Next to the truck, parked facing the other way, is a little red Ford, slightly dirty. Ferdinand knows this car. It’s normally parked in front of the Hair Affair Salon, and the backseat is always full of flyers for styling products. It’s Christine’s car. Could she be leaving the building? To go where? Ferdinand would be willing to bet it’s to follow a lover who will break her heart by never leaving his wife. Ah, these women who don’t know how to make good decisions, and wait for men to do it for them!
“And to think I’m going to have to go outside to get any peace. Really, what kind of world are we living in?” Two options come to mind. The library or the church. At the library, the seats are more comfortable. But on a Saturday morning, they’ll be taken over by little brats or, worse, their parents. Ferdinand doesn’t like children, and he likes these new lax parents who refuse to give their kids the slightest spanking even less. The good-for-nothings are raising a generation of little emperors over whom—at barely three years old—they’ve lost all authority, and are therefore abandoning their snot-nosed brats’ upbringing to others. In his day, that didn’t fly. Not at school, not at home. And when the teacher reported his shenanigans to his grandmother, Ferdinand got a slap in front of his teacher (in addition to his usual smacks), and another thrashing at home, for the public shame. Ferdinand therefore behaved himself rather well. At least he was clever enough not to get caught too often.
If he weren’t so deaf and so resistant to novelty, the old man could take refuge in a movie theater, but he hasn’t seen anything on the big screen since Don’t Look Now . . . We’re Being Shot At! in 1966. A museum, a café, or a restaurant are pleasant hideaways, but they don’t even occur to him as options. So he sets out for the church, a man who isn’t the least bit God-fearing.
In order to leave, Ferdinand has to climb over the boxes on his doormat. As he lifts his leg, he tells himself that if he’d been an animal, he would have gladly relieved himself on one of these crates. On the ground floor, it’s a jungle. The lobby is filled with pots overflowing with soil and jutting trees. If Ferdinand were better versed in horticulture, he would recognize a Japanese camellia, an oleander, an orange tree, a red maple, and several perennials. But what Ferdinand does know best, like a modern-day Attila the Hun, is weed killer, as his naked balcony and the poor hollyhocks underneath can attest.
“I hope they don’t plan on putting all those trees above my place! All I need is for them to bring the balconies crashing down—onto my balcony!”
Upon arriving at the church, Ferdinand pushes open the heavy wooden door, enters without crossing himself, and sits down in a pew at the back of the nave. Nobody else is there. He enjoys his tranquility, even if the smell of incense bothers him—his ex-wife always lit a stick of incense after meals. After barely twenty minutes, Ferdinand shifts from one cheek to the other. It isn’t very comfortable. He’s cold, too, and hungry. It’s 10:40, a bit early for a ham sandwich. He sighs. The day will be long. Very long.
All of a sudden, the wooden door opens and shuts heavily. Ferdinand glances up discreetly to see who’s come to pray. But no one passes by. He senses a presence behind him. Ferdinand feels himself being watched, a very disagreeable sensation. He slowly turns around to find a stooped man wearing a raincoat standing to the left, near the entrance. He appears to be waiting for something or someone. Ferdinand hears the stranger’s rhythmic wheezing. Each inhalation seems to scrape down the sides of his windpipe before working its way out through narrow, congested nostrils. Every breath is agony. On a normal day, Ferdinand would find it extremely annoying, but fatigue and solitude have gotten the better of him, and the hollow sound sends chills down his spine.
Ferdinand is on guard. He feels as if a crouching beast is preparing to pounce. He hopes someone comes in, even the priest, even if it means he has to go to confession. He could easily conjure up a few unorthodox tales to admit. His only objective is to not stay here alone with this psychopath. But no priest shows up, and no other charitable soul is on the horizon. Ferdinand summons the courage to stand up. Slowly, he heads for the door, as normally as possible, without glancing at the man.
Once he reaches the reassuring light of day, the evil demons are behind him.
At 2:30 p.m., having gulped down a sandwich made with stale bread, Ferdinand is shivering on a bench in the church square. He hasn’t dared return inside, dreading the presence of his chance companion. I hate movers. I already hate these new neighbors who are forcing me to roam the streets like a bum. Without even knowing his tormentors’ identities, he almost misses the hairdresser. But a ray of hope makes him hold fast to the bench—Ferdinand knows how to welcome the new neighbors in turn, and thank them for this terrible day . . .
After more than five hours, completely exhausted, Ferdinand finally returns home. The moving truck has disappeared, but the green plants are still crowding the lobby, and the stairs are littered with scraps of cardboard. Still, someone did deign to clear the way to his door. Silence has returned. At last! Ferdinand collapses into his bed, determined to fall asleep as quickly as possible, when, all of a sudden, he hears a whimper. He forces himself to stay focused on his sleep and pulls the blanket up over his head.
“It’s nothing,” he says when, this time, a cry rings out from above his bed. It can’t be true . . . no, not that! I have to refocus. It’ll stop. It has to stop.
But it doesn’t stop. Between 4:30 and 6:00 p.m., no relief. The cries of the new occupant of the bedroom upstairs have only ceased long enough for a bottle, too quickly drained. When Ferdinand gives up and leaves his bedroom to collapse into his armchair, he turns up the volume on the quiz show Questions for a Champion to cover up the incessant sniveling. The show, a favorite of everyone at Eight Rue Bonaparte, has already started. The “Four in a Row” round reveals a mystery category dear to Ferdinand: attack dogs.
“Ah, finally, something positive! I’m gonna get all of these! I’d even wager this airhead will mix up Great Danes and Weimaraners.” Ferdinand is on his game—it takes him less than two seconds to identify the German shepherd, then the Doberman pinscher. He stumbles on the Dogo Argentino, which he wouldn’t have put in the attack dog category, when there’s a knock at the door.
“If that’s Christine coming back to say good-bye, you’re too late, old girl!” he said, turning up the TV. “You left me in a pickle and I’m not in the mood . . .” The person rings the doorbell. “I must be dreaming! People are beyond presumptuous. I really oughtta disconnect it. That damned bell is double trouble—I pay for the electricity so they can bug me . . .”
“Hello?” a man’s voice calls out. “I’m sorry to bother you. Is anyone there? I’m your new neighbor.”
Ferdinand sits up. How dare he? I’d keep a low profile if I were him!
“Is anyone there?”
Ferdinand stands and, via the peephole, learns who’s responsible for his day of torture. A man, that’s something anyway—there won’t be any high heels! Maybe forty years old, brown hair, a relatively soft voice. He’s wearing a green sweatshirt. The new neighbor doesn’t seem too awful.
“Is anyone there? I just wanted to introduce myself. I just moved in upstairs, my name is Antoine and—”
“Let me stop you right there. I think I’ve had my fill of introductions. You can go back home. I’ve heard enough of you for today. You, your baby, your furniture! Good-bye, sir.”
Ferdinand watches his crestfallen neighbor, shoulders slumped, head back to the stairs. The old man returns to his armchair. The door upstairs slams. With all this nonsense, Ferdinand missed the rest of the categories in “Four in a Row.” Of course. It’s his favorite part. Couldn’t that damned neighbor have waited?
Ferdinand decides to go to bed early. Too bad for the weekly late-night variety show, but in any case it’s always the same musical numbers, the same guests, the same jokes—and rarely funny for that matter. The kid stopped crying around 8:00 p.m. She must be sleeping now. Ferdinand resets his alarm. He has to recuperat
e. He turns out all the lights, and it takes him no more than five minutes to drift off and enjoy six hours of restorative sleep before the alarm goes off.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
Ferdinand feels fit as a fiddle. He goes into the living room, clears his wheeled serving cart, then sets down a dusty turntable that hasn’t been used in over twenty years. He rummages through a chest and pulls out an LP—his favorite. He pushes the whole thing toward his bedroom.
He plugs in the device, positions the vinyl record, sets it turning, and lowers the needle. The device crackles, and all of a sudden, as if an orchestra had stormed Ferdinand’s bedroom, the booming voice of Frank Sinatra—a.k.a. Ol’ Blue Eyes—starts singing “Almost Like Being in Love.” Ferdinand smiles. Time seems to have leapt backward by close to sixty-five years. He loves this song, especially the beginning. He turns up the volume all the way and puts the turntable on top of his wardrobe, inches from the ceiling. Dust bunnies flutter above him.
Ten, nine, eight . . . As he reaches five, he hears a baby begin to wail. Ferdinand sings along with Ol’ Blue Eyes and puts his whole heart into it. “I could swear I was falling!” He knows all the words and keeps time by tapping his foot with the same enthusiasm as Fred Astaire in Happy Feet.
Overhead, a door opens. Heavy steps come to get the baby.
“It’s three-oh-five in the morning, on the dot! Welcome, dear neighbors!” And Ferdinand starts singing even louder, “It’s almost . . . like bein’ . . . in . . . love!”
Chapter Fourteen
Popped His Cherry
For Ferdinand, that baby is the greatest of misfortunes. He despises, above all else, infants. For him, they are nothing but limitations, with the added bonus of utter ingratitude. They understand nothing, they cry, they always need something. You can never rest. And when they smile, they smile at strangers as much as at their parents. Ingrates, away with you! Furthermore, you’re supposed to think they’re cute, gifted . . . But a human being who drools, isn’t capable of stringing three words together, and walks like a drunkard? No, Ferdinand cannot fake it!
Besides, he didn’t want kids. It was his wife who got pregnant without consulting him. OK, they’d talked about it, but nothing had been decided. He’d always told Louise, “If you want a child, you look after it. I don’t want it to change my routine. It’s already gonna cost us an arm and a leg. I think I’ll have to do overtime at the factory.”
It’s not that Ferdinand is a tightwad, but he’s thrifty. With money and emotion. And children—unless you have twelve and put them to work—cost more than they bring in! His wife had taken a bookkeeping job for extra money and, a short time later, got pregnant.
Ferdinand had been in denial about the pregnancy. As if he didn’t really believe something was going to come out of that belly—a belly that was indisputably expanding. He never wanted to prepare the nursery. He didn’t attend the birth. And when he came home to discover it was a girl, he was disappointed. He even blamed his wife. She could call it whatever she wanted. Marion . . . What an idea, honestly!
Then, there were nothing but limitations: bottles, burping, diapers, baths, insomnia, shopping, laundry . . . continuously, day and night. Ferdinand didn’t feel involved, but just seeing his wife bustle around so much made him tired. When he wasn’t at the factory, he slept on the living room sofa to catch up on his rest. Sometimes he even avoided the house.
His wife’s demeanor grew increasingly grim. She started to let herself go, like all women of a certain age—thirty years make themselves known. When he returned home after work, it was always the same scene: Louise would sulk at him, his daughter would cry at the sight of him, and at bedtime there’d be no fooling around. The beginning of the end. It’s no surprise Marion didn’t have a little brother.
The little girl grew up. She sat up in her bath, ate chunky purees, waddled like a duck, babbled in an incomprehensible language, had an imaginary best friend, played with dolls. Then there was the “why” stage, school, good grades, graduation. The first high school graduate in the Brun family.
Throughout all those years, Marion saw her parents argue daily. The plates flew from Louise as often as the insults. Her father ignored the verbal and physical attacks as best he could and was content to consider his wife crazy. The fights ended the same way every time: Louise hid in the bedroom in tears, while Ferdinand sat in the living room, a newspaper in his lap and the TV on in the background.
Marion doesn’t remember sharing anything with her father, aside from her unusual stature. As a woman, her five-foot-eleven-inch height has always been an obstacle. She forgoes high heels, which might have been able to feminize her shape. It was difficult to find a man taller than she was, and one who wasn’t intimidated by her shoulders.
Early on, Marion turned toward a career that would distance her from her parents: international diplomacy. It was hardly a surprise after spending years with parents consumed by arguing. At any rate, she’d left with the first guy who came along, a policeman she met at a nightclub. They’d danced to Chaka Khan’s “Fate.” She’d taken that as a sign and married him. Neither of the two families had been invited to the ceremony. Later she’d gotten pregnant with a boy, then had divorced amicably. When the divorce was final, she accepted a position abroad in London, then in Singapore, which wasn’t a problem for her ex-husband, who was relieved by not having to be one of those new exemplary fathers, the ones who claim to be happy about getting joint custody. Visits during school vacations suited them all just fine.
Ferdinand has never understood how his daughter could ask for a divorce and abandon her husband, whom he certainly didn’t hold dear. Marion doesn’t hold it against Ferdinand. Defying all expectations, she’s always been indulgent with her father, finding excuses for his absences, defending him against her mother.
When it was Ferdinand’s turn to get a letter from Louise demanding a divorce, he’d at first thought it was a joke. A trick played very late, over the age of eighty, when he wasn’t expecting it anymore, when he thought the worst was behind him, and the time to pay the piper had passed . . . or that the mailman had forgotten his address.
Chapter Fifteen
You Can Count Me Out
Ferdinand doesn’t know why, but when his sorrows disappeared two weeks ago, just after the infamous nocturnal musical welcome, a pain formed in the lower half of his face. On the advice of his doctor, he’s once again wearing his bandage and taking painkillers.
It’s past noon, but with his jaw swaddled, the old man dreads mealtimes, when he inevitably bites off more than he can chew. He’s resigned to swapping his usual rump steak for boiled ham, and macaroni for alphabet pasta. And he can now once again stomach things besides soup, even if he still has to eat with a spoon. It is a humiliation that feels like a foretaste of the retirement home . . . But what irritates Ferdinand the most is the pitcher of water presiding over the Formica table. The doctor was strict: no alcohol! Armed with his little spoon, Ferdinand is cautiously opening his mouth, when the doorbell rings. He freezes, then glances at the clock. It’s 12:18. The spoon remains suspended an inch from his lips. Who would dare disturb him during lunch? I’m not home.
But there are two additional knocks. Ferdinand groans, steps into his slippers, and shuffles to the door. When he peers out the peephole to identify the lout, he sees no one. All that fuss for nothing . . . Ferdinand is still leaning against the door, looking through the peephole, when someone rings the bell again. What kind of joke is this? The old man violently yanks open the door. There, on the doormat, is a little girl, about ten. A puny thing, in overalls and a striped shirt. She doesn’t have time to open her mouth before Ferdinand stops her cold.
“Don’t bother exerting yourself, little one. I already have my calendar for the year. You’re not too clever coming by after January.”
He’s closing the door, when a shoe gets in the way. Stunned, Ferdinand watches the little girl come inside and sit down in the kitchen.
“What a
re you doing? Get out of my house, kid. On the double!”
“Sorry, but your head looks like an Easter egg! If I had to commit suicide, I wouldn’t throw myself under a bus. Too much risk of failure, don’t you think?”
Ferdinand’s jaw is about to drop, when the little girl continues. “I brought some licorice. I thought it could be dessert for us. I bet you don’t have anything in your fridge.”
She gets up, opens it, and her cursory inspection yields a “Bingo!” Ferdinand, speechless, watches as the girl strolls around his home. No one has set foot in his kitchen for years. No one!
“You’re gonna have to do some serious cleaning before Mrs. Suarez visits you on Wednesday. Otherwise, you’re finished!” concludes the little girl, sitting back down.
Enough is enough. Ferdinand finally manages to form some words. “Hold on. Who are you, first of all? And what are you doing in my kitchen? And nobody talks to me like that! No way—”
“I’ve come for lunch. I don’t like the cafeteria. My name’s Juliette. I’m going to call you Ferdinand, it’ll be easier that way.”
“I’m only going to repeat this once: you pack up your bag and get the hell out of here. Such insolence!”
“I thought you might need your medicine. Don’t you? You forgot it at the pharmacy.”
Juliette puts the plastic pharmacy bag on the table. “Good thing I’m here! So, what are we eating? I’m starving. Ham and macaroni? You have a fork anywhere? I’m not really into spoons. I leave that to my sister, Emma. She’s one and a half. I think you’ve already met her, and my father, too. We just moved in upstairs, into the hairdresser’s old apartment. Apparently she decided to leave because she was getting mean. I don’t really get it.”
Ferdinand remains silent. He slumps into his chair and points to the drawer in the china cabinet where the flatware is kept. In a slightly calmer voice, he tries again. “But you can’t just turn up like this. I’m expecting company. You have to leave.”
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