Waiting for Monsieur Bellivier

by Britta Rostlund

  Suddenly, Mancebo catches sight of a white van pulling up outside the bakery. He recognises it. He recognises the stickers on the side of it. Bad timing for Raphaël to turn up right now, Mancebo thinks. If he’s in luck, he’ll just be going to repair something in the bakery and hasn’t given a thought to visiting Mancebo or Tariq. Mancebo stands still and allows his eyes to roam between Raphaël’s van and the fire escape. He can see a woman in the seat next to Raphaël. Mancebo assumes it must be his wife, Camille, and he’s even more convinced when he sees them kiss. But everything happens very quickly after that. Suddenly, the woman jumps out of the van and Raphaël starts the engine and drives away. The woman wraps a black shawl around her head and cautiously glances around, then hurries over the boulevard and slips into the doorway beside the grocer’s shop. Mancebo is just a few metres away from his cousin’s wife as she carefully closes the door behind her.

  It’s as though Paris falls silent. Mancebo’s organs start working more slowly. But there’s no time for him to recover, because suddenly the door to the writer’s apartment opens and the married couple step outside. Madame Cat is laughing. Ted Baker is holding his wife’s hand and carrying a picnic basket in his other hand. Mancebo can see a bottle of François Giraux Brut sticking up out of it. He leans back against the wall, as though attempting to melt into it. A couple of passers-by look at the strange man pressing himself against the brick wall like a timid ghost. Mancebo is afraid. How is he meant to deal with all this information? He can’t allow himself to break down again. He doesn’t want to see Madame Flouriante. He has to try to save himself.

  The day must go on. The fact that life in general would also have to go on is, right now, too much for Mancebo to process. Just the thought that the day has to go on feels overwhelming. His longing for night, when everything is calm, when everyone is in their own bed, is enormous. But the day goes on. Mancebo has heard that people gain unexpected strength in difficult situations, but now he has also experienced how they are actually able to act, to all appearances, like normal when really they are in shock. The ingrained pattern continues, despite the fact that a great deal of brainpower has been knocked out. His reserve engine kicks in, the autopilot takes over and, while waiting for relief – in this case night – everything continues to work pretty much as normal, despite chaos reigning.

  After spotting Raphaël and Adèle, everything went black. Mancebo can’t remember what he did, but in the end he found himself outside Le Soleil. He can’t remember if he waited for Tariq to come out, or if he appeared just as Mancebo arrived. Mancebo has no idea what they talked about on the way back. But they must have come back, because he is now sitting on the stool behind the counter in his shop. It’s the only place he dares to be. He no longer knows where he stands in relation to the world outside. Ideally, he would like to be curled up in the foetal position in bed. He glances at his watch and guesses that around two hours must have passed since the revelation.

  Mancebo thinks about how many things Raphaël has fixed for Adèle and what Tariq would do if he caught them. That last part causes Mancebo to shudder.

  He jumps every time someone comes into the shop, not to mention when the phone rings. At that moment, two boys literally fall into the shop. They seem to have been racing one another, and when one stumbles on the doorstep, they both fall. Mancebo pretends not to notice them until they pick out two packs of biscuits, which they place on the counter. Mancebo takes their money and hands them the right change. His autopilot is working overtime.

  ‘Do you have any notebooks left, monsieur?’

  ‘No, they’re finished. And so am I.’

  Monsieur Baker hurried along the pavement with light steps. I felt more expectant than nervous as I followed him. In fact, this was the exact kind of thing I had been longing for for so long. Being the active person, the one who thinks they’re in control. Having a person, rather than a string of numbers, to focus on for a change. The big yellow metro sign loomed up fifty or so metres ahead, and I managed to find my ticket without slowing down. Monsieur Baker took the stairs below ground.

  We weren’t sitting far from one another in the carriage. The majority of our fellow passengers were staring at their phones, a few were engrossed in books. One woman was talking quietly to herself while she filed her nails. A young Asian couple were frantically leafing through a dog-eared guidebook. It struck me that the writer and I were the only ones without something in our hands. Monsieur Baker’s eyes were fixed on the black tunnel wall. Occasionally, he glanced down at his neighbour’s book. I studied the metro map on the roof and tried to work out where he could be going. Maybe he would change lines? If that was the case, his only choice was Charles de Gaulle Étoile.

  The metro barely had time to leave the dull grey station of Ternes before it was time to slow down again. And it was as though I had sensed it, because I got up before him. Monsieur Baker was changing lines. Charles de Gaulle Étoile had to be one of Paris’s worst stations if you wanted to shadow someone. Its underground corridors snaked off like a crowded family tree, meaning that the people in your field of vision changed rapidly. Just as I became convinced I had lost Monsieur Baker, I spotted him again. He was on an escalator. I tried to remember which exits were at the top, which metro lines he could choose from. If he had a meeting on the Champs-Élysées then he would probably take the first exit on the right after the barriers. I started climbing the escalator and bumped into a big woman who mumbled something behind me.

  Monsieur Baker had already made it through the barriers by the time I got to the top. He turned left, which meant he was going to take another train. I started to jog after him. There was nothing unusual about that, plenty of people were rushing about. Not because they were shadowing someone, but because they were late for work or wanted to catch the next train out to the suburbs.

  The corridor Monsieur Baker had chosen led to line number 1. La Défense was the end of the line. He was standing in the middle of the platform when I came out of the corridor, and I chose to wait right behind him. The train quickly thundered into the station. The doors opened and people poured out. Before everyone had managed to get off, those waiting to get on began to push their way forward. I didn’t want to get too close to Monsieur Baker, but nor did I want to run the risk of not making it onto the train. In some strange way, he seemed completely indifferent to all of the pushing and shoving. He just calmly positioned himself in the middle of the carriage and firmly gripped the handrail. I pushed my way in behind him and stood by the doors.

  The train left Charles de Gaulle Étoile with a jolt, and a middle-aged woman in a red dress almost fell. Luckily, she managed to grab a man’s arm at the last minute. She apologised, but the man seemed more pleased that he had been able to help. They started talking about transportation in the city and why the new trains were taking so long. Monsieur Baker seemed interested in following their conversation. There were five stations before La Défense that he could get off at. At each stop, I readied myself to leave the train. But he stayed where he was, listening to the man and the woman, who had now realised they didn’t live at all far from one another. When the metro stopped at Porte Maillot, a family with small children attempted to get off with all of their luggage. They apologised to everyone at the receiving end of the sharp corners of their suitcases. In all likelihood, they would be taking one of the Ryanair buses to Beauvais airport.

  The metro continued, drawing closer and closer to its final destination. At Les Sablons, an old woman pushed her way on board. Her hands were full of carrier bags, which probably contained everything she owned. She was barefoot but dressed warmly. I watched her struggle to transfer all of the bags to one hand so that she could use the other to beg for change. With her entire life in one hand, she now moved around the slightly emptier carriage. A few people shook their heads. Others pretended not to see her. She didn’t seem to care what reaction her outstretched hand caused. Monsieur Baker studied the woman’s face, and as she moved in front
of him he placed a couple of euros in her dirty palm. She nodded in thanks.

  The woman in the red dress and the man who had unintentionally saved her from a fall seemed relieved when the beggar left the carriage. When the metro pulled into Pont de Neuilly, they both stepped out onto the platform. Would they see one another again, I managed to wonder before the doors closed. As we pulled out of the station, Monsieur Baker turned around as though to catch one last glimpse of the couple who had just found one another. Maybe he was also thinking about their future. Two stations left.

  The metro pulled into Esplanade de La Défense. I realised that Monsieur Baker had no intention of getting off there, either. His only option now was the final station, La Défense. I wondered what he could be doing in the business district at this time of day. And, as though on cue, everyone shoved whatever they had been holding – their phones, books, nail files – into their bags. It was time to get off. I was back where it had all begun. Then, like now, I didn’t take any risks, just one thing at a time.

  I accidentally came too close to Monsieur Baker. His blue T-shirt rubbed up against my bag. He was only a few centimetres away from the cheque inside it. Was it his handwriting on it? Or his wife’s? I gave him a head start. He took the escalator up to the plaza outside the shopping centre. He didn’t look up at Areva, he continued straight towards the Cnit building instead. I picked up the pace. He had a meeting. I was convinced of it as I stepped into the huge complex. The glass lifts shot up and down, but he continued past them towards the lifts at the back of the building.

  I quickly ran into an interior-decoration shop to let him take the lift before me. For the first time, I felt nervous. Once Monsieur Baker had stepped into the lift, I left my spot behind the huge vases. The lifts had only one destination: the Hilton restaurant.

  Though the restaurant spread across the entire floor, I immediately spotted Monsieur Baker at one of the window tables. There was a blonde woman sitting opposite him, with her back to me. I could have gone straight over, but I decided to head to the bar, have a coffee and gather my thoughts for a few minutes.

  Monsieur Baker took the woman’s hands without saying anything to her. They kissed, and that was the starting shot for me to act. I walked over to their table. The woman looked familiar. To begin with, I couldn’t place her, but then I realised who she was. Monsieur Baker had just kissed the receptionist from Areva.

  ‘Excuse me.’

  He looked up at me with kind eyes. The receptionist, on the other hand, seemed terrified. Neither of them said anything.

  ‘We’ve met before,’ I said, holding my hand out to the receptionist.

  She had a weak handshake.

  ‘Nice to meet you,’ I said, looking Monsieur Baker straight in the eye.

  He glanced at the receptionist, as though searching for an explanation.

  ‘It’s her,’ the woman said, squeezing her lover’s hand.

  The writer looked disappointed. I sat down and he started talking. He had no choice. If he explained, there was a chance everything could go ahead as planned.

  After yesterday’s discovery, Mancebo had followed his son’s example and pretended to be ill, going to lie down immediately after dinner. Nothing strange about that. He could have caught it from Amir. That night, he got up and packed a bag. He now has it stashed in the broom cupboard in his shop. The entire day has been spent behind the counter; he doesn’t want to see anything else.

  Dusk is approaching, and Mancebo is in Tariq’s office. His cousin is helping him with his accounts and his tax return. Tariq thinks that Mancebo is eager to get all of the paperwork done because he’s going on holiday soon, but that’s not the reason. Mancebo feels ill as he sits there, surrounded by shoeboxes. In one sense, it’s pure madness to keep weapon parts and cigarettes in the open like that, but in another it’s a stroke of genius. No one ever suspects what’s right in front of them. Tariq eventually stacks the papers into a pile and shoves them into a folder which he hands to his cousin.

  ‘That’s everything, brother. You can go on holiday with a clear conscience now.’

  The minute Mancebo steps out of the cobbler’s and sees who is waiting outside his own shop, he hurries across the boulevard without checking for traffic. A car horn honks. The woman who followed Ted Baker smiles when she spots him. All Mancebo wants is to get her inside as quickly as possible, and once he has her sitting on one of the stools, he thanks God that she gets straight to the point. He has no interest in hearing anything other than the necessary.

  ‘Well, I just came back to tell you what happened when I followed Monsieur Baker, I thought it might be of interest to you, too.’

  Indeed it might, Mancebo thinks.

  ‘Anyway, I followed him all the way to a café in La Défense, and waiting for him there was …’

  The woman’s mobile phone beeps and she falls silent and looks down at it. Mancebo feels like he is sitting next to an ill-mannered teenager, someone who sees no problem in giving all of their attention to their phone, even in the company of others. Please, Mancebo thinks, I can’t handle any more. It’s already over, I’ve capitulated, just tell me what you know and then leave me in peace.

  ‘Sorry, the writer had a meeting in a café, with another male author.’

  Was that it, Mancebo wonders.

  ‘I didn’t see any sign of a lover. But what do I know?’

  Mancebo is trying to think straight.

  ‘Did you find the answers you were looking for?’

  ‘Yes, Monsieur Baker is Monsieur Bellivier.’

  ‘So that Ted Baker is just a sedonym?’

  ‘A pseudonym, yes. It seems like we’ve both been waiting for Monsieur Bellivier.’

  For the second time, Mancebo watches as the woman disappears down the boulevard. His mouth is wide open. He feels completely empty. Finished.

  ‘Am I interrupting?’ Amir asks, though he doesn’t come into the shop.

  Mancebo turns around, closes his mouth, and looks blankly at his son. Just a few weeks earlier, he would never have asked, he would have just come straight in. But now that Amir knows what Mancebo has to deal with every day, he has a new-found respect for his father. Mancebo hasn’t quite made it back to reality yet, and he’s staring into space.

  ‘Is everything OK, Dad?’

  Mancebo nods.

  ‘It’s just that Mum’s on the way out … I thought you might want to know.’

  ‘Let her go.’

  ‘Yeah, but after everything that’s happened … She got a phone call and suddenly everything was a rush … I asked where she was going and she said “sort out the money”. I don’t know if she was joking, but after everything that’s happened …’

  Amir steps into the shop and then pauses, with his eyes fixed out on the boulevard.

  ‘Anyway, she seems to be in a hurry,’ he says with a nod.

  Mancebo looks out towards the boulevard and sees Fatima rush past with a white box beneath her arm. OK, Mancebo thinks, I’ll do it for my son. Even if it’s the last thing I do.

  ‘I’ll go. Can you look after the shop for a few minutes?’

  Amir nods. Mancebo thinks, or perhaps he’s just imagining it, that he can see both excitement and admiration in his son’s eyes. Why would he have come down to the shop to tell Mancebo that Fatima was heading out unless he wanted to see his father chase after her?

  ‘You can trust me, Dad,’ Amir says, squinting in the afternoon sun.

  ‘And you can trust me, my son,’ Mancebo says, throwing himself out onto the boulevard with his coat-tails flapping behind him.

  Fatima slows down as she turns onto Rue de Rome, and Mancebo also drops the pace. He knows where she’s going. Behind the curtain. He’ll catch them red-handed, he thinks. But what does that mean? That the huge tobacconist will be standing with his pants around his ankles and Fatima …? The image is grotesque, and Mancebo is worried that he will be the one to feel most guilty when he sees it. Mancebo is sweating and he slows down, t
hough he knows there’s a risk he will lose her. But he knows where she’s going. He can’t get there too early, either. It must surely take a few minutes before they really get down to business. Not too early, but not too late either, Mancebo thinks, wondering how the tobacconist goes about it, from a purely practical point of view. Does he shut up shop?

  He can’t see Fatima any longer. Mancebo has made it to the tobacconist’s shop and he glances at his watch. I’ll give them ten minutes, no, five, he thinks. I’ll give them five minutes, and not a second more. But after just one, he can’t contain himself any longer and tries, from his position on the pavement, to work out what’s going on inside. He can make out some kind of movement behind the curtain. He gives them exactly one minute and thirty-six seconds before he goes in.

  He carefully opens the door so that the bell makes only the slightest of sounds. Mancebo now knows why the tobacconist’s shop has a warning bell. He wipes the sweat from his brow. The curtain is moving rhythmically.

  He supports himself on the counter so that he can move as quietly as possible, and luckily there are a couple of tabloids lying on the floor. Like a predator preparing to attack, he pauses. He spends a moment weighing up whether to pull the curtain to the left or the right. He can’t remember which he eventually chooses, because in the heat of the moment it’s just about getting rid of the curtain. And he does it with such force that, suddenly, he finds himself standing there with a piece of brown fabric in his hands.

  Mancebo’s wife and the tobacconist look up at the intruder in terror. Fatima, who is usually so talkative, is completely speechless. Mancebo, who is usually so awkward and aimless, has just a few seconds to take charge of the situation. On the table behind what used to be the curtain, he can see shoebox after shoebox full of cartons of cigarettes. There’s no doubt that the boxes have come from Tariq’s cobbler’s shop. After all these years, Mancebo would recognise those boxes anywhere; they’re such bad quality that even the slightest hint of moisture makes them fall to pieces. Tariq buys them cheaply from a removals firm in a suburb to the north of Paris. Everything now makes sense. Fatima shakes her head and her eyes flash. The tobacconist puts the lid back onto one of the boxes and scratches his broad neck.