Short Stories in French

by Richard Coward

  ‘Coward, nasty little chicken, sneak, bastard’ is what his brother Édouard said the next day, and he beat him with all his might, even punching him in the face, until David cried. That is why he left, for ever, because David had spoken to his mother, had said that it was better to die in prison.

  Then David suddenly feels tired. He looks back, and he sees the length of the avenue that he has come down, the blocks of flats, the cars, the lorries, everything is just like what is ahead of him. Where should he go? He goes to a bus stop and sits on the small plastic seat. On the floor are used tickets, thrown there by people. David picks one up, and when the bus arrives, he puts out his arm, and he gets on, and he punches the unused end of the ticket. He goes and sits down at the back, if an inspector gets on it is easier to get off before he reaches him. In the past, his brother Édouard took him to the stadium in this way, on Sundays, and with the bus money they bought gum. David preferred to buy a piece of warm bread from a baker’s. But today he does not have a single coin with which to buy bread. He thinks about the coin he threw down the hole in the pavement, perhaps he should have tried to fish it out, perhaps he’ll do it today?

  The bus drives along beside the bed of the dry river, where there are broad esplanades covered in stationary cars and wasteland without grass. There are now high walls standing on the bank of the river, with thousands of completely identical windows, in which the light of the sun is shining, as if it would never stop. Far, far away, but where is the town? Where is the sea, where are the dark alleys, the stairs, the roofs on which the pigeons coo? Here it seems that there has never been anything else, nothing other than these walls and these esplanades, and these wastelands where the grass does not grow.

  When the bus reaches its terminus, David begins to walk along the avenue, by the dry river. Then, seeing a stairway, he goes down to the river bed, and he sits on the shingle. The afternoon sun is burning hot, it dries everything up. On the river bed, amongst the piles of shingle, there are dead branches, bits of boxes, even an old mattress with rusty springs. David starts to walk on the shingle among the rubbish, as if he were looking for something. It is pleasant here, one can almost not hear the cars and the lorries any more, except from time to time a shrill screech of brakes, or perhaps a long blast on a horn which seems to bark beyond the walls of the blocks of flats. It is a place for rats and for stray dogs, and David is not afraid of them. All the same he picks a large stone off the beach, well polished and round, like the shepherd in the story he likes, and he puts it in his pocket. He feels more at ease with the stone.

  He stays for a long time on the bed of the dry river. Here, for the first time, he feels at peace, far from the town, far from the cars and the lorries. The light from the sun is already less bright, the sky is becoming veiled in mist. On either side of the river stand the blocks of flats, cement mountains with tiny windows like snake’s eyes. The sky is vast, and David thinks about the clouds that he used to like to watch in the past, lying on his back in the gardens, or even on the pebbles on the beach. Then, you could see the outline of angels, with the yellow reflection of the sun on the feathers on their wings. He did not speak to anyone about it, because you must not talk about angels to anyone.

  Today, now, perhaps they are going to come back, because they will have to. David lies on the river bed, as he did in the past, and he looks at the dazzling sky through his eyelids that are almost completely closed. He watches, he waits, he wants to see something go by, someone, even if it is a bird, to follow it with his gaze, to try to leave with it. But the sky is totally empty, pale and brilliant, it expands its emptiness, which hurts the inside of his body.

  It is so long since David felt this: like a whirlwind that is growing deep inside him, which pushes aside all limits, as if one were a tiny midge fluttering in front of a lighted headlamp. David now remembers the day when he looked for his brother Édouard, in and out of all the alleys, in all the squares, in the depths of courtyards, even by calling to him. It was a Sunday, it was cold, because it was still the middle of winter. The sky was grey, and there was a wind. But within him was an ever-increasing worry, unrestrainable, and his heart was beating, because his mother was waiting alone at home, motionless and cold on the chair, her eyes staring at the door. He had found him on the beach, with other boys of his age. They were sitting in a circle, protected from people’s gazes and the cold wind by the retaining wall of the road. When David had approached, one of the boys, the youngest, who was called Corto, had turned round and he had said something, and the others had remained still, but his brother Édouard had come towards him, and he had said harshly: ‘What do you want?’ And his eyes were strange and shining, as though he had a temperature, and they were frightening. As David stood there without replying, he had added in the harsh voice of a stranger: ‘Has she sent you to spy on me? Bugger off out of here, go home.’ Then Corto had come, he was a strange boy with a girl’s face and a long thin body like that of a girl, but with a voice that was deep for his age, and he had said: ‘Leave him. Perhaps he wants to play breathalyzer with us?’ His brother Édouard had not moved, as if he did not understand. Corto had said to David, this time with a strange smile on his face: ‘Come here, littl’un, we’re having a great game of breathalyzer.’ Then, mechanically, David had followed Corto to where they had been sitting in a circle on the pebbles and he had seen on the ground, in the middle, on a plastic bag, a tube of glue with the top on, and there was also a sheet of blotting paper folded in two, which the boys were handing round, and one after the other they put their face to the sheet and they breathed in, closing their eyes, and they coughed a little. Then Corto had held the sheet out to David, and he had said to him: ‘Go on, take a deep breath, you’re going to see the stars.’ And in the folded sheet of blotting paper there was a large blob of slimy glue, and when David had breathed in, the smell had gone all the way inside him in one go, and made him dizzy, and he had begun to tremble, then to cry, because of the emptiness that there was there, on the beach, near the dirty wall, with Édouard who had not been back home since the morning.

  Then something strange had happened. David remembers it very well. His brother Édouard had put his arm around him, and he had helped him to get up, and to walk along the beach, and he had walked with him through the streets of the old town, and he had gone into the flat, and his mother had not dared to say anything, not even to shout, yet he had stayed out all day, without even coming home for lunch, but he had taken him to bed, in the alcove, and he had helped him to get into bed, and afterwards he too had gone to bed. But it was not to sleep, because David had seen his open eyes looking at him until he had drifted off to sleep.

  It is just like that now, the whirlwind is coming back, digging its emptiness into his head and into his body and he is toppling as if he were falling into a deep hole. It is silence and loneliness that are the causes. David looks around him, at the stretch of dusty shingle, the rubbish which is littering the river bed, and he feels the weight of the silence. The sky is very bright, a little yellow because of the setting sun. No one ever comes this way, no one ever. It is a place reserved for the rats, and for the flat flies which seek their food amongst the refuse that men have left on the river bed.

  David is hungry too. He thinks that he has eaten nothing since yesterday evening, drunk nothing either. He is thirsty and hungry, but he does not want to go back towards the old town. He walks along the shingle beaches, as far as the stream which winds its slow course. The water is cold and clear, and David drinks slowly, kneeling on the shingle, his face almost touching the water. He feels a little better after drinking like that, and he has the strength to walk back up the river bed as far as an access ramp a little further upstream. This is where the lorries come to tip their loads, stones, rubble, mud.

  David leaves the banks of the dry river, he goes back to be amongst the houses, to look for something to eat. The white blocks of flats form a sort of semi-circle surrounding a large square covered in parked cars. At th
e far end of the square, there is a shopping centre, with a wide, dark door. The lights are already shining around the door, to make people think that night has come.

  David loves the night. He is not afraid of it, on the contrary, he knows that he can hide when it has fallen, as if he were becoming invisible. There are a lot of lights on in the supermarket. The people are coming and going with their little metal trolleys. David knows what he must do. It was his friend Lucas who had told him, the first time. You have to choose people with whom you are going to go in, carefully choose people who look respectable, with a small child perhaps. The best is grandparents who are pushing a trolley with a baby in it. They walk slowly, and they do not pay attention to what is around them, so you can go in with them, and pretend to be with them, sometimes in front, sometimes behind. The store detectives do not watch grandparents with children.

  David waits a little, in a corner of the car park. He sees a big black car stop, and out of it get a man and a woman who are still young, accompanied by their whole family, five children. There are three girls and two boys, the girls are tall and beautiful, with long dark blonde hair which cascades on to their shoulders, except for the smallest, who is four or five and who has brown hair. The two boys are between twelve and fifteen, they look like their father, they are tall and thin, their skin tanned by the sun, and their hair is chestnut brown. They walk towards the supermarket door in a group. The little girl has settled in a metal trolley, and it is the eldest girl who is pushing her, laughing loudly. The mother calls her, she shouts their names: ‘Christiane! Isa!’ And the boys run after them and stop the trolley.

  David follows them, at first from afar, then he goes into the supermarket with them. He is so near them that he can hear them talking, he listens to everything they say. The children go off in twos, they meet up again, they run, they come back, they even surround David, but without noticing him, as if he were just a ghost. They drag their parents towards the cake counter, and David takes advantage of this to pick up a loaf of bread that he eats slowly, slice after slice. The girls are beautiful, and David looks at them with almost painful attention. The electric light shines on their blonde hair, on their blue or red plastic anoraks. The oldest is called Sonia, she must be sixteen, and it is her that David looks at the most. She is so sure of herself, she talks so well, with her singsong voice, as she pushes back the strands of hair that fall on her cheeks, which brush against her lips. David thinks about his brother Édouard, about his dark, hard face, about his black eyes which were burning with fever, he thinks about Corto as well, on the beach, about his troubled look, about his pale complexion, about the brown blotches that dirtied his face, he thinks about the cold wind on the deserted beach. The children are moving around him, shouting, laughing, calling to each, other. David eagerly listens to their names which are ringing out: ‘Alain! Isa! Dino! Sonia! …’ At one moment, the parents turn round, they look in astonishment at David, who is eating his slices of bread, as if they were going to say something to him. But David turns away, he stops and lets them go on, then he begins to follow them again, but at a distance. As he goes past the biscuit counter, he chooses a packet of cheese biscuits, and he begins to nibble them. But they are too salty and they make him thirsty. So he puts down the opened packet and he picks up a box of fig biscuits, which he adores. In front of him, the family is piling up a lot of things in the trolley, biscuits, mineral water, milk, bags of potatoes, packets of pasta, soap. The trolley is so heavy that it is the two boys who are now pushing it, and the little girl is sucking her thumb, looking bored.

  David thinks that he would like to follow them like this all his life, to the end of the world, to their home. In the evening they would be going back into a beautiful, light house, surrounded by a cool garden filled with flowers and willows, and they would all be eating around a large table, like those you see at the cinema, where there would be all sorts of dishes, and fruits, and ice-creams in tall dishes. And their parents would talk to them, and they would all tell stories, long stories, which would make them laugh loudly, and then it would be time to go to bed, first little Christiane, and one after the other, they would tell her a story to make her go to sleep, until her eyes closed, then they would go to lie down in their own beds, each one would have a bed of their own, with sheets decorated with patterns like you see, and the bedroom would be big and painted in pale blue. And before going to sleep, Sonia, in a night-dress, with her long blonde hair tumbling on her shoulders, would appear and she would give him a kiss, with the tip of her lips, and he would feel the warmth of her neck, and smell the scent of her hair, just before drifting off to sleep. It would be exactly like that, David can see it as he closes his eyes.

  Now they are going past the fruit counter, and they stop to make their choice. David comes back into their midst, he so much wants to hear their voices again, to smell their scent. He stops just next to Sonia, and for her he chooses a fine red apple, and he holds it out to her. She looks at him in slight astonishment, then she smiles sweetly and she says thank you to him, but she does not take it. Then the family move away again, and David eats the apple slowly, his eyes slightly misted with tears, not understanding why he wants to cry. He watches them move off to the other end of the large shop, turn behind a mountain of beer bottles. Then, without hiding, he goes out of the supermarket, passing between the tills, and he goes and finishes his apple outside, while watching the night which has settled over the car park.

  He stays there for a long time, sitting on a cement boundary stone, near the exit to the car park, watching the cars turn on their headlights and leave. One after the other, their doors are banged, and then they slide into the distance, they disappear, with their red lights and their indicators. In spite of the cold of the night, David enjoys seeing the cars drive away, as they do, with their lights and the reflections on their bodywork. But he must watch out for policemen, and the security men. They have black cars, sometimes mopeds, and they drive slowly around the car parks looking for thieves. Suddenly David sees someone who is watching him. It is a tall, strong man, with a cruel face, who has come out of the supermarket via a service door and who has walked noiselessly along the road, behind David. He has reached him now, he looks at him and his eyes are shining strangely in the light from the front of the supermarket. But he is not a security man, or a policeman. He has a bag of popcorn in his hand and from time to time he flattens his hand over his mouth to swallow the puffed-up maize, always looking in David’s direction, with his black and very shiny eyes. From time to time David looks at him out of the corner of his eye, and he sees him coming nearer, he hears the noise made by his big hand when it delves into the bag of popcorn. He is now quite close, and David’s heart begins to beat very loudly, because he remembers the stories that are told at school about mad, obsessed men who kidnap children in order to kill them. At the same time fear prevents him from moving and he remains seated on the cement boundary stone, looking straight ahead of him at the almost empty car park in which the light from the lamp-posts is making large yellow patches.

  ‘Do you want some popcorn?’ When David hears the man’s voice, he has spoken softly, but with something which trembles a little, as if he too were afraid. David leaps from the boundary stone, and begins to run as fast as he can towards the car park entrance, where there are still some stationary cars. As soon as he gets past one car, he stops, lies flat on the ground and crawls under the cars, moving from one to another, then he stops again and looks around him. The man is still there, he has run after him, but he is too fat to bend down, he is striding past the cars. David sees his legs go by, move away. He waits a little, and crawls in the opposite direction. When he comes out from under a stationary lorry he sees the silhouette of the man a long way off, as he walks away, looking around him.

  David is less afraid now, but he no longer dares to walk in the night. The back of the lorry is covered with a tarpaulin, and David undoes one side, and he slides under the tarpaulin. The metal base is cold,
covered in cement dust. Near the driver’s end, David finds some old canvas, with which he makes a bed. Hunger, fear, and all that day spent walking outside have made him tired. He lies down on the canvas, and he goes to sleep listening to the sound of engines going past on the road, alongside the dry river. He perhaps thinks again about his brother Édouard, alone like him in the night, tonight.

  When dawn breaks, even before it is light, David wakes up. The cold of the night has made him sore, as has the hard floor of the lorry. The wind is making the tarpaulin flap noisily, lifting it up and blowing it down, letting in the cold, damp air and the grey light of dawn.

  David gets out of the lorry and walks across the car park. The main road is deserted, still lit by the yellow pools from the lamp-posts. But David likes this time, so early that all the inhabitants of the town seem to have fled far away into the hills. Perhaps they will never come back either?

  Without hurrying, he crosses the road and walks along the quay. Down below the dry river is vast and silent. The shingle bed stretches as far as the eye can see upstream and downstream. In the middle, the thin trickle of water flows indefatigably, still dark, the colour of night. David goes down the access ramp to the river, he walks along the shingle. It seems to him that the sound of his footsteps must be waking up animals that are still asleep, big flat flies, horseflies, rats. When he gets near the water, he sits on his heels, he watches the current flowing strongly, creating eddies, digging out swirls.

  The light is getting gradually brighter, the grey shingle is beginning to shine, the water is becoming clearer, transparent. There is a sort of mist which is rising from the river bed, with the result that David can no longer see the banks, nor the lamp-posts, nor the ugly houses with their closed windows. He shivers, and with the tip of his hand he touches the water, grasps it in his fingers. He does not know why but he suddenly thinks of his mother who must be waiting for him in the dark flat, sitting on a chair by the door. He wanted to return with his brother Édouard, now he knows that is why he left, and he also knows that he will not find him. He had not wanted to think about it in order not to attract bad luck, but he believed that fate would guide him through all those streets, those boulevards, to the midst of all those people who know where they are going, towards the place that he did not know. He has found nothing, fate does not exist. Even if he looked for one hundred years, he would not be able to find him. He now knows that, without despair, but as if something had changed within him, and he would never be the same again.