That's Paris

by Vicki Lesage et al.

  In the bar, Samantha signals to me. They are a group of four women sitting at a wooden table. They had ordered a bottle of wine. They’re Samantha’s colleagues, and I’ve met them many times. I never remember their first names, and they always remember mine. I call them the “four graces,” and yes, my tongue is planted firmly in my cheek when I say it.

  Samantha made new friends since David passed away. I don’t blame her for that. Before, I was funny and enthusiastic. Today, for me, picking up the telephone requires about the same amount of energy as an international move.

  I sit down, say “hello” and even attempt a smile. They flatter me on everything: my makeup, my clothing. They pour me a drink and give me the best seat. Being a widow at my age carries a certain number of inconveniences, such as attracting the adoration and pity of everyone on the planet.

  I got a raise when I returned to work after my hospitalization even though I hadn’t worked in three months. It’s because David died. The gifts my parents shower me with? They are because David died. Everyone invites me to parties, on weekend trips and on vacation even though I’m about as fun as a Benedictine nun in a coma… because David died. Everyone speaks to me softly, as if to a sick child. I can say the most idiotic things, and everyone always agrees with me. Because David died.

  I haven’t gotten used to the furtive glances, sad looks and uncomfortable silence. Even if I wanted to forget, I couldn’t. In reality, no one wants to be alone with me. It’s too depressing, and I just might be contagious. It’s not fair. I should behave normally with others, yet others never behave normally with me.

  Their forced attentiveness chokes me. I smile politely and use the excuse of buying a bottle of wine to get up. The one on the table is still half full. Everyone speaks up. Each friend wants to go to the bar so I can stay seated. And do I need money to pay? I make my way to the bar without answering them.

  I want Samantha to go back to normal, like she was before when she would make fun of my hair, yell at me when I was late or talk to me about her latest romantic evenings. I want my mother to lift her eyes to the ceiling when I lean my elbows on the table and to scold me without reason. I want, even for a few hours, to no longer be a widow.

  “A bottle of Brouilly,” I say to the young man behind the bar.

  “I was ahead of you,” a guy behind me says.

  I turn around and see a tall, dark-haired man with a rather aloof look claim his spot. I don’t think he truly was there before me, but I’m not in any hurry to return to the four graces.

  “I’m sorry, go ahead.”

  “Four pints of Heineken,” he says.

  He could have thanked me. He stares at me without smiling and says, “Can I buy you a drink?”

  “No, thank you.”

  He raises an eyebrow, and behind him, the bartender prepares the beers.

  “It looks like you’re single, and I asked if you’d like a drink—I didn’t propose marriage.”

  I show him my wedding band.

  “Do I look single to you?”

  “You look a bit young to be a married woman.”

  “I’m not a married woman,” I say curtly. “I’m a widow. My husband died in a car accident two years ago.”

  I expect to see his face fall, or him become uncomfortable and say he has to go—and then return to his friends and tell them what just happened. Instead, he cocks his head and looks at me attentively once again.

  “My wife took off with my brother, leaving a note on the kitchen table, a week after we decided to have a baby. I think I’ve got you beat.”

  I ask myself if I heard him right. I’m close to wanting to strangle him.

  “You are ridiculous! It’s worse to…”

  I stop myself and shake my head. I’m not going to get into an argument about who has suffered more. I turn my back to him and signal the waiter. He had forgotten about me and is clearing empty glasses at the edge of the counter.

  “Can I have my Brouilly now?”

  “I’ll be right there, Mademoiselle.”

  “Madame.” The man behind me corrects him.

  I toss him a furious look. His lips turn up in a slight smile.

  “That said, one day, I decided I was no longer divorced,” he continues, as if we had started a conversation. “I decided I was simply single. You should do the same. One shouldn’t be a widow for more than a year. At that point, you should start at zero. You’re no longer a widow, and normal life can continue.”

  “You find yourself funny? Leave me alone.”

  Frenetically, I signal the bartender, who ignores me and instead takes care of a blonde who is much prettier than I am.

  “I’m not saying that to get a laugh,” he says, shrugging. “You don’t intend to remain a widow your whole life, do you?”

  As if I had a choice. I opt to ignore him and keep my back turned. I never should have let him get ahead of me.

  “Seriously,” he continues, undaunted. “How long were you with your husband? Considering your age, I would say five years or maximum six. They say it takes about half the time spent together to recover from a breakup so you’re almost there.”

  “This has nothing to do with a breakup!” I shout. “My husband died.”

  “What makes that more difficult than a breakup after six years together?”

  “Because… but you’re… I don’t want to…”

  I’m boiling with rage. I want to scream at him, but I have tears in my eyes.

  “I’m sorry,” the man murmurs when he notices. “I wanted to distract you a bit, not make you cry.”

  Finally, he seems uncomfortable. He holds out a napkin. I tear it from his hands and noisily blow my nose.

  “Eighteen euros for the Brouilly,” the bartender says, setting the bottle in front of me.

  “I’ll get that, to make up for things,” the stranger says, sliding his credit card across the counter before I can reach my wallet.

  “Thanks,” I whisper.

  “I’m sorry,” he repeats.

  I shrug my shoulders. No one speaks with me about David or the accident any more. The subject is taboo. He, at least, doesn’t speak with me like I’m sick or weird—as if merely talking about the accident could kill me. He takes his four pints, two handles in each hand, and, with a sad smile, wishes me a good evening as he walks off.

  “OK for the drink,” I say all of a sudden.

  The words had come out before I could stop them. He turns, looking surprised but happy at the same time.

  “I’ll drop these off and be right back.”

  I nod. I grab the bottle and bring it back to the table. Before anyone has time to speak to me, I say, “I’m going to have a drink with a guy at the bar.”

  “Super!” Samantha says. “The dark-haired one you were talking to? Not bad…”

  She checks out the stranger and his friends across the room. Soon the others do the same and start commenting all at once.

  “Nice smile.”

  “Too thin for me.”

  “I go more for blonds.”

  “Just my type. If it doesn’t work out for you, give him my number.”

  And then, suddenly, they seem to remember to whom they’re speaking, and they surround me with their attentions. Is everything going to be OK? Can I signal them if there’s a problem? I don’t have to do anything I don’t want to…

  Samantha sharply interrupts: “That’s enough. She’s a big girl. She can have a drink with a man in a bar without someone holding her hand.”

  She smiles at me, and I want to hug her.

  I return to the bar, where the stranger is waiting for me.

  “I hope your young widow-in-distress protection committee has approved of me,” he says.

  “The verdict is you should buy me a drink and not crack any stupid jokes.”

  “What would you like? My treat.”

  “A glass of champagne,” I say as if challenging him.

  He smiles, clearly amused.

 
“Luxurious tastes! I would have done better to pick up one of your friends.”

  He orders my champagne. He already has a beer. We discuss work a bit, nothing very exciting. Because he is very direct with me, I dare to ask about his wife and the breakup. He replies with the same indifference he might have if he were giving me a cake recipe. I ask myself if he, too, sees the world in gray and if he’ll see the world that way for the rest of his life.

  “You don’t have a monopoly on heartbreak,” he concludes. “And I assure you. We can recover from anything.”

  He seems to have gotten over it. I think of Samantha, who broke up last year with Marc after four years together. She was unhappy. I never spoke with her about it. She tried, I think, to call me, but my suffering seemed profound and hers almost superficial. Everyone gets dumped. Not everyone, however, loses a husband in a Vélib’ bicycle accident because of a drunken asshole driving at 80 kilometers an hour on the boulevard de Sébastopol. I might not have a monopoly on heartbreak, but I do have the credit for violent death.

  He asks me questions. I don’t know why, but maybe because I don’t know him, I reply. I tell him about my meeting with David on the green chairs of the Jardin des Tuileries, the walks hand-in-hand in the sunshine, vacations in Brittany, our rare arguments, my burned pot-au-feu dinners, sleeping late under the rafters, our wedding in Arcachon, our parents who think we’re too young, the names of the children we’ll never have, the call at 11:37 p.m., the hospital, the end, and then, since, the gray filter, the life of blandness, the world that will be forever ugly.

  He listens closely, sipping beer from time to time. When I’m done, he simply says, “It’s true. It is a tragedy.”

  I continue. I can’t stop myself. For the first time, I speak of memories I had pushed out of my mind for months because they were too painful. The words flow on their own, trip over each other to escape as if they’ve been imprisoned too long. I don’t know him. I tell him everything. And as I speak, a soft feeling of nostalgia overcomes me, replacing the heavy weight I’ve been carrying within. I feel light. I’ve never felt so light before. Or maybe, it’s the champagne.

  “I’d like to go somewhere,” I say all of a sudden.

  “Where?” he asks, surprised.

  I drink the rest of my champagne in one straight shot.

  “Finish your drink and let’s go.”

  Intrigued, he obeys, and we make our way to the exit. On the way, I signal to Samantha, who gives me the thumbs up sign and laughs. These past two years, maybe I was a great widow, but I was an awful friend.

  I tear through the deserted streets and slip a few times on the icy sidewalks.

  “It’s freezing out here,” my companion complains. “We’re going to get sick. Do I have the right to know where we’re going?”

  I don’t answer. Even the rue de Rivoli is nearly empty. Only a few taxis dare go out in this slippery snow. We walk past the walls of the Louvre. In the cobblestoned courtyard, snowflakes cover the glass pyramid. I think I’m frozen, but for the first time in two years, I feel almost alive.

  Then the dark gate appears, stretching along this silent path to the place de la Concorde. The golden pointed tips reflect the light of the gas lamps.

  I stop, grip the wet metal and press my face between two bars. The sandy walkways are covered by a white layer, glistening in the dark of night. It looks as if someone sprinkled the naked tree branches with powdered sugar. The green chairs, covered in white, circle the fountains. Everything is asleep under a thin layer of transparent ice. This white carpet dulls every sound. We can’t hear cars or passersby—only the man from the bar, the Jardin des Tuileries and me.

  For several minutes, I feel David’s presence next to me. Not the David I saw for the last time, in a coma, swollen and attached to tubes that kept him between life and death. No, this was my David from the beginning, with sparkling eyes and a little wrinkle at the corner of his lips that gave me the feeling he could break into laugher at any minute.

  I never saw anything so beautiful. Without leaving this snowy place, I ask, “What’s your name?”

  “Jonathan. And you?”

  “Julie.”

  Then, he takes my frozen hand away from the bar.

  La Vie en Rose

  Marie Vareille

  Noël est passé sans laisser de traces : à Belleville, ni les propriétaires des supermarchés chinois, ni les prostituées du Boulevard de La Villette n’installent de sapin aux fenêtres. Entre les canards laqués qui pendouillent dans les vitrines des restaurants, personne ne suspend de boules de Noël. Tant mieux. À partir de demain, j’aurais officiellement été veuve plus longtemps que je n’aurais été mariée. Il faudra que j’achète une mini-bouteille de champagne au chinois en bas pour fêter ça.

  Dans ma vie d’avant, quand j’étais mariée, je vous aurais raconté que de la fenêtre de mon studio sous les combles, je voyais le Sacré-Cœur et Notre-Dame et que la neige recouvrait d’un blanc manteau la plus belle ville du monde. Je n’aurais pas menti, c’est réellement ce que je voyais. Avant, je portais sur les yeux un filtre rose bonbon, qui dissimulait la laideur du monde. Tout était matière à s’extasier, tout était magnifique, enthousiasmant, esthétique. Plus maintenant. David est parti en emportant le filtre avec lui. Maintenant, je vois la vie telle qu’elle est, je vois la vérité, et la vérité est moche. La vérité, c’est que de ma fenêtre mal isolée, on ne voit que l’immeuble d’en face en béton gris, les étendoirs à linge rouillés qui pendent nus aux fenêtres closes, et la neige qui fond en boue grisâtre dans des bacs à fleurs, qui n’ont pas vu un géranium depuis l’invention du moteur à explosion. Voilà le vrai Paris, pas le Paris des cartes postales et des films américains, le Paris gris, qui n’intéresse personne. La vérité, aussi, c’est que j’ai de plus en plus de mal à me souvenir du visage de David.

  C’est une bonne chose que le filtre ait disparu. Maintenant, je vis dans la réalité. La réalité est grise. J’ai vingt-six ans et je suis veuve depuis deux ans. C’est de ma faute, évidemment. Plutôt que de me marier à cet âge indécent, j’aurais dû faire comme tout le monde, me taper tout Paris de vingt à trente-cinq ans, et me caser plus tard avec un Parisien sympathique, rencontré sur Tinder. C’est sans doute ce que j’aurais fait, sans le filtre rose bonbon.

  Avec cette neige, je voudrais avoir le droit d’annuler ma soirée avec Samantha et ses nouvelles copines. Mais si j’annule une fois de plus, elle s’inquiétera, elle appellera ma mère, ça fera un drame. Tout le monde rentrera en mode « intervention » et me demandera de retourner « voir quelqu’un ». J’ai fait un an de thérapie. Résultats des courses : Moi : 1 - Dépression : 0.

  C’est vrai que j’ai encore du mal à respirer quand je passe devant un parc et que j’aperçois un couple, assis sur un banc. On ne partait jamais en vacances au mois d’août. David travaillait dans une boutique de souvenirs et l’été était sa période la plus chargée. Je le rejoignais à l’heure du déjeuner, on achetait un mauvais sandwich dans un des cafés hors de prix des arcades de la rue de Rivoli. On déjeunait sur les chaises métalliques vertes, disposées autour du bassin du Jardin des Tuileries. On regardait les enfants pousser des bateaux en papier sur l’eau ensoleillée, on parlait futur, prénoms de bébés, achat d’appartement. C’est là qu’on s’est rencontrés, là qu’il m’a demandée en mariage, là que j’ai dit oui.

  Aujourd’hui, il m’arrive de faire des détours de plusieurs kilomètres, pour éviter la grille verte et dorée. Je n’y ai plus remis les pieds depuis l’accident, je n’y remettrai plus jamais les pieds. Je ne supporterais pas de revoir le Jardin des Tuileries sans le filtre rose, ce serait trop douloureux. Je ne vais peut-être pas si bien que ça finalement. Je me force à m’habiller, je m’applique une bonne couche d’anti-cernes et de mascara. Cette sortie, si j’arrive à me comporter de manière à peu près normale, me permettra de gagner au moins deux, voire trois semaines de répit.

  Dans le bar, Samantha me fait des grands signes. Ell
es sont quatre filles à être assises à une table en bois. Elles ont commandé une bouteille de vin. Ce sont les collègues de Samantha, je les ai déjà rencontrées à diverses reprises. Je ne me souviens jamais de leurs prénoms et elles se souviennent toutes du mien. Je les ai surnommées les quatre grâces, et oui, c’est ironique. Samantha s’est fait de nouvelles copines, depuis que David est parti. Je ne lui en veux pas. Avant j’étais drôle, enthousiaste, présente, aujourd’hui, décrocher le téléphone me demande l’équivalent en énergie d’un déménagement à l’international. Je m’assois, je dis bonjour, je tente même un sourire. On me complimente sur tout, mon maquillage, mes habits, on me sert un verre, on me laisse la meilleure place. Être veuve à mon âge comporte un certain nombre d’inconvénients accablants, dont notamment celui de bénéficier de tout l’amour et de la commisération de la planète.

  Si j’ai eu une augmentation quand je suis rentrée de mon hospitalisation, alors que je n’avais pas travaillé depuis trois mois, c’est parce que David est mort, les cadeaux dont mes parents me couvrent, c’est parce que David est mort, si on m’invite à toutes les soirées, week-ends et vacances, alors que je suis à peu près aussi fun qu’une sœur Bénédictine dans le coma, c’est parce que David est mort. On me parle doucement, comme à une enfant malade, je peux sortir les pires idioties, tout le monde est toujours d’accord avec moi. Parce que David est mort. Je ne me suis pas habituée, aux coups de coudes, aux coups d’œil, aux regards désolés aux silences gênés. Même si je voulais oublier, je ne pourrais pas. En réalité, personne n’a envie de rester seul avec moi, c’est trop déprimant et je pourrais bien être contagieuse. C’est injuste, je dois me comporter normalement avec les autres, mais les autres ne se comportent jamais normalement avec moi.

  Leur sollicitude forcée m’étouffe, je souris poliment et me lève, sous prétexte d’aller acheter une bouteille de vin. Celle sur la table est encore à moitié pleine. Tout le monde s’exclame, elles vont y aller à ma place, je peux rester assise, est-ce que j’ai besoin d’argent pour payer ? Je me fraye un passage jusqu’au bar sans leur répondre. Je voudrais que Samantha redevienne normale, comme avant, qu’elle se moque de ma coiffure, qu’elle m’engueule quand je suis en retard, qu’elle me parle de ses soirées romantiques. Je voudrais que ma mère lève les yeux au ciel, quand je mets mes coudes sur la table, qu’elle me fasse des reproches injustifiés. Je voudrais, pour quelques heures seulement, ne plus être veuve.