The Peculiar Life of a Lonely Postman Page 8

  Searching for an idea, Bilodo put on his kimono, then glanced pensively at the window and saw scattered snowflakes drifting lazily down on rue des Hêtres. Winter already? Had that much time passed? Had summer shot by like a comet without him noticing, indifferent as he’d been to anything outside the boundaries of his inner world? Then, looking more closely, he realised it wasn’t snow falling, but pollen raised by the wind, a spray of pollen coming from the trees in the nearby park. You couldn’t tell the difference. Winter in the middle of summer. This surreal scene matched Bilodo’s mood perfectly and gave him the inspiration for what to write:

  Like a duvet on asphalt,

  a shower of confetti,

  the first snow softly

  languidly settles

  on your love-spent night body

  * * *

  Masquerade of clouds – the moon

  slips into another skin

  Tender this moment

  on the veranda

  when I think only of you

  An arid canyon,

  its rivers and creeks long gone,

  where nothing will grow

  Such is my desolate soul

  between each of your letters

  Day in and day out

  wherever I am

  you are always by my side

  Before your poetry, I

  didn’t know I was alone

  The dog is guarding

  his sleeping mistress

  He’s ready to die for her

  Allow me, Madam, poor fool

  that I am, to be your knight

  But you flatter me, dear Sir,

  I am your humble servant

  Still, should it strike your fancy,

  I will also be

  your Dulcinea

  Windmills do not frighten me

  nor do ferocious giants

  All I fear is your

  ennui when you see

  my sorrowful countenance

  On the lycée wall

  an ancient clock faithfully

  gives the time to the

  people in the neighbourhood

  My heart beats for you alone

  * * *

  Glancing by chance at a calendar, Bilodo was amazed to discover that the month of August was already quite far advanced. It would soon be a year since Grandpré had departed this world. The fateful date that had heralded the dramatic change in Bilodo’s life was fast approaching, but he felt neither dread nor sadness as the day drew near, because, much more than a death, this anniversary would mark a birth, a rebirth – his own – and the beginning of his tender correspondence with Ségolène. Obviously, the event would only be significant for him: in her eyes it would just be a day like any other, but even so the coming to a close of this first year of bliss seemed worth commemorating, if only in a discreet way:

  I was bleak winter

  then your poems were my spring,

  your love the summer

  What has autumn in store for

  us with its russets, its gold?

  Ségolène’s reply, reaching Bilodo a few days later, plunged him into a state of immeasurable horror.

  Ségolène had high hopes for the autumn, too…

  As a child I dreamt

  of Canada’s bright autumn

  I have bought my ticket and

  will arrive the twentieth

  Will you have me, then?

  20

  The sweet, radiant dream of love was turning into a nightmare. Where did she get such a crazy notion? See the Canadian autumn? What was she driving at?

  It was absolutely impossible. Ségolène couldn’t show up in Montreal like that, or else it was all over, everything would crumble. How could the delusion continue, since she knew what Grandpré looked like, since there were those blasted photographs they’d exchanged? But how could he tell her not to undertake this insane trip? How was he to say no to her?

  She would be coming on the twentieth of September, which gave Bilodo three weeks to find a suitable answer, to fabricate some sort of excuse. Perhaps he could write he’d had to go on a trip himself, that he had to be out of the country for all of September, so unfortunately he wouldn’t be able to receive her. But what if she suggested putting off her visit to a later date, to after he got back?

  * * *

  How could she be so silly? Didn’t she realise she would jeopardize everything, she was stupidly endangering the perfect relationship they’d had until then? But of course it wasn’t her fault: she couldn’t possibly know. Bilodo had to admit he was solely responsible for his misfortune. He should have had the good sense to anticipate what might happen, to guess it would come to this sooner or later. How could he have been so blind?

  What to do? Inform her he’d recently undergone cosmetic surgery that had considerably altered his appearance? Or run away? Move immediately out of this apartment she knew the address of and where she’d inevitably turn up as soon as she arrived? Let her deal with the inexplicable mystery of his disappearance on her own? But how would he later be able to bear such a burden of guilt, of cowardice, of dashed hope? How could he forget, how could he survive?

  * * *

  There was no way out. Bilodo knew he was cornered, as hopelessly caught as an innocent mouse under the cruel steel of the trap. It was the end of the tranquil dream, the bursting of the happy bubble he’d been floating in for so long, and the rupture filled him with helpless anger. He couldn’t resign himself to losing her but lacked the courage to face her. All the options were loathsome, all doors were closed. He had reached a terminal dead end.

  * * *

  It was early the next day when the phone rang. Not caring one way or the other, Bilodo let the answering machine kick in in the living room. Someone was leaving a message. It was a publisher, one of those he’d submitted the manuscript Enso to. The guy briefly explained he liked the collection very much, wanted to publish it, and asked that someone return his call without delay. Unfolding from the fetal position he’d been curled up in, Bilodo got up to go and listen to the message again. Fate sometimes had the oddest twists. This piece of news, which would have delighted him only a day earlier, now merely embittered him. What was the use? What difference could the publication of Grandpré’s poems make in the impossibly tangled predicament he was in, except to complicate it even further? Wasn’t the game up anyway?

  Picking up the manuscript, he opened it at random, as you open a pack of tarot cards in search of a revelation, and came upon this haiku:

  To break through the horizon

  look behind the set

  meet and embrace Death

  The poem filled his soul, suddenly took on a new meaning, and Bilodo realised that was it: the only way out, the final solution to all his problems.

  He straightened up. He knew what he had to do.

  21

  It was perfectly obvious. This was the course he needed to take, but not without first carrying out certain preparations. Bilodo wrote a note to that publisher who just called, giving him permission to publish Enso as he wished. He put the letter on the desk so it would easily be found, then gave Bill a double ration of his favourite yum-yums and said goodbye to the fish, thanking him for his unfailing friendship. He was now ready to go.

  The large openwork beam adorning the living room ceiling would do very well. He pushed the little leaf-shaped table directly underneath, then removed the belt from his kimono and tested its strength. Satisfied, he reached into his childhood memories, going back to the carefree days when he belonged to the Cub Scouts, and effortlessly made a slip knot. He was bent on doing things neatly. There was no question of him slitting his wrists or using a gun, two equally disgusting methods. Bilodo wanted to depart this world with dignity, leaving a minimum of traces: hanging was no doubt the least messy way.

  He climbed onto the little table, tied the end of the belt to the beam, then tightened the slip knot around his neck. He was ready. It was time to embrace Death. He only had to give a k
ick with his heel to tip the table and put an end to his suffering. Bilodo took a deep breath, closed his eyes and…

  The doorbell pierced the silence.

  Bilodo started, not sure what to do. He decided to wait a little while, hoping the intruder would go away, not ring again, but the doorbell sounded a second time. He experienced a peculiar mixture of relief and annoyance. Really! Who dared come and bother him at this crucial moment – he who hadn’t had a visit from anyone in months? He removed the slip knot, stepped down from the table, went to the door, and peered through the spy hole. The distorted face that appeared on the other side belonged to Tania.

  * * *

  Tania. He had almost forgotten about her. If there was one last person to whom Bilodo still owed an explanation, it surely was the young waitress. With a vague feeling of dread, he unlocked the three locks, unlatched the four safety chains, and opened the door. As Tania caught sight of him in the doorway, she seemed even more startled than he was. She stared at him anxiously, asked if he was all right, and blurted out she found him greatly changed. This didn’t surprise Bilodo: after so much turmoil, and the serious decision to embrace Death, he must have looked like someone who’d just returned from the grave. With the faintest of reassuring smiles he told her he’d never felt better. The young woman, who appeared unconvinced, apologised for bothering him, and explained in a muddled way she’d got his address through Robert. Bilodo wanted to apologise, too, for what happened at the Madelinot that last time, but she beat him to it, insisted a large part of the blame lay with her: having grilled Robert and got his confession, Tania knew Bilodo wasn’t responsible for what had occurred and, besides, she felt it was mostly her own fault, since nothing would have happened if she hadn’t indulged in imagining… things, wasn’t that true?

  She shifted from foot to foot, nervous, visibly embarrassed, looking as though she were waiting for him to confirm what she just said, or contradict it perhaps. Then, when nothing came, she went on to the other purpose of her visit and told him she was going away, she was moving, she was quitting her job at the restaurant to go and live in the suburbs.

  Was she hoping for a particular reaction from him? Did his unresponsiveness disappoint her? If so, she didn’t let on, but handed him a slip of paper and pointed out it contained her new address in case he… if ever he wanted to… well, anyway… As Bilodo examined the sheet, he noticed she’d taken the trouble to carefully calligraph her new address and phone number Japanese-style, with a brush. The result looked quite lovely, and he complimented her warmly on it. She asked him to get in touch with her if ever it suited him. He promised he definitely would. He really shouldn’t hesitate, she added further, forcing a smile. Then there was a brief, awkward silence. They just stood there, on the landing, not saying anything, afraid to look at each other, and this lasted a good ten, interminable, seconds. Finally Tania broke the stasis by telling him she had to go. She said goodbye and stiffly went down the steps.

  On the pavement, she turned around to see if he was still there; then, quickening her pace, she hurried off. Bilodo thought he spotted something glistening on her cheek. A tear? When he saw her walk away, a powerful emotion swept over him. It was like a stinging void, like a beautiful thought that aborts just as it is about to take off, vanishing before it has even had a chance to take form. A sharp lump choked Bilodo’s throat and he noticed his eyes were blurred with tears. He suddenly felt tempted to call Tania, to hail her before she was too far away, and his hand went up, stretched towards her, and he tried to shout, but no sounds escaped his lips. Once Tania reached the corner, she turned right and slipped out of sight. Bilodo’s hand dropped.

  On the street, the wind bit its tail, sending newspaper pieces swirling around and around. Bilodo looked up at the sky, saw it was overcast and grey, packed with heavy clouds. There was a storm in the air. He shivered, went back in.

  * * *

  Bilodo pensively closed the door and studied the sheet of paper with Tania’s new address and phone number, no less fascinated by the beautifully calligraphed characters than by the new possibilities they suggested. The letters and figures seemed to float on the surface of the paper, to glow in the dusk. The great change the surprise visit had worked in him baffled Bilodo – that emotion the young woman’s tear had stirred up, and that insane hope springing up all of a sudden just from the slip of paper she had left behind. Had he overlooked something terribly important, he wondered? Might there be a solution other than the ones he had considered until then, a better way to get out of the impasse he was in? Could there possibly be life after death or, better still, before?

  He walked into the living room and froze, finding himself back in front of the slip knot hanging from the ceiling. He felt his stomach turn. The prospect of dying, which had seemed beneficial only a short while ago, now terrified him, and the thought of the act he had almost committed made him sick. Gripped by a violent wave of nausea, he ran to throw up in the bathroom.

  When he finally stood up again, he felt literally drained and had to hold on to the sink so as not to collapse. He needed to freshen up. He ran the cold water, splashed his face numerous times. The wash made him feel a little better. He shook himself off, then cast a pessimistic glance in the mirror, just to see what zombie-like mug would be reflected there.

  What he saw frightened him out of his wits. In the mirror loomed the bearded, dishevelled head of Gaston Grandpré.

  22

  Bilodo gazed in disbelief at the face that couldn’t be there, that shouldn’t be there in the mirror instead of his own because it belonged to a dead man. He tried to chase it away by blinking hard, then gave his head a stinging slap, but Grandpré remained stubbornly stuck in the glass, mimicking each of his gestures, watching him with a stupefaction no less than his own. Bilodo came to the obvious conclusion that he had gone mad. Soon after, certain facial details of the mirror’s occupant aroused his attention and led him to reconsider this perhaps too-hasty judgement. It wasn’t quite Grandpré. Those green eyes were Bilodo’s, not the deceased’s blue ones, as were those eyebrows – finer, less bushy than Grandpré’s – and that slightly flat nose, and the much less fleshy bottom lip… As he slowly recognised himself deep within the other man’s face, Bilodo acknowledged he wasn’t dreaming, and hadn’t slipped into psychosis, and that the guy opposite was really him, though altered in an almost unbelievable way.

  Struggling to find a rational explanation, he understood that what he was observing in the glass was the result of a several months’ lapse in personal hygiene. He had been so wrapped up in his poetic adventure that he’d completely forgotten to look after himself, neglecting the most basic body care, not even bothering to look at himself in the mirror, so that it had finally come to this: to this visual shock, this decadent image of himself. But – Bilodo wondered – could chance alone account for the extraordinary resemblance to Grandpré? Wasn’t it due, rather, to an unconscious wish to identify with his predecessor? Perhaps Bilodo had been so eager to mistake himself for Grandpré he’d ended up looking like him to the point that one could be mistaken for the other. In any case, the illusion was startling: with his several months’ growth of beard and his shaggy mane that hadn’t seen a comb for just as long, and wrapped in Grandpré’s kimono, he bore a striking resemblance to the deceased. No wonder Tania seemed so surprised when she caught sight of him looking like this: for a moment she must have thought she was seeing Grandpré’s ghost.

  Bilodo decided to tackle the thick beard covering his cheeks right away; he ran the hot water and got out his razor, but stopped in mid-gesture. An idea had just sprung into his mind: since Tania was fooled, even though she’d known the deceased well, and since Bilodo himself had been taken in for a short while, then why couldn’t someone who’d only ever seen Grandpré in a photograph be fooled as well?

  Transfigured, Bilodo put down his razor. The autumn rendezvous was suddenly becoming possible, wasn’t it?

  Why not seize this unique chance of
welcoming Ségolène to his place? He longed to commune with her through the flesh as much as through words, didn’t he? He yearned to love her in another way than in a dream, even though his body would take the place of Grandpré’s, to truly love her as she deserved, as they both deserved, and finally start living for real.

  Could he ignore such a wonderful opportunity to reverse fate? Did he even have the right?

  So why was he still hesitating? What was keeping him from asking her to come and spend the autumn, the glorious Canadian autumn she had been dreaming about, in his company?

  * * *

  Fly to the autumn

  It’s waiting just for you to

  display its brilliance

  In his euphoria, Bilodo already pictured himself at the airport, welcoming the Guadeloupean woman as she timidly appeared at the arrivals gate, and imagined himself driving along with her through a magnificent, postcard autumn landscape, their hair streaming in the wind. Already he savoured their first kiss, anticipated the fiery first embrace, lost his way in Ségolène’s morning hair spilled across the pillow. But for these wonderful visions to become reality, his haiku needed to be posted.

  Bilodo had just put a stamp on the envelope when the sky rumbled outside. Thunder. Having threatened all morning, the storm was finally breaking; its first heavy drops crashed against the window glass in the living room. Bilodo refused to let the bad weather stop the poem being sent, so he grabbed an umbrella and went out. While he was still on the landing, a flash of lightning illuminated the street, followed instantly by a loud cracking noise, and suddenly the shower looked like a monsoon. On the other side of the street, through the sheet of rain, he glimpsed a postal van. Post collection time already? It must be, since Robert was there, in the downpour, hurriedly transferring the contents of the box to a sack. Bilodo hesitated. The clerk’s presence bothered him. He hadn’t spoken to Robert since the spring incidents and had no desire to be subjected to his taunts. Besides, Robert wasn’t alone; there was a postman with him, most likely the one substituting for Bilodo in the area, a guy he didn’t know, had never even seen, but whom he’d lately grown distrustful of, for he suspected him of trying to open some of Ségolène’s letters.