On a Paris street: inspiring trash

I happened to have my camera with me this afternoon when I spotted this little pile of intriguing garbage. My eye was drawn by the dusty wine bottles and old travel brochures. By the time I got home, I found that it had inspired a short story. I've decided to call it Lost and Found:

After the funeral, Luc Tessier went to his father’s apartment on rue de la Tour d’Auvergne and started to clean it out. Books were stacked in cardboard boxes, clothes were bundled into black plastic sacks, decisions were made about which paintings and items of furniture would be sold.

Luc set aside the photo albums: he would take them home with him. At one point he found himself standing immobile in the salon in the grey February light, staring at his father’s passport. Frédéric Jacques Tessier, born in Paris on September the 12th 1937.

Luc’s relationship with his father had not been easy. An only child, Luc had never been forgiven for opting for a sensible job in finance rather than starving in a creative profession. His father had been a renowned theatre critic. After retiring, the veteran reviewer had turned his sarcasm and barbed wit on his son. And yet Luc came to the apartment almost every Sunday night to listen to it all, watching the level of wine slowly falling in the bottle.

Luc lit the lamps and sat at the coffee table, a little museum of objects spread out before him. They were so emblematic of his father that he was unsure what to do with them. Four empty bottles of Bordeaux – including one Luc remembered as a very good 1986 Chateau d’Yquem. The little saucepan in which the old man had boiled water for coffee every morning. A newspaper article about the singer Yves Duteil. And a handful of bright travel brochures from the 1960s. Tessier senior had often referred obliquely to his travels in Italy, which appeared to have been a lifelong source of inspiration. Later, though, he had taken his vacations in France – preferably in wine country.

Luc often wondered why his father had never returned to Italy. Were some of the memories painful? Had he known someone there – a woman?

The final item was a scrawled quote – barely legible – from the book The End of Certainty, by Ilya Prigogine. The chemist and philosopher had been a strong opponent of determinism: the idea that the future was as solid and unmoving as the past. Prigogine felt that the unpredictability of nature disproved this theory. Luc’s father, with his deep pragmatism, had embraced the idea that life was entirely random. Nothing was written. There was no justice, kindness or cruelty. There were just occurrences.

After a while, Luc tipped the items into a plastic sack and placed it beside the others. One by one, he took them downstairs, where the refuse truck would collect them in the morning.

When he got home, he kissed his wife on the cheek and reassured her that the experience had not been so bad. Then he went to his study and sat down at the computer. He booked a flight to Venice, followed by a train to Florence. It was the most impulsive thing he had done in years.

Over supper, he told Elise that he was taking a trip.

“Why?” she asked him, in a surprised tone.

He took a sip of red wine, unsure what to say. Finally he answered: “I’m going to look for my father.”

Comments

[Alejandro Arena]

Good start for a novel Mr. Tungate.....

[cecile]

You could indeed just start a novel on this! You got me into it and I feel like taking this train down to Italy to decipher this dead man's history! Please Mark, just go ahead...!

[Mark]

Mysteries are less fun once they're solved, though, aren't they?

[François]

Excellent, à part le Chateau Yquem 2007. Un peu tôt pour le boire maintenant...:-)

[Mark]

Thanks for your advice, François. I've changed the year.