French Leave Read Free

incredibly nice. And we’ll have a built-in barbecue and that will be really awesome for the kids, because the housing estate will be super safe like my sister-in-law says and . . .
    Oh, bliss.
    It was too awful. I fell asleep.

 
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    I stumbled out onto the parking lot of a gas station somewhere on the outskirts of Orléans. Feeling groggy as hell. Woozy and drooly. I had trouble keeping my eyes open and my hair felt incredibly heavy. I even put my hand up to it, just to make sure it really was hair.
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    Simon was waiting by the cash register. Carine was powdering her nose.
    I stationed myself by the coffee machine.
    It took me at least thirty seconds to realize that my cup was ready. I drank it without sugar and without much conviction. I must have pressed the wrong button. There was a weird, faintly tomato-ish taste to my cappuccino.
    Oh, man . . . It’s going to be a long day.
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    We got back in the car without saying a word. Carine took a moist alcohol towelette from her make up bag to disinfect her hands.
    Carine always disinfects her hands when she’s been in public places.
    For hygiene’s sake.
    Because Carine actually sees the germs.
    She can see their furry little legs and their horrible mouths.
    That’s why she never takes the métro. She doesn’t like trains, either. She can’t help but think about the people who put their feet on the seats and stick their boogers under the armrest.
    Her kids are not allowed to sit on a bench or to touch the railings. She has major issues about going to the playground. And issues about letting them use the slide. She has issues with the trays at McDonald’s and she has a ton of issues about swapping Pokémon cards. She totally freaks out with butchers who don’t wear gloves or little salesgirls who don’t use tongs to serve her her croissant. She gets downright paralytic if the school organizes group picnics or outings to the swimming pool where all the kids have to hold hands as a prelude to passing on their fungal infections.
    Life, for Carine, is exhausting.
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    Her business with the disinfectant towelettes really gets up my nose.
    The way she always thinks other people must be sackfuls of germs. The way she always peers at their fingernails when she shakes hands. The way she never trusts anyone. Always hiding behind her scarf. Always telling her kids to be careful.
    Don’t touch. It’s dirty.
    Get your hands out of there.
    Don’t share.
    Don’t go out in the street.
    Don’t sit on the ground or I’ll smack you!
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    Always washing their hands. Always washing their mouths. Always making sure they pee exactly ten centimeters above the bowl, dead center, and that they never ever let their lips touch someone’s cheek when they go to kiss them. Always judging the other moms by the color of their kids’ ears.
    Always.
    Always judging.
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    I don’t like the sound of any of it. What’s worse, when you go to dinner at her family’s they have no compunction about mouthing off about Arabs.
    Carine’s dad calls them ragheads.
    He says, “I pay taxes so those ragheads can have ten kids.”
    He says, “What I’d do with ’em, I’d stick ’em all in a boat and torpedo the whole lot of them, every last parasite, I would.”
    And he likes to say, “France is a country full of bums and people on welfare. A country full of losers.”
    And often, to finish, he goes like this: “I work the first six months of the year for my family and the next six for the state, so don’t go talking to me about poor people and the unemployed, okay? I work one day out of two so Mamadou can go knock up his ten wives, so don’t go lecturing me, okay?”
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    There was one lunch in particular. I don’t like remembering it. It was for little Alice’s baptism. We were all at Carine’s parents’ place near Le Mans.
    Her