I find a café, a small storm stirs me in the stomach. I open the door and am greeted by different voices, quiet conversations and discussions cry. The cafeteria is small and dark and around the bars are crowded of people, mostly men. The part where the dinner is empty except for a single person who sits in a corner near the window. I shows the next table and order a kir and a carafe of wine.
The man is so close I can almost touch it. She is eating a sausage. I look hungry. E 'coated skin stretched and transparent. The fork pierces the skin. The knife in his firm and the blue-veiled accounts for a net. The slice slips straight as an arrow in the mouth without lips, in the shade of a large protruding nose.
Champs. The floppy bangs long chin against the neck, making a small sound deep fat fat fat.
fascinated I lean forward, and our elbows touch.
- Excuse me - I go back and say
- please - the old man smiles - I can now talk
I look at him in surprise.
The smile widens: - You see, these are the human contacts. She touches me and now we can talk.
He reaches and touches my cheek voluntarily. - It 's great to get in touch with the people, especially young people. - I flinch, but also a little surprise 'alarmed. I do not want the weight of contact with this strange old man who turns casually to strangers.
- What did you think when you touched me? - Asks a friendly
The question catches me by surprise - I ... - the mind is empty - I forgot ... - I shake my head - It was not important.
- No, tell me, what was it? - Insists
- What is your fondest memory - ask for abruptly changing the subject
Man Sit back and think a few seconds.
- When I stayed with my wife for a year before marrying her - nodded to himself - yes those were the best years
- And after he married her, cos' happened?
- We have started a restaurant. I cooked, She served on the table and cleaned - looks around. - But it is always nice to stay in one place. You must travel, change of air.
She stares at me, his eyes intense. I nodded to encourage him.
- This trip, I go to many different restaurants, big, small, ugly, poor, and also enormous. I have three daughters. All good cooks. I encourage you to travel. In the town where I live, in the Alps, it withered by dint of not seeing nothing but cattle and ourselves. People are beginning to look like cows.
- Here, where comes my family, the cows are used to negotiate the wives - joke
- Really? - Puts it in his mouth and chew another piece of sausage. - Cows human. Maybe your people and mine, after all, are not so different. - Laughs loudly at the joke and raises his glass of wine. - Santé - drink to my health, tilting the glass in front of me. I take mine and I do the same. Suddenly the kir tastes better. I smile.
I look carefully, a strange smile on his lips. - But I bet you do not have cows lonely - he says, and chuckles with the air triumphant.
- What do you mean? - My smile hides a hint of irritation .- The cows are not lonely, are always part of a herd. - I drink a little 'of kir.
- The cows are always solitary human - he says with sadness - a new breed. Has not yet met, perhaps.
stretches to the jug of wine, empty. Him towards a bit 'of my own. Thanks me and takes a long sip. Then he starts talking, his voice low, barely audible above the noise of the bar.
- In the end the monotony becomes loneliness, and we wrap. Then the loneliness comes oblivion, and all is gray, more gray. There was a painter in our village. Every day mixing a drop of white paint with a touch of black, and painted a picture. Finally he placed in front of an old camera that had previously set up a tripod and take the photograph: he side of the picture. It was like this every day, every day and added a drop of white on the palette. At first the paintings were still black. Then changed: before dark gray and then, every day, the color began to lighten and the artist was surrounded by shades of gray stretch toward infinity. - Cut another piece of sausage. I finish the kir and start with the wine.
- And then? What is the end of the story? - I ask impatiently
- There is no end, there is always painting the same thing every day - just answers the old
- Oh - I am disappointed - Why then told me this story? - I ask roughly
He looks on their faces rapt. - Why? - And starts to giggle. - I do not know, I forgotten - He stops and coughs. After the cough is dry with a napkin tucked in front of the neck.
- easy to forget now. But I found a way to retrieve memories. In the right pocket of his jacket always cherish the receipts of the restaurants where I was in the left and the train ticket. My daughter Isabelle leaves me at the station of Martigny. I take a kir at the restaurant de la Gare, opposite the station. In this way mark the starting point of the trip. From then on, I keep receipts. And if the bill does not mention the name of the restaurant, I'll do write. So I know where they are is a very effective system.
I listen with envy. That old man was happier without memories. And perhaps he knew why he could talk freely with others, because they forget, as I forget and only remember the name of the restaurant.
ends the meal in silence, lost in his timeless world. Then suddenly he gets up and walks away. The plate is cleaned to perfection. The carafe of wine is empty. In between is the ticket, slightly dirty and already paid, with the restaurant's name written in clear characters. I grab the ticket and ride it out. - Sir - cry. But the wind blows away my words. The old man is swallowed by darkness.
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