My Friends by Emmanuel Bove

Author:Emmanuel Bove
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: New York Review Books
Published: 2019-05-06T16:00:00+00:00

MONSIEUR LACAZE

I

Stations give me a glimpse of a world with which I am not familiar. The atmosphere which surrounds them is exceptionally pervasive.

I like stations, particularly the Gare de Lyon. The square tower which dominates it reminds me, no doubt because it is new, of the public buildings in German cities at which I gazed from the doorways of cattle-trucks when I was a soldier.

I like stations because they are alive day and night. If I cannot sleep I feel less alone.

Stations disclose the private life of rich people. In the street they look like everyone else. When they are leaving Paris, I hear them talking, laughing and giving orders. I see how they part. All this fascinates me, because I am poor, without friends, without luggage.

It is most unlikely that these travellers would wish to change places with anyone who, like me, was watching them leave.

Tall young women wait while their trunks are registered. They are beautiful. I scrutinize them wondering whether, if they were dressed in working clothes, they would look as lovely.

I like the Gare de Lyon because, behind it, is the Seine with its steep banks, its cranes turning in the air, its motionless barges like small islands and its columns of smoke hanging in the sky, where they have ceased to climb.

One day, not knowing how to occupy my time, I decided to spend a few hours in the Gare de Lyon.

The swing-doors beat against the air. My feet slipped on the glazed tile floors, as they would in a pine forest. Magazines were sticking to the damp window-panes of a kiosk. It was so draughty that people could not open their newspapers. Although it was daylight the lights were on in the ticket office. The railway officials seemed to be rather like policemen.

Nobody paid any attention to me. I was miserable. I made myself stay there. I wanted the travellers to feel a twinge of remorse as they left, to spare a thought for me as they travelled to other lands.

I walked with my head lowered and when I met a pretty woman I looked sadly at her in order to arouse her pity. I hoped she would guess how much I needed love.

•

Whenever I leave my house, I expect something to happen which will change my whole life. I wait for it until I go home again. That is why I never stay in my room.

Unfortunately nothing has ever happened.

•

‘Hey . . . you over there!’

Turning round I saw, twenty metres away, a man who must have been standing in a draught: his overcoat billowed out as if he had been on the bridge of a ship. A case dangled from his right arm.

Not knowing whether he was addressing me, I waited. Then he beckoned with his forefinger, as if he were pulling a trigger.

I looked round to make sure he was not summoning anyone else and, seeing nobody, I approached.

The stranger was fat. His stomach protruded from his jacket. The bristles of his ginger moustache were cut evenly.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.