Gallic Noir. Pascal Garnier

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СКАЧАТЬ quarters, found deep in a pocket, a poem of the everyday.

      Leeks, parsley, lemon

      Drain unblocker

      Bread

      Milk, instant mash

      Ham

      Pot scourer

      Shoes from repairer’s

      Between the lines of this short list of errands, the watermark of a whole day became visible, an ordinary yet unique day which flitted past Brice’s eyes in its entirety, in a fraction of a second.

      He and Emma had woken up furry-mouthed. The evening with the Planchons had been long and seriously liquid. While making the coffee he noticed that the sink was still blocked. An enormous pile of washing-up stood on the draining board. The Scotch-Brite scourer was on its last legs, both sides in shreds.

      ‘Let’s have something light to eat this evening.’

      ‘Ham and mash?’

      ‘Perfect!’

      ‘I’ll make a list.’

      ‘Oh, could you pick up my shoes from the repairer’s? Ugh, this coffee’s disgusting! Oh God, my head’s killing me … See you this evening, darling. Have a good day.’

      When he came back from shopping, he unblocked the sink and did the washing-up while listening to the radio. A psychologist was explaining that eight people in ten wished to change their lives. Oddly enough, though, when asked to be specific about the life they dreamed of, what they described was almost exactly the life they had been leading all day every day since birth. Emma’s shoes smelled of glue. If he had not found that scrap of paper he might not have remembered that day. How many others had he lived that had since melted away into oblivion?

      The camp bed groaned as he stood up. He kicked it, hard. He was in no mood to listen to its tales of woe.

      Sensing the atmosphere, the cat crept under a quilt at the other end of the garage, wisely deciding this was not the moment to claim its meagre rations. The weather was neither good nor bad; there was only a blank sky like a blind man’s eyes. Brice felt stiff and weak. His body needed to move about, loosen up a bit. He decided to go to the chapel he could see from his window, at the very top of the hill. He didn’t even think about his ankle as he strode up the slope. His walking stick whipped the brambles mercilessly. A drum was pounding in his chest, cymbals clanging in his ears. Snails braked sharply as his heavy shoes crossed their paths.

      His anger kept him going at the same furious pace until the top of the hill, but as he reached the threshold of the chapel he collapsed in a heap, red-faced and short of breath. Seen from a distance through binoculars, the chapel appeared larger than it was. Never could a donkey, an ox and a family of Palestinian émigrés have fitted inside at the same time. Besides, there was no longer any roof, or a cross, only the façade to deceive you. The whole sky was visible through it. He lay flat against the stone slabs with his mouth wide open. He felt the urge to graffiti that stupid blank sky, to spray-paint, ‘Piss off, the lot of you’. Not a trace of the divine, damn all, nada.

      There was a smell of damp earth, mossy stone, mushrooms. His right hand skimmed a clump of heather. It was soft. The first time he had put his hand in a girl’s knickers had been at the Kursaal, his local cinema. The Ten Commandments, three hours of film. That was how long it took to achieve your ends in those days. Just as old Moses was parting the Red Sea with his staff, Brice had managed to get his finger in Sylvie’s pussy. The Promised Land was no longer terra incognita.

      He wiped his penis with a tissue. The heather was barely ruffled.

      ‘Not many people like Viandox.’

      Blanche was stitching an Alsatian’s head on a canvas. It was freezing in the room; the electric heater was not plugged in and there was no flame dancing in the grate. Brice was warming his numb fingers round the cup of boiling-hot beef stock.

      ‘Do you like dogs, Blanche?’

      ‘No, they smell. Martine gave me this design; her mother has a needlework shop. From time to time she gives me them because she knows I love embroidery. I’ve already done one of Claude François in a disco outfit, and a peasant scene. The problem is I don’t always have the right colour wool. It’s kind of you to come and see me.’

      ‘I was on my way down from the chapel and since I was passing, I thought …’

      ‘You did the right thing. Do you see how good your Camillo looks on the mantelpiece?’

      Beneath his bushy eyebrows, the crooner surveyed the frozen wastes of the living room.

      ‘He looks far better here than in my house.’

      Sitting by the window in the half-light like a girl in a Flemish painting, Blanche suddenly stopped moving her needle to and fro.

      ‘I wanted to ask you …’

      ‘Do, please …’

      ‘Could I come and watch television at your house tomorrow morning?’

      ‘But … Of course.’

      ‘I noticed the other night that you own one. My father didn’t like television. He used to say it made people stupid. But I’m very fond of television. I’m not afraid of being stupid. I’ll be there at half past eight. Martine’s told me about a programme where they show you things.’

      ‘All right then, eight-thirty tomorrow.’

      ‘That’s very kind. Would you mind lighting the fire?’

      ‘Not at all, I’d be glad to.’

      In the fireplace Brice heaped an armful of vine stalks, which caught light straight away, and then he placed two fine oak logs on top. In winter, there is something reassuring about hell.

      ‘That Alsatian’s very handsome, Blanche, especially with its red eye.’

      ‘I had no blue left.’

      The fire crackled. Crouching in front of the hearth, he bathed his hands in the warmth of the flames. For the first time in ages he felt at home, as if he had always belonged here. They stayed like that, in wordless intimacy, until a log slipped as the bell rang for half past seven.

      ‘Tomorrow evening Élie’s releasing pheasants. Do you feel like coming?’

      ‘Releasing pheasants?’

      ‘For shooting. They call them surprise releases. Around one hundred cocks and hens. It’s a wonderful sight. The crates are opened and the birds take flight, flapping their wings. You’d think they were applauding.’

      ‘Applauding what?’

      ‘I don’t know. Freedom … their impending death … Who knows why people applaud? Élie could tell you the whereabouts of every last fox and badger den, the quails’ nests, coypu burrows in the riverbank, the hiding places of perch, eels and carp. All the secrets … in holes …’

      Blanche had put down her needlework. The dog’s СКАЧАТЬ