Things: A Story of the Sixties and a Man Asleep by Georges Perec

Author:Georges Perec
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: French Literature, Classics, Contemporary, Fiction
ISBN: 9781567921571
Publisher: Harvill Press
Published: 1965-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Epilogue

Things could have carried on in the same way. They could have stayed like that all their lives. Jérôme would have got a job for himself. They would not have been short of money. They would have got transferred to Tunis eventually. They would have made new friends. They would have bought themselves a car. At La Marsa, or Sidibou Said, or El Manza, they would have had a fine detached house, a big garden.

But it will not be easy for them to escape from their own story. Time once again will work in their stead. The school year will come to an end. It will turn deliriously hot. Jérôme will spend his days on the beach and Sylvie will come to join him when her classes are over. There will be the last scripts to mark. They will feel holidays coming on. They will pine for Paris, for spring on the banks of the Seine, for their tree all in flower, for the Champs-Elysées, for Place des Vosges. Their eyes will water as they reminisce over their dearly-cherished freedom, their lazy mornings, their candle-lit dinners. And friends will send them their holiday plans: a big house in Touraine, good food, outings in the country: "What if... we went back?" one of them will say.

"It could all be just like it used to be," the other will answer.

They will pack. They will sort the books, the prints, the snapshots of their friends, they will throw away huge quantities of paperwork, give away their furniture, their poorly planed planks, their twelve-hole bricks, and ship their trunks. They will count the days, the hours, the minutes.

Their last hours in Sfax will be spent on a solemn repetition of their ritual walk. They will cross the central market, pass by the port for a bit, admire as they do every day the huge natural sponges drying in the sun, go past the Italian delicatessen, the Hôtel des Oliviers, past the City Library and then, turning back on themselves down Avenue Bourguiba, they will skirt the hideous cathedral and fork off at the Collège where for the last time they will nod, as they nod every day, to Monsieur Michri, the chief caretaker, who will be plodding up and down in front of the gates, then go along Rue Victor-Hugo, take one last look at their regular restaurant, at the Greek church. Then they will enter the Arab quarter by the Kasbah gate, take Rue Bab Djedid, then Rue du Bey, emerging by the Bab Diwan gate to reach the awnings of Avenue Hedi-Chaker, and on past the theatre, the two cinemas, the bank, before drinking their last cup of coffee at La Régence, buying their last cigarettes, their last newspaper.

Two minutes later they will take their seats in a hired Peugeot 403 about to depart. Their cases will have been roped to the roof-rack long before. They will clutch their wallets to their chests, their boarding passes, their rail tickets, their luggage receipts.

The car will move off slowly.

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