Waiting for Monsieur Bellivier

by Britta Rostlund

  Tariq laughs again and nibbles at Adèle’s neck. Suddenly, she pulls away and her smile is transformed into her usual cramped expression. Gone is the Adèle Mancebo saw just a few minutes earlier.

  Mancebo studies Tariq as though attempting to work out where he has him, as though he was a tame wild animal. You’re in control, you know the animal, but you can never forget its true nature. The Tariq he caught a glimpse of down in the shop just a while earlier is gone without a trace. Left behind is the version Mancebo has known since he was a boy, the simple, boorish, normal Tariq who likes the modest but good things in life: good food, the woman he loves and his cigarettes. As long as he has those, he’s happy. If he doesn’t, he’ll be furious, but in a manageable and almost comic way. The Tariq who is happy to step up and help out, particularly with practical problems, is also back. And even Fatima, the same Fatima who potters about all day, is back. The Fatima who is always grumpy, but never quite angry. The woman who brutally spits out amusing remarks and comments no matter where she goes. The Fatima who thinks that Adèle should pull her weight as far as the housework goes.

  As Mancebo studies his wife, he doesn’t see the woman who hurried across the boulevard like an overfed polecat just to get her hands on a few pastries. Or the one who apparently spends time behind the curtain at the tobacconist’s.

  ‘Where’s my son?’ Mancebo asks.

  ‘He’s at the library, Georges Pompidou,’ Fatima replies, pouring the tea.

  ‘This late?’

  ‘It’s open until quarter to eleven,’ Adèle says, her cheeks now back to their characteristic pale shade.

  Mancebo is about to check his watch, but he quickly pulls down his shirtsleeve and pretends to be brushing something away. No one saw his gesture, and he hasn’t forgotten to take off his watch. It’s back beneath the till.

  ‘What time is it? Shouldn’t he be home soon?’

  As the words leave his mouth, Amir closes the door behind him. Mancebo’s face lights up and he feels relieved to see his son. He’s the only person in the room who feels genuine. Amir smiles at his father and goes into the kitchen to wash his hands. Mancebo stretches. He feels so proud of his son.

  He never needs to tell Amir to do his schoolwork, because he’s an exemplary student, and at every parents’ evening the teachers shower him with praise. He’s particularly good at French and history. Once, one of the teachers said that it was unusual for a ‘Beur’, a second-generation immigrant from North Africa, to have such an excellent command of the French language. Mancebo is a proud father, but an uncertain husband.

  The light is on in the room. The door is half open. A small shard of light is visible on the dark brown carpet in the hallway. Fatima is getting ready for bed, and Mancebo can hear her gurgling her green mint mouthwash. There’s a strange smell in the hallway, a mixture of heat, food and petrol fumes.

  Amir went straight to his room once they got back to their apartment after dinner. Now, Mancebo knocks cautiously on his half-open door. No reply. He pauses and knocks again.

  Fatima is wheezing in the bathroom. The confusion Mancebo has felt all day has temporarily subsided. A certain peace has descended with the arrival of night. Ordinarily, it’s the other way around, and the darkness brings with it anxiety. But Mancebo has seen his day unfold as though it was a film, full of unpleasant and unexpected surprises. Night means turning off the projector, giving Mancebo time to breathe out and gather himself before the next one begins. He knocks gently on the door. Amir opens it and gives his father a questioning look.

  ‘Sorry to bother you.’

  ‘Don’t worry.’

  ‘Are you reading?’

  ‘Nah, not really.’

  Mancebo isn’t really sure why he is so keen to talk to his son, but the minute Amir opens the door, the important things he has on his chest start to fade. Or, at least, nothing feels quite so urgent any more, which makes it harder to bring up.

  ‘What about you, Dad? Have you been reading?’

  It’s as though Amir has already heard the unspoken question, and that helps him to get going.

  ‘Yes, I’ve … Can I come in?’

  Amir opens the door wide and then goes back over to his bed, where he sits with his legs crossed. Mancebo follows his example, but decides to keep his feet on the floor.

  ‘Yes, like I said, I’ve been reading. Actually, I’ve finished it.’

  Mancebo feels childishly proud, sitting there in the moonlight, and every now and then he casts a glance towards Madame Cat’s apartment. The light is on in the bedroom over the boulevard.

  ‘So you’ve finished the book I gave you?’

  ‘Yes. But can I keep it for a while longer?’

  You never know. Maybe I’ll have to go back to study a chapter or two, Mancebo thinks.

  ‘Sure, I think you can keep it for a month.’

  ‘A month? That’s generous.’

  ‘What did you think of it, then?’

  Amir suddenly seems to have more energy, and he even looks slightly excited that his father has read a crime novel.

  Mancebo wants to say something intelligent so that Amir can feel proud of him, and he chooses his words carefully.

  ‘It was protracted … monotonous, that’s what it was, monotonous.’

  ‘But you liked it?’

  ‘No, it was monotonous.’

  ‘Yeah, but a book can be good even if it’s monotonous. Last week, I read a book that didn’t really go anywhere, the same thing, nothing much happened. You could say it was monotonous, but it was beautiful. I loved it.’

  Mancebo had been happy with his choice of ‘monotonous’, but now he feels slightly disappointed because Amir isn’t happy with it as a description of a book.

  ‘But this book wasn’t good literature, the language didn’t grab me.’

  Mancebo suddenly feels irritated, not at his son, but because Ted Baker can’t write better books. He doesn’t do anything but write, he has all the time in the world to sit there, crafting words and scenes all day. And then the result is still a wishy-washy story about an idiotic journalist who’ll go along with anything? Amir laughs and that pulls Mancebo back from his thoughts about Monsieur Baker’s authorship.

  ‘You’re funny, Dad. I didn’t know you liked reading.’

  Mancebo scratches his stubble. If Amir thinks Mancebo is funny based on what he just heard, that’s nothing compared to how he’ll feel when he finds out what Mancebo really has on his mind this late evening.

  ‘It wasn’t just because of that watered-down story that I wanted to talk to you.’

  Amir yawns, but he covers his mouth with his hand to hide it. He doesn’t want his father to think that he’s boring him, because that isn’t the case.

  Mancebo pretends not to notice the yawn. A little yawn can’t stop Amir from hearing the truth.

  ‘In the mornings, once I’ve left for Rungis, what happens here?’

  Amir’s big brown eyes grow even larger, and he questioningly raises an eyebrow.

  ‘I mean, how long have I had the shop now, over twenty-five years. I have no idea what you lot get up to here during the day, so I just want to know what goes on in my home when I’m not here.’

  His voice has turned authoritarian, about as far from the ordinary Mancebo as it can get. But tone is one way of coming closer to the truth, and one way of having slightly more control over his family. Mancebo knows that there are men who want absolute power at home, maybe they always sound this authoritarian when they speak.

  ‘Do you mean anything specific? If I go to school on time, or …?’

  ‘No, I know you behave, it’s not about you, it’s everyone else.’

  Amir gives him a suspicious look.

  ‘Tell me about this morning, for example.’ Amir thinks for a moment.

  ‘I slept in quite late because I stayed up reading, then … well, I woke up when Adèle and Tariq got here.’

  ‘Adèle and Tariq?’

  ‘Yeah.’<
br />
  ‘Do they come often?’

  ‘For breakfast every morning.’

  Amir is looking at his father with uncertainty, as though he can’t quite work out where he stands with him. Mancebo can’t, either.

  ‘What do they have for breakfast?’

  ‘Pain au chocolat … Why do you want to know all this?’

  ‘OK, then what happens?’

  ‘Tariq goes to work and Adèle stays here. Then I don’t know. I normally leave after that.’

  Mancebo kisses his son on the forehead, says goodnight and gently closes the door. This new information about their morning routine has made him stronger, though it would be no exaggeration to say that he is also in a slight state of shock. The fact that his wife goes to buy breakfast for herself, Tariq and Adèle every morning might seem innocent. But if it really is, why didn’t he know about it?

  Mancebo passes the bedroom where Fatima is reading in bed. He continues into the bathroom, locks the door and sits down on the toilet. He remembers an occasion not long ago. It was a Sunday, and Raphaël had invited them over for breakfast. Fatima had sat down on his white leather sofa and claimed that she wasn’t used to breakfast, that for her it was never more than a quick coffee before she got to work on the day’s jobs.

  Mancebo is deep in thought, he wants to remember every detail of that particular occasion at Raphaël’s. There is something more to this breakfast story that Mancebo can’t work out. The way Fatima hurried over the street made it look like she was doing something forbidden. Why did she want to keep her morning routine secret? How many times has Mancebo heard her say that she can’t bear to see Adèle other than at dinner? Why say it if it isn’t true?

  It’s a determined Mancebo who washes his hands after using the toilet, dries them carefully and walks confidently towards the bedroom. Fatima doesn’t even look up from her book when he comes into the room. He nonchalantly pulls back the covers and crawls into bed.

  ‘Well, that’s another day over,’ he says with emphasis.

  Fatima doesn’t reply. What is there to say?

  ‘And tomorrow a new one begins,’ he continues.

  ‘Yes, and all the toiling that goes with it.’

  Toiling, he thinks; you, who munch on pastries all morning long. Fatima puts down her book, pats his cheek and turns off the lamp at the same moment the long-awaited thunderstorm lights up their room.

  ‘Give me some dough, I’ll buy beer with it!’

  The honesty of the beggar made people smile as he shouted his message. And many of the passers-by did actually hand him a couple of euros for something cool to drink. The red cross on the church reminded me of my meeting later that day. I felt like a teenager who was about to break up with a boy I wasn’t quite sure was actually my boyfriend.

  Somehow, I wanted Christophe to realise that we couldn’t go on seeing one another for much longer. I didn’t know why it was so important to me that he understood. Maybe it was because the truth became so important in his company. And the truth was that we wouldn’t go on seeing one another. He was just part of the experiment, and it was all going to come to an end.

  The paranoia that, for a time, had remained relatively passive, flared up as I forwarded combinations of numbers all beginning with 0033 – the dialling code for France. For a while, I debated whether to try calling any of them. But why should I try to work out who these possible phone numbers belonged to? It was too late to play private detective. I tried one of them anyway. The number was unknown. I shut my computer and got ready to leave for church.

  ‘Allah is forgiving and compassionate, unlike the Christian God.’

  ‘When did you convert to Islam?’

  ‘Friday.’

  We laughed.

  ‘I think you’re probably a little religious, despite everything.’

  ‘No, I’m about as much a sales manager as I am a believer.’

  Christophe gave me a questioning look. How was he meant to understand the joke?

  ‘Why an atheist?’

  ‘Because I don’t like going behind my own back.’

  ‘What an outlook on life.’

  He sounded dejected and disappointed.

  ‘Exactly, that’s precisely what I mean. If you’re one of the people who can convince yourself, you’re lucky, and that gives you a slightly condescending view of us poor sods who’ll never find the way.’

  I regretted it. Maybe I had been too harsh, but Christophe didn’t seem to take it badly.

  ‘But what harm can religion do?’ he asked instead.

  ‘You want me to say war, because you’ve got a counterargument for that and you’ll say it’s not religion that goes to war, it’s people. But I won’t do it. I’m going to say that the harm in most religions lies in the belief in a higher power. It takes away a person’s natural ability to act. We take our own happiness away from ourselves, and give the honour to something or someone outside of us. Religion makes us smaller. Everything is already inside us, plus a little more. I’ll never associate that power with anything but mankind itself. I’m a spiritual atheist who doesn’t believe, I know.’

  Christophe looked at me with a certain joy in his eyes. But he remained silent. It was never the right time to end things. I knew that. But now was as good a time as any.

  ‘How are things with your family, your wife and kids?’

  I had thought, truly, that I was about to say it, to get it over and done with, but I had veered off.

  ‘How are things? My wife is fine. She’s a strong woman, with a strong faith, even if you want to claim that she’s being deceived. And my kids … I’m going to see them this weekend.’

  It wasn’t enough that I had failed to draw a line under things, I had started poking at an open wound just as I was about to leave him.

  ‘See them this weekend? You’re not living at home any more?’

  He shook his head. The room was silent like only a church can be.

  ‘I’m living here in La Défense, at the Hilton. You’ve already been for a run up there.’

  He smiled.

  ‘It’s a temporary solution, work’s paying. They’re happy to do it, because they know I’ll stay late and come in early … so it’s not just out of compassion. I’m going to take the kids to my parents in Brittany during the holiday, and by the time summer’s over I’ll probably have an apartment sorted, somewhere near my wife.’

  I took a deep breath.

  ‘I’m not going to be here after the summer.’

  ‘New job?’ he asked gravely.

  ‘Yes, but I can’t say any more.’

  ‘It’s something to do with Areva, isn’t it? Your role there? You’re not really a sales manager, are you? Obviously a company like Areva must have its secrets. And now with the kidnapping of their staff in Nigeria … my word. You’re being careful, aren’t you? You’re not going abroad?’

  I shook my head. Everything felt much better now. In a way, he knew the truth. I was working on something secret at Areva. I wasn’t a sales manager, and I was going to change roles. There was just one thing which bothered me: his thoughtfulness.

  The concierge ran after me, but she slowed down once she realised she would catch me before I got into the lift.

  ‘Good evening, madame.’

  ‘Good evening.’

  ‘I just wanted to say, since we were talking about him the other day … Monsieur Cannava has died. Just so you know.’

  ‘I think I knew it. His apartment has been dark day and night.’

  ‘Yes, dark is the right word. He had a cat, did you know that?’

  ‘No,’ I replied. I didn’t have the energy or the desire to mention that I was aware of the poor cat.

  ‘Yes, well, he had a cat and that was why I went up to the apartment, to take care of it and give it some food. And when I got to his door, do you know what I found?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘A bouquet of flowers!’

  I was surprised by how shocked s
he seemed.

  ‘Can you imagine? Who could have done such a thing? It’s awful!’

  I couldn’t understand why she thought that, but I honestly wanted to know what was so shocking.

  ‘What’s so awful about that?’

  She looked at me in surprise, as though she was wondering whether I was pulling her leg.

  ‘Who wants to celebrate, who wants to poke fun at a dead man? It’s like tipping a gravestone!’

  She started to cry. I put down my two shopping bags and wrapped my arms around her. Her slender body was shaking.

  ‘But, madame, who said they were poking fun at him? Maybe it was to honour him?’

  I realised that I sounded like Monsieur Caro. She looked up at me with her big eyes.

  ‘It was a colourful bouquet, with a thick red ribbon around it. It would’ve been fine for a wedding, but not for a death!’

  She shouted that last part. I hadn’t given a single thought to the fact that my symbolic gesture might be interpreted as a desecration. And I was sure that Monsieur Cannava wouldn’t see it that way. But then again, it wasn’t the first time that a bouquet for a dead person had been misinterpreted.

  The sight of the banknotes in the olive jar evokes mixed emotions in Mancebo. The same had happened the first time he saw them, but now that he has doubts about whether they’re really genuine, he handles them more cautiously. Like ticking bombs. The shop doors are already open, the fruit and vegetables in place, the canned goods brought in and unpacked.

  Mancebo had decided to get everything in order before he counted the money. He’s done its now, three times, and each time he found himself filled with new emotions. He has no words for these unfamiliar feelings. When he received the first payment, he had even felt slightly guilty. He received the money though he hadn’t really worked, more entertained himself. But this time, now that he’s endured both a visit from two madmen and a physical collapse, he no longer feels that way. He might even ask for a pay rise.

  At the same time, he can’t imagine life without this second job. Mancebo remembers he had similar thoughts when Nadia was born. He found himself unable to remember what life had been like before, when he didn’t have a child, and there was nothing he wanted less than to go back to that time. Even if having children is hard work. But his new job will come to an end, he knows that. Sooner or later, the writer’s lover will turn up, and if she doesn’t then Madame Cat will probably call the whole thing off. Neither of those options appeals to Mancebo. But he knows that once it does come to an end, something else will take over.