I ran to the station. I could hear a métro pulling in as I ducked under the turnstile. I made it down the stairs and jumped on the last carriage. The door closed on the back of my coat and I wrenched it free. It tore under the arm; lucky I had that suede jacket from the chalet.
There was a boy in the carriage with his leg in plaster and a woman with a broken arm. The woman’s hand was so white, and the cast from which it came was white, pure white, and she shared with the boy that artificial tan only acquired on the ski slopes. My face was its usual grey-white, judging by my jolting reflection. But we all wore the injuries of the privileged. Surreptitiously, we examined one another.
I wondered if, looking at me, they assumed I was one of them. I supposed I was in a way. Somehow, I was part of it all still, and it was part of me. Tomorrow morning and for many after, I would insert a spoon from the Durebex’ chalet into my bowl of coffee, and stir the sugar till it dissolved.
At each stop different people got on, others got off. The people were ingredients in the carriage, and its flavour gradually transformed to a more diverse mixture of races, of wages, of ages, of locals and tourists, as we went towards the fifth. And without me among them, the flavour would have been slightly different.
I got off at Odéon. More people with injured limbs, but these were sitting on the ground, begging, their plaster casts so worn and filthy they had become just another rag on their bodies. There was a flicker of recognition between us as I limped past, my arm in a sling.
I hurried up to the street, and down through the Quartier Latin to the cinema. Sure enough, just as I arrived, people were coming out. And Chantale was among them. I called out to her. She spun around.
– Alors? she glared.
– I’m sorry. I got stuck at the Durebex, I panted.
– I waited for you for half an hour. We were supposed to go for a coffee, Sophie!
– I couldn’t ring you, Chantale. I’m sorry.
– I’m still freezing from standing outside all that time! It’s freezing!
– Don’t yell at me! I’ve just been yelled at for the last three hours. And I feel like I’ve sprained my knee again running to meet you.
It was less than freezing, it was minus four. It was the beginning of a long cold winter. Chantale folded her arms tightly around herself and examined the movie posters. She had had her hair cut up around her ears. It was pale brown, her natural colour. She looked sombre and vulnerable. I tugged her scarf.
– Come on, why don’t we go for a coffee now? I said.
She wouldn’t move. She sulked, not looking at me.
– Come on, Chantale. Cognac?
We had our cognacs standing at the zinc counter. It stung the lips pleasantly. Chantale told me my limp suited me. Chic, she said, facetiously. She was the only facetious French person I ever met. She said she wanted to paint my plaster cast. She described a sort of fish that would suit the shape. The rim around my hand would be its mouth; my hand would emerge like a five-pronged tongue. The arm would be covered in scales of green, blue and gold. It sounded like a good idea to me.
– I knew this woman who broke her neck, I told Chantale. The cast went from her neck to her waist. She had it cut so it looked like a designer garment. It was really elegant.
– A work of art, Chantale nodded. That’s what your arm will be.
She ordered more cognac. She looked at me in sudden disbelief.
– It’s incredible they kept you there for five hours without a break. You didn’t even get to have a snack?
I hadn’t thought of asking for one. I’d nicked a couple of madeleines when we left the kitchen. It made me think about what I’d taken from the chalet and I told Chantale.
– Mais c’est bien! she cheered. You took revenge, then.
– Sort of. But in the end it just felt like payment. I only took things that I needed. It was like I was giving myself a bonus.
– You deserved it, she nodded.
I swilled the cognac in my glass. The reflections shattered. To me revenge was not one event fixed in time. Revenge was more of an emotion than an act. It occurred to me that I had been taking revenge all along, and I would probably continue to do so for the rest of my life.
I got no comfort from this, but I resigned myself to it.
– My apartment’s great, I said. Fitted out courtesy of the Durebex. I just have to buy another blanket, then it’ll be luxury. The revenge was worth it.
– Je te raconte une histoire, said Chantale. Once I took revenge on my father. He was painting with gouache, and he only ever bought the most expensive paints. So guess what I did, Sophie!
Chantale put down her glass and narrowed her eyes. Her face was hot with cognac. The barman raised his eyebrows at me. I raised mine back. Chantale went on.
– I got a pot of Indian ink and a syringe, and when he was out I went to his paint box and stuck the syringe into each tube, et voilà.
– No!
– And when it came out of the first tube he thought it was bad paint, and he took it back to the shop and had a fight with the man. Then he used another colour and it was in that too, and another, and so on.
I pictured Chantale’s father laying out his palette, the nasty surprise each time he squeezed a tube of paint. We hung onto the counter, helpless with laughter.
– He would’ve kept finding your revenge for months, Chantale.
She stopped laughing and swore.
– No, the thing is, he never did realise. He went back to the shop, and had another fight. He demanded a whole new set of paints, and he got it. I was with him. So he didn’t realise it was me, which meant he kind of missed the point.
I wiped my eyes and asked her why she had done it in the first place.
Chantale stuck her tongue in the glass and licked the last of the cognac.
– I don’t know, she shrugged. Lots of little reasons.
– Did you get what you wanted?
– I had a good laugh, but in the end I was a bit disappointed.
I drained my cognac. Chantale’s story only corroborated my theory of revenge. I didn’t tell her what I was thinking because it was a theory I was prepared to have changed.
– Would he have punished you if he’d known what you’d done?
– You bet, she nodded. He would have belted me. But it would have been worth it.
I put my wallet on the counter and ordered more cognac. My passport slipped from the deeper fold. Chantale picked it up and leafed through it.
– Did it go okay with your visa?
– Well, here I am, back in Paris for a while. But I’m leaving the family.
She rolled her eyes.
– You’re always saying that, Sophie.
– I am not. Before the Alps I thought I’d last at least six months in this job.
– Oh, you mean the Durebex. I thought you meant your own family.
We looked at each other and laughed.
– My family? That’s another story altogether.