The 6:41 to Paris (7 page)

We would take the Eurostar.

The Eurostar, which didn’t exist back then, when the two of us went to London.

I had no regrets.

That’s the worst of it, I think. Now I do, of course, but at the time, I didn’t. I thought good riddance, or something like that. Classy. I was very classy, in those days. I was very sure of everything.

She had begun to annoy me, probably even before we left for London.
Little things. The way she would stare at the floor while I was talking to her. The fact that she preferred films where nothing happened. This derisive side she had—she would look at me out of the corner of her eye, and I could tell she didn’t believe in flirtation for a minute. Her discreet irony. I needed to be admired. To be set on a pedestal.

I’m not looking for excuses.

And then, she was
gaining power.

Insidiously.

She was nothing to look at, with her ordinary face, slightly curly shoulder length hair, and clothes that came straight from a discount superstore. She would listen to me talking. People who listen always end up in a position of superiority; they don’t share their secrets,
they remain whole, intact, whereas you’ve allowed your flaws to show through.

And then she—

No, it’s really hard to remember this.

Years later, it’s still hard to come out and admit it.

It’s crazy how sex can still haunt you even after so much time has gone by.

How should I put it? She knew how to relax me? Make me hard? Make me stay hard? Reassure me? All of that at the same time. I should have been grateful. But it was the opposite. I felt sure that some day she would go and make
fun of me, in public. Which was idiotic. But when you’re twenty years old, you have no critical distance, your vision is really limited to what’s close-up, there before you.

I was so relieved when she slammed the door that night.

There I was in the London night. Alone and accompanied at the same time. I had a headache. The alcohol made my gestures uncertain—and yet, I was relieved.

One less
burden.

And now I don’t understand. I don’t understand myself.

I’ll talk about it with Mathieu.

It’ll be a good topic of conversation, for a start. Maybe by going back over all this old stuff, by bringing the world of a quarter of a century ago back to life, we’ll manage to get through thirty or forty minutes. An hour. And after that, he’ll be calm. Yes, that’s a good idea, I’ll
talk to him
about Cécile Duffaut.

I’m afraid.

I know I am because the vein on the right-hand side of my neck has started throbbing.

Unless it’s a nerve.

Do we have nerves in our neck?

I don’t know what sort of state I’ll find him in.

My last visit was ten days ago. He wants me to come more often. He wants me to be there every day. He would like everyone to be there every day, but now that he’s in the
hospital, the others don’t come anymore. Sometimes they call. They send presents. They send text messages. But they don’t actually go. Something always comes up. They were all ready to go, it was all planned, cross my heart and hope to die, we’ll be there tomorrow afternoon, and two hours before they were supposed to be there, with Mathieu getting more and more impatient, they call and say they’re
really sorry, their voices full of contrition, but really, they simply can’t make it, a really important program, an appointment that could change their life, the dishwasher has broken down completely unexpectedly and the kitchen is flooded. Mathieu smiles valiantly (and I feel like shouting: “Mathieu, you’re on the
phone
, they can’t see you, stop smiling”), then says again in a weary little voice
that it doesn’t matter, it’s no big deal, some other time, and he finds excuses for them after all, it’s true, they have to get on with their lives.

I don’t say anything.

I think: with me it’s different.

I’m trying to sound ironic, with limited success. Because it’s true, after all, with me it’s different.

I don’t have anything special to do, other than my job and my divorced family.

Mathieu’s
cancer is an event.

I have such a thrilling life.

It started a few months ago now. Not long after he broke up with Astrid. He wasn’t in great shape. He was losing weight, which was normal, he was hardly eating. He didn’t feel like going out, or having people over. He had headaches all the time. Even he was surprised. He didn’t think their breakup would affect him so much.

“How long did it last
in all?”

“Ten months. A year.”

“On the scale of a lifetime …”

“I know. That’s why I don’t understand why I can’t get my act together.”

“You’re getting old.”

“I suppose. And besides, you know, when I think of you with your kids, I tell myself that maybe I’ve missed out on something.”

“Well, me and my kids, it’s not as if we’re together all that much. They’ve found a dad who is exactly what
they were looking for.”

“Don’t say that. You know very well that everyone only has one dad.”

“I’m not so sure.”

“Well, I’ll never know, since I’m not a father.”

“How do you know? You’ve left your sperm in a fair share of women.”

“I’m being serious.”

“Just look at the life you lead. What would you do with a kid? Kids need stability, guidance, routine.”

“Depends on the kid.”

I broke off
the discussion. I could tell it wasn’t going anywhere. To change tack, I said, “Maybe you should see a doctor. You never know, it might have nothing to do with Astrid. It might only be physical.”

Mathieu liked the idea that it might “only be physical.” Some other thing that wouldn’t weigh on his mind. Rational. Explainable. Medical.

He liked it a lot less when the results came in.

He’d lain
in bed for hours. He called me. He had a strange metallic voice. Like the Tin Man in the
Wizard of Oz.
I took the first train, the same 6:41. It was in the middle of the February school break. I moved into his place. We talked the way we’d never talked before. Whenever I went out to go shopping or just to have a break, he would try to call people he knew, people I’d met at parties. The ones he
got hold of were full of sympathy. His life seemed sad to me.

I sat in cafés in Paris and wrote letters to my children. Some day I may send them. But what would they make of them? In the letters I referred to a whole list of unfamiliar names, people they’ve never met, places they’ve never seen. When parents tell their stories it’s anything but clear, and it’s probably better that way. I toyed
with the idea of writing a novel, too. I don’t have the talent. Nor, in all likelihood, the desire.

I wonder how Cécile gets along with her children. I see my kids only in brief spurts now that they’ve moved. No, that’s not fair. I don’t think it’s really because of the change, or because of their new stepfather. It’s their age. They’re learning to keep their distance. One day Loïc and I went
to visit the cathedral. He was three or four years old. He couldn’t have cared less about the building. All he could see was the yellow balloon I had just bought for him. One of those helium balloons with a white plastic wand. I like hanging around the cathedral. That’s where I kissed my first conquest, behind a pillar. I’ve always thought there was something erotic about churches: the silence, the
cool air, the stone, the fact that someone might go by, the feverishness, the transgression. I was thinking back about that moment. I was wondering what had become of that girl I kissed, whom I never saw again—or if I did, I didn’t recognize her. Loïc let go of his balloon, right there in the nave. Up, up, up went the balloon, all the way to the rose window, and then higher still, until it got
stuck beneath a gothic arch, way above our heads. It looked tiny. There was no way we could reach it. Loïc was inconsolable. He didn’t want another one to replace it. He went home, crestfallen.

The next day I went back to the cathedral. The balloon was still there, hardly visible. I went back every day. I don’t know why. I figured that sooner or later it would burst or deflate and end up back
on the ground—and then, I would take the plastic remains to my son. He would smile and keep them. One evening, the balloon was gone. Not a trace, either on the ground or in the air.

Children are like that. Like helium balloons in
cathedrals. Let go of them, and they will fly off, but they’re still in sight, you wave to them, you visit them, and they’re way up there, far away, still stuck beneath
our gothic arches. Then one day, and you never quite know why, they’re no longer anywhere to be seen.

No.

Stop feeling sorry for yourself.

You’re not going to start blubbering, on the 6:41 train next to Cécile Duffaut.

Although.

It could get a conversation going.

No.

There are simpler ways.

Drop something.

A book, a tissue, a pencil: she would pick it up, we would look at each other,
recognize each other, life flowing into our bodies, and our paths change direction.

“Excuse me, I … I … I mean, my pen—”

“Go right ahead.”

“Ah, there it is … I’ve got it … you … excuse me, but isn’t your name Cécile Duffaut?”

“Mergey.”

“Sorry?”

“Mergey. That’s my married name. Cécile Mergey.”

“Ah, yes, of course, I see. Sorry. I am—”

“I know who you are.”

“Ah. Good. That’s good, yes, good.”

“Is it?”

I know.

I didn’t think I’d react like that.

That I’d be so sharp, and interrupt the conversation before it even got started.

And turn my head so ostensibly to the window—no point dwelling on it now.

I am not kind.

But all the images suddenly rose to the surface.

Everything I had buried for years. The way the events unfolded.

We were in the cafeteria at the modern art museum—the Tate Gallery,
that was it, the names are coming back. It was a strange room with mirrors on the walls, so our reflections were multiplied ad infinitum. I was suffocating. We hadn’t said a word to each other for several minutes. We could sense the end was drawing near; I still couldn’t understand when it was that everything had suddenly changed, but it no longer mattered. Our four-month adventure would be
ending there, and it was a pity, we could have made a fine couple, but anyway, I was aware of his change of attitude, the hurtful words, and I was withdrawing, accepting the fact it was over. I finished my tea—I had ordered tea even though I hate tea, simply because I was there, in London, and the moment itself was hateful—the smell of it made me feel sick—everything did, suddenly, that
city,
that country, that language, the man next to me staring absently into the reflections in the mirror. I said, “I’m going back to the hotel,” and there was no answer. I wasn’t expecting one.

My initial thought was that I would pack my bags and take the next train back to France. But when I realized that it would mean spending the night sitting up in an uncomfortable railway car, to be woken at
one o’clock in the morning to take the cross-Channel ferry, then disembark at three o’clock in the morning, French time, to take the train from Calais to Paris, change stations in the fog then take another train for Troyes, and reach my destination late in the morning—broken, wounded, in pain,—no, I couldn’t do it. And anyway, I was sure that Philippe would not come back to the hotel. And if he did
come back, then it would be to get things out in the open. Or to apologize. Maybe he would want me to reassure him again. He would want me to wait, with my lips against his shoulder. He would want us to be close again. Because, like an idiot, I still had this tiny hope. Not much. But still. I was sure we were missing out on a meaningful relationship. A real adventure. And that it hadn’t even begun
yet.

The bed-and-breakfast was in a quiet neighborhood. Bloomsbury. Cartwright Gardens. I can still remember the name of the street. It wasn’t actually a street, but a crescent of buildings looking onto a tiny park with a completely incongruous tennis court, there in the center of London.

We had found it completely by chance, leafing
through a guidebook in a bookstore in France. It was more
than we could afford, but we decided we’d do without any souvenirs or presents for our friends in Troyes. A fortunate intuition.

I would have thrown everything out.

And yet.

During the night, I went to an all-night corner store and bought some water, a packet of cookies, a few snacks and, almost as an afterthought, a key ring. Two flags, the Union Jack and the English flag, the St. George’s
Cross. I kept it for a long time. I wish I could say I had it on me at this very moment now that I’m reminiscing about all that. It would be so romantic—when in fact it was anything but. But I can’t. Valentine commandeered it when she was in high school, for the key to her locker, and she lost it. At the time, I didn’t even think about it. I just argued with her because she’d lost the lock.

And now I miss it. How stupid is that.

So we went to stay at this bed-and-breakfast that was too expensive. The room was old-fashioned and rundown; the sash windows didn’t close properly, the wall-to-wall carpet was patched here and there, and the wallpaper had seen better days—but there was a tiny balcony that looked out on the rooftops. That’s where I sat when I came back alone. I watched the
evening descend in the English sky: clouds, swaths of clear sky, a warm wind, purple, blue, pink, yellow. I repeated the proverb I had learned a few years earlier,
Every cloud has a silver lining.
I tried to find the French equivalent:
À quelque chose, Malheur est bon; Après la pluie, le beau temps.
Misfortune is good for something; after the rain, fine weather.

I wanted some fine weather.

I sat right on the concrete balcony, my knees bent, my arms around my legs, and I hardly took up any room. I listened to the sounds of the city, the hubbub, and from time to time the dissonant note of an ambulance or the siren of a fire truck. Down in the park in Cartwright Gardens, a couple was diligently playing tennis. She played better than he did. Sometimes she would have him repeat his moves,
drive, backhand. Before long they had to stop, it was getting dark.

I could feel a tingling in my fingertips.

I didn’t want to be an observer anymore. Someone who absorbs. Someone who keeps to one side and stares out at the spectacle of the world with indifference. I wanted to be in the world. Really in it. I didn’t want to be an artist. I wanted to be a protagonist. I wanted to live passionately,
with love and hate and scorn, I wanted to throw myself on the bed weeping floods of tears, tearing my hair out in despair, jumping for joy, flinging my arms around people, holding their hands, holding a hand—and leading the dance.

Contrary to all expectations, it was a tender moment.

One of those rare moments when you take the time to think about what is all right, and what isn’t all right,
and what could change, and what should change: you see the paths forming, and how to make your way past
the swampy terrain.

The breakup was definite but I went to bed feeling calmer; I had packed my bag and was ready to go. The next morning I would leave a note on the night table or, if by chance Philippe had come back, I would place my hand on his forehead and say, “No hard feelings. See you
around.” Unless. Then we’d have to see. Lay down conditions. Nothing like this, ever again.

I fell asleep in that state of mind.

The window was open, and I was in harmony with the city. Noise, fatigue, but also a tremendous desire for change. A desire to become someone else. Someone good. Or at least respected. The process had begun. It should have gone on naturally, taken its course in the
months and years to come. In fact, the birth went very quickly.

And the obstetrician ruined everything.

I can feel my lips tightening with the first signs of the outskirts of Paris.

This is where I live now, the outskirts of Paris, along with hundreds of thousands of other people. But I am not an ant. I know what I want. And above all I know what I don’t want.

You, Philippe.

I don’t want
anything to do with you.