Life, Only Better

by Anna Gavalda

  I had trouble distinguishing overindulgence from actual suffering, and since I’m much too cowardly to lift up my big rock and try to understand what’s swarming around under it, I’ll stick to the symptoms—the external signs of distress. Yes, I’d stopped drinking, but I wasn’t eating either, and I could barely sleep. That was a lot of unpleasantness for simple overindulgence, you have to admit.

  Someone else, someone braver or smarter or less of a cheapskate, would have gone in for a consultation. Maybe not a psychiatrist right away, but at least a doctor, the good family doctor she no longer had, or any old GP in her neighborhood, and without going into detail, she would have said up front: Hi Doctor, everything’s fine, really really fine, I swear, but I have to get some sleep, do you understand? I have to sleep at least a little, or I’m going to keel over. Oh, my appetite, that’s no big deal. I have hips like nice big brioche tops. And plus, look, I’m up to almost two packs of Marlboros a day, that’s plenty. But the nights . . . the nights, all of them, always, always totally sleepless . . . that’ll kill you in the end, right?

  That’s exactly what I was in the middle of brooding about at the very beginning of this story, when I was dragging myself from the Place de l’Étoile to the Montmartre cemetery in the middle of the night, stuffing a seventh unsuccessful receipt into my pocket.

  Yep. I’m not very clever. It took all of that to bring us here. The starting point.

  What?

  Seven?!?

  But—but, Mathilde—you just turned over all three of your cards at once! You’ve had it, my dear! You’re lost! Do you know what the three-card trick is called in English? Find the Lady. And that’s it? That’s what your queen of hearts was hiding? You’re letting that fatso get you in such a state?

  . . .

  With his patent-leather shoes and the gym socks with the reinforced toes?

  . . .

  And his missing finger? And the sharp knives chained to his pants?

  . . .

  And his jacket that stinks of goat?

  . . .

  And his nocturnal whims?

  . . .

  Let me remind you that he still has your number. You may be too hopeless to write a phone number down legibly, but he could have called you back eventually, if he’d wanted to.

  . . .

  Well, maybe not. I mean, with only nine fingers, maybe he couldn’t manage it . . .

  . . .

  Yo, Mathilde! You should answer when someone speaks to you!

  Shut up. Make fun of me, taunt me, put me down as much as you want, but don’t reprimand me. Don’t tell me the lesson. You know how much I hate that. If you persist in that tone you’re going to lose me completely. So . . . so what do you want me to tell you, then?

  Everything, gorgeous.

  Everything.

  Get comfortable and have a seat.

  4.

  So . . . um . . . where should I start? And where am I, first of all?

  Boulevard de Courcelles. Okay. I have time.

  I regretted burning my letter. I regretted burning it without rereading it one last time. I couldn’t remember exactly what sweet talk he’d used, and the way it rambled about me distorted things. I regretted not cleansing my palate one last time, imagining myself a little bit the way he thought of me, remembering the state of my arsenal.

  I started off at a disadvantage. I would have liked to know just as much about him as he did about me. Well . . . okay, not exactly that much, but more than I did, at least. More than little cuts from a razor blade, a cowlick, a missing fingertip, a way of staring, and the manners of a hustler.

  I felt like I was missing something, and I felt hurt by it.

  I wanted to understand how it was possible in this day and age, in the world we live in, this world we’ve created, this vast casino in which I shamelessly gambled every morning, for one individual to return ten thousand euros in cash to another individual, a complete stranger, without saying anything except a benevolent warning about the importance of not letting one’s good fortune get away, and then pay the check at the end of the night on top of it all.

  I wanted to understand how it was possible to be tactless enough to rummage through a girl’s handbag and leave enough signs that she’d be sure to know it; to force open her innermost private life and then be troubled by that; to let her into the secret again by staring at her deeply, calmly, and silently in the back of a café for more than half an hour, and then to sniff her in the doorway before taking her hand and refusing to give it back—and at the same time to be enough of an idiot to give her back her stuff without having the bright idea of writing down her phone number, making it necessary to ask her for it, and then to call her on the sly at all hours of the night as if it were a capital offense—and yet to have the plan, the need, the desire to overcome all her qualms, and to restore the appetite she had lost, and get her all stirred up without even knowing; to subject her to the disappointment, the very next night, of seeing a rabbit-skin jacket on some big guy with his back turned (not that he knew about that, but how could he?)—and not even to have taken the trouble to call her back, the ungrateful bitch, the fucking liar, the filthy seductress—so he could seduce her in his turn?

  In summary, I wanted to know what planet this bizarre guy came from, and if it was Earth, I wanted finally to feel, just a little, what humanity was.

  I wanted to let myself starve to death so he would gather me up and tuck me away in the same place he’d kept my mom’s purse, the other bastard’s tasting menu, and my mess of a life: beneath his jacket.

  Yeah. I wanted that, only that. For him to zip up his jacket and let me finally rest against his big chest.

  . . .

  Aha, that shut you up, didn’t it! You’re thinking, what is she babbling about now, the stupid girl?

  After the poet of my thighs with his starry lute, after that whole horde of good-for-nothings, and before the poor sod who will finally manage to get himself hooked and end up with three kids crammed in a minivan, she has to have her fantasy of an assistant chef with his nice big mitts, his houndstooth pants, and his clunky clogs, is that it?

  Gross.

  Gross, gross, gross.

  That’s it. Come at me.

  Come at me, losers.

  Unload on the white dove.

  Isn’t Facebook fantasy? And Match.com, and OkCupid, and Meetup? And all those ridiculous social websites. All those miserable cauldrons where you stir your loneliness in between two advertisements, all those “likes,” all those networks of imaginary friends, monitored communities, penniless, sheeplike, paying fraternities connected to wealthy servers . . . what is that?

  And that anxiety, that permanent state of missing something, that empty space beside you, these telephones that you’re endlessly messing with, these screens you have to unlock again and again and again, these lives you buy so you can keep playing, this wound, this plug, these clenched fists in your pocket? That way you—all of you—have to keep checking and checking all the time to see if someone has left you a note, a message, a sign, a call back, a notification, an advertisement, an . . . an anything.

  And that “someone,” who could be anyone or anything, from the moment he (or it) touches you, he reassures you—reminds you—that you’re alive, that you exist, that you count, and that for want of knowing you otherwise, he might try to hand you a last little bit of bullshit along the way.

  All these depths of despair, all this dizziness, all these lines of code you toy with on the metro and toss out like so much old shit as soon as “it” doesn’t hold your attention anymore. All these distractions that distract you from yourself, which have made you lose the habit of thinking about yourself, dreaming about yourself, to talk with the deepest part of yourself, to get to know yourself or recognize yourself, to look at other people, to smile at strangers, to make eye co
ntact, to flirt, to make out, and even to fuck—but which give you the illusion of being, and of embracing the whole world . . .

  All these coded feelings, all the friendships just hanging by a thread, which have to be recharged every evening, and of which nothing would remain if the fuses blew—that’s not fantasy at least, right?

  And I know what I’m talking about.

  I bleed, too.

  I didn’t care if he was a chef or a street cleaner or a stockbroker. Even if I am weak enough to believe that, to choose a crappy career that consists of feeding people just like him day after day, he had to be fundamentally good.

  I don’t see how you can keep going, otherwise.

  Maybe there are bad people who wear chef’s jackets, but to get up so early and go to bed so late, to be so cold every morning when accepting the food deliveries and then so hot over the stoves, to be under such pressure at the times of intense action that they fall asleep in a café on their breaks, to endure the pain of plunging boiling vegetables into ice-baths so they keep their beautiful colors, and in doing so to give themselves a permanent glowing red face, to feel all greasy even on their days off, but still to have enough energy to tie on an apron and feed their friends and family and their friends’ friends—all you people fortunate enough to have a chef nearby and to be happy with him, well, maybe I’m wrong, but I think they have to be good people. Generous, at least. Brave, for sure. Because satiety is an ungrateful thing. So, so ungrateful. You always have to start again.

  And admitting that that I’m dabbling in pure fantasy, really, and that for every pure heart there are ten food bureaucrats, ten potato-peelers, ten embittered assholes, ten unqualified people who have passed the professional certification, ten pencil-pushers, ten people who passed the test because there was no one better who will spend the rest of their lives counting their hours worked, their burns, and their potato peels—and being resigned and bitter and as discouraging and discouraged as anyone can legitimately be with a job like that . . . admitting that, well, you know what he would have done about my little fantasy? He would have stolen my ten thousand bucks.

  Yes.

  Oh, yes.

  Am I wrong to bring everything back to money? No, of course not; it’s the barometer, and you know it.

  And admitting that I was enough of an idiot to dream up this kind of comedy, and to foist it all off on the first pancake-flipper who came along and made the poor choice to nod off behind my back—yes, admitting that too (but Christ, what else am I supposed to think about when I don’t have my bike and all the shops are closed?), well, there again, I think he made out pretty well for a poor dumb decent guy, in my opinion.

  Because there were enough bombs in that bag to ruin my life. I know, because I’m the one who dropped them all on him.

  Cash stolen or not, bag entrusted to a third party or not, he had everything he needed, in the way of information, to have a hell of a good time. To stalk me, and find me, and keep waking me up in the middle of the night, asking me, Woof woof! if it were true that I was too good, if I still liked—heh heh—to chew on crushed ice, if there were still lard in my cleavage, and if my ass—oh la la—really smelled like flowers and mussel juice.

  That kind of calling card, in a girl’s bag, was outstanding at the bar.

  But instead of that he turned pale, promising me, distraught, that he’d “given everything back.”

  There. That’s all.

  Boulevard des Batignolles.

  Mercy, I haven’t gone to bed.

  But whatever. There you go. You can just make out the top of my Sacré-Coeur in the distance.

  . . .

  Still speechless, eh?

  . . .

  Did I say something to upset you?

  . . .

  Well?? You should answer when someone speaks to you, too!

  It’s just . . . I never imagined all of that.

  All of what?

  Uh, that you were so . . .

  So what?

  Well, that you were so scrawny. It doesn’t show from a distance.

  Nothing shows from a distance.

  . . .

  Believe me. Believe me, because I’m an expert on these things. Each and every one of us keeps most of our life secret. From far away, close up, straight on, in profile, or at an angle, nothing ever shows.

  . . .

  Come on, say something! Give me a break; talk to me again. I’m climbing over dozens of railway tracks here, and it’s really depressing me to see all these possible impossible departures. Go ahead, sigh, but keep me company a little while longer. Please.

  What about your famous GPS?

  As lost as I am.

  Well . . . well, if what you’ve just told us is true, then you have to find him again. There’s no other answer.

  Easy to say . . .

  The first waiter—the one who called him Romeo—he must know him.

  No. I asked him, but he doesn’t know either and hasn’t seen him since.

  Crap. Then you have to take a compass, and enlarge the circle around where you met, and go to every restaurant inside the circle.

  All of them??

  Do you have a better idea? You want to unfurl a giant composite sketch of him on the Arc de Triomphe?

  But it’ll take forever!

  Probably, but you’ve got no choice.

  Why?

  Why? Because we’re getting tired of this! We’re sick of listening to you soliloquize in the dark! We don’t care about the state of your soul! We don’t care! Everyone’s had enough, you know. Everyone! What we want is a story. That’s why we’re here, after all.

  Pfff.

  Pfff? What’s that supposed to mean? Why are you frowning?

  I’m afraid of suffering more.

  But Mathilde . . . it’s wonderful to suffer when you’re healthy. It’s a privilege! Only dead people don’t suffer! Be happy, gorgeous! Go, run, fly, hope, stand still, but live! Live a little! Move your well-polished derriere and your musky tutti-frutti legs a little for us, just to see what it’s like. Because, beneath all your high-and-mighty talk you moralize just as much as the rest of us, I promise you. So take your medicine, little outraged girl from the nice part of town. Follow through with your beliefs for once. Leave your computer, your comfort zone, your wicked sisters who you talk so negatively about but under whose guardianship you’re so happy to stay a little girl; yes, let go of the badmouthing and your stupid cynicism and let go of your mother, who’s never coming back, and . . . hey! Where are you going?

  I don’t believe it . . . my bike! It’s my bike! My precious Jeannot! Oh, thank goodness! It’s still there! Oh, you’re still there, my love. Oh, thank you. Bravo! Well played. Now, let’s hurry and get back, because we’ve got to get our strength back.

  I’ve got a job for you, old girl.

  5.

  See, Mathilde . . . if you really care about something in life, do whatever it takes not to lose it.

  Don’t worry, Saint Jean-Baptiste. You couldn’t see it under my dress, but I had a pretty nice chain, too.

  ACT FOUR

  1.

  The sun tickled the carved statues on the building across the street, the citrus juicer grumbled, the kettle sang, the oven clock read 7:42 A.M., and Michel Delpech (or Fugain) (or Polnareff) (or Berger) (or Jonasz) (or Sardou) (or take your pick) bleated good morning.

  Julie was checking the expiration date on an organic fair-trade prune soy-milk yogurt. Pauline asked anxiously, “Have you seen Mathilde?”

  “No, she’d already gone out when I woke up.”

  “Again? What is she up to so early?”

  “July second . . . we’d better hurry.”

  “What?”

  “The yogurts. Want one?”

  “No thanks.”

  “Look, a
lot of this stuff is going bad. It’s because of her, too! She never eats anymore!”

  “But why is she getting up so early these days? Did she get a job?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “And have you seen the maps in her room? With thumbtacks stuck in them all over the place?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So what is she doing?”

  “No idea.”

  “Does she want to move out?”

  Julie ignored this, while Daniel Guichard repeated over and over again: le gitan le gitan le gitan le gitan le gitan le gitan le gitan le gitan le gitan le gitan le gitan le gitan le gi . . .

  Help.

  2.

  Mathilde had counted two hundred and twenty-eight restaurants and bars within a fifteen-minute radius around the café where they had met (she figured he might need to get some air or stretch his legs between two dinner services).

  She’d already crossed pizzerias, crêperies, tea shops, and Middle Eastern places off her list, along with Indian, Afghan, Tibetan, macrobiotic, and vegetarian restaurants. That kind of cooking didn’t require such big knives, she’d decided.

  228.

  Two hundred and twenty-eight.

  One hundred + one hundred + twenty + eight.

  A little bit of organization was required: she had photocopied and enlarged the edges of the 28th, 26th, and 22nd arrondissements and taped them up above her dresser before covering them with little red thumbtacks so she could survey them judiciously. (Napoleon himself couldn’t have done better.)

  She’d started by making phone calls, but she’d quickly realized that it wasn’t going to be that easy. She didn’t know his last name, was incapable of describing him or saying how old he was, and couldn’t specify how long he’d worked there, much less her reasons for looking for him—no, it wasn’t for a restaurant inspection, and she didn’t want to reserve a table—and so she ended up with nasal-voiced answering machines, harried maître d’s, and managers busy tallying up, all of whom eventually told her in their own way to go to hell.