The 6:41 to Paris
Page 1
THE 6:41 TO PARIS
www.newvesselpress.com
First published in French in 2013 as 06h41
Copyright © 2013 Libella, Paris
Translation Copyright © 2015 Alison Anderson
All rights reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in a newspaper, magazine, radio, television, or website review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the Publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Blondel, Jean-Philippe
[06h41. English]
The 6:41 to Paris/Jean-Philippe Blondel; translation by Alison Anderson.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-1-939931-26-9
Library of Congress Control Number 2015935267
I. France -- Fiction
Contents
The 6:41 to Paris
I could have taken the 7:50, or even the 8:53. It’s Monday. Mondays are dead quiet at work. It’s just that I couldn’t take it anymore. What was I thinking, staying Sunday night. I don’t know what came over me. Two days are more than enough.
I didn’t sleep well at all last night, obviously. I was so annoyed with myself. Another wasted weekend. And at the same time, it was no surprise, it’s always like that. Valentine could have told me it would be. So could Luc. And I understand their perspective, but it pisses me off. That they didn’t come. That they didn’t do their bit. That they weren’t there supporting me so I could get through those two days. That they don’t care as much about my parents as I do. Which is normal. They are my parents. My very own. My only parents, and I’m their only daughter.
Every time, I swear it can’t go on like this. And then I start feeling guilty. Insidiously. I hear their voices on the phone. Never a reproach. Never a complaint. Just silence, when I say that I have a lot of work at the moment. I have to get in touch with my suppliers. I have to satisfy my clients. I can just imagine them on the other end of the line. My mother standing ramrod straight behind my father. Brittle. The grimace on her face. The scathing remark on the tip of her tongue. I wonder if there is anyone anywhere who knows how to look after elderly parents. Elderly but not yet bedridden. Just old and weak. Old and vulnerable. And bitter.
No, actually, I don’t wonder. There must be somebody, yes. Luc, for example. Except actually he doesn’t care about them at all. He severed all connections with his family more than twenty years ago, and apart from a very occasional visit or phone call, he’s not in touch. I think that’s what I admired most about him when we met. How independent he could be. That salutary selfishness. I admired it even more than his presence. Or his style. The style he has kept in spite of the passage of time. He’s pushing fifty, but he’s still slim, trim, almost rugged. The kind of man that women over forty dream about. I’m not jealous. I never have been. I’m not submissive enough. Our mutual independence is both a challenge and a source of respect.
Naturally my parents complained when Luc didn’t show up. It’s not that he’s overly friendly with them, but they like it better when we come as a family. With Luc and Valentine. That way they can tell the entire neighborhood—the shopkeepers in particular—“Last weekend, the whole family was here.” They like saying that, the whole family.
This time, the other two members of the whole family didn’t give in.
I tried to explain. Luc had a lot of work, his company is in the middle of a restructuring. And as for Valentine, you know … As a rule, just saying “you know …” and following it with a sigh should be enough, should suggest the fact that Valentine is almost seventeen, she lives just outside Paris, she’s in love, and she hates coming to this town out in the boonies where she doesn’t know a soul and where her grandpa is constantly sending her out into the garden to play as if she were still seven years old.
But that’s not enough for my parents. I have to come up with a pretty lie, neatly packaged, festooned with magnificent lemon yellow ribbons—and served up with a radiant smile. I’m used to it. I learned to hide the truth from them very early on. So I invented some fake exams for Valentine on Monday morning, that way all day Sunday she’d have to be studying for them. When I told her how I planned to lie to her grandparents, she burst out laughing, hugged me, and asked why I didn’t just tell them that whenever she went there she got so bored she could die and that they were a real pain in the butt. I didn’t say anything. The only thing I could think of was “I couldn’t speak like that to my parents,” but I didn’t come out with it because I know for a fact that Luc and Valentine would be perfectly capable of saying something like that.
I wonder if Valentine will talk to us like that later on. When it’s our turn to wait for her visit in our little house in the suburbs. No, no suburbs. I’m not going to get old in the Paris suburbs. I don’t come from there. There’s nothing to keep me there. I’ve started thinking about where I—I mean we, if all goes well—might end our days. I like the thought of Mexico, or Morocco, but I know I would miss books and movies and my own language. And besides, I know those countries. I’ve already been there. I’m glad I was able to visit them, but I can’t see myself living there. No. I need a quiet place. Flat, open country—but with hills on the horizon, all the same. Or else the sea. The ocean, rather. Salty, wild, sticking to your skin. But not Paris. No. Or here, either. Troyes. The Champagne region. I’ve had enough of it. On the station platform. 6:35. I can’t begin to think how many times I’ve waited for a train under this glass roof.
It’s stupid.
Everything is stupid.
The fact I got up so early. And stayed an extra night, above all. I had the choice. I could have gone home last night—but I don’t know, the thought of forty-five minutes on the Métro and RER and then getting home from the Gare de l’Est, and then all over again in the other direction on Monday morning really depressed me. And my mother’s face, transformed into this Mater Dolorosa, stubbornly silent of course, at the thought of my departure on Sunday afternoon. I knew that Valentine was sleeping over at Éléonore’s and that Luc would be spending the evening on his computer. So I clapped my hands, like a little girl, and blurted, “I’ll just leave on Monday morning!” I called Luc, who grumbled. And sent a text to Valentine—in any case, there’s no other way to get in touch with her. Her reply: “OK. Hugs.” There comes an age when you find yourself trapped between indifferent children and recalcitrant parents. That’s all there is to it. I’m forty-seven years old. I’m right in the middle of it.
In the end, my parents were more surprised than anyone. Unpleasantly surprised. Especially my mother. The Mater Dolorosa became a Mater Anxiosa. This would upset her routine. This would give her multiple causes for concern. She wouldn’t be able to put the sheets I had used into the washing machine. It would throw everything off. And what on earth will we have for supper, we didn’t plan, did we, Sunday evening, you know, usually it’s just soup, the police show on Channel 2, and off to bed! And besides, what’s behind it? Is there something wrong between you and Luc? That’s why he didn’t come, isn’t it! Oh, you know you can come out and tell us, but you could be a little nicer to him, after all. It’s as if you always decide everything.
So I had to fight back. I said, “Aren’t you pleased I’m spending some time with you?” They beat a hasty retreat. They apologized. They said, Of course, it’s just that … No point in taking it any further. I know. The whole family. And to think that, in my everyday life, I am respected. Almost feared. I plan. I decide. I hire.
I don’t know if I’ll be sad when they pass away.
Apparently you can boast about your indifference, but w
hen that time comes, the emotion just comes straight at you and mows you down. Whatever. I find it hard to believe. In short, a completely wasted weekend. All I did was go around in circles in my parents’ house. The only time I got out was to go and change my train ticket yesterday—oh, and I also went with my mother to the boulangerie-pâtisserie which isn’t a boulangerie and even less of a patisserie, but just a place where they sell bread. She wanted to buy some custard. For dessert on Sunday evening. Since nothing had been planned.
It goes without saying that I won’t share any of this with Luc. It would only prove that he was right and he would go around with his smug little smile on his face. Nor will I say a word to Valentine—she doesn’t care, anyway. Nor do my colleagues. And the few friends we still have—it’s crazy how once people turn forty friendships seem to disintegrate. They get transferred, they’re busy with their kids, you no longer share the same opinions—everything alienates you from people you thought would be close to you all your life. All that’s left are laconic email messages. Phone calls punctuated with long silences. Sporadic meetings.
No. Stop.
I have to remind myself that when I haven’t slept well I get all bent out of shape. It’s 6:41 in the morning, after all. And I’m in a foul mood.
I’m astonished how many people are here. And how many trains there are this early. It’s as if half the town were going to work in Paris every day.
Which may well be the case.
Here comes the train—on time. Thank goodness.
I would have gone crazy if it had been late.
I like trains. All the time you can spend doing nothing in particular. You get your bag ready for the trip—like with kids when they’re still small. You pack two paperbacks, some chewing gum, a bottle of water—you can almost imagine putting your security blanket in there, too. Everything you need to pass the time pleasantly. When you get to the station, you even linger at the newsstand, you buy a magazine, preferably one about the rich and famous. It’s as if you were going to the beach—and like at the beach, you end up not bothering with the novels or the magazine, you don’t chew on the gum and you even forget to drink the water. You get hypnotized by the landscape rolling by, or the rhythm of the waves.
The only train I can’t stand is on Sunday night to Paris. When I was a student, that train meant depression and uprooting. I would get to the Gare de l’Est feeling totally dispirited. Because my roots are here. I’ve always known that. I was like the rooster in the farmyard back here. In Paris I was nobody. But it was all so long ago. That doesn’t stop me hating the Sunday night train. That’s why I’m here so early this morning. I could have taken the 9:25 last night and slept at Mathieu’s place, since I have the keys. But I didn’t feel like it. I would rather set the alarm and get up and head for the train station when it’s still dark. There are dozens of shadows like me on the way. Except that they do it every day. For me it’s an exception. The later trains get into Paris too late—at 10:30, 11:30, the morning is already half over and you feel as if you’re showing up in the middle of the party.
A day unlike any other.
Unique.
A break with routine.
I start at the store at 10:00 on Mondays and I’m at it until seven in the evening. In a while I’ll phone from Paris to say I can’t come in today. I’ll make up the hours; there’s a family emergency. I know the secretary on the other end of the line will be worried. In twenty years working at the superstore I haven’t missed a single day—except when I had lumbago, four years ago. I’ll promise to explain when I get back, tomorrow. Because I will get back tomorrow. In principle. Otherwise I’ll have to find a doctor who’ll give me a few days off. I wonder if Jérôme could do that. Maybe he could, after all. It would be strange. But Jérôme is so kind. More than that. He’s a saint. A saint who took in my wife and kids after the divorce. And since then, he’s been there to make sure they have a friendly environment, full of the comfort and warmth which were singularly lacking in their original family toward the end.
Except that, in fact, the divorce was because of him. No, that’s unfair. It’s much more complicated than that. Christine and I weren’t getting along very well. We got on each other’s nerves. She felt like she was wasting her life. She began to spend her evenings on the Internet, reconnecting with people. Finding friends from her teenage years. Her first love, whom she’d never completely forgotten. Jérôme, in other words. Who was divorced, too, no kids, a bit of a player but ready to settle down. They didn’t even need Match.com. It’s pathetic.
The kids were annoyed, but not actually all that much. The atmosphere in the house had been unbearable. Jérôme’s dowry came with a much bigger house, and a sizable yard, where there was even some talk of putting in a swimming pool. He was kind and considerate, and he never said no to buying them magazines. He played video games. The perfect father. Manon was eight, Loïc was six. That was ten years ago. It all went very smoothly. For them. And for me? I don’t think about it. I go on doing what I set out to do—except that I’ve kind of lost the purpose of the journey. I had a few promising but short-lived affairs. Of the kind that are good for your health. The months have gone by. The years. And I’m hardly likely to change the course of things now. I have my routine. The occasional phone call to Christine, as friendly as it is rare. The kids every other weekend until this year, when they asked for greater autonomy, and they don’t spend their weekends with me or their mother, but with people we hardly know. As for half of the vacation this year, that could be a problem, too. Manon will be working at the outdoor sports center and her brother wants to take a sailing course for three weeks. I didn’t fight it. That’s not my style. I wait for my kids to feel guilty. That’s my strategy. Needless to say, it’s pretty useless. Next year, Manon is moving to Reims to study to become a physical therapist. That’s what she wants to be. When I ask her why, she shrugs. She talks about money, clients, combining business with pleasure, doing good—and besides, it’s a profession that should be safe from unemployment. She’s reasonable. Can be a little cold. She’s into sports. She’s putting money aside so she won’t have to be totally dependent on her parents and stepfather next year. Irreproachable. What ever happened to the little girl I used to fling into the public swimming pool singing “Karma karma karma karma karma chameleon” while she burst out laughing? But I’m being unfair. I doubt she’s like that with her mother. Or with Jérôme. It’s just something she has with her father. Loïc is headed down the same path. Only worse. He wants to be an orthodontist. What a magnificent dream for a sixteen-year-old.
Having said that, what were my dreams when I was sixteen? I didn’t have any. I just let myself go with the flow. I was seizing the day, as they say. I was fed and housed and watered, I went out with girls, I spent time with my friends, and I thought life would always be like that.
I have to stop sighing.
I’ve noticed that I’ve been sighing more and more often. And that I get out of breath, and huff and puff. A bad sign. For a start, it drives others away, they get your number—a loser through and through. No one wants to talk to someone who sighs all the time, what if they start venting and go on for hours? And then you see yourself in a very unflattering light. Particularly as I’m only forty-seven. I just had my birthday. I have at least three more decades to get through. Without sighing. Are these other people on the platform sighing?
It just goes to show, all these people at this time of day. The town never recovered from the loss of the textile industry or the joys of outsourcing. They’ve been trying to make the switch to the service sector—call centers, tourism, shipping—but the job market is tight and the jobs that are available are not very appealing. It’s better to work in Paris all day long and deal with a three hour daily commute to earn a decent salary rather than put up with a schedule from hell to speak to some caller on a hotline.
At the end of his life my father worked in Paris. Promotion, career, money, prestige. He had it all figured out
. He made his choice. He saw his wife and kids only two hours in the evening and two days on the weekend. It was just a question of months or a few years—and then they’d move south for their retirement, build a little house, it was all planned out, ordained, on course. But then one day he had a heart attack, when he was changing Métro lines. Defibrillators didn’t exist back then. There were calls for help, people rushing over, gathering around, someone shouted, “I’m a doctor!” like in some second-rate TV show. But it wasn’t enough. For three years my mother was inconsolable, and then she met this charming bicycle salesman who had just gotten divorced. They went on long rides together.
I’m aware that history is repeating itself.
I’m trying to fight it.
I figure that bicycle salesmen and doctors are not the same thing.
Or are they?
I also figure that I got divorced before, that I won’t kill myself working, and that I won’t end up dead in a Métro passageway. Unless I do today.
No.
I close my eyes while the ubiquitous female voice announces the arrival of the train in the station. I’d like to meet her someday, that woman. I wonder what she’s like in real life. Does she spend her time recording messages such as “train number one thousand three hundred (pause) and fifty is currently delayed by (pause) five minutes?” How does she see her future? What does she like to do when she’s not at work?
Above all I wonder how long this recorded voice has been making its announcements to passengers. I remember a day just like this. All those years ago. I took the same train—or its twin brother. I was seventeen. With Mathieu. It was the end of April, just like today. Easter vacation. We were leaving for Les Landes for a few days, to go camping. We’d been dreaming about our week on the coast for months. All the other students were green with envy. We were freedom personified. If I let myself go a little, I can even feel the weight of the tent and the backpack on my shoulders. And the impression I had that the whole world was opening up to me.