“Yes, of course.”
“Can you let the phone ring twice so that I know you’ve arrived?”
“Sure. Call if you need me, will you do that?”
“Yes, sleep well.”
6
THERE HE WAS, WITH HIS VERY BLUE EYES, STANDING BY the boxes. He hadn’t finished, but almost. The window was open, like the first time I’d paid him a visit. The window of the apartment opposite was closed. I don’t know why I remember that family so well, is it because of the two children? He’d already packed the boxes. His rolling tobacco on the carpet, which was gray like the carpets in offices that haven’t been rented yet. Stains. Marks from the feet of the table, where he must have spent hundreds of hours waiting, without finding. He’d closed the door, I’d simply given it a push to come in, calling out: are you there?
“Come in, it’s nice of you to drop by.”
I was a bit surprised because we’d agreed to meet, all three of us, to have dinner. His sense of humor was a bit of a problem sometimes, in his life. I watched him scotch-tape the boxes with great skill. He’d never been comfortable with words, but things like that he could do well, overcome that kind of difficulty. He didn’t have many possessions. At a certain point, the window opposite half-opened and he took the opportunity to look up and offer me some tobacco. Just then, the image of his mother came back to me. He really did look like her, suddenly, lifting his head. How old had we been then?
“Do you want one? Help yourself.”
I rolled myself a cigarette. He had a few ready-made filters in the pack, but I didn’t even try to put one in. He approached the window with a big smile. It was the same little boy as last time. He climbed over the sill and came in to take a look. Our eyes met for a moment.
“So you were at home, Akim? Are you OK?”
The boy nodded. “Where are you going? Are you going a long way?”
I recognized some things from when his mother had been a concierge.
“I’m going to Marseilles. By the way, tell your father to drop in, is he around now?”
“I don’t know, he never says where he is. I’ll tell him if I see him.”
I sat down on the radiator under the window.
“Good, I’ll do the rest later, what time’s Marc-André coming?”
He still had some pastis, if I wanted. Yes, why not? Without daring to admit it to myself, I was almost impatient for the evening to end, this thing that didn’t mean anything, from way down in our past. The kind of thing veterans do, except there hadn’t been a war. There had simply been a life together, side by side in the Hauts-de-Seine, so many years on the streets of Asnières, Gennevilliers, Clichy, and La Garenne, and then, for each of us, love affairs, plans for the future, successes and failures, but he, in a way, had specialized. I couldn’t help smiling to myself, thinking about it. He looked in the closet, then in the refrigerator, which he was leaving behind for whoever came after him, if there was anybody. It would only be a temporary lease, obviously, they were going to demolish everything around here. There was also the TV set, which he’d bought quite cheap, but it worked perfectly, he’d give it to the children opposite. He liked the idea of giving them a present. He wouldn’t need it now. Oh, really?
“Yes, my mother has one, and anyway I don’t like it.”
“I’m like you, I never watch it.”
He took the bottle of pastis from the almost empty closet. Sorry, I don’t have any ice. He seemed to enjoy putting on this performance for me, as if he hadn’t felt so happy to be alive in years. He rolled himself a cigarette too. His things piled up in the middle of the room, like the last possessions of a guy who’s about to disappear.
The watch on his wrist drew my attention: it was an old watch, I’d seen watches like that a long time ago, on the wrists of uncles and neighbors during my childhood. He saw what I was looking at, it was my father’s last watch, he said. He’d gotten nothing from him except beatings, in his early years. He’d been very happy when he’d left, when he was about ten, and so was his mother. He was smiling as if to himself. It occurred to me that this wasn’t the first time he’d told this to someone. Then, when he died, in some little town in Brittany, it was a long time since they’d heard from him, either his mother or him. Anyway, he’d gotten his watch, a few photos, his mother had never wanted to tell him who the woman was beside him in the photographs. In any case it was working well.
“They made things properly in those days.”
He said it as if it was a joke, and I had to smile again. He looked less weary than usual. He seemed happy to be leaving, I think.
“How about you? How are you?”
I’m fine, life’s the same as usual. What could I really talk to him about? Marie? Of course not. He was one of those guys you can’t imagine living for a long time with a woman, but who was I to think that of him? I told him that my son had gone away for six months for his work …
“Your son, oh, yes, what’s his name again?”
“Benjamin.”
He nodded, with a big smile. He remembered the christening well, at Sainte Odile, near the Porte de Champerret. I haven’t seen him since, he added. Does he look like you? Then, having shot his arrow, he put his almost spent cigarette back in the corner of his mouth without waiting for my answer.
“Could you help me, please?”
By the time Marco arrived, we were taking out plastic bags filled with garbage, things to throw away, unusable things he’d amassed in this apartment. He’d always re-cycled, even when he wasn’t obliged to. You surrounded yourself with tons of things without knowing, and it was always the same, with each move you had a big spring cleaning. Marc-André waved to us and took out his cell phone, he had an important call to make. We finished transporting what he had to throw away into the courtyard of the building. The kids opposite were looking at us, kneeling on the couch, the TV set on behind them, although they weren’t looking at it. We could also hear the noise of the boulevard in La Garenne-Colombes where we used to walk together, all those years ago. It was still us, it wasn’t really our home any more. Marc-André was standing in the doorway of the inner courtyard.
“Hi, how are you? Why don’t you have the light on?”
We shook hands. “Fine, and you?”
“Not bad. One more day gone. Right, shall we go?”
He hadn’t had time to give it any thought, and Jean didn’t know the local restaurants. Maybe we could take the car and go to the big pizzeria in Clichy? It wasn’t far from Beaujon, on the way back I could go there and look at the windows on her floor. Was I more superstitious than before? What were we really afraid of, time rushing by and taking us to our end? Marc-André was looking around.
“So, this time it’s true, you’re really going for good?”
“Yes, this time I’ve had enough, I’m leaving.”
He smiled as if admitting defeat. And yet it seems to me something was driving him and it wasn’t his failure, on the contrary, it was a desire to leave, a desire to be somewhere else, that was stronger than him. Somewhere else?
“I think it’s better this way. And besides, my mother’s eighty-two, I want to take advantage of the time she still has, you know.”
Marco looked tense. Several times lately, he’d told me he was fed up with his success. He was too tired to want any more of it. But he spoke about it with Aïcha, and then everything became possible again, because he was no longer alone in this life. You had to accept that there was a price to pay. Guys like him didn’t get anything for nothing, when it came down to it, that was the case with most of us. I got in the back seat of Marc-André’s car.
There were two red lights in succession, and we didn’t say anything, all the time we sat there waiting. Guys with their windows down, their radios on or their cell phones in their hands, waiting for the lights to change. He held himself very straight, at one moment our eyes met in the rearview mirror. Marco turned to me.