A Fine Passage Read Online Free PDF Page B

say.”
    â€œI understand. Nor do I, when it comes down to it, have much to say. The longer it goes, the more I have the feeling that life repeats itself, and the less I have to say about it.”
    A woman walks by their table followed by a whimpering boy. The woman is clearly at the end of her rope. So is the boy.
    â€œSee what I mean? There are always mothers at the end of their rope and kids whimpering. It’s perfectly legitimate and so sad. And there’s not much we can do about it. We must be patient. Life is good for that, for exercising one’s patience.”
    The child is crying louder now. His mother is unable to quiet him. Nothing, neither firmness nor gentleness, seems to work. The man watches discreetly.
    â€œI’ve half a mind to go over there and try to dis-tract them. Mother and child both. It might change the dynamics.”
    â€œWhy not? Go ahead.”
    The man rises, approaches the table, says something to the mother, who initially looks slightly hostile but softens bit by bit. Claudia can’t hear what is being said. The child, as he watches the man speaking to his mother, gradually calms down. The man who’d shown no sign of reading now addresses the boy. The child doesn’t answer, but he is listening.
    To live. But what is living? Since that accident — but what is an accident? — I’ve lost all capacity to understand it. Death truly puts an end to so many things. Do you remember that trip we took to Labrador? It was early in our marriage, when everything was still possible. Remember the day we walked for hours along the river? We felt perfectly happy in the midst of nature, so sure of itself, so much larger than anything. Do you remember the first salmon we saw jump out of the river on its way upstream? We were thrilled. And then a second one jumped, and another. Each time you squeezed my hand harder, and each time I would have wanted to be that salmon for you, forever swimming against the current towards you.
    I’m not really sure why I bring up that memory. Maybe because, here in the wing for precise suicides, noth-ing swims upstream any more, nothing struggles, nothing wants anything. All wanting abolishes itself.
    Terry awakens after several hours of deep sleep. The idea that had kept him awake for a long time — the idea, eventually, of beating Carmen at her own game — remains with him.
    At breakfast, they discuss their plans for the day. They decide to go up to the area around Montmartre, where they haven’t been yet. They bend over the subway map, figure out their route, and set out. The weather is fine; the sun warms their faces.
    Since the subway is not packed, Terry and Carmen can sit together. They observe the comings and goings of the people at each stop. Terry tries hard to seem perfectly calm, but inside he’s ablaze with impatience. Then, at a station of no particular interest, just before the doors of the car close, he leaps to his feet, plants a quick kiss on Carmen’s cheek, and steps out onto the platform, where he waves and smiles tenderly at a rapidly vanishing Carmen. He can see from her expression that she did not expect him to take the lead in this thing, but then she laughs and blows him a kiss, which warms his heart. He waits for the subway to be swallowed up in the tunnel then turns towards the escalator.
    At work, it takes the woman who smokes only in public a good hour to regain her composure. She’s constantly reversing letters on her keyboard, a minor morning dyslexia that doesn’t surprise her, since she seems to have floated in to work rather than arrived there by her usual means of transportation. And yet, by the time she stops for lunch, she realizes she’s completely shaken off her sleepwalking state and accomplished far more work than she would have thought herself capable. In the neighbourhood restaurant where she likes to eat on Fridays, it takes her a good twenty minutes to emerge