Gallic Noir. Pascal Garnier

wasn’t beautiful, she wasn’t ugly, she almost wasn’t, full stop, and yet she was very fat, first-rate camouflage.

      ‘Good evening, Monsieur, thank you so much. It’s so crowded here that it’s hard to find a table if you’re on your own.’

      ‘Don’t mention it, it’s fine.’

      ‘And this way, we’re not on our own any more.’

      They both gave an embarrassed little laugh, which lent them a family resemblance. Not wanting to appear as if she wished to invade Bernard’s privacy, the lady pulled out a pair of glasses and a theatre programme which she began to study with a frown of concentration while she waited for her food. For Bernard the situation was even more embarrassing than when he had been alone. He tackled his flammekueche in small mouthfuls, dreading that at any moment he might drop slivers of onion or lardons on his lap. In any case, by halfway through his meal he was no longer hungry. He felt torn between the desire to run away as fast as his legs would carry him or to fall deeply asleep then and there. But he could do neither. The lady had already started on her grilled ham hock and he would have to ask her to stand up if he wanted to leave the table. He was doomed to spin out his beer for as long as he could, whilst affecting the air of someone wishing to enjoy the moment to the full. It was strange, but he felt he recognised her too. It wasn’t her facial features, nor her general appearance but rather something in the way she chewed, switching her food from one cheek to the other with a twist of the lips. He was convinced of it now, he had eaten with this woman before. Sensing his gaze, heavy with beer, resting on her, the lady looked up. Bernard blushed, they smiled at each other awkwardly. This happened two or three times until nothing was left of the hock but a bone picked clean.

      ‘We’ve met before, haven’t we?’

      ‘I don’t know, but it seems like it. I didn’t like to say. It would have looked as if I was trying to take advantage of the situation.’

      ‘I know what you mean. But no one would care, you know. If by any remote chance someone was interested in us, which I doubt, they would take us for a nice retired couple on their monthly night out.’

      ‘Are you retired?’

      ‘Yes, just recently. I’m getting used to it. Education. And yourself?’

      ‘The same, but SNCF. Do you come from these parts?’

      ‘I was born here and still have a few relatives in the area, but I live in Dijon.’

      ‘Ah. But seriously, I do think I know you from somewhere.’

      ‘That may be, one comes across so many people in a lifetime. Perhaps years ago, at school, or summer camp, at a dance …’

      ‘Possibly. No point in wondering about it. We wouldn’t be the same now in any case.’

      ‘That’s true, but you can’t help it, it’s like a need to search for survivors around us. Other people’s lives are annoying but they’re also reassuring.’

      ‘I apologise. I won’t go on.’

      ‘Don’t worry. I feel the same.’

      Really, it was better this way. As far as possible, Bernard avoided delving back into his youth. Not that his memories were any more painful than the next man’s, it was just that his past seemed to him as cold and desolate as a deserted house.

      At this point he might have left the table with a polite ‘Lovely to make your acquaintance, good night, etc.’. He couldn’t bring himself to do it, however. It was months since he had felt as much at ease as he did here. The lady seemed to find it agreeable as well, even though conversation had lapsed.

      ‘Would you like another beer?’

      ‘Yes, but somewhere else perhaps, it’s so … busy here …’

      ‘My name’s Bernard.’

      ‘And I’m Irène.’

      They had just had two more beers in a red, velvety bistro, as snug as a fur muff. They had reached the stage of sharing experiences they had never had, those exquisite falsehoods exchanged by people whose paths have crossed and who will never see each other again.

      Two insignificant lives transformed by the light filtering through the orange lampshades into unique and exotic existences, which still always brought them back in the end to: ‘What now?’

      Now all there was between them was two empty glasses and a skein of intertwined lives, the ends of which hung down pathetically on either side of the table. The sound system was on low, playing ‘My Funny Valentine’. Chet Baker’s voice comforted them in the great sorrow rising in their breast and bringing tears to their eyes.

      ‘Not a bad choice for the closing credits.’

      ‘Would you like me to see you back to your hotel?’

      ‘No thanks, I’ll get a taxi.’

      ‘Why, when I’ve got my car outside?’

      ‘OK, if you wish.’

      The street was glistening after a slight drizzle. Irène slipped her arm through Bernard’s.

      ‘I think I’m a bit tiddly.’

      Awkwardly, each one tried to adjust to the other’s pace. Each step was a struggle, one step forwards and two steps back. The car was there waiting, though, as bright as a new pin. They got in. Irène’s hand alighted on Bernard’s as he went to start the ignition.

      ‘Bernard, I would like you to kiss me.’

      Their lips were cold, their tongues timid. There was a taste of the first time and dentures. Irène dissolved in tears on Bernard’s shoulder.

      ‘I’m sorry, it’s been such a long time. I thought that was never going to happen to me again. Everything I’ve told you this evening is a lie. I’ve never travelled, I’ve never known great emotion, all my life I’ve been afraid of suffering so I’ve never experienced anything momentous. Nothing out of the ordinary has ever happened to me. Motorway, nothing but motorway, just grey monotony, with a few stops in lay-bys and breaks for frozen sandwiches. It’ll soon be time to pay at the tollbooth and I’ll have seen nothing, nothing at all. I don’t want to go back to my hotel. Take me home with you, Bernard. Just for this one night – I’ll leave in the morning, I promise!’

       Yolande, Yolande, why must you always stand between me and the sun?

      ‘Is that really what you want?’

      ‘Yes. I’ve slept on my own almost all my life but tonight I really don’t think I can face it.’

      Irène was asleep by the time they reached the outskirts of Lille. Bernard was envious of her trust, how she let herself go, the unusual quality of her sleep. The dashboard lights cast a greenish glow around her profile. She slept the way children sleep, mouth slightly open, plump-lidded, unreachable.

      Vimy, ten kilometres, diversion, roadworks … Bernard set off into the depths of the night on an earth track, exuding inky dark. For several hundred metres now the headlights had picked up nothing at all. It was like the end of the earth.

      The end of the earth was a building site. People had decided that it wasn’t distant enough, and so they were extending it by spreading concrete over the nothingness. Bernard stopped and switched off the headlights. The absolute blackness gathered in his eyes until, little by little, he began to make out the gigantic shapes of the machines, silent gaping mouths ready to gobble up the sky once they had swallowed the earth.

      He brushed Irène’s soft cheek with his fingers and whispered, ‘We’re here.’ Without waking, she moved her shoulder slightly as if to nudge a sheet back into place. Bernard could have sworn she was offering him her throat. Between his thumb and first finger, the Adam’s apple went in and out, in and out, in and out …

      There wasn’t much life left in the body. For a split second he saw Irène’s pupil