Dominique Fabre: The Waitress Was New

“And what about you, Pierrot?”

“What do you mean, what about me Pierrot? Oh, me? Me?”

Me, nothing, no love in sight. Maybe that was all over and done with now. Then I told him about my beloved boss’s disappearance. He’d already heard, news travels fast from one café to another.

“I imagine there’s a skirt involved?”

“No, that’s not how it seems to me.”

“You sure? What, does he have debts or something?”

“I don’t think so.”

No, his wife hadn’t gone to the cops. She said she wanted to wait a while longer. “Well now, that’s funny.” He looked over toward the Place Voltaire, which is one of the ugliest squares in my suburb, but I’ve spent some of the finest times of my life there, so that’s how it is.

“Maybe she doesn’t want to know,” Roger said, just making conversation.

“What have you got planned for tonight?”

“Not a thing.”

“You want to go to dinner?”

That was OK with him, but not too late, his girlfriend was getting in at ten past midnight and he wanted to meet her at the station. He didn’t have to work tomorrow. And had my friend Roger got under her skin? We went for a little walk, we had a very nice Sunday.

We went back to a bar that was once a favorite haunt of mine, ten years ago or so, and there too they asked me for news of my boss. I said “I’ve got nothing to tell you,” and inside me I missed the old-school approach, which is to serve drinks without saying a word, but I was probably imagining things. In any case, with this kind of work you have to learn as you go. I finally decided he was happy wherever he was, and Roger nodded, “If you say so, Pierrot.” We drank a beer, and then we said why not, we’d be the evening’s first customers at the Kabyle’s place. It was as good as it could be at that price, and he at least didn’t give a damn about my boss, although we were still treated to the free apéritif, with a couscous royal for both of us, and a bottle of Boulaouane, a little too cold for my tastes. It was my turn to pay. We didn’t say much as we ate, we like it that way. Afterwards we talked about my dream, and then, as the waiter was giving me back my debit card, I had a sudden illumination.

“What’s the matter with you?” Roger asked.

“Nothing, nothing.”

“It’s not the bill, I hope?”

Good old Roger, he could be a dope too, just like me. It’s not nothing to be two friends, in any case.

“I think I know where my boss must be.”

“Oh, so that’s it,” Roger shrugged. “This thing’s really shaken you up, hasn’t it? And where might he be, in your opinion?”

I finished the Boulaouane, it had finally warmed up, and as always it made me think of my first detox treatment, a year after my divorce. Then I told my pal my idea, he must have gone to see his daughter in England.

“Ah,” Roger said. “And you don’t think she would have called her mother?”

But I was sure all the same, so that was that.

“If you want my opinion, Pierrot, you’re taking all this too much to heart.” He looked at his watch. “Well, I’ve got to be moving on, things to do. Drive you home?”

We shook Slimane’s hand, he’s a very decent guy too, come to mention it.

After all these years as a barman, everyone I know’s in my own line of work. My friend Roger, my friend Pierrot, and then the others. They come and go, for the most part. Let the world turn around us, beyond our spotless bars, in the end every day will be carefully wiped away to make room for the next. That’s why I make myself watch the late-night news on Channel 3, you can’t just forget everything, after all. I promised myself I wouldn’t drink any more wine till next week, if I happened to have dinner out somewhere. I never drink wine at home anymore. Roger was still a close friend, even with all those Muriels getting under his skin. And what about me? I thought vaguely about the student girl on the sixth floor, but I bet that’d be a very bad idea. I did the laundry, my mother always did her washing on Sunday morning, for me it was Sunday night. I hung out my white shirts on the curtain rod in the shower, I got out my space heater to make sure they’d be nice and dry the next morning. I like those moments of my life, and at the same time I’m afraid of them, because sometimes, with one thing leading to another, I forget that I’m a fifty-six-year-old guy, and then I start asking myself questions. I remember my past, more than forty years ago.

It was ten o’clock at night when the boss’s wife phoned. She’d called Amédée and Madeleine before me. She’d decided to close the café for a while, take some time to think things over, and then maybe she’d be going to England, she’d phoned her daughter, who was living there, as I knew. “Yes, ma’am.”

I felt very tired all of a sudden, I sat down on the bed, my shoulders weighed ten tons, I was completely exhausted. I really had no desire to hang up my apron.

“It’s just a week, Pierre, it’ll be over before you know it!”

“If you say so,” I answered. “You know, this is going to be great news for the people at La Rotonde.”

She cleared her throat, she was hoarse from too many cigarettes, probably. She said “I know, Pierre,” which meant shut up.

“You think that’s where he is?”

“I don’t have the slightest idea. Look, I’ve got to go. I’ll keep you posted. By the way, the deliveries will be coming on Tuesday, if you could go deal with them.”

“Yes, fine, if you like.”

“The checks are in the cash register, behind the coins. Make sure it’s all there, you know how they are! Thanks, Pierre.”

And then she hung up. I sat down on my bed and waited, then I watched the late-night news on 3. I took another shower to clear my head. I hadn’t seen a bit of whatever was going on in the world. This would give me a chance to take care of some things that had been on my mind for a few months. I had to go through my papers, I’ve been working since I was nineteen but I never knew just how many trimesters I had left before my pension kicked in, because some years there’d been gaps of various lengths. Also, I could finally go to the dentist and get that tooth pulled. I’d already cancelled twice.

When I got out of the shower I set about dealing with the ravages of time, if you’ll pardon the expression. The hairs in my ears, the hairs in my nose, and then — although here there’s not much you can do — I put on my Nivea. I have a sort of gray and splotchy complexion, like so many others in my line of work. I even tried to masturbate, as a special treat, but I didn’t go through to the end. I couldn’t find the right picture. That depressed me vaguely, but anyway. I went to bed. Monsieur Primo Levi was waiting in vain beside the alarm clock on my nightstand. I’d brought it here from my mother’s, along with all the photos and souvenirs I could manage. The rest I’d tossed out or given to her neighbors. I had my bad dream about the dead leaves in the café, which woke me up at three. I waited for morning to come. What was I going to do, if…? This was some kind of number he’d done on us. Now and then a dull white gleam ran over the ceiling, I’d had it repainted last spring. I nodded off again, but I didn’t like what was waiting for me behind my closed eyelids. There were more dead leaves, and women’s bodies, and then, with my eyes open now, my mother when I was ten, when I was adopted, and locked doors. And so, at seven in the morning, I was ready to go.

I made the trip on foot. La Rotonde was already open, and as usual I spotted some of Le Cercle’s old regulars, side by side with the new ones. Do you ever really meet anyone face to face in a café? I gave the boss there a nod, he reminds me of my own boss, back when he was around. Every morning and evening you can see him out walking a big Irish setter. I hear he goes hunting in the Sologne, he had a house built down there. His business is booming. He’s already come calling, very casually, in hopes of worming some info out of me. But I’m from the old school, so a fat lot of good that’ll do him, if you don’t mind my saying. I turned on the lights and gave the bar another good wipe, because that’s how I’ve started my day for as long as I’ve been at this job. I put my mop rag in its usual place, and then I fixed myself a cup of coffee. I could see people looking my way, and a lot of fast-moving feet in fancy polished shoes, and some blue-jeaned legs with sneakers, and then the shuffling misshapen boots of the vagrants who wander the streets around here in spite of the city’s best efforts and the good people of the employment agency. I cranked the shutter all the way up when ten o’clock came around. The sky was clear and blue overhead, and grayish over toward the Seine, above the train tracks. I closed the door and locked it again. But that was no good, people kept coming and peering in with their hands cupped around their eyes, what would they think? I decided to put up a little sign to make them stop. Where was I going to find paper around here? Pierrot, my friend. I took Amédée’s notepad, the one he uses to write down his orders. “Closed due to a disappearance.” That seemed a bit indiscreet, I told myself. So I wrote “Closed for a week” in big capital letters, and I thought that was very good. I taped up my sign inside the glass door, and, I’m not kidding, in the space of two hours I counted at least a hundred pairs of eyes that came along to give it a look, and also to stare inside the café, where I was.