The 6:41 to Paris

by Jean-Philippe Blondel

  “I thought you’d be in the basement all night.”

  “Don’t judge a book by its cover.”

  “I hate proverbs and clichés.”

  “But sometimes they do reflect the truth.”

  “Sorry?”

  “Well, look, if we’re judging books by their covers, then you’re the type of girl who spends all night out in the garden when there’s a party going on in the house.”

  I could have been annoyed or even shocked, but instead I thought it was a clever answer. I laughed. And added, “Score one for Philippe Leduc.” And I sensed him relaxing ever so faintly. His shoulders dropping slightly.

  “And a point for you, too, for knowing my name.”

  “Everyone who was at the lycée with you knows your name.”

  “Only half a point then.”

  “And two points for you if you know my name.”

  “First and last?”

  “One point for first, one point for last.”

  “Or maybe one and a half points for first, and—”

  “Stop trying to buy time. You may as well give up right away.”

  I was facing him. I was smiling. It wasn’t hard to smile at him. Just staring at him made you feel like seducing him. I must have had little bubbles in my eyes, something sparkling. The situation was entertaining. He’d been caught in his own trap. And I’d managed to catch him off guard. Suddenly I could see why he might be interested: here was a girl who knew how to answer back, who was sharp. Sometimes that can even make up for average looks. Especially at night. I knew that two or three days from now he would feel embarrassed. And ashamed, so he’d go and blame the alcohol and the late hour. But for the moment, I had a goal. I wondered if I’d manage to reach it. It was exciting.

  I thought of the Leap of Death. At my grandmother’s, when I was little: the Leap of Death used to take my breath away. It was a challenge I’d made up, a game that consisted in jumping down several steps of the stone stairway without falling, to land on the path in the garden. You started with just one step, then two, three, four. The Leap of Death was five whole steps. Every time, I imagined my face would be covered in blood, the grown-ups would come rushing out, my mother would scream with despair, my father would practically pass out, my schoolmates (who, inexplicably, had suddenly shown up, too) would be crying their young eyes out. Ecstasy. The ecstasy of the instant before the Leap of Death, because now I would have to go through with it, after all.

  So I moved a few inches closer and held out my hand.

  “Pleased to meet you. My name is Cécile Duffaut. Repeat after me, Cé-cile Duf-faut.”

  “Hey, I hadn’t given up yet, as far as I know.”

  “Too late.”

  He took my hand. He held it in his. It was an awkward moment, but when you’re post-adolescent, you enjoy these awkward moments. You feel as if things can change dramatically. And they often do.

  “I am delighted to make your acquaintance, Cé-cile Duf-faut.”

  “I’m not.”

  “Sorry?”

  “I’m delighted, but I’m not making your acquaintance.”

  So bold, all of a sudden.

  I have this boldness in me. Deep-rooted. I stifled it for years, smothered it to keep it buried, but it comes out with the explosiveness of a champagne cork whenever I feel a certain pressure, the way I did then. Now I know how to use it to my advantage. It’s very useful in meetings, negotiations, sales contracts. Sometimes it makes my colleagues or competitors blush, but basically they like to see a display of nerve. A sharpness of tone. The sharp edge of the guillotine.

  Philippe Leduc began to laugh heartily.

  Men always think that once they’ve made a woman laugh, they’re already halfway to her bed—and they don’t realize how much the opposite holds true as well.

  Was Philippe Leduc worth it?

  At the age of twenty, perhaps he was.

  It’s a difficult age, twenty, for a man. They’re so eager to dominate. To mark their territory. There’s a sort of nervous abruptness. Awkwardness. That rebellious side, inspiring tenderness but unbearable at the same time.

  It’s a difficult age, but that’s no excuse.

  In any case, it’s no excuse for London.

  I’m feeling a sudden surge of rage.

  So I really haven’t gotten over it.

  On the 6:41 train, in the toilet, looking in the mirror, I remember the journey home.

  By the time I walked out of the station, all alone, I was seething. Sitting in the sidewalk café across the street was Mathieu. Philippe Leduc’s best friend. A mere coincidence. We had met a few times. Now we exchanged hesitant greetings. He frowned. He asked me where I had been. London. With Philippe? I waved my hand as if to say, “It’s not important.” He asked me if I wanted a coffee. I almost said no, because it wasn’t a good time, I had other fish to fry, I had some wild horses inside me that wanted setting free, but I shrugged and said “Why not?” I toyed with the idea of seducing Mathieu. It gave me pleasure. I didn’t go any further, because I wasn’t that sort of girl. Nowadays I wouldn’t hesitate.

  Mathieu.

  Mathieu Coché.

  I would never even have remembered his name if I hadn’t come across an article in a magazine at the hairdresser’s. A fairly long interview. A rising star, describing his childhood. His adolescence. His roots. His passion for the theater. How he moved to Paris, and all the opportunities there. It was mush. Sickly sweet. A cream pie of the sort you like to lap up while you’re waiting for the hairdresser to finish painting your hair with dye.

  I looked at the photograph, and I didn’t recognize the young man I had known. Back in those days Mathieu Coché was not particularly popular or even attractive. He seemed gauche. A bit of a lump is how my grandmother would have put it. Burdened with a frame that was shooting up, but that, for the time being, was too well-filled. He often looked downcast. He had an identity only by virtue of association. He was “Philippe Leduc’s friend”. He was just a stand-in, and girls showed any interest in him only because of his closeness to the boy they really coveted.

  What a magnificent role reversal.

  I didn’t really follow Mathieu’s career; I kept up with the programs on television, but I don’t think I ever saw a single film or series he played in. The insipid nature of the article annoyed me. I was just about to put the magazine down when I noticed the mole he had just above his wrist. I don’t know why, but it affected me. I smiled. I smiled at the man in the photograph. That day, too, at the hairdresser’s, I remembered the sidewalk café opposite the train station.

  We didn’t really know what to talk about. Mathieu Coché wasn’t very chatty. I was really surprised, too, when I found out he’d become an actor. The way I saw it, actors had to be extroverts, had to feel easy around people. Performers who were well-integrated and experienced in giving interviews.

  I was seething with hatred that day. With no end in sight. It had overwhelmed me on the return journey. I had emerged from the sort of hazy state I’d been in most of the night. I was only vaguely aware of getting off the train in Dover, showing my passport, and boarding another train. But suddenly in Paris, when I left the Gare du Nord, there was a wolfhound in my body. If Leduc had been there in front of me, I would have torn him to shreds.

  I felt just the same—nothing had changed—when I got off the train in Troyes. Then suddenly there was Mathieu Coché. The guy’s best friend. It was too much. But at the same time I knew I had no reason to blame Mathieu. Besides, he was being considerate. He asked me, awkwardly, had it not gone well. I just said, “You don’t want to know,” and he nodded. He let a few minutes go by. The waiters were bustling around us. With their black and gold striped waistcoats, they looked like wasps.

  I saw wasps. All around me. Their mandibles slicing up pieces of my flesh with a precise cruelty. My arms. My cheeks. My tongue. My eyes.

  I had a sudden abrupt reaction, and almost knocked over the table. Mathieu Coché was
startled. He touched my hand.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. I thought there was an insect.”

  “If you want to talk, or have a drink, or simply see someone, you can call me. I’ll be here all summer.”

  I didn’t say anything. I just stared at him. What was he thinking, really? Was he trying to hit on me? Was this his thing, to console the ex-girlfriends of his pal the heartbreaker? Or was it nothing? Simply nothing? Politeness? Kindness in the presence of someone who’s in pain? I never found out. I never called him, either.

  He raised his hand to ask for the check, and the watch he was wearing slipped an inch or so down his arm. That’s when I saw the mole, just above his wrist.

  All of a sudden, I emerged from my hatred.

  I caught a glimpse of what was hidden deep inside Mathieu Coché.

  His eyes, shoulders, forearms, neck—everything was seeping with absence. With emptiness.

  The possibility, suddenly, of another life, with Mathieu Coché, was dizzying. Even today, it still is. Even here, now, on this early-morning train. Even here in these SNCF toilets that could use a good cleaning.

  Someone just tried the handle. Once. Twice.

  I don’t know how long I’ve been in here.

  I’m out of my mind.

  I have to get out of here. And back to my seat. The trip is already half over. It will go quickly now. Everything goes so fast anyway. Everything goes so fast, but twenty-seven years later, it is all still there.

  “Excuse me.”

  “No problem.”

  She brushed past me.

  Just the slightest contact, that brushing motion, bringing back impressions, colors, dark green, deep blue, undergrowth. Did I ever go walking in the forest with Cécile? If I did, I don’t remember. And yet there’s a lot I do remember. Some things that I would rather forget. The way I behaved toward her at the end. I would like to tell her that I never did anything like that ever again. It’s true. Before her, yes. I could be a real lout. A cad. All those words no one uses much anymore.

  I was almost back there.

  If I closed my eyes, with her legs brushing against mine, I could remember how it was, the two of us. The way we moved together. The way we talked. All that blustering. How we wanted to make fun of everything. To be supremely ironic. Such vanity. What poseurs we were.

  My cell phone vibrating.

  Text message from Christine: “We have to talk.” Which just goes to show how useful cell phones are: to send a message to tell the other person that you have to talk. Now, indeed, the time has come to be sarcastic. But sarcasm all on one’s own is pointless. And this woman next to me on the train is not about to speak to me. I wonder if she’s recognized me. I’ll bet she has, now: but that’s pure vanity. As if I were so unforgettable. And my looks hadn’t changed a bit. That’s what I used to think. That as you got older your body just got drier—you got wrinkles, more accentuated features, and that was it. Whereas nowadays I look like a balloon. Full of hot air, wedged tight into an uncomfortable SNCF seat.

  What am I supposed to say to Christine? What can I possibly reply? “Whenever you want,” “Yes,” “No,” “Now what,” “I miss you.”

  Or something neutral and descriptive. “I’m on the train.” Then, for a bit of spice, provoke her: “With Cécile Duffaut.” But that wouldn’t serve any purpose—Christine doesn’t know Cécile.

  And besides, this encounter is purely anecdotal. There are other women I could have run into on the train. Women who have actually meant something in my life. Virginie, for example. Who I was seeing before Christine. We were together for two years. We had a lot in common. And a lot of differences—it would have been impossible to construct anything on such a swamp, and already back then I wanted something solid, concrete, a protection against erosion. Or Élise. That’s true, there was Élise. Only one month, but a month of breathtaking intensity. She was about to go to Brazil, she had a round-trip ticket good for a year, but she wasn’t at all sure she would come back, she’d been dreaming about Brazil since she was a kid. One night she said to me, “You could go, too, you could drop everything and come with me.” She smiled as she said it. She knew it was just idle talk. I’m not the type who can do that sort of thing. In fact, I don’t know anyone in my circle who could just go off like that. On a wild impulse: you only see that sort of thing in fiction, in bad novels, Sunday evening TV movies. I wonder where Élise is now. I can’t picture her old. There’s a good chance she’s not even old. She could be dead, for all I know. Long dead. That’s what I’m afraid of. You meet someone, you’re together for a while, then he or she disappears from your everyday life, you get over it, you forget. One day, on a train, you think, “For all I know, they’re dead.” I’m glad to be traveling here silently with Cécile Duffaut: at least I know she’s not dead.

  In spite of everything, I’m also glad I’m on my way to see Mathieu. Because the two of us know exactly where we stand. And I’ll never have to say, “Well, for all I know he’s dead.” At least that.

  At least that.

  I hate that expression more than anything. My mother uses it all the time. It reassures her about the world around her. Gives it logic, seemliness. But she can take it way too far. When the space shuttle Challenger exploded, out it came: at least their bodies won’t be endlessly orbiting the earth. And once she managed to tear her eyes away from the screen after the planes had crashed into the twin towers, she murmured, at least they had time to call their wives and husbands to say good-bye.

  I’m an At Least son.

  At least you passed your exams.

  At least you’ve got a steady job.

  At least you’ve had children.

  At least your ex-wife isn’t making a fuss about the alimony.

  At least your divorce hasn’t gone too badly. At least you’re not dead.

  I did almost die, once.

  Like everyone, I suppose.

  I was sailing on the lake, ten miles or so from my parents’ place. It was not long after Cécile Duffaut. A sudden storm. The wind picked up, formed a tornado. I was fascinated. I’d never seen one in my life. After that I don’t know exactly what happened. Something bashed me in the back of the head, probably the boom jibing. I passed out and fell overboard. The other sailors didn’t have time to notice me: their boats were in trouble, too. I opened my eyes: algae, bubbles, silt, but the terrifying noise of the storm was gone. It felt good, there. I felt good. I thought, game over, and I think I smiled, but is it possible to smile when you’re running out of air? I remember that my head hurt, and I may well have been bleeding.

  I didn’t want to die, but living wasn’t all that great an option, either. My relationships with girls were heading nowhere. My parents and I annoyed each other beyond belief. The years seemed to be frittering away, like the friendships I had thought would always endure. Anything could happen, why not death?

  But I rose to the surface. A moment of panic. Air. The need for air. But it was a close call. I’ve never been out sailing since.

  Of course everything would be different now. I have responsibilities. I have my children.

  I can still hear that white noise distinctly—not unlike the crackling of a vinyl record once the music is over. The silence of afterward. Almost religious. And mocking, too.

  I have my children.

  The verb “to have.” It’s a troublesome one. It’s not a verb I’m familiar with. The more time goes by, the more I lose. The more I lose, the freer I am. The freer I am the more I wish I weren’t so free. What am I supposed to do with all this freedom?

  Make Cécile an offer, for example.

  I’ll turn to face her and I’ll explain myself. I’ll tell her about Mathieu. About me, my children, Christine, about how life takes sudden strange turns.

  I’ll apologize for London.

  Because of course I remember.

  We’ll go back over all that, get things off our chests, I’ll manage to cheer her up, she’ll
forget that she’s a busy married woman, a mother, I’ll throw down the gauntlet, Cécile, let’s go back to London, right now, I’ll make you forget that trip we took together, have you ever been back to London, Cécile? It’s a great city, you know. No, don’t tell me I ruined it for you. I did? No! Really? Then we have to fix that, whaddya say, right away, let’s drop everything—work, spouse, kids—and disappear for forty-eight hours to England, or more, if we get along.

  Are you up for it?

  You’re on.

  Right now.

  Well, two or three minutes from now.

  However long it takes for me to get used to the idea of such a sudden departure, together.

  No, I had something to do with it, too.

  I shouldn’t be disingenuous. I wasn’t the type of girl who had men turning around as I walked by. And I didn’t do anything to encourage them. I preferred wearing baggy clothes and shapeless sweatshirts; guys must’ve thought I spent my weekends sprawled in front of the television. And so they were often pleasantly surprised when I took my clothes off. And discovered that I actually had a figure.

  Plus shyness.

  No, that’s not it, either. I’ve never thought of myself as shy. It was just I didn’t feel like struggling for hours to impose my taste or my point of view, to defend a particular film or rock band or politician. It all seemed useless. I would look at them, all those strutting peacocks, puffing out their chests and crowing louder than anyone. And sometimes there in the barnyard a few hens would cackle as they pecked around the cocks, and the peahens would spread their feathers, because their song was so horrible; and then there were the graylag geese. Pasionarias who took every subject to heart, and they could easily go up an octave to stand up to the kings of the farm, another way of getting attention, of displaying their charms. And it worked. Men like it when you stand up to them. It arouses their hunting instinct. I wasn’t that kind.