Dominique Fabre - Guys Like Me

I walked toward La Trinité, it was one of the places in Paris where I’d spent most time in my life, as a teenager, when I hung out with Marco, and later, during my divorce and my two years of unemployment. But without my realizing it, almost nothing from those days is still there. A few years ago, they even replaced the red Coca-Cola sign on the building at the end of Rue d’Amsterdam with a green Perrier sign. Am I the only person who’s interested in that kind of detail? Passage du Havre, with its salesgirls and its prostitutes, has disappeared. It’s been replaced by chains and franchises. You get straight to the metro through the shopping mall. On Rue Saint-Lazare, there’s still that coffee merchant’s, Méo, I used to be taken there when I was a boy, to buy good coffee. When I approached the store, I realized I was quite moved and didn’t want to go home. Smells don’t change. I hadn’t gotten over it. I mustn’t let Marie see me like this. It never lasts a long time, with me. I almost lingered in the Square de la Trinité but it was closed. The local homeless had settled on the steps of the church. I would never have burned a candle in that one, I realized that. I walked around the outside of the little park and then up Rue de Clichy, which is very gray and is really one of those streets in Paris where to be honest nothing happens except that time passes, nobody ever goes there except people on their own, with bags and newspapers and umbrellas. I’d told Benjamin again that I wanted a scooter, and he’d laughed. But I think he’d understood. If I didn’t want to pull down the curtain too soon, it was becoming urgent that I get out a bit more. I felt a bit drawn to number 23 on that street. That was where my ex-wife and I had spent our first night together, in the apartment of a friend of hers. I still remembered it very well, from time to time. I turned around. I searched for her name in my head without finding it. I had to be careful, I didn’t want to start rambling out loud, with a name on the tip of my tongue, and worn-out old images that were of no concern to anyone but me. I quickly got to Brochant.

Marie was waiting for me so that we could go out. She wasn’t too tired. She’d made herself look beautiful tonight. She’d put on all her bracelets. She simply wanted to walk along the boulevard one more time, do you mind? I took her hand, of course I didn’t mind. She’d had a phone call from the department where she was going to be operated on. They were expecting her tomorrow, in the afternoon. Now that she had told me the news, she simply wanted to walk as far as Place de Clichy, where we were already kind of regulars at the Brasserie Wepler, a secret just for us. People had their favorite tables, and it was always a kind of victory — but over what, death? The chestnut trees on the boulevard were in full blossom now. She smiled whenever she turned to look at me, but when she looked away, I saw only a beautiful woman with her arm through mine, with hundreds of things in her head she didn’t feel the need to tell me, not me, not anybody. There were lots of people on the boulevard, because of the fine weather. At one point she stopped to talk to a guy, he’d recently been taken care of by her organization, he was all pretty and sparkling, if you can say that. In his fancy dress, he’d be starting work in a few hours, he blew a kiss at her. Marie smiled at him. Yes, see you soon! The chestnut trees smelled almost too strong on the streets around the square. When we’d had enough of walking, we went to the Brasserie Wepler, she squeezed my hand with her fingertips.

“Are you all right, Marie, what are you thinking about?”

She looked at me and her smile froze, even though she’d been making a big effort to put a brave face on it.

“I’ve really liked it here, all these people. I’ve really liked my life here.”

I kissed her to shut her up. I told her to stop talking nonsense like that, especially on Place de Clichy, in the brasserie where she’d been a regular as a single woman, and then I told her that with her I was getting back into the idea of living as a couple, being together, for better or, in this particular case, from tomorrow anyway, for worse or something like it.

We were lucky: we found a good table. She asked me to tell her about my life that evening.

“My life?”

I told her that Benjamin was leaving soon. She looked at me closely, I don’t know what expression I had on my face, telling her that. It soon got dark, we chatted for a long time. Did I have photographs? I had several of him, but for a few years now there had been fewer opportunities. Marie told me she would really like to meet him, I said he’d like to meet her too, and I’d like it too, I really would. I don’t have photos of myself as a child. Marie only asked me the right questions that evening, I think. Afterwards we tried to make plans for the future in the Brasserie Wepler. We were near the ATM in the corner, and with each person that withdrew money, we wanted to ask how they’d been doing in their life, day by day, all this time?

“He has your smile, he does take after you.”

“Benjamin?”

“Yes.”

I took her hand, and without saying anything, I made a personal vow, the kind that only guys like me make, not to dump her during the treatment or when she came out of Beaujon. The evening before, we’d had a few drinks with Marco and Aïcha. They’d gotten along well, Marc-André had made us laugh, everything was fine. In passing, he told me about Jean. He’d simply quit his job without warning. Thanks to Langinieux, they’d waited a while to see if he’d come back, but by now he’d almost certainly been fired. He wouldn’t get any severance payment, obviously. Since then nobody had heard from him. Then Marie and I also talked a little about Marco and Aïcha, I liked telling the story, how he had met her at the clinic at work, how he’d realized a whole lot of things all at the same time, and hadn’t looked back since, and neither had she. There we were, the two of us, in the noise of Place de Clichy. Marie didn’t want to leave. To talk, to keep talking, until tomorrow. Do you mind if I pull down the curtain?

“Would you like something else, Marie?”

“Yes, how about champagne, what do you think?”

We celebrated that night. And also tomorrow. No, later than tomorrow. Not too late in any case. We had already drunk several times together, she liked drinking, and besides, nobody would celebrate for us if we didn’t, so we might as well get on with it ourselves. Marie likes living at night. I understood now the strange hours she kept when we’d met on the dating website. After a while, she stopped talking and lit a cigarette, the guy brought us our glasses. He looked a little like Jean. Lots of people were coming out of the Pathé multiplex, we watched them walking away. I don’t like that theater very much. I’m used to small movie houses, the ones you enter and leave furtively, because you go there on your own, that was in the old days, you don’t want to disturb the images you keep to yourself, they keep us warm for a while before they’re forgotten.

“What are we drinking to? Shall we drink to us?”

To you, to us, to our … We didn’t say anything more. She finished her glass, it wasn’t very good quality champagne, but never mind, we were fine that evening. Fewer people on the streets. And then the first guys like me.

“Shall we go, Marie?

We set off on foot, slowly, to the Brochant metro station, right on the corner, a very attractive, heavily made-up brown-haired guy stopped next to her and gave her a big kiss, then hugged me before disappearing into the night, toward La Condamine. He didn’t seem drunk, though. Do you know him? Yes, Marie smiled, he’s a patient, look! He’s better now.