Gérard hadn’t been able to come to the wedding where Hélène met Patrick. So he didn’t see the looks they exchanged. Patrick was hobbled with his immobilized leg. He wasn’t able to dance and stayed in his corner. He looked sad, or thoughtful, which made him look appealing in a Mike Brant kind of way. When the wedding party broke up, Hélène managed to get herself into the Simca that took Patrick home. After that, they had to see each other secretly, reconcile their families, behave themselves. It was easy. At that time in their lives, love could do anything. Later, they rented a little apartment and made plans. A family, two cars, living there; it would be perfect.
As it turned out, Hélène would never see Gérard again. Twenty years later she learned that he indeed did go abroad to work, in Tunisia, Egypt, and as far as India. He became a master welder, working for aeronautical, nuclear, and agricultural corporations. These would gradually become more powerful than countries and afforded Gérard the kind of lifestyle and benefits once dispensed by nations that printed money and declared wars. Hélène learned that Gérard had settled in Paca, somewhere between Toulon and Dragnignan, where he built himself a two-story villa and drove an Audi. That he married an Antilles woman with short hair, which didn’t stop him from voting for the National Front once or twice. Two children, friends, kidney stones, a neighbor whose tall hedge annoyed him—Gérard wasn’t bored. Hélène learned that he’d caught the travel bug, meaning that once a year he would go on-site to verify the existence of landscapes he’d seen on television: Vegas, Madagascar, Vietnam. Hélène would learn all that at a funeral. That’s always where you run into old acquaintances.
Hélène could feel herself catching the second wind she was waiting for. The difficulty diminished, giving way to a sense of expansion, acceptance, and rebirth. She could easily cover another thousand meters, she told herself. Afterward she would feel slim and energized. All she had to do was get past that hurdle to where the body surrenders and the spirit soars. Right now, everything was fine. Hélène would soon turn forty. People sometimes still called her “the slut,” but less often. She still had her looks and saw no reason why she should hide her legs or belly, much less her ass. Above all, she still wanted her share of love. At that thought, she smiled into the water, which kept the secret of her undiminished appetite for men. When driving, she would sometimes need to suddenly stop by the roadside to caress herself and come very quickly while some thirty-two-ton semi roared by, shaking the Opel Kadett. It was all still there in her belly, intact, her need for hands and eyes, and the possibility of pleasure between her legs that defied the rules of the office, the rules of the road, her marriage contract, and most other laws. They weren’t taking that away from her.
Hélène had been sleeping with a coworker for some time now. He was an uncomplicated man who wore Eden Park shirts and pleated pants. She used to watch him walk by when he went out for coffee. He had a nice ass and also hair, which past a certain stage really matters. She’d drunk too much at the Christmas party and, as they were saying goodbye, more or less kissed him on the mouth. They began to circle each other. One evening as they were closing the year-end accounts she stayed late and he waited, in his office. They found each other and started kissing. Hélène had almost forgotten those deep, quick feverish kisses, with intertwined fingers and a panicky heart, like kids. She took his cock out of his pleated pants. He entered her pussy almost immediately. Standing up, fully clothed, agitated and clumsy, it only took a minute. The very next day they went to a hotel. In the heat of the action, he fucked her while she was kneeling on the rug. Hélène had no problem with the concept, but changed her mind later, when she saw the carpet burns on her knees. Patrick didn’t even notice. But after that, fucking on all fours on the floor was out of the question.
Thirty laps was already fine, Hélène told herself. She swam over to the edge, her heart full of that pleasant feeling of a job well done. Kids had arrived while she was swimming, alone or in pairs, boys and girls between fifteen and seventeen. They sat on the concrete bleachers along the pool. She recognized some of them by sight. Around here, you always wound up recognizing a face. Looking at them, Hélène felt a twinge. They were chatting; they were in a good mood, carefree and perfect. The water and the hours of training had created bodies built for speed. The girls with their tapered thighs and wide shoulders. The boys with childish heads perched on bodybuilder chests.
Conceding gracefully, Hélène smiled and went back to her chaise longue to dry off in the sun. The coach arrived and gave assignments to the swimmers, who lined up behind the starting blocks. The first ones dove in. The rest followed, synchronized and disciplined, barely raising a few drops when they entered the water. She watched their long underwater trails. Soon the two lanes were filled with their regular strokes. Under the sun, they went fast, they were young, and death didn’t exist.
Hélène lost herself in her magazine and let her mind wander. It was past eleven, and the edges of the pool began to buzz with people. After lunch she dozed awhile under the parasol. Around three o’clock, a kind of torpor settled on the pool. The heat was sweltering. You had to walk on tiptoe to get to the bathrooms. People sought refuge in the shade. In the water, a jumble of children splashed and yelled.
A little before four, the tall guy with the light-colored eyes arrived. He had an odd gait, awkward and rolling, like John Wayne or Robert Mitchum. Hélène wasn’t waiting for him, exactly, but she’d still hoped he would come. He set his things down on the steps before his swim. Hélène was one of the regulars at the pool and so was he. Once, she and her girlfriend Line had enjoyed checking him out and imagining things about him, his job, his name, his voice, the sounds he would make during sex, whether he had children, his little habits—that sort of thing. They even came up with a name for him, Tarzan. That big, strong, clumsy body. Hélène watched him swim for a while, then forgot about him. When he came out of the pool, she studied his long arms, broad shoulders, and the water running down his stomach. He glanced in her direction and she felt a great void in her gut. She brusquely returned to her magazine, wanting to hide. He was going to come over. He was coming. Obviously not. He went back to his spot and dried himself off before leaving the pool. Next time. She felt ridiculous, as gleeful as a kid.
The parenthesis had ended.
Going home, Hélène still felt light as a feather. She drove slowly, in no hurry to get back, one elbow out the window. A sad Dalida song was playing on the radio. She should arrange this more often; these little escapades did her a world of good. Passing her parents-in-law’s house, she remembered a Christmas Day party with the whole family, the afternoon they spent around the table. They’d been dead for quite a while now. Everything was there; every street spelled her history; every building held a memory. She cruised by the fire station, drove around the primary school. Then a tall column of black smoke in the distance caught her eye. As she got closer to home, she saw it grow and began to catch whiffs of melted plastic and burning gasoline. A worried frown furrowed her brow. It was very close to their place. She began to pray that nothing bad had happened. Once in their development, she drove past two blocks of houses before seeing a crowd of neighbors. They were all looking at the fire. It was the motorcycle: broken, burning, melted, and unmistakable.
Hélène yanked on the handbrake and shot out of the car without bothering to close the door behind her. She could barely stand. People watched her coming. She looked gorgeous, her hair flaming, electrified in the heat, tangled after her swim. As she passed, someone said, “This is another job by those little ragheads.” A voice called to her:
“Hélène!”
Évelyne Grandemange had extricated herself from the little group of bystanders, holding her eternal Gauloises. She was wearing a white blouse smudged by the smoke. She looked to be in shock and was trembling.
“Your husband is out looking for you,” she stammered. “He took the truck. He’s looking for you everywhere.”
Hélène thought of her son and ran toward her car.
“Wait!” said Évelyne. “What are we going to tell him?”
“I’ll be right back,” Hélène promised.
“Wait, the firefighters are on their way.”
But Hélène had already driven off. She had to find Anthony. She was in such a panic, it was nearly a minute before she shifted into second gear.
13
To start a scooter without a key, all you need is a screwdriver, and Anthony had one. He’d swiped it from the Romand garage on rue Général-Leclerc, where he dropped in from time to time to watch the mechanics working. Didier would sometimes let him take a bike out for a spin, which was how he got to drive a Honda CBR 1000. Those things could shoot you straight to the moon.
Right now, Anthony was walking downtown, carrying a backpack and with the screwdriver in his pocket. He was walking fast, staring straight ahead. He had stopped by to see Manu, who’d seemed delighted to help him out. “I told you, there’s only one way to deal with people like that.” The weight of the MAC 50 in his backpack was unmistakable.
After walking along boulevard Sainte-Catherine, he turned into rue Michelet. He saw what he was looking for at the end of the street: a row of two-wheelers on the sidewalk. There were always a few parked in front of the Metro. As he approached, he counted three scooters and a motorbike. Only the 103 had an antitheft lock. Anthony still had a fifty-franc bill in his pocket and figured he may as well play one last game of pinball before he went. He pushed the Metro door open.
Inside were two rows of arcade games and players, mostly young guys furiously dueling in an unbreathable atmosphere. On the back wall, a huge mirror extended the perspective, repeating the smoked-glass shimmer of the electronic screens. The owner sat in a kind of glass cage in the middle of the room. His main job consisted in making change while smoking Marlboros. In fact, teens came to the arcade as much to smoke without being seen as to play Space Invaders. The place was pretty empty at that hour, but it was jammed after class and on Saturday afternoons. Anthony asked for five-franc coins and headed for the pinball machines at the very back. He could see himself coming in the mirror, a short figure in the blue glow of the screens. He put twenty francs into The Addams Family and played briefly and badly, his mind elsewhere, balls dropping one after another. He bought another five credits, which produced the same result. After wiping his hands on his jeans, he hesitated for a moment. Two heavily made-up girls were sipping Cokes near the entrance. A guy was logging his initials among the Arkanoid high scores. Over there, two sweaty, silent boys were excitedly playing a Japanese fighting game. The younger one was pressing his controller buttons at phenomenal speed. From time to time a drop of sweat ran down his nose before falling to the floor. When the music stopped long enough to change CDs, you could hear the powerful roar of the exhaust system. Anthony played a last, equally disastrous game while listening to the Beach Boys, then kicked the pinball machine, which tilted ostentatiously. He didn’t have a cent left. He felt nervous, irresolute. His stomach had been aching for hours.
* * *
—
Things had taken a pretty definite turn since the night before. Anthony had been eating French fries at Antalya when his mother suddenly appeared out of nowhere. In her car, she promptly did a U-turn across the median to drive up to him, in the process nearly wiping out part of the Turk’s terrasse and two of his customers.
“Get in!”
“What’s going on?”
“Get in, I said!”
Anthony quickly obeyed. His mother had already been looking for him for a while. She looked shaken, and her hair was a mess. Her purse lay spilled open on the floor. One of the car’s rearview mirrors was dangling in midair. Anthony was dying to ask her what was going on, but she was busy wrestling the Opel’s stiff steering wheel to get them back on the road, everybody was looking at her, and she was on the verge of tears.
Later she announced:
“We’re going to my sister’s. There’s no more motorcycle. They burned it.”
She told him everything, and for Anthony, it almost came as a relief. The world of fait accompli had its advantages, after all. At least the dread of a catastrophe was lifted. They now had to get organized, manage supplies, think about money, clothes, food, and where they were going to sleep. After a week of holding his breath, it almost struck him as an improvement.
When Irène opened the door, she could hardly believe her eyes. It had been so long since the two sisters had stopped speaking. She served them tea and cake. Actually, playing magnanimous hostess was her big chance. She was never better than in melodrama. At one point the telephone began to ring and everybody around the table looked at each other for a long time without saying anything. The cousin took it upon himself to close the ground-floor shutters. It felt as if they were waiting for a tropical storm. But Patrick didn’t come over. The phone rang and rang, and Irène finally unplugged the line. Toward midnight, a heavy peace had settled on the house and they were able to eat something: some chicken breast, a little cheese, apricots so juicy they left your chin and hands sticky. It was still hot, and as the night gradually enveloped them, they started yawning despite their anxiety. They had to get some sleep. Irène unfolded the sofa and put a mattress on the living room floor. Unable to sleep, Hélène kept turning everything over in her mind without finding a desirable outcome.
In the morning, the whole family gathered in the kitchen for breakfast. Hélène and Anthony didn’t say anything. They couldn’t leave and they couldn’t stay. Like refugees, they now depended on the revocable goodwill of a foreign power. And Irène had her own ideas about what should happen next: they had to call the cops, shelters, a lawyer. Delighted and venomous, she called her brother-in-law “that bastard,” “that brute,” and “the louse.” Hélène didn’t reply. She just stirred her coffee, looking somber. She was gradually recognizing the scope of the damage and thinking of logistical and practical solutions to her misfortune. At one point, Anthony left the room, grabbed his backpack, and climbed out the bathroom window.
He was now looking at his reflection in the Metro’s big pale green mirror. A strange peace filled his chest. The time had come. He absentmindedly touched his right eye and headed for the exit.
Outside, he chose the fastest scooter, a BMW with a Pollini exhaust manifold. The area was deserted, but he had to act fast. He began by unscrewing the fairing. When one of the screws resisted, he used the screwdriver as a lever, and the plastic yielded with an unpleasant crack. He checked again to make sure no one was coming. Five hundred yards of blank wall stretched along the narrow street. His hands were now a little sweaty. He attacked the steering lock with his screwdriver, then grabbed the handlebar and gave it a sharp yank. Now he just had to kick-start the bike. He gave it a firm kick, and the motor immediately snarled to life. Passing through the custom pipes, the exhaust produced a high, cutting whine. The familiar sound alerted the BMW’s owner, who came running out of the Metro.
“Hey!”
He was a guy in sweatpants and a cap, one of those country no-necks who cruised the departmental ring roads, tough, scrawny teenagers, ugly as sin, whose love of noise was the bane of retirees and professional high schools. Other players spilled out of the arcade hall as backup. Anthony twisted the accelerator all the way and left everyone in the dust. Rue Michelet was perfectly straight, and he revved the motor until the speedometer started flirting with fifty miles per hour. At the end, he slowed to take the turn before heading for the upper town. His heart was thudding. At least he wasn’t questioning himself anymore. In the distance, a light turned red. He was tempted to ignore it but decided it was wiser to wait for the green. He was counting the seconds there when a voice surprised him.
“What in the world are you up to? What’s that scooter?”
It was Vanessa, his cousin Carine’s best friend. She walked toward him with a
pair of ice skates slung over her shoulder and inspected his two-wheeler. The light turned green. She wore her usual slightly mocking expression and stood very close, one leg bent, like a dancer.
“Did you steal it? Is that it?”
“No.”
The motor was idling slowly, with a neutral purr. When she noticed the state of the fairing, Vanessa burst out laughing.
“No kidding! You did steal it! I can’t believe it!”
Unlike what usually happened, Anthony remained unmoved. Vanessa searched his off-kilter face for an explanation for this surprising calm. Simply put, he didn’t give a damn. Which unnerved her. Anthony was discovering how indifference can be very helpful in attracting girls.
“What are you up to?” she asked.
“Nothing.”
Anthony had never noticed how dark, golden, and provocative her eyes were. He asked what she was doing with ice skates in the middle of August.
“I just had them fixed.”
The skates were heavy and she set them on the ground. As she bent down, he glimpsed part of her bra through the opening of her tank top. His stomach tightened.
“So where you headed on your stolen scooter?”
“Nowhere.”
“Want to give me a ride home?”
“I can’t.”
“Come on, take me home. These are really heavy. My shoulder’s all bruised, and I’ll be stuck with thirty minutes of walking.”
True, the laces had bit into her skin. Just the same, Anthony shook his head no. He had a lot on his mind right now. For once that Vanessa was being nice. And her skin was really tan.
And Their Children After Them Page 15