I don’t like airports. It’s never guys like me who are leaving, I’m one of those who stay. After a while, we’re even the only ones who remember, and nobody much seems to care. My son … yes, my father? He talked like that when he was twelve, we always spoke to each other in the same way.
“My son will set the table.”
“Has my father made pasta again?”
I was filled with those words, and what else did I have, when it came down to it? The three of us went out to have a smoke before they left and there was a lot of noise.
“By the way.” Ben gave me a little package. “Here it is, open it when we’re gone, OK?”
“For me? What is it?”
Anaïs was laughing and I put it in my pocket without having the slightest idea.
“It’s nothing, a trifle.”
I must have made a funny face, I guess, but I don’t know. They’d be in touch within a week, what the hell would they be able to do in that idiotic country? Eat fondue? Go skiing in winter? Carry suitcases full of fake banknotes? They weren’t really happy to be leaving, but in an hour, if I knew them, they would have decided once and for all and Ben would keep it to himself. We went back into the concourse. Anaïs moved away to make a phone call, Ben looked at her two or three times out of the corner of his eye. Is everything all right, my son?
“Yes. She’s really down. Leaving her mom and dad and her friends, plus she can’t find a job … You know how it is.”
I wondered if he hadn’t become a guy like me at that moment, watching her as she phoned home. Do you mind if I pull down the curtain? No, father, what about you? My son, let’s open it gently and look together at the landscape, I really wonder what this place is where we’ve landed. Are you all right? Yes, yes. I opened one eye. Your turn. It’s hard to see, but wherever we go, I’m fine. Then we had to say goodbye.
They were already on the plane when I realized I hadn’t managed to tell them I loved them, as I would have wanted. I hoped that, in the end, he’d never become a guy like me. He’d been lucky, he’d left in time, he’d gotten away from all that, at least I hoped so. I could feel the little package in my jacket pocket. I paid for the parking time at a machine, and then I noticed that I had lost my car, I went crazy, it took me a good quarter of an hour to find it again, in parking garage B2. I hadn’t forgotten which row it was in, I’d simply gotten the wrong floor, well anyway. As I was leaving, just after I went through the gates, a plane took off just above my head, I closed my eyes without wanting to. I took my time going home. I felt sad and happy, as we all are, I’m talking about guys of my type, there are only a few million of us, I think.
I’d never been able to talk to his mother again. Ben has suffered a lot from that, I think. She sent the bailiff to me twice in a row, during a period of unemployment and depression, I’ve never forgiven her. All I could do was not let anything pass that would embarrass Benjamin, I don’t even know if I managed that at least. We’ve never talked about it directly. Marco knew these things by heart, he’d held my head above water for months. I’d also been lucky, when you think about it. With the years, all the words I reserved for her had been drained of their meaning, and even the features of her face had gradually lost their sub-stance. The things I could have blamed her for, the failure of our marriage, none of it meant anything to me now. There was a big hold-up near Bondy on the A3, and then another one on the beltway. I found a parking spot under the trees at Louise Michel. It was pleasantly gray on my street. I lowered the blind in the living room and lay down on the couch, I tried to reason with myself but I’d had enough of being reasonable and I let myself go, it did me a lot of good.
But because of that, I looked really terrible in the bathroom mirror. I took a shower, as I usually do in such cases. I changed. Then I opened Benjamin’s little package, it was a child’s toy. He’d been ten years old. Maybe I was already dreaming of a scooter. It was his old red Vespa made out of scrap iron, I’d completely forgotten it. But he’d carried it around with him in his pocket for a good couple of years, as if he was saying to me, one day we’ll both have one when I’m big. OK? Only it was all worn, the color had gone on the wheels and the handlebars. I looked for a place where I wouldn’t lose it. I put it on my desk, just under the lamp. I sat down in front of it. I remembered those things. And that was it.
In the days that followed, I went to the office early. The weather was quite good. It was a pleasure to leave early, carrying my jacket over my shoulder. Sometimes it seemed as if I’d spent a long night, and the rest of the time I never stopped remembering. Marie and I hadn’t talked any more about the summer, in theory, around July, she would have a few days’ respite between chemo sessions, and if it was OK, she’d be able to leave. She had a friend in Trouville, who had a house by the sea. She could let us use it. Do you know Trouville? Yes, I’ve been before, I really like it there. I’d planned my vacation for July, one week, and another week in August, since Ben had stopped going away with me I’d always taken them in installments, because what would I have done with all that time, on my own, with nothing to do? He called me a week after his arrival, Anaïs was happy, she’d already found a part-time job … As for him, he wasn’t sure yet. I didn’t go to see Marie every evening. She was starting to be exhausted by it all. She’d started losing her hair after the second session, and she’d thrown up a lot. When they let her out, I saw her home. She wanted to ask them for a break from therapy, but they wouldn’t let her. She’d see about it later, when she felt better. She was happy to be going home for a few days. I’d only been to Brochant to air the place out and pick up her mail, a girlfriend of hers from the boulevard also dropped by sometimes.
“Home at last!”
She was in a good mood, and we went for a meal at the Brasserie Wepler. She only picked at her food, to be honest, but she had a wonderful auburn wig now, she looked stunning. She was also happy to see the boulevard again: it was still just as ugly, noisy, and gray, all the way to Brochant metro station.
Several times I felt her looking at me out of the corner of her eye. In the end, I asked her what it was she wanted to tell me and couldn’t, or was I imagining things? No, I wasn’t imagining things. She’d have liked to be less tired and to show me another side of herself. She’d had too much time to think when she was in Beaujon. She’d never wanted to live with a man, not in a long time anyway. But we could see each other, if she wasn’t too tired. In the evening, she cried a lot because she’d been very happy and very unhappy in her life, and she accepted that, but today she was scared that she wouldn’t see the rest of it. She needed some time alone, she said.
“We have plenty of time ahead of us, Marie.”
It came out without thinking. She looked at me without a word, do you really believe that? And I was so sure of myself at that moment, in a way I’d rarely ever been in my life. So then she even wanted to go to the movies, just as she had hundreds of times, but there were too many people waiting in line, too many dumb films. It was hard for her to bear the noise and the gasoline smells. We walked back from the square to her apartment in Brochant, would I like a drink? No, thanks, I’m fine. So we just lay there in her bedroom, and then, when she was very tired, I left to go home and sleep. See you tomorrow?