The Reader on the 6.27 (8 page)

At the intersection of the three main malls, the big fountain sings its comforting glug glug. A few coins gleam at the bottom, coins thrown in by lovers or superstitious lottery players. I sometimes toss one in as I walk past, when I’m in the mood. Just for the pleasure of seeing it twinkle as it twirls down to the bottom. Perhaps too because that eight-year-old who’s waiting for her Prince Charming to come and set her free at last is still inside me. A real Prince Charming who, having parked his magnificent steed in the car park (an Audi A3 or a DS with a leather interior, for instance), will pop into my dwelling to empty his bladder then sweep me up in his arms and carry me off for a protracted love affair. I’d better stop reading
True Romance
. That stuff gets me all hormonal.

I cascade down the fifteen stairs to my workplace in the bowels of the shopping centre. I insert my second fob to activate the mechanism that raises the metal shutter. It makes a terrifying clatter, as if, above my head, giant jaws are crunching the metal as it is swallowed up by the ceiling. Then I have an hour of “me time” until the doors open and the customers arrive. This is the hour I spend at my little camping table revising what I wrote the previous day and typing it onto my computer. I love the idea that my thoughts have matured overnight, like dough left to rise which you find in the morning all puffed-up and sweet-smelling. And to my ears, the clicking of the keys on my keyboard is the most beautiful music. When I’ve finished, I put my computer away in its case and don the sky-blue overall that is my uniform. A hideous polyester thing that makes me look like a post-office clerk from the 1970s. If people judge by appearances, then as my aunt would say, “Let Saint Harpic, the patron saint of lavatory attendants, be damned!”

It’s time for Josy and breakfast. Josy (she hates being called Josiane) is the shampoo girl at the hair salon on the first floor. She is everything that I am not. She’s in beauty; my world is ugly. She’s frivolous; I’m more of the serious type. She’s exuberant; I’m more uptight and repressed. Maybe that’s why Josy and I get on so well. When she walks in, it’s like a ray of sunshine. We tell each other our woes and our joys over a croissant and a coffee. We chat, we talk about our customers. How this one asked for his hair to be dyed apple green, how another broke one of my flushes because the idiot hadn’t realized you had to push not pull. We solve all the world’s problems, tell each other our dreams and giggle like pubescent schoolgirls, then say have a nice day and see you tomorrow. Her day off is Tuesday. Tuesdays don’t have the same flavour; there’s an indefinable something missing, like a herb left out when cooking. I don’t like Tuesdays.
’

Before leaving home, Guylain had substituted Julie’s writings for the previous day’s live skins. He did it without even asking himself why. It seemed completely natural to reconstitute little fragments of the young woman in the place where he had found them. He liked the idea that maybe one day, Julie herself would be sitting among them in that packed carriage listening to her own words.

‘The 10 a.m. lard-arse came today. Always the same tactic. He charges down the stairs with his moronic hippopotamus tread and goes straight to his cubicle without even saying hello, nearly knocking over the table as he goes past. The 10 a.m. lard-arse never says hello or goodbye. Without a word, without a look, he dives into the last cubicle, number 8. I’ve never seen him use any other cubicle. And if number 8 is occupied, then he waits, stamping his feet and kicking his heels outside the door, champing at the bit. This guy exudes smugness and uncouthness. The mug of an SUV driver who parks in the disabled parking bays. That guy’s been coming once a week on the dot of ten to mess up number 8, making a racket that sounds like Armageddon, and I still haven’t plucked up the courage to rebuke him even slightly even though he deserves it, he really does. Because when I say “mess up”, it’s not just a turn of phrase. Not to mention that this oaf uses up an entire roll of toilet paper each time and, of course, never takes the trouble to flush. I have to go in after his majesty’s backside and spend nearly ten minutes making the place decent again. The worst thing is that this disgusting individual comes out of my cubicle number 8 as clean as a new pin, his jacket immaculate, the crease in his trousers in the right place, all hunky-dory. But the drop of water that made the bidet overflow, as Aunty always says, is the tip. That adipose miser never leaves me more than one of those tiny five-cent coins, which he casually drops into my saucer. I always try to catch his eye, to signal my indignation, but that bastard has never dared look in my direction. For him, I am barely more than the china saucer in which he leaves his charitable donation. That guy is a first-class bastard. The sort who always comes up smelling of roses. But I will not despair. I’ll get him one day, as they say.
’

Reading the description of the 10 a.m. lard-arse, Guylain couldn’t help thinking of Felix Kowalski. He could not have come up with a better description of his boss.

When he reached the plant, the perimeter wall seemed higher than ever.

17

Yvon greeted Guylain with three aptly chosen lines:

‘
Shoulder your long and energetic task,

The way that Destiny sees fit to ask,

Then suffer and so die without complaint.
’

‘“The Death of the Wolf”, Alfred de Vigny,’ Guylain shot back in the direction of the hut as he slid his thin frame through the huge doors to the works. Not a week went by without Yvon reciting those three lines. As Guylain walked through the door, he did not find Brunner in his usual position slouched against the Thing’s control panel. Instead, Brunner came forward to meet him and followed on his heels, pursuing him into the changing room. The lanky fellow was jumping up and down and laughing nervously. Watching him circle round him like an excitable puppy, Guylain realized at once that he had something to tell him.

‘What’s up, Lucien?’

This was what Brunner had been waiting for. From his pocket he fished out a piece of paper with the company’s letterhead and waved it under Guylain’s nose with a broad grin:

‘It’s scheduled for May, Monsieur Vignolles. Five days in Bordeaux at the company’s expense.’ And the bastard had finally got his passport onto the next training course for a licence to operate the Zerstor. At last Brunner was going to fulfil his dream: starting up the wretched Thing. Guylain found it harder and harder to bear that psychopath’s rapturous grins each time he sent a new bucket of books down into hell. It had always been his view that an executioner was duty-bound to remain impassive and not to show his feelings. Giuseppe had taught him to consider the multitude purely as a whole. ‘Don’t dwell on the details, kiddo. It will be easier, you’ll see,’ he had advised. If ill luck had it that a book managed somehow to catch Guylain’s attention, then he would race to the Zerstor’s arse end and gaze into the grey pulp until the image etched on his retina disappeared. Brunner did the opposite. That bastard derived a perverse pleasure from taking a close interest in what he was destroying. He would sometimes pull out a copy from the mountain and flick through it contemptuously before ripping off the cover and flinging the remains into the greedy maw. He knew that this upset Guylain and he often laid it on thickly. Then his voice would crackle in the headphones through the interference.

‘Hey, Monsieur Vignolles, did you see, it’s last year’s Renaudot winner? They’ve still got their red wrap-around bands on!’

When he did this, even though it was strictly against the regulations, Guylain would kill the radio link so as not to have to put up with Brunner’s despicable taunts. That morning, it took longer than usual for Guylain to lapse into the mindless state into which the Zerstor’s incessant pounding inescapably plunged him. Julie was there with him, snuggled cosily under his hard hat. At lunch break, he wandered over to Yvon’s hut and ate his way absently through a packet of savoury biscuits washed down with a cup of Yvon’s black tea. His chewing was accompanied by Victor Hugo’s
Ruy Blas
. Act III, Scene 2. Eyes closed, his head against the window that rattled at the sound of Yvon’s powerful voice, Guylain listened as the verses of the slave in love with his queen filled the metal shack. Then he had the brainwave of introducing Yvon Grimbert to Magnolia Court. With a smile, Guylain pictured the security guard recounting the convoluted plots of these tragedies from another era to an audience of spellbound Magnolias. The man deserved a real audience, albeit an audience made up of ailing old folk. Guylain waited until Yvon had finished his speech before broaching the idea.

‘Last Saturday, I went and gave a reading in a retirement home in Gagny. I’m going back this weekend. They’re delightful people. They want me to come every Saturday. So I was thinking, Monsieur Grimbert, that it would be nice if you came with me and read something to them as well.’

Guylain had never managed to call Yvon by his first name. It was nothing to do with their age difference. He had no problem calling Giuseppe by his first name, even though he was older than the security guard. It was more a mark of esteem for his art. Yvon responded enthusiastically to the idea of exporting his voice beyond his tiny hut. Taken aback by his eagerness, Guylain, however, expressed some reservations as to the audience’s ability to follow the rule of classical theatre’s three unities. Yvon reassured him:

‘
Fie on wars of power, and on treasons sublime,

On all these dark princes, who will concoct their crime.

History won’t matter, as long as sings the rhyme

And a hope still lives on to reach the peak in time.
’

As Yvon was already beginning to plan a programme of play readings going from Pierre Corneille to Molière and Jean Racine, Guylain reminded him that all this was still just a suggestion and that he would have to negotiate the arrangement with the Delacôte sisters. Guylain glanced at his watch and left hurriedly. He had an appointment at the occupational health clinic for his annual check-up at 1.30 sharp.

A pasty-looking healthcare assistant greeted him and asked him to remove all his clothes except his underpants. She weighed him, measured him, gave him a hearing test and an eye test, took his blood pressure and dipped a little stick in the bottle of urine he’d brought in. Five minutes later, a sun-bronzed doctor the colour of gingerbread called Guylain in for a summary check.

‘Right, everything’s fine, Monsieur . . . Vignolles . . . is that right, Guylain Vignolles? No particular problems to report? You appear to be in good shape, even though you are close to the lower limit of the curve.’

No, everything’s not fine
, Guylain felt like replying.
I’m waiting for the return of a father who died twenty-eight years ago. My mother thinks I’m an executive in a publishing company. Every night I tell a fish about my day. My job sickens me to the point that I sometimes puke my guts out. And to crown it all I’m falling under the spell of a girl I’ve never met. In a nutshell, then, no problems, except that in every single area of my life I am ‘close to the lower limit of the curve’, if you see what I mean.
Instead, Guylain gave a laconic ‘I’m fine’. After a few recommendations on the importance of a healthy diet, the doctor scribbled his verdict at the bottom of the file. It was summed up in three words – three little words that entitled Guylain to continue the massacre with impunity: Fit for work.

That evening, Guylain went over to Giuseppe’s. Sometimes he needed more than a goldfish to share his feelings. For nearly half an hour, he talked about the USB stick, explained how he had devoured the seventy-two documents it contained. He told Giuseppe excitedly about Julie; how the young woman wrote about her day-to-day life in little notebooks surrounded by 14,717 white tiles. The old man listened attentively and took in every word of what his friend was telling him.

‘How can I find her? I don’t know anything about her,’ lamented Guylain. Giuseppe smiled.

‘You know a lot more about her than you think. Don’t be so defeatist,’ Giuseppe reassured him. ‘Do you think my legs grew back in a day?’ he said, pointing to the shelves bowing under the weight of the Freyssinets. ‘Have you got the stick with you? Download those files for me and I’ll have a good look at them. There can’t be that many toilets in shopping centres that have attendants.’

When Guylain left, Giuseppe pumped his hand profusely. ‘I’ve got a feeling in my bones that you too will succeed in your quest,’ murmured the old man with a smile.

18

Every Thursday evening, as the flashily dressed celebrity presenter with his smug, smart-arse face appeared on screen, Guylain telephoned his mother. Why Thursday and not another day, he couldn’t say. That was just how it was, for no special reason. Over time, the Thursday evening phone call had become a ritual which he was duty-bound to honour. He knew she was there, comfortably ensconced in the living-room armchair, staring at the TV without really seeing it, locked in a permanent stupor since the departure of her husband that day in August 1984.

Twenty-eight years had now passed, but Guylain still couldn’t say the word ‘dead’ when he spoke of his father. A child at the time, Guylain had visited his father for the last time a few days after the accident. He remembered an inert body lying in a hospital bed. For several long minutes, Guylain had been mesmerized by the tube entering his father’s mouth. He had gazed in fascination at his face, which trembled with each movement of the infernal ventilator to the right of the bed. A man in a white coat had come to fetch his grandfather and had spoken of an imminent departure amid a stream of whisperings. So when two days later the little boy had seen on the TV those helmeted men in their impressive orange spacesuits waving to the crowds from the top of the gangway, his heart had leapt. Their lowered visors made it impossible to see their faces. They all had the same tube he had seen in the hospital coming out of their helmets. He was absolutely certain that his father was among those forms wading clumsily towards the hatch before vanishing inside the belly of the great spaceship. At 12.41 on 30 August 1984, before Guylain’s eyes, the
Discovery
space shuttle took off from its launch pad with a deafening roar, carrying the six men up into space.