Read Online On Leave by Daniel Anselme - Free Book Online

me?”
    But what can be heard is:
    Java!
    What’s he doing there
    With his hands in your hair
    That accord … ionist?
    The singer moves slowly forward through the ill-lit room. She could be anyone you like, dressed according to your own whim, but she’s dancing the java chaloupée with clenched hands held out in front of her, searching for someone, and everyone around you quakes as if each of them was the person she’s looking for but can’t find because of their borrowed clothes that pinch at the seams and their put-on expressions that stretch the skin over their faces like scars. Everyone sighs with relief, happy to be unrecognizable, but without grasping how much it would hurt to be in that place and behaving that way if in your heart of hearts you still hoped to be sent packing like an urchin with a clap around your ears, and to run back home.
    What nonsense, Lachaume thinks as he sits with his head in his hands. When you’re a kid you start getting excited. You’re knee-high to a grasshopper, but you’re already saying you’ll be this and you’ll do that when you grow up, and your mother approves and your father disapproves … What nonsense! You eat your greens, you grow, you wear long trousers, it’s time to take your school-leaving exam, you saunter around with your ink bottle on a piece of string … Ah! If I could get hold of the swine who gave me that string, I’d give him a piece of my mind!… What nonsense!
    That’s what he’s thinking with his head in his hands, but when he tries to say something and grips Lena’s wrist to force her to listen to him, all that comes out is a scream:
    â€œThey can go hang themselves with their bloody string! They can go…”
    Lena releases herself from his grip, calmly, as if she has always been accustomed to having her wrist crushed for no reason at all, and says: “You’re as pissed as a newt.”
    â€œAss-an-oot! Ass-a-noot!” he says angrily, mocking her German accent. “What have you got against newts?”
    â€œLet’s have a drink,” she says.
    â€œNo thanks. Enough is enough … Why make me drink if I’m drunk ass-a-noot? Why do you talk such rubbish?”
    â€œAll right,” she replies. “You are not drunk.”
    â€œYes, I am! I’m totally sozzled. Everyone can see I’m wasted. Except you.”
    â€œListen to the music,” she says. “I took a taxi the other day…”
    â€œI want to dance!” he declares, standing up abruptly and trying to drag her to the floor. “Let’s dance. Just a few steps, to warm up a bit … Come on!”
    â€œThere’s no dancing in this place,” she says.
    â€œJust let them try to stop me!” he snarls. “Bloody hell! It’s freezing in here…”
    Lena doesn’t pick up on the absurd untruth Lachaume just uttered, as if men had forever lied to her in the same stupid way. She tugs his arm gently to make him sit down again.
    â€œListen to me,” she says. “I took a taxi to get to the racecourse at Longchamp, and the driver said, ‘To you camble, matam?’ He was a genuine Russian aristocrat, with a yellow mustache—bright yellow. I said, ‘Yes, Your Excellency.’ So he says, ‘How to you camble, madam?’ So I says…”
    â€œHow about that for a muddle!” Lachaume broke in with a sinister laugh. “You and your accent … mimicking a Russian accent in French! It’s the best philosophy lesson I know. They should make a recording of it to play in schools.”
    â€œSo I says: ‘How about you?’ And he says, ‘I keep it simple, ever so simple. I play my car registration number in order on odd dates and in reverse order on even dates: 423-324–423–324 … It’s the best formula for picking a winner.’”
    The song goes