by Anna Gavalda
You sat there, silent.
“I’ve offended you,” I said. “Forgive me. I can see it on your face, what I’ve said is offensive. Forgive me. I have no right—”
“No, no. You haven’t offended me at all. On the contrary, it’s as if you’re disinfecting me. I’m not being reticent, it’s just that it stings. What you’re doing is painful. It’s surely doing me good, but it is painful.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to play Uno?”
Smiles.
“No. I want to go on. I want you to go on examining this wound with me. Do you mind?”
“I’m listening.”
“No, I’m listening to you.”
“But I have nothing to tell you, you know . . . ”
“You do. Of course you do. You have to tell me to leave him, once and for all.”
“But I don’t need to tell you that, you know it already! You’ve said as much yourself. By coming here, for a start. It’s not a story, your confession, it’s a geological survey map. That smartphone you peck at like a wretch; the way you deny reality; the way you can only speak of tenderness if you smuggle it in, all those stories about files to organize, or rotten foundations, or building permits you’ll never get, those were all your words. That’s your vision of things. Your own conclusions. You’ve never once talked about how good this man makes you feel, have you?”
Silence. Stinging.
“He does do you good,” I continued, more gently, “I know he does. I just told you how pretty you looked, those mornings when you had the time to talk to him, but that sort of thing won’t do, Mathilde, it just won’t do. It’s too brief. Too restricted. Too stingy. We all know that real happiness doesn’t exist, and we have to do what we can to get by without it, but in this instance . . . This thing of yours is a real trap. To love a man for four years and at the end of all these years you still have to write ‘confirmed’ instead of ‘I love you,’ that is . . . Yes. You’re right. It’s the end of honour.”
Silence.
I poured the last drop of whiskey into your cold cup.
“Thank you,” you murmured, your head down.
“You can’t go on playing this game, can you?”
“I can’t leave him. Every time I try, I go to pieces. Maybe life is stingy with him but without him it’s even worse.”
“Life? What life? Four years leading this clandestine life. Four years in hiding. Like some resistance fighter in the Maquis. Four years of sorrow over a man who can only hold you in his arms at the price of a lie, and who thinks it’s enough to toss you a handful of text messages now and again. But, hey, remember: you’re not a whore, Mathilde, you’re not a whore. I know you’re in pain. I know that. But the twisted thing is that all you have to show for four years in the shadow of a married man is an accumulation of false joy, false starts, false intimacy, pretend reunions, disappointment, humiliation, and bitterness, and at the end of it all, you’ve lost yourself along the way. You can’t even remember that you are worth a thousand times more than anything this man can give you. Take that back: not give you.”
“No. Don’t say that. It’s not true. He’s better than that. You don’t know him but he’s better than what you say he is. Otherwise I wouldn’t have come this far.”
“Does he know you want a child?”
“He suspects as much.”
“And he won’t give you one?”
“No.”
“If he really loved you, he would leave you. When you love a woman who wants a child, you give her one or else you let her go.”
“You give her one. What a macho thing to say. You sound like some shitty little adjutant.”
“I’m talking like a mum. But it is macho, I’ll give you that. Okay, You want to have children with her or else you let her go.”
“And now you sound like a priest.”
“I sound like the widow of a man who was twenty years older than me, and who didn’t want children, who thought he was too old to be a father, so he left me, then came back one year later, and stood there waiting for me when I got off work, pushing a beautiful baby carriage in front of him. A Bonnichon baby carriage, no less. But for a whole year, not a single sign of life. Ever. No text messages, no flowers, no notes, nothing. For a whole year I was free.”
Silence.
“I’m afraid to leave him. I’m afraid of solitude. I’m afraid I’ll regret it, and miss him. I’m afraid I’ll never live so fully again. I’m afraid of being bored and never getting over it. Even if I stop myself from thinking like this, I’m sure there’s some mean little bug deep inside me, some sort of termite, that still believes he’ll eventually leave his wife, even though they’ve just bought an apartment together. In fact, I’m hanging on for all the wrong reasons. I’m hanging on because I’m listening to that mean little bug. I’m listening to my worst side. The one that lies and fabricates, the one that is cowardly and scared.”
“Following orders that bring dishonour—that’s what’s so tragic about the military, isn’t it? Why are you still forcing yourself into this sort of dilemma? Why? You have to act like that great Élisabeth you spoke of earlier, Mathilde: leave behind these outdated values. Desert. Unharness your horse. Take off your uniform and lay down your arms. Get the hell out. Go over the wall. You deserve a better life. You know, I would never speak to you in this tone if I hadn’t seen you with my kids. If I hadn’t seen you sniffing their security blankets or running your hand through Alice’s curls a while ago. Why risk depriving yourself of all of that, tell me? Why? For who? For what? And if you were to have a child behind his back, that would be as appalling as infidelity, so you have to make the break if you want a sweeter life some day. You have no choice. You really have to get out of there. And as I’m telling you all this I realize just how limited my words are, because . . . Because I had found him, the eternal lover, the dream daddy for my kids; I had found him. And now look . . . at the end of the day, here I am bringing them up all alone, so . . . So I should keep my mouth shut.”
Laughter. Shouts. Noise.
Voices raised, and the sound of broken glass on the pavement.
“Listen,” I continued, sitting up straight, “I’ll tell you my truth. I’ll tell you my truth that isn’t your truth and which isn’t reality, either. My truth is that I may be able to lecture for hours on end but I’m wrong. I’m wrong because if I’m honest, here’s another truth: what the hell do I know. I’ve never known much, and since my love left me, I’ve been a complete wreck, so really, you can just take it or leave it, all this stuff I said. You know, above all, leave it. Yes, leave it, I’m in no position to go explaining life to others just now. Not only am I a complete wreck, I’m also in an even more dubious state than a wreck. I’m fallible across the board, believe me. As I sit here talking to you there is nothing solid about me, nothing. But what I can add, uh, to keep playing my part as anesthesiologist, so to speak, is that when I met him, I was the one who was married, well, not officially, but as good as. Yes. I was the one causing the pain. He was so clever that he never had to put any pressure on me, naturally. Not the slightest pressure, no, and he would never have dared talk down to me the way I just have to you. This lecture I just gave you—he would have been horrified to hear me talking like that. Horrified and disappointed. He thought I was more subtle than that. What he did, to get me to leave my little shack that was as dreary as it was comfortable, what he did is he let me go on and on about my life with my ex—my domestic partner—how he loved to whisper the phrase, dragging out the second syllable to the tip of my dimples, he would let me go on and on, like you have this evening, listening to me very attentively, as I have this evening, and then at the end he . . . ”
Silence. I was smiling.
“He what?”
“He yawned. He yawned and it made me laugh.”
“And then?”
“And then
nothing. And then I left a man I was bored with for a man who made me laugh.”
“Whoa . . . ” you groaned, curling up in the folds of our confessional, “I would have loved to have known him . . . Tell me about him. Tell me some more about him.”
“No. Some other day. Some other night. We have to get to sleep now. School day tomorrow.”
“No, tell me. Tell me something. Please. Tell me another nice thing to add some grist to your mill and give me strength.”
“Another time, I promise.”
Silence.
“Do you mind if I sleep here for a few hours?”
“No, of course not. Wait, I’ll find you a blanket.”
I got back up, threw out the last empty bottle, put our cups and bowls in the sink, went to get a comforter from the bed and came back, closed the shutters, pulled the curtains, turned up the heat, and tucked you in.
I switched off the light then added:
“If I had known I loved him that much, I would have loved him even more.”
Did that thing, that grist, those last words murmured in the dark, give you courage?
I don’t know. In the morning, you had already struck camp and I never saw you again.
MY DOG IS DYING
There came a day when he couldn’t even get up in the truck on his own. He didn’t even pretend to try. He sat down next to the running board and waited for me. Hey, I said, get a move on there, old boy. But the look he gave me, I hung my head. I lifted him up into his spot and he lay down as if it was no big deal, but that day I stalled when I tried to start up the truck.
Only us two in the waiting room. Holding him like this so tight but trying not to squeeze, it’s giving me shooting pains in my shoulder. I go over to the window to show him the view and even then, even now, I can tell it interests him.
Little snoop . . .
I rub his head with my chin and murmur:
“What am I going to do without you, huh? What am I going to do?”
He closes his eyes.
I called my boss before coming. I told him I’d be late for my shift, but that I’d make it up. That I always make it up. That he ought to know, after all these years.
“What’s up?”
“I’ve got a problem, Monsieur Ricaut.”
“Nothing mechanical, I hope?”
“No, no, it’s my dog.”
“What’s wrong with the mutt this time? Get stuck in some chicken’s arse or something?”
“No, it’s not that, it’s . . . I have to take him to the vet, ’cause this is the end, now.”
“The end of what?”
“The end of his life. And since they don’t open until nine, by the time they do it and all, I’ll be late to the depot. That’s why I’m calling.”
“Oh, shit. I’m sorry to hear that, Jeannot. We liked your dog. What happened to him?”
“Nothing. Nothing happened. He’s just old.”
“Oh, shoot. That’s gonna be rough on you, that’s a tough one. How long have you had him on your truck?”
“Ages.”
“And what were you supposed to do this morning?”
“Garonor.”
“What was it? Stuff to Deret’s?”
“Yeah.”
“Listen, Jeannot, you know what? Take the day off, okay? We’ll manage.”
“You can’t manage without me. The kid’s on leave and Gérard is at traffic school.”
“Oh, of course . . . That’s right. But still, we’ll manage. I’ll do it for you. It’ll oil the machinery a little. It’s been such a long time I don’t even know if my arms are long enough to reach the wheel!”
“Are you sure?”
“’Course I’m sure, don’t worry. Take the day off, it’s fine.”
Last year in September, when there were the roadblocks, the strikes really messed things up and they gave me a hard time because I didn’t want to join in with the others. They asked me if I liked sucking the boss’s cock. I remember, it was Waldek who said it and even today I often think about what he said. But I didn’t want to go on strike. I didn’t want my wife to be all alone at night, and to be honest, I didn’t really believe in any of that anymore. It was over. It was too late. I told my co-workers that old Ricaut was just as much up shit creek as we were and I didn’t want to go acting like a clown at the tollbooths while guys from Geodis or Mory’s were taking over our markets. And besides, and I’ll say it straight up, I’ve always respected the man. As bosses go, he’s always treated us fair. And even today, with my dog dying, he’s treating me fair.
I say my dog because he doesn’t have a name, otherwise I’d call him by his name. It was so I wouldn’t get so attached, but even now it’s the same as with everything, at the end of the day I got screwed all the same.
I found him one night in the middle of August on my way back from Orléans. On the Route Nationale 20, just before Étampes.
I was sick of living.
Ludovic had left us a few months earlier and if I was still on this earth shifting equipment and spare parts, it was ’cause I’d worked it out that it would take me eight more years of active employment for my wife to get a halfway decent pension.
Those days, my truck was my prison. I even bought myself one of those little calendars where you peel the days off one by one so that it would be dead clear in my head: eight years, I said, over and over, eight years.
Two thousand, nine hundred and twenty days, then adios.
I didn’t listen to the radio anymore, I never took anyone along for the ride, I never felt like talking anymore, and when I went home it was so I could switch on the box. My wife was already in bed. Should mention she took a lot of pills in those days.
I smoked.
Two packs of Gauloises a day, and I would sit there thinking about my dead son.
I could hardly sleep, I never finished the food on my tray, I threw out the food and I wanted it all to end. Or to go backwards. To do things differently. So that his mother wouldn’t be in so much pain. So she’d finally put away her damn brooms. I wanted to go back to a time when it might still have been possible for her to get the hell away from our home. I clenched my jaw so hard that one night I broke a tooth, just thinking about it.
They made me go to the company doctor to get some anti-depressants (Ricaut was worried I’d screw up in one of his trucks), and while I was getting dressed the guy said:
“Look, I don’t know precisely what is going to kill you. I don’t know whether it will be sorrow, cigarettes, or the fact that you haven’t been eating properly for months, but one thing is for sure, if you go on in the state you’re in today, well, rest assured, Monsieur Monati, rest assured: you will not be long for this world.”
I didn’t answer. I needed the certificate for Dany, the secretary, so I let him talk and then I left. I bought the medication so that everything would be A-OK with the insurance and social security and then I threw the pills in the garbage.
I didn’t want them, and as for my wife, I was afraid she’d use them to do herself in.
It was a lost cause, anyway. I’d had my fill of doctors. I couldn’t stand the sight of them anymore.
The door opens. It’s our turn. I say I’ve come to have my dog put to sleep. The vet asks me if I want to stay. I say yes and he goes off into another room. He comes back with a syringe filled with some pink liquid. He explains that the animal won’t suffer, that for him it will be like falling asleep and . . . Save your breath, pal, I feel like saying, save your breath. My kid left before me too, so you know—just save your breath.
I began smoking like a chimney and my wife never stopped cleaning. From morning to night and eight days a week, that’s all she could think of: cleaning.
It started when we got back from the cemetery. We had family, cousins on her side who’d come up from the
Poitou, and as soon as they’d taken their last bite she threw them all out. I thought it was so she could have some peace and quiet but no, she reached for her apron and tied herself up in it.
She hasn’t taken it off since.
In the beginning I thought, hey, it’s normal, she’s keeping busy. I don’t talk much, and she keeps moving. Everyone does what they can to deal with the pain. It will pass.
But I was wrong. Nothing passed.
Nowadays at our place you can lick the floor if you want. The floor, the walls, the doormat, the steps, and even the toilets. Never fear, it’s all been pickled in bleach. Before I’ve even finished wiping my plate with the bread she’s already rinsing it off and if God forbid I put my knife on the table I can clearly see her biting her tongue to keep from telling me off. I always take my shoes off at the door and even my slippers, I can hear her slapping them together the minute I’ve got my back turned.
One night when she was still on all fours scouring the grout lines in the floor tiles, I got mad:
“Dammit, Nadine, will you stop that, for pity’s sake! Stop! You’re going to drive me crazy!”
She looked at me, didn’t answer, and went back to her scraping.
I tore the sponge from her hand and hurled it to the other side of the room.
“Stop it, I said.”
I almost felt like killing her.
She stood up straight, went to get her sponge, and started again.
From that day on I slept in the basement, and when I brought the dog home I didn’t even give her time to react:
“He’ll live downstairs. He won’t come up. You’ll never see him. He’ll be on the truck with me.”