Store after store, like everywhere else. The same signs, the same colors. Standardization settling in and taking over. Just shadows. Buildings, cars, men, women, these people. Just shadows I ignore.
I walk back toward Daumesnil, until I find another sad café to sit down in. A young woman barely twenty comes to take my order. Just a coffee. This return to the past is awful. It forces me to think about myself, and all I’ve done so far is hide, in order to forget myself. I’m the same. Nothing has changed. The main thing is the only thing you hold onto. Thick heavy vapors coming from the souls of things. Light, superficial, intoxicating things... I’ve forgotten all that. I come up to the surface again, suffering from a painful illness. Stinging nostalgia.
Mom was getting worried. “You could have said where you were going.” “What for? I’m here.” “The wedding.” “D’you think I’ve come six hundred miles to miss my sister’s wedding?” She made me a dish of meat in sauce. I hardly ate any. “It’s not good?” “I’m not really hungry.” “But it’s sauté of veal, you used to like that.”
Yes! I used to like that. She thinks I’m pale for someone who lives on the Riviera. “You know, at my job we’re not outside a lot.” And she makes some comments about my white hair and my father who didn’t have any at my age.
We get ready for the wedding. Mom doesn’t want to be late. She has even ordered a taxi. “We’re not going to your sister’s wedding by bus!” “She could’ve left us her car.” “She still needed it.” Mom bought herself a dress for the occasion. She asks what I think of it. I say it’s fine without looking.
3
About a hundred guests. Eight to a table. I’m entitled to the table of honor. I occupy the seat of the father of the bride. The worst table at a wedding. I listen politely to what Patrick’s parents say. Real assholes who own a business. “Our children are so charming!” Sure! He’s their only son, so they wanted to do things right. And you can tell. A band. Food, and more food. Drink, and more drink. At this moment I hate my sister but I send her loving smiles. Between two yeses and two meaningless comments, I look the guests over. All of them from Patrick’s class. A business school. You can’t change yourself. I don’t know any of them. And a few of my sister’s friends I met years ago; their faces are totally dark in my memory. Time. The feeling that I’m falling headfirst into what I wanted to leave for good. I gulp down wine, good wine, to get drunk. Patrick plays the nice brother-in-law. I gulp down wine. I hardly listen at all. I gulp.
And suddenly I see her.
Sitting at a table, vaguely smiling at the people around her. She wasn’t there at the start of the celebration. She just came in. The same somber face, the same sad smile, and her short hair shorter. I ask my sister: “Is that Valerie over there, in blue?” “Yes.” “You still in touch with her?” “A little. Why?” “Just curious.” A strange emotion in my sister’s face. Fear, almost. I don’t know why. My heart stirs, jumps, the way it jumped ten years ago. I watch Valerie for the rest of the meal. I’m pretty sure she has seen me too.
Before dessert, we’re entitled to a pause for the champagne. I take a bottle and two glasses. I get up. Valerie is there, alone, absent. I walk up to her. A feeling of staggering, plunging into a bottomless pit, one of the dark places alcohol generously throws you into before it asks you to pay the toll. Charon works on earth now. Three breaths. I’m at her table.
[He walks over to her with a bottle in his hand. She’s sitting at a table.]
HIM: Hello.
[She jumps.]
HER: Hello... I haven't had the courage to go up to the table of honor yet... You came back?
HIM: For the occasion. That's all.
HER: I didn't think I'd see you again. Sophie hardly ever talks about you.
HIM: I've been kind of quiet these past few years. I have some champagne. Want some?
HER: Yes, please.
[He serves her. They drink to cover their embarrassment.]
HER: What are you doing now?
HIM: Not much. A few years in submarines. Now I'm working at a garage in Toulon. How about you?
HER: I stayed here. Not much either. It's a nice wedding.
HIM: I don't know what “a nice wedding” means.
HER: Your sister and mother seem happy.
HIM: That's true. Are you alone? No escort?
HER: No! No one.
[Silence.]
[They cross glasses.]
HIM: Cheers.
HER: Cheers.
[The potion acts.]
We spend the rest of the night together. Talking a little about our memories. She talks to me about submarines. What’s with all these people with their submarines? Valerie. Years ago, we went out together. She was a friend of my sister’s. She was beautiful. She still is. A rather sophisticated charm that contrasted with my raw, almost animal state. We finish the bottle of champagne, we take another one. The world fades out around us. We’re alone, surrounded by the deafening crowd that sings, howls. A nice wedding.
I agree to dance with my sister. She’s worried. I’m merry. I wish her moments of happiness. “Just moments?” “Could be worse, right?”
In the restaurant garden. With Valerie. Outside, drunk, staggering, facing infinity and fresh air. She takes my hand.
4
I remembered her body perfectly. And yet we only stayed together for a few weeks. It was just before I left this city. But her body is deeply engraved inside me. With acid, almost.
I watch her slow breathing. Then she wakes up. It is 6 a.m. We’ve only slept a few minutes. The emotional silence of our first morning. Bodies still palpitating. Hands graze each other, push each other away, are pulled toward each other. Doubts. Questions. Who will dare to speak first?
[They are lying pressed against each other. Silence.]
HER: I have to go.
HIM: Already?
HER: Yes. It's late. It's early. I'll call you today or tomorrow. I really have to leave.
[She gets up, gets dressed, and scurries offstage. He remains alone.]
She goes away. I don’t move. I hear the door slam. Close your eyes. Forget. Dream. But nothing happens. Except for this need, here.
She didn’t call, not that day, not the days after.
Hanging around the house, and outside. Looking for her name in the phone book. Nobody with the name of Valerie Mercier. See and see again the place she lived before. Near boulevard Michel Bizot. A guy tells me he doesn’t know her. She doesn’t live here anymore. My sister is on her honeymoon on an island in the Caribbean, I’m not going to bug her about this.
Slow to come to life again after the death that accompanies Valerie’s painful silences.
5
Marco. He learns I’m back. “You could’ve told me.” “I was going to.” Marco. The guy, the friend, the near brother I used to see all the time before I left. Not the kind of guy you really want to be seen with, though. If I hadn’t left, I might have really turned out badly with him.