to report, so they told lies. There wasn’t so much as two lines to be said about the girl. Apart from a handful of individuals, no one knew Maryse existed. Her death made no difference. What album had they dug that photo out of? She couldn’t be more than twelve in it. The silly smile of the young girl turned his stomach.
‘Oh Bernard, you haven’t eaten a thing! That’s no good, and you know you like shepherd’s pie.’
‘I have, Jacqueline, I’ve had some. I’m just a bit out of sorts, that’s all.’
‘I can see that. You haven’t touched your food. Have you seen Machon again?’
‘Yes, on Monday. Everything’s fine.’
‘Everything’s fine, my foot!’
Jacqueline put her pile of plates down on the corner of the table and ran her hand over her face as if removing an invisible spider’s web. She had had this habit ever since they’d been at primary school together. Jacqueline was his best friend. They might have got married, had children, a dog, a caravan, the most modest of lives but a life even so. But there was Yolande. Jacqueline had waited for a long time, and then married Roland. They had the restaurant across from the station.
‘Are you coming on Sunday, for Serge’s First Communion?’
‘I don’t know, maybe.’
‘But you’ve got to. He’d be hurt … I suppose you’re fretting about Yolande, is that it?’
‘Of course not.’
‘Of course you are! She’ll take advantage of you for your whole life, that one! Why don’t you put her in a home? It’s about time you started taking care of yourself. Have you looked in a mirror recently?’
‘You know perfectly well that’s impossible. She’s not capable of—’
‘Give me a light, will you? Yes, Roland, I’m coming, just a second! He’s a bloody nuisance, that one. Can’t do a damn thing for himself. It’s a mess, isn’t it?’
‘Please don’t start, Jacqueline.’
‘What? What would we have left if we no longer had our regrets?’
‘Remorse, perhaps.’
‘Sometimes I think I might prefer that. At least it would mean we’d done things.’
‘Things? They don’t leave much of a trace behind them.’
‘Well, did you want to leave pyramids behind you? Things aren’t just stuff made of stone, your churches, castles, monuments! It’s the little things, like when you used to go fishing in bomb craters, smoking your first cheap cigarette round the back of the bike sheds, all the things we said we were going to do even if we already knew we’d never do them … I’ll be right there, I said! Please come on Sunday, just for me.’
‘All right, I’ll be there.’
Jacqueline got up with a sigh. She could almost have supported the tray on her ample bosom, leaving her hands free to carry other plates, other dishes. It must feel good to lie sleeping on those breasts, like being on a cloud. A long time past, down by the canal, the weather was hot. You could smell fresh grass. He had laid his cheek on Jacqueline’s white breast. Beneath the thin stuff of her blouse he could feel her quivering, giving off a fragrant dew. Fish were jumping, snapping at dragonflies. The air was alive with a thousand tiny things. One of them had said, ‘This is nice, isn’t it?’
The small fluorescent green letters on the screen were no longer making proper words. They were now just long wiggly caterpillars, line upon line of them.
‘Is something wrong, Bernard?’
‘No, a spot of dizziness, that’s all. It must be the new pills. Take over from me, François. I’m just nipping out for a breath of air.’
‘Of course. Why don’t you take some time off?’
‘I’ll think about it.’
Where did those rails along the platforms go? Not all that far. They joined up again over there, behind the warehouses, the end of the world was within arm’s reach. Everything was rusty here, down to the ballast stones, even the grass clinging to life beside the track. The railway had left its mark, a lengthy scar with dried blood at the edges. Sitting on a trolley, Bernard ran his fingers over his face, feeling the rows of teeth, the angle of the jaw. Beneath the pallid, soft skin a death’s head was hiding, like the one on a pirate flag or the labels of particular bottles at the pharmacy, with two crossbones behind. So what if it was ugly here, it was still the richest landscape on earth. You could make a life here. It was all there ahead of him, rails leading to more rails, on and on to infinity. François was right, he would take some leave. Actually, he would leave. Like old Fernand the year before. But he’d been retiring. He was old. He had gone off with a fishing rod under his arm, a cuckoo clock and a return ticket to Arcachon, first class. Bernard would never go to Arcachon. To tell the truth, he didn’t give two hoots about Arcachon, there were so many places in the world where one would never set foot. What was there, anyway? A dune, a big Dune of Pilat which looked just like the desert, they said. It was people who’d never been there who said that. Everything looked like everything else, people couldn’t help comparing the things they knew to the things they didn’t know, so they could say they did know, that they’d been round the world without leaving their armchair. Six of one and half a dozen of the other, no cause for regrets. No gifts for sick employees, they’d prefer them just to clear off, preferably without a trace. Illness really annoyed them, it was bad for business, and they took a dim view of it. It lowered the troops’ morale.
‘Oh my poor Bonnet, and with your poor sister too! How much time off do you want?’
Taking his cap between thumb and forefinger, Bernard sent it flying somewhere over the containers, like a frisbee. He had another one in the locker room. No harm done. The wind caressed his baldness. In the early days, when Yolande’s hair had begun to grow back he’d loved running his hand over her head. All the little hairs standing upright had given him a feeling like electricity in his palm. Her hair had grown back pure white. Yet she was only twenty. The shock of it, no doubt. Before that it was blonde, red blonde, Titian she used to call it.
WITH SEVEN CENTIMETRES OF HAIR
I have already told you how hard-working the Germans are. They make clothes and chocolate out of wood, and make lots of things from all sorts of materials which have not been used until now. They have now discovered it is possible to make felt hats out of the hair cut off by the hairdresser. It is likewise possible to make rugs from these hair clippings. Since hair has to be a certain length for this, however, people are not allowed to have it cut before it reaches this length. If the hairdressers are diligent and collect up the hair carefully, in one year almost 300,000 kilos of hair will be obtained. That sounds like a lot of hats and quite a few rugs.
There it was in black and white, in the girls’ own annual La Semaine de Suzette, under the heading ‘Suzette across the world’, an old copy from 1932, worn to a shine, stained and yellowing, like everything from that era. Despite knowing it by heart, Yolande loved to spend hours leafing through it. She had done all the crosswords, every rebus and sewn the entire wardrobe for Bleuette (a 29-centimetre doll with real curled hair, eyes that shut, and unbreakable posable head). She loved the smell it gave off when the pages were opened, a musty smell of old biscuits. The Germans would be
