Dominique Fabre - The Waitress Was New

Still, that night went by better than the one before. It made me happy to be among the first ones up in my building. The street was lit up by the three lights under my windows. Sometimes I hope for another beautiful day as I’m opening my shutters, I can feel it taking shape inside me, and I’m not talking about the weather. I get up at six, which leaves me more than an hour to myself before I set off for work, and I try to make the most of it.

It started to rain when I left my building at seven. I looked into Le Voltigeur on the Rue Alibert to see if my pal Roger was there, but no, only his boss, who’d just cranked up the metal shutter. We waved hello. Then I picked up the pace, because even with my umbrella I could feel my pantcuffs getting wet. I like walking in the morning, but this time I heard the 161 bus coming up behind me, and since I was almost at the Mathurins stop I raised my hand to get on. There was already quite a crowd. The office workers get off at the station to take their train, the others go on to the warehouses and the last few factories a little further along, we’re all together, just a little tired. That beast’s easier to spot in the morning than at night. Sometimes it seems like it’s been with us since the day of our birth, here in the 161 bus. And then no, after all, you catch a glance, a face, and things are much better than you think.

I sat down in the very front of the bus, I looked out the window, I can’t even say I saw much, my reflection maybe, but that film’s the same every time. I was going to be very early for work. That’s what I’d decided to do, just in case he wasn’t there and she hadn’t come down. In my mind he’d be coming back in the evening, after calling to let us know. I also thought about my mother, two stops before mine. Sometimes I could go for days without thinking of her. Other times, in spite of my fifty-six years, she showed up day after day, at all hours, to tell me “Work hard in school,” “Don’t forget to buy bread,” “Don’t touch yourself like that Pierrot, you’ll make yourself sick,” she’d never stopped watching over me, especially now that I live alone.

“Where are you going, Pierrot?”

I think I must have smiled like an idiot, because this time she was coming to visit me early in the morning. I told her “Don’t worry, mama, I’m just going to work,” but then I put a quick stop to that because I’d made eye contact with a woman I often saw early in the morning at Le Cercle. I’d talk to her later, I told myself. I gave the woman a nod, luckily she hadn’t heard anything. We take the same bus almost every morning, but we’ve never talked. She always used to order a cup of coffee with a little eye-opener on the side, but a few months earlier she’d got a new hairstyle, cut short and dyed blonde, and she’d given up on the calvados. I’d never seen her there with a guy, maybe there wasn’t one? I liked her better before, even if she seemed a little more worn. I thought she looked pretty good this way, but in my head she was still the woman who drank a couple of calvas before lighting her first cigarette of the day and heading off to the Asnières station for her train. She’s one of the people I know, just because of my job. Without really meaning to be, we’re kind of alike. But we keep to ourselves, we say hello and goodbye, and that’s it. Why not, in the end?

I got off with the last few people at the stop by the station, Le Cercle was still locked up tight. There was a light on in their apartment. I’d open the place this morning, and then, a little later, the boss would come down with his sour face on, looking like an overweight Buddha, and everything would go back to normal. What would become of Sabrina? She was backed up against the wall in her wobbly high heels, with a kid under each arm. I cranked up the shutter and turned the key in the lock by the floor, the rain was really coming down now, I had to close my umbrella. I took off my raincoat as soon as I got inside, once I’d started up the Lavazzo and turned on the lights at the box in the kitchen. I kept my sweater on, it still wasn’t warm enough for that. I was glad to be alone, I didn’t feel like talking. When the boss opened he was always a little chattier than usual till eight in the morning, after that he pretty much kept his mouth shut, apart from the standard how-are-you-how-are-yous with the customers or phone calls from his pals. I gave the bar a good wipe with the mop rag. It didn’t really need it, but that was something I liked doing, so why not indulge? You really are a useful thing in other people’s lives when you’re a barman. The customers don’t realize it outright, of course, but when all’s said and done, in good times and bad, there’s always a bar in their lives, and a barman, a bit wizened but very professional, to serve them whatever they want, and then when they’re done they snap out of their little reverie, unless they’ve been thinking of nothing at all, and when it comes time to go the barman has told them thank you, goodbye, and have a good day. You’re rambling, Pierrot. I ran out to get the croissants and baguettes for breakfast. The bakery’s right on the corner. The last baker died of the same illness I had three years ago, or so I’ve heard. I didn’t stand around twiddling my thumbs for long. Right away I served three separate coffees, one of them an espresso with extra water, and another with a dash of milk, plus one full breakfast with tea.

An hour later everything was back to normal for me, although I really wished he was here, because I hadn’t had time to fix myself a proper breakfast. Things got a lot slower at nine, some low clouds moved in and put a stop to the drizzle, and then when it started up again you could see the rain falling diagonally over the tracks, it was settling in for the day. I was right to put on my sweater, the seasons were changing for sure. I hadn’t had time to go look at the Seine, which has been one of my pleasures in life since I came back to the fold of my neighborhood, fifteen years ago. I’d find a moment for that on Sunday, or maybe some other day, I didn’t know.

“Don’t get too close to the edge, Pierrot!”

“Yes, ma, I know. Bye!”

Usually the boss was heading back up to his apartment by this time, he’d been doing that for years, and then a little later he’d come down with his wife and I’d make her a cup of tea, but not today, it would seem. Amédée came in with a stack of books under one arm, and a bunch of other stuff in a big plastic Leclerc bag. He set his load down on the bar and gave me a big smile. “So how are things, Pierrot? Sleep well?” He was waiting for me to say I was as happy as the Banania man in the old poster he had on his wall, or some other joke like that, but all at once he changed his tune.

“Shit, he’s not here? What the fuck’s he up to?”

I shook my head no, and he came back behind the bar without asking permission. I didn’t make a fuss about it, though, because if we were going to be facing another day with no boss it was best he not be in too bad a mood.

“And when does the new girl come in?” Amédée asked.

“In an hour, presumably.”

He opened the cupboard doors and heaved a big sigh.

“What the fuck is up with him? He hasn’t sent in the orders, did you see?”

I nodded.

“We’re going to be in deep shit, up the creek!”

Then once he was done fortifying himself he headed back toward the kitchen, he turned on the radio and opened the pass-through with a big clack.

Good old Amédée, sometimes he invited me up to his place for a visit. I’d done the same for him but apparently it wasn’t so much to his liking, because I’m really alone these days, like an old bachelor barman, whereas he shares his apartment in Saint-Denis with a bunch of friends who are always coming and going, and he has some very pretty cousins too, they love to laugh, some of them have husky voices and others high-pitched, they dance at the drop of a hat, on Sunday, once lunch is over. When you see them with their kids in the streets, or at the supermarket, or in the park if the weather’s good, you tell yourself that happiness is a very common thing, and easy to come by, for Paris’s Africans.