Peintures vivantes - Joseph Descamps

Le méchant de mon histoire

It is 2.30 p.m., and I am leaving the house, in the direction of Joseph's house. On the way, I reflect on the last encounters I had with him. For a few days now, I perceive him as detached and angry, completely different from how he behaved the first time he showed up at my house.

Arriving in front of the front door of his house, I make to knock, but voices block me. I turn towards where the voices are coming from, and curious, I approach with light steps. I discover that beside the large door, there is a veranda surrounded by a well-kept garden full of colourful flowers. From behind the bushes, I see Joseph's mother emerge, wearing gardening gloves and a lilac-coloured bandana gathering up her black hair.

Joseph is not far from his mother, sitting on the veranda steps.

'Honey, I contacted the ophthalmologist yesterday. We waited long enough. We seem to have made great progress."

"Oh yeah?" replies Joseph in a disinterested tone.

"They will make the eye exactly the same colour and you won't be able to tell the difference." His mother says in a hopeful tone, slipping off her gardening gloves. After approaching him, Joseph gets up, and she strokes his cheek gently.

"Have you ever seen someone with a glass eye? One eye turns, and the other one stands still," Joseph says annoyed.

"My son is not a pirate. You will come back as handsome as before." His mother replies, taking his face in her hands."

For a few moments, Joseph's gaze softens and he smiles, resting his hands on those of his mother. You can be sweet too, I think.

I think I have spied enough, so I return to the front door. I ring the bell and wait.

After a few moments, the door opens and I find Joseph standing in front of me, looking at me from head to toe. This time I decide not to smile at him and just say hello. After nodding at me, he lets me into his house. It is much more spacious than mine. "If you'd like, we'll set up in my father's study." I nod silently, and follow him through the main hallway.

As soon as I step into his father's study, I sense that he is a very rich man, with a very high and prestigious profession. Joseph scampers his father's chair, and sits down in it. I, still silent, sit in front of him, placing my stuff on the table.

After all, he doesn't even look that bad with the eye patch on; maybe it's because I've gotten used to seeing him like this. After 40 minutes, I look up from the book, and see him still looking away.

"Can you concentrate?" I take him back, trying to maintain a firm tone of voice. He gives me a disinterested, annoyed look. "Please?" I try to be more polite. He goes back to playing with his father's pen, without deigning me an answer.

"What's the matter with you? We worked so well the first time."

"I don't think so." He replies, turning back to look at me.

"What do you mean by that?"

He sets his pen in the wooden pen holder to his right, rests both elbows on the desk and holds his face in his hands. "I heard you the other day in the canteen you know? I'm blind in one eye, I'm not deaf."

I feel the blood freeze in my veins, and my heart begins to beat in my chest with force and high rhythm. I swallow. "In the canteen?" I ask him, trying to deflect the conversation. He raises an eyebrow.

"Very bad. We didn't talk to each other at all, we just divided the topics. Clearly, he didn't do anything,' he repeats the same words I had said to Simone and Michelle, unnervingly imitating my high-pitched voice. I lower my gaze; I feel myself breaking down.

"It's not like that."

"Or... it is so Seyedoux."

"Don't call me Seyedoux." I shush him.

"You prefer Potatoes Sack?" he jokes, in a low, hissing tone.

"Joseph...I."

"You what? Don't make excuses, you'll only become more pathetic than you already are." He interrupts me. I turn back to look into his eyes. His gaze penetrates my brain, and the fact that he knows the truth, hurts me.

"I was stupid."

"No need to play the victim. Rather, look reality in the face. Don't be surprised if I've been avoiding you for days. That conversation in the canteen made my lunch go sideways." He spits the words out like poison.

"What should I have told Michelle and Simone? Oh yes girls, I worked very well with Descamps. In fact, to be honest..." my bottom lip quivers. I feel tears coming on.

"To be honest?" he urges me in a cold tone.

I try to gather all the courage in my body, and take a deep breath. "I'm fine with you. I was fine the first time we worked together." I say in one breath. My heart hammers incessantly in my chest and it hurts. "But you continue to treat me with coldness and disinterest." I conclude.

"Because that is what you want Seyedoux. Otherwise you wouldn't have lied to your little friends. You play all saintly, but even you in public are the first to draw me as the villain of your story. Because that's what I am for you." He concludes, rising from his chair and closing his books. "We're done." He dismisses me, opening the door to the study.

I jump up and join him. "That's not who you are to me," I tell him.

He lingers in my eyes, but remains serious.

"I am the bad guy, the bully. Unbelievable how I let myself go in your presence, and this is how you thank me? Saying untrue things about me?" he says brutally, closing the door.

"Descamps is the bad guy? Then let me be the bad guy, without being surprised by the consequences." He hisses. He opens the door, showing me the way out. I quickly gather my books, clumsily stuff them into my briefcase, and leave his house. Before I leave, I turn around.

We make eye contact, but do not utter a word. I feel a big knot in my throat, and I walk home, walking away.

On the way home, I cry all the tears in my body. My heart aches as if I had just been stabbed; I sob and try in vain to wipe away my tears. Annick was right. I am so stupid.

As I clumsily wipe my tears on my coat sleeve, I see two figures sitting on a park bench. I focus my eyes misty with tears and I am stunned: Simone and Jean pierre kissing.