14
I TORE DOWN THE STREET at sixty kilometres an hour above the speed limit. I pulled in front of the building, hitting the edge of the sidewalk and bumping the car parked in front of me. The owner, a young executive loaded with insurance policies and high-risk investments, was just leaving Michel’s office. He looked at me as if to ask, “Who’s this jerk who’s not on his knees like the rest of us before the sacred object?”
I got out of my car as if there was nothing out of the ordinary. The guy walked slowly toward me, staring at his bumper, his mouth forming an O.
“That’s a new car!” he said in a strangled voice.
“Yeah, that’s obvious. It’s the gleam of the paint, I’d say.”
I was already making for the building when it occurred to him to block my way. I gave him a smile.
“Let’s settle this amicably and make a joint report,” he said.
“I don’t think you really want to do that. Things have been going badly lately and I’m not feeling what you’d call ‘amicable.’”
Changing his tone without warning, he grabbed me by the collar—I really liked that one—and asked, just between the two of us, who was going to pay for that scratch on his bumper. I took advantage of this moment of closeness to point out that the bulge he saw in my pants was not the result of his charm, but the shape of a metal object capable of doing much more than scratching a bumper.
Suddenly, he looked so vulnerable that it was almost touching. He stumbled to his car, and then, in his confusion, he put it in reverse and slammed into my car. A little more of this and I’d be in a good mood again.
On the third floor, I crossed the waiting room and planted myself in front of the secretary, with her kindly, grandmotherly smile—she was really happy to have this job and she was dripping with gratitude. I had to see Michel, it was urgent. She put her hand on her big book, intending to make me an appointment. I’d been there dozens of times as a friend and she did the same number every time. She’d hardly turned two pages when I headed past her desk toward the far door.
“Wait, you’re not allowed to go in there, he’s with a patient!”
That was the last thing I heard before I opened the door and walked in on Michel, who was locked in an embrace with a woman I didn’t know. This guy wouldn’t have been inside so many mouths if he’d gone into dentistry. They broke off, a bit embarrassed.
“Aren’t you going to kiss me too?”
“Couldn’t you knock like everybody else?”
“That’s true, excuse me. Who knows, I might have surprised you in the middle of an eye examination. Listen, I don’t want to spoil your extramarital affairs, but I don’t feel very well. You can imagine how bad I must feel if I’ve come to talk to you.”
He looked at his lady friend apologetically, gave a long “arghh,” and then introduced me as Eddy, incredible pain in the ass. She was Juliana. We shook hands, and I realized she looked vaguely familiar.
In circumstances such as these, to which Michel had unfortunately accustomed me, I would try above all not to think about Claire. Then it came back to me: I had seen this Juliana on the dance floor—moving rather gracefully, if I remember correctly—at the samba evening. They stared at the floor while I took the opportunity to present them with a new theory: it might be precisely for this reason that they call it “social dancing.”
“Listen, Eddy, it’s not what you think. Juliana knows Claire very well too.”
Oh, well, that’s even better!
“What I’m trying to make you understand is that Claire, Juliana and I … but why should I have to tell you all this, anyway?”
When he dug his heels in, this imposing hulk immediately commanded a certain respect. Juliana, tender, even bordering on maternal, stroked his arm with the back of her hand. Michel thought it would be better if she came back a little later, an opinion she seemed to share. I kept quiet while she gathered her things. “Don’t forget your prescription,” I couldn’t resist saying. When the door had closed behind her, Michel circled the office twice, his fists clenched, before coming up to me and sticking his index finger under my chin. He didn’t find this intrusion—or all the previous ones either—very funny. It was his office, it was his practice …
“Yes, and we can see how serious you are about it.”
He grabbed me by the shoulders and pinned me against the wall. It was maybe the fourth or fifth time in thirty years. On one of those occasions, he hadn’t been able to stop himself and his fist had landed on my cheek. I still remember that on particularly humid days.
“You know what, Michel, if you bashed my face in, I think I’d be grateful to you.”
“You and your little face, your little navel … Aren’t you getting tired of subjecting us to your tedious little self? You think you’re the only one struggling to keep going? Does the Earth have to stand still while you get back on your feet? I think it’s time I said something you won’t like.”
“Don’t worry, I already don’t like what you’re saying.”
He started pacing back and forth again, trying to decide whether to spit it out. Despite his total lack of taste, despite an aesthetic sense that was practically non-existent, Michel had a gift for histrionics. He knew how to put on a show. With a minimum of artifice, just a few paces in one direction, an ironic glance in the other, he could turn even the most banal conversation into a gripping spectacle.
According to him—to summarize a brilliant performance—I was nothing without Véronique. Without Véronique, I didn’t exist. For the past six years, I had not accomplished a goddamn thing and I was going downhill day by day.
“Have you looked at your house? And your garden? And look at the face on you.”
With respect to my garden, our views differed. Michel had on various occasions described it as an “abject failure.” Personally, I considered it a roaring success, not a sign that things were going badly for me, but rather an indication that I was trying improve things, that the quest for a new path was underway.
“Are you blind or are you a complete idiot? It has nothing to do with Véronique. Don’t you see what’s happening around you? Do you have any idea at all what’s wrong with this world?”
“Oh, please, Édouard, grow up.”
“What do you mean? What are you trying to say? Close your eyes, keep your mouth shut, spend money and screw women? Doesn’t it seem like a joke that we call altruism and goodwill toward others “humanity”? Don’t you think it’s an attempt to convince ourselves that we’re not completely mean and petty? Tell me, Michel, sincerely, when you take a good look at people, don’t you feel the same disappointment I do?”
“What could you possibly know about humanity? For six years you’ve been cutting yourself off from it.”
I couldn’t believe he didn’t, like me, feel that dull sadness that feeds on the most utter disappointments in the great reservoir of universal discontent.
“Don’t you feel the slightest little pang when you think about the whole mess?” I asked.
He looked at me for a moment with big, misty eyes and I felt, or wanted to feel, that he would have liked to say yes but it was beyond his ability.
“All this suffering around us, all these women, all these men, all these children, all these wasted lives … Just think about it, Michel, that makes a lot of disposable contact lenses!
He took a swing at my face. I tried to keep from falling by holding on to the back of a chair, but I sailed right over the arms and ended up on the floor. Michel looked at me, motionless, and frankly, although I wasn’t seeing perfectly clearly, I have to admit he didn’t appear to regret his action all that much. Nor did he show any interest in helping me get up. My mouth was full of blood, but my teeth seemed to have survived. I slowly got to my feet and picked up a cup from his desk. A long string of red-tinged spittle disappeared into the coffee. Finally, I turned toward him. I was a little wobbly and my speech wasn’t very clear.
“Am I to co
nclude from this that you’re not entirely in agreement with what I’m suggesting?”
He gave a sweep of his hand as if this simple gesture could erase everything. In short, he did what he was able to do best, avoid the subject.
“No, this time you’ll have to take the thought to its logical conclusion, Michel. This goddam time, you’re not going to stop till you’ve said everything you have to say.”
“You’re full of it, Eddy. That’s not what your problem is.”
I stuck my hand in my pants and pulled out the revolver. His jaw dropped. “Where the hell did you get that? Do you at least have a permit? What are you planning to do, exactly?” I just said, “Shut up, Michel, sit down, Michel, shut up and sit down, Michel.” In the end, I don’t know why, but my request finally got through to him. Having run out of questions, he walked around the desk and planted his butt on the chair.
“Now, you’re going to listen to me for once. And I swear to you, if I sense that your attention is wandering at all, I’m going to blow your knee to bits. I love you too much to kill you, but a knee, I could manage.”
“You give me that revolver right now, you piece of shit!”
“Shut up.”
Just then the door opened. I was so scared I almost shot him dead. Grandma stuck her head through the doorway and asked if everything was all right. And then she noticed the revolver. I had no choice, I had to make her come in and sit down with us. Michel placed a chair near his, explaining that she had nothing to fear, that I was a friend. That reassured her considerably. However, now I had lost my train of thought. The only thing that came back to me, that turned around and around in my head, was that since Véronique had left, I was nothing. I was so tired. So exhausted. Michel and Grandma looked at each other. I think they were a little overwhelmed by the situation. I wanted silence and stillness, I wanted nothing to change, nothing to evolve, nothing to develop anymore.
“What were you trying to tell me, Eddy?”
“I don’t know anymore.”
“Weren’t you explaining why you find the world unbearable, why life is so hard for you?”
“I don’t feel like it anymore, sorry, I’m not in the mood anymore.”
“Can I tell you something?”
“Yes, but think of your knees … ”
To hear him talk, I’d always been like this—suffering and injustice had always had a strong effect on me. Of course, my mother, my father, and the episode with Betty hadn’t helped. Only Véronique—and he didn’t know why—had been able to keep me in one piece. He was willing to acknowledge that she wasn’t the cause of my distress, but he still insisted that since I had got together with her, I had seemed happier. Hearing this made my fatigue and discouragement skyrocket.
Grandma didn’t understand a thing. Michel turned to her and explained that Véronique was my ex-wife, that we had separated six years ago, and that there was a good chance she was still in love with me.
“Poor boy.”
Then he took the trouble to recount how my son, who had been living with me one week out of two, had just moved in permanently with his mother, the aforementioned Véronique.
“Ohhh,” she said.
“And I’ve lost my job,” I added.
“You’ve lost your job!”
“Yes, I’ll tell you about it. I did something stupid. Oh, yes, and I slept with Simone.”
He just shrugged. He’d seen that one coming for a while. Grandma turned toward him questioningly. Michel explained: Simone’s a good friend of his, she’s a widow and is thirteen years older than he is. Grandma pursed her lips. Things were getting awfully complicated. She leaned over to him to whisper a question to him. Michel looked at her and shook his head. I was beginning to find them downright rude.
“What’s going on? What are you up to?”
“Nothing, nothing, take it easy.”
“I want to know what she asked you.”
“She wanted to know if this was a hostage taking.”
“Why did you say no? You don’t think this is a hostage taking?”
She leaned toward Michel again and whispered something.
What, what did she say this time?”
“She thinks you look tired.”
“I don’t want to see you whispering like that anymore.”
She felt it necessary to add that I looked like a guy who was suffering from depression. Of course, Michel took the opportunity to add that he’d been telling me that for months.
“He ought to know about it,” he said. “He’s had first-hand experience.”
“The two of you are getting on my nerves!”
“Well, then, would you mind explaining to me exactly what’s happening to you in one or two short sentences?”
I raised my head and looked my friend in the eye. The question was worth considering. It was true, what really was happening to me? I had wrecked every single thing in my life. I was sitting in an eye doctor’s office, a gun in my hand, a bunch of bodies—figuratively speaking, of course—around me, and my perfectly serious explanation for my behaviour was the state of the world. It didn’t add up.
There was a long silence. I think each of us was looking within. In this calm, an idea I had been turning over in my head for a while came back to me.
“Nothing lasts, and I can’t bear the idea of that. It’s too much. It’s only when I’m alone that I can breathe. But I think I’m closing myself off in solitude.”
“How about taking up a sport? Or developing a network of friends.”
“Oh shut up, Michel.”
I went back to my idea to explore it further. The only way to soothe the unbearable feeling of isolation was precisely to forget there was a world around me. To push it away, which I had already done, and then to forget it.
“I believe if I take that last step, if I get to that point, I’ll never be able come back again. I’ve got to grab hold of something or someone, or else I’ll end up cloistered in my garden.”
On the whole, I thought that summed it up pretty well. Michel and Grandma thought for a long time, and then Michel took a deep breath.
“Okay, let’s say you’re not depressed. Don’t you think therapy would still be more useful than a vasectomy?”
“You can be really deep sometimes, Michel. Tell me why I’m going to the trouble of saying all this. I might as well go to the zoo and tell it to a baboon. Have you got anything to drink?”
Of course he had something to drink. That’s what he did best. He took a bottle of Scotch from his hiding place and handed it to me, asking why I’d come to see him in the first place. Of course, I was beginning to feel too ashamed to tell him. I took a first swig.
“Do you want money, Eddy? Do you need money?”
“Not everything is about money, you know.”
“Okay, in that case, what did you want to tell me?”
I summoned up my courage.
“I wanted you to convince me not to go back and see Véronique.”
15
I ALWAYS SAY I DON’T KNOW why I love him, but it’s not true. Ever since the very first day, when he showed up in the schoolyard with his too-big pants that he kept hitching up—his father couldn’t even be bothered to buy him a belt—his hair falling in his eyes, his rubber boots even when the sky was clear and blue, and his way of looking at people sidelong as if they already represented a threat. It was right after Easter holidays, during morning recess. He dropped his bag on the ground and just stood there. The kids walked past him, wondering what he was up to, and Eddy, my future friend Eddy, waited. He wasn’t trying to create any effect at all. He was just being Eddy, eleven years old, hair and pants too long, scruffy from head to toe, waiting for the bell to go into his new school. The girls were watching him, making little comments. They were making fun of his appearance, but they already saw something special in him. It was obvious he came from a different world. For the same reason, the boys were eyeing him suspiciously. I knew what was in store fo
r him. Laurent would soon take things in hand.
I saw all this from the window of my classroom on the third floor. My teacher, Madame Drapeau, had decreed that while the other kids were out cavorting in the schoolyard, I had to stay at my desk and think: was it polite to look at the teacher’s bosom when she was speaking to us? I hadn’t answered, but I did think she could have been more discreet with those big breasts of hers.
Eddy was standing in the middle of the schoolyard and the other kids were already congregating around him. It was like a dance. Without even realizing it, the boys and the girls had made him the centre of their attention. The movement was subtle, but from where I was sitting, it was as if the whole schoolyard had begun to waltz slowly around him. In the distance were the mountains, and the wind was blowing cool air from there. Although I couldn’t see the river that flowed beneath them, I knew it was there. I waited for the end of classes every day the way a prisoner waits for the twenty-fifth year of a sentence, and every day I’d wander along the bank of the river, looking for dead fish, throwing pebbles and, with a little luck, coming across cigarettes or porn magazines some teenager had hidden there. Just catching my breath before going home.
My three brothers, my parents and I lived on a farm at the edge of the village. My fourth brother had hanged himself in the barn the previous fall. My father was the one who found him and cut him down. Thirty minutes later, he was still holding him in his arms. If my mother had been there, he would surely have put him down, but she was out. He carried him into the house to call the police. He held him the whole time it took for the authorities to get there. He patted his back, looking high up so as not to meet our eyes. And when he heard the cars turning into the gravel laneway—I remember the crunching sound—he went out into the yard still holding my brother in his arms. The policemen were a bit embarrassed. My huge father, a mountain, with his fourteen-year-old son in his arms, his face bloated and blue next to his own face, so pale. My brothers and I stood back and watched, glad that Carl would finally be gone and that the unbearable waiting was over. My little brothers clung to my leg or huddled against my hip. The police put his body in a bag and my father remained with his arms empty for the rest of his life.
A Slight Case of Fatigue Page 10