you … Are you … I mean … do you live with someone?”
She scraped at the sugar in the bottom of her cup and smiled at me.
“I have to go now. We’re expected.”
“Already?”
She stood up.
“Can I drop you somewhere? I …”
She picked up her bag.
“Pierre, please …”
‘And then, I broke down. I didn’t expect it at all. I began to cry like a baby. I … That child was for me. It was for me to show him how to chase pigeons, for me to pick up his sweater and put his hat on. It was for me to do that. What’s more, I knew she was lying! The boy was more than four. I wasn’t blind after all! Why was she lying to me that way? Why had she lied to me? No one has the right to lie like that! No one … I sobbed. I wanted to say that –
She pushed back her chair.
“I’m going now. I’ve already cried all my tears.”
‘And afterwards?’
‘Afterwards I left …’
‘No, I mean with Mathilde, what happened?’
‘After that it was over.’
‘Really over?’
‘Over.’
*
There was a
long silence.
‘Was she lying?’
‘No. Since then I started paying more attention. I compared him with other children, with your daughters … no, I think that she wasn’t lying. Children are so big these days … With all the vitamins you put in their bottles … I think about him sometimes. He must be around fifteen today … He must be huge, that boy.’
‘You never tried to see her again?’
‘No.’
‘What about now? Maybe she – ’
‘Now it’s finished. Now I … I don’t even know if I would still be capable of …’
He folded the fire screen.
‘I don’t want to talk about it anymore.’
He went to lock the front door and turned out all the lights.
I hadn’t moved from the couch.
‘Come on, Chloé … Do you see what time it is? Go to bed now.’
I didn’t answer.
‘Do you hear me?’
‘So love is just bullshit? That’s it? It never works out?’
‘Of course it works out. But you have to fight …’
‘Fight how?’
‘Every day you have to fight a bit. A little bit each day, with the courage to be yourself, to decide to be happ – ’
‘Oh, that’s beautiful! You sound just like Paulo Coelho …’
‘Go ahead and laugh, go ahead …’
‘Being yourself, does that mean walking out on your wife and kids?’
‘Who said anything about walking out on the kids?’
‘Oh, stop it. You know exactly what I mean …’
‘No, I don’t.’
I started to cry again.
‘Go on, leave. Leave me alone. I can’t take any more of your noble sentiments. I can’t take them anymore. It’s too much for me, Mr. Bare-Your-Soul, it’s too much …’
‘I’m going, I’m going. Since you ask so nicely …’
At the door of the room, he said:
‘One last story, if I may?’
I didn’t want to hear it.
‘One day, a long time ago, I took my little daughter to the bakery. It was rare for me to go to the bakery with my daughter. It was rare for us to hold hands, and even rarer to be alone with her. It must have been a Sunday morning, and the bakery was full of people buying fruit tarts and meringues. On the way out, she asked me for the tip of the baguette to eat. I refused. No, I said. When we’re at the table. We went home and sat down to eat. A perfect little family. I was the one who cut the bread. I insisted. I wanted to keep my promise. But when I handed the bread end to my daughter, she gave it to her brother.
“But you told me you wanted it …”
“I wanted it back then,” she said, unfolding her napkin.
“But it tastes the same,” I insisted. “It’s the same …”
She turned away.
“No thank you.”
‘I’m going to bed, and I’ll leave you in the dark if that’s what you want, but before I turn out the lights, I want to ask one question. I’m not asking you, I’m not asking myself, I’m asking the walls:
‘Wouldn’t that stubborn little girl have preferred living with a father who was happier?’
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Copyright © Le Dilettante, 1999 (I Wish Someone Were Waiting For Me Somewhere) and 2002 (Someone I Loved)
English translation copyright © Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 2003 (I Wish Someone Were Waiting For Me Somewhere) and 2005 (Someone I Loved)
Anna Gavalda has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988 to be identified as the author of this work
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser
I Wish Someone Were Waiting For Me Somewhere was first published in France as Je voudrais que quelqu’un m’attende quelque part by Le Dilettante in 1999
Someone I Loved was first published in France as Je l’aimais by Le Dilettante in 2002
First published in Great Britain in 2008 by Vintage
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ISBN 9780099506010
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