I tended to look for the absurd in everything, so I picked up this paper, bought in Paris in the morning and now doubly aged by time and distance, and attempted to find some stories from this countryside in it, stories whose journey had been pointless because I was bringing them back whence they came.
The people working in the fields had not yet read this newspaper. Being better informed than they were, carried along at uniform speed through landscapes where I would have stopped had I been alone, witnessing a rural life as private as the one inside houses—all this prompted me to dream, eyes half-closed, legs crossed so that no fatigue would bring me back to reality.
Passengers moved through the corridor in the direction opposite the train’s, fearful as they walked between cars, gaining a few steps on the ground as we lost a thousand in the countryside. We did not have time to see the clocks in the stations. A train passing us in the other direction caused me a dreadful fright.
I was leaving behind friends whom I had not forewarned, as well as my landlady, because I am unable to part company forever with even the most insignificant people.
I was leaving behind a young woman, Julienne, whom I loved and whom, only nine hours after my departure, I already missed, and who seemed to me to have so many fine qualities, as if we had been separated a long time.
I was leaving behind a dark office where only one window looked out onto rue Drouot, and five others onto an inner courtyard. The window facing rue Drouot was not for me. I would have had to wait for seven employees to leave in order to become the most senior and sit anywhere near it.
I was leaving behind habits, odd little ways born of poverty, sudden awakenings in the half-light, the fear that people would not return what I had loaned them, bad restaurants, and indigence at month’s end, prolonged by a day every month, that inevitably would have led me to total destitution.
I was leaving behind an ordered life, so well ordered that I was surprised, now, that it no longer existed. The person who would take over my room would not get up at the same time as I had. I would no longer buy my rolls at the neighborhood bakery. No one would see me anymore. In a month, after the customary time of an illness or a vacation, perhaps people would think of me for a moment, and then it would be over.
I was also leaving behind things, old things I had believed useful, and that I had never wanted to get rid of, even when I changed rooms: a pair of trousers, a metal can, a perfume bottle that was empty but made of heavy glass, photographs, worn-out shirts, letters and envelopes—I cannot tear up a letter, and I always keep the envelopes as if, without them, the letters would not be letters.
I had left everything. I was carrying only new things in my new suitcase. My brushes were wrapped in the day’s newspaper. I did not want anything to remind me of my life in Paris and wanted to focus my attention solely on driving out bad memories.
I was returning to my family. I, their son, their brother, was going to see them again. In an hour, I would be among them. At first they would not recognize me. Then, with tears of joy, my mother would hold me in her arms—but not for long, because she would go fetch my father to tell him the good news.
In my mind, until it occurred to me that perhaps it would be my father I would first lay eyes on, it was without a doubt my mother who would be the first to forgive me.
But what is the difference? My father would kiss me, and he too would hold me in his arms, against his firmer chest, the feel of which was more difficult for me to imagine.
There were lots of animals—dogs and cats—at home the day I left. But, afraid of becoming sad, I was not thinking about them. Animals don’t live as long as people. I did not know how old they were, so perhaps they had died. In fact, no one knew their ages. They were strays adopted by my mother, who was very kind.
Again I saw the small yard where as a child I would have liked to dig a hole as deep as I was tall.
Again I saw the rabbits. They would not be the same ones, but it did not matter because even if they had not died, I would not have recognized them.
Again I saw the well next to which I used to wash because I did not want to carry water anywhere or get my bedroom floor wet, and this would anger my father because he was afraid the soapy water that was absorbed by the earth would seep back into the well.
Again I saw the artichokes, so firm when they are raw; the low branches that allowed me to climb the trees; my collection of stamps, one of which was triangular; the little stream that ran right next to the house among the nettles; a sandy path for my bare feet; the donkey—bigger now; my kite, which was store-bought and made with whitewood rather than with young twigs; my bicycle that I took care of the same way I took care of myself, disregarding the dust that covered it, but very preoccupied with the ball bearings because of the predisposition of my mind to care more about fundamentals than form.
I heard the cock’s crowing, the one at eight in the morning, more coppery because of the sunlight and the shimmering of the streams, the mallets of the washerwomen, the barking of the dogs. All these sounds became muted in space. They died slowly, mixing with the vibrations of the warm air without an unexpected echo, without reverberating on some zinc roof.
* * *
I recognized a farm, a barn. I had arrived. Because I was in the head car, I had the feeling the train was not going to stop.
The platforms were deserted. The clock, which I finally located, said 5:10. A warm, dry breeze caressed my face.
Although I had not told my family I was coming, arriving like this on a station platform where no one was waiting for me was vaguely disappointing.
The ticket windows were open. The account books, the jar of liquid glue, the telephones, the scales jammed full of bags, the announcements that were tacked but not glued out of respect for the ones underneath—all those things that are damp and sad in cities were cheerful here.
I found myself at the exit with a few other passengers. A railway worker held our tickets in his hand. It was as if we all had agreed among ourselves to turn in our tickets to the same man.
I had an inexplicable fear of coming home with a suitcase after an absence of five years, so I left mine at the baggage check.
I still had a little under half a mile to go, without a car, without a train, on foot; that is, I was sure to arrive in ten minutes, if there were no accidents or delays. My heart was pounding. I was truly happy that it was hot outside: my emotion would not show on my already flushed face.
Yet I did not dare leave the public square, where there were still people and where I could go unnoticed, to walk along the straight, open road where I could be seen from a distance.
The train left the station. So I had arrived. I had not lost any time. After a long journey like the one I had just made, I had a right to freshen up at the inn. Seeing the travelers there cheered me up.
Suddenly, I froze with fear at the thought that my father might walk in by chance and see me. The magnitude, the surprise of my return would be spoiled. I would not even dare to kiss him in front of the customers. He would bring me back to the house thinking I had not been in a hurry to see him. My mother would not welcome me in the same way. Foolishly, everything would be ruined.
I quickly downed an alcoholic drink. Flies were buzzing in the middle of the room. They were bigger than the ones in Paris. An open door gave onto a garden, onto the sky, onto my life to come.
* * *
The road that leads to my parents’ house is lined with apple trees from which now hung wisps of hay that had been left by carts returning from harvest. Winter crows, black, slow, and sad, flew above a tree in the shadowless air.