When Léonard came out of his room, it was after eight. Catherine Vandrecken had left long before. I made pasta shells. He wanted to see more videos of penalties, but I refused. If he was starting to do sports regularly, he had to live a healthier life, especially when it came to sleep, and give up such an irregular rhythm. I could sense he didn’t really agree, but he finished his food and went back to bed. I did the same soon afterwards. That day, like the previous ones, had worn me out.
When I woke the following morning, I thought about the leak under the kitchen sink. About my habits. About that discussion we’d had over lunch, Léonard, Catherine, and I. The reason I switched off the water every time I left the house was because of that damned leak. But why hadn’t it occurred to me to repair it? Because I wasn’t in my own home. What would Catherine Vandrecken have thought if I’d given that explanation for my behavior? Knowing her a little better now, I was sure that answer would have resulted in lots of deductions tinged with irony.
I made myself a coffee. The windowpanes were still covered with frost. Even after two days of sun, the ground was going to be brittle. I only had a few more days to put Léonard in a “real” match, to give him the feeling he’d actually gotten somewhere. An opportunity presented itself in the form of a friendly match before the under-16s championship, in which my team was supposed to meet the one from Valenciennes. But was it sensible to throw him into the lions’ den on that occasion? In a training session, his moments of weakness were manageable. The group was less and less surprised by his reactions, and I still had the possibility of blowing the whistle for a break, to give him time to recover. In an official match, that would obviously be impossible. The problem wasn’t his talent. The difference he could make with his approach to the game was quite real, I couldn’t deny it, and he was even starting to open up to the others, but the fact remained that the sophisticated mechanism of his brain could stop at any moment, at the slightest grain of sand. How could I help him to make more progress? There had to be a method, there had to be exercises. I could talk about it with Catherine, but in such a short time, what did I hope to achieve? It was important to keep things simple and straightforward. That’s what I thought. It was then that my gaze fell on the cabinet where the dishes and the flatware were kept. I remembered how much he now liked to lay the table, as evidence that he was mastering life in the house. An idea occurred to me. I was going to play a trick on him in my way, but in his interest. I changed knives and forks, glasses, bowls, plates, all the dishes, around in order to alter Léonard’s points of reference.
I whistled as I took my shower. He’d be up soon, and I didn’t want to miss his reaction to this little kitchen revolution. Deep down, I was pleased of getting my own back with this trick, after his listing of my habits in Catherine’s presence. I even took the time to have a shave. In fact, by the time I left the bathroom, Léonard was already in the kitchen, not only that, he was having breakfast. I went to him, making an effort to conceal my surprise. He seemed quite calm, and nothing was missing on the table. Clearly, he’d found everything, and in record time. And the test didn’t seem to have upset him in the slightest. I poured myself another cup of coffee and took a quick glance around. The drawers were in place, the closets tidy, no trace of a feverish search. I went back to the table and sat down opposite Léonard. He was eating his cereal with gusto, focused on his bowl. But after a short while, he deigned to make a comment.
“I know an exercise like that in chess. You ask the player to turn his back and you change all the positions. He has to find them again from memory and resume the game.”
“But when Dr. Vandrecken took your seat, you were upset.”
“That’s not the same thing at all. That wasn’t a game.”
I didn’t know what to reply. He started scraping the bottom of the bowl, as he usually did. With the end of his spoon, he was tracking down the smallest crumb.
“It’s a really good test,” he added. “But I think you need to add something extra.”
“What’s that?”
“An empty drawer.”
“Why?”
“That’s the most difficult thing for me, an empty drawer. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with it: leave it as it is, fill it, but then with what? Every time my mother moves, that’s what scares me the most. All those empty spaces to fill.”