He looked devastated.
“Hey, look,” she added, “I think that’s him, over there.”
Philibert was all the way at the end of the platform and Franck was right: he was the only one not in jeans or running shoes, the only one with no soft bag or luggage on wheels. He held himself ramrod straight, walking slowly, carrying in one hand a big leather suitcase fastened with a military belt, and in the other a book that was still open.
*
Camille smiled: “No, I’m not in love with him, but, you see, he’s the big brother I’ve always dreamt of having.”
“You’re an only child?”
“I . . . I’m not really sure anymore,” she murmured, hurrying to her beloved half-blind zombie.
Of course he was confused, of course he stuttered, of course he dropped his suitcase onto Camille’s foot, of course he apologized profusely and lost his glasses in the process. Of course.
“Oh, please, Camille, the way you do go on, like a little puppy, oh dear oh dear oh dear—”
“Hey, don’t tell me, I can’t have her anymore,” grumbled Franck.
“Here, take his suitcase,” she ordered, while she clung to Philibert’s neck. “Guess what, we have a surprise for you!”
“A surprise, oh my God, no . . . I don’t really like surprises, you shouldn’t have . . .”
“Hey, lovebirds! Would you mind not walking so fast? Your personal valet here is kinda tired, shit, what do you got in here? A suit of armor or what?”
“Oh, just a few books, that’s all.”
“Shit, Philou, you’ve already got a ton of books, couldn’t you have left these ones at your château?”
“He’s in fine fettle, our friend!” he whispered to Camille. “And how are you?”
“Who? You mean both of us,” she said coyly, in response to his use of vous.
“Uh, yes, you,” he insisted, still calling her vous.
“Pardon?”
“You,” he stammered, using tu this time.
“Me?” she said again with a smile. “I’m fine. I’m glad you’re back.”
“Me too. Everything okay? No trenches in the apartment, no barbed wire? No sandbags?”
“No problems. He has a girlfriend at the moment.”
“Ah, I see. And did you have a nice celebration?”
“What celebration? Tonight’s the celebration! And we’re going to go out to eat somewhere. My treat!”
“Where?” grumbled Franck.
“La Coupole!”
“Oh, no . . . That’s not a restaurant, it’s a food factory.”
Camille frowned and said, “Yes. La Coupole. I adore that place. You don’t go there to eat, you go for the décor, for the atmosphere, for the people, and to be together.”
“What the hell does that mean, ‘you don’t go there to eat’! That’s ridiculous!”
“Well, if you don’t want to come along, too bad, but I’m inviting Philibert. You can both think of this as my first crazy whim of the year!”
“We won’t get in . . .”
“Of course we will. Or we’ll wait at the bar.”
“And what about Monsieur le Marquis’s vast library here? Am I the one gonna schlep it all the way there?”
“We can just leave it at the left-luggage office and pick it up on the way back.”
“Well, maybe . . . Shit, Philou! Say something!”
“Franck?”
“Yes?”
“I have six sisters . . .”
“So?”
“So let me tell you, it is the simplest thing in the world: give in. What woman wants, God wants.”
“Who said that?”
“It’s folk wisdom.”
“There we go! Starting all over again! You wear me out, the pair of you, with your quotations.”
Franck calmed down when Camille hooked her other arm through his, and on the boulevard Montparnasse, pedestrians moved aside to let them pass.
Seen from behind, they looked very sweet together.
On the left, the beanpole with his cloak straight out of Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow; on the right, the well-built guy with his Lucky Strike bomber jacket; and in the middle, a young girl—chirping, laughing, skipping and secretly dreaming of being lifted off the ground after hearing them say, “On the count of three! One, two, three, wheeee!”
She held them as close as possible. All her equilibrium depended on it today. No farther forward, nor back, but there, just there. Between these two kindly elbows.
The beanpole was inclining his head slightly, and the well-built guy had his fists shoved down into his worn pockets.
Unbeknownst to each other, both were thinking exactly the same thing: here we are, the three of us, now, famished, together, and may the good ship set sail, come what may.
For the first ten minutes, Franck was unbearable, criticizing everything in turn: the menu, the prices, the service, the noise, the tourists, the Parisians, the Americans, the smokers, the nonsmokers, the paintings, the lobsters, his neighbor, his knife, and the revolting statue which would most certainly make him lose his appetite, for sure.
Camille and Philibert were having a good laugh.
After a glass of champagne, two glasses of chablis, and six oysters, he finally shut up.
Philibert, who was not used to drinking, kept laughing idiotically and for no particular reason. Every time he put his glass down he would wipe his mouth and imitate his village priest, launching into mystical, heartrending sermons which he concluded with, “Ah-men, aaah, how happy I am to be here with you.” At the others’ insistence he told them all the news from his damp little kingdom—his family, the floods, New Year’s Eve with his fundamentalist cousins, and he described, in passing, a host of extravagant and unbelievable traditions and customs, with a deadpan humor they found enchanting.
Franck, above all, stared wide-eyed and every ten seconds let out a “No?” “No!” or a “No . . .”
“You say they’ve been engaged for two years and they’ve never . . . Go on. I don’t believe it.”
“You should be on the stage,” urged Camille. “You’d do a great routine. You know so many words and the way you put them together is so clever. So deadpan . . . You could talk about the crazy charm of the old French aristocracy or something like that.”
“You think so?”
“I know so! Don’t you agree, Franck? But . . . didn’t you tell me about a girl at the museum who wanted to take you to her classes?”
“Yes, yes, that’s right, but I st-stutter too much.”
“But, when you’re telling a story, you speak normally.”
“You—you think so?”
“Yes! C’mon! This’ll be your New Year’s resolution!” said Franck, raising his glass. “To the stage, Your Highness! And don’t complain, because that’s one resolution that’s not hard to keep.”
Camille prepared their crabs, breaking claws, pincers and shell, and made wonderful little open-faced sandwiches for them. Since childhood she had adored seafood platters because there was always a lot to do and not much to eat. With a mountain of crushed ice between herself and her companions, she could play the part for an entire meal with no one interfering or pestering her. And this evening too, although she was already waving to the waiter for another bottle of wine, she had scarcely made a dent in her portion. She rinsed off her fingers, reached for a slice of rye bread with crab and leaned back against the booth with her eyes closed.
Click-clack.
Nobody move.
A moment in time.
Happiness.
Franck was telling carburetor stories to Philibert, who listened patiently, demonstrating once again his perfect upbringing and the kindness of his soul:
“To be sure, eighty-nine euros is a considerable amount of money,” he opined gravely, “and what does your friend think, Fat, Fat—”
“Fat Titi?”
“Yes!”
“Oh, well, you know, Titi doesn’t care. He??
?s up to here with cylinder head gaskets.”
“Perfectly obvious,” he replied, sincerely sorry for Franck, “Fat Titi is Fat Titi.”
He wasn’t poking fun. Not the slightest trace of irony. Fat Titi was Fat Titi and that was that.
Camille asked who wanted to share crêpes flambées with her. Philibert preferred a sorbet and Franck was cautious:
“Hold on a minute. What sort of girl are you, anyway? The kind who says let’s share and then you stuff yourself and bat your eyelashes? Or the kind who says let’s share and then squabbles over the cherry? Or do you say let’s share and then really share?”
“Order the crêpes, and you’ll find out.”
“Mmm, this is delicious.”
“No, they’ve been reheated, they’re too thick and there’s too much butter. I’ll make you some one day and then you’ll see the difference.”
“Anytime you want . . .”
“When you’re a good girl.”
Philibert felt that the wind had veered, but he wasn’t sure in which direction.
He was not the only one.
And that’s what was so amusing.
Since Camille insisted, and what woman wants, etc., they began to talk about finances for the apartment: who would pay what, when and how? Who’d do the shopping? How much Christmas money for the concierge? Whose names on the letterbox? Should they have a phone line installed, and should they be intimidated by the incensed official letters from the Public Treasury about the television license fee? And the housekeeping? Each of them would do their own room, that went without saying, but why was it always Camille or Philibert who were stuck with the kitchen and the bathroom? Speaking of the bathroom, said Camille, we need a wastebasket; I’ll take care of it. You, Franck, make an effort to recycle your beer cans and open your bedroom window from time to time, otherwise the apartment will be infested with bugs . . . Same for the toilet. Please put down the seat and when there’s no more toilet paper, say so. And can’t we afford a decent vacuum cleaner, after all? That Bissel carpet sweeper dates from the First World War, it’s done its time . . . Uh, and what else?
“So, Philou, buddy,” said Franck, “now you understand what I meant when I said don’t let a girl move in? See what I mean? See what a pain it is? And just wait, this is only the beginning.”
Philibert Marquet de La Durbellière was smiling. No, he didn’t see. He had just spent fifteen humiliating days at the receiving end of the exasperated stare of his paterfamilias, who could no longer hide his dissatisfaction. What sort of firstborn son is it who isn’t the least bit interested in farm tenancy, or forestry, or girls, or finance, let alone his social rank? A useless inept nitwit who sells postcards for the State and stutters when his little sister asks him to pass the salt. The only heir to the title, and not even capable of acting with a sense of his position when he speaks to the gamekeeper. No, he didn’t deserve this, and every morning was cause for new despair when once again he found his son on all fours in Blanche’s room, playing dolls with her.
“Have you nothing better to do, my son?”
“No, Father, but I—I—tell me, if you n-need me, I—”
But the door slammed before Philibert even finished his sentence.
“Let’s pretend that you make the dinner and I’ll go shopping, and after that we’ll pretend that you make waffles, and after that we’ll go to the park to walk the babies.”
“All right, my pumpkin, all right. We’ll pretend whatever you want.”
Blanche, or Camille, for him it was the same: sweet little things who liked him and sometimes gave him a peck on the cheek. And for that Philibert was prepared to put up with his father’s scorn, and buy fifty vacuum cleaners if that’s what it took.
No problem.
As he had great respect for manuscripts, oaths, parchments, maps and treaties of all sorts, Philibert was the one who cleared the coffee cups away and took a sheet of paper from his briefcase on which he wrote ceremoniously: “Charter of the avenue Émile Deschanel for the use of its occupants and other visit—”
He interrupted himself.
“And who was Émile Deschanel, children?”
“A president of the Republic?”
“No, the president was Paul. Émile Deschanel was a man of letters, a professor at the Sorbonne who was sacked because of his work Catholicism and Socialism. Or the other way round, I don’t recall. Moreover, my grandmother was rather put out at having the name of that ruffian on her calling cards. Well. Where was I?”
He went over everything that had just been concluded, point by point, including the toilet paper and the garbage bags, and passed the new protocol around so that each of them could add his or her own clauses.
“This makes a regular Jacobin of me,” he sighed.
Franck and Camille reluctantly put down their glasses and wrote a lot of silly things.
Unruffled, Philibert brought out his stick of sealing wax and pressed his signet ring into the warm wax at the bottom of the paper before the stunned gaze of the other two, then folded the document in three and slipped it casually into his jacket pocket.
“Uh, do you always carry around your Louis XIV paraphernalia with you?” Franck asked, shaking his head.
“My wax, my seal, my salts, my golden écus, my coat of arms and my poison. To be sure, dear chap.”
Franck, who had recognized one of the waiters, went on a tour of the kitchen.
“I stand by what I said: a food factory. But a well-made factory.”
Camille picked up the tab, Yes, yes, I insist, you guys can do the vacuuming; they retrieved the suitcase, stepping over a few more bums here and there, and then Lucky Strike straddled his motorbike and the other two hailed a taxi.
53
SHE watched for him in vain the next day, the day after that, and the days which followed. No news. The security guard, with whom she now regularly had a chat (Matrix’s right testicle hadn’t descended, what a drama), didn’t seem to know anything about him. And yet Camille knew he was around somewhere. Whenever she left a net bag full of bread, cheese, little salads, bananas and dog food behind the bottles of detergent, it would consistently disappear. Never the tiniest dog hair or crumb, never the faintest odor. For a junkie he was remarkably well organized, to such a degree that she even wondered about the recipient of her kindness. It might well be the guard who was feeding his uni-testicular mutt for free. She explored discreetly, only to find out that Matrix ate nothing but vitamin B12-enriched dog biscuits with a soup spoon of castor oil for his fur. Canned food was crap. Why would you give your dog something you wouldn’t eat yourself?
Good point, why?
“But dog biscuits, that’s the same thing, you’d never eat them yourself,” said Camille.
“Of course I would!”
“Yeah, really.”
“I swear!”
The sad thing was that she could believe it. She could imagine just-one-ball and just-one-brain-cell sitting together nibbling on doggy chicken croquettes in front of a porn film in their overheated hut in the middle of the night; that wasn’t just a remote possibility. In fact, it seemed quite appropriate.
Several days went by like this. Sometimes he didn’t show. The baguette went hard and the cigarettes were still there. Sometimes he came by and took nothing but the dog food. Too much dope or not enough to enjoy a feast . . . Sometimes she wasn’t able to bring anything. But she wasn’t going to worry about it anymore. Just a quick glance around the back of the storage room to see if she should empty out her bag or not.
Camille had other things on her mind.
At the apartment everything was fine, going smoothly, charter or no charter, Myriam or no Myriam, OCD or no OCD: everyone went merrily on their way without disturbing their neighbor. They greeted one another in the morning and got gently stoned in the evening. Grass, hash, booze, incunabula, Marie Antoinette or Heineken, it was to each his or her own trip, and Marvin for all.
During the day, Camille made her s
ketches, and when he was there Philibert would read to her or give her a running commentary on his family albums:
“This is my great-grandfather. The young man next to him is his brother, Uncle Élie, and in front of them are their fox terriers . . . They used to organize dog races and it was the village priest—you can see him sitting there by the finish line—who designated the winner.”
“Hey, they had fun in their day, didn’t they.”
“And good thing they did. Two years later they left for the front lines in the Ardennes and six months after that they were dead, both of them.”
No, it was at work that everything was falling apart. First of all, the guy on the sixth floor had come up to her one night and asked her where she’d put his feather duster. Ha-ha, he was so pleased with his joke that he’d followed her all the way down the hall, shouting over and over, “I’m sure it was you! I’m sure it was you!” Get lost, fat slob, you’re in my way.
“No, it was my co-worker,” she had eventually barked, pointing to Super Josy, who was in the midst of counting her varicose veins.
Game over.
Secondly, she just couldn’t stomach Ms. Bredart anymore.
She was as thick as two planks, and abused the tiny bit of power she had (site head at All-Kleen wasn’t exactly head of the Pentagon, after all). She sweated, she spat, pinched the caps off ballpoint pens to pick at bits of meat stuck in her molars; and she often took Camille aside and whispered to her a racist joke, since Camille was the only other white person on the team.
Camille often had to cling to her floor mop simply in order not to scream in Josy’s face, and the other day she’d finally begged her to keep her trash thoughts to herself because she was beginning to annoy everyone.