Waiting for Monsieur Bellivier Read online

The sound of the footsteps dies out and he hears someone flush the toilet. If that little bird hadn’t … Its delicate, lifeless body refuses to leave his thoughts. Mancebo doesn’t normally feel any particular affection for animals. To him, animals are animals, there to be eaten. He doesn’t have much time for pets, either.

  Tonight, though, he can’t sleep for thinking about a small, dead bird. It’s already dead, there’s nothing I can do for it, he tries to tell himself. He can’t go out and bury all the dead birds in Paris. That would be a third full-time job.

  Eventually, he gives up any thought of sleep. The sky has started to brighten. The bird should be given a worthy funeral. Maybe I’m going crazy, Mancebo thinks as he swings his feet to the floor and gets out of bed. Fatima is still sleeping deeply. Just as well, because he’s sure she wouldn’t want to play any part in a nocturnal bird funeral.

  He catches the soapy scent of the hammam as he passes her side of the bed. They always use a rose-scented soap after the scrub massage. He automatically glances out of the window and notices a light glowing in the office across the boulevard. But then it goes out and a shadow vanishes. Who it might have been, he has no idea.

  Mancebo wonders whether he should write this down, and decides he probably should. The fact he’s alert even at night might mean an extra gold star for him. And maybe he’ll need one spare if he misses anything crucial going forward. But he can’t let working at night become a habit. He doesn’t want Madame Cat to take it for granted that he’ll work nights. I can offer a bit of extra time and energy every once in a while, Mancebo thinks, rifling through the plastic tubs in the kitchen to find a suitable bird coffin.

  The friends of the dead hold court. It’s the first time Mancebo has heard such twittering, but then again he doesn’t tend to be down in the shop in the middle of the night. He opens the door and pushes up the grille far enough for him to get outside and search for the cadaver.

  There’s a full moon in the sky, and he looks up at the white ball illuminating the near-empty boulevard. In truth, there is no such thing as a completely empty street in Paris. The city is a living being in that sense, Mancebo thinks, but one with many dead souls. Broken people sucked up into the world of the living. Maybe they seek out the big city in the hope of being able to share some of the energy. Paris, a complex city which refuses to admit its faults. It lives as though its past never happened, as though it were all just made up, lies. In any case, it’s forgotten. In Paris, it’s tomorrow that counts.

  For the little bird, there is no tomorrow, and that might be the thing that bothers Mancebo most. He doesn’t know why. Tomorrow has never felt as important as it does now. But nor has it felt so uncertain. That fact doesn’t scare him. Quite the opposite. Mancebo searches for the bird. He is clutching the plastic box Fatima keeps cheese in. He’s sure the bird was right beneath the red mark, which is glowing brightly in the light of the moon. But that’s the only trace left. The only evidence that the bird incident ever actually happened.

  He steps further out onto the pavement, but he can’t see any birds, or no dead sparrows anyway. A living pigeon takes the trouble to jump up onto the pavement. He looks at the white plastic tub, which will go on being a cheese box rather than a coffin, and then up at the equally white moon. Could the bird have blown away? But there isn’t a breath of air. Maybe it’s been swept away already? But the city’s cleaners don’t arrive until later, Mancebo knows that. Maybe a cat?

  He leaves the near-empty street and goes back upstairs to get the sleep which will help him to confront an uncertain tomorrow. Dead and missing, Mancebo thinks with a slight shudder. ‘Let the little bird be the first and only victim in this tale,’ he mumbles to himself as he pulls on his white nightshirt. He goes out into the kitchen to fill a glass of water, and as he steps into the bedroom, he sees Fatima’s eyes snap shut when she spots him.

  ‘Are you awake?’ Mancebo asks.

  Fatima doesn’t reply. It’s not enough that she spends time behind the curtain in the tobacconist’s shop; now she’s pretending to sleep, Mancebo thinks, lying down next to her.

  The military police paced solemnly back and forth across the plaza between the skyscrapers. Their huge guns stuck out in front of them like divining rods. They were there to keep the tourists calm, to reassure them that their holiday wasn’t about to be blown to pieces. Nothing more.

  I walked past them and took the escalator down to the metro, waving to the florist as I passed. It had become a habit. He was convinced he was the link between two lovers; I could see it in his eyes. In a way, I felt sorry for him, and I wondered how I would react to flowers in the future. I would probably forever associate them with this task. A shame, really.

  I held up the day’s bouquet, three simple peonies wrapped in a thick, dusty pink velvet ribbon, and the florist gave me a thumbs up. The minute I saw them, I knew they were for Judith, even though she had been spoiled lately. The dusty pink ribbon suited someone with that name.

  I cast a quick glance up at the church clock before I stepped into the cemetery. I had half an hour before I needed to leave to pick up my son. It was unusually quiet that warm afternoon. There was an old couple sitting on one of the benches by the entrance, each fanning themselves with a newspaper, and I smiled at them. Though I had only been to the cemetery a handful of times before, I would have been able to find my way to Judith’s grave blindfolded.

  As I reached her discreet grey headstone, I had the feeling that something wasn’t right. I glanced around and then down at the grave, as though something there might have changed. But Judith Goldenberg had still been born in 1916 and died in 1992. It was only when I noticed the lifeless bouquet on the neighbouring grave that I realised what it was. In the past, I’d always had to remove the old flowers before I could put the new ones down. But this time, there was no need. The bouquet was already gone. Maybe there was nothing strange about that. It could have blown away or been cleared up by one of the wardens. Graves were desecrated from time to time, so there was nothing particularly unusual about a bunch of decaying flowers disappearing.

  I looked over to the compost heap, but the bouquet wasn’t there either. There was a trace of the flowers, however. The petals looked like small pieces of confetti, the remains of a lifeless party on the path leading into the labyrinth of graves.

  I didn’t place the bouquet as carefully as usual, and instead just dropped the flowers nonchalantly onto the grave. It was like I wanted to prove to myself that I wasn’t a slave to the flowers, that they didn’t have the power that they did, in fact, have over me. That I had taken a serious detour to make my way to the graveyard was something I decided to ignore.

  The flowers had left marks on my hands, white ones, pallor mortis. Marks which showed I had been clutching them tight. I rubbed at my palms to try to get them back to some kind of living colour. A man was approaching the grave. I didn’t notice his appearance at first, he was more like a shadow. All the caution and guardedness I suffered during the day vanished the moment I entered the graveyard. The dead couldn’t attack me. It was a free zone. Maybe that was why I only noticed him once it was too late. Too late to defend myself.

  If anyone had been watching us, they probably would have thought that he was a gentleman inviting me if not to dance, then at least for a walk. The man grabbed my arm and made it very clear which direction we would be going in. I tried to pull away, but despite his age he had a tight grip on me. I could have kicked and shouted, but there was something vulnerable about him. It struck me that the old man had the wrong person. These things happened. Maybe he was blind. Maybe he had Alzheimer’s. And so I let him steer me for a few metres, until we reached the spot where you can fill vases with fresh water. We came to a stop.

  ‘Excuse me?’ was all I said.

  He didn’t even look at me before he slapped me, and hard.

  Life had taken its toll on his face, though he couldn’t be much older than seventy. Despite the heat, he was wearing a long black coat,
grey trousers and a pair of well-polished shoes. He had a black hat on his head. This man who, in my mind, had been a poor, confused pensioner, had transformed into a madman in the space of a second. A lawless person, someone I should be wary of. I backed away from him.

  I wasn’t scared, just shocked. Fear often allows us to act logically, intuitively. Shock doesn’t allow for that. And so I just stood there, staring at him. I could have overpowered him easily, despite his height and gender. He seemed weak. He might be able to slap, but that was where it stopped. I could have given him a push, and that would have been the death of him. I could have made a run for it. It would have been my escape. But I didn’t. Anger took over, and though that isn’t particularly logical either, it did make me act.

  ‘What was that?! What the hell are you doing?’ I shouted. I used the informal form of address.

  ‘Polite.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m at least worth the polite form of address.’

  He wasn’t blind. His hand had struck the middle of my cheek. He didn’t have the wrong person. He was a madman. Big cities were full of them. All I could do was leave. There was no point trying to reason with someone like him. And it’s always a good sign if you don’t understand a crazy person’s answers, it means you haven’t reached that point yourself.

  ‘If you touch me again, I’m calling the police. Leave, now,’ I said.

  He didn’t move. His icy blue eyes were looking straight at me, and though he wasn’t blind, his eyes did seem to have some kind of film over them. He wasn’t quite present. Part of me wanted to shove him so that he fell back onto a grave, hit his head and died. There were many before him who should have been spared. I thought of my neighbour. I didn’t want to turn my back on this man, I didn’t dare. And so I asked him to leave. Even a weak old madman might have a weapon.

  We stared at one another. He was like a wild animal, calm for the moment, but you never knew. I backed away. His hands were hanging in a strange position. He looked like a marionette going through some kind of cramped death throes. I turned and walked away, but glanced back frequently. The dying doll was now shaking all over, but I didn’t care. He could stand there and shake until he belonged to those who had finished shaking, I thought.

  But then I heard a sound. It was a strange mixture of a scream and a sigh. The old man lay down, his shakes had become more like spasms, and his face twisted beyond recognition. He was about to die.

  I looked around for someone who could take over. Someone who could guide him over to the other side, if that was what was needed, or who could try to keep him here. It didn’t really matter which. I also needed someone to witness what was about to happen. Someone who could give evidence in my favour. I hadn’t put my morbid thoughts into action. He had caused all of this himself. But there was no one in sight.

  Should I shout for someone? The man was about to die before my eyes, and no sane person could watch that without trying to help. I dialled 112 for the first time in my life. I explained that I had found an old man who seemed to be dying in Cimetière de Grenelle. They told me to ask for his name, presumably to check whether he was conscious. I moved closer to him, but couldn’t bring myself to ask. I was afraid.

  ‘He’s not responding.’

  The ambulance arrived quickly after that.

  My hands were shaking as I went over what had happened. The young ambulance driver listened. I didn’t mention that the man had hit me, out of fear that I would end up being drawn into something. I explained how he had come over to me and then collapsed. If I had mentioned the slap, they probably would have thought I was hiding something. They took my name and number.

  People started to gather. They were like hyenas around us. None of them had been there when I needed them. That was always the way. A living dead man in a churchyard will draw attention. The ambulance staff had placed a mask on the man’s face.

  Someone who hadn’t heard my chain of events asked if I wanted to go with them in the ambulance. He thought we knew one another. I could have explained that I didn’t know him, that I had to go and pick my son up from summer club. But the man might have been about to die. Was I meant to let him do that alone in the ambulance? What eventually convinced me was that if I didn’t go, I would always be left wondering who had hit me, and not least why.

  I called my ex-husband and said that an old man I had met on the way home was probably having a heart attack, and that the ambulance staff needed my account of what had happened. That was my excuse.

  The man seemed stable as we pulled up at the hospital entrance. That’s what I assumed anyway, because the ambulance staff were chit-chatting about everything else. But maybe they also did that when they had someone on the verge of death in their ambulance. It’s their everyday, after all.

  A nurse came over and asked whether I wanted a coffee while I sat in the waiting room. Waiting for what, I thought, and shook my head. My ex-husband called to ask if he should come and pick me up, and I said yes. Unless anyone needed me, I could probably leave with my conscience clear. A doctor came through the swinging doors just as I ended the call.

  ‘Madame. You were the one with Monsieur Caro?’

  ‘Yes, if that’s his name.’

  ‘You don’t know his name? You don’t know one another?’

  ‘No, no, I … we bumped into one another and he collapsed. I just wanted to check he was OK. It was the ambulance staff who asked me to come along.’

  ‘I see. He was suffering from poisoning.’

  ‘Poisoning?’

  I had assumed it was a heart attack or something similar. Poisoning sounded like a crime had been committed.

  ‘Yes. We think he probably poisoned himself. A suicide attempt.’

  ‘Oh. But he’s going to be OK?’

  ‘Complete recovery. Thanks to your quick thinking.’

  ‘Good … Thanks.’

  I turned around and left without looking back. I trusted doctors. I could turn my back on them. And I thought I could trust this particular doctor, too, until I heard him shout. His words cut straight through me.

  ‘Monsieur Caro would like to see you.’

  The doctor showed me into his room. To my surprise and horror, he didn’t follow me in, he just closed the door behind me. Being shown into a strange room by a strange man was starting to feel familiar.

  I looked down at the man who, just a few hours earlier, had given me a slap. He was lying beneath two blankets and there was a wire coming from his nose. It was the kind of thing I had only ever seen on TV. I doubted he had asked to see me. Maybe the doctor had made it up. Maybe he thought we had some kind of relationship after all.

  I thought about my son. I didn’t want him to have to come to the hospital. I didn’t want him to have to see anything that scared him. Despite everything, I was still a mother, and I would protect him. Even if he would discover all this misery himself, sooner or later. I could have just left. I had done what I had to. I had saved the man’s life and found out his name.

  Monsieur Caro was sleeping. The yellow curtain brushed against his hand. If he had died, his last act in this life would have been hitting one of his fellow humans. My imagination had taken over again, and so I stayed in his room. Maybe he had been a devout believer his entire life and never so much as hurt a fly. Maybe people had always kicked and trodden on him, and now that he knew he was about to leave his earthly life, he wanted payback. I spotted a tattoo on his forearm. Without really thinking about why, I pulled out my phone, took a photo of it, and then nodded goodbye to the seemingly sleeping man.

  ‘We can use the informal address with one another if you’d like.’

  Coming from someone who had been wandering between life and death just a few minutes earlier, his voice was unusually clear. I moved closer so that he wouldn’t need to exert himself unnecessarily. He opened his eyes. They seemed clearer now. The film which had been clouding them earlier must have been the blanket which moves across them before death. As t
hough to suffocate their owner.

  ‘Why honour her?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Why honour her?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘My mother!’

  I glanced over to the door, convinced it was about to open. Despite his condition, the man could shout.

  ‘I’m sorry, but I don’t understand. Who’s your mother? And what have I done to honour her?’ I addressed him formally.

  ‘I’ve already told you, you can use the informal. We seem to have the same interests, after all. My mother was Judith Goldenberg. You’ve been putting flowers on her grave. Don’t you call that honouring her, woman?’

  In the car on the way home, I sat and watched my son. Waiting in the hospital entrance didn’t seem to have done him any harm. The Paris night passed by outside the window. There was unusually little traffic. The outdoor seats at all of the cafés and bars, however, were full to bursting.

  It was cold in the car. Maybe my ex-husband wanted to show off his new car’s air conditioning. Oddly enough, he didn’t ask what had happened. Not because he thought that accompanying strangers to hospital was an everyday occurrence, he likely just assumed he already had all the details. And he probably did. Or maybe he just had other things on his mind. I squeezed my son’s small, cool hand.

  ‘Are you cold?’

  An ambulance pulled up in the inner courtyard. Right up to the door. I had a ringside seat from my kitchen table, where I was sitting with a cup of lukewarm tea. I knew why it was there. Something in the way he had been moving earlier that evening suggested what was about to happen. Now I understood why he had let the cat out. He’d never done that before, and the cat didn’t seem to appreciate its new-found freedom on the balcony. After clawing at the door for a while, it had jumped up onto the warm railing and then climbed the drainpipe, before disappearing over the roof of the bin room. Sorrow welled up inside me, and I didn’t know who I felt most sorry for: my neighbour or the cat. If not dead already, both were surely at least sentenced to death. A house cat wouldn’t last long on the Paris streets. The ambulance staff jumped out, and that seemed to be a good sign, a hint that my neighbour was still alive. I heard a sound from my son’s room. Maybe the ambulance had woken him? But had it even had the sirens on? As the lights came on in my neighbour’s apartment, I got up and turned on the light in the bathroom, using the glow to check on my son. I pushed his door ajar. He was sleeping deeply, his hands clasped beneath his chin. I went back to the window to follow the drama.