The Life of Charlotte Baron Since the Day She Ran Over François

If it hadn’t been for the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Charlotte Baron certainly never would have become a florist. September 11 was her birthday. Her father, who was traveling in China, had sent her flowers. Jean-Michel was climbing the stairs, not yet knowing that the times had just been turned upside down. He rang and discovered Charlotte’s pallid face. She couldn’t pronounce a single word. Taking the flowers, she asked, “You heard?”“What?”“Come …”Jean-Michel and Charlotte spent the day together on the couch, watching replays of the planes crashing into the towers. Living such a moment together created a powerful bond. They became inseparable, even had an affair for several months before concluding they were more friends than lovers.Somewhat later, Jean-Michel started his own flower delivery company and asked Charlotte to work with him. From then on, their life was about making bouquets. The Sunday the accident happened, Jean-Michel had prepared everything. The customer wanted to ask his girlfriend to marry him. When she received flowers, she’d get the message; it was a kind of coded signal between the two. Having the flowers delivered that Sunday was crucial, because it was the anniversary of their meeting. Just before leaving, Jean-Michel got a call from his mother: his grandfather had just been hospitalized. Charlotte said she’d take care of the delivery. She liked to drive the van a lot. Especially when there was only one stop to make and there was no hurry. She was thinking of the couple and the role she was playing in their story: a secret factor. She was thinking about all of this, as well as other things, when a man crossed the street haphazardly. And she hit the brakes too late.Charlotte was devastated by the accident. A psychologist tried to make her talk about it, to make sure she recovered from the shock as soon as possible, so the trauma wouldn’t eat away at her unconscious. Quickly enough, she wondered, Should I get in touch with the widow? She finally decided that it wouldn’t do any good. At any rate, what could she have said? “I’m sorry.” Do you apologize in such cases? Maybe she would have added, “It was stupid of your husband to run like that, without caring how; he’s screwing up my life, too, are you aware of that? You think it’s easy to go on living when you’ve killed somebody?” Sometimes she had genuine outbursts of hate for that man, for his thoughtlessness. But most of the time she kept quiet. She sat around in a state of blankness. The periods of silence linked her to Natalie. Both of them were floating in the anesthesia of a path of least resistance. For weeks during her recovery, without knowing why, she thought constantly of the flowers she was supposed to deliver on the day of the accident. The bouquet that never made it stood for time come to nothing. Incessantly, the event replayed in slow motion right before her eyes, including the sound of the impact, over and over. The flowers were always there in the foreground, blurring her view. They shrouded her day and became her obsession in petal form.Jean-Michel, very worried about her state of mind, worked himself into a lather trying to get her to go back to work. It was one attempt to rouse her that was as good as any other. And it worked, since she lifted her head and answered yes, like little girls sometimes do when promising to be good after having done something stupid. Deep down, she knew very well that she had no other choice. She had to go on. And it certainly wasn’t the sudden incitement coming from her colleague that talked her into it. Everything will go back to the way it was, thought Charlotte, her mind at ease. But no, nothing could go back to the way it was. Something had brutally shattered in the progression of days. That Sunday was there forever: you would find it on Monday and on Thursday. And it kept alive on Friday or Tuesday. That Sunday was never settled and began to look like goddamn eternity; it spread itself all over the future. Charlotte was smiling, Charlotte was eating, but a dark cloud covered Charlotte’s face. She seemed obsessed with a single idea. Suddenly, she asked, “Those flowers I was supposed to deliver that day … did you ever deliver them?”“I had other things on my mind. I went to find you right away.”“But the man didn’t call?”“Yes, of course. I talked to him on the phone the next day. He wasn’t happy about it at all. His girlfriend didn’t get anything.”“And then?”“And then … I explained it to him … I told him you’d had an accident … that a man was in a coma …”“And what did he say?”“I don’t remember very well anymore … he apologized … and then he muttered something … I think he saw it as some kind of sign. Something very negative.”“You mean … you think he didn’t ask the girl to marry him?”“I don’t know.”Charlotte was disturbed by that story. She took the liberty of calling the man in question. He confirmed that he’d decided to put off proposing. This news really left a mark on her. It couldn’t happen like that. She thought of the sequence of events. The marriage was going to be put off. And maybe a lot of events were going to be changed like that? It upset her to think that all these lives were going to be different. She thought, If I fix them, it’s as if it never happened. If I fix them, I’ll be able to go back to a normal life.She went into the back of the shop to put together the same bouquet. Then she got into a taxi. “Is it for a wedding?” the driver asked her.“No.”“For a birthday?”“No.”“For … a graduation?”“No. It’s just for doing what I ought to have done the day I ran somebody over.”The driver continued the journey in silence. Charlotte got out. Put the flowers on the woman’s doormat. She stayed there before that image for a moment. Then decided to take a few roses out of the bouquet. She left with them and climbed into another taxi. Since the day of the accident, she’d kept François’s address with her. She’d preferred not to meet Natalie, and it was definitely the right decision. It would have been even harder to pull her own life back together if she’d put a face to a shattered life. But at that moment, she was carried away by an impulse. She didn’t want to think. The taxi drove along; now it was stopping. For the second time in the past few minutes, Charlotte found herself on a woman’s landing. She placed those few white flowers in front of Natalie’s door. Twenty-one

Natalie opened the door and asked herself: was it the right moment? François had been dead for three months. Three months, so few of them. She didn’t feel the slightest bit better. On her body, the sentinels of death paraded nonstop. Her friends had advised her to start working again, not to let herself go, to occupy her time to keep it from becoming unbearable. She knew very well that this wouldn’t change anything, that it might even make it worse, especially evenings when she got back from work and he wasn’t there, wouldn’t ever be there. Not to let yourself go, what a strange expression. You’re letting yourself go whatever happens. Life is about letting yourself go. That was all she wanted: to let herself go; or rather, to let go. To stop feeling the weight of each second. She wanted to rediscover lightness, be it unbearable.She hadn’t wanted to telephone before coming. She wanted to arrive just like that, spontaneously, which would also make the event less of a to-do. In the lobby, elevator, hallways, she’d run into a lot of her coworkers, and all of them had tried as best they could to show her a little warmth as she went by. A word, gesture, smile, silence sometimes. There were as many attitudes as there were people, but she’d been deeply touched by their unanimous, discreet way of supporting her. Paradoxically, it was also all these demonstrations that were now making her hesitate. Did she want that? Did she want to live in an environment where everything was nothing but compassion and uneasiness? If she came back, she’d have to play-act her life, see to it that everything went all right. She wouldn’t be able to stand seeing kindness in the eyes of others if it led directly to pity.She was stuck at the door to her boss’s office, unable to make up her mind. She sensed that if she walked in, it would mean she was definitely returning. Finally, she decided, and walked in without knocking. Charles was absorbed in reading the dictionary. It was a fetish of his; every morning, he read a definition.“How are you? I’m not bothering you, am I?” asked Natalie.He looked up, surprised to see her. She was like a ghost. Something caught in his throat, he was afraid he couldn’t move, was paralyzed with emotion. She walked up to him.“You were reading your definition?”“Yes.”“What is it today?”“The word delicacy. It’s not surprising that you appeared at that moment.”“It’s a lovely word.”“I’m glad to see you—here. Well. I was hoping that you’d come.”Then there was silence. It was strange, but a moment always came when they didn’t know what to say to each other. And in those cases, Charles always offered tea. It was like gasoline for their words. Then he continued, in a very excited voice, “I was speaking to the shareholders in Sweden. Did you know that I speak a little Swedish now?”“No.”“Yes … they asked me to learn Swedish … just my luck. It’s really a shitty language.”“…”“But fine, I really owe that to them. They’re actually flexible enough … anyway … yes, I’m telling you this … because I spoke to them about you … and everybody agreed to do exactly as you choose. If you decide to come back, you’ll be able to do it at your own pace, as you wish.”“How nice.”“It’s not only nice. We miss you here, really.”“…”“I miss you.”He said it as he stared at her intensely. The kind of insistent look that makes you feel uncomfortable. In an eye, time can go on forever; a second becomes a discourse. To be honest, he couldn’t deny two things: he’d always been attracted to her, and his attraction was more pronounced since the death of her husband. It was difficult to admit this kind of affection. Was it a morbid affinity? No, not necessarily. It was her face. It looked as though it had been purified by her tragedy. Natalie’s sadness considerably deepened her erotic potential. Twenty-two

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