Desirous of putting this hypothesis to the reality test while evaluating the capacities of L’Aviatic in this respect, I thus set out again for Le Bourget five days later, having this time — for experience, as we know, influences method — equipped myself with a cap.
I’d hardly set out for Gare du Nord when a sentence popped into my mind that I thought sounded not bad: I stopped to write it down in my notebook (this time it was a slightly bigger one, printed by the Museo de Arte Moderno de Medellín, and I haven’t the slightest idea where I could have gotten it since I’ve never set foot there). Now, this sentence, aside from being all in all not so terrible, was certainly false, even mendacious. And I was doubtless punished for this lie by my ballpoint pen which, bridling in protest, energetically refused to write it. I shook the pen in vain in every possible direction: it was on strike. I had to accept that it was out of ink and make a big detour over to the stationery store on the corner of Avenue Trudaine* and the Rue Rodier to buy a new cartridge.
I could have bought a new ballpoint, it wouldn’t have cost me any more than the cartridge, but I was fond of my pen, I’d grown attached to it: I admired its rocket- or torpedo-like silhouette, its ingenious safety clasp, its prettily combined materials (brushed metal, shiny metal, plastic), plus it felt good in the hand and the slogan “I (heart) NY” suggested that it had come from the same place as my beige notebook, and it wasn’t very handsome but I was fond of it. Also it was practical for taking notes while walking, given its retractable tip, so it was more practical than the Pilot V5 Hi-Tecpoint 0.5 mm I usually use, but its cap, which must be removed then put back on (and where do you put it in the meantime), slows everything down.
Anyway, good thing I’d brought along my little cap because it was going to rain, although lightly and briefly but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. This time the train was neither empty nor full. I took a jump seat. First facing the back of the train (as I usually do in the métro) then facing forward for a better view of the landscape.
And what more did I notice than on last Saturday? A tower topped with the name Siemens, a canal, a beautiful big factory in ruins, companies I found apparently in working order (the industrial packaging one, already noted, was next to an iron- and steelworks, but there were also, for example, the ham company Jambon Georges Chanel and Transports Henri Ducroc), an immense number of buildings one wouldn’t necessarily want to say were inhabited, a soccer field where some youths were playing, a vast zone of trash from which arose smoke as if from shantytown chimneys — and perhaps that was the case: I promised myself vaguely that I would check up on that one day.
After arriving at the Le Bourget station, just when I saw the pharmacy and was feeling on familiar terrain, my ballpoint broke down again. This time it was the spring mechanism that had jammed like any old Colt.45 and, to my great surprise, standing on the platform, I fixed it myself. I would never have thought I could do it. I resolved to handle it more delicately from then on.
It was too early, I wasn’t hungry enough to settle that business of the sandwich at L’Aviatic — too early even to eat without being hungry: I decided to go for a walk. First, under the pretext of buying a daily paper, I dropped by the bookshop-newsstand-stationery store. Probably for reasons already mentioned, the entrance was locked up tight like a jewelry store: I had to ring the doorbell to be let inside. Then I spent considerable time looking for the publication I wanted, a mildly left-wing daily of which a single copy turned up on the bottom shelf of the display unit, almost invisible, whereas all the extreme-right papers were throwing out their chests in the place of honor. This sight annoyed me. I reconsidered my hypothesis regarding Nefertiti.
Then, at something of a loss while waiting for sandwich time, I turned onto Avenue de la Division-Leclerc. Lots of places were either closed, not long for this world, or seriously dilapidated, and with a gray sky overhead it wasn’t cheerful. Even though it would sabotage my plans for L’Aviatic, after a while I considered dining somewhere else but the only establishments that would have seemed worthy of consideration — Le Moderne and L’Étoile-Diamant — looked deserted (L’Étoile-Diamant, in particular, with its ashtrays on the floor and its chairs tipped over in all directions, appeared to have been abruptly closed at the height of a general brawl). I walked. I passed three kids leaving their school who were working hard at improvising jingles on scatological themes. Maybe because of the overcast weather, the intermittent rain, this whole environment was giving me a rather sad, rather impoverished impression, and as I was passing another newsstand, when I saw the front-page question on Les Échos—“Can One Still Become Rich in France?”—that question, in situ, seemed well founded. I was similarly interested, from another point of view and on the other side of the avenue, by this sticker on the back window of a charcoal gray Mercedes 300D: “Love for all, hatred for none”—a worthwhile idea at first glance although perhaps a trifle awkward to implement. I kept on walking.
I walked to the town of Le Blanc-Mesnil, far enough to glimpse in the distance the two launch rockets Ariane 1 and Ariane 5, spires marking the site of the Musée de l’Air et de l’Espace. As I was crossing the overpass spanning the Autoroute du Nord, bristling with anti-noise barriers, Avenue de la Division-Leclerc turned into Avenue du 8 Mai 1945* before recovering its old name of Route de Flandre a little farther, toward the northeast. I tried to get as close as I could to those rockets, which strangely became harder and harder to see the nearer I got, but I put off my visit to the museum for another day. I was in no rush. Besides I was now seriously hungry.
Betraying L’Aviatic, I spotted an establishment of the truck stop kind called Au Bon Accueil. I went in this “Welcome Inn” and was in fact not too badly received; I sat at the bar, the hostess was a pleasant blonde and rather pretty, which cheered me up. When I asked without much hope if there might, by any chance, be a possibility of having a salami sandwich — I was still following, obviously, a certain train of thought — I was quite startled to hear the prompt riposte: plain or garlic? Disconcerted by such variety, in my flusterment I forgot to consider the possibility of a cornichon option, but now that I think back on it, I feel sure that would have worked. So I simply replied plain. With a glass of red. (This glass had become a deliberate imperative, even a compulsion that I will not have the cheek to qualify as a matter of style.) While awaiting my order, I discreetly observed my neighbors at the bar: two men drinking beer were followed by two men drinking kirs. Hardly any truck drivers remained, I felt, among the clientele, who seemed more like employees of the nearby airport or of security or property-caretaking companies — at least that’s what I thought I could deduce from reading the writing on the backs of their jackets. I ate my sandwich while glancing through my newspaper.
I then decided to stroll back to the station without any rush, tracing the same route, taking care only to avoid using the same sidewalks, for a fresh point of view, which allowed me to take a closer look at the police station building than I’d gotten the other day: this time three windows (out of ten) were open. Definite progress.
To take the edge off my betrayal, I dropped by L’Aviatic after all for coffee. Next door was the Cinéma Aviatic, a defunct movie theater, worse than defunct, like a carcass left to rot without burial. On the blind wall of its façade, traces yet remained of poster frames, remnants of words; the doors had been walled up and over them hung torn posters advertising musical and sportive entertainments. High on this rectangular surface, the only opening — at one time the projectionist’s window for fresh air, perhaps — was plugged with a colorful but moldy old blanket. This wall was clearly no longer a good place to lean while waiting for the 152 bus.