Underground-RER9, now, over-crawling with cops. Cameras everywhere, quite a lot of civil lurking around, without talking of the scraps of vigipirate 10 that are still wandering about. Got to play it tight - inside - but it’s always possible to get by outside... Fresh air, it’s good for your lungs. I drive off the top of my head, thick moonless night. Nanterre, a newsagent’s, a bridge, a bench. Frozen, and this lighting of blue neon lights and yellow street lamps. Deadly boring, yet at this time of the night people that should have passed by already have. Rueil at the end. Sad, new. Mirrorwindows, recent Beaugrenelle, that shows you. I drive over the river Seine. Chatou, cut off by a west suburb motorway. I see them at 8 in the morning, the loden coats in the Peugeots, waiting for the traffic jam to clear off. The whole life to clear off. I reach the centre of the zone. Vésinet, I make my Italian car drive three, four times around the Ibis hotel, and the swans awaken by the smashed silencer try to take sight of me. To the station, Centre Vésinet. I walk along the railway, then. How quiet these wide garden houses of the 19 th can be... Let’s awake bourgeois, then, that’s it ? The ritual of the gloves that crack on my wrists, memory of bad surgical movies probably on La Cinq11. Numb, heavy fingers. A slight need for sleeping too. Later... Now, to keep vigilant. To jump over the small fence that separates the railway from the quietness of the night. Little light, but this fascinating purple spot light, the rail spectre, afar, that perforates the darkness. My steps screech, make the gravel of the roadbed crack. The smell that comes up from the railway is fetid and dizzying, the underground’s is sweetened by the fresh air. The rails are cold to feel, it’s three twenty five. The wide rubber band stick thickly, pleasantly, on the pylon that supports the catenary. The tiny bottle hangs on its new friend which longs for consuming for it. The electric wires of the alarm clock are pluged. Tic, Tac, Tic, Tac, the heart beating of the man, the phosphor of the hand that swings. This inanimate thing to be can feel death coming. A brother of his becomes the friend of the rails, with no band. Set against the rail on the rotten sleeper. Tchac, Tchac, Tchac, Tchac. To throw the calling card away. They’ve got a pretty colour, like beige. I drop the cards, and go. It’s time to go, quick. I run up to 100 meters from the banger. Then, normal paces. Turn the engine on, the thing coughs - which prevents me from hearing the noise the pylon makes smashing against the molten rails. The swans awake again at the Ibis. A traffic light, a tunnel, the road. The inner ring road already - double drive for Evry. A few scratchings on my legs. A will of irrepressible shattering too. As it happens sometimes, when something’s missing in your head and eardrum, I run in a club of the neighbourhood.
night club When I get out of it, it’s nine. Guys, on the deck, in the RER, who bloody moan, complaining of the late trains. Don’t squeeze for that, boy, you’ll soon cry, I promise. And you won’t be the only one. Get back into your Present, into your Marianne, in your Télé Star, poor Parisien12. That’s what you’ve got best. Over crowded by weariness I smash in my bed. Thinking of the moustache guy who over there - got up in the night, put on his leather, took his gun, and got frozen for a meagre result. A half burnt piece of card paper he hands out to his superintendent, wriggling like a dog. Good lad.
9
(Réseau Express Régional) Military defence that used to keep a watch on the main places where bomb attacks could have taken place (airports, train stations, etc.). 11 Old tv channel that has now disappeared from the French screens. 12 Present, Marianne, Télé Star, Le Parisien : French magazines, most of which are very popular. 10
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MAUVAISE GRAINE 31 – FÉVRIER 1999