Out of Sorts (4 page)

Chapter Ten

Going to Pot

It takes very little to disturb the peace at Eight Rue Bonaparte. When Ferdinand first moved into the apartment, he had yet to say anything, yet to do anything, and Mrs. Suarez already hated him. In elementary school, the concierge had been in the same class as Louise, Ferdinand’s ex-wife. They had remained friends. And Ferdinand would be willing to bet it was Mrs. Suarez who pushed Louise to ask for a divorce. She’d never been shy about expressing her opinion of their twenty-five-year age difference. He wouldn’t be surprised, either, if she’d visited Louise and her mailman on the Riviera.
That silly old goose is the type to roast topless all day at the beach.
In short, Mrs. Suarez must not have had a favorable view of the cuckolded husband’s arrival at her apartment complex, and his moving into Louise’s parents’ apartment, no less—even if, technically, it now belongs to Marion.

In any case, after the icy stare Mrs. Suarez cast upon Mr. Brun the first time she encountered him with his dog, there was no way she could ever make up for her behavior—even if she’d wanted to. Ferdinand doesn’t forget. He never forgets. He’s quite vindictive. So being buddy-buddy with that silly old goose is out of the question! He knows all his misdeeds are veritable grenades. He takes perverse pleasure in tossing cobblestones into her pool of tranquility. Refusal to adorn his balcony with the “regulation” red geraniums; refusal to abandon the garbage chute in favor of five waste-sorting bins to be kept in his home; refusal to gossip with the neighbor ladies in the courtyard . . . His fate is in Mrs. Suarez’s hands, and she will choose when to unleash everyone on the evil Mr. Brun.

Ferdinand is not easily impressed. Some bitter old woman with the IQ of a turkey isn’t going to make him change his ways. In any case, it’s the neighbor ladies who are afraid. One day, they found a book by Pierre Bellemare about the century’s greatest serial killers—the pages full of annotations—in the trash. Ferdinand could see he’d struck a nerve! Their jitters lasted for weeks, during which the old man exulted every time they nervously said, “Hello, Mr. Brun,” “Good day, Mr. Brun,” “Everything all right, Mr. Brun?” “Can I do anything for you, Mr. Brun?”

So, if at first Ferdinand hadn’t purposely antagonized his neighbors, he’s since carefully plotted his next moves and taken perverse pleasure in making life unbearable for them. He does
everything
he can to make himself disagreeable. Ferdinand responds to their false friendliness with boorishness. He grunts or replies curtly with the most spiteful, impolite sentence he can think up. Or worse, he feigns deafness, ignoring the vile little things who dare to address him. And though he hates the smell of cigars and has never been a smoker, he lights up in secret every day so as to leave an odor of stale tobacco in the common areas, where smoking is
strictly
prohibited.

His hostility has become second nature, a way of life, of survival, even. Yes, survival, because Ferdinand resents growing old. Solitude, the decay of the body, all that is slowly killing him. The only activity Ferdinand has found to stave off boredom is being nasty so no one misses him when he goes.

This occupies his relentlessly similar days, but it entertains the neighbor ladies even more. They should thank him! Before, their conversations only revolved around the degenerate youth who no longer greet their elders and don’t learn anything in school, or the yuppies who demand a bike park but drive around in 4x4s, who request a community garden but gorge themselves on out-of-season produce at restaurants, who call themselves “green” but can’t manage to sort their waste correctly.
The yogurt cups don’t go in the bin with the plastics, for crying out loud!

With the coming inspections from Mrs. Suarez, Ferdinand has a vested interest in grinning and bearing it, but he’s never been able to submit to decrees. When the old ladies of Eight Rue Bonaparte scrutinize Mr. Brun’s smallest deeds and slightest gestures, Ferdinand can’t help but make a comment or acerbic remark. It brightens his day. Like with Christine, his neighbor the hairdresser, for example.

Chapter Eleven

Splitting Hairs

The yellow plastic clock in the kitchen says 9:02.

“That foolish woman is late. As if I had nothing else to do today.” The doorbell rings, accompanied by grumbling from Ferdinand as he opens the door.

“You’re late! Did you get lost?”

Christine Jean-Jean, hairdresser and shampooer for the home hairstyling salon Hair Affair, lives in Apartment 2A, right above Ferdinand.

“Hello, Mr. Brun. No, I didn’t get lost. I’m sorry, I thought I was on time.”

The young woman barely has time to cross the threshold before Ferdinand turns and heads for the living room, where he sits down in a shapeless armchair, a copy of a satirical newspaper in his lap.

Ferdinand eyes her warily as she squints in the dim light of his apartment. Little does he know that Christine asked Mrs. Suarez to notify the police if she hasn’t left his apartment by ten o’clock. Christine sits down next to Ferdinand and opens up her case, taking out shampoo, scissors, and a cape.

“By all means, take your time, we’ve got all day,” Ferdinand says.

In order to serve the senior citizens at Eight Rue Bonaparte, Christine makes a few morning appointments before leaving for the salon. Her specialty is color. Ferdinand would say
all
the colors, including ones you won’t find on the L’Oréal color chart. Her spectrum runs from royal blue to carrot orange, by way of eggplant purple and cotton candy pink. From his window, Ferdinand likes to admire the hairdresser’s creations. Once the neighbor ladies have gathered in the little garden, you’d think you were at a gay pride parade!

But Ferdinand just needs a trim, so he gets a grip and, Christine’s artistic talents aside, wills himself to ignore all her annoying little quirks. Like the way she talks constantly in that shrill voice, nattering on about anything and everything, never thinking about the meaning of the words coming out of her mouth. He also hates how she’s “sorry” about every little thing, and how she darts fearful glances at him. Above all, Ferdinand can’t stand how it’s always
Mr. Brun
this, and
Mr. Brun
that. She can do all the bowing and scraping she wants—she’s getting one hundred francs—that is, fifteen euros—and not a cent more. And that’s only if she doesn’t botch it.

“I’m ready to start, Mr. Brun. I set up as fast as I could, Mr. Brun. May I ask if today is a special day for you? Normally you don’t call me in . . .”

Buried in his newspaper, Ferdinand pretends not to hear. Yes, this day is a big day for him, but like every year, no one will remember, let alone care. So this fool Christine can pack up her false sympathy, along with her scissors. It’s April 13, Friday again! But Ferdinand is depressed. He doesn’t have the heart to face another year. He doesn’t even know why he wants to make himself presentable.

“How are you, Mr. Brun? I mean, since your accident . . . and especially your dog’s death? I know that was hard for you. He was your only family, in a sense . . .”

With a seemingly clumsy but precise gesture, Ferdinand knocks over Christine’s tools. He can’t take it anymore, but she’s barely started. And the way people keep saying “he” when talking about Daisy—it’s unbearable!

Christine bends down to pick up the scissors while muttering, “Well, I doubt you ever shed a tear, let alone have a heart.” Resuming her lighthearted tone, she says, “We can move to the sink, if you please, Mr. Brun.”

“No need. I washed it last week.”

“Are you sure, Mr. Brun? It would do you good.”

“I said no. Would you prefer I say it in another language?”

“Very well, as you wish, Mr. Brun. So just a cut, then?”

“You’re a bit slow on the uptake, Christine.”

“Sorry, Mr. Brun. So how would you like it cut today?”

“Silently.”

Chapter Twelve

Hard Knocks

After getting rid of Christine, Ferdinand looks at himself in the mirror. With his square jaw, steel-blue eyes, and this haircut that’s too short on the sides, he looks like a soldier. And the neighbor ladies were already afraid of him. This is the last time he’ll call on that amateur. One bright spot is that the bruises on his jaw have practically disappeared. He decides not to put on his bandage to go out. He’s sick and tired of having an egghead, and besides, today is his birthday. Eighty-three years old. He decides to go for a walk, in spite of the menacing sky.

Lost in thought, Ferdinand doesn’t realize he’s been wandering for hours in the pouring rain. He’s cold and no longer knows where he is. He was thinking about Daisy, about her cremation. He’s tired. In his shopping bag is a small rectangular box containing the urn. He doesn’t even know why he brought it with him; maybe to find a good place for her.

In a way, this was a good day to start over. The rain on his eyelashes is blurring his vision, and he’s stomping along, when an enormous wave breaks over him and hits him like a cold slap. A car has just sped by through a muddy puddle. He turns to see if anyone observed the scene and is making fun of him. But no one seems to have witnessed it. Ferdinand looks down the road in search of the car. Maybe it was that little red one up ahead? He stares at the puddle as if he’ll find a clue in it. The puddle is close to the sidewalk. Too close. The car shouldn’t have gone through it—the lane is wide enough. The driver must have been in the middle of something else, sending a text or, if it was a woman, putting on makeup. Ferdinand isn’t even annoyed—he’s weary, resigned. It’s one more sign he’s been too long on this Earth, that his existence is nothing but a colossal joke.

The old man heads back up the street like a zombie, head tucked into his coat collar to keep the raindrops from beading on his neck. He’s frightening to behold. Pitiful, too. His steps carry him back home. Ferdinand doesn’t notice the little red car parked on the sidewalk across from his building. He also doesn’t see the streaks of mud on the right fender. It never occurs to him that someone might have deliberately tried to humiliate him, or worse, kill him . . . before changing her mind.

Chapter Thirteen

Battle Stations

A couple of weeks later, Ferdinand wakes up groggy, having slept poorly. It’s 8:20 in the morning, and he must have gotten at most an hour and a half of sleep. Exhausted, he abandoned his bed some time ago in favor of the living room couch, where he’s rolled himself up in a thick, pilly blanket. As the sun comes up, he finally lets go and sinks into a heavy sleep, when a metallic noise rings out in the kitchen. “Daisy, get out of the kitchen right now! Daisy?”

Ferdinand concentrates. He hears the noise again. Then he realizes his eyes are shut, and he forces himself to open them. Again that sound. It’s coming from the stairwell, not the kitchen. So it can’t be Daisy . . . Then he remembers she’s gone for good. This Daisy apparition was just a beautiful mirage. But the noise that pulled him from his dream is quite real. Ferdinand gets up, tottering to the entryway. Through the peephole, he discovers tons of boxes blocking his door. Several men are in the midst of carrying a sofa up the spiraling staircase, and at each landing the steel frame bangs against the walls. The racket is deafening.

“Be careful!” yells Ferdinand, more to himself than to be heard. “The paint will flake off again . . .” Bang! “Good God, be careful!” He knows the score: afterward—it’ll be the owners who pay for these damned tenants who vandalize everything because they can’t afford a moving company with a hydraulic lift. Ferdinand is beside himself. It’s not even nine o’clock in the morning, he hasn’t slept a wink, and this is the day these morons choose to make such a terrible racket?

“Can’t they put a sock in it?” He lost Daisy just a few weeks ago. They could leave him in peace, for Pete’s sake. He would have called the police to protest the disturbance, but after eight thirty in the morning, his request would lack legitimacy. People don’t have respect for anything anymore. What if he needed to go out? Would he have to shove the boxes aside by himself? Climb over the furniture? At his age?

Ferdinand goes into the bathroom to put in earplugs (very useful on New Year’s Eve and Independence Day) and settles in back on the couch. Suddenly, he remembers he got an ear infection the last time he used them. They weren’t the cleanest things. Oh, well. He has to sleep. He wants to sleep.

But he can’t manage it. The scraping right in front of his door, the movers’ deep voices, their heavy steps, the moving of objects. It’s impossible. He tosses and turns, gets annoyed, grumbles, gives up, and eventually gets up. Though all parking is prohibited in the courtyard, a moving truck is there. So somebody is moving into the building and nobody thought to warn the tenants of possible inconvenience? Who are these people?

Next to the truck, parked facing the other way, is a little red Ford, slightly dirty. Ferdinand knows this car. It’s normally parked in front of the Hair Affair Salon, and the backseat is always full of flyers for styling products. It’s Christine’s car. Could she be leaving the building? To go where? Ferdinand would be willing to bet it’s to follow a lover who will break her heart by never leaving his wife. Ah, these women who don’t know how to make good decisions, and wait for men to do it for them!

“And to think I’m going to have to go outside to get any peace. Really, what kind of world are we living in?” Two options come to mind. The library or the church. At the library, the seats are more comfortable. But on a Saturday morning, they’ll be taken over by little brats or, worse, their parents. Ferdinand doesn’t like children, and he likes these new lax parents who refuse to give their kids the slightest spanking even less. The good-for-nothings are raising a generation of little emperors over whom—at barely three years old—they’ve lost all authority, and are therefore abandoning their snot-nosed brats’ upbringing to others. In his day, that didn’t fly. Not at school, not at home. And when the teacher reported his shenanigans to his grandmother, Ferdinand got a slap in front of his teacher (in addition to his usual smacks), and another thrashing at home, for the public shame. Ferdinand therefore behaved himself rather well. At least he was clever enough not to get caught too often.

If he weren’t so deaf and so resistant to novelty, the old man could take refuge in a movie theater, but he hasn’t seen anything on the big screen since
Don’t Look Now . . . We’re Being Shot At!
in 1966. A museum, a café, or a restaurant are pleasant hideaways, but they don’t even occur to him as options. So he sets out for the church, a man who isn’t the least bit God-fearing.

In order to leave, Ferdinand has to climb over the boxes on his doormat. As he lifts his leg, he tells himself that if he’d been an animal, he would have gladly relieved himself on one of these crates. On the ground floor, it’s a jungle. The lobby is filled with pots overflowing with soil and jutting trees. If Ferdinand were better versed in horticulture, he would recognize a Japanese camellia, an oleander, an orange tree, a red maple, and several perennials. But what Ferdinand does know best, like a modern-day Attila the Hun, is weed killer, as his naked balcony and the poor hollyhocks underneath can attest.

“I hope they don’t plan on putting all those trees above my place! All I need is for them to bring the balconies crashing down—onto my balcony!”

Upon arriving at the church, Ferdinand pushes open the heavy wooden door, enters without crossing himself, and sits down in a pew at the back of the nave. Nobody else is there. He enjoys his tranquility, even if the smell of incense bothers him—his ex-wife always lit a stick of incense after meals. After barely twenty minutes, Ferdinand shifts from one cheek to the other. It isn’t very comfortable. He’s cold, too, and hungry. It’s 10:40, a bit early for a ham sandwich. He sighs. The day will be long. Very long.

All of a sudden, the wooden door opens and shuts heavily. Ferdinand glances up discreetly to see who’s come to pray. But no one passes by. He senses a presence behind him. Ferdinand feels himself being watched, a very disagreeable sensation. He slowly turns around to find a stooped man wearing a raincoat standing to the left, near the entrance. He appears to be waiting for something or someone. Ferdinand hears the stranger’s rhythmic wheezing. Each inhalation seems to scrape down the sides of his windpipe before working its way out through narrow, congested nostrils. Every breath is agony. On a normal day, Ferdinand would find it extremely annoying, but fatigue and solitude have gotten the better of him, and the hollow sound sends chills down his spine.

Ferdinand is on guard. He feels as if a crouching beast is preparing to pounce. He hopes someone comes in, even the priest, even if it means he has to go to confession. He could easily conjure up a few unorthodox tales to admit. His only objective is to not stay here alone with this psychopath. But no priest shows up, and no other charitable soul is on the horizon. Ferdinand summons the courage to stand up. Slowly, he heads for the door, as normally as possible, without glancing at the man.

Once he reaches the reassuring light of day, the evil demons are behind him.

At 2:30 p.m., having gulped down a sandwich made with stale bread, Ferdinand is shivering on a bench in the church square. He hasn’t dared return inside, dreading the presence of his chance companion.
I hate movers. I already hate these new neighbors who are forcing me to roam the streets like a bum.
Without even knowing his tormentors’ identities, he almost misses the hairdresser. But a ray of hope makes him hold fast to the bench—Ferdinand knows how to welcome the new neighbors in turn, and thank them for this terrible day . . .

After more than five hours, completely exhausted, Ferdinand finally returns home. The moving truck has disappeared, but the green plants are still crowding the lobby, and the stairs are littered with scraps of cardboard. Still, someone did deign to clear the way to his door. Silence has returned. At last! Ferdinand collapses into his bed, determined to fall asleep as quickly as possible, when, all of a sudden, he hears a whimper. He forces himself to stay focused on his sleep and pulls the blanket up over his head.

“It’s nothing,” he says when, this time, a cry rings out from above his bed.
It can’t be true . . . no, not that! I have to refocus. It’ll stop. It has to stop.

But it doesn’t stop. Between 4:30 and 6:00 p.m., no relief. The cries of the new occupant of the bedroom upstairs have only ceased long enough for a bottle, too quickly drained. When Ferdinand gives up and leaves his bedroom to collapse into his armchair, he turns up the volume on the quiz show
Questions for a Champion
to cover up the incessant sniveling. The show, a favorite of everyone at Eight Rue Bonaparte, has already started. The “Four in a Row” round reveals a mystery category dear to Ferdinand: attack dogs.

“Ah, finally, something positive! I’m gonna get all of these! I’d even wager this airhead will mix up Great Danes and Weimaraners.” Ferdinand is on his game—it takes him less than two seconds to identify the German shepherd, then the Doberman pinscher. He stumbles on the Dogo Argentino, which he wouldn’t have put in the attack dog category, when there’s a knock at the door.

“If that’s Christine coming back to say good-bye, you’re too late, old girl!” he said, turning up the TV. “You left me in a pickle and I’m not in the mood . . .” The person rings the doorbell. “I must be dreaming! People are beyond presumptuous. I really oughtta disconnect it. That damned bell is double trouble—I pay for the electricity so they can bug me . . .”

“Hello?” a man’s voice calls out. “I’m sorry to bother you. Is anyone there? I’m your new neighbor.”

Ferdinand sits up.
How dare he? I’d keep a low profile if I were him!

“Is anyone there?”

Ferdinand stands and, via the peephole, learns who’s responsible for his day of torture.
A man, that’s something anyway—there won’t be any high heels!
Maybe forty years old, brown hair, a relatively soft voice. He’s wearing a green sweatshirt. The new neighbor doesn’t seem too awful.

“Is anyone there? I just wanted to introduce myself. I just moved in upstairs, my name is Antoine and—”

“Let me stop you right there. I think I’ve had my fill of introductions. You can go back home. I’ve heard enough of you for today. You, your baby, your furniture! Good-bye, sir.”

Ferdinand watches his crestfallen neighbor, shoulders slumped, head back to the stairs. The old man returns to his armchair. The door upstairs slams. With all this nonsense, Ferdinand missed the rest of the categories in “Four in a Row.” Of course. It’s his favorite part. Couldn’t that damned neighbor have waited?

Ferdinand decides to go to bed early. Too bad for the weekly late-night variety show, but in any case it’s always the same musical numbers, the same guests, the same jokes—and rarely funny for that matter. The kid stopped crying around 8:00 p.m. She must be sleeping now. Ferdinand resets his alarm. He has to recuperate. He turns out all the lights, and it takes him no more than five minutes to drift off and enjoy six hours of restorative sleep before the alarm goes off.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Ferdinand feels fit as a fiddle. He goes into the living room, clears his wheeled serving cart, then sets down a dusty turntable that hasn’t been used in over twenty years. He rummages through a chest and pulls out an LP—his favorite. He pushes the whole thing toward his bedroom.

He plugs in the device, positions the vinyl record, sets it turning, and lowers the needle. The device crackles, and all of a sudden, as if an orchestra had stormed Ferdinand’s bedroom, the booming voice of Frank Sinatra—a.k.a. Ol’ Blue Eyes—starts singing “Almost Like Being in Love.” Ferdinand smiles. Time seems to have leapt backward by close to sixty-five years. He loves this song, especially the beginning. He turns up the volume all the way and puts the turntable on top of his wardrobe, inches from the ceiling. Dust bunnies flutter above him.

Ten, nine, eight . . . As he reaches five, he hears a baby begin to wail. Ferdinand sings along with Ol’ Blue Eyes and puts his whole heart into it. “I could
swear
I was falling!” He knows all the words and keeps time by tapping his foot with the same enthusiasm as Fred Astaire in
Happy Feet.