"2 AUTUMNS 3 WINTERS" "PART ONE" "Autumn 2009" "The man is 33." "We still say 'young man. "" "The 'young man" is 33." "He lives in Paris, he's single." "What he does is not important." "We give too much importance to people's professional activities." "That figures, it takes up most of their time, their lives." "It makes sense, but sometimes it's not interesting." "In Arman's case, it's not interesting." "So what is it about the life of a young man of 33 named Arman that is interesting?" "She's a pretty girl." "Well, maybe." "She's still young." "But fear of aging has already given her face little wrinkles." "She doesn't try to hide them." "Says she'll never get plastic surgery." "Never!" "It's odd to think of that at her age." "What age?" "27 and a half." "What does she do?" "She's "searching. "" "She graduated in art history last year." "Since then she's been researching, like any good intellectual." "She wants to live off writing about art." "For now, she's working in a gallery." "Oh, yes, by the way, her name is Amélie." "She hates her name, she thinks it's "too nice. "" "She admitted this to her mother, and it caused a real stir." "Something has got to happen" "On Saturday morning, or Sunday, if Saturday was too hard or it rained, the girl runs in a park in Paris." "She lives in Paris too." "I also run." "On the day I turned 33," "I decided to run twice a week in the park below my apartment." "The day I turned 33 was the day of Revelation." "I have to quit smoking," "I have to do some sport." "I have to find a real job because right now, my activity in life is going from one more or less interesting job to another." "More "less" than "more" to be precise." "Then I quit." "Right now, I'm..." "I'm in a long quitting phase at the moment." "So, well, I'm 33..." "Something has really, really got to happen." "It was sunny, my eyes were down." "Sometimes I run that way." "He never lowers his eyes, the sun was in them." "I went round a corner, eyes down." "He arrived in the opposite direction, blinded by the sun." "We hit one another." "Sorry..." "Are you OK?" "Yeah, I'm OK." "Are you OK?" "I'm OK." "Thanks." "That's good then." "Yeah, that is good." "It was a pathetic discussion." "Yeah, really pathetic and totally pointless." "But that's how it started." "Right then, well..." "I'm off." "Have a nice jog." "That's how we left it." "We both started jogging again." "We met on the next circuit." "We smiled, a bit awkwardly." "Then we both went home." "To take a shower." "2 Saturdays and 2 Sundays" "Next Saturday, I went back to the park." "I'd bought a black tracksuit with white stripes from Goo Sport." "It was the first time in my life that I'd bought such expensive sportswear.:" "a real investment!" "Rather dapper, aren't I?" "Still "gothic," some things never change." "But also "sportswear," because life begins at 30!" "Obviously my motivation to come that day owed a lot to my hopes of seeing Amélie again." "I ran for 45 minutes." "But no Amélie that Saturday." "Never mind!" "I'd come back tomorrow." "Back at my place." "In the shower, I remembered my lovely white-striped tracksuit spinning round and round in the washing machine." "It'd never be dry by tomorrow morning, for Amélie." "The next day, I opted for board-shorts, a light gray T-shirt, and a fluorescent yellow hooded sweatshirt that makes me look, I think, like a teenager." "Not a bad-looking teenager." "More "hip-hop"than "new wave. "" "Then again..." "Why not?" "I walked for another hour." "Still no Amélie." "Sunday at lunchtime, the following weekend," "I faced facts.:" "the young woman I'd met two weeks ago had stopped running on weekends." "I'd never see her again." "End of story." "My name is Benjamin." "I'm a friend of Arman's." "Arman and I met 10 years ago at art school in Bordeaux." "Arman was doing more or less figurative paintings." "I made intimist videos shown on mono tapes, as we called them, or as installations." "We got along right away." "I sincerely liked his paintings, he made a bit of an eftort to find my videos interesting." "But it didn't matter." "We spent five years at art school, together." ""Together": against everyone." "Well, nearly everyone." "We loved to hate some students." "The wannabe Joseph Beuys or Gina Panes who ate rotten meat or recited Nietzsche, naked under animal skins!" "We shared our studio with Hazuki, a very funny Japanese student who held her liquor well and did strange drawings in which naked girls copulated with horned animals." "We left art school after five years, with degrees, a bit older but mostly a bit more depressed." "Arman moved to Paris, following Céline, a pretty girl, who he met at a party, a literature student." "I stayed another year in Bordeaux maintaining my postgraduation depression." "I smoked lots of weed and drank daily, discussing "my projects" with former students." "...in resin, a real kebab in a block, like a brick and watch it... rot from within..." "Later on, the resin started to crack..." "I started to hate myself." "Then my Parisian grandma died." "Her apartment was available so I moved to the capital as well." "I enrolled at university to study film." "After five years at art school, I wanted to take a serious course." "Eugène Green and Judd Apatow" "The first film Benjamin and I saw together in Paris," "I remember it well, was Eugène Green's The Living World." "I am the knight with a lion." "Do you have a lion?" "Of course." "I would not say it is a lion." "I am the knight with a lion." "The Living World is a medieval tale with knights," "Lacanian witches, an ogre, and a lion played by a Labrador." "Eugène Green says he wanted to capture, through the cinematograph, the presence of beings." "The success of his project is overwhelming." "Today, Benjamin called me to go see Judd Apatow's latest film Funny People." "The film was on at 10:20 p.m. at MK2 Beaubourg." "Funny People tells the story of George Simmons, a Hollywood actor in successful commercial comedy." "Early in the film, he learns he has leukemia and that his treatment only has an 8% success rate." "He goes back to theater acting, which was how he got famous." "After the film, we went for a beer at the pub next to the cinema." "We were in the middle of waxing lyrical about Apatow's best film ever, wondering how it was possible to feel such elation simultaneously, when suddenly the waiter, who looked disturbingly like Michel Delpech, came to tell us the bar was closing." "He said it in a sweet voice with a kindly smile." "I'm parked there." " I'm walking home." " Hang in there!" "See you tomorrow." " It was cool." " Yeah, bye!" "Paris by Night on a Bike" "I'm on my bike, on Rue Rambuteau, by metro..." "Rambuteau." "In homage to the waiter, I find, in the depths of my iPod, a Michel Delpech compilation." "I ride along listening to "Le Chasseur. "" "As wild geese flock towards the Mediterranean," "I humbly cycle through the Marais." "Above the swamp" "Suddenly I saw" "Wild geese pass" "They were heading off" "Towards the Midi" "The Mediterranean" "Young partridges flew" "Above the fields" "Up into the clouds..." "After a few meters, I passed a guy running as though he was being chased by the devil or the police." "But no one was on his heels." "No devil, no cops." "I rode on." "I was preparing to turn onto Rue des Commines towards Oberkampf when suddenly, right in the middle of the last verse when Michel Delpech expresses his desire to go and join the birds "up there in the clouds, "" "I thought I heard a scream." "I stopped." "Strained my ears..." "Another scream." "A woman's scream." "A young woman." "Coming from the alleyway." "I thought of George Simmons," "Judd Apatow's hero, of his moments of bravery in the film." "I get off my bike," "I walk towards the alley, into the unknown." "Chef's Special Tiramisu" "Guillaume had asked me to dinner." "He's the guy I've been more or less seeing for six months." "I met him at a party in a bar where he was mixing." "He's a DJ." "I let him seduce me." "Guillaume works most nights." "He had the night off, so he decided to invite me to his friend's restaurant, near Bastille." "I discovered it was more like a bar that served food." "The kind of place where the music's loud and the food defrosted." "A young woman put the chalkboard on a chair in front of us, as they do in restaurants for thrifty thirtysomethings." "The homemade hamburger, please." "Yes." "The salmon steak." "Wine?" "We have a very good Madiran." "Sure!" "Suddenly I wanted to drink." "OK, good." "I brought over a few records I love, kind of alternative electro..." "My little bag of tricks..." "I hadn't seen Guillaume in a week, what he told me was dead dull." "What I hadn't noticed at first was that Guillaume was one of these people who never asks any questions and who are capable of repeating an anecdote within a two-day interval, thinking it's still new." "I had a pain in my back and legs, you have no idea..." "Like some dessert?" "Shall I get the board?" "I'm fine, thanks." "As I said this, I prayed Guillaume would understand that I wanted out, fast, and ask for the bill." "Yeah, I'd like..." "the chef's special tiramisu." "But instead, he ordered the fucking chef's special tiramisu!" "Where was I?" "That's right, back pain." "Back pain." "Then I was stuck at home for three days or something." "Not think about anything until tomorrow" "Not think about anything until tomorrow" "I want to sleep with you." "I want to be alone in my apartment." "I want to forget tonight, not think about anything until tomorrow." "I don't answer him." "I'll drop you off, it's on my way." "If you like." "Nice night, wasn't it?" "Are you in a mood?" " I'm not in a mood." " Yes, you are." "We kept walking in silence." "The atmosphere was tense." "That's when two guys in hoodies sprang out of an alley." "Gimme your cash!" "Don't move!" "That's it?" "What about you?" "Before I could open it, he grabbed my bag." "He dumped out my stuft and found my wallet, containing a measly tenner." "Scram!" "Go on, scram!" "And without further ado, Guillaume complied." "Knife to the heart" "It's dark, what the hell am I doing here?" "I make out three silhouettes." "There are two men in hoods, in black tracksuits, and a young woman." "The young woman is trying to get away from this pair of ninjas." "I call to them." "A kind of... strange onomatopoeia comes out of my mouth..." "Shaped like an "O," not very virile." "I'm facing them." "I'll admit I didn't really know what to do next." "I instantly recognized the guy who ran into me in the park." "It's her!" "The girl from the park!" "Time stood still for a while." "I forgot the ninjas." "Time freezes." "What a pity!" "What a pity..." "Time never stands still long enough." "Then it all happened very quickly." "I must've said "Let her go!" or something like that." "I must've riled the short guy, so he put a knife in my gut." "The big guy panicked, he yelled at the little guy and they ran away, as I started bleeding in Amélie's arms." "This was a first!" "We drove fast, the wee-oos wee-ooing." "I was lying on a stretcher with Amélie above me." "Beside me, a guy with a stache kept saying.:" ""Can you hear me, sir?" "Talk to me!"" "I really don't want to talk." "I'm happy..." "Amélie is very, very beautiful from a low angle." "I'm telling myself this is how my life will end, at 33 in this fire truck and that the last thing I see will be this very pretty girl" "hovering over my body." "I no longer hear the wee-oos." "I no longer feel my body." "Amélie's face disappears." "I'm not afraid." "I'm not in pain." "My life doesn't flash before my eyes." "White (Out of Body Experience Nº1 )" "He had a close shave..." "Poor guy!" "We nearly lost him." "With my dry mouth," "I timidly attempt to ask a question:" ""Am I alive?"" "No one hears me." "Not even me." "Then my eyelids close without my brain asking them to." "I fall back into a sleep that truly resembles my idea of death." "Suddenly, I'm cold." "Really cold." "Fuck, that's me." "That guy!" "I can see myself!" "I stand there, stiff as a post." "I think this is a bad sign." "My face Where am I?" "Why is it so white?" "There's no way to describe it.:" "total void." "White in front, white behind, white above and below me, white, white, white, white..." "A hand lands on my shoulder." "It's my father!" "Why the hell are you here?" "My father died of lung cancer when I was 20." "I don't know..." "I was stabbed..." "Apparently I'm not dead." "But I'm not sure..." "Don't worry, you must be on morphine." "Really?" "In the late stages of cancer," "I was on morphine, I saw stuff too." "Well, that's a relief, because..." "I had big doubts, with the stabbing and all..." " All this white..." " Trust me." "This isn't death." "I know what I'm talking about." "If you say so." "See!" "Look..." " What?" " Your arm." "What about it?" "You're disappearing." "Fuck, yeah, I'm disappearing." "In a few seconds you'll be back in your hospital bed." "No, wait, we haven't had time to talk." "Good-bye, Arman." "Wait, Dad!" "Dad!" "Fuck, I'm back here again." "Suddenly..." "I glimpsed a silhouette coming towards me..." "Far out, it's Amélie!" "I was there, lying in a bed, alive, I was sure of that now." "A young woman, whose charms I had succumbed to, and who considered me a hero, came to keep me company." "There were never any awkward silences between us." "Words came easily, we laughed." "We got to know one another." "Chileans in "Koh-Lanta"" "Three days ago, I moved to the 12th floor of Hôpital Bichat." "On the third day, Benjamin met Amélie." "When we were alone, he asked me why I didn't have" ""approach tactics" under way yet." "Approach tactics.:" "that got me thinking." "In this room, there was a TV." "Like every night, I couldn't resist, I turned it on." "That's when, suddenly," "I discovered" ""Koh-Lanta"!" "It's a show that consists of parachuting contestants onto a desert island and making them pass all kinds of tests." "But while wearing little swimsuits on pretty little beaches." "For instance, to win lots of points, they had to eat dried scorpions." "But most of their time is spent saying nasty things about their peers" "and plotting against the weakest member..." "Hello and welcome." "In today's top story, we were worried we'd find sick or weak survivors, but men in full health, full of energy surfaced in Chile." "Technical prowess and a great show of national unity." "Dorothée Olliéric has the story." "No one wanted to go first and steal the limelight." "Finally, Florencio Avalos, 31, was chosen." "Hailed by the applause of the rescuers, the miner calmly emerged." "Mario!" "We're waiting for you, Mario!" "Thank you, guys!" "After these images, Mario Sepúlveda, the first miner to talk to the media, appeared on screen and said:" ""I was with God," "I was with the devil." "Both tried to get me." "But God won." "I took God's hand." "He got me out of there."" "That night, I had a dream." "In my dream, the Chilean miners were on "Koh-Lanta. "" "Mario Sepúlveda, in a swimsuit, bare-chested, was complaining to the camera about his companions' lack of physical effort." "Blam!" "It's funny how things just happen, leaving the hospital, two weeks after Arman's accident, when he'd first told me about meeting his dad, the whiteness, on the day he thought he died." "I never see the doctor, I'm never sick." "Never the flu or the slightest problem." ""A force of nature," my mother says." "Then..." "Blam!" "That night in a street by the hospital, as I was heading for the metro, thinking about Arman's experience, with, I must admit, a certain degree of jealousy," "I suddenly had an awful headache." "As though my head would explode." "I lost my balance." "I fell over." "Half of my body was in a laurel hedge, the other half on the pavement." "I can't move." "I can't feel my body, the pain disappears." "I'm in the hedge (Out of Body Experience Nº2)" "I'm in the hedge." "My face is smashed on the wet ground near the roots." "A new world.:" "my own kind of white landscape." "I want to yell, but I can't." "Nothing happens for a long time." "I start to feel alone, I'm bored." "Just when I start to despair, a tired old cat appears." "He peers with his shiny nocturnal eyes into my dark, vacant eyes." "I'm pretty sure he feels sympathetic towards me." "His rhythmic purr, the time he spends gazing at me compassionately is touching." "But after a while, he leaves." "I'm plunged back into my human solitude." "I get out of the hedge" "Maybe I slept." "It was daytime when I felt something hit the other end of my body.:" "the part I'd nearly forgotten, on the pavement." "Sir?" "Hey, mister!" "I couldn't answer." "He swore." "Fuck!" "This sucks." "I want to shake him, make him get help." "Go on!" "Go get help!" "I'm scared he'll go." "But he takes a phone out of his low-cut jeans and calls for help." "Thanks, dude." "Farewell hedge!" "Then the paramedics arrive." "Stretcher, "It looks serious,"" ""Sir, sir, can you hear me?"" "Transport, back to square one, the hospital next door, elevator to the basement, urgent scan." "Diagnosis:" "CVA (stroke) Cerebral Vascular Accident." "Intensive care, head down, feet up." "What a night!" "CVA" "The type of aftereffects depend on the region affected and the functions it controls." "If the oxygen-deprived area is big, then the aftereftects may be bad." "After a stroke, some people will have trouble speaking or writing and have memory issues." "They might also be paralyzed in various places." "I was leaving the hospital the next day and Benjamin went in with this three-letter thing that had damaged his brain." "Visits have been allowed since this morning, no more than 10 minutes." "Amélie came with me." "When we got out of the elevator we followed the arrows for "cerebral attack."" "The inclined bed kept my head low." "They do that to reduce the risk of recurrence." "It must be frightening to see me like that." "You have to get close to see my face." "Arman came closer." "Amélie stayed back." "I was scared to look at him, to burst into tears, but this rising anxiety subsides when I find myself looking over him." "The paralysis of half of his body gave his face a strange expression," "a strangely happy one." "I feel like he's smiling at me." "His smile seems to say:" ""Don't worry."" "At that moment, I'm convinced he'll make it, that it's just a kind of experiment and that he'll come back wiser." "I take my friend's hand and smile back at him." "Sarkozy doesn't exist" "Today.:" "Eighth day since my stroke and my visit to the hedge." "They raised my bed, my head is horizontal again, along with my body." "I can lift my left arm and move my leg." "Though each word requires effort, I start talking again." "But the most mysterious aftereftects concern my mind and memory." "To stimulate my brain and test my progress, the doctor visits me with questions that I'm often powerless to answer." "Can you tell me which continent France is on?" " Europe." " Very good." "Can you give me the name of the President of the Republic?" "Chirac." "No, it's not Chirac." "My parents are there, they look at me with pity." "It's not Chirac?" ""Poor child," they seem to be thinking." "A little clue:" "his wife is a former model." "He's treating me like I'm five, fucking with me, but I turn to my father." "He shrugs in approbation." "She's also a singer." "That's all I need!" "Well?" "Well: nothing." "I'm thinking of Bernadette Chirac." "His name starts with the letter "S."" "I keep thinking of Bernadette Chirac." "After a while, he says the name Sarkozy." "Then it all comes back to me..." "We're entering the "thick" of autumn." "Women have definitively put away their light clothes." "It's finally time for skirts, stockings and leather boots!" "It's my favorite season." "I was having these wardrobe thoughts when at the end of Rue Orfila, the sight of a young woman pushing a stroller made my heart throb." "No doubt about it.: it was Céline, the girl I came to Paris with, who'd shared five years of my life." "I hadn't seen her since our breakup." "Actually, no." "Once..." "It had been a disaster." "She wanted us to stay friends." "She left me, and she wanted us to stay friends." "For me, it was unimaginable." "How could she ask me that?" "Here she was walking past me with, in a stroller, a child that wasn't ours." "I stopped in my tracks by the metro and watched her silhouette disappear around the corner." "Why was it that Amélie and I still hadn't sealed the deal?" "The Invitation" "Now that Benjamin is out of the woods," "I have to get back on the case." "Hi, it's Arman." "How are you?" "Yeah, good..." "Yeah." "I was calling you, it's totally stupid, but..." "I was thinking about you 'cause..." "I saw a Bresson film that made..." "I mean, I thought of you." "Not exactly of you, because Bresson, it's..." "Not the words, the way of talking." "In a more metaphorical way, I mean..." "In Four Nights of a Dreamer." "I don't know." "Anyway, I was thinking, "Why not..."" "when I saw the film." "Nothing to do with Bresson, why did I say that?" "Since I like eating, I thought maybe you do too, if..." "We could maybe eat..." "Tonight, if that..." "At my place, 'cause I have a fridge so I can put things..." "OK, great!" "Listen..." "I'll text you the address so you..." "That's that." "It's 4:00 p.m. now, so that leaves me four and a half hours to..." "First:" "select a menu." "Second:" "shop at the Simply Market downstairs." "Third:" "cook." "And fourth:" "tidy the apartment." "But not too much." "I found all the ingredients in record time, this was good news." "I cruise to the checkout." "As usual, only two are open." "I hesitate..." "Which one?" "I stand behind a guy with a cart full of water bottles." "This guy must bathe in mineral water, it's amazing!" "Sorry, I'm closing now." "As usual, it was a 50-50 chance!" "I pack up my carrots and head for the grannies!" "The first granny is asking the checkout operator to check her purse for the exact change." "A second granny methodically places her 15 tins of cat food on the conveyor belt." "Teens with bangs restyle their bangs as they wait." "A homeless guy lines up behind me and counts a pile of yellow coins in the palm of his trembling hand." "After 15 minutes," "I finally fill bags with my purchases." "That'll be 47.20 please." "I'll pay by credit card." " Do you have the loyalty card?" " No." " Do you want it?" " No." " Can I pay?" " Yes." "The Dinner" "I shouldn't say it, but..." "You have a really big place!" " It's not mine." " Ah, OK." "I mean it's a friend... who lent me his apartment." "Arman explains this isn't his place." "A rich friend who'd gone to try his luck in New York lent it to him." "Arman's been there over a year, awaiting his return." "There, on the balcony, we started the evening with champagne." "Good health!" "We drank to Benjamin's recovery, to his, and to our meeting." "To our meeting!" "In silence, we contemplated the city in the darkness." "Look, if you lean out a bit you can see the Sacré-Cœur." "We both leaned towards the Sacré-Cœur." "The beating of my own heart accelerated when his arm accidently brushed my breasts." " Shall we eat?" " Yes!" "You cut up an onion and fry it with chopped mushrooms, a bit of butter, you fry all that, then cover it for 40 minutes, stirring, with love." "Ah, OK." " It's true." " No, I believe you." "As we ate the excellent vegetarian lasagna, we talked about my work." "Arman admitted he'd wanted to be a painter." "No, I went to art school, for five years." " In Paris?" " No, Bordeaux." "I was a painter." "It's a bit has-been, right?" "No, it's not." "I stopped, I mean I gave up." "I was with a girl..." "She was the only one who liked my stuff, then she left..." "I didn't think there was much point." " Want some dessert?" " Yeah." "After the Vacqueyras, Arman opened a second bottle." "I was getting hotter and drunker." "You drink a lot, don't you?" "I'm not really used to it." "I'm a moderate drinker." " I'm opening a second one." " Yes, I can see that." "I can't drink any more wine!" "I'm hot, superhot." "Aren't you hot?" "Shall I put some music on?" " What kind of music?" " Do you... want to sit on the couch?" "It might be softer." "This album is more popular than..." "We got undressed in the living room." "Luckily, I'd vacuumed." "(Lucie for Benjamin)" "The 20th day since my stroke." "That night, after a long physical therapy session," "I was exhausted." "That was the night that my crazy sister managed to get in touch with me." "Hi, Benjamin, it's your sister Lucie." "If you hear me, it works." "I've penetrated your mind!" "I wanted to say hi." "I'm sorry I didn't do it sooner." "Don't be mad." "I think of you every day, even several times a day, since Mom told me about your accident." "This stroke is a warning, Benjamin." "A global warning!" "Society is sick, and it contaminates the minds of the weak, and those who resist, to destroy them!" "You're a victim, big brother..." "Benjamin!" "The line seems to be getting faint." "Benjamin, can you hear me?" "I'll try again later." "Lots of love." "PART TWO" "Winter 2010-2011" "It's been over a year since I met Amélie." "The passage of time" "In the park, we're driving past, at the wheel of a rental car." "Seeing the joggers behind the gates reminds me of how I used to be." "I see myself in my ridiculous tracksuit and my desire to change my life." "Today, I'm 34, and my life has changed.:" "I live with a girl who I'm... who I'm in love with." "Benjamin is cured." "The rapidity of his recovery surprised everyone." "Well, everyone except his speech therapist who he recently struck up a nonprofessional relationship with." "We're just going to meet Benjamin and Katia now for four days, she's the speech therapist, in a Swiss village called Finhaut, near the French border." "This is where Katia's uncle lives." "Besides his house, he owns a big chalet that he rents outs." "A German holiday camp just canceled." "The chalet is available." "We make the most of the opportunity." "We had to leave the car at Martigny train station." "The snow came early and thick, making the roads above Martigny inaccessible without gear." "We went up to Finhaut by train." "We were alone, our bodies slanting." "On the snowy platform, Katia and Benjamin greet us warmly." "It's the first time Arman and I have met Katia." "She's a "little stick of a woman, "" "younger than us, about 22 or 23." "You've lost weight, it's amazing." " You look good." " I feel better, thanks." "Doesn't he look good?" " Shall we go?" " Let's go!" "What are we eating tonight?" " Who was that?" " My cousin." "His girlfriend left him, he's depressed." "This is it." "Here we are." "Is this it?" "The Vaticamp!" "Usually the Vaticamp hosts disabled people or groups of sick children." " Right, Katia?" " Yes." "He specializes in drug addicts." "Well, I hope we make the grade!" "Of course!" "Let's go!" "Did you see, Amélie?" "Vaticamp!" "Welcome." "Katia, after the battle" "It's hard to show up after the battle." "I don't like talking about myself, but with a fondue and two strangers," "I have to talk about my life." "I have an older brother in Morges." " Morges?" " Yes, near Lausanne." " What does he do?" " He's a shrink." " What kind?" " Psychiatrist." "When did you leave?" " What?" " No, nothing." " What?" " No, nothing!" "So..." "When did you leave?" " Now that's an interesting question." " Thanks." "About five years ago." "I stayed in Lausanne until I was 18, then left to study medicine in Geneva." "I was with a guy from my class." " What was his name?" " Mathias." "He insisted on studying in Paris, so I followed him." "I got on well with a teacher who suggested speech therapy." "All it takes is one teacher..." "Let her speak, she was about to..." "You're the only one asking questions." "So I was accepted into the school, and I left my boyfriend, then I started work at this medical practice." "Benjamin was one of my first patients." "Frankly, your story makes me want to have a stroke right now." " It's true." " You can't say that!" " Why not?" " It's super violent, he nearly died." "Well, it's OK now, he's fine." " I'm glad I met Katia." " Katia is too." "I never would've had the therapy if I hadn't met Katia." "Are you saying you just want to meet Katia?" "Well, look, you're meeting her." "No, not Katia, the idea of Katia." "I'm right next to him with a spear!" "We went to bed around 2:00 a.m." "Katia seemed happy to have met Amélie and Arman." "I was relieved that it went so well." "But there was no reason why it wouldn't have." "We made love, then Katia fell asleep in my arms." "Since my stroke, Katia is the only person I've slept with." "Every time we make love, just afterwards, I feel terribly anxious." "I'm scared of dying." "I'd like to be able to tell her." "Hauts-Forts Pass" "It took us four hours to get to the summit." "Four long interminable hours!" "I'm not used to mountain treks, this was a first for me." "I had to summon up my last resources to make it." "Sublime!" "I'm exhausted and have trouble appreciating the immense landscape before me." "After a long while, Arman turns to me, finally." "Are you OK?" "What's the matter?" "What's wrong?" "Come here..." "It was the first time I'd seen Amélie cry." "I'd never seen tears streaming from her eyes." "Not once in a year." "Not even the memory of a glint in the eye." "I took her in my arms." "She stopped sobbing." "I know in that second that between us there will be a before and after Hauts-Forts Pass." "Want some cheese?" "They're in my bag." "After the tears, The Salamander" "After the tears, The Salamander" "We snacked, while Benjamin started to hold forth about Swiss gastronomy." "Benjamin hates conflict and tense situations." "As soon as there's a long silence, he can't help but defuse it." "What's that sausage with fennel?" "Longeole." "Delicious!" "I love it." "I think Romande cuisine has several influences while Alemannic cuisine keeps to itself a bit more." "So after a few remarks on the differences between" "Romande and Alemannic cuisine," "Benjamin drifted onto the subject of Alain Tanner's films." ""Speaking of Swiss treasures, have you seen The Salamander?"" "It's one of Katia's favorite films, which I hadn't seen before." "It's the story of two friends," "Pierre and Paul." "Paul is a writer, and Pierre's a journalist." "They decide to write a script based on a news story about a young woman named Rosemonde." "The two friends decide to give an account of this story, its causes and consequences, each with their own method." "Pierre through investigation and Paul through fiction." "It asks essential questions, effortlessly." "Tell me, in your opinion," "Paul, what are we doing?" "We're driving on a road in a car." "No, I mean..." "Do you think that this little ride will be of any use for our work?" "Isn't this kind of futile?" "It's not very responsible of us." "Benjamin, thanks to Swiss gastronomy and Alain Tanner, managed to chase away the clouds from Amélie's face." "As we descended," "I pondered the presence of the salamander in Benjamin's brain." "Finhaut, in the past tense" "The next two days after the walk at Hauts-Forts Pass were quite strange." "Amélie didn't mention her tears." "I didn't try to ask her either and put it down to fatigue." "We went on another, less athletic walk." "We ate a lot, and drank little." "Katia and Benjamin took us back to the station." "It's the end of the beginning." "He meant "the beginning of the end. "" "He meant Amélie and Arman." "I hoped he was wrong." "What are you doing?" "I came to get the rifle." "What for?" "I'm going hunting." "You hunt?" "What do you hunt?" "Rabbits." "You shoot rabbits?" "Jan and I are five years apart." "When we were little, we spent our holidays together." "Jan - my cousin" "I was impatient to see him each year." "He changed when he hit 15, when we went to high school." "He wore dark clothes, dyed his hair black." "He shut himself in his room and listened to goth music." "He was just like a vampire." "That was the year I founded "The Dead Children" with two friends:" "one was a drummer, the other a guitarist." "I played bass." "At first, I sang too, but it wasn't great." "I couldn't sing along with the bass, so it was pretty hard to listen to." "We decided to advertise for a singer." "That's how I met Maria." "It was love at first sight, we started going out." "Later," "Maria left me for the first time and I had my first suicide attempt." "It was in the garage of the Vaticamp." "I tried to hang myself like Ian Curtis from Joy Division, but the beam gave way and I broke my arm as I fell." "My father doesn't know." "Then I started listening to electronic music, by myself." "I sang again, in German and French." "It was much better." "People said it sounded like Grauzone," "Stephan Eicher's second band." "That was when Maria met a guy at her work." "They flirted once or twice." "When I found out, I had my second suicide attempt." "It was summer, I'd drunk two liters of whiskey and tried to drown, like Jeff Buckley." "I went into the lake fully clothed, near the Emosson dam." "Tourists saw me, in the distance." "A guy dived in and got me out." "I made the headlines of the local rag." "Next came my "asylum" period." "I spent my days there composing songs in French on a four-track." "When I had ten songs, I sent them to Maria in an e-mail." "She was so moved she came back to me." "I left the asylum, and we moved to Martigny." "It worked, it seemed solid." "Then we broke up again, a month ago." "She threw me out of the apartment." "I don't know why." "Can I come with you?" "Where to?" "On the rabbit hunt!" "That's how I stopped what looked like" "Katia's cousin's third suicide attempt." "Have you ever skinned a rabbit?" "We walked in silence at first, towards the Finhaut woods." "But the silence was too heavy, so I told him about my grandma.:" "the one from the Pyrenees I'm fond of, who breeds rabbits." "She opens them with a big knife, and skins them, just pulls the skin." "It all just comes oft at once, like a sweater!" "It was fascinating!" "Well, I thought so." "Deep in the forest, we hid behind a bush and waited for the rabbit." "Then Jan started telling me about Maria, his ex." "He said their relationship was intense, but that they always broke up, argued over nothing and that was the story of his life." "I said he should accept this situation, that that's how it was for them, that she'd come back." "He said:" " You think so?" " I know so." "I was lying." "I had no idea." "He smiled, and then the rabbit arrived." "Jan aimed his weapon at it." "In my mind," "I told myself: "He won't shoot." "He won't kill that little rabbit. "" "But Jan fired." "The rabbit's body fell silently." "A red splotch appeared on its fur." "It's the first time I've killed a living thing." "That night, Katia made rabbit stew for the three of us." "I couldn't eat a thing." "The Secret" "A month ago, we were at Hauts-Forts Pass and I cried." "I cried without knowing why." "I felt bad." "The day after we got back to Paris, I went to a doctor." "I was pregnant." "When he told me," "I pretended to be happy, like you're meant to." "Then I went home." "I didn't say a word to Arman." "I could've told him, but I chose not to." "I thought about us, our relationship." "I still didn't say anything." "I asked myself lots of questions:" "do I love Arman?" "Do I want to have a child with him?" "Do I want a child?" "Was I capable of loving someone?" "I didn't know how to answer these questions." "I hated myself for that." "Arman doesn't know that today," "I went to a clinic." "He doesn't know what I've just done." "Night eventually fell" "Night eventually fell" "I could see that things had changed." "Amélie was only the shadow of her former self." "I questioned her, more firmly than usual." "I wanted to know." "She started crying." "It was the second time I saw her cry." "Then she told me everything." "She asked if I wanted the baby." "That wasn't the point!" "The point was why didn't she tell me?" "She didn't know why." "She wasn't sure about anything." "I yelled that it was an awful thing to do!" "She kept crying." "I punched her grandparents' wooden wardrobe, hard." "I really hurt my wrist." "I resented her." "I resented the wardrobe." "I resented her grandparents..." "I left." "I walked for two hours." "Then night eventually fell." "We met at Les Idiots, on Boulevard de Ménilmontant." "When we're short on ideas, we always end up there." "I'll have a Leffe." "I'd never seen Arman in such a state." "He was full of anger and sadness, a strange combination." "He asked if he could go on with the relationship after that, if she didn't want his child?" "Was there any point?" "After the second Leffe, the anger subsided." "There was only sadness." "What'll you do?" "I don't know." "I can't go home." "I won't be able to look at her." "Take my apartment if you like." "Go ahead!" "I'll sleep at Katia's, I'm there mostly anyway." "He put his hand on my shoulder." "It was a bit formal." "Thanks." "It took a long time." "I was embarrassed." "He took his hand away and lowered his eyes." "So I ordered a third Leffe." "Excuse me?" "Can we have two more Leffes, please?" "Thanks." "Since my stroke, I don't drink much." "But in extreme situations like tonight, I tend to bend the rules." "Halfway through the third Leffe, Arman said..." "The worst part is," "I think I could forgive her." "Then he got up, I was afraid he'd go to join Amélie." "But he had to go to the bathroom." "As I left the men's, having relieved myself of 2.5 Leffes," "I ran into a girl, with her back to me, by the sink, in the space shared by both sexes." "She jumped when she saw my reflection." "She turned around, I smiled." "It was Hazuki, from art school in Bordeaux!" "We came back from the toilets, Benjamin was amazed." "Same again." "What do you want?" "A gin martini, please." "How long have you been in Paris?" "It's been six months." "You live alone?" "No, with my girlfriend." "With a roommate?" "I'm a lesbian, since I met Carolane." "I changed my sexual orientation." "Are you a bit surprised?" " No, really?" " That's great." "It was too complicated with boys." "It always ended badly." "I was speechless." "Back in the day, she hooked up fairly often at parties." "She liked boys a lot back then, as Benjamin would agree." "Now I'm older, I need another kind of relationship, something more stable, less sexual." "Of course..." "What do you mean by "less sexual"?" "I was sick of getting it up the ass!" "I mean, clearly..." "It depends on the rhythm, I mean..." "Whatever!" "What are you up to these days?" "It's pretty..." "We're fine." "You look heaps older, in any case!" "I've lost a bit of hair, but..." "We parted company at closing time, after a quick and inglorious update on the past ten years, promising to meet again soon." "When I got home, around 2.:30 a.m., Katia was fast asleep." "I'd drunk too much." "I lay down fully clothed by her warm body." "The alcohol helped, I slept like a baby." "Hi, Benjamin, I hope you're well." "I'll be coming for Christmas." "I hope you'll be there." "That's why I'm calling, I want you to be there." "It's been a year and a half since I've seen them by myself." "I have to tell them I'm off to India." "They'll be scared again." "Mom said you're feeling better, that you're almost back to normal." "I'm glad." "I had a dream about you, you became a famous politician, you were on TV." "You said that your stroke gave you a wake-up call, and you'd founded a party called the CVA." "I couldn't remember what the letters stood for at all..." "Well, I better let you go." "Think about Christmas..." "Don't leave me by myself." "Last week, I left two messages for Arman." "I wanted us to talk." "I'd never felt so sad and alone." "I was sorry, really sorry." "I'd been scared about the baby, stupid and selfish." "He'd never forgive me." "But a few hours after the second message, he sent me a text." "He said we shouldn't see each other for now." "He needed to think." "He'd let me know." "I've been waiting ever since." "I keep working on my thesis, but I'm not motivated." "I only think about Arman, the fear of losing him." "At night, so I don't think so much, I download TVseries." "I finished the fourth season of Mad Men, the second of Breaking Bad." "Now I'm on to The Walking Dead." "I follow Rick and his family, trying to survive in a world where almost the entire population are now zombies." "I share their lives." "I'm afraid they'll get bitten, that all of humanity will turn." "It's reassuring that they've signed a second season, but still, fear is irrational." "Christmas in Saint-Diéry" "Benjamin asked if I was doing anything for Christmas." "As usual, I was going to my mother's near Nantes." "But this year, my mother, who has become a real globetrotter since she retired, decided to go to Marrakech with her friends, another young retired couple." "She did have the good manners to ask me if I minded." "I answered, "No problem, go ahead, it's fine, enjoy yourself!"" "It was a lie, and everything was upside down!" "That's how I agreed to go with Benjamin to see his family in Saint-Diéry, like a kid from Catholic Rescue given a host family for the holidays." "After a 10-hour drive, we arrived, a bit tired." "I was happy to see Benjamin's parents again." "They met Katia for the first time.:" ""The one who got his speech back. "" " Is Lucie here?" " She's in her room." " She's not coming to say hi?" " Did you hear?" " About?" " India!" "Yeah, I heard about that." " You should go see her." " I'll go up soon." "Can you get Katia's bag, Dad?" "Come in." "In Lucie's Room" "Lucie is 22 and lives with my folks." "Well, she did live with them, until recently." "In short, my sister, after a few failed love affairs, wanted to work on herself, as they say." "She met a pseudo-psychotherapist who turned out to be a "priestess of who-knows-what"" "with dozens of disciples." "Of course, the way things are going really worries my parents." "You cut your hair!" "You look a bit like Sinéad O'Connor." "It suits you." " Hi." " Hi, Lucie." "How are you?" "Did you talk to Mom and Dad?" "I just had a fight with them." " You've redecorated!" " Yeah, a bit." "So how did it go with them?" "Well, Mom cried, Dad yelled," "I came upstairs." "They're worried, that's normal." "I'm worried too." "You have to stop worrying about me." "I should be worried about you." "Wait, it's a bit strange." "You live in a manor, who knows where, in a commune." "See, it's a bit freaky for us." "And you're telepathic?" "Don't you think it's strange you had a stroke at 30?" "That's got nothing to do with it." "That's what you think." " Don't talk to me like that." " Why not?" "You're condescending, Lucie!" "You're the condescending one!" "You don't understand anything." "Let's not fight, it's Christmas." " Let's go eat turkey." " I don't eat meat now." "That's original!" "Asshole!" "The sect doesn't teach you manners?" "It's not a sect!" "Let's eat." "I was reassured about her mental health, she wasn't totally brainwashed." "In the lounge, Katia, Arman and our parents were waiting for us with a tray of tarama and roe toast." "Hallelujah" "It was an excellent Christmas dinner." "Katia and I were pampered guests." "During these few hours," "I even managed to forget my sad state." "Now, it's 1 2:45 a.m., it's officially the 25th of December." "The Son of Good has just descended on Earth to save humanity and wash away our sins." "As Benjamin's family and Katia exchanged their gifts under the tree, and contributed to the perpetuation of the tradition," "I snuck away into the farmyard." "The sheep bleated in the stable." "It's amazing how they resemble human cries." "I walked up the path leading to the top of Saint-Diéry." "In this lunar light, the peaks of the Puy de Sancy were majestic." "Alone, by this 1885-meter volcano," "I suddenly had an irresistible urge to call Amélie." "But I resisted the irresistible and decided to keep walking." "Midnight mass had just ended, the faithful were leaving the church." "No one looked at me." "No one seemed to see me." "I must be from another time and space." "I don't exist." "A little disappointed by the indifference of my fellow creatures," "I sit down on a bench." "The village square has now regained its calm." "I feel desperately alone." "While I was sleeping" "While I was dreaming" "The hands turned" "It's too late" "My childhood is so far away" "It's tomorrow already" "Time passes, passes" "There's not much left of it" "Yet I'm still alive" "Yet I make love" "I even sing at times" "On my guitar" "For the child I once was" "For the child that I made" "Time passes, passes" "There's not much left of it" "While I was singing" "While I was loving you" "While I was dreaming" "There was still time" "When Arman called," "I was lying on my bed, in my old room in Orgeval." "My family and I had just celebrated Christmas with my siblings' partners." "I was the single one at the party." "My parents really liked Arman, our situation seemed to affect them." "When my phone rang, I was about to fall asleep." "We talked for almost an hour." "I'll never forget what we said." "Our story wasn't much of a fairy tale anymore, we weren't kids." "If we needed each other so much, it was out of weakness." "Out of habit." "Out of fear of being alone." "We knew that now, and we had to live with it." "We had to try to reinvent our story." "In the morning, I think I dreamt." "I wanted to be close to him." "ONE YEAR LATER" "(Epilogue)" "The day began with the lilting tones of Joël Collado, announcing a gray, cold day." "It was the fifth day of 2012, the year of the apocalypse as per the Mayan calendar." "It's Amélie's birthday." "Finally: she turned 30!" "The Munch Exhibition" "We met Katia and Benjamin at 4.:00 p.m. in front of Beaubourg." "We decided, on this day of leisure, to visit the Munch exhibition that would be ending soon." "After the first room, featuring some of his masterpieces, we discovered a second room entitled "Reprise"" "presenting Munch as a painter adept at copying his own paintings." "Katia contemplated The Sick Child." "Benjamin and Arman were engrossed in a new version of Puberty, as for me, I entered a third room, with his first photographic self-portraits." "In his studies, the painter presents himself alone in front of his paintings, in his studio, or seated at a table with a character in the foreground, a governess or a friend." "One of them is entitled Self-Portrait in Marat." "I read that it was taken at the clinic in Copenhagen where he was treated for depression." "In the 1920s, after a long break," "Munch started to do self-portraits again." "He's an old man now." "There's no longer any staging." "Munch, holding the camera outstretched, simply photographs his anxious face." "The exhibition ends with the painter's last drawings." "After a vascular accident and hemorrhage in the right eye, his view is altered." "He decides to depict what he sees through his sick eye." "Katia and I entered this room at the same time." "Benjamin and Arman were waiting by the abstract works." "Benjamin leaned towards Katia, and I read on his lips.:" ""This is the stroke room!"" "I've made pasta, carbonara." "Sure to please." "As were, I think, the gifts we gave Amélie:" "a black Agnès B sweater and a bonsai tree." "The bonsai was my idea, I stand by it, despite Katia's reservations about them being hard work." ""I don't know anyone who has kept one alive more than a year. "" "As we tried the Armagnac," "I looked at the bonsai on the table by the Agnès B sweater." "I don't know if it was from remembering Katia's remark or the dark thoughts I have recently since the stroke, but I had the strange feeling that it was starting to die right there in front of us." "Did you see the bonsai?" "What about it?" "Does it look funny?" "It's the lighting, it's fine." "Maybe you should water it, Amélie?" "If you like..." "We did that earlier." "Never water a bonsai too much." "In the last metro" "We took the last metro home, it was almost empty." "At Bastille station, a young man got on." "I knew this face." "I recognized one of the two guys who had nearly killed me." "The short one who stabbed me." "I held his gaze." "I scrutinized him." "He quickly left the train." "Sitting on my lap, in a plastic bag, the bonsai was dying." "I watch Amélie open the shutters." "I'm thinking that we lead a happy life together." "That we're a couple." "That she's my dearest friend." "She turns towards me, backlit, I can't see her face." "I imagine she's smiling at me." "Unless she's adopted her serious face, when the little wrinkle between her eyebrows furrows." "Now I imagine her looking at me, thinking of us, of the long path we'd shared since we met, of the few trials we've been through." "Maybe she's even thinking of the future."