The return to Paris had the metallic taste of definitive things. Jean cleaned the apartment with a ferocity that bordered on punishment. He put Pascal's copy on the shelf in the living room and forced himself to sit on the sofa. He held on for five minutes. The walls closed on him.
Fleeing the echo of his own footsteps, Jean took refuge in the small backyard on the ground floor, a corner of damp cobblestones separated from the neighboring courtyard by a stone wall.
One afternoon in August, the silence became unbearable. He needed to destroy something. He knelt on the cobblestones and began to pull out the weeds that grew between the joints. He pulled with blind rage, breaking the stems and scratching his knuckles.
—If you keep pulling like this, you'll only be left with the broken leaves in your hand —said a cracked voice from the other side of the wall.
Jean stopped, breathing heavily. On the other side of the stone, under the shade of a gnarled olive tree, was André. He was about seventy-five years old and holding a brass watering can.
—The root stays down, waiting for the next rain —the old man added, without looking at him, concentrating on watering his geraniums—. You have to wet the soil first, neighbor.
Jean brushed off the dust, irritated by the intrusion.
—I wanted to finish quickly. Clean this up once and for all.
André put down the shower and walked over to the wall. He scanned Jean's tired face.
—I haven't listened to your mother's radio in the morning for weeks —the old man said.
Jean pursed her lips. She wanted to take an evasive detour, but fatigue left her no filters.
—She died last month.
The old man was not startled or offered ready-made phrases. He nodded slowly, resting his rough hands on the stone.
—She was a good woman —André murmured. He pointed his chin to Jean's yard—. You're going to break your back if you keep fighting with those stones. Come. Sit down for a moment.
Jean hesitated, but the apartment behind him was a mausoleum. He walked over to the wall and slumped into an old wrought-iron chair. For a long time, all they shared was the hum of cicadas. André lit a cigarette.
—I feel like I did everything wrong, André —Jean blurted out suddenly, driven by exhaustion—. I took care of her until the end. And now I look sideways and everyone has a life set up. Families, noise. I'm only forty-one years old and a yard full of weeds. I was out of the game.
André let out a puff of smoke.
—Ah, the sacred accounting of life. If you have a wife, you're in the green. If you're just pulling weeds, you're in the red. What a tiring way to measure days.
—It's reality. Time doesn't forgive.
—Time doesn't know what you're talking about —André replied. He pointed to the tree—. Look at this olive tree. Last year there was a frost. It didn't produce a single olive. Do you think the tree felt like a failure? Do you think it looked at the neighbor's apple trees and said, 'I stayed behind'? He just dropped the dry leaves and waited. Winter is also part of the harvest. It goes under the ground, where you can't see it.
The old man put out his cigarette.
—When my wife died ten years ago, this yard became a cemetery. I hated it when the sun was rising, because she didn't go to see it. One day, a stupid sparrow stood there and started singing at the top of my lungs. I wanted to throw a stone at him for disrespecting my pain. But I looked at him and understood that the bird wasn't making fun of my mourning. He was celebrating that the sun had risen. Life went on, stubborn and noisy. And I was wasting my own time by wanting to be the guardian of someone who had already finished his shift. Don't demand that your life be a perfect balance, boy. Sometimes, it's just a matter of watering the geraniums and seeing what happens tomorrow.
The old man walked away to the back of his yard. Jean sat in the chair. He no longer felt the urge to uproot everything. He went into the kitchen, filled a glass with water, and came back. Carefully, he bent down and poured the water over the dry earth. Then he simply sat and waited for the earth to do its work while the sky above Paris began to be tinged with oranges and violets