And Their Children After Them

by Nicolas Mathieu

  * * *

  —

  Once the hearse and the immediate family had left, a kind of wavering ran through the ranks. People couldn’t decide whether to drive or walk to L’Usine. Considering the distance, the second option soon carried the day, and nearly three hundred people set out through Heillange on foot. From the church to the bar was about half a mile, down two streets in a row. The crowd poured into the street and very quickly started talking loudly and carrying on. People came out onto their stoops to watch the parade go by. They recognized faces, asked for the news.

  Some joined the procession, because the dead man’s name was vaguely familiar and because they weren’t about to pass up a free drink. People wondered how the bar was going to hold everybody. Jokers were already yelling comments in crude, heavily accented voices. The humor gradually turned raunchy. People started laughing, even shouting, as their nerves settled. Life, always lusty and tireless, revived to create red noses and sweaty necks. It was a hot Saturday, a real scorcher. An urge to sing started to fill people’s chests. Soon the blast furnace appeared. They were almost there. Anthony had walked the whole way with his cousin, with Vanessa next to him. His parents were walking side by side in front. They weren’t talking very much, but at least they weren’t arguing.

  “Things seem to be going okay,” said Vanessa.

  “Yeah.”

  “It’ll be fine.”

  Anthony was living with his mother and wasn’t about to blame her, but he couldn’t help putting himself in his old man’s place. There he was, twenty pounds lighter, dried out, balding and knotty. His fangs blunted. What was left of him? Ashes and fading strength. And, in the end, regrets. Their house had been liquidated in nothing flat. Patrick and Hélène’s efforts, twenty years of sacrifices and acrobatic struggles to make ends meet, all gone. The furniture, the knickknacks, the clothes that had to be thrown away. Plus they were forced to sell quickly, for peanuts. The bank wound up getting the money to settle their debts.

  When they were dividing things up, Anthony’s father almost got into a fight. He really didn’t have a lot of friends, had no real work, and only then discovered that he didn’t even own the house, and that all those ideas he’d had were more or less bullshit. He thought he was the one bringing in the money, that he was in his own place, that it was his wife, his house, his kid. The notaire bulldozed those preconceptions away. And two years later, Patrick was still coughing up money to pay his lawyer, who hadn’t done squat except to tell him that he was in the wrong and that the law would decide. In that world of paperwork, lawyers, and judges, what was left wasn’t a man. Only arrangements.

  During this whole wrenching period Anthony had been pressured to take sides. He didn’t want to. Each of his parents had their reasons, and he had his. Hélène concluded that he didn’t love her enough. Patrick, that his mother had spoiled him. She had passed on her weakness and indecisiveness, that soft virus that all the Mougels carried. Those people never finished anything. The men did whatever their wives told them. They were a race of slaves, and Anthony had embraced the chains. In fact, when they lived next to the Jules-Ferry school, Hélène was always on the alert. From her kitchen, she watched him playing with the other kids in the courtyard. She didn’t hesitate to shout to him from upstairs to behave. Once, when she caught him fighting, she came down to stop it. The kids called him pussycat for weeks after that. His mother arranged with the doctor to get him excused from sports. He didn’t learn to swim until third grade.

  “I don’t know why she was like that,” his father had said. “Maybe it was that little Grégory business in 1984. You remember, the four-year-old who was drowned in the Vologne River? The cops thought the kid’s relatives had done it, but they could never prove it.”

  “So what?”

  “You looked exactly like him. You know, in that famous photo? Exactly the same. To be honest, it made me feel weird when they fished him out.”

  * * *

  —

  When they got there, the sidewalk outside L’Usine was already jammed. The doors had been thrown wide open for once, and people were going in and out, waiting for things to get under way. Tables had been set up on sawhorses with white paper tablecloths and all the necessities: a big pump-action thermos, trays of brioche, nonalcoholic drinks, and plastic tumblers. The sky cast a veiled, opalescent light that hurt the eyes. The smell of coffee filled the air. Cathy, the owner, had come out and was greeting people in a friendly, businesslike way. This would be a good day for her, she knew. As she added up the totals in her head, her smile widened.

  Stupidly, Patrick decided this was a good time to trot out his idea.

  “So, how about that trip?”

  “What are you talking about?” asked Hélène.

  She had clutched her purse strap and answered a bit sharply. Patrick’s eyes almost completely disappeared underneath his eyebrows.

  “I told you. I’m paying for that famous trip of yours. Your vacation.”

  Hélène said nothing. She had told him a hundred times that it was out of the question.

  “You can let me know when you make up your mind.”

  She didn’t reply to that, either. Anthony caught Vanessa’s eye. She grimaced. This looked like it might be pretty complicated after all.

  Two girls hired as extra helpers were standing outside. Chubby Goth types, probably sisters. When they started serving people coffee right on the sidewalk, Cathy jumped on them.

  “Stop that! Are you out of your minds, or what?”

  It was bad enough that nobody wanted to go into her bar because of the heat; now the street was turning into a terrasse. Up the road, cars were at a standstill because of the confusion. The first honking began. People raised their arms to the sky. Relax, we’ll all be dead soon enough.

  “The cops are going to come if this goes on,” said Cathy anxiously. “Thierry!”

  The tall guy with the crew cut standing behind the bar looked up. He was a drywaller in civilian life and lived with Cathy. Just seeing him red and sweating in his shirtsleeves, you could feel the heaviness inside, the stifling air, eighty-five degrees at least.

  “Open the back doors,” she said. “We need to make a draft.”

  Then, turning to the two girls:

  “Get people inside, for heaven’s sake. We have to clear the street. And go upstairs, we have some fans there.”

  Baffled by this barrage of orders, the girls just stood there. Apologetically, Cathy made herself clear:

  “Carine, you deal with the customers. Sonia, you go get the fans. Can you do that? Do you need a Post-it note?”

  Without getting flustered, Sonia asked:

  “Where should I plug in the fans?”

  She was the chubbier of the two, and the prettiest. She had pierced ears, and little rings that ran all the way around the edges. Along with that, she had jet-black hair, pretty legs, and creamy skin.

  “There are adapters in the kitchen. Just figure it out.”

  Sonia sighed. Her sister was leading people inside. It was comical. But gradually, under the combined pressure from Carine, Cathy, and the cars trying to get through, people crowded into the café. Anthony wound up with his parents and Vanessa at a table in the back, not far from the bathrooms. Everything settled down in a hubbub of chairs and voices. At that point a man emerged from the crowd and came toward them. He was a handsome, knotty old North African, all earth and ochre. He was wearing a pair of big white sneakers from which his legs rose like sticks. He looked like a potted plant.

  “Good afternoon,” he said, bowing his head.

  He had a beautiful, gravelly, hoarse voice. It took Anthony a few seconds to recognize him, then his stomach tensed. His mother was already on her feet, extending her hand. Memories came back in waves. The motorcycle, the little apartment where they drank tea. Old man Bouali. When Anthony saw his father getting up a
s well, he said to himself, “Now it’s all over, we’re done for.”

  But instead of that, Patrick seized the hand of the man with the big white sneakers and shook it warmly. They knew each other.

  “Well, I’ll be damned!”

  “How are you doing?” asked the old man.

  “I’m good. It’s been ages, hasn’t it?”

  “It sure has,” said Bouali with a broad wave of his hand. His raised eyebrows had come together, and he looked moved. Patrick grabbed him by the shoulder and shook him, laughing to cover his embarrassment. He explained to Hélène and Anthony that he and Malek Bouali had worked at the mill together, on neighboring stations, until Patrick was assigned to the pour. Those were the good old days. Well, not that good, but at least they were younger. Still, having Luc Grandemange in the cemetery kind of hit you.

  The two men then brought each other vaguely up to date, health, children, family, everything was fine, yes, yes, labes alhamdulilah—all is well, praise Allah. And they agreed that it was really stupid that they never saw each other, given that they lived, what? Not three miles apart? One of these days, they would have to get together with the others, Michelon, Rosicky, Pellet, and the Heizenberger brothers. Sure, sure. Old Bouali’s eyes were two dark, liquid expanses. Patrick had stopped shaking him. Before leaving, the old man nodded to Hélène. He hadn’t looked at Anthony. Then he went to join some friends across the room. Each of his movements was measured. He was already on the other side, that of slowness and diminution, of long patience and sleepless nights.

  “Poor guy,” said Patrick, sitting down again. “Just think of it. He worked like an animal and this is the result. He’s disabled at some percent or other, with a tiny pension. And kids who shit in his boots.”

  At the mention of that problematic offspring, Anthony felt his stomach knotting again. He didn’t dare look at his mother. To finish, his father magnanimously added:

  “You know, those people aren’t the problem. I’ve never seen guys work as hard as them.”

  Across the way, the little troop of Magreb immigrants was gathered around the same table. There were about a dozen of them, aged and low-key, drinking Picon like everyone else, but still not speaking French. Their wives had stayed at home. Nobody paid any attention to them. They’d made the effort to come, though.

  “All right, I think I’m going to the bar,” said Patrick, gesturing at the table in front of him. “We’re dying of thirst here. What are you having?”

  Everybody chose beer. He went to order three beers, plus a Perrier for himself. Hélène looked at him. She couldn’t help thinking, “What a pity, all those years wasted, ruined by pride and binges.” To wind up like this, with him drinking water and wanting to send her on a trip.

  Patrick came back with the drinks, passed the glasses around. The beer was cold and delicious. Anthony took a big slug. It did him a world of good.

  9

  “I don’t care, you know. I was sure of it, anyway.”

  Stéphanie was lying. Clémence let her talk.

  After driving around without being able to either separate or settle on a place to go, the two girls wound up at the foot of the cast-iron statue of the Virgin Mary. They were sitting cross-legged on the base, drinking the 7 Up they bought along the way from the Prisu behind Place des Flamands. The storm had further tightened its grip on the valley, with its imbroglio of houses, streets, and buildings. The light had turned reddish, lending everything the colors of evening and fire. Steph urgently wanted the world to end. She sighed.

  “Are you pissed off?” asked Clémence.

  “ ’Course not. I told you, I don’t care.”

  Steph tried to kill a tiny bug that had landed on her shoulder, but without success. She felt sticky and heavy, and besides, her back hurt. Stretching out her legs, she thought them tan and not too bad. She had pretty ankles. That was something, anyway.

  “How many times did you fuck?”

  “I don’t know,” said Clémence, staring off into space.

  “Oh, quit your bullshit. I don’t mind.”

  Clémence pursed her mouth in a funny way, and Steph made a grimace that said, “You just decided to go for it, didn’t you?” Clem was tempted to laugh.

  “Frankly, I’ve forgotten. Quite a few times.”

  “You’re too much.”

  “What can I tell you? I didn’t keep track.”

  “Where was it?”

  “How do you mean?”

  “You didn’t fuck in the street, did you? So tell me where you did it.”

  A secret that been growing between the two girls for weeks had burst into the open just ten minutes earlier. They were both feeling confused and undecided. But mainly relieved.

  Steph had definitely sensed that something fishy had been going on. Clémence had acted strange, blushing the moment you asked where she had been. It involved a guy, for sure. Yet now that Clem had finally ’fessed up, it didn’t seem that important.

  Clémence and Simon had been fucking.

  After her confession, Steph had sworn at her, of course, the whore. But curiosity very quickly gained the upper hand. Now the two girls were savoring their restored equality, and the wonderful possibility of telling each other everything, and better yet: comparing.

  “Come on,” Steph insisted. “Where did you do him?”

  “I don’t know, wherever.”

  “What do you mean, wherever? Did you go to his place?”

  “Once or twice.”

  “What about your place?”

  “Once or twice.”

  Steph was wide-eyed, appalled, dying to know more.

  “But not in his car, right?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “Of course you did, it’s obvious!” cried Steph, shoving Clémence with her shoulder. “What a slut!”

  “Oh, give me a break! Once or twice. Quickies.”

  “So he basically screwed you every which way.”

  “Damn, you’re right,” said Clémence, the realization dawning.

  Steph burst out laughing.

  “The bastard…”

  “I’m…I’m really so sorry,” said Clémence sincerely—and feeling forgiven.

  Steph leapt to her feet. This whole business infuriated and upset her, but it felt great to luxuriate in their renewed complicity. She couldn’t stand it anymore. She wanted to know everything.

  “How long did it go on?”

  “I dunno.”

  “Come on, it’s okay. Spit it out.”

  “A few weeks.”

  “Or a few months, right?”

  “Yeah,” admitted Clémence, pretending to be dismayed.

  “That jackal! He was fucking us one after the other.”

  “The same day, sometimes.”

  “You’re not serious.”

  “I swear.”

  “The bastard.”

  “A piece of trash.”

  “What a dog.”

  “A sicko.”

  “A real pervert.”

  “No kidding.”

  And now, having laughed their fill, the girls got down to brass tacks.

  “So?”

  “So what?” asked Clémence.

  “Well, was it good?”

  “It was okay.”

  “Oh, give me a break! Why would you fuck him for weeks like that if it wasn’t any good?”

  “Well, it was good but…I dunno, he’s sort of into his own thing.”

  “Yeah, he doesn’t actually take you into account.”

  “Honestly, he thinks he’s in a movie.”

  To illustrate the problem, Clémence put on a dazed expression, grasped an imaginary ponytail, and gave a few empty hip thrusts. Steph couldn’t help herself:

  “Yes, that’s exactly right!�
��

  “Besides, he’s got a weird one.”

  Clémence raised her eyebrows very high and looked innocent while holding out her curled little finger.

  “That’s it!” said Steph. “You’d think it was a Yorkie’s dick.”

  “Stop it!” Clémence exploded. “You’re the one who’s crazy!”

  The two girls were riding each other like sisters now, pushing and pulling, their breath coming hard, panting. Steph couldn’t help herself.

  “Yeah, yeah!” she said.

  Looking disgusted, she showed an unflattering distance between her thumb and index finger.

  “And it’s so ugly, all pinkish and damp,” she continued.

  “Oh, come on! You’re too much!”

  Just the same, Clémence wanted more, too.

  “And didn’t you notice?” asked Steph. “When he comes?”

  “Notice what?”

  “I dunno. He does this thing, breathes through his nose.”

  Steph imitated him: mffff, mffff, mffff! Nostrils flaring, she sounded like a calf and a choo-choo train.

  “Ha, ha! Yes, that’s it!” exclaimed Clémence in delight.

  Sharing these kinds of secrets was a deep part of their friendship, along with their childhood memories, endless phone talks, and eating tubs of coconut ice cream while watching Dirty Dancing. And the absolute certainty that the other one would be there if she needed her.

  Ever since they were teens, the girls would describe their intimate functions to each other, debriefing after going out with a guy, giving each other tips to avoid urinary tract and fungal infections. Their girl bodies were such difficult mechanisms that two people were none too many in dealing with them. This sort of gynaeceum intimacy had gradually extended to every domain, and they took a feverish pleasure in describing their nights, dissecting guys from head to foot. The boys had heard that girls were worse than they were, more blunt and pitiless, and much more precise. They didn’t want to believe it. They were wrong. To be fair, it should be said that the girls applied this anatomical ferocity to themselves with a vengeance. They went to great lengths inspecting themselves, comparing themselves with each other and with magazine photos. They swelled with pride at a tightened pore and felt that gaining extra pounds was an excellent reason to kill themselves.