In her bag . . .
All those kisses, still stifled. All those hearts locked up along with keys and checkbooks.
But under all those cobblestones they’d hurled in youthful rebellion, there was nothing.
Luckily for me, I had my dog. He was covered with fleas and was conscientiously licking his goolies.
“Why are you smiling, Garance?” asked Simon, to conceal the moment of sadness.
“Nothing. Just thinking how lucky I am . . . ”
My sister got her paints back out, the boys had a swim and I watched my sweetheart gradually come back to life as I handed him pieces of bread smeared with rillettes.
He spat the bread back out, the filthy cur.
“What are you going to call him?”
“I don’t know.”
Lola was the one who called time to leave. She didn’t want to be late because of the transfer of custody, and you could tell she was already getting antsy. Worse than antsy, in fact: worried, brittle, her smile gone all crooked.
Vincent gave me back my iPod that he’d nicked months earlier.
“Here you go, like I promised ages ago, I’ve downloaded all the—”
“Oh, thanks! You put all the stuff I like?”
“No. Not everything, how could I. But you’ll see, it’s a good selection.”
We all indulged in a few hugs, interspersed with idiotic jibes so we wouldn’t get carried away, and then we went to lock ourselves away in the car. Simon had already driven across the moat before he slowed down. I leaned out the window to shout, “Hey! Lover Boy!”
“What?”
“I’ve got a present for you, too!”
“What is it?”
“Eva!”
“What d’you mean, Eva?”
“She’s arriving day after tomorrow on the bus from Tours.”
He was running after us.
“Huh? You’re bullshitting me!”
“I’m not! We called her a while ago while you were swimming.”
“Liars.” (He was white as a sheet.) “How did you get her number, for a start?”
“We looked in the contacts on your cell.”
“It’s not true.”
“You’re right. It’s not true. But go to the bus stop anyway, just in case.”
He was all red.
“What the hell did you tell her?”
“That you live in a huge château and that you’ve written a beautiful solo for her and she has to hear it because you’d play it for her in a chapel and it would be really romantichno . . . ”
“What the hell?”
“It’s Serbo-Croatian.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Too bad for you, then. Let Nono take care of her.”
“Is it true, Simon?”
“I have no idea, but knowing these two harpies, anything is possible.”
He was bright pink.
“Are you serious? Day after tomorrow?”
Simon started the car again.
“The bus at 6:40 P.M.!” said Lola.
“Across from Pidoule’s!” I shouted, over her shoulder.
When he had completely disappeared from the rear view mirror, Simon said, “Garance?”
“What?”
“Pidou-ne.”
“Oh yeah, sorry. Look, there’s that pervert! Squash him!”
We were going to wait until we were on the freeway to listen to Vincent’s present.
Lola decided at last to ask Simon whether he was happy.
“Are you asking me because of Carine?”
“Sort of . . . ”
“You know . . . She’s much nicer at home. It’s when you guys are around that she’s a pain. I think she’s jealous. She’s afraid of you. She thinks I love you more than her and . . . and then, you stand for everything she is not. Your crazy side completely throws her. That demoiselles de Rochefort side. She’s got her hang-ups. She’s got the impression that for you two life is like some huge schoolyard and you’re the popular girls who used to tease her because she was first in the class. Those beautiful, inseparable, funny of girls whom she secretly admired.”
“If she only knew . . . ” said Lola, putting her head against the window.
“But that’s the thing, she doesn’t know. When she’s around you she feels completely lost. I know she can be a pain, but it’s a good thing I have her . . . She encourages me, motivates me, she forces me to do things. Without her I’d still be in my curves and equations, that’s a fact. Without her I’d be in some maid’s room somewhere ruminating about quantum mechanics!”
He fell silent.
“And she has given me two beautiful gifts, after all . . . ”
As soon as we’d gone through the tollbooth, I plugged the iPod into the car radio.
“So, buddy, what have you got for us, here?”
Trusting smiles. Simon tugged on his seatbelt to leave some room for the musicians. Lola reclined her seat and I nestled up against her shoulder.
Marvin as ringleader: Here my dear . . . This album is dedicated to you . . . A wild version of Miriam Makeba’s “Pata Pata”, to loosen our joints; “Hungry Heart” by the Boss because we’d been shaking our booties for fifteen years to that one; and further along on the playlist, “The River”, to feed our hungry hearts. Then “Beat It” by the defunct Bambi, on full volume just long enough to slalom between the white lines. “Friday I’m in Love” by The Cure in order to—hang on, let me turn the sound down—greet this fine weekend; “Common People” by Pulp, a song that taught us more English than all our teachers put together. Then there was Boby Lapointe bemoaning the fact that you’re prettier than ever . . . except your heart. Your heart has lost that warmth I loved . . . A sublime version of “I Will Survive” by Musica Nuda and a completely cracked version of “My Funny Valentine” by Angela McCluskey. And then another one of hers, “Don’t Explain”, enough to make the most hardened womanizer weep. Yo-Yo Ma’s cello for Ennio Morricone and his Jesuits. Dylan saying over and over I want you to two sisters who are practically virgins. Love me or leave me, begs Nina Simone, and I’m surprised to see Lola rubbing her nose . . . Vincent doesn’t like to see his sister unhappy so he forwards to a penny whistle number from Riverdance to cheer her up. Björk wailing that it’s too calm; Vivaldi’s “Nisi Dominus” for Camille’s sake, and the Neil Hannon song that Mathilde was crazy about. Kathleen Ferrier for Mahler, Glenn Gould for Bach, and Rostropovich for peace. Music from the film Mamma Mia! coming along just when I wasn’t sure I wanted to hang around too much longer. Then a pause for the weather report, with “Stormy Weather” and then Luis Mariano yodeling about the sun in Mexico. Pyeng Threadgill sang “Close to Me”, and I said to myself, that’s it exactly, my darlings. Cole Porter’s elegance made even more sublime by Ella Fitzgerald, then some Cyndi Lauper for contrast. Oh daddy! Girls just wanna have fu-un! I shout, shaking my dog like a cheerleader’s pompom, and all his fleas start dancing the Macarena.
And so many others. Megabytes to bliss out on.
Nods to the past and memories, all those greasy slow tracks in memory of rotten parties, music was my first looove (for connoisseurs only!), Klezmer, Motown, old dance-hall stuff, Gregorian chants, marching bands and grand organs and then suddenly, while the tank was gulping and the pump clicked madly, Léo Ferré and Louis Aragon sang out in protest, Is this how man lives?
The more tracks I heard, the harder it was to hold back my tears. Sure, I was tired, but I could feel this knot growing and growing at the back of my throat.
Too much emotion all at once. Simon and Lola and Vincent and Pinchme on my lap and all this music that had been my life support for so long . . .
I had to blow my nose.
When the iPod fell silent I thought I’d feel better, but then that bastard Vincent’s voice came on through the loudspeakers.
“That’s it. That’s all for now, Gary. Anyway, I hope I haven’t forgotten anything . . . Hang on, yes, here’s one for the road.”
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Jeff Buckley’s cover of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah.
With the first notes of the guitar I bit my lips and stared at the overhead lamp to hold back my tears.
Simon adjusted his rearview mirror and immobilized me.
“You okay? Are you sad?”
“No,” I replied, cracking at the seams, “I’m just really . . . really happy.”
We spent the rest of the drive in complete and total silence. Rewinding the film and thinking about tomorrow.
Recess over. The bell was about to ring. Get in line, two by two.
Silence, please.
Silence, I said!
We dropped Lola off at the Porte d’Orléans and Simon drove me home and stopped right outside my door.
Just as he was about to pull away I put my hand on his arm: “Wait here, it’ll only take a minute.”
I rushed over to Monsieur Rashid’s.
“Here,” I said, handing Simon the packet of rice, “don’t go forgetting the shopping.”
He smiled.
He kept his arm raised for a long time, then once he had turned the corner I went back over to my favorite grocer’s and bought some dog biscuits, and a can of Happychow.
“Garance, I warning you, your dog piss one more time on my eggplants, I gonna make meatballs outa him!”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Born in Paris in 1970, Anna Gavalda published her first work, I Wish Someone Were Waiting for Me Somewhere, a critically acclaimed collection of short stories that sold a half a million copies in her native France, in 1999. She has since published three novels, all of which have been bestsellers in Europe. Her novel Hunting and Gathering was made into a film starring Audrey Tatou and Daniel Auteil.
Anna Gavalda, French Leave
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