Consolation (28 page)

‘We were on the platform again when I asked her if she’d heard from you. And what about your Charles? So she smiled. Yes. Of course . . . You were working a lot, travelling all over the world, you had a big agency near the Gare du Nord, you were living with a superb woman. A real Parisian. The most elegant of all. And you had a girl, too . . . Who was your spitting image, by the way . . .’

Charles was startled.

‘But . . . how did she know?’

‘I don’t know. I suppose she never lost sight of you.’

His face was reduced to a cramp.

‘I got off at the next stop, all confused and upset, and the last time I ever had any news was the announcement that she was to be buried two days later.

‘And it wasn’t Alexis who got in touch with me, it was a neighbour she’d been friendly with and who had looked for my number in her things.’

She pulled her cardigan closer.

‘So here we are at the final act . . . Bitter cold, a few days before Christmas in a God-awful cemetery. No service, no speech, nothing. Even the chaps from the funeral director’s were embarrassed. They kept making these anxious little movements with their heads to see if someone was about to make a speech, but nothing. So after a short while they moved closer to her and pretended to meditate for five minutes or so, their hands crossed in front of their flies, and then what, well they lowered their ropes, that’s what they were paid for after all.

‘I was surprised not to see you there, but since she had told me that you were travelling a lot . . .

‘There was almost no one in front of me. One of her sisters, I think, who seemed to be fearfully bored and never stopped fiddling with her mobile. Alexis, his wife, another couple and an older man who wore some sort of Red Cross uniform and who was weeping like a big baby, and . . . that’s all.

‘But behind me, Charles, behind me . . . Fifty or sixty people . . .
perhaps
even more . . . A lot of women, masses of kids, toddlers, teenagers, big tall gangly youths who didn’t know what to do with their arms, old women, old men, people in their Sunday best, bouquets of flowers, superb jewellery and trinkets on designer jackets, old people hobbling along, others all patched up, some . . . All walks of life, all ages, all sorts . . . All the people she must have taken care of one day, I suppose . . .

‘What a motley crew. And yet they didn’t make a sound, no wailing, an unbelievable silence, but when the gravediggers stepped back, they all began to applaud. For a long, long time . . .

‘That was the first time I’d ever heard applause in a cemetery and at that point I finally let myself cry: she had had her tribute . . . and I can’t imagine what a priest or any other appropriate blah blah might have said about her that would have been more fitting.

‘Alexis recognized me and collapsed in my arms. He was sobbing so hard that I couldn’t understand what he was saying. Basically that he was a bad son and that right up to the end he hadn’t done what he should have. I put my hands back in my pockets, it was cold, so there was no way to hug him. His wife gave me a pinched little smile and came to peel him away from my coat. Then I went off again because . . . I had nothing more to do there . . . But in the car park a woman called out to me by name. It was her, the one who’d called me . . . She said, why don’t we go and get something hot to drink. Well, one quick closer look told me that it wasn’t really the hot drinks that she was into . . . For that matter, she ordered a pastis . . .

‘She’s the one who told me about Anouk’s last years. Everything she’d done for so many people, and then some. They hadn’t all been able to come to the funeral . . . there was no more room in Sandy’s son’s bus! Well, besides, it wasn’t actually his bus . . .

‘I won’t go on and on about Anouk, you knew her like I did . . . you can imagine the scene . . . this woman had some, shall we say, elocution problems, but at one point she said something really sweet: “That there lady, and let me tell you, well she wore a heart of gold on her sleeve, if you want my opinion . . .”’

Smiles.

‘“How did she die?” I asked. But the woman couldn’t tell me any more. It all made her feel just too down . . . And then suddenly
there
was a draught of air in my back and she cried out, “Jeannot! Come and say hello to the lady! She’s a friend of Anouk’s!”

‘It was the man who’d been crying his eyes out earlier on, and he had a handkerchief as big as a tea towel and a cape from the Red Cross – Great War vintage. He gave me a lop-sided smile and I figured straight away that he must have been her last blue-eyed boy . . . A chap who looked as unpredictable as Nana. As well disguised, at any rate. Pleased to meet you . . . He sat down across from me and the other woman went to drown her sorrows a bit closer to the bar. I sensed that he too really wanted to open his heart, but I was tired. I wanted to leave, to be alone at last. So I went straight to the point: what happened
at the end?
And that is when I learned – pinball machine and telly blasting away – that our lovely Anouk, the same woman who’d spent her entire life telling death where to get off, had finally made peace with it.

‘Why? He didn’t know. But there could be several reasons.

‘Twice a week she worked at the Friendship Bakery, a charity grocery reserved for people who were hard-up and where they sold food for next to nothing. A “customer” had come in with all her brats and she didn’t want any meat because it wasn’t halal, nor any bananas because they’d got black spots on them, nor any yoghurts because they’d be past their sell-by date the next day, and in the midst of all that she’d go, to her kids, Are you looking for a smack on the bottom or what, and Anouk, who’s normally so kind, started to shout at her.

‘It wasn’t surprising that poor people stayed poor because they really were bloody idiots. Who gave a damn what they did over at the abattoir, when your kids are that pale and already undernourished? And if you smack that child one more time, you horrible cow, just one more time,
I will kill you
. And how did she get off having a spanking new mobile phone and smoking ten euros’ worth of fags every day when her kids didn’t even have socks in the middle of winter! And where did that bruise come from, there? How old was he, anyway, three? What did you hit him with, you piece of scum, for him to have a bruise like that? Huh?

‘The woman left the shop screaming insults at Anouk, and Anouk took off her apron. She said she’d had enough. She wouldn’t be coming back. She couldn’t take it any more.

‘And the other thing, murmured this fat Jeannot, was that it was
the
15th of the month, and her son hadn’t invited her for Christmas yet, so she didn’t know whether she ought to hang on to the presents for her grandchildren or send them by post. It was trivial, but it really upset her, this business. And then there was that kid, I can’t recall her name, she’d helped her a lot with school and so on, she’d even found her an internship at the town hall, and the kid came and told her she’d got pregnant. Seventeen years old. So Anouk told her there was no point in her coming back to see her if she didn’t get an abortion and . . .

‘You want me to tell you what Anouk died of? She died because she’d lost heart. That is why she died. Jeannot gestured with his chin towards Joëlle, Madame Hot Drink, and said that she was the one who found her. The flat was completely empty. Not a stick of furniture. Nowt, as he put it. Seems she’d given it all to the Sally Army, so they told him afterwards. There was just an armchair and that thingammy with flowing water . . . A water fountain? No, a hospital thing, you know, with a sort of tube. A drip? That’s it. The police said she’d committed suicide and the doctor replied no, that wasn’t quite it, she’d put herself to sleep more like . . . And when he saw Joëlle crying he told her that she hadn’t suffered, she’d just gone to sleep. But still, all the same . . . It’s all right.

‘“You were a friend of hers?” I asked him.

‘“Oh, you might put it like that, but I was mainly her assistant, you see . . . I went round people’s homes with her, carried her bag, that sort of thing.”’

Silence.

‘“Now it’ll cost us even dearer . . .”

‘“What will?”

‘“The doctor . . .”’

Sylvie stood up. She glanced at the clock, put a pan of water onto the gas and then, staring off into the distance, continued in a low voice: ‘On the way home, caught in the traffic, I remembered something she had said millions of years earlier, one day when we were moaning in the changing-room after a particularly trying day: “You want to know something, lovey . . . there’s only one good thing about this job: when the day comes, we’ll be able to depart this world without disturbing a soul . . .”’

She raised her eyes.

‘There you are, Charles my boy. You know as much as I do, now.’

She began to grow restless and he could tell it was time to leave.

He didn’t dare give her a kiss.

She caught up with him on the landing.

‘Wait! I’ve got something for you.’

And she handed him a box held together with thick Sellotape, where his name had been written in capital letters.

‘The old fellow, again . . . He asked me if I knew a certain Charles, and he pulled this thing out from under his coat. At her house, he said, there was just a big bag for her son with the children’s presents, and then this thing . . .’

Charles wedged the box under his arm and walked out in a daze. Straight ahead. Rue de Belleville, Faubourg du Temple, Place de la République, Turbigo, Sébasto, les Halles, Châtelet, across the Seine, going on to Saint-Jacques like a zombie and Port-Royal at random, and when he felt the right moment had come, that simple physical fatigue was winning over the somersaults of his emotions, without slowing down he pulled out his key ring, and used the smallest key to tear through the Sellotape.

It was a children’s shoe box. He put his key ring back in his pocket, bumped into a column, apologized, and lifted the lid.

Dust, moths, or simply time had done their dirty work well, but he recognized her all the same. It was Mistinguett, the stuffed dove belonging to Na—

But what –

There was only one thing he could think of, only one thing to do: pull the box closer, and hold it as tight as possible against his chest. After that, nothing.

Nothing more could reach him.

So much the better. He was too weary to carry on, in any case.

14

SOMETHING WARM ON
his cheek. He closed his eyes, it felt good.

Oh no, who was this bothering him already. People all round him.

I didn’t see him! I didn’t see him! It’s those bloody new bus lanes they’ve put in! How many dead do those wankers need? I didn’t see him, I swear! Besides, he wasn’t on the crossing, either, was he! Ah, fuck . . . I didn’t see him . . .

Sir? Sir?

Are you all right?

He was smiling.

Fuck off, all of you, why don’t you . . .

Call the ambulance, he heard someone say. No, not that. He decided to get to his feet.

Not the hospital.

He’d had his fill of hospitals.

He stretched out his hand, leaned against someone’s arm, then a second one, let himself be lifted to his feet, gestured towards his shoe box, nodded thanks and, with the box for sole support, trotted over to the other shore.

Move your arm, let’s see . . . The other one . . . And your legs . . . It’s your face that’s all messed up . . . Yes, but with the shock, you never know . . . You don’t always see them right away, the after-effects . . . Is he vomiting, or not? Don’t touch him too much, you just don’t know . . . Don’t you want me to call an ambulance? I can take you to casualty . . . why not, we’re not far from Cochin, here! Are you sure? We shouldn’t leave him like this, huh. What’s he saying?

He’s saying that he’s sure.

The crowd dispersed. A dead man who doesn’t die isn’t so very interesting after all.

And then . . . if there’s no fuss, there’s no fun. A good citizen did
however
offer to write down the driver’s number plate for him and act as a witness, for the insurance . . .

Charles hugged his box against his heart and moved his head from right to left.

No. Thank you. He was just a bit stunned. It would pass. No problem.

The only one who stayed with him on the bench was some sort of tramp. No merit in that; the man was just bored.

Charles asked him for a cigarette.

Leaning over for the light, he thought he was going to pass out. He straightened up as slowly as possible, ran his tongue over his lips so he wouldn’t soil the filter and breathed in a long puff of calm.

After a very long while, perhaps an hour, his guardian angel reached out an arm.

He pointed to the shop front of a chemist’s.

The little assistant, Géraldine, it said so on her breast, let out a cry when she saw him. Her boss ran over, begged him to sit down on a chair, and made him suffer a thousand exquisite little tortures.

She was a wannabe doctor, giddy with this rare opportunity to perform . . .

His new friend was waiting for him on the other side of the window, and raised his thumb to give him courage.

His new friend was quite taken with Géraldine . . .

Charles winced a great deal. His face, or what was left of it, was scraped, cleaned, disinfected, studied, commented upon, then covered with little postoperative dressings.

He stood up, holding onto a display case, hobbled up to the till, allowed them to palm off a stack of ointments on him in exchange for a promise to see a doctor, lied in response, thanked them, paid, and went off to confront the world once again.

His former friend had vanished. He dragged himself to a cafétabac, astonished to be attracting so many fleeting glances.

The proprietor was not so sensitive. He’d seen his share . . .

‘Well then,’ he jested, ‘run over by the bus this morning?’

Charles smiled as much as the pain would allow: ‘Delivery van.’

‘Huh. Better luck next time.’

This from a shopkeeper. A
Parisian
shopkeeper, with a sense of humour, no less. This was marvellous.