Cédric Fabre - Marseille Noir

I had given him a chance. I turned on my heels and ran off toward the village. I heard him fighting awhile longer in the icy water and then there was nothing but my partner in crime, the wind, on this little piece of land where we’d been happy so long ago.

The next morning I went back to work. The sky was extremely pure. The wind had fallen during the night. I hung the coat back up on its peg in the garage. Mademoiselle Niozelles heard me and invited me to come up and have a cup of coffee in her kitchen.

I told her: “I’ll be done this evening. If you want to go to the mill with me, we’ll have the exact weight of the crop. You can stock oil all over and there’ll still be some left.”

She agreed. She was holding a little red steaming mug in the hollow of her hands. She must have just come out of the shower; her wet hair was sticking to her forehead. I’d never seen her so fresh, so pretty.

Around six that evening, I loaded the last crates into the van and we went off to the mill.

Since the beginning of November I’d picked 1,378 kilos. They told us the oil would be ready toward the end of January.

I asked Mademoiselle Niozelles if she would go out to eat with me to celebrate this beautiful crop. It was Saturday night. She said yes.

“What do you feel like eating?”

“Foie gras, Sauternes.”

She was so simple and natural it threw me off balance. I said, “You know what I call you in my mind?”

“No.”

“Belle Lurette.”

“Well, in my mind I call you Geronimo. Every morning, I’m happy when I hear Geronimo’s motorcycle.”

She took my arm and we left. I didn’t dare look at her. On my right cheek I had all the sweetness of her smile.

The stars are never as beautiful as the night when a widow turns toward life again.

Le Frioul

The small boat slowly leaves the safety of the port, chomping at the bit. No sooner has it brushed against the last dike than it will abandon its elephantine pace and bounce over the swell with childish glee, thumbing its nose at the haughty sailboats, and, with the wind at its back, speed toward the white island.

On the deck, the benches are empty. Cold and spray have discouraged anyone from sitting on them. Anyone. Not quite the word: in reality, you can count the passengers on the fingers of one hand. The time for the detour by Château d’If has passed: the site has closed its doors, winter schedule, last shuttle for the archipelago. Instead of the day’s tourists, the boat, putting on a Breton air, is only taking the residents of the island. Behind the portholes, several people dazed by their day’s work on the continent are returning toward their solitude, pitched to and fro by the waves.

You are among them.

You. And I, in your suitcase.

You don’t look at anyone. And as if to thank you for so much discretion, no one really looks at you either. A man, yes, a man glanced at you stealthily, because you’re a pretty woman. No. The man corrects himself. He tells himself pretty’s not the word, you’re not pretty. Pretty is a word that implies freshness, luminosity, youth, something innocent or carefree. Instead, you look like a flower about to close for the night. Your features are drawn, your eyes are puddles of oil and their outlines are blurred in the harsh neon lighting. And yet I know how beautiful you are, I do. How beautiful you were before the catastrophe. The man realized it too; he tells himself that if you hadn’t looked so sad, so out of it, he would gladly have been flirting with you. But he tells himself that you’ve reached the end. You don’t flirt or even just chat with someone who’s reached the end. You don’t want to be contaminated by the end.

“Be quiet. Get out of my head and leave me alone. Enjoy your last trip in silence.”

You did everything right, my love. The boat, the crossing, the island. Like in Venice, to the Island of the Dead. You did a good job with the symbols to celebrate our farewell.

“Be quiet. Leave me alone.”

I don’t know if I should feel sorry for you. You’re so silly on this boat with your rolling suitcase. Another person noticed you, precisely because of the suitcase. Nobody crosses over to the island with a suitcase. People generally land there with beach things during the summer months. And even in the Indian summers, which can sometimes go on forever. Or in hiking shoes and a backpack to tromp over the stony ground. But never a suitcase. You didn’t want anyone to notice you? You screwed up, baby. You made this crossing on the last shuttle, the one that’s almost empty, with your lovely eyes like faded violets and your little suitcase. They’ll remember you.

“I had. how can I put it. something else in my head.”

Try not to talk out loud to me, my sweet. People are looking at you. The person who just noticed you because of the suitcase is wondering where you can possibly be going. There’s no hotel on the island, maybe just a single furnished room.

“I could be someone going to her yacht anchored in the marina. To spend a few nights on it?”

That’s exactly what the woman watching you just told herself. To spend a few nights or go sailing. Risky. The weather reports said there’ll be a mistral blowing at a hundred miles per hour in the next few days. Very few yachts go out to sea in conditions like that, in fact none at all, because everybody knows the Mediterranean can turn itself into a coffin without warning. And I’m sorry, but seeing you so frail, so tired and alone, sitting next to your rolling suitcase, nobody thinks you bear the slightest resemblance to an adventuress on the raging seas. No, darling. You make people uncomfortable. You’re a weird stranger entering a village where everybody knows everybody, where everybody spies on each other and picks each other apart, at an hour when only residents return.

“Please, get out of my head! I came here because I’m looking for silence, darkness, and solitude. Our last night is worth at least that, don’t you think? No other place in the city offered me that privilege — a night of silence and darkness, next to you.”

And then what? What do you intend to do with me?

“With what remains of you?”

With what remains of me.

“I’ll improvise. I’ll offer you to the sea. You wanted some kind of symbol, you’ve got it.”

How about you?

“Maybe I’ll follow you. Yes, it would certainly be better like that. You said so yourself. I’ve reached the end.”

Hey, look. With the twilight creeping toward Château d’If, it looks more than ever like a sand castle. We’re brushing past it. We’re ignoring it. We keep bouncing over the whitecaps until the boat slows down and the sailors moor it to the dock. One of the men even helps you slide your suitcase down the gangplank. He must have found me heavy. Do you think he suspects something? No. Nobody could possibly imagine this.

“Of course. Just yesterday, I couldn’t have imagined it either.”

We’re going by the final hikers getting ready to board for the last crossing of the day, the one that goes back to the Vieux-Port. In a few minutes, Le Frioul will be totally cut off from the city for the next twelve hours. Don’t worry, you’ll find the solitude you long for. Look: no one’s paying the slightest attention to the woman with the suitcase, not even noticing the little hypnotic music of the wheels over the concrete of the dike. Careful. careful. there! It’s done. Everybody turned left toward the houses and restaurants. Except you. They all forgot about you, and you kept going right. Toward the desert.