How's the Pain?

by Pascal Garnier

  The baby was greedily suckling Bernard’s sauce-covered finger.

  ‘Well done, you’ve got it all over her. She looks like Dracula or something.’

  The snack bar where they had stopped for sausage and chips was empty apart from the owner and a guy clinging to the bar like a mussel to its bed.

  ‘What’s the point in a shop that doesn’t sell anything?’

  ‘There isn’t one.’

  ‘What’s Vals like?’

  ‘Small. It’s quite smart on one side of the Volane, with the baths, casino, hotels and gardens for the old and rich. It’s completely dead across the river, where the old and skint live.’

  ‘Sounds like paradise … you really know how to treat a girl!’

  ‘I never said we had to stay there. It’s where my mother lives, that’s all.’

  ‘Have you never thought of doing something with the shop?’

  ‘No, like what?’

  ‘Well, I don’t know … But in a touristy town like that, you can always sell something. Tourists get bored, so they buy stuff.’

  ‘Hmm … if that was true, my mother would be a millionaire by now.’

  ‘Maybe she just hasn’t found the right thing yet.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  On the other side of the steamed-up window, cars were driving up and down the road like grey ghosts. On their plates, the few leftover crooked chips were returning to the frozen state the cook had briefly released them from, floating in a swamp of ketchup. Fiona was puffing on a cigarette and daydreaming, resting her cheek on her hand. Bernard was cradling the little monster snoring through her wrinkled-up nose.

  ‘How big’s this shop?’

  ‘About half the size of this place, I’d say, maybe a bit smaller. And it’s a bit of a mess. Well, it’s falling apart.’

  ‘But you said it’s on the main road, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yes, but in the poor bit, so it might as well be a dead end. Every day except market day, it’s: “Move along, nothing to see here!” Don’t start getting ideas, that’s what wrecked my mother’s life. We can go back to Bron; there’s a job waiting for me up there. The streets aren’t exactly paved in gold, but it’s steady money.’

  ‘I’m not getting ideas. I’m just interested, that’s all.’

  ‘Anyway, once you’ve seen it you’ll know exactly what I mean. Shall we get going?’

  Violette agreed to be strapped in without protest, one eye open, the other shut, her lips pursed in resignation. Fiona joined Bernard in the front, which made him happy. Once he had put a bit of money aside, he would buy himself a car. Nothing as flashy as Monsieur Marechall’s, but his own set of wheels all the same. He already had the child seat, which was a start. Fiona put her hand on his thigh and turned on the radio. Before setting off, they kissed like kids, their mouths tasting of warm Coke and ketchup.

  ‘Men are always the first to go, whether they run off with a tart or kick the bucket,’ thought Rose. ‘Marike’s right, you have to get them young, at least then you have a chance of holding on to them. Not that she has it much better herself; she’s still a widow with gold-diggers sniffing around her. “Stormy weather, brightening up later on,” they said on the radio this morning. Fat chance!’

  She was absently plaiting together the tassels of her shawl, sitting on the edge of the bed where Simon lay fully clothed but for his shoes. He had categorically refused to let her call a doctor. A handful of pills and he had fallen asleep, ashen-faced with two great purple bags under his eyes. Rose had never been married, at first because she did not believe in it – or to avoid being ditched like her mother was – and later out of habit. It was only in the last four or five years that she had begun to think about ending her days with someone – with a man, that is. She was healthy, comfortably off, had plenty to keep herself busy, but she was unable to shake off a growing sense of sadness. She had even thought about taking out a lonely hearts ad or signing up to a dating agency, but her pride had stopped her; she wanted a real love affair, the kind that comes along when you least expect it. In a sense she was already in love, but did not yet know with whom. Then this Simon chap had turned up out of nowhere! Despite having known him only twenty-four hours, she had realised straight away he was the one. And seeing him like this now, lying stiff with his hands crossed over his stomach, his nostrils pinched and skin waxy – it was too much to take in. The tricks life plays on us …

  ‘Shoot, Simon! Just shoot, damn it! It hurts too much, I’m finished …’

  The weapon trembled in Simon’s hand, the barrel pointing at his friend Antoine’s forehead. Simon had killed men before, but on the battlefield you were never quite sure – the enemy was too far away, hidden by branches and rocks. This time it was different, standing inches away from his friend’s pain-racked face.

  ‘We’re all born to die … Shoot, please!’

  Simon had shut his eyes. He was a little boy, crawling under the table where his mother was shelling peas and chatting with her friends. It was dark underneath their dresses. His finger had pulled the trigger. Not him, his finger. Ever since, each time he killed a man, he saw himself back under that table, amid a forest of grey woollen-stockinged legs.

  What was Rose doing? It looked like she was knitting. Those podgy little hands … He held out his open palm. Rose turned to him, the lashes of her owl-like eyes caked in lumpy mascara, a weak smile on her lips.

  ‘How are you feeling?’

  ‘So, what did he say?’

  ‘Nothing. He didn’t even seem surprised. He just looked at me.’

  After dropping Fiona and Violette at their caravan, Bernard had parked the car outside Monsieur Marechall’s. He was out. Bernard had immediately thought of Rose. All the way to her bungalow, he kept running over the speech he had prepared in the car. But he got muddled, jumbling his words. By the time he knocked at the door, his mind was utterly blank. Rose let him in. Her make-up was smeared, but she was smiling. Monsieur Marechall was sitting on the edge of the bed, his hands cupping a mug of hot tea. His shoelaces were undone, his skin sallow and almost translucent, the rim of his eyes the dull pink of ham that’s past its best. He looked like one of those antique Chinese ivory figurines. There was no movement to his face, no trace of emotion in his expression. Bernard felt dizzy looking at him. Eventually he managed to prise his tongue from his palate and speak.

  ‘It’s me, Monsieur Marechall. I came back. I brought the car …’

  No reaction. Total silence.

  ‘I’m sorry, I …’

  Rose came to his rescue, placing her hand on his shoulder.

  ‘It’s OK, Bernard, leave it. Simon had a funny turn earlier on, but he’s a lot better now. Don’t worry. Are Fiona and the baby with you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good, good. Go back and see them. I’ll be along in a little while.’

  As he allowed himself to be ushered out, Bernard thought he saw a smile hovering over Monsieur Marechall’s lips, but perhaps that was just what he wanted to see.

  ‘He didn’t say anything at all? He didn’t even call you an idiot?’

  ‘Not a word, I swear. He was just staring at me, but at the same time I’m not sure he really saw me at all.’

  ‘He must have been seriously shaken. I once saw a guy get an electric shock while he was fixing a meter. Christ, he looked like he’d come back from the dead! What if he pops his clogs tonight, or tomorrow? What’ll we do then?’

  ‘I don’t know. Let’s not think about it.’

  ‘You really hit the jackpot with that one, I’m telling you. Anyway, we’re out of milk for Violette – do you want to go and get some?’

  ‘Anaïs? You’re up?’

  ‘Of course I am. I’m not exactly going to do my shopping on all fours!’

  ‘I heard you were ill …’

  ‘Well, you heard wrong. Where’s the grated Gruyère?’

  ‘At the back, in the dairy section.’

  Anaïs’s bulk filled the narrow ais
les as she moved up and down the shelves of the Petit Casino. Her wellingtons squeaked and her umbrella dripped, leaving a snail trail on the tiled floor. She had such good memories of the previous evening’s sardines that she picked up three cans, followed by pasta, rice, flour, chocolate, biscuits, peas, eggs … Other than the three bottles of Negrita, she grabbed products at random, not even bothering to look at what she was throwing into her basket. The truth was she couldn’t care less. She just wanted to fill her cupboards, as though preparing for a siege. She only stopped stuffing things into her basket when the handle began to dig into her arm. She barely managed to haul it up to the till. After putting through all her purchases, the grocer looked less than pleased to be told she would pay him tomorrow.

  ‘Don’t you believe me?’

  ‘Yes, but—’

  ‘Bernard’s coming back this evening, or tomorrow. He’ll drop by and settle the bill.’

  It was still raining, the water glazing the road and fringing the gutters. Faceless, stooped figures scurried along, keeping close to the walls. It was this rotten weather that had made Anaïs stock up, because it was going to carry on like this for ages, perhaps even until the end of the world. It made no difference to her since she was already dead, but eternity was a long time and she needed to be ready for it.

  Back home, she put down her umbrella and took off her raincoat with a sigh and swapped the oversized wellington boots for her good old slippers.

  ‘The sky can fall in if it wants. We’ve got everything we need, haven’t we, princess?’

  The Negress lamp smiled back at her. She went into the kitchen to put away her supplies, poured herself a good glass of rum and stood back to admire the cans lined up like ornaments on the shelves.

  ‘Now, give me one good reason why I should go out. Just one!’

  She started to laugh, the same laugh as the woman on the Negrita bottle.

  By now Rose was treating Bernard almost as a son, asking after Fiona and the baby. She had said, ‘Simon had a funny turn earlier on,’ talking as though they were all part of the same family, of which he, Simon, was the head. There was something both comical and touching about it. What on earth did they have in common? When Bernard had walked in like a great sheepish oaf, Simon could not help but see in him not a physical resemblance, but a kind of unexpected extension of himself. That was why he had looked at him without speaking. It was strange. It was as if they had all been shipwrecked and fate had thrown them together on a desert island. The situation they found themselves in was so out of the ordinary it was as if their pasts no longer existed, but had gone down with the rest of humanity. They were all flailing, naked, towards one another, each seeking some comfort, some reason for their survival.

  Thinking him asleep, Rose had tiptoed out, probably to go and see Fiona and the baby. Simon was still feeling weak but he could not stay in the bungalow any longer, suffocated by Rose’s cloying perfume. He needed fresh air. It was hard going, walking through the wet sand. It clung to his soles like clay. As a child, he would go out and gather potatoes from the muddy fields and come home with his feet caked in muck. Sometimes you would be in it up to your knees. Every step you took, the slippery earth sucked you in further with a disgusting slurp. In Indonesia, he had seen men sink into the swamps. Once their head had disappeared, a big bubble formed on the surface of the bog, then it burst and it was all over. It would probably be his turn to go under soon. The idea itself was not so hard to stomach; what bothered him was not knowing when or where. Until now, he had always been the one to decide such things. Except with Antoine … He remembered it like a baptism, but the other way round. That was how he wanted to go, the way Antoine had: at the hands of a friend. Simon had been around Bernard’s age at the time …

  ‘Did you never have kids because you couldn’t, Rose?’

  ‘No. I just never found the right man.’

  ‘But you must have been pretty once. You’re not bad-looking now!’

  ‘Thanks. I had plenty of offers, but I didn’t want to be tied down. I was anxious to keep my freedom.’

  ‘That doesn’t have to stop you! Freedom means a lot to me too. But I wanted a kid of my own. So I went with the first half-decent-looking guy who came along.’

  ‘It was a bit different in my day. And what about Bernard?’

  ‘It’s different this time. I already have Violette, for one thing. We’ve only just met. We’ll see. If things go well with us, maybe we’ll have another one together.’

  Rose was tickling Violette gently. The little girl appeared to enjoy this, smiling and gurgling. Chubby girls understand each other. Fiona draped a babygro over the radiator to dry.

  ‘You know, Rose, don’t be offended, but I was scared of you at first. You have to admit you do a funny sort of job!’

  ‘Don’t worry about it.’

  ‘And I was scared of Monsieur Marechall too. You don’t often come across people in his line of work either!’

  ‘Thank goodness for people like him, though! Rats and rodents do all kinds of damage …’

  ‘Rats! Right, yes, of course … Anyway, he’s quite harmless now.’

  ‘I’m worried about him. If you’d seen him earlier … I really thought he …’

  ‘Now now, Rose, don’t cry. The docs can work miracles these days.’

  ‘Let’s hope so, oh, let’s … I’m sorry, it’s just this is the first time for me!’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘Well, love at first sight, just like in books! At my age, it’s hardly likely to happen again!’

  ‘Now come on, he’s not dead, he’s just old … Look! Here he comes now, with Bernard.’

  Rose rushed to the window, half smothering Violette between her breasts.

  ‘He really shouldn’t be walking about like that after what he put me through today. It’s not right …’

  Bernard was shuttling the milk carton from one hand to the other, trying to appear composed, while slowing his steps to keep pace with Simon. He was sure he was going to come out with something stupid, but faced with Monsieur Marechall’s inscrutable silence, he bit the bullet and blurted out, ‘Monsieur Marechall, I wanted to say—’

  ‘Don’t say anything.’

  ‘OK, I won’t. But you can still count on me. I’ll finish the job, just like I said.’

  ‘We’re leaving tomorrow. You and me, that’s it.’

  ‘OK, Monsieur Marechall, OK. It’s just I thought that Fiona and—’

  ‘Just you and me!’

  Monsieur Marechall had stopped walking and was clutching Bernard’s arm with more strength than he looked capable of: an eagle’s grip. Despite his frail state, with the wind ruffling his tufts of white goose-down hair, there was still a glint of steely determination in his eyes.

  ‘Tomorrow, you’ll take me back to the hotel in Vals, and you’ll do exactly as I say, from start to finish. After that … do what you want, I don’t care.’

  Simon let go of his arm and started walking again, slowly placing one foot in front of the other, head bowed, shoulders hunched.

  Anaïs had spent the day eating and drinking, drinking and eating, until she made herself sick. Then, after vomiting, she started all over again, mixing cassoulet, chocolate and sardines on the same plate. Strictly speaking, all the supplies she had bought that morning were supposed to keep her going through the afterlife, but since Anaïs felt that journey might be a bit on the long side, she told herself that by devouring the lot in record time, eternity would somehow be speeded up. The logic of this was debatable, but there must have been something to it, because several hours had passed without her noticing. It was dark outside.

  ‘Shit, eleven o’clock already! What shall I have for supper? Soup!’

  The little creatures thought this a splendid idea, clapping with both hands (and sometimes even more hands than that, as some of the little monsters had four or even six of them). A nice soup for dinner, an eleven o’clock broth.

  Soup is a universal dish
, eaten everywhere in the world. All you need is water and anything else you can find to chuck in.

  The first bottle of Negrita was empty, of course. The liquid in the second bottle came up to the chin of the woman on the label or, turned upside down, to the level of her madras cotton turban. Anaïs tipped it back and forth several times, pondering the passing of time the way others do with an hourglass. There was no question: time definitely went by more quickly in liquid form. Anaïs poured herself a glass to celebrate her astute observation. She could have been a researcher, a great scientist like Marie Curie, with a bit of help. But no one ever had helped her. What a waste! Only the people who discovered things got rewarded for it, but, hell, you had to look for things before discovering them! The fact that liquid time passed more quickly than mineral time, that was quite a revelation, wasn’t it? … Well, it was their loss. She would keep that one to herself and it would be centuries before they understood this irrefutable natural law for themselves.

  The kitchen had gradually started to look like an upturned dustbin again. The spiders were spinning webs in the corners once more; the grease-coated lino was slippery underfoot just like in the good old days, and the fluff balls had gathered again like sheep quietly grazing along the skirting boards.

  ‘So what? You don’t care about me; well, I don’t care about you either.’

  Standing with her legs wide apart, wobbling on her rocker soles, Anaïs filled a big stockpot with water and threw in a handful of pasta, another of rice, a tin of peas, a packet of lardons, a sprinkling of grated Gruyère, a few tears …

  ‘He could at least have sent me a postcard. A stupid sunset or something …’

  The little creatures moaned along with her. Anaïs chased them off with a whack of the tea towel.