*
It wasn’t the Fiat any more, nor was it Han Solo’s Millennium Falcon, not yet, so it must have been during the glorious years of her little red Peugeot, her first brand new car, and the action takes place about the time they were ten years old. Or maybe eleven. Were they already in secondary school? He can’t remember. Anouk didn’t look her usual self. She was all dressed up, and she wasn’t laughing. She was chain-smoking, and she forgot to turn off the windscreen wipers, she didn’t get their silly Toto jokes at all, and she told them every five minutes that they had to be a credit to her.
The boys replied yes, yes, but they didn’t really understand what she meant by that, being a credit to her, and since Toto had drunk all the beer, he went wee wee in his dad’s glass, and . . .
She was taking them to see her family, to her parents’ place, and she hadn’t seen them for years; Charles was along for the ride. And for Alexis’s sake, probably. To protect him from whatever was already making her so nervous, and because she felt stronger when she could hear them snorting with laughter about Willies, Sausages and Co. in the rear.
‘When we get to Granny’s you leave off all the Toto business, all right?’
‘Yeah, yeah . . .’
It was in the cheap housing district on the outskirts of Rennes. That much Charles recalled quite clearly. She was trying to find the way, driving slowly, cursing, complaining that she didn’t recognize a thing, and Charles, as in Russia thirty-five years later, could not take his eyes off the row upon row of brand new blocks of flats that were already so unspeakably dreary . . .
There were no trees, no shops, no sky, the windows were tiny and the balconies full of junk. He didn’t dare say anything but he was somewhat disappointed that part of her came from here. He had always thought she’d arrived on their street from the sea . . . on a scallop shell . . . Like in the painting of Spring that Edith was so fond of.
She’d brought heaps of presents, and she’d forced them to tuck their shirt-tails into their trousers. She’d even combed their hair, out in the car park, and it was at that point that they understood that being a credit to her meant not behaving the way they normally did. So they didn’t squabble to see who would get to press the button on the lift and they watched her growing paler and paler as they rose towards the top floor.
Even her voice had changed . . . And when she handed her the presents, her mother put them away in the next room.
Alexis asked about it on the way home: ‘Why didn’t they open the presents?’
She took a while to answer.
‘I don’t know. Perhaps they’re keeping them for Christmas.’
The rest is vague. Charles recalls that there was far too much to eat and that he had a stomach ache. There was an odd smell. They talked too loudly. The television was on all the time. Anouk gave some money to her younger sister, who was pregnant, and to her brothers, and some medicine to her father. And no one had thanked her.
And in the end he had gone downstairs with Alexis to play in the empty lot next door, and when he’d gone back up, on his own, to use the toilet, he’d asked that fat woman, who seemed tricky: ‘Excuse me, ma’am . . . Where’s Anouk?’
‘Who are you talking about?’ she’d retorted, as if he’d said something wrong.
‘Uh . . . Anouk.’
‘Don’t know her.’
And she’d turned back to her kitchen sink with a grumble.
But Charles had a really bad tummy ache.
‘Alexis’s mum . . .’
‘Ah! You mean Annick?’
What a nasty sweet smile she gave him . . .
‘Because my daughter’s name is Annick, isn’t it! There’s no such person as Anouk. Those are names for little Parisian folk like yourself. What she says when she’s ashamed, like, you see? But here she’s called Annick so get that into your skull, lad. And why are you wriggling like that?’
Her older daughter came in and showed him the place he was looking for. When he came back out she was gathering up all their belongings.
‘I didn’t say goodbye,’ said Alexis worriedly.
‘It doesn’t matter.’
She ruffled his hair.
‘Come, my princes. Let’s get out of here.’
For a long time they didn’t dare say a thing.
‘Are you crying?’
‘No.’
Silence.
And then she rubbed her nose: ‘Okay, well, let’s see . . . Toto goes to buy some sweets in a grocery shop in Paris, and he leaves his bicycle outside the shop. But it gets stolen.
‘Since he is too far from home to walk all the way back before dark, he sneaks into a hotel and hides under a bed to spend the night.
‘A pair of lovers come into the room and stretch out on the bed.
‘The man says to the woman, “I can see all of Paris in your eyes,” and at that very moment Toto comes out of his hiding place and exclaims, “Can you see my bicycle in her eyes?”’
She was laughing so hard she was crying.
Later, on the motorway, when Alexis had fallen asleep: ‘Charles?’
‘Yes?’
‘You know, if I’m called Anouk now, it’s . . . it’s because I think it’s a prettier name . . .’
He didn’t reply right away, because he was trying to think of an answer that would be really super.
‘Do you understand?’
She shifted the rear view mirror so she could catch his eye.
But he couldn’t find a good enough answer. So he just nodded his head and smiled.
‘Does your tummy feel better?’
‘Yes.’
‘Me too, you know,’ she continued, lowering her voice, ‘I always get a tummy ache when . . .’
And didn’t finish her sentence.
Charles didn’t think he could still recall memories like this. So why did the boomerang suddenly come back? The Toto joke, the forgotten presents, the hundred-franc notes on the table and the smell in that flat, of burnt fat and rancid envy?
Because . . .
Because on the tomb in plot number J93, you could read, above the dates:
LE MEN ANNICK
‘Bastards.’ All he could say by way of reverent contemplation.
He went back to the car with a hurried step, opened the boot and rummaged about in his clutter.
It was a fluorescent marker he used on site. He shook the aerosol, knelt down beside her, wondered at first how he would manage to link the ‘n’ and merge the ‘i’ with the ‘k’, then he decided to cross the whole thing out and give her back her true identity.
Well done! A round of applause, now! What gallantry!
What a magnificent tribute!
Forgive me.
Forgive me.
An old crone who was visiting the neighbouring gravestone looked at him with a frown. He put the cap back on his marker and got to his feet.
‘Are you a family member?’
‘Yes,’ he replied curtly.
‘No, I mean don’t mind my asking . . .’ Her mouth went into a twist. ‘Because . . . there is a guard here, but . . .’
Charles’s gaze left her disconcerted. She did her little housekeeping and said goodbye.
That must have been Madame Maurice Lemaire.
Maurice Lemaire who had a lovely slab paid for by his hunting mates, with a dandy rifle in relief.
Could you dream of a better neighbour, now, my dear Anouk? Say . . . You will really be treated like a queen here . . .
As he was leaving the place, he saw the man who was ‘a guard here, but . . .’
He was black.
Ah, that explains it.
Everything was clear, now.
Climbing into the car, Charles was bothered by the smell of the flowers. He tossed them into a skip and looked at his watch.
Right. He’d have just enough time to call the bastard before boarding.
His assistant was trying to reach him and rang several times. He ignored her and eventually sw
itched the phone off.
Staring straight ahead, his thumbs planted deep into the fat of the steering wheel, he felt his head begin to whirl.
Turn around . . . Invent an accident . . . Claim he’d missed his plane, add ‘only just’, bypass Paris, take the Océane motorway, exit at Thingammy, head for Whatsit, look for Rue What-d’you-call-it, and shove open the door at number 8.
Find him at last.
And plant his fist right in his face.
He should have done it twenty years ago anyway. But no regrets. In the meantime he had put on at least twenty pounds and stockpiled a bit of resentment. His jaw would appreciate the fact.
But that’s not what happened. Little Rocky in a tweed jacket switched on his indicator and dropped back into the left-hand lane. He’d committed himself. He would go and get bored in one of the lounges at the Toronto Park Hyatt, and he’d come home with his head and his briefcase stuffed with Advances in Building Technology which would restore neither his cranes nor his faith.
Yes . . . There’d be a bit of vagueness in that obit, too . . . An architect, you say?
Oh? I had forgotten. It’s funny: all these years I’ve had the impression, rather, that I was running an agency . . . Running. That’s the word. Like a little carthorse with its blinkers on, numbly trotting with its load to market.
Where had Jean Prouvé’s guiding hand got lost in all this dust? And all the hours spent glued to the architectural notebooks of Albert Laprade, at an age when others were collecting football stickers? And what about the abbey at Le Thoronet? And the clean, sculptural lines of the great Alvaro Siza? And all those study trips, with nothing but his drawings for currency?
And always, always, the impression, the seal of Anouk Le Men on these busy little efforts that would serve nicely as a career, as a life . . .
Because she did hesitate, yes, she did spit in her palm to flatten their cowlicks, yes, she had dropped all her packages when she slammed the boot, and yes all of a sudden she was speaking so roughly to them, but that hadn’t stopped her from turning round, from following with her gaze the dismay of the little boy who’d been born with his silver spoon, and from lifting her chin up, too, and waiting for him, and declaring solemnly when he had reached her side: ‘Charles . . . You know you draw so well . . . You should be an architect when you grow up . . . And you must do whatever you can to stop them from putting up places like that . . .’
And the little boy who drew so well, who looked away discreetly when Pavlovich handed out his envelopes, who flew Business most of the time, who was about to go to a useless and extremely costly conference at a FiveStar Alliance hotel where – so it said on the programme – he could enjoy full Spa service with waterfalls and streams, and who would probably doze between his headphones from having consumed too much good food; yes, that guy, that wretch, he missed the exit ramp for Terminal 2 and roared out loud in his tin can shell.
Roared.
Bloody hell and a thousand bleeding wankers.
He’d have to drive all the way round again.
11
‘HELLO?’
Unfortunately, it wasn’t his voice, and what was worse, it chimed.
‘Um . . . is this the home of Alexis Le Men?’
‘Yuh, it is,’ said the little voice.
He was disconcerted.
‘May I speak with him, please?’
‘Daddy! Telephone!’
Daddy?
That was all he needed . . .
And everything he’d been rehearsing over and over for nearly an hour, in the car park, on the escalators, in the various queues, and finally by the big plate glass windows – the way he would introduce himself, the first words he’d say, his plan of attack, his bite, his anger, his venom, his sorrow – it all vanished, quite simply.
All he could find to torpedo him with after all these leaden years was: ‘You . . . you’ve got a kid?’
‘Who’s this?’ asked the voice on the phone, curtly.
Christ, no. This wasn’t at all the way he’d envisaged things, our super hero . . .
‘Is that you, Charles?’
‘Yes.’
And the voice was gentler.
Far too gentle, alas.
‘I’ve been waiting for you.’
A long silence.
‘So you got my letter, then?’
The crack opened wider. In an alarming way. Charles got up, headed for a corner, and nestled against the wall. Lowered his forehead to the wall and closed his eyes. The world around him had become . . . seemed to be burning . . .
It was nothing. It would pass. Fatigue. Nerves.
‘Are you still there?’
‘Yes, yes . . . sorry . . . I’m in an airport.’
He was ashamed. Ashamed. He raised his head.
‘But I’m okay, it’s okay . . . I’m here.’
‘I was asking you if you got my –’
‘Of course. Why else would I be phoning you?’
‘I really don’t know! Because you wanted to! To hear my news, to –’
‘Stop it.’
That did it. It had all come back. To hear that voice again, oozing charm, the voice he adopted to arse-lick anyone who crossed his path: it was enough to clear Charles’s mind in a split second and restore his anger.
‘You cannot leave her where she is . . .’
‘Sorry?’
‘In that crap cemetery.’
Alexis began to laugh; it was a horrible sound.
‘Ha, ha! You haven’t changed, I can see . . . Always the fine prince on his white charger, is that it? You haven’t lost your style, have you, Balanda!’
Then his voice changed completely.
‘But hey . . . You’ve turned up a bit late now, haven’t you? Your nag’s on its last legs! There’s no one left to save, didn’t you know?’
Silence.
‘I can’t leave her there, I can’t leave her there,’ he hissed, ‘but she’s dead, mate! She’s dead! What difference does it make if she’s there or elsewhere? You know what? I’m sure she doesn’t give a fuck!’
Of course he knew. He was the more rational of the two, after all. Methodical, geometrical, the good pupil, buttoned up to his collar, the class delegate, the designated driver who could blow into the balloon, the . . . But . . . Not any more. His wires were beginning to overheat, and whatever he could say in her defence, out it came:
‘You can’t leave her there. It represents everything she always despised . . . The cheap district council housing, racism . . . Everything she tried to avoid for ye—’
‘What . . . what the hell are you on about now, racism, what?’
‘Her neighbour.’
‘What neighbour?’
‘In the tomb next door.’
Stunned silence.
‘Hang on a sec. Is this Charles Balanda speaking? The son of Mado and Henri Balanda?’
‘Alex, please . . .’
‘No but what the hell are you on about? Hey, seriously . . . Are you all right? Nothing broken on top? Maybe you forgot to put on your hard hat or something?’
Silence.
‘Hello?’
‘And the waste dump on top of all that.’
‘I’m coming!’ shouted Alexis, away from the receiver, ‘start without me! On top – the dump? Are . . . Charles?’
‘Yes.’
‘After all this time . . . I have to confess something very important to you.’
‘I’m listening.’
He, um, cleared his throat, very solemnly.
Charles covered his other ear.
‘When people are dead, you know, well . . . they don’t see anything any more . . .’
What a bastard. Play the old something-to-confide trick all the better to take the piss out of him. Typical, absolutely typical.
Charles hung up.
He hadn’t even reached the boarding stairs when suddenly he felt the void beneath his feet: he’d forgotten to ask him the most important thing.
<
br /> *
They served a glass of champagne and he used it to swallow yet another sleeping tablet. It was a really stupid cocktail, he knew that, but he’d stopped counting all the stupid things he’d been doing, so one more or less . . .
For several weeks now his life had been little more than a succession of undesirable side effects, and the machine had kept running, so . . . At best in a few minutes he’d collapse, at worst he’d go and lean over the toilet seat.
Yes, chuck it all up, that might not be so bad, why not . . .
He pulled the pin on another miniature bottle.
When he took out his files, the envelope from his parents slipped beneath his seat. Fine. Let it stay there. He’d had his fill, now. Ridicule didn’t kill you, that’s as may be, but at a certain point, all the same, it was healthier to get into gear. He could no longer stand what he’d become: a complaisant man.
Right then, go on. Trample on all that. Memories, weakness, wailing. Let’s have some air!
He loosened his tie and unbuttoned his collar.
In vain.
He seemed to have forgotten that the air, where he was, was pressurized.
When he came to, he’d been drooling so much that the shoulder of his jacket was soaking. He looked at his watch and could not believe his Lexomil: he’d only slept for an hour and a quarter.
Seventy-five minutes of respite . . . That’s all he’d been entitled to.
The woman sitting next to him was wearing an eye mask. He switched his light on, wriggled this way and that to retrieve the envelope, smiled when he saw the magnificent tattoos on their little sailors’ forearms, wondered who it was who must have drawn them, closed his eyes. Of course . . . his mother was right. It was him. That funny little man with the dyed hair. He sought his face, his name, his voice, found him again outside the school gates and was back at square one.
As are we.
II
1
‘THE GUY IN 6A?’
‘Yes.’
‘What’s wrong with him?’
‘I’ve no idea, some kind of nervous attack. D’you have any ice cubes left?’ she asked her colleague, who was waiting on the other side of the cart.
Somewhere up above the ocean, one of their passengers had unfastened his seatbelt.