‘What are you thinking about?’
‘A calf’s tongue.’
‘You’re unbelievable. All you think about is food. So how did it go with the girls last night?’
‘Good. We went out for a meal and then I went home.’
‘Alone?’
‘Alone.’
‘I don’t get you. They were all over you, especially the tall one, the one from the hotel. What’s her name again?’
‘Madeleine.’
‘Man, all you need to do is click your fingers. She’s a good-looking girl. And the other one isn’t bad either. She’s a different type. So you didn’t do either of them?’
‘They’re friends, just friends.’
‘Well, it’s your business. But it’s a waste, all the same. Anyway, what do you think of my flowers?’
‘Very nice.’
‘They’re orchids. They come from some island or something. Have a look in the back again to see if they’re still okay, will you? I bought them early this morning.’
Gabriel leant over the back seat. Orchids were ugly. They looked like photos of venereal diseases in medical books.
‘They look fine.’
‘Good. Look at that idiot in front. Overtaking again and again. Look, there he is, stopped at the traffic lights. It serves him right! After the hospital I’m going to call the children to tell them to be very good when their mother comes back. She’s been through a lot and it’ll take her time to get back on her feet. Or we could go and see them, if you’ve got nothing else to do, of course.
‘If you want.’
‘Here we are then. I think I’m going to take my tie off; I’m going to explode.’
It was white as far as the eye could see. The waiting room was as sterile as an iceberg. Hidden behind the enormous bouquet of flowers, José looked like a small, solitary tree.
‘Right, so I’ll see you here later then?’
‘Yup, I’ll be here. Off you go.’
Gabriel sat down on a plastic chair and leafed through magazines filled with smiling movie stars, politicians and television personalities. They were all tanned with white teeth and blue eyes. They weren’t allowed to be unhappy. They had been hoisted onto a pedestal, doomed to never-ending happiness. By contrast, for the ordinary mortal, unhappiness was almost a duty. Drips, Zimmer frames, wheelchairs, he could have any misfortune he wanted. Dragging himself around, shuffling in his slippers, wrapped in an oversized dressing gown, smoking a cigarette, drinking weak cups of coffee, waiting for family or ogling those of others, an ashen complexion, a vacant eye, hollow cheeks, always waiting. Waiting and living off simple platitudes like ‘good luck’, ‘keep strong’ and ‘see you later’. Obviously little people could only have little thoughts. They apologised for everything they did. ‘Sorry, do you mind if I take a look at that magazine?’, ‘Excuse me, which floor are you going to?’, ‘Excuse me, do you have the time?’, ‘I’m sorry for still being here, all repulsive and ill.’ Nurses laughed as they pushed trolleys stacked with lunch trays, wafting the smells of hospital food, lukewarm and flavourless. Their shoes clicked on the floor tiles. Remembering a Brassens tune about a horse dutifully pulling its cart through rain and mud, Gabriel hummed, ‘C’était un petit cheval blanc, tous derrière, tous derrière …’
The doors of lift B opened. José walked out. He looked like a rain-drenched panda. He passed Gabriel without registering him.
‘José? José?’
José turned round. His face was empty of emotion, a mirror with nobody standing in front of it.
‘Are you okay?’
‘She’s not dead, but she’s never going to wake up. She’s sleeping. That’s it, she’s sleeping. I’m tired, Gabriel. I want to go home. I want to go to sleep as well.’
The croissant didn’t taste very nice. He had only wanted one after being lured in by the artificial baking scent pumped out by the shop. The smell had reminded him of his childhood. He hadn’t really needed either a croissant or memories of his childhood. His sense of smell had fooled him. He sat on a bench and made crumbs, which he threw to the pigeons. One by one they came and belligerently tapped their beaks like mechanical tools. It wasn’t a beautiful sight, but it grew on him.
‘You shouldn’t feed the bastards.’
The voice came from a man sitting at the other end of the bench. He looked curiously like a pigeon himself. Slightly fat, with googly eyes and a pointed nose, he was wrapped in a grey waterproof.
‘Why not?’
‘They shit on my window. They shit on my car. They shit on the church statues. They shit everywhere. As if there isn’t enough shit in the world!’
‘They’re birds.’
‘Exactly! They’ve got all the fields and woods to do it in. But no, they come and shit on us, thanks to people like you who feed them. And, besides, they aren’t birds. They’re rats. Flying rats. The souls of dead rats taking revenge on sewer workers. To them, we’re all sewer workers. In a way, they’re right, but we still have to watch out! Look at them scratching themselves. They’re full of disease. Completely inedible.’
‘Have you tried them?’
‘Of course. I trapped them with birdlime. They’re much tougher than crows. Crows are useful though. They’re cleaners; they only feed on dead things. Imagine a battlefield without crows. It’d be a real rubbish dump! Apart from carrying a message from one trench to the other, what has a pigeon ever done on a battlefield? And what do we use them for now? We’ve got other communication methods now … and, well, that’s a topic for another day. Because they used to hang out with soldiers, because they think they’re heroes, saviours of France, pigeons have got too big for their boots. They’re so full of themselves. And that’s why they shit on us. Humanity will end up swimming in the shit of diseased pigeons. They’re all diseased. They come and go and pick up every germ there is. It’s awful. It’s like a modern-day Pompeii!’
‘But what can we do about it?’
‘Kill as many as we can and send the others back home.’
‘Back home?’
‘They come from somewhere, don’t they? St Mark’s Square in Venice, for example. We could kill two birds with one stone. They’d infect all the Japanese, American, Swedish and Bulgarian tourists. There’s bound to be a pigeon loft there somewhere. Either way, if we don’t give them anything to eat, then they’ll go away. And, anyway, you’re feeding them junk. Where did you buy your croissant?’
‘The snack bar on the main road.’
‘I knew it! Can you imagine what kind of shit they’ll be dropping on us now?’
‘You’re right. I hadn’t thought.’
The man shrugged his shoulders and scratched his head vigorously. Dandruff fell from his greasy hair and quickly covered his collar. He got rid of it by flapping his jacket, his elbows bent, as he stretched out his neck and cleared his throat.
‘Seagulls aren’t much better, you know. I once spent a night in a hotel in Cancale. My room overlooked the restaurant’s rubbish bins. I didn’t sleep a wink. And swallows? You think they herald the spring? Spring doesn’t exist any more! I hate birds, all birds. The skies are too full. It’s our rubbish bins which attract them, our monstrous rubbish bins. I leave nothing for them, young man. I finish everything. I don’t leave them a crumb! I’m even going to leave my body to science. There’ll be nothing left of François Dacis, nothing! As if I hadn’t existed. And of that I’m proud!’
‘That’s all very admirable.’
‘You don’t need to tell me. Here, between you and me, I don’t even trust angels.’
‘Angels?’
‘Yes, angels. They fly around with all the dirty birds and so they’re infected as well! Bird flu and the rest, I tell you! Angels used to have nice plump faces like well-fed toddlers blowing on their trumpets. But today, young man, they all look like junkies. They just hover around not giving a fuck about anything.’
He scratched his head furiously again, shaking the dandruff off while cleari
ng his throat with a cooing sound. There was a feverish look in his eye.
‘The apocalypse will come from above. Like at Hiroshima. Since the big boss copped it, anarchy has ruled the clouds. It’s time to go underground, young man, I’m telling you!’
The old man pulled a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket and smoothed it out on his knees with his forearm. It was some kind of blueprint.
‘Bomb shelter, fallout shelter. Anti-pigeon, anti-everything. Ten metres square with four-metre-thick reinforced Swedish reinforced-concrete walls, buried fifty metres below good old Breton soil. I’ve thought of everything. The heating is provided by the toilet waste and the water is triple filtered. The living room is there, with a sofa, TV, radio and bar. All mod cons. Here is where the stockpiles are kept, next to the kitchen: wheat, rice, corn, pasta and tinned food. And the armoury. You never know! And the medicine area: aspirin, antiseptic, dressings. And the best bit, a cellar! Ten metres further down with everything you’d ever need. It could last me sixty years, maybe more! I’ll die there, but at least it’ll be of natural causes. What do you think? Great, eh?’
‘Magnificent. Where is it?’
The man narrowed his eyes and tapped the side of his head.
‘Top secret, my friend. It’s all up here.’
He rolled up his sleeve and stared at his watchless wrist.
‘Good God, I’d better go. How about ten euros?’
‘Ten euros? For what?’
‘My survival plan. You can have it for ten euros. Five for something to eat and then five for a wash.’
‘Okay then.’
‘You’ve got yourself a good deal there. But no more feeding the pigeons. You promise?’
‘Yes, I promise.’
‘Well, good evening, young man. It’s getting dark; the weather’s turning. You’d better go home. It’s been a pleasure.’
The old man got up. He rolled his shoulders, puffed out his chest and stuck his nose in the air. He opened his waterproof and strode determinedly off, scattering the pigeons as he went.
On another bench, two teenagers sat not kissing. The boy was looking down at his enormous new trainers, size 12 perhaps. The young girl was twisting a strand of hair between her fingers and holding it up to her lips as a moustache. They both looked extremely bored. It suited them. The sky was the colour of frogspawn absorbing joy and sorrow with the same indifference. Gabriel rubbed his hands together. He had washed them ten times that day but still they smelt of the hospital. José had insisted on sleeping in one of his children’s beds. The three sleeping tablets he had taken would do him until tomorrow, his big boar head resting on a Mickey Mouse pillowcase.
Rita and I waited for you until eight o’clock. Come and join us at my place if you want – Madeleine.
The note had been slipped under the door. Gabriel didn’t know whether or not to go. The ravioli simmered on the camping stove in front of the open window. A church bell struck nine as if testing the density of the air. He hadn’t eaten ravioli out of a tin since he was a child. He used to eat them all the time. He used to love them. Now though, even when they were covered in Parmesan, he found them disgusting, like eating spoonfuls of vomit. Yet, perhaps out of respect for his childhood, he finished them all. Afterwards, he cleaned the pan in the washbasin. The water, reddened by the tomato sauce, slowly swirled down the plughole with a revolting gurgle. He looked at himself in the mirror and saw he had sauce around his mouth. Like blood, it was difficult to get rid of tomato sauce completely. There was always some left behind. Months after … the accident he kept finding tiny flecks on the sole of a shoe or on a button. He ended up seeing them everywhere, like strewn confetti after a carnival. He closed his eyes for a moment. The darkness enveloped him. Only the searing glow of the strip light on which he was resting his forehead remained. He left the bathroom in a hurry, threw on his jacket and slammed the door behind him. He raced down the stairs and flung himself into the street. On the pavement, he lifted his nose to the sky, took a deep breath and filled his lungs with as much of the manure-rich night air as he could. Slowly the scorching of the fluorescent tube faded away, much like a white-hot knife plunged into a tub of cold water. He strode determinedly off like an old steam engine. He reached out his hand and touched everything he passed: the freezing metal pole of a one-way sign, the corners of a tattered poster, a rough brick wall. He had to feel everything around him, dry, wet, hot and cold, to convince himself it was real. He wasn’t sure of anything. He moved faster as if trying to escape from a predator – his shadow perhaps? Or the past, which was swiftly catching up with him? He could feel its icy breath on his neck. Around him the town was falling apart like a boat in a storm. The tar was rising up, the sky falling down. He was a panting wreck by the time he reached Madeleine’s flat.
‘Ah, Gabriel! We were wondering if you were coming. What’s wrong? You look like you’ve seen a ghost!’
‘No, I’m fine. I was running because of the rain.’
‘But it isn’t raining.’
‘Exactly. I wanted to get here before it started raining.’
The door closed behind him, leaving the monster on the other side. Indoors, there was only the comfort of the here and now. Rita was sprawled on the couch wearing a tracksuit and slippers which slopped off her feet, probably borrowed from Madeleine. It hadn’t taken her long to become part of the furniture.
‘Look who it is! We didn’t think you’d come.’
Rita sat up and patted the cushion next to her in invitation. Gabriel sat down and caught his breath. The room was soft, warm and sweet. Madeleine sat opposite the sofa on a pouffe. As she poured Gabriel a glass of cognac, her dressing gown hung forward to reveal the curve of her breast. She must have just come out of the bathroom. Her hair was wet and she smelt of soap, dewy and clean. Gabriel finished his glass in one. Slowly, his whole body began to relax. He should have come sooner. The two women glanced at each other. Rita poured herself a large drink.
‘We thought you might make us a bit of supper.’
‘Haven’t you eaten?’
‘Yes, of course, don’t worry. We had a little tea party. Is everything okay? Do you want another drink?’
‘Yes, please.’
Madeleine put her hand on Gabriel’s knee.
‘Is it José’s wife?’
‘No. Well, yes. Maybe. She’s fallen into another coma. No one’s sure when she’ll wake up. Perhaps never. It could last weeks or months. Even years.’
‘And what about José?’
‘I took him back to his place. He’s asleep now. I gave him some sleeping tablets. We’ll see how he is tomorrow.’
Rita stood up, emptied her glass and put on a CD. It was a tango dance track, the kind radio stations usually played. She sat back down, practically in Gabriel’s lap.
‘I could never stand “Sleeping Beauty” stories.’
‘Rita!’
‘What? It’s true. Even when I was little I never liked stupid fairy tales. They were either so scary I couldn’t understand how adults could read them to kids or they were unbelievably soppy and annoying. It’s no surprise that the world is as daft as it is if we’re telling stories like that to our kids.’
‘I loved “The Little Mermaid”.’
‘Jesus, that’s another one. A bimbo who goes to the trouble of getting legs that hurt like hell for a guy who ends up dumping her for somebody else. That’s morally okay, is it? You’ve got to be twisted to write something like that. And, anyway, it’s always the women who pay the price in the end in those stories. “The Little Match Girl”? Dies of cold. “Little Thumbling”? Who ends up being eaten? The ogre’s daughters, of course. Aren’t I right, Gabriel? You know everything.’
‘I saw the Little Mermaid in Copenhagen.’
‘And what was she like?’
‘Small.’
‘Of course she was! They didn’t haggle over the size of the statues for Stalin, de Gaulle or Émile Zola, did they? But for the Little Mermaid! W
omen are on the bottom rung of society; we’re like a school of sardines surrounded by sharks.’
Madeleine smiled. The sea was at low tide. She looked like she didn’t care about the status of women. She was daydreaming, floating in the sea somewhere off the coast of Guadeloupe.
‘You should never leave the water,’ Madeleine said. ‘Men or women. Everything is weightless in the water. We glide and brush up against each other, bob up and down. There’s no noise. Everything is quiet, the mind clear.’
She must have been a bit drunk. She stood up and spun round on her toes, her eyes closed, her body in thrall to the music, her dressing gown flaring out.
‘There was nothing before, there’ll be nothing after and we don’t give a damn about what goes on in between. Why? Why?’
Rita reached over to the lamp beside the couch and turned it off, plunging the room into darkness. The only light came from the streetlamp. The room resembled a fish tank. Rita sidled up to Gabriel.
‘She’s beautiful, isn’t she?’
‘Yes, she is. Very.’
‘Do you fancy her?’
He had bought a fish tank for Juliette on her fourth birthday, but she hadn’t wanted to put fish in it. She just liked the plastic algae and the little toy diver that knelt in front of the treasure chest, with air bubbles escaping to the top like live pearls. She would fall asleep in front of it, sucking her thumb. Her bedroom was never dark. She was so very afraid of the dark.
‘Do you want me to suck you off?’
‘No, thank you, Rita. It’s kind, but no.’
‘With Madeleine then?’
‘Not her either. You’re both very charming, but no. Let’s leave it at that.’
‘Well, at least look at us then. That’s the least you can do.’
‘Okay.’
‘It’s not that Marco doesn’t like women, it’s just that he was one once, so he has a chip on his shoulder.’
The Panda Theory Page 7