“And what did you tell your mother?”
“Oh, that you seemed to be OK.”
“You said the right thing,” I told Benjamin.
Do you mind if I pull down the curtain? The previous week I’d read in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s biography that he had short legs and was a chronic alcoholic and full of hang-ups, one night when he was drunk he took Ernest Hemingway into the toilet of a bar and asked him to tell him if he was normally endowed, and Hemingway apparently did nothing to reassure him. He even told the story, which just goes to show. I should have taken more interest in books earlier in my life. After my divorce, and even in the last two years of our life together, I’d been incapable of concentrating on anything. We finished eating. Anaïs started piling up books and papers from her classes. The edge of each colored folder had the year written on it. She had no idea what she was going to do in Zurich. She seemed quite down. She had a new tattoo on her lower back, which had hurt a fucking lot, as she put it, do you want to see? Benjamin turned to me with a smile, what do you think? It was worth it, I said. Benjamin laughed and shrugged, it was a blue and black eagle with its wings spread. She had a new one done every year, for her birth-day. This one had been a gift from Ben. I’d already seen some of them at the seaside in previous years. I didn’t really know Anaïs well. They kissed, and suddenly the thought of Marie’s illness hit me really hard, that shit. I’d go past the hospital again this evening, I’d have to ask her what time she went to sleep, so that I could call her without disturbing her. We carried the heavy things together, we pushed them into the hallway. I was sweating like a pig. They’d have friends to help them at the storage facility in Gennevilliers but I was welcome to come, when was I going to the hospital? Visiting hours are in the afternoon, aren’t they, could you come in the morning? No problem, yes, I’ll come on Saturday morning. I got back in my car at midnight. Anaïs gave me the rest of the apple pie, that was nice of her. I left a message on Marie’s cellphone. I missed her a lot that night. There was no one on my street. I found a parking space straight away. I had so many things to do now. I was scared I wouldn’t manage. I fell asleep trying not to think about it, not to tell myself anything about Marie’s illness, but there was no point trying, with guys like me. I remembered some very old things too, I dreamed about my childhood. That doesn’t happen often these days. It seemed quite beautiful now. Why? Maybe because I didn’t have much time left? And then finally it all calmed down, as if nothing had happened, just like that, because it was the next day.
The weather was really nice now. It was easier for me to get up in the morning. As I waited in the station for my train, I’d smoke a cigarette and go over what I had to do. My colleagues in the office were vaguely in the know, and I’d started getting there an hour earlier than them in the morning, but I’d leave on the dot to get to Beaujon. The whole time, it seemed to me that I was being followed, or spied on. Like with Larrieu, I’d run into him on one of the floors or on the street and he’d ask me how I was. Or else the girl on the switchboard, over the past few years I’d gotten into the habit of joking with her, and now she was openly ignoring me, as if I was in trouble with the law. I had to get a grip on myself. Nobody’s interested in a guy like you, old chap. Anaïs had found the original expression in Gatsby, old chap. I hated that expression. But I was finding it difficult to put on a brave face in the office. I made a few mistakes, and on two occasions, a file I’d approved came back onto my desk, after going up three floors, with a post-it and some initials in red. I mustn’t fall behind, they didn’t say anything but there were a number of guys like me they were waiting to see make mistakes.
When I left work, I wouldn’t stop to have a beer or a coffee in the bar at the end of the street, the way I used to, I’d go straight to Brochant on foot. I’d walk in the company of the trees as far as the darkness on the ground floor of Marie’s building, to pick up her mail. The operation had gone well but she was extremely tired, quite apart from the treatment she was starting. She was worried, how was she going to stand it? Some friends of hers had painted a picture of it that terrified her, plus, what made her sad was seeing all these people alone in life, apparently. How to find the strength to get out of their ward in the hospital, to go where?
Two days after the operation, I went to help Benjamin put his things in storage. I stayed in the locker he’d rented at the port, I arranged the things as best I could to fill the space. Anaïs had marked all the boxes: their departure was very well organized. His mother and I had lived in Gennevilliers for two years, in my head it was still a place where I’d dissipated my youth, along with a few other places in the Hauts-de-Seine, with Marco most of the time. In the aisles of the storage facility, Africans with rap in their ears and sometimes betting slips from the horse races in their hands made the rounds, I also saw dogs with their handlers in the aisles. Behind the row of birches on the edge of the site, you could see the high fence of the port, and beyond that, a whole heap of places whose names I couldn’t remember, but which I’d crisscross as soon as I had my scooter and Marie had recovered as I hoped she would. I could take photographs. They’d gone back to load the J7 with the last boxes and my son had suggested I wait for them, Anaïs had left with him. Right, so we’ll see each other at the airport, then? She and I had kissed and I’d realized that it was almost as if I was grieving, in a small way, but it probably wouldn’t be the last time.
They took almost an hour to finish loading and come back. I was exhausted after the last two weeks, dividing my time between the office, Beaujon, Marie’s apartment, and mine. That was why I didn’t look at myself too closely in the mirror, in the morning or at night, because I wasn’t too curious to know what I looked like at such moments. Probably another guy like me, old chap. He was really fascinating, that man. He was a poor guy from the sticks, and when he reached the bright lights, he started to have his doubts, things weren’t any better here than there. He messed up his life, without meaning to. There were probably millions like him on both sides of the ocean. Who could I talk to about that? Marc-André and I had supported each other quite a bit on the phone lately. His son had lost ten pounds in a month since he’d stopped his treatment. Marco was scared that he’d go back to his habit. Marie was very anxious, and Benjamin’s leaving was weighing on my mind. I still bore just as much of a grudge against my life, in a way. For many years, you had to fight against the sensation of living for nothing, and then, when you thought you more or less knew why, the reason could disappear like that, and you realized you’d been tricked. How could you get over these things? Of course, Marco knew all this as well as I did and he didn’t have the answer. Neither did I. When can we meet? We asked each other that every time. I’ll call you when I can.
Aïcha always asked me to give Marie her regards, and then we’d call each other again two or three days later, to chat. The trips to Beaujon were starting to get on my nerves. I realized that one evening on my way there: since the birth of my son, I’d only ever set foot in there for bad news, a stay in the hospital when I was fifty, and two deaths.
Marie read a lot. When I arrived, she was often also asleep. As soon as she was able to get up after the operation, she started taking care of herself, she put on make-up, she didn’t want to let herself go. I went to the cosmetics department of Printemps with a tube of lipstick, she wanted me to find the same one. I liked doing that a lot. She’d put on perfume, she could still stand Chanel No. 5.
“I don’t smell of illness, do I? You wouldn’t lie to me?”