Guys Like Me Page 12

  “So, this time it’s true, you’re really going for good?”

  “Yes, this time I’ve had enough, I’m leaving.”

  He smiled as if admitting defeat. And yet it seems to me something was driving him and it wasn’t his failure, on the contrary, it was a desire to leave, a desire to be somewhere else, that was stronger than him. Somewhere else?

  “I think it’s better this way. And besides, my mother’s eighty-two, I want to take advantage of the time she still has, you know.”

  Marco looked tense. Several times lately, he’d told me he was fed up with his success. He was too tired to want any more of it. But he spoke about it with Aïcha, and then everything became possible again, because he was no longer alone in this life. You had to accept that there was a price to pay. Guys like him didn’t get anything for nothing, when it came down to it, that was the case with most of us. I got in the back seat of Marc-André’s car.

  There were two red lights in succession, and we didn’t say anything, all the time we sat there waiting. Guys with their windows down, their radios on or their cell phones in their hands, waiting for the lights to change. He held himself very straight, at one moment our eyes met in the rearview mirror. Marco turned to me.

  “I’m fed up with these hold-ups. By the way, what about your scooter, do you have it?”

  “Soon, yes.”

  Jean turned to me. “Don’t you already have a car?”

  He smiled vaguely, as he often did. When we got to Clichy, a car was just pulling out and we didn’t have to drive around looking for a parking space. Marco got out first, he switched off his cell phone. That way I can have a little peace and quiet. I’ve had a rough day. We sat down in the smoking area. The place had been refurbished two years ago and, in addition to the music, which was a little too loud, the lighting was also too harsh in the middle of the room. We sat down in a corner at the far end. Jean had brought his case with him. When they took our orders and served the aperitif, he told us he wanted to show us some photographs, to see if they reminded us of things. I thought that was weird, Marco was as surprised as I was. He’d kept everything. It was still in his case, he had never let it out of his sight. He’d stuck some of them in a school notebook, along with the dates, sometimes followed by a question mark. The oldest dated from 1976. The three of us were twenty, barely more than children. I recognized some of them, class photographs I must have somewhere at home, then he showed us others in which we didn’t appear.

  Several photographs in the courtyard of the building where he lived with his mother. He had the same eyes as her, the same way of looking with a slight lift of the head, the way people look under their glasses, except that he didn’t wear glasses. Photos also of him when he was very small, that was my father, he said, pointing to a middle-aged man, who really seemed to be from another time, very distant even in the 1970s, and even further from us today. And then lots of photographs taken in Asnières, at the Bar des Trois Communes, where we sometimes went, and at Nazim’s in Bois-Colombes, the one who had died only two months ago and had had a good life. We really had lived it up. We gradually relaxed. We even pushed away our plates, there was a kind of fire still burning in all this that went beyond our common memories. When the waitress brought us our meals, we left his photographs to one side. We told each other about long-gone things. There were our teachers and our parents. The injustices never swallowed, the hopes never followed by results. Then there were the stories about girls, love affairs we’d never forgotten. We realized we’d pretty much known the same girls in high school, and at Le Cercle near the station, we spent a whole lot of time there, and when we were alone, up until the early ’80s, that was where we went. Generally, you didn’t have to wait too long.

  He was getting excited as he spoke, our memories were gradually falling into place, just like that, for no reason, he was putting our past together. We ordered a good bottle of red wine, we had to celebrate this, in the end it had been a good idea of his to make us revisit our lives. There weren’t so many of us left now. We’d lost touch. And then almost nobody lived in our old neighborhood in the Hauts-de-Seine anymore. He had other photographs in a small brown envelope. Several times, he seemed hesitant to show them to us.

  “Here, I have this too, if you want. I’ll be back.”

  He went to the toilets. Marco watched him walk away and shook his head.

  “Are you thinking the same as me? I’m surprised he held out all this time.”

  I opened the envelope. It was her, the girl he’d been harping on about all this time. Adeline Vlasquez. She was wearing a long flowered skirt on platform B of the station at Asnières, and in the sunlight the colors looked a little fake. They were already old, these photographs. In this one, he had long hair, he was wearing a shirt with a large collar, he had his arm around her shoulders and they seemed to be in love. Who’d taken the picture? Do you remember this girl? I had only a vague image of this Adeline Vlasquez.

  “He’s in a bad way, though, I wonder how he’s going to pull through this time.”

  I put the photos back in the envelope. He came back toward us with a big smile.

  “Did you look at them?”

  “Yes,” we said. “They’re great. That was quite a time. Do you still hear from her?”

  He’d looked for her for a long time, and in his opinion, all these last few years he wouldn’t have let himself go the way he had if he’d been able to keep track of her, which was pointless, since she hadn’t chosen him. Marco was looking around him, and then after a while he took off his glasses and massaged his eyelids.

  “And what are you going to do now?”

  “I’m going to see my mother, didn’t I tell you?”

  “Yes, but what are you going to do to earn a living?”

  He shrugged. “I’d really like some dessert. How about you?”

  We talked about other things. We were relieved that he’d finished showing us photos of his life, and also the life he thought had been ours. He seemed quite happy, though, that evening. But I couldn’t be sure. Not far from here, there was this woman who might become mine, I hoped that very strongly, and I didn’t know why, and then there was my son in Switzerland who called me from time to time. He’d suggested we contact each other via instant message. Whenever I got home, I switched on the computer and looked to see if he was online. He had a lot of work. I wrote more often to Anaïs, she’d started taking German classes, she’d be coming back to Paris from time to time, she hadn’t yet decided what she was going to do. We stayed in the pizzeria for a long time. Maybe we wouldn’t have many more opportunities? Marco would have liked to stop working, he was earning a good living, but it didn’t matter anymore, Aïcha was advising him to do what he wanted, but what did he want? Over time, he’d forgotten what he liked. For lots of guys like us, nothing mattered anymore. He would have liked to do legal counseling for people with money troubles, defend widows and orphans, instead of which he handled corporate accounts, surrounded by guys … Jean was listening to us and smiling, as if we’d thrown a great party just for him. It was coming to its end now.

  I found it sad, when I got home that night, but not really, it wasn’t as sad as all that, to be honest. You just have to let yourself go from time to time. It doesn’t lead to anything, with guys like us. He hadn’t wanted us to drive him home. How was he going to manage with all those boxes? Oh, he’d ask Ahmed, the neighbor opposite, to lend him his station wagon. We weren’t too worried about him. In any case, he’d try to be in touch before he left for Marseilles.

  “Can we do anything for you?”

  “For me?”

  For a moment, he seemed troubled.

  “No, but I’ll let you know where I’m living. We should keep in touch, don’t you think?”

  We shook hands. His handshake was too strong. The son of the concierge where we’d taken root, the lover of Adeline Vlasquez, the girl in the flowered dress on platform B of the station. The man who’d never managed to … Ou
r friend too, in the end, who kept traces of our lives in a case, the same as all those guys who pretend that things are normal, when in fact they aren’t. His mother would be happy to see him again. He picked up his case. Thanks for dinner. Right, shall we go?

  He strode along Boulevard Jaurès, in the direction of the bridge, we let him go, the way guys like him do. His life wasn’t slowing him down tonight. He seemed impatient to leave. He’d never really been there with us, but he remembered everything, he’d carried our memory in that case along with the welfare papers, the forms, and the discount vouchers. He was probably going to come back into our lives, but when? Marco and I were still watching him. He was walking quickly, like a man much younger than he was, surrounded by the lights of the Seine.

  “Why did he want to see us, because of the photos? He doesn’t want us to help him. Can you understand that?”

  “I don’t know, why not?”

  We couldn’t see him anymore now.

  “Aïcha isn’t in this evening, shall we have a last drink?”

  We walked on the other side, along the same boulevard, as far as Porte de Champerret.

  We talked a bit more about him. There’d been times, of course, when we’d wanted to know about him, it was true that he’d always been there, when we were teenagers, and those good years we’d had before that, it was strange when it came down to it. People were chatting calmly in the café. I’d seen Marc-André in this very place, the evening after my divorce. The big bus station is opposite, where you catch buses for the suburb I’ve never left. How about you, are you OK? Yes, fine. His son was a little better, he was feeling depressed, because of the pills. He’d be sick all his life. Now he was reading tons of books. He might go to college after all. He wanted to become a teacher but he didn’t know if he’d be able to, especially as he had a criminal record. Marco was sometimes afraid of disappointing Aïcha, not living up to expectations.

  “What expectations do you mean, Marco?”

  But I understand that kind of fear, I have it too, obviously. We smoked like young guys and still drank too many beers. He was there between the two of us, that night, as he hadn’t been in a long time. Of course, we’d wondered what had become of him, but our lives probably kept us too busy for us to really look for him. Do you mind if I pull down the curtain?

  We also talked about Marie. This time, she had to spend five days in Beaujon. It’s not going too badly, as well as it can, I told Marco.

  “How many sessions does she have left?”

  “They changed the treatment plan, they’ve added two.”

  And then, after that, there was the radiation therapy. We left. We’d meet again soon. There weren’t many people at Porte de Champerret. There was only the night bus circulating now, the one with the owl, but only one per hour, so I walked home. No message on the answering machine. It was two in the morning, I didn’t feel like sleeping. Marie preferred to be alone on nights like this. I understood, I mustn’t rush her. There were times when she was very tired, but all in all she was holding up well, I thought. She read to pass the time. I’d lent her the F. Scott Fitzgerald books, she’d made a face at first because he was American and these days too many things in life were American, but in the end she liked his work. Tender is the Night. It isn’t always like that. All the same, I’d had a good evening. If I had time, I’d go see him again, would he contact us before he left for Marseilles? When we were teenagers, we’d dreamed of Marseilles. Or else, like when he was a student, you could go to England or the United States, how long was it he had stayed there? Maybe he really didn’t need help, in the end. Maybe that wasn’t what he needed? I was already hung-over by the time I went to bed and I couldn’t stop swallowing, with all the cigarettes I’d smoked. I’d have to quit again. At that moment, I felt very old. I also felt alone, and so I was a little scared, I think.

  The next morning, I had two espressos at the Gare Saint-Lazare, in the bar between the arrivals hall and the departures hall. I looked at myself in the window of Delaveine’s shirt store and I looked gray and grouchy. Nobody said anything at the office, I worked without thinking. You keep going without knowing, when it comes down to it. I called Marie around noon and she was pleased to hear my voice. She’d slept well during the night, but she had cold sweats at times. Did you tell the doctor? No, she could wait, she knew what it was anyway.

  “Shall I drop by this evening?”

  The weather was really nice when I got to Place de Clichy. I liked stopping to look at the books, and sometimes, when she’d felt up to it, we’d gone back to look at the people from the terrace of the Brasserie Wepler, which is often worth it when you look at them from that spot. I thought she looked beautiful among the other women. It had to reflect well, somehow, on me and on all the guys like me, when their lives start to seem like something. In the evening I cooked, but she wasn’t hungry at all, and in the end, we spent most of the evening saying nothing, sprawled on the couch. I liked it that way. She’d opened the window and music was coming up from the inner courtyard, which would usually have made her want to dance, she said. She’d had visitors during the day.

  She wasn’t alone like some people you saw getting chemo in Beaujon. On the table she’d put the bunch of flowers that some of the regulars from the boulevard had given her, they had all signed a picture postcard of the Batignolles, her colleagues and her patients. It wasn’t far away, but it was a long way too, these days. She was tired of the chemo. She was tired of not knowing, and of feeling her body get rapidly weaker. She was tired of the cold sweats. Plus, she was putting on weight, have you seen how fat I’m getting? My eyes must have gone as round as marbles. That made her laugh, and then she stopped. She was too on edge. She didn’t want me to see her in that state. She asked me to forgive her. Don’t talk nonsense, please. I’ll call you when I get home. Yes, I understand, don’t worry. Marie. I worked three more days. She really wasn’t feeling well, but it’ll be OK, you can drop by later, don’t worry.

  “Why’s everyone worrying? I’m not going to die tomorrow.”

  I wasn’t very sure what I should do. On Friday I couldn’t stop looking at my cell phone, it rang once but it was Benjamin, he wanted to know how I was. Anaïs was coming next week, oh, and how about the scooter? I hadn’t done anything about it yet. Is something wrong? Marie isn’t very well, I don’t know, Ben. I thought to myself that he was right about the scooter. I wasn’t as alone as all that, when it came down to it, I would never be as alone as all that.

  Once, a year after the divorce, his mother had come to see me. I’ve never forgotten that, whereas if I met her again today I’d probably have the impression she was returning from another life, one where I could never take my place. We hadn’t had any contact for a year. She’d had her lawyer send me letters, and out of the whole of our relation-ship, all I remembered now was the end, that anger I had against her, and she against me. Today, I’ve forgotten that anger. Why? I don’t know. Was I already living in Levallois at the time? I can’t remember, although it’d be easy enough to check. I hadn’t yet left Asnières in my head, all my life I’d go to a lot of trouble not to move. But after only a few years, there was hardly anybody left I recognized, apart from Marco, obviously. She called me, she had something to tell me. I asked her where she wanted us to meet and she said, how about the café? We arranged to meet at the end of Rue de Rome, toward evening, after work. We’d been regulars in that place. I’d even taken Benjamin there once, we’d just been to see a movie on Rue du Pasquier, in a theater I’d often gone to with his mother. I liked that theater, a long time ago. The female ushers were dressed in sky blue and lots of people came from the nearby suburbs. Ben was still all excited by the movie, was it Star Wars? I’m not sure. We had a Coke and everything I’d wanted to tell him, so that he’d know it and never forget it, I finally kept to myself. I got there early. I sat down to wait for her, and without meaning to I went over in my mind all the things she was going to blame me for, the times I was late bringing ba
ck Benjamin, the two months’ alimony I hadn’t paid, and that anger I felt, because I hadn’t defended myself in order not to hurt my son, or even not to hurt us, the memories we had in common, and which are our only wealth, I think.

  I thought she looked very beautiful when she arrived. Her hair was pulled back and her lips were very red, she’d never have worn that kind of lipstick when we were married. It suited her. She sat down opposite me, she was a little out of breath. Do you mind if I pull down the curtain? Well? She wanted us to make peace. She wanted us to be friends. That had to be possible between us. I sat there stunned all the time she spoke. I replied that it was weird, she was asking me this after a year of lawyers and notices from bailiffs, I’d only just found work again. She’d had no choice.

  “We always have a choice,” I said.

  There are no second acts. Then we talked about Benjamin, since she wanted us to be friends. I would really have liked him to come on Friday evening straight after school, from time to time. Not just before noon on Saturday. There isn’t much time, if you start at noon on Saturday. She never answered yes or no to this. She told me she would see. But it wasn’t in the divorce settlement. So after a while, when she and I realized that we would never again be able to speak to each other, we sat there in that café without saying a word. How many couples had been there before us? How many couples who had thought they would love each other forever and had realized that in spite of everything it was all over? It was so commonplace, so why did we feel so bad? I felt as if I was in a boat swaying from side to side. But nothing is moving on deck. The filled glasses are emptied. The words burn for a brief moment, but as soon as the door of the café opens or closes they disappear, blown away by the wind. And in the end, when she leaves, or he goes out onto the street hardly able to breathe, with his eyes clouded over with nothing at all that you can name, not a single word of what has been said remains.