Does the night truly bring counsel? He waits for answers. His body stirs. He tries to broaden his shoulders, lengthens his spine, lets a stream of air descend as far as possible into his lungs. His heart is steady, though nervous. His pelvis cannot find its balance; his stomach churns.
Midnight, the hour of memory and crimes. He listens to the sounds of the city: the continuo of engines, the aria of sirens and the harmonics constructed by insects. A few disinterested rhythms from toads; sometimes the buzz of a mosquito at his ears, which he chases away with a futile wave of his hand.
The day was endless. His memory of it struggles to find a place on the shelves of remembrance. The library sags beneath the weight of catalogued days, most of them unread or poorly indexed. One gesture weighs upon his temples, one word obstructs his stomach. Luc’s arm around his hips, Victor’s secrets, Marie-Claire’s laughter, the long walk with Marthe. He breathes, trying to stretch the skeleton’s narrow cage. The uncompromising din of excited, anxious children. The ease with which Victor disposed of the past five years. Marthe’s facility in severing, within two weeks, the earthly bonds that held her to this country she no longer wants. Entire walls are devoted to unfinished chapters of a single book with a simple title, the first letter of the alphabet.
He raises his head towards the sky. There are enough stars for him to trace mentally between them the complex labyrinth of the word love. He turns to look at the house. It no longer belongs to him already.
He observes the neighbourhood. He is losing everything. Above all, them. Émile’s silhouette, as usual, resembles a tall municipal water tank. The faintly lit window of Cobra’s office reminds him of the intense weakness of love’s signal, while the two shadows laughing at Irène’s caress each other near the hedge, even more sheltered from sight than usual. Those two shadows add an Indian touch to the hour’s tranquil symphony, an almost spiritual raga. Life, that undertaking forever becoming and nowhere near its conclusion.
There must be a reason. He already suspects one, psychoanalytic: the others are a mirror, the neighbourhood is a play, and he is its leading actor. And at this precise moment, when the night resembles a nervous happiness, he again hears the delicate sound of grains of sand rubbing against one another as they pass through the neck of the hourglass.
Now that Lucienne has gone, he can release the vise, let his back sag, try to understand and put things in order. The end of the Rémi/Victor episode was certainly predictable. The next scene will be played after this intermission, this bereaved silence, this sadness constricting his throat. For a short time, a few lost grains of sand, he lets himself be drawn into the despair of never being able to fight it out, of never succeeding in finding peace.
At random, he opens the books of his past, piled in the great Alexandria of his smallness. Despite the similarity of gestures and the almost hypnotic accumulation of words heard many times before; discoveries and reunions that resemble the same side of a single coin; laughter in abundance that always dies in the same fashion, with the return of fatigue and anxiety; despite the déjà vu of his own experience and the accounts of those who have already told their stories and died from them, he cannot trace any broad outlines capable of restoring his confidence and some semblance of direction. No one is interested in answers here, in this district of the city; one does as everyone else does and accompanies the moon.
Letting his head fall slightly upon its base, observing the tensions loosen with each rotation, he manages to touch an inner region he knows well. It resembles an empty night, its stars shining like ice cubes irradiated by a silent nuclear alchemy. His head rolls, his bones crack, his eyes close spontaneously, his throat widens like a moving crowd. This night alone can bring counsel because it has nothing to say, because it is astonishingly mute and alive.
His head completes a first circle; he studies its benefits upon the structure of his neck. He feels certain frictions, breathes, lets a shiver descend, born at the base of his shoulders and now rushing down his spine. The shiver disperses through his pelvis like lightning into the earth.
He knows the question is simple, that it cannot truly be spoken because the answer would be so complicated. He knows Marthe will tell him it does not matter, that life is short, that he must understand why he endlessly repeats the same routes and that, once he has gained this understanding, it is up to him alone to place one foot beside that road, take a different path, tear open the circle, keep his head upright, outside this water of the senses. He therefore need not abhor the written hours, the countdown and the counted years.
He picks up the small hourglass beside him, now down to its last grains. He will buy a larger one and display it prominently on the bakery counter. He taps the hourglass, lets it empty and watches for a time the absence of falling sand. Turns the hourglass over.
He opens his eyes upon the other night, the one that welcomes fat Émile on his roof, abyssally asleep, dreaming three times his weight in alcohol. The one that also protects Cobra’s gestures, that permits every cybernetic pleasure or listens patiently to Irène’s moans.
He wonders what his Brazilian friend is doing at this moment, upside down, his dreams protected by foreign constellations. And what are those other men on the Internet doing, those to whom he sometimes gave himself in body and virtual soul? He promises himself he will find them again and continue the quest, for he remains curious and insatiable.
He sets the hourglass on the patio, descends the steps and approaches the hedge. He locates the place where Irène and her lover have positioned their lounge chair. He sits on the ground and parts the cedar branches. The man’s hips plunge slowly. Everything unfolds in that near silence which only lovers have permission to break.
Rémi smiles. The man breathes harder, and the rhythm quickens. Irène’s fingers grip the back of the man piercing her. He drives his seed into her. Rémi understands what the man feels. Despite the intensity of the moment, like good outlaws, they manage to conceal their game and avoid rousing the other wolves. The slower rhythm continues because Irène is still trembling. The man seems to understand and gives what he can. Irène’s laughter marries deep sighs. Yes, she is happy.
Someone appears behind the patio door. Stéphane. He was working tonight, in a tuxedo. Rémi smiles again, moves away without a sound and picks up the hourglass, which has already emptied. He turns it in his hands, then gives it to Stéphane.
In the absence of understanding, the luxury and delight of beginning again remain.