night table or, if by chance Philippe had come back, I would place my hand on his forehead and say, “No hard feelings. See youaround.” Unless. Then we’d have to see. Lay down conditions. Nothing like this, ever again.
I fell asleep in that state of mind.
The window was open, and I was in harmony with the city. Noise, fatigue, but also a tremendous desire for change. A desire to become someone else. Someone good. Or at least respected. The process had begun. It should have gone on naturally, taken its course in themonths and years to come. In fact, the birth went very quickly.
And the obstetrician ruined everything.
I can feel my lips tightening with the first signs of the outskirts of Paris.
This is where I live now, the outskirts of Paris, along with hundreds of thousands of other people. But I am not an ant. I know what I want. And above all I know what I don’t want.
You, Philippe.
I don’t wantanything to do with you.
Memories overlapping.
What an exhausting trip.
I didn’t need this.
The one thing I dream of, when we get to Paris, would be to find a hotel and sleep in an anonymous, comfortable room, where nobody would want anything from me. I would take the exit behind the Gare de l’Est, the one no one uses—Château-Landon—and book the first available room at the All Seasons, the elevator would be full ofJapanese tourists out for a good time, and I would collapse on the bed. And when I woke up I’d be another person.
I really would like to be another person.
I’ve always wanted to be another person. Less disciplined. More intelligent. Brilliant. A meteor. Someone you see whiz by in the sky and you talk about them to your kids years later, all starry-eyed. Someone like Mathieu Coché. And yet it’sstrange, when we were teenagers, you would never have expected anything like it. Mathieu was sort of my sparring partner. The guy who comes along with you to auditions to read you your lines, but who never gets chosen. I don’t know what made the difference. Adversity, perhaps. Nothing was easy for him back then, whereas for me, everything just landed in my lap—love, friendship, sex, it was alldead simple. Cécile Duffaut was actually the first girl whoever left me. How could she have done anything else?
I was unbearable.
I remember the end, in London. Don’t think I don’t. You might think you’ve forgotten everything, but that would be blatant hypocrisy. In fact, I’m convinced that people’s ability to remember is much better than they claim.
I wandered around, it was late afternoon.At first I was glad to be alone. At that age it’s hard to explain to the person you’re with that you might need solitude, that you don’t want to be glued to them twenty-four hours a day. This was the first time we’d been together for whole days at a time. In a foreign city. I suppose it could have brought us closer if we had really been in love. But that wasn’t the case. I say, “I suppose,” becausethe more time goes by, the more I wonder if I’ve ever been in love. It was as if I was wrapped in a thin layer of plastic that kept me apart from other people. But maybe it’s the same for everyone. Every human being must wonder what it means “to be in love.” What came closest, for me, was a desire to spend my everyday life with another person: morning breath, the coziness of a night without sex,breakfast for two and then for four, X-Factor programs on TV on Saturday evenings. I know there’s nothing at all exciting about any of that.
In fact, I could easily have shared my everyday life with Cécile Duffaut. We got along well. It’s just that when you’re twenty that’s not enough. You dream about things that’ll blow you sky-high, full of incredible passion, you want to be beside yourselfwith emotion and euphoria and pain, your heart beating wildly.You’re convinced that unless you’re experiencing all that you must be heading down the wrong path, and the relationship is not worth the
I fell asleep in that state of mind.
The window was open, and I was in harmony with the city. Noise, fatigue, but also a tremendous desire for change. A desire to become someone else. Someone good. Or at least respected. The process had begun. It should have gone on naturally, taken its course in themonths and years to come. In fact, the birth went very quickly.
And the obstetrician ruined everything.
I can feel my lips tightening with the first signs of the outskirts of Paris.
This is where I live now, the outskirts of Paris, along with hundreds of thousands of other people. But I am not an ant. I know what I want. And above all I know what I don’t want.
You, Philippe.
I don’t wantanything to do with you.
Memories overlapping.
What an exhausting trip.
I didn’t need this.
The one thing I dream of, when we get to Paris, would be to find a hotel and sleep in an anonymous, comfortable room, where nobody would want anything from me. I would take the exit behind the Gare de l’Est, the one no one uses—Château-Landon—and book the first available room at the All Seasons, the elevator would be full ofJapanese tourists out for a good time, and I would collapse on the bed. And when I woke up I’d be another person.
I really would like to be another person.
I’ve always wanted to be another person. Less disciplined. More intelligent. Brilliant. A meteor. Someone you see whiz by in the sky and you talk about them to your kids years later, all starry-eyed. Someone like Mathieu Coché. And yet it’sstrange, when we were teenagers, you would never have expected anything like it. Mathieu was sort of my sparring partner. The guy who comes along with you to auditions to read you your lines, but who never gets chosen. I don’t know what made the difference. Adversity, perhaps. Nothing was easy for him back then, whereas for me, everything just landed in my lap—love, friendship, sex, it was alldead simple. Cécile Duffaut was actually the first girl whoever left me. How could she have done anything else?
I was unbearable.
I remember the end, in London. Don’t think I don’t. You might think you’ve forgotten everything, but that would be blatant hypocrisy. In fact, I’m convinced that people’s ability to remember is much better than they claim.
I wandered around, it was late afternoon.At first I was glad to be alone. At that age it’s hard to explain to the person you’re with that you might need solitude, that you don’t want to be glued to them twenty-four hours a day. This was the first time we’d been together for whole days at a time. In a foreign city. I suppose it could have brought us closer if we had really been in love. But that wasn’t the case. I say, “I suppose,” becausethe more time goes by, the more I wonder if I’ve ever been in love. It was as if I was wrapped in a thin layer of plastic that kept me apart from other people. But maybe it’s the same for everyone. Every human being must wonder what it means “to be in love.” What came closest, for me, was a desire to spend my everyday life with another person: morning breath, the coziness of a night without sex,breakfast for two and then for four, X-Factor programs on TV on Saturday evenings. I know there’s nothing at all exciting about any of that.
In fact, I could easily have shared my everyday life with Cécile Duffaut. We got along well. It’s just that when you’re twenty that’s not enough. You dream about things that’ll blow you sky-high, full of incredible passion, you want to be beside yourselfwith emotion and euphoria and pain, your heart beating wildly.You’re convinced that unless you’re experiencing all that you must be heading down the wrong path, and the relationship is not worth the
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