Christian Gailly: Les Oubliés (2007)

Christian Gailly’s Les Oubliés (lit. ‘The Forgotten’), as expected, is written in his recognisable, compelling style: truncated, telegraphic, pointilliste, repetitive, parenthetical. Not that Gailly would use long words, though: he prefers short simple words in short simple sentences, as in this short paragraph that Albert Brighton addresses to his dead work partner:

‘Here we are, he said. These words were addressed to Paul Schooner. And Brighton asked himself how Paul. If he were there. Present at the side of him. In contact with this woman. On approaching the house. Would have reacted. What would we have seen in his gaze?’ (My translation.)

Albert and Paul are reporters for a weekly cultural paper and this (like Gailly’s book) is their thirteenth mission. They are reporting for a series called ‘Que sont-ils devenus’ (‘What has become of them?’), cultural figures once famous but now forgotten. Gailly deals with big themes such as life, death, love, memory, forgetfulness, age, etc.

And on the way to see the forgotten cellist Suzanne Moss in Britanny their car is involved in an accident. They continue by train, but Paul dies in the toilet so it’s left to Albert to let his wife know, and he decides to take the journey to make the interview with Suzanne by himself. As it happens, he’s obviously done the right thing.

Suzanne is more than welcoming, perhaps too welcoming in a sense: when Albert gets a good old-fashioned fire going, she tells him he’s gifted, and that such people are supposed to make the best lovers. Albert senses danger.

The interview starts, and then Suzanne decides that they should go for a walk along the sea shore, which they do, Albert struggling hard to keep pace with her. And then it rains, they get drenched and take refuge in a café, and on the way back to Suzanne’s house he says something. Funny, but many important things happen in or after visiting the toilets in Quentin Tarantino’s films, and since the death of Paul, Albert has often thought of his work colleague when going there. He tells Suzanne that he made a decision when in the café toilet: Paul died in a toilet, but he wants to continue to live, which means continue to love. He concludes by saying that he’s decided to love her, that he already loves her, is she going to slap him?

They return to the coastal house with the three stray cats of varying ages that Suzanne didn’t have the heart to reject. She’s pre-cooked a lovely meal for them both which only needs re-heating, so they get a little drunk on whisky, it’s understood that Albert is staying the night, and Suzanne says that they’re sleeping together, OK? Albert says he’s very old, Suzanne shoots back ‘Me too […]. We’ll do what we can’.

In fact they do much better than that, in spite of Suzanne’s reluctance to get naked because of her wrinkles, and after all she’d had ten years of celibacy since the death of her pianist husband. But the reader gets the impression – as Albert wakes up to Suzanne next to him and not just three cats on the bed, but to the cat Franklin licking his hair and saying ‘Mia-mia’ (which Suzanne translates as ‘I love you’) – that Albert will be waking up like this for a long time to come. Yup, this is no one-night-stand.

By far the best Christian Gailly book I’ve read, and I’ve been through six others.

My Christian Gailly posts:
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Christian Gailly: Un soir au club
Christian Gailly: Lily et Braine
Christian Gailly: La Roue et autres nouvelles
Christian Gailly: Dernier amour
Christian Gailly: Nuage Rouge | Red Haze
Christian Gailly: L'Incident
Christian Gailly: Les Oubliés