Your Second Life Begins When You Realize You Only Have One

by Raphaelle Giordano

  G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS

  Publishers Since 1838

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  375 Hudson Street

  New York, New York 10014

  English translation copyright © 2018 by Nick Caistor

  Published in the United States in 2018 by G. P. Putnam’s Sons

  First published in France in 2015 as Ta deuxième vie commence quand tu comprends que tu n’en as qu’une by Groupe Eyrolles copyright © 2015 by Groupe Eyrolles

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Giordano, Raphaèelle, 1974- author. | Caistor, Nick, translator.

  Title: Your second life begins when you realize you only have one / Raphaelle Giordano ; translated from the French by Nick Caistor.

  Other titles: Ta deuxiáeme vie commence quand tu comprends que tu n’en as qu’une. English

  Description: New York : G.P. Putnam’s Sons, [2018]

  Identifiers: LCCN 2018015685 | ISBN 9780525535591 (paperback) | ISBN 9780525535614 (epub)

  Subjects: LCSH: Self-realization in women—Fiction. | Conduct of life—Fiction. | BISAC: FICTION / Contemporary Women. | FICTION / Family Life. | FICTION / Literary.

  Classification: LCC PQ2707.I68 T313 2018 | DDC 843/.92—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018015685

  p. cm.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Version_1

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Epigraph

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Pocket Dictionary of Routinology Words and Phrases

  Acknowledgments

  Discussion Guide

  A Conversation with Raphaëlle Giordano

  About the Author

  My dream is that everyone should take full advantage of their talents and responsibility for their happiness. Because there is nothing more important than to live life to the limits of one’s childhood dreams . . . Have a good journey.

  RAPHAËLLE

  one

  The raindrops crashing against my windshield grew larger and larger. The wipers creaked and shuddered and soon the torrents of water were so great that I instinctively took my foot off the accelerator. It was an almost biblical storm; a car accident was the last thing I needed.

  To avoid the Friday-evening traffic on my way back into central Paris, I had decided to take the back roads through the woods that surround the city. Anything to avoid the gridlocked highways and the horror of spending hours at a standstill. I squinted as I tried to make out the road signs ahead through the misted-up windows. And as if the weather and the traffic weren’t enough, all of a sudden, in the middle of the dark wood, my GPS gave up the ghost.

  It has to be said, no GPS would ever have survived the journey I’d just made. Or at least not unscathed. I was returning from an uncharted wilderness, the sort of area where “you are here” means “you are nowhere.” And yet . . . out there was a small office park, an unlikely collection of PLCs (Profitless companies, I thought to myself) that my boss must have thought offered enough of a commercial opportunity to justify my trip. Although I had the unpleasant suspicion that ever since he’d agreed I could work a four-day week, he was making me pay for that favor by giving me the jobs no one else wanted. Which explained why I was in this tin can on wheels, navigating the roads on the outskirts of Paris to chase after such small fry . . .

  Come on, Camille, stop feeling sorry for yourself and concentrate on the road . . .

  Suddenly there was a loud bang. I swerved terrifyingly out of control. My head hit the windshield, and I learned that the story about your life flashing in front of your eyes in a split second wasn’t just a myth.

  After a few foggy moments, I came to and tentatively reached up to where I’d hit my forehead . . . nothing sticky, thank goodness, just a large bump. I quickly checked myself all over. No, no other injuries to report. More of a fright than anything else, thank god!

  I got out of the car, shielding myself from the rain as best I could with my raincoat, and went to inspect the damage: a burst tire and a dented fender. Once I got over my initial panic, fear gave way to anger. For fuck’s sake! Could today possibly get any worse? With shaking hands, I grabbed my cell phone as if it was a lifeline. No signal, of course. Why was I not surprised?

  The minutes ticked by. Nothing—there wasn’t a soul around. I was all alone, stranded in this empty wood.

  Don’t just panic, do something! There must be people living round here somewhere . . .

  So I abandoned the car—it was no use to me now—and set off along the road, braving the elements in my oh-so-glamorous hi-vis waterproof. Needs must . . .

  After an eternity of ten minutes, I came across the iron gates of a large house. I pressed the button on the videophone as urgently as if I were dialing emergency services.

  A man replied tersely, in one of those haughty voices that you reserve for unwanted callers.

  “Yes? What is it?”

  I crossed my fingers: Please let this guy take pity on me!

  “Good evening . . . So sorry to bother you, but I’ve crashed my car in the woods behind your house . . . My tire’s burst and I don’t have any cell recep—”

  The buzzing sound of the gate being opened made me jump. Was it my bedraggled shipwreck survivor’s appearance that had convinced him to offer me asylum? I didn’t care. I slipped inside without a second thought and found myself con
fronted by a magnificent mansion, surrounded by a manicured garden. I felt as though I had struck gold.

  two

  The light came on at the top of the front steps, and the door opened. A man’s imposing silhouette advanced toward me, carrying an enormous umbrella. When he drew closer, I could make out a long face, good-looking despite the wrinkles. He was one of those men who had aged well: a kind of Gallic Sean Connery. I noticed dimples at the corners of his mouth, which gave him a friendly air. One that put me at ease. He was at least sixty, but it didn’t look as if it had taken much effort to get there. His pale gray eyes had a lively twinkle to them, and his salt-and-pepper hair was surprisingly thick for a man his age, only slightly receding in a way that suited the shape of his forehead. A beard as well tended as the gardens finished off his stylish appearance. He invited me to follow him inside.

  “Come in. You’re soaked through!”

  “Tha-thanks. It’s really kind of you. Again, I’m so sorry to disturb you . . .”

  “Don’t be. It’s not a problem. Take a seat while I fetch you a towel.”

  Just then, an elegant woman who I guessed must be his wife appeared. Her pretty face was creased with a frown, which she quickly suppressed when she saw me.

  “Is everything all right, darling?”

  “Yes, everything’s fine. This lady had a car accident and couldn’t get a signal in the woods. She just needs to use the phone and to recover a little.”

  “Oh yes, of course . . .”

  When she saw how cold I was, she kindly offered me a cup of tea. I accepted on the spot.

  As she disappeared into the kitchen, her husband came back downstairs, holding a towel.

  “Thank you, you’re very kind, Mr. . . .”

  “Call me Claude.”

  “Ah, OK. My name’s Camille.”

  “Here you are, Camille. The phone is over there.”

  “Wonderful. I won’t be a minute.”

  “Take your time.”

  I went over to the telephone, which stood on a pretty inlaid wooden table beneath a piece of modern art. These people had taste, and they were obviously well-off. What a relief I had come across them and not some monster who devoured desperate housewives in distress.

  I picked up the receiver and dialed my insurance company’s roadside assistance number. Since I couldn’t give them my car’s exact location, I asked the mechanic to come to the house, after Claude gave me the address. I was told they would be there within the hour. I breathed a sigh of relief: things were looking up.

  Then I called home. Claude was considerate enough to go over to the fire crackling in the hearth on the far side of the room and poke the logs while I did so. After eight seemingly endless rings, my husband picked up. I could tell from his voice that he had fallen asleep in front of the TV. He didn’t seem surprised or worried that I was calling: he was used to me sometimes coming home quite late.

  I explained all the catastrophes that had occurred, but he kept interrupting me with annoyed grunts and tuts of exasperation, before asking technical details: How long would it take the tow truck to come? How much was it going to cost? My nerves were frayed enough as it was, and the way he was behaving made me want to shout down the phone. Couldn’t he show a bit of understanding just this once? After telling him that I would sort it out and he needn’t bother to wait up for me, I slammed down the phone.

  Despite myself, my hands were trembling and I knew tears were welling in my eyes. I didn’t hear Claude coming back over to me, so I jumped when I felt his hand on my shoulder.

  “Everything OK? Are you all right?” he asked gently. I only wished my husband’s voice on the phone a few moments earlier had sounded as concerned.

  He bent over me and said again, “Are you OK?”

  At that, something in his face brought my defenses crashing down: my lip began to wobble, and I couldn’t hold back the tears. My mascara ran down my face as I released all the pent-up frustration that had built over the previous hours, weeks—months, even . . .

  three

  At first Claude said nothing. He simply stood there, one warm hand resting on my shoulder.

  When my tears finally dried, his wife, who in the meantime had put down a steaming cup of tea beside me, went to fetch some tissues. Then she vanished upstairs, no doubt sensing that her presence might inhibit what would be a welcome opportunity to get things off my chest.

  “I’m . . . I’m so sorry, this is ridiculous. I don’t know what’s come over me. I’ve been on edge recently anyway, and I’ve had such a terrible day—it’s all too much.”

  Claude had gone to sit in the armchair opposite me and was listening closely. Something about him made me feel I could trust him. He looked me straight in the eye. It was not a judgmental, intrusive look—more like a pair of open arms.

  Gazing at him, I sensed that I could open up. My inner resistance crumbled. So much the worse. Or so much the better?

  I told him the main reasons why I felt so down. I explained how all the micro-frustrations had accumulated and eaten away at any enthusiasm I felt for life, just when it seemed I should have everything I needed to feel on top of the world.

  “It’s not that I’m unhappy, but I’m not especially happy either . . . It’s so awful, this feeling that joy has slipped through my fingers. I don’t want to see a doctor about it: he would probably tell me I was depressed and stuff me full of drugs. No, it’s just this sort of . . . dissatisfaction. It’s nothing serious, but . . . it’s as if my heart simply isn’t in it anymore. I’m sorry, I really don’t know if any of this is making sense.”

  What I said seemed to move him so much that I wondered if it hadn’t struck a very personal chord. Although we had only met barely an hour before, a strange feeling of trust had sprung up between us. My confession had suddenly brought us several degrees closer and established a surprising bond.

  He obviously felt a genuine desire to comfort me.

  “Well, you may know what Abbé Pierre said: ‘We have as much need of reasons for living as of the necessities of life.’ So don’t say it’s not serious. It’s tremendously serious! Troubles of the soul are not something to be taken lightly. And listening to you, I actually think I know what’s wrong.”

  “You do? Really?” I sniffled.

  “Yes . . .”

  He hesitated a moment before continuing, as if trying to work out whether I was going to be receptive to what he had to say. He must have decided I was, because he went on, as though revealing a great secret.

  “You’re probably suffering from a kind of acute routinitis.”

  “A-what?”

  “Acute routinitis. It’s a sickness of the soul that affects more and more people in the world, especially in the West. The symptoms are almost always the same: a lack of motivation; chronic dissatisfaction; feeling you’ve lost your bearings and everything meaningful in life; finding it hard to feel happy even though you have more than enough material goods; disenchantment; world-weariness . . .”

  “But . . . but how do you know all that?”

  “I’m a routinologist.”

  “A routine-what?”

  He must be used to this kind of reaction, because he remained calm and collected while still projecting compassion.

  He briefly explained what routinology was: an innovative method still little known in France but already popular in many other parts of the world. Researchers and scientists had come to realize that an increasing number of people were suffering from the syndrome. While not being clinically depressed, one could still have a feeling of emptiness and unease and suffer from the unpleasant sensation that although you had everything you needed to be happy, you didn’t have the key to make the most of it.

  I listened to him wide-eyed, drinking in what he was saying. It was such an accurate description of what I was feeling. My expression encouraged hi
m to continue.

  “You know, at first glance routinitis may seem like a benign condition, but it can cause real damage: epidemics of pessimism, tsunamis of discontent, catastrophic storms of bad moods. Smiling could become endangered. Don’t laugh, it’s true! Not to mention the butterfly effect. The more the phenomenon spreads, the greater number of people fall prey to it . . . If not properly treated, routinitis can lower the well-being index of an entire country.”

  Although I knew he was being serious, I also realized he was laying it on thick to bring a smile back to my face.

  “Isn’t that a bit of an exaggeration?”

  “Only slightly. You can’t imagine how many happiness illiterates there are. Not to mention all those lacking any emotional intelligence. It’s a real scourge. Don’t you agree that there’s nothing worse than the sense that life is passing you by? Simply because you don’t have the courage to go for what you really want, because you haven’t stayed faithful to your deepest-seated values, to the dreams you harbored as a child?”

  “Yes, that’s so true . . .”

  “Unfortunately, developing our capacity for being happy isn’t something we’re taught at school. Yet there are techniques you can learn. You can have lots of money and be really unhappy, or equally not have much but make your existence the sweetest there is. The capacity for being happy has to be worked on, built up day by day. All you have to do is take a good look at your system of values and re-educate the way you look at life and what’s going on around you.”

  He stood up and went over to the big table to fetch a plate of cookies to go with my tea. He nibbled a few absentmindedly, seemingly keen to return to our conversation. The more I listened to him telling me about how important it was to rediscover yourself, to love yourself better so as to find your own path and your happiness, to make that joy radiate around you, the more I wondered what on earth could have happened to him to make him so passionate about all this.

  He lit up completely as he tried to persuade me to share his conviction. Then all at once he fell silent and stared at me with that benevolent look of his that seemed to read my mind as easily as a blind person reading Braille.