L'appel Du Vide [Call Of The Void]

[10]

The week after he got his new job at Belle de-jour café was a blur of tea, wines and macaroons. Working as a server was the most exhausting thing he had done in his life. Perhaps it was having to deal with snooty rich people that took such a toll on him.

It was almost midnight as he strolled out of Belle de-jour after a particularly punishing day. However, it had been worth it, for it was the end of the week and Philippe had just earned his fist salary at the café.

The roads in the well to-do areas of Paris were clearing out, but it seemed like the poorer parts of the city were just waking up. Other men like him who worked long shifts for a pittance, were pouring into the streets, crowded into the scattering of brothels where they could afford drinks.

Those men would probably spend the little money they had on alcohol, stumble home and beat their wife and children senseless. He knew what it was to be one of those children. Everyone he heard his neighbor's family scream, a pang of pain would hit him in his heart.

But of course, Philippe didn't need to worry about social injustices since Robespierre and Danton were at work now.

Supposedly.

All that Philippe could make out was that they spent all their time holed up in the National Assembly or in cafés like the one he worked in, preaching about of Libertè and La Patriè, and the rest of the time they spent plotting how they could knive each other in the back.

Philippe tried to push his morose thoughts away. He concentrated on the coins jingling in his pocket-- his money.

Knowing Maman, she would've probably stayed up to have him walk into a joyous household that would congratulate him. After an entire month of economic uncertainties, the money earned would provide great reprieve.

He was in the mood to spoil himself when he came across a stall that sold candy. The shopkeeper was in the process of winding it down for the night when he went over and bought three pieces of the cheapest candy of the lot.

He was as excited as a child when he grabbed the small leaf package it had been wrapped in and quickly scurried home, eager to share the rare treat with his parents.

*
Philippe lay under the stars after a dinner of boiled vegetables and a piece of candy.

They weren't really stars, of course. Just little white dots on the ceiling that Maman had painted for him while he was younger in one corner of the house. But to Philippe, they were the stars.

Maman had been ecstatic, and Papa moderately joyous. As soon as Philippe entered the house, she'd ambushed him for the money counting it carefully and then putting it into a tin can under the cot. She would be in charge of it from then on.

Papa had, in characteristic fashion, kept a steadfast silence until Philippe announced that he had bought some candy to celebrate. And then he'd lightly commented that his son had the priorities of a five year old. But the ringing insult had not been missed by Philippe.

He had snidely replied that he'd have brought wine if not for the fact that it may lead to Papa breaking the arm of yet another girl in a drunken rage.

That had ruined the mood. No one talked after that. They are their dinner in stoic silence and hurried away to sleep as soon as they were done.

The past wasn't something any of them were comfortable with. Especially Papa.

"Philippe," Maman called him, putting an abrupt end to his stream of thought. "Someone is here for you."

He saw a man he did not recognize standing at the door. His mother was holding it open, glancing at the man with unbridled curiosity.