In Paris With You

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In Paris With You Page 13

by Clémentine Beauvais


  His parents had gone to bed,

  the dog was sleeping. The only sound

  was the hum of the refrigerator …

  ME Stop taking the piss, Eugene. This matters.

  What do we care about the bloody fridge?

  Tell us what happened.

  Tell us what you were thinking.

  Describe how Lensky seemed … I mean, Christ,

  I know you’re not a professional writer

  but you could at least try!

  Eugene sighs.

  ‘All right.’

  EUGENE Lensky died

  several times. Let’s start with that.

  He died several times that night,

  the first time in the garden

  after that stupid incident with Olga – the shock.

  His childhood died in that moment, and I admit

  that I was tough on him.

  I wanted him to be stronger,

  more mature. I thought it was his fault

  that he hadn’t built a fortress around his heart.

  And yet I’d told him, plenty of times:

  Lensky, life is not a bed of bloody roses,

  it’s not gentle or moral, it’s not what you think;

  there’s no God or guardian angel

  watching over you.

  I told him that again and again.

  He never blinked.

  He’d just laugh and say: Eugene,

  you’re such a pessimist – why

  is your vision of life so sad? And all the while,

  the rest of us were forging shields,

  flattening our dreams

  on the anvil of reality. But Lensky wasn’t ready,

  he wasn’t armed, when the attack began.

  So, really, if you think about it, it was his fault,

  sort of. I mean, he couldn’t claim

  that no one warned him. Well,

  that was how I saw it back then anyway.

  So yeah, when I saw him

  with the light gone from his eyes,

  I thought: one day he’ll realise

  that his sadness was just sodding

  stupid, that getting dumped never killed anybody,

  that it was a good learning experience, that night,

  and that one day he’d thank me

  and say: you were right.

  I’m not sure why, but I have the impression

  that I’ve always liked to teach people a lesson.

  ME Yeah, I’ve noticed that. We’ll talk about it later.

  EUGENE I can’t wait.

  So he looked at me and said:

  ‘I’ll see you on the roof.’

  The roof was where we went to smoke joints, me and him,

  blowing the smoke out

  towards the Arche de la Défense;

  it was where we used to open up our hearts

  to each other. Well, mostly him to me.

  But anyway, I hoist myself up through the skylight.

  He’s standing at the edge,

  arms outstretched,

  teasing the void below,

  that arsehole.

  I panic,

  I blurt out

  ‘Lensky, what the hell are you doing?

  Don’t tell me that you’re thinking

  of killing yourself for love

  or some crap like that!

  It’s the biggest cliché in the book

  of sensitive poets, you dick.

  I gave you credit for a bit

  more originality than that.

  Don’t make me regret

  choosing you as a friend.’

  Through gritted teeth, he answers:

  ‘Come and join me.’

  The implication being:

  if you’re not too chickenshit.

  And I realise that the others have convinced him to fight.

  He’s right on the edge, the abyss below;

  behind him, the branches of a tree are silhouetted

  like the antlers of a stag by the moonlight shining through

  a puff of clouds. I approach. The roof is slate, not too slanted,

  but slippery. I’m in boat shoes,

  he’s in Bensimon trainers.

  I’m the one with a better grip.

  I say, ‘I reckon you’ve had too much booze.

  Do you really want to fight me over Olga?

  You know I don’t give a shit about her.’

  ‘I want a duel.’

  A duel. That’s what he actually said: a duel.

  And I thought I was the old-fashioned one! A bloody duel.

  ‘I don’t have a second,’ I joke.

  ‘Or a sword, for that matter.

  Come on Lensky, stop being an arse –

  let’s go inside and play Mario Kart.’

  I spout stuff like that for five minutes or so. Let’s settle

  things man to man on Street Fighter, let’s have a beer,

  let’s read

  some Byron;

  anything to get him safely inside.

  It doesn’t work. He doesn’t budge.

  He still wants me to join him out on the edge.

  ME Are you scared, at that moment?

  EUGENE Honestly? No. What I’m thinking

  is that the whole thing

  is too stupid for words, and yet

  in a way I’m attracted to it.

  You see, I have the impression

  that the universe, at last, is coming round to my

  way of thinking,

  that it’s proving the truth of my great

  philosophical system,

  which says that no one loves us,

  that anything can destroy us,

  that fate is arbitrary and tyrannical.

  I was very young back then, I can see that now.

  I was so young, and a little fanatical.

  Go ahead and take the piss out of me.

  I was so young. So dumb.

  ME And so alone.

  EUGENE Maybe.

  You see,

  thinking about it now,

  I can recognise that this duel

  was a duel between

  our two adolescent philosophies:

  Lensky’s idealism, Eugene’s nihilism.

  Sure, that’s a bit simplistic, but when I stepped

  onto the edge of that roof,

  and he grabbed me by the wrist,

  what I thought was that we’d both lost:

  him because his ridiculous belief

  that lifelong happiness was possible

  had been kicked in the teeth,

  me because I’d always felt

  that it was impossible for anyone

  to die for the love of someone else.

  I didn’t imagine that he would really

  prove me wrong.

  But when he fell, he did, and in the end,

  he was the one who remained faithful to

  his system.

  ME Hang on, you missed a bit.

  How did he fall?

  EUGENE I don’t really remember.

  ME Eugene …

  EUGENE His hands were holding mine

  and we shared a sort of dance

  out of balance.

  We exchanged a few words.

  He had a little rant.

  ME A rant?

  What did he say exactly?

  EUGENE Seriously? You expect me

  to recall exactly what he said

  ten years later? My head

  is like a sieve. I don’t even remember

  what I said to Tatiana.

  Not a word. Nothing at all.

  I hardly have a single memory

  of that summer. Post-traumatic shock, probably.

  Anyway, it’s too late.

  I already erased all that stuff from my brain.

  Very well, then I will take over, as we can’t put any trust

  in Eugene’s account.

  Knowing Lensky, he wouldn’t just ha
ve fallen

  like that, without a word.

  He was a boy who quivered with words.

  Before dying,

  he’d have given a speech. About himself, about friendship,

  about love,

  about everything

  he lost that night.

  So here is my attempt at saying

  what Lensky might

  have said.

  Lensky’s Aria

  In a flash in a flash

  in a flash it was smashed, the flower of my youth;

  it had been golden, like all youth should be,

  but the only things that made me free –

  Olga, and you, and poetry,

  and the sun and the spliffs

  up here on the roof –

  have been stolen from me.

  What will happen tomorrow?

  What will I do

  when I wake up in bed without my youth,

  ten thousand years older, but with no more experience,

  no more intelligence

  than before,

  because boredom isn’t wisdom,

  sadness isn’t a life lesson …

  I loved you all, you know, even though

  you sometimes did bad things,

  I loved everyone, yesterday …

  yesterday love was all I needed, love was the only thing in

  my heart;

  my life was so beautiful, but you’ve ripped it apart.

  Oh Olga!

  Well, if it’s all over, if the last dice have been rolled,

  if it has to end like this,

  promise me one thing:

  promise me you’ll tell her

  that I loved her more than anything,

  tell her that I had so many plans for us two,

  ten million plans, and promises too …

  promises to keep and eternities to fill …

  oh, ask her

  not to forget me like this cruel world will,

  ask her to remember all the poems I wrote,

  how I loved her, and how she loved me.

  Go ahead and laugh, Eugene – I don’t care!

  Of the two of us, I’m the only one who really lived

  all the blazing possibilities of life; I didn’t build

  a shell around my heart, not because I was unaware

  of the dangers, but because I dared

  to risk it all;

  I was alive, before tonight;

  and yes, perhaps,

  I was fragile, and naïve,

  but at least I was free.

  And Eugene,

  that suit of armour that you wear, one day it will collapse,

  and you will die inside,

  like I have died.

  Olga, it was for you,

  it was for you that I went unarmed,

  that I laid bare my soul;

  it was to have you as my lover

  that I delayed the moment

  of rearmament, and then in a flash

  in a flash in a flash

  in a flash it was smashed, the flower of my youth;

  it had been golden, like all youth should be,

  but the only things that made me free –

  Olga, and you, and poetry,

  and the sun and the spliffs

  up here on the roof –

  have been stolen from me.

  Was that how it went, more or less?

  EUGENE I don’t know. It’s possible, I guess.

  But you have to imagine him saying it in his voice.

  He’s right. Imagine all of that spoken by Lensky,

  in his full, warm tones,

  in his voice that had broken, but not all the way.

  Imagine a voice like those words: gauche and grandiloquent,

  passionate and swift, overly lyrical,

  and in the background one of those electronic tunes

  that he used to record his slam tracks. Now go away

  and reread the text with that voice in your ears.

  I’ll wait for you here.

  *

  All done?

  May he rest in peace, then.

  He could have done better, given the time,

  but he was so young that we’ll never be able to say:

  he wrote something truly great;

  all we can say is:

  he was a writer of great promise.

  So young, so young; so young that it’s hard to say

  who he really was,

  and, therefore, exactly what it is that we regret:

  perhaps that unblossomed promise,

  preserved forever, like a seed in ice,

  never to germinate.

  Rest in peace, Lensky!

  Ashes to ashtray, spliff to smoke,

  we will remember the last words

  that you ever spoke.

  EUGENE They’re not even his words.

  ME They could have been.

  They’re the sort of thing he might have said.

  EUGENE May I continue?

  ME I thought you didn’t remember anything

  about his death.

  EUGENE Just let me speak. I remember …

  I remember

  that I gave him my hand. I thought I’d be able

  to make him change his mind.

  I wanted to drag him up the roof, towards the

  skylight, towards safety.

  But he wouldn’t come with me.

  He pushed me first …

  ME He pushed you?

  EUGENE Yeah.

  Although, thinking about it,

  he didn’t push me very hard. I swayed.

  He caught me. Then pushed me again,

  but, honestly

  still not very hard. Now, I can see

  that his heart wasn’t in it.

  He didn’t really want to kill me.

  The third time he pushed me,

  I tumbled to the right,

  down towards the night.

  I slid; the slate screeched under my nails:

  a sudden memory of my primary school teacher,

  Madame Labatte –

  it’s funny what you think of in situations

  like that.

  He was standing at the roof’s edge,

  I was on my back.

  It wasn’t funny anymore,

  and suddenly I felt annoyed by all

  this bullshit; I wanted to regain control;

  I stood up and I slammed my foot against the roof.

  ‘Lensky!’

  Just one word. ‘Lensky!’

  One word, that’s the truth.

  But when I banged my shoe down, I broke a tile.

  BANG. The noise was loud, and not

  unlike a gunshot. BANG.

  And just as if I’d really been holding a pistol

  in my hand, and just as if this gun had been

  aimed at him, Lensky jerked, like he was

  startled, and then he fell.

  He didn’t even yell.

  ME He fell because you cracked a tile?

  EUGENE I’m telling you what happened. The slate

  smashed – BANG – and he fell off the roof.

  It wasn’t just a crack,

  it left a massive hole in their attic roof –

  I bet it rained in there for weeks.

  ME And then?

  EUGENE What do you mean, and then?

  Can’t you leave me in peace?

  And then I saw him disappear over the edge.

  And then I called the police,

  or the ambulance or whatever.

  And then there were sirens and flashing lights

  and someone told me he was dead.

  We went to the hospital,

  sirens screaming through the night

  in the ambulance, and then, and then …

  well, you know the rest:

  his parents, the police, I told them I saw him fall,

  but as for all the other stuff,

 
; well I wasn’t dumb enough to wail:

  ‘It was him who pushed me, sir! Honestly,

  I swear! And then he just got scared …’

  Not the world’s best explanation,

  even if it was true.

  So I lied, and that’s all; now you know

  the whole story. Are you happy?

  I lied. I should have said

  that Lensky died

  because he was a fool,

  because he messed up his duel,

  I should have told them all that,

  his parents, everyone:

  your son died because he jumped like a hare,

  probably because he was scared of me,

  because I was too heavy for your roof.

  Telling the truth.

  It’s always the best policy, right?

  ME And are you going to tell Tatiana all that?

  EUGENE Sure, she asked me, so why not?

  ME You’re so cold!

  EUGENE Sorry?

  ME I don’t know … you tell me all this,

  like it’s just a story …

  you manage to remember it all without

  getting teary …

  EUGENE No!

  What the fuck! No, no, no!

  I’m not managing anything!

  And you’re pissing me off with all your questions!

  And he sobs, like a little kid. I have to admit –

  I don’t understand.

  ME But all those years …

  All those years, when you thought

  about that night …

  EUGENE But I didn’t think about it!

  I never thought about it at all until just now,

  when you asked me what happened and

  you wouldn’t let it go.

  I had to forget it, don’t you see?

  It was that or go crazy.

  You have to make choices in life, and I chose

  to obliterate Lensky and Olga and Tatiana,

  and the whole horrible story of that summer.

  And as time passed,

  everything that happened

  ended up seeming

  unreal to me,

  like a story that I heard somewhere.

  It didn’t seem like me at all:

  too much love, too much hate,

  too much emotion …

  it was all a bit excessive for someone like me,

  and I ended up convincing myself that this story

  was just a novel

  that I’d read when I was in my teens,

  a novel I’d identified with, to the point

  where it started invading my dreams …

  His eyes are lowered. I’m going to leave him in peace.

  He has to tell Tatiana this whole story now,

 

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