Guys Like Me Read online

  “What can I say? Things are OK for me. Yes, they’re OK. I haven’t had all these money problems like you.”

  He nodded. “It won’t happen to you, I’m sure of that, you’re not the kind.”

  Fortunately, the cat from the courtyard distracted our attention, it came in through the window and strolled between our legs. We sat there, watching the cat.

  We left just after midnight. He left us on the sidewalk outside his building, both hands in his pockets, standing very straight. Marco had his car with him and we went back together, going through Courbevoie, through places we’d known forever and which I really couldn’t recognize anymore in spite of everything. I would never have suspected … Neither would I, I said. Neither would I.

  “Did you notice how he carefully avoided talking about his job today?”

  We were driving along the riverbank now, no need to go that way, but after all why not?

  “By the way,” I said, “I’m going to buy a scooter.”

  “Is that so?”

  We slowed down on the Pont de Levallois.

  “Why didn’t he talk about his job, do you know?”

  “It isn’t going well … I talked to the guy I know, they don’t want to keep him on.”

  “Really?”

  For years, there had been cobblestones along here. The road had been restored and enlarged, but in places there were still cobblestones on the road to Asnières.

  “He’s always late, he gets into arguments, he has a nasty temper.”

  We didn’t say anything more after that. Marco dropped me off outside my building. I didn’t have any messages on the answering machine. I drank a large glass of water. I took a couple of aspirin because of all the pastis, I should have been more careful. If I’d dared I would have called Benjamin, but it was far too late. So I went to bed.

  I hadn’t heard much from Marie lately. We were a little angry with each other, especially her, I think. How have you lived all these years, why don’t you go back to your wife? She blamed me for not telling her these things, it was the first time in a very long time that I’d been asked that question, I hadn’t been able to answer her immediately. She drove in the nail: it’s as if you haven’t gotten over her, is that it? We were at her place, in Brochant, we’d actually had a nice evening. We were still trying to please each other, and perhaps to love each other, it was a gift when it came down to it, for a guy like me, but it was that thing about not getting over my wife that set me off. Why had her saying that gotten me so riled up?

  “She’s the mother of my son, we haven’t spoken for about five years, I don’t even see her, and you’re saying I’m still not over her?”

  “Yes,” Marie had stood up, “that’s exactly what I’m saying, it’s what I see right now, look at yourself, you can’t even talk about her calmly.”

  The blood drained from my temples, I’ve rarely felt that, in my life. But I tried to stay.

  “Never talk to me like that again,” I said.

  She must have sensed that she’d said too much all at once, and she wanted me to stay, I’m sorry. You have nothing to apologize for, and since I couldn’t sleep, after a while I left and caught a taxi. She didn’t try to stop me. There were still a lot of people on the square, people around the movie theater, customers from the Brasserie Wepler, and opposite, a long line of people on the sidewalk waiting to buy cigarettes from the little tobacco shop. I waited at the taxi stand until I’d calmed down. It was one o’clock in the morning, maybe that was why. I called Marie. She wasn’t completely asleep yet.

  “I was hoping you’d call me, are you angry with me?”

  “No, I’m fine.”

  Marie said nothing.

  “It’s good that you didn’t sulk for long.”

  It had been strange, that meal at his place. His place? On the other side of the avenue in La Garenne-Colombes, there were still big glass buildings for banks and insurance companies, with lots of square feet of unused office space, but it would come, with time. On his side of the street, that last block of old houses and apartments where he lived, it had been almost fifty years, shit, I told myself, half a century, since you’d started seeing high-rises going up, and it wasn’t finished yet. It would probably never be finished. When I lived in Gennevilliers with Benjamin’s mother, I’d watched an apartment building being demolished, the weather was glorious that day. I’ve never forgotten it. We’d all watched open-mouthed under the blue sky: how had we been able to live where there was nothing left to remind you? The building where I spent my childhood has been repainted several times, it’s been years since I last went back there. In his apartment, he had only the basics, a sofa bed, two stools in the kitchen, plus a TV set, there was always at least a TV set everywhere you went. I told Marie about it, how this guy who’d been a good friend had invited us over for dinner. We must have been his first guests in a long time. And in spite of all these differences, he was still in some way a guy like me, there was so much in our lives that came down to chance. Marie was following my lips, maybe she was finding it hard to take an interest in my ramblings, but I kept on all the same.

  “Marie, is everything OK?”

  We’d gone back to Brochant for a last drink after having dinner near my apartment, close by the town hall. She had some news. She hadn’t told me before, but she’d had to have some tests, actually she was hoping it was a false alarm. She hadn’t wanted to worry me about it. But she was going to have to go to the hospital for two or three days. Really? There, now you know everything. Then she didn’t say anything more about it.

  There was quite a lot of noise in the café, we looked at each other, I had nothing more to say either. She was very patient with me. I felt I wanted to put my arms around her and hold her tight, in that café in Brochant. I wouldn’t let this one go. Why? How to know? She stopped smiling out into the night when I asked her which hospital? Beaujon, she said, but the aftercare, if necessary, could be in a private clinic in Boulogne, she had contacts there. It would probably be several months. She’d cared for people all her life, it was strange to her that it was her turn now to be sick, she’d almost never thought about it before. And besides, it was too early to know.

  “I’ll go with you if you want.”

  She said, would you really? She told me I wasn’t obliged. Then she held out her hand and said to me come, quickly, let’s go back home. We left the bar in Brochant. She looked out of place among the people in Place Clichy that night, there were transvestites at the counter, laughing loudly and getting loaded before starting work. She liked this place a lot. The guys knew her, they would stop on the boulevard to kiss her, she liked the nightlife. She would show it to me, she’d already told me about it. As soon as we closed the door, we kissed, and I told myself we were doing something important, something precious and important, I mustn’t pull down the curtain, I must give her all my strength, then it would be all right and we could do it. I didn’t know what it was we could do. But we could do it. That was what I’d decided. I think that was the night I started smoking again.

  She laughed when I went to get a cigarette and asked me why it was that people smoked after making love. It was a long time since I’d last done that. Yes, absolutely, like a guy younger than me. She drew the sheet over her, all I could see now was that dark hair. By the way, she pointed to a little package on her chest of drawers, against the wall, I have something for you, it’s a gift. It was another book by F. Scott Fitzgerald, I hadn’t even opened a newspaper since I’d finished the story of the guy who always wants to pull down the curtain.

  “Thanks, Marie.”

  “Are you sleeping here?”

  I put the book down. I lay down next to her. She had an appointment the following week, on Tuesday. It wasn’t the first time, she’d already had to go in two years ago, and like all normal people she really hated it. And yet she’d done it all her life. She was scared of hearing really bad news this time, she wasn’t sure what to think. I realized there were bir
ds talking to us, down below, on the boulevard near the Brochant metro station. Was it really the 17th arrondissement here? During our separation my wife had lived in Wagram, a big studio apartment lent to her by a girlfriend, but Wagram and Brochant were nothing like each other. Marie got to sleep very late. Soon after that, since I couldn’t sleep, I went into the kitchen with the book she’d given me. I felt good like that. We all go in the same direction, often, when it’s night. Tomorrow, I’d have to go back to work and hide my tiredness in order not to look like a worn-out old guy who’s lost interest in everything. I’d call guys on the phone and sound worried, I’d talk about things I really knew nothing about, pretty much like everyone else, and then, in the employee cafeteria or at a restaurant with colleagues, I’d be brought up to date on the news of the day. How about you, what’s new? Well, as you can see, the curtain hasn’t quite been pulled down yet. Marie has cancer. Nothing new apart from that. How about you? Er, me? Well, just like you. Yeah, the same. Above all, there’d be the new regulations, stories about the office, new arrivals and imminent departures, and then, after a pointless day, I’d probably be very tired. Where had I read that story about a young boy born tired, who couldn’t stand his tiredness, as if it was growing along with him, or something like that? Marie tossed and turned in her bad dreams. After that, I had the impression she was fast asleep.

  Below Place de Clichy, there were two hours of complete peace and quiet about four in the morning. All the same, you can sense that the city isn’t completely asleep. The day gives Place de Clichy a hangover, one that only night can get rid of. Is that why it breathes softly, like the living dead? Benjamin had decided on the date of his departure, at the end of May. That upset him a little too, but anyway. I walked out of the bedroom again and waited for morning, looking through the window for the signs the shadows were giving me, the shadows of the leaves on the trees and of the lone guys with their stooped shoulders, I know them well, those lone guys with their stooped shoulders. I was going to have a lot of things to do in the next few weeks. That scared me a little because I wasn’t used to it. I often thought about that when I saw how Marc-André lived, he had an important job, children from two marriages, and still found time to be there for me, and for others too. He’d always been there. At a certain point, Marie murmured something. I tiptoed back inside to see her. Her eyes were open, just above the sheet and the blankets. She closed them again when she saw me. Afterwards, we waited for morning, all the things that were in store for us, even if we didn’t want them. The birds in the acacias on the corner of the street were already ready, because the night was coming to an end.

  “Do you think it’ll be all right?”

  “Of course,” I said, “Of course it’ll be all right. I’ll go with you to Beaujon if you want.”

  That morning, she didn’t put on her make-up right away, like she had before. I liked her confidence. I often get attached to stupid things, because, without those things, nothing could really bring us together. But I see that only now, after all those failures and all those years.

  “It doesn’t hurt, it’s strange. It doesn’t hurt at all.”

  I lit a cigarette, now that I was going to start smoking again for real, outside my office building, at home, on the scooter, and the thing I really rediscovered that morning was my good old cough, it had never quite left me. We’d have to wait for the results of the other tests anyway. Do you think so? I already knew Beaujon Hospital. I’d been there myself a few years ago, and before that too. I didn’t tell Marie, obviously. When I left, she asked me to hold her tight, there was nothing else she could do now, we’d talked for a long time. All those wasted months faded away. I went back to work. There would always be work for a guy like me. Besides, we had a whole bunch of things to do, a lot of young guys had started in the last few months, with degrees in things that didn’t exist before. I was nicknamed the old man, which didn’t really say much. Their stories, their love affairs too, their all-too-obvious ambitions, their meals in the cafeteria where I no longer set foot, their passion for computers and worthless movies, it really was a new world. Benjamin was my only link with them. Sometimes it made me smile, we’d helped each other out for years on end. Well, anyway.

  I took advantage of the lunch break to call Marie, she hadn’t done much. She’d gone for a walk along the end of the boulevard, around Porte de Clichy, and then the Cité des Fleurs, do you know it? Yes, I know it well. She’d sat there for a while. She hadn’t wanted to leave.

  “I’m scared you’ll dump me.”

  I didn’t answer. I thought no, why would I dump you? I’ll never dump you, Marie. Then we chatted for a while, I should have called her from a phone booth, I told myself, seeing colleagues pass, it embarrassed me. We’d talk again that evening. When she hung up, I think she was pleased. She would never tell me, I already knew that about her, but if I sensed it, she wouldn’t bother to hide it from me. Marie had nothing to hide, to tell the truth. And then I waited for evening. I left the office a little while after the others. I was pleased to be going home. I’d spent so many years completely alone, they were part of me now, and even the presence of a woman might weigh on me from time to time. Was I too old already? In the years after my divorce, I’d been in a cold rage that made me talk to myself for hours on end. Guys at the office would look at me strangely sometimes. But I didn’t notice, and besides, most of the time I couldn’t help it. I often think of those wasted years of anger, where did they get me?

  It was Marco who’d said: listen, you have to do something, I’m sorry to have to tell you, but you’re going a little bit crazy, you can’t carry on like this.

  “You’re not going to start, too?”

  We talked a lot, for whole evenings, he and I. Then some time later, we had to reverse roles, his son had been arrested several times for some drug-related thing, and Marc-André couldn’t carry on burying his head in the sand, Antoine had been sentenced to six months. He would take him to rehab when he got out of prison. Antoine had been shooting up for a long time. During that period, I’d slept with a whole bunch of women, it hadn’t lasted long, almost all of them had suggested a plan of action, that’s what they all said, a plan of action, but he was the only one I accepted those words from. How many of them there were, guys like me! The shrink I saw looked like he didn’t sleep well at night. Was it because he made me come to his office at seven in the morning? I skipped several sessions, sometimes for legitimate reasons, but he didn’t care at all. He looked grumpily at the checks, he preferred to be paid in cash; he was a strange man. Why was I thinking about that now? I was a bit scared for Marie, but also, beneath that, I was scared for no reason, just plain fear, there was always a good reason to be scared, most of the time.

  4

  THERE HE WAS, IN FRONT OF ME, SITTING ON THE STAIRS. He was looking at his shoes, and I didn’t know if he was really looking at them or if he was doing it to hide his embarrassment, a bit like a big child. He was the last thing I needed in my life right now, he was only a side issue. But I smiled at him all the same, and we shook hands. He didn’t need to move, because of the height of the steps, when he looked up I knew what it was that struck me so much about his appearance: he had all his hair, and it was very brown, with hardly a single white hair. I remembered his mother, suddenly.

  “I’m not disturbing you, am I?” he asked in a flat voice. “I was in the neighborhood.”

  “Oh, really?” I replied good-humoredly. In his situation, I think I’d have thought up a better excuse. But I can’t really be sure of anything. He stood up, I asked him to excuse me while I looked in my mailbox. In the past few years, looking in my mailbox has stopped making me anxious, I’m not paying alimony to Benjamin’s mother anymore. For a long time, I only had to be a few days late to find the bailiff ’s papers in the mailbox. Now I’m more scared of news you don’t expect, news about people from the old days; we knew them and loved them, or we didn’t know them well and didn’t like them much, but they catch
up with us and tell us they’re dead, or sick, or alive and well and looking for traces of their past. Anyway, there was nothing in the mailbox that day.

  “How are you fixed for time? Come up and have a drink.”

  “I don’t want to disturb you,” he repeated, and at that point, the desire to make fun of him came over me again, we waited for the elevator.

  He looked through the window, then, from the buildings in the distance, he shifted his gaze to the end of my street, which was even livelier in April. I’d put down my briefcase and taken off my jacket, he turned toward me. For a brief moment, we looked at each other without saying anything. I think my mind was elsewhere. On the way home I’d had the idea of suggesting to Benjamin that he come for dinner one of these evenings. He was very busy with his preparations for leaving, and the closer it got, the less they felt like living in Zurich. Who wanted to be twenty-seven in a place like that, in the research lab of a big chemical company? That’s why I think Jean’s visit must have felt like an intrusion. Why had he chosen me, me rather than Marc-André, who’d actually found him a job? Was it because I live alone, and he doesn’t?

  “Don’t just stand there, sit down. What’s going on?”

  He resumed the same vague air, as if worried by the drafty air, just like earlier on the stairs.

  “I don’t know. I won’t stay long.”

  I made up my mind not to let myself be irritated by his remarks. During all those years of being unemployed and on welfare, he’d always been idle, and maybe that kind of dialogue was the only kind he could bring off.

  “Is it the job?”

  He gave me a weary, slightly boyish smile. “Yes, they’re real oddballs, things haven’t gotten better with the years, from what I can see … Didn’t Marc-André say anything?”