emotion. Never when they were on the point of parting did he dare to hold her to him. Likewise, when they saw each other again after a gap of several days or weeks, the impulse which always propelled him towards her seemed to offend her, to jolt her immobility. He could get no purchase. Nothing to latch on to.
She didn’t open her arms.
He had long wondered if Lila was like that because that was her nature, if this refusal to be demonstrative outside the bed was just the way she was, a given which he had to accept and about which he could do nothing. Or if conversely it was reserved for him, affected only him, a silent reminder of the way they were developing, and that all they were playing out was a physical affair, not something which from any vantage point could resemble a relationship. They weren’t together . They didn’t constitute anything – they had no geometry, no shape. They had met and been happy to repeat that encounter each time they saw each other – to mix one with the other and notice the fact of that fusion.
Lila was his downfall. His punishment for all the women he’d been incapable of loving, the ones he’d seen for just a few nights, the ones he’d ended up leaving – because something he couldn’t name kept coming back. It was ridiculous, but he had thought: the time had come for him to settle the account.
A love affair perhaps simply came down to this imbalance: as soon as you wanted something, expected something, you’d lost.
Chemistry could do nothing in the face of Lila’s memory and her unresolved past loves. He was utterly weightless compared to the man she was waiting for, hoping for, a smooth man who was unlike him.
And words, like liquids, had evaporated.
On rue Daviel he’s parked on a pedestrian crossing.
He doesn’t want to circle the block three times looking for a space. He’s tired.
Passers-by give him filthy looks. It doesn’t matter that he has a sign and a badge on the side of his car, he’s on their turf. In the city, you’re either a pedestrian, a cyclist or a driver. You walk, pedal or drive. You look people over, size them up, and despise them. In the city, you have to decide which side you’re on.
A little further on, Mrs L.’s waiting for him. Her baby has a fever of 102. He knows her. He sees her four times a month. She weighs, measures, watches, checks. She manufactures worry. The base is unable to refuse to send out a doctor. A matter of responsibility. Nine times out of ten, it’s Thibault who goes. Because Mrs L. knows him and he doesn’t lose patience with her. And in addition, she asks for him.
He has to pick up his bag, get out of the car and close the door.
This time he’s the loser. He loves a woman who doesn’t love him. Maybe there’s nothing more violent than the acknowledgement of this powerlessness? Maybe there’s no worse sorrow, worse malady?
No, he knows that’s not so. That’s ridiculous. It’s untrue.
Unrequited love is no more nor less than a kidney stone. The size of a grain of sand, a pea, a marble or a golf ball – a crystallised chemical substance likely to cause a sharp, indeed unbearable, pain. But which always goes in the end.
He hasn’t undone his seat belt. From behind his windscreen he looks at the city. Its never-ending ballet in spring colours. An empty plastic bag which dances in the gutter. A man bent over at the post-office entrance whom no one seems to notice. Green dustbins overturned on the pavement. Men and women going into a bank, passing each other on a crossing.
He watches the city, all these superimposed actions. This place of endless intersections where people never meet.
Mathilde has put her files on the shelves, her pens in a pot and arranged her supplies of stationery in her drawer. That has taken her the best part of an hour, by making sure she moved slowly, that each decision came after several minutes of deliberation, to put things here or there, at the edge or in the
She didn’t open her arms.
He had long wondered if Lila was like that because that was her nature, if this refusal to be demonstrative outside the bed was just the way she was, a given which he had to accept and about which he could do nothing. Or if conversely it was reserved for him, affected only him, a silent reminder of the way they were developing, and that all they were playing out was a physical affair, not something which from any vantage point could resemble a relationship. They weren’t together . They didn’t constitute anything – they had no geometry, no shape. They had met and been happy to repeat that encounter each time they saw each other – to mix one with the other and notice the fact of that fusion.
Lila was his downfall. His punishment for all the women he’d been incapable of loving, the ones he’d seen for just a few nights, the ones he’d ended up leaving – because something he couldn’t name kept coming back. It was ridiculous, but he had thought: the time had come for him to settle the account.
A love affair perhaps simply came down to this imbalance: as soon as you wanted something, expected something, you’d lost.
Chemistry could do nothing in the face of Lila’s memory and her unresolved past loves. He was utterly weightless compared to the man she was waiting for, hoping for, a smooth man who was unlike him.
And words, like liquids, had evaporated.
On rue Daviel he’s parked on a pedestrian crossing.
He doesn’t want to circle the block three times looking for a space. He’s tired.
Passers-by give him filthy looks. It doesn’t matter that he has a sign and a badge on the side of his car, he’s on their turf. In the city, you’re either a pedestrian, a cyclist or a driver. You walk, pedal or drive. You look people over, size them up, and despise them. In the city, you have to decide which side you’re on.
A little further on, Mrs L.’s waiting for him. Her baby has a fever of 102. He knows her. He sees her four times a month. She weighs, measures, watches, checks. She manufactures worry. The base is unable to refuse to send out a doctor. A matter of responsibility. Nine times out of ten, it’s Thibault who goes. Because Mrs L. knows him and he doesn’t lose patience with her. And in addition, she asks for him.
He has to pick up his bag, get out of the car and close the door.
This time he’s the loser. He loves a woman who doesn’t love him. Maybe there’s nothing more violent than the acknowledgement of this powerlessness? Maybe there’s no worse sorrow, worse malady?
No, he knows that’s not so. That’s ridiculous. It’s untrue.
Unrequited love is no more nor less than a kidney stone. The size of a grain of sand, a pea, a marble or a golf ball – a crystallised chemical substance likely to cause a sharp, indeed unbearable, pain. But which always goes in the end.
He hasn’t undone his seat belt. From behind his windscreen he looks at the city. Its never-ending ballet in spring colours. An empty plastic bag which dances in the gutter. A man bent over at the post-office entrance whom no one seems to notice. Green dustbins overturned on the pavement. Men and women going into a bank, passing each other on a crossing.
He watches the city, all these superimposed actions. This place of endless intersections where people never meet.
Mathilde has put her files on the shelves, her pens in a pot and arranged her supplies of stationery in her drawer. That has taken her the best part of an hour, by making sure she moved slowly, that each decision came after several minutes of deliberation, to put things here or there, at the edge or in the
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