“I have to spoon-feed you everything. Of course, the war. You haven’t noticed?”
“The... last war?”
“How should I know? They say that every time!”
“Thirty-nine to forty-five?”
“Another one of your lame games? You want me to add? Subtract? Three plus nine equals twelve. Four plus five equals nine... What do we have here? A logical equation?”
“Are you serious?”
“Young man, I can assure you that a Luger Parabellum P-08 gives you many urges, but rarely the urge to joke.”
“I’m talking about the war that involved a good part of the world from 1939 to 1945.”
“Hold your horses! Germany’s taking some serious hits, but really, nothing’s over. At least nothing you can put a date on. You might as well say ’46, it seems to me. Besides, open the window.”
“The window?”
“Go over there, what do you see?”
“Nothing. Well, rue des Dames...”
“Yet, the street! But what else?”
“Um, okay, pedestrians, cars, the line at the bakery—”
“The eternal problem of bread rations...”
“Rations? Monsieur Robert, we’re in 2007, it’s 4:30 p.m., it’s the end of the school day, and the bakery is selling cakes to the kids like... like hot cakes, precisely!”
I’ll kill him tomorrow. By then I’ll remember why. And I will be rested. He’s tired me out. People who are going to die are exhausting. Most people are no picnic. But with one foot in the grave, they become impossible. To the point of making you want to murder them, if you didn’t already feel like doing it. This one’s hit the jackpot. Fifteen minutes, and he’s worn me out! It’s the world upside down. Now I don’t even know what he came for. Or what he was telling me. A chatterbox, words coming out of his mouth like oatmeal. Mush. A swill of words that leave you parched.
Pip, or in French pépie, from the Latin pituita, a bird sickness characterized by the presence of a thick coating on the tongue. Makes them terribly thirsty. Isn’t my memory impressive? Its whatchamacallits and what’s-his-names, crammed like junk into a wicker trunk. Open it! Rummage around! Find stuff you like! A real treasure hunt.
Parched. Or thirsty. Thirst, human sickness characterized by the presence of words you couldn’t swallow. Gets cured at the bar.
The Renaissance Bar is just as good as any other. With its crooked façade like a down-turned mouth, it owes its name to Pétain. The owner saw the Maréchal and his National Revolution as a sign of recovery, rebirth. The return of values, of black coffee and white sauvignon. Yellow, too, the color of anisette. Yellow mainly leaked on the stars. As for the rest, cheap, adulterated wine and sawdust calvados. Finally, when he saw that nothing was changing and his big nose felt the wind turn, he removed Pétain’s mug from the wall. Everyone forgot the reason for the Renaissance. I didn’t. Dead memory... memories are the shreds of life that stick to you. They burst out of the depths of time when morning itself evaporates like water. Why this one? The Renaissance at the corner of rue des Dames. And the “dames” you see passing by are no spring chickens. But hell, streetwalker isn’t a profession that makes for eternal youth.
“A Cinzano!”
“I’m sorry, monsieur, we don’t have any.”
“A dry day?”
“Excuse me?”
“Is it an alcohol-free day?”
“I’m not sure I understand you. Martini, cognac, Suze, I can bring you whatever you want. Except for drinks that are no longer sold.”
“They’ve banned Cinzano?”
“That’s funny. We don’t serve Cinzano because no one buys it anymore.”
“Since when?”
“I think I served the last one... let’s see. Twenty-five years ago?
“Twenty-five years?”
“And that was an old bottle and a very old client.”
“A mandarin citron, then.”
“I see... Monsieur wouldn’t prefer an absinthe? Or a Gallic beer? A good Gallic cervoise?”
With his cloth over his shoulder, he’s as boring as the other one. The future dead man. You’d think they’d passed the word around to each other. If that’s the case, perhaps he knows why I have to kill him. But it’s not the kind of question you ask a man thrown off by the idea of a mandarin citron. He needs something basic. Counter level, you might say.
“Garçon!”
“Monsieur...”
“Where have the girls gone?”
“What girls?”
There’s a confab at the espresso machine.
“Are you the gentleman on the fourth floor?”
“I haven’t counted floors, but that must be right.”
“You went out alone?”
“Yes. Well, it’s not exactly an exploit, it’s something that happens often, you know. Besides, I’m going to do it again right this minute. You’re really irritating, acting like you’ve just landed here from outer space.”
A café without Cinzano, rue des Dames without dames — aren’t you surprised that memory has no memories? That’s not quite right, actually. I do have memories. And that’s the strangest thing. The neighborhood, for instance. I could tell you a lot about it. Like rue des Dames. The bars, the furnished rooms, the ankle-twisting pavement, and the sky you glimpse above the lopsided buildings. The street and the street girls — you might think they’re connected. Wrong, it owes its name to the nuns. They followed it to go up to their convent up there in Montmartre. That must have been in the time of musketeers and sedan chairs. Because I don’t recall meeting any nuns here. No musketeers either. Streetwalkers, yes. Fishnet stockings and slit skirts, with their weary saunter, exhausted from too much soliciting. Lips like embers that don’t want to die, and eyes that have seen everything. The laundresses, too, that was their spot. Rosy skin, hair wild in the steam of the workshops, their blouses opening to the movement of their naked arms. And those smells, making you hungry as a wolf, with a ferocious yen to bite hard. To howl like a tomcat. Blood boiling in your veins. Hot, red, and very thick. Blood...
I shouldn’t forget to kill him. But who? That’s what escapes me. That man on the bicycle riding down from Place de Clichy, his briefcase strapped to the rack? I don’t think so. The pizza deliveryman, perhaps. I don’t much like pizza. Or that one walking along rue Darcet... He came out of the Hotel Bertha, at the corner of les Batignolles. Rue des Batignolles, les Epinettes Park. Names that sing like music boxes. You wind them up, and off you go up the boulevard. “C’est lajava bleue, la java la plus belle...”
It’s a summer evening. The paving stones are still warm from the heat of the day. The air carries the scents of linden blossoms and white wine. That comes from Sainte Marie. The trees from the square and the outdoor cafés all around it, like garlands. They’ve set out the tables and chairs, and barrels when there are no tables left. We passed the bottles around, the nice fine wine with the stony taste — house reserve — and the sparkling wine that makes you sing. “C’est la java bleue, lajava la plus belle...” The grocer donned a fireman’s helmet, big Marcel found himself a rusty old gun, and the postman is proudly showing off two grenades in his mailbag. “Express parcel,” he says. And that makes him laugh. That was just before he fell. Bam! Bam! A flight of pigeons hid the sky. Someone cried, “Sniper!” and people threw themselves on the ground. Now we hear the whistle of a train rolling toward the Gare Saint-Lazare. Crouched behind a barrel, I’m watching life seeping out of the little postman. Blood is escaping from his chest. It runs onto his white armband, soaked like a sponge, the Lorraine cross becoming invisible little by little.
That’s today. Or yesterday. It’s August 1944.
“We’re in 2007, Monsieur Robert...” Tall tales. I know what I see. A great silence has covered the square. It’s Liberation Day, and a nice boy just got himself killed.