THE fireman—not the same one as last time, Yvonne would have recognized him—was stirring his spoon round and round in his mug.
“Is it too hot?”
“Beg your pardon?”
“The coffee. Is it too hot?”
“No, it’s fine, thanks. We’re not quite done, I still have to file my report here.”
At the far end of the table sat a disconsolate Paulette. This time, she knew, her number was up.
16
“YOU got lice or something?” asked Mamadou.
Camille was pulling on her overalls. She wasn’t in the mood to talk. Too many of those stones, too cold, too fragile.
“You mad or something?”
Camille shook her head, wheeled her cart out of the garbage room and headed for the elevators.
“You going up to the sixth floor?”
“Uh-huh.”
“And why is it you always got the sixth floor? It’s not right! Don’t you let them push you around like that. You want me to speak to the boss? I don’t give a shit, I’ll make a stink! Sure as hell! I don’t give a shit.”
“No, thanks, Mamadou. Sixth floor or whatever, they’re all the same to me.”
The other girls didn’t like that floor because it was where the bosses had their private offices. The other floors, the “ho-pen spay-siz” as Bredart called them, in heavily accented English, were easier and, more to the point, quicker to clean. All you had to do was empty the wastebaskets, line the armchairs up against the walls and run the vacuum cleaner all over. You could go at it to your heart’s content, and it didn’t matter if you banged into the feet of the furniture because it was all cheap stuff anyway and nobody gave a shit.
But on the sixth floor, each office required a rather fastidious ritual: empty the wastebaskets and the ashtrays, gut the shredders, and clean the desks with utmost respect for the rule that one should not touch a thing, not move even the tiniest paper clip. On top of all that, there were small adjacent meeting rooms and secretaries’ offices, and those sluts would go and stick Post-its all over the place, giving orders as if to their own private cleaning woman, though they couldn’t possibly have afforded one. And be sure to do this and be sure to do that and last time you moved the lamp and broke the thingamajig and whine and moan and bitch. The kind of trivial remarks that really annoyed Carine or Samia, but didn’t bother Camille. Whenever one of their notes was too ridiculously anal, she would write Me no speak French at the bottom of the Post-it and stick it right in the middle of the computer screen.
On the lower floors, the lower-caste employees put their stuff away, more or less, but here it was considered more chic to leave everything all spread out. Just so people would know you were overworked, that you really didn’t want to have to leave your post, and that you’d be back any minute now to resume your position at the Great Helm of the world. Hey, why not, sighed Camille. Everyone has their dreams and illusions.
But there was one guy, all the way down at the end of the hall on the left, who was really beginning to piss her off big-time. So what if he was some big shot—that guy was a pig and things had gone on long enough. Not only was his office filthy, it also reeked of scorn.
Camille had lost count of the number of times she’d had to empty out plastic cups with their flotsam of cigarette butts, or how many crusts of stale sandwiches she’d had to pick up, and she’d never given it any further thought until this evening. But tonight she didn’t feel like doing what she was doing. So she picked up Mr. Piglet’s trash—old nicotine patches wadded with hair, chewing gum stuck to the edge of the ashtray, used matches and crumpled balls of paper, and all the other gross leftovers of his presence, and she scooped it all into a little pile on his desk on his fine zebu-skin blotting pad, with a note: Monsieur, you are a pig, and I ask you please henceforth to leave this place as clean as possible. P.S. Look down by your feet—there’s a very useful thing known as a wastebasket. To her tirade she added a nasty drawing featuring a little pig in a three-piece suit leaning down to see what sort of strange contraption was hiding under his desk. She then went to find her co-workers to help them finish the corridor.
“What are you laughing at?” asked Carine.
“Nothing.”
“Sometimes you’re so weird.”
“What’s next?”
“The stairs over in B.”
“Again? But we just did them.”
Carine shrugged her shoulders.
“Shall we go?”
“No, we have to wait for Super Josy for the report.”
“What report?”
“I dunno. Seems we’re using too much of some product.”
“Wish they’d make up their minds, the other day we weren’t using enough. I’m going to have a smoke out on the sidewalk, you coming?”
“It’s too cold.”
Camille went out alone and leaned against a lamppost.
. . . December 2, 2003 . . . 12:34 a.m. . . . 26°F: a string of luminous letters on an optician’s storefront.
That’s when she found the answer she should have given Mathilde Kessler earlier that day when she’d asked, with a hint of annoyance in her voice, how Camille’s life was at the moment.
“. . . December 2, 2003 . . . 12:34 a.m. . . . 26°F.”
There, that’s how life was at the moment.
17
“I know! I know all that! But why are you making it into such a big deal? It’s nonsense, anyway.”
“Now listen, young Franck, first of all, don’t take that tone with me. Secondly, you have no right to lecture me. I’m the one who’s been looking after her for almost twelve years, going to see her several times a week, taking her to town and making sure she’s okay. Over twelve years, you hear? And so far no one can say that you’ve been involved much. Never a word of thanks, never a sign of gratitude, nothing. Even that other time when I went with her to the hospital and visited her every day at the beginning: would it ever have crossed your mind to call me or send me flowers? Well, in a way it doesn’t matter because I’m not doing it for you, but for her. Because she’s a good woman, your grandmother. A good woman, you understand? I’m not blaming you, son, you’re young and you live far away and you’ve got your own life, but sometimes it gets to be a bit too much for me, you know? A bit too much. I have a family too and I have my own worries and problems with my health so I’m going to come right out with it: it’s time for you to start taking responsibility.”
“You want me to louse up her life and stick her in the pound just because she left a pot on the stove, is that it?”
“There you go! You’re talking about her as if she were a dog!”
“No, I’m not. And you know damn well what I’m talking about. You know damn well that if I put her in an old people’s home, she won’t be able to stand the shock. Shit! You saw the song and dance she made last time round.”
“There’s no need to be obscene, you know.”
“Sorry, Madame Carminot, I’m sorry. But I don’t know where I am anymore. I—I can’t do it to her, you understand? For me it would be like killing her.”
“If she goes on living alone, she’ll end up killing herself.”
“And? Wouldn’t that be better?”
“That’s the way you see things, but I don’t buy it. If the mailman hadn’t come just in time the other day, the whole house would have gone up in flames; and the problem is that the mailman isn’t always going to be there. And neither will I, Franck. Neither will I. It’s just all too much now. Just too much responsibility. Every time I come over I wonder what I’m going to find, and on the days when I don’t come, I can’t sleep. When I call her and she doesn’t answer, I get sick with worry and I always end up going over there to see where she’s wandered off to. That fall she took really shook her up, she’s not the same woman anymore. She stays in her bathrobe all day, doesn’t eat, doesn’t speak, doesn’t read her mail. Only yesterday I found her out in the garden in her underwear. She was completely fr
ozen, poor thing. It’s no life for me, I’m always imagining the worst. We can’t leave her like this. We can’t. You have to do something.”
Franck was silent.
“Franck? Hello? Franck, are you there?”
“Yes.”
“You have to get used to the idea, young man.”
“No way. I’m willing to stick her in a hospice because I don’t have a choice, but don’t ask me to get used to the idea. That’s impossible.”
“Pound, old people’s home, hospice . . . Why don’t you just call it a ‘retirement home’?”
“Because I know how it’s going to end.”
“Don’t say that, there are some very nice places. My husband’s mother, for instance, she—”
“And what about you, Yvonne? Can’t you take care of her for good? I’ll pay you . . . I’ll give you whatever you want.”
“No. Thank you for offering, but I can’t, I’m too old. I don’t want the responsibility, I’ve already got my Gilbert to look after. And besides, Paulette needs medical care.”
“I thought she was your friend.”
“She is.”
“She’s your friend, but you don’t mind shoving her into her grave.”
“Franck, take that back right now.”
“You’re all the same. You, my mother and everyone else, the whole lot of you. You say you care for other people, but then as soon as it comes to rolling up your sleeves, where are you?”
“Don’t you dare put me in the same category as your mother! How could you! You’re unbelievably ungrateful, young man, mean and ungrateful.”
She hung up.
It was only three in the afternoon but Franck knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep.
He was exhausted.
He pounded the table, thumped the wall, lashed out at everything in reach.
Then he put on his jogging gear and collapsed on the first bench he came to.
It was only a little whimper to begin with, as if someone had just pinched him, but then his entire body gave way. He started trembling from head to foot; his chest split open and released a huge sob. This was the last thing he wanted, fuck, the last thing. But he couldn’t help it. He wept like a big baby, like a useless moron, like some guy who was about to take the only person on the planet he’d ever loved and consign her to her grave. The only person, too, who’d ever loved him.
Franck was bent over double, racked with sorrow and smeared with snot.
When he finally accepted that there was no way he could stop, he wrapped his sweater around his head and folded his arms.
He was hurting, he was cold and he was ashamed.
He stood under the shower with his eyes closed and his face held up to it, until there was no more hot water. He cut himself shaving because he didn’t have the guts to face himself in the mirror. He didn’t want to think about it. Not now, not for the time being. The dike wasn’t strong, and if he let go, thousands of images would flood his brain. He’d never seen his grandma anywhere else, only there in her house—her mornings in the garden, her days in the kitchen, and in the evenings, by his bedside . . .
When Franck was a child he suffered from insomnia. He had night-mares and would scream and call out to his grandma, swearing that when she closed the door his legs sank down a deep hole and he had to cling to the bars of his bed to keep from going down after them. All his teachers had suggested consulting a psychologist, but the neighbors shook their heads gravely and advised taking him to the bonesetter to have his nerves put right. As for Paulette’s husband, he wanted her to stop going upstairs to Franck. You’re spoiling the boy! he said. You’re the one who’s driving him crazy! For Christ’s sake, just love him a little less! Just let him cry for a while, he’ll stop pissing so much for a start, and you’ll see, he’ll go to sleep just the same.
And Paulette would say yes to everyone, docile as could be, but she didn’t do what anyone said. She’d fix Franck a glass of hot sugared milk with a bit of orange-flower water and, sitting by him on her chair, she held his head while he drank. There, you see, I’m right here. She folded her arms, sighed, and dozed off when he did. Or sometimes even before he did. It was not so bad as long as she was there, everything would be all right. He could stretch out his legs.
“By the way, there’s no more hot water,” said Franck to Philibert.
“Oh, no, that’s terrible . . . I don’t know what to say, you—”
“Stop apologizing, shit! I’m the one who emptied the tank, okay? I did it. So don’t apologize!”
“I’m sorry, I just thought—”
“You know what? You’re starting to piss me off. If you want to go being a doormat, that’s your problem.”
Franck left the room and went to iron his work clothes. He absolutely had to buy some new jackets because he didn’t have enough to see out the week. He didn’t have time. There was never enough time, never the time to do a fucking thing.
He had only one day off a week, and he was damned if he was going to spend it at some old folks’ home in the back of beyond, watching his grandmother cry her eyes out.
Philibert was already settled in his armchair with his parchments and all his heraldry crap.
“Philibert?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Listen, hey, I’m sorry about what happened earlier. I’ve got a lot of shit going on right now and I’m up to here with it. And on top of it all, I’m exhausted.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Yes, it does matter.”
“What matters, you see, is to say that you’re sorry for doing something, not that you’re sorry about something. It is linguistically too vague, and the other person cannot know whether you are apologizing or just expressing some generalized regret . . .”
Franck stared at him for a minute before shaking his head. “You really are a weird guy, you know that?”
As he went out the door, he added, “Hey! Have a look in the fridge, I brought you something. I can’t remember what it is, some duck, I think.”
Philibert said thank you to a draft of cold air.
Franck was already in the hallway, cursing because he couldn’t find his keys.
He took up his station in complete silence, did not flinch when the boss took the pan from his hands in order to show off, clenched his teeth when an undercooked magret was sent back, and rubbed his heating plate so hard, it was as if instead of simply cleaning it he were trying to scrape off fine iron filings.
As the kitchen emptied, Franck waited around for his buddy Kermadec to finish sorting his tablecloths and counting his napkins. When Kermadec found him in a corner leafing through Bikers’ Journal, he gestured with his chin. “What you want, chef?”
Lestafier tilted his head back and wiggled his hand in front of his mouth.
“I’m coming. A few more odds and ends and I’m all yours.”
They had meant to do the rounds of the bars, but by the time they left the second one Franck was already dead drunk.
That night he fell into a deep hole, but not the one from his childhood. A different one.
18
“OKAY, well, I wanted to say I was sorry about, I mean sorry for . . . I wanted to ask you . . . ,” said Franck.
“Ask for what, dear?” said Yvonne.
“For you to forgive me.”
“I’ve already forgiven you, forget it. I know you didn’t mean what you said, but you should mind your manners all the same. You have to be good to the people who behave right toward you. You’ll see, when you get older, that you don’t encounter many of them.”
“You know, I’ve been thinking about what you said yesterday, and even if it’s hard to admit it, I know you’re right.”
“Of course I’m right. I know old people, I see plenty of them here, all day.”
“So, uh—”
“What?”
“The problem is, I’ve got no time to take care of it, I mean to find her a place and all that.”
“So
you want me to take care of it?”
“I’ll pay you for your time, you know.”
“Don’t you start being vulgar with me again, young man; I’m willing to help you, but you’re the one who’s going to have to tell her. You have to explain the situation to her.”
“Will you come with me?”
“If it makes it easier for you. But, you know, she’s perfectly well aware of what I think about the whole thing. She’s been getting herself into such a state ever since I first brought it up.”
“You have to find her a really classy place, okay? With a nice room and beautiful grounds all around.”
“It’s very expensive, you know.”
“How expensive?”
“Over a million a month.”
“Uh, hang on, Yvonne, what are you talking about? We have euros now, you know?”
“Oh, euros. Well, I’m talking the way I’m used to talking and for a good home, you have to pay upwards of a million old francs a month.”
There was a silence while Franck did some mental arithmetic.
“Franck?”
“That’s—that’s what I earn.”
“You have to go to the social services and ask them for housing assistance, see how much your granddad’s pension comes to, then put together an ADHP application and send it off.”
“What’s the ADHP?”
“Assistance for dependent and handicapped persons.”
“But . . . she’s not exactly handicapped, is she?”
“No, but she’ll have to act the part when they send the assessor over. Mustn’t look too sprightly or they won’t give you much.”
“Aw, fuck, what a hassle . . . Sorry.”
“I’m blocking my ears.”
“I’ll never have time to fill out all those forms. Maybe you could help me with this initial stuff?”
“Don’t worry, I’ll bring it up at the Club next Friday, it’s sure to cause a stir.”