9 to 6 Days
Rainbow Colours
The next stage of the precious notebook was to go to Budapest, and what Louis had concocted for me to do there was no cakewalk, as my mother put it.
The main challenge was to take part in a race called The Color Run, which claims to be ‘where sport meets fun’. Mum did a Web search and made me watch a video that said it all: thousands of people in white T-shirts and protective goggles having clouds of coloured paint thrown in their faces for every kilometre they completed, ending up a total mess, naturally. I couldn’t see the fun in that, but the runners looked happy.
‘A bunch of drug addicts, probably . . .’ Mum remarked, before learning that these masochistic urban communions had already attracted several million people around the globe.
I was starting to get stressed when I discovered that, beneath its festive appearance, this event was a half marathon, that Budapest was a very hilly city, and my body was still battered from the football ordeal. Since the Budapest race wouldn’t be taking place until May, I’d have to create my own event. I suddenly had this pathetic vision of chucking coloured paints over myself and collapsing, exhausted, on a hilly street . . . Clearly, I was going to need help with throwing the paints and with my likely physical feebleness.
I asked Edgar to come with me. My mother – who never misses a trick – offered to come instead, sniggering with Charlotte in the hospital corridor.
‘Don’t be offended, Mum, but you’re not exactly built like a tank, and I’m going to need physical support. I think Edgar’s a much sounder option, that’s all.’
I went in to see Louis, congratulated him on all his sporting ambitions, which were news to me, and explained to him that I was relying on Edgar to stop me having a heart attack on the Hungarian capital’s famous Chain Bridge.
‘Edgar’s going to film me, and Granny Odette will show you the whole thing live, on the iPad. Grandma can also cheer me on – right, Grandma? – because I’ll have the headphones and mic on all the time.’
‘Yes, of course, pussycat,’ she replied, a little too enthusiastically.
*
Edgar threw himself wholeheartedly into his mission and took care of all the preparations. He explained that the coloured paints could easily be found in Passage Brady, the ‘little India’ district of Paris, because throwing paint was an ancient Hindu tradition: during Holi, the spring equinox festival, crowds of Indians paraded through the streets spraying coloured water over one another. Westerners had simply adapted the concept, adding a sporting dimension. No, the simple corn starch with natural dyes wouldn’t leave a stain on me, and no, we weren’t going to get ourselves banged up by the Hungarian police . . . ‘It’s all perfectly harmless, don’t worry.’
When we arrived in Budapest, we dropped our luggage off at the apartment I’d rented, two bedrooms of course, and Edgar asked me to wait for a couple of hours before walking to meet him at the foot of the Buda Castle Funicular – he had ‘a few details to sort out’.
Finally, I was ready to set off, bundled up in my white puffa jacket, and Edgar was waiting for me, camera at the ready. Very soon, I realized that this race would be a physical ordeal festooned with zany, poetic touches. Edgar had organized a little welcome committee every two kilometres, made up of assorted families, old ladies, students, shopkeepers and tourists amused by the spectacle I offered. My supporters had laid a white sheet on the ground next to where they stood, so as not to stain the pretty medieval streets. I’d stop for a few seconds, close my eyes, and set off again splattered with a new colour, to their applause.
Edgar had delegated all that in order to keep his hands free. He filmed the entire time so that Louis wouldn’t miss a thing. I don’t know how much my son picked up exactly, but I can say with certainty that my mother watched every moment of my performance.
Jesus, if she’d been there with me, I’d seriously have contemplated strangling her. She didn’t stop cackling in my ears, and she’d rounded up half the hospital to watch. I do believe there was a peak audience of a dozen Parisian spectators, openly making fun of me. She explained to them – laughing her head off – that I’d always been absolutely hopeless at sport, that finding her middle-aged kitten had all these hidden talents was an amazing discovery, and that the yellow, green and pink streaks in my hair finally revealed my inner punk to one and all.
The torture lasted over three hours. I yelled at Edgar that it was freezing, I stopped, I set off again, I forced myself to smile when all those adorable Hungarians cheered me on, but I was on my knees.
‘You didn’t exactly run the Color wotsit half marathon, but you could say you walked it,’ teased my mother in front of a gathering used to her wisecracks by now.
After two hours, I wasn’t laughing any more. I sent the headphones flying. I was behaving like a woman in labour – insults and crushed hands included – but Edgar stayed calm throughout. Despite the pain and the superhuman effort this challenge demanded of me, I was touched that Edgar had gone to so much trouble.
The torment ended in front of the dome of Saint Stephen’s Basilica, in the heart of Belváros, Pest’s ‘inner city’. I collapsed. Edgar gave me a piggyback to our little apartment, which was only a stone’s throw from there. It had an incredible vintage bath that I’d been dreaming about all day. I lay soaking for a good hour, gently massaging my aching calves and thighs. When I got out, I flung myself on to my bed and didn’t open my eyes until early the next morning.
*
Edgar and I spent the next day being tourists. I rediscovered the places I’d run through, and this time I was able to appreciate them properly: the steep streets on Castle Hill, the soaring Matthias Church spire, the majestic Parliament Building, the stately Danube – not exactly blue – and the trendy shops and restaurants in the Erzsébetváros district.
I loved Budapest as much as Tokyo. Two cities that could not be more different. But both of them had a touch of innocent madness that resonated with Louis’s character.
I loved every nook of those cities as if they were pieces of my son.
*
Louis had perfectly summed up our evening activity in his notebook. We were to go in for a different type of competition. A ‘party marathon’, described as follows:
Have a drink in a dozen ruin bars and then stay out all night at the wild techno party in the Széchenyi Baths!!! (All without throwing up, please.)
I hoped that Louis had planned to wait until he reached the legal age before embarking on the alcohol-sodden adventures on which he was sending me, but I very much doubted it. When I was a teenager, I too would have a little drink, naively thinking I’d pulled the wool over my mother’s eyes, until she told me one day, without batting an eyelid, that my breath stank and that I couldn’t teach an old dog to drink beer.
The weather was freezing, but Edgar and I soon warmed up wandering from kert to kert. These ‘ruin bars’ are in abandoned courtyards in the old Jewish quarter. Disorientating places of decadent beauty, cleverly designed grunge decors, where Budapest’s cosmopolitan youth chills out at night. We ate in one of them, to soak up the alcohol that had even seeped into our frozen toes, then, with a mix of apprehension and excitement, we headed for the rave at the Széchenyi Baths.
The place was crazy. Széchenyi, the most famous of Budapest’s thermal baths, was a magnificent edifice that looked like a neo-baroque palace. We were outdoors, in sub-zero temperatures, and the spa waters were thirty-eight degrees Celsius. The ochre-coloured walls contrasted with the blue glow of the baths, and the dense steam rising from the swimming pools muted the whiteness of the snow-covered statues. In these funky surroundings, thousands of young people, completely sloshed, were dancing in swimsuits to hardcore techno, jumping up and down to the flashing lasers in a doomsday scenario.
I too started to move – I had no choice, otherwise I’d freeze to death. Timidly, at first. I watched Edgar out of the corner of my eye. The strobe made him look like a Roman statue. He turned towards me, smiled and leaned over to speak. He said, ‘We’re not going to stay like this, watching life pass us by.’ Maybe I misunderstood. Maybe he didn’t say that. Maybe I imagined it. Edgar took my hand and led me into the centre of the crowd.
We danced like kids, for hours and hours, until we were exhausted. Teenagers barely older than my son danced with me . . . I laughed and tried to bounce around like them. Creased up with laughter, Edgar filmed it all.
We were far too old for all these experiences, but letting our hair down like that felt so good. It was wonderful to forget about being reasonable for a short while. I realized that, once out of my twenties, I’d decided to start behaving like a responsible adult. I sneered at those thirty-somethings hanging out at rock concerts, those gamers devoting entire nights to their online heroes, those others whose free time was devoted to generating ‘likes’ on social networks. They were all adrenaline junkies, behaving as if they were still fifteen, still thrill-seeking, busting their guts in their futile pursuit of fun. Maybe, ultimately, they were right.
That night, my son helped me revive a few too-quickly-turned pages of my youth. That night, I understood that life – true life, which stays in your memory – is nothing other than a succession of moments of freedom. And that no adult ambition can make a person happier than the teenage ability to seize the moment.
We took a taxi back, picked up our luggage and went straight to the airport, still numb from the cold and dazed from the loud music.
Both of us exhausted, but happy.