This homeless person is young, probably a foreigner, Polish, Russian … he’s embarrassed, mutters a few words of apology, he hauls himself out of the vehicle, still groggy with sleep, and walks off into the night. He’s left his backpack on the passenger seat, I run after him to give it back. You’re still standing on the sidewalk, shocked, unable to get into the car that’s been desecrated by an intruder. You feel sick, you’re still shaking. “I’ll drive, if you like,” I suggest. You agree, you know I’m happy to shoulder the role of a man you can depend on. You’ve just discovered a facet of me you didn’t know, and it seems to amaze you.
We drive to your apartment, you seem flattened by exhaustion. You say, “You’re nice,” and it’s not meant as a reproach, even though you hate people being “nice.” I shake my head but you insist: “Yes, you are, you’re nice. You were very nice to that man. You’re not frightened of people, you’re not frightened of approaching them.” You suddenly like the fact that I can be nice. From now on, it’s no longer just a sign of weakness to you.
TWENTY-ONE
Your perfume: Eau de lierre. A “nose” would define it like this: the head notes are very green with a vegetal elegance, until the ivy discreetly gives way and eclipses itself before tones of stone and dry wood. It could be a fragrance worn by an effete man, but on your skin the warm musks and spices win over. We’re already a long way from our animal state, and when I close my eyes, I can’t conjure up that smell as well as I can the image of your face. It will always be the color of the back of your neck where I completely lose myself, and, if I lose you, it will be the smell of my nostalgia.
TWENTY-TWO
It’s an evening in December, the car is pulling away from the neon lights on the Place Clichy and easing as best it can onto the busy Boulevard des Batignolles. You’re off to pick up your children.
I don’t know how we’ve ended up talking about death, but you suddenly say: “If I had a terminal illness, a cancer, I don’t think I’d have any hesitation, I’d come and live with you.” Perhaps it’s out of modesty, but I quote Woody Allen: “Life is a terminal illness.” But you’re already parking, and your words are still worrying away at me.
I measure the scope of your declaration. It’s not the emergency itself you’re talking about here, but the requirement for truthfulness that emergencies demand of us. All at once, I grasp something else, between the lines: that, with me, you would leave the serenity of an illusory eternity where your days are not counted, for an unreliable world in which they are. Illness would finally launch you into that world where time actually passes. I understand what it is that I give you, it’s being afraid.
TWENTY-THREE
A café outside the Scuola Musica, in winter. You’ve left me to look after Lea, or maybe it’s Lea who’s keeping an eye on me. At first she wants to play a board game with kings and queens, then, because she gets bored with it or because she wants to show me different games, picture dominoes. She has hot chocolate, I have coffee, as usuaclass="underline" I like feeling she and I have our own habits. She stirs the froth with her spoon, I make sure she doesn’t spill any. You’ve taken Karl to his music theory lesson, but you come right back.
To Lea, I’m Yves, mommy’s friend who sometimes has a suitcase because he’s going a long way away. I don’t know what makes you think of this question but you ask: “Who’s the wolf?” “Me!” Lea replies artlessly. Then, very pleased with herself, she adds: “Mommy is mommy wolf and Yves is daddy wolf.” You’re embarrassed but also upset, you correct her, bringing the real daddy back into the equation.
I can still picture Lea, with that impish look you sometimes have, bursting out laughing.
TWENTY-FOUR
It’s a memory of memories. You leading me through your apartment, to your bedroom. You go to a closet and take out some cardboard boxes. Photographs, lots of them. Then you take me to the kitchen so you can show them to me properly.
It’s your life.
You with your little boy, under a Christmas tree. Your daughter running across a garden I don’t recognize, another one of her, with your husband. You hesitate for a moment, then show me still more photos, your wedding I think, though I’m not sure. I’m launched into your world, submerged by a wave of snapshots of your life before, where I don’t belong. I understand what you’re doing, what it means, the desire for intimacy that it presupposes, but I’m slowly drowning in this tide of pictures. You don’t notice, but imperceptibly I take a step back, to avoid suffocating. You rummage through the box some more. One by one, you take out pictures of yourself, set them to one side, give them to me.
I know who took them, who you’re smiling at, but all of a sudden that doesn’t matter. It’s you that you’re giving to me. I accept the gift.
TWENTY-FIVE
You’ve run to get here, late, to this restaurant by the flea market in Saint-Ouen which, over the last few weeks, has become our Monday meeting place. You sit down opposite me, I can tell from the haphazard way you’re moving that something’s going on. You’re putting on a sort of performance, saying you’re sick, some infection you can’t pin down, later you go on to call yourself a “stupid bitch,” not a word you normally use. You don’t want to meet my eye, you don’t feel any love for me anymore, your desire has evaporated. You’re not all anger, but I’m in pieces.
A gaping hole opens before me. I picture myself permanently and irrevocably indebted to you, and yours. You know how the story ends, which is almost laughable, so this memory is only there to describe that moment, that feeling of vertigo, the capsizing, when our relationship switched from happy and lighthearted to ugly and messy. A stain, that’s the word that comes to mind at the time, but I don’t say it for fear it could be so accurate that it spatters onto us. But it keeps coming back to me, filling my whole head, stopping me from speaking, when I really should speak.
TWENTY-SIX
We’re in the car heading for Paris, I’m driving. My hand has eased between your bare legs, where it feels happy. A few minutes ago you were still wearing jeans. At a service station, where you thought I wouldn’t dare stop, you swapped them for a dress. My stroking becomes more focused, my right hand growing adventurous while my left drives attentively. Your thighs open for my fingers, they creep still farther up and start having fun. I’m playing with your desire in the same way that you’re playing with mine. What we’re doing is more spontaneous than provocative, more to do with amazement than perversity. Your whole body smiles at mine, happily.
TWENTY-SEVEN
We’re in the toy department of Bon Marché. You’re looking for a princess dress for Lea and a cowboy outfit for Karl. You move away a few feet, and I watch you surrounded by Barbie dolls, Playmobil garages, and boxes of Legos. I follow you through the aisles: undecided, you call the children’s father for advice, then, almost before you’ve hung up, you want my opinion. I give it, amazed that you see me as such an intimate stranger. You’re leaving the door to your life ajar for me, while I stray through the cuddly toys, gazing at them tenderly with a bittersweet taste in my mouth.
TWENTY-EIGHT
“Take care of yourself.” Those are the words you’ll leave with. Really leave. We’re standing next to the car, opposite the Gare de l’Est rail station, it’s December, a beautiful day.