ALSO BY AMÉLIE ANTOINE
Interference
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Text copyright © 2016 Amélie Antoine
Translation copyright © 2017 Maren Baudet-Lackner
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Previously published as Au nom de quoi by Amélie Antoine in 2016 in France. Translated from French by Maren Baudet-Lackner. First published in English by AmazonCrossing in 2017.
Published by AmazonCrossing, Seattle
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Amazon, the Amazon logo, and AmazonCrossing are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.
ISBN-13: 9781503942608
ISBN-10: 1503942600
Cover design by Rex Bonomelli
To all those who were there. And to all those who were not.
CONTENTS
START READING
I BEFORE
1 ABIGAËLE
2 PHILIPPE
3 SOFIANE
4 BASTIEN
5 LÉOPOLD
6 MARGOT
7 DAPHNÉ
8 THÉO
9 LUCAS
10 ROMANE
II DURING
1 ABIGAËLE
2 PHILIPPE
3 SOFIANE
4 BASTIEN
5 LÉOPOLD
6 MARGOT
7 DAPHNÉ
8 THÉO
9 LUCAS
10 ROMANE
III AFTER
1 ABIGAËLE
2 PHILIPPE
3 SOFIANE
4 BASTIEN
5 LÉOPOLD
6 MARGOT
7 DAPHNÉ
8 THÉO
9 LUCAS
10 ROMANE
AFTERWORD
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR
Le deuil n’existe pas. On se souvient. On se souviendra toujours de tout. Dans les moindres détails.
There is no mourning. We remember. We will remember it all. Down to the last detail.
—Bertrand Betsch
I
BEFORE
1
ABIGAËLE
“There’s no need to stomp up the stairs! The only person you should be mad at is yourself.”
I spin around to glare at my mother, who is standing at the bottom of the stairs with arms crossed, triumphant and sure of herself. The furious snort that puffs suddenly out of my nose sends a strand of my hair flying. I’m livid and refuse to look away as a silent staring contest gets under way between us.
“Do you even know how much I paid for my ticket?”
“Do you expect me to care, Abi? The only things that matter are your grades, studying for the baccalaureate practice test, and your career plans. In other words, everything you find useless.”
“That’s all there is to life for you. School, school, school! God, Mom, that’s not what really counts! It’s like you were never a teenager, like you don’t even know what it means to have fun and relax.”
My mother shakes her head disdainfully.
“Relax? At seventeen you already need to ‘relax’? You poor dear. Please tell me what has you so stressed out. What party you’ll be invited to next? The next dress you absolutely must buy? Explain it to me, because I don’t understand . . .”
“As usual. You don’t understand anything.”
I turn around wearily and finish climbing the stairs to my room. I plug my ears to block out my mother’s chiding and kick my door shut as hard as I can. The framed photo on the wall falls to the ground, seemingly as disgusted as I am.
I hurry to hang it back up on its nail, perfectly straight, and run my finger over my best friend Clara’s face. The photo was taken in our high school courtyard last summer. One of her blonde dreads is perched under my nose like a mustache, and she’s holding a thick strand of my brown mane to her chin like a beard. Yet another ridiculous pose—it’s what we always do whenever someone takes our picture.
Clara’s been my best friend since we were little, but she’s so much more than that. She’s my confidante, my ally, my twin. We know everything about one another; we haven’t kept a secret from each other since we became friends at the age of four, when her family moved into the house next door. The first time I saw her was in our backyards. I still remember it clearly, even though my mother says there’s no way I could have any memories from that age. Clara was wearing a teal anorak with white fur trim on the hood. It fell over her eyes as she played in the dirt, squatting down to focus her attention on an earthworm squirming at the end of a stick she was holding. I said, “Yuck,” out of disgust and curiosity, and she wordlessly passed me the stick through the fence between our yards.
That’s how our friendship began: with an earthworm. We quickly fell into the habit of getting together after school to play catch, trade toys, or just tell each other about our lives, even if our discussions must have seemed trivial to adults.
After a few weeks, our parents cut a large rectangular hole in the fence that separated Clara and me. The two yards became one, and so did we, in a way. Everyone called us “Clara-N-Abi,” as if we were a single entity, a single person. Over the years, no other child managed to break up our inseparable duo, even when we were in different classes. In elementary school, we could hardly wait for recess; in middle school, it was the time between classes and lunch.
And now that we’re in high school, sometimes we don’t even wait for passing periods—we just skip school. When it’s warm, we hide behind a little hill in the school courtyard and lie in the thinning grass to smoke in secret. In the winter, we take refuge in the bathrooms, huddled against the radiator as we share the week’s gossip and talk about the guys we’ve got our eyes on, and the ones who are getting a little too friendly. Clara’s always chewing gum, and our discussions are regularly interrupted by bubbles popping and the sticky paste she pulls quickly off her nose.
Clara is an awesome friend and so laid-back. When I found out on Facebook that Ilan was going to the Eagles of Death Metal concert with his friends, she immediately agreed to come with me. Ilan is the senior guy I’ve been crushing on for a few months now. I wasn’t able to get close to him last year, but that’s because I was only a sophomore. Now that I’m a junior, I know there’s a chance he might look at me differently; I’m not a little girl anymore. I just need to find the right time to talk to him, to show him how cool I am, that we have things in common. A rock concert will be perfect. I’ve been listening to the band’s latest albums on repeat for three months now so I can show him I’m a real fan, even if I’d never heard of them before this summer. I’ve even started memorizing the words to the most popular songs.
All we have to do is find him at the concert. The Bataclan isn’t that big, so it shouldn’t be too hard. Clara and I will pretend we’ve run into him and his friends by accident, and that’ll be that. He’ll say, Wow, I had no idea you listened to this kind of music! and I’ll reply with as much nonchalance as I can manage, Are you kidding? I’ve already been to, like, three concerts. These guys are so amaaaazing. Maybe I’ll even ask Clara for a piece of gum to really fit in. I definitely don’t want Ilan to know it’s my first concert.
Anyway, that’s the plan I’ve been hatching since the first day of school. Because I hadn’t expected my mom to ground me for getting a C in math. What good is math anyway? I’m on the literary track for a reason, aren’t I?
/> Snuggled up in my comforter, I dial Clara’s number. She picks up on the first ring, like always.
“It’s me. My mom just told me I can’t go to the concert tomorrow night.”
“She’s a real pain in the ass, that one. Did you tell her that we’d already bought the tickets and that they weren’t cheap?”
“She doesn’t care. You know how she is.”
“So that’s it, then?”
“Are you kidding? She didn’t even ask me for the tickets; she’s too mad to think straight. We’ll just meet at Oberkampf. I won’t come home after school.”
“Works for me. You’re not worried about the fallout?”
“I just think it’s worth being grounded for another two weeks.”
“You must really be in looove, then!”
“I’m putting the odds in my favor, that’s all.”
“Suuure. Seven thirty at the Metro stop, then?”
“Perfect.”
I hang up with a smile and go open my closet. A jean dress with a black rhinestone belt will be perfect with my fitted leather jacket and a dark-blue wool beanie with metallic threads woven in for extra sparkle. It’s not really cold enough for hats yet, but I know it looks really good on me, and that’s what counts.
And turquoise tights, obviously.
I type a message on my smartphone at lightning speed: Wear turquoise tights, ok? Barely a second later, the answer arrives: Will do!
Clara and I have been wearing matching tights since we were little. It’s kind of our lucky charm.
My mother knocks softly on my door, then cracks it open cautiously, as if afraid I might throw a grenade at her face. “Can we talk for a few minutes, please?”
I put on the sullenest face possible and sit back on my bed. I squeeze my pillow tightly in my arms. Here’s hoping the lecture will be short and sweet.
2
PHILIPPE
The semi is hurtling toward me at what must be seventy miles an hour. I tighten my grip on the bridge’s guardrail as I look down at the highway. I lean my whole body forward until I can feel the metal bar almost under my ribs. The wind is howling in my ears, and I have to yell as loud as I can for Pascal to hear me.
“Lean over more! Lean like you’re going to jump, and make sure to look down!”
My friend and former colleague doubtfully lowers his head toward the asphalt and the roofs of the cars zooming by. At last, the semi passes under the bridge, under us, and for a fraction of a second, the breath is knocked out of me thanks to the incredible illusion that it’s brushed past me at full speed, pulling me in its wake. I burst into laughter, while Pascal simply raises his head again, unimpressed.
“So, isn’t it an incredible feeling when the truck goes past? Have you ever felt so . . . alive?”
“I dunno. Sorry, man, I must not have focused on it enough, but it’s nice of you to try.”
I sigh disappointedly.
“We can try again. It’s not like there’s any shortage of trucks.”
Pascal shakes his head. “No, that’s all right.”
I study his drawn features, the dark circles under his tired eyes, the corners of his mouth turned slightly downward. I’m almost certain they didn’t slump sadly like that before.
Before, meaning before he got fired eight months ago. Pascal and I were colleagues for a dozen or so years, long enough for him to become more a friend than a colleague—part of my family, even. The brother I’d always wished for, as my wife would say. We used to both be bus drivers, but now only I am. I don’t even know how they chose who to let go. Layoffs for financial reasons, they told us. Nobody’s fault, simply bad luck. Not enough passengers to be profitable, so we’re shutting down lines and we have to let drivers go too. That’s what they said. So they crossed Pascal off the roster, randomly, I guess. It could just as easily have been me.
Pascal often says, “When you’ve driven a bus your whole life, what else can you do?” And, well, I don’t know what to say, since I already feel awkward about being kept on. “Why me?” he asks, and all I can do is shake my head and sigh that life’s not fair. Not fair at all.
Now and then he finds a temp job doing inventory in clothing or big-box stores, but I know he feels out of place. “It’s a bunch of kids and they look at me like . . . like they hope they won’t still be there when they’re my age . . .” I tell him there’s nothing to be ashamed of, nothing at all.
I try to help him think about other things. Because I can see that he’s depressed, that he’s got the blues from sitting around doing nothing and expecting nothing. I can tell it drives him crazy to have to go to the unemployment office, that it makes him feel hopeless to realize he may never find another job and that he’ll have to keep living off his wife’s paycheck. I can tell he’s restless, that it’s driving him nuts to want something so badly and not be able to make it happen, to feel capable while being the only one who thinks he’s good for anything. He even tells anyone who’ll listen to take the bus; after all, he reasons, it might just create a need for drivers. Then maybe the company would think of him.
So we have a beer together after my shift; he comes to dinner at my place on the weekend with his wife. I take him to soccer games, try to find things to make him happy. Watching the trucks go by didn’t work, but other things do. I know Pascal. He’s a fighter. He’s going through a rough patch, but it won’t last. I mostly just want him to know he can count on me, that I won’t write him off.
“I’ve got a surprise for you!”
“Oh yeah?”
Pascal doesn’t seem very interested, but I’m enthusiastic enough for the both of us.
“I managed to get us two tickets to a great concert! On Friday, you and I are going on a little road trip to Paris, if you’re available.”
“I’m always available, you know that . . .”
It takes more than that to make me give up.
“Great. The drive takes a little over an hour, so we’ll leave late afternoon. Try to be a bit more excited because let me tell you, it wasn’t easy to rustle up these tickets!”
I’m not exaggerating either. The concert had been sold out for a while, and I’d scoured the ads for weeks to find someone who’d sell two tickets without trying to line his pockets as part of the deal. Monday night, I met up with the guy I’d been looking for—a certain Simon—in front of Gare du Nord. An hour each way just to get the tickets! It was easy to pick him out of the crowd: a wannabe rocker around thirty, with black jeans with holes in the knees, a black leather jacket, and sunglasses hooked onto his sweater collar, though there wasn’t the slightest glimmer of sunshine anywhere. I handed him the money for the tickets, but I could tell it was painful for him to let them go. Given his long face, I tried to seem interested.
“So why are you selling them anyway?”
“I was supposed to go with someone . . . but it fell through.”
“Oh . . . I’m sorry to hear that.”
Thinking about the hour-long train ride home, I slipped the tickets into my inner jacket pocket and started to move away, but the guy kept talking. He must have needed to get his feelings off his chest; they were clearly weighing on him.
“I actually bought the tickets for my girlfriend. But she broke up with me last weekend, so I don’t really feel like going anymore.”
“I understand . . . Don’t worry, there are plenty of fish in the sea!”
He made a pained face, a bit like the one my son makes when he’s embarrassed of me, so I quickly and awkwardly added, “Or maybe your girlfriend will ask you to get back together! You never know with women . . .”
He nodded half-heartedly—undoubtedly blown away by such polished philosophy and in-depth knowledge of womankind—and I hurriedly disappeared into the station and down the escalator to the suburban trains.
Seriously, though. I worked hard to get these tickets!
Pascal finally smiles.
“It’s nice of you to take your old pal out on the town.”
/>
“Stop acting like it’s such a chore for me! I’ve been dying for months to go to a real rock concert. And don’t tell me you won’t enjoy a chance to shake your legs out a little!”
“Next to all those kids, we’ll look like grandpas . . .”
“Well, we’ll show them that you can still like good music at nearly fifty years old.”
A semi passes under the bridge and I hurry to lean over the guardrail. The swoosh of air seems to yank me along behind it.
“Woo-hoo! Seriously, man, you don’t know what you’re missing! It’s an incredible feeling!”
Pascal bursts into laughter and gives me a firm slap on the back. I stifle the urge to tell him that I hate it when he does that; this is no time to be a killjoy.
When I get home, the smell of the homemade paella simmering in the kitchen makes my mouth water.
“I’m home!”
I hastily take off my jacket and hang it on the coat rack as my son, Félix, mopes past me. He stares at me furiously as he heads toward the dining room.
“Come on, Félix, don’t tell me you’re still mad about the concert!”
He shrugs, refusing to dignify the question with an answer.
“I could only get two tickets, okay? Pascal really needs something to cheer him up right now. Don’t you get that? Please? I’ll take you next time, promise . . . !”
3
SOFIANE
“Let me get this straight: you remember the date the tickets go on sale, sit in front of your computer on the big day feverishly pressing F5 to be the first to buy your ticket, lovingly stash it in your nightstand so you don’t lose it, go through your collection of their T-shirts to carefully select the one best suited to the momentous occasion, waste twenty minutes meticulously ironing a neon-green skull, and all that doesn’t even include the hour and a half you’ll spend on various trains actually getting to this concert?”
Héloïse pauses to catch her breath midtirade. I know all too well that it’s far from over.
“But you can’t even spend an hour of your precious time helping me plan the wedding that’s only three months away? Our wedding?”
One Night in November Page 1