An Impossible Love

My father and mother met in Châteauroux near the Avenue
de la Gare in the cafeteria she frequented, at twenty-six she had
already been with the Sécurité Sociale for several years. She
started working at seventeen as a secretary in a garage; he, after
lengthy studies, had his first job at thirty. He was a translator at
the American base in La Martinerie. Between Châteauroux and
Levroux, the Americans had built a housing development on
several hectares with little one-story houses surrounded by gardens
without fences, in which the families of the military lived.
The base had been allocated to the Americans through the Marshall
Plan, at the beginning of the fifties. A few trees had been
planted, but when you went by on the highway, you could see a
multitude of red hip roofs scattered across a broad empty plain.
Inside what was really a little village, wide paved streets allowed
the inhabitants to travel in their cars, slowly, between the houses
and the school, the offices, and the runway at the base. He had
been hired there after his military service, he didn’t intend to
stay. It was temporary. His father, who was a director at Michelin,
wanted to persuade him to work for the Green Guide, but he
readily saw himself having a career as a researcher in linguistics
or in academics. His family had lived in Paris for generations, in
the seventeenth arrondissement, near Parc Monceau; they came
from Normandy. In Paris, many had been doctors. They were
curious about the world, they had a passion for oysters.
He invited her for coffee. And a few days afterwards for a dance.
That evening she was supposed to go to a so-called “social ball”
with a girlfriend. Social balls, organized by a group or an association
that rented an orchestra and a large hall (distinct from the
dance halls frequented by Americans and prostitutes), attracted
the young people in Châteauroux. This one took place in a large
exposition hall on the Déols highway, Hidien Park. My father
didn’t usually attend.
“Oh, I don’t go to that kind of thing … We’ll go out another
evening. I’m going to stay home. I have work …”
She went with her friend Nicole and Nicole’s cousin. The evening
had already gone on for quite a long time when she saw him
in the distance coming through the crowd. He approached their
table. He invited her to dance, she got up, she was wearing a
white skirt with a wide belt. They made their way toward the
dance floor, he smiled as they arrived on the parquet floor, she
was ready to slip into his arms, he took her hand to guide her and
spin her around among the dancers. At that moment the orchestra
began playing the first measures of “Our story is a story of
love.”
It was a song you heard everywhere. Dalida had inaugurated
it. She would sing it with intensity, mixing the tragic with the
banal. Her accent gave a roundness to the words and stretched
them out at the same time, her deep voice enveloped the sounds
and gave them a particular substance, there was something
haunting about the whole thing. Accompanied by the orchestra,
the singer imitated Dalida’s original interpretation, the better to
heighten the emotion.
Ourr storrry is a storrry of lo-o-ove
Eterrrnalll and banalll it brrrings each day
All the good all the bad.
They weren’t talking to each other.
It’s the well-known storrry …
The dance floor was crowded, it was a very popular song.
Those who lo-o-ove each other play together, I know
My complaaaint is the plaaaint of two hearts
It’s a novel like so many others, which could be yourrrs
It’s the flame that enflames without burning
It’s the dreeeam you dreeeam without sleeping
My storrry, it’s a storrry … of … a … lo-o-ove.
They were silent during the whole song.
With the hourrr when you embrace, the one when you say
farrrewell
With the evenings of anguish and the marrrvelous mornings …
And tragic or very deep, it’s the only storrry in the worrrld
That will never end.
It’s the storrry of a love …
They weren’t looking at each other.
But naïve or very deep, it’s the only storrry in the worrrld,
Our story is the storrry … of a lo-o-ove.
The song came to an end, they separated. And they went back to
their table through the crowd. She introduced Nicole and her
cousin to him.