Jean-Philippe Blondel - The 6:41 to Paris

At one point the volume went up a notch, and she and I ended up in the huge kitchen. The caterer and his assistants had left, they’d be back in the morning to clean up. It was very late. She found a bunch of black grapes, and began to eat them one by one.

“You know, Mathieu often speaks of you.”

“Oh. In flattering terms, I hope.”

“I wouldn’t know. At the same time, it’s fairly recent. Out of the blue.”

“Blue moon. As in, once in — that’s how often we’ve seen each other.”

I tried to change the subject. I got the feeling it was headed in a direction that might prove unpleasant.

“It’s because I was looking after his mother.”

“Or his mother was looking after you. Well, that’s how he put it.”

“Sometimes human relations go both ways.”

“For a while, people were making fun of you around here. All these people you see here, they’d slap their hands on their thighs whenever they heard one of Mathieu’s stories about Philippe making apple pie with his friend’s mom.”

“I’m not sure I really want to hear this.”

“Wait. It’s not as bad as it sounds. And in life, truth is the greatest asset, don’t you think?”

I imagined getting to my feet with dignity — it wouldn’t be hard, I had drunk only two glasses of champagne. Something had prevented me from drinking more — the fear of making a slip, of feeling nauseous, of making a fool of myself. I imagined walking across the kitchen and through the crowd in the living room, picking up my coat, going down the stairs and, whistling, making my way to the Gare de l’Est, where the first trains would soon be departing. I imagined disappearing.

Yes, I saw myself doing all that, but I am an actor only in my dreams. In reality, I nodded and poured myself a glass of water.

“Gradually it changed. You became a … what should I call it, yes, a kind of character witness. He refers to you as if you were a character witness.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“He’s come in for quite a lot of criticism lately. Let’s just say that he behaved badly with certain individuals. And people began saying that he was forgetting where he was from, that he was getting bigheaded. He had to get things back on an even keel. He was antagonizing everyone. So he did a lot of soul-searching. And you are part of that. You allow him to show that no, he hasn’t changed. That he’s had the same friends for years. That he’s stayed close to his roots. That the things he was being accused of were unjustified.”

I poured myself some strong booze. Over ice. I swirled the ice cubes in the glass. None of this came as a surprise. What did astonish me, however, was that I didn’t feel more offended. I was past all that. I shrugged.

“I’m sorry if this comes as a blow,” she said.

“I’m past feeling any blows. I’m already on the ground.”

“I like you a lot, you know.”

“Do you need a character witness as well?”

I looked up at her from under my brows. For a moment she didn’t know what to say, then she burst out laughing.

“What are you going to do with it?”

“With what?”

“With what I’ve just told you.”

“Nothing at all. He’s taking advantage of the situation. So am I. It’s not exactly as if I’m swamped with invitations. And then when I get home and go into work I can always casually mention the fact that I spent an evening with Mathieu Coché. Everyone finds their misplaced vanity where they can.”

“I don’t know why I spoke to you about truth just now. You don’t need any lessons from me.”

“On the other hand, I would like a refill.”

On we went like that, in the kitchen, just the two of us. Words whizzing by. Minutes, too. This hadn’t happened to me in a long time. I think we confided in each other the way people rarely confide in each other. We knew perfectly well that we would never meet again. That one of us was bound to be exiting Mathieu’s life before long. I was prepared to go away again, the way I had come. But in the end she was the one who slammed the door — which meant that I got to stay on and put up with Mathieu ranting and raving against women. Particularly younger women. Before we left the kitchen, early that morning, after the party, we exchanged phone numbers. To be used only in case of an urgent need to confide — which meant never. I still have her number on me, in my wallet. It has become a sort of talisman. I could call her now and tell her about Cécile. About Mathieu. About the nagging reluctance I feel going to see Mathieu.

Dear God, what am I doing on this train?

Next to Cécile.

Who suddenly stands up.

And brushes past my knees.

“Sorry.”

“No problem.”

“Excuse me.”

“Of course.”

I’m in the toilet, checking my face in the mirror. My cheeks are red. I am being ridiculous. Why is my heart pounding as if it’s about to burst? Because I just exchanged two polite but awkward phrases with a fellow passenger on the train? Because I brushed against the knee of a man who is neither young nor old, who has a paunch and an incipient bald patch? It’s nothing to get in such a state about. Because … just take a look. Take a good look at yourself in the mirror. Look at me.

You’re a hundred times better than he is.

Only a faint touch of makeup. Your skin, still glowing thanks to a simple night cream. Your eyes, with just a hint of liner. You’re a walking advertisement for the products you sell: you’re radiant, in spite of the years creeping up on you. And your hair. You even have trouble taming your hair, it still grows wild, with a lateblooming vitality.

You’re a hundred times better than he is.

Men. There are those who look at you during meetings. And those who like your efficiency and relative discretion. Some of them would like to know what you’re hiding behind that calm veneer. Others tremble when your decisions are final. There are those who, on public transport, take a good look at you and compare you with the woman they will go home to when they come to their stop. Some of them will sigh because of the comparison. Others would like to go up to you but don’t dare, because, though you’d never know it, there’s a side to you that’s intimidating.

Then there is Luc, of course. Months, years of struggle just to keep his attention, to feel his growing admiration, to ward off all those women who thought they could come and unravel the close-knit family unit you’ve been creating. So different from the one you grew up in. So far removed, mentally, that you almost never tell your parents about your everyday life anymore. Because they wouldn’t understand; they can’t even begin to picture it.

I hope that Valentine is proud of her mom. Prouder in any case than I’ve ever been of my mother. Every time I go back to see my parents, I feel like I’m slipping back down the social and material ladder I’ve been climbing so cautiously yet tenaciously. The minute I get to the station, I’m back in my childhood hand-me-downs: my voice trembles, my gestures are clumsy, and I feel annoyed. Profoundly annoyed, and it makes me wonder why, oh dear Lord, why do I inflict these visits on myself twice a month?

And with him, now, it’s the same thing.

I’m back in my twenty-year-old skin. As if molting season were imminent, lurking in some corner of my native town or on the train, just waiting for me to lower my guard in order to attack. I remember Lucile, who used to work for me a few years ago. She was a tall, slim, attractive girl. One day she showed me photographs of her adolescent self. They used to call her Piglet or Butterball. She clenched her teeth while I looked at the shapeless mass of flesh in the photographs, and tried to discern the features of the woman she would become. She murmured that they were still inside her, Butterball and Piglet. She had to fight them off, every single day, all it took was a moment’s inattention, if someone shoved past her in the Métro, or she took a little too long getting her credit card out of her wallet, and Butterball and Piglet would swoop down on her again. Chubby. Fat. Ugly. Useless.