The 6:41 to Paris

~ ~ ~

Any more of my bullshit and I would have ended up standing for the entire trip — or sitting across from the toilets on one cheek.

Having said that, I did hesitate.

Because when I realized that the only seat available was next to Cécile Duffaut, I felt slightly dizzy, like the heroine of a nineteenth century novel, and I said to myself again, No, it can’t be, and I thought I’d move on to the next car.

I’m almost positive she didn’t recognize me. Because I’m hardly recognizable. The last time we spoke, it was twenty-six or twenty-seven years ago, something like that — downright prehistoric, and I wonder if I’d recognize myself if I ran into who I was back then. Last month when I was getting rid of stuff I came across some photos from back then, and I found it hard to “place” myself, so to speak. Let alone recover from the realization of how much I’d changed. I tend to forget that I haven’t always had this beer belly — even though I’m no beer drinker — or that my hair is not so much brown as gray, and I have a marked tendency toward baldness, not to mention this overall flabbiness which reflects a complete lack of physical exercise.

She’s changed, too, but — how to put it without getting annoyed—“for the better.” That’s it, she’s changed for the better, because Cécile Duffaut was very ordinary back then and now look at her, she’s a good-looking woman, as we say, and she doesn’t look her age yet at all. Maybe a bit on the stern side, headmistressy, say, but really pretty. In fact, she is absolutely no more recognizable than I am, except that I’ve kept up with her transformation from a distance. Over the years I’ve spotted her from time to time in the center of town — I’ve been careful never to catch her eye, even crossing the road or changing my route. I went unnoticed. If she saw me, she never let on. I kept track of her career. And I heard about it, too. Through a woman I met after my divorce, and who went to lycée with us. This woman — Lucile? Lucie? — her parents and Cécile Duffaut’s were friends. What I recall is that she’s in business. Married. With one daughter. But that was a long time ago, so maybe it’s all changed. Maybe she’s gone through three divorces and she’s a militant lesbian with eight adopted kids from Malawi and she’s the head of an online company that promotes female wrestling.

In any case, she comes home on weekends sometimes to see her parents. The last time I spotted her must have been last year. She was with a tall, slim man. They were at the market, picking over the melons. Ain’t life poetic, out in the provinces.

How awkward.

What are you supposed to do in this situation? Introduce yourself by saying something obvious like, “I think we’ve already met?” Or feign indifference and pretend to be surprised if the other person decides to make the first move: “Cécile Duffaut? I don’t believe it! I’m so sorry, I was completely absorbed in, well I mean I didn’t … well … you understand … that is …” and make some vague gestures with your arms and hands, make the most of your pauses so that the other person can fill them with bursts of “Of course!” “Absolutely!” or “I can imagine!”, all those expressions that serve no purpose, ever, I’m sick and tired of all those words that serve no purpose.

Or you can try the advanced Alzheimer’s scenario, I really do not recognize you, you don’t exist for me, you’re just some meaningless neighbor on a meaningless train which is starting to pick up speed, why should I grant you anything more than a polite inattentiveness?

Right.

Here’s what I’m going to do.

Act as if I don’t know her — which is true, actually, we dated for three or four months twenty-seven years ago, what does that amount to? Nothing, nothing at all. She hasn’t reacted, either. She doesn’t remember me. So much the better, in the end. I have to keep one thing in mind: most people have a “delete” key which they will press at a given time, when their brain is about to overflow after all the misunderstandings and betrayals, all the hurt and disgrace — and when that happens, entire chunks of your existence disappear along with faces, names, addresses, colors, everything goes out the window into the sewers of the unconscious. I’ve got to remember that. Cécile Duffaut has obliterated everything. She went on with her life, and she is fine. Which is a relief. I can’t see myself talking to her. It would be embarrassing. With London and all that. So this is fine. I have other things to think about. More important than Cécile Duffaut.

Problems that affect me directly. That I have to come to grips with. My brain has to sort through all kinds of stuff.

There’s Manon, for a start.

How can I explain to her that things won’t last forever with this boy she’s seeing? That she shouldn’t go building castles in the air? That she shouldn’t go thinking that once summer is over, with her in Reims and him back in Troyes, their relationship will manage to last? And so much the better, because he spends his time glued to his screen; he plans to study computer science, and a husband who’s a geek is hardly the dream husband for your daughter. Or at least not for me. But if I start interfering in her love life, she’ll get up on her high horse. She’ll start talking about the divorce again. And my love life since then. And the fact that she’s never criticized me. Then she’ll add that as far as professions go, TV and stereo salesman doesn’t exactly make for a dream dad, either.

Granted.

Keep my mouth shut.

That would be better.

And try to remember what it was like, when our parents used to butt into our love life.

Oh, my God.

My mother.

Whenever she met one of my girlfriends her face would split in two. The lower half was smiling, revealing her metal crown on the side, and she would chatter away, extremely pleasantly — too pleasantly, of course. With the upper half, she was examining, scrutinizing; a hard gaze searching for the slightest imperfection. And her eyebrows. That was what was most revealing: appreciation, disgust. I knew her body language by heart. It made me sick to my stomach.

And at dinner in the evening, her comments.

Or rather, her barbed arrows. Or how to stone someone with words. Comparisons. Better than the last one, not as good as the one before. I could picture the grades she was giving them in her mind. She had remained stuck on one of my first conquests, who wanted to become a schoolteacher, and for my mother, being a schoolteacher was the best possible job for a woman — it would ensure her of a certain independence, and it came with housing, and that was always a plus, and then above all teaching gave you the same vacation time as the children, which solved the problem of child care once and for all: “Don’t go thinking I’ll always be available to look after the children.”

I remembered it well, that particular lesson. And she applied it from the moment Manon was born. Christine was a teacher. So we had no child care problems. Perfect. My mother could get on with her life with her bicycle salesman. She took it too far: I think Manon and Loïc only ever stayed overnight at her place — at their place — two or three times. My mother and her new guy were really mean to them, so as a result the kids never wanted to spend any time with their grandmother.

With parents, you have to make do with what you’ve got.

Let me think.

I wonder if Cécile Duffaut ever met my mother. No. I don’t think she did. I was twenty when we were together. I was already studying at university. I had just moved into a studio in Paris, my aunt rented it to me for peanuts — a family favor. She warned me not to expect it to last forever. My cousins were starting the lycée, and they would want their independence soon enough. The apartment was so small it was impossible to imagine sharing the space.

I met Cécile Duffaut a few weeks after that. At a birthday party. To be honest, I don’t know why I went out with her. Because I was bored, I suppose. Nothing to be proud of. Youth doesn’t rule out stupidity. It lasted — how long? Three months? Four at the most. And even then, we only saw each other on weekends. I was living in Paris, she was in Troyes. It was nothing earthshattering. Or even memorable. Except for the week in London. We took the train, one morning.

It’s really weird to be in the same place twenty-seven years later. Not even speaking to each other. Maybe it’s up to me to break the ice.

No.

This is ridiculous.

What would we talk about, for a start?

And besides, it’s not talking I need.

It’s thinking.

Sorting.

Done with Manon. Status quo.

Now on to Mathieu.

No, I don’t need to think about Mathieu. I’m going to see him in a few hours. I’m going to look after him. The way I have already for two months. That’s normal. I’m his best friend. Or at least I’m his friend. I was his best friend a long time ago. It’s complicated. Now, he must have met Cécile Duffaut on two or three occasions. But he wasn’t there on the night we began our affair. I think that if he’d been there, nothing would have happened. I wonder if he remembers her. I’ll have to ask him later. At least it will be something to talk about. At times it can be a real lifesaver to have something trivial to talk about. Something light. That you can laugh about and elaborate on without arguing. Soap bubbles. What I’d like to do with Mathieu is blow soap bubbles. I could talk to him about the house, too. But Mathieu isn’t interested in the house. That’s a part of my life he knows nothing about. He never went there, when I was living with Christine. We weren’t close at all. It was only after Christine and I split up that we got closer.

The house.

I’ve finally got a buyer. A builder who wants to gut it and restore “volume” to the rooms, which have a lot of “potential,” but which feel “crushed by the color of the wallpaper.” Builders talk now the way they do on those interior design programs on television. You’d think they’re not masons or electricians anymore but interior decorators.

We have to talk about the price, but I already know that I’ll come down. I’ll be so glad to get rid of that place. I really wonder why after the divorce I ended up buying Christine’s share. I said it was for the kids, so that they could always come and sleep in the place where they grew up. A grand illusion. First of all, because it was way too expensive for me on my own and I found myself up to my eyeballs in debt. And then, because they liked Jérôme’s little house better — not so cluttered with furniture, more space, a big yard. And the prospect of a swimming pool. I should have gotten rid of it sooner, but it’s like everything. I put things off. I procrastinate. The children left a long time ago and it’s only this year that I decided to put the house on the market.

I don’t know yet where I’ll go. I’ll rent something to start with. I might even, in the end, look for another job, or ask to be transferred. To the southwest, for example. What’s keeping me here? My parents? They are mainly counting on my older brother to help them in their old age.

Yes.

Sell the house and move away. Good idea. An idea that brightens up the morning train, in any case. I can’t help but smile. I almost feel like turning to Cécile Duffaut to start talking to her.

And that’s what I would do if I weren’t me.