They were all going in the same direction, toward the American beach, as it was called, though nobody could remember why. The name went all the way back to the sixties, when a guy who ran a military surplus store and sold imported jeans decided to build a drive-in there. He claimed to be from Texas and wore cowboy boots. That was all it took. His movie theater didn’t survive, but the name stuck.
When they got there, Stéphanie and Clémence found that things were already well under way. The stage had been set up for the speeches, and the city worker doing the sound check would send a blast of indifferent feedback over the crowd from time to time. There wouldn’t be a band this year. It was too expensive, and corny besides. A DJ would do just as well. There was also a big refreshment area, with long tables flanked by wooden benches with a guy under a plastic canopy selling French fries and sausages. Theoretically, he had a monopoly, since he was the only one with a petty cash drawer and the necessary permits. In fact, other people would show up later with a little barbecue or a deep-fat fryer and a transformer, and try to earn some scratch on the sly. By and large, the authorities turned a blind eye.
Some spectators had come early to get the best spots. They set up folding chairs along the shore and drank cold beers from colorful coolers while waiting for the show. A barge loaded with rockets floated a little distance offshore. The lake’s surface still reflected the pale sky, but the light was already beating a hurried retreat, leaving behind a feeling of disorder and shadow, a rustle of trees surrounding the horde of spectators. A pleasant smell of barbeque, that summertime scent, drifted over all this. People seemed patient and were enjoying themselves. Steph and Clémence wandered around.
“Where should we sit?” asked Steph.
“I don’t know. Let’s just walk around.”
“I’d just as soon not run into my dad here.”
Before coming, the girls had stopped by Lamboley’s to buy something to drink. It was Sunday, all the stores were closed, so the old guy was their only recourse. He had anticipated that. His garage, which offered the most unlikely groceries and never closed, was bursting with food and liquor this evening. No one was quite sure he had the right to sell all that stuff. In blue coveralls and tank top, he and his son and daughter served the clientele day and night. Even when the steel curtain was rolled down, you could just ring; there was always a way.
When the girls arrived they found all the scatterbrains of the region standing in line. Young people mainly, but not only. Lamboley’s efficiency was remarkable. A guy would take his turn, ask for a case of beer and some guacamole. The old man would say, “Sure.” His son would go rummage in the jumbled back storeroom with its freezers and metal shelves, and return with the purchases. The customer would pay through the nose, and it was on to the next. When it was Steph and Clémence’s turn, they asked for a twelve-pack. Thirty-five francs.
“That’s expensive!”
“That’s the way it is.”
The old man, his blue coveralls, his two kids. They paid.
On the way to the beach, they listened to the same song over and over, “La Fièvre,” with the lyrics For hours, but she gave me the fever. The girls were excited, in a mood to have fun, drinking beer as they drove. Steph was in charge of the Rewind button. Each time they heard the lyrics, it made them even crazier.
Before they got to the beach, they drank two more beers by a little country road that wandered through the woods. Then evening fell and the forest turned chilly. The girls felt nervous and drove on, leaving the beer behind. Squeezing into a parking spot, Clémence bumped the cars in front and back. The girls were still laughing. Their flyaway hair got caught in their mouths. They finally reached the beach, which was already crowded. They were having a little trouble walking straight.
“Shit, if I run into my mother in this state, let’s bail.”
“No danger of that, with all these people.”
“Yeah, crazy how many losers this attracts.”
“Well, it looks like they all came. It’s carnival time.”
“For real. I’m wondering what we’re doing here.”
“Hey, didn’t you want to fuck?” asked Clémence sarcastically.
Steph grimaced. Suddenly she wasn’t all that sure anymore. She felt worried, compromised. She told herself she was going to ease off on the beer. She would walk around a bit, then ask Clémence to drive her home.
Gradually, they merged with the crowd. There was the smell, the music, the hubbub, the ceaseless blinking of faces. The girls were walking together, not talking anymore. To them, everything was a spectacle. After a little while they bought French fries and went to sit on some logs to eat them. A bunch of guys passed and checked them out, hick kids with shaved heads and Rangers. They wore sleeveless denim vests over heavy metal T-shirts. Some of them were trying to grow beards, without much success. They got pushy, so Clémence gave them the finger and they moved on.
“Metalheads are funny. Soon as you check them out, there’s no one home.”
“Yeah, well, everybody’s pretty much the same. C’mon, let’s move. I’ve had enough of this.”
“Man, you’re a drag all of a sudden.”
Steph didn’t answer. It was true, she was feeling weird.
“There are too many people.”
“Do you want to split?”
“I dunno.”
Clémence stood and pulled her friend up by the arm; she weighed a ton. They walked on, continuing their slow progress through the crowd.
* * *
—
Coralie and Hacine were walking hand in hand, with their dog. In other words, Hacine was in agony. Once they were past the refreshment stand, he told himself, he would drop her hand. They passed it. He didn’t dare. They had already run into some friends from the old days, and it was heavy. He didn’t quite know why, but he just couldn’t get used to the business of being in a couple, walking around, kissy-kissy in the street. Chicks were so weird. You wanted to fuck them, and then they got you to sleep over, and one thing leads to another, you start signing papers and making plans, and one bright day you don’t recognize anything around you. You never go to any of the places where you used to hang out. Childhood friends become complete strangers. And you start being careful to put the lid down before leaving the bathroom.
To be honest, Coralie hadn’t demanded anything, and in fact was totally cool. As proof, Hacine’s pals had played video games at their place for half the night. But a kind of slow slide had taken place, and Hacine had gradually dropped a thousand of his habits. He didn’t regret it. His life was better, no doubt about it. When he felt blue, he wasn’t alone to wonder if his life was less good than it could be, or if other people were better off than he was. Thanks to Coralie, he no longer experienced that gloomy feeling of total failure, of a wasted life. She distracted him, and sex with her was terrific. Even his in-laws were nice. It was just that when the two of them went downtown, he was always afraid of being found out, as if he had something to blame himself for. Once in the light of day, this love story felt like a masquerade and he realized he was a poor actor, and all wrong for the part. He had dreamed of being a made man. He couldn’t get used to this job of being a companion.
He sometimes wondered what had happened to all those people he’d lost sight of, Mouss, and Raduane, the gang. They were probably leading their lives as bums and petty criminals without him. Little Kader did some time in the joint, two years for assault. Some stupid business about a fight at a red light. Hacine would have enjoyed seeing him again.
Coralie wanted to eat some French fries and have a beer. Hacine paid, counting the money. Everything becomes expensive once you have to earn your living honestly. In the beginning there was something reassuring about getting a salary, compared with the unpredictability of business. But Hacine soon realized that for honest people, those tiny sums weren’t a beginning, they were the st
andard. So you start calculating in shopping carts, or comparing the cost of your homeowners insurance with a trip to the Balearic Islands. Life becomes a series of anticipations, tiny nibbles, and painless deprivations compensated for by pleasures that are never sufficient. For example, Coralie had been pestering him with the idea of going to a seawater therapy spa for a while now. A weekend for two cost almost five thousand francs. Hacine earned 7,240 francs a month. How could you enjoy two days in a bathrobe and flip-flops if you had to bust your ass for two years to afford it? Just thinking about it gave him a pain. And Coralie kept saying, “You’ll see, it’ll do us good.”
Around nine o’clock the music paused, and she pulled Hacine closer to the stage. The mayor had climbed up and was flanked by an elegant woman with the face of a rodent and a fat, rotund man who was clearly in a very good mood, Pierre Chaussoy. Behind the stage you could see the smooth surface of the lake, and the ragged silhouettes of trees on the far shore. The speakers crackled.
“If I could have your attention…”
Silence fell, and the mayor was able to start his speech. He was happy that people had come in such great numbers. He was happy with everything that was happening in the area. During the winter, they’d had the Christmas market, the new indoor gymnasium, and the auto show, which this year had beaten attendance records. In the summer, Heillange of course had its natural assets, and people had apparently come from far away to enjoy them. Saint-Tropez had better watch its step. But beyond that, there was the canoe trail through town, the skate park, tennis courts, renovated swimming pool, miniature golf, campground, et cetera. And the mayor didn’t intend to stop, now that they were on a roll. The town had other ambitions; it wanted to forge ahead. Pierre Chaussoy took the microphone and announced the big news. Next summer, Heillange would host a regatta. The announcement left the audience a bit dubious. What exactly is a regatta, asked a few curious people.
“I know that it might seem pretentious,” Pierre Chaussoy said very enthusiastically. “It isn’t really part of our region’s culture. But I’m convinced that we have all that it takes to hold a prestige event. I went to check out Annecy, Lugano, and Lake Como. They don’t have anything we don’t.”
Though we might envy Lugano’s low taxes, said the mayor with a straight face. The fat man resumed talking, stressing the benefits that were sure to be generated by such an event, but Hacine was no longer listening. He had started looking around. The other spectators were no more attentive. You could see mild amusement on their faces. A few jokers were laughing. At one point a drunk yelled, “Get naked!” which amused his neighbors, but not his wife. After all, people didn’t really care about Heillange’s social and cultural life. They’d come for the noise, the light, and the drinking. They were politely waiting for the speeches to be over. Hacine suddenly glimpsed something, but didn’t have time to grasp what it was. The familiar face with the drooping eyelid had already disappeared.
* * *
—
Anthony had come by himself. He didn’t want to see his father, or any of his friends, especially. He just wanted to savor the certainty that he was done with Heillange once and for all. It was a new feeling to be walking around with his hands in his pockets, almost like a tourist, in a landscape and a crowd that no longer concerned him. He was leaving tomorrow, at last.
As he listened to Steph’s father’s final words, he caught himself looking around for her. He would have really liked her to be there. It was the ideal moment for a last meeting. They would be playing as equals this time. Pierre Chaussoy wished everybody a good evening. The mayor did the same. The woman with the rodent face hadn’t said anything and seemed disappointed.
“While waiting for the fireworks, I leave you in the expert hands of our DJ,” the mayor concluded, introducing a chubby young man in a white T-shirt with headphones around his neck. He started playing standard FM radio music that everybody already knew. Along with five thousand people, Anthony resumed his stroll. He was finishing a warm beer when he spotted his cousin. He was walking with his sister, Carine, and her boyfriend, Micka, flanked by a stroller and two kids; Killian was three and Julie was eighteen months. Anthony shook hands with the men, kissed Carine and the children. They exchanged a few simple words, awkwardly. It was nice to see them, anyway.
“So that’s it, you’re leaving?”
Carine said this with a look that was both a reproach and a compliment, her daughter on a hip, one hand on the stroller. Anthony found her profoundly changed. Her pregnancies had acted on her like a revelation. Back in the day, you would have thought her the ultimate lazybones. In fact, she belonged to the category of selflessly devoted mothers. With her first child, she plunged into her new role, leaving nothing of her teenage self behind; the girl had disappeared under diapers. At only twenty-two, she already displayed that power of resignation and tenderness, that unstoppable hemorrhage, overflowing with milk, tears, love, and fatigues. Without any warning, she cut the bridges with her previous life to devote herself without regret to her progeny, becoming a full-time homemaker in the snap of a finger.
Carine’s days now all followed the same rhythm of meals and naps. She woke the children up, warmed their milk, washed and diapered them, then did the ironing. The hissing pressure cooker sounded the noon whistle: potatoes, string beans, and pork. She drank her coffee while absentmindedly watching the kids play. Around two o’clock, she treated herself to a little break, eating chocolates and watching her soap opera while the kids napped. The afternoon held its own series of chores and repetitions. Wake the kids, feed them, take them for a walk, come home, fix dinner. Going out always meant going from the house to the doctor’s office, to Leclerc, or to the playground. At home, the television was on twelve hours a day. There were three sets in the apartment. Her boyfriend, Micka, was a long-haul trucker and gone at least three nights a week. When he came home, exhausted, he plopped onto the sofa, where the children came to snuggle with him. By tradition, there was ice cream afterward. Together, the family watched the screen with the nice taste of vanilla in their mouths. How could you hope for anything better?
Just looking at Carine, Anthony felt sick. It made him phenomenally depressed to consider generation after generation of these women getting beaten down, practically turning into nursemaids, doing nothing except ensuring the persistence of a progeny destined to the same joys and the same ills. In this dull obstinacy, he sensed the fate of his class. Worse, the law of the species, perpetuated through the unconscious bodies of these stay-at-home women with their wide hips and fecund bellies. Anthony hated the family. It promised nothing but a hell of continuation, with neither goal nor end. He himself would take trips and work miracles. He would let himself do things, though he didn’t know quite what.
Meanwhile, he’d started chatting with his cousin. It was nice to be able to talk a little, even though Anthony was still getting all the news through his mother. After a while they decided to have a drink. Everybody sat down at the end of one of the long tables in front of the refreshment stand. There wasn’t much room, so they squeezed together. Micka volunteered to go get drinks. He was a nice guy, with calves like posts that emerged from cutoff Adidas shorts. Anthony’s cousin was pretty talkative, for once. He’d had quite a few setbacks in the last year and told about them in a fairly detached way, like a guy who had seen it all. Which couldn’t hide his basic disappointment. He had finally separated from his idiotic girlfriend. Anthony was hardly surprised but kept the comment to himself. Aside from that, he had a new job in Luxembourg, delivering lunches to decision-making executives in glass towers.
“Everybody there drives a Bimmer,” said his cousin. “They’ve got it all figured out.”
Anthony agreed. Like everyone else in the valley, he was forever hearing about Luxembourg and its astronomical salaries, ridiculously low taxes, and that terrific perk, the company car. The need for manpower in the duchy was such that the authorities arranged thin
gs so that workers on the other side of the border could commute in a Mercedes, a BMW 5 Series, or an Audi Quattro without spending a centime. Seen from Heillange, it looked like heaven on earth.
That wasn’t the cousin’s situation, unfortunately. He lived close to the border in a small two-bedroom place and had to get to work by his own means. Micka came back with the beers. Excited by the imminent fireworks, the children were out of control. Carine alternated threats and promises, starting all of her sentences by saying, “I’m warning you…” without much result. When they raised their beers, she drank hers nearly at a gulp. Everybody bought a round, and Anthony insisted on buying French fries for the kids. The adults nibbled from the fry boxes. The table was soon covered with food and tumblers. Everybody was in a good mood, even though the children were squealing and writhing. Anthony and his cousin gazed at the lake with a touch of nostalgia. Important times had happened there. Anthony needed to take a leak. He was drunk. He was getting more and more thirsty.
“I’ll be back,” he said.
“Hurry, it’ll be any moment now.”
He stood up and tried to stay straight as he walked to the chemical toilets that had been set up for the occasion a little farther on. The guy in charge of the sound was clearly a big fan of the group Indochine. Anthony had already recognized “L’Aventurier” and “Trois nuits par semaine.” “Canary Bay” was playing for the second time. “This is my last night,” he thought.
* * *
—
Patrick had taken a little walk before bumping into Rudi at the bar, and they started to drink, sitting side by side. Rudi didn’t have much money, so Patrick was buying. Soon, the barber joined them. Leaning against the counter, the three men enjoyed the spectacle, drinking unhurriedly, watching the other customers, the aquatic movement of the crowd, and the young brunette serving the beer. She was dressed in black, moving fast, answering the wisecracks with a smile, not that pretty but sexy, and, as a barmaid, the center of attention. Rudi, especially, was obsessed with her. At one point, as she was setting three fresh glasses in front of them, he touched her wrist. She jerked her arm back and went to say a few words into the owner’s ear.
And Their Children After Them Page 35