Consolation

  I handed her property back without a word and ordered a second coffee that I really didn’t want at all to give her the time to let the credits roll by. The time to get used to the light and shake herself down.

  ‘I love this song,’ she sighed.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Dunno. Because . . . because trees don’t cry.’

  ‘Are you in love?’ I ventured cautiously, walking on eggshells.

  A slight pout.

  ‘No,’ she confessed, ‘no. When you’re in love you don’t need to listen to this sort of lyric, I don’t suppose, like duh.’

  After a few minutes during which I scraped conscientiously at the treacle in the bottom of the cup, she said, ‘To get back to what you were saying . . .’

  She directed her gaze over there, towards the question I’d asked earlier.

  I didn’t budge.

  ‘The dark tunnel and all that. Well, um, I think that . . . we should just leave things as they stand . . . Like not get too greedy with each other, know what I mean?’

  ‘Uh, not exactly, no . . .’

  ‘Well, you can count on me to help you find a present for Mum, and I can count on you to translate the songs I like, and . . . and that’s it.’

  ‘That’s it?’ I protested mildly. ‘That’s all you have to offer?’

  She’d put her hood back up.

  ‘Yes. For the time being, yes. But, yeah it’s quite a lot, in fact. It’s . . . like . . . it’s a lot.’

  I stared at her.

  ‘Why are you smiling like an idiot now?’

  ‘Because,’ I replied, holding the door for her, ‘because if you were my dog, I could sneak you the scraps and you’d be my loyal friend at last.’

  ‘Ha, ha. Very clever.’

  And while we stood motionless at the edge of the pavement, watching the stream of cars, she lifted her leg and pretended to piss against my trouser leg.

  She’d been very honest with me, and on the escalator I decided to pay her back in her own coin.

  ‘You know, Mathilde . . .’

  ‘What?’ (in a tone of, now what?)

  ‘We are all cash-oriented.’

  ‘I know,’ she replied, without hesitating.

  The ease with which she’d put me in my place left me pensive. It seemed to me we were a more generous lot, back in Cohen’s time . . .

  Or perhaps we simply weren’t as clever?

  She took a step away from me.

  ‘Hey, then, let’s drop these mega-boring conversations, right?’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘And so what shall we get for Mum?’

  ‘Whatever you like,’ I replied.

  A shadow passed over.

  ‘I’ve already got my present,’ she said, clenching her teeth, ‘it’s yours we’re talking about.’

  ‘Sure, sure,’ I said with forced cheerfulness, ‘give me time to think, let’s see . . .’

  So that’s what it meant, to be fourteen years old in this day and age? To be lucid enough to know that everything has its price here on earth and, at the same time, stay naïve and tender enough to want to go on giving your hands to the adults on either side of you, and stay with them, right between them, maybe not skipping any more but squeezing their hands hard, keeping a firm grip, to keep them together in spite of everything.

  That was already something, no?

  Even with all those great songs, it must be quite a burden.

  What was I like, at her age? Completely immature, I suppose.

  I stumbled as we arrived at the next floor. Huh. It wasn’t important. Absolutely pointless. Absolutely.

  And besides, I can’t remember any of it.

  Let’s go, kid, I’m fed up already, I suddenly realized, clinging to the handrail. Let’s have a look and find something and get it wrapped and we’re out of here.

  A handbag. Yet another . . . The fifteenth, I suppose.

  ‘If Madame is not pleased with the item, she can always come and exchange it,’ cooed the saleswoman.

  I know, I know. Thank you. Madame frequently exchanges. And that is why I don’t go to more trouble than this, any more, you see.

  But I kept my mouth shut and paid up anyway. I paid up.

  No sooner were we out of the store than Mathilde vanished again and I stood there like an imbecile in front of a newspaper kiosk, reading the headlines without taking them in.

  Was I hungry? No. Did I feel like going for a walk? No. Wouldn’t I do better to go and lie down? Yes. But no. I’d never get up again.

  Could it be that . . . A bloke shoved past me to grab a magazine and I’m the one who said sorry.

  All alone, with no imagination, the odd one out in the middle of the ant farm, I raised my arm to hail a cab and gave him the address of my office.

  I went back to work because that was the only thing I knew how to do any more at that point. Time to see what sort of fuck-ups they’d got into here while I was away checking on the ones they’d got into over there. That’s about what it had come to, my profession, for the last couple of years. A lot of huge cracks, a tiny knife, and plenty of filler.

  The promising architect had become a little stonemason as he rose through the ranks. He was a regular Mr Fix-it for his colleagues, when they needed help in English; he did no more drawings, clocked up his frequent flier miles at an alarming rate and fell asleep lulled by the gentle drone of warfare on CNN, in hotel beds that were far too big.

  The sky had clouded over. I put my forehead against the cool windowpane and compared the colour of the Seine with that of the Moskva, while holding an utterly pointless present on my lap.

  Was God there?

  Hard to say.

  2

  THEY’VE COME, THEY’RE all here.

  Let’s run the credits in order of appearance, it will be easier.

  The fellow who opens the door saying to Mathilde, oh, how you’ve grown, a regular little woman now, that’s my older sister’s husband. I have another brother-in-law, but this one’s really my favourite. Say, you’ve gone and lost some more, he adds, ruffling my hair, did you remember to bring back some vodka this time? Hey, what exactly are you doing with the Russkies, anyway? Dancing the kazatchok or something?

  What did I tell you . . . He’s a good sort, no? He’s perfect. Okay, let’s shove our way in a bit here and this very upright gentleman who’s taking our coats, just behind him there, is my father, Henri Balanda. He, on the other hand, isn’t much of a one for words. He’s given up. Now he lets me know that I’ve got some mail by pointing to the console over to my left. I give him a kiss, but I don’t linger. The kind of mail that shows up at my parents’ place is usually of the please-donate-to-your-school-your-college-your-university variety. Promotional meetings, subscription reminders for journals I haven’t read in twenty years, and invitations to conferences I never attend.

  Fine, I say to my father, already looking for the wastebin that isn’t a wastebin, or so my mother will inform me with a frown a few minutes from now, since it is an umbrella stand, might I remind you. A well-worn script, how long have I been telling you this?

  Yes, and that’s my mother you can see there from behind, at the end of the corridor, in her kitchen, tied up in her apron while she bastes the roast.

  Now she’s turning around and kissing Mathilde and saying, my how you’ve grown, you’re a real young lady now! I wait until it’s my turn and I greet my other sister, not the wife of Jolyon Wagg but of the tall skinny guy sitting over there. He’s not at all the same type. He’s manager of a Champion supermarket out in the country but he has a perfect understanding of the concerns and economic policies of Bernard Arnault. Yes, that Bernard Arnault, the tycoon of the LVMH group. He’s sort of a . . . colleague, you might say. Because they’re in the same profession, you see, and . . . well, I’ll stop there. We’ll enjoy ourselves all the more later on.

  That woman there is Edith, and we’ll be hearing from her as well. She’ll talk about how much the children’s sch
oolbags weigh, and about the PTA meetings, no really, she’ll add – as she refuses a second helping of cake – it is unbelievable how little people contribute these days. The end-of-year fête, for example, who do you think came to fill in for me at the fishing booth, who? No one! So if the parents are dropping out, what on earth can you expect from the children, I ask you? Well, we shouldn’t hold it against her, her husband is a Champion manager when really he was cut out to be a superstore manager, he’s proven as much, and the puddle of sawdust in the fishing booth at the Saint-Joseph primary school fête is her little corner of paradise, so no, we shouldn’t hold it against her. It’s just that she gets very tiresome and she ought to change the record from time to time. And hairstyle too, while she’s at it. Let’s follow her into the living room where the other side is waiting for us: my sister Françoise. Number One. Madame Kazatchok for those who haven’t been following or who stayed behind dawdling in the kitchen. Now she does change her hairstyle quite frequently, but she’s even more predictable than her younger sister. And anyway, there’s no need to prove it, all you have to do is cut and paste the very first thing she says: ‘Oh, Charles, you look frightful . . . And you’ve put on weight, haven’t you?’ Well, may as well include the second thing she says, too, otherwise I’ll be accused of being biased: ‘You have! You’ve filled out since the last time, I assure you. Not to mention the fact that you’re as badly dressed as ever.’

  No, don’t feel sorry for me, in a few hours they’ll have vanished from my life. At least until next Christmas, with a bit of luck. They can’t come into my room any more without knocking, and by the time they snitch on me I’m already long gone.

  I’ve saved the best for last. The one you don’t see, but you can hear her laughing up on the first floor with all the teenagers in the house. Let’s go and track down that lovely laugh, too bad about the cashew nuts.

  *

  ‘Noo! I can’t believe it!’ she cries, rubbing the scalp of one of my nephews, ‘do you know what these cretins are talking about?’

  Kisses along the way.

  ‘Look at them, Charles. Look how young and handsome they all are. Look at their gorgeous teeth! (lifting up poor Hugo’s upper lip), just check it out, they’re the flower of youth! All these thousands of kilos of hormones overflowing all over the place! And do you know what they’re talking about?’

  ‘No,’ I go, relaxing at last.

  ‘About their gigabytes, for Christ’s sake . . . They all sit there wanking about with their MP3 players, comparing gigabytes . . . Disturbing, don’t you think? When you realize that this is what is going to be paying for our retirement . . . pinch me. I guess after this you’ll go comparing the tariffs on your mobiles, right?’

  ‘Done that,’ sniggers Mathilde.

  ‘No, I mean it, I really feel for you, kids . . . At your age you’re supposed to be dying of love! Writing poetry! Planning the Revolution! Stealing from the rich! Filling up your backpacks and taking off! Changing the world! But gigabytes, I don’t know . . . Gigabytes . . . Pfff . . . Why not your building society accounts while you’re at it?’

  ‘And you?’ asks Marion the ingénue, ‘what did you talk about with Charles when you were our age?’

  My little sister turns to me.

  ‘Well, we . . . we were already in bed at this time,’ I muttered in turn, ‘or we were doing our homework, weren’t we?’

  ‘Absolutely. Or you were helping me to do my essay on Voltaire perhaps?’

  ‘Quite likely. Or we’d use the time to get ahead with the work for the week . . . And then, remember how we used to recite our geometry theorems by heart?’

  ‘Exactly!’ exclaims their beloved aunt, ‘or equati—’

  The pillow that has just landed in her face prevents her from finishing the sentence.

  She answers immediately with a yell. Another cushion goes flying, then a trainer, other war cries, a sock rolled into a ball, then a – Claire grabs me by the sleeve.

  ‘Come on, let’s go. Now that we’ve got the fun going here, let’s go and stir things up downstairs.’

  ‘That’s going to be harder.’

  ‘Oh, we’ll see about that . . . All I need to do is suck up to that other cretin and tell him how wonderful the products are at Casino and it’s in the bag . . .’

  Then she turns round in the stairway and adds solemnly, ‘Because they still give out bags at Casino! Whereas at Champion, don’t hold your breath!’

  She bursts out laughing.

  That’s who she is. That’s Claire. And she’s some consolation for the other two, after all. At least, she’s always been a consolation to me.

  ‘What on earth have you been getting up to up there?’ fusses my mother, pulling at her apron strings, ‘what’s all that screaming?’

  My sister pleads innocence, showing her palms. ‘Hey, it’s not me, it’s Pythagoras.’

  In the meantime Laurence has arrived. She is sitting at the end of the sofa and is already deep in the huge restructuring plan for the condiments department.

  Right, I know, it’s her evening, her birthday and she’s been working all day but . . . still . . . We haven’t seen each other for almost a week . . . Couldn’t she have looked for me? Got up? Smiled? Or even just glanced over my way?

  I slide in next to her.

  ‘No, no, but it’s a good idea to put the ketchup together with the tomato sauce, you’re right . . .’

  This is what my hand on her shoulder has inspired.

  Enjoy.

  As we are on our way to the dining room, she finally grabs me, as the kids upstairs would say.

  ‘Good trip?’

  ‘Excellent, thanks.’

  ‘And did you bring back a present for my twentieth birthday?’ she simpers, clinging to my arm, ‘perhaps some jewellery from Fabergé?’

  I guess it really runs in the family . . .

  ‘Russian dolls,’ I grumble, ‘you know, one lovely woman, and the more interest you show in her, the tinier she turns out to be . . .’

  ‘Are you talking about me?’ she quips, walking away.

  No. About me.

  She quips.

  She quips, walking away.

  It’s because of an aside like that that I fell in love with her, years ago: her foot was finding its way up my leg just as her husband was explaining to me what he expected from my business . . . He was fiddling with the ring around his cigar, making a to and fro movement with that innocent little piece of paper that I found to be . . . extremely unwise.

  Yes. Because another woman would have been more predictable, more aggressive. Are you talking about me? she would have said, mocking or grating or scoffing or biting or scathing or shooting daggers with her eyes or something less cruel, but not this woman. No, not her. Not the beautiful Laurence Vernes.

  It was winter and I had met them in a posh restaurant in the 8th arrondissement. ‘For coffee,’he’d taken care to point out. Yes, indeed, for coffee . . . I was a supplier, not a client.

  A little treat, at most.

  Finally, I introduced myself.

  Out of breath, slovenly, bulky. With my helmet in one hand and the tubes of blueprints in the other. Pursued by a waiter who was as horrified as he was obsequious, pestering me to take my rags off me, fussing in my wake. He took my dreadful biker jacket and went off, inspecting his pale carpet. Searching, no doubt, for traces of dirty oil or mud or similar vile excretions.

  The scene only lasted a few seconds but it was enchanting.

  So there I was, sly and mocking, pulling off my long scarf and shivering one last time, when by chance my gaze met hers.

  She thought, or knew, or hoped that my smile was meant for her, but in fact it was for the absurdity of the situation, for the stupidity of a world, her world, which fed me in spite of myself (in those days it seemed to me that to come and give an estimate to a bloke who’d made his fortune in leather, in order to redo his new duplex ‘without touching the marble’, was proof of an utter lack
of taste on my part . . . But the social security contributions, my God! This was Le Corbusier they were assassinating!). (I’ve changed since then. I’ve lost a few holes in my belt at business lunches and I’ve accumulated some useful complaints against the social security contribution collection agency. I’ve learned to live with my clear-sightedness, when all is said and done. Even with marble . . .) So, as I was saying, in spite of myself, a world that had not invited me just asked me to sit down in front of a stained tablecloth while some other fool swept up the last crumbs.

  My nastiness in exchange for a smile. We were even, then.

  The first smile.

  But a nice one . . .

  A nice one, already a bit charged, and I would realize fairly quickly, alas, that her self-confidence, and the way she was eyeing me up, all bold and flattering, owed more to the virtues of Monsieur Taittinger than to my improbable charm. But anyway . . . It was indeed her big toe I could feel, there, in the hollow behind my knee, while I was trying to concentrate on the gentleman’s desiderata.