I’m not sure how many steps separated their apartment from mine, but I was sober by the second one.
A witness, if there had been one, would have said I was lying; that he’d seen me and I was staggering, and holding onto the banister before daring to extend a foot into the void.
He was so trashed, the witness would have added, that he ended up pressing himself against the wall and sliding along it until he reached his door.
The dirty snitch.
If I did hesitate, it was because I really was tumbling through the void, and I wasn’t pressed against the wall; I was clutching the wall in my arms. Trying to warm it up so as not to go home alone. To take it into my bed. This wall, which I had banged into so often a few hours and a lifetime earlier, holding a little marquise against my heart in the company of a baronet and two princesses, this wall, which had echoed with all the spirit and gaiety in the stairwell, so many booming curses, laughter, and childish consternation; this wall, which so stubbornly refused to come have a last drink in my apartment with me, had become my last friend. A companion as lost as I was, against whose shoulder I could slump for just a little longer before I had to go back and face real life, the real Yann, real denial.
And even admitting that this gentleman is right, Madam Judge; even admitting that, let me just say that it wasn’t for very long. I’d hardly set foot into my house, finally home . . . in my girlfriend’s house, her crazy old aunt’s house . . . I’d hardly pushed the door of the place open when I sobered up in an instant.
I groped for the light switch. The light was ugly. I hung my jacket on a peg and the peg was ugly. And the mirror, too. The mirror was ugly. The mirror, the framed poster, the carpet, the sofa, the coffee table, everything. Everything was ugly.
I looked around me and I didn’t recognize anything. Who could actually live happily here? I wondered. Playmobil figures? Show-home salesmen? No chaos, no mess, no whimsicality, no comfort. Nothing. Just decoration. Even worse: décor. I went into the kitchen, and there was nothing of me there either. It didn’t remind me of anything. It didn’t tell me any stories. I insisted, though. I bent down, opened doors, cupboards, drawers, but no, truly, there was nothing. No one.
The bedroom, maybe? I lifted the duvet, grabbed one pillow and then the other, buried my face in them, examined the sheets. Zilch. Nothing to indicate that human beings had ever lain there. Not the slightest smell of perfume, let alone sweat or saliva or cum. The bathroom? Toothbrushes, the oversized T-shirt Melanie slept in, our bath towels: silent. Who were these zombies, and what kind of existence was this, that we were leading, ultimately?
I didn’t know what to grasp on to anymore. After the emotional overflow I’d more or less managed to unburden myself of upstairs, I was incapable of letting myself go again, and deep within me, in my nostrils and my throat, something kept me from making a sound. I clenched my fists and gritted my teeth and braced myself. I was ridiculous. A child. A stupid kid, temperamental and upset, but much too proud to show it.
Okay, well, now what? What could I smash to get myself noticed, huh?
I was frozen in that state of anxiety and violence and powerlessness when the doorbell rang.
Jesus, what the hell time was it? What the fuck was going on now?