Anouk was smiling. She’d never told anyone this story, and she was surprised that she remembered it this well, for someone who’d forget her own head if it weren’t screwed on.
‘And then? Did you ask him if he came here often?’
‘No. Afterwards I went out to take a few puffs to work up my courage and when I came back in I told him the truth. I had never confided in anyone the way I spoke to him that night. Never. Poor thing, when I think back . . .’
‘What did you say?’
‘I said that I knew why he was there. That I’d asked around, and I’d been told that his mother had passed away, very quietly. I’d like to think that I deserved at least that much some day. She’d been fortunate to have him there with her. One of my colleagues had told me that he came every day and held his mother’s hand right up to the end. I envied the two of them. I hadn’t seen my mother in years. I had a little boy who was six years old and she had never taken him in her arms. I’d sent her a card when he was born and she’d sent back a dress for a little girl as a present. It probably wasn’t meant unkindly, but in fact it was worse. I spent nearly every waking hour of my life bringing relief to other people, but no one had ever taken care of me. I was tired, had trouble sleeping, lived alone, and on occasion I drank, in the evening, so that I could fall asleep, because just the thought that there was a child asleep in the next room whose life depended on mine was enough to make me horribly anxious . . . I had never heard from his father, although he was a man I could still dream about. I had to apologize for telling him all this. He had his sorrows, too, but there was no need for him to keep coming back to the hospital, because he must have buried her in the meantime, no? He shouldn’t go on hanging about a place like this when he was in good health, because it was an insult to those who were in pain, but the fact he was still coming, it meant he must have a certain amount of spare time on his hands, and if that was the case, um . . . wouldn’t he like to spend it at my place instead?
‘And I told him that before moving here I had worked nights at another hospital, and in those days I lodged with friends who could look after my kid, but for the last two years I’d been living alone and spending a fortune on nannies. Because the boy had been learning to read since starting school in the autumn, I’d taken on the most exhausting schedule in order to be there when he got home from school. He was only this high, but he still woke up alone every morning and I was always worried about whether he’d had his breakfast and . . . I’d never told a soul because I was too ashamed . . . He was so small . . . Yes. I was ashamed. I was going to have to work during the day as of the very next month. My supervisor gave me no choice and I hadn’t dared tell the boy yet . . . Nannies never have time to go over the children’s lessons or make them do their page of reading, at least not those nannies I could afford and . . . I would pay him, naturally! He was a very sweet child, who was used to playing all alone and . . . it wasn’t very nice at my place, but it was at least a little bit more welcoming than here, and . . .’
‘And?’
‘Well, after I’d said all that, nothing . . . And since he didn’t react, I wondered if he wasn’t deaf or . . . I don’t know . . . A bit simpleminded, you see . . .’
‘And?’
‘And it seemed to take him for ever, Good Lord! As if we were both in some psych ward somewhere! And I put us both in the same basket, you see? Two nutcases in amongst the yuccas . . . Oh, when I think about that night . . . I must really have been desperate. I had gone up to him thinking I could help him somehow and there I was begging him to rescue me . . . it was pathetic, Charles, pathetic . . .’
‘Go on.’
‘Well then, at one point I had to get up, after all. And he stood up with me. I went to catch my bus, and he followed me. I sat down, and he sat down across from me and uh . . . I was beginning to freak out.’
She was laughing.
‘Shit, I thought, this just simply isn’t on! I asked him to come to my place, but not right away. Nor for ever. Help. I put on a good face, but I swear, my heart was in my month. I already pictured myself dragging him off to the police station. Good evening, Officer, well here’s the situation . . . I’ve got this orphaned chick who thinks I’m his mother and he follows me wherever I go . . . What . . . what am I doing? So as a result I didn’t dare look at him any more and I tried to disappear into my scarf. But he didn’t stop looking at me. Great atmosphere . . . And at one point he just said, “Your hand.” “Sorry?” “Give me your hand . . . No, not that one, the left hand . . .”’
‘What did he want?’
‘I don’t know . . . To see my CV I suppose . . . To make sure I’d told him the truth. So he read my palm and added, “The little boy . . . What’s his name?” “Alexis.” “Oh?” Pause. “Like Sverdjak . . .” And when I didn’t react, “Alexis Sverdjak. The greatest knife thrower of all time.” And with that – believe me I said to myself I must have fucked up yet again . . . He looked such a complete nutter with his old-granny head scarf . . . And then I really felt guilty. You really go looking for trouble, don’t you, went the lecture in my head as I sat there looking at my nails. Shit, this is your kid you’re talking about! Who in hell is this circus freak Mary Poppins you’ve dug up?’
‘Was he wearing make-up and everything?’
‘No, it was something even harder to pinpoint . . . Like some very old dolly . . . With his blotchy face and his eyes like jelly, and his anything-but-kid gloves and his really scary collars . . . It was dreadful, I tell you . . .’
‘And did he follow you to your place?’
‘Yes. He wanted to see where I lived. But he refused to come up for a drink. And God knows I did insist, but it was impossible to persuade him.’
‘And then?’
‘And then I said goodbye. I told him I was sorry to have bothered him with all my woes and he could come back whenever he felt like it. He would always be welcome, and my little boy would surely be happy to learn all about Thingammy-jig, but, above all, he must not go back to the hospital . . . Promise?
‘I walked away, looking for my keys, and I heard him say, “You know, sweetheart, that I was an artiste, too?” Well, who are you kidding, of course I assumed he was! I turned around to say goodbye one last time.
‘“I was in vaudeville . . .”
‘“Oh?”
‘And at that point, Charles . . . Try to picture the scene . . . It’s night-time, there’s his shadow, his really odd voice, it’s cold, there are dustbins and . . . Frankly, I felt pretty stupid . . . I could already see myself in the morning paper . . .
‘“Don’t you believe me?” he added. “Look . . .”
‘He thrust his hand into the neckline of his little coat and do you know what he pulled out?’
‘A photo?’
‘No. A dove.’
‘Magnifique.’
‘Exactly. We had our share of shows with him, didn’t we? But that one will always remain the most beautiful one for me . . . It was both so completely crazy, so sort of old-fashioned and incredibly poetic . . . It was . . . That was Nana all over. If you could have seen his face . . . How proud he was. And at that point I felt this smile spread across my face and I couldn’t get rid of it. I drank my coffee, I brushed my teeth and I went to bed with that smile . . . And you know what?’
‘What?’
‘That night, for the first time in years – years and years – I slept well. I knew he was going to come back. I knew he was going to take care of us and that . . . I don’t know . . . I just had faith. He’d seen it, seen that my luck line was even shorter than my heart line . . . He’d called me sweetheart and had caressed his birdy’s head and given me this smile full of his rotten teeth, and . . . He was going to love us, of that I was certain. And you see, for once I was not mistaken . . . The Nana years were the best years of my life. The least difficult, at any rate. And that bloody fireworks display they set off two years later, for me, it was all meaningless: what mattered was Nana. He was the py
rotechnician. That little Zebedee – he was my revolution and . . . oh . . . he was so good for us.’
‘Er . . . , forgive me for being so mundane, but . . . all that time he was there, at the hospital – did he have the bird in his pocket?’
‘It’s funny you should ask, because that is precisely what I asked him not long afterwards, and he never wanted to give me an answer . . . I felt he was uneasy about it so I didn’t press him. It was only years later, one day when I must have been feeling particularly pathetic, and I must have broken down yet again, that he sent me a letter. The only letter he ever wrote to me, actually. I hope I haven’t lost it. He said all these very kind things, compliments of the sort no one had ever paid me, yes, it was a love letter now that I think back on it, and at the end, he wrote:
‘Do you remember that night at the hospital? I knew I would never be going back to my house and that is why I had Mistinguett in my pocket. To let her go before I . . . And then you came along, so I went home after all.’
Her eyes were shining.
‘And when did he come back?’
‘Two days later . . . At tea time. All spruced up, with a new hair colour, a bouquet of roses and some jelly babies for Alexis. We showed him the house, the school, the shops, your house . . . And . . . There we are. You know the rest.’
‘Yes.’
My eyes were shining.
‘The only snag, in those days, was Mado . . .’
‘I remember. I wasn’t allowed to visit you any more.’
‘Yes. And then look what happened . . . he even managed to win her over, in the end.’
*
At the time, I hadn’t dared to contradict her, but it hadn’t been as easy as all that . . .
My mother wasn’t exactly a little white dove who closed her eyes when you stroked her head. Alexis was still welcome to come over, but I was not allowed to visit at number 20.
I heard new words, words that didn’t seem to be very polite where Nana was concerned. Morality, morals, danger. Words which to me seemed utterly ridiculous. What danger? That I might get cavities because he bought us too many sweets? That I might smell like a girl because he gave us too many kisses? That I might not work as hard at school because he kept telling us over and over again that we were princes and that we’d never have to work later in life? But, Maman . . . We didn’t believe him, you know that . . . And in any event, they were all rubbish, his predictions. He had sworn we would win the mini Le Mans sweepstake at the local fête and we didn’t win a thing, so there . . .
No, the reason she finally gave in was because for once I resisted. I went twelve hours without eating, and nine days without speaking a word to her. And then the events of May ’68 finally made her relent somewhat . . . Since the world was going to hell, well then, my son, go ahead. Go and play marbles.
So I was allowed to go back there, but I was not allowed to forget her special concession, and I had all sorts of instructions and a very strict time table. There were warnings, about gestures, my body, his hands, and . . . Sentences I could make neither head nor tail of.
Nowadays, of course, I see things differently. And if I had a child, would I entrust him or her to a babysitter as hybrid as Nana? I don’t know . . . I would probably have a few reservations as well. But in fact . . . we had nothing to fear. In any case, there were never any feelings of unease. How Nana spent his nights was another matter, but with us he was the most modest of men. An angel. A guardian angel who wore Ô mon amour scent and left us in peace to play our war games.
And then he became a pretext. It was Anouk who bothered my mother, and that too, I can understand. It was enough to see my father’s distress the other day, which says it all.
I was allowed to go and play marbles, but there came a time when I was not to say her name in the house. Just what had happened, I never knew. Or knew all too well. There wasn’t a man on earth would have wanted to live with her, but they were all prepared to swear the contrary . . .
When she was cheerful, when her dizzy spells left her alone, when she’d let her hair down and go barefoot, when she remembered that her skin was soft and that . . . well, she was like a sun. Wherever she went, whatever she said, heads would turn and everyone wanted a piece of her. Everyone wanted to grab her by the arm, even if they hurt her a bit – preferably hurting her a bit – just to stop the jingling of her bracelets for a second. Just a second. The time it took for a grimace or a look. For a silence, a withdrawal, anything from her. Anything at all, really. But just for oneself alone.
Oh yes . . . She must have heard her share of lies, in her time.
Was I jealous? Yes.
No.
I had learned to recognize those looks; how could I not? And I no longer feared them. All I needed was to get older, and I was working hard at it. Day by day. I had faith.
And then everything I knew about her, what she had given me, what belonged to me, is something that they, all the others, could never have. For them she changed her voice, spoke too quickly, laughed too loudly, but with me, no, she was herself.
So, I was the one she loved.
But how old was I to be reasoning like this? Nine? Ten?
And why did I have this crush on her? Because my mother, my sisters, my teachers and cub mistresses and all the other women around me filled me with despair. They were ugly, they didn’t understand a thing, all they cared about was finding out whether I’d learned my tables or had remembered to change my vest.
Of course.
Of course, since I had no other aim than to grow up so I could be rid of them.
Whereas Anouk . . . Precisely because she was ageless, or because I was the only person in the world who would listen to her and who knew when she was lying, she never leaned towards me, and she could not stand it when people called me Charley or Charlot, and she said my name was gentle and elegant, and it suited me, and she always asked for my opinion and conceded that I was often right.
And why did I feel so self-assured, looking down my snotty little nose?
Because she’d told me as much, by Jove!
I’d spent the night at their place and, before we’d left for school, she’d slipped our snacks into our schoolbags.
When it was time for the break, we joined the others with our bagfuls of marbles in one hand and our little foil parcels in the other.
‘Oh!’ Alexis exclaimed with enthusiasm when he unwrapped his ‘Talking biscuits!’
I was already kneeling down, clearing a path in the gravel.
‘You’re on the tip of my tongue and You make me laugh,’ he read out, before scoffing them down.
I was rubbing my palms against my thighs.
‘And what have you got?’
‘Me?’ I said, a bit disappointed to see that I had only one biscuit.
‘Well?’
‘Nothing . . .’
‘There’s nothing written on the biscuit?’
‘No, it says, “Nothing”.’
‘Oh, that’s crummy . . . Well, anyway . . . Whose turn to start?’
‘Go ahead,’ I went, standing up to put the biscuit into my jacket pocket.
We played, and I lost a lot that day . . . All my cat’s eyes . . .
‘Hey! You’re really useless today, y’know that?’
I smiled. First there, in the dust, and then at my desk, inside my pocket, and then in my locker, and finally in my bed, after I’d got back up three times to change the hiding place, I was smiling.
Crazy about you.
With forty years’ hindsight, Charles could not recall a more direct declaration . . .
The little wafer had crumbled to bits and he’d eventually had to throw it away. He’d grown up, gone away, come back, and she had laughed. And he’d believed her. Then he got older, and put on weight, and . . . and she was dead.
And that’s it.
Go on, Balanda, it was only a biscuit. You know what they call them in retro grocery shops nowadays? Funny biscuits. And besides, you were
only a kid.
It’s all rather ridiculous, isn’t it?
Ridiculous.
Yes, but . . .
He didn’t have time to plead his case. He’d drifted off.
3
A CHAUFFEUR WAS waiting for him at the airport with his name on a sign.
A room was waiting for him at the hotel with his name on a television screen.
On the pillow were a piece of chocolate and the weather forecast for the following day.
Cloudy.
Another night was beginning, and he wasn’t sleepy. Here we go, he thought, I’m going to get fucked by jet lag again. In the past, he wouldn’t have given it a thought but today his old bones were grumbling. He felt . . . disheartened. He went down to the bar, ordered a bourbon, read the local papers, and took a moment to realize that the flames in the fireplace were fake.
As was the leather in his armchair. And the flowers. And the paintings. And the woodwork. And the stucco on the ceiling. And the patina on the lamps. And the books on the bookshelves. And the odour of wax polish. And the laugh of the pretty woman at the bar. And the thoughtfulness of the gentleman who stopped her slipping off her bar stool. And the music. And the candlelight. And . . . Everything, absolutely everything, was fake. It was Disney World for the rich, and however lucid he might be, he was one of them. All that was missing was a pair of Mickey Mouse ears.
He went out into the cold. Walked for hours. Saw nothing but dull, charmless, utilitarian constructions. Slipped a plastic card into the slot of room 408. Turned off the air conditioning. Switched on the television. Turned off the sound. Turned off the picture. Tried to open a window. Swore. Gave up. Turned around and, for the first time in his life, felt trapped.
03:17
lay down
03:32
and wondered
04:10
calmly
04:14
unhurriedly
04:31
just what he
05:03
was doing there.
Charles took a shower. Ordered a taxi. And went home.