Marie-Thérèse is running. I haven't been too long, she says, you're not cold? She presses the controls and drives off. You don't look very well.
“I'm fine, Marie-Thérèse.”
“You know, it's really great we met up.”
“Yes.”
“So, to answer your question,” says Marie-Thérèse, playfully, as they drive down the road from the Chateau to rejoin the Route Nationale, “no, we were not together at the lycée.”
“Who?”
“Serge and me.”
“I see,” says Adam, striving vainly to conjure up a picture of Serge Gautheron.
“We weren't even particularly friendly. He was on the rugby team with Tristan, I don't know if you recall, we used to go to cheer on the team at Bagatelle Park. Then I happened to meet him again when I was a trainee with Canon, three years after passing my diploma. That was the odd thing.”
“Very odd.”
“When we got married we took over his parents' store at Rueil-Malmaison.”
“It didn't go well?”
“Us or the store?” she laughed.
“Both. The store.”
“The store went fantastically well. But we opened another one in the Bercy 2 shopping mall that never took off. We had to starve Rueil to keep Bercy alive. At a shopping mall, the customers behave quite differently. If your salesclerk is good you make a healthy profit, if she's no good you make nothing. We had the two stores for two years, it was a disaster. We sold Bercy and Rueil folded very soon after that.”
“How did you end up in Viry-Châtillon?”
“I made some contacts at Bercy and I was offered the job of managing one of the Caroli ready-to-wear outlets at Juvisy-sur-Orge. I lived in Juvisy first and then Viry.”
Adam attempts to study Marie-Thérèse's breasts. Nothing can be seen beneath her overcoat. The Rue d'Antony has everything one could wish for, a hairdresser, a locksmith, an optician, a greengrocer, a pharmacy. I need to buy something at the pharmacy, he says.
It was difficult all on my own, says Marie-Thérèse, turning in front of the Buffalo Grill, I wasn't used to managing a boutique on my own, managing the staff, selecting the stock, being quick to replace it to satisfy customer demand, you've got to take care of everything, if you're not around you're just playing at it. I wanted to be more independent, to have more freedom in my schedules. After three years I resigned and for almost two years I had no work. Through the window, sheds, more sheds, cranes, more cranes, detached houses, Maxauto, Auto Distribution, Hertz. Through the window, warehouses, pylons, heathland streaked with electricity. They're driving along the throughway toward Savigny-sur-Orge. The new box of Veinamitol is on Adam's knees. Marie-Thérèse is talking about her life. The edema may take between twelve and eighteen months to be absorbed, the optometrist said. What Adam understands is that the edema may take between twelve and eighteen months to be absorbed comma and may equally never be absorbed. The word may filters this rhythm into Adam's awareness. It's a remark that leaves the way open to tragedy. Why didn't the optometrist say the edema will take et cetera, because he refuses to employ an affirmative form of words, and why does he refuse to employ an affirmative form of words? Because the absorption of the edema is in itself uncertain, because nothing's less certain than the absorption of the edema. When the optometrist says the edema may take between twelve and eighteen months to be absorbed, he's saying we must wait several months to know if the edema, this stubborn and unpredictable entity, will oblige us by being absorbed at all. We, that is to say you, me, Professor Guen, and the whole medical profession, will have to wait patiently for the time it takes our planet to make a complete revolution around the sun in order to know how the stars are going to incline, in which case, thinks Adam, why not cut to the chase and consult an astrologer. Seven thousand francs net plus incentive bonuses when I started, continues Marie-Thérèse, now if all goes well I earn about four thousand euros. In winter there are not so many tourists at the sites. When we move into the September to March season, which is the worst, I bank on the Japanese. The Japanese travel all year round. All the business we do in France is my doing. Thanks to what I've done in France the company, which is American, has taken on a commercial manager in Spain and another in Italy, they've built up a whole business in Europe from nothing. At the start I was hired to sell publicity items. They hired me on the first of January five years ago. By March I hadn't done a single deal. The Americans are people who want results and no messing around. As it happened, I opened my first account on a visit to Versailles with my godson and that gave me the idea of specializing in historical sites and switching to souvenirs instead of publicity items. Then I opened another customer at Chantilly and after that the whole thing took off like a rocket. All the business in France is my doing. That's great, says Adam. It is, isn't it, it's great. I just love my profession. It's the first time in my life I've positively bloomed like this in a job. Fog is still passing them and a little rain as well. Adam delights in being ferried along amid darkness, rain, warmth, the dreary outskirts. Marie-Thérèse takes off her coat. An Albertian bosom, thinks Adam, and is within an ace of calling him when he realizes he cannot speak. A heavy and prominent bosom, of which he'd no recollection, never, in any case, having had an appetite for heavy and prominent bosoms, unlike Albert. Adam thinks back to that last great drama with Irene. Perhaps the final drama, he tells himself. I'll send you my courier, Adam had said to Albert on the telephone, referring to Irene. On her way to Issy-les-Moulineaux Irène used to pass the Rue de la Convention, where Albert lived. A courier with small boobs, Albert had joked at the other end of the line. He says a courier with small boobs, Adam had stupidly repeated. Screw him, Irene had replied. He says he'll take a look at them all the same. That'll be the day, Irene had remarked frostily. But you'll need your glasses, Adam had quipped into the handset. Screw you, Irene had said, other people have no complaints! And she left the room slamming the door. What do you mean, other people have no complaints, what exactly does that mean, other people have no complaints?! Adam had yelled, pursuing her to the other end of the apartment. Do you have any idea, Irene had wept, lying prone on the bed and turning the face of a demented woman toward him, do you have any idea of the vulgarity of this conversation? Don't change the subject. I want to know who these other people are, I want to know the meaning of that remark immediately. Do you find it normal to discuss your wife's breasts on the telephone?! Irene, you've given yourself away. You can't begin to imagine what I'm capable of now! Do you find it normal to joke about my breasts with a stupid prick who likes only whores and manicurists, a notoriously brainless scrounger who eats sprats for breakfast?! I don't give a flying fuck about Albert, don't change the subject!
Say you're sorry, Irene had bawled, down on your knees and say you're sorry, say I'll never discuss my wife's breasts with anyone ever again! I should kill you now, Adam had replied. So what are you waiting for? Irene don't push me! Given the life we lead you might as well go ahead! she'd challenged him, kneeling on the bed and offering her neck. Adam hears her voice saying go ahead, squeeze, squeeze, he sees her legs twitching, he hears the little boy's voice saying, what's happening and his own commanding, get out, get out, shut the door. And then the older boy appears and says you're nuts and starts crying, followed by the little one and Adam wants to murder the lot of them.