On the radio, Irène would hear a song by Nicole Croisille, “He was cheery as an Italian when he knows he’ll have love and wine.” And then she would have to sit down. Those words would knock her off her feet, would suddenly take her back to the transport café on February 5th, 1984. She would recall snatches of conversation between the fries, the gross curtains, the beer, the funeral, the white roses, the omelettes, and the calvados.
“What do you love most of all?”
“The snow.”
“The snow?”
“Yes, it’s beautiful. It’s silent. When it’s snowed, the world stops. It’s like a giant shroud of white powder is covering it . . . I find that extraordinary. It’s like magic, you know? And you? What do you love most of all?”
“You. Well, I think I love you most of all. It’s strange to meet the woman of one’s life on the day of the funeral of one’s wife. Perhaps she died so I could meet you . . . ”
“That’s a dreadful thing to say.”
“Perhaps. Perhaps not. I’ve always loved life. I love eating, I love fucking. I’m all for movement, amazement. If you fancy sharing my pitiful existence, to shed some light on it, you’re most welcome.”
When Irène Fayolle would think about Gabriel Prudent, she would think: panache.
Irène told herself that she didn’t want to live in the conditional, but in the present. She put her turn signal on. She changed direction. She took the Luynes exit, drove past a shopping complex, and started driving very fast in the direction of Aix. Faster than the train timetables.
When she arrived in front of Aix station, she parked her van in a space reserved for staff. She ran to the platform. The train for Lyons had already left, but Gabriel hadn’t got on it. He was smoking in the “Au Depart” brasserie. Since it was forbidden, the waitress had said to him, twice, “Sir, we don’t allow smoking here.” He had replied, “I’m not acquainted with this ‘we.’”
When he saw her, he smiled and said:
“I’m going to go through your pockets, Irène Fayolle.”
37.
I loved you, I love you, and I will love you.
Elvis is singing “Don’t Be Cruel” to Jeanne Ferney (1968–2017). I can hear it from a distance. Gaston has gone off to do some shopping. It’s 3 P.M., the cemetery is empty, only Elvis’s song fills the avenues, “Don’t be cruel to a heart that’s true, I don’t want no other love, baby, it’s just you I’m thinking of . . . ”
He often befriends a freshly buried person, as if he feels he must help them on their way.
The weather’s really lovely. I’m making the most of it to plant my chrysanthemum seedlings. They have five months to grow, five months to burst into color for All Saints’ Day.
I don’t hear him going in and closing the door behind him. Crossing the kitchen, going up to my bedroom, lying down on my bed, going back down, kicking my dolls, going out through the garden behind the house, my private garden, where I grow the flowers that I sell every day to meet our needs, because he never did protect us.
“Baby, if I made you mad, for something I might have said, please, let’s forget the past . . . ”
Did he know that, today, Nono wouldn’t be here? Did he know that this week, the Lucchini brothers wouldn’t be coming? That no one had died? That he would be alone with me?
“The future looks bright ahead . . . ”
I don’t have time to react, I stand up, hands covered in soil, the seedlings and watering can at my feet, I turn around when I see his shadow, huge and menacing . . . a sword of ice cuts right through me. I freeze. Philippe Toussaint is there, motorbike helmet on head, visor raised, his eyes looking straight into mine.
I say to myself that he’s come back to kill me, to finish me off. I say to myself that he’s come back. I say to myself that I promised myself I’d never suffer again.
I have time to say all that to myself. I think of Léo. I don’t want her to see this. Not a sound comes out of my mouth.
Nightmare or reality?
“Don’t be cruel to a heart that’s true, I don’t want no other love, baby, it’s just you I’m thinking of . . . ”
I can’t see whether the look in his eyes is one of disdain, fear, or hatred. I think he’s looking me up and down as if I were even less than less than nothing. As if I had shrunk with time. Just as his parents looked me up and down, especially the mother. I had forgotten that I’d been looked at in that way.
He grabs me by the arm and grips it very hard. He hurts me. I don’t struggle. I can’t cry out. I’m paralysed. I never thought that, one day, he would lay his hands on me again.
“Don’t stop thinking of me, don’t make me feel this way, come on over here and love me . . . ”
It’s when living through what I’m living through now that you know everything’s fine, that nothing’s serious, that human beings have an extraordinary ability to rebuild themselves, to cauterize themselves, as if they had several layers of skin, one on top of the other. Lives one on top of the other. Other lives in store. That the business of forgetting has no limits.
“You know what I want you to say, don’t be cruel to a heart that’s true . . . ”
I close my eyes. I don’t wish to see him. Hearing him will be quite enough. Breathing him is unbearable. He grips my arm even harder, and says into my ear:
“I received a solicitor’s letter, I’m returning it to you . . . Listen to
