took my hand.
‘If you need to talk, if you have any questions, you mustn’t hesitate.’
I let go of her hand. She was expecting something. I went closer and hugged her. She squeezed even harder than me. When she let me go, I went and did the same with my dad. He squeezed me really hard.
‘Dad, you’re squashing me . . .’
I didn’t have anything more to say or do. I went into the hall and headed for my room without stopping at the bathroom. I could hear them whispering. I didn’t feel like listening to them any more.
In my room, once I’d closed the door, I felt weird. I heard them switch on the television. Off went my dad on his evening TV shift. My parents hadn’t spoken for long and for once they hadn’t argued.
I picked up my video camera but I wasn’t in the mood to look at the neighbour’s boobs. I rewound to New Year’s. We’d spent it at Julien’s place in Montérégie. I’d been spared the hyperactive twins jumping on the sofa. They were with their mum. It was better that way for Julien, he didn’t have to run around after them all evening. Joint custody probably suited him. It only ever really suits the parents anyway.
I couldn’t stop going back and forth between 1997 and 1998. I pressed rewind and listened to it over and over, the fateful countdown.
‘Five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . . one . . . zero! Happy New Year!’
Then I saw my mum and dad wishing me Happy New Year into the lens. They’d had trouble finding the right words. Now I understood why they’d been so uncomfortable.
‘Dad, get closer to Mum so I can see both of you in the picture!’
I pressed stop. I’d seen too much of them. I put the tape with the neighbour’s boobs back in. I switched the video camera off and put it away in my schoolbag.
I stretched out on my back and looked at the ceiling. It was white like before, but the white looked different. I didn’t get it – everything seemed the same. But nothing was the same any more. Then it started, all of a sudden. Tears streaming from every corner of my eyes and pouring down my face. I put my hands on my cheeks but the tears kept coming. I couldn’t stop them. I was crying as I’d never cried before. Usually I only cry if I hurt myself or a friend hits me. This time it was coming from inside. It hurts so much more. I didn’t know that.
This couldn’t be happening to me! Not me. How could they split up? Share me? Impossible! Your own parents aren’t supposed to split up, only ever other people’s.
‘They mustn’t! They mustn’t! They mustn’t!’
And I cried some more until there was nothing left. I didn’t know that would end either. They hadn’t even asked me what I thought. And yet it was my business too, it was my life! If they were behaving like this it must mean they didn’t love me any more, since they had said they still loved each other, but not in the same way.
‘Help me! Help me! Help me!’
No one answered. I was all alone. I went over to the window. It was raining, and I looked up at the sky, grey and black. I couldn’t stop staring at it. I was so small, and it was so big.
And I prayed to the sky to help me.
BÉBÉ . . . JE T’AI, TOI, BÉBÉ . . .
‘Ten to twenty millimetres of rain, now that could cause a few problems . . .’ The man on the television screen was relaxed and in a cheerful mood. He strolled along through a light rain, in his loose green raincoat, doing his usual banter. Bad weather was his moment of glory. That was normal – he was the television weatherman. It went without saying that the sky held no secrets for him. He didn’t give a damn there under his umbrella. The anchorwoman seemed to think it was pretty funny.
‘Go and dry off! We want to see you again at the end of the programme. You must be completely frozen now!’
‘He can go piss himself, that’ll warm him up, fucking faggot.’
Alex didn’t say anything. He didn’t laugh. Or smile. In fact, he didn’t even notice his dad’s sarcasm. Ever since Doro – his wife, his love – had left him without warning, Alexis saw faggots everywhere. And when they weren’t faggots, they were Jews, rarely both at the same time.
Alexis no longer looked at women and he didn’t try to attract their attention. So no women were attracted to him. And yet at forty-five he was still a good-looking man . . . but he didn’t like himself any more. Hating others was what kept him afloat.
‘All fags! Fucking Jews!’
Around his son he was different. He had a gentle side, nurtured no doubt by his sense of guilt. Alex’s hair was as black and frizzy as Alexis’s was straight and fair and blondish-grey. Only their names were similar. Just the kind of bad idea a dad would have.
‘In Alexis, there’s Alex!’
Every so often Alex asked Alexis to tell him who his mother was and why she’d gone away.
‘I just can’t, Alex. It’s as if she no longer exists.’
It’s not something you can talk about, a thing that doesn’t exist. So Alex never asked again.
‘What bullshit! They never told us yesterday that there’d be black ice, and now there is, and I’ll bet you tomorrow there won’t be any. Can you imagine, if I worked the way they do?’
Alex looked at his dad. It was at moments like this that he most missed having a mother. She was the one who should have been glaring defiantly at Alexis. She was the one who should be making him see reality, asking him, ‘Would you look at yourself?’
Alex had often wondered if he’d really had a mother, if you could just come from nowhere. He had no memory of his early childhood. All he knew was that Alexis had been a musician, a singer-songwriter and guitar player. Alex remembered how when he was younger he used to spend long days at the recording studio. He could remember those huge mixing desks, and how he would sit sprawled on a sofa watching his dad behind the big pane of glass, his guitar strap over his shoulder. He may have been just a kid, and not meant to understand everything, but he had a fairly good idea what was happening.
‘Alexis! It’s always the same thing with you! Can’t you just play what we asked you to play? C minor is C minor, and A minor is A minor . . . And we’re paying you to play C minor!’
‘After a C minor you never play an F sharp, didn’t your music teacher teach you that?’
‘Alexis . . . All we’re asking is for you to play the damn score, we don’t give a fuck about your opinion.’
‘No F sharps after a C minor!’
‘You’re impossible . . . Just get the hell out of here.’
‘You don’t know who you’re losing! You’ll be sorry!’
That was how the final sessions always went. Not one of the studios was ever sorry they’d lost Alexis. But he was blindly stubborn, so he didn’t give up on his career. When you’re sure you have talent, sure that
