Consolation (21 page)

Well, say at least that you’re unhappy!

Unhappy? He shook his head. But . . . What does that mean, unhappy?

You’ve had too much to drink, you’ll find out in a few hours.

No. I’ve never been as clear-headed in my life. Quite the reverse.

Charles . . .

Now what? he said, annoyed.

Unhappy is the opposite of happy.

What does that mean, hap—

No, nothing. He closed his eyes.

And it was as he finally decided to pull himself out of his slump, to go back to work, that he heard the sound of a key in the lock.

She walked by him without seeing him, and headed for the bathroom.

Rinsed off the other man’s cum.

Went into their room, got dressed, and came back to put her make-up on.

She opened the door to the kitchen.

She may not have shown any dismay, but he could sense her irritation. Yet she stood fast and made herself a coffee before she came to confront him.

What sang-froid, mused Charles; what bloody sang-froid.

She came over, blowing on her cup, sat on the armchair opposite him and steadily met his gaze in the semi-darkness.

‘What can I say?’ she asked, folding her legs under her.

‘Nothing.’

‘Did you remember to collect your luggage this time, at least?’

‘Yes. Thanks. By the way . . .’

He reached out and picked up the plastic bag next to his briefcase.

‘Look what I found for Mathilde.’

On his head he placed a cap stamped
I
Canada
with big sheepskin caribou’s antlers on either side.

‘It’s funny, no? I think I should keep it . . .’

‘Charles . . .’

‘Quiet,’ he interrupted, ‘I just told you I didn’t want to hear what you have to say.’

‘That is not what you –’

He got up and went to put his cup in the kitchen.

‘What are all these photos?’

He came back and took them from her hands and put them back in the envelope.

‘Take off that ridiculous cap,’ she sighed.

‘What are we doing?’

‘Sorry?’

‘What are we doing together?’

‘We’re doing the same as everyone else. We’re doing what we can. We’re making headway.’

‘Without me.’

‘I know. You haven’t been around in a while, in case you hadn’t noticed.’

‘C’mon,’ he replied, with a tender smile, ‘this is your scene. Don’t reverse the roles, my tacky little Madame Bovary, tell me, rather, what . . .’

‘What?’

‘No. Nothing.’

She swayed her hips and scratched at something on her skirt:

‘Hey . . . you’ve lost weight, haven’t you?’

He gathered up his things, changed his shirt, and closed the door on the second-rate vaudeville sketch.

‘Charles!’

She’d followed him out into the stairway.

‘Stop . . . It was nothing . . . You know very well it was nothing . . .’

‘Of course. That’s why I’m asking you what we’re doing together.’

‘No, but I meant tonight . . .’

‘Oh, really?’ he said sympathetically, ‘you mean it wasn’t even any good? Poor darling . . . When I think I’d opened a nice bottle of Pomerol for you . . . You have to admit that life is cruel.’

He went down a few more steps before announcing: ‘Don’t expect me this evening. I’ve got a networking thing at the Arsenal and I –’

She caught him by the sleeve of his jacket.

‘Stop it,’ she murmured.

He stood still.

‘Stop it.’

Then he turned around.

‘Mathilde?’

‘What about Mathilde?’

‘You won’t stop me from seeing her, will you?’

A big first: he saw something like panic on her lovely face.

‘Why are you saying that?’

‘I haven’t got the strength to clear the table, Laurence. I . . . I needed you, I think, and –’

‘But what – but what is going on? Where are you going? What are you doing?’

‘I’m tired.’

‘That, I know. Thanks. You’ve already told me a hundred times. But what’s it all about, this being tired? What exactly do you mean?’

‘I don’t know. I’m searching.’

‘Come,’ she pleaded in a low voice.

‘No.’

‘Why?’

‘It’s too sad, what we’ve become. We can’t go on just for her sake. It won’t . . . Do you remember . . . And it was on the stairs that time, too . . . Do you remember what you told me . . . The first day . . .’

‘What did I tell you, then?’ she exclaimed, exasperated.

‘“She deserves better.”’

Silence.

‘If she weren’t there,’ continued Charles, ‘you’re the one who’d’ve left. A long time ago, as well.’

He could feel her nails closing on his shoulder: ‘Who’s that dark-haired woman in the photos? Is she the woman, the one who died, that you were talking about the other day? The mother of someone or other? Is she the one who’s been fucking up our life for weeks? Who is she? What is this – some sort of
Mrs Robinson
thing?’

‘You wouldn’t understand.’

‘Oh no? Well then try me,’ she fumed, ‘just try. You tell me, since I’m so stupid.’

Charles hesitated. There was indeed a word which – but he didn’t dare say it.

Not because of her. Because of Anouk. A word he’d never been sure about. A word that had been stuck in the gears all these years and which had ended up ruining the fine machinery.

So he chose another one instead. Less definitive, more cowardly.

‘Tenderness.’

‘I didn’t realize we were at that point,’ she rejoined.

‘Oh? You’re lucky.’

She was silent.

‘Laurence . . .’

But she’d already turned around and started back up the stairs.

For a split second he thought about catching up with her, but then he heard her humming
God bless you please, Mrs Robinson, na na nani nana nana na
and he realized that she hadn’t understood a thing.

That she would never even want to understand.

Holding on to the banister, he continued down the stairs.

*

Why not, after all. May God bless her.

That would be the least He could do, after having put her through the mill like that.

Laurence’s car was parked a few metres farther along. He walked by it, stopped, came back, scribbled a few words on a sheet from his notebook and slid it under one of the windscreen wipers.

What did he put? Remorse? Second thoughts? A declaration? A farewell?

No. He put . . .

‘Mathilde told me to tell you that it was okay for Saturday.’

That was him.

All over.

Charles Balanda. Our man. About to turn forty-seven years old, in a week, a cuckolded partner with no rights over the child he’d raised, and that he knew. No rights, but a great deal more than that. His insurance, that little note torn out in haste, or the proof that the machinery wasn’t completely wrecked. As for Mathilde, she’d make it all right.

He walked on, feeling his pockets for a tissue.

Wrong, yet again.

He hadn’t let it all out in the plane.

6

HE GREETED THEM
briefly. He went back to his worn armrests. He had trouble concentrating. He began by milking the computer: 58 messages. Sigh. He separated the wheat from the bullshit with a few abrupt shakes of his head to clear it of his domestic woes. By error he opened a spam which said:
greeting charles. balanda did you ever ask yourself is my penis big enough?
He gave a forced smile, listened to everyone’s grievances, handed out advice and encouragement, checked on young Favre’s work, frowned, took his pad and blackened it with unbelievable speed, changed screens, thought, thought for a long time, chased L.’s face away, tried to understand, refused several calls so he wouldn’t lose his train of thought, corrected a few errors, made others, checked his notes, leafed through his bibles, worked, thought some more, sent something to the printer and stood up with a stretch.

He realized it was already three o’clock, waited a long time next to the printer, finally twigged and looked in vain for a ream of paper.

And flew into an inordinate rage.

He struck the machine, bent one of the paper trays out of shape by giving it a kick, cursed, bellowed, rained insults upon poor Marc who had the misguided idea of coming to help out, and made all of them suffer the absurdity of these last months and the weight of his cuckold’s horns.

‘Paper! Paper!’ he said, over and over like a madman.

He refused to go and have some lunch. He went down to the courtyard to have a smoke and bumped into the downstairs neighbour who began to tell him about his problems with leaks.

‘Why are you telling me all this? Do you think I’m a plumber or something?’

He mumbled some apologies that no one heard. He almost blew
his
fuse for the second time when he saw the ‘expenses’ folder from the PRAT site in Valenciennes, but thought better of it and went back to his desk full of experience and wisdom, to spend the rest of his life among his blueprints.

At the end of the afternoon, he had his lawyer on the telephone.

‘I’ve come with news of your lawsuits!’ joked the man.

‘Have mercy, no!’ replied Charles, using the same tone, ‘I pay you a fortune precisely so that you won’t give me any news.’

And after a conversation which lasted over an hour during which the other man’s meter never stopped running, Charles said these words which he immediately regretted: ‘And do . . . do you also do family law?’

‘Heavens, no! Why do you ask?’

‘No, nothing. Right. Back to my duties . . . Time to create other opportunities for you to fleece me.’

‘I’ve already told you, Balanda, one’s duties are the corollary of professional competence.’

‘Listen . . . I have a confession to make . . . Find something else to say next time, because I cannot stand that sentence any more . . .’

‘Ha, ha! I haven’t forgotten that I owe you a lunch at L’Ambroisie, if I’m not mistaken?’

‘Quite . . . If I haven’t been locked up by then.’

‘Oh, but I can’t imagine anything better for our Republic, my friend! To give someone like you the opportunity to show an interest in our prisons . . .’

Charles looked at his hand on the receiver for a long time.

Why do you ask? the man had said.

Why, indeed? It was ridiculous. He obviously didn’t have a family.

*

A rare occurrence, he was not the last one to leave the agency, and he decided to go to the Pavillon de l’Arsenal on foot.

On the Place de la Bastille he listened to his messages.

‘We have to talk,’ said the machine.

Talk.

What a strange idea . . .

It was not so much how far apart the river banks were that puzzled him, but rather their . . .
friability
.

And yet . . . Perhaps. If he cancelled a few appointments, went far away, drew the curtains on a hotel room in broad daylight, if . . . But whatever Charles might have been fantasizing as he walked along Boulevard Bourdon, the architect in him demolished it right away: the terrain, wherever you looked, had become far too unstable, and it was time to accept that that particular future could not be built.

The edifice had withstood eleven years.

And it was the architect who was sniggering as he crossed the street. This was one instance where no one could come pestering him about his ten-year buildings liability.

He did what was expected of him, shook the right hands, and sent his regards to the right people. At eleven o’clock, standing in the night in front of that statue of Rimbaud that he despised, and hesitating a moment, he took the wrong direction.

Or the right one, as it happened.

7

‘AND WHAT TIME
d’you call this?’ she said, mock-aggressively, with her fist bunched on her hip.

He pretended to shove her against the wall and headed for the kitchen.

‘Hey, you’ve got a nerve . . . Why didn’t you ring? What if I’d been here with some gallant company?’

He took a look at her pouting face and began to laugh.

‘Right, okay, I said “what if”, didn’t I?
What if
. . .’

He gave her a kiss.

‘Go on then, make yourself at home,’ she said, ‘besides you
are
at home, in fact . . . Welcome home, darling, what brings you here? Have you come to raise my rent? Uh-oh, something’s wrong, isn’t it? Is it those Russians making your life miserable again?’

He didn’t know where to begin, or even whether he’d have the courage to find the words, so he opted for the simplest formula: ‘I’m cold, and hungry, and I want some love.’

‘Oh, fuck . . . You’re in a bad way, aren’t you. C’mon, follow me. I can make you an omelette with some eggs that aren’t fresh and some rancid butter, how does that sound?’

She watched him eat, opened a beer for the two of them, pulled off her patch and pinched a cigarette from him.

He pushed back his plate and looked at her in silence.

She stood up, lit the small light above the stove, switched off all the other lights and came back, moving her stool so that she could lean against the wall.

‘Where shall we begin?’ she murmured.

He closed his eyes.