Dominique Fabre - Guys Like Me

I’d forgotten all about him. Marco heard from him from time to time, they weren’t calls for help, although not far off, but he didn’t see what more he could do for him. In any case, in his opinion, strange as it might seem, Jean had never really wanted to get back to work. He talked to him mostly about Adeline Vlasquez. He really would have liked to find her again. He was also thinking about his mother in Marseilles. How old was she now? Marco and I both remembered the concierge’s lodge where we sometimes went to pick him up. Every year it was a little grayer in our memories when we talked about it. Maybe one day the color wouldn’t even exist anymore? It was a bit further away also. But when it came down to it, he’d only left it temporarily, he was back on the ground floor looking out on a courtyard. He’d been born like that. He hadn’t really suffered from his childhood, or maybe he couldn’t talk about it? Marco would ask me how Marie was and I didn’t know what to reply. Her illness was bringing her and me closer together. I had the feeling I’d known her for a very long time. Whenever she thought she was alone, she’d look out of the window of Beaujon, at the other side of the Seine, with her sunglasses. Do you mind if I pull down the curtain? It was too hot in the wards. There were fans in the corridor, which were almost no use at all.

Once or twice we slipped out because she wanted to smoke a cigarette, which was completely forbidden because of what she had.

“You won’t do it again, will you?”

Marie smiled at the nurse who came rushing to us as we stood by the elevators. In the end, the nurse shrugged and told her not to stay up too long, and then I left. Marco asked me casually what would happen when she finally left the hospital, and then when she had finished her treatment and recovered?

“We haven’t talked about it yet, I don’t know.”

I could tell he was smiling on the other end.

“What are you doing? Are you still there?”

“It’s been a long time since you were last in love, if you don’t mind me saying so.”

“Oh, really? Is that true?”

He laughed softly, of course it was true. I realized that yes, it was true. In the end, I’d only waited twenty years for Marie. We had to stop talking on the phone, we had to see each other at least. Otherwise life soon became nothing.

“Wait, I’ll have a look.”

Marco whistled as he suggested dates. Apart from my evening visits to Brochant and to the hospital, I was alone, the dates were all the same to me, and I didn’t really mind. Quite the opposite. I was pleased to realize it, we’d meet on Friday. Should I come to his place? Aïcha was leaving for another conference in Marseilles, we could eat out if you like?

I took my son and Anaïs to the airport. We were in the terminal, they’d already left in a way, we had no more time to lose. They’d spent the last night at my ex-wife’s, she hadn’t been able to get away, she would go to see them, but she didn’t yet know when. It would have been easier if after our separation we’d learned to talk, but we hadn’t. We’d been at each other’s throats for years. He gave me their temporary address, Anaïs was at a newsstand buying some magazines. At first they’d be staying with a colleague who was also from Paris, they didn’t have anywhere to live yet. I really would have liked to tell my son a few things at that moment, as if we were never going to see each other again, as if I was going to leave before them. Instead of which, we chatted as if he would be there the following weekend. He’d given me a little digital camera and had showed me how it worked, we’d both laughed and made faces, these last few days, between his lab and the office.

I don’t like airports. It’s never guys like me who are leaving, I’m one of those who stay. After a while, we’re even the only ones who remember, and nobody much seems to care. My son … yes, my father? He talked like that when he was twelve, we always spoke to each other in the same way.

“My son will set the table.”

“Has my father made pasta again?”

I was filled with those words, and what else did I have, when it came down to it? The three of us went out to have a smoke before they left and there was a lot of noise.

“By the way.” Ben gave me a little package. “Here it is, open it when we’re gone, OK?”

“For me? What is it?”

Anaïs was laughing and I put it in my pocket without having the slightest idea.

“It’s nothing, a trifle.”

I must have made a funny face, I guess, but I don’t know. They’d be in touch within a week, what the hell would they be able to do in that idiotic country? Eat fondue? Go skiing in winter? Carry suitcases full of fake banknotes? They weren’t really happy to be leaving, but in an hour, if I knew them, they would have decided once and for all and Ben would keep it to himself. We went back into the concourse. Anaïs moved away to make a phone call, Ben looked at her two or three times out of the corner of his eye. Is everything all right, my son?

“Yes. She’s really down. Leaving her mom and dad and her friends, plus she can’t find a job … You know how it is.”

I wondered if he hadn’t become a guy like me at that moment, watching her as she phoned home. Do you mind if I pull down the curtain? No, father, what about you? My son, let’s open it gently and look together at the landscape, I really wonder what this place is where we’ve landed. Are you all right? Yes, yes. I opened one eye. Your turn. It’s hard to see, but wherever we go, I’m fine. Then we had to say goodbye.

They were already on the plane when I realized I hadn’t managed to tell them I loved them, as I would have wanted. I hoped that, in the end, he’d never become a guy like me. He’d been lucky, he’d left in time, he’d gotten away from all that, at least I hoped so. I could feel the little package in my jacket pocket. I paid for the parking time at a machine, and then I noticed that I had lost my car, I went crazy, it took me a good quarter of an hour to find it again, in parking garage B2. I hadn’t forgotten which row it was in, I’d simply gotten the wrong floor, well anyway. As I was leaving, just after I went through the gates, a plane took off just above my head, I closed my eyes without wanting to. I took my time going home. I felt sad and happy, as we all are, I’m talking about guys of my type, there are only a few million of us, I think.

I’d never been able to talk to his mother again. Ben has suffered a lot from that, I think. She sent the bailiff to me twice in a row, during a period of unemployment and depression, I’ve never forgiven her. All I could do was not let anything pass that would embarrass Benjamin, I don’t even know if I managed that at least. We’ve never talked about it directly. Marco knew these things by heart, he’d held my head above water for months. I’d also been lucky, when you think about it. With the years, all the words I reserved for her had been drained of their meaning, and even the features of her face had gradually lost their sub-stance. The things I could have blamed her for, the failure of our marriage, none of it meant anything to me now. There was a big hold-up near Bondy on the A3, and then another one on the beltway. I found a parking spot under the trees at Louise Michel. It was pleasantly gray on my street. I lowered the blind in the living room and lay down on the couch, I tried to reason with myself but I’d had enough of being reasonable and I let myself go, it did me a lot of good.

But because of that, I looked really terrible in the bathroom mirror. I took a shower, as I usually do in such cases. I changed. Then I opened Benjamin’s little package, it was a child’s toy. He’d been ten years old. Maybe I was already dreaming of a scooter. It was his old red Vespa made out of scrap iron, I’d completely forgotten it. But he’d carried it around with him in his pocket for a good couple of years, as if he was saying to me, one day we’ll both have one when I’m big. OK? Only it was all worn, the color had gone on the wheels and the handlebars. I looked for a place where I wouldn’t lose it. I put it on my desk, just under the lamp. I sat down in front of it. I remembered those things. And that was it.