PHIL,
Since you've left, things are beginning to clear. I knew that expression on your face: I could not imagine the depths which your tender smile, your fragile eyes, your absent manner dissimulated. At dawn, as I open my eyes, your words come back to me: "This is the first time I've met a woman who has made me want to have children." The only sentence, fateful sentence, capable of driving me out of the paths of condomed love. God knows where you are now, what you may be doing. This morning, I still haven't received an e-mail.
Not so tender Phil.
I went down to the bar where we used to have lunch so often. There were four girls at one table; I recognized one of them: Adélaïde was in your French course at the Sorbonne. A German Swiss. She didn't recognize me. Adélaïde was telling them her sad story: for two weeks she'd been waiting for an e-mail from a man she'd had an affair with in Paris. He'd returned to Chicago; she hadn't heard from him again.
I asked myself if all American tourists abandon their Paris girlfriends that way, disappear and are never heard from again. I shouldn't have generalized; I was wrong. This was a special case.
Isn't that right, Phil?
An American couple entered. The four friends hushed. These two characters spoke almost in shrieks. The man, whom the woman called Jake, stammered a little. The woman, whom Jake called Darling, lisped a little.
They paid no attention to the four young women and their passionate conversation. Adélaïde was almost crying. One of her companions, called Bibiane, a leggy woman with black eyes and a wide smile, was telling her to call him.
Another, called Carine, a plump little charmer, counseled her to send the guy an e-mail. The third friend, Dororthée, short hair, leather covered in chains, proposed the only reasonable thing in such circumstances: to forget him.
Poor Adélaïde protested: "He told me it was the first time that..." I couldn't hear the rest of her sentence. The waiter passed by, singing.
Funny Phil.
The American couple, who had ordered enormous meat dishes, were eating with great gusto. I was watching them gulp down their food so that it wouldn't seem that I was eavesdropping on the young women.
"Forget him, I'm telling you," Dorothée chanted.
"Maybe something's happened to him," murmured Adélaïde. "I'm afraid for him."
"I'm afraid for you," Dorothée replied. "Forget, move on."
Adélaïde began to tremble. She was at the point of cracking. Her voice was broken: "You have no idea...I haven't..." She could not finish: a shriek tore through the smoked-filled air of the bar. The American woman was bawling at the other end of the room. Her husband was choking. He had turned violet red. It was obvious he hadn't been breathing for some time. We all thought we were about to witness one of those events so rare in our great modern sanitized cities: the death of a human being, live.
Charming Phil.
Adélaïde pounced on him. Without a word she gave him five slaps on the back. The poor man's wife was screaming like crazy. Adélaïde placed herself behind him, wrapped her arms around his obese body, then performed the Heimlich maneuver; I recognized with surprise that lifesaving procedure I had learned in phys ed class at fifteen. Like all the things you learn at school, I never thought it could have any practical value. Suddenly, the man spat out an enormous ball of bread. He was breathing again.
What a story, Phil.
She had save a life....Her face, however, remained shrouded in grief. The four friends who had captured my attention soon made their exit. After all, we had just experience something extraordinary and couldn't just get back to what we were doing before the Heimlich. The two Americans embraced each other. Dorothée started her motorcycle, which stood in front of the bar, in the great winter sun. Carine took Bibian by the arm: they went down toward the Métro entrance, whose fetid heat would shelter them from commentaries on Adélaïde's fruitless love for the American tourist. As for her, she walked down the street, parallel to the window of the bar. I observed her walk with a kind fraternity. Something arrested my attention. I recognized, as I saw her walk, something familiar in her slim profile. Adélaïde, she too, was several months pregnant.
So, she hadn't dared to tell her three friends about it.
Then I understood. I should have laughed, but I couldn't. For the first time since I got my Ph.D. in astrophysics with honors I wondered if I was a complete idiot. Your gray sweater with beige stripes was hanging on her shoulders.
Fucking Phil.
I should have listened to Dorothée's advice: "The only thing to do with a jerk of that stripe is to forget." I should note that I took the advice of Carine: I'm writing you a letter. I hope Adélaïde will be more intelligent than I am; I'm afraid she'll take Bibian's advice, though. In that case you'll receive this letter a few days after her e-mail.
