With the giddy cacophony of parrots and parakeets as a background, two municipal employees were mowing the lawn for the first time that season. The cut grass gave off a fresh smell, not as sharp and green as it would be later on, but heavier and wearier, the smell of a convalescing lawn that had made it through the winter.
Hippolyte and Germain worked in tandem, although the local residents only ever noticed one of them. There was a reason for that: Germain was a dwarf and Hippolyte an Apollo, who put his colleague in the shade not only with his height, but also with his beauty.
Germain didn’t resent it. On the contrary. Ever since he had known Hippolyte, his life had taken on a triumphant dimension: short, disabled, and graceless as he was, a man women avoided looking at, so painfully ugly were his features, he was the friend of the handsomest man in Brussels. When he was with Hippolyte, he could temporarily forget his own hideousness, concealing it from himself and others, who paid less attention to him. Whenever Germain walked into a café or a bowling alley with him, he was moved by the fact that he provoked beaming smiles; he swooned with happiness as soon as he heard, “Hey, guys,” an expression that presumed a common element between him and Hippolyte.
“You know, my daughter’s a genius,” Hippolyte said as he filled the wheelbarrow with garbage. “I had to sign her up for three libraries so she would have enough books to read for the week. Three libraries! At the age of ten! And sometimes she goes down to the neighbor, who’s a teacher, to borrow one more. The girl’s a miracle. I’ve no idea how she could have come from me.”
Germain couldn’t help but agree. There was no point in contradicting Hippolyte’s natural modesty: he would only get angry. Because he had always been bottom of his class at school, Hippolyte saw himself as a dumb animal, with way below average intelligence. Unlike so many others, who blame their failures on their families or circumstances, he held himself solely responsible for his shortcomings. Anyone who contradicted the humility with which he lived his life threw him, made him feel sad.
Because Hippolyte was happy. Even though he earned little, even though he only rented a cramped apartment for himself and his daughter, even though the little girl’s mother had run off to Latin America and left him holding the baby, he was always smiling. He felt fulfilled by his job as gardener and road mender: firstly because he was a “civil servant,” which, for an orphan who’d grown up in care, represented a kind of ennoblement; and secondly, because he worked in the open air, doing a physical job that made him healthily tired, not in an office where he would have been bored and people would have noticed his rustic simplicity. In his stubborn, generous head, he had two bosses, the municipal council and nature, and he felt indebted to both, to the council for providing money and security, and to his beloved nature, who requested that he watch over her in a city where she was threatened by concrete, asphalt, and pollution.
And so that day, on Place d’Arezzo, he did not feel degraded picking up dog shit, gathering old beer cans, or getting fresh parrot droppings on his arms and shoulders before he mowed the lawn. It was with care that he made the square beautiful, like a woman he had to satisfy.
A young man appeared, head bowed, a worried expression on his face. “Good morning, Victor!” Hippolyte called out.
The young man walked past without really answering, deaf to his surroundings. Hippolyte took no offense, wondering what was on the student’s mind, since he was usually so friendly.
Outside Number 12, a limousine stood waiting, double-parked. Hippolyte knew that the famous politician Zachary Bidermann lived there. Although intrigued, he only looked at the front steps through the trees, as if he had no right to look at them directly. To his way of thinking, there were only two kinds of people: the great and the humble. Zachary Bidermann played in the major league, Hippolyte didn’t. He took no offense at that situation, nor did he want it to change. Although Zachary Bidermann was clearly able to mow a lawn, Hippolyte couldn’t chair a board of economists.
Shielded by a crimson rhododendron, he saw Zachary Bidermann come down the steps in a three-piece pin-striped suit, a flowing coat over his large body, quickly greet his driver, who was holding the door open for him, and disappear into the car. Faced with this sartorial splendor, Hippolyte, who was wearing nothing but shorts, suddenly felt naked, vulnerable, socially powerless.
Rose Bidermann, round and pretty, stood on the balcony, waving her husband goodbye.
Poor woman. It’s no joke to be married to a brain. The man probably never thinks about sex.
Hippolyte glanced at the house of the writer Baptiste Monier—another one who impressed him. Whenever he made out the top of Monier’s head through the window, he thought about the thousands of pages, alive with stories and characters, that came out of that skull. How could he remain still for so long? That alone, Hippolyte thought, represented an achievement. As for his writing talent . . . Hippolyte struggled to form even a sentence without starting over several times and filling it with spelling and grammar mistakes.
He should have been my girl’s father instead of me. She’d have a thousand things to say to a writer.
Bent over an embankment, he suddenly felt a presence. He straightened up and saw a man watching him. Hippolyte greeted him with a broad smile. The man did not respond, but carried on crossing the square, then stopped, turned, and stared at him with a look of hatred.
Hippolyte was concerned. You seldom saw that kind of aggressive character in this neighborhood. What did he have against him?
He bent over again, puzzled, more used to being transparent than to being eyed venomously. He knew he didn’t exist for most of the people who lived on this square—those two teenagers, for example, who’d been sitting on a bench and squabbling for the last fifteen minutes. But he didn’t resent those who were indifferent to him: why on earth would they be interested in a municipal employee—and not a very clever municipal employee at that? It was an indifference he felt was justified, but that passerby’s furious glare had thrown him.
Just then, he became aware of yet more disapproval on his left. The aristocrat from Number 4, the one with perfect children, an SUV, the particle “de” in front of his surname, and a double-barreled first name, was also staring at him, looking fierce and sullen.
Worried, Hippolyte checked there was no trace of dirt or blood to provoke criticism or make his appearance indecent . . . No. What, then?
The mixed-race lawyer who had gotten so much TV coverage during the Mehdi Martin case crossed the square at a nimble pace. He didn’t notice either Germain or Hippolyte.
This reassured Hippolyte. He decided that he had done nothing wrong and calmly started raking the paths.
A yellow envelope lay beneath the largest tree. He picked it up. His first name was written on it: Hippolyte.
Who’s been thinking of me? His first thought was that one of the local residents had slipped him a note as a thank you, as sometimes happened.
He opened it and read the message:
Just a note to tell you I love you. Signed: You know who.
Hippolyte turned scarlet.
He knew who the letter was from. No doubt whatsoever. He looked up and caught the woman looking at him, partly hidden behind the curtain. The fact that she withdrew into the shadows when she noticed he had seen her was proof.
Hippolyte blushed a second time and took a deep breath of the spring air.
He had never hoped that such a thing might be possible, never believed that his feelings would be returned by her. What a wonderful morning! Life was really spoiling him.
“Germain, I have an errand to run, I’ll be back.”
The dwarf nodded.
Hippolyte grabbed a towel from his bag, wiped the sweat off his torso, then covered it with a spotlessly white T-shirt.
He walked resolutely to the florist’s, bought a bunch of plump, pink peonies from Orion, then went into Number 13 and resolutely climbed the stairs until he reached the door of the woman he desired.