A Slight Case of Fatigue

by Stephane Bourguignon

  19

  MY SON AND I DROVE into the parking lot of the hotel in my sputtering old car. Chance has a way of sticking its nose in everywhere, and the only space available was next to Philippe’s BMW. Maxime had finally fallen asleep, exhausted by our long, deep conversation. I stuck my rod in my belt—I was even starting to have fun with the vocabulary—and got out of the car and walked around to the back of the hotel.

  I had been hoping to find Véronique on the beach and I was taken aback when she wasn’t there. I looked at the building, which had about thirty rooms, and I imagined her reading somewhere within those walls, stretched out comfortably on a bed. I decided to ponder my next move sitting on the sand, facing the lake.

  Then this pretentious little bugger showed up, with the earnestness of a guy who’s setting out to swim the English Channel. I thought right away that it might be Philippe, and when Véronique appeared on a balcony shortly after, I deduced that my intuition was correct. Could she identify me at this distance? I decided not to do anything hasty. I was okay like this, unmoving—and probably anonymous—somewhere in the warmth of her field of vision. Yet when I saw her disappear into the room, I felt a sense of loss. That’s probably why, as soon as she stepped outside again, I waved to her. But she didn’t recognize me.

  When Philippe came out of the water, I beckoned him to come over to me. Even though he was on the thin side, not very big and, I have to say, kind of silly-looking, I could imagine that some women might find him appealing.

  “Was it good?”

  “Fantastic, as usual.”

  I looked into his eyes to see if he had any idea of who I was. Véronique might have shown him family snapshots or, who knows, maybe they had spotted me one day in a public place and, after pointing me out and whispering that it was me, the troublemaker, she had taken his arm and discreetly led him away.

  But no, Philippe was simply happy to have a little chat with a stranger. He started talking about this bloody lake that he’d known ­forever, and how the sky … and how the mountains … and how the underground springs made the water there more … so … such a … I let him prattle on, holding my hand up to shade my eyes from the sun and nodding from time to time. And as soon as he stopped:

  “I think I know your girlfriend. On the blue balcony there?”

  “Yes … ”

  “Véronique, right?”

  He nodded, full of enthusiasm. He must have been imagining that we’d have a drink together and talk and, why not, maybe share a table in the dining room. He was already rubbing his hands at the thought of talking business for a few hours. Just then, Véronique reappeared on the balcony. She tried her best, and not very subtly either, to get him to go back to the room—Maxime might have alerted her—but that nice Philippe, blinded by excitement, insisted instead that she come down to the beach.

  When Véronique came down, my buddy Phil was swearing to me that if it weren’t for those damn allergies, he would certainly have bought a house in the area. What was Véronique wearing under her bathrobe? Her hair was a bit mussed, and it made her even more ­beautiful. I had always loved her more with a lock of hair out of place. The idea of undoing her perfection, messing up her impeccable image, had kept us going sexually for more than ten years. It was very ­exciting to see her lose control and sacrifice her composure for the sake of ­pleasure. In short, Philippe could pontificate as much as he wanted—as soon as she entered my field of vision, I only had eyes for her. I loved her bare feet, which I had seen hundreds of times coming toward me in sand, on the living room carpet, in cool grass, I loved them even when they were walking away.

  “Hi, Véronique,” I whispered.

  “What a coincidence!” exclaimed Philippe. “Don’t you think so, honey?”

  Véronique didn’t even deign to glance at him. She was staring at me with extraordinary intensity. She knew I was armed, Maxime had warned her, I was sure of it now. I knew I was going way too far, but I couldn’t keep from smiling.

  “What are you doing here, Édouard?”

  Phil stiffened.

  “I’ve come to talk.”

  “I’m having a romantic weekend, we’ll talk on Monday.”

  “In that case, I’m going to sit here and wait for you to change your mind.”

  And that’s what I did. I sat myself back down on the hot sand, ­facing the lake. Véronique gave a sigh of exasperation.

  “How old are you anyway, Édouard?!”

  Philippe tried to pull her away, explaining that she just had to ignore me and I’d get tired and go home. He obviously didn’t know what I was made of. Véronique replied that I was perfectly capable of ­spending the summer on that spot and they’d find me there in the spring when the snow melted.

  A pair of lovers walking by turned toward me smiling, and I took advantage of the situation to yell that I wanted to talk to my wife and that it seemed to me to be a perfectly legitimate request. They ­nodded politely before hurrying away.

  “I don’t think this is the proper way to do things,” Philippe hissed between clenched teeth. If Véronique doesn’t want to talk to you, that’s her right.”

  I’d had it with this guy. I was pissed off at him for sleeping with Véronique and I was pissed off at him for loaning a sixty-thousand-dollar car to an eighteen-year-old kid.

  “Listen, buddy, I have twenty years of history with this woman, I have a son with this woman, we’ve done everything, she and I, we’ve loved each other, we’ve screwed, we’ve fought and we’ve cleaned each other up. I don’t think I need some guy who hasn’t even been around for three months to come and tell me what I can or can’t expect from her.”

  I hadn’t just tossed those words out, I had savoured them, with my eyes locked on my wife’s.

  Mister Cool-Calm-and-Collected warned me that if I kept on this way, he would be obliged to alert the authorities. But Véronique knew what she was doing—or maybe she didn’t anymore—and she ordered him to be quiet.

  “I think Véronique is right, Phil, you ought to shut up.”

  “Édouard, I forbid you to speak to him that way.”

  I took out my revolver, and I must say the dynamics of the discussion suddenly altered. I was beginning to enjoy this. I wondered if I was going to feel the same pleasure when I started dispensing ­bullets.

  “Come with me to the room, Véronique, I want to talk to you.”

  I turned to Philippe and gave him a look that convinced him he’d best make himself scarce for a few hours.

  “And if you call the police, I swear I won’t be responsible for my actions. Understand?”

  He nodded. Véronique gestured to him not to worry, that she had the situation under control. I realized she wasn’t taking me completely seriously. So I fired a bullet in the air to get the respect I deserved. The shot rang out, echoing back three times very clearly, and then an impressive silence settled over the lake. Everyone had turned toward us, open-mouthed.

  I spotted Maxime on the balcony of the room. He was gripping the railing. I was too far away to see the expression on his face, and that was just as well. It would probably have been too much for me.

  20

  I RAISED MY ARM and shouted that it was a joke, that the gun was loaded with blanks. I remained calm, the incident receded in my mind, the process of division occurred and all the parts fell back into place.

  I couldn’t say the same for Édouard. He was staring at a point behind me, looking distraught. I turned around and saw Maxime hanging on to the railing. I didn’t fear for his health, not even for a second. After this episode had been put through the sieve, it was absolutely clear that, given the angle of the shot, the bullet couldn’t have hit anyone. I gestured to my son that everything was fine and I took Édouard by the hand.

  Yes, I took Édouard by the hand and led him to the hotel. Philippe no longer existed, the people whose eyes were following us no longer existed, there was only Édouard and me. I was holding his clammy hand in mine, and I had to keep tigh
tening my grip to prevent him from getting away. I didn’t look at him for the four or five minutes we were walking. I couldn’t imagine the expression on his face. Was he ­smiling? Was he devastated? Was he bowing victoriously to his audience? Was he looking at my ass, which my robe probably didn’t show at its best? In retrospect, I believe I imagined him a bit like a child being led across the street with his little hand in mine. The other image, which I can name now, was of a woman leading her lover to a more private place away from prying eyes. I think the two feelings were jumbled together. But mainly, I believed Édouard needed help, that he was at the end of his rope and it was up to me to come to his rescue.

  When he raised the gun in the air … it was when he had the gun in the air and the detonation sounded in my ears—and his swollen lip, and his fist in the air—something was released very deep within me. I gave way, I felt myself give way. The feeling was like a dam bursting. As if millions of cubic metres of water that had been held back too long had suddenly begun a terrifying movement. This man, with his irresistible power, his capacity to stand strong and straight against the forces of nature … two hours on the road to get here, with a revolver pointed at his son, just to talk to me. This made Philippe’s feelings for me seem vapid and insignificant.

  I opened the door of the room, and when I saw my son, I remembered that I’d spent a whole life with this man I was holding by the hand and that it had all gone down the drain.

  “Sorry, son,” said Édouard right off.

  Maxime couldn’t look at anything but his father’s hand in mine. Before I could see in his eyes what this gesture might look like from the outside, before I could become aware myself that I had actually been holding Édouard’s hand all this time, walking toward a hotel room where an unmade bed took up the whole room, I ordered him to go have a drink with Philippe and wait for us.

  My tone was deliberately curt. Not to make Maxime understand the gravity of the situation, but for me, to get a hold of myself, to pull myself together, to strengthen my resolve. Maxime left, and I closed the door and leaned against it for a few seconds to reassure myself that the four walls of the room weren’t closing in on me.

  Édouard walked across the room. I had seen this man walk into dozens of hotel rooms and I knew the first thing he would do, before even checking out the view, would be to find the mini-bar. He took out two beers and two little bottles of scotch and came over to me.

  “How many years has it been since we toasted something?”

  “Can I start by telling you that it wasn’t brilliant to go around with a gun in front of your son?”

  “You should try it, I’m sure you’d like it. You waste a lot fewer words. Even if you whisper, people are able to understand you. They pay extraordinary attention.”

  He gulped down the little bottle of scotch and opened his beer.

  “If you’re going to drink, I want you to give me your gun.”

  He handed it to me without a word and I put it in a drawer of the dresser, as if that made any difference. Then I sat down and asked him what he wanted of me. He declared as calmly as could be that he had been thinking more and more about me. That since my last visit, for some unknown reason—maybe the fact that he’d seen my panties, those were his exact words—a lot of images of our past life had come back to him. I watched him giving his little spiel as nonchalantly as if he were going over a grocery list, and I felt a pang. My stomach was in knots and my legs were crossed so tight that my right foot was numb.

  “And is what you see nice or is it ugly?”

  “Hard to say.”

  He looked around as if he couldn’t believe it.

  “Do you know how long it’s been since we’ve been together in a hotel room?”

  There was something unbearable in his eyes. Ten years ago, that would have bowled me over and my clothes would have dropped to the floor.

  “With my lover and our son waiting for us in the lobby?”

  “Don’t be sarcastic, you know what I mean … ”

  “And with a gun in the dresser?”

  He laughed and then got up and went to look at the view. I took advantage of the fact that his back was turned to rearrange my bathrobe. He came back, chuckling. He couldn’t believe this was us, the young couple in love that had spent two weeks in Bulgaria sixteen years ago. And especially that I, who was crossing my legs so tight at the moment, had managed to get used to the idea of peeing in the ­little sink in the room.

  “I’d like to remind you that I went there to please you. I would have preferred Jerusalem.”

  I knew when I spoke that word that I was reopening a forbidden drawer. Édouard’s face brightened, he came close to me, bubbling with excitement, and he asked if I knew how many women at that time wanted to go to Jerusalem. And how many of them would have agreed to go to Sofia instead.

  “I must have loved you a lot.”

  The words came out of someone else, some other woman. The voice was vaguely familiar, but I was still too far away to recognize it.

  “I must have loved you a lot,” I repeated, to give myself a second chance to identify it.

  A new space opened up within me, as if I had discovered a forbidden room while tearing down a wall in an old house.

  “Would you go to Jerusalem now?”

  “Now I’m tired, my work takes a lot out of me and when I’m on vacation, I want to take it easy. And my idea of taking it easy doesn’t involve my ex-husband showing up with a shotgun.”

  “A revolver.”

  “Whatever.”

  “I loved that woman.”

  “Oh no, don’t bring out your heavy artillery, please … ”

  “I loved that woman who wanted to see Jerusalem.”

  “Then why did you take her to Sofia?”

  “You loved Sofia!”

  “I hated Sofia!”

  I laughed like a fool before adding, as if to justify either the trip or the laughter, that I was quite young then.

  “Come on a trip with me.”

  When he spoke those words, my being split into two distinct parts: a young woman, loving, open and ready to believe the most absurd promises life can bring; and a mature woman, in control, with no ­illusions. I decided to do everything possible to ignore what those two women thought of each other. But it was too much for me.

  How could he imagine I would want to go off on a trip with him? What gall! And yet, part of me was already raising the armrest on the airplane seat so I could put my head on his lap. Part of me was already walking in a strange city for hours and hours, complaining that my feet hurt, until he, like a jerk, asked if my feet were bothering me by any chance.

  “Come to Jerusalem with me.”

  “Just what are you trying to do?”

  I was ready to do anything so as not to feel this division within me. I looked over to the dresser, looked at the drawer where I’d put the revolver, and imagined myself walking toward him, emptying the magazine and shouting, “Shut up, I forbid you to say things like that, shut your mouth!”

  “Eddy, I think it would be best if you left. I don’t feel well. All this is pointless, you don’t believe it yourself.”

  “You called me Eddy. It’s been years since you called me Eddy. I’m touched.”

  “Oh, please, don’t get sentimental. It doesn’t suit you. And besides, you always hated being called Eddy.”

  “Drink your scotch.”

  I couldn’t believe it. I nodded and smiled, completely at a loss, and downed the little bottle in one gulp.

  “You’re dangerous. That’s what you are.”

  “Or worse.”

  What did he mean by “worse”? What could be worse than this ­invitation six years after leaving me?

  “Or worse, kiss me, right now.”

  21

  “YOU KNOW HOW MANY women at that time wanted to go to Jerusalem? And how many of them would have agreed to go to Sofia instead?”

  “I must have loved you a lot,” she said.

/>   Her eyes were shining, I’m sure of it. Unless it was another world I saw gleaming there. “I must have loved you a lot,” she repeated, shaking her head. Then she looked up, taking a deep breath. She was looking at the ceiling, but she was seeing beyond it to the sky and into outer space. I felt as if I could plunge back in time through the place she had unlocked in her eye.

  “Would you go to Jerusalem now?”

  I saw her lips moving. I saw her smooth her hair and smile sadly, bowing her head. I saw her getting angry. I saw all that, but I wasn’t listening to her.

  “I loved that woman,” I said.

  I could still feel my hand in hers. But it wasn’t enough, I wanted to bring back other memories. My arm around her waist. My lips on her neck. My knee between her thighs. My hand flat on her belly. My cheek against her spine. I wanted to feel it all at one time, like ghosts flitting around my neck, around my waist, between my legs. My whole body was in a state of alert. The hair on my head and body stood on end and I could feel the roots tighten under my skin, which had shivers running through it, while bright, nourishing blood crackled like an electric arc in my dilated blood vessels.

  “I loved that woman who wanted to see Jerusalem.”

  I wanted her so much I could hardly see straight. And although a little voice managed to reach me from time to time—“What are you doing, Édouard? You have no right to lead her into this”—I silenced that little voice with a snap of my fingers and continued to deploy my weaponry.

  “Come on a trip with me.”

  She cracked open right in front of my eyes. The fissure began at the corner of her mouth and spread across her face, aging her features, making her mouth sad and her eyes mad. I could feel her anguish. It was years since I had seen her so vulnerable, on the verge of disintegration, I’m not even sure I had ever seen her like this. Contrary desires seemed to be assailing her one after the other in quick succession.