Short Stories in French

by Richard Coward

  So he watches the light gradually find its way to the river bed. The sky is clear and cold, the light is cold also, but it does David good, it gives him strength. The dawn mist has disappeared. You can now see the giant blocks of flats again, on either side of the river. The sun is lighting up their eastern façades in white, bringing a shine to the large windows behind which there is no one.

  When he is hungry, David goes back towards the supermarket. There is almost no one there at this time, and the whining music from the loudspeakers seems to be echoing inside a huge empty cave. Inside the shop, the light from the neon strips is harsh and unflickering, it makes things and colours shine. David is not hiding any more. There are no families, nor children with whom he can mix. There are only busy people, shop assistants in white overalls, cashiers behind their tills. David eats some fruit, standing at the display, a yellow apple, a banana, black grapes. No one pays any attention to him. He feels quite small, almost invisible. Just for a moment, a girl wearing the white overall of the shop looks at him eating, and she has a funny smile on her face, as if she recognized him. But she carries on lining the shelves with food, without saying anything.

  It is on leaving the supermarket that David wants to take some money. It came to him in a flash, all of a sudden, perhaps because of the long hours spent waiting, perhaps because of the night, or his loneliness on the shingle of the dry river. Suddenly, David realized why his brother Édouard was not coming back, why he couldn’t be found. It was outside the shoe shop that this happened. David remembered the day when, with his mother, he went to the police station, and they waited a long time, a very long time, before going into the inspector’s office. His mother said nothing but the man asked questions in his soft voice and, from time to time, he looked David straight in the eye, and David forced himself to maintain his gaze, whilst his heart pounded. Perhaps his mother knew something, something terrible that she would not utter, something which had happened to his brother Édouard. She was so pale and silent, and the gaze of the man sitting at the desk was as shiny as jet, and he was trying to find out, he was asking his questions in his soft voice.

  That is why David now stops outside the big shoe shop, where there is that white light which shines on the red plastic tiles. He does it almost mechanically, as if he were repeating the gestures that someone else might have made before him. Slowly, he goes down the aisles which lead to the far end of the shop. He passes the rows of shoes without seeing them, but he smells the bitter smell of the leather and the plastic. The red slabs give off a heady light, the soft music which is coming down from the ceiling sickens him a little. There is no one in the department store. The employees are standing near the door, they are talking, without looking at the little boy who is making his way towards the far end of the shop.

  The soft music makes vocal sounds that mask everything:

  Ah ooh, ahooa, ooahahoo,

  like bird calls in the forest. But David pays no attention to what they are saying, he moves forward, holding his breath, towards the far end of the shop, where the till is. No one sees him, no one is thinking about him. Soundlessly he walks between the shelves of shoes, boots, trainers, children’s bootees, he walks towards the till, clenching tightly in his left hand the round stone that he picked up from the river beach, last night. His heart is beating very loudly in his chest, so loudly that he thinks that the beats must be ringing out throughout the shop. The light from the neon strips is blinding, the mirrors on the walls and the pillars reflect an unflickering light. The red plastic floor is vast and deserted, David’s feet slide over it as though on ice. He thinks about the security men who walk round shops and drive around car parks in their grey cars, he thinks about the nasty people who are watching, with their wild, shining eyes. His heart is beating, beating, and sweat dampens his brow, the palms of his hands. Over there, at the far end of the shop, he can see it clearly. Enormous and lit by its lamps, the till is motionless, and he walks towards it, towards the place where he is finally going to be able to know, finally able to meet his brother Édouard, the burning place where the secret message is hidden. Now he understands, he realizes, that is why he left the flat yesterday morning, with the key hanging round his neck: to get here, the place where he is going to be able to begin to find his brother. He walks towards the till as though it really were hiding him, as though by approaching he were going to see his thin, dark form appear, with his black eyes, shining from fever, his curly hair tangled as though he had been walking in the wind.

  He squeezes the round stone tightly in his hand, the stone which is quite warm and wet from his sweat. That is how you make war on giants, all alone in the vast, empty valley, in a blinding light. In the distance you can hear the cries of the wild animals, the wolves, the hyenas, the jackals. They groan in the silence of the wind. And the voice of the giant rings out, he laughs, he shouts to the child who is walking towards him: ‘Come here! I’ll feed you to the birds of the sky and the beasts of the fields. Come here! …’ And his laugh sends shivers over the round stone from the river bed.

  David is now at the far end of the department store, at the counter on which the till is sitting. The white light from the ceiling is reflected on the metal corners, on the black plastic of the counter, on the blood-red floor. David is looking only at the till, he moves towards it, he touches it with his fingertips, he goes round the counter in order to be closer. The soft music continues to emit its sighs, its distant screeching, and David’s heartbeats mix with the slow sounds of the music. It is a strange form of drunkenness, like the one which filled his head when he inhaled from the sheet of blotting paper impregnated with the peppery smell of the glue. Perhaps the face of his brother Édouard is here, quite close now, dark and hieratic like the face of an Indian with high cheekbones, waiting. Who is holding him prisoner? Who is preventing him from coming back? But the swirling, blinding emptiness does not allow him to understand.

  David is leaning against the counter, his face on a level with the till drawer. The drawer is in fact half-open, and it slides slowly on its own, as if it were the hand of someone else opening it, who was taking a bundle of notes and squeezing it tightly, rustling it between their fingers.

  But suddenly, the emptiness stops and only fear remains. Someone is there, next to David, a young man, slightly fat, with an almost feminine face that is framed with curly brown hair. He is holding David by the hand, he is squeezing it so tightly with both his hands that David can hear his joints cracking, and he cries out with pain. The teenager’s face is glistening with sweat, and his eyes are shining with a harsh glow, whilst he repeats, his teeth clenched, but with so much vehemence that he is spluttering: ‘Thief! Thief! Thief!’ David says nothing, he does not even struggle. His left hand has dropped on to the ground the round pebble from the river, which rolls along the red plastic before coming to a halt. ‘Thief! Damned thief!’ continues the young man without tiring, and now he is talking very loudly in order to attract the attention of the saleswomen at the shop entrance.

  ‘Thief! Thief! Nasty little thief!’ he shouts, and there is such an expression of excitement and anger on his face that David is no longer afraid of him. He simply closes his eyes, he withstands the pain inflicted by the boy’s two hands, which are crushing his metacarpi and his wrist. He does not want to cry out, or speak, because that is what he must do if he wants to find his brother Édouard. The strained voice of the young man, full of threat and hatred, rings in his ears: ‘Damned thief! Damned little thief!’ But he must not reply, not beg, nor weep, nor say that it was not him that came here, that it was not the money he was wanting, but the face of his brother Édouard. He must not even think of that any more, since the giant has conquered him, and because he will not be king, and will not find what he is looking for. But he must keep silent, always keep silent, even when the security guards and the police come to take him away to prison. Women have appeared now, they are all around them, they are talking, they are telephoning. One of them is saying: ‘Let
him go, will you, he’s only a child.’ ‘And what if he runs away? He’s a nasty little thief like so many of them round here, they wait till your back is turned so they can dip their hand in the till.’ ‘What are you called? How old are you?’ ‘It’s their parents who teach them to do this, you know, they’ve got to take money home every night.’ ‘Thief, bastard little thief!’

  In the end, the boy relaxes his grip, less out of pity than because his arms are tired from having squeezed David’s hand so much. Then David falls on the blood-red ground, he collapses gently like a pile of rags, and his swollen hand and wrist hang along his body. The pain is burning up to under his shoulder, but he says nothing, he does not say a word, even though the salty tears flow down his cheeks and moisten the corner of his mouth.

  Silence now reigns for a few moments more. No one else speaks, and the young man has stepped back a little from the till, as if he were afraid, or ashamed. David can still hear the languorous sounds of the distant music, like the groans of animals who are lamenting their fate, he hears the sound of his heart which is beating loudly, in his temples, in his neck, in the arteries in the crook of his elbow. The burning in his hand is less fierce, between his fingers he can feel the crumpled paper of the banknotes, which no one has thought to take from him. It requires an effort but he sits up a little and he throws aside the notes, which topple over on the linoleum like an old pellet. No one moves to pick them up. In front of him, through the fog created by his tears, he can also see the face of his mother, who is waiting in the dark flat, far beyond the sheer walls and the stormy valleys of the modern town. He can see it very quickly, at the same time as the uniforms of the security guards appearing at the other end of the department store. But he couldn’t care less, he is no longer afraid of loneliness, he no longer fears the world, or the way people look at him, because he now knows the door which leads towards his brother Édouard, towards his secret hiding-place from which no one ever returns.

  Jean Échenoz

  THE OCCUPATION OF THE GROUND

  L’Occupation des sols

  Comme tout avait brûlé – la mère, les meubles et les photographies de la mère –, pour Fabre et le fils Paul c’était tout de suite beaucoup d’ouvrage: toute cette cendre et ce deuil, déménager, courir se refaire dans les grandes surfaces. Fabre trouva trop vite quelque chose de moins vaste, deux pièces aux fonctions permutables sous une cheminée de brique dont l’ombre donnait l’heure,1 et qui avaient ceci de bien d’être assez proches du quai de Valmy.

  Le soir après le dîner, Fabre parlait à Paul de sa mère, sa mère à lui Paul, parfois dès le dîner. Comme on ne possédait plus de représentation de Sylvie Fabre, il s’épuisait à vouloir la décrire toujours plus exactement: au milieu de la cuisine naquirent des hologrammes que dégonflait la moindre imprécision. Ça ne se rend pas, soupirait Fabre en posant une main sur sa tête, sur ses yeux, et le découragement l’endormait. Souvent ce fut à Paul de déplier le canapé convertible, transformant les choses en chambre à coucher.

  Le dimanche et certains jeudis, ils partaient sur le quai de Valmy vers la rue Marseille, la rue Dieu, ils allaient voir Sylvie Fabre. Elle les regardait de haut, tendait vers eux le flacon de parfum Piver, Forvil, elle souriait dans quinze mètres de robe bleue. Le gril d’un soupirail trouait sa hanche. Il n’y avait pas d’autre image d’elle.

  L’artiste Flers l’avait représentée sur le flanc d’un immeuble, juste avant le coin de la rue. L’immeuble était plus maigre et plus solide, mieux tenu que les vieilles constructions qui se collaient en grinçant contre lui, terrifiées, par le plan d’occupation des sols. En manque de marquise, son porche saturé de moulures portait le nom (Wagner) de l’architecte-sculpteur gravé dans un cartouche en haut à droite. Et le mur sur lequel, avec toute son équipe, l’artiste Flers avait peiné pour figurer Sylvie Fabre en pied, surplombait un petit espace vert rudimentaire, sorte de square sans accessoires qui ne consistait qu’à former le coin de la rue.

  Choisie par Flers, pressée par Fabre, Sylvie avait accepté de poser. Elle n’avait pas aimé cela. C’était trois ans avant la naissance de Paul, pour qui ce mur n’était qu’une tranche de vie antérieure. Regarde un peu ta mère, s’énervait Fabre que ce spectacle mettait en larmes, en rut, selon. Mais il pouvait aussi chercher la scène, se faire franchement hostile à l’endroit de l’effigie contre laquelle, en écho, rebondissaient ses reproches – Paul s’occupant de modérer le père dès qu’un attroupement menaçait de se former.

  Plus tard, suffisamment séparé de Fabre pour qu’on ne se parlât même plus, Paul visita sa mère sur un rythme plus souple, deux ou trois fois par mois, compte non tenu des aléas qui font qu’on passe par là. D’une cabine scellée dans le champ visuel de Sylvie Fabre, il avait failli appeler son père lorsqu’on se mit à démolir la vieille chose insalubre qui jouxtait l’immeuble Wagner. Celui-ci demeura seul, dressé comme un phare au bord du canal. Le ravalement de la façade fit naître sur la robe bleue, par effet de contraste, une patine ainsi que des nuances insoupçonnées. C’était une belle robe au décolleté profond, c’était une mère vraiment. On remplaça la vieille chose par un bâtiment dynamique tout carrelé de blanc, bardé de balconnets incurvés, l’autre flanc du Wagner se trouvant heureusement protégé par la pérennité de l’espace vert, qui formait un gazon subsidiaire aux pieds de Sylvie.

  Négligence ou manœuvre, on laissait l’espace dépérir. Les choses vertes s’y raréfièrent au profit de résidus bruns jonchant une boue d’où saillirent des ferrailles aux arêtes menaçantes, tendues vers l’usager comme les griffes mêmes du tétanos. L’usager, volontiers, s’offense de ces pratiques. Heurté, l’usager boycotte cet espace rayé du monde chlorophyllien, n’y délègue plus sa descendance, n’y mène plus déféquer l’animal familier. Le trouvant un matin barré d’une palissade, il cautionne cette quarantaine l’œil sec, sans se questionner sur son initiative; son cœur est froid, sa conscience pour soi.

  La palissade se dégraderait à terme: parfait support d’affiches et d’inscriptions contradictoires, elle s’était vite rompue à l’usure des choses, intégrée au laisser-aller. Rassérénés, les chiens venaient compisser les planches déjà gorgées de colle et d’encre, promptement corrompues: disjointes, ce que l’on devinait entre elles faisait détourner le regard. Son parfum levé par-dessus la charogne, Sylvie Fabre luttait cependant contre son effacement personnel, bravant l’érosion éolienne de toute la force de ses deux dimensions. Paul vit parfois d’un œil inquiet la pierre de taille2 chasser le bleu, surgir nue, craquant une maille du vêtement maternel; quoique tout cela restât très progressif.

  Il suffit d’un objet pour enclencher une chaîne, il s’en trouve un toujours qui scelle ce qui le précède, colore ce qui va suivre – au pochoir, ainsi, l’avis du permis de construire. Dès lors c’est très rapide, quelqu’un sans doute ayant vendu son âme avec l’espace, il y a le trou. Il y eut le trou, tapissé de cette terre fraîche qui est sous les villes, pas plus stérile qu’une autre; des hommes calmement casqués de jaune la pelletaient avec méthode, s’aidant de machines, deux bulldozers puis une grue jaunes. Les planches brisées de la palissade brûlaient sans flamme dans une excavation, poussant des spires de colle noire dans l’air. Tendu sur des piquets rouillés, du ruban rouge et blanc balisait le théâtre. Les fondations enracinées, toutes les matières premières livrées, on lança la superstructure et de nouvelles planches neuves traînèrent un peu partout, gainées d’un grumeau de ciment. Les étages burent Sylvie comme une marée. Paul aperçut Fabre une fois sur le chantier, l’immeuble allait atteindre le ventre de sa mère. Une autre fois c’était vers la poitrine, le veuf parlait avec un contremaître en dépliant des calques millimétrés. Paul se tint à distance, hors de portée de la voix énervante.

  Au lieu de l’espace vert, ce serait un immeuble à peu près jumeau du successeur de la vieille chose, avec des bow-windows au lieu de balconnets. Plus tard tous deux seraient solidaires, gardes du corps du Wagner préservé, projetant l’
intersection de leurs ombres protectrices sur sa vieille toiture en zinc. Mais à partir des épaules, le chantier pour un fils devenait insoutenable, Paul cessa de le visiter lorsque la robe entière eut été murée. Des semaines passèrent avant qu’il revînt quai de Valmy, d’ailleurs accidentellement. L’édifice n’était pas entièrement achevé, des finitions traînaient, avec des sacs de ciment déchirés; mastiquées depuis peu, les vitres étaient encore barrées de blanc d’Espagne pour qu’on ne les confondît pas avec rien. C’était un sépulcre au lieu d’une effigie de Sylvie, on l’approchait d’un autre pas, d’une démarche moins souple.

  Après l’entrée, au cœur d’une cour dallée, un terre-plein meuble prédisait le retour de la végétation trahie. Paul considérant cela, une femme qui venait sur le trottoir s’arrêta derrière lui, leva les yeux au ciel et cria Fabre. Paul, dont c’est quand même le nom, se tourna vers elle qui criait Fabre Fabre encore, j’ai du lait. La voix énervante tomba du ciel, d’une haute fenêtre au milieu du ciel: tu simules, Jacqueline. La femme s’éloignait, on ne sait pas qui c’était. Monte, Paul.