Exposed by Jean-Philippe Blondel

Author:Jean-Philippe Blondel
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781939931689
Publisher: New Vessel Press
Published: 2019-06-03T16:00:00+00:00

She turns the key in the ignition. The throb of the engine. She doesn’t pull out of the parking space right away. She glances around, turns her head, gives me a last wave with a smile. What is contained in our gaze: a compressed album of the last quarter century that has just gone by. An imperceptible movement of her shoulders, as if she were adjusting a shawl that was about to slip off, then she releases the hand brake and pulls out into the street. A few seconds and she is already gone. I stand there motionless on the sidewalk, my arms dangling. I follow her with my gaze. As far as the intersection of Rue de la Visitation. I narrow my eyes. Then on to the Avenue du Général-Leclerc. And yet I have always sworn I would never behave this way. Like a beggar. A sparrow on a balcony on a winter day, asking for its pittance. I hate myself, but I can’t help it.

Her car has stopped at the red light at the end of our street. My street, I mean. I can picture her, nervous, her foot on the accelerator. Frowning slightly. She is trying to avoid the rear-view mirror. She can’t. She can see my tiny form. She curses quietly while tears moisten her lashes. She murmurs that there’s nothing she can do, after all, is there? That’s life. Parents get old, children go their way, everything is as it should be. She hears the Jeanne Moreau song that her mother used to hum to put her to sleep. Des bagues à chaque doigt . . . des tas de bracelets autour des poignets. She clenches her teeth. Gets a grip. She knows that if she goes on like this she’ll be overwhelmed, and what’s the use of that. She thinks the traffic light is endless. She’s getting impatient. She would like me to disappear, now.

She concentrates on what’s next. The two hundred kilometers of autoroute she will devour in an hour and a half. The late afternoon listening to the radio and the Info Trafic news flashes. The Sunday evening blues she will try to banish by turning the volume up full blast. Then there will be Cyril—he, too, will be on his way back from a weekend with family. From time to time they will share this experience. They know their parents are glad to see their children on their own now and again. Like before. They will exchange their impressions over the ever-present lemon sponge cake that Cyril’s mother has baked. They will fill the freezer with all the meals she concocted for them. They will shake their heads and mutter, “Oh, honestly,” but they’ll be glad all the same. They will smile. Cyril will ask: “What about you? Your mother? And how’s your dad?”

Later on that evening she will do some quick mental arithmetic, something she has gotten used to, then she’ll go on the Internet and, caught in the Web, contact her younger sister.

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