Zenith Hotel (8 page)

They were close to the Swiss border. Lakes and tranquillity would be theirs, Fricâlin cheese and hot chocolate, watchmaking, dirty money, and all that. Switzerland had been the obvious choice. Before leaving, Pio had let that drop like a stone in a well. He had never set foot there and neither had Luc, but as long as he was on his bike, he didn’t care
where he went. So Switzerland it was. It would be cool, a glorious change of scene. Switzerland was nice, like a miniature country where there was no danger of getting lost. There was something
comforting
about it, something healthy and blooming like a roundabout. The fields, the green grass, the spring breeze. The smell of freshly washed sheets.

In Switzerland, they took photos with Pio’s old reflex camera. One for his wife (Jeanne Robert, Plot 72d, Saint Martin cemetery, France), and the other for Luc’s parents which, all things
considered
, was pretty dull. They hung around in Switzerland for a while, and then it was time to go home. You always end up going home, it was inescapable. The return was less thrilling.

Pio walked into his empty house, and Luc plucked up the courage to face the fossils, while dreaming of Switzerland.

He settled down, but he never really got mopeds out of his system. He bought T-shirts and posters. At first, it made Marine laugh being trundled around on the back of a 99Z. She said she liked
it, that it reminded her of her youth. Then she fell pregnant. They lived together, and Luc had a job as a landscape gardener. Things were going well, they waited for the arrival of little Hector or little Eugénie – they didn’t know the baby’s sex.

Marine ended up having a miscarriage. Out of her womb came just a shrivelled embryo. It was tough for her. It was tough for him too. They both drank to forget, then came the medication and the words you suck in between your cheeks.

One morning she walked out on him. Luc found himself alone with his schnapps and his sadness. He tried to put an end to it, and failed. We know the rest, he went back to live with his parents.

He repairs mopeds and sometimes sells one to pay for beers and extras. He doesn’t have a wife, only a few girls from the bar he screws occasionally. They’re sales girls.

The café is just opposite Le Bon Marché. He knows them all. His mates have road-tested them too. They sell perfume and hats. On their feet all day. So in the evenings it’s natural for them to sit on a stool at the bar drinking kir and smoking menthol cigarettes. There’s Camille, Anna and
little Margot, nicknamed Bouboule. She’s a bit chubby, Bouboule, but they still like her. Always game for a quickie in the toilet. She likes doing it, she doesn’t ask for anything in return. She’s seen all sorts of cocks, she has. The guys from Le Babylone for starters, even the washer-upper was entitled to his blow job. The washer-upper’s black, they tease him sometimes. They say it’s only in fun. They laugh at his accent, they say his cock is the biggest that Bouboule has ever sucked.

Le Babylone closes at 9 p.m. But after that, the owner invites the guys and the girls to have another few drinks for the road. Luc’s one of the guys, he’s there every night. He looks down a little on his drinking companions, he finds them coarse. But hey, they’re mates and without them he’d be very lonely in his ground-floor room every night. So he carries on going to Le Babylone, gets wasted on beer, staggers back home, alone, or with
Bouboule
, and falls asleep without thinking about it.

All in all, Luc’s a sad guy. He repairs mopeds, he smokes beers and drinks cigarettes.

I’ve never had a pet. Maybe I should have. They seem happy with their dogs, their cats or an orange fish
swimming
round and round in its bowl. People say goldfish are suicidal, that they dive head first out of the water so as to die, just like that, on a marble mantelpiece.

It’s crossed my mind, of course, a few times. But I’ve never seriously considered it. It takes guts to kill yourself. I’ve never been really tempted. I try to put it out of my mind. I have a sort of self-preservation instinct that makes me think of something else. I don’t need any external stimulation, my little thoughts are enough to make me forget my woes.

They say you have to let it all out, that you have to pour out your troubles, talk about them to people around you, think about your neuroses, about the role your parents played. I don’t know. So long as I can forget, park all that in a corner, far away from my mind, locked away in a metal box, I’m actually fine. I don’t go there. Maybe you think I don’t have the courage. What a cheek! I can’t live any other way. So it’s fine with me if I don’t have the courage, repress things in my subconscious or in a corner of the room. I don’t want to analyse myself. I don’t give a stuff about my case. My case bores me.

So I watch, I try to understand. I watch the streets and my neighbours’ apartments. I watch the old people in the métro and the cars going past. All that
teeming humanity – which doesn’t need me to teem – keeps me entertained.

I rest my shoulders against the traffic light. I know these lights too well. It’s my patch, next to the Quick burger place, at the bottom of Rue d’Amsterdam. An intersection’s a good spot, there are twice as many people going past. The poor girls in the Bois de
Boulogne
have the mud to contend with. I prefer the pavement. I’m part of it from top to toe. It’s my life. My heart has taken on its colour. It’s grey and worn. My soul sweats the filth of the city. People crush out their cigarettes and spit out their chewing gum on it. Sometimes they drop money. They spit on it, but most of all, they trample my soul, sweep it and roll on it too. They tap on it while listening to music. They hurry over me, sometimes lingering for a while when the weather’s nice. The sky rains on it, hails on it. My soul is by turns scorching when it’s hot, or covered in ice when it snows. It’s beginning to warp. There are
widening
cracks which will eventually swallow it up.

I am the spirit of Notre Dame pacing the Rue d’Amsterdam. That sounds like a song.

My parents are so provincial, thinks Jean-Paul. Father all whiskers and Mother with her plump calves. And they’re the ones who are choosing the chairs and tables, the stools and the colour of the walls! It’s not fair. It’s supposed to be our bar, mine and Antoine’s, and just because it’s their money, they’re choosing everything. What do they know about image? What do they know about trends? They’d be better off staying in Nogent to look after the Balto. The suburbs is what they’re made for, not a Paris bar.

Even though he’s young, Jean-Paul knows the bar scene. He’s been working his arse off in it for six years. The youngest manager in the 7th
arrondissement
! That’s pretty cool!

But it’s always the same old story, his parents will never trust him. So they spend hours arguing over the chairs and tables, the stools and the colour of the walls. They sit there, Father, Mother, Antoine and Jean-Paul, stupidly flicking through the glossy catalogue and niggling over the prices, colours and fabrics. At least Father has a sense of occasion,
he smokes his pipe and watches it all with a
superior
air as if it’s a playground fight. Antoine, his brother, says nothing, dull as ditchwater. Mother’s the worst, she won’t budge an inch, she insists on her Perspex tables with her big gob full of molars, she’s like a dog with a bone. Perspex is easier to clean, I tell you. Crap! She wants Perspex because it’s cheap. But Jean-Paul won’t give in either. He wants wood and metal in his bar, like they have at Costes.

At one time, he wanted to be an artist, the persona appealed to him. He had greasy hair and smoked roll-ups. But he likes money so he decided to do bar work. Paid every night – cash in hand, thank you very much. He’s seen some things in his twenty-five years, he has! The café world is a
different
world, as he often says. At night, of course he’s tired, but he’s content with his life. He was made manager – he no longer has to wear an apron. Now it’s a white shirt and fat tie, much better.

He has more money in his pocket but there are responsibilities. The buck stops with him. Keep an eye on the waiters, watch the till, lock up every night and open up every morning. It’s been two
years. He’s slaving his arse off, but he doesn’t think about it. When he’s not working, he sleeps.

He’s about to leave his job and open a café with Antoine – a present from their parents. It’s at
Convention
and is called L’Épervier. He can already picture it, a bar that’ll be a magnet for chicks, the cutest ones for him – one of the perks of being the boss. Antoine will be joint owner, but it’s not the same, he’s Jean-Paul’s younger brother, he’s never been a manager. Antoine’s always been a follower. At school, his enemies were Jean-Paul’s. He cultivated his personality alongside his brother’s, slightly in the wings, a little in the shadow, his understudy. At the rear, you’re not required to think, you take care of the provisions and the wounded. No glory for those who deal with the women, the children and the elderly. No
monuments
, no associations, only fear and hunger, the smell of mould and of a barn at the bottom of the garden.

Antoine used to be fat. It still shows a little, he has love handles and his shirt doesn’t quite tuck into his trousers. He’s slightly shorter than his brother, of smaller build too. He’s often been told
he’s good-looking, but that doesn’t help pull the chicks. They’re never interested in him. If they do talk to him, it’s only to catch Jean-Paul’s eye. It doesn’t annoy him, he’s used to it. He’s confident that one day he’ll find the woman of his dreams, a Russian dancer. She’ll love him, she’ll caress his love handles, they’ll go for a spin in his car and bathe in rivers. When Antoine can’t sleep, he thinks about her. He calls her Melody. He doesn’t really have a clear picture of her face but he knows he’d recognize her if he met her. He’d like to work with her, set up a business and buy a modern house. Happiness that smells of mashed potato and chestnuts on a Sunday afternoon. A glass of Coke by the fireside, a cigarette that tastes
different
when it’s raining outside. He and Melody are nice and warm; they smoke and sip Coke. Outside, it’s raining. They’re shielded from hard knocks, sadness and bankruptcy. Ultimately, they’re not asking for much. Antoine dreams of leisure and a leather sofa, work during the week and Frisbee at the weekend. A pretty wife, two curly-haired kids and a decent coffee after lunch.

Jean-Paul’s ambition is fired by the movies. On the
road with Faye Dunaway, afraid of neither God nor man. A passionate affair laced with cocaine and champagne, and an automatic gun. Something violent that wrenches your guts and rips out your stomach. Life at 130 mph in a convertible, smashed plates on the floor and Virginia cigarettes. Pain, addiction, a broken heart and hollow cheeks. The idea of mouldering in a little provincial house and listening to the radio like his parents fills him with horror.

In that respect, Antoine and Jean-Paul are very different. Even though they had the same upbringing, the same bike crashes racing down the hill next to their house, the same school, the same football team and the same mates. There’s only a year between them. So people say it’s their nature, that a person’s predestined for heroism or the petty bourgeoisie.

Right now, there’s no question of an American shoot-out or a cosy fireside. They’re busy
choosing
tables and chairs, bar stools and the colour of the walls. L’Épervier opens in one month. No time to waste, negotiate with Mother without coming out of it too badly and reach an agreement. It’s
a strategic battle – strength and diplomacy, the weapons of victory. Patience, compromise, Perspex tables, aluminium tables. Taupe, red, brown, purple, tempered steel, marble, armchairs or sofa, Pastis, Ricard, Stella, Corona, Pelforth, pastries, croissants, buns. Perspex tables, aluminium tables.

Végétal is a weird surname to be lumbered with. Jean-Paul Végétal, Antoine Végétal. They’d both love to change it. But you have no say on the subject of the name you’re given. It’s the burden of being born. Antoine and Jean-Paul’s burden. It’s a bit of a handicap. It’s not really heavy, more like a huge empty box that they don’t know how to carry. Végétal is cumbersome. They were
mercilessly
bullied at school because of their name.

Their father never seemed to have had a problem with it. Végétal is a name, it doesn’t mean anything. I don’t understand why you take it so badly. Would you rather have been called Porcher or Chevrolet? I don’t see what you’ve got against our name. I like it, it sounds healthy. Everyone eats organic these days, we’re very fashionable, my boy. It’s even lucky, being called Végétal; people find it reassuring. I can hear them saying, ‘A Végétal can’t
be bad, they’re sweet, the two little Végétal boys, they’re gentle, they’re fresh, you could eat them!’ You should be proud, my sons. It’s a gift from your ancestors. My poor father would turn in his grave if he could hear you. You’re lucky he was always a bit deaf. The Végétals, a family of workers, deeply attached to their land. You’re disparaging our family lineage, my boys. Lestrange? Do you think Lestrange is any better? Végétal’s your name and you should be proud of it. Bleed for it! Get your face smashed in defending Végétal! Good God, have some guts, boys. A Végétal doesn’t allow people to walk all over him. A Végétal will never allow himself to be trampled on. So don’t ever let me catch you whining like sissies again. It’s your name, it’s beautiful, wear it like a flag. And if you don’t like it, that’s tough.

Father often made scenes like this. When Antoine and Jean-Paul were little, it scared the pants off them. But it boosted their morale. They set off for school prouder than ever. It was true: Végétal is better than Lestrange! We’re not going to let people walk all over us, are we, Antoine? We’re not going to let people trample us! We’re going to shove their faces in their sauerkraut. Who do those scumbags think they are? Stupid
numbskulls
! Go and eat your puke like those fucking
Lestranges! Yesss, nice one, Jean-Paul, let them eat their puke, those fucking Lestranges! Like those poor … huh … like those poor Lestranges.