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wasn t happy to see me that way.
For months, I bumped up against everything.
I couldn t focus on anything and I bumped up against
everything.The worse I felt,the more I bumped up against
things.
I was an absolute wreck, but I pulled it off pretty well.
Day after empty day, I managed to put a good face on. I d
get up, work til I was ready to drop, eat like I was sup-
posed to, drink beer with the guys I worked with, and
have a good laugh with my brothers.But that whole time,
if any of them had so much as flicked his finger against
my skin, it would ve broken me clean in half.
But I m not being entirely honest with myself. It
wasn t courage. It was stupidity because I thought she d
come back. I really believed she would.
I hadn t seen anything coming, and my heart had com-
pletely come apart on a train platform one Sunday night.
I couldn t come to terms with it, and I kept bumping up
against anything and everything.
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120 Anna Gavalda
1 The years that followed had no effect on me. Some
2 days I d be surprised to think:
3 You know? . . . That s strange . . . I don t think I
4 thought about her yesterday. . . . But instead of congrat-
5 ulating myself, I d wonder how that could ve happened
6 how I d managed to go a whole day without thinking
7 of her. I was especially obsessed with her name.That and
8 two or three very precise images of her always the same
9 ones.
10 It s true. Every morning I put my feet on the ground,
11 ate, showered, got dressed, and went to work.
12 Every now and then I d see a girl naked. Every now
13 and then, but without any tenderness.
14 Emotions: nil.
15
16 And then at last,in spite of all that,I got another chance
17 although by then I really didn t care anymore.
18 Another woman met me. A very different woman,
19 with a different name. She fell in love with me and de-
20 cided to make me a whole man.Without asking my opin-
21 ion, she set me back on my feet and married me, less than
22 a year after our first kiss, exchanged in an elevator during
23 a conference.
24 An unhoped-for woman. I have to admit: I was petri-
25S fied. I didn t believe in any of it anymore, and I must have
26R
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For Years 121
frequently hurt her. I d caress her belly, and my mind
would wander. I d lift her hair and hope to find another
scent there.She never said a word.She knew my phantom
life wouldn t last long. Not when I had her laughter, not
when I had her skin, not when I had this whole jumble
of basic,unconditional love that she was ready to give me.
She was right: My phantom life let me live in peace.
She s in the next room right now. She is sleeping.
On a professional level, I never could have guessed I d be
this successful. Maybe it pays to be hard, maybe I was in
the right place at the right time, maybe I made some
good decisions . . . I don t know.
At any rate, I see clearly in the eyes of my old class-
mates, as much surprised as suspicious, that it all discon-
certs them:the pretty wife,the fancy business card,the shirts
tailor-made to fit . . . especially since I started out with so
little. It s perplexing.
Back then, above all, I was the guy who thought of
nothing but girls . . . well, of nothing but this girl. I was the
guy who wrote letters every day during lectures and who
didn t look at the asses or breasts or eyes or anything else on
the café terraces.The guy who took the first train to Paris
every Friday and who came back sad on Monday morn-
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122 Anna Gavalda
1 ings,with circles under his eyes,cursing the distance and the
2 conductor s zeal.More harlequin than golden boy,it s true.
3 Since I loved her, I neglected my studies. And since I
4 was blowing off my studies, and vacillating on other
5 things, she dumped me. She must ve thought the future
6 was too . . . uncertain with a guy like me.
7 When I read my bank statements today, I see very well
8 that life is quite a jokester.
9
10 So I went on with my life as if nothing had happened.
11 Of course, just for fun, every now and then my wife
12 and I would talk about our student days, either on our
13 own or with friends. We d talk about the movies and
14 books that had shaped us, and the loves of our youth faces
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