Dominique Fabre - Guys Like Me

He’d looked for her for a long time, and in his opinion, all these last few years he wouldn’t have let himself go the way he had if he’d been able to keep track of her, which was pointless, since she hadn’t chosen him. Marco was looking around him, and then after a while he took off his glasses and massaged his eyelids.

“And what are you going to do now?”

“I’m going to see my mother, didn’t I tell you?”

“Yes, but what are you going to do to earn a living?”

He shrugged. “I’d really like some dessert. How about you?”

We talked about other things. We were relieved that he’d finished showing us photos of his life, and also the life he thought had been ours. He seemed quite happy, though, that evening. But I couldn’t be sure. Not far from here, there was this woman who might become mine, I hoped that very strongly, and I didn’t know why, and then there was my son in Switzerland who called me from time to time. He’d suggested we contact each other via instant message. Whenever I got home, I switched on the computer and looked to see if he was online. He had a lot of work. I wrote more often to Anaïs, she’d started taking German classes, she’d be coming back to Paris from time to time, she hadn’t yet decided what she was going to do. We stayed in the pizzeria for a long time. Maybe we wouldn’t have many more opportunities? Marco would have liked to stop working, he was earning a good living, but it didn’t matter anymore, Aïcha was advising him to do what he wanted, but what did he want? Over time, he’d forgotten what he liked. For lots of guys like us, nothing mattered anymore. He would have liked to do legal counseling for people with money troubles, defend widows and orphans, instead of which he handled corporate accounts, surrounded by guys … Jean was listening to us and smiling, as if we’d thrown a great party just for him. It was coming to its end now.

I found it sad, when I got home that night, but not really, it wasn’t as sad as all that, to be honest. You just have to let yourself go from time to time. It doesn’t lead to anything, with guys like us. He hadn’t wanted us to drive him home. How was he going to manage with all those boxes? Oh, he’d ask Ahmed, the neighbor opposite, to lend him his station wagon. We weren’t too worried about him. In any case, he’d try to be in touch before he left for Marseilles.

“Can we do anything for you?”

“For me?”

For a moment, he seemed troubled.

“No, but I’ll let you know where I’m living. We should keep in touch, don’t you think?”

We shook hands. His handshake was too strong. The son of the concierge where we’d taken root, the lover of Adeline Vlasquez, the girl in the flowered dress on platform B of the station. The man who’d never managed to … Our friend too, in the end, who kept traces of our lives in a case, the same as all those guys who pretend that things are normal, when in fact they aren’t. His mother would be happy to see him again. He picked up his case. Thanks for dinner. Right, shall we go?

He strode along Boulevard Jaurès, in the direction of the bridge, we let him go, the way guys like him do. His life wasn’t slowing him down tonight. He seemed impatient to leave. He’d never really been there with us, but he remembered everything, he’d carried our memory in that case along with the welfare papers, the forms, and the discount vouchers. He was probably going to come back into our lives, but when? Marco and I were still watching him. He was walking quickly, like a man much younger than he was, surrounded by the lights of the Seine.

“Why did he want to see us, because of the photos? He doesn’t want us to help him. Can you understand that?”

“I don’t know, why not?”

We couldn’t see him anymore now.

“Aïcha isn’t in this evening, shall we have a last drink?”

We walked on the other side, along the same boulevard, as far as Porte de Champerret.

We talked a bit more about him. There’d been times, of course, when we’d wanted to know about him, it was true that he’d always been there, when we were teenagers, and those good years we’d had before that, it was strange when it came down to it. People were chatting calmly in the café. I’d seen Marc-André in this very place, the evening after my divorce. The big bus station is opposite, where you catch buses for the suburb I’ve never left. How about you, are you OK? Yes, fine. His son was a little better, he was feeling depressed, because of the pills. He’d be sick all his life. Now he was reading tons of books. He might go to college after all. He wanted to become a teacher but he didn’t know if he’d be able to, especially as he had a criminal record. Marco was sometimes afraid of disappointing Aïcha, not living up to expectations.

“What expectations do you mean, Marco?”

But I understand that kind of fear, I have it too, obviously. We smoked like young guys and still drank too many beers. He was there between the two of us, that night, as he hadn’t been in a long time. Of course, we’d wondered what had become of him, but our lives probably kept us too busy for us to really look for him. Do you mind if I pull down the curtain?

We also talked about Marie. This time, she had to spend five days in Beaujon. It’s not going too badly, as well as it can, I told Marco.

“How many sessions does she have left?”

“They changed the treatment plan, they’ve added two.”

And then, after that, there was the radiation therapy. We left. We’d meet again soon. There weren’t many people at Porte de Champerret. There was only the night bus circulating now, the one with the owl, but only one per hour, so I walked home. No message on the answering machine. It was two in the morning, I didn’t feel like sleeping. Marie preferred to be alone on nights like this. I understood, I mustn’t rush her. There were times when she was very tired, but all in all she was holding up well, I thought. She read to pass the time. I’d lent her the F. Scott Fitzgerald books, she’d made a face at first because he was American and these days too many things in life were American, but in the end she liked his work. Tender is the Night. It isn’t always like that. All the same, I’d had a good evening. If I had time, I’d go see him again, would he contact us before he left for Marseilles? When we were teenagers, we’d dreamed of Marseilles. Or else, like when he was a student, you could go to England or the United States, how long was it he had stayed there? Maybe he really didn’t need help, in the end. Maybe that wasn’t what he needed? I was already hung-over by the time I went to bed and I couldn’t stop swallowing, with all the cigarettes I’d smoked. I’d have to quit again. At that moment, I felt very old. I also felt alone, and so I was a little scared, I think.

The next morning, I had two espressos at the Gare Saint-Lazare, in the bar between the arrivals hall and the departures hall. I looked at myself in the window of Delaveine’s shirt store and I looked gray and grouchy. Nobody said anything at the office, I worked without thinking. You keep going without knowing, when it comes down to it. I called Marie around noon and she was pleased to hear my voice. She’d slept well during the night, but she had cold sweats at times. Did you tell the doctor? No, she could wait, she knew what it was anyway.

“Shall I drop by this evening?”

The weather was really nice when I got to Place de Clichy. I liked stopping to look at the books, and sometimes, when she’d felt up to it, we’d gone back to look at the people from the terrace of the Brasserie Wepler, which is often worth it when you look at them from that spot. I thought she looked beautiful among the other women. It had to reflect well, somehow, on me and on all the guys like me, when their lives start to seem like something. In the evening I cooked, but she wasn’t hungry at all, and in the end, we spent most of the evening saying nothing, sprawled on the couch. I liked it that way. She’d opened the window and music was coming up from the inner courtyard, which would usually have made her want to dance, she said. She’d had visitors during the day.