Uh-oh. I bumped into Cécile Duffaut.
“Excuse me, I’m sorry.”
“No problem.”
Silence.
Loudspeaker crackling.
Our train will be arriving shortly in Paris, Gare de l’Est, our final station. On behalf of the SNCF, the train manager, and crew hope you have had a pleasant journey.
“I am really sorry.”
“It’s not a problem, really, it was nothing.”
“No, that’s not what I mean. What I mean is, I’m sorry about everything. About what happened almost thirty years ago. About London. I am. I’m really sorry.”
“Oh. Thank you.”
At least now it’s done.
I expect it’s something Mathieu would have done, too. That’s how he must be feeling these days, wishing he could ease his conscience. Put an end to all the failures, tie up all the loose ends. When you’re at death’s door, you won’t be in the mood for Impressionists. Vermeer would be more like it. A View of Delft, say. Or any seventeenth century Dutch interior. Or why not Bacon’s screaming popes or decomposing bodies, while you’re at it.
I don’t know how he’s doing.
Yesterday on the phone he was totally delirious. Half in tears over a red bicycle he used to have when he was nine years old, and half elated because he’s convinced that he’ll be going home soon. I’m glad his mother is not altogether lucid anymore. I couldn’t stand seeing any of my children die before me.
I got hold of the head nurse on the phone. She knows me. She knows I’m a substitute family. I’m everything at once: parents, brother, son, friend. Even though Mathieu and I stopped seeing each other for almost twenty years. It’s pathetic. She told me they’d increased the dose of morphine, and that his delirium might be a consequence of the injections, unless the metastasis has already reached his brain. They would have to check, with a scan. There was a moment of silence. She murmured, “If it comes to that.” I understood that I had to get there as fast as I could.
So here I am.
Whatever Cécile Duffaut might think, I’m very loyal. It’s probably my best quality: for anyone I get attached to, or who gets attached to me, I’m like a dog. It’s not a very sexy trait, I’ll grant you that. It’s not the sort of thing you can let slip in conversation, when you meet someone. “You know, I’m very loyal”: you might as well tell them that you collect ceramic owls or that you spend your Sunday afternoons in front of the TV.
Cécile Duffaut doesn’t give a damn. She doesn’t give a damn about what I just told her.
At the same time, I can hardly say I blame her. It was twenty-seven years ago. A whole lifetime has gone by since then. There’s no point talking about it anymore. Or apologizing.
Thank God the trip will be over soon.
Sorry.
It was kind of him to say it.
To say he was sorry.
And I said, thank you.
How stupid.
Either you say nothing, and you cloak yourself in your dignity, you cast a scornful look at the odious individual who has dared to speak to you; or you accept the apology and you continue the conversation, Oh, and how are you after all these years, are you married, do you have kids, where do you work, well, you see, you made your way after all.
But like an imbecile, I dithered, somewhere in between.
I suppose that’s just the way I react to him—I’m indecisive, half stunned, half annoyed, incapable of deciding anything until the facts shove me out the door. Off the train. Out of the hotel room.
Why am I hung up on the past when I should be forging ahead, elated, looking forward to whatever’s in store? That’s how things were until last year. But now some spring has lost its tension; there’s some mechanism that hasn’t seized up yet, but it’s creaking. It’s harder to stifle those yawns in the morning. Valentine is almost seventeen, and she’s slipping away—and with her, the strongest tie I have with Luc. I wonder what will be left of our relationship once our daughter has left home. Maybe we’ll just congratulate each other, with kisses on both cheeks: “You did good with the kid, we can be proud, I’m off now, ciao,” and go our separate ways without any other due process, because for a long time now we haven’t exactly known who we are to each other, what we like, what we want. Or we’ll go on living together, like mussels on a rock, waiting for the next tide.
Balance sheet.
Settling of accounts.
That’s what I’ve been going over these last few months.
My life, two columns: pluses and minuses.
This I like / this I don’t like.
Make lists of what you like / what bothers you.
I sound like an article in a woman’s magazine.
I hate that sort of thing.
My father was a genealogy fanatic.
It started when he was about forty-five; I was still at the lycée. He would spend his vacations writing letters, making phone calls, going from one town hall to the next to look at birth registries. I was laughing behind his back. I couldn’t have been happier. While he was busy doing that he was off my case, and I was free to come and go as I pleased. Otherwise he’d spend all day telling me to “go out for some air,” or “do something intelligent.” I still don’t understand what he meant by that, coming from him, a man who didn’t read or listen to music and who’d never set foot in a museum. For him intelligent was probably a synonym for useful: housework, mending, shopping.
This lasted until his retirement; I thought he’d have something to keep him busy once he stopped work, that he’d continue to pursue his passion, go all the way back to the sixteenth century, fill in his family trees. But all of a sudden he lost interest. The family trees must be in some dusty corner of the attic.
I’ve never been like him. I’ve never wanted to pore over registries of births, deaths, and marriages just to find out that one of my ancestors was a blacksmith. I’m much more down to earth than that. Now things have changed somewhat. We have, imperceptibly, grown closer. Just as everything has begun to take off professionally for me—we’re opening new stores, the business is booming—I’ve begun to feel a sort of weariness. All I want to do, in fact, is sit in a deck chair on an evening in June and start to drop off right there, just as the night is falling, and I’ll be vaguely trying to remember the names of the stars above me. The way he used to. One day, perhaps, we’ll be able to name them together. At last.
I wonder if Philippe has any aspirations. Probably not. Philippe isn’t the aspiring kind. He seizes the moment and consequences be damned. He must cheat on his wife, and his kids will think he’s a hero, what with the pointless but entertaining conversations I’m sure they have together.
What if I dare to look him right in the face.
My eyes trained right on him.
Deep, unattractive wrinkles. His hair beginning to thin. And that paunch, above all. I assumed, naïvely, that he would stay slim as he got old. That he’d be one of those crisp fiftysomething men who go running every Sunday and don’t put on an ounce of fat even when they give up smoking. Like Luc. Or like that friend of his, Mathieu Coché. Now there’s a good-looking man. Good-looking, and not such an unpleasant memory in the end. Maybe I could start with that. A benign conversation, now that the train has stopped for a few minutes before it pulls into the station: we can see Sacré-Coeur on the right, and the Cité des Sciences on the left. An empty conversation of the kind he must enjoy, and which would at least have the advantage of not letting our non-encounter end on the unpleasant note of an unconfirmed request for forgiveness. Something like, “I saw your friend Mathieu Coché in a magazine the other day.” His eyes would light up. Even if they haven’t seen each other in ages. It’s always nice to have a friend who’s famous. It makes your own star shine a little brighter.
Yes, I could try that. Two minutes exchanging bland information, and we would say good-bye with a smile.
I’ll be magnanimous.
I need my peace of mind.
We regret to inform our passengers that the train is currently stopped on the tracks and we ask that you do not try to open the doors. The train will be moving again shortly.
Grumbling and muttering up and down the train.
Sighs.
“Shit, we were almost there. That’s the SNCF for you.”
Or the SNCF, maybe.
A stock phrase like the one the guy in front of me just said: “That’s the SNCF for you.” Everyone is nodding and grumbling. Everyone complains about the SNCF, in a spirit of consensus, criticizing everyone and no one at the same time, and it gives us plenty of excuses for being in a bad mood, it’s manna from heaven for those who firmly believe the country is going to the dogs, that everything was better before, and now we’re in the gutter about to be washed down the drain, splash.
I had a bad taste in my mouth.
But the SNCF would still be a good way to try and break the ice. Let her fly off the handle and rant and rave if she needs to. At least so we don’t part on an unpleasant note.
Make small talk.
I would love to make small talk with Cécile Duffaut. At a sidewalk café overlooking the Canal Saint-Martin, or on the Boulevard Saint-Germain.
Before or after the hospital.
After would be better. To get my life back to normal. Yes, that’s it. To get my life back to normal.
“I saw your—”
“The SNCF is—”
“I’m sorry, what were you saying?”
“Excuse me, I interrupted—”
A blank.
A jolt.
Two jolts.
A sigh.
The train has started moving again.
In front of us, behind us, the passengers on the 6:41 train, due to arrive at the Gare de l’Est at 8:15, are getting to their feet, taking their luggage down from the overhead rack, rubbing their eyes, wiping their hands over their faces, blinking, and getting their bearings: station platform, Métro, stairs, sidewalks, two hundred yards, building, office, quick coffee from the machine, good morning to all and sundry, files, debriefing, slightly tense smile, another week has begun.
They’re intimidating, all these passengers standing one behind the other waiting for the line to start moving, to alight from the train, watch the steps, place their feet on the asphalt and begin the race. They clear their throats, check their watches for the twentieth time. They have little tics: they scratch the top of their eyebrows, or their neck, or their earlobe. They are drawing up their lists of things to do. People to see. The chorus of names. And in the middle of all that, incongruously, their spouses, their children—the people they’ll see only too briefly, until next weekend.
They’re so intimidating that you don’t dare look at them. And since Cécile Duffaut and Philippe Leduc don’t dare look at each other, either, they are staring at the dirty floor of the train: there’s a grayish pink wad of crushed chewing gum, an empty bottle of mineral water. They’re sorry they ever started that conversation: What were they thinking?
Or maybe they’re sorry they didn’t start it earlier. They’re a bit puzzled. A bit lost. They can’t quite tell what will happen next. They are about to look up and speak again at the same time, but Cécile Duffaut senses this, and she gets there first. She says, “I saw your friend, Mathieu Coché—well, I don’t know if he’s still your friend, but the friend that you used to have, anyway, way back when. In a magazine. I saw him in a magazine.”
She feels like a complete idiot.
She has repeated the word “friend” three times. And “magazine” twice.
She can see the red ink, her ninth-grade French teacher crossing out all her repetitions and writing in the margin, “Expand your vocabulary, for goodness’ sake!!!” With all those exclamation marks. That was the most humiliating thing about it, all those exclamation marks. You always feel crushed by an exclamation mark. It’s like a stone falling from a wall—and you’re standing right in its path. Why did she suddenly think of that, just now?
Why did she bring up Mathieu Coché?
Check out the expression on Philippe Leduc’s face.
As if an entire army of exclamation marks had tumbled down upon him.
“He … I’m on my way to see him.”
“Sorry?”
“That’s why I’m on this train, I’m going to see him.”
“Oh. That’s great. Tell him I said hello. Although I’m not sure he’ll remember me.”
“He’s in the hospital.”
“Oh dear. I hope it’s not serious?”
“He’s dying. That’s why I’m going to see him. Because he’s going to die. Any day. So, I’m going to see him. You know what I mean?”
She doesn’t answer. She doesn’t know what to say. As if she’s driven down a one-way street the wrong way. There’s a part of her that would like to continue the conversation, “Oh, look at that graffiti under the bridge, that’s original, isn’t it? Have you seen any good films recently?” But suddenly there is police tape everywhere, like in a crime film, a flimsy barrier that stops you going any farther and above all entering the scene of the crime. She can no longer put any words to what she feels. She is standing across from this imbecile whose eyes have misted over, and she’s not doing so great herself, the corners of her eyes are stinging, it’s idiotic, over someone she hardly knew almost thirty years ago, no, it makes no sense. She frowns: that ought to send any threatening tears in another direction. She murmurs, “What does he have?” and in her mind, a succession of images: hospital corridors, blood tests, surgeons’ faces, HIV, scanners, bodies entering a tunnel, George Clooney in E.R. Philippe Leduc tilts his head and says, “Cancer. Terminal, obviously.” And there are all those people going by with their bags, their suitcases, their briefcases, where are they going, which Métro station, what will happen to them today, who knows, maybe one of them has just taken their last train ride, and they don’t know it yet, but it was their last ride, and later on, they’ll be crossing a busy street without paying attention, and boom, it’s all over, move along now, there’s nothing to see.
Philippe is brave. He pulls himself together. She has no way of knowing all he’s been through over the last ninety-five minutes, on the train. She has no way of knowing that he has revisited it all, that he has been back to London. That is also why his eyes filled with tears all of a sudden. He apologizes. He’s annoyed with himself, too. He would like, one day, to be able to stop apologizing. Now, awkwardly, he tries to get the conversation going again.
“And you … what brings you to Paris?”
But all these people are getting off and soon the car will be empty, it’s so late, it’s much too late. She replies, “I work here. I live here,” getting to her feet at the same time, and Philippe moves to one side. But he doesn’t give in. Now that he’s taken the first step, he presses on. He asks her if she has children. It is so totally irrelevant, completely out of left field, that Cécile Duffaut cannot help but smile and say, “Yes. A daughter. She’s all grown-up now. At the lycée.” She wants to get her bag from the luggage rack but he’s quicker than she is. He takes the opportunity to tell her that he also has children, two of them, grown-up now, too, it’s strange, isn’t it?
“What’s strange?”
“When we were younger, we never imagined that we’d have kids one day.”
This time she laughs. She can’t help it. He opens his eyes wide. He doesn’t see what’s so funny. She waves her hand as if to say, “Never mind, it’s nothing,” and then she does something, she places her hand on his shoulder, the way a father would, or a friend, or a brother, and it’s very unsettling. In a kindly tone, she adds, “It’s much too late to get to know each other again, and I don’t take this train very often. I don’t know if we’ll meet again. Take care.”
“Take care.”
He’s always hated that expression. It is one of his mother’s favorite stock phrases, she uses it with everyone—neighbors, mailman, baker, son, nephews, brother, butcher at the sup
ermarket, husband back in the day. Everyone is entitled to take care: of their activities, their everyday business, minor dramas, minor joys, the world is a crowd of plastic Playmobil figures jerkily waving their arms, spouting off from their invisible mouths, hearing without ears, their hair always impeccably styled, and they go about their assigned business, all of them, ceaselessly, taking care, it’s good, to take care, it’s fine.
And it’s the same for all those people who, one after the other, have left the railroad car, they are taking care, that’s good, they’re making calls on their cell phones to say when they’ll be there, they’re sending text messages so others know they’ve gotten off the train, they fiddle with their earphones, their touch screens, the keys on the keyboard, they’re clicking and communicating yet there’s not a sound, just a hollowness, they are merely indicating that they are taking care and that’s good, I’m taking care and that’s good, everything is collapsing all around me, worse than that, everything is made of cardboard, of putty, of plastic, the hospital is a bed with a thermometer but I’m a nurse, I wear a blue helmet with a transparent visor and carry a truncheon so I’m a policeman, I have a hammer and a hard hat so I’m a builder—I don’t have any questions to ask, I know what I have to do, I’m taking care and that’s good, I always take care and that’s good, and get on with it, get on with it, you have to get on with it.
“Coffee?”
“No … I think … I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“I’m not. I’m not so sure. It’s just that this sort of thing happens all the time, people who knew each other briefly a long time ago and they run into each other, and there’s nothing more to say, you think about it for a few minutes and then you go back to your routine, there’s no reason why you should change it.”
“You basically go on taking care of things.”
“Yes, that’s it.”
“I hope you’ll have a thought for me before you die.”
The 6:41 to Paris Page 10