The Panda Theory (8 page)

‘Have you ever seen a white poppy?’ Rita asked.

‘No.’

‘I found one once. I was young, about eight years old.
It was a Sunday in spring. I used to live in a little village called Subligny, near Sens. I was at a picnic with my cousins, uncles and aunts. We made posies of wild flowers: daisies and cornflowers. The weather was gorgeous. It had been a long, long winter. The grass came up to my chin. The sky was a picture-postcard blue. We laughed and chased each other while the men opened bottles and the women laid out the tablecloths, pâté, ham and salad. It was a wonderful day. And then I found it, there on its own, a white poppy. White! I fell down in front of it as though it were the Virgin Mary. It swayed in the wind, which swept through the field. There were others next to it, normal red ones that didn’t care about being picked or trodden on, just normal poppies, you know. I plucked it at its base and ran with it, holding it up in the air like a flag, to show my family. They were all amazed at my albino poppy. They took my photo. I was as pleased as punch. Here, look, I’ve got the photo.’

Rita rummaged around in her miniature handbag, the bag that contained her whole life, and pulled out a shiny purse from which she picked out a yellowing photograph with curled corners and scalloped edges like a
petit beurre
biscuit. It showed a laughing, chubby little girl, with a Joan of Arc haircut, brandishing a skinny flower in both hands above her head. Behind her, against the backdrop of a milky sky, stood the blurred image of a small scowling boy. Rita, the queen of an unforgettable day.

‘You can tell it’s me, can’t you? I pressed it between two paper plates so I wouldn’t forget it. But after, because everybody was drunk, it got lost, probably thrown in the
bin or something. It wasn’t a big deal. Whether they’re red or white, poppies don’t last.’

The photo passed from Gabriel to Madeleine.

‘It’s funny, I’ve got similar photos of me when I was a kid, this age with the same haircut and the same outfit. I used to wear these awful glasses. God, I was so ugly! You don’t look so bad, Rita. So what are you going to do now?’

‘I don’t know. I can’t decide. I’ve always been like that. I don’t like deciding things. My only options are nothing or anything. What would you choose? I’ve spent my life following different people to different places. That’s why Marco was good for me. He always knew where he was going. As often as not it was straight into a wall but at least it was something, right? Why did that bastard have to leave me? I’d better not go anywhere. I don’t know much, but I’ve got this gut feeling. He’s going to need me – I’d stake my life on it. You’re a man, Gabriel. What do you think?’

‘I don’t know. Yes, maybe wait a while.’

‘Yes, I’ll do that. The only problem is I’m completely broke.’

‘I’ll take care of that. I’ll settle your room.’

‘That’s very kind. We could share the same room if you want. That would save money.’

‘I’m not sure that’s such a good idea.’

‘Ah, okay. Oh, I’m sorry, Madeleine. You know what it’s like when you get wrapped up in your own problems; you don’t think about anybody else. I’m stupid.’

The two women turned to one another and looked into each other’s eyes as if staring into a mirror. Madeleine took Rita’s hand.

‘There’s nothing going on between me and Gabriel. Isn’t that right, Gabriel?’

Gabriel didn’t answer. He stared at his hands, which were flat on the table, as though dealt out in a card game. He was thinking about the ham and mashed potato he had planned for himself that evening.

Madeleine pulled herself up like a ship’s figurehead, her sumptuous chest thrust forth against the wind and tide, heading for distant lands. ‘You can stay at mine for a bit, Rita. We’ll work something out.’

‘Why would you do that for me? We hardly know each other.’

‘I don’t know. Ask Gabriel. He must know. He knows everything.’

Love me tender, love me sweet, never let me go
. The music at the end of the film. The restaurant’s lights went out one by one. The bill paid, it was time to digest the steak and chips, to sleep off the beer wherever they could. Tomorrow was another day.

They soon forgot about the rain. It coursed from the rooftops and down the gutters as naturally as blood through veins. Madeleine’s umbrella was too small for the three of them so, depending on the size of the pavement, Gabriel walked behind, in front or to the side.

‘Well then, goodnight.’

The two women stood glued to the umbrella handle, watching Gabriel dripping under the streetlight.

‘You can’t just leave us like that! Come upstairs for a drink. You’ve got something to drink, haven’t you, Madeleine?’

‘Yes, but he doesn’t want to.’

‘Another time. I have to get up early tomorrow. Goodnight.’

The women watched him turn and walk away, hopping over puddles, hunched over like a question mark.

‘He’s one of a kind that one. Do you have a crush on him?’ asked Rita.

‘Maybe,’ said Madeleine.

‘He reminds me of a priest sometimes. But he is a man after all and you never know with men. What about women, Madeleine? Do you like women?’

The sound of their laughter matched the rippling noise of the rain on their umbrella. They looked like a
two-headed
bat. The town yawned, the rooftops overflowed.

The only thing left in the freezer compartment was a huge calf’s tongue studded with ice crystals. It was otherwise empty, just like the apartment. Gabriel had spent the day waiting for it to defrost on the chopping board. A whole day watching the mute tongue’s slow thaw. He didn’t have anything else to do. At about seven o’clock he threw the tongue into a pot of simmering stock and made a punchy sauce with tomatoes, gherkins and shallots. There was enough to feed an army. He ate it all though, the tongue that said nothing, out on the terrace, until it made him sick. All that remained were fragments of bone and cartilage. The telephone had rung as he vomited, his head over the toilet bowl, his hands gripping the porcelain sides. It didn’t matter. He didn’t have anything to say to anybody. Wrapped in the cats’ tartan rug, he made his way back out onto the terrace. It was warm but he shivered as he looked up at the sickle moon scything the stars. Usually, at this time, Juliette would have been asleep, sucking her thumb,
and Blandine would have been drawing at her work bench with the cats running around. But he had just vomited a whole calf’s tongue and had run out of words to describe the night and the sea and what he was still doing alive.

‘What are you thinking about?’

‘A calf’s tongue.’

‘You’re unbelievable. All you think about is food. So how did it go with the girls last night?’

‘Good. We went out for a meal and then I went home.’

‘Alone?’

‘Alone.’

‘I don’t get you. They were all over you, especially the tall one, the one from the hotel. What’s her name again?’

‘Madeleine.’

‘Man, all you need to do is click your fingers. She’s a good-looking girl. And the other one isn’t bad either. She’s a different type. So you didn’t do either of them?’

‘They’re friends, just friends.’

‘Well, it’s your business. But it’s a waste, all the same. Anyway, what do you think of my flowers?’

‘Very nice.’

‘They’re orchids. They come from some island or something. Have a look in the back again to see if they’re still okay, will you? I bought them early this morning.’

Gabriel leant over the back seat. Orchids were ugly. They looked like photos of venereal diseases in medical books.

‘They look fine.’

‘Good. Look at that idiot in front. Overtaking again
and again. Look, there he is, stopped at the traffic lights. It serves him right! After the hospital I’m going to call the children to tell them to be very good when their mother comes back. She’s been through a lot and it’ll take her time to get back on her feet. Or we could go and see them, if you’ve got nothing else to do, of course.

‘If you want.’

‘Here we are then. I think I’m going to take my tie off; I’m going to explode.’

It was white as far as the eye could see. The waiting room was as sterile as an iceberg. Hidden behind the enormous bouquet of flowers, José looked like a small, solitary tree.

‘Right, so I’ll see you here later then?’

‘Yup, I’ll be here. Off you go.’

Gabriel sat down on a plastic chair and leafed through magazines filled with smiling movie stars, politicians and television personalities. They were all tanned with white teeth and blue eyes. They weren’t allowed to be unhappy. They had been hoisted onto a pedestal, doomed to
never-ending
happiness. By contrast, for the ordinary mortal, unhappiness was almost a duty. Drips, Zimmer frames, wheelchairs, he could have any misfortune he wanted. Dragging himself around, shuffling in his slippers, wrapped in an oversized dressing gown, smoking a cigarette, drinking weak cups of coffee, waiting for family or ogling those of others, an ashen complexion, a vacant eye, hollow cheeks, always waiting. Waiting and living off simple platitudes like ‘good luck’, ‘keep strong’ and ‘see you later’. Obviously little people could only have
little thoughts. They apologised for everything they did. ‘Sorry, do you mind if I take a look at that magazine?’, ‘Excuse me, which floor are you going to?’, ‘Excuse me, do you have the time?’, ‘I’m sorry for still being here, all repulsive and ill.’ Nurses laughed as they pushed trolleys stacked with lunch trays, wafting the smells of hospital food, lukewarm and flavourless. Their shoes clicked on the floor tiles. Remembering a Brassens tune about a horse dutifully pulling its cart through rain and mud, Gabriel hummed, ‘
C’était un petit cheval blanc, tous derrière, tous derrière
…’

The doors of lift B opened. José walked out. He looked like a rain-drenched panda. He passed Gabriel without registering him.

‘José? José?’

José turned round. His face was empty of emotion, a mirror with nobody standing in front of it.

‘Are you okay?’

‘She’s not dead, but she’s never going to wake up. She’s sleeping. That’s it, she’s sleeping. I’m tired, Gabriel. I want to go home. I want to go to sleep as well.’

The croissant didn’t taste very nice. He had only wanted one after being lured in by the artificial baking scent pumped out by the shop. The smell had reminded him of his childhood. He hadn’t really needed either a croissant or memories of his childhood. His sense of smell had fooled him. He sat on a bench and made crumbs, which he threw to the pigeons. One by one they came and belligerently tapped their beaks like mechanical tools. It wasn’t a beautiful sight, but it grew on him.

‘You shouldn’t feed the bastards.’

The voice came from a man sitting at the other end of the bench. He looked curiously like a pigeon himself. Slightly fat, with googly eyes and a pointed nose, he was wrapped in a grey waterproof.

‘Why not?’

‘They shit on my window. They shit on my car. They shit on the church statues. They shit everywhere. As if
there isn’t enough shit in the world!’

‘They’re birds.’

‘Exactly! They’ve got all the fields and woods to do it in. But no, they come and shit on us, thanks to people like you who feed them. And, besides, they aren’t birds. They’re rats. Flying rats. The souls of dead rats taking revenge on sewer workers. To them, we’re all sewer workers. In a way, they’re right, but we still have to watch out! Look at them scratching themselves. They’re full of disease. Completely inedible.’

‘Have you tried them?’

‘Of course. I trapped them with birdlime. They’re much tougher than crows. Crows are useful though. They’re cleaners; they only feed on dead things. Imagine a battlefield without crows. It’d be a real rubbish dump! Apart from carrying a message from one trench to the other, what has a pigeon ever done on a battlefield? And what do we use them for now? We’ve got other communication methods now … and, well, that’s a topic for another day. Because they used to hang out with soldiers, because they think they’re heroes, saviours of France, pigeons have got too big for their boots. They’re so full of themselves. And that’s why they shit on us. Humanity will end up swimming in the shit of diseased pigeons. They’re all diseased. They come and go and pick up every germ there is. It’s awful. It’s like a modern-day Pompeii!’

‘But what can we do about it?’

‘Kill as many as we can and send the others back home.’

‘Back home?’

‘They come from somewhere, don’t they? St Mark’s
Square in Venice, for example. We could kill two birds with one stone. They’d infect all the Japanese, American, Swedish and Bulgarian tourists. There’s bound to be a pigeon loft there somewhere. Either way, if we don’t give them anything to eat, then they’ll go away. And, anyway, you’re feeding them junk. Where did you buy your croissant?’

‘The snack bar on the main road.’

‘I knew it! Can you imagine what kind of shit they’ll be dropping on us now?’

‘You’re right. I hadn’t thought.’

The man shrugged his shoulders and scratched his head vigorously. Dandruff fell from his greasy hair and quickly covered his collar. He got rid of it by flapping his jacket, his elbows bent, as he stretched out his neck and cleared his throat.

‘Seagulls aren’t much better, you know. I once spent a night in a hotel in Cancale. My room overlooked the restaurant’s rubbish bins. I didn’t sleep a wink. And swallows? You think they herald the spring? Spring doesn’t exist any more! I hate birds, all birds. The skies are too full. It’s our rubbish bins which attract them, our monstrous rubbish bins. I leave nothing for them, young man. I finish everything. I don’t leave them a crumb! I’m even going to leave my body to science. There’ll be nothing left of François Dacis, nothing! As if I hadn’t existed. And of that I’m proud!’

‘That’s all very admirable.’

‘You don’t need to tell me. Here, between you and me, I don’t even trust angels.’

‘Angels?’

‘Yes, angels. They fly around with all the dirty birds and so they’re infected as well! Bird flu and the rest, I tell you! Angels used to have nice plump faces like well-fed toddlers blowing on their trumpets. But today, young man, they all look like junkies. They just hover around not giving a fuck about anything.’