by Anna Gavalda
“Why don’t you make this your profession? Why don’t you try to become a historian or a professor? It would give you the right to delve into all those books during your working hours and you’d get paid as well!”
He put the tome down on the worn corduroy that covered his bony knees and removed his glasses to rub his eyes.
“I’ve tried. I have a degree in history and I took the entrance exam to the École des Chartes three times, but each time I failed.”
“You weren’t good enough?”
“Oh, I was!” He blushed. “Well, at least, I think so, I humbly believe that, but I—I’ve never been able to take exams, I get too nervous, each time my eyesight gets worse, I can’t sleep, I lose my hair and I even lose my teeth! And all my faculties. I read the questions, I know the answers, but I cannot write a single line. I sit there petrified, staring at the blank paper.”
“But you got your baccalaureate? And your degree?”
“Yes, but I paid the price. And never the first time around. And it really was not difficult. I got my degree without ever having set foot inside the Sorbonne, unless it was to go and listen to lectures by the great professors I admired, and who had nothing to do with my own curriculum.”
“How old are you?”
“Thirty-six.”
“But with your degree you could have been teaching, couldn’t you?”
“Can you see me in a classroom with thirty kids?”
“Sure.”
“No. The very idea of addressing an audience, no matter how small, makes me break into a cold sweat. I . . . I have problems—I have problems . . . relating to people.”
“But in school? When you were little?”
“I didn’t go to school until I was twelve. And, what’s more, it was a boarding school. It was a horrible year. The worst in my life. As if they’d thrown me in at the deep end and I didn’t know how to swim.”
“So what happened?”
“Nothing. I still don’t know how to swim.”
“Literally or figuratively?”
“Both, General, sir.”
“You never learned how to swim?”
“No. What for?”
“Well, so you could go swimming!”
“Culturally, we come rather from a generation of foot soldiers and gunners, you know.”
“What on earth are you going on about? I’m not talking about going off to fight a war! I’m just talking about going to the seaside. And why didn’t you go to school earlier to start with?”
“My mother was teaching us.”
“Like Saint Louis’s mother?”
“Exactly.”
“What was her name again?”
“Blanche de Castille.”
“That’s right. And why was that? Did you live too far away?”
“There was a local elementary school in the next village, but I only lasted a few days there.”
“How come?”
“Because it was a state school.”
“Oh, that old refrain about the revolutionaries, is that it?”
“That’s it.”
“Hey, that was over two hundred years ago! Things have evolved a bit since then.”
“Changed, I don’t deny. Evolved . . . I’m not sure.”
Camille looked at him in silence.
“Does that shock you?” said Philibert.
“No, no, I respect your . . .”
“My values?”
“Yes, I suppose, if that’s the right word, but how do you make a living, then?”
“I sell postcards!”
“But that’s wild. Unbelievable, what a story.”
“You know, compared to my parents, I have . . . evolved, as you say, I have acquired a certain distance, all the same.”
“What are they like?”
“Well . . .”
“Stuffed? Embalmed? Immersed in a jar of formaldehyde with the fleur-de-lys?”
“There is a bit of that, indeed,” he conceded, amused.
“Please tell me that they don’t go around in one of those sedan chair things, do they?”
“No, but only because they can’t find anyone to carry it for them anymore!”
“What do they do?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“For a living.”
“They own land.”
“That’s all?”
“It involves a lot of work, you know.”
“But, uh . . . are you, like, very rich?”
“No, not at all. On the contrary.”
“What a wild story. And how did you manage at boarding school?”
“I managed. Thanks to Liddell and Scott.”
“Who were they?”
“They’re not people. Liddell and Scott is a heavy Greek dictionary that I carried around in my schoolbag and that I used as a catapult. I would hold my bag by the strap, swing it to get momentum and—tallyho!—cleave the enemy in two.”
“And then?”
“Then what?”
“Well, now?”
“Well, my dear, now things are very simple, you have before your eyes a magnificent example of Homo degeneraris, that is, a creature totally incapable of life in society, out of synch, out to lunch, a perfect anachronism.”
Philibert was laughing.
“So how will you manage?”
“I do not know.”
“Are you seeing a shrink?”
“No, but I have met this young woman where I work, a sort of amusing, exhausting nutcase who has been badgering me to go with her to her drama class one evening. And she has been through every imaginable shrink in the book and she claims that the theater is much more effective.”
“Really?”
“That’s what she says.”
“But other than that, do you ever go out? Don’t you have friends? No like-minded people? Some contact with . . . the twenty-first century?”
“No, not a great deal. And you?”
30
LIFE returned to normal. Camille braved the cold when night fell to take the métro in the opposite direction from the laboring masses, and she observed all the strained faces.
Mothers who fell asleep with their mouths open against the steamy windows, on their way to pick up their kids in the poorer suburban neighborhoods; women covered in cheap costume jewelry briskly turning the pages of their TV Week with pointed, moistened index fingers; men in soft leather loafers and patterned socks highlighting improbable reports as they sighed noisily; young executives with greasy skin who passed the time playing Tetris on their not-yet-paid-for laptop computers.
And then all the others, those who did nothing more than cling instinctively to the strap to keep their balance. Those who saw nothing, no one. They didn’t see the Christmas ads—golden days, golden gifts, salmon for next to nothing and foie gras at wholesale prices—nor their neighbor’s newspaper, nor the bum with his outstretched hand and his whiny plea rehashed a thousand times over. Not even the young woman sitting just across from them, sketching their mournful gazes and the folds of their gray overcoats.
Camille exchanged a few pleasantries with the building security officer, got changed as she held on to her trolley, pulled on a pair of shapeless overalls and a turquoise nylon blouse that read Professionals at your service, and warmed up, occupying herself like a condemned man until it was time for the next blast of cold air, her umpteenth cigarette, and the last métro.
When Super Josy saw Camille, she rammed her fists deep into her pockets and her face creased into an almost tender grimace:
“Well, I’ll be damned, here’s a ghost. And I’m out ten euros,” she grumbled.
“Pardon?”
“A bet I had with the other girls. I didn’t think you’d come back.”
“Why?”
“Dunno, just a gut feeling. But hey, no problem, I’ll pay up. Okay, gang, we need to get a move on. Everything’s getting trashed. To the point that you begin to wonder if these people’s mothers ever showed the
m how to use a doormat. Just look at that, have you seen the corridor?”
Dragging her feet, Mamadou said to Camille: “You been sleeping like a big baby all week long, haven’t you?”
“How’d you know?”
“Because of your hair. It’s been growing too quick.”
“Are you okay, Mamadou? You don’t look so hot.”
“I’m okay, I’m okay.”
“Is something worrying you?”
“Oh, worries . . . The kids are all sick, my husband gambles away his paycheck, my sister-in-law, she gets on my nerves, a neighbor been shitting in the elevator and the phone line been cut, but otherwise I’m okay.”
“Why’d he do that?”
“Who?”
“The neighbor.”
“Why, I don’t know. But I told him that next time, he’s gonna be eatin’ his shit. And I mean what I say. What you laughing at, huh?”
“What’s wrong with your kids?”
“One of ’em’s coughing and the other one has gastroenteritis. Okay, c’mon, let’s stop talking ’bout all that because it makes me too sad, and when I’m sad I’m no goddamn use to anybody.”
“And your brother? Can’t he make them all better with that black magic of his?”
“And what about the racetrack? Don’t you think he would be able to pick a few winners from time to time? Oh no, don’t talk to me ’bout that good-for-nothing scum, you hear?”
The piglet on the sixth floor must have taken Camille’s drawing to heart: his office was more or less tidy. Camille drew an angel as seen from behind, a pair of wings emerging from his suit and a lovely halo over his head.
At the apartment they were beginning to get their bearings. The awkwardness of the first days, the hesitant dance and all their embarrassed gestures were slowly changing into a discreet, everyday choreography.
Camille got up in the late morning, but made certain she was always back in her room by three when Franck came home. He left again at around six thirty, sometimes passing Philibert in the stairway. Camille would share a pot of tea or have a light dinner with Philibert before going to work herself; she was never back before one in the morning.
Franck was never asleep at that time: he’d be listening to music or watching television. The scent of pot wafted from underneath his door. Camille wondered how he managed to keep up such a frenetic pace, and very quickly she had her answer: he didn’t.
So from time to time he’d blow a fuse. He would throw a fit when he opened the refrigerator and found food that had not been put away in the right place, or was poorly wrapped, and he’d take out the offending items and put them on the table, knocking over the teapot and calling Philibert and Camille every rude name in the book.
“Fuck! How many times do I have to tell you? The butter goes into a butter dish because otherwise it absorbs all the other smells! And the cheese too! Transparent wrap wasn’t invented for dogs, shit! And what the hell is this? Lettuce? Why did you leave it in a plastic bag? Plastic ruins everything! I’ve already told you, Philibert. Where are all those containers I brought home the other day? And what about this lemon? What’s it doing in the egg compartment? You cut open a lemon, you wrap it up or put it upside down on a plate, capice?”
Then off he went with his can of beer, and our two criminals waited for the backdraft from the door before picking up the thread of their conversation:
“Did she really say, ‘If there is no more bread, then let them eat cake’?”
“Of course not, come on. She would never have uttered such rubbish. She was a very intelligent woman, you know.”
Of course they could have put their cups down with a sigh and answered back, told Franck that for someone who never ate there anyway and who only used the fridge to store his six-packs he was overreacting . . . But it really wasn’t worth the trouble.
Since he was the yelling type, well, let him yell.
Let him yell.
Besides, that’s what he expected. The slightest excuse to be at their throats. Camille’s, especially. He held her in his sights and wore an outraged expression whenever their paths crossed. No matter that she spent the vast majority of her time in her own room, they were bound to run into each other, and she felt the full force of the murderous vibes which, depending on her mood, either made her feel awkward or coaxed out a half smile.
“Hey, what’s with you? What are you laughing at? Something wrong with my face?”
“No, no. Nothing, it’s nothing.”
And she would hurry to change the subject.
In the communal rooms, Camille was on her best behavior. She tried to leave the place as clean as you would hope to find it on entering. When Franck wasn’t there, she would lock herself in the bathroom and hide all her toilet articles. She would wipe the sponge over the kitchen table two times rather than once, and empty her ashtray into a plastic bag that she would tie carefully before putting in the garbage. She tried to be as discreet as possible, hugging the walls, dodging the bad vibes and ultimately thinking that maybe she’d leave earlier than planned.
But she’d freeze up there . . . Never mind, she wouldn’t keep bumping into that stupid asshole; so much the better.
Philibert was sorry:
“But Camille, Camille, you are mu-much too intelligent to allow yourself to be in-intimidated by that oversized beanpole, don’t you see? You are a-above all that, aren’t you?”
“No, that’s just it. I’m on exactly the same level. That’s why it gets to me so much.”
“Whatever do you mean? You two are not even on the same planet! Have you, have you ever seen his ha-handwriting? Have you ever heard the way he laughs when he listens to that inane TV presenter’s vulgar commentary? Have you ever seen him reading anything besides the motorcycle blue book? He has the mental maturity of a two-year-old! Not his fault, poor fellow. I imagine he started up in a kitchen somewhere when he was still a boy and he has never done anything. You just have to let it go. Be more tolerant—‘stay cool,’ as you say.”
Camille didn’t answer.
“You know what my mother would say whenever I dared to evoke—in barely a whisper—even a quarter of half the horrible things my little roommates would in-inflict on me?”
“What?”
“ ‘Learn, my son, that toad’s drool cannot touch the white dove.’ That’s what she would say.”
“And did it make you feel better?”
“Not at all! Quite the opposite!”
“So you see . . .”
“Yes, but with you, it’s not the same. You’re not twelve years old anymore. And besides, it’s not a question of drinking the piss of some sn-snotty-nosed little kid.”
“They made you do that?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“Well, in that case, I can see that some bullshit about a white dove—”
“You might say that I never quite swallowed that white d-dove analogy. I can still feel it right here,” he laughed bitterly, pointing to his Adam’s apple.
“Huh.”
“And then the truth of it is really d-damn simple and you know it as well as I do: Franck is je-jealous. Jealous as a tiger. Put yourself in his place. He had the apartment all to himself, wandered in and out as he pleased, more often than not wearing just his underwear or in the wake of some terrified little goose. He could shout and swear and burp to his heart’s content, and our relationship was limited to a few exchanges of a practical nature on the state of the plumbing or the supplies of toilet paper.
“I almost never left my room and I used earplugs when I needed to concentrate. He was the king here. So much so that he must have felt like this was his place, so to speak. And then you came along and boom. Not only did he have to start zipping up his fly, but now he has to witness our shared affinities, as well, he can hear us laughing sometimes and he listens to bits of our conversation and probably doesn’t understand much of what we’re talking about. It must be rather hard for him, don’t you think?”
&
nbsp; “I didn’t think I was, um, taking up so much room.”
“No, you—you’re very discreet, on the contrary, but you want me to—to tell you what I think? I think he’s a bit intimidated by you.”
“What? Me? Intimidate someone? You must be joking. The man is simply dripping with scorn. I’ve never seen anything like it in my life!”
“Shh. He hasn’t got much culture, that’s a fact, but he’s far from being an ignoramus either, and you don’t exactly box at the same weight as his girlfriends, you know. Have you run into any of them since you’ve be-been here?”
“No ...”
“Well, wait till you see them. It is truly amazing. Whatever happens, I implore you, dear Camille, try to stay above the melee. For my sake.”
“But I won’t be staying here very long, I mean, you know that.”
“Neither will I. Neither will Franck, but in the meantime, let’s try to be good neighbors. The world is already a sufficiently dreadful place without us falling out, is it not? And you m-make me stutter when you say st-stupid things.”
Camille got up to switch off the kettle.
“You don’t seem convinced,” said Philibert.
“Yes, yes, I’m going to make an effort. But you know I’m not very good when it comes to power struggles. I usually throw in the towel before I try to defend myself.”
“Why?”
“Because.”
“Because it doesn’t take as much effort?”
“Yes.”
“That is not a good strategy, be-believe me. In the long run, you will end up losing.”
“I’ve already lost.”
“Speaking of strategies, I am going to attend a fascinating conference on the military art of Napoleon Bonaparte next week, would you care to join me?”
“No, but you go. I’m all ears: tell me about Napoleon.”
“Ah! A vast topic! Would you like a slice of le-lemon?”
“No, thank you. No more lemons for me! No more of anything, anyway.”
He rolled his eyes at her:
“A-above the melee, remember that.”
31
TIME Regained, as the name of choice for a place where everyone was going to move on to the sweet hereafter, was quite appropriate.