The Shattered Sky

by Bernard Uzan

  “Julien, you’ll regret it later on; it’s not enough to be fun and smart in society. You’re still a failure.”

  “First of all, I’m not pleasant; they say I’m too aggressive.”

  Travel is enriching so I have been enriched. I have the necessary material so I can recite “Mr. Seguin’s Goat” or Hamlet’s soliloquy with the necessary emotion. I act, I’m a performer, an actor, and just like all the other actors I wander throughout Paris as I wait for the next gig, which leaves me enough free time to get into literature and more than anything else to rehash my sorrows, my pain, my failures.

  Then I come back to reality; I understand that trying to forget by getting drunk on one’s experiences is useless, to live by talking about oneself is meaningless; then anguish takes over and I stop talking about my travels forever and then I remain silent, period.

  It’s been a long day and it’s time to go home, maybe to go to bed and try to sleep and leave all those memories aside at least for one single night.

  It starts all over again, Odéon, Mabillon, the rue Bonaparte. I walk along the Luxembourg Gardens, I reach the rue Vavin, I’m close to home.

  Home...what will I do at home? It’s going to be nine o’clock. I’ll try to wait for it to be ten and then I’ll go back out to try and meet someone I know as I wait impatiently for tomorrow…so that it may all start over once again.

  It must not start over again. I can’t stand it any longer, something has to happen, something has to happen to me, the wheel of fortune must turn, they always say it does; after seven years of hunger come seven years of plenty, the wheel turns but if doesn’t turn for me I’ll take off once more for Timbuktu or Tananarive or Poughkeepsie.

  There’s nobody in the apartment to wait for me and thankfully Nicolas isn’t there either; he must be driving his taxi as he goes on searching for the man who’ll agree to murder his father.

  When I get there the apartment is always empty, but the cat is there, the one Catherine gave me. It’s the little kitty of the old cat we had together. She gave it to me as a souvenir. In memory of what?

  Of her?

  Of our passionate love?

  The cat is meowing and runs in every direction, then hides under the bed. He knows I hate him. I feel like strangling that cat. The whole world ignores me, pushes me aside so I’m going to take my revenge on the cat; I run after him with a towel; I try to beat him, but he’s hiding under the furniture and I can’t reach him, what a despicable animal he is. I finally corner him and get closer, slowly looking at him straight in the eyes. He looks at me with the same kind of hatred, and suddenly shows his teeth, wrinkles his eyes, arches his back, his crummy whiskers stiffen, he emits a strident kind of sound, and his paw comes at me in a flash, leaving a bloody scratch on my hand.

  Shit, even cats think they can do with me as they please. I leave him with his hatred and go into the bathroom to clean the wound. I walk through the long hallway muttering insults at the cat and insults at the world.

  He’ll never make it, but yes, you’ll see.

  I’m either crazy or I’m a genius.

  I’ll write a book and once it’s published I’ll commit suicide.

  I dress like a bum because I can’t dress like a lord and it makes me sick.

  I hate all those bastards

  To die in a corner made of blue and white silk.

  I’ll take my revenge but I’ll remain simple, very simple.

  I’ll paste that fucking sky back with my own sperm if it’s necessary.

  I let the warm water flow over my hand; it burns a little, but wounds must be cleaned, as the wise people I met have often said; I let the hot water flow over my hand, the blood stops, the wound seems to close up slowly. I look into the mirror just above the dirty wash basin and the mirror sends back my image…and in the mirror where I look at these twenty-seven years a corner of blue sky makes its appearance. I hear my grandmother’s voice talking to the Barbarian:

  “Let your wounds heal; you’re not the only one who has suffered; let life take its course; look at the sky in a different way.”

  Yes the sky was shattered but…it’s now high time to look at the sky in a different way.