Dominique Fabre - Guys Like Me

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 birds 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.