The A26 Read online

  ‘I’m dying, and I’ve got a hard-on.’

  Nothing else had ever happened between him and his sister.

  ‘I find him more disgusting every day. He’s drunk by ten in the morning, and every evening I get a pasting because some customer has been giving me the eye, or for any old thing. Shall I tell you what? I wish he’d die.’

  ‘That’ll happen.’

  ‘Yes, but when?’

  Jacqueline was making huge figures of eight with her cloth on the waxed tablecloth. There wasn’t so much as a crumb of Bernard’s lunch left, but she persisted, as if she were trying to get rid of the brown and yellow floral pattern on the tablecloth or something even more stubborn, Roland’s life for instance. She had her sleeves rolled up to the elbow. Bernard had always loved her arms, strong, hands reddened from washing up. It must be good to sleep in arms like those.

  ‘You’re not listening to me – where are you?’

  ‘Yes, I am, I’m here.’

  ‘No, you’re here but you’re not here. You look like a plaster saint, smiling at everything but not seeing a thing.’

  ‘I don’t know. It’s as if I’d been away somewhere. I recognise things and people, but it’s all changed imperceptibly, like the tracing of a drawing that’s moved by a fraction of a millimetre. I don’t know how I can explain it to you.’

  ‘I’ve not heard from you for a whole week. Were you having a rough time?’

  ‘That’s putting it mildly. But yes, I really thought I’d had it. Death comes closer, like the sea, it hits me full in the face, a huge wave of black foam. I tell myself the time has come, in my head I’ve packed my bag, and then it recedes again. It’ll be back.’

  ‘Aren’t you scared?’

  ‘Not any more. When I was a kid on holiday at the beach, I used to practise walking with my eyes closed, in case I went blind some day. It’s the same sort of thing.’

  ‘You’re going and then you come back – is that what you’re saying?’

  ‘If you like.’

  ‘If it was me, I wouldn’t come back.’

  ‘You don’t get to decide, you just have to go along with it.’

  ‘What about the pain?’

  ‘That’s what keeps us alive. Without the pain or even just the fear of pain we’d all be off at the first unhappy love affair.’

  ‘That might not be such a bad thing.’

  ‘I don’t know about that. While you’re here, it’s because you’ve got good reason to be here.’

  ‘Oh well, do enlighten me then, because I for one can’t see the ghost of one.’

  ‘Yet you are here.’

  ‘Barely …Why, Bernard, why have we spent our whole time walking alongside our own lives?’

  Jacqueline’s lower lip was beginning to stick out and tremble, her eyes misted over. Her face was so close to Bernard’s that he could see nothing else, as if all there was in the world was this woman’s face, ravaged by regret and steeped in exhaustion. It was as though he were looking at her through a magnifying glass – wrinkles, hairs, blackheads – it was hardly proper. It was life that had caused all this damage, like a river wearing its way through a mountain, day after day, for so many days. And behind those eyes damp with tears was a little girl struggling, trying to get out of there, beating her fists against the glass walls of the jar in which she’d been suffocating for …

  ‘I don’t know where you’ve gone, Bernard, but you’ve no right to leave me here, no right at all. One day I’m going to do something stupid, I’ll get a gun and blow that bastard Roland’s head off and I’ll do the same to your bitch of a sister …’

  ‘Be quiet, Jacqueline. You’re talking nonsense now. Some things can’t be killed with a gun because they’re dead already.’

  ‘You’re talking like a dead man. But I’m still alive. Go away, you’re even worse than the rest, no one can affect you any more.’

  Jacqueline got up so abruptly that her chair toppled over backwards. She righted it again so violently it was as if she wanted to drive it into the floor. The bang echoed awhile in the empty room of the restaurant. Bernard’s hand still smelt of Jacqueline’s: disinfectant and floorcloth. An hour before, there had been lots of people here, eating macaroni and roast pork amid noisy laughter. No trace of them now, as if they’d been imaginary. Life was about being there when things happened, if not it was a desert. People appeared and disappeared and you never knew where they’d come from or where they were headed. Paths simply crossed.

  When Bernard tried to pay for his meal, Jacqueline told him to go to hell, without even turning round.

  The rat caught the full force of Yolande’s slipper.

  ‘A rat’s at home anywhere. Comes from goodness knows where and never gets where it’s going. The thing goes from one house to another, making tunnels for itself all over the place. No limits at all. Dirty beast! That bastard of a butcher came by just now. He sounded his horn several times. Usually Bernard puts his order in on a Tuesday. But he’s not here, he’s never here, even when he is here. Oh well, we won’t be eating meat any more, it’s as simple as that. Or else we’ll have rat. If he’s not in his bed pretending to be dead for days on end he’s disappearing off somewhere. “I’ve got to keep myself busy,” that’s what he says. As if! He’s joined the Resistance and doesn’t want to tell me. The Boches have taken over his body but he’s holding out against them with his mind. I’ve seen right through him. He must be derailing trains, that’s his thing, trains. I see him come home with his conspirator’s face on. As if you couldn’t tell he’s killing Boches! Once a fellow’s killed another fellow, he’s not the same any more. I remember Zep, Zep’s short for Joseph, Joseph Haendel, that was the name of my Boche. One day he was in a platoon which had to kill some hostages. When I saw him the next day he wasn’t the same man. You’d have thought he’d lost something precious, like an arm or a leg. He was looking all around, with a distracted air. At night he would wake up yelling things in German that I couldn’t understand: “Nein! Nein! …” drenched in sweat. He was a good country lad, Zep, a Bavarian. Pigs, hens, ducks, rabbits, he’d slit their throats by the dozen, but the hostages, that he just couldn’t stomach. Men don’t eat each other, I wonder if that was why. Always looking over his shoulder. And before him, all he could see was the Russian front. A rat in a trap, that’s what my fine Zep had become. All the men became Ripolin Brothers but it wasn’t paintbrushes they were holding, it was daggers. Row upon row, their white tunics stained with blood like that bastard of a butcher. “I kill you, you kill me.” And the more they killed, the more of them sprang up again, it was truly miraculous! That’s why there’ll never be an end to the war – anyway, it’s always been here, it’s that kind of country, there’s nothing else to do but go to war. The only thing that grows is white crosses. Even Bernard’s not been able to keep out of it. But what the hell, let them go on tearing each other to bits. It makes sod all difference to me!’

  Yolande went back to the needlework which had been interrupted by the incident with the rat. She was sewing scraps together, pieces of silk and ends of lace, on to what was left of a red dress, and humming ‘Couchés dans le foin’. She stood up and got into position before the wardrobe mirror, holding the extraordinary costume up in front of her, stepped back a little, primped and posed, tried out a few dance steps and burst out laughing.

  ‘I don’t give a damn about the Resistance! You’re all made like rats! You’ve all lost!’

  Whenever Bernard went out prowling around aimlessly, sooner or later he would find himself beside the railway. Sometimes he stood on the bridge above the tunnel and waited for the trains to go by. He knew them all, the 16.18, the 17.15 … He would see them coming in the distance then plunging, almost as if inside him, with a din of metal on metal that shook the handrail he was leaning on. Shutting his eyes, he would count how many seconds they took to pass right through. He had already seen himself toppling and trains running over him. He’d imagined the scene a dozen times, the eng
ine hurtling on at top speed and cutting him in two like an earthworm. Always at the end of this dream, however, his two halves were wriggling on either side of the track and ended up sticking themselves together again. Bernard would find himself in one piece, walking along the rails with no idea where he was going. Rails leading to more rails … Today he was hanging around the warehouses of the disused goods station. Beneath the tall metal structure there was a raised platform where the wagons used to be loaded, with straw, or livestock, up to fifteen times a day sometimes. Dozens of men had worked here. Where were they now? The police kept an eye on the place. People said youngsters came here to get up to mischief, smash the few remaining windows, take drugs. So they said. The concrete paving slabs had burst under the pressure of irrepressible vegetation. Tons of steel and cement would never be a match for the puniest blade of grass. All that work for nothing. What if Bernard were the only survivor of some cosmic disaster? And if there were no one left in the world but him, rattling around all on his own in this deserted shed? And even, if death laid eggs in his stomach, if he was the first man on earth and everything was going to begin all over again with him? On the walls was obscene graffiti, of erect penises, and legs spread wide, which reminded him of points on the tracks. They’d been boldly drawn in chalk, or scratched using a sharpened stone. This was Lascaux, this was the dawn of humanity, hunting scenes. Men had lived here. Even after countless centuries they still had nothing to express but the need to procreate, to have sex, over and over again. What price evolution?

  ‘Hey, Pops, what’re you doing here?’

  A young guy with eyes like a cat was staring at him, sniggering, sitting on a beam with his legs dangling in mid-air, two metres up.

  ‘Nothing, just taking a walk. I used to work here a long time ago.’

  ‘Long ago, so you’re a dinosaur then?’

  ‘I was just thinking that myself.’

  ‘Have you got a fag?’

  ‘No, I don’t smoke.’

  It was like a circus act. The young man threw himself backwards, bounced off the wall, catapulted off a heap of old planks and landed at Bernard’s feet.

  ‘You could have been killed!’

  ‘Don’t worry on my account, old man. Don’t you know there’s bad company around here?’

  ‘So they say.’

  ‘Aren’t you afraid?’

  ‘What would I be afraid of?’

  ‘Me.’

  ‘Sorry, but to be honest, no, I’m not frightened of you.’

  ‘But you don’t look very tough.’

  ‘I don’t understand – what is it you’re after?’

  The young man sprang to one side, flicking open a knife.

  ‘Your wallet, you old fool, or I’ll stab you!’

  ‘Oh, is that all? Here you are.’

  Bernard smiled and reached for his coat pocket. The young man, thrown by Bernard’s attitude, moved back.

  ‘Wait! You’re weird. What are you so happy about? What’ve you got in your pocket, a gun?’

  ‘Of course not, I swear.’

  ‘Don’t move!’

  ‘I must have two or three hundred francs, take it.’

  ‘Don’t move I said!’

  Bernard took a step forward and put his hand in his coat pocket. The youth shrank back in panic, his foot met with empty air, and he toppled backwards. Bernard didn’t have time to catch him. He disappeared over the edge of a platform, making a strange sound like someone drawing breath before lapsing into apnoea. Bernard rushed forwards. There he was, a kid twisting and turning on the rusty rails, dry grass growing between them, with his own knife sticking into his chest.

  ‘Don’t hurt me, M’sieur! Call an ambulance!’

  ‘Of course I won’t. It’s an accident, don’t be scared …’

  The kid’s hand clutched at his sleeve. His gaze turned blue, like a newborn baby’s. A bubble of blood burst at the corners of his mouth.

  ‘Don’t do that to me, kiddo!’

  One last spasm and the young man was no more than a piece of rubbish, a disused shell like the shed open to the elements on all sides. On his knees beside the corpse, Bernard lifted his eyes to the rusty iron sky. He no longer dared lay a finger on anything, for fear of seeing humans, things or animals crumble to dust at his touch. He had become the instrument of death, death itself. He felt no guilt, death being a psychosomatic illness, but he was astonished by its lightning speed.

  Fifteen minutes earlier, the kid hadn’t existed, any more than he had existed for him. Then wham! – the young man would have lived for just a matter of minutes, the lifespan of a clay pipe at a shooting gallery. As for him, in some strange way his imminent and inescapable death seemed to make him immortal. Rising in his chest was not a sob but a burst of laughter, straight from the heart, of the kind that seizes you when words fail. Bernard wondered how he was going to drag the body – by the feet? Under the arms? They say there is nothing heavier than an empty heart; the same is true of a lifeless body. It is life that holds us upright, which gives us that lightness of being. Without life the bones, the flesh weigh tons. But why go to all that trouble? He had nothing to do with it this time. What was the point of wearing himself out to plant this seed of death beneath the A26? Force of habit. He could, he supposed, go to the police station and explain what had happened. The idea made him smile. But he was too tired to play that game. The young man would do very well where he was, lying with his cheek against these rails which led nowhere. It was the most fitting end for someone who had gone down the wrong track. Bernard turned his coat collar up. It was cold. In the sky the dark was spreading like a pool of ink. A sprinkling of stars appeared. Bernard aimed his finger and rubbed out a few. Every second, some of them died, people said. What did that matter when four times as many were born in the same time? The sky was an enormous rubbish tip.

  Bernard walked off, sniffing. He could feel he was getting a cold. Once in the car, before starting the engine, he looked for a tissue in the glove compartment. There was one left, a used one. While he was wiping his nose, the beam of headlights came sweeping over the countryside and slowed as it drew level with him. Bernard turned his back. That was what was so annoying about nature – whenever you thought you were on your own some country bumpkin popped up from behind a hedge. But the car picked up speed again and disappeared, leaving behind it a glowing scarlet snail trail.

  Yolande’s soup consisted of some leftover cabbage, a tin of ravioli in tomato sauce, two potatoes, a chicken carcass, a handful of lentils, a vanilla pod and two or three other ingredients she couldn’t quite recall. While emptying the cupboards into the large cooking pot she had said to herself that her recipe would be called ‘Everything must go’.

  ‘Is it nice?’

  ‘It’s unusual – what is it?’

  ‘Slum-it soup. You weren’t here when the butcher came. You’re having what there is.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I’ll go shopping tomorrow.’

  ‘Have you been out derailing a train again?’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Do you think I’m an idiot? I know your little game, it’s an open secret. To be honest, I couldn’t care less, if it makes you happy. But damn, I could have murdered an escalope!’

  ‘I’ll get some tomorrow, I promise. It’s not bad, this soup. A little … exotic maybe.’

  Obediently, Bernard cleaned his plate. Yolande left hers untouched, giving him her china-doll stare.

  ‘So you’ll eat any old thing and not say a thing to me?’

  ‘I said I liked it, Yoyo.’

  ‘That’s not what I’m talking about! My dress?’

  ‘Oh yes. It’s beautiful. It could almost be the one you were wearing the day …’

  ‘Aha, so you do … I found it in the wardrobe. I’ve added a few frills and some lace round the collar.’

  ‘Of course! It’s very pretty. Stand up, turn round… Splendid!’

  A slight blush crept over Yolande’s cheeks.
She went back and forth, twirled around the table. Bernard turned the pendant lamp on her as a spotlight.

  ‘If our idiot of a father had just let me move to Paris I’d have been another Chanel. And there’s nothing to it, you know, just reusing some old bits and bobs. It can’t have taken me more than a couple of hours!’

  ‘It’s a masterpiece. Really.’

  ‘And it goes nicely with that little chain you gave me: “Less than yesterday and three times as much as tomorrow”.’

  ‘More than yesterday and much less than tomorrow.’

  ‘Same difference. I’ll have to make myself a coat to go with it. Could you give me your old SNCF one? You won’t need it any more, you’re going to die.’

  ‘Naturally. Yolande, shall we dance?’

  ‘But of course. I adore you.’

  They couldn’t really have said what they were celebrating, Yolande’s amazing dress, the death of the young man, the unspeakable mush congealing on their plates or simply a moment of grace which had strayed into this place which had known so few, but they did it with all their heart. Bernard waltzed his sister around; she was laughing, head flung back and white hair flying like an ashen cloud. Round and round they whirled, heedless of the furniture they bumped into as they went past, toppling objects, setting the dust flying and scaring a rat out of the very mouth of the dustbin. The world could have stopped revolving and they would still have continued their drunken waltz atop its ruins, to the accompaniment of Yolande’s reedy tones as she sang softly: ‘J’attendrai, le jour et la nuit, j’attendrai toujours, ton retour …’ The swaying ceiling light was a makeshift glitter ball, throwing multiple copies of their shadows on to the walls. They were a whole ballroom, just the two of them. What else, who else could they ever need? Bernard surrendered to the ever faster rhythm forced on him by his sister. Eternity must be like this whirl, a gigantic food mixer, blending bodies into one paste, one wave crashing into oblivion. Bernard lost his footing, stumbled and fell full length on the floor.