“Thanks, Marie.”
“Are you sleeping here?”
I put the book down. I lay down next to her. She had an appointment the following week, on Tuesday. It wasn’t the first time, she’d already had to go in two years ago, and like all normal people she really hated it. And yet she’d done it all her life. She was scared of hearing really bad news this time, she wasn’t sure what to think. I realized there were birds talking to us, down below, on the boulevard near the Brochant metro station. Was it really the 17th arrondissement here? During our separation my wife had lived in Wagram, a big studio apartment lent to her by a girlfriend, but Wagram and Brochant were nothing like each other. Marie got to sleep very late. Soon after that, since I couldn’t sleep, I went into the kitchen with the book she’d given me. I felt good like that. We all go in the same direction, often, when it’s night. Tomorrow, I’d have to go back to work and hide my tiredness in order not to look like a worn-out old guy who’s lost interest in everything. I’d call guys on the phone and sound worried, I’d talk about things I really knew nothing about, pretty much like everyone else, and then, in the employee cafeteria or at a restaurant with colleagues, I’d be brought up to date on the news of the day. How about you, what’s new? Well, as you can see, the curtain hasn’t quite been pulled down yet. Marie has cancer. Nothing new apart from that. How about you? Er, me? Well, just like you. Yeah, the same. Above all, there’d be the new regulations, stories about the office, new arrivals and imminent departures, and then, after a pointless day, I’d probably be very tired. Where had I read that story about a young boy born tired, who couldn’t stand his tiredness, as if it was growing along with him, or something like that? Marie tossed and turned in her bad dreams. After that, I had the impression she was fast asleep.
Below Place de Clichy, there were two hours of complete peace and quiet about four in the morning. All the same, you can sense that the city isn’t completely asleep. The day gives Place de Clichy a hangover, one that only night can get rid of. Is that why it breathes softly, like the living dead? Benjamin had decided on the date of his departure, at the end of May. That upset him a little too, but anyway. I walked out of the bedroom again and waited for morning, looking through the window for the signs the shadows were giving me, the shadows of the leaves on the trees and of the lone guys with their stooped shoulders, I know them well, those lone guys with their stooped shoulders. I was going to have a lot of things to do in the next few weeks. That scared me a little because I wasn’t used to it. I often thought about that when I saw how Marc-André lived, he had an important job, children from two marriages, and still found time to be there for me, and for others too. He’d always been there. At a certain point, Marie murmured something. I tiptoed back inside to see her. Her eyes were open, just above the sheet and the blankets. She closed them again when she saw me. Afterwards, we waited for morning, all the things that were in store for us, even if we didn’t want them. The birds in the acacias on the corner of the street were already ready, because the night was coming to an end.
“Do you think it’ll be all right?”
“Of course,” I said, “Of course it’ll be all right. I’ll go with you to Beaujon if you want.”
That morning, she didn’t put on her make-up right away, like she had before. I liked her confidence. I often get attached to stupid things, because, without those things, nothing could really bring us together. But I see that only now, after all those failures and all those years.
“It doesn’t hurt, it’s strange. It doesn’t hurt at all.”
I lit a cigarette, now that I was going to start smoking again for real, outside my office building, at home, on the scooter, and the thing I really rediscovered that morning was my good old cough, it had never quite left me. We’d have to wait for the results of the other tests anyway. Do you think so? I already knew Beaujon Hospital. I’d been there myself a few years ago, and before that too. I didn’t tell Marie, obviously. When I left, she asked me to hold her tight, there was nothing else she could do now, we’d talked for a long time. All those wasted months faded away. I went back to work. There would always be work for a guy like me. Besides, we had a whole bunch of things to do, a lot of young guys had started in the last few months, with degrees in things that didn’t exist before. I was nicknamed the old man, which didn’t really say much. Their stories, their love affairs too, their all-too-obvious ambitions, their meals in the cafeteria where I no longer set foot, their passion for computers and worthless movies, it really was a new world. Benjamin was my only link with them. Sometimes it made me smile, we’d helped each other out for years on end. Well, anyway.
I took advantage of the lunch break to call Marie, she hadn’t done much. She’d gone for a walk along the end of the boulevard, around Porte de Clichy, and then the Cité des Fleurs, do you know it? Yes, I know it well. She’d sat there for a while. She hadn’t wanted to leave.
“I’m scared you’ll dump me.”
I didn’t answer. I thought no, why would I dump you? I’ll never dump you, Marie. Then we chatted for a while, I should have called her from a phone booth, I told myself, seeing colleagues pass, it embarrassed me. We’d talk again that evening. When she hung up, I think she was pleased. She would never tell me, I already knew that about her, but if I sensed it, she wouldn’t bother to hide it from me. Marie had nothing to hide, to tell the truth. And then I waited for evening. I left the office a little while after the others. I was pleased to be going home. I’d spent so many years completely alone, they were part of me now, and even the presence of a woman might weigh on me from time to time. Was I too old already? In the years after my divorce, I’d been in a cold rage that made me talk to myself for hours on end. Guys at the office would look at me strangely sometimes. But I didn’t notice, and besides, most of the time I couldn’t help it. I often think of those wasted years of anger, where did they get me?
It was Marco who’d said: listen, you have to do something, I’m sorry to have to tell you, but you’re going a little bit crazy, you can’t carry on like this.
“You’re not going to start, too?”
We talked a lot, for whole evenings, he and I. Then some time later, we had to reverse roles, his son had been arrested several times for some drug-related thing, and Marc-André couldn’t carry on burying his head in the sand, Antoine had been sentenced to six months. He would take him to rehab when he got out of prison. Antoine had been shooting up for a long time. During that period, I’d slept with a whole bunch of women, it hadn’t lasted long, almost all of them had suggested a plan of action, that’s what they all said, a plan of action, but he was the only one I accepted those words from. How many of them there were, guys like me! The shrink I saw looked like he didn’t sleep well at night. Was it because he made me come to his office at seven in the morning? I skipped several sessions, sometimes for legitimate reasons, but he didn’t care at all. He looked grumpily at the checks, he preferred to be paid in cash; he was a strange man. Why was I thinking about that now? I was a bit scared for Marie, but also, beneath that, I was scared for no reason, just plain fear, there was always a good reason to be scared, most of the time.
4
THERE HE WAS, IN FRONT OF ME, SITTING ON THE STAIRS. He was looking at his shoes, and I didn’t know if he was really looking at them or if he was doing it to hide his embarrassment, a bit like a big child. He was the last thing I needed in my life right now, he was only a side issue. But I smiled at him all the same, and we shook hands. He didn’t need to move, because of the height of the steps, when he looked up I knew what it was that struck me so much about his appearance: he had all his hair, and it was very brown, with hardly a single white hair. I remembered his mother, suddenly.