

### On the top of the world

Paris - San Gimignano -Lhassa -Kyoto -Mandalay -San Francisco

Madeleine Ruh

Copyright © 2015 Madeleine Ruh

All rights reserved.

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Table of contents

13 November 2015

Je suis Charlie

The trench coat

Mister Martin is dead

Morphine

Gone

The balloon

The weird house

The party

The fat woman

I could have killed him

The nest

Ruben Espinosa has been murdered in Mexico

I'm the mother

The driver

Myriam and the little house near Limoges

Mother's day in LA

The Chinese guide

The non expected baby

The betrayal

On the top of the world

What would have said Haruki Murakami ?

At Benesse house

Bats

The Airbnb guy

The nuns

# 13 November 2015

I arrived in San Francisco three weeks ago, the hearth beating fast, the mind full of hope and open to new possibilities. I came alone, to find a house, to meet people and find a job, and to activate my visa and social security card, all the boring stuff. My husband would come a few weeks later and work in Paris. My boys are student in Canada in Universities.

My latest days were dark days.

Why should we come to San Francisco ? A mix of a dream, the little blue house of Maxime Le Forestier's song "C'est une maison bleue tout là haut sur la colline...", the yoga and meditation spirit, the fact that forty pour cent of the people living here don't come from America, and another forty were not born in San Francisco, the blue sky and the sun when it's not foggy, the crispy air of any port city in the world, from Lisbonna, to Istanbul, from Osaka to New York.

I like the idea of arriving somewhere where people still think nothing is impossible and they can change the world. After forty five, people you meet mean a lot, you don't have time to lose with things that you don't like. Then, if you're lucky enough to choose, you continue growing by discovering new people and a new environment.

Who did I met ? A lot of people. You know, the best way to talk to people is not coffee in San Francisco. I tried, but the young millenials are all on their laptops, ignoring their mug, and not eating much of their chocolate brownie. It smells good in this huge coffees, where you can live the "live-roasting" experience. Here, the idea is coffee is a fruit, fresh and organic, and so, nothing to do with our little café de Paris, with a waiter not speaking much and lines on his forehead as he knows things you don't and he has a lot of concerns. Here, the guy is a hipster, and offer you to taste the organic apple juice that is a treat, "really, I mean it".

The best way to talk to people is neither biking or walking in the Golden gate park or in the streets. People are looking cool, they're not as tense as in New York, but they've got something to do, wether with their children, their dog, their friends, they're busy.

The best way to talk to people is Uber, and sharing a car with Uber pool tool. You order the cab on your phone three minutes later, the car is here. The driver is hispanic, asian, or from pakistan. He does that for the extra money, from time to time, he's a PHD, paying for his studies, or a Mexican mother not knowing how to go from Palo Alto to the Golden gate, but nicely making a stop for you to take a picture (you're still a tourist after three weeks) in a weird place, the only one she found.

I went everywhere with Uber. Seven dollars each time.

Potrero and Dog patch, to purchase furniture. Yes, I hadn't time to tell you, I found a house to rent, a tiny little old house, the renter said to me they found a post card dated 1911, with a cute little yard, in a quite district : Noe Valley. A line of colored Victorian houses. To come back from the 24th street with all restaurants and shops, we'll have to climb the hill. "But they're young and healthy" said the seventy years old wife to his husband when we signed the contract.

You've go nice views from Potrero on the Skyline. And a French butcher, Olivier, everyone is mentioning to me, as Americans don't cut their meat the same way as we do.

Marina district. A mix of houses looking like coming from a Western movie, big windows that wouldn't resist a tsunami (but who cares in San Francisco, the topics is cautiously avoided), and show white sofas, heavy wood tables, and roccoco decor with gold and plenty of suprising pillows.

Hayes Valley. My prefered place. It smells marijuana in the part of Hayes street close to the Golden Gate park. Here you can meet a guy with a crasy pink coat, interviewed by an artist, with his dog puppet, another selling for one dollar a dvd supposed to make you understand the world, and think to be in Tibet in all shops, full of mask, fabrics and little stuff. Near Octavia's street, it's "bobo" as we would say in France, people in their thirties in couples, happy to enjoy a coffee or a salad outside, window shopping.

Castro. I swear to you, I met a naked man on the curv, and nobody was suprised. He had just a little gold leave on his penis, and a bag. Gay couples kiss each others on the street. Gay bar welcome gay girls with short hair and tatoo. You don't feel really at ease, as becoming the one that is different, especially being alone, but people welcome you.

Mission. I love Valencia street with street art, restaurants, chocolate shops, and Mexican food. Hispanic culture is at the top, and Dolores park belong to them, even if they welcome the hipster tribe.

Pacific Heights. So wealthy, you've got the idea to be in a famous movie, where the heroes would be a couple in a romantic comedy, hesitating to purchase a candle for home, or a new cosmetic brand created by a bio guru, or a tee shirt that nobody has.

Soma. I've lived for three weeks in Natoma Street, between 6th and 7th. Seventh street is ok, but sixth one, is the fied of homeless and crack drug addicts. They don't even look at you in the evening, in their own world. People said to me not to be afraid. Just smile if they talk to you. Just smile. Is ask if the city was taking care of them, they do, but leave them in the streets. Soma is also where start ups begin their work, or cowork in places that are now worth billion, such as Wework.

Financial district. It's a mix of Boston's buildings with the red orange color, and New York , sky scrapers, huge elevators and doormen requesting your passport, and a few art galeries, because rich doesnt' mean purchasing wines, and only practising kite surf.

Rediscovering a city is amazing, and I wonder if people visiting Paris have the same surprise, mixing with different tribes according to where they live.

Montrmartre bohème. Auteuil Passy chic and classic. Bastille lively and young. Les halles arty. Saint Germain intellectual and casual elegance...

I began that short stories book in January, it was just after the events in Paris, terrorist attacks that made famous everywhere in the big cities :"Je suis Charlie", as a symbol of support.

At the moment of me writting the followings lines, air strikes have been launched by French Government in Syria. CNN has just reveal it, it's 3.00 am Pacific Time, it's midnight in Paris.

In Uber, I met plenty of different people. The woman in her thirties, that asserts she won't take anylonger Uber as it's too long to wait for other people sharing the car to reach their destination. She looks stress, I wonder if she's a single in her thirties. The other guy that doesn't say much and appears to be a GI that had to fight in Aghanistan, and goes to drink a beer with other friends. The woman says : "We need you guys... I don't catch what is your motivation doing military, but we need it, really."

The two friends that would come in Paris for nine hours, waiting for their second flights, and wants the best addresses.

The short hair guy with naked arms and just a short and a blue doudoune, that complaints to his silencious friend about Los Angeles : "The old guys have the power, they're all in their fifties, have a comfortable life, and they don't care one minute about discovering new talents. It's a shame, something must change."

The indian woman that has just attended a conference about machine learning and says it's her second time in Uber and that she's happy. The asian guy that looks shy but suddenly explains to the three people in the car what is the best app for food delivery. And that founders shouldn't ask for so much money from VCs because it's the end of their freedom.

The driver from Mali. The one speaking French and dreaming to come back for a honey moon like trip with his girl friend.

I met a lot of people in meetings. Cool guys, meditating twice a day, rich, but also rich about the meaning of their life, and what matters to them. I met resilient guys, coming from boat people, having to fight for a living, begining their start up in their garage, courageous, but speedy, rushing for the day after, incredibly obsessed to prove the world who they were.

I met French people that were a little lost in the city, other arrogant and assertive as we can have the reputation to be abroad. I met people, and each time I was talking to them, I was asking myself if they knew who they were, if they had thought that life is short. Either you work like hell to be rich and purchasing things (that one day will disappear as we will) : house, cars, electronics, clothes, paitings..., or you want only entertainment : drinks, good food, travels, movies, series... Or you try your best to balance your life, and keep time for thinking and develop your mind and have empathy for others.

This is human kind, I believe I didn't understand the world before. I said it but didn't catch what it meant. I went to the Young museum this morning. Facscinated by the Hawaian collection, rediscovering Inuit art if had seen in Canada, staring at the Diego Rivera portrait of two women and a child.

Perhaps thanks to our six weeks in Asia and buddhist countries, I've never been so detached of material things and ownership, and understanding that we run out of time to do all of what we want to achieve on earth.

Let's say I'm quite convinced that there are people to avoid , as they have a negativ energy, some to see as helping you to be honest with yourself. There is a time in life where you don't want to loose time with people that don't matter to you.

You also want to do things that matter. Helping people in a way or another, sharing what you have learnt. Trying to make the world a little better.

The indian woman said : "We're sorry about what happened in Paris, we're with you, all world is sad today, not only France."

She has long hair, cute short teeth as pearls, and tiny glasses. She seems bright.

Another French woman jumps into the car. She says on the phone, that a guy named Paul has lost two friends from Metz city. A giant one, so friendly, with a sweet voice and always shirts to short for him. The giant was shot in the Bataclan. And a girl, always laughing, dancing, drinking and singing.

Then she repeats "they were shot just like that, for nothing, just because they were at a concert. As if drinking and listening to rock'n roll was a crime or a religion."

Then she talks about the guy joining the group of girls. He will be surprised. It's not clear if it's a sex party, or a house sharing. She leaves the car saying she enjoyed the dinner yesterday and went home at two am in the morning, she had a lot of fun. A lot of fun.

It may seems stupid, but I'd like anyone to mourn today. I was shocked to see people smiling in the Park. They're just living. Happily. They don't have the threat of young terrorists that don't even understand why they fight against us, except they don't like the way we live, free, not having any god to adore. Enjoying life every day, even if saying the contrary, as a French temper is famous for.

My two latest days in San Francisco ?

Didn't feel like going out. Tried to learn code on the DMV site for driving. Couldn't focus. Try to read on my Kindle. Forgot it quickly. Looked at my check list : purchase towels in Bed Bath and Body, purchase hygiene's product at Target, furnitures and design furnitures...What the fuck.

Opened the fridge. Took the cold roasted chicken purchased in Whole Foods, with a plump tomato that I cut in four pieces. Added salt. Took a sparkling water soda. Took a chocolate granola, and ate it without milk. Opened the fridge again, looked at it inside, not hungry but happy to see the light.

Looked at twitter timeline again, to check if anything new. Read articles and post about Isis and Islamic state and why they want the chaos in our democracies, and make the grey zone disappear, the one where people get along, muslims and non muslims.

Looked at the time in Paris and in Montréal to see if my boys are sleeping.

Ate an apple, Apples feel good on your teeth when you're exhausted. Sent a message to my sister that was right at the corner of one of the restaurants where a terrorist shot the people. She semt ok but slept all day. I should call her again tomorrow thanks to facetime.

Changed my profile picture on Facebook with the French flag. Twitted the government and police alert about a man they're looking for, with his picture. Twitter the anonymous list of djihadist names twitter should ban.

Felt lonely, a stranger in another culture and city. Meditated on the fact I had chosen to be here, and chosen the life to come, for continuing to grow, going out of safety and comfort. Tried to sleep and couldn't. Looked again at my twitter timeline and watched a video with an anti terrorist judge explaining the lack of means for the people fighting against terrorists. That we, Eurepean countries and America, nurtured terrorism and were friends of Saoudi Arabia that was close to Djihad, and the guys in Syria. But an economic ally...

Tried to sleep again. Couldn't. Opened the fridge. Decided instead to took a bath, and a shampoo.

Killed a mosquito and felt relieved by that. Considered looking at a serie, forgot it to avoid blood.

Listened to the neighbour, playing with his Xbox and shooting people. Felt it was brutal and inapropriate.

Answered three king messages of American people, showing their support. The renter, the relocation girl, a guy met in a meeting.

Hastag "Pray for Paris" is all over the web. Picture of Sidney, the Empire State building, crowds in Berlin, Coppenhaguen, Montréal...all cities with the blue white and red shades of the French flags.

One hundred and thirty people are dead, and three hundred are injured.

At the same time a suicide attack has made forty three casualties in Beyrouth.

At the same time, people flee from their countries, in Syria especially, to avoid to starve and to live free, far from the extremists that took power in their country. Europe is overwhelmed by the demands. I've just read that all European governments have decided to better follow the move of terrorists in Europe, and think of new rules for safety in airflights.

Tomorrow, I've got meetings and interviews to find a job.

I received today my short bio by VCs to put in on their site as a resident advisor, I smiled as it looks like a better me, I was nearly impressed to meet this woman. French people invite me to a party on Monday's evening. My Airbnb renter that is Brasilian, married to a Japanese, writes she will ask the neighboor to do less noises.

I send a mail to the yoga's teacher recommended by someone I like, I hope he will accept my coming, even if seven in the morning on Saturdays.

Tomorrow is another day.

San Francisco . November 15th 2015

# Je suis Charlie

We're still in January for a few hours, so I can wish you a happy new year 2015.

I dont' know, perhaps because of the tragic events, I received less happy new year cards.

I'm not very proud of me. I yielded at my father. He's old, he's in his eighties. At my birthday diner with my mother and my sister, he was asserting that people demonstrating on Sunday were genuine, more than three million people in the streets of Paris and Lyon, Bordeaux, Marseille, but for what. I shouted at him with anger : "You can't say that. The people murdered were journalists, some of them you know since you're a teen ager with their drawings and pencils. We fight for our believes, our freedom, the country that has raised me. You can't say that." He added : "They meant it by provocating terrorists, I mourn Cabu, he was a nice guy, but their editor Charles was in the extremes, and deliberately pushing the limit, now with internet all is known. The one I'm sad for are the four jewish in the shopping area." I answered:"Wether you appreciate or not their work, they were journalists fighting for their believes in our democracy. You're old, perhaps you don't perceive the situation as I do, but old people were demonstrating, so it's not the only explanation. And also muslim friends were demonstrating." My mother said :"You don't listen to your dad. You don't try to understand. Shut up." I anwered with a lot of anger :"You shut up. If you were enough stupid to demonstrate against the gay weddding, I didn't say anything to you, but now we're discussing about France, a country were I was born and educated in the respect of having a religion or not, and whichever religion. Don't tell me what to think or to do. You shut up !" I was very upset after that diner, and sent a texto to my mother saying : "if we argue it's that we are alive, so that's pretty good news".

I sent a texto to Najia, our babysitter when our teenagers were kids. She's muslim. She answered : "Thank you. I came here thirty six years ago to educate my children and participate as I can to France today and tomorrow, I'm chocked and sad. Some young people are lost and they don't have a lot to share with Islam. God protect us from barbarism and racism. I kiss the boys."

7th of January.

The day where it happens was a grey day, like any other in January, after the sun of vacations in far away destinations for the happy few, or endless family diners for most people, with plenty of food, traditional arguments as all people when they receive want it perfect, are nervous, and finally are upset by anything.

I remember I was having a nice lunch in a trendy restaurant with a lot of decision makers, welcome by the staff, a carott juice to be happy, a coffee not to be sleepy.

When I took my Mini, I listened to the radio. I didn't catch at the begining. A few minutes before, the murder by two terrorists had happened. They killed the journalists in the conference room. Because of the Mahommet caricatures.

They murdered a police man on the pavement, we'll learn later he was muslim, and said "Let it go boss", before they shot him in his head. Twelve people have been murdered by the Djiadist terrorists.

Arriving at the office, I looked at my phone, and read all messages on Twitter. It was all about it. A sign had appeared by a few people. "Je suis Charlie" a sentence on a black background saying it all. I am free, I live in a democracy, I'm so sad, What happens today is against all our believes of tolerance and freedom of speech.

I called my elder son, living abroad as a student and in Paris for a few days. "You must post something on Facebook." He said : "I don't know, it's an extreme right newspaper, isn't it ?" I answered, thinking I missed one goal in the education I delivered to him :" No way. It's on the side of the freedom of speech and it's a journal of investigation and caricatures of all religions, politic leaders, society issues. With Cabu, Wolinski, I'm sure you saw some of their drawings... You must do something".

When I came home, he was in front of his computer, half naked as usual as too hot in the apartment for him, and he had changed his profile on Facebook with "Je suis Charlie". He apologized : "One of my friends said to me big bullshit, sorry about that, they were courageous and smart guys."

8th of January. Near Montrouge.

The day after, we could move from our office. A guy had killed a police woman in the street, her job being to help people to cross near a school. Just like that, in the morning traffic. The car was found just a few hundred meters behind our office.

I said to my big boss she should cancelled the ceremony of best wishes, as all people could go from a building to another. She was already aware. We were waiting. She did a minute of silence in the long open white hall. A long minute of seven minutes, there were no noises. Quite and sad.

9th of January.

The day after we were still waiting. The two terrorist brothers, Chérif and Said Kouachi had let an identity card in the car. The police was trying to find them in Normandy. They had hijacked a car.

The financial head arrived at the office saying that policemen with bullet proof gilets and heavy weapons (fusils à pompe) were looking at all cars going outside the périphérique around Paris. Some of them Porte d'Orléans.

In the afternoon, we suddenly learnt that the other terrorist, Amedy Coulibaly had hostages in a small hypermarket for casher food near Portes de Vincennes.

Between two meetings, I looked at my phone. it was incredible to see pictures of the GIGN outside the hypermarket ready to the assault. Journalist and people were trying to be in the know, like a wave of information never stopping, even if some of them putting the hostages at risk by their pictures.

I called my sister that was near the place. Her voice was fragile, as the noise of police cars, and the crowd had to be softened in her head.

My big boss did her speech about our successes and achievements. She had a very nice conclusion. She reminded all of us that she was the one to be responsible of our community at work, whatever the religion or no religion, whatever the gender, whatever the sex orientation, whatever the age. She said she was thinking to our muslim employees, and raised our awareness not to have any amalgam.

During the speech, some of my friends were looking at their phone, as the schools around the hostage place were closed with the teen-agers inside to avoid any problem outside.

One hour later, the assault was given, a few minutes, first in the office, in the suburb in Seine et Marne, were the two brothers were with a man held in hostage, and the shop in Paris. The two brothers were killed. The terrorist in the jewish shop was dead. Four people had been killed inside the shop when they had arrived. No other victims.

Paris was like having a big headache, being so tired after the three days. Exhausted.

My husband sent to me a texto : "In Mexico, I'm surrounded by a lot of Americans and other Europeans, they're under shock, and support us."

11 of January 2015.

You know what happened next. The "Je suis Charlie" message everywhere on the social media, people having it in front of them in the big capitals in Europe and in the US, demonstrations in cities on Saturday, and the picture of François Hollande and Angela Merkel for Germany, walking, hand in hand with the Ministers and Presidents of countries from Europe, Africa, and Moyen Orient.

The picture from Reuters, with all the people on the statue Place de la République, one with a huge pen, as a sign of freedom of speech, another one with the french flag, the flag that so often is used by old men mourning other soldiers of old wars or extreme parties misusing it for closing our frontiers.

Suddenly proud of being French, asserting their values and believes. As Charb said : " Je préfère mourir debout que vivre à genoux."

There were no incidents in demonstrations. People were packed. Sometime far from the Place de la République, all subways stations being closed around. People couldn't move and stayed for hours. Always polite when someone by mistake did hurt their foot, or was to close of their child. A peaceful and respectful crowd, having the feeling of living a historic day, and participating to it.

There were demonstrations against "Charlie" in Pakistan, Kaboul in Afghanistan, Turkey, Niger, Senegal. Arguing blasphem, irrespect of their god.

The book of my father in law about secularism and religions has raised in sales on internet in January.

So, what's next, and what will be build on this tragic moment ? It's our responsability.

Europe and France are in deep crisis. Economic, but also cultural crisis. Like having lost the energy and hope in a bright future.

I'm surprised to see my children having chosen to study abroad to find their future.

I move to San Francisco in a few months. Our choice with my husband. An area more open to new ideas, moving fast, where everything is possible, and no people at fifty will tell you they expect their retirement...

We'll come back one day and for the best.

Paris. 31 janvier 2014

# The Trench Coat

I perfectly remember when I purchased it. It was a rainy day. A Saturday morning. I was thinking I should take care of myself as I had just turned fourty and I would deserve to have a Burberry one.

The woman took my card in a soft way, smiled at me, and I looked at the price thinking it was the kind of clothes we purchase for life, hopefully, timeless...

Then when I was looking for my car keys to come back to the parking near Saint Sulpice, my phone rang.

I was written unknown number, but even if an awkward position with my arms, as the big bag in one hand and my keys in the other, I chose to answer.

The voice said : "Is it Mrs Deliège on the phone ?" I took time to answer, I looked at the statue and the water, the beautiful church, the miror of the sky and clouds on the asphalt and I slowly answered : "Yes, who's on the phone, please ?"

The female voice answered : "It's the hospital. Doctor Zyman wants to talk to you, we have the results for your daughter." She talked to me as if I was an old and fragile woman.

Then I don't remember exactly what happened. I was crying on the banc when a young woman with a walk-man came to me asking : "Are you OK ?"

My daughter had a cancer, and you don't want a child to have a cancer. She was eight years old, the period where you want your mother to help you to have nice hair with girly accessories and you smile at your face in the mirror.

I was devastated. She was courageous. One Week, chimiotherapy, one being so sick, one recovering. We had to be in hospital with her. One day, my mother, the other my sister, the third one me and my husband. The family was a huge help for me. Anything else disappeared.

I didn't say anything at work except to my boss. She understood my reluctancy to make it known, I couldnt' stand with the look and sad smiles of people when they knew. They had always the same way to ask if it was not to tough, if she was recovering, if they could do something for me. And no one could.

I think that year I understood what was to be alive and alone. When you're sick, you're by yourself. No one even your beloved can do anything. They have no power, they know it, and it makes them crasy. When it's your child, it's worst, you feel guilty, when you're not with him, guilty not to be a good wife as obsessed with the little face of your daughter without any hair now, guilty not to take enough time for your other child, your son, as you are absolutely exhausted.

At work, you look permanently at your phone. You're in meetings, but a part of you is not here. What is all that about ? Money, making customer have a good experience, having a better performance on our site ? What the fuck ! I'm someone taking a lot of attention to what I say. People describe me as someone that is always patient and taking attention to people, listening before I express myself. During that period, I was not very patient, I had the feeling that all the people at work were stealing my time, therefore my life, and precious moments I should spend with my daughter. Perhaps she would be gone in one year, or one month, or one week, or just now. I could sleep at night. My doctor ordered me to slow down, and during one week, I didn't go to the hospital. I felt better and at the same time, I felt so bad.

The smell, the smell of the hospital, did you notice ? A mix of detergents, sugar or fruits, and illness, bodies. The noise in the elevator. Always the same. People asking. Nurses chatting about a boy they liked or about their new hairdresser. Small talks. On a wheel chair, a young man in pajamas with a dull skin. Ding, thirty one floor. You know that the nurses and doctor know better than you what' s going on in your child's body, if the sickness is loosing ground today or not.

You feel as being on a stage but you don't know the next part, and nobody gave you your text. You're here, and you've lost your identity, you're just someone waiting for something, you don't remember what. Indeed, yes, you want your life as it was before the call. You want a day, and another day, even boring, looking as the others, but not the heavy block on your heart that from time to time makes if impossible to breath.

Now when I wake up, I always look at the sky. I want to move somewhere else, as in Paris the sky is grey and low. I would like to live in a windy city, close to the sea, where you have fresh air and the sky is blue, even when in the winter, sometimes freezing, but always high. Barcelone. I've just seen the Passenger with Jack Nicholson and Maria Schneider. I like the idea of being in a city with a port. To be free, to look at the sea and think I could go somewhere else.

My son did a nervous break down when his sister recovered. Doctors say that he felt he wouldn't have been enough strong for recovering if he would have undergone the same thing. So, he was depressed, as thinking he would have died. He has now an appointment per week with a specialist to feel better.

The other day I found the Burberry trench in the big bag. I didn't touch it, it was still in the paper bag with the logo of the brand. Clarisse has been cured now. It was three years ago. So, I decided I could wear it. It was also a Saturday morning when I put it on me for ridding my bicycle.

It was a sunny morning, I decided to take some bread at the bakery, and orange's to make a fresh juice. When I came back and turned right after the Boulevard Berthier to take our little street, a car didn't see me and I had suddenly to stop. The chain came out of its frame. I looked at it, and as nobody was around to help, I tried to repair my bike by myself. I shouldn't have. Not only I didn't succeed, but my beige trench was covered of dark and greasy stains.

I felt as a little girl having done something wrong. The street was still empty. When I took the stairs I didn't meet anyone, and the flat was still quite with my family sleeping.

I did put the trench in a bag for the pressing. The week after, I gave it with other clothes to a charity.

It was a sign, I shouldn't wear it.

The other day in Minneapolis, I was in a Burberry store, and I gave my credit card to a work friend, as her card didn't work. I was in the sofa waiting for her. The advisor looked at me with a nice smile, and gave me back my card. I was surrounded by luxury clothes and mirrors, in a very cold city where I never came before and where I would never come again.

I felt again that strange feeling to be on earth and not to catch exactly why, and not understanding either why memories are so strong, as you had to live one day of your life for ever. Even a sad day, rainy and grey.

From time to time, I dream. The same nightmare each time, I wake up thinking she' s sick again. Then she's not, but she's far. I have strange calls with her, and we only talk about the weather or practical things. Somehow, I lost her, I don't know when. I wake up thinking, it's not true and then I'm concerned, as the medical check up is in one week, and as usual, I will loose my voice and I will have a flue. Doctors say it's my body saying to me the stress is not ok and struggles against it. I'd like to know things for sure, but I know it's impossible, and I feel eternally unbalanced. I never talk about that to my husband.

Paris 7 Février 2015

# Mister Martin is dead

This story is for me, it's my day.

\- "I can't believe it !

\- Yes, my source of information is a good one. I know it from his village."

The woman on the phone is at the office, she's about to be thirty, and she's the one to receive all news for her reknowned company.

The guy on the phone calls from the mentioned village in the South of France. He's reliable and has lived in all continents, living many wars, and now quite close of the latest Président de la République in France. One could say he's somewhat a reference.

With a warm voice, he says to her. " On that matter, you shoud trust me. Just check with anyone here, firemen or police. But make it fast, as the scoop belongs to the one being the first to release information. On pèse !" (which litteraly means in english "we have weight", like the balance shows it).

Saying goodbye to the senior journalist that now goes to play tennis with someone famous, , she's already obsessed by checking the information, she's had already begun the search on her computer while finishing the call.

\- " Hello, AJF agency, we've heard about Mister Martin B being dead, could you confirm the news ?"

The man answering seems to be in the middle of a discussion with other men, we can hear laughs and strong voices.

He says in a cautious way : "How can I be sure you are working for AJF ? I can't confirm anything like that on the phone."

She says the name of the mayor of the village, and he answers quickly : "Indeed, a Mister Martin is dead this morning, I can't say more, and the name you give to me doesn't ring a bell. I have to go now, Mam."

She would like to know the reason of the death of this healthy sixty years old CEO, but the man refuses to give it. She would have loved to be at the office when the CEO of Total was hit in his jet by a truck at Moscow's airport, unfortunately she was in vacation.

This story is for me. It's my day.

She jumps out of her feet. Being alone in the new office, smelling the fresh white painting, and looking at the dark blue roof tops seems odd to her. Why today ? Nobody is here. She's alone, all the big bosses our enjoying the snow and skiing in this last week of February.

She looks at the view, she breathes deeply and slowly as her yoga teacher taught her. She closes her eyes, and decides she's the one. The first journalist in France to know before anyone else except his close family.

It's my day.

She writes the depeche. A few sentences to give the only information she has. Mister Martin B is dead.

Nobody to rewrite or correct it.

She has the finger on the entree key, and she sends the message. All journalists in France and international will have it in a few seconds.

Done. Well done.

Then the phone rings, she doesn't answer. She calls her boss to make him aware that their agency was at the top being the first to be in the know. She leaves a message. He must be out doing anything but working as days are long when you are journalist.

She turns on the TV. There's already a man interviewing people on the phone about the life of Martin B.

" This man was a giant, the race of CEO that builds empire, from media to TV, from telcos to communications and internet business. He was also a respected man, very involved in his village where he spent a lot of week ends within to travels to explore new opportunities."

Then a female journalist, with a sad face to show her compassion with the family reminds all viewers that Martin B was also a father of three. Three beautiful daughters with weedings having chic pictures in any magazines.

He was a man of traditions and had a lot of week ends in family, wether in Paris or again in his village, the source of inspiration for a visionary leader.

Suddenly, she receives on her computer a depeche saying that Martin B is alive, and that information given is irrelevant.

At the same time, the moderator on the TV interrups his guest on the phone. Information seems wrong.

Her heart is going fast, she feels bad and looks for the bottle of water she had this morning. "What ? What should I do ? Double check. They must be wrong. Marcus gave me the information. I'm sure the guy said the same..."

She tries to call her boss again but noboby is picking.

What are they supposed to do when the main competitor is saying the contrary of her prestigious agency ?

Marcus is not answering his phone, she leaves a message, a panicked one. "Don't know what to do, call me, other journalists say we're wrong, what should we do."

She opens the window. It's a grey and rainy day. She breathes deeply again.

Suddenly her phone rings, plus an SMS, tons of sms, and mails at the same time. Journalists and friends. She thinks she's about to be crasy if nobody talks to her for real.

It's a mess.

Finally, the big boss calls. The voice says in a very cold way : "You're not fired. But you will resign and we'll find you another place. What you have done has hurt our image for a long time. You're young, I hope you can have a life after that. But we will never forget. You had my number, I don't understand why you didn't call me. It's a disaster. I'm so upset...So, you send the message with our apologies to the family and to all, I'm coming back from my vacation, you'll hear from me tomorrow in my office at 7.30. Be on time."

She's suddenly so tired. She lays on the floor, the windows is still opened and moves with the wind. She hears a police car at the corner. She hears a bird singing. The carpet on the floor is cleaned and smells the shampoo but scratches her skins when she moves.

She's exhausted. She sleeps a few minutes. In her dream, her young and sportiv boss says she's autonomous. She's responsible of what happens, not him. He will stay in the team. And make her read a text showing she's guilty. It's in Chinese. All offices worlwide listen to her saying she's ashamed of what she has done. A woman with a tchador laughs under the grey fabric. A man shows is hand and use it as a gun, with a bullet.

A little girl says to her to catch a butterfly.

She sleeps but her body moves while she dreams.

The door bell rings. It's the political team working on the other floor checking she's ok.

They look at her weirdly. The windows are wide opened. One of them says she should clean her face. In the bathroom, she sees dark circles under her eye, due to the mascara. Her hair are all over the place.

During a few days, she has a strange way to stare at people, as an animal in front of hunt men.

Paris 2015 , Mars

# Morphine

I'm sick. So sick. I will be dead within a few weeks. When. I don't know. I loose my mind many times in the day. The nurses say that I talk a lot during my dreams. I was always very careful to be under control, all my life. Shy as a child, "réservé" as a teen ager (and all girls thought I was smart because I wasn't talking to much, somehow mysterious), and "bysantin" as an adult and leader in my field.

I'm concerned to say something that could be used in tabloids, or just to be embarrassed. I don't know them and they look at me as they do. Their smile and glaze at me make me think they know things they shouldn't. One of them is wearing a heavy make up, another one is wearing Angel, I hate that fragrance, it smells barba-papa like in cheap fests.

I feel naked in my silky pajama, in my prestigious suite royale, ready to die. This hospital is in the middle of trees, I can see them by my window, I never looked at them when I was doing my annual check up in this luxury suburb. Life goes fast.

I didn't ask myself any question before that day. I remember, it was because of my divorce, I didn't want to sell my boat, and came to my bank to borrow a big amount of money. They were very polite and underlined that my career was a garantee, the only risk they had was my health, but as a sportsman and healthy business man, the complete check up was a routine. Results came back with something that made the doctor call me.

I remember the tone of his voice.

The brunette nurse is sweet, beautiful lips and skin, I ask myself if she's naked under the white uniform as in series and movies.

I was so much loving women. All women. Any women. Tall, small, girly, smart, assertive, fresh and young... I love to look at them when making love.

The tiny Tina, smelling the watermelon. The big party in Shanghai with all this beautiful women around me, impressed by my being a leader of this worlwide luxury brand. We had great nights, in plenty of differents clubs and vip rooms. Exciting and suprising places. Surrounded by skins and lips.

It took so much of my live. Travels all over the world, Bangkok is hot and wet, Shanghai is lively and polluted, Sao Paulo is gigantic, Moscow is warm if you know some people, Tokyo is refined, Séoul is trendy and tech, Dubai is like being nowhere on the planet, New York is my prefered. Meetings and meetings.

I enjoyed it. A form of power. How people stare at you when you enter a room, anywhere in the world. Any room, wether the federation of luxury companies, with all this men in grey suits and nice think silky tie looking at me, as a big boss, someone they would like to be, the big brand, a worlwide one, one hundred and thirty five countries, double digit growth, an amazing margin that makes all Universities work business cases inspired by what we have accomplished...

The look at the people in my executive comittee, and in country meetings, business review and marketing plan, I was the one to decide, they were the one to be scared, scared of their future, their earnings, their promotion, their business plan, their forecasts, what I was thinking about them.

And in the flagships, our free standing stores. All salers in lines to welcome me, the staff scared about what I could think about the windows showing the latest collection, if they had followed the guidelines, scared about their figures if anything was less than double digit, knowing I would question their performance and compare to other stores.

Not mentioning nights and parties, "J'étais le roi du monde." All this asian girls thinking I was the king of luxury, the path for a new heaven. With waiters and restaurant owners offering extra services, to make sure I was happy and I would come back in another trip. Rio. Osaka. Buenos Aires. Cape Town.

Barbara left me. The woman of my life as I said when I married her for the second time. Barbara played piano, my prefered one was the Beethoven part, especially when I was tired. She didn't drink any drop of alcohol. That look of her when I took a cigar and a whisky. She was the one defining our holidays. Bahamas. Maldives. Caraibes. She liked the sun and I accepted it as they were destination where I could take a break and enjoy the blue of the water, the softness of the sand in my hand, the green of the golf, as you can believe it, even when the place lacks of water, by miracle, where there is money, there is water.

Barbara was always tanned. She loves scarfs and bags. "My It bags" as she used to say. Pink, yellow, whites, python, crocodiles, she liked colors. And shoes. Plenty of shoes, Christian Louboutin was her prefered designer.

Long legs, red stilletos. I liked her being beautiful, always perfect, the hair, the nails, from head to toes, beautiful toes, she cared of herself. That was her job, and to play piano and organise our diners.

She left me. I couldn't believe it. For a millionnaire. Living in London. A three year love story. She wanted to say something to me but I was always in a plane. I think she was waiting to have a good lawyer to rob my money, the max she could have, whatever the millionnaire of her.

Two children, she left them to me because she left. I struggled for that. She abandoned me for another man, I had to made her pay for it in a way or another. That was the best means, she loves her children, she lost them.

I used the fact that she left without us being aware of where she was.

They're back to her now, with this new guy as a second father, raising them.

It hurts.

At the same time, I lost my job. My shareholder was upset by my success. Thirty years of career and these amazing results.

I was the guy in charge of the foundation, I hate foundations and charities. I hate rich people trying to help the world to be better. They're selfish, they don't care one minute of what happens to the planet or human kind, they just want another stage, where they can shine again and again. To see the respect and the admiration in the eyes of others. It's pathetic. I'm sick, I can't breath... Perhaps I should call the nurse to have more morphine, I feel the pain, but if they drug me, I can't think, it's like dreaming awake, and I loose time, my precious time before disparearing. I try to makes things right. At least, to sort out my life, what was important or not.

I want to shout. I want to live. I'm fifty six. It's too early to die. Why me ?

I've lost fifteen kilograms. I refuse anyone knowing me to come and see me. I want them to remember of me as the king of the world, the man they envied, not a ghost waiting to die. I'm so vulnerable now. The other morning, I was crying. The blond nurse saw me and gave me a glass of water. I did avoid her eyes.

Will my children remember me ?

My first marriage was a disaster but my children are smart and assertive. Nicolas and Armelle. They're adult now. I don't remember a lot of their childhood. If I believe their mother, I was never here. I remember me offering ET puppet to Nicolas, and a Barby to Armelle, I didn't purchase them, my assistant did, as I had forgotten coming back from Los Angeles.

They were so happy. I lied to them, I said I took them at the airport and came back home directly. Instead I took a shower at my office. I saw Sophie at that time, blond and long hair, gracious neck, thin and nearly skinny. She liked to fuck standing up, never on a bed.

Armelle waited for me at her dance competition, I had a long meeting with our shareholder, and then I forgot to go as I was upset. I must say I had some failures as a dad.

I came to see Nicolas when he played saucer. It was boring, and the fathers present were boring and stupid people. But I liked his face looking at me, he was proud and happy to see me.

What do they do in their life ? Armelle as a boyfriend, I don't even know him. I know that Nicolas is happy as a lawyer, and loves living in Berlin. Perhaps he's gay. Perhaps not. I don't know them very well indeed.

I remember one day saying to him : "Never put me in a retiring house, even an expensive one, it's awful, all this people, nasty and useless, avoid me that nightmare." It was not necessary to be frightened. Death has chosen to surprise me when I was not ready.

In the middle of a divorce, at the end of a brilliant career but without the new life beginning.

I could have done so many things. See my friends. Peter and Charles. Boys will be boys. They knew anything about me. The worst part too. They accepted me as I was. Insecured and childish, but in apparence, mastering life as a great cocktail party, you say hello to plenty of people with a smile, talk to a few of them, and with a drink in the hand, in preference champagne, you go from one group to another. "Would you excuse me. It was lovely to discuss with you. See you soon."

My father has died at eighty. I will be dead thirty years before him. I was always thinking he and my mother had a little life, peaceful, but somehow not exciting compared to mine. Would I exchange thirty years of life for any life on earth, just to live ? It's crasy, that question doesn't mean anything.

Now that I can't drink or eat, I've got memories of beautiful meals. The menu in Kyoto and the ritual in the onzen. The snake in a tiny shop in Hong Kong, I wanted to show I was able to eat that. I think I even ate a dog somewhere... A stupid bet with friends. They don't call me, it's weird. Not even a texto. May be they forgot me. Three thousand people in contact list. Three assistants, and just mails or courrier, showing people are with me. "Courtois". Polite letters. None of them is passionated. Did I loose myself somewhere after the begining.

I remember one night in the camping in the Sequoia Park. We had no money. We were students. Her name was Marly, and there was a boy called Snowy, that was a surname as he came from Toronto. We did sausages on the fire. We looked at the stars. We said we would be fantastic people. Ready to help others. We came to prisons at that time to read economics and literature. My prefered author was Hemingway as I could read it in english, and I like the full intensity of life in his novels. I was laughing when Snowy said to me Hemingway was mad at Dostoievski, as for him a real writer, a master. Marly said the woman she admired most was Camille Claudel, the painter, erased as an artist by Rodin. Nobody is ashamed for Rodin stealing her talent and master pieces. Nobody. She was excited, passionated about that woman as it was a model for her, courageous and independant. The day after we had sex in a lake. The water was very cold. It was beautiful and peaceful. Snowy understood we had a relationships and we came back to San José quite quickly after.

I was a beautiful night and day. The landscapes. The food. The smell of Marly, her hair in my eyes with the wind on the car while driving. I don't know why I left Marly. Perhaps she was different, american and healthy, I was scared. Or I was ambitious, and I wanted a beautiful woman, a woman if could go out with when invited by older people than me, people that would be already successfull.

I have thirty shirts at home, ten suits, three black tie. My house has a piano, nobody plays with it. A swimming pool I never used. Designer furnitures. It so white and clean people ask if they need to get rid of their shoes when entering my salon.

My boat waits for me in la Trinité. A beautiful boat. Big, but not to much, fast and the best in regates. I miss my team. Jacques and Paul. The drinks after being alone on the sea.

My best friend is the sea. Whatever the day, calm or "déchainée" she's in my heart.

Like the old man and the sea. Perhaps I fought for something that doesn't exist, the big fish, eaten by sharks when he arrives at the port. He's exhausted. Who will remember of me, whose the one to know me ?

Perhaps it's Marly. I was happy during this few days. Just in the present, not burdened by the past and by mistakes, or anticipating a future that would never happened as expected. Memories are the fruit of our mind. What is reality after all.

I see the sea. I'm on my boat. Marly is here with her beautiful smile and her cute little nose. I've got the taste of the salt on my lips, and I feel the sun of the morning on my skin.

"Monsieur c'est l'heure de la piqure, je vais vous demander de vous tourner sur le côté." says the nurse in a strong voice. I hate the needles. I hate to turn on my back.

He looks as not listening. She goes out of the room and says to the other nurse to make them call the family, he won't survive the week end. There is no family to call says the older woman. Only his sister. But she's in Singapour, she'll come when the funerals are to be scheduled did she confirm.

His wife doesn't want the children to see him like that. They won't come from London. At least he's got the drawings.

One is with a silhoutette looking like him and a small boy with crasy brown hair and wide hazelnut eyes on the big sailing boat. Another shows a Princess with long blond hair, he's got them just in front of him, in nice silver frames from Tiffanys.

Paris Mars 2015

# Gone

It's a sunny day. Blue sky. Fresh and crispy while opening the windows. I take a big breath. A day just for me. I have plenty of time now. Too much time to think indeed. Great moment to empty the house, drawers and rooms full of old things.

I'm still upset by Marc leaving me. I didn't see it coming. So many conferences and seminaires. It should have ring a bell. We see what we want to see. I was in love, spending my life, already fulled with my big job, to plan week-ends and vacations. We were always busy. Three children. I was twenty seven when I had the first one which made their friends say to Oscar that they were lucky to have young parents.

They were so much laughing at us with all the sport material at home, making the same friends think, we were with amazing bodies like Sharon Stone in our forties and Sean Penn when he was sexy. We used them once in a while in front of a serie to maintain our bodies.

Look at that dust. In ten years it's incredible the amount of it on the walls in an old house. I need to throw away all that sleeves and bed sheets from so many years. Let's begin by Théodore's room.

It looks empty compared to when he was here, with all ranges of dirty clothes on the floor, and empty dishes with pasta, rice or cereals.

Oscar's was taking care of his belongings, except his messy office with plenty of kleenex he used to put an anti-spot product he purchased on the web. Emilie was the one to make sure no one was entering her room, like full of secrets, and always cleaned, although full of stuff she kept : small boxes with her small child teeth, cheap jewels with butterfly and flowers, old books she read as a teen-ager.

I'm fifty five now. I've got the feeling that I'm too old to begin a new life and meet anyone, at the same time aware that the best moments with my children are gone.

Oscar said to me one day : "Hey, you had a life before we came on earth, like thirty years before we arrived, so you've got a life, you don't need us to be happy be yourself."

They have their life on their own now. With the time, I understand that having them back home from time to time in the big house was fantastic. They still had their room and Emilie for instance was glad to come spontaneously with her boyfriend. I didn't know what they did, but it was like the place where she was connecting to who she was and the young adult she became.

I need a new bag to throw away the old papers. Where did Vilma put them ? There they are.

What are the best memories. If I close my eyes, I see the pristin blue of the sea, it must be in the Maldives, we spent days in the water looking at the fishes, and one day I saw a shark, nobody believed me. The red rocks, Uluru, magic moment, it was freezing in the morning, then suddenly the sun rose and everything in the nature ws shining. We looked at the stars in the night, like the night in Namibia. The color of the sand all day. Infinite nuances of yellow. The sweet green, like the promenade in bikes in the middle of the rice landscape, we were sweating and I was yelling at them to wait for me. Green, like rafting with them during hours in Costa Rica, I fall in the water that day, I was scared, I thought I could die, and Oscar's helped me to come back on the boat, smiling at me.

Look at that, Emilie's books of memories. "I'm fed up of my brothers, Théodor is only obsessed by his muscles and the way he eats disgust me. He eats to much. And by the way, nobody has noticed but he's got a flue, he puts his fingers under the table and also on the red sofa, can you believe it ?" Hahaha, shes' right, I shouted at him for that, bad habit. "May be one day I will be an astronaut, I love other planets, my prefered is Jupiter, we came and see the milky way with my school, grand mother was with us. I was embarrassed as she said to other girls that I was sleeping with my dolls. " I remember of that. That's cute. Should I keep the books of memories of Emilie ? I have no place where I go. She must have forgotten. Let's throw them away.

No regret, no sorrow, live in the present my dear, past puts you back to your dreams that didn't come true, and future is a concept built by our brain, it doesn't exist. Only present matters.

Let's take a coffee. I should leave the machine here. I'm sure the new renter would appreciate it. Hmmm, a hot arabica coffee, looking at the green garden. No noise. I forgot how it was to have an empty house.

Oscar's was frightened to come back after school, as I was, I explained to him when I was young, afraid of a thief to kill me, and running to close my door, hurt beating so fast.

Why did we purchase this house. It's so big. I remember. It's when mother lost father.

She felt embarrassed coming at the flat. I decided to move to a bigger place to have her have a bedroom. She visited it with me and was happy that day, talking a lot about her friends, the old woman of ninety six that looked like her own mother(dead at ninety three) but was a less interesting person according to me, selfish and narrow minded but who cares now...My mother never came back as she died a few weeks after. Marc never repaired anything because overburdened, and it was not the paradise I had in mind. The best part of this house was when we purchased it. It was fun as a bet. We were so excited to learn nobody did a better offer, and the house was ours.

Théodor's room. Drawers are full of little objects, stones, old calculettes, cards to play. What's that ? A carnet with pictures. Writting is a female one. Oh my god ! Cute, everything is in it. The first kiss, the first condom. Should I send it to him ? Not sure Armelle would appreciate it. He was fifteen, I remember of her. She was blond with long hair, like every girl of her age, skinny and beautiful face. He was so much in love. I don't think it was a happy end, but Théodor's doesn't say much.

It's difficult for me to remember them as children. I remember their smell. Emilie smelt as an apple, perhaps it was because of her shampoo. Oscar's was taking care of himself and even in Corsica, I remember of him smelling fresh fragrance when coming for breakfast, with water on his hair to make them look less curly, his obsession while a teenager (he even had a swimming pool bonnet to make sure it helped). Théodor's smelt as the guy coming out of his bed, he didn't like to wake up early, that was a nightmare for him for preparing his engineer school, and he decided to go to an English University just to avoid the six thirty wake up call even on Saturday. He hated mornings, and never talk to us before nine.

The battle for the bathroom. Emilie took so much time to make her hair look straight.

Let's finish Théodore's room. Ha, his collection of knives. I remember going to the Puces Saint Ouen, and Flee market in New York. Nice ones, I should keep them but where. I can send that to him in New York, the cost will be more than all knives but I will feel bad to make them disappear.

What do we have in that drawer ? A sport bag, what does it do here. A jogging and a dirty white tee-shirt. My god, I don't know why I paid Vilma twice a week to come to clean our house.

Papers and papers. What is it ? Small writting, sharp and thin. I don't know how is teachers could read him. Yellow paper with lines.

"I want to die, I hate my school and what I do. I feel so lonely. Nobody understands me, and Chloé left me and never answers to my call, texto and ignores me when we meet by chance in parties. I can 't bear with that. I'm so tired of everything I want to sleep. Sometimes I think to jump by the window in the garden. It's green, and there are stones. I'm just scared not to die and to be an amount of broken bones and blood, people looking at me and saying poor guy, he will die but he must suffer very much. I write not to sleep, I'm attending a mathematics lesson, it's so boring. Why being here ? I don't care. I want to fuck, it's weeks and weeks I didn't have sex, I'm ready to make sex with any girl, just for feeling I'm back. I feel so bad, I need to stay awake, stay awake. Stay awake. Nietzche is right. God is dead. I don't know where human kind is going. I've heard a pilot crashed a plane to commit suicide, it's ridiculous. Poor guy, not enought courageous to die alone. We all die alone, for sure. Everything is so boring and expected."

My heart hurts. I didn't know. Why did he keep this text. By lasyness perhaps. He was a procrastinator at that age. Always postponing what he could do now.

Weird to think he spends now days and nights to work on his start up, even forgeting his sweet and determined girlfriend. He weighs now twenty kilos more, and drinks to much Diplomatico's rhum, or Japanese Whisky I guess.

He seems happy, at least in the few minutes on Skype, scratching his eyes by lack of sleep or allergy to acarians as not changing the bed sheets in his room.

Bizarre world, being connected anytime anywhere and at the same time, so far.

Oscar's told me one day, he didn't believe in far away relationships.

" It doesn't mean you have lost people, you'll find them back a day or another. But you can't enter in their life. You have pretty nothing to say, or you say it all in ten minutes, but who can describe six months of his life, and his whole new environnement in ten minutes and still make sens ? "

Perhaps I should have sold the house instead of renting it. Just to make everything disappear, the last point on earth where we were happy as a family.

Hong Kong will be a whole new life. Plenty of new people, time to reinvent myself.

I should continue yoga. I should continue cereals, but I'm allergic to Soja milk, I'm sure it's to drink it that makes me feel like overweight.

I should continue to wear make up and have long heels. I should take care of myself.

Marc said one day he would work untill he dies, as fed up with old people looking at themselves.

He forgot to tell me it was without me, and with a new wife for new children, like a fresh new start, a never ending story of educating little guys and girls, and make them become beautiful persons, full of life, raising their own children.

I should burn that paper. Théodor's must have forgotten who he was at that time, and I should plan the next vacations or week end all together.

Venice. Argentina. Island. Where could we go to find each others.

I should take a glass of wine. If I leave all Marc's bottles, at least I should drink that Côtes Rôtie.

Mmm... It tastes good. I should make it breath. It's like a person, with its own pesonality, evolving with time.

Hahaha, when they jumped in the water, all in white clothes for new year's eve party. All in the swimming pool, laughing so much, the guy in charge of the hôtel was upset, but it was so nice. A great moment, really.

The day we lost the keys of the car, alone in the park near Yosemite, Marc had forgotten to book the motel. And we slept in the car, I was scared about meeting a bear.

And the Christmas vacation in Rio, when we let roses go in the sea with thousand of people dresssed in white on the beach. That was pretty.

I could drink another glass. Nobody cares if I'm drunken at ten in the morning. I'm free. I exist, I feel the taste of the wine, full of fruits and sun, my new friend for the day. Enjoying being alive. Yes, I'm at the begining of something different, that's exciting. Théodor is right. Life is dull when you know there won't be any suprise. We deserve more. I'm pretty sure I'll meet somone. Perhaps someone the age of my children. I don't mind. I don't mind either if it doesn't last.

Emilie's room. I like that old and big mirror. Hey, there is my pink cashmere pull over. He was in Emilie's drawers. I looked for it during week-ends, and she swore to me she didn't see it. Too bad, there are holes in it because of mites now.

Doesn't matter. Nice to find it.

I will never manage to empty all of that alone. I should call someone to help me. Let's finish this bottle, it will clarify what I should do next.

La Cluzaz. Mars 2015

# The balloon

When my father was living his latest weeks, the ballon was there, up and down, up and down, seen by the window of the hospital. We had not to talk much about at the end.

It was poetic, and calm, like the beauty of the sky with the round shape, pure, in front of the blue line.

We had three weeks to reconnect at that time, three little weeks said the doctors and specialists, at the most.

So we talked about my brother. We said things we never said before, after his being dead twenty five years ago. Why didn't they say to us that we were not guilty. We, it's my other brother and I. Why we never discussed about the terrible facts, the gun, the police calling one week after having discovered the body in the forest. Why did they knew something was happening and didn't mention it to us during that period. The poetry book while he was studying maths with dark thoughts, the gun he had recently purchased.

He never answered to my questions but the arrogant and autocratic man I knew when I was young had disappeared, and it was a wise man, bold and so skiny, answering to me by other questions with a soft voice. Why did I disappear of their life after that.

I realize that to be a family is a good thing, it gives you roots and values. At the same time, whatever you do to reject it, your parents gives you the weight of their secrets.

I never talked to my father in one to one, peacefully, before he was nearly to die. Only interruptions were the nice nurses caring of him, always joyful whatever the moment of the day.

I've talked to my mother since then. I know she thinks that I'm a tough girl. I was devastated by my boyfriend leaving me.

I met him at work while I was morning my father. I always wear black clothes and I'm a thin woman, speaking fast and never too much. I appealed to him at the time as a supplyer for his client, he had been working in an audit company for my bank.

I talked to him about the ceremony, the speeches of the family, the emotion and pain. In the evening, I sent to him a texto saying I was taking pills to sleep. Two hours later as one pill was not enough, I took three of them, and I wrote as a joke, I took all pills. I forgot to put a smile as an emoticon. He called his friend working for him, he talked to his daughter, and they decided to send the firemen to save me.

I was in my dreams when the gardian called me on my mobile cell. I didn't hear anything, begining to deeply sleep. Suddenly when I woke up, I heared noises at the window, the firemen tried to enter with their flexible stairs and to open my door by all means. They shouted at me : " Did you take pills ?"

That's how I met my boyfriend. At that time I was quite happy, sad about loosing my father, happy to have talked to him before his death.

My mother, when she saw me crying during hours, revealed another secret to me.

Enough with secrets, I wanted to say, but I shut up. Death. Suicide. Her father hang himself at the end of his life. And before, she and her sisters had to keep a secret, her mother requested them to do so, else the father would go in prison, and he was the one to earn for a living. He was obsessed by skin of young girls, and touched some of his daughters. Skin. Touch.

I cried when I've heard that part of our family story. So it's in the genes. Another uncle committed suicide, and a nephew. Why did she keep that secret about her father and his issues untill she was old and at the end of her life ? She said to me because it was not a pleasant story to hear, and she wanted to erase it and forget it.

I came back at our new office a few days later. My team thought I was upset by the new headquarters. I wasn't. I was just desperate, as my boyfriend left me without any explanation. Being here at the moment when I was the most vulnerable, playing the role of the father and brother and lover. He disappeared after we had a diner together with my best friends. That night he told us the story of his son disappearing one year, with just a bag and no explanation, and the police refusing to look for him as he was over eighteen, then an adult, and he had taken his bag. I spent hours crying.

Now, I think he came back to see his wife and find back his comfortable life. The big house of a trader, the swimming pool, the billard and the big parties in week-ends with all friends and the family. He needs it. He's born to be happy, I was the break in the darkness, the intense adventure in another world, intellectual and demanding. I'm not educated for being happy. Sometimes, I would love it. Be nice and light. Enjoy life in the present. Forgetting my roots and all family secrets that nearly killed me.

Someone said to me you need to die for being born again. What is the limit of diying, that is the question. I need to eat again, I'm too skiny. I need to sleep and without pills as making me call my ex boyfriends, even the ones I don't want to see, or connect on Facebook to my boyfriend's wife, not such a good idea when I wake up in the morning. I'm obsessed by what he's doing at the moment.

So, I came back at the new office. And I had a lot in my head. Suddenly, looking at the window, I saw the balloon, the same one that my father was looking at, dying in the modern hospital, looking back at the mess of his life. He managed to smooth it at the end.

I don't believe in god, neither in a life after our life, but I believe in signs. When I want to talk to my father now, I write a letter, I read it loudly and then I burn it. Words are said, I can move forward. Today is the birthday of my brothers' death.

I've been worse than that. Even if always a painful moment of the year for me.

As people say, "Don't worry. Be happy". I'd like to see my nephews. I'm a little scared of children, my latest boyfriend helped me to have great moments with them, I should try seeing them. One day, they'll be adults. I'd like to have share moments with them before it occurs.

Annecy May 2015

# The weird house

My mother is at the third floor now. When I came to visit her, new friends of her said to me : "Be careful, never go to the third floor." I asked why, nobody answered. An old woman put her finger in front of our mouth, and whispered saying :" Shut up, shhhhh, it's a secret."

I was like in a fairy tale with characters that give you clues to understand the wiseness behind, but never say it all.

One week-end when I came, a wheel chair with a woman with white long hair and in pajamas was in the middle of the hall. One of the guest of the house took her for a ballade but forgot her. She was peaceful, looking at the people, it took one hour for a nurse to see something was wrong and to take her back to her room.

One week later, the doctor called to say they needed my mother to be at the third floor. When I asked why, they said she disappeared every two days in the street, and could be hurt and be lost. What is the third floor ? I had images of the movie with Jack Nicholson, where he struggles against tough methods making them crasy or even more so, and also Fire Island with L Di Caprio that plays a role where we think he investigates and indeed his one of the patients.

The third floor, you can't go without a code. That's it. She in a prison that looks as paradise to her : a small space, tv shows, nice faces and people taking care of her. She hates being alone, and she's happy, even when someone is lost in the night and tries to open her door, missing his one on the same floor.

She even sings in the morning. She never sang in her all life from what I know.

From time to time, when I sit with her for the tea, I see she's sad. The other day she said to me she had no news from my brother and his new family (he's divorced).

He lives in Guyane. For Eastern fest, they called, and she was like a young lady waiting for her love, sparkle in the eyes she never had before, to listen three minutes her grand children, far away somewhere on the planet. I could hear their laughs in the phone, and we could nearly see the sun and the sea. It made her day.

I spent Xmas with my mother. It was the first one without my father, and I did it for him, for her, and for me, I would have felt guilty to spend the night with friends or just with Kate on our bed in the beautiful bedroom decorated with japanese estamps, listening to Marianne Faithfull or the Stones and the cat jumping to play.

The main room was full of noises, and brightly lighed. We took a table for four with another guy like me, taking care of his father, I supposed he was gay but I don't know.

The lights were really strong like neons which gave us a green and yellow skin.

There were twelve tables, big ones and small ones, not all of them had visitors, but the room was full of the excitement of the moment, decorated with fake snows on windows, and golden stars in paper on the table, some of the guests helping others to eat.

My mother was obsessed by the bottle of wine, she didn't want it. She said to the big black girl taking care of our table : "Please take it back". We said to her with my friend for the evening that we wanted to drink some. So she left it, but repeated the same sentence to the black girl five minutes later. I finally understood she was upset as thinking paying for it and not drinking it. I reinsured her that all was included in the expenses of the house, and in the menu.

At our table, the young man explained to me he was moving to London and trying to sell his beautiful piano, but nobody now purchases a huge piece like that, people want the good quality of sound, and the same time a small size. The guy said to him ; "It's the end of a period, people don't purchase any longer secondary houses, they buy a ticket for another capital in Europe for a few euros, or rent an appartment for a few days, or even pay for a prestige hotel, they don't want the burden and the constraints of maintaining their house."

What that potential buyer was explaining was true for our elders. I never thought having my mother at home, even with someone taking care of her during the day. It would have been a nightmare, and my friend would never have accepted it.

Trying to make me smile, as my gloomy thoughts could be seen on my face, my friend for the diner showed to me a "carnet de note", on which he wrote any funny sentence invented by his old father.

One of them was : "I will make them feel whose the boss", or "Let's go to the playa", especially knowing they never came to the beach when they were a family. He's father studying laws and books even during vacations, and leaving them in teen agers camps.

My mother's preferred sentence now is : "Don't you think life is beautiful." And she sings.

She was a strict, and we must admit a boring mother, without any conversation, and never expressing any emotion, to think that things could move my mother, make her feel happy to be alive was new to me.

I remember a letter where she was expressing to me that I needed to be nurturing myself in a better way, as she found a candy in one of my jacket left at home. The letter was two pages. At the end, my father wrote just before putting it in the envelop : "I ate the candy, it was a red strawberry with sugar, I liked it."

My mother has erased of her mind the bad moments, when we were in the closed room in the dark, because she said we were nasty children as twins. She did it so many times, leaving us alone in the small space, with the heating just near our heads, like a potential danger. She wasn't mean, she was just crasy, an unaware mother, deliberately leaving them in the fear.

I never talked to her about my childhood. I'm nearly fifty years old now, and I believe the generation of our parents did a lot of harm. It's not their fault. It's their education. They were raised during the second worldwide war. A strict education. I don't have any children. I didn't want any human being to have the weight of my own education. We try to improve, but did you notice how we are tense ? We want to control situations. It's deep inside us. Else we become crasy. When will we let it go ?

My worst moment in my life with my parents has been when I've told them I was gay. My mother never accepted it and asserted to me : "It's because you live in the capital. The major is gay. So he has a bad influence on people." I was feeling so bad, and far from them : who I was, what mattered to me, what my daily life was.

I suppose one day or another we'll be as she is. Forgetting the past, forgetting the constraints and duties, and our fear to be seen as different. Suddenly discovering who we are, as children, with the joy of discovering new things, small gestures, the light in the curtains and their moving with the warm wind, the water on the floor shining as a mirror, the white corridor pure as snow, the blue uniform of people always busy like bees, the program on tv with animals drinking in the savan.

She's right, let's enjoy life with the little things that make it tasteful.

When I called on Sunday, she had received a letter she didn't know what to do with it. I asked to her what is written on the envelop. The name she spelt was hers, so I said it's a letter for you. What is written behind. It was the address of my brother. I said to her : "Open it, it's a letter for you from your son."

She opened it and said there is a postcard with flowers, they are red and rose and yellow. I said, "Mum, good for you, your soon loves you and sends his love, say to a friend or a nurse to read it to you. I'll come at the end of the month. Take care."

Annecy May 2015

# The party

It was written in the mail : "I want to see all my friends for my fifty years old party. Next one would be to Ibiza, for a week-end."

Ibiza. The beautiful sun tanned bodies, the loud electro music on the beach, the trendy restaurants and the crasy night clubs. Ibiza, it rings a bell, like a life I could have had, chosing another path. How exciting !

This party was in Madrid, where he lived.

When I received it I hesitated. Armelle was still peaced off by my selling her painting, the best one according to me, while she had promised it to friends.

Since then, the supposedly friends didn't talk to us and avoided us in the streets of our summer village, believing money was more important to us than friendship. Honestly, I just forgot to say to Armelle that I had found a customer, still it was good for her artist ego not just to sell to friends at a low price.

Armelle didn't talk to me during three days, whatever my apologies. Wifes are complicated to manage, don't you think ? Especially on the long term, if you want to keep a good relationship, and be sure somebody will with you when you become old.

Jm is my oldfriend. People nearly killed us when we were young on the Mekong river, as thinking we were drug dealers and not crasy tourists in the wrong place near the golden triangle, Jm was the one to put us in a monastery, and during one week we couldn't talk, mute bodies, bitten by mosquitoes, as it was forbidden to kill bugs, Jm was the one to enter Tibet with us after Tien Anmen, and to spend hours to write a self criticism for Chinese authorities before taking back our passport far away from the forbidden area... I like him as a brother.

I sent a texto to my old friends to check who was coming, as not wanting to share my old friend with unknown people, without memories.

The hearth break just happened in Katmandu, I couldn't forget JM was doing a trek every three years in Himalaya, and he could have disappeared as two hundreds of our citizens.

We're both from rich families. Heavy families in a way. One in Normandy, the other in Versailles, but it's the same. We like to do disruptive things, just to challenge ourselves and escape our convenient and smooth life. We got married with beautiful wifes and articulated ones. Our children are successfull. We are sportiv. We could be described as lucky guys.

Although now, our lifes are different, Jm is spending a lot of time on the latest apps such as Tinder to meet girls, having a lot of new adventures, I've stopped my love affairs in bad hotels, too tired for that, it sucked. One day, I saw my neighbour on the parking, and I realized my couple was at stake, Armelle would never accept the reality she had carefully avoided. Jm drinks a lot of mojitos near dancing floors, I usually drink a whisky after dinner looking at a movie with my wife on the sofa. When she goes to sleep, I put gore series and movies just to have fun.

Mona was coming. I never slept with her when we were young, even after late parties with a lot of alcohol and desire, but I continue to text her whatever the hour of the night, and as a single she always answers, which is pleasant. Mona would come. So I would come. It could be fun. And half a century matters. Who knows where we'll be in fifty years.

When I arrived Mona was in the wrong hotel, so it took us one hour to find each others, after an awkward hug and kiss, I had to convince her to go to the first party, before the big one the day after.

I was in a large tee-shirt and a parm pants, that make her laugh when we discovered the party took place in one of the most selected places in Madrid. We argued with the body guard, and finally gave up, drinking a mojito on the plazza close to where JM and his friends were.

We spent all day after, a Saturday, in Museums. Prado, Guernica. I was disappointed to see it as a black and white painting. I don't know why, I thought it was in colors.

In the evening, when we arrived at the big party, I did everything to show I was not in couple with Mona. The music was a good one but loudly. JM had booked a floor and corner in the huge party lounge.

A girl arrived, Brazilian, beautiful, blond hair, sexy, nice butt and long legs with stiletos, heavy make up and red lipstick.

We understood she was JM's new conquest, even if he was behaving as he was single after his divorce with Path, leaving their children with her except for week-ends every two weeks.

A two am, my friend Eric and Mona left. I stayed with the old friends, when JM was young, before getting married to Path. I was informed she was hot and had an adventure with some of them, even if not staying long in their city.

At the same time, they found her arrogant, especially when ordering her coke without ice in it, needing it separate in a jar, and nor sugar nor better on her crêpe, which is a crime for a real Normand living in Le Havre.

At three, I had drunk a lot of champagne, and a few caiperinas, and vodkas. The girls arrived. They were not invited, but we were two many boys to stay without females. So, I drank with one of them, Sonia, from an Eastern country, excited to be in Madrid.

I don't remember much, but she did well.

The day after, we walked in the ramblas before the brunch, with an umbrella as it was a rainy day, and I felt exhausted after sleeping only three hours.

At lunch, JM's parents were here. They didn't recognize me. Perhaps because I'm bold. I'm still fit. They look very old now. They looked at my darkcircles, and they looked strangely at Mona, thinking she was perhaps an ex girl friend or a fresh new one. She was talking fast. Laughing at my outfit and also at Eric's look, in thai pajamas like in the old time when JM and him had trousers with blue fabric, were smoking marijuana, and had candles in the rooms on the campus.

I don't know if it was the too oily accras, but I threw away all the food in the toilets.

I stayed in the little room like half an hour. Mona knocked at the door to check I was ok, like in the old times.

I feel old and I'm not even fifty years old.

This guy will kill me, he's looking as young and stylish with his blue eyes, tanned skined, and beautiful hair and white teeth. He smiles as you would breath.

He's my oldest friend. I love him, he seems free without Path, and I must admit I understand why.

I still love my wife, Armelle, I was never loyal to her, I think she knows it. It's not that important. I think I will get old with her. Like the two of us, hand in hand, walking on the pavement of a street, taking one coffee on a terrace, then biking towards the small market . Looking tenderly at each other.

My god, my flight is postponed. She will kill me, as she had to move all books to our new appartement. The big house was too empty to live without our three children. Wish me good luck. To come here, the pilot said he was scared of the air holes, and the flight was jumpy. Really.

Annecy May 2015

# The fat woman

I've decided to live in San Francisco a few years ago. I was fed up with Président François Hollande, taxing entrepreneurs like me as if they were rich, whereas the tax plan on the value of a company was the burden that I couldn't afford. I decided to move my headoffices to the Silicon Valley, and jump where everything happens at the moment. I'm sure you have heard of the Unicorns, disrupting every field, from taxi to guest housing, from insurance to bank.

My life in Paris was a nice one. We were leaving in the best district in the seventh arrondissement, near the Invalides, a luminous flat with windows on both sides, and a view on the Seine. So Parisian. My daughters were in a good school. I used the investments of french government in research to take the benefit of it for my start up, and I had money in an easy way. I had plenty of friends. My employees trusted me, so did my VC and investors. But something was broken, I was getting bored.

I must say something important to you. I'm a rock in roll guy. A real one. I love intense emotions and moments. By respect for my wife, I won't tell everything, but let's say I like to have fun drink with friends, play with girls when they're easy ones and don't look for anything except a good moment with you.

I play in a group. That 's part of my life. I was upset to leave my group of music in Paris, I created it when I was sixteen three years before begining my first start up.

I'm the singer. My friends were devastated. Not that I'm a good singer, but It's been fiften years that we play together. Not bad. I've heard that they have created another group with a new singer, but they don't play very often which is the begining of the end. No shouts, no cries, but dull moments that kill friendship, don't you agree ?

My wife was not as excited as me to live in California. She's got her character. Fuck the Californian dream, she said. She was at that time a teacher in a private school, with a lot of friends, playing tennis, dancing, and painting. She had to know new people, not that she was afraid of that, but stopping her work was tough. So she decided to come back as a student to University.

But in fact, commuting was taking a lot of her time, and also doing the taxi driver to all kinds of activities children here must do to be normal, I suppose.

Last time we played ? It was in a big dancing room. It was weird. The concert took place in Los Angeles.

When we arrived, it smelt like old beer on a wet wooden floor, a floor cleaned in the morning, but in a place that should never be open to the daylight and fresh air.

There were only two guys drinking at the bar, a nauseous barman that looked like a junky and stared at us in a nasty way, while we were putting our material on the stage.

It was odd. We took beers to wait for people to come. We earnt no money with that concert, it was just for the glory, a friend of a friend gave us the adress, but the guy we knew named Kevin (as half of this generation, it must be Kevin Kostner effect that my daughters now don't even know) was not even here.

The place was empty, although it was nearly midnight. We decided to begin, sometimes the music appeals to people that comes from nowhere. Perhaps they were in the nearby Casino.

We were sweating under the spotlights. Red, green, yellow, then purple three seconds, and again the same lights. And there was no water.

A fat woman opened the big door, and slowly came to us, she looked gigantic in the empty and dark place.

She came in front of us, all in white. We were playing, and I was singing my prefered song :"Ne me quittes pas, où je deviendrais fou" inspired by Jacques Brel. She looked at me in the eyes, then listened to us during five minutes. It was in French, and I was quite sure she didn't understand anything except the melody. It was difficult for me as trying to focus and therefore avoid an eye contact. But as nobody stood in front of us, or as I closed my eyes but the salt of my sweat was burning my eyes, or as I couldn't avoid it, disgusted and at the same time amused, I looked at her. I thought she was so fat, she should eat all day and night, cream cheese, chips, bacon, burger, vanilla ice cream, sugar and meat. She had arms like hams, and skin was moving as a gelly when she walked.

When she decided to move and lean towards us, I could see her boops moving in her tee-shirt, obviously too small and stretch for her. I was fascinated, as she had a nice face, with long hair, big eyes, generous cheeks and gracious lips.

I walked on the stage. And decided to look at the back of the room in the dark.

She came back with a waiter in a cheap white blacktie. They had taken with them a square table that they put in front of the stage. We continued to sing and play, and we decided to come back to one of our best off, "Kill the frog".

I took off my black tee-shirt to get rid of the salty water on my face, but it was as wet as everything else, I gave up the idea.

While I was saying to myself I would definitely drink a diet coke with rhum in it, and a lot of ice, she came back with something that looked as a huge cake, looking as the ones you see in series like Friends : an outstanding cake, with a lot of sugar on it, something written like happy birtday, or be happy, or just married, and indecent cream on the top of it, like the cubcakes my wife was doing for birthday parties to make sure our daughters were not rejected by other girls.

I continued to sing, but my friend Bob came with his guitar in front of me, looked at me, looked at the empty room, the table in front of us with the white and blue cake, the fat woman in her mini skirt and gold sneakers, and began to laugh silently.

I closed my eyes, trying to focus on the song. My life was shaky at that moment. I guessed my wife was not happy, and may be one day I would discover she slept with an Indian trying to be brilliant in her courses, or her american coach for sport, that was encouraging her as she was his princess, I supposed he was gay but may be not.

I opened my eyes, and looked at the guy at the battery, he had just replaced our spanish player, which led us to change our name as a group, as it was initially subtly alluding to Barcelona. The guy was torturing the material, as if his life was in danger, like a crocodile just behind him ready to eat him, or a shark swiming in narrow circles around him. I don't think he took drugs, but he looked like it, red eyes, dark circles, nose always like allergic to pollen, and his beard wet as he was going out of a swimming pool - this ridiculous trend launched by the hipster and a few male celebrities make me think I should never forget to shave me every day or two untill I die.

He looked tense. Or engaged in what we were doing, I don't know for sure. Suddenly he smiled, showing with his head the fat woman.

She had cut eight pieces with a huge knife, a bowie looking as coming from Shining with the crasy Jack Nicholson.

She was looking at the cake and then put her fingers on the knife to slowly take the white sugar mixture on it and swallow it.

I forgot to sing, and she looked at me, her finger in her mouth for a few seconds. She listened to the music and wincked at me, or it was my head that invented that sign.

My children were not happy either. They were thinking their american friends were boring, obsessed by their own success later.

Every week one of my girls jumped on my feet and asked when we would come back in France. They had messages on Facebook from friends always saying they would come for vacation, and never appearing.

And I must say that my investors were a "désastre", new american ones not even taking the time to meet me, and just asking the figures each month, and the french ones, totally lost in the Silicon Valley's microcosm.

May be I was wrong. May be my life was nearly to become a disaster, my wife leaving me with our daugthers and my start up neither increasing its customer bases, the challenge my american VC (venture capitalist) gave to me, nor breaking even, for sure the goal for my french business partners.

I forget to mention my father had bad results of blood analysis, my sister said to me that perhaps it was serious, perhaps not, they would know later, but she already threatened me with her harsh voice that it would be impossible with her job to take care of my mother if my father would be sick. And as children, it was both our responsability to take care of them. Far away is not easy to make it happen, she said. Food for thoughts. What else ?

Let's go home, it's late, and I'm starving. My stomach makes noise like I'm annoying myself or getting myself sick, as driving my car too fast in the mountains.

Let's sing louder for our last moment on stage. I would love a cigarett. I smell the smoke, someone must smoke outside and it enters with the airconditioning.

I hate this lights. I become crasy or there is now two fat women.

I looked at my friends while singing the last song, carefully looking at them, one new friend and an old friend, sharing doubts and passions. It's strange to share moment like that. Suddenly, it becomes obvious that I will never forget that moment.

Why ? As nothing is happening, it's a good question, perhaps that fat woman and her outrageous cake in front of me, reminds me life is a big joke or something like that.

At least, we shouldn't take it too seriously, don't you think ?

Let's go home I said. The music stopped. In the silence, one could hear suddenly a radio playing in the near room " Californication". We didn't even laugh.

Biarritz May 2015

# I could have killed him

His arms hurt. He was in the hospital. It was new to him, last time he came it was when his wife was pregnant, never for him. A big building, never seen before. He didn't like the atmosphere, like an ants home, busy and noisy.

\- "What did you do to your arm and hand ?" said the nurse, she was curious, but like looking for a medical information for a file, no more than that.

As she smiled at him, he was thinking she was wearing a red lipstick and she shouldn't as her complexion was not perfect, and she had thin lips surrounded by fat cheeks, but what the fuck finally, his son was alive and nothing else mattered, he gave her a smile, a genenous one, full teeth out.

\- "I had lost my child.

-?" She looked curious for real now.

As he was relax, he had taken his day for medical exams and the radio, he decided to tell her the story. He had lived it, but never talked about it. It was still a trauma for him, and he wanted to expel anger and fear, and to come back to the life before, if possible.

-"It's a long story, I will do it short.

\- I've got time. Normally when we see that in Normandy, it's men that feel like super heroes as they drank to much, and they decided to fight with a wall." And she smiled again, raising her shoulders, showing it was not very important, like apologizing for what she said.

For the first time in his life, he was interested by someone he didn't know and he would most probably never see again, like feeling human, and touched by her empathy.

-"I live in Paris with my wife and my children. They're ten years old, eight, and four. Two girls and one boy, Quentin. The story is about him. We had rent a big house for the big week-end of May, with plenty of family around, uncles and ants, nephews, and friends." He whispered, like remembering the shock.

She looked at him, while preparing papers for the doctor. His arms hurt but it didn't matter. He continued, suprised by his look in the big mirror, dark circles under the eyes, and thiner than usual, as if his skin shrank during the day before.

He was still a thirty five year old guy, good looking, dark eye brows and large shoulders of a sportiv man that doesn't think too much about his life, ambitious, and engaged in what he does, wether his job of brilliant marketer in the telco industry, used to algorythms and data, or his hobbies.

-"At four in the afternoon, we had taken a late brunch, and drank too much Rosé wine to be honest, we were nearly sleeping in armchairs, chatting and smoking. It was a beautiful day, not too hot, but sunny. We were under the trees, looking at the old building and thinking that the day we could sail. The nephews came back from the tennis courts nearby. They were with my latest boy Quentin. Quentin is physical. He could play rugby even if too young. He's got short hair. And big blue eyes. You must know, it's a beautiful kid, I don't say that for all my children, but people stop us in the street to mention it. I asked them when the girls came back, where is Quentin. They said we don't know. I asked them again, still smiling, hey girls, you're responsible of the four year kid, aren't you. They said he had disappeared, and there was a little argument, and they asked for water before going upstairs. Suddenly, I woke up. My little boy was not here, and the tennis courts were half a mile away. I asked one of the nephews to come back with me, and we came with two other adults to look for him."

The nurse looked at me as a patient. She had her head knocking down as expressing even more empathy if possible.

-"What followed was simply a nightmare. We looked at him, and there was nobody at the tennis courts, and we couldn't see him. We shouted. I lost my voice shouting his name. The worst came to my mind, somebody kidnapped him. My wife was crying and asking why we came here with so many people, family and friends, but not taking care of our own child. She was under shock. People took her by the shoulders. I had like no emotion except a unforgettable feeling of not having any power, being nothing, loosing all meaning of life. I was feeling so bad to have so many people around me and not being able to clear my mind, to decide something to do. All people were shouting now. The children were crying loudly, especially the girls that were with Quentin, when he disappeared. The chaos was in my life, like never before I had anticipated it could happen. I called the Gendarmerie. They came in twenty minutes, and began interviewing my wife and me. When it was my turn, they looked supsicious about my relationship with my little boy. It drove me crasy. I let them go, go back for the third time to the tennis courts. The neighbours came. They were at least seventy people in the garden, giving advice I could hear, looking at me as a victim of a terrible accident.

When my wife burst into tears again, I came near the old stones wall. Sixteenth century or something like that, and I began to struck the wall, as wanting to get rid of my fear, my unability to find any solution to find Quentin back, feeling so lonely and losing control of my life. The time my brother came with a friend to try to stop me, my arm was broken in three parts, and the same for my hand.

I didn't feel the pain. "

He whispered again. She was not moving. The hospital was full of people moving around them, under pressure, waiting with stress. They were in the present, quite and patient.

-" Then ?" did she ask.

\- "Then Quentin reappeared around six. I was having people surrounding me, wanting me to go to the hospital. The gendarms were back again in the garden, talking with the neighboors. I was sitted near the white metal table with the broken arm in a white towel, with blood I was looking at, unable to think.

My wife was inside. Quentin said to me. " What did you do to your arm daddy." That was that. I cried during one hour as a child. I was a wreck. Quentin explained to us later he was angry when the girls left, and one of them has slapped his face after he threw his raquette at her face while playing. He came under the carpets, hidden to any people outside. When he heard people shouting his name, including us, he was scared by what he did, that the girls said he didn't behave as a good kid, then scared because he heared the fear in our voices."

She whispered like relieve. "So, happy end, then you came to the hospital."

-" No, I was so happy to have my family with me, and like my old life back, that I asked all people to leave the house and that we stayed together. That's why it's not in good shape and I must have surgery tomorrow, I know."

She said, smiling again. " I must go now, I have finished my work. The doctor will come for the surgery. I wish you..."

The was a silence.

\- "A happy end of life, you too, merci beaucoup."

He was alone in the room for the first time. He looked at the window and thought it was not that clean. We could see finger tips, perhaps the ones of children visiting a brother having an accident with a motorbike, or the ones of grandchildren after an old grand father did his first heart attack. He was feeling nauseous. He took a chewing gum in his jean pocket with the left hand. It would be difficult to work during a few weeks, he couldn't drive either. And holidays would be a nightmare. Then he would have to reeducate his muscles.

It was nothing compared to the hatred he felt. An emotion that drove him crasy. If a guy had touched one hair of Quentin, he could have killed him for sure. He would have killed him.

He felt nothing would be like before. He had lost his eternal kid's look at life, taking it as it was, enjoying each moment, feeling safe, happy for ever.

Something dark had appeared at the surface. It was still him, but as never seen before. Something that made him feel fragile. No the powerful ambitious and successfull young top manager he was in his big company, the friend that people like to laugh with, share beers and good meals, the sportiv guy that people want in their team, as excellent performer, and reliable, the accomplished husband, the one smiling as an advertising for toothpasta, beautiful in his suit at his wedding, proud of his wife and fullfilled with life.

Anything could happen, anytime.

He didnt' know what to think. At the same time, he was like aware, and even more present in his own life, but missing the joy he had before. Forever gone.

Tuscany August 2015

# The nest

My daughter can't live without us. Definitely, she feels lonely and feel bad for no reason. I don't understand, twenty years should be the best years in your life, you fly, everything is possible, you meet different people, you dream, you work hard and play hard, and she looks like a little bird lost without her parents.

I said to my wife, let's get rid of one of the parameters. For instance, I propose that she can come back home as many times as she wishes. Her training is in London, and we live in Paris and in week-end in the Chateau near Chantilly.

She said yes, and everyone was relieved. I don't know yet if she will use that right or not. Not that it matters, she knows she could.

I nearly lost my life in 2015. Leucemia. The diagnosis surprised me one year ago. I didn't noticed anything. My wife did, she thought I slept too much for someone used for years to sleep six hours.

It was August, I felt awkward when the doctor said I had to stop working in September. It's been nearly thirty five years I've been working, and I'm what people call a hard worker. Seven thirty in the morning to eight or eight thirty in the evening. And I read my mails on Sundays from six pm.

To share the news, I had nobody, as it was big vacations in France. You know, that month in the year, where Paris is a paradise as nobody except tourists, when you walk or drive, it's like a butter cut by something strong, you go fast, and you enjoy the views.

I've rediscovered recently the beauty of the Quai de Seine. It's amazing at night, believe me, I understand why Chinese and Japanese still love being tourists in Paris.

To come back to me, I had bad sleeps during nights, because doctors explain to you that you're sick and badly sick, that nobody can tell what will happen, and then they make you understand the protocole. A nightmare, and they describe it to you, no suprise.

I was so sick undergoing the chimio. I hated not to know what was going next. Then one day, a nurse fucked my drain. Sorry to be nasty and vulgar. I must apologize.

The only way for me to focus of being a human being with projects and a future, was my work.

I doesn't work each time, I know that. One friend of a friend did purchase a house she never saw, to live with her three young children and her beloved husband. Another one did the merit review of her team end of December before being in the coma.

But for me, working hard on the strategy for 2020, the essentials to be different from our competitors, and continuing what I initiated with the Executive Comittee was vital.

I focused on new KPIs for customer experience, and how to measure we were transforming our business model, taking into account the digital in every touch points to interact with the customers.

I had a goal : avoid being defined by my family and my friends and my collegues as being a sick man. I know I have cancer, but I'm more than that. I want to defeat the sickness and overcome that difficult moment.

I was not prepared to being sick. Nobody is. You always think it happens to others. Well, it doesn't.

The first weeks, I was vomiting all nights and days. Then I recovered, I read so many books that I had a headache. I saw all series. Breaking bad with this sick teacher doing drugs to earn money and changing over time. The killing, a dark serie about a murder. I tried the one with blood, but I couldn't bear it.

I called my team, like being here at the office without being here. I felt emotional about decisions to take, or lacking of mind speed. I felt so frustrated not to be part of the game.

One day the doctor said I had to undergo a surgery. And a bone-marrow transplant. The only person that could be acceptable was my son after the blood diagnosis.

I remember the evening when I heard that. I'm an auster father, a strict one. Believing that our role on earth is to educate our children, giving them values.

I felt awkward, like depending on a becoming adult. My time to protect him was over, he was the one to try to save my life.

That was a period where I dreamt a lot. Nightmares, where I was alone in the countryside with my horse. It was a hot day. No clouds. I could see the house far away. Suddenly the horse became nervous, and I could control it. A huge sun appeared, it was looking like Hiroshima bomb far away, or Tchernobyl, at least it how I imagine it was.

The horse stopped in a village. It was like a desert, I could only hear a dog, a cricket song, and the wind in the trees.

My grand mother came to me and asked me if I enjoyed life. She was looking good, thing and healthy, like the time we took teas together, with the old windows closed in our dark flat in Paris.

I said "very much so", thinking perhaps she could say to anyone, god or death, that I was not ready.

I had my garden to take care of, and the farm tractor, newly acquired, was like waiting for a ride.

That same month, my daughter finally refused to go in a London University, she dreamt of. I hope it was not for me. Perhaps it's for her mother.

My children are closer to their mother than to me.

My sense of humor perhaps. My angry behavior when things are not under control.

I'm not a patient man. I've learnt with the cancer to be patient. Not knowing what's going on in the next minutes, wether because the nurse is late, or because your body simply doesn't obey to you.

When I was young I wanted to grow old and be wise. I don't know if I will be younger when I get old, which is my aim.

No more constraints and frame. I'm a lucky guy, I still have my mother. I'm nearly sixty and she's alive. She has been happy when I had my picture in the newspaper when I had my latest promotion as Deputy General Manager.

I miss the little conversation in the morning, at the coffee machine.

The sales guy Patrick arguing that the guys were taking too many initiatives compared to the action plan, or the financial head imitating the corporate team.

I take one sugar in my morning coffee. I would love to take a coffee, it's like wine, I nearly have lost the taste of it with the leucemia.

I'm someone we could defined as traditional. I like flee markets, antique auctions.

I recently realized that I spent twenty years of my life to improve, every week-ends and vacations, the castle and the beautiful garden around.

My children won't care if we disappear with my wife. The word is not appropriate, they're young adults, I mean, they could manage.

It's a generation concerned by the planet's future but not interested by owning a land, as being wise would be to enjoy present and not having belongings in this time of uncertainty.

I'm in the period after the surgery where I want to come back to work. My Ceo is moving to another company, and media talk a lot about it. I'm concerned that if people don't see me, they forget me, and don't put me in the new landscape.

I'm stressed as my hair didn't come back. My skin is dull and white. And I have to borrow my son's suit and shirt, as I've lost so much weight.

But I'll try my best.

I take the car. It's a bizarre feeling, like it was hundred years I didn't take it.

I don' t feel well. My god, I've got an accident by myself, bumping in the highway rail.

An old man, that's what I am.

I miss my family, as if the sickness had made me distant from them, whatever their efforts to be patient and with empathy.

I don't know why I react to love by what could be qualified as a certain distance, as if to protect myself. If I die I won't loose anything if I'm alone on earth, and they won't loose anyone except a tough fellow.

I know it's false. But it makes me feel better.

On the top of my list if I recover :

\- a ride with my horse, early in the morning, when everything is quite and looking fresh as a new day, new start

\- eat a macarron, I love sugar, I must say

\- kiss my wife on the forehead. yes, I was educated by Jesuits, how do you know ?

\- say something nice to my children, encouraging them to make their own life and being courageous and bold, perhaps I should have taken a different path, who knows

\- a glass of wine from my personal wine cellar, and enjoying it with an old friend.

When you fight with a cancer, you fight with the time. Weeks look like disappearing in blink of an eye, minutes look like hours because you suffer or you afraid of everything. I've decided to have more suprises in my life. Like the diner with my son one day when I felt better, we did awful scrambled eggs, but they were tasty, he just read Machiavel, and we were discussing about contemporary art. Or the smile of my wife because I was watching her and listening carefully what she said. When she asked me to repeat, her old game, I could mention she was talking about her sister going to Firenze for the first time. She was impressed.

You know what, I feel already better.

My daughter will be a beautiful person, and she'll meet great people in her new experience. I'm sure of that.

Tuscany August 2015

# Ruben Espinosa has been murdered in Mexico

I'm under shock. I vomitted in my hotel toilets in Mexico, and stayed sitted close to them, embracing them with my arms as the only friend of a sad day.

Ruben Espinosa was a photoreporter. Murdered and tortured. Because writting the truth is a threat, even for the the powerful ones. So they eliminate you as an insect.

I'm disgusted. I'm facing hatred, violence, cynism and impunity at the same time.

He was found dead in Mexico city with four women. All had been beaten, tortured then shot to death.

Mexican's authorities' failure to tackle escalating violence against reporters and activists who dare to speak out agains political corruption and organised crime exasperate me and make me feel angry like I could believe I would be one day.

Espinosa had covered state wide protest, after the disappearance of forty three students, who vanished last September, after being attacked by corrupt police officers and drug cartel gunmen.

Eighty journalists have been killed in Mexico. Seven teen have disappeared.

It's three weeks I'm based in Mexico City. The guy at the reception didn't remember my booking when I arrived exhausted after a flight in coach, and he looked at me with shark eyes, no emotion, no interest. A big and flat nose and an oily skin with scars in the neck.

Could he murder someone ? Could he call someone to murder someone ?

My bedroom as a tiny shower, with a soap smelling a toxic lemon, and a plastic shower protection that has become yellow with time and has seen at least two generation of customers. My bed is a double bed but small even for me alone, with my one meter and eighty nine skinny skeleton. My body hurts as if I had done two hours of sport, but the reason is the thin matelas on the bed. I spent hours looking at the dark circle near the window with a grill. It looked like a terrible monster out of an Andersen's story. My foot are black under, last time the house keeping was done must have been a long time ago.

Not that it matters, at least the voices of the prostitutes, shouting or singing, and the noise from the kitchen dishes and the chinese cooks under my floor give a content to my nights.

My wife is still in Paris with our teen agers. I'm not sure I want them to live in Mexico city. I'm concerned by kidnapping, robberies (or false ones). I still need to look for a flat.

I was young when I decided to become a reporter. I've got the dream to make the truth come soner or clearer. If the truth exists. At least to inform people better, and to make them think democracy is fragile. I'm now in charge of spending the money. There are news and I decide who covers it, which team, if more than one. The exercice is to allocate the means in a clever way. Not that easy. I cover many subjects by myself. I love to write. I've learnt how to shoot pictures, but not anything as beautiful as the portraits of Ruben, for sure. The guy was gifted. Disappeared. Brutally. Someone has said something like "Enough is enough, get rid of him, and make the other scared".

I'm disgusted, like the day when I realised that nobody would save the blogger in Saudi Arabia, especially when the smart head of FMI in her perfect blue suit with her grey pearls and her beautiful ring asserted that this country was a friend of European culture. The guy has not yet undergone the one thousand strokes, he was nearly dead after fifty of them. He just fought for separating religion from state, but not the way they appreciate it. You go to jail for that and your merit punishment. The issue is to make journalists aware, then the people in democracies to believe it's a fair cause.

Two bloggers have been killed in Pakistan in the last few weeks, nobody cares about it. Same for the thousands of black students tortured and killed in their University in Nigeria, just because of their religion. As if life according to which color of skin, which nationality take a full cover with a picture in international newspapers, or only a few words on twitter.

For sure, we're in crisis, less budget, less adverstising, less readers, less confidence in the future. I ask myself how our children will be informed, between the newspapers purchased by capitalist tycoon for one euro, and the web which from time to time forgets to check the source and to give meaning to information. As if I was one of the latest generation doing this job, replaced by machinelearning as for the forecast of hearth break. What's next ? Watson predicted that...Sentiment analytics say eighty pour cent of American feel connected to Donald Trump messages for his campaign. Scary...

Did you already attend a demonstration ? I mean a real one, for a noble cause. I'm convinced that we need heroes. People who fight for ideas, whatever the cost in their life or for their beloved.

I'm not like that. I'm just a man. But in the people flow, I feel our humanity. Looking at a young and thin guy, with his first scarced beard, jumping on the fontain with a big flag, and the three plump girls with small tee shirts, yelling like it's the cause of their life. The mothers, fat ones with flower dresses from another time, and short hair no hairdresser would advise anylonger. Mother in love. Defending their children and grandchildren, defending their values and their country, fighting for freedom of speech. Then the military, arriving on stage, with weapons. All kinds of weapons. And all people running. The air loosing the joy and belief in everything is possible in one single minute. Ruining hopes and lifes. Dismantling families and friendships.

I've got my best friend that lost one of his eyes in the fight with the police in Le Caire. You're a journalist ? We don't care. They don't say it, but you feel it.

One of my other friend was nearly raped in Croatia. Now people go for vacations, fifty kilometers from the place where people were slaughtered. Montenegro, Dubrovnik, they eat ice creams as a family, walking peacefully in the old city protected by the old walls, or they kiss on the lips as a young couple in front of the sunset on the sea, impatient of the night to come.

Children were killed with their mother looking at them, then women were tortured in front of their husbands, a nightmare that has disappeared and is not even the history books for teeneagers. You know, it's too early, perhaps later when time will tell if the thousands of young death are meaningfull. If the killers have to go in jail.

Trial take time. I met a woman that had to see our rapers every Sunday before going to the church. They were taking a drink at the coffee nearby. Nobody did even touch them. She was lost. Like the exceptionnal, unbearable becoming part of daily life, and nobody giving her a clue of why it would be acceptable. Nobody acknowledged our suffering, and it was even a burden for our family to have her feeling so bad and depressed, as something went wrong for the honor of the family, and they would prefer to forget and begin their new life.

I've just realised that I lost my goal for my next movie. It can't be something to intellectual. I must deal with reality and fantasy.

I better understand the latest Carlos Fuentes book. I found it superficial. I was dealing with real issues but with lightness, which is different.

This country is not my country but it makes me sad and feel bad to be without any power in front of impunity.

We should all fight against that.

I've fighted for democracy in Tunisia. It's funny to think intellectuals spoke about arabic spring for all the revolutions, from Lybia to Egypt.

It's a nightmare in all those countries now, but life continues in Europe and in the US, and it's not the subject now.

Like Bokohara in Nigeria, nobody speaks really about it. Lack of information.

My son wants to play music. I don't know if you can earn a living with it. My daughter loves litterature, she has already read more books than me, in the twenty years of her life.

Sometimes, I remember myself at the same age. I was a tennis player. Loving to go out. Drinking mojitos and kissing girls with passion. Always fan of my girl of the moment. Believing I would leave more than a century and feeling like having thousand years in front of me.

Now, that I'm nearly fifty years old, I feel less funny than I was, less interested by the present. Like a machine built to believe in the future, and trying to connect things with the past. Indeed, never in the present.

I wonder if my wife still loves me. We have the same values. We're an open minded couple. Meaning if one of us wants an adventure, the deal is not to talk about it, but permission granted. Therefore, I was never tempted by any woman, for sure alone in a war in Serbie or now in Mexico.

I like looking at their nibs and they golden skin, trying to make me feel excited after one beer. But it's just curiosity. I think in twenty years I will even have lost that. Perhaps that just mean to grow old. You love things and people with passion, you're engaged in any meaningful fight, then you see people forget very quickly, sometimes you're one of the only ones to have attended a war, nobody cares anylonger, to remember the American guy loosing his life because of a rocket never intended to kill him. Just like that, by the blood disappearing in the sand, and his face becoming white and his eyes big.

I feel I've got a burden I didn't have at twenty or at thirty. I love my job. But perhaps the quest of truth make you discover things you would like to avoid.

I dream of being in vacation in Tuscany like last year. To avoid the nightmare of violence and unbearable warmth in the city, and my feeling of loneliness.

One morning, I went to the village Greve in Chianti. It was surrealistic.

It's often like that, we live our life without taking attention to details, it enable us to live, else it's too strange. But suddenly, what you would call reality is in your face, like another dimension.

First, the mercery with dentels and all colors of fabrics and buttons. Thousands of buttons, all shapes and sizes.

Then, the butcher, "Forlani", at least the fifth generation, with the picture of them in front of a big "sanglier"killed one morning in the forest. The ham suspended like proof of success and immortality. The meat like choice of a tasty lunch with for ever friends.

And also the market on the plazza, a truck with chicken and polenta given in big bags by generous female looking at their customers as they're being their mama.

The old men were in their chairs, looking at the life of the plazza. There were six on them. They looked happy, somewhat distant, wise and with a joke ready on their lips to share. They looked as if the place belonged to them, as born, raised, growing old in the same town, known by others, respected for their life and what matters. They looked at the others, and then their glasses and the paper nap on the table. Two thin women with long blond brushed hair, looking good in their sixty, sharing an ice tea, perhaps discussing the latest production of Chianti of their domain. A tourist family drinking freshly squezed orange juice with ice, the wife looking in charge with the map, the children glad to have a pause, the guy in tee shirt with a cap, looking at the old men like envying their noble attitude and fresh haircut.

The old men spoke in Italian. One of them looked like proud of himself, but the others not giving a shit in their white shirt and polos, polos carefully ironed by a loyal wife at home, waiting for cooking their lunch. I understood they spoke about a horse race, then saucer, then the guy that had gone to the South of France that they were criticizing saying his wife was deciding life for him, which was not a good thing for sure.

It looked good. I decided that day, that when one day I would get retired (if anyone to pay for my generation), I would find a place like that : an old house with a sienna color changing with the sun each hour, cricket songs around, a landscape with cypres like sentinelles at the horizon, olive trees like eternal friends, my beloved in the swimming pool to refresh their suntanned skin after a delicious barbecue with the famous Forlanis' agnello, a big salad with olives and juicy fruits as a dessert, and a village nearby to look at other humans and remember that I'm still alive and that nobody can take care of all the wars, if even God doesn't move his little finger for men.

Just before the sunset, when the hot day still felt, in the stones near the swimming pool, and deep in the wall of the old house (which you will understand around three in the morning, sweating in your bed, naked), when the mosquitoes become your ennemies of the moment and you applauded your progress to spray them, the birds came to drink the water of the pool.

They came by thirty or more. They flew, and just two or three of them went fast at the surface of the water. It was impossible to see if they drank or just checked if it was safe. It was like a beautiful choregraphy, during nearly an hour. Times was flying.

Tuscany August 2015

# I'm the mother

I had nine children. One is dead. Eight of them, still four alive, the others died before I did. It means I live with a lot of memories, we accumulate furnitures and souvenirs as not to forget, but we still do. I'm dead and near Marie who I adore. I'm happy to see my three daughters going to Lourdes every year to worship her and to prey for our souls, I think they chose the birthday of my disappearing on earth.

I'm the last generation before all the machines to take care by myself of caring, nourrishing my boys and girls. The latest to clean my house without a vacuum cleaner.

I light spiders and insects, but out of my home. I spent a lot of time at the end of my life in my garden, looking at the roots of strawberries and rasperries, cutting the trees for having more fruits, I like my ugly apples, I do great jams, without added sugar. My best dessert was fruits tarts, with eggs and suggar and butter to make it softer.

I like objects. The old black phone the one that gave me good and also bad news. The tabouret in the kitchen and the old wood table with scars of cutting the bread, I can see Jean drinking his hot chocolate, so hot one day I burnt my hand dropping it. Jean used the bathroom to do sport and wash his hair before his breakfast. He was doing as much noise as a morse, and we were forbidden to enter. I had to use a fabric to make all the water disappear after he had finished. When I came back to the kitchen he was on his chair, trying to make his chocolate less hot, impeccable in his gilet and white shirt with a neck rigid by the amidon he liked me to use.

I know one of my daughters is planing a big party with a big part of the family, in her chalet. I like to see all the faces happy. My only son to live now is forbidden to swim by his daughter doctor Kate. I never liked her to much, she was too serious. The other girls continue to be activ : bike for one, she had nearly three accidents in a year, but she enjoys it, I can see her at her smile, swimming in the lake for the other, it's nearly twenty five degrees which is astonishing even for an August month.

Don't tell the others, but I had a prefered child. Rob, he was full of energy and life, never calling me by phone, which made the three sisters mad at him, and suddenly appearing to take me to a restaurant near the lake, by boat. I loved it, it was so much fun. People think old people like their routine, and hate surprise. They're simply wrong. I love spontaneity.

I tried to educate my children by the example with my husband. He was the authority, I was the sweetness. Although, I must acknowledge I rarely kissed my children. I think you reproduce when you're an adult what you have lived as a child. I lost my mother when I was born, and my father was shot dead by the Germans during the first world war. I was educated by my Marraine. She was a tough woman. Never smiling, always strict and upset by something.

I met my husband when I was ten. I decided Jean would be my man. His huge forehead, his dark eyebrows, the way he was short sighted but not wanting to put glasses. I liked everything about him.

I had a nice life. He was not very keen of sexual intercourses, and I understood that he was brutal, coming in my bed, then dispearing without a kiss or nice gesture. In a way he was shy.

I did get along with my brothers at the begining, they were smoking cigares together, looking at the mountains, sharing an "eau de vie". Then when Jean began to invest, they disagreed with what he did with the part of my heritage, selling for investing in shareholding, and not very successfully, it's what they said at least. I don't know anything about the money, so I must say I trust him, and whatever happens you respect your husband, which I did.

My boys died. One playing tennis with his son. We should not practice sports, it's something wrong for the body and the heart. The second, Rob, did loose a lot of weight because of his new second wife that was an hostess, unfortunately, it killed him while skiing. The third one, my little JC, they didn't tell me, but I know they have hidden the truth to protect me. Oh I know, he committed suicide, which won 't make him able to be close to God. Then, it was too much for me, I decided to die if God would agree, I heard the doctor saying I had a bad pneumonia and a very healthy heart. I heard one of my daugthers deciding to unplug me to avoid more suffering, not sharing the decision. I heard the two other sisters mad at her later, but I was already aloof, looking at the lake and the mountains.

Later my elder died. He was exhausted. His wife lost her mind, and forgot all her souvenirs. I think they call it Alzheimer. She only remembered one song, and liked to purchase bread in the morning, a lot of bread because she forgot.

I remember the pictures with Jean as a photographer. He was angry as we did move to much. He spent hours putting them by order. And then, clic, the picture, I was so glad to see their little faces in the same frame.

I liked a lot the "pique nique" near the river, under the big trees. We drank a little Porto in a crystal glass, then discussing about my grandchildren with my daughters and my daughters in law. The men were playing balls. Serious as if their life was depending on their number of points. Yelling, hugging, betting.

We had a lack of food during the war. I remember the woman helping me cutting the head of the chicken, and he was running without it and the girls shouting of fear. My elders ate all the biscuits in the box, when I wanted to use it to receive guest, it was empty except the first layer. I was upset, but they made me laugh, and they were hungry my tall males.

I spent a lot of time thinking to them, praying for them, to make them happy for life and for the other. I loved to listen to their stories, drinking my tea and carefully listening to them, looking at them in their eyes, their love stories that turn bad, the success of one of the boys at the engineer exam, a baptême, a wedding,...

Life is like a blink of the eyes. Then there is the infinity. Eternity.

You know. They'll soon be with me and Jean, close to Marie. I'm sure of it. God bless you. Amen.

Tuscany August 2015

# The driver

The century was walking on his feet since fifteen years now.

A fresh new start.

I'm younger than her by the same amount of years of ther age. She's what we call an assertive woman. She's used to talk loudly, has a short "carré" as an haircut, she begins loosing her hair, I could guess it in the bathroom carpet but it's tabou to discuss it, and she has taken weight, another discussion to avoid.

It was three days we had arrived from the snowy and windy Chicago to the sunny and foggy San Francisco. From the begining, it was an exceptionnal weather : crispy blue in the sky, nice temperature, although it was June the worst season with the summer in SF.

The day before, the narcissic and solid CEO had taken his troups to Alcatraz that had been privatized for all the partners of the worlwide consultancy company. For sure, his connections with the government and political world should have helped him.

I must be honest, I don't like this guy. Full of himself, proud and selfish. The ceremony to thank the oldest partners was embarrassing in all speeches. In a way, the older you were, the better it was for you to go out of the company, else people began to say "Poor, X (first name), he was bright and talented and came with a lot of businesses a long time ago."

"La roue tourne", as they say in French, you can be at the top and then nothing except a burden.

Alcatraz was impressive. To be alone or nearly alone in the cells, thinking that the island is surrounded by the sea, cold and hostile, is something you understand in your flesh. Some of the guys tried to escape, I don't know if they managed.

While people were drinking and eating, I was feeling bad to be in a prison and attend a cocktail party, so I spend an hour to look at the sunset, watching the birds and the bridges. I was peaceful. At the end of the hour, I looked at my smartphone and I had ten messengers from Pat, looking for me with her teenage daughter.

Frankly speaking, I don't like the girl. I'm not sure Pat is aware of it, as we never discussed it. I remember the first time she met me and gave me her hand to shake instead of accepting the kiss on the cheek. I felt awkward and she did it on purpose. I think she's a nasty girl, the kind that never speaks and think a lot of things and negative ones about you.

It's now three minutes that we wait for the driver. We take a mini bus to go and visit their tech partner that lives in Oakland and want us to have diner at his house. The group of people are the different partners that did the training in London first, with neuroscientist and coaches, and then Mumbai, visiting slums, indeed the goal of the operation being mysterious to me. I know them by a big album of instagrams pictures that they took in India, Pat purchased it for two hundred and fifty dollars, which sounds a huge amount to me.

There is a beautiful spanish woman that has done to much job to her face and especially our upper lip, she seems in love with a robust guy with a shirt open on his hairs, he seems proud to show them.

Then, a thin Indian guy, the youngest partner of them, apparently freshly married to a tiny and thin woman, and with two noisy children.

An Italian man, well dressed, so coming from Milano or around, a Korean guy, making a lot of noise too with his nose, like having something to reject to breathe easily, but still smiling as the usual stuff. A Japanese man with his shy wife, in their late forties for all of them. A French couple.

As Pat didn't introduce ourselves to eachothers, I stayed quite, and looked at them.

The driver finally arrives and we evaluate the time to go to the house to one hour and a half. He's Asian looking and doesn't speak english.

We take the motorway, then a bridge and another bridge, then we can see "direction Berkeley" and we turn right for Oakland, then we see less pleasant landscapes, the big houses have disappeared for poor buildings, and streets with tags on wall, and railways. Suddenly, it becomes hilly and we begin hearing the noise of the motor of the mini bus, as overused by our weights and the speed.

People talk in the bus to spend the time, and the financial head, a French woman, seems to be upset as taking a long flight to Australia in the next morning, and asserting we should have already arrived, and she won't have time except to book an Uber car. Pat is with her daughter, I'm on my own, but I don't mind.

Suddenly, the bus stops, and the driver goes back, people shout as scared to have the breaks broken, and suddenly to fall. Then he stops the bus, and begins yelling at someone in Korean in his cell phone. It's like a panic in the bus. People are not calm any longer, stress at the idea of having spent all this time in the bus for nothing.

Pat says to the Korean guy and also the Japanese one that they should do something as their Asian and perhaps the driver would understand them. They talk to him, and we discover that the driver is Korean.

The guy says we're too heavy. The only way to go is to find another way to go to the house and call the host. Which we do, and five minutes later our partner arrives.

The bus finally follow the car, and we arrive safe at the house. It's a beautiful architect house, in the middle of the trees, and in the fog, althoug it's a sunny day.

I say hello to Helana, his wife, they're both Russian. We eat Russian food, and I underline to Helana that she has a lot of picture of her two children, she says something as "There is more", but is compelled to take care of the Indian children, that run in the stairs, and have let the cat enter in the big room.

I analyse that he and her being Russian, they don't mind not to have the sun, and they must like the landscape, wild and with a lot of trees.

Around the big table in the kitchen, the partners. Pat and her daughter are here and talks a lot. The fat guy with the spanish woman is an "amateur" of wines, and he compares French Bordeaux to Chianti and to Napa Valley wines. The Italian guy says that everything is ok when there's wine at a party, according ot him the food is less important. As Helana must have prepared dishes during days, I add "Thank you Helana for being the perfect host", and she smiles and asserts :" You're the perfect guests, coming from all the countries in the world, I'm proud to have you at home, please enjoy."

Pat's daughter has bad teeth and her device doesn't make it easy for her to talk. But she says she steals her mother smartphone to text to friends or to surf on internet. We had already the discussion with Pat, I think when you're fifteen, you just want to look as your friends, and you need to behave like them, else you're rejected. It's complicated for Pat to undestand. She seems drunk but Pat seems to be proud of her, and then explains she was born in Arizona, and that all her friends stayed less than four miles of their parent's house, how strange. The spanish woman asserts that even young people in Spain prefer being out of job instead of going out of the country and later to come back.

I take another bread filled with meat and onions, I don't remember the name, and I take a third glass of wine, a Sonoma bottle. The little bread with hot meat and onions is excellent, it's a Russian speciality. Delicious, it tastes as home receipes.

I feel alone in the noise of the party. But it's OK. I'm used to it. Since I'm a little boy it's like I'm never completely in the mood of other people, like disconnected. At the same time, I like to be with them and listen to their gossiping and laughters.

Then Helana asks me if I'm interested to see more pictures. I'd had already forgotten that I told her I was surprised by their numbers, and I say : "Yes, for sure."

She smiles, and open her bedroom's door. Inside we can see a big bed, with a Jesus Christ cross just above on the white wall, and twenty big pictures of her family, the elder, them as a couple, and the children at all ages, playing cards, music, climbing, singing, playing with the dog...

While saying " Wow, impressive, it's amazing", I feel it's weird to have sex under the pictures of your parents and your children.

I feel happy not to have a family and not being engaged.

I think I will wait untill the end of the week in San Francisco for ending my relationship with Pat.

No particular reason. I'm not in love. She's not appealing to me. I was alone and feeling vulnerable, I'm still as lonely. You know, whatever happens to me or anyone, we were born alone, and we die alone. And finally, I don't know what matters on earth. Meeting people like tonight, and feeling the humanity gathered in one small room, from all the cultures, or living day after day with the same person you learn to love and respect, sharing emotions, values, a way to think of the future and of the past, a way to live something on earth, like we're not just busy ants in an empty universe.

I can't kiss Pat and put my tongue in our mouth. I don't know why, but it seems disgusting and inappropriate to me.

I'm sure you think I'm odd. Perhaps. I don't know. I lack of feedbacks. People feel ill at ease when I stare at them a long time.

I wonder if I shouldn't tell the Korean, the guy that makes strange noises with his nose, to call the driver outside to come back to our white prestigious Downtown hotel. Perhaps we should wait for the desserts, not to make Helana upset, she's a nice person, and our guest too.

I like their house and the paintings of their children. They're gifted if they also play piano and clarinette. Nice family.

I mean it.

Annecy August 2015

# Myriam and the house near Limoges

I was alone, eating at a table in a restaurant. I've read somewhere that in big cities, it's a trend, lonesome guests.

Close to my table, just behind, a woman came to meet another woman. I couldn't see them, I could just hear their discussion and laughs. They looked happy to see each other. I was not particularly hungry but I asked the menu to choose another dish and ask another Coke with ice.

I had time, and I liked the tone of their voices. One of them was a story teller, I could guess it when she began the story. I didn't hear everything because of the noise of the glasses at the bar, but here is what I understood.

Myriam was a friend of the family. Her sister met her one day, reading an advert in a bakery near her house. The text said, I can do the house cleaning, I love kids.

Myriam was married at thirteen in her village, raped by her husband, an old and fat guy, her family sold her to. She made three daughters. When she was seventeen, she left the house one day. She came to the big city nearby. She met people, and as she never met any men in her house, she was genuine and she trust the first man smiling at her saying he would help her to earn money. Instead of that, he put her in a house, and she was raped by men. It was an awful period of her life.

At that moment of the story, I hear the voice of the other woman, upset, asserting it's unbelievable to think it's still happening in our century, and close to our country, and that women are not free, and the situation is even worse if we consider India or North Africa, not even mentioning Daesh or the Talibans.

The voice that has drunk and smoked, warm and wrapping us, goes on. Then Myriam met another girl like her. They decided to flee to France. She escaped one night and paid a guy to go by boat from Tunisia to Marseille. Here she met people helping her to go to Paris by car. The story goes on :

"That's when my sister met her. And it saved our daily life as she was the perfect house keeper, and so nice and helpful with the children. We were in our thirties with my sister. Not young mothers, but new mothers. When we came out of the hospital with our first baby she helped us to do the right gestures. She was already a mother for sure."

The waitress interrupted my listening by giving me the note and adding water to my glass. The street is noisy in this street of Paris.

The voice says : "Myriam met a guy, a nice one. She decided to have only one child. Her dream was to build a house. Ten years after she left us to live in a beautiful tiny house that her husband built year after year. We were devastated to have her out of our daily life. Me and my daughter. My sister and her boys. We came here from time to time for vacations, just to keep in touch, she was so happy to have us as guests. As a reward of her life, proving she could have her own one, taking care of her family, not spending a lot, but living in the comfort she never had before."

I was asking myself how this daring and courageous woman, who indeed had two lifes one after the other, could deal with leaving her daughters behind without being in deep sorrow, when the voice nearly whispers, as revealing a secret.

"Myriam continued to come in her village in Tunisia. To see her family, the one that helped her, not her parents that were dead. To see the girls. They refused to meet their mother that betrayed them according to the father and his family. Myriam always came with presents. She gave them to a friend that gave them to the girls mentioning her name. The presents were always accepted, but the girls never accepted to meet their mother. She tried many years, she still sends clothes for the grand children, some food, material for the kitchen, fabrics purchased in France."

I was wondering how you manage to be happy knowing that you can see your daughters in the street but they won't look at you, nor talk to you for ever, when the voice slowly said : "Then Myriam began her third life. When her son was eighteen, and as her husband didn't touch her anylonger, she talked to him asking explanation. He answered, that's life, that won't change, I don't have any desire for you anylonger. Myriam was very proud and still beautiful, even if less thin than she was when she was young. She decided to leave, and asked him to split their belongings, compelling them to sell the little paradise, the house near Limoges.

She stayed in Limoges, where she met her third husband, or second chosen one. A "gendarme". A nice guy, in love with her, fullfilling her in her ideal, to be a free woman, taking care of him and working again to clean houses and earn money."

The other female voice said : "I need to smoke, so let's go outside".

End of the story.

I hear the other voice while leaving their table "We're so lucky, it's incredible to think of the flow of emigrants from Syria, overwhelming European governments. Merkel was quite impressive..." Then I began to loose their voices.

I turned my head to look at them. One of them, the voice, was a tall woman in slim jean and jacket, with dark eye shadow and thin lips, with rock and roll look, the other was a plump woman older than her, a large smile on her face.

I liked Myriam's story. She must be a great woman to meet.

Beijing . September 2015

# Mother's day in LA

They're friends for a long time now. They used to work together. Then, diner after diner, discussions after battles and laughters, they became close friends.Their differences make their relationship very strong. When they happen to see each other, they connect in seconds.

\- "Hello, how are you ?" says the voice in the screen showing a man in his midlife, good looking.

-" I try to get used to Skype to communicate, not an easy thing for me, as I prefer to see people, but helpful for the boys now students in Canada. And you, how are you, it's May, I arrive in October. Let's plan the week-end when I come and see you."

She answers and wave at the screen while showing what's around her.

\- " You seem to be in China".

She confirms, they're in a beautiful place near the Summer Palace. The hôtel has a secret key to enter the park, and enjoy the calm at the sunset, after the crowd has left, groups of Chinese retired people with a loudly microphone, young couples doing selfies with a mechanic arm to have the smartphone far from their face. She explains she didn't like the fact that in the swimming pool two men were taking picture and walking around the pool with their shoes, huge amercan shoes, under which you can have mud.

-" Hey, you're in China, remember, last time we came, someone spit on my jacket, it was disgusting. You have time for the first time of you life, you must be Zen !" He laughed and open his arms like welcoming her in his arms to rest.

\- "Honestly that's a good start for a long trip, as you can see, there is a tree leaning on the water, carps looking for food, and in front of me a temple with an autel, and what we call in French "nénuphars", you know like in the nympheas by Monet. Tell me how things are going in LA, new friends new life, isn't it ?"

She stopped moving and was carefully listening to him, on the screen ; he had a big cup of coffee, and she was drinking tea, they were like sharing a moment even if it was more than twelve hours of difference in their timing.

\- "You know, my job is difficult, and Jack my CEO is an asshole, changing his mind twice a week on goals and strategies. But when I come home, the girls seem so happy, with the house and swimming pool, so I forget everything else. They adapt very quickly, their new nany is great."

She knocked her head, like acknowledging he was a good dad. They had long discussions when he decided, although being gay and single, to adopt a child, then finally to have one with one mother for the fecondation, one to be pregnant, thus legally being the only parent.

\- "And love in your life ?" She asked raising her eyebrows.

-"Mmm... Nothing stable. I see guys. They come and disappear." Suddenly his blue eyes were darker and he looked older, as tired of his life.

\- "How comes ?"

\- "The good news is that compared to San Francisco, guys are good looking. No Asian, even if I'm not racist, I think they have a special smell, and I couldn't have sex with one of them. No veteran of the gay pride, forgetting he needs to do sport and taint his hair if he still wants to be appealing. In LA, they're just handsome. It's exciting."

He had a smile, and took his smartphone to show to her a picture.

\- "Look at him, isn't he gorgous ?"

She acknowledged looking at a body with muscles, and a tiny head, around twenty years old.

\- "So what's wrong ?" she asked, feeling he was not happy compared to last time she talked to him when he was about to move in the beautiful house in LA.

\- "I've got issues. Last story I had, I had to interrupt the relationship. I've heard by friends that my boyfriend, a limousine driver wanting to be an actor, I know, like plenty of them in this crazy city, I've heard that he was taking drugs. I didn't believe them, when one week, suddenly he disappeared, not answering my messages and textos."

He took some coffee in his cup and she interrupted, considering the guy was dead, because for her LA was crimes and police investigations.

\- "Was he dead ?"

\- "No, no," he laughed. "I finally understood he was having fun in a special party where people drink, take cocaine and heroin, and have sex during a few days."

She showed on her face she was not approving the kind of lifestyle, thinking that it was not ideal for the girls, now five years old.

\- "How the girls are doing?"

He put his hand in his hair, sign of being ill at ease.

\- "They're doing great. This school cost me a lot, but it's worth it. Clara saw a guy in my bed in the morning..."

\- "Naked ?" the tone was a little judgmental as a friend could be.

\- "Nop. I take care of that. But still she asked me when I interrupted the relationship, why we didn't see anylonger the cute dog.

\- This one had a dog ?

\- Yes," he whispered, "a guy in charge of the security of a building at night. That's why I only saw him when he had his free day per week."

Suddenly the screen went black and she had to connect it again. She had forgotten to recharge the battery of her computer, so she had to come back to her room to plug it. After three minutes, the little sound of the app showed them they were again connected.

\- "Hie again !" she said.

\- "Nice to see you again, I hate not to conclude a discussion." He looked at her and said. " Can I ask you an advice ?"

\- Sure.

\- What do you think I should say about my sexual life, not mentioning my sentimental one that doesn't exist. I mean to my girls."

She stayed mute.

\- "What did you say to them about their mothers ?

\- Everything.

\- Ok, then, you could tell them they can see guys around but daddy will tell them when it's someone for good, that is important for you, as their grand parents for instance. And that else nothing matters."

He stayed mute and then asserted.

\- "I did it wrong. I missed the mother's day at school, and all the other children had their mother at school, except my girls. I should have come, but I was not feeling good about being here.

\- Hey, don't worry, that your first mother's day in LA. You'll have other ones, and you still have time to manage and explain. Just be careful that they undertand that if daddy is daddy and is happy, it's also that he meets people he likes and spend a good time with them.

\- Aouch, I'm just thinking we are so different. "

She laughs and says : "Yes we are. I don't know why I did decide to do this Asian trip. I'm so fed up in the flights to smell the disgusting fragrance of "ail" like some guys never wash their mouth, wish me good luck, I've got a four hours flights to go to Lhasa.

\- Waow, Tibet must be amazing, what's good is that you continue to learn and discover.You're not that old after all, hahaha ! You know what, perhaps you'll be wiser, and perhaps...I will continue to ask you for some advice. And please, on your side, ask me anything you want. Have a good evening my friend. See you in November. Call me before."

She waves, and the screens are grey again on her side, and another Skype screen pops up in LA. A naked guy on his bed with a panther cover, and asking if he's alone tonight.

Beijing Tibet . September 2015

# The Chinese guide

I'm twenty two years old. I speak english, therefore I choose a job after university to make sure I would earn a lot of money. I was born in Shanghai, raised by my parents that adore me. My first cell phone, I had it at fourteen. I chose my company, a travel agency, specialised in Tibet. Why ? I liked the guy, and I guess as I'm in love with Shan, it enables me to go outside my own city, still not far away for where I live. I manage to work six months and then to have big breaks. As Shan loves like me to go out, dance and listen to electro music, there is a big contrast in my life in Lhasa and in Shanghai. The Chinese groups from Shanghai are nice with me, I've got great tips, they love my energy.

If I had to describe Lhasa ? Dirty. The pilgrims smell, their clothes are washed by hands with soaps. Meat is sold in tiny boutiques on the counter, not even protected from the pollution of the street. I just admire the link between mothers and daughters. You see often a woman having the hand of her old peasant mother in her hand, like protecting her, as she 's growing old. I could never do that with my mother, and I never touch her, and when she gives a kiss for my birthday, she put her cheek near mine, and like bump into me, it's a little brutal, but that's what I've experienced since I'm a child. The grand mothers have sometime a baby on their stomach, wraped in a traditionnal fabric. People look wise. Men don't taint their hair as our own President and his ministers, women a graceful. Still, I would like to have their skin, their too dark, but some are beautiful when they are young, then they don't know the rules to have an umbrella under the sun or can't afford to purchase expensive whitening products, so when their in their forties, they don't look as feminine as they should, it's a beauty that fades away very quickly.

Do I believe in Boudhism ? No. I believe in the present, exciting and full of hope for my future. My life will be better and better, and then in a long time, I'll disappear. It doesn't scare me. It's like when you drink a lot and you don't remember when you wake up of what happened. It's like vanishing. Look, honestly to look at the monks with their iphones is a little disturbing, aren't they suppose not to have any belongings. I've heard some of them have big car and huge flats.

I wonder if the fifteenth Dalai Lama will be from China or from outside. I asked how many years lived each of them, as their holy men. Guess what, some of them didn't live more than nine or eleven years. So if there's something special about them, illness and diseases make their life as short as the common human being.

When I come to Lhasa, I eat at Dunya. It's a place owned by Dutch people, and I can eat pizzas, spaghettis, or Indian food with lassie. I hate Tibetan food, especially yak meat, it's disgusting. Momos, you need to choose them in a place where they're not greasy. What do I do when I'm in Lhasa ? I look at movies on my ipad, that I downloaded in Shanghai. Last night I watched a story of a woman that lost her husband, and he still sends to her some letters to say I love you, and make her have a new life. I liked it, I even cried.

I mean it, this city is dirty. It's not only the smell in the streets. My hôtel for instance is a headache. They never change my soap or my towels, I have to shout at the house cleaner in order to make it happen. The other day I found a dirty stains on the towels, and also a dead insect in the bathroom. The water comes when she wants to, and I hate to be there to be honest, as even the wifi is just acceptable, I feel disconnected. I've got the feeling Shan could have another story with another cute girl, and I would never know. And during the night I'm awaken,there's the tiny dog of the door keeper barking untill midnight, then the noise of the grid the close, and again in the morning at six, again the tiny dog upset to be there again. And during the day, you hear the music and a radio with a strong male voice speaking Tibetan. That's a nightmare, believe me.

The other day on the Mandala terrace, I was with another guide that I like, he's funny. I've heared two old Canadian men with grey beards talking to each others. The first one was saying that most of the Tibetan who fled outside Tibet left in the nineties, I just thought I was not even born. Then he asserted that it's very difficult for Tibetan to have a passport, and they can just travel in China, but not outside China. I realize I don't know any Tibetan. They don't speak Chinese nor English, so, I can just read their smile, but they don't smile at Chinese, especially Chinese guide. They think we speak to loudly and groups are a mess for the safety of the Potala. Now, guess what, we can only stay one hour in the Palace, like they're scare that the groups hurt the three meters wall...This two men were drinking a bottle of red wine. I wonder if they're married, divorced, widow or what. Surely teachers as they knew a lot of things, even I don't know after my training.

The fourteenth Dalai Lama was only supported by Neru in India when we invaded Tibet in the late fifties. I know that. I even know that the radio offered by Neru in the Summer Palace was a wonderful present to the Dalai Lama, as loving with an engineer mind, to make it in small pieces, and then to make it work again. Although you must know that Tibet is part of China's culture and empire.

One day, I'll be rich, I wonder if I'll get married with Shan. I dream of doing a selfie in front of the Potala, he in a black tie and white shirt, me in a beautiful white silk dress. I saw a couple the other day, they were having fun, taking plenty of pictures.

My phone is ringing, it's my prefered friend. I'll answer later, I love her. She's adorable, long hair, a fringe, little "tresses" with colorful fabrics, cute branded clothes, and nice little shoes. She's bright too. Here people look like nothing : waterproof material to go in the mountains for Germans, traditional uniforms for the pilgrims,... No look, no style. Especially the guides. But I'm different, I'll be succesfull.

I met a model the other day with a photographer, they were taking pictures of her in front of the colorful fabrics near the Jogkang palace.

It was funny, I sent the picture to Shan. I sent also the video with young monks clappings their hands when they debate and one of them says something philosophical. They look like playing, wrapped in their red outfit. Clap Clap ! Small or big, ice or water, let's think ! They look like having fun and not to be studying here for fiftteen years of their life. Anyway, I like the energy they embody. How do you look at thirty five ? You must feel and look so old to begin a normal life. I wonder why they do that. The meaning of life. Compassion. Helping other people or at least not to harm them. The meaning of life, you ask me ? Love. I love Shan. I'm so happy we have now our own rent studio. Sometimes I'm disgusted by my groups, the guy splitting in the street and doing noise with their nose, my father was liked that. He died when I was younger, I don't remember having seeing him at the end. He was autocratic and a bad sick man, as angry after anyone and anything. I avoided him when I left home. I like my groups on the road that climbs at five thousands meters. They're afraid of the road, so when we stop, they're like children, taking pictures of them on a yak, taking some of them near the big fat dogs, taking so many pictures of the lake that I ask myself if someone looks at them after the trip. The other day we were stuck on that road during one hour. It was lunch break for the people improving it. I hated that yellow bus that took our place, the smarter the faster. That same day, I was pursued by a very old and tiny tibetan lady. I came to the toilets that were awful between us, if she was asking money for taking care of them, I wonder what she did.

I was disgusted by her touching me, as I had no money, she took the hand of my pull-over untill we arrived both of us to the bus. Fortunately the driver had money and I got rid of her. I hate people growing old, it won't happen to me, I don't how but I'm pretty sure of that.

Disgust. That's strange, the two old Canadian, that I thought were educated and open minded asserted in their discussions to be disgusted by people splitting in the street, but also people making noise with their mouth while eating. My mother does noise with her mouth. Shan eats with an open mouth. I do love him and I don't think at all that it's disgusting.

Last time I was disgusted ? I hate secretions. I love Shan but I don't like when I have his sperm on me, I have to rush to the bathrooms. I never mentioned that to anyone, that would be embarrassing. I love him, he's got a beautiful body and a sex that is longer and bigger than the other boyfriends I had, I always say to him that he's the winner, and he likes that.

in Lhasa, in the morning, military people demonstrate with their weapons. It looks odd in a pilgrims city.

I wonder why they are so many of them in the city, like a terrorist attack or a rebellion could happen. I've heard the Canadian old men mentioning they saw people from the Swat, they had the feeling to go to the temple as they would take a plane, with plenty of controls and X rays. On the other roof, in front of the Mandala restaurant and the terrace, there are three young guys looking at the square. They look like spys or secret agents.

I'm watching you. If someone read me, I would be in prison. I'm pretty sure of that, like the blogger that wrote about corruption, and suddenly was accused to have gaming parties in her flat, and took ten years in prison.

What the fuck would say Shan. Don't interfere with politics.

No politics, no religion, then I can do what I want to, and become rich. One day, I tell you, I'll have my own travel agency, and plenty of young guides that I will pay fairly, but motivating them to be a future me, first and foremost.

I'm saving money for the moment, to do a huge trip in France, Paris and Nice, French Riviera, and Switzerland for the mountains, and if still money London because a friend of me came here and said a lot of clothes to purchase.

Look at this child, he's so cute ! I always think the mother will let them down with this fabric to hold him.

I won't have children. It's too costly. And you loose your freedom, you can't be spontaneous. Shan never mentioned wanting a baby. That's good news for me. Also it's disgusting, I saw a documentary with a dog giving birth, it's very dirty, speaking of secretions and blood, I couldn't even look at it untill the end.

I'll be successfull, beloved and in love. That's a good life. Believe me.

I would love Chinese noodles for the diner tonight. I will take a Budweiser, I'm fed up with Lhasa beer. I miss home.

Lhasa, Tibet

# The non expected baby

First voice , Luciana

I live in New York. It's been six years now. I'm the Chief marketing officer of a worlwide cosmetic brand. I love make up. The other thing I love is shoes.

I love to go out for dancing or just going to a new restaurant, they change a lot in my district.

I'm a mother. That's new to me, and I have to get accustomed to it. I'm not a fan of babies, even if it's mine. I've got great babysitters and nany, and try as much as I can to keep my life. My mother is Italian, she loves babies, she came to look after us during two weeks after he was born. His name is Pierre, like Pedro, but I didn't want his name to look Mexican. I like his tiny little hands and foots, I could kiss them all day. I'm proud that he's a boy. I don't know why I didn't want a girl, I know by experience they're tough with their mother when they're a teen ager, and there's anger in the relationship, no matter the characters.

His father lives in Miami, before it was not easier as he was living in Seattle. I took so many week-ends in this rainy city in the last three years. We had nothing to do except to discover each others bodies on the king size bed, looking at the rain on the windows in the beautiful flat in a skyscraper. He works for a big cosmetic company, we met in meetings a few years ago in Paris.

At that time, I was with another French guy, called Bruno. Bruno became a pain in the hass when he understood once we had move in NY that I was seeing Pierre's father.

He's an artistic director, famous in the last ten years for disc covers. He's talented. Now he's suing me for having money, as I deliberately alter his career in Paris deciding the move to the US, while having an affair with another man. We only discuss now by our lawyers, like in a bad serie on tv.

I wonder what will be my life in ten years, mine is so different from ten years ago, like I'm the same, but my environment and my friends have changed except a few ones, that stayed loyal to me in the turmoil.

in Paris, we were near Montmartre, with a lot of bistrots around and trendy restaurants. I loved our bedroom with Bruno : a bed, then a wall of shoes, box with polaroid pictures to find the right one. I don't remember the name of the Indonesian President 's wife that had thousands of shoes, which was a scandal. I'm not far from five hundreds pairs, and I still love shoes.

I don't understand why when someone doesn't love anylonger another person, this person becomes mad at her or at him. That doesn't make sens.

The worst part was the hacking of my facebook account. He's the past, we're moving forward. If I had to rewind, erase, or change something, I wouldn't, although I lied to him, I knew he wasn't ready and he could have nearly killed me.

Second voice , Françoise, Luciana's friend

I wonder how you can have a baby, working hours that finish at ten, not even mentioning the travels. My friend is crasy, I know that from the begining. Last time I saw her, she was obsessed by having a massage, and the hour they proposed to her was not convenient, so she argued during hours. I was drinking my apple and carott juice, she was having a gin tonic. And playing with my straw, I was asking myself if I should better leave the table and let her with her narcissic story and obsessions, or stay her, accept her as she was, as a friend should do.

I'm not a very patient woman, I must acknowledge. We were single a few years ago, I had my love story with a guy, but we were living as teen agers having money : parties, spontaneous ideas to go out, short term vacations plans and mostly in the most expensive hôtels worlwide, the Chedid in Oman, the one I forgot its name in Dubai...We had orgiastic self tanning.

I don't like Luciana's new boyfriend and father of her child.

I don't know. He had already three children, married early, living in Versailles. You don't change deeply. According to me, this man is a coward and superficial. He loves Luciana's energy, perhaps he misunderstands that feeling and believes it's love. I don't think they'll be together in ten years. She'll have a third story for sure. Luciana is like that, she's got something to prove to her family, poor people from Naples in Italy. They're impressed, the grand mother says to anyone she meets in her district that her grand daughter lives in the big city, NY.

Bruno was a nice guy. Loving concert, stylish. A personality. He became mad at us when he surprised one day Pierre's father luggage at home in NY, coming earlier than scheduled. And two cups of coffee, one with Luciana's red lipstick, the other one with a cigarett in the cup.

He thought we betrayed him as covering Luciana when she met him, which was partly true, even if I hated to do it. He posted one message on facebook on Luciana's account, insulting us, and asking us to choose which of them was their friend. It was so nasty. He kept sending messages during hours until Luciana finally change her code, but the evil was done.

I'm asking myself if I could have behaved differently. Especially when I see Luciana obsessed by her success, her next launch of eyeshadows or color story. Full of herself.

I've changed. Now that I'm a mother of two, I'm calm. I speak less than before. I stil laugh but I'm more serious. I feel happier. That's nice to get brown near a chic swimming pool and to drink cocktails, but at the end, does it matter, what do you build or share with others.

It's like a bubble. For me, Luciana is still in her bubble. And his boyfriend follows her, as a butterfly caught by a bright light in the night.

Third voice , Bruno

I'm an artist. My life is at night. I love music and I play electric guitar. Most of my friends are like me. I miss Luciana. It hurt me so much when I discovered the truth that I wanted to buy a gun and kill both of them. In the NY state, it's easy to purchase a weapon. Or a knife to feel their life coming out of their bodies. However, the man that betrayed me is tall and sportiv, he was rawing, for sure a bourgeois sport for rich families.

I drank so much when she left me after I discovered her betrayal. Vodka, at the begining with ice. Then no ice. Then I didn't want to go out, gin, pure, without ice. And then as nothing was left, Martini and Campari. That sucked ! I was nauseous then sick for three days.

I don't know why she loves him. He's so conventional. So much the contrary of what I am. From time to time I wonder if she didn't choose him to drive me crasy. Or to reinsure herself on her status in the society. She must think : I'm beautiful, I work in a big company, I've got an international career, and I've got a tall guy looking good in suit... and a mess with his pullover on the shoulder and his shirt in his jeans in week-ends. He looks like nothing.

I spent so many hours shopping with Luciana, that I can't even see him waiting for her with his sleepy dog look.

I remember when we decorated our flat with Luciana. As we were begining our career, I was earning more than her at that time, we chose, I must say to avoid the terrible standard Ikea, to have furniture and lamps from Maroc. Our walls were with bright color, yellow and blue, and the old and heavy furniture inspired many diners with coucous and pastilla. It was easy for us, as neither of us was cooking.

I know everything about her. She's got "un grain de beauté" on her butt on the right side. She drinks soja milk in the morning. She changes her regime every two years even if she's thin as Italian women can be, but I believe she's afraid to look as our mother in thirty years : Duncan, meat and proteins, then detoxifying, then without gluten, I don't know the one she's experiencing at the moment. I know her prefered music player : Beyonce. Her prefered movie : Roméo et Juliette, with Leonardo Di Caprio when he was young and looking androgyn. Her prefered book : none, or how to be a Parisian, she doesn't read.

I saw a psy to overcome the situation after the crisis. He was the one to advise me to have a journal, where I would write my feeling of the day, instead of writing messages on social networks to any friend we had in common.

The crasyness has become a thirst of revenge. I will become her worst nightmare. I will make sure it cost them a lot of money, they've got so much that it's more to being a burden in their life, something they should think about, call a lawyer, check their revenues, loose a part of their freedom, because one never knows in an American state.

I should come back to France, I wait untill the end of the suing. Then I will see. Music is not what it was. People now do streaming and don't even look at a cover. They share their playlist. I prefered the period before, with big stars, crasy ideas, doing concerts but also selling millions of discs. I prefered my life before.

Some friends say to me to move forward. Like I would be a widow sad about his lost. I'm not sad. I'm mad at the situation forever.

If you read my journal, it's full of violence and insult. I can't help. It's not fair. Life is not fair.

Fourth voice , Pierre's father

I live in Miami. I like it like that. The sun, the beautiful girls in each restaurant or bar. My friends. I've always had fun with them, sharing a beer, speaking about our jobs, our latest car, and our latest love. I can't believe I'm a father again. It's like a rebirth, I feel younger. My elder son is nearly six teen, and I've got a baby.

I don't see my daughter and son very often. They took my wife's side when we separated. I lied, I said I was getting bored, whereas I was already seeing Luciana. She spent hours in my office. My General Manager even mentioned to me reminding me no sex at the office. I looked like surprised and upset about his assertivness. He even apologized to me and we took a drink to forget the incident.

I lied to so many people during so many years, from time to time I wake up thinking to hide the truth, before reminding myself I'm now officially with Luciana, and we even have a cute baby, a unexpected baby.

She always said to me she would never have a baby. At the begining she argued the situation in the world full of uncertainties, then she said her life was comfortable and she felt free, she didn't wanted a burden for twenty years. Then she said it woul harm her body, and she like her body as it was, young and fit, with a beautiful braist, thin and souple, as any latin dance fan.

So I was suprised when she said she forgot her pills during one of our trips and she was pregrant. I just said : that's wonderful, because I didn't know what to say. She jumped in my arms and she said : so we keep it, I'm so happy to have a baby from you. I would never have had a baby from anyone else.

I was flattered, I kiss her on her mouth and we made love on the carpet, I didn't even have time to take off my clothes.

Luciana is passionated, I like that.

I like my life and my girlfriend. People think our life is crasy, one in NY, one in Miami, but we're a modern couple, we manage and at the same time we like to be independant. I love to spend one day on our bed making love, drinking diet coke for her with ice, Corona for me, then looking at a good serie. For sure with the baby, we'll have to accomodate, even with the two nanies and the baby sitter. It's a boy. He will play saucer, I will teach him how to be the new Ronaldo. And he will be a big brain too with our genes.

So many people have dull life. I can't breathe except with my friends sharing a beer looking at saucer, and I like that. I think people would define me as a cool guy. I like the idea.

I would like nobody's life but mine.

Fifth voice, Vincent, Luciana's friend

I can't believe she has a baby. She's so much in fashion and beauty. Obsessed by what is the future trend : is it ultra shiny lips with gloss and sparkle in it, or neutral mat lipstick ? is it big eyes with thick mascara or curling one ? is it a nude complexion or sophisticated one with a touch of blush ? You don't even understand the questions, meaning you're normal. Welcome in the world of cosmetics. Shootings in the week-ends with super stars that are frightened to take the plane and are so stressed that you must postpone the make-up and the hair stylist. A headache believe me. If you're in charge of communications, you must be ready to do pretty anything. The other day I had to book additionnal body guards for the jewels of an égérie, at the same as for Luciana that was hosting the party. We were having three hundred people in a famous art museum that we closed for the event.

I love my job. It's been a long time now that I know Luciana. She loves her job too. People not knowing us could think that we're narcissic, maniac, hostile to our managed team as we want perfection, and never cool, always tense and thinking "what's next". That's us. Be indulgent with us : we're the ones to deal with weak Ceo and General Manager, never daring, hesitating in one shoot which is the one to retouch even if we know with the photographer, we're the ones to deal with nasty people that surround the super stars, their agents, their lawyer, and stupid people in our adverstising agencies that we've got the feeling to pay for nothing.

Did you know Luciana has more than three hundred pair of shoes ? Beautiful shoes, Louboutin, Prada, Saint Laurent, Jimmy Choe,... All of them. Shoes for the morning, shoes for after work, shoes for parties. Strass, metal, leather, black, red, blue, crème, golden, with panthere fabrics, in python...At home, when she lived in Paris with her first crasy boy friend (the one that insulted me on Facebook and I refuse to talk), their flat look like Ali Baba crave, or the idea I've got of it.

She's got long hair, a golden complexion. She's my friend but I would't say she's beautiful. But when she enters a room the temperature is warmer. She's sexy and full of energy. She's got the drive.

That's why this poor little baby has no place in our life, as her transparent want to be her husband, Mister Miami Beach, born in Versailles.

You know what, I've got good news to share. With Marc, we'll get married this summer. It's two years we live together. And we're pretty much in love. So what do you say ? Congratulations ! Thank you ! I'm so happy.

Tibet Lhasa September 2015

# The betrayal

She would die, that's what she said.

Her mother looked at her with a neutral glaze.

\- "Mummy, how could he do that ? That's so weird, so nasty. It's terrible. I feel like being nobody, a carpet, someone he has erased of his life, just like that."

The girl yelling and crying was a pretty seven teen years old person, with big eyes like a cat, that were for the moment showing anger and despair, a perfect oval of her face that could make her look Japanese, and a transparent white nacrée skin.

The mother, angulus face and thin body, one that could have experienced grief several times in our fifty years old life, took her in her arms, surprised by the violence of the gestures of her daughter, litteraly throwing on the table the Mac, where one could see the page was opened on her Facebook profile, and the timeline.

She briefly looked above the shoulders of her child (because for her it was forever the little creature that came to live a few years ago) : the picture showed a good looking boy, same age as Camille, kissing a girl on the mouth, a blond one with long hair. She mentally noticed that even if the girl was pretty looking, she was a beauty contrast with Camille, brown hair, dark eyebrows, and full lips.

\- "It's his new status. Can you believe it ?" shouted Camille.

\- "Hey, calm down, making yourself desperate won't change the situation. I must acknowledged that leaving you is something, posting about his new relationship one day after is another" whispered her mother in her hears. "Calm down."

They sat on the sofa, Camille in the mother's arms.

The mother was happy. It was not every day she had a contact with her daughter, a physical one, and she missed the hugs and kisses when she was young.

They had so many disputes about that guy, Alexandre was his name. Alexandre was raised in Paris in a famous Lycée, was full of himself, and the first crisis occurs when his parents asked to meet her. She asserted to Camille, they were too young to have this kind of meetings, and it wasn't her future parents in law, at that moment she would make the effort, but not before. Camille screamed, arguing it was destroying her life, as in love, and as important for him, then for her.

After three diners postponed and cancelled, she sighted and accepted the diner. It was a disaster. The parents were "convenus " and bourgeois, their flat was awfully decorated, and the food was the traditional "agneau haricots verts, vous aimez n'est ce pas ?" She could even guess their questions and answers before they expressed them. She tried her best to look like a normal mother, as her daughter semt to expect to. She vaguely answered about her activity, saying she was in the press media. As they had a lot to share, it was enough. Camille must have brief her boyfriend not to ask any question about the father, dead five years ago and they didn't.

When they came back in the car, Camille was happy, and said I'm sure they appreciated you, you were perfect. If you mean it, that's what matters to me, answered the mother.

At the same period, Camille that should think of her future after the Baccalauréat, wanted to learn acting in a famous school in New York. Her mother tried to explain to her that the selection was so strict that, even if she was talented and ambitious, try to have a back up plan. Camille cried and slapped her door, saying Alexandre was believing in her talent and encouraging her to do what she wanted to.

The mother remembered deciding that evening that she would leave Paris, make sure Camille had her studio above her sister's flat in the six district rue du Dragon, near the Seine. She needed to have her life again, now that Camille was about to be eighteen, and able to be independant.

During the five years, she had grief. A deep despair. Life without the man she loved, brutally dispearing after a second heart stroke. Camille shouted at her when she saw her crying all days, sleeping on the couch to avoid their bed and memories, not even making the effort to wash her face and to change clothes, not to mention taking care of the food and the house. She declared : "Mother, I'm your child. I'm very sad too. But I need you. I love you. Crying won't make him come back. He's dead. We can only remember the true beautiful moments we had with him. You must first take care of yourself and take care of me. I need you. From now on, I don't ask you to be happy. That impossible, but I ask you to make the effort to offer us a decent life. Step after step. Then we'll see."

She thought her daughter was mature for a ten year old girl. She was proud of her. And she followed the guidelines. Have a decent life.

She woke up in the morning, doing coffee and fresh squeezed orange juice, then she can to see the bank and the expert in accountancy, because her husband left a big fortune but also magazines to deal with, people to manage. At the begining, she didn't know the difference between activ and passiv, assets, and liabilities. As she didn't want them to see it, she remained silent and took notes with a neutral face.

It semt to work. She sold three magazines in the third three years, specalised ones in sports and hunting, another one on horses bets. She decided to expand the trendiest one, with licenses in all continents : Moscou , Rio, Shanghai, Tokyo.

It worked well. She had a judge to report to on how she dealt with the family's fortune, in order to proctect Camille interests untill she was an adult.

She managed her decent life.

Struggle with the fashion editor that was as nasty as in the movie " The Devil wears Prada", selfish, stupid, proud of herself and believing that her pictures and texts were changing the world everymonth for the best. A planet of super stars, drug addicted designers, it was the period of John Galliano's desperate insults, she never judged him by the way.

Then, discussion with the bank or with agents, an super editor. She remembered one day in Moscow with a black editor of a New York's magazines, wrapped in a fur, with a golden watch and a hat. Exhuberant and joyful. They had a nice dinner with vodka and caviar. It was when everything went well for Russia, before the collapse in price of oil petroleum and gaz.

Or trip to China, to deal with ten men, all in suits, while she was wearing the same white shirt as in the plane and a black slim jean and her leather Hedi Slimane's santiags. They looked surprised, not believing at the begining she was the owner and the one to negotiate. As she had the smart idea to take with her Camille's young baby sitter, she was good at negotiating, as she added to her in French the feeling she had about the business men, and what they said behing her back, underestimating a young girl could be smart.

It was the fastest growth period for China, luxury goods were appealing to the new middle class but also the civil servant, it was before the anti corruption law, and people were drinking champagne, purchasing purse and bags from famous brands, have costly watches, and women wanted to try the latest cosmetics and fashion collections.

She did well. Then she began to think to live in Hong Kong or in Shanghai, as the got along very well with her business partners and met plenty of intellectual and artists coming from Beijing. She tested the idea with Camille. At the begining, she gave an enthusiastic "yes". It last one week, and then she came back with the idea of being taught to be an actress, and in NY, because the dream of any starter.

That semt to the mother a long time ago. The year after, the sold the reference fashion magazine, and feel so free. It was like a rebirth.

She improved her decent life, not only by listening music all nights when she couldn't sleep, but inviting long time friends, entrepreneurs, politicians, artist from all over the world, especially the spanish langage ones, because she never forgot that how she met her beloved husband : listening traditional spanish songs. They had the "coup de foudre", and never left each others more than a day after they first met.

She had now put all her luggages, and books in boxes, and would leave for Firrenze, the time to see what she wanted to do now.

Camille was still in her arms. And her hand was in her long hair, smoothing them as the softness and calm could enter in her brain and in her heart.

The Child. That's how they called her with her husband. She was the one, perfect from the first second, passionated, taking her place in the world.

At that moment the door bell rang.

She jumped downstairs wondering who could arrive at nine thirty in the evening, and trying to remember if she had some guest she had forgotten that would be at the door with a bottle of prosecco.

It was her father. She looked tense and relieved. So he asked : "What's the matter ? I was thinking it was a long time I didn't see my daughter and my grand daughter, and God knows how many days I've got to live. Could we share olives and a good whisky for me ?"

She smiled and whisper in his ear that Camille was not doing well. As he couldn't hear she had to repeat and nearly to shout.

Then Camille saids from upstairs : "I hear you, don't even think mummy to share what I said to you with Dad."

Even when her husband was alive, Camille called her grand father Dad, which means a lot for him, and didn't disturb one minute the man of the family.

\- "What, there is a secret, and I'm not part of the story ?" gracefully the grand father didn't mention the wet cheeks and red eyes of her grand daughter. "I wonder if it's link to your mother's new passion for Tuscany. I prefer that to Kabul to be honest".

He was subtely alluding to a sentimental affair she mentioned to him with a teacher of art, asserting she was not in love, and also a crasy project (for the others at least) she had to go to the named city for a charity (that finally refused her as a candidate because the only parent of Camille that was not above twenty one years).

The grand father was in the comfortable sofa, both feet on the white carpet, tasting the old whisky in his glass, visibly with pleasure. The mother was standing up, smoking on the balcon, looking at Paris'roofs, a little nostalgic of leaving the city and upset by the sadness of her child. Camille lying on the other sofa.

Suddenly she sat, looked at her grand father straight ahead, and told him the whole story with the boyfriend and his behavior.

\- "So, what do you think Dad ?"

He remained silent and looked at his whisky at the gold liquid would know the truth. It was a family not afraid of silence, as people have experienced intense emotions and feelings.

He just said looking at the seventeenth year old girl, tense in the expectations of what he would say as the man of the family now : "You know what Camille... That shows that this man doesn't desserve you. You're a beautiful and bright young woman, you're worth is the one of a diamond, or better...the color of the sky, the highest mountain. No gentleman would behave as he did. I request you to forget this male as soon as you can, and I will make sure we help you. Life goes on, you will meet wonderful people, and one day, you'll know that it's the right man. Trust yourself. Betrayal doesn't need revenge. Betrayal needs to have the power to forget and move forward. I count on you, forget this one. I'm happy for you he behaved like that, because life is not white and blackn and from time to time, it's tought to make decisions. Here, it's black. I understand your sadness and disappointment. You'll have a great life, I'm sure of that."

There was a silence.

The grand father made a strange noice with his nose, like angry at him and at life.

Whispering, he said : "Bastard, I would kill you". Camille had jumped from the sofa,if not happy, at least she looked relieved, and came in the kitchen to take a glass of water. The mother had a little smile, and took another cigaret. She liked the idea of having a patriarch, a man of the family, embodying values and principles, a role model for two generations. Sometimes stric and autocratic, but at this moment, saying to her daughter what she needed to hear with a lot of empathy.

The grand father finished his glass and said : "Hey my girls, it's late for an old man, I must go home. Aouch. My stiff joints hurt...I feel clear in my mind, wiser than when I was young when I was a fool, unfortunately the mechanic doesn't follow." Looking at his feet in their spotless shiny shoes as old companions that new what he was talking about, he said " See you soon !" with all the energy of an healthy man in his eighties.

He took his hat and watched the stairs carefully while leaving the appartment and slowly closing the door.

Tibet. Shigatse. September 2015

# On the top of the world

I share my wife with my brother.

He thought it and suddenly had to share the idea even if shocking for Western people.

The place is full of people, mostly men, playing Ma jong and drinking beers, Lhasa bottles and Budweiser, ordered by number of twelve or more, cover the tables. It's seven in the evening.

The city is far from the hectic pace in Lhasa. Close to the Samye Monastery, one of the oldest in Tibet, a large main street, deserted after nine pm. A big restaurant for the few rich Chinese people they carefully avoided. On certain days, girls wearing a lot of make up and having high heels whatever the bad pavements to go to dance with boys waiting for them on little motorbikes with the same shaved neck. The market is everyday, most families have no fridge and like to have fresh food. People behave as knowing they're lucky to live here and have a fullfilling life with their family and friends, although many would consider it a tough life in difficult conditions.

They entered in the little restaurant a few minutes ago, pushing the white heavy curtain protecting from the dust and the bugs, grey of dirtyness by hands of people. He had noticed the woman of the couple didn't touch it, waiting that her husband helped her to enter.

For what he knew of the city by relatives and friends and on social media, it's the best food of the town, he has ordered dumpings, yack momos, fried vegetables and a spicy soup with lamb.

In front of him, a European couple in their forties, slim and fit, although with wrinkles and fine lines on the forehead as people that let stress of what's next and lack of sleep invade they daily life, even if their wealthy, and try to reconnect with themselves with far away trips.

It's difficult to guess his age, he could be in his forties or fifties. He's skinny and wearing a vivid blue jacket, appropriate for trekking. His face is carved to the bone, and has a few deep wrinkles, some of sorrows or anxiety.

They're sitted around the table in a square, as other tables.The conversation seems to be about him.

\- "It's the tradition in our village. Some villages give the rule to share the husband, in my village it's the wife." He takes a sip of beer, and scratch his knees nervously. "So I share my wife with my brother."

He stared at them. The man absorbes the information quicker than his wife and just says : "Amazing." The woman just knocks her head to encourage him to say more.

"My parents decided for me a long time ago with my grand parents who would be my wife, coming from another far away village. I never saw her before our planed wedding. I was so stree that day, having the feeling to have a lot at stake. Sometimes you're lucky, sometimes you're not in this kind of wedding. If you don't get along, you can divorce. Now in the cities, young Tibetans choose their wife or husband. But I belong to the generation before. I have a lot of respect for my parents.

I'm the elder of the sons, so I have to take care of the farm. We've got a lot of land. Being a farmer is exhausting, to take care of the animals, to repeat chores day after day, from sunrise to sunset. I have two children, a girl and a boy. I share my wife with my younger brother, he's still a farmer. He's five years younger than me and they got married two years after. I say I've got two children but he's got two children, they're like my children, they call me uncle. After my parents passed away, I felt the situation was not acceptable, it semt weird to me, even if my village and my family count. I was not happy with my life. The house semt empty to me, and at the same time my young brother was very tense, jealous about me and my wife. That's why I began not having any sexual intercourses with her, and as it was not enough, I decided to leave home to have the life I wanted and to come back to see the children on a regular basis."

The man listening to him adds. "That's when you decided to learn english and to follow sherpas in Himalaya."

The Tibetan continues. "Yes. They were enough nice to accept me in the community, first to help them to carry the luggages. It's heavy, twenty five kilos at five thousand meters of altitude, you feel it. The higher I climbed was seven thousands meters. I was taught basic english vocabulary. Then they sent to me english dictionnaries when I came back to my home."

The host of the place - her husband is playing Ma jong with three other men with a lot of laughters and claps in the hands - comes to check if everything is OK.

The woman at the table congratulates her for her yak meat momos, this wonderful fried food, and for the soup with lamb and vegetables. The Tibetan translates English in Tibetan. The Tibetan woman, graceful in her traditional outfit, with greasy stains on her stomach, smiles, proud of having foreigners in the little restaurant, and comes back to the kitchen behind a black curtain and a window, giving orders to two young girls with beautiful faces.

\- "So you learnt English by yourself, you've got a very good level." asserts the woman at the table, looking impressed.

\- "Yes. My parents took me to India when I was young. I speak Indi and love their music, I can speak Nepalese too. For English, it was a different matter. In my village they believed is was crasy." He sadly laughs, visibly remembering painful moments of shame and embarrassment of being different. "I was the only one to speak english in my village, and to practice, I talked loudly to myself, to hear the song of my voice in that new langage. That was a weird period. Then I considered passing exams to have another job than sherpa. Sherpa is good when you're very young, but it's exhausting and risky. I passed my degree with success and became a guide. I'm a free lancer. I work with groups or individuals. When I had the training, I met other guides, it was nice."

The European man take a momo with his baguettes and said : "Yummy ! So which are the tourists you prefer, honestly ? Which countries ?"

The Tibetan laughs, surprised by the questions as for him, the tourist is above him, as the customer, and knowing more of the world. He takes his time and answers slowly and cautiously: "I like Russians because they believe in Bhuddism, like me, I'm a religious man. I read texts and practice."

The couple shows by knocking their heads that they've seen that, staring at him touching the prayer wheel, praying in every monastery, donating money in some of them, even if often coming back.

"However, it's not the Bhuddism I believe in, full of compassion where you try to help people or at least not do harm. It's a more individual quest of wiseness, they read sutras, looking for achieving the great mantra of perfection of wisdom.They take a lot of time to think. For me, love and compassion, taking care of others is even more important than developing one's mind and understanding. I must say the Italian and Spanish, I've got a lot of issues with them. They're not reliable.They change hours even when we plan things together. They made me cry from time to time, arguing when I say something, because it was not written in the same way in their books. We see Australians and Americans but I was never their guide. Indeed, Chinese are the worst : arrogant, assertive, behaving as they undertand and know everything, I find them superfical. Sorry about that, at the same time, I make sure my children learn Chinese as a first langage to find good jobs. They've got everything, the retail, the banks, the tourism...I like temples and monastery outside Lhasa. It's quite. You don't see monks with iphones in the old temples. Chinese government pays for monks, that's why from time to time, they forget their fundamentals and have big cars or big flats. That's an issue. In my village people practice, but forget to think, and just follow a routine, they make wish for their harvest or health and believe its enough."

There is a burst of laughing at the other table, and the men move the sofa to look for a piece of Ma Jong under it. One of them, a tiny sixty years old man, comes back for the third time for the toilets. The children of the hosts play with a little balloon and seem at ease in this atmosphere smelling cigarets smoke.

There are now five bottles of beers on their table, which seems an honorable number compared to the other tables, although showing that they are not Tibetan, as the score on the others is at fifteen or twenty.

\- "Coming back to you...How does your wife perceive you're new balance of life. Weeks out of home, then coming back" asks the European woman.

\- "It's a complicated situation. As I said, my brother is frightened that I would leave home with my wife and children, and leave him alone with the farm. I try to reinsure him that I'm trying to find a girlfriend and that it's not my plan at all. And my wife, she's crying because I refuse to have sex with her. I do it not because I don't desire her, but to make my brother feel less tense and scared of the future. Although, she feels rejected and lonely. So it's not a satisfactory situation for any of us."

There is a silence around the table contrasting with the lights surrounding them, the number of dishes on the table with the green vegetables color, pieces of meats floating in the soup, the red spicy and chili powder, and the noise of other guests of the place.

The man hesitates, as thinking his question is a bit awkward and finally asks :

-"And sorry to be straightforward, but at your age, you said to me you're forty two, it's not too late to find a new girl friend."

\- "Thank you for sharing your story." Says quietly the European man.

\- Oh no, it's more the contrary. I more wealthy than plenty of people here, speaking english is helpful. I've got a lot of opportunities." His smile on his sharp face shows that he has an heavy past, probably sad childhood, but having trust in his future.

The Western proposes to the guide to keep in touch by connecting by the WeChat app, the only social network that works in China.

The Tibetan scans his QR code and sends to him a picture. The woman sends to him a video when we can see him moving a prayer wheel. He seems happy to see him on the video, and also on the one with monks debating on philosophy and clapping their hands in the monastery near Shigatse.

They know they probably won't stay in contact, but it doesn't matter, at this exact moment, they're friends, and they wish the other an happy and long life.

Tibet. road Gyantse, Shigatse, Tséthang. September 2015

# What would have said Haruki Murakami ?

It was a beautiful day with a dark blue sky and the mountains deep green around him. Each time it's surprising him, the night comes very early in this area of Japan.

He's now sitted on the tatamis near the fire in the old wooden house, looking at the two fishes now nearly dried on their sticks. He nearly falled going to the bathroom in the garage, wearing the weird shoes and the shocks that separate the tumb of the other toes. He finally made his way leaning towards the soil. Inside, just small sits to wash with the shower, and a big bathtube filled with hot water for all guests. Fortunately, he's the only guest tonight.

He was concerned by hygienic conditions at the begining. But he must acknowledged that everything is clean. His outfit is now the traditional yucata, he has taken care to put it on the right side not to do a huge mistake (as for funerary on the other side). He feels awkward, as being in a country were everything is tiny and cute. And for the first time his tall appearance seems to him a weakness.

The host comes near the fire, puts another piece of wood, a wood that doesn't make any smoke. When he visited the huge old merchant houses with the fire in the middle of the main room downstairs, with all the family living here in ancient time, he questioned himself on the potential smoke.

\- "How was your day ?" asked the host. He's a rustic man with large shoulders, big hands and a large smile. He heard him talk to his mother taking care of the cooking.

He hesitates, think about the bathtube adventure, looking for the bed in the bedroom, but just answers. "Great, a great day, thank you for asking."

\- "What did you see today ?

-..."

He has the image of the woman at the museum of the festival in a Worldwide heritage village, laughing at him in a nice way, as his new purchased tee-shirt mentionned "I like vegetables, I live in a country of vegetables." They had a great discussion about how travel was to be lost and find oneself. She advised him to taste the specialty : a sake ice cream, with green tea jam on the top of it.

\- "I visited old houses, they're beautiful and in good state. The snow must be dense in winter. That impressive to see how the roof is done in thatch."

The man listen to him and takes some tea in the pot.

\- "Yes, when they redo it in Spring, they're twenty of them on the roof to change the thatch. They work as a community, they share tasks. We do it every two years."

Silence.

\- "So, my question was what did you see today, not as a tourist, but as a person who travels."

\- "That's a tough question, or intimate."

He didn't like very much to talk about himself, and even if the man had an open face, smiling in his eyes, he was cautious. Finally, he talks without breathing :

\- "You know what, I'm coming from China. And even when you do a tour in China, you're very tired. You're on a road, and then it disappears, as the local government has broken it to do a new one, but the new one is not here. You follow with your car a truck filled with rocks, and suddenly a little rock falls on you and crashes the window. You arrive in a bedroom, happy to relax you take a shower, and two cockroachs come from the tube. You're disgusted. You try to sleep and you hear music and people shouting at each other, arguing, just talking loudly but spitting on the street every five minutes. China is suffering, it's a country used to have leaders, now the one that leads are the smartest ones, not concerned by the rules, you become easily a king of chicken, or king of buttons, of salt, or king of anything. And the others are very poor. Disparities are huge, and nature has disappeared of their big picture, first and foremost they want it all, now, opportunities are what matters. By contrast, Japan is disturbing...First it's an old country, you see a lot of polite retired people, wether in groups, in couples, or alone...People grow vegetables, spend time to take care of flowers... I don't know why I say that, I mean, each of you seem to have a strong relationship with the nature, as a vital source of energy..."

The man looks intrigued and listens carefully.

\- "Japan is beautiful. Cities are well organized. You enter a taxi, the doors open automatically, and the guy has white gloves. You arrive in a ryokan and people spend their time to apologize or thank you for being here or waiting. You walk in a little village, and you see gardener cutting little pieces of trees to make them look like bonzais. You've got stores with plenty of little cute things that are not useful, but just for the happyness of having them and looking at them. You look at a retired man with white hair at the train station, he looks strict but he's got a little red monkey on his suit case, like the child has never totally disappeared. All color are subtile, and flowers are everywhere. In Hakone, I've discovered a museum, the Osaka museum"... He interrupts himself as about to say that billionnaires were generously sharing the view of their art collection but suddenly remembering the guy was a casino owner, which was not going in the idyllic picture.

The man sights.

\- "I'm not sure you can understand Japan just by looking at things and landscapes. It's a rough history. It's a country of values and principles. But people are keeping emotions for them".`

He answered speaking to him : "In Zhaoxing, an ancient Dong village, the guide was giving orders to me, can you believe it, shouting "Follow me, I'm the guide", just because the car park was far away and I didn't catch why he didn't take the car with the driver.

\- "That's not important, is it ?

\- I was very upset, as having the feeling not to control the situation. When I decided to travel, it was to escape my daily life. It's a boring daily life. The morning, I wake up at seven and take a hot shower, then I take my cereals, always the same, with a little brown sugar, and skimmed milk. Then I go to work in a dark grey suit, from 9.00 am to 12.30 am, I take tirty minutes to take a salad, or tuna salad or chicken salad, then I come back to work, from time to time I do late hours. I don't have any girl friend. I tried, but I'm not at ease with conversations. I've got friends, but they're married now. They have children. They're busy. When we see each others, they telling the same old stories when we were young and went to parties. My parents are very old, I avoid them. My father is autocratic and thinks I'm a looser. My mother thinks like my father from the begining. They had expectations for me. A great career, a beautiful and smart wife, and grand children.They have nothing, as I don't want any of that. Traveling is finding oneself, don't you think so ?

The man puts his big hands on his pants and asserts : "I never travel, but I think I know who I am. Who told you that ?"

The traveler said : "You know this morning I didn't like very much the tofu and the fish. I'm used to my cereals with skimmed milk. But I know that when I'll come back at home, I will miss your breakfast."

\- "So, in a way, if I understand you, you're not happy in the present, you feel better in the past with nostalgia, or you project the future, inventing things that will perhaps never happen. For instance, how did you imagine the village and the place where we sit now ?"

The guest laughs.

\- "I knew there was not a private open air bath as in other places. I imagined a big town where I could do biking, looking at yellow ricefields, girls gossiping in their uniforms going out of school at five, little rivers with huge carps in it because the water is so pure from the mountains. I imagined a little paradise with old peasants, skinny and elegant, doing their chore in white shirts. And an old lady giving me some sweets made from red beans for my tea, when I stop at her house to take a picture."

The host laughs.

\- "So you were suprised. That's good news. You saw two villages in one. The one you dreamt and the one you saw.

\- I must say I liked the little walk under the village. I saw the cimetery, a shrine, and little autels for gods."

From the kitchen, the mother says something to his son in Japanese, and he translates : "Diner will be served in ten minutes." And he leaves the room to help his mother for preparing the dishes. On tatamis, even if his body is heavy, one can't hear any noise when he moves.

When he comes back, it's a festival for the eyes. The fishes cooked on their sticks near the fire during two hours are surrounded by little dishes : tofu, tempura with pumpkin, tiny mushrooms and a huge round one, a piece of carott with a square shape and some strange vegetables, asparagus, sashimi with wasabi, thin rice noodles, pickles, and the traditional miso soup and rice.

At the end of the diner, that the guest eats as if he was starving, the host makes an appearance.

\- "You do things fast. First the bath, then the diner. Take our time. Would you like hot tea or fresh water ? Ok, hot tea. Where do you go tomorrow morning ?

\- I take the Kaetsuno bus to the station JR Shin Takaoka, then I change for the Shinkansen, then another train and I arrive to Kyoto."

The man looks at him as wanting to continue the discussion.

\- " Do you want me to drop you tomorrow at nine at the station, I have to do some business in the town.

\- No, thank you so much, but I need to leave at seven thirty. Thank you for you hospitality, I've seen my bed is ready, I will go to sleep as I wake up early. Thank you again.

\- Indeed, your bed is ready. Enjoy. See you tomorrow at seven for the breakfast. No corn flakes !"

Outside one can hear the noise of the river. There are crickets too. The mother is doing noises in the kitchen.

It's peaceful.

When he goes to the toilets thirty minutes later, his careful not to make any noise with the rice paper doors, as he slamed them at the begining.

In front of the toilets is the kitchen, the curtain is open now. Everything is clean and in order now on the wooden table, there are mushrooms in a box, and a big pumpkin. He can see the large shoulders of the man, he's behind his mother and kissing her in the neck while caressing her braist. He's whispering in her left ear and she has a sudden laughter.

He's so surprised that he can't move. Then he slowly moves forward to the toilets, happy to sit on the reinsuring warm surface, and not to have to flush the water as automatic. He slowly comes back to his room, and as a child, he tries to erase the images that don't fit with the poetic atmosphere of the place. It smells wood. One can't hear any noise in the house, far away a dog barking. During the night, he does confusing dreams that become nightmares, where his mother is urging him to be not good but excellent at school and put her hand under the bed's sheet to find her penis and caress him to relieve him from all tensions, at the same time showing to him her white porcelain braist. The first time he has an erection which scares him as he's becoming mad. He wakes up many times his body covered with perspiration, and looks at the clock of his mobile ten times to wake up at the sunrise, and to be sure not to miss his train.

Japan. Gokayama September 2015

# At the Benesse House

The sea is scintillating under the sun. Like gods supervising the world, we dominate the entire world like an arty Olymp.

We are in the oval building, part of the famous Tadao Ando's master piece of architecture. Only six bedrooms. On one side the door opens on the oval shape of water mirroring the sky. On the other the window open on the infinite sea with busy boats. It's an industrial area but also a place for fishers, we can see their little boats in the morning, and their huge nets stay all day as square shapes.

To come to our room we take a mini cable car, as in an old James Bond, or part of a video of Bill Viola.

The landscape is so peaceful. I feel peaceful.

Perfect pine trees like bonzai, a pier with colorful sculptures on the right with the yellow pumpkin of the Japanese artist.

Somewhere in the middle of nowhere, concrete architecture mixed with the pure lines of nature.

Perhaps it's a sign, and time for me to question my life.

As my husband has a lot of work and mails to deal with, I spend time on the terrace. I've got time to look at other people.

The master suit is occupied by a couple of German, I believe there is a Baquiat on the wall, I'm not sure. I tried to look inside the other morning, but the curtains were closed. The woman is quite attractive even if my age, around fifty, she's got an allure. They look educated if not litterates, they argued on a book they had both read yesterday at the restaurant, I like the fact that she seems independant. He's sportiv but his neck is too heavy and won't look as good as growing old if he doesn't take care. I met an odd couple in the bus : a beautiful graceful woman dressed in black, with white hair, and an old guy, sun tanned with brow spots on the face and wrinkles, and difficulties to walk, something like fifteen years of difference that were now tangible.

A couple is a strange story if you think about it. To choose to live with the same person for years or even for ever.

Our children are now adults, I got married with my husband twenty five years ago.

Yesterday was a foggy day. We went to Teshima. We waited for the bus, then for the boat, then for another bus, then we walked and finally arrived on a little road, surrounded by rice fields.

One of the young Japanese guy with a love tee-shirt and an orange jacket had forgotten to purchase his ticket, so the boat had to wait for him, he had a small bike in a big bag. He apologized to us, the thirty ones found of arts, expecting something but looking a little lost in this red ferry, far away from their home.

We found him again in front of the final bus station, which must show that the bus is slow.

I must say we wait a lot in Naoshima, it's part of the charm of the place, you can't be in a hurry, it doesn't work.

So, after two hours, we finally arrived. Among the green fields, a big nest in white concrete. We approached it, joining a line as a sect procession on the concrete path.

Welcoming us, and nearly whispering, a young woman dressed in white as a nurse requested us to take off our shoes. She looked strict, not knowing she was also very sexy in her white uniform, she advised us not to make any noise as the art element was echoing and requested us not to take any pictures. It was as if breaking the rules could have huge consequences. A few seconds my husband looked disappointed with his camera as part of the people that miss their vacations if they loose their pictures as trophees or the places they came. Slowly, we entered the concrete structure looking as a white flat mushroom. I was nearly tiptoeing.

There were only ten people on the huge white concrete surface. Some of them looking like sleeping, laid on their back, some praying sitted on their knees, some just watching drop of waters slowly going to the middle of the architecture, in a tiny invisible hole. Another young woman also in white uniform and with long black hair was watching us. My husband laughed and said to me ushering, "It's a joke, I tought it was the entry of the museum. And that's it." As his voice was loud, the white uniform turn to him, and did a sign to remain silent and respect the ritual. He raised his shoulders to show he was thinking the rule was not relevant, obviously thinking it was a crasy day, comparing the hours to come and the little drops of water in this concrete building. How irrelevant.

For me, it was an extraordinary experience.

I was feeling quite for the first time in many years. Like nothing mattered really. "I'm alive or dead. I'm surrounded by so many lies.Why do we lie ? My career is not what I dreamt off when I was in my thirties. Still, I've got a job. Our children rarely call us except to ask for money for their studies. Eglantine, my daughter, has cut her long hair without asking. I like the light, the dancing roop suspended to the nest and the big hole in the ceiling. Look at the sky and the running clouds ! Tiny drops near my feet, slowly going to join another one, then with more energy accumulated fastly gliding to join the splash of water, suddenly disappearing. Over and over again, but never the same scenario each time, always reinvented. It's pure and plain of joy. I don't know why, I feel happy."

My husband had left for half an hour when I found him at the coffee without his shoes, and drinking a green tea, as they had no Kirin beer, not to mention a fresh one. He looked at his watch asserting that the next bus was still in half an hour.

He look exasperated. The trip was my idea. I admire Tadao Ando and his daring choices, his ability to appeal other great artists in a human adventure. I like the fact that he's an autodidact, a citizen of the world even if from Japan. Benesse House is a pure marvel for eyes and spirit. With the museums and arts projects. You feel ill at ease, at the same time you think about nature, origin, what is a human being.

To come back to my husband, he didn't appreciate the restaurant and found their wine cart too narrow, and he didnt' accept that the wifi didn' t work in rooms at night to make guests disconnect. It took him hours to send a document to his head offices, and he was nearly screaming about the stupid managers of this hotel ruining all the rules of service. At the breakfast, he didn't like the fact that continental breakfast meant only a little piece of bread and butter and they didn't have even cereals. He hated the smell of the fish and mushrooms in the morning, and even in the kaiseki diner, he left the tofu and the rice and miso soup, saying sushi and tempura were enough to understand the Japanese culture.

At this dinner, he was upset by the noisy group of French retired people with their full of life female guide. He said that except group of wordy Japanese women and old people obsessed by art understanding because their life was behind them, there were no people in this hotel, and no food making sens.

Then he reminded me that tourists groups were a disaster for the planet, thinking of the one we met on the supposedly romantic cruise on the Li River near Guilin. And also that Japan was undergoing not only an economic crisis, but a demographic one, and if we didn't take care of it, soon, the worlwide population would also have one third of sixty years old and more in two thousand and thirty. In my mind, I calculated we would be part of the percentage in this future. I didn't say a word and stared at him. I was asking myself where the hell the husbands of all this growing old Japanese women could be.

I had a clear mind, as if the peaceful atmosphere had clarify my thinking and classified my memories for helping me to move forward.

My husband used to go every year for one week to fish with male friends in Montana, and I would never ask questions. Why ? I knew it was not only a story of fishing.

Fortunately, in Teshima art museum, there were young hipsters from all over the world, appealed by the idealist philosophy behind the island, and trendy young couples looking as working for advertising agencies or art projects. Else I would have felt old myself, with my angry husband as a companion.

Following what I felt as a priority now, it was obvious, I took a little cushion and another one for him, and took my cup of tea outside.

I had to tell him.

The view was magnificent and calm : vivid green ricefields, the little road with the shape of a snake resting under the sun, a peaceful port, the sea with boats floating far away, and the dark green mountains.

My husband followed me, asserting that Japanese women were awfully looking after forty years, in contrast with their cute look when they were young, and laughed at Japanese men to be so small. Definitely, he was upset. I never saw him so jugmental about other human beings.

I had the feeling on my side to belong to the nature and the human kind, embracing the landscape as part of me, and me part of it.

I even felt good feelings about the odd couples, the tourist groups, the strict students engaged in their arty period, or the young biker that was late.

We were all humans, on a fragile planet, and questioning our lifes in the same way, just with our own words. What for ?

We remained five minutes silent, looking at the sea. An image came to me. The sun playing on my leg by an opened window, he my beloved looks at me. It's a long time ago, one of our first week-ends, in Italy. "What ?" He said : "I look at a beautiful you that I fall in love with." He had bright eyes.

Now, I should tell him now.

"Arnaud, something happened to me fifteen years ago. I must tell you as it's a burden to me. It's a lie because I never said anything to you. I love you and I trust you. I wish us long years together and to become wiser persons, and in a way, happier."

I told him everything, avoiding details. The young product manager with beautiful green eyes. The love affair during an Asian trip for my company. I was his boss. How he convinced me to take a picture for the next fragrance with him as a model. I was in love and I obeyed. It was a disaster. The picture was not good and I spent my budget on it, using a photographer friend of my love of the moment. My CEO must have had some information about our love affair and he had deliberately decided to make fun of me during our business review. He was nasty, as a feline guessing who's the one vulnerable around. People looked at me embarrassed in the confrontation room, as if all aware of my personal affair. At the same time the young adorable product manager I was keen on, resigned and sued me for the copyrights of the picture now that it was a worlwide launch. I was desperate, as always appealed by him. Remembering long days in our bed in prestigious hotels worlwide, extending our business trips, his skin, his smell of wood and vanilla, the way he spent time to caress me with his fingers. At the end, I had only communications with his lawyer, he erased me of his cell phone contact list. I lost my lover, it also stopped my career, as my big bosses were suspicious about my ethics and I never had more responsabilities after my being CMO Chief Marketing Officer. They created a job for me : Head of consumer surveys and trends. Perhaps to avoid firing me, which would have been disturbing for my team, I suppose they thought so.

It took me fifteen minutes to tell the whole story. At the end, my husband looked at his watch, and said the bus was about to come, which was not true.

We walked, leaving the cushions and the empty cup of teas to another princess in white uniform.

In a harsh voice he had difficulties to control, he just said to me : " Why do you say that now, what's the matter with you, what do you expect from me ? That I say, darling, it's a long time ago, no big deal. That I shout at you with jealousy and an angry behaviour. It's an empty story, it has lost its substance with all the years now."

I remained silent, relieved of the secret of my life.

I was looking forward to what would happen next. A change in our life. Perhaps he would leave me. Now that the children had left, everything was possible. We were free to live our life as before they were born.

We came back home to our bedroom in the oval building. He jumped out the bus and didn't look at the multicolored sculptures, nor the one of a man reading a news paper with a dog at his feet. There was a big spider in the middle of the road when we walked, he passed through, not bothered, or not having seen it. He put his hand on the button for the cable car, as if it was his property and house, cutting the sound of the Japanese voice saying "Please close the door", and the same when he opened the bedroom with the heavy keys, he played with during the trip.

As a whole, it took us two hours and a half to come back to our room. Time for me to watch the people in the boats, engaged in what they were accomplishing, smile back at the woman selling flowers to ikebana in the town street, be surprised by a little outside coffee and library in the village, showing books about San Francisco, and say "hello" to the rigid doorman in his grey uniform at the entree of the park.

When we entered the bedroom, my husband opened the curtains and the window as lacking of fresh air, and took his second shower of the day. To avoid being in the same place, I took a long hot bath. I like the fact that my breast floats on the water, like when I was young. While using the amber soap and caressing my skin, I was thinking about my insomny, reading the short stories about this African American woman describing how she got married to an unknown man, snoring at night and with a disgusting breath. At least I was lucky, I chose my husband. I felt calm. I was playing with the water in my hands, looking forward to sleep in the king size bed with smooth cushions after two nights at the monks monastery, sleeping directly on a tatami laid on a wet futon. My husband had liked it. Perhaps the public bath with other males that had exhacerbated his virility, or sleeping naked in a yucata.

I was pouring hot water again in the bathtube when my husband entered.

He gave me a towel, like in a rush to go out. I was still wet when he pushed me on the bed. He made love to me, putting me on my stomach and pushing my head on the cushion not to see my face. It was brutal, he hurt me.

Still I was exciting like a rebirth of our couple, as something was happening to us after dull and monotone days, months, and years.

After having sex, we took a third shower, one after the other, first me.

When we went to the terrace, the German were taking a glass of white wine with ice on theirs, starring at the sea. She suspiciously looked at me, as she could tell we had rough sex. My husband was still red on his face and making noise while breathing.

I realized that we still had one day. Yesterday all museums were closed. So we couldn't go and see the old houses projects. One of them project you in a dark room, you need to touch the wall to enter and finally find a sit. You're lost in the middle of nothing like being blind. And progressively, you see a little red light far away. And then you see like a wall, when you approach the wall and try to touch it, you don't feel anything, it's a fake wall, it's nothing except emptyness.

It must be an experience. Reality and virtuality. Truth and illusion. Full and empty. Light and dark.

Benesse House. Naoshima. October 2015

# Bats

Blood. When they arrived in the small hotel in the town, she believed someone had spitted blood on the wall outside, and she mentioned it to Fabrice, as she was concerned about a contagion.

The woman in charge of the check in laughed and explained to them it was betel juice, and nothing to be afraid. The bikes would be available in the morning. She mentioned to be careful with the stairs, it was slippery because of the heavy rain of the late afternoon.

They took a shower in the small bedroom, with a soap smelling citrus which she didn't like, but she was happy to be in Myanmar in the beautiful area of Bagan with all the padodas, and to enjoy a few days with her new husband.

For the late diner, as their flight arrived in the evening, they took a Myanmar beer in a big bottle and chicken curry for her, and rice noodle with vegetables and chili for him. They took time as happy to use the chop sticks. When they came back to their room, Fabrice laid down and was fast to snore and talk in his dreams. She couldn't sleep.

They had done three trips together, including this one. The first one when they decided to purchase a flat together, perhaps to check that they could live together more than a night or a few hours in the week-ends. He organized everything, and she was mad at him because instead of booking the Udaipur Lake Palace, he was confused by another one, cheap and with no view except on the faraway Palace. She remembered walking a lot in New Delhi, visiting plenty of Rajastan Palaces, surrounded by the Indian crowd in Agra to see the beautiful and precious tomb, having a fake guide in one Marajah castle, droping false figures about the weapons and the measures, and being scared by the cows, the elephants and the big truck full of painted color on the road. Right or left it didn't matter. They saw plenty of accidents, and for landing, it was not unusual to do three of them because of dogs or cows on the path for the plane.

What she liked the most were the colorful outfit of the beautiful women. She came back thinking our home country was somewhere dull with only beige, grey and blue or dark colors, same for the food, coming from the fire works to basic savors.

She glaze at Fabrice, sleeping as a baby. She always envied him that ability.

They met at six teen, began their relationship at seventeen, and were seen as one of the couple of their year at University, in love with each other, she, energetic and smiling, and he, always interested by a new thesis about the future, or the creation of the world. She specialized in law, he specialized in finance.

The last year, they finally shared the same room outside of the campus, and they had the feeling to be an old couple when they purchased their furnitures and spent one afternoon arguing on the best way to build them.

For their honeymoon, their second trip as a couple, their friends offered to them to go to Bali. It was their first time in a prestigious hotel, and she remembered it took them two hours to fill the bathtube. They took picture of them in the bedroom, so proud to be there. Somewhere it was like the reward of their hardwork to enter their famous University and receive their degree.

She stopped the air conditioning because of the noise and feeling too cold. One hour later she had a war with a mosquito, and nervously scratched her left leg. She began thinking about their life. They had more money, but it was less fun. Even the parties, people drinking less alcohol, their friends obsessed by the shape of their body or they health, discussions about renovating houses, projects of having children, being promoted to the next level...It's like when life became more convenient and comfortable, they had lost the spontaneity and the intensity. She loved to received poems from Fabrice and to answer long letters of love (that were lost in one of their moves).

Fabrice continued to say "I love you" when they were having sex, but she wondered if it was as an habit or true. They were still mentionned as the perfect couple, getting along so well, never arguing, sharing tasks at home, so confident and supportive in each others projects...

Still, she wanted a baby, he thought they weren't ready, and they had arguments about it, but none of them ever mentioned it to any of their friends, thinking it would worsen the situation.

The other argument was about the Sunday brunch at her parents-in-law, she was just fed up with all that time consumed. She had not married her family in law. He said with an ironic tone " At least, we have a good lunch". And she was upset, even if it was true that their dinner were bread and tarama or cheese, or chinese fried rice taken at the close shop.

Because of the lack of fresh air, she was sweating now, but reluctant to go out of the bed to turn it on, as not sure that the floor was without insects during the night.

She decided to have a discussion with him about the baby, her gynecologist said to her " the clock goes fast, tic tac, tic tac, you have only a few years before it becomes more difficult, so if you're married don't think a baby will come when you expect it."

Definitely it was the moment to discuss with him, but before she should sleep to be ready to argue and keep calm. They should even spend a few days in Myanmar in order to have him in a good moon. She was convinced this trip was meaningful and with plenty of hope for their future. Future is bright. She fall asleep when it was five am in the morning.

In the morning, when she woke up at nine, Fabrice was already in the bathroom brushing his teeth, and she felt old even if she was only thirty, and took one of the cushion between her two legs. Air was hot, wet and heavy.

He entered in the room naked, and danced in an awkward way that made her laugh. "Shall we go biking my darling ? I apologized for the weather as it's raining."

The begining of their ballade was nice, in the middle of the green. One could guess water was pouring for weeks. They met nuns, waiting in a perfect line for the donators to give them food in the jar they carried on their shaved heads. They were in a light pink outfit, and she was wondering how they did manage to be clean in all the mud, looking at their little feet in flip flops.

They arrived to the first temple, surrounded by little boutiques of laquered boxes and Burman marionnettes, with children trying to sell their drawings (that looked the same as done in a printer ) or post cards. One of the girl asked her her name. As it was three times she had answered, she said : "I'm tired." The girl answered ; "Hello Thayered, my name is Pulla." Fabrice laughed.

They had to take of their shoes and their shocks. They were the only tourists and happy to be alone with Pagan people. They saw a giant buddha covered by gold. One man said to them to be careful of where they would put their feet, as bats were pooing in the place. She felt disgusted and carefully cleaned her feet in the rain water outside.

In the following one, it was a pagoda, there were plenty of old paintings from the eleventh century, with only four colors : red, yellow and black or white. One couldn't take pictures, but Fabrice was enthousiastic about the fact that the buddhas in Burma were far more feminine than the Chinese one. Since she had met him, he had always been a supporter of the Indian culture, taking position for the Dalai Lama, now based in India, and a reluctant watcher of China's success.

When she put her shoes back,, they were wet as the shocks. She didn't like that, but didn't say anything as convinced that traveling is not to live in comfort and daily routines.

When they took their bicycles, the map showed to them they had to take the road for a few miles. Their goal was to see a wooden monastery. Monks were now forbidden to live in it, to make sure their cooking would not create a fire, but they lived close to the noble building, and prayed in it.

She was crossing the middle of the road when a car splashed her with the brown water. Fabrice laughed at the begining, but he saw on her face she was upset, wet and covered by mud. So he tried to help her to clean the disaster.

They came back to the hotel. As she didn't want to see other temples for the day, saturated of image of bouddhas and ancient paintings and texts, he proposed to her to find a resort with a swimming pool and to go a swim and then a drink. And tomorrow they could go to the market. They had already seen the one in Yangoon. Women with dust on their face to protect from the sun, cat fish, chicken sold with their legs, eggs in pyramids, rice mountains, leaves of tea in round shapes, children running, astonished by their occidental faces.

She liked the idea but answered : " Will we be in the mud again ?"

He came downstairs to see their hostess while she laid on the bed exhausted, and a little nauseous.

At five they arrive at the resort. It was deserted except a buyoant Chinese family.

She swam, and for the first time in the travel, she felt good. It was a huge swimming pool and the view was amazing, even under the rain : a pound with lotus flowers, behind the Pagodas, plenty of orange Pagodas... The rain was doing dots on the water. The scenery was amazing.

Suddenly, she felt something that could be a black bird, close to her hair, and became nervous. Fabrice couldn't hear her if she would shouted as he was swimming with his glasses under the water. She was pretty sure of it, it was a bat. She was suddenly scared to have it in her hair. There were ten of them, drinking water in the swimming pool and therefore doing circles around her.

When Fabrice came out the water, she was already with her kimono and her towel in the hair, and taking back her clothes and sneakers.

They had a bad dinner, he ordered a Sauvignon Blanc from Australia, a wine she didn't like except with oysters, the lights in the dining room were strong, and the noise of tourists around fifty or sixty years, some in groups discussing loudly with their guides, others just having heavy laughters.

He said in the middle of their silence : " You learn only to be contended. Japanese Proverb."

She knocked her head and smiled, but told him that there could be better begining of vacations. "In China, but it could be also the case here, you don't have vacations, you do tourism, you visit."

One German woman with braids, which was unusual, was explaining to her table that they woke up three times at four am in the morning, to experience Bagan from a balloon. But each time, it was the disappointment. And never they had the message on time. First time, they came to the reception, second time, the guy gave to her at the reception the card of the company expressing their apologies, and last time, nobody said anything to them, but as it was pouring, they came back to bed. People were trying to show compassion, but were eating with pleasure the dishes in front of them.

"Do you know actually what make people want to discover other countries during their vacations, instead of being at home with their beloved." She asked to him.

He answered with a soft voice: " As for you and me, to find themselves, or try. And to pay respect to our planet and human beings and their different cultures, that could disappear one day or another."

They slowly drank their bottle of beer, listening to a woman guide describing her trek in the forest with two English teachers from Yangon that came to see the tribes in the mountains with their seven months baby. "He was crying so much on the back of his father, surrounded by the blue fabric, it was so hot, and all the bugs and mosquitoes... I felt he was suffering, so I took him under my arm, as we know how to transport babies as Burmese female. You should have seen his smile... Looking at the flowers, trying to catch butterflies..." Then she talked about the ghost city, where the crasy generals, supported by their experts in astrology, had build a huge pagoda to try to compete with Swedagon. But no tourist came here, as every building was new. The guide underlines Burmese people felt so bad about their taxes and money going nowhere. Then she stopped listening, she felt exhausted, too many information, not her daily routine.

In a kind way, Fabrice offered to her to have a massage, as he saw there was one shop in front of the hotel.

She answered she was scared of bats, as upset he didn't notice there were plenty of them around the swimming pool when they were swimming, but seeing his face with raised eyebrows, she accepted.

The little shop was smelling vanilla and sandal wood. She did like the two smells. She didn't have to precise which massage she wanted, the young and thin women said to her "Relax, one hour and a half of pleasure. No tense back, no pressure. Deep work."

The thin woman began by washing her feet with hot water, pink flowers floating at the surface. Then she asked her to lay on her stomach and put her hands on her shoulders, massing a knock she had under the left one again and again, untill it softened. Then she forgot what happened as not used to massage, she slept, listening the music with gongs, water falls and pretty voices.

When she woke up, she felt relax, connected to her body as an extension of her mind, very eager to find Fabrice and share a moment with him.

When she left paying for the amount, the woman said to her to come back and showed to her a little sign near the shop, for a woman reading cards and hands.

She showed by a negative sign she wasn't interested.

When she arrived at the hotel, he wasn't in the room.

She took a book as not ready to go out alone, even if the risk was low even for a female tourist. She waited for him. It was already dark when he arrived.

He smelt beer, fried food, and cigaret, and she could even believe he had smoken. She was about to say something, when he opened his mouth and laughed.

She shouted of fear.Blood. His teeth were red, the color of betel.

At first sight, she had believed it was blood.

She felt this week could be a long one, as they should go to Lac Inle, in an area where rains should be heavier at this period of the year.

Finally, she didn't know if this trip was a good idea. She was supposed to make plans, and had the weird sensation the future was going far away, as avoiding her. Nothing was sure, even her couple.

Then Fabrice washed his teeth, and told her she should try it was good and exciting as everything new.

Then he told her he had seen an old woman with plenty of babies around her, he didn't know if she was the mother or grand-mother. This woman had a gift and could read the future. He sat and said :

" Guess what, we will have three children, two boys and a girl, and we'll live healthy and for a long time. Isn't life perfect ?"

She coughed, ill at ease to feel relieve that someone could frame her life and help them to make the most of it.

" You believe in this stupid projections of the future ? I don't", did she assert, combing her long hair, sitted on the other side of the bed.

As he knew her, he jumped on the bed, did like a monkey face to remind her of her fear when he had the red betel juice on his teeth, with a strange noise to make her laugh.

She laughed, and he kissed her on the cheek near her lips. She felt full of joy for the first time in the last months.

"So what do we do now, it's still raining, and it's only five pm."

Somewhere in one of the villages around a man was singing a song to make the demons go away.

Bagan. Myanmar. October 2015

# The Airbnb guy

It was a beautiful day at Inle Lake. The sky was mirroring in the water, the pink lotus flowers had boomed during the night, and he was enjoying life at a tea shop near the Nanthe village.

He was drinking a sweet tea, dark tea with milk and sugar, meditating about the beauty of the scenery.

A group of European girls arrived, he couldn't say which nationality as they were speaking to their young guide in english. One of them with a leg in a wooden block, apparently to enable her to walk, said bye to them and they left. Her name semt to be Anne-Lise, or Lily Ann, according to the shouting of the other girls leaving the wooden house on their long little boat with a local driving them.

She asked to the landlord the wifi code, and began to surf on internet and apparently her facebook profile, changing images, putting filters, the usual stuff when you get bored and you like to see yourself.

\- "This one is a good one. You should keep it." He said while she was doing the focus on one image where she was in front of a Buddha sculpture covered of gold.

She stared at him, annoyed and upset, he couldn't say.

\- "Sorry to disturb you, what happened to your leg ?

\- It was slippery in the stairs of the monastery, and I fell." did she groan

\- "Was it with your shoes or without ?

-...With my shoes, but you're right, anyway I'm tired of leaving my shocks and shoes, I should have purchased their tongs.

He smiled and said : "You're French, aren't you ? You mean slippers, flip flop."

She didn't answer which semt a yes. Her hairs were tight and she wore a cap to protect from the sun, even under the roof of the terrace.

Showing the newspaper on her table and the cover, he asked :

\- "Are you interested in their elections ? It's in nearly three weeks. I wonder if they will be scenes of violence. Ahn represents freedom and intelligence compared to the militaries, it's a shame how they develop the tourism in the short term, not even thinking of the consequences."

She remained silent, and took a sip of her water melon juice, she had ordered by showing with her finger the drawing on the menu.

\- "Did you know that there was a mudslide in one of the village, a Shan village in the South, they can't live in it now, and they are in a camp. But the government is slow to move, it's a few months now they live under tents. It's a shame. I've learned also discussing with people that this last summer, in December, some of the villages could be crossed on foot, which means that the level of water of the lake is down, because too many people come to live in the village, so then they need food, and they cut the trees to have crops..."

She interrupted him saying, getting rid of her cap : "I've got two questions, are you depressed to talk about that in front of this beautiful landscape on a sunny morning, and is it your way to get girls interested, I must be a boy, it doesn't work on me."

He remained silent. And asked to a young boy a Myanmar beer, even if it was ten am, he needed one.

\- "Did you go to Yangon ?" did he asked her.

\- "Yes.

\- Did you see one of this young boys in the tee shops ?

\- Sure. They're a lot of them, they look like fourteenth.

\- They are. They don't come from the city, they're sent by their parents to the city and the coffe shop owner for working. They have a little dormitory, they can eat, so their parents are happy, they think they're safe.

\- Don't they earn a little money ?

\- Nop, except tips. Did you give tips ?"

She didn't answer, glazing at him exasperated and put her hurt leg on another chair.

\- "What's your program for the day ? Are you feeling OK ?" did he ask, happy to talk in english with a European girl.

\- "I'd like to go to the ceremony with the buddhas. As my friends have planed a trekking I couldn't follow them.

And she sighted again.

\- "Great news, let's go together if you agree. Before let's skip the lotus, the pottery and silk weaver, it's boring. Come with me in a place by boat. It's not far, ten minutes. I'm quite sure you will like it. Come on !"

She hesitated and then said a reluctant "OK. Anyway, I don't have anything to do."

They took one the boats in front of the tea shop, floating in the muddy water of the Inle Lake. Soon, they arrived thanks to the smart driver, carefully avoiding other boats transporting grains, vegetables, flowers, transporting women protecting themselves from the sun with an umbrella. The driver stopped the huge noise of the motor, in front of an heritage house.

Two delicate boys welcomed them.

\- "I have a suprise for you. Do you like cats ?

\- I have one of them, why ?

\- Look around you, we're in the Burmese cats' refuge. I'm sure you know this very rare cat, very expensive now, that had nearly disappeared on earth."

It was true, they were in front of a door that a young man in longhee opened to let them enter, and there were at least thirty cats, grey, white, dark grey, all elegant and thin. She was astonished and behaving like a child, clapping her hands of excitement. "It's unbelievable. How cute they are ! Look at the tiny one !"

Three hours later the ice was broken. For lunch, dishes accumulated on their table : Baby shrimps patties, fried peanuts with chive root chips, spices fish balls, sesame ball stuffed with roasted pork, chicken satay. They had ordered two bottles of beer and she was not used to drink, one could see it.

\- "Wim, that's your name, tell me your story, you seem a nice guy, not engaged, like avoiding the real love story, and liking food and drinks, what are you doing here alone in Myanmar ?" She looked interested, and stared at him.

\- "To make a long story short, my parents were artists.

\- Artists ?

\- Painters to be precise. Cobra group. I was born in Amsterdam. Now, I have a flat in this city, but it took me thirty five years to come back. Bad memories.

\- Why ? That must be cool to have creative parents.

\- Not creative, artists, their art was what was meaningful to them. They drank a lot, they died at fifty, Then I was about to be eighteen. I was educated by my grand mother. I have no memory with them, except bad wake ups in a dirty and messy house."

She looked at him and said nicely : "She must have been a great woman, and saddened by the situation... I mean your grand-mother."

He asked for tea as he felt nauseous, the contrast of the hot weather and the cold drinks.

\- "I don't believed in god, I think when we die we disappear, it's empty, there's nothing. So I try to meet a lot of people and see different cultures, I strongly believe you become old when you stop learning. You meet a lot of old people when you travel, not a lot are wise. I'd like to be wiser when I grow old. That's my path, my karma."

She asked him : "How old are you ?

\- I'm fifty two.

\- You don't look like it. You look like an old teen-ager, or spoilt brat. Sorry about the image. So what's your occupation and passion in life ?

\- Old cars for my passion", and he showed to her on his iphone a beautiful Mustang from the seventies. "It's my baby. I love to drive it. So to pay the bills, I'm a photographers' agent. I earn quite a big amount of money, and I also rent by Airbnb my flat in Amsterdam, where I only go a few week ends."

She said : "Do you accept people using your bed ? I would hate that."

\- "Honestly, what's the big deal. At the end, even my design furnitures, nice art books, they disappear when you die, so sharing is good, you create memories to other people, in a way, even if I die, a woman in Mandalay or a guy in Shanghai or a Russian grand mother will remember of my home, what I like, and also the messages on the site. I've got an international community. Really."

She laughed and said : "Let me guess, as a profile for Airbnb, you must be an adventurer."

\- "How do you know ? Yes, because I accept any nationality, it doesn't matter if they do a fried rice, tacos, or salted fish for eating. Sometime they break thinks, glasses, or boxes. It doesn't matter, I replace them. I don't want to be stuck to objects, at the end of your life it's heavy, people cumulate things and houses, like reinsured in a way something will survive to their disappearnance, they're wrong. I've sold my flat in Paris, with all the furnitures, it was Chinese furnitures, Burmese sculptures, Buddhas, porcelaines...I used to have a collection."

He asked for the bill and drank the last cup of the pot.

\- "Did you meet people doing that ?

\- Sure, plenty. I used a site call le Bon Coin in France. The unemployed guy collecting Asian Art and showing to me pictures of his crowded flat during hours , and his girl friend who was a teacher was saying to him to stop as he was addicted to casino games or drugs. The retired man that had undergone a hearth attack and came alone with his wife to take a heavy furniture, I had to help. The ones that took a red desk without a car and had to take the subway for five stations to help their depressed friend. The obsessed by Maroccon art as remembering his trip in Ouarzazat with nostalgia. The one having done supposedly design and art studies, wanting a protection for fire in copper for her parents, then hesitating saying may be they wouldn't like it and suddenly running out my flat. The couple trying my king size bed leaving their shoes on the floor, and while doing that, underlining it was feeling weird, in a weird couple conversation on my bed, then the girl jumping, saying it would be disgusting for her to sleep in someones'bed, and their nearly running out of the flat... The guy taking a designer fragrance bottle, even if he didn't know the smell, just to impress girls in his bedroom. The young adult begining his library and emphasizing we had the same taste, even if he took only all my classic litterature, seeming happy, enjoying future long morning week-ends in his bed...

\- You never stop ?"

In the afternoon, they came to the ceremony.

A lot of Burman people were waiting under the trees on each side of the canal filled with muddy waters, women and children with paint on their face to protect them from the sun, umbrella opened, men laughing, families with young babies in their arms, wrapped with colorful fabrics.

A young man was singing with a wrong tone in a microphone on the boat, and both of them laughed.

\- "It's like a giant karaoke, isn't it ?"

Young girls in pale pink outfit began a dance that was not perfect but graceful, and at least they had something to watch.

And old woman gave them rice with sugar in a canne. When she smiled she had no teeth, but a beautiful face full of wrinkles. He shouted because of the noice : "She reminds me the graceful girafe's woman, their community lives not far away in villages in the mountains, not far from the border with Thaïland, the jewel around their neck is very heavy, but they so graceful. Did you meet them, they're perhaps the last ones ?"

She answered something that had nothing to do with what he was saying, but it didn't matter. They felt good. Her new friend, Anne-Lise, said to him : "May be it's the beer, but I could sleep even with the noise." She put her head on his shoulder closing her eyes, and he was carefully watching her supposedly broken leg to avoid any issue.

\- "Look, the monks arrive with the buddha. Did you know that four bouddhas fell in the lake in 1965. Three of them were found within the day, they thought they had lost the latest one, but miracle, it appeared in the morning on the bank. But this one now, is not allowed to participate to ceremonies. Unlucky sculpture !"

He laughed.

\- "Monks are not all good men. in Pagan, I've heard a guide mentionning to me she had a complaint for a little girl she knew that was sexually harassed. She came to the police. The monk took a lawyer, she had tremendous pressure to stop the action she was taking. I'm sure you will say that I'm obsessed with sad stories, but..."

He turned his head to look at her as the weight or her head was heavier. She was sleeping on his left shoulder, and a woman in front of them smiled at them as if they were a couple.

He should tell her about the teak stolen by Chinese, as exporting the precious solid wood was forbidden, for sure Generals were part of the story to earn money. As for the golden triangle, the tribes negotiating a cease fire with the government, but still buying with the help of the rich Chinese community a lot of buildings at huge prices in Mandalay. Corruption... He wondered what the polls would say about the future of the country and if the Nobel Prize could do anything to put it on the right path at the right pace.

She snoared and it made him slightly laugh, he realized that's his narcissism had made him talk and talk, trying to impress her, and except she was French and in a group of students from a famous University thanks to her tee-shirt, he knew nothing about her. At the same time, he thought that she didn't want yet to uncover who she was. That was her right and he could accept her behavior as they were having a nice time.

As she would have understood his thoughs, she said in a monoton tone, and he couldn't see her face as she was the head on his shoulder.

\- "You know, I couldn't sleep last night, I spent hours staring at the ceiling. I get bored in life. I was in love with a boy. Suddenly he left me, with no explanations at all. I cried and cried during days. Then I went out with my girl friends, and I had a lot of guys in my life, but none of them interesting. I still dreamt of my first love. It hurts. So I decided to travel. Croatia, you know the place, Dubrovnik, a lot of German, too many tourist but the city is beautiful. Anyway,... In fact, I lie to you. He didn't left me. He chose a University in New Zealand for a one year exchange with his French University. I think in the world there can't be a country further away. It was three years we were together. I negotiated a free year, where we could meet whoever we wanted and make love with whoever was appealing to us. This was the most stupid idea I ever had. I did it, just because I settled the rule and I'm sure he's not thinking any minute of the difficulty of loving someone and having sex with another one at the other side of the world. Our weekly skypes are terrible. Everything is fake. Do you often lie ?"

He sighted.

\- "Big or small lies, it depends, some are making life easier.

\- Don't you think there is a lot of blabla in our world ?

\- Blabla ?

\- Yes, people talking to much for nothing. Non interesting moments, added to dull ones and boring ones. Nothing is worth it, really.

\- Heu... If you allow me a remark, you look like a spoilt little capitalist, having money, safety, food, shelter, love, water, a long life expectancy, and look at the people around, they have no social security, no insurance, no retirement, they just help each other, sing to have good harvests, and are contended by the place they have in their family and in the place they belong to."

\- Hey you, don't give me lessons. My heart is broken, and you don't have any heart, you just enjoy life in the present moment."

A cute little girl with dark hair, sitted on the brocken brick wall nearby, glaze at him, her eyes showing indulgence or benevolence.

He took one the the cigars he had purchased from the local plant. All was natural in this thing, even if he hadn't smoked in ten years, it wouldn't hurt him.

She raised her head of his shoulders and groaned in a friendly way, staring at him with sparkles in the eyes : "Hello you, Airbnb guy, no links, intense life. Carpe diem. I like you."

He smiled as they were wise to wait for the ceremony. A beautiful golden boat was arriving, the one supposed to transport the holy golden buddha from one village to another, during the whole festival.

People began to sing.

A woman with dark eyes, explained with gestures that it was for having good crops. She smiled.

He smiled back and knocked his head to show his understanding. Anne-Lise could be her daughter and he was not sexually attracted by her. It was not very important. The comparison was not good as he didn't have any children and had no intention to have one. He wouldn't mention the difference of age, it was obvious and she was a big girl.

The rain started smoothly, as every afternoon. The mousson was saying good bye.

Inle Lake, Myanmar Oct 2015

# The nuns

The boat was spreading a lot of smoke and invaded the calm of the huge river. She was in Mandalay.

It was the first time she came out of Europe. Her daughter had disappeared, a long time ago, and she had to do something with her life.

A young healthy woman, supposedly American, looked at her and perhaps compassionate as reading her exhaustion, said : "Hello, are you feeling ok ?"

\- "Yes." The answer was quick and laconic. She added :"There is a lot of music in this country, especially at night, I can't sleep very well."

\- "Indeed, we are in the calendar, just after the Festival. November is a good month for the weather, but animated, it's true. You're visiting ?

\- Actually not, I'm trying to see my daughter. She's in a monastery and has been student in the University for Buddhism in Mandalay.

\- Oh, I see, in Pali and english. I think they are around two hundred and fifty. Since when has she been living in Myanmar ?

\- Five years, and from time to time I received a postcard. No message, just a postcard with her writting, with children, nuns, landscapes, pagodas, umbrellas...Then nothing.

Actually it's three years I've got no news from her in anyway, and when I call the University they say she's not attending since three years. I guess she changed her mind, so I come to see the nuns if they no more. It's a little monastery near Pagain."

The American took her bike as they were arriving on the other side of the river.

\- " I wish you good luck, I'm sure everything is all right. We, I mean the daughters are tough with our mothers. I don't know why. It should smooth with time, you're growing old, she will be aware, especially if she's a nun, she understands love and compassion, doesn't she ?

\- There are eighteen nuns in this monastery." As she erased in her mind what had just been said, as making her ill at ease.

She had to walk as they were no taxi in the small villages. People when she asked the place of the monastery were smiling at her and helpful.

Even if they were in the dry zone, as they said, nature was green, but it was so hot she had already drunk the little bottle of water, she had taken in her room at the Red Canal hôtel.

To avoid being aware of her perspiration and red face under the hat, she focused of the tiny room where she would stay perhaps a few days, with mosquitoes outside even if the couch outside on the balcoon was tempting.

The last skinny man she talked to, was cleaning his little motorbike under a tree, he showed to her a red and green portal. There was the monastery.

She shouted hello three times.

A young nun, around eighteen years old came to open the gate.

Following her, she entered an open room, but pleasant as the roof protected them from the heat. The young nun didn't talk, showed to her to take off her shoes and shocks and left.

They arrived silently, and she suddenly was frightened at the idea they might have made the wish of being mute.

They were all with the dark red and burgundy dress. Someone had explained to her it was the nuns the harshest with themselves, living with a lot of constraints.

She began the talk and looked at what, in her guess, was the oldest one.

\- "I'm the mother of Sylvaine, my name is Françoise Dussonchey. I'm trying to have some news from her. I'm worried."

They all looked at her with opened faces. One young girl in white outfit served them with tea, a cup of coffee with condensed sugar, and gave her a glass of water and a big bottle, nearly frozen. Another young nun with a gracile neck gave her a plate with a papaya salad, a small cup of peanuts and cashewnuts. She remembered that they couldn't eat after twelve am and so refused politely the food, but drank the tea. Then the coffee that was sweet, and put her hands on the glass of water to try to cool down her body's temperature.

She remembered to have kleenex in her bag, but wouldn't take them as embarrassing to absorb the drop of perspiration in front of all this beautiful and calm nons, wrapped in their outfit, as not feeling the heat, indifferent to it.

Another nun talked to her in an hesitating English, she took her time to wrap words with silence and make them as a gift.

\- "We happen to have met Sylvaine in our path. Sylvaine is someone with a lot of energy and bright, she learnt the texts in Pali very quickly.

-... You mean she's not with you anylonger ?

\- She left three years ago, she met people in the University, and her meditation visa expired at that time. I believe she wanted to follow them in another country."

She had so many questions. Who were this people, which nationality, why would she leave without giving an address ?

Instead of that, she just asked : " Was she in peace with herself ?"

One of the youngest nun smiled in a nice way. They were all with beautiful big eyes, and a presence she had never felt with other human beings, she had the sensation to be supported, even if they said nothing. She asked to them : "I'm catholic, I'm not buddhist, what would be your advice to me ?"

There was a silence, then a very tiny nun, she hadn't notice, without wrinkles on her face and a skinny body, that looked in fact like the chief of the group of nuns said, in a monoton tone : "You could meditate each day, even five minutes. Even if you believe in a god, it would free you mind. Focus on your breath. Think of solidity, cohesion, heat, motion. It could help you."

The other nuns were looking at her with empathy. She was nearly to ask if they knew were she was, but she understood that even if one of them knew, they would respect the request of a secret.

They proposed to her to see their shrine.

She accepted and they took a few minutes in front of the flowers and the image of buddha. She felt calm.

Then the nun that she talked to expressed to her that she could come back anytime as a guest and sleep in the monastery, as they were about to having a new building in bricks, not in wood, thanks to a donator from Mandalay.

Spontaneously, she asked to them : "Do you listen to music ? Are you allowed to sing ?" An image of Sylvaine singing under her shower when she was sixteen coming to her mind, a song of Jennifer Lopez.

The young nuns had a subtile laughter. The oldest one said : "We're not allowed to listen to music. We meditate three hours a day. Then we learn the texts."

She knew they woke up at four as in every monastery and had to go every other day to take their foods from donors, while walking in a line in the village, it took them two or three hours.

It was time for her to leave, to much emotion, she felt she could lose control of her calm appearance. She was realizing she was in a far away country, to look for her daughter, and that she didn't have now any clue of where she could be in the world.

She just asked to the nuns, not looking at one on them particularly.

\- "Were the people she met in the University having a good influence on her ?

The wiser one answered : "There is no good and bad. There is the matter and the mind.Noone can influence you in anyway when you take care of yourself. You're the one to decide."

She didn't catch what she meant, but read in her body langage no fear or hostility, so she felt relieved.

After a silent pause, she took another glass of water, and then thank them for their welcome.

The tiny young nun that had opened to her, and was presented as having already ten years of University of Bouddhism as having begun at six, took her back to the gate.

She waved at her while leaving. The nun hesitated, smiled first, then waved at her back.

On her long way back to the hotel, she cried. Her tears were visible, and from time to time she could see local people looking at her, surprised to see a Western woman crying, she used all the kleenex. She felt lost and alone in the world, on the bumpy road in the bus, surrounded by people smiling and talking to each others in an animated way, guys with their long shirt wored with elegance, women graceful and posée, children with big lively eyes.

She had so many questions to Sylvaine. Why ? Leaving home is something, without any messages and signs of being alive is another. They never argued.

She was the one to decide at home, especially after her husband had left them. Perhaps it was that, or Sylvaine asking for the contraception pill and her refusing, asserting she was too young and had first to take our temperature for six months and meet her gynecologist while being here. Perhaps it was a mistake. Perhaps it was to have shared with Sylvaine that sex was bad with her husband and that she hated when he leapt her breast. Or refusing to meet his first boyfriend as not looking good with his ear piercings and long hair in the neck, and classified as not being an intellectual as not to say more.

When had she lost her ? She suddenly remembered a dinner with her husband. She tried desperately to still connect with him. It was in the late seventies, and she had accepted to go to a weird restaurant where couples were making love on a net above the guests having dinner. She couldn't eat anything and was so disturb she had to leave the place. They had watch movies. Porno movies at the time where you needed to go to the theater for that. She remembered a scene with a woman having a rabbit eating her sex, and her having an orgasm. Why was she remembering this disturbing moment of lifes, and especially now. She had forgotten so many lunch and dinner, family parties.

Sylvaine was a fat baby, and plump little girl, then she became so skinny, not allowing to eat any meat, nor milk or eggs. Sylvaine on a bicycle, laughing, as the first time without the little wheels. Sylvaine skiing and enjoying the snow as child do, in a big battle. Sylvaine coming back with an A in Latin langage and the congratulations of her teachers for her semester.

Begining to breath as the nun had recommended, she tried to focus her attention on the air inspired and exhaled of her nose.

A few years in her life, time was flying.

She had three adventures with men. One with a teacher she had met in her charity donating for fled areas in Myanmar and Philippines. Another with a taxi driver, she met coming back from Roissy airport. And the latest one with her butcher.

None of them was satisfactory to her, but listening to them, entering in their world and having a male presence in her deserted flat, comforted her. The first one, she stopped answering his calls, the others left as they had entered in her life, smoothly.

Her job as speaker for her party, based on the trade union history, was not essential to her life. Resigning, she took a few months to read, enjoying unemployment as some French people can do, and then took a job, not very well paid, as an assistant in the library in her district. She could read during hours and it was appropriate for what she needed. She met grand mothers having time to talk as retired, shy men happy to enjoy the calm atmosphere of the room, and lively children with their nanies or mothers, compelled to choose the book of the week for reading.

She appreciated the shadow of the "Marronier" in the court, one couldn't say it was a garden, but when she was tired of reading, she could see the light playing in the leaves of the tree, she knew what time it was, and also the season.

She was contended.

One day, in the supermarket, she was purchasing the food and beverages for the two weeks, and wandering near the fresh vegetables and fruits. She was always amazed by the choice of shapes and colors. The huge size of grapefruits and pineapples, the bright colors of kiwis, compared to when she was young, when eating a fruit meant an apple.

A woman in her thirties looked at her, and shouted with a joyful tone : "Françoise ! You're Sylvaines' mother, aren't you ? I spend time with you, skiing in the Alpes when I was thirteen, do you remember ? We had great times. I've got great memories of the hot chocolate and big bread piece full of salted water that you gave to us after skiing. That was a treat ! How are you doing ? You kept your thin hips, it's amazing, you look beautiful. Look at your curvy caramel hair, I always envied them to you."

She smiled and asked the long black bird hair woman what was new in her life, trying to remember her name. When she was young, she remembered she had an acneic skin and short hair cut, and didn't look at all as assertive as she was now. The energic woman answered she had three kids, look at the baby, yes, isn't he cute, her husband was a doctor, surgeon to be precise, and had a lot of work, but they had a comfortable life, great vacations under the sun, and life was nice.

Suddenly she added. "I met Sylvaine the other day at the airport. She was flying back from Maldives, and had two beautiful boys with her. Congratulations to you ! Three years old, healthy and bold, and one and a half, a plump baby with big eyes. Life seems to be nice with her two ! She lives in the South, how lucky a grand mother you are. I had to get my flight so we had no time to catch up. Waow, I'm again running out of time, my husband is waiting for us in the car, I must rush, Good bye and see you soon. Thank you again for the nice time together. Say hello to Sylvaine ! "

She couldn't gather her mind enough quickly, the woman had continued her path in the middle of the groceries and meat, and turn at the hygienic corner.

She nearly cried again, like in the old past. She decided to breath, a deep inspiration. Then she exhilarated. She did it three times. And did it again three times. As getting rid of the sorrows and heavy memories.

If Sylvaine was safe, that was good news. Where the hell could she live in the South, was she married with a new name ?

She knew she wouldn't investigated, respecting the nuns implicite advice. You learn only to be contented. It' a great wealth.

Mandalay October 2015

