I was waiting in the rain, protected by my raincoat, at the corner of two forgotten streets. I had stopped for a few moments in front of an empty shop window, protected by a metal grille that had not been put back up since it was closed. A photograph of Humphrey Bogart taken on the set of Casablanca, misplaced on a dusty shelf, reminded me how much Bogey's style had reached iconic status. In comparison, my own reflection in the window looked pale. It was then that I noticed a pigeon, sitting on a lamppost behind me, watching me. In the last scene of Casablanca Rick Blaine, played by Bogart, befriends a French captain and they decide to join the resistance. I thought I needed a friend too.
But that night I only had this pigeon as a friend. I searched my pockets but I didn't have even a crumb of bread. I turned around and looked back at the bird, as lonely as I was. I muttered an apology as I turned over my empty pockets, and I felt as if he was listening to me and understanding me. I didn't know why, but at that moment I told myself that we had all missed a train one day, that we had all experienced a break-up.
I listened to the rain falling, sliding on the tiles, overflowing from the gutters, from the gutters. I swallowed. I was afraid to face my past and I was trying to gain time. I had an appointment with a little boy, the one I had been a long time ago. I remembered red and black. Black was my anger, red my notebook. When my father died, I had written down all my resentment, my hatred.
After many years, I had returned to this city that looked like all the others. The old orphanage is still there. It too had been abandoned. The pigeon came to perch on the entrance gate, as if it had smelled something. I was sheltering my old storm lighter from the rain and wind. This lighter was one of the few things I had kept from my father. I lit a cigarette. The smoke flew away in quickly dispersed volutes. My ersatz Maltese falcon was waiting for the next part of the story.
When I finished my cigarette, I threw it into the gutter and crossed the street. My footsteps clattered on the ground, my silhouette slid on the walls. With my bolt cutter, I broke the chain with a sure, thousand times repeated gesture and put my gloved hand on the door. It creaked open and I slipped inside. The pigeon hadn't moved.
That's when I saw the old oak tree. It was still there, in the middle of the yard. I approached it. I was sure he had recognized me. I bent down and started to dig in its roots. It took me a long time to find the place, to search again, to dig. Finally I found it. The red leather-covered notebook in its sarcophagus of fabric and plastic eaten by time.
I protected him from the rain by leaning over him. This book was a book of hate, of anger. I should have burned it at the time but I didn't have the strength. I didn't want to say goodbye to my father. But that evening I had come back to finish the work, because everything that is not expressed is printed.
With the old storm lighter I set the dry rags on fire, then the book. I watched the fire eat the words and the wind carry away my anger.
The pigeon flew away. I was liberated.
