“Are you all right, Marie, what are you thinking about?”
She looked at me and her smile froze, even though she’d been making a big effort to put a brave face on it.
“I’ve really liked it here, all these people. I’ve really liked my life here.”
I kissed her to shut her up. I told her to stop talking nonsense like that, especially on Place de Clichy, in the brasserie where she’d been a regular as a single woman, and then I told her that with her I was getting back into the idea of living as a couple, being together, for better or, in this particular case, from tomorrow anyway, for worse or something like it.
We were lucky: we found a good table. She asked me to tell her about my life that evening.
“My life?”
I told her that Benjamin was leaving soon. She looked at me closely, I don’t know what expression I had on my face, telling her that. It soon got dark, we chatted for a long time. Did I have photographs? I had several of him, but for a few years now there had been fewer opportunities. Marie told me she would really like to meet him, I said he’d like to meet her too, and I’d like it too, I really would. I don’t have photos of myself as a child. Marie only asked me the right questions that evening, I think. Afterwards we tried to make plans for the future in the Brasserie Wepler. We were near the ATM in the corner, and with each person that withdrew money, we wanted to ask how they’d been doing in their life, day by day, all this time?
“He has your smile, he does take after you.”
“Benjamin?”
“Yes.”
I took her hand, and without saying anything, I made a personal vow, the kind that only guys like me make, not to dump her during the treatment or when she came out of Beaujon. The evening before, we’d had a few drinks with Marco and Aïcha. They’d gotten along well, Marc-André had made us laugh, everything was fine. In passing, he told me about Jean. He’d simply quit his job without warning. Thanks to Langinieux, they’d waited a while to see if he’d come back, but by now he’d almost certainly been fired. He wouldn’t get any severance payment, obviously. Since then nobody had heard from him. Then Marie and I also talked a little about Marco and Aïcha, I liked telling the story, how he had met her at the clinic at work, how he’d realized a whole lot of things all at the same time, and hadn’t looked back since, and neither had she. There we were, the two of us, in the noise of Place de Clichy. Marie didn’t want to leave. To talk, to keep talking, until tomorrow. Do you mind if I pull down the curtain?
“Would you like something else, Marie?”
“Yes, how about champagne, what do you think?”
We celebrated that night. And also tomorrow. No, later than tomorrow. Not too late in any case. We had already drunk several times together, she liked drinking, and besides, nobody would celebrate for us if we didn’t, so we might as well get on with it ourselves. Marie likes living at night. I understood now the strange hours she kept when we’d met on the dating website. After a while, she stopped talking and lit a cigarette, the guy brought us our glasses. He looked a little like Jean. Lots of people were coming out of the Pathé multiplex, we watched them walking away. I don’t like that theater very much. I’m used to small movie houses, the ones you enter and leave furtively, because you go there on your own, that was in the old days, you don’t want to disturb the images you keep to yourself, they keep us warm for a while before they’re forgotten.
“What are we drinking to? Shall we drink to us?”
To you, to us, to our … We didn’t say anything more. She finished her glass, it wasn’t very good quality champagne, but never mind, we were fine that evening. Fewer people on the streets. And then the first guys like me.
“Shall we go, Marie?
We set off on foot, slowly, to the Brochant metro station, right on the corner, a very attractive, heavily made-up brown-haired guy stopped next to her and gave her a big kiss, then hugged me before disappearing into the night, toward La Condamine. He didn’t seem drunk, though. Do you know him? Yes, Marie smiled, he’s a patient, look! He’s better now.
She’d gotten her bag ready in the hallway, we’d have more time tomorrow. I immediately liked that bag, because we’d promised each other we’d go traveling. It was stupid, obviously. We both sat down together, and now, after never telling me anything about the past, as if she’d wanted to live without it, she took out a photograph album. She’d promised me earlier, in the café. There was her name in red on the edge, she’d had that album for a long time. She smiled as she showed it to me. A couple of times, she skipped quickly over a page, that isn’t interesting, I didn’t ask her anything, because it seems to me that when you come down to it, I already knew. She’d lived in Spain, Morocco, Mali, and New Caledonia. Several trips to Canada. There you are, now you know everything. What do you mean, I know everything? I’d really like to go to Canada with you. I’d suggested that without thinking, it had come out by itself. Are you serious, do you want to? Yes, of course. We should also go and see Benjamin and Anaïs in Zurich, even though Zurich isn’t known for its tourist attractions. We’ll see.
We went into the bedroom. I was no longer a guy like me at that exact moment, I think. It was a long time since I’d last made love, with love I mean, it did exist after all. It was both very simple and at the same time, not enough. Marie had held out so far. Around two in the morning, she got up, as she usually did, I pretended to sleep in order not to disturb her. After a moment I got up. She was drinking a glass of water and smoking a cigarette, I went to her and we waited for morning together, in each other’s arms on the couch. The shutters weren’t closed. She’d never wanted to close the shutters since she’d left home the day she turned eighteen. I can understand that, I don’t like closed doors in my apartment. We were like each other in some ways, she had breast cancer but apart from that, the prognosis was uncertain. She’d delayed a little too long, they hadn’t found any secondary cancers. There are birds that sing around five-thirty in the morning, at the end of May, in the area of Place de Clichy. I thought about the song by Mano Solo that Benjamin had listened to endlessly, not so long ago, on Place de Clichy, he’d made me a recording of it. It had gotten into my head and I was unable to forget it. Since his childhood he must have made a dozen CDs for me. Over the years, I must have listened to them endlessly, in the car, in the morning, or in the kitchen when I was making something to eat, alone, on weekends. I took a shower, trying not to make any noise. She was asleep now.
I waited a little while longer before going down to find croissants for breakfast. It was very important for me to do that. I couldn’t take her fear on myself, I couldn’t take her tumor, but I could always go down and look for croissants for breakfast, and in a few hours, we’d both go by car to Beaujon. She’d asked me to pick up her mail. She’d also had money problems for a time, she’d almost lost this apartment, because she’d been negligent about the dates, things that are normal for guys like me, if nothing new happens to them that transports them elsewhere, like a big wave on the ocean. We left around noon. We stopped at the pizzeria in Clichy where I often go with Marco, but Marie couldn’t swallow a thing anyway. It’s a big hospital, Beaujon. She was walking just a little way behind me, I didn’t want to turn around toward her. She’d pushed me in front when we got to the good wing of the building. Yes, she had all her papers ready. She handed them to the woman at the admissions desk, with a smile, as if none of this was about her. Marie was used to hospitals and clinics, people who are sick and also die, sometimes. There were no private rooms.