Adam Haberberg Read Free Page A

spoken of sacrificing herself, since she would have sacrificed only the social part of herself, her useless part. Instead of which she'd had to resign herself to the path in life for which her randomly oriented studies had prepared her. After the Higher National Telecommunications School and several years of professional experience, while pregnant with their first child, she'd done an MBA on space radiocommu-nications systems and was now working as project head at France-Télécom's Research and Development Department in Issy-les-Moulineaux. As for a brilliant career, Adam thinks there on his bench, an expression that often comes to mind, and in exactly these words, Irene Haberberg is the one who's had one.
    “So how was Saint-Vaast-la-Hougue?” says Albert, who's just called him back. “Catastrophic.” “Of course.” “Where's Martine?” “In the supermarket.” “Are you outside?” “Yes.” “So you've got fuck all to do.” “What do you mean I've got fuck all to do? What about you? At least you ate some oysters?” “Sure. They're the best on the whole North Atlantic coast.” “Who told you that?” “My friend in Cherbourg.” “The best are Cancale.” “Saint-Vaast-la-Hougue.” “Cancale or Marennes-Oléron.” “Oléron is way down south!” “The best are Cancale or Oléron, everyone knows that.” “OK, you're getting on my nerves.
Ciao.”
    A woman emerges from the shop. At the top of the steps to the big cats' house a woman has emerged from the shop. She sets down her two bags and opens a folding umbrella. Adam watches her walking down the steps and as she walks down the steps it looks as if she's watching him. Adam turns back toward the ostriches. It looks as if she's coming toward me, he thinks, staring hard at the ostriches. He takes a sidelong squint. She's coming toward him. A woman on the verge of smiling, encumbered with two bags and an umbrella, is approaching him. Marie-Thérèse Lyoc. Marie-Thérèse Lyoc, Adam thinks. And immediately thinks, no, not Marie-Thérèse Lyoc here,today, no. And then he thinks, for such is fate, yes it is.
    “You recognize me?”
    She stands there, unable to get over it and bursting with energy.
    “Marie-Thérèse Lyoc.”
    You couldn't call her ugly, thinks Adam. You couldn't have called her ugly thirty years ago, nor today either, he thinks, what you could have called her at the time, as now, was insignificant, even though at the time, he thinks, it would not have occurred to anyone to describe her at all, if it occurs to him today it's because by appearing from nowhere, by taking the form of a happening during the course of a day set aside for lethargy and gloomy thoughts, Marie-Thérèse has suddenly become somebody.
    “This is great,” she laughs.
    “Yes.”
    There's a silence. And then a sudden squall blows everything toward the Crimean pine, including the umbrella, which is transformed into a feather duster. Adam gets up to help her, trying to put the ribs the right way round. Marie-Thérèse laughs in the wind, struggling with the fabric; he doesn't hear her very well as she says, You see, I've not changed, clumsiness incarnate!
    “You don't need it, it's stopped raining,” says Adam.
    The umbrella resumes its shape and the wind blows itself out.
    “I know. In fact I never use an umbrella. I generally have a little rain hat. And the day I forget my rain hat, there's a howling gale, my hair's blowing all over my face, and I run into Adam Haberberg.”
    You run into Adam Haberberg, himself bald, puffy, soon to be blind in one eye, my God, he thinks, how time wrecks us.
    “So, Marie-Thérèse,” he says with a start, “what's new, Marie-Thérèse, a thousand years on?”
    “You want some hot news? I need glasses. That's a fact, from this morning.”
    “What kind of glasses?”
    “For farsightedness. That's the truth. Do you wear glasses?”
    “No.”
    “What frightens me is that this is only the start.” She's wiped the damp