Waiting for Monsieur Bellivier

by Britta Rostlund

  After dropping the key twice out of sheer stress at being a few minutes late, I reminded myself that if any messages had arrived, they would still be there when I got in. Surely it wouldn’t matter if I didn’t forward them immediately. I unpacked my own laptop before I turned on the desktop computer in my office. I felt rested after a good night’s sleep. No emails. I dialled the number for Monsieur Caro in Marais again, mostly so that I could avoid thinking about him.

  ‘Hello.’

  The greeting was hissed, precisely what I had expected to hear from the man when he answered the phone.

  ‘Good morning. I’m looking for Monsieur Caro.’

  ‘Why?’

  I recognised his voice.

  ‘I just wanted to know how he was doing.’

  ‘To whom am I talking?’

  The simplest thing would have been to tell him who I was, but something held me back. I couldn’t even bring myself to make up a name.

  ‘Is this Monsieur Caro I’m speaking to?’

  ‘Yes,’ the man replied.

  ‘It was me who … met you in the cemetery. And then we spoke in the hospital, if you remember.’

  ‘Of course I do! What do you want?’

  ‘As I said, I just wanted to see how you were doing.’

  There was silence on the other end of the line. I was sure he was about to hang up, and I couldn’t think of anything good to say to prevent it.

  ‘12 Rue des Rosiers. The first door code is 12A90, the second is 223B,’ he eventually said.

  ‘Are you inviting me over?’

  ‘Call it whatever you want. I never got any answers to my questions at the hospital.’

  ‘I’m working now, but I could come by for a while after four. Is that OK?’

  There was another moment’s silence.

  ‘Yes, I suppose so.’

  I heard a pling at the same moment I hung up. The fact I would be going to Monsieur Caro’s apartment felt surreal.

  ‘One has to put one’s foot down sometimes, but she never did. The opposite. Why the flowers?’

  ‘The fact I put flowers on your mother’s grave was a pure coincidence, it could just have easily been …’

  ‘I don’t believe in any bloody coincidences!’

  I laughed. I was no longer afraid. He was angry, but he wasn’t going to hurt me. He wouldn’t be slapping me again. Monsieur Caro was like a great big nuclear meltdown. Dangerous fallout was constantly seeping out of him, things that he had been carrying for a very long time.

  His apartment was dark, despite the big window looking out onto the inner courtyard. It was the furniture, the books and paintings which gave the apartment a subdued feeling, though it wasn’t gloomy. When I rang the bell, he had opened the door and then turned his back on me, walked into the living room and sat down in an armchair. It was as though I had come to serve him, like the home help had arrived. He immediately launched into the conversation about his mother.

  I sat down in an armchair on the opposite side of the coffee table.

  ‘So, no coincidence. Why the flowers on my mother’s grave?’

  Why, of all the graves, had I chosen Judith Goldenberg’s? And why had I gone back there?

  ‘Don’t know. Maybe I’ll be able to answer that one day, but right now I don’t know.’

  ‘That’s a better answer. Not good, but better. Coincidence … there are no coincidences. One has to put one’s foot down, and she never did, my mother, who you’ve been honouring.’

  ‘What?’

  And with that, he started to explain:

  Judith had been very young when she qualified as a doctor. Too young to be wise. On graduation day, the cheers mixed with the shrill voice of the Führer, the voice which cut through everything – walls, graves, understanding. Perhaps it was because of the cheers that she didn’t see what was in her own and others’ best interests. I don’t know, and it makes no difference.

  Shortly after she graduated, she opened a practice just outside of Munich. A pretty young woman, a Jewess, with her own doctor’s surgery. Well, you can work it out for yourself … She was so caught up in her own success, in her own happiness, that she didn’t notice the tanks passing by outside. Even when patients came to her with injuries from attacks on the street, she waved it away, said they were exaggerating. Said that half of them had probably fallen down drunk or been brawling with a rival. Even when they asked her to wear the notorious Star of David she adopted it with a certain sense of pride. She wore it next to her doctor’s badge. The red cross shared space with the swastika. I think she thought of it as nothing more than one star among others. What stupidity.

  Her patients were both Jews and Germans. She was a fantastic doctor, and word of the unmarried young woman who cured the majority quickly spread. She was open to alternative therapies but never overstepped the boundary of what was considered proper for a doctor. She would write prescriptions for tried-and-tested homeopathic medicines and holy cures, but she kept away from the laying on of hands … and faith in God, I might add. But she was a good doctor, I won’t deny that.

  Monsieur Caro stretched out his feet, pulled at one trouser leg and then fixed his eyes on the wall behind me. He continued:

  Perhaps she understood the gravity of the situation, what was about to happen, when the neighbouring family was taken away. She had long ignored the black eyes and broken arms, but when an entire family disappears it becomes so obvious, an empty room which couldn’t be filled with explanations or excuses. She had helped to repaint the neighbours’ kitchen. She knew how fond they were of their home. They would never have left voluntarily. She knew that, despite her ugly denials. And then it was her turn. They came to her practice. One of them was a patient of hers. She had, in her foolishness, thought he was interested in her. Ha ha … well. As I said, she was unmarried, but she dreamt of a husband and children, so long as her career still took off. And it would, take off that is, but not as she had hoped.

  The men told her to pack her things. She grabbed her coat and was about to shut up the practice as usual. What she hadn’t understood was that the men were asking her to pack up and close the entire practice for good. They had with them a list of things she would need. Aside from bandages and antiseptic, she should also bring scalpels, needles and thread, and morphine. She packed everything into her big leather bag. Turned off the lights in her practice for the very last time, and headed out towards what she believed was if not a voluntary task, then at least a worthy one. She had taken the Hippocratic oath. She would treat anyone who needed it.

  Her final destination was Dachau. She arrived there on an ordinary passenger train with a handful of Germans on board. They let her travel in German class! The passengers were spread out between the different carriages. She was given food, and able to use the bathroom. The remarkable thing was that the restaurant car was open, and that behind the coffee and the pastries, there was a soldier trying to work out how to use the cash register. That might have been one of the most remarkable things of all. The Germans take over Europe, take a train straight towards Hell, and demand payment from themselves in the restaurant car.

  On a number of occasions after the war, she returned to that journey, and it was the restaurant car which was on her mind when she died. Remarkable, truly remarkable.

  ‘I’m tired,’ Monsieur Caro suddenly said, looking up.

  Maybe the episode in the restaurant car had worn him out. But he couldn’t stop now. I tried to come up with a way of making him return to the story. I even took the liberty of turning off the radio. But Monsieur Caro remained silent, and I realised it was probably time to pick up my son. On the metro, my thoughts turned to the restaurant car. I couldn’t forget that that was where he had ended. He had asked me to go back tomorrow, at the same time. I looked at myself in the window of the metro car. I looked innocent and young, but I felt old, tired and sinful.

  Mancebo is bored. For twenty-eight years, he’s sat in the same spot without ever getting tired
of it. But now that he’s been given this new task, his days feel long and uneventful. A few children stopped by to buy biscuits and collect their free notebooks, but otherwise the day has been quiet.

  Mancebo is on his stool as usual, studying the boulevard. He can’t for the life of him remember how he used to pass the time before he was given the task by Madame Cat. And as though the writer can hear Mancebo’s complaints about his uneventful existence, he suddenly appears on the street, carrying a laptop bag and a book. Just as he passes the pink flashing light above the cobbler’s shop, he stops and shakes hands with a woman.

  Mancebo practically skids inside to grab his binoculars. He can’t afford to miss a thing. He casts a glance in both directions, mostly because doing so feels professional, and then he raises the binoculars to his eyes. He shudders and wonders whether he will ever get used to seeing the world enlarged, whether scientists feel startled every time they look at a virus through a microscope. The writer is still chatting to the woman. She’s much older than he is.

  Without warning, two men stop right in front of the writer. As though they are deliberately trying to sabotage any detective work. Mancebo doesn’t want to lose track of the writer, and he keeps the binoculars trained on the same position until the two men move off. The writer and the woman shake hands again, and then they part ways. That’s the last thing Mancebo sees before everything goes black.

  At first, all he can see is a light. A terrible, piercing white light. Mancebo chooses to close his eyes again. There’s something reassuring about the darkness.

  ‘Answer me then!’ he hears someone shout.

  He opens his eyes. In the centre of the light, in the doorway, he sees an enormous man who seems to be trying to make himself look even bigger. Mancebo automatically thinks of an animal, he can’t remember which, one which inflates itself to scare off predators. Somehow, he has trouble believing that the voice he heard came from the man in front of him. His body doesn’t look like it would house that kind of voice. A toad, Mancebo thinks, it’s toads that inflate themselves when faced with danger. Someone grabs his jaw and turns his face towards them. Now, for the first time, Mancebo feels scared. Terrified. Before, there was no reason to be afraid, because he had no idea what was going on. But now he is starting to understand. He’s in his shop. Someone must have covered his eyes with something and dragged him in from the pavement. There are two people keeping him prisoner, telling him to answer something. It’s a robbery. Mancebo is sure of it.

  ‘The money …’ Mancebo mumbles.

  He’s sure that’s what they’re after.

  ‘What bloody money?’ the man next to him hisses.

  ‘The money … it’s in the till.’

  ‘I didn’t ask about any bloody money!’

  The man grabs Mancebo by his coat, causing one of the buttons to fly off, and he dearly hopes it’s the only one which will whizz through the air. The man throws Mancebo onto the stool, which is now inside the shop. Mancebo has no idea how it got there, and he doesn’t have time to think about it. The fat man suddenly turns his head towards the street, but his body doesn’t move. Maybe he’s driving off a customer. For the first time, Mancebo looks at the man who dragged him onto the stool. He is the polar opposite of the one blocking the door. Tall and thin, with unnatural, dark muttonchops. Mancebo clutches his forehead.

  ‘So, you little worm, what exactly were you staring at?’

  ‘Staring?’ Mancebo manages to splutter.

  ‘Yeah, what the hell do you stare at through those bloody binoculars of yours?’

  Mancebo glances up at the fat man in the doorway, and then back to the one with the muttonchops, but neither is the writer. He could have partners, friends who are looking out for him. But isn’t this a bit much to keep an extramarital affair quiet? Mancebo tries to think clearly. The two men might not have anything to do with the writer. They could be drug pushers who do their business on the boulevard. The man with the muttonchops takes a step towards Mancebo, who automatically raises his hands, and he realises he can’t stay quiet any longer.

  ‘I was trying out my new binoculars.’

  ‘Trying out your new binoculars? On a busy street? What the hell do you need binoculars for?’

  ‘Horses.’

  The last time anyone mentioned binoculars, it was Tariq, when he said he couldn’t forget to take a pair to the races on Sunday.

  ‘Horses?’

  Mancebo nods.

  ‘Auteuil, Sunday. Big race. Win some dough.’

  He regrets that last part. Completely unnecessary information. The two men glance at one another. The man with the muttonchops yanks Mancebo from his stool and starts searching his pockets, throwing everything he finds to the floor: a damp handkerchief, a piece of chalk and a couple of keys. He pushes Mancebo back onto the stool and moves over to the till. Drug pushers can also be thieves, Mancebo thinks, the two go hand in hand. But the man with the muttonchops doesn’t seem the least bit interested in the money, and he starts rifling around on the shelves instead. Mancebo swallows. The man is going through his receipt book, shaking it as though to make sure there’s nothing hidden inside. Then he leafs through a couple of empty notebooks and gives Mancebo a questioning look. Eventually, he grabs the notebook Mancebo has been using for his reports. The man stops, leafs back a few pages, and says something to the toad in the doorway. Mancebo doesn’t know whether it’s just that he can’t make out what they’re saying or whether they’re speaking another language. The man with the muttonchops smiles.

  ‘You writing a book? Guess you need something to do while you’re sitting here all day. Or are you spying on someone? Wasn’t me who ran down some bloody fire escape with a bag, anyway. Know what? I don’t give a shit if you’re playing hobby detective, but you should be bloody careful.’

  The man with the muttonchops leafs forward a few pages. After reading through Mancebo’s notes, his body language changes. Though he keeps searching beneath the till, he no longer does it with the same intensity. He says something to the big man, and Mancebo is now sure that they aren’t speaking French. It’s not Arabic or English either. That’s as far as Mancebo’s linguistic skills stretch.

  ‘You should be careful who you point your binoculars at. No more binoculars on this boulevard, mate! Understand?’

  Mancebo reacts to the word ‘mate’. It doesn’t work on someone you’ve just assaulted. He nods. No more binoculars on the boulevard. The man with the muttonchops grabs everything he took from beneath the till and throws it back. He nods to the huge man in the doorway, who is still keeping watch. Both men nod and then vanish out onto the boulevard. Mancebo stays where he is on the stool. He becomes aware of a warm sensation between his legs, and realises that a small pool has formed on the floor.

  Other than the small puddle on the floor and the button lying over by the canned goods, there’s nothing to suggest that Mancebo has had any visitors. Real thugs, Mancebo thinks as he picks up the button and drops it into his pocket. He pushes the door closed but leaves it unlocked, it would just draw attention otherwise. Still, it might stop any spontaneous customers from coming in. He can do without those right now.

  He holds his forehead as he makes his way over to the till. First, he organises the notebooks into neat piles and then he opens a pack of toilet roll and starts to wipe the floor. He could get the mop from the apartment above, but he doesn’t have the energy. Never before has he felt so humiliated. He tosses the wad of wet paper into the bin and heads over to the refrigerator. His hands shake as he opens a can of Coca-Cola and gulps it down.

  ‘Where was I? Ah yes, the restaurant car. That’s where I usually stop.’

  There had been a smile on Monsieur Caro’s lips when he opened the door, but then he turned serious, as though he regretted inviting me over.

  In the restaurant car, she was served coffee with sugar and a vanilla bun. I’ve never seen her take sugar in her coffee, nor eat a vanilla bun for that matter. It was still light when sh
e arrived in Dachau. It was a foggy day, and the cold was biting. She was dressed for the journey between her house and the doctor’s surgery, not for a long train ride. A group of soldiers came to meet her, and it was only then that she realised how few passengers there had been on the train. Other than the German soldiers, there was only an elderly man and two couples. On an entire train. She was the only young woman to be travelling alone. And she was the only one with a bag. The others had arrived empty-handed.

  Judith was taken into a room which had previously been used as a ticket hall. There were benches pushed up against the walls, but she never had time to sit down; she was the first to be called for. She smiled warmly at the others and followed the man. They crossed a muddy field, and she stumbled several times in her low heels. She automatically reached out for the man to help her up, but he kept walking. Convinced he hadn’t realised she had fallen, she shouted out to him. Hearing her own voice came as a surprise. It was a long time since anyone had spoken to her, and she hadn’t dared talk to anyone else. The man turned around, peered down at her, and then kept walking. There and then, she lost not only her self-respect but also her title: doctor. Which she considered worst is up for discussion. Nonetheless, she was a clear-thinking woman, and so, despite the cold, she took off her shoes and walked in stockinged feet through the chilly mud behind the man who had robbed her of her human worth.

  ‘Please could you turn off the radio?’

  Monsieur Caro cleared his throat and took a sip of water. He was behaving as though he was giving a speech. As though reading from some internal script.

  In a building separate from the others, she was told to sit down and wait. She wiggled her toes to stop them from freezing, and wondered whether she had anything in her bag that might be of use to her. Perhaps the gauze bandages could work. The man who had robbed her of her human worth out in the field was leaning against the door, but when he heard a noise in the adjacent room, he stood to attention. The door opened and he made the now-famous Nazi salute. The man who came in was small and stout, with thin hair. He looked down at Judith and her feet, and ordered the soldier to fetch something for her to wear. The soldier turned and left. The corpulent man returned to his desk in the next room, but he left the door open. Not a word to Judith.