The Reader on the 6.27

by Jean-Paul Didierlaurent

  So this early spring morning, I roamed my tiled domain, pen and notebook in hand, to embark on the great annual inventory of my terracotta tiles. My progress obeyed a Cartesian logic which consists of going from the easiest to the most difficult, from the most to the least accessible. The count also begins with the two huge walls running either side of the staircase down to my kingdom. Followed by the north and west walls, at the junction of which is the little table that serves as my desk. Not forgetting as I walk past to open the two cupboard doors to list the few tiles covering the partitions, white tiles plunged in darkness from dawn to dusk amid the brooms, buckets, bottles of detergent and floor cloths. From time to time, I have to suspend the counting operation to note down the results in my spiral notebook. I push open the big swing door to the women’s section with my shoulder.

  There, I cast my sharp eyes over the mirror surround, the tiled surface around the washbasins, and the splashbacks. After inspecting each of the eight cubicles, gazing into the dark nooks and crannies to pick out the tiles hidden in the gloom, I do the same on the men’s side, which is identical to the women’s except for the six urinals gracing the back wall.

  I sat down at the table, grabbed the electronic calculator from the drawer and impatiently entered the figures written down in my notebook. As always, my heart began to race as my finger pressed the EXE key for the grand total. And of course, as always, the same depressing number appeared on the screen: 14,717. I’m still dreaming of a warmer, rounder number, a more visually appealing number. A number containing a few nice bulbous zeros, even some deliciously plump eights, sixes or nines. A curvaceous three, as ample as a wet nurse’s bosom, would be enough to make me happy. A number like 14,717, is all bones. It exposes its skinniness directly, assails your retina with its sharp angles. Whatever you do, once written down, it always remains a series of fractured straight lines. It would only take one tile more or less to give that unappealing number the beginnings of an attractive curve.

  I put the calculator back in its case with a sigh. 14,717. Once again I’m going to have to be content with that ungainly number for the coming twelve months.

  Guylain reread the piece three times, even though his eyes smarted with exhaustion from his day’s labour. And each time, he felt the same enchantment in this woman’s company. He made himself a strong black tea and printed all the documents out, then snuggled under the duvet to start on the second file. Late into the night, Guylain read each of the seventy-two entries, devouring them with pleasure. After skimming over the last page, he fell asleep, full of this Julie, and her little tiled world, who had just burst into his life.

  16

  That morning, Guylain counted nothing on his way to the station. Nothing. Not his footsteps or the plane trees, or the parked cars. For the first time, he didn’t feel the need. In the dawn light, the graffiti tag on the metal shutter of La Concorde bookshop seemed more colourful than usual. He felt the pleasant weight of his leather briefcase in his right hand, swinging to the rhythm of his strides. Further down, he cleaved through the billows of hot fat spewing out non-stop from the small basement window of the butcher’s shop, Meyer & Son, without the slightest feeling of nausea. Everything around him glistened and twinkled. The shower in the middle of the night had glazed each object, making it beautiful. At number 154, he did not fail to greet the old-man-in-slippers-and-pyjamas-under-his-raincoat. The old boy smiled with pleasure at the sight of Balthus, who was watering the base of his tree with a long, powerful stream.

  Guylain climbed up the steps to the platform and stood on his white line. It stretched out into the greyness, whiter than ever. The 6.27 arrived on the dot of 6.27. The folding seat opened without protest when he lowered it. He took the cardboard folder out of the briefcase at his feet. Although the ritual was no different from any other day, it was plain to the more sharp-eyed observers that the young man’s movements were less mechanical than usual. The disquiet that habitually set his features in a sad mask had vanished. Those same observers could also see that the blotting paper and onion skins had been replaced by ordinary A4 sheets. Without even waiting for the train to depart, Guylain began reading the first extract, labelled 8.doc, in a steady voice:

  ‘I like to get to the shopping centre early. Slide my pass into the electronic lock of the little side door at the far end of the car park. The unprepossessing steel door completely covered in graffiti is my entry point. As I walk down the central mall towards my domain, the only sound is that of my footsteps echoing off the shops’ metal shutters. For the rest of my life, I will remember what my aunt said to me one day when she took me to work with her. All of eight years old, I scampered along beside her down this same mall. “You are the princess, my little Julie, the princess of the palace!” The princess has grown older, but the realm has barely changed. A completely deserted realm of over 100,000 square metres, awaiting only its subjects. I greet in passing the two beefy night security guards finishing their final walkabout before going home. They often say something nice about me. I always stop and stroke the head of their muzzled sheepdog as I go past. He’s really a big softie, Nourredine, his master once told me. I love this particular moment when the planet seems to have stopped spinning, suspended between the nascent daylight and the darkness of the fading night. I tell myself that one day perhaps the earth will not resume its rotation and will stay frozen forever as night and day each stand firm in their respective positions, plunging us into a permanent dawn. Then I tell myself that, bathed in this crepuscular glow that gives everything a pastel hue, wars will perhaps be less ugly, famines less unbearable, peace more everlasting, the idea of having a lie-in less appealing and the evenings longer, and that only the white of my tiles will remain unchanged, preserving its lustre under the cold neon lights.

  At the intersection of the three main malls, the big fountain sings its comforting glug glug. A few coins gleam at the bottom, coins thrown in by lovers or superstitious lottery players. I sometimes toss one in as I walk past, when I’m in the mood. Just for the pleasure of seeing it twinkle as it twirls down to the bottom. Perhaps too because that eight-year-old who’s waiting for her Prince Charming to come and set her free at last is still inside me. A real Prince Charming who, having parked his magnificent steed in the car park (an Audi A3 or a DS with a leather interior, for instance), will pop into my dwelling to empty his bladder then sweep me up in his arms and carry me off for a protracted love affair. I’d better stop reading True Romance. That stuff gets me all hormonal.

  I cascade down the fifteen stairs to my workplace in the bowels of the shopping centre. I insert my second fob to activate the mechanism that raises the metal shutter. It makes a terrifying clatter, as if, above my head, giant jaws are crunching the metal as it is swallowed up by the ceiling. Then I have an hour of “me time” until the doors open and the customers arrive. This is the hour I spend at my little camping table revising what I wrote the previous day and typing it onto my computer. I love the idea that my thoughts have matured overnight, like dough left to rise which you find in the morning all puffed-up and sweet-smelling. And to my ears, the clicking of the keys on my keyboard is the most beautiful music. When I’ve finished, I put my computer away in its case and don the sky-blue overall that is my uniform. A hideous polyester thing that makes me look like a post-office clerk from the 1970s. If people judge by appearances, then as my aunt would say, “Let Saint Harpic, the patron saint of lavatory attendants, be damned!”

  It’s time for Josy and breakfast. Josy (she hates being called Josiane) is the shampoo girl at the hair salon on the first floor. She is everything that I am not. She’s in beauty; my world is ugly. She’s frivolous; I’m more of the serious type. She’s exuberant; I’m more uptight and repressed. Maybe that’s why Josy and I get on so well. When she walks in, it’s like a ray of sunshine. We tell each other our woes and our joys over a croissant and a coffee. We chat, we talk about our customers. How this one asked for his hair to be dyed apple green, how another b
roke one of my flushes because the idiot hadn’t realized you had to push not pull. We solve all the world’s problems, tell each other our dreams and giggle like pubescent schoolgirls, then say have a nice day and see you tomorrow. Her day off is Tuesday. Tuesdays don’t have the same flavour; there’s an indefinable something missing, like a herb left out when cooking. I don’t like Tuesdays.’

  Before leaving home, Guylain had substituted Julie’s writings for the previous day’s live skins. He did it without even asking himself why. It seemed completely natural to reconstitute little fragments of the young woman in the place where he had found them. He liked the idea that maybe one day, Julie herself would be sitting among them in that packed carriage listening to her own words.

  ‘The 10 a.m. lard-arse came today. Always the same tactic. He charges down the stairs with his moronic hippopotamus tread and goes straight to his cubicle without even saying hello, nearly knocking over the table as he goes past. The 10 a.m. lard-arse never says hello or goodbye. Without a word, without a look, he dives into the last cubicle, number 8. I’ve never seen him use any other cubicle. And if number 8 is occupied, then he waits, stamping his feet and kicking his heels outside the door, champing at the bit. This guy exudes smugness and uncouthness. The mug of an SUV driver who parks in the disabled parking bays. That guy’s been coming once a week on the dot of ten to mess up number 8, making a racket that sounds like Armageddon, and I still haven’t plucked up the courage to rebuke him even slightly even though he deserves it, he really does. Because when I say “mess up”, it’s not just a turn of phrase. Not to mention that this oaf uses up an entire roll of toilet paper each time and, of course, never takes the trouble to flush. I have to go in after his majesty’s backside and spend nearly ten minutes making the place decent again. The worst thing is that this disgusting individual comes out of my cubicle number 8 as clean as a new pin, his jacket immaculate, the crease in his trousers in the right place, all hunky-dory. But the drop of water that made the bidet overflow, as Aunty always says, is the tip. That adipose miser never leaves me more than one of those tiny five-cent coins, which he casually drops into my saucer. I always try to catch his eye, to signal my indignation, but that bastard has never dared look in my direction. For him, I am barely more than the china saucer in which he leaves his charitable donation. That guy is a first-class bastard. The sort who always comes up smelling of roses. But I will not despair. I’ll get him one day, as they say.’

  Reading the description of the 10 a.m. lard-arse, Guylain couldn’t help thinking of Felix Kowalski. He could not have come up with a better description of his boss.

  When he reached the plant, the perimeter wall seemed higher than ever.

  17

  Yvon greeted Guylain with three aptly chosen lines:

  ‘Shoulder your long and energetic task,

  The way that Destiny sees fit to ask,

  Then suffer and so die without complaint.’

  ‘“The Death of the Wolf”, Alfred de Vigny,’ Guylain shot back in the direction of the hut as he slid his thin frame through the huge doors to the works. Not a week went by without Yvon reciting those three lines. As Guylain walked through the door, he did not find Brunner in his usual position slouched against the Thing’s control panel. Instead, Brunner came forward to meet him and followed on his heels, pursuing him into the changing room. The lanky fellow was jumping up and down and laughing nervously. Watching him circle round him like an excitable puppy, Guylain realized at once that he had something to tell him.

  ‘What’s up, Lucien?’

  This was what Brunner had been waiting for. From his pocket he fished out a piece of paper with the company’s letterhead and waved it under Guylain’s nose with a broad grin:

  ‘It’s scheduled for May, Monsieur Vignolles. Five days in Bordeaux at the company’s expense.’ And the bastard had finally got his passport onto the next training course for a licence to operate the Zerstor. At last Brunner was going to fulfil his dream: starting up the wretched Thing. Guylain found it harder and harder to bear that psychopath’s rapturous grins each time he sent a new bucket of books down into hell. It had always been his view that an executioner was duty-bound to remain impassive and not to show his feelings. Giuseppe had taught him to consider the multitude purely as a whole. ‘Don’t dwell on the details, kiddo. It will be easier, you’ll see,’ he had advised. If ill luck had it that a book managed somehow to catch Guylain’s attention, then he would race to the Zerstor’s arse end and gaze into the grey pulp until the image etched on his retina disappeared. Brunner did the opposite. That bastard derived a perverse pleasure from taking a close interest in what he was destroying. He would sometimes pull out a copy from the mountain and flick through it contemptuously before ripping off the cover and flinging the remains into the greedy maw. He knew that this upset Guylain and he often laid it on thickly. Then his voice would crackle in the headphones through the interference.

  ‘Hey, Monsieur Vignolles, did you see, it’s last year’s Renaudot winner? They’ve still got their red wrap-around bands on!’

  When he did this, even though it was strictly against the regulations, Guylain would kill the radio link so as not to have to put up with Brunner’s despicable taunts. That morning, it took longer than usual for Guylain to lapse into the mindless state into which the Zerstor’s incessant pounding inescapably plunged him. Julie was there with him, snuggled cosily under his hard hat. At lunch break, he wandered over to Yvon’s hut and ate his way absently through a packet of savoury biscuits washed down with a cup of Yvon’s black tea. His chewing was accompanied by Victor Hugo’s Ruy Blas. Act III, Scene 2. Eyes closed, his head against the window that rattled at the sound of Yvon’s powerful voice, Guylain listened as the verses of the slave in love with his queen filled the metal shack. Then he had the brainwave of introducing Yvon Grimbert to Magnolia Court. With a smile, Guylain pictured the security guard recounting the convoluted plots of these tragedies from another era to an audience of spellbound Magnolias. The man deserved a real audience, albeit an audience made up of ailing old folk. Guylain waited until Yvon had finished his speech before broaching the idea.

  ‘Last Saturday, I went and gave a reading in a retirement home in Gagny. I’m going back this weekend. They’re delightful people. They want me to come every Saturday. So I was thinking, Monsieur Grimbert, that it would be nice if you came with me and read something to them as well.’

  Guylain had never managed to call Yvon by his first name. It was nothing to do with their age difference. He had no problem calling Giuseppe by his first name, even though he was older than the security guard. It was more a mark of esteem for his art. Yvon responded enthusiastically to the idea of exporting his voice beyond his tiny hut. Taken aback by his eagerness, Guylain, however, expressed some reservations as to the audience’s ability to follow the rule of classical theatre’s three unities. Yvon reassured him:

  ‘Fie on wars of power, and on treasons sublime,

  On all these dark princes, who will concoct their crime.

  History won’t matter, as long as sings the rhyme

  And a hope still lives on to reach the peak in time.’

  As Yvon was already beginning to plan a programme of play readings going from Pierre Corneille to Molière and Jean Racine, Guylain reminded him that all this was still just a suggestion and that he would have to negotiate the arrangement with the Delacôte sisters. Guylain glanced at his watch and left hurriedly. He had an appointment at the occupational health clinic for his annual check-up at 1.30 sharp.

  A pasty-looking healthcare assistant greeted him and asked him to remove all his clothes except his underpants. She weighed him, measured him, gave him a hearing test and an eye test, took his blood pressure and dipped a little stick in the bottle of urine he’d brought in. Five minutes later, a sun-bronzed doctor the colour of gingerbread called Guylain in for a summary check.

  ‘Right, everything’s fine, Monsieur . . . Vignolles . . . is that right,
Guylain Vignolles? No particular problems to report? You appear to be in good shape, even though you are close to the lower limit of the curve.’

  No, everything’s not fine, Guylain felt like replying. I’m waiting for the return of a father who died twenty-eight years ago. My mother thinks I’m an executive in a publishing company. Every night I tell a fish about my day. My job sickens me to the point that I sometimes puke my guts out. And to crown it all I’m falling under the spell of a girl I’ve never met. In a nutshell, then, no problems, except that in every single area of my life I am ‘close to the lower limit of the curve’, if you see what I mean. Instead, Guylain gave a laconic ‘I’m fine’. After a few recommendations on the importance of a healthy diet, the doctor scribbled his verdict at the bottom of the file. It was summed up in three words – three little words that entitled Guylain to continue the massacre with impunity: Fit for work.