*
The next day, in a coffee shop, a friend of Basile joined us. David. David was like the coffee shop, cold. With a laugh coming soon at any time, and a serious face. As if he decided to have it. Actually, his face was telling many things. Not one made me want to talk to him. It wasn’t Basile’s case, “David! How are you? Casimir. You’re here too. Good.”
“Basile! What’s going on in your life? Casimir? We never met, hi, my name is David.”
“What’s going on in my life? The same thing as in Casimir’s. Right? Right? Casimir, you have to give me this one. Do you know Ambroise? Well, he killed his girlfriend.”
“It wasn’t his…”
“Shhhh,” Basile cut me before my mind could even think what I really wanted to say. “You didn’t understand his story, I will explain to David. And maybe to you too, Casimir. Right? Okay. He has hidden his story from us for a few years, but I knew something was wrong. Was it because he wanted to show it unconsciously, or was it because I can feel these things? Maybe both. You see, Ambroise is the overconfident guy. He always thinks something incredible is going to happen to him, because he deserves it. With him, when we walk in the street, I always have this feeling that he is waiting for something to happen, for someone to meet, right? This is how he met Zerow. While he was crossing the street, a girl said to someone, probably her friend, ‘No! It is not possible.’ You know, the kind of thing you say to your friends when they tell you a story. But Ambroise thought it was destined to him. ‘What a smart way to prevent me from crossing the street when it’s red!’ Yeah, it’s Ambroise. He’s always…”
Stop him.
I didn’t know whose voice it was anymore. Why would I have listened to you? You were not the one I loved, I couldn’t trust you. You were not the one in the story, I couldn’t believe you. You were nobody.
“…then, he looks behind, and can only see some fat guy eating ice cream. No. Destiny didn’t bring him a fat guy eating ice cream. So he looks, he waits, he looks, and finally, some pretty girl appears. You know what they say, you have to create your own luck. He jumps on her and says, ‘Hi! Owe you. Fast, you are. Before I was fast, now I am slow. Now, so much in my sentences. You are my after. Go to the altar with me.’ Horrified, she answered a few words to please him. But he insisted on the fact that he owed her. And she needed help. She was immunodeficient. That means you always get sick, and it’s always serious. So she asked him, ‘Could you pick up this tree leaf? I need to see if I’m allergic.’ Happier than ever before, he did it. A guy like Ambroise, always thinking he’s the best, could only hurt…”
Stop, please.
You were nobody, but I didn’t want to lose you. You were both. Two dependent women, on each other. And me, I was dependent on the one you formed. But why did he have to stop?
“…he convinced her to drive him. ‘I really need to go there,’ he said. ‘Okay,’ she said. And they drove. I will be simple. Truth is simple. She had to be in hot places to sleep. He kissed her, so she felt the obligation to sleep with him in the…”
No. Stop, stop, stop. I beg you Casimir.
Was it because of how Basile was telling the story? No. It was because of you. The Zerow you became in my head. He was only talking about Ambroise, unleashing his feelings. Jealousy of having a story, fear of the death a friend might have caused. But Basile was the one killing, killing the love, love of the woman you seemed to be.
“…he forgot to close the window, and, even if he promised to stay close to her, he moved away consciously when she fell asleep. That story is horrible. Especially when it’s your friend. Can you imagine how disgusted I was when he admitted that he killed…”
“Stop. Basile, stop, please. You can’t say that to someone. I’m sorry, David, I don’t know you, but I can’t let you think that.”
“What’s happening? You heard the same story as me yesterday, right?”
“No, it’s not ‘right’. I have to talk, to tell. If you say that about Ambroise, you insult Zerow. You insult her choice, you insult her love, you insult her life. I don’t know if what Ambroise said is the truth, but at least he tried to tell it.”
“A true story is not composed of doubts.”
“Affirmations don’t make the story true either.”
Suddenly, David stood up. White page. The story was about to be rewritten. The clouds, the light. A little spot in the eye. The imperfection of our bodies. The sound they make. Are there other sounds, colours, lives, that we can’t even imagine?
And he said something. What was it again?
I entered in Ambroise’s apartment with Basile. As we were climbing the stairs, a calm went through me. Calm, conscience, smile. As if I could see and think clearly about everything. But thinking wasn’t the purpose, it was too human, ‘too me’.
“What are you doing, Casimir?”
I didn’t answer. Listening was the end. The hot lights, the white of the bed that was going perfectly with the color of the walls. We were feeling good. I could say ‘we’, because Ambroise said “I feel good with you guys. Is it a special night or something?”
And Basile replied “No, you’re right. It’s time for something.” Then he paused, thinking, while watching us without blinking. “You could tell us this story of yours, Ambroise.” I knew Ambroise for four years, and Basile joined our friendship two years ago. “The one about your friend.” How could he know about a story that I had never heard of? “Zerow?”, struck Basile. “Zero?” I asked. It wasn't the first time that Basile seemed to know and ask about the past of one of us, but that name had never been mentioned before.
“Zerow, Casimir, not Zero. Right, Ambroise? Ambroise?”
“Yes. Yeah that’s it. Zerow…” He stopped, as if he was never going to resume again. I could imagine all the sounds in this silence. The chair in which Ambroise was sitting, slowly sinking. Basil's eyelids slowly retracting to make way for his eyes. A little whistle in my ears. Then, louder than everything, Ambroise.
“Okay, before we met, I had a friend. Her name was Zerow. I was seventeen, she was nineteen. That was when we met. In the street. The type of thing that never happens. I was going to cross while it was red, and she shouted ‘No, it’s not possible!’ She could have said ‘Be careful!’, or just ‘No!’, but it never…”
The one thing that catches the most people’s attention is the impossible, Casimir.
A voice pierced through my head. A sentence that I had heard before. A woman that I knew. Someone that I loved. Why were you here now? Why here, in my life, in my head?
“…but what made me stop was her broken voice. Shouting those few words harmed her. I didn’t feel helped. I felt asked. Called for help. I looked behind but didn’t see her. Looking. A guy with sunglasses, a big belly and a ridiculous hat. I couldn’t feel the ridiculousness. Looking. A little girl with ice cream, jumping to the point where the scoops might fall. What a happy little girl. Useless angryness was growing inside me. Looking. A woman coughing, her head almost touching the knees. Going up, her hair was thrown behind, revealing her face, her neck, her chest. All at once, it was her. I walked, straight towards her. ‘Hi, is that you? Yes. Sorry, I didn’t want to answer for you. It’s just that… I know. And I owe… It’s weird how the brain works so fast during these situations, but alone. I don’t feel fast, it is, not me. You are. Sorry, I mean, I owe you because you saved me, and you are fast because you saved me. Ha, I feel slow now. Sorry, I didn’t even thank you. Thank you? It’s weird now. Everything seems now, it wasn’t before. Are you my after?’ She laughed very purely despite the break of her voice, ‘I may be your alter, because I understood everything you said.’ We walked, straight towards nothing, because what we wanted to reach was beside us. I just have to pee, I will be very quick.”
When I don’t understand you, I can read the subtitles in your eyes. Tell me Casimir, what do they think?
That woman's voice again, it was you, haunting my thoughts, making it hard to listen to Ambroise. I didn’t want to remember you. I didn’t want to forget you, but thinking about you has been hurting me everywhere. If only you could have heard my answer. But you were too far. And Ambroise was coming back.
“I’m back. Sorry, it looks like telling this story makes me dramatic. I… I don’t know why. Is it possible that I made this meeting dramatic? I could have just said ‘Hi, thank you very much, have a nice and sunny day.’And I wouldn’t have met her. We would have never spent more time together. She would have never told me that… That… Sorry.
“A few days after, she told me without introduction ‘Oh, you didn’t know? I am immunodeficient.’ Oh, you guys don’t seem to know what it is either. I asked her what it meant. ‘That means, I always get sick, and it’s always serious. I was taught to fear a lot, a lot of things, because anything can make me sick.’ I needed to know how serious. ‘If I tell you that catching a cold might kill me, would you believe me? Wait, don’t let go of my hand. Everything’s gonna be alright, and holding your hand, you, makes me believe it stronger. And if you give me bacterias, it will only be the good ones. The ones that help the guts. Sorry, I didn’t want to convince you of anything, do what you want, please.’ When she added ‘But if you want to hold my hand, come,’ I realized that I had never seen anybody embrace her feelings so freely. We went, we ran, in front of the square. ‘You see, Ambroise,’ she told me with a mother’s smile, ‘I have never gone into a square. Too much danger. I need you to go in, take a little bit of danger, and come back.’ So, I brought her the tree leaf that she was looking at. She smelled it, coughed, hid her nose becoming red, showed it, laughed, and said ‘at least you cured my fear.’ After that moment, she would hit every leaf her height could reach, in the street, with…”
A tree leaf was her relief,
And childish was my belief.
You. Was that something you wrote? I couldn’t remember everything. A part of me did. The place where memories party. But I couldn’t access it. There was only the present, where rationality and doubt reigned. Rationality to believe that you were the one behind these lines, wrote in my brain. Or was she, Zerow? Thinking of the doubt, doubting that I could keep things separated.
“…seemed so happy that I proposed to her to try other things of life. It was like a baby you try to be immune, but conscious, because she asked for it. She asked for it… She asked for it. She asked for it… She didn’t ask for it, right ? No she didn’t. But she did, at the beginning. At the beginning…There are so many things that you have no right to do repeatedly even if you were authorized ‘at the beginning’. I can’t say. Maybe you could say. I… I just finish and then you say. I have to tell everything. Our life. Our drives. Yes, our road drives.
“The next day, I needed to go somewhere, and she drove me. We decided to abandon the first idea. And we drove, without knowing where, and how much time. Going as far as her small gas tank would allow. And everytime we saw something she feared, or was taught to fear, we stopped. We had this little ritual. I don’t usually like rituals. With her, I was always discovering what I liked, and her. The feeling of not knowing myself. The feeling of having a self. Around someone, the usual ‘I’ disappears and is reinforced at the same time. The feeling of changing? I accepted the ritual, and started to like it. It was quite easy : one look at the feared thing, and without telling each other, one look between us. If it was coordinated, we were going to see it. If she looked at me after I did, we were going to see it. If I looked at her after she did, it was as if the car never stopped. One day, the thing we watched before looking at each other, was each other. Ba-dum, ba-dum. We could hear them. We both looked outside the car, the ritual must go on. She looked at me before I did. I can remember my body’s reaction. My look went fastly where it could, everywhere except on her. My mouth started to contract itself in the interior, on the left then on the right. And… And she… And sh… Sorry. Let me take a glass of water. I've been speaking a lot. I am taking three glasses, and a bottle…”
Before we kissed, when we looked at each other, I had this music in my head. The introduction that ends when the singer says ‘I didn’t want to be the one to forget’. The look that ends when our lips refuse to refrain from caressing.
You had never told me that. Was I imagining? Imagining your thoughts. Imagining you. But I knew you. Was I imagining her? No. Was I confusing her? It was true that you two looked alike, from what Ambroise was telling, but…
“Casimir? Casimir? Here is your glass. Where was I? Yes, she kissed me. Her first kiss apparently. I think I knew. It wasn't mine but we couldn’t care less. It only changed one thing. Our car expeditions would often end in the middle of nowhere. I had to go outside and sleep on the ground. Now, we were sleeping together in the car, close, to avoid her coldness.
“One night, her hand opened a bit the window on her side by turning the crank handle unconsciously. You know, just the arm that moves when you sleep. But the same night, my body turned itself, from her, to the door on my side. I can’t say if I remember doing so, maybe, really, when I say it the doubt is so strong, the eyes in my brain are able to visualise this turn, from her, to the door on my side, the body in my brain is able to feel the friction of the ground, felt by my arm, then by the other, through my back, but the brain in my brain can’t remember willing this turn, in the night, my thoughts were maybe egoistic, unable to think of the consequences, or was I completely asleep, or completely awaken, maybe that…”
Doubt is the only thing that should be trusted. I doubt that I love you, Ambroise.
Ambroise? No, no, no, no, no, no. I was Casimir. You couldn’t replace me. No. I was replacing you. No, please, exist, exist, exist again. I wanted to remember you. Was it the conclusion to that story? No, I needed to hear it again. Everything seemed so far. I wanted you again, I wanted you for the first time. Why exit?
“…and I still don’t know. The sharp change in temperature was worse than a knife. She got sick. Eighteen days later. She died. So, was that the story you asked?”
Basile didn’t answer. He wasn’t blinking. I didn’t think about it during the story, so it looked like he didn’t blink since the last time I noticed it. As if he wanted to record the story with his eyes. But these eyes weren’t neutral, mechanics, like a video recorder. They seemed mean. Basile and I were supposed to see each other again the next day. Before leaving, I was going to ask Ambroise if he wanted to join us when Basile looked at me, then looked at Ambroise, and affirmed, “We are not going to see each other for a long time. But every bad thing has good incomes. We will have time to think about this story. Thank you Ambroise, I didn’t ask for it but I have to admit, it was beautiful.” And I forgot to talk.