Jean-Marie Le Clézio - The Flood

The chair opposite Besson and the redheaded woman was occupied by an old lady wrapped up in a woollen shawl, who sat there knitting busily. Besson felt pleased at having found someone like the redheaded woman to talk to in this bar. It filled him with confidence, he was the equal of all these other people around him. He was no longer on his own, he had become the hero of an adventure. At last something was going to happen, though exactly what he had no idea. But just how this encounter would turn out did not matter: the point was that it had a future, of one sort or another. One might endeavour to predict it, sitting there over one’s beer, playing with the underside of the paper cup, casting a curious eye over one’s fellow-customers — but an hour later the whole thing was quite liable to be over. The redheaded woman would get up, smile, shake hands, and say: ‘That was nice. Goodbye for now. See you some time.’ Or maybe they would leave the bar together, and he would walk her as far as her bus-stop. One could even try to guess her name. Maybe it was Catherine. Catherine Roussel. Or Irene Kendall. Or Vera Inson. Age: twenty-eight. Occupation: laboratory assistant. Born in Casablanca, Morocco. Mother’s first name: Eléonore.

Besson said: ‘What’s your name?’

‘Marthe,’ said the redheaded woman.

‘Marthe what?’

‘Marthe Janin.’

‘How old are you?’

‘Twenty-five,’ she told him.

Besson watched a man and woman pass by their table. Then he went on with his interrogation.

‘Profession?’

‘Come again?’ Martha said.

‘I mean, do you have a job?’

‘Oh, I see. No, I don’t have a job. Why are you asking me all these questions?’

‘No particular reason. Where were you born?’

‘Here,’ the woman said. ‘What are you up to? Want to tell my fortune?’

‘Maybe,’ Besson said. The hardest question still remained to be asked. He preferred to prepare the ground for it in advance.

‘Do you live with your parents?’

‘No,’ said Marthe, and quickly added: ‘Just with my son.’

Instantly Besson backed his hunch on the boy’s first name: it would be Patrick.

‘What’s he called?’ he asked.

‘Who, my son?’

‘Yes.’

‘Lucas.’

Besson stubbed out his cigarette in the overflowing ashtray. Finally he said: ‘And what about your mother?’

She stared at him in surprise.

‘What?’

‘I mean, what’s she called?’

‘Do you really need to know that?’ she said.

‘It’s essential if I’m going to tell your fortune,’ Besson said.

She grinned. ‘My mother’s dead,’ she told him. ‘But she had the same name as me, Marthe. There.’

Besson relaxed for a moment. He sat staring into his glass of beer without saying anything. The woman touched his arm.

‘Well? I’m waiting.’

‘What for?’

‘My fortune, of course. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten already?’

‘Ah yes, your fortune,’ Besson said. ‘I’ll tell you it now. You’re a very delicate person. You suffer from rheumatism and asthma. But this also implies great sensitivity. You’re afraid of hurting people, and you hate tactlessness in others. You prefer summer to winter, and your favourite landscape has a lot of water and woodland in it. You’re very nervy. When you were a child you must have had a bad fall from the top of a staircase. Your favourite colour is burnt topaz. You often have dreams about horses, and you write up a private diary every night. Be on your guard — you run quite a risk of dying by the hand of a murderer.’

‘Very funny,’ said Marthe. ‘You’ve certainly got a vivid imagination. But you’re wrong about one thing: my favourite colour’s verdigris.’

‘Anyone can make a mistake,’ Besson said, and took a good pull at his beer. The young woman’s cigarette joined Besson’s in the brimming ashtray. Paper began to smoulder, giving off an acrid smell. She coughed, and poured a few drops of coffee into the ashtray to douse the fire before it got going.

‘My turn now,’ she said. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Paul,’ said Besson. ‘Paul Thisse.’

‘How old are you?’

‘Twenty-seven.’

‘Do you have a job?’

‘Not at present, no. I’m a student.’

‘Do you live by yourself?’

‘That depends,’ Besson said. ‘At the moment I’m living with my parents.’

‘What are their names?’

‘My father’s called Georges, and my mother Gioia. She’s Italian.’

‘Have you any brothers or sisters?’

‘No.’

She reflected for a moment.

‘All right, then,’ she said finally. ‘You’re intelligent, and rather timid. You’re inclined to be nervy too, I should say. You find it hard to make up your mind, and you don’t like people laughing at you. You had a very happy childhood, but now you’re scared of turning out a failure. You’re afraid of death, too. No, wait, I haven’t finished. The woman in your life will be called Thérèse. You’ll marry her and have lots of children. But before that happens you’ll pass through some great ordeal which will cause you much suffering. You will have an accident. You’ll be very ill. But fortunately everything will turn out all right in the end. There. Will that do you?’

‘Fine,’ Besson said. ‘But you haven’t told me my favourite colour.’

‘The colour of the sun,’ said the redheaded woman.

They went on talking like this for over an hour. All the time people kept entering and leaving the café, and the old lady in her woollen shawl never once stopped knitting. From time to time someone would put a coin in the jukebox, and the room would be flooded with music — loud, monotonous, coarse-rhythmed.

Besson asked the redheaded woman endless questions about herself and her family. He found out that she was not married. Her son was four and a half. She had been ill a few months ago. She wrote poetry. She had taken the examination for a librarian’s diploma, and was waiting for the results. When she had saved enough money, she was going to buy a small car, probably a Fiat. Her father was in business in Paris. She had few friends, and very seldom came out to the café. Besson told her things about himself, too. He said he had nearly got married several months before, but that in the end it just hadn’t worked out. He was in the process of breaking off with his fiancée. One day soon he would write her a letter, or maybe call her up on the phone, and tell her what he really felt about her. He had taught history and geography in a private school, but had given this job up some while back. He had no real idea what he was going to do now.

The young woman listened to all this with great composure, her eyes fixed on the polished nails of her right hand. Besson noticed that she wore a heavy gold ring on her ring-finger, with the initials J.S. engraved on it. This was probably the name of her son’s father, Besson thought. Jacques Salles. Or Jean Servat. Unless it happened to be Jerome Sanguinetti.

They smoked another cigarette together. Then the girl got up and went across to the toilet. Besson watched her move over the floor of the bar, holding herself very erect, hips swivelling a little under her beige jersey dress. By the time she got back Besson had paid both bills. They left the café and walked off together through the fine drizzle. After they had gone a few yards the young woman turned to Besson and began to say goodbye.

With some embarrassment Besson said: ‘I haven’t anything much to do right now — maybe I could walk a bit further with you?’

She hesitated. ‘The thing is, I have to go and fetch my son from his nursery school.’

‘That’s all right,’ Besson said. ‘I’d like to meet your son.’