Copyright
Other Works by Jacques Jouet in English Translation
If it so happened that I had to decide, among the legible world’s variety of propositions, or more specifically among those candidates under the category of road signs, which legible suggestion deserves to be called the most counter-logical and disarming, then it turns out I wouldn’t have much trouble.
It isn’t unusual to discover, along roads of all sorts, this odd triangular image that the authorities have erected in plain view—
—signaling a crossing for aroused deer running at full speed, which drivers must avoid hitting, even though everyone knows that at such locations the average driver will hardly ever see the slightest trace of one.
On the other hand, I’ve never come across a sign like this one—
NO
DUMPING
—which doesn’t seem to have compensated for its absence of images with the inevitable reality lying below it, a pile of trash, foodmechanical waste, debris, and printed material, which no longer signify by themselves, a sort of illiterate provocation aimed at overly abstract or arbitrary prohibitions.
For my part, if I’ve announced anything on the cover of my book that won’t actually appear in these pages, it can only be my name—and not just my name, but also the possessive pronoun modifying the bus . . . as if I hadn’t recalled Pascal:
Certain authors, speaking of their works, say, “My book,” “My commentary,” “My history,” etc.” They resemble middle-class people who have a house of their own, and always have “My house” on their tongue. They would do better to say: “Our book,” “Our commentary,” “Our history,” etc., because there is in them usually more of other people’s than their own. 1
On the contrary, what have I not put on this cover that may indeed appear in these pages? That’s my first question. And for the reader who reads only the warning labels and then puts the book aside, well, that’s too bad. This book won’t be the one that garners more than my normal share of five hundred readers or earns royalties beyond my advance.
I supplied the label “novel” reluctantly. Even though writers have only recently been expected to give their books these labels, I’m naïve enough to be proud of my denial of this new practice. The reason is simple: I’m searching for a new form for narrative. In it, fiction will be the object of a conquest, a campaign in which the reader will be enlisted, though first he’ll be asked to endure a few pages of training, explanations of story and strategy.
Who wouldn’t enjoy slipping into the imaginative tale? One moment you aren’t there yet (just as when, not so long ago, you’d have to wait through newsreels and cartoons at the movie theater), and the next you’re right in the middle of it. Are you there yet?—Well, if I’m not, then please put me there. And if I’m in too deep, please come and join me, to share the experience or pull me out.
We aren’t looking for fiction, but rather the search for fiction. When fiction is too commandeering, it becomes nothing but mere brutality. Continuous fiction is boring. The chase is better than the catch.
They do not know that it is the chase, and not the quarry, which they seek. 2
At this point, the story will follow some paths that may appear whimsical on the surface. It will follow changes in the landscape and the seasons. A closer look will reveal that the narrative is, in fact, rigorously following logical paths that it is unaware of, or that the current page is hiding.
What do the Republic’s road-maintenance crews dream of while hunched over their tools? They dream of dreams. And what other things do the ticket inspectors and the mechanics dream of? And what about the bus drivers? Bus drivers—and their passengers—dream of buses, or of anything else that their vehicles’ attributes allow. And if they always dream of a more beautiful bus, then at least one example in particular must be the starting point, and more precisely the closest one—their own. Or maybe they dream about who owns the rows of crops they see through its windows.
My beautiful bus is in its garage in Châtillon, a garage that suits its dimensions perfectly. There isn’t enough space for two like it. It’s sheltered. It doesn’t sleep on its side.
The driver of this beautiful bus is sleeping in a nearby hotel room. The Levant hotel has only six rooms, each one of them modest. On the wallpaper, a team of white horses repeats itself. There’s a light bulb on the ceiling, in a glass globe, and a little neon light on the bedside table. The man takes up one half of a double bed. The right half remains empty, reserved for an absent companion. He sleeps in pajamas, with one arm covering his face, his nose wedged in the fold of his arm. He swallows continuously, as if he were dry-mouthed, thirsting for a drink.
An electronic alarm clock on the bedside table goes off at six o’clock, as it had been set to do. A few seconds later, in turn, the nearby church strikes six long notes. Why doesn’t the town hall sound its bell?
The driver uses Basile as his only name, and is twenty-five years into his career. He doesn’t live in Châtillon, but in a town eighty kilometers away, somewhere along the national highway. Every time he drives by his own quaint little house, he honks as a sort of hello to his wife, their daughter, the cat, and his garden gnomes.
Basile has slept in Châtillon on his company’s dime, as he does each time he gets in late and needs to leave again at dawn.
A trip home would add too many kilometers and drastically diminish the day’s profits to a break-even outcome. When work is scarce, you do what you need to do.
During these nights, Basile continues to drive in his sleep. In the morning, upon waking, he intently makes his way to the bathroom. He keeps his eyes closed for as long as possible. Basile washes himself from head to toe. He opens his eyes. He shaves and brushes his teeth. Once showered, he rediscovers his face in the mirror. He rediscovers his name, and then his wife’s: Odile. He slips into his overalls. He folds the alarm clock into his pajamas and packs everything in a travel bag.
Between the hotel and the garage, hardly 200 meters by foot, Basile doesn’t see the least bit of Châtillon, not a soul among its thousand or so inhabitants. He doesn’t notice its 900-meter elevation, its ruins of a Templar stronghold, or the second-rate RV campground . . . He’s thinking through the things he has to take care of before the departure, his routine.
Basile pampers the beautiful bus before departing. It rained yesterday and the lane-expansion project on the highway made for a muddy trip. There hadn’t been any triangular road signs carrying the inscription MUD, which would have been spelled out of course, since a graphic depicting mud doesn’t exist.
My beautiful bus is two-and-a-half years old. It’s a hardy vehicle that Basile himself has tamed. It’s a VH 300 with a standard wheelbase, forty-nine non-adjustable seats plus the driver’s (the nine folding seats were taken out), a six-cylinder engine, a passenger door, a lateral exit, and luggage compartments on each side. It’s equipped with hydraulic power steering.
My beautiful bus is lavender blue with white stripes. Its sunshades are the same faded blue. On winter mornings its exhaust is sometimes blue.
Relatively speaking, the bus driver is older than his vehicle. He’s only eight years away from retirement, and his increasingly frequent medical checkups yield healthy
