by Anna Gavalda
*
It’s a bunch of things. First, there’s the way we feel about our cars.
From the little Renault Clio to the huge German trailer trucks, when we climb in, we’re at home. It’s our smell, our mess, our seats taking the form of our arses – and believe me, we get enough shit about that. Then there’s the CB, which is a whole mysterious world of its own, with codes most people can’t even understand. I don’t use it much. I put it on mute from time to time when I smell something burning, but that’s all.
Then there’s the whole food thing. The Cheval Blanc hotel-restaurants, the roadside diners, the ads for the golden arches. … Daily specials, pitchers, paper napkins. … All those faces that you pass and never see again. …
And the waitresses’ arses – which are catalogued, rated, and updated better than the Michelin Guide. They call it the Micheline Guide.
There’s the tiredness, the itineraries, the loneliness, the thoughts – always the same ones turning over and over.
Potbellies have a way of sneaking up on you. Hookers, too.
There’s a whole universe that’s like a big, insurmountable barrier between those who live on the road and those who don’t.
Roughly speaking, my job consists of making the rounds to all our distribution outlets.
I work with mid- to large-scale grocery managers. We define launching strategies together, do sales projections, and conduct informational meetings about our products.
For me, it’s a little like going for a walk with a pretty girl, showing everyone how sweet and charming she is. As though I’m trying to find her a good match.
But it doesn’t end with finding her a husband – I still have to look out for her. When I get a chance, I test the vendors to see if they’re putting our merchandise up front, if they’re trying to sell generic stuff, if they’ve got the torchon cloth unfolded just like on TV, if the andouillettes are bathing in their jelly, if the pâtés are in real old-fashioned terrines, if the sausages are hung up as though they’re drying, and if and if and if …
No one notices all these little details, but they’re what make the Paul Pridault difference.
I know I’m talking too much about my work, and that has nothing to do with what I need to write.
Right now it’s pork, but I could sell lipstick or shoelaces just as well. What I love is making contacts, talking to people, and getting to see the country. Most of all, I love not being closed up in some office with a boss on my back all day. Just thinking about it gives me grief.
On Monday, 29 September, 1997, I got up at a quarter to six. I got my stuff together without making a sound so my wife wouldn’t grump at me. Then I barely had time to shower, because the car was almost out of fuel and I wanted to use the chance to check the tyre pressure.
I drank my coffee at the Shell station. I hate when I have to do that. The smell of diesel and sweetened coffee mixing together always makes me sort of want to throw up.
My first appointment was at eight-thirty at Pont-Audemer. I helped the shelf stackers at Carrefour put together a new display shelf for our vacuum-packed meals. It’s a new thing that we just brought out in conjunction with a big-name chef. (You should see the profits he rakes in just for showing his pretty face and toque on the package, jeez.)
The second appointment was set for ten o’clock in the Bourg-Achard industrial zone.
I was running a little late, mostly due to fog on the motorway.
I turned off the radio because I needed to think.
I was worried about this interview. I knew we were up against an important competitor, and it was a major challenge for me. Besides, I nearly missed my exit.
At one in the afternoon, I got a panicked phone call from my wife:
‘Jean-Pierre, is that you?’
‘What, who did you expect?’
‘… My God. … Are you okay?’
‘Why are you asking me that?’
‘Because of the accident, of course! For two hours I’ve been trying to reach you on your mobile, but they said all the lines were overloaded! For two hours I’ve been sick with worry! I must’ve called your office at least ten times! Shit! You could at least have called, you know. You really suck. …’
‘Wait, what are you talking about … what’s this all about?’
‘The accident this morning on the A13. Weren’t you supposed to take the A13 today?’
‘What accident?’
‘You can’t be serious!!! You’re the one who listens to France Info all day!!! It’s all anybody’s talking about. Even on TV! There was a terrible accident this morning near Rouen.’
‘…’
‘Well, okay, I’ll let you go, I’ve got a mass of work. … I haven’t done a thing since this morning. I was sure I must be a widow. I could already see myself throwing a handful of dirt on your coffin. Your mother called, my mother called. … Talk about a morning.’
‘Nope! Sorry … not this time! You’ll have to wait a little longer to get rid of my mother.’
‘Idiot.’
‘…’
‘…’
‘Hey, Flo …’
‘What?’
‘I love you.’
‘You never say it.’
‘And just now? What did I just do?’
‘… All right. … See you tonight. Call your mother or else she’s the one who’s going to kick the bucket.’
At seven o’clock I watched the local news. Awful.
Eight dead and sixty injured.
Cars crushed like cans.
How many?
Fifty? A hundred?
Trucks flattened and completely burned. Dozens and dozens of ambulances. A policeman talking about carelessness, about excessive speeding, about the fog that had been forecasted the night before, and about some bodies they still hadn’t been able to identify. Haggard, silent people in tears.
At eight I listened to the news highlights on TV. Nine deaths this time.
Florence shouted from the kitchen:
‘Enough already! Turn that off! Come in here.’
We clinked glasses in the kitchen. But it was just to make her happy – my heart wasn’t in it.
Right then, at that moment, I felt afraid. I couldn’t eat anything, and I was stunned like a boxer who’s been hit once too often.
Since I couldn’t sleep, my wife made love to me, very gently.
At midnight I was back in the living room. I turned on the TV and put it on mute, and I looked all over for a cigarette.
At twelve-thirty, I turned the volume back up a little to watch the last newscast. I couldn’t tear my eyes from the mass of sheet metal scattered across the lanes in both directions.
What a fuck-up.
I said to myself: people are just too stupid.
And then a truck driver came on the screen. He was wearing a T-shirt that said Le Castellet. I’ll never forget his face.
That night, in my living room, this guy said:
‘Okay, yeah, so it was foggy, and yeah, people drive too fast, but none of this shit ever would’ve happened if that arsehole hadn’t backed up to make the Bourg-Achard exit. From the cab, I could see the whole thing. The two cars next to me slowed down, and then after that I could hear the others embedding themselves like cutting through butter. Believe it or not, I couldn’t see a thing in my mirrors. Nothing. It was all just white. I hope it doesn’t keep you up at night, you bastard.’
That’s what he said. To me.
To me, Jean-Pierre Faret, naked in my living room.
That was yesterday.
Today, I bought all the papers. On page 3 of the Figaro dated Tuesday, 30 September:
DRIVER ERROR SUSPECTED
‘An illegal manoeuvre by a driver, who is thought to have backed up at the Bourg-Achard interchange in Eure, may have triggered the pile-up that caused the deaths of nine persons yesterday morning in a series of collisions on the A13 motorway. The error is thought to have provoked the first collision, in the Par
is-bound lanes, whereupon a tanker immediately caught fire. The flames attracted the attention of …’
And on page 3 of the Parisien:
THE SHOCKING THEORY OF DRIVER ERROR
‘The carelessness, indeed the recklessness, of a motorist may have been the source of the tragedy that manifested itself in the indescribable heap of crushed metal from which at least nine bodies were removed yesterday morning on the A13 motorway. Indeed, according to the shocking statement taken down by police, a car backed up to make the Bourg-Achard exit, roughly twenty kilometres from Rouen. It was in an attempt to avoid this car that the …’
And as if that weren’t enough:
‘In trying to cross the motorway in order to aid the injured, two other persons were killed, mowed down by a car. In less than two minutes, roughly a hundred cars, three heavy goods …’ (Libération, same day.)
Not even twenty metres, hardly – just a little short cut across the white stripes.
It took a matter of seconds. I’d already forgotten.
My God …
I don’t cry.
Florence came looking for me in the living room at five in the morning.
I told her everything, of course.
For several long minutes she stayed seated, without moving, her hands on her face.
She looked to the right, then to the left, as though she needed air. Then she said:
‘Listen to me. Don’t say anything. You know if you do they’ll charge you with involuntary manslaughter, and you’ll go to jail.’
‘Yes.’
‘And then? And then? What will that change? Even more lives fucked up, and how does that make it any better?’
She was crying.
‘Well, there you have it. My life’s already fucked.’
She was shouting.
‘Well, yours maybe, but not the kids’! So don’t you say a thing!’
I didn’t have the strength to shout.
‘Let’s talk about the kids. Look at that one. Take a good look at him.’
And I held out the newspaper, on the page that showed a little boy in tears on the A13.
A little boy walking away from an unrecognisable car.
A photo in the paper.
In the section ‘Lead Story.’
‘… He’s the same age as Camille.’
‘For God’s sake, stop that!’ My wife was shrieking, grabbing me by the shirt collar. … ‘Stop that shit! You shut up, now! Let me ask you a question. Just one. What good does it do for a guy like you to go to jail? Huh? Tell me, what good will it do?!’
‘It might make them feel better.’
She walked away, crushed.
I heard her shut herself in the bathroom.
When I saw her this morning, I nodded. But now, tonight, in my silent house with just the background noise of the dishwasher …
I’m lost.
I’m going to go downstairs. I’m going to drink a glass of water and I’m going to smoke a cigarette in the garden. Then I’m going to come back up here and reread everything from start to finish. Maybe that will help.
But I don’t think so.
Catgut
IN THE BEGINNING, none of it was supposed to work out this way. I’d answered an ad in Veterinary Week to fill in for someone for two months, August and September. And then the guy who’d hired me was killed on the road on his way back from holiday. Fortunately, no one else was in the car.
So I stayed on and took over the practice. It has a good clientele. People in Normandy have a hard time paying, but eventually they pay.
People up there are like all rustics – once an idea gets ingrained … And a woman for the animals – that can’t be good. To feed them, okay, and to milk them and clean up their shit, fine. But when it comes to things like shots, calving, colic, and metritis, they’ll have to see. …
They saw. They spent several months checking me out before anyone finally invited me for a drink.
Of course, in the mornings, it’s no big deal – that’s when I do consultations at the office. Mostly people bring in cats and dogs. I have all kinds of cases. Sometimes they’ll bring one in for me to put down, because the father can’t bring himself to do it and the animal’s in pain … or they’ll bring me one to treat, because ‘this one’s a really good hunter’ … and every now and then they’ll bring one in for vaccinations – but in that case, the owner’s always Parisian.
The hard part, at first, was the afternoons. The house calls. The cowsheds. The silences. Hafta see ’er at work, then we’ll see. Nothing but mistrust – and, I can imagine, nothing but ridicule behind my back. I must have really given them something to laugh about at the cafés, what with my lab work and my sterile gloves. Plus, my last name is Sirloine. Doctor Sirloine. What a joke.
In the end, I had to forget all the theoretical stuff we’d learned in college. I’d stand there silently in front of the livestock, waiting for the owner to spit out some scraps of information to help me figure out what was going on.
And then, most important – and this is the reason I’ve lasted this long – I bought myself some weights.
Now, if I had to give one piece of advice to a young person who wanted to go rural (although after everything that’s happened, I’d be surprised if anyone asked), here’s what I’d say: Muscles. Lots of muscles – it’s the most important thing. A cow weighs between five and eight hundred kilos, a horse between seven hundred kilos and a ton. That’s all there is to it.
Imagine a cow who’s having a hard time birthing. Naturally it’s night. It’s really cold, the barn is dirty, and there’s barely any light.
Okay.
The cow’s in pain, and the farmer’s unhappy too, because that cow is his livelihood. If the vet costs him more than the price of the meat that’s about to be born, he’s got to think twice. … You say:
‘The calf is breeched. I just have to turn it around, and it will come out on its own.’
The cowshed comes to life. They pull their oldest kid out of bed, and the younger one follows. For once, there’s something going on.
You get the animal tied up – nice and close. You don’t want any kicking. You strip down to a T-shirt. Now it’s suddenly cold. You find a tap and scrub your hands with the bit of soap sitting there. You put on your gloves, which come up to just under your armpits. Then you take your left hand and pull on the enormous vulva, and in you go.
You go looking for the sixty- or seventy-kilo calf in the far reaches of the uterus, and you turn it around – with one hand.
It takes a while, but you manage. Later, back inside, you drink a little brandy to warm yourself up, and you think about your weights.
Another time, the calf won’t come out. You have to open up, and that costs more. The farmer watches you, and his decision is based on the way you look. If you look confident and make a move towards your car as if you’re going to get your equipment, he’ll say yes.
If you stand there looking at the other animals and shift your weight as if you’re about to leave, he’ll say no.
And still another time, the calf is already dead. You have to be careful not to ruin the heifer, so you cut the calf up into little pieces and pull them out one after another, always with the glove.
When you go home later, your heart feels empty.
Years have gone by, and I’m still a long way from getting it all paid off, but everything’s going well.
When old man Villemeux died, I bought his farm and did it up a little.
I met someone, and then he left. My big carpet-beater hands, I guess.
I took in two dogs. The first showed up on his own and decided he liked the place. The second had seen some rough times before I adopted him. Naturally, the second one rules the roost. There’s also a handful of cats. I don’t ever see them, but their bowls are always empty. And I love my garden. It’s a bit of a mess, but there are some old rosebushes that have been there since before my time that don’t require any care from me. They’re reall
y beautiful.
A year ago I bought some teak lawn furniture. It cost a lot, but it’s meant to age well.
From time to time, I go out with Marc Pardini, who teaches I don’t know what at the local school. We go to the movies or out to eat. He likes to play the intellectual with me, which I find funny – because to tell the truth, I’ve turned into quite a hick. He lends me books and CDs.
From time to time, I sleep with him. It’s always good.
Late last night, I got a phone call. It was the Billebaudes – the farm on the road to Tianville. The guy said there was some big problem and it couldn’t wait.
That phone call cost me, to put it mildly. I’d had to work the weekend before, and that made thirteen days straight that I’d been working. I talked to my dogs for a while – nothing in particular, I just wanted to hear the sound of my voice – and I made myself a cup of coffee, black as ink.
The minute I pulled my key out of the ignition, I knew something was wrong. The house was dark and the cowshed silent.
I kicked up a hell of a racket, banging on the corrugated steel door as if to wake the dead, but it was too late.
He said, ‘My cow’s cunt is all better, but how’s yers? You even go’ one? ’Round here they say you ain’t a woman, you got balls. That’s what they say, ya know. So we told ’em we’d see fer oursel’s.’
*
And everything he said made the other two laugh.
I stared at their fingernails, chewed down to the flesh. You think they’d have taken me on a bale of straw? No, they were too drunk to bend down without falling over. They pinned me up against an icy tank in the dairy barn. There was a length of bent pipe grinding into my back. It was pitiful to see them struggling with their flies.
The whole thing was pitiful.
They hurt me really badly. Put like that, it doesn’t mean much, but I’ll say it again for those who might not have got it the first time: they hurt me really badly.
Ejaculation sobered up the Billebaude boy all of a sudden.
‘Hey, uh, doctor, we was just havin’ a lil fun, right? We don’t get much chance to have no fun out here, ya know, an’ my brother-in-law there, it’s his stag party, ain’t that right, Manu?’
Manu was already sleeping, and Manu’s friend was starting to booze it up again.