Then Kerem asks, “What’s your Big Dream, Marc? You know, with capital B and capital D? The one thing in life you really want to do?”
“I don’t know. Nothing, I guess. I don’t dream. I’m too busy coping with real life.”
He snorts. “That’s what you really believe, I reckon.”
“And you? What’s your Big Dream?”
He thinks for a second. “Nothing fancy. Find myself a family. No matter how that family turns out to be. Maybe open a little restaurant somewhere. Just live a normal life.”
“Define ‘normal,’” I can’t refrain from saying.
He shrugs. “Why should I? I know what I mean. Anyway, I don’t care about definitions. They’re just little drawers where stupid people file away things they often don’t even understand.”
I lay an arm on his shoulder. At first, he stiffens, but then he relaxes.
We listen to the splashing sound of the waves and the morning call of the seagulls. I would like this moment to last forever. But like all those wanton moments that allow you to be yourself, it will pass in a flurry.
—40—
The young woman behind the Lufthansa Business Class counter flashes me a broad smile while checking my ticket. “Guten Tag, Herr Brehmer,” she says, opens the passport, barely looks at it, then closes it again and pushes it back towards me. “Haben Sie Gepäck?” She starts to press some keys on her keyboard.
“Nein, nur mein Handgepäck,” I answer. For once, I’m glad that all those ghastly years in various Swiss boarding schools have left a positive trace. Apart from French and native-sounding English, I speak fluent and accent-free German, which is priceless. Only those forced by birth or happenstance volunteer to learn that difficult language.
“Kein Problem, Herr Brehmer.” She sticks a tag on my brown briefcase: “Hand luggage,” then draws a circle around the boarding time and gate. “Boarding ist um 17 Uhr 20, Ausgang B14. Wir wünschen Ihnen einen angenehmen Flug.”
“Besten Dank,” I reply, picking up the fake German passport and the boarding pass. I’ve got ten minutes left; just enough time to pass the security check and proceed to the gate.
I catch a glimpse of my reflection in a Duty-Free shop window and have to stifle a laugh. My hair has been cut and parted on the left, I’m close-shaven, wearing old-fashioned glasses, a cheap, beige business suit, and really ugly loafers. I’ve never looked more hideous.
The security check turns out to be as superficial as Kerem promised. The guy x-raying my hand luggage avoids looking at the screen when my briefcase filled with euro bills passes. I sigh with relief. I’m back to normal, things run smoothly again. The last few hours of anguish will soon be an unpleasant memory, nothing more.
Just before I get on the plane, I switch on my mobile.
The text message I discover is clear and precise.
Smoothness and normality? Try again in another life, maybe…
this time, you escaped.
but we will get you.
soon.
Part Six | Ordinary Notes
—39—
I’m back home. Nothing seems to have changed in my apartment. That ought to be comforting, and yet… it’s not. Maybe because I’m too wired, too raw and foggy-headed. Too full of questions.
I haven’t bothered going through the contents of the brown briefcase I brought home from Cyprus, simply putting it under my bed after having thrown the cheap, beige business suit and those ugly loafers into it. I’m wearing black again now, feeling myself at last.
All right, almost myself.
There’s a place in my mind, one that was empty before and now seems to hold a brand-new, small safe where I’ve stored away some recent memories, a name, a scent, a body…
Oh, bollocks. Never mind. I just have to make sure the key to that safe gets lost in my subconscious.
Lounging on the sofa, I struggle to keep afloat. My thoughts and emotions go helter-skelter like a furious ocean, multi-coloured waves coming and going so fast that in the end, all seems white and indistinct. I’m drowning in this ocean of uncertainty. So much happened over the last few days… Predictable and unavoidable things like Father’s death. Strange encounters. Flashbacks. Revelations. Dangers. Betrayal. And to crown it all, that night on the boat…
Only the conviction that, as time goes by, everything will blur, then fade, then disappear keeps me sane.
The city is humming outside, busy and lively. The evening sky wears flaming colours as if Paris were burning.
My gaze wanders around, trying to pierce the vermillion semidarkness of my living room. Everything looks as usual. Everything is in its place. I’ve checked and double-checked, driven by a paranoid frenzy I tried to smother with sensible arguments at first. But sensible arguments are no match for hidden fears. I know where those come from, even if I still don’t want to mull over what happened in Turkey.
My apartment, however, is still the same silent, almost impersonal place. I’ve chosen each piece of furniture, each decoration item, the colour scheme of each room myself. But even so. Nothing tells a story. The walls are white and sanitised. Chairs, tables, sideboards, dressers, cupboards—all new, modern, an accumulation of shiny steel, glass, light-coloured wood, and stone.
My home. Reassuring in its blankness, but at the same time a cold place.
The world hasn’t changed either. When I boarded the plane in Cyprus, I picked up a complimentary copy of Le Monde. I brought it home, go figure why, and tried to read it a few minutes ago. After scanning the front page, I gave up, however. No need to read on. Bombs are still raining down on some desert dictators, and generous subsidies are handed out to others. The world is still gaping at newlywed royals, at politicians awaiting their trial in prison, at false prophets preaching hatred, which they construe in a twisted logic from books of love. People are demonstrating, others are putting up with austerity policies, and others still are taking advantage of the ordinary chaos.
The same crazy mesh of war, blood, greed, lies, sex, hunger, and tears.
In France, nothing new either. The same clique of tricksters is still running the country. The same egomaniac president continues to shout and gesticulate, infesting everything with endless streams of verbiage, building walls of words around him and between us. Words to soothe, words to excite, words to camouflage, words to divide, words to lure.
What is it with words, anyway? Not so long ago, terms like “friend,” “share,” and “like” had a soul, a meaning. But since we’ve entered the era of Newspeak, they’ve become soulless shades, nothing but website tabs and buttons that allow people to hide their loneliness behind so-called social networking. Despair has been rebranded; today we call it Meetic, Facebook, Google+, or Twitter.
And like trepanned lemmings we are heading to a man towards the edge of the cliff, pushing each other to win that race. Nobody forces us because nobody needs to—we want to jump off and perish.
Life is nothing but a succession of silly little things, in fact. Delusions, false hopes, and we betray ourselves, or others, and others betray us, and everything goes in circles, and our last sigh will be, “Fuck—this was it?”
Some say love will make it all seem worthwhile. Oh, love… when foolish hearts ba-dum-ba-dum like mad, and thoughts become pink and dreamy, knees cottony, smiles permanent and stupid…
But what for? Who needs the violence of love?
Love only leads to loss and heartache, right?
In the middle of my erratic navel-gazing, the landline rings.
I hate that sound. I hate phone calls. But without a phone, you’re nothing. Without a phone, you’re dead.
After three rings, I answer reluctantly. “Hello?”
“Marc? Marc Forgeron? Is that really you? I hope you remember me, jongen,” a woman purrs. “It’s me, Gloria!”
—38—
Early the next morning,
I’m on my way to see Gloria. We’re going to have breakfast in a fancy restaurant off the Place du Trocadéro. She didn’t tell me why she wanted to see me, but I accepted, nonetheless. I need to think of something else than my puzzling life.
Her phone call was a pleasant surprise, I admit. In fact, Gloria was one of Mother’s acquaintances, but over the years she has become a kind of motherly friend to me. In the sixties, her ethereal beauty propelled her from a Catholic private school in Brussels straight onto the front pages of the most famous fashion magazines. She was photographed by Irving Penn, Helmut Newton, Richard Avedon. Mother met her back then at a concert or during a TV show, whatever. They kept loosely in touch after their respective careers ended—Gloria’s much later than Mother’s because she never married, so I must have seen Gloria at several of Mother’s social gatherings. I didn’t pay attention at first; she was just another dull reception asset, as interesting as the wickedly expensive hors d’œuvres a caterer would arrange in delicate patterns on a 19th-century sideboard an hour before the first guests arrived.
But I remember the day we really met as if it was yesterday.
I was nine years old. Back then, we were living in a swanky house in the countryside near Paris, a three-storey building, oversized for a family of five, absurdly palatial, with twelve acres of land surrounding it, mostly vast stretches of lawn we weren’t allowed to walk on and bucolic groves we weren’t allowed to play in. One of Mother’s parties was going on downstairs that day. My sisters weren’t there, I don’t remember why, and I was alone, sitting in our library on the second floor, reading a comic book and listening to the radio with half an ear.
That’s when the door opened. And in waltzed Gloria, a heavy crystal tumbler in her hand.
She stopped in her tracks when she spotted me in my armchair. “Oh,” she said and waved her tumbler at me. “Hi, jongen. What’s up?” Her voice was musky, low and gravelly, the voice of a woman who has spent a lifetime chain-smoking Gauloises sans filtre. She was beautiful, slender and tall, and when she came closer, I could smell her perfume, a fresh-heavy mixture of citrus and musk.
“You’re not supposed to be here,” I growled.
“I guess you’re right,” she replied. “But I needed a breather. Just couldn’t bear that stupid bitch any longer.” She fixed her almond eyes on me before asking, “What’s the capital of Belgium, lief? Do you know that?”
“Of course. It’s Brussels.”
She patted my head, “Good boy. So, tell me: why would that silly goat ask me if I miss Amsterdam? I mean, she knows I’m Belgian.” True, you couldn’t miss her Flemish accent.
I chose to scowl at her in silence.
The truth dawned upon her at last. She giggled, hiding her mouth behind the tumbler. “I shouldn’t have said that. I suppose you’re one of her kids, right?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Well, never mind. I didn’t want to insult your mom. But what’s said can’t be unsaid. I’m Gloria, by the way.” She stretched out her hand.
I shook it without thinking. “Marc.”
Madonna started to sing Vogue on the radio.
“You like that?” Gloria asked, nodding in direction of the hi-fi system.
“So-so. It’s okay.”
“Yeah, I guess so… even if Madonna didn’t invent music, right? What kind of music do you like, jongen?”
“The older stuff.”
“Such as?”
“Well, The Cure. Sisters of Mercy. The Mission. That kind of stuff.”
“Oh—you go back that far?” She chuckled, sat down on the armrest of my chair, took a sip, and smiled at me.
Despite myself, I realised I liked her.
“Would you mind if we listened to something else? Just to, you know, chill a bit?” she asked.
“Go ahead. The CDs are over there—” I pointed at the rack.
In no time, she had inserted Rachmaninov’s “Preludes.” I didn’t know them back then; I do now, every single note of them. She pressed several buttons, came back to her place on my armrest, closed her eyes, and whispered, “Listen, jongen. Listen to this…”
She had selected the Prelude No. 4 in D major. I was fidgety at first, struggling with the scarce piano notes that fell into the room one by one, not knowing what to do with them, not knowing what to do with myself. After a minute and a half, however, the piece started to swell to a bitter-sweet emotional high, washing over me with an intensity I hadn’t expected. I had goosebumps, which somehow wouldn’t go away, rising and making me shiver.
When the last note had died away, I realised I was smiling although I also felt like weeping, for no other reason than the sheer beauty I had just witnessed.
The same prelude started all over again.
“Beautiful, isn’t it? And touching. If you want to understand why, you’ll have to listen to it again and again,” Gloria said. “You’ll discover the pattern. And then it’ll talk to you just as clearly as I’m talking to you right now. You’ll see.”
I nodded, still stunned.
“Well—and what are you reading, lief?” She leant forward and turned my book around to have a look at the cover. “Oh. Mickey Mouse. Good story?”
“No, it’s daft,” I said. “I don’t like Mickey Mouse. I prefer Donald Duck.”
“Oh, really? How’s that?”
“Mickey’s much too serious. But Donald is fun. He’s a loser. He makes me laugh.”
Gloria nodded and winked. “I prefer funny comics, too. But if you like Donald better, why aren’t you reading a Donald book instead?”
“Because Mother brought me this one.” I waved the book at her.
“Does she know you prefer Donald?”
“Sure. That is, I guess.” Meaning probably not.
Gloria nodded again. “She’s really…”
“Daft,” I said, very serious.
She snorted and wiggled her forefinger, “Don’t be impertinent, jongen!” Then she held out her tumbler. “Wanna have some?”
“What is it?”
“Vodka on the rocks. But the ice cubes have melted, I’m afraid.”
“I’m only nine.”
She handed me the tumbler all the same. “Good for you! Cheers!”
I took it and sipped. The icy liquor stung my mouth and burned down my throat. I coughed.
Gloria patted my back. “There, there,” she said. “Atta man!”
Then she stood up and walked to the door. Before leaving, she turned around, waved at me and whispered, “It was nice to chat with you, jongen! Now I need to go back downstairs and face the silliness of this world again. See you around.”
From then on, whenever she was invited, she would bring me a comic. Only funny ones. Donald Duck. Garfield. Dilbert. Calvin and Hobbes. Gary Larson. And more than once, she would bring me a CD with classical music, too. She would always insert a small sheet of paper on which she had noted her favourite passages.
That’s why I always considered her a friend. Nothing creates a stronger bond than when you share music or books with someone.
—37—
The people in the métro are staring ahead with empty eyes. Parts of this particular line are constructed above street level; in passing I see strangers prepare breakfast in their kitchens, men shave in their bathrooms, women apply makeup. They must know that everybody can see them. Nevertheless, they keep performing their daily morning routine like actors on a stage, oblivious to all the anonymous people observing them.
The boulevard de la Villette lies like a grey ribbon down below; horns are honking, cars accelerating, clouds preparing to break open. If the weather forecast can be trusted, we’ll be able to have breakfast outside.
Two very young girls are sitting across from me, forming a sleeping human heap on their folding seats. Someone is listening to Heavy Metal music, a rancid far-awa
y sound that rings dully through the train, which shrieks and heaves and groans and rattles. Someone is talking on his mobile, shooting rapid Spanish words into the mouthpiece. Two bearded men are having a discussion in Arab. A fortyish guy next to the door keeps shooting sideways glances at me. He’s wearing a suit and tie the shade of crushed grey-and-white granite and looks fit under the tight clothes. His face is mousey, his hair fair, almost colourless, and cut very short. I don’t know if he wants to flirt or if he is… stalking me.
I shake my head. I really shouldn’t indulge in these bouts of paranoia. I’m back, I’m unhurt, I’m home. No one wants to harm me here.
We stop at Barbès-Rochechouart. Across from me, the two little girls awake with a start and storm off the train. The young, mousey guy takes one of the seats they’ve just vacated. He unfolds a newspaper and pretends to read. But I can still feel his probing gaze on me.
An unkempt woman in dirty jeans and a leather jacket steps in, muttering odd things under her breath. “AIDS is not a curse,” I hear her mumble. Then she raises her voice. “No one’s allowed to fucken spit at ya, huh!, and cancer, all right, cancer, now that’s dangerous, much more dangerous’n AIDS, right, and I know ’cos my grandmother had cancer, was very old, yes man, she was, died at a hun’red’n’two, cancer’s what finished’er off, but I mean, c’mon, a hun’red’n’two, now fuck, that’s old, that’s very old right there…”
She opens a can of beer, spills half of it, and doesn’t care. It’s nine o’clock in the morning. The train starts to reek of beer.
“I’m a Christian, y’know,” the woman says to no one in particular. To everyone maybe. She sips her beer, burps, continues to soliloquise.
People try hard to look at anything but her.
“I’m a Christian—,” she nearly shouts the last word, “—a fucken Christian, and they didn’t have no more leaflets, had to take the last one…” She brandishes a leaflet and shakes it, spilling more beer. “… imagine, the last one, but lemme tell ya, people have no fucken right to spit at ya cos with AIDS you can get as old as a hun’red’n’two, I’m fucken sure of that, just like my grandmother, didn’t have AIDS, died from cancer, poor old thing, but I mean, who do they bloody think they are? Better than us, huh? I mean, you can’t just let people die, we’ll all die one day, but give’em proper treatment, right, ‘s what I’m saying, and let’em live until they’re old, even if they got AIDS, ’s not as bad as cancer, but they should treat ya right, treat ya like a fucken human being…” She burps again.
Ordinary Whore Page 16
