My heart was pounding. I became aware of it on the steps at Cour de Rome, after the escalator. I went and killed time at the FNAC in Saint-Lazare, waiting for seven o’clock, Marie wouldn’t be back before eight, there was no point in hurrying. I looked at the books by F. Scott Fitzgerald, I’d already read two of them. I didn’t know which of the others to choose, and I didn’t want to ask the assistants. At the snack bar on the second floor, people take what they’ve just bought out of their bags, or else they’re waiting for something. I used to come here often a few years ago, to the FNAC in Saint-Lazare. It isn’t an especially pleasant place, it’s just there with the idea that, between purchases, people should take the trouble to talk to each other, because after all they live together, for better or worse. I don’t remember why I went there so often, on the weekends when I didn’t have Benjamin. I’ve spent a lot of time in that area since my teenage years. I used to wait for my son at the Gare Saint-Lazare, on Saturdays. Once, I’d spotted him and his mother on Rue de Caumartin, it was a sunny day, he must have been telling her one of those endless stories that came into his head sometimes, and he looked perfectly happy, without me. I remember I smiled like an idiot in their direction, and then, when I realized, I went and took refuge in the snack bar on the second floor of FNAC. There, women wait for their girlfriends so that they can go to the movies, notch up another one on their schedule, or, where guys like me are concerned, they drink coffee and wait for it to pass, and end up deciding not to approach their children when they see them on the street, on the sidewalk of Caumartin. It felt strange to me to be on vacation at this time of the year. I’m one of those guys for whom work has become a kind of blessing, it stops you from having to think, basically. Several times in the past few years, I’ve tried to calculate the number of hours I’ve spent in offices, receiving people, making phone calls, or reading files without the slightest interest, I’ve never been very good at counting. I didn’t always think about Marie, far from it, but the nearer the time came for her to go into the hospital, the more I thought about things I’d like to do with her if she wanted. Sometimes, at night, I had obvious nightmares about her illness, and I was afraid she’d read them on my face when she woke up. In the end, I didn’t buy anything, I got up and left.
I walked toward La Trinité, it was one of the places in Paris where I’d spent most time in my life, as a teenager, when I hung out with Marco, and later, during my divorce and my two years of unemployment. But without my realizing it, almost nothing from those days is still there. A few years ago, they even replaced the red Coca-Cola sign on the building at the end of Rue d’Amsterdam with a green Perrier sign. Am I the only person who’s interested in that kind of detail? Passage du Havre, with its salesgirls and its prostitutes, has disappeared. It’s been replaced by chains and franchises. You get straight to the metro through the shopping mall. On Rue Saint-Lazare, there’s still that coffee merchant’s, Méo, I used to be taken there when I was a boy, to buy good coffee. When I approached the store, I realized I was quite moved and didn’t want to go home. Smells don’t change. I hadn’t gotten over it. I mustn’t let Marie see me like this. It never lasts a long time, with me. I almost lingered in the Square de la Trinité but it was closed. The local homeless had settled on the steps of the church. I would never have burned a candle in that one, I realized that. I walked around the outside of the little park and then up Rue de Clichy, which is very gray and is really one of those streets in Paris where to be honest nothing happens except that time passes, nobody ever goes there except people on their own, with bags and newspapers and umbrellas. I’d told Benjamin again that I wanted a scooter, and he’d laughed. But I think he’d understood. If I didn’t want to pull down the curtain too soon, it was becoming urgent that I get out a bit more. I felt a bit drawn to number 23 on that street. That was where my ex-wife and I had spent our first night together, in the apartment of a friend of hers. I still remembered it very well, from time to time. I turned around. I searched for her name in my head without finding it. I had to be careful, I didn’t want to start rambling out loud, with a name on the tip of my tongue, and worn-out old images that were of no concern to anyone but me. I quickly got to Brochant.
Marie was waiting for me so that we could go out. She wasn’t too tired. She’d made herself look beautiful tonight. She’d put on all her bracelets. She simply wanted to walk along the boulevard one more time, do you mind? I took her hand, of course I didn’t mind. She’d had a phone call from the department where she was going to be operated on. They were expecting her tomorrow, in the afternoon. Now that she had told me the news, she simply wanted to walk as far as Place de Clichy, where we were already kind of regulars at the Brasserie Wepler, a secret just for us. People had their favorite tables, and it was always a kind of victory — but over what, death? The chestnut trees on the boulevard were in full blossom now. She smiled whenever she turned to look at me, but when she looked away, I saw only a beautiful woman with her arm through mine, with hundreds of things in her head she didn’t feel the need to tell me, not me, not anybody. There were lots of people on the boulevard, because of the fine weather. At one point she stopped to talk to a guy, he’d recently been taken care of by her organization, he was all pretty and sparkling, if you can say that. In his fancy dress, he’d be starting work in a few hours, he blew a kiss at her. Marie smiled at him. Yes, see you soon! The chestnut trees smelled almost too strong on the streets around the square. When we’d had enough of walking, we went to the Brasserie Wepler, she squeezed my hand with her fingertips.