He hides the money beneath the till and places the olive jar next to the binoculars. Both items feel loaded. He takes out his notebook, and for the first time realises that he can make out a huge dragon amid all the patterns on its red cover. He casts a quick glance at the other books and notices that they’re all different. One has a small rabbit on it, another a dog, another a monkey.
Even if Mancebo is a man who is fundamentally indifferent to detail, he feels pleased that he chose the one with the dragon for his reports. He writes down the date and then carefully hides the book. Over the course of the morning, he regularly glances over to the building opposite.
Tariq shows no sign of being offended by the telephone saga, or by anything else for that matter, when he charges into the shop. In fact, he’s in a great mood.
‘Have you heard about the church clock the storm brought down?’ he asks, helping Mancebo to unload a box of wine bottles.
‘Yes, François told me. Have they found the hand yet?’
‘Yeah, and do you know what, it made it all the way to Porte de Clichy. It landed in someone’s backyard. What bloody luck, it could’ve speared someone like a kebab.’
‘How do you know all this?’
‘What do you mean?’
Tariq’s voice changed.
‘Do you have time to read the paper in the morning?’
Tariq puts down the box of wine.
‘There are other news outlets.’
‘Do you watch TV in the morning?’
‘What’s up with you?’ Tariq attempts to laugh. ‘Am I your son now? I saw it online. You know, that invention you should learn to use, brother. You can’t keep resisting. It’s the exact same thing as refusing to recognise the phone as a revolutionary device. You can’t stop progress. I don’t know how your kids are so enlightened with a father like you.’
That last part cuts Mancebo deep, and once Tariq leaves he sits for a while with his head in his hands. If there is anyone he loves and wants the absolute best for, it’s his children. They’re the reason he works so hard every day. They’re the reason he gets up at five in the morning. They’re the reason he decided to leave Tunisia, even though they hadn’t even been planned back then. And he had wanted to have more, but fate had other plans.
Fortune had smiled on them when Nadia came along, but they had later gone through difficult periods. The shop barely broke even for the first few years, and they didn’t have time to try for any more children. But after a handful of years, Fatima did get pregnant again, and she organised a huge party to welcome the child. The very next day, she had a miscarriage. It took a few years, but she fell pregnant again. And this time, there was no party. There was, however, another miscarriage. After another couple of years, it was time again. And this time, everything went according to plan. Amir came into the world one Sunday afternoon, just as Mancebo was shutting up his shop.
Mancebo fills the shelf with wine bottles.
‘Good morning, Mademoiselle Lopez.’
‘Good morning, Monsieur Mancebo. How are you?’
‘Fine, thanks. And how are you, Mademoiselle Lopez?’
Mademoiselle Lopez’s dog energetically sniffs around the shop as the old lady picks up the usual: parsley, a bottle of red wine, mustard and some pasta. She places it all on the counter and starts rifling through her bag for her purse. Mancebo begins ringing the items through the till.
‘And I’d love one of those cute books too.’
At first, Mancebo doesn’t understand what she means, and he frowns.
‘One with a rabbit on it if you have one. I’m a rabbit in the Chinese zodiac.’
Mancebo understands, but he doesn’t move.
‘Maybe the little one was wrong. But Carine, you know, my granddaughter, she said she’d been given such a beautiful book by monsieur, one with the Chinese zodiac on it, that you were giving them out for free. She must have meant another grocer. And here I am, telling you I’m a rabbit. Forgive me!’
She laughs heartily.
‘Of course mademoiselle shall have a rabbit.’
Mancebo bends down and quickly hunts out the right cover.
‘Oh, thank you, they’re so pretty. Why do you have so many?’
‘Ah, mademoiselle, it’s a long story.’
‘And life is too short for those. But thank you anyway.’
She pulls on the lead and the dog vanishes from the shop ahead of her.
Mancebo is sweating. It’s not because the air is close. In fact, the thunderstorm has cooled the city down. Mancebo is sweating because he is thinking about the book, or more accurately about the chapter in which the journalist finds out that the money he’s been given is fake. Mancebo is waiting his turn on the bench. He’s going to deposit this week’s income at the bank. Tariq had to go to Le Soleil alone.
Mancebo has taken some of the money out of the weekly float and replaced it with the money from Madame Cat, so that his incomings and outgoings add up. Maybe he’s being too careful. Surely no one would have the energy to look too closely into a difference of a thousand euros. But every time he hears the pling for a new queue number, his heart jumps in his chest.
To hide his nerves, he has his hands in his lap, but the fact is that Mancebo does look a little odd, sitting there on one of the only chairs in the bank, his back straight and his hands clasped on his knee.
It’s his turn. Madame Grados welcomes him from behind a brown screen. Almost all of the shop owners in the area come to her to change money and to make transactions and transfers. Madame Grados has worked at the bank, behind the brown screen, for almost fifteen years now, and she knows Mancebo’s business well. She is a strict woman who doesn’t tend to smile, and any jokes from Mancebo often fall flat. In the beginning, he always tried to make small talk with her in an attempt to improve the mood, but he eventually realised it was better to say only the necessary. Today, however, he has no choice but to say a little more. Madame Grados gives him a quick handshake and invites him to sit down opposite her. He takes out a thick wad of notes.
‘Yes, the usual. Weekly float to be deposited.’
The sweat is working its way out from beneath his cap, and he starts to feel ill. What will happen if the money is fake? Will I go to prison? No, how could I help being given fake money in the shop? He carries out his plan.
‘I’d be grateful if madame could check the money carefully, whether it’s genuine or not, particularly the 50 euro notes. I heard a couple of businessmen talking this morning, and one of them said he’d been handed a fake one.’
It’s better to play honest and anxious if the money does turn out to be fake. Madame Grados looks up from behind her small glasses. She doesn’t like to be interrupted while she’s counting.
‘How unusual. But that’s why you should always check all high denomination notes carefully. In the end, you’re the one who will lose out if you accept a fake note.’
She turns on her magic lamp. The first of the 50 euro notes are from Madame Cat. Mancebo has it all planned out. The phone rings, and Madame Grados replies without apologising, she sees it as nothing more than doing her job. What’s to say that the person on the other end of the line is any less important than the customer in front of her? That’s her philosophy. After making a few notes, she hangs up, takes the bundle of cash from the table, and sorts out all the 50 euro notes. To Mancebo’s horror, he realises that the possible fake notes are now at the bottom of the pile. It won’t have any impact on the final result, but it does mean that his wait will be longer.
Madame Grados passes one note after another through her lie detector. Mancebo keeps count, and as she picks up the first of Madame Cat’s notes, he can’t keep it in any longer. It’s as though he already knows they will turn out to be fake and wants to quickly mount his defence.
‘Yes, as I said, I think I know who it was going about with the fake notes. Those Americans. They bought the strangest things, and all with 50 euro notes.’
He chooses Ameri
cans for the simple reason that there’s an entire ocean between him and them, July is the month when they tend to go on holiday, and the city is crawling with them. In truth, Mancebo likes Americans. Madame Grados looks up again and pulls the first of Madame Cat’s notes through the machine. Everything has a price, Mancebo thinks, casting a quick glance out of the window. Sink or swim. The first note passes the test. The second, too. As do the third and the fourth, and then the rest. A huge weight lifts from Mancebo’s chest.
The decision to skip the usual drink at Le Soleil and go to the bank instead suits Mancebo perfectly, because he has no desire to see Tariq for any longer than necessary today. His cousin’s remark about him somehow having neglected his children is still niggling at him, like a thorn in his heart. He’s also pretty tired of François and the way he goes on about Tariq’s childlessness. And thirdly, changing routines is good. It’s happened before, of course, that Mancebo has gone to the bank rather than the normal afternoon drink at Le Soleil, so the act in itself isn’t completely unheard of, even if it isn’t a common occurrence. Mancebo spends the afternoon on his stool outside the shop. The scent of dinner makes its way down to him like invisible smoke. It curls beneath the door and fills the shop. Mancebo can’t quite work out what it is. It’s a sweet scent.
Fatima seems annoyed during the whole of dinner. When they get back up to their own apartment, she kicks off her slippers and goes to take a bath. She returns after half an hour, wearing her nightdress and with a pink towel wound tightly around her head.
‘That Adèle,’ she says, shaking her turban-clad head.
It’s as though she hadn’t planned to share what was annoying her with her husband, but she can’t hold back any longer. But the fact that she feels the need to get a weight off her chest where Adèle is concerned is nothing new, it’s something she allows herself to vent roughly once a month.
Fatima slumps down into the armchair by the window, next to Mancebo, who has been sitting there twiddling his thumbs. Every now and then, he casts a glance over to the building opposite. Without warning, Fatima swings her feet up into his lap, and he knows that means it’s time for a foot massage. It always is whenever Fatima needs to get something off her chest. As though every application of pressure makes her let go of the words.
‘She needs a good thrashing.’
Mancebo starts to massage her big toe.
‘Who?’
The question is unnecessary, Mancebo knows Fatima means Adèle, but pretending not to know is all part of the routine.
‘Adèle of course!
Mancebo nods. That’s another part of it.
‘She’s so spoilt. Here I am, slaving away from dawn until dusk. And what does she do? Sits around with her books, complaining. No, what a woman he’s got himself, poor, poor Tariq. He’s worth someone better, don’t you agree?’
‘Yes, maybe.’
By changing foot, Fatima demonstrates that the first half of her complaint is over. They’re often short halves. Short but intense.
‘No “maybe” about it, Tariq deserves a better woman. She’s not a good person, that Adèle. Not good at all.’
‘And yet you eat breakfast with her every morning.’
Mancebo can’t stop himself. The words just come out of his mouth, and without the need for a single foot massage.
Fatima pulls her foot away and stares at Mancebo. She rolls her eyes oddly.
‘Why do you say that? Who told you that? It’s happened before, but it’s hardly a regular occurrence.’
For a few seconds, Mancebo doesn’t know what to believe. But it doesn’t seem likely that Amir would lie. Nor the baker. And if he adds to that the fact that he has seen her running to the bakery twice now, the evidence against her is strong.
Why on earth is she reacting like this, Mancebo thinks, not knowing what he should say or do.
‘Do you honestly believe that I have the time, the inclination, or the energy for that matter, to spend time with her in the morning? I’ve got better things to be doing. Do you think your clothes wash themselves? Maybe you think I spend my days like Adèle? Well?’
Fatima is scaring Mancebo in the same way Tariq scared him after his brief phone call. What am I getting myself into, he wonders.
The metro came to a halt in the middle of a tunnel. Some kind of announcement was barked through the fuzzy loudspeakers, and everyone in the carriage looked at one another as though searching for an explanation. It was probably just an abandoned bag in a station which needed investigating, technical problems or someone who had jumped in front of a train … But I was going to be late, and I started to feel anxious. I lost my Parisian nerve, the very thing you need to be able to survive in this city. The nerve which reminded you that there was nothing you could do, nothing at all, and that it wouldn’t make the least bit of difference if you got yourself worked up about it.
Two emails had already arrived by the time I got to the office. Odd, considering I was only half an hour late. That made me wonder whether someone was keeping track of my movements after all. I didn’t forward them on straight away, mostly to see whether any more messages would suddenly come raining in, but nothing happened.
I managed to finish an article about wine-growing in Paris and was just about to start on another when I heard someone clear their throat. I swung around in my chair but I couldn’t see anyone on the other side of the blinds. I calmly switched off the computer and moved slowly towards the door. I remembered to have a smile on my lips, as though I was on my way to greet someone, when all I really wanted was to scare off whoever it was.
There was no one by the lifts, and I started making my way down the corridor. The floor seemed enormous as I paced around it. After I had done one lap, I saw that the door to my office was wide open, which wasn’t how I had left it. I stopped. My heart was pounding. There was a man inside my office. He must have been going in the opposite direction. He caught sight of me and I took a step out into the corridor.
‘Hello,’ he said, coming towards me.
‘Can I help you, monsieur?’
My welcoming smile was gone.
‘Yes, maybe you can. I have a meeting with a man named Monsieur Toussaint. I called him, they were in a meeting and the call got cut off, but he said he was at the very top … So I took the lift up here, but the place seems deserted … other than you, that is. Odd that an entire floor is empty considering how high the rents are round here.’
‘It’s a big company, I don’t know any Monsieur Toussaint. This space doesn’t get used.’
‘Other than by you. What a luxury!’
‘No, it’s not used by me. I had a document to finish and just needed a bit of peace and quiet.’
I was in control of the situation, and if I could just get the man into the lift then it would all be over.
‘I guess I should go down, but I’ll be damned if I can’t find out where they are.’
‘Ask the receptionist. She’ll help you.’
The man nodded silently and headed off towards the lift. I watched him as he feverishly started punching numbers into his phone.
The chair squeaked when I sat down. All the air had gone out of me.
I quickly checked my inbox and started to write an article for a tabloid which had offered too high a fee for me to say no. It was then that the flickers started, in the corner of my eye at first, like always, quickly spreading across my entire field of vision. It had been just over four months since my last migraine.
Whenever a migraine comes on, it’s always accompanied by a certain sense of panic. Losing some of your ability to see makes a person weak, exposed, something which isn’t helped by the knowledge that it’s just the first stage. The pain monster has only sent out its fluttering messenger birds to let you know what’s coming. Instinctively, I knew that I had to get home as quickly as possible. I tried to call my ex-husband, but he didn’t pick up. There were just over two hours of my working day left, but I couldn’t stay there. I was afraid f
or myself: the pain, the vomiting, the blindness.
I don’t remember much of the journey home. My ex-husband called while I was outside our son’s summer club. He was in Normandy and couldn’t help. This time, he didn’t tell me who he was sharing a double bed with.
The darkness came as a relief, but the pillow felt hard against my head. There was so much that was bothering me: the noises from my son’s computer games, the light seeping in through the crack in the door, the sirens outside. The bucket next to my bed was still empty, and I hoped it would stay that way. My son snuck past the door. I could sense his anxiety, and I managed to shout that I’d be back on my feet soon enough. It was true. Migraines are like an intense stomach bug: they pass as quickly as they arrive. You feel drained afterwards, but you can get back on your feet.
I must have fallen asleep. The light from my alarm clock made me feel sick. My head felt heavy, but I knew the worst was over. A relatively manageable attack. It could have been worse. I went into the kitchen, drank a glass of water, sat down at the table and peered out across the courtyard into the dark, empty apartment. I looked down at the table again.
I had to be kind to myself. It was hard to handle the stress of possibly being active in a terror network, or the anxiety of getting rid of a bunch of flowers every day. Suddenly, I realised that I couldn’t remember whether I had brought any flowers home with me yesterday. I glanced around the kitchen and then went out into the hallway to reassure myself that there weren’t any terrifying, dying bouquets anywhere. No flowers to be seen. On the way back to my bedroom, I looked in on my son. He was sound asleep, his pyjamas twisted around his slim body. I lay down again. I would probably manage to make it up to the top of the skyscraper in a few hours’ time.
Waiting for Monsieur Bellivier Page 21