Out of Sorts (2 page)

Chapter Three

Jinxed

Ferdinand Brun is going deaf. It doesn’t bother him much—he has no one to make conversation with anyway. But since he’s a hypochondriac, he’s already imagining the worst—complete hearing loss, like Mozart. Or was it Beethoven? He can’t quite remember anymore.

Mr. Brun hasn’t had much luck in life. It started out badly, and it wasn’t really his fault. He was born on Friday the thirteenth. His mother did all she could to keep him in a few more hours, but she was able to ascertain the disappointing masculinity of her unwanted offspring twenty minutes early. The new mother then decided to say the birth had taken place on the fourteenth, as was the custom back then to ward off the evil eye, though Ferdinand eventually learned the truth.

But the bad luck continued to pursue Ferdinand Brun. His mother died two years later, following the birth of his little sister—herself born dead. Next, his grandmother, who raised him after his mother’s death (he never knew his father), died at the hospital from the flu, though she had come for a broken leg. Finally, his wife, who took advantage of him and his salary for forty years, ran off with the first comer as soon as he retired from the factory.

Bad luck may not have had everything to do with it, though, as Ferdinand isn’t the easygoing type. He runs on a different voltage, with a logic all his own, leaving him nearly incomprehensible to ordinary people.

For example, he’s not about to risk losing his parking spot just to go refuel—he’ll carry the empty jerry cans to the pump at the other end of the street and bring them back to his car instead. His furniture is still in its protective covers. And though he has new things neatly arranged in his wardrobe, he continues to wear his too-big trousers with the worn-out seams, his holey underpants, and the perforated wallet that could cause him to lose his credit card, if he’d resign himself to adopting that method of payment. In short, Ferdinand is thrifty—certainly with regard to property, but particularly to feelings. The only one who has ever mattered to him, the only one he loves, the only one who has never abandoned him, is Daisy. His dog. The most loyal. With her, everything is simple. No tricks. No coercion. No emotional blackmail. No need to furnish kind gestures or sweet nothings. That right there is the problem with everybody, but especially with women.

What’s worrisome is that Daisy didn’t come home last night. She wasn’t tied to her usual post when he left the bakery, and she didn’t join him for lunch, or for dinner, or to spend the night at his side. It’s the first time this has happened. To disappear like that . . .

Ferdinand hovers around the telephone. He’s not going to call the police, though. He hates cops. And it’s too soon to be plastering her photo along the street. Ferdinand is worrying himself sick. Daisy is his last reason to live. In any case, at eighty-two years old, he has nothing else to do.

Chapter Four

Treated Like a King

Daisy has not returned. Ferdinand roamed the streets all day and into the night, called her name until his voice grew hoarse, wore his eyes out staring out the window, and couldn’t sleep a wink. With a stool tucked under his rear, he is now riveted to the peephole, witness to the comings and goings of his neighbor across the way—a rickety old bat who puts on bourgeois airs with her Mary Poppins hairdo and whose wooden cane could hide a bit of alcohol, maybe to sip while waiting at the bus stop.

Like all Saturday mornings, it’s a flurry of activity around Beatrice Claudel’s apartment. She goes in, she goes out, ever more laden with packages, bags, boxes. Like every Saturday, she has one, some, or all of her grandchildren over for lunch. And she insists everything be spic-and-span. The house, the meal, the conversation. At ninety-two years of age, she wants to prove she’s a granny who keeps up with the times—energetic and, above all, in great shape. Which isn’t far from the truth, a few little health glitches aside. Of course, the old lady has a bit of difficulty understanding when everybody talks at once, but she isn’t about to pop off tomorrow. She gladly trades her cane for a motorized cart when she does her shopping, since it happens to be “extremely convenient,” as she says. Her eyes work much better since her cataract operation—the
Figaro
’s newsprint even changed from yellow to white like magic! In order to read, she still puts on her big round glasses, which she doesn’t lose anymore since her grandkids gave her a very chic lanyard.

Beatrice Claudel is doing well—very well, even.

Today she’s invited one of her grandsons, his wife, and their ten-month-old son. She’s planned to cook braised chicken with mustard, her grandson’s favorite, complemented by a good Côtes-du-Rhône she bought in a case of six at the last wine expo.

Everything is prepared. The Le Creuset casserole has been simmering for nearly two hours, the carrots and onions are caramelizing, the table is set. This time, Beatrice has placed her pillbox next to her wineglass. She no longer leaves her medications on the table, after her bridge friend’s grandson came to lunch and thought he’d add an olive to his plate . . . Thankfully, it was just a vision supplement.

Beatrice sits down in her armchair by the window, takes out her iPad, and opens Facebook. She wants to learn about her grandson’s latest activities. This week, he made a business trip to Italy, ate at a fancy restaurant, and watched a reality TV show she hasn’t heard of yet. As for her granddaughter-in-law, she’s raving about their little one’s new teeth and just finished reading this year’s Goncourt Prize–winning novel. Beatrice checks her library for the last book they read in her book club, the one that lost the Renaudot Prize for whatever. She puts it on the table in the entryway, so she doesn’t forget to offer it to her granddaughter-in-law. They have the same taste in literature, so she should like this one.

She goes to sit back down but gets right back up to put the appetizers on an earthenware platter. She picks the blue-green one her grandchildren gave her last Christmas. She also puts on the necklace she got for her birthday. 11:43 a.m. Beatrice even has time to take out the trash. The bag is full, mainly with stale bread.

“Oh, my God! The bread . . . I completely forgot to buy some. Do I have time to get more? Yes, plenty. But what if they get here early?”

Ferdinand watches his neighbor from across the way come back into the hall in a panic and rush back into her apartment. He doesn’t know what could have frightened her that much in the trash area. Perhaps she, too, heard of that horrific true story about a murdered man cut up and disposed of, day after day, piece by piece, via a garbage chute? He’d read all about it in a Pierre Bellemare book.
Grim story
, thinks Ferdinand. He’ll have to tell it to that silly old goose Mrs. Suarez, who loves snooping around the trash area so much.

Ferdinand’s hindquarters are starting to hurt.
Look, there’s the old hag coming out of her apartment, wearing an overcoat. That’s unusual: she’s going to be late.
Ferdinand twists to see her go down the stairs. The old man takes the opportunity to stretch his legs in the kitchen. He fills a saucepan with cold water. Ferdinand has never used the hot water faucet—not for cooking, not for washing himself. He boils the water. It’s out of the question to pay for hot water from the building! Ferdinand is looking for the saucepan lid when he hears the sound of the cane on the stairs. In his slippers, he shuffles over to his stool and sits back down. The little lady is laboriously climbing the stairs. She’s certainly not young anymore.
Much older than me
, thinks Ferdinand. All of a sudden, she turns and heads in his direction. Ferdinand stiffens. She takes a deep breath and knocks on his door.
What nerve!

A husky voice says, “Mr. Brun, open up. It’s Mrs. Claudel.”

Mrs. Claudel.
He’s never bothered to learn her name.

“Mr. Brun, I’m sorry to insist, but I have news about your dog. Open up, please.”

“
Daisy!
They’ve found Daisy!” Ferdinand exclaims, opening the door wide.

“I’m so very sorry, but I’m afraid the news isn’t good.”

“You found her? Yes or no?” says Ferdinand.

“Mrs. Suarez, our concierge, will be able to tell you more. She’s downstairs with your dog’s body. I’m really sorry, Mr. Brun.”

Beatrice takes the old man by the arm and leads him down the thirteen steps separating him from his darling.

Chapter Five

Miserable as Sin

For two days Ferdinand has been shut away in his home, huddled in his bed in the fetal position, surrounded by crumpled tissues. He doesn’t want to get up or go out. To go where, anyway? Everything would remind him of Daisy. He’d end up by the vegetable garden where Daisy used to relieve herself on the neighbor ladies’ tomatoes, or by the house where a pug would sit up and safely bark at her from behind his gate.

The silence in the apartment is oppressive. His old habits now seem senseless. He no longer feels like doing anything, not even eating, just like when he got divorced. He still forces himself to swallow some expired preserves. He throws up a little, but he doesn’t feel well anyway. Death by food poisoning or something else—what does he care? Besides, he’s feeling pressure in his chest, a weight that hinders his breathing. That sense of suffocation doesn’t leave him, as if to fill the void left by Daisy.

Though sadness and solitude are his new companions, there is still room for an even more invasive feeling: anger. Ferdinand cannot resign himself to accept the theory of an accident. There must be someone to blame, someone on whom to focus his hatred. Daisy was so young, barely four years old. And she was the sweetest creature there was—she wouldn’t have hurt a fly. She’d never even gone near the concierge’s canaries. Even the attacks by the neighbor’s cat, the one in 2B, didn’t affect her. She’d just side-eyed it with panache.

It’s incomprehensible. Daisy had never tried to escape when he tied her up to the post outside the market. She’d had exemplary patience. And if the knot in her leash had come undone, she wouldn’t have run away. At worst she would have gone home, and for that she had no need to cross the street. She knew the route by heart. They walked it every day. So why? Why had she disappeared? Why had she crossed the road all alone?

What if this is a case of mistaken identity? What if
he
is the target? Once again that damned bad luck that takes away his women, one after the other, has struck.

Ferdinand bellows, not realizing he’s talking out loud, “If you had to take somebody, it should’ve been me, not her! What am I supposed to do now? And what am I going to do with my darling? Cremation or burial?

“And what about your things, Daisy? I can’t throw them out, not your chew bone, or your threadbare old pillow. I’ll never be able to replace you. I miss you so much, my darling. I think this is the end—my end. There’s nobody left to say hello to me at the door in the morning, to make me take a walk and go buy lunch. Nobody left to look at me with those sweet eyes, or disapproving ones when I rake a TV host over the coals.

“I’m not anything anymore. Just a grub. I don’t even have a picture of you. Just memories, and mirages, too, when I think I see you in the distance. Sometimes I tell myself that all this is just a terrible nightmare, that the telephone will ring and they’ll tell me about a regrettable mistake. And you’ll be there, alive, tail wagging, happy to see me again. Other times, I dream I wake up and you’re there, we go out for a walk by the lake where you loved watching the mallards so much. I’ve thought a lot about it. I don’t want this life without you. I don’t want to see anybody anymore. I don’t want fake sympathetic looks from my damned neighbors. I know what they’re thinking deep down: ‘Serves him right! He had it coming. He should’ve been nicer. You only get what you deserve!’ But you didn’t deserve that.

“I don’t understand: if there’s a God, how could he let this happen? Yes, I know I don’t believe in God, but I don’t know how to imagine what comes next. I guess we both knew what was coming. The calendar’s just sped up, that’s all. See you in a few days. I just need to square away the last details, my Daisy.”