Jean-Philippe Blondel - The 6:41 to Paris

And besides, this encounter is purely anecdotal. There are other women I could have run into on the train. Women who have actually meant something in my life. Virginie, for example. Who I was seeing before Christine. We were together for two years. We had a lot in common. And a lot of differences — it would have been impossible to construct anything on such a swamp, and already back then I wanted something solid, concrete, a protection against erosion. Or Élise. That’s true, there was Élise. Only one month, but a month of breathtaking intensity. She was about to go to Brazil, she had a round-trip ticket good for a year, but she wasn’t at all sure she would come back, she’d been dreaming about Brazil since she was a kid. One night she said to me, “You could go, too, you could drop everything and come with me.” She smiled as she said it. She knew it was just idle talk. I’m not the type who can do that sort of thing. In fact, I don’t know anyone in my circle who could just go off like that. On a wild impulse: you only see that sort of thing in fiction, in bad novels, Sunday evening TV movies. I wonder where Élise is now. I can’t picture her old. There’s a good chance she’s not even old. She could be dead, for all I know. Long dead. That’s what I’m afraid of. You meet someone, you’re together for a while, then he or she disappears from your everyday life, you get over it, you forget. One day, on a train, you think, “For all I know, they’re dead.” I’m glad to be traveling here silently with Cécile Duffaut: at least I know she’s not dead.

In spite of everything, I’m also glad I’m on my way to see Mathieu. Because the two of us know exactly where we stand. And I’ll never have to say, “Well, for all I know he’s dead.” At least that.

At least that.

I hate that expression more than anything. My mother uses it all the time. It reassures her about the world around her. Gives it logic, seemliness. But she can take it way too far. When the space shuttle Challenger exploded, out it came: at least their bodies won’t be endlessly orbiting the earth. And once she managed to tear her eyes away from the screen after the planes had crashed into the twin towers, she murmured, at least they had time to call their wives and husbands to say good-bye.

I’m an At Least son.

At least you passed your exams.

At least you’ve got a steady job.

At least you’ve had children.

At least your ex-wife isn’t making a fuss about the alimony.

At least your divorce hasn’t gone too badly. At least you’re not dead.

I did almost die, once.

Like everyone, I suppose.

I was sailing on the lake, ten miles or so from my parents’ place. It was not long after Cécile Duffaut. A sudden storm. The wind picked up, formed a tornado. I was fascinated. I’d never seen one in my life. After that I don’t know exactly what happened. Something bashed me in the back of the head, probably the boom jibing. I passed out and fell overboard. The other sailors didn’t have time to notice me: their boats were in trouble, too. I opened my eyes: algae, bubbles, silt, but the terrifying noise of the storm was gone. It felt good, there. I felt good. I thought, game over, and I think I smiled, but is it possible to smile when you’re running out of air? I remember that my head hurt, and I may well have been bleeding.

I didn’t want to die, but living wasn’t all that great an option, either. My relationships with girls were heading nowhere. My parents and I annoyed each other beyond belief. The years seemed to be frittering away, like the friendships I had thought would always endure. Anything could happen, why not death?

But I rose to the surface. A moment of panic. Air. The need for air. But it was a close call. I’ve never been out sailing since.

Of course everything would be different now. I have responsibilities. I have my children.

I can still hear that white noise distinctly — not unlike the crackling of a vinyl record once the music is over. The silence of afterward. Almost religious. And mocking, too.

I have my children.

The verb “to have.” It’s a troublesome one. It’s not a verb I’m familiar with. The more time goes by, the more I lose. The more I lose, the freer I am. The freer I am the more I wish I weren’t so free. What am I supposed to do with all this freedom?

Make Cécile an offer, for example.

I’ll turn to face her and I’ll explain myself. I’ll tell her about Mathieu. About me, my children, Christine, about how life takes sudden strange turns.

I’ll apologize for London.

Because of course I remember.

We’ll go back over all that, get things off our chests, I’ll manage to cheer her up, she’ll forget that she’s a busy married woman, a mother, I’ll throw down the gauntlet, Cécile, let’s go back to London, right now, I’ll make you forget that trip we took together, have you ever been back to London, Cécile? It’s a great city, you know. No, don’t tell me I ruined it for you. I did? No! Really? Then we have to fix that, whaddya say, right away, let’s drop everything — work, spouse, kids — and disappear for forty-eight hours to England, or more, if we get along.

Are you up for it?

You’re on.

Right now.

Well, two or three minutes from now.

However long it takes for me to get used to the idea of such a sudden departure, together.

No, I had something to do with it, too.

I shouldn’t be disingenuous. I wasn’t the type of girl who had men turning around as I walked by. And I didn’t do anything to encourage them. I preferred wearing baggy clothes and shapeless sweatshirts; guys must’ve thought I spent my weekends sprawled in front of the television. And so they were often pleasantly surprised when I took my clothes off. And discovered that I actually had a figure.

Plus shyness.

No, that’s not it, either. I’ve never thought of myself as shy. It was just I didn’t feel like struggling for hours to impose my taste or my point of view, to defend a particular film or rock band or politician. It all seemed useless. I would look at them, all those strutting peacocks, puffing out their chests and crowing louder than anyone. And sometimes there in the barnyard a few hens would cackle as they pecked around the cocks, and the peahens would spread their feathers, because their song was so horrible; and then there were the graylag geese. Pasionarias who took every subject to heart, and they could easily go up an octave to stand up to the kings of the farm, another way of getting attention, of displaying their charms. And it worked. Men like it when you stand up to them. It arouses their hunting instinct. I wasn’t that kind.

I was worse.

I was one of those girls who are said to have a blank gaze, simply because behind our expressionless masks we hide our true contempt for all the jousting, for all those tinsel princesses and papier-mâché knights in shining armor. And for ourselves, above all. My self-contempt was equal to my disdain for them. A pretty picture.

But it didn’t show, at all.

I know what people said about me in those days. She’s nice. She’s easygoing. Not the sharpest knife in the drawer. Quiet. Reserved. A little empty, maybe. Having said that, you can always count on her.

And in bed, did any of that cross his mind, Philippe Leduc? No. He would only have been thinking about his erection, which he had trouble maintaining. He must have been conjuring images of girls who were flashier than me — famous actresses, rocker chicks in leather pants — and his only aim would have been to stay hard, as long as possible. And to what end? Not for my pleasure, surely, he couldn’t have cared less. Not even for his own. Just out of pride. So he could say, “Sure, I scored.”