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2386 Words
Ding dong!
My index finger trembles when I ring the doorbell. I hear the heavy footsteps of my approaching father. Paul follows me closely and it’s almost a godsend that he’s there because I have only one desire, that of scampering away neither seen nor heard. The door opens and a little monster jumps on me!
“Uncle! Happy birthday! Mom told me you’re thirty, is that right, Uncle? So, you’re old! Thirty years is very old! Eh?”
This is Lucas, my nephew and godson. He’s adorable, but he’s a real talker.
“Hey, hi, man! No, thirty years isn’t old! I’m only twenty-four years older than you, it’s nothing at all, twenty-four, you know! Hello, Dad!” I said, hugging my father.
“Hi, son! Happy birthday. Good evening, Paul, are you okay?”
“Impeccable, Simon! How are you? Retirement soon?”
To see my father slap Paul on the back like they’ve always known each other comes as a shock to me. I try to hide my astonishment as best I can.
“Don’t talk to me about that...” answers my father. “I can’t take it anymore; I’m just waiting for it! More than three years! Go ahead, come in! Everybody’s here. We were expecting you. You took a long time!”
“It’s the roads, it’s getting worse and worse! People don’t know how to drive. A trip that should take twenty minutes lasts double or even triple... It’s annoying!”
“Okay, Paul, stop bitching! We’re here now,” I tell him.
“So, Uncle, are you going to die soon?” resumes little Lucas.
“I don’t intend to!”
“Hey, Ju,” says my sister who comes to hug me. “Happy birthday, big brother! Did you come alone?” she said, looking over my shoulder.
“No, with Paul. You seem disappointed. What did you expect? Or rather whom?”
“I was hoping that you brought a charming young lady. Instead, you’re hanging out with Paul…”
“Hey! Paul’s right here!” replies Paul. “So, a little respect, dear Sylvia!” he adds, kissing her.
“What I think of my brother is also valid for you. Worse yet, how old are you, Paul? Soon thirty-five, aren’t you? And still single! The two of you will end up together if this continues!”
“Who’ll end up together?” Mom asks, arriving in the living room with a bottle of champagne in her hand.
“No one, Mom! It’s Sylvia, she’s crazy! As usual. Hello, Mom.”
“Hello, darling. Happy birthday! How are you? You don’t seem to be yourself.”
“Everything’s fine!” I say, heading towards Jeremy to kiss him while he holds out his hand to me.
“You kiss me now? This is new!”
“Oh sorry, man! I don’t know what’s going on with me. And Louise, where’s she?” I say to create a diversion.
“She’s already asleep, she couldn’t hold on,” Sylvia answers.
“What? Already! That’s a shame, I wanted to hug her! And your belly, it’s growing,” I say, stroking my sister’s stomach.
“Uh, yes, it’s okay...” she said embarrassed by this gesture.
They all look at each other strangely and I pretend not to notice. I try to be natural like everything is normal, but something’s wrong. Would I be different depending on my gender? Well, the less I do, the better!
“Okay, shall we drink?” I said, grabbing a still empty glass.
I’m opting for a new motto this evening: you have to drink to forget! My father serves us. Jeremy plays cards with Lucas, and Paul warms his buttocks in front of the fireplace. I go over to the hi-fi system to put on some music, just to fill this somewhat embarrassing silence.
“Cheers! Happy thirtieth!” they all cry in unison.
“Thank you, everyone!” I say moved.
I swallow my drink in one. While waiting for the others to finish theirs, I’m going to isolate myself in the room where the little one is sleeping. I watch her sleep. She snores a little. Over the travel cot, I tell her about my adventures:
“Louise, if you only knew what happened to me. Yesterday I was a girl, like you! And today I’m a boy. And I don’t know how it works with boys! Well, it’s nice to be a girl. We can put on dresses and lipstick too. Boys, they’re weird, I’ll never understand them, I think...”
“What are you saying to my daughter, exactly?”
“Oh f**k! You scared me, Sylvia. I just came to say goodnight to her. I’m disgusted that I didn’t see her awake.”
“Well, since when have you been interested in children?”
“Uh, why are you saying that?”
“Why do you think?”
“Uh, I don’t know! If I only knew!” I say involuntarily raising my voice.
“Shhh, you two!” my mother says to us through the half-open door. “Do you want to wake up the little one? Come out, this is neither the place nor the time. We’re here to celebrate your birthday.”
“Sorry, Julien. I didn’t want…”
“Forget it!” I told her, not knowing where she was going with this.
We sit down to dinner in a controlled hubbub. I avoid talking so as not to make a mistake, but I’m upset. My sister’s little comment upset me. Why did she say that? Isn’t Julien close to his family? Or else, it’s Julie who isn’t. I love children! I dream of having kids! Every night, I imagine my prince, the father of my children! Mine! Children of mine! But who am I exactly?
Paul is enjoying my mother’s lasagne. I’m not very hungry. I eat only to prevent my mother from wondering. My mouth is full when Jeremy asks me an improbable question.
“How’s the S&P 500 doing?”
I see Paul rolling his eyes.
“Yes, that’s right, how is the S&P 500 doing?” repeats my father.
Paul sighs.
“Couldn’t we talk about something else, please, honestly! Julien and I see numbers every day, so on weekends, we’d like to relax.”
“Don’t worry, Paul, it won’t take long to explain it to them. This week was a disaster. We’re in a complete fog. Traders are desperately looking for benchmarks and turn to technical analysis. The S&P 500 sank below two thousand points. In short, at the moment, there’s a way to make money, but you have to take risks! Make multiple round trips during the day. China and the steep drop in oil prices are also at the heart of this storm that some people no longer hesitate to call a mini-recession. Each new thunderclap in the markets takes the indices a little lower. As a result, the markets have had a disastrous start to the year! In Paris, in just three weeks, the CAC 40 has already lost nearly 14%. It has completely erased its gains of last year to return to its levels of the previous fall. The other major European markets are in the same boat: the Frankfurt Stock Exchange has already dropped more than 18%, London more than 11%, while Madrid has lost more than 17% since the beginning of January and Milan is flirting with an almost 25% drop. Wall Street is also sinking into the red with a plunge of nearly 9% for the Dow Jones and around 15% for the Nasdaq. Does that answer your question?”
I look up and see the crestfallen faces of my family members. Only Paul, impassive, continues to eat and even refills another slice of lasagne without asking permission. I don’t know where I got this financial information. I’m just a simple sales assistant in a banking establishment.
“So, what should we do with our equity savings funds?” asks Jeremy, sitting next to me.
“Nothing! You don’t do anything with your savings plan. Or you make the back and forth trips I was talking about earlier and there you can earn a lot of money, but between us, Jeremy, you don’t have the balls so don’t touch anything and wait for better days! When the time comes, I’ll let you know. Okay?”
Paul bursts out laughing, visibly pleased to see me shut down Jeremy’s questions. How long have I known about finance? Ah… How tired I am of asking myself all these questions!
Jeremy and Dad continue to talk about the Stock Exchange. Sylvia and Mom are busy in the kitchen. Paul is bored: slumped on the sofa, he watches a program on TV, without sound. I join him and say:
“How are you?”
“Yeah, I’m digesting. Still up for going out afterwards?” he whispers so as not to be heard by others.
“Frankly, I’m not in the mood, I prefer to go to bed. I don’t know what’s wrong. I’m not feeling myself...”
“That’s for sure! You never turn down an opportunity to have fun. The chick from last night, could she have drugged you?”
“Maybe!” I said, bursting out laughing. “Nah, seriously. Can we postpone this outing until next week? Hey, Friday, after work, what do you think?”
“Okay, buddy! I’m going to get a few people together; we’ll have a real party next Friday for your birthday. You better be in good shape by then!”
“Count on it!” I said hoping to save time and get my life back before then.
That’s when Lucas arrives with a cake in his hands, singing, Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear uncle! Happy birthday to you! in chorus with the others.
“Wait, Uncle, you have to make a wish before you blow! I bet you want a new car! An even more beautiful one! Which goes fast! Huh, Uncle?”
“You know, Lucas, if I say it, it won’t come true.”
I don’t think long. I know what my wish is. I want to get back to my old life, my old apartment, my bike, and especially for Paul to take back his place as a loathsome boss.
I close my eyes, make my wish, truly believing it. A few seconds later, I reopen one eye, then the other. s**t! I’m still Julien and my family look at me like I’m crazy. Even Lucas is speechless.
The rest of the evening goes by quickly. I unwrap my gifts, a Hugo Boss sweater from my sister and my brother-in-law, a plump envelope from my parents, as if I needed money! And a drawing by Lucas which represents a kind of car, red, because cars that go fast are always red, with flames coming out of its exhaust.
“It’s your next car, Uncle!” he told me.
Above, it is written: For Uncle! Love LUCAS. It’s so cute, I’m very touched.
Around ten-thirty, everyone left. I picked up my mom-ironed shirts and Tupperware boxes with my meals for the week. I don’t even try to argue to tell her that I’m perfectly capable, at thirty, of cooking myself. It seems to make her so happy.
The way back is done in the most total silence, if it wasn’t for this dance music, much too loud for my taste, which breaks my ears. Paul is silent and I don’t feel like talking.
Although they are an integral part of communication, I’ve always hated silences. Whether we like it or not, they always express something: contained anger, time for reflection, fear of having nothing to say or of daring to speak out, incomprehension or scepticism, or the inability to express suffering, sorrow or pain, withdrawal, the desire to isolate... Like words, silence can be appropriate or inappropriate. Women are always worried about it. If I were Julie at this precise moment, I would surely already be trying to interpret Paul’s silence, asking myself a thousand questions, trying to understand why he said nothing. Here’s another conclusion for this unprecedented experience. A woman’s mind is spinning at full speed, even when there’s no real reason. A man is calmer, quieter. The less he questions himself, the better he is.
Twenty minutes later, arriving in front of my building, Paul turns to me:
“Thank you for this evening. It feels good to land a little from time to time. Tomorrow, same time as usual?”
“Uh… What, tomorrow?”
“For jogging! Same time or not?”
“Um, yes! But what time exactly?”
“Julien, you scare me! You need to sleep, old man, you need it! I’ll come around eleven o’clock, is that okay with you?”
“Okay, perfect!”
“Come on, good night, Julien!”
“Good night, Paul!”
Upon entering my apartment, I have a super pressing desire. I realize that I haven’t urinated since the morning. A real camel. To avoid any splash, I settle into a sitting position on the throne and grab a little red notepad lying in the newspaper bin. It’s blank. On the side, a pencil is held by a small rubber band. I take it and note:
In the body of a Man—Day 1:
1 / A man pees on the edges. It’s normal! Especially when he’s hard. To aim better, it’s easier to sit down.
2 / A man has lots of friends.
3 / A man takes care of himself.
4 / A man doesn’t often go shopping.
5 / A man doesn’t like cleaning, he delegates (including ironing).
6 / A man has a lot of fun.
7 / A man swears a lot but that doesn’t make him a bad person.
8 / A man is nervous at the wheel.
9 / A man is well versed in finance.
10 / A man speaks little.
Proud of this accomplished mission (it now feels a bit like a project), I lay down fully dressed on the bed and immediately fall fast asleep.
- Writer
