Waiting for Monsieur Bellivier

by Britta Rostlund

  Even Amir, who never normally had opinions or advice for others, questioned why his father should be working that Sunday. Wouldn’t it be better if he stayed at home and rested after his collapse? Mancebo himself had wondered whether it was worth going down to the shop, he could do one of his jobs from the apartment, after all. But when he put his hand into his pocket and found the button which had flown off when the madman yanked him from his stool, any doubts he had about going down to the shop that day vanished. Back in the saddle, Mancebo thought, wondering how many times you had to haul yourself up onto the gee-gee before you were finally allowed to admit that maybe horse riding wasn’t the sport for you after all.

  The fruit stands seem to have grown wings overnight. They glide over the threshold onto the pavement, where they tempt customers with their contents. A visit to A&E seems to have done some good. Everything is moving more quickly than usual, and Mancebo enjoys feeling good again. He sits down on the stool outside the shop with his eyes fixed in the direction of Monsieur Baker’s office. Thin clouds pass overhead, and the people on the street move as though they were several kilos lighter. Mancebo notices this as he sits on his stool, thinking about everything.

  Before it’s time to close up for the day, Mancebo takes a Coca-Cola from the refrigerator and guzzles it down. My mother was right, he thinks, medicine can be addictive. He’s drunk more Coca-Cola over the past few days than he has in all the years leading up to that point.

  At closing time, the fruit and vegetable stands seem to have lost their wings, they feel much heavier to haul in than they were to pull out. Mancebo stretches and prepares to write the week’s report.

  But just as he adds the final full stop to his report, the writer’s window opens. Mancebo can see a woman’s arm sticking out of it. He carefully puts down everything he is holding and makes his way from the stool out onto the pavement as quietly as he can. He practically tiptoes through the shop, and it’s as though the city is helping him along by creating the right atmosphere. A pretty pink evening light is illuminating the boulevard, and the people passing by no longer seem to be in as much of a rush. They’re hardly walking on eggshells, but a calm has descended over the Parisians as they try to make the most of the last few hours of the weekend.

  It’s a slender, white arm and it places a box on the windowsill. Mancebo debates going to get his binoculars, but just the thought of that makes him feel like he needs to empty his bladder. His jaw drops. This is the closest he’s ever come to the writer’s lover. It can’t be Madame Cat’s arm. There’s no way he could have missed her arrival, he’s sure of it. Mancebo tries to make out the woman’s face, but it’s difficult. She struggles with the box, but eventually manages to get it into the right spot. The arm curls back inside like a white snake. And then Mancebo catches sight of the writer as he carefully closes the window. His jaw drops again. He closes his mouth and rushes into his shop. No more tiptoeing about now. He’s far too excited for that.

  The lover has to come out. At some point, she has to come out. If the lover has a family, then she’ll have to go home to them sooner or later. And if she doesn’t have a family, she’ll still need to leave before Madame Cat gets home. I’ll wait her out. I’ve got you cornered now, Mancebo thinks, slumping down onto the stool behind the till. He glances at his watch. This is probably the latest he has ever stayed in the shop on a Sunday. There’s no sign of anyone in the window. Mancebo glances at his watch again, though he doesn’t take in the time. The scent of dinner is making its way into the shop, and this stresses Mancebo out. Ordinarily, he closes much earlier on Sundays. He should already have shut up shop. The food he can smell tells him as much. He glances at his watch again. And again. If he doesn’t make his way up to the apartment soon, the others will wonder where he is. He’s sure of that, even though no one would miss him especially much if he wasn’t there. He’s also sure of that.

  Maybe I could follow her? Mancebo’s imagination runs away with him. But the smell of dinner challenges it, and drags him back to reality. The scent of bean stew transforms into poisonous gas. Mancebo looks at his watch.

  After a moment of panicked deliberation, Mancebo realises that he needs to go over to the writer’s apartment before anyone comes down to look for him. He knows he has just minutes before Fatima sends someone down; she won’t have the energy to come herself. Mancebo isn’t that important.

  He needs to go to the apartment over the road, but how? I could pretend to be selling something, he thinks. And then he catches sight of the remaining notebooks. Just last week, a man had knocked on the door selling calendars full of pictures of half-naked firemen. Fatima had said that maybe they should buy one for Adèle, to get her in the mood for making a baby. Mancebo is a desperate man. He has so many of the notebooks that it could seem plausible that he really is going around the neighbourhood trying to sell them.

  The smell of dinner is almost suffocating now, and he grabs the notebooks and hurries out of the shop without a thought for locking up or even closing the door. His journey over to the other side has begun. I’ll knock on the door and introduce myself, he thinks as he hurries across the boulevard. It’ll probably be the writer who answers. But maybe his lover will be standing behind him, wrapped up in a white sheet. At least I’d get a look at her. Maybe the writer will invite me in, or maybe it’ll be the lover who answers the door, and then …

  A car honks its horn. Mancebo drops a couple of notebooks. He quickly grabs them again. Another car slams on its brakes. Mancebo continues to hurry across the street. He makes it to the other side. Now it’s time for the climb, but to be able to hold on to the handrail, he has to carry one of the notebooks in his mouth. He finds himself surprised at how steep the staircase actually is.

  ‘What are you doing, man!’

  Mancebo spins around, he’s on the verge of falling. He sees Fatima rushing across the street in her pink slippers. Mancebo registers everything as though in slow motion; it’s the first time he’s ever seen Fatima run. He’s seen her hurry in the past, but never run. He didn’t know she could. Mancebo is motionless on the staircase, the notebooks under his arm and in his mouth. The game is up. He glances towards the writer’s door. The answer is just beyond it. The end. The purpose of his entire task.

  Fatima’s eyes flash as she grabs her husband’s arm and drags him down the fire escape and across the boulevard. Mancebo clutches his notebooks. A couple of cars sound their horns. Two young men lean out of their car to watch the spectacle. A small man with a notepad in his mouth being dragged over the boulevard by a much larger woman.

  Fatima pushes Mancebo onto the stool in his shop, and he has the feeling that it isn’t the first time someone has done that to him. She closes the door and then pauses with her back to him. When she finally turns around, it’s as though all her energy is gone. Her eyes have lost their fire.

  ‘Do you want me to call them?’ she asks, trying to sound considerate.

  She pulls the notebook from her husband’s mouth.

  ‘Call them?’

  ‘Yes, so you can get help.’

  Mancebo realises that she thinks he’s mad, which is understandable. Forty-eight hours earlier he had a mental breakdown, and now she spots him running around with an armful of notebooks, in the belief that he’s some kind of reseller. In a sense, Mancebo is relieved that she thinks he’s gone crazy, but he also doesn’t want to go into hospital. He has no desire to talk to Madame Flouriante again. Above all, he just wants to finish his work. He can’t do that anywhere but here, on Boulevard des Batignolles. Mancebo hears footsteps on the stairs behind him, and immediately knows who they belong to.

  ‘What’s going on?’

  Tariq is in the doorway, with a bewildered look on his face.

  ‘He was running around to the neighbours with books.’

  Tariq stares at Mancebo as though he wants an explanation. Mancebo shrugs.

  ‘Where did you get all of those?’

  His cousin points at the no
tebooks, which are lying in a heap on the floor. Fatima shrugs.

  ‘He had one in his mouth, too.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m saying he had a notebook in his mouth, too!’

  Mancebo is sitting on his stool.

  ‘I thought he was OK now,’ Tariq whispers, seemingly in the belief that Mancebo won’t hear him.

  Fatima pulls Tariq over towards the till.

  ‘There’s something I didn’t tell you. When I went to see him in hospital, he sat up in bed and said he was President Hollande.’

  ‘What the hell are you saying?’ Tariq exclaims.

  Mancebo realises that madmen have to listen to a lot about themselves. But just because a person is mad doesn’t mean they’ve lost their sense of hearing.

  ‘You mean he thinks he’s someone else?’

  Fatima shrugs, but she doesn’t reply.

  ‘Oh God. What do we do now?’

  ‘Eat,’ says Fatima. ‘I’ll have to call up and make an appointment tomorrow.’

  She disappears upstairs. The shuffling sound of her slippers seems to last for a long time. Tariq hesitantly approaches his cousin.

  ‘We’ll sort this out. But just between us, why were you running about with books for the neighbours?’

  In a way, Mancebo feels a certain gratitude towards Tariq for treating him with some degree of respect. He deserves a straight answer, but not the truth, Mancebo thinks.

  ‘I got them from a customer. Chinese. But what am I going to do with them? Business hasn’t been good lately, so I thought that if I could flog a few of them it’d be good.’

  Mancebo, with his new-found ability to observe and interpret people’s behaviour, can see that Tariq is coming round to his side. That’s just what he needs. If both Tariq and Fatima think he has a personality disorder, then he’ll be locked up in a straitjacket in no time, or else he’ll be so heavily medicated that he’ll never finish his task. They’re strong, efficient people, Fatima and Tariq, and he doesn’t want them against him. Mancebo knows what he needs to do to bring Tariq completely round to his side.

  ‘When you won that money, I just felt even more poor. I thought that if I sold a few notebooks, I’d at least have a bit of change in the till. Every little helps … I’m fine. You don’t need to worry about me, brother. I know who I am.’

  Tariq now has one foot on Mancebo’s side and the other on Fatima’s. It will only take one more thing to bring him over completely.

  ‘I suppose I just need something new to do, too. I just sit here all day. You’ve got your plans for the skydiving school, your dreams, but I … Nothing happens here.’

  Tariq pats Mancebo on the shoulder.

  ‘Do you need help tidying up?’

  Mancebo shakes his head.

  ‘OK, then let’s do this. I’ll go up and talk to Fatima. Calm her down. You have to understand that she’s worried.’

  Mancebo smiles.

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Of course, brother. And listen, this money thing, you just need to ask and you can borrow however much you need. I’ve got money.’

  So do I, Mancebo thinks. Tariq gives him a jokey punch on the shoulder and disappears up the stairs. Mancebo grabs the notebooks from the floor, and wonders which was worse: tussling with the two madmen who paid a visit to his shop, or with these two. He takes out the weekly report, and just as he is about to add the latest development to it, he sees Madame Cat in the apartment opposite. She puts an arm around her husband, who is sitting at his desk. Suddenly, he has nothing else to add to the report.

  There was no way it could have been there before. I had walked that way for years and never noticed it.

  ‘Built in 1998,’ Christophe suddenly said, as though he had read my mind.

  It looked like a small, square glass tent. Not that it was really all that small, but in comparison to the buildings surrounding it, that was the impression you got. A high red cross revealed that it was no ordinary office block.

  Christophe opened the door and allowed me to go in first. He gestured for me to climb a set of stairs. A man came forward and shook Christophe’s hand, and I realised he must be a regular churchgoer. We went up into the main church hall. It was hard to believe that we were in the middle of one of Europe’s biggest business districts. Christophe studied me as I looked around the room, taking in the unknown. I was cautiously looking for a sign that this really was a church.

  ‘What do you usually do here?’ I asked quietly.

  ‘What do I do? When I come to church?’

  I nodded. Christophe shrugged, took his hands from his pockets and went over to the altar, where he knelt down and prayed. He looked so fragile. Not just because he was sharing his faith in such an intimate manner, but also because his position gave off a sense of vulnerability. I was struck by the thought that it looked like he was waiting for the guillotine. Once he finished praying, he crossed himself and then got up to go and sit on one of the pale, shiny wooden benches. There was a tense silence over the hall. If we were brave, we stayed within it; if we were weak, we broke it, and it should be simple. A cough or a clearing of the throat would be enough. I sat down. We glanced at one another, and then I realised what the tension was. It wasn’t the church, or the silence itself, it wasn’t me or him. It had been something in his prayer. I cleared my throat. He was brave. I was weak. He sighed.

  ‘I’ve asked before, and I’m going to do it again. Why did you give me the flowers?’

  ‘The first time?’

  He nodded.

  ‘I didn’t want them. They weren’t meant for me.’

  ‘You don’t like flowers?’

  ‘Not any more.’

  The stairs creaked and a man in a suit came in. He ignored us. He knelt in front of the altar, crossed himself, and then calmly went on his way.

  ‘Coffee break,’ Christophe said, nodding towards the man. ‘Why did you give them to me?’

  The stairs creaked again, and an older woman in a brown shawl came in. She said hello and sat down on one of the benches at the very front.

  ‘You must have God on your side. Every time I ask the question, someone comes in and takes the focus away from you.’

  He was whispering, and somehow that made me feel young. We were like two obstinate teenagers at the very back of the church, whispering to one another while the adults prayed. Maybe it was because we were in a church, but I wasn’t in the mood for lies.

  ‘There was something in your eyes which made me want to give them to you.’

  I looked down at his hands, which were resting in his lap.

  ‘What did you see in them?’

  ‘A deep sadness … but maybe also a gratitude.’

  I didn’t look at him as I spoke, my eyes were focused on the old woman, as though to reassure myself that I wasn’t bothering her. But from the corner of my eye, I could see Christophe had closed his eyes.

  ‘Do you believe in the truth?’

  ‘Is there any alternative?’ I asked, and the older lady left the church.

  ‘I mean … do you believe in the truth? In all respects.’

  ‘Yes. But I guess it can be withheld sometimes.’

  ‘Do you believe in forgiveness?’

  ‘Yes, I think so, from an egotistical point of view if nothing else.’

  My thoughts returned to Judith Goldenberg, and I debated whether I should tell Christophe her story, to see how he took it. But I had the feeling there was another story ahead of it in the queue, and there was.

  ‘My wife cheated on me with another man.’

  He said it with emphasis.

  ‘I found out the night before you gave me the flowers. She just came out and told me. She hadn’t been able to keep it to herself any longer. My first impulse was to push her away, but despite everything, we managed to talk. We sat up all night, and by the time the sun came up I had forgiven her. Truly. I forgave her. It wasn’t easy, but I managed …’

  I realised Judith would have t
o wait.

  ‘On the way home from work that day, I was full of everything you saw. Sorrow and gratitude. Impressive interpretation. Grateful to have such a wonderful family, and to have the ability to forgive. And just as I was thinking about that, you shoved a bouquet into my hands and disappeared from the metro. Do you know what bothered me most?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘That I didn’t have time to say thank you. But then …’

  He fell silent.

  ‘I don’t know if I should tell you this.’

  He looked at me and smiled. His eyes were glossy with tears.

  ‘Me neither, but do it anyway.’

  ‘When I got home with the flowers, my wife thought they were for her. She took them and put them into a vase and thanked me for buying them even though she … She was grateful I had forgiven her and that I was showing it by buying her flowers. But then I told her I hadn’t bought them at all, that a woman on the metro had given them to me.’

  You stupid man, I thought, looking up at him.

  ‘What are you thinking about?’ he asked.

  ‘That we’re allowed to be really stupid sometimes …’

  Our laughter echoed through the church, a laugh which relieved the tension. He raised a finger to show me we needed to be quiet.

  ‘Aha, so now your wife thinks you’re seeing someone else?’

  ‘No, not at all. Worse. She thinks I bought the flowers and then claimed another woman had given them to me. That I’m doing it to torment her, to make her feel bad. She doesn’t believe I’ve forgiven her at all. She thinks I’ve decided to belittle her and torment her as some kind of punishment.’

  He sighed and continued:

  ‘I guess it was the final straw … the flowers. That evening, she decided to leave me. She said she couldn’t cope with constantly being reminded of her guilt. And that I didn’t deserve to have her as my wife.’

  ‘All that because of the flowers?’