An hour later everything was back to normal for me, although I really wished he was here, because I hadn’t had time to fix myself a proper breakfast. Things got a lot slower at nine, some low clouds moved in and put a stop to the drizzle, and then when it started up again you could see the rain falling diagonally over the tracks, it was settling in for the day. I was right to put on my sweater, the seasons were changing for sure. I hadn’t had time to go look at the Seine, which has been one of my pleasures in life since I came back to the fold of my neighborhood, fifteen years ago. I’d find a moment for that on Sunday, or maybe some other day, I didn’t know.
“Don’t get too close to the edge, Pierrot!”
“Yes, ma, I know. Bye!”
Usually the boss was heading back up to his apartment by this time, he’d been doing that for years, and then a little later he’d come down with his wife and I’d make her a cup of tea, but not today, it would seem. Amédée came in with a stack of books under one arm, and a bunch of other stuff in a big plastic Leclerc bag. He set his load down on the bar and gave me a big smile. “So how are things, Pierrot? Sleep well?” He was waiting for me to say I was as happy as the Banania man in the old poster he had on his wall, or some other joke like that, but all at once he changed his tune.
“Shit, he’s not here? What the fuck’s he up to?”
I shook my head no, and he came back behind the bar without asking permission. I didn’t make a fuss about it, though, because if we were going to be facing another day with no boss it was best he not be in too bad a mood.
“And when does the new girl come in?” Amédée asked.
“In an hour, presumably.”
He opened the cupboard doors and heaved a big sigh.
“What the fuck is up with him? He hasn’t sent in the orders, did you see?”
I nodded.
“We’re going to be in deep shit, up the creek!”
Then once he was done fortifying himself he headed back toward the kitchen, he turned on the radio and opened the pass-through with a big clack.
Good old Amédée, sometimes he invited me up to his place for a visit. I’d done the same for him but apparently it wasn’t so much to his liking, because I’m really alone these days, like an old bachelor barman, whereas he shares his apartment in Saint-Denis with a bunch of friends who are always coming and going, and he has some very pretty cousins too, they love to laugh, some of them have husky voices and others high-pitched, they dance at the drop of a hat, on Sunday, once lunch is over. When you see them with their kids in the streets, or at the supermarket, or in the park if the weather’s good, you tell yourself that happiness is a very common thing, and easy to come by, for Paris’s Africans.
Madeleine came in with her hands in her raincoat pockets. She’d taken great pains with her makeup, her lips were redder, and she was wearing less base, I thought. She looked around, there was a little lull at my bar, the boss’s wife still hadn’t shown. We gave each other a peck on the cheek, she was already one of the staff. When I die I’ll be replaced just like that.
“How’s everything? It didn’t take you too long?”
I often tell myself that, it doesn’t bother me, really.
“I’m doing fine, Pierrounet. The bosses aren’t here?”
She didn’t wait for an answer. She took off her raincoat and hung it on the door in back, she lit a cigarette, and without having to ask I made her her first espresso. She smiled at me.
“Pierrot, you don’t even seem to care!”
“You want some milk?”
She nodded.
“I guess they’re having a spat, huh? Well, the bloom went off that rose a long time ago.”
The rain was starting up again, and now people were hurrying along between the underpass and the pedestrian street.
“Yes, a long time ago,” she said again, “you can tell right away. Ah, men!”
She smiled sadly toward the rain. This must all have seemed a long way from Colonel-Fabien. Then no, she stopped smiling. I made a face like I had no idea, and in a sense it was true.
“We’ll never manage all by ourselves, thirty-two set-ups, there’s just no way!”
I gave the bar a good wipe with the mop rag to erase what she’d said, then I told her, “Yes, we will, Madeleine, it won’t be any worse than yesterday, don’t you worry.”
“What a grind, Pierrounet!”
She put out her cigarette and went to have a good yell with the cook, she showed him her burned hand, but just before that they’d said hello with a kiss on the cheek. Good old Amédée. It was going to be another hard day in the salt mines.
Just before noon the boss’s wife came downstairs at last. She’d carefully made herself up to cover the damage of the night before. “Pierre, how are you doing?” “Fine, and you?” She must have done a lot of crying, but she manned the cash register as if things were perfectly normal. I was having to be everywhere at once, this far from a breakdown. At one point I saw Amédée coming out of his kitchen to go see the boss’s wife. He silently held out a little stack of papers, she gestured that she understood, he’d written up the orders. Le Cercle was packed, it was almost like they were doing it on purpose, no way we could keep this up for long, especially with Madeleine from Colonel-Fabien, who might decide at any moment it wasn’t worth sticking around, you never know. Pierrot my friend, I said to myself, and then I didn’t finish the sentence in my head because we really were swamped. At two-thirty I had a quick bite, I hadn’t even once glanced out toward the street, where you can always see life going by, along with a wicked draft now and then. Madeleine tended the bar in the meantime, two or three customers asked if I’d heard anything from him, and I said “He’s sick, but he’ll be back on his feet in no time.”
“It’s that time of year.”
The boss’s wife gave me a look every time, that day Amédée didn’t even rib the waitress, we really had too much to do, I never heard one curse from the pass-through. Things were looking bad. I finished my lamb chop with green beans and went over to see her, she was standing there lost in a fog with her eyes glued to the Casio.
“Ma’am, we’ve got to do something, we can’t last another day without him.”
She looked at me like she didn’t understand.
“He didn’t call you?”
“No, Pierre, he didn’t even call me. It’s not right, it’s not right.”
She mumbled a few other things I couldn’t hear. So I turned all that over in my head, and I asked her:
“Could you give me the keys to the Audi?”
She really seemed very alone just then. She let her gaze wander all around the room, and then she went back to staring at the cash register like it was The Young and the Restless or some other soap opera.