Chapter 46 Section forty-fifth

As night fell, the air gradually became a bit chilly.He chose a street with a row of villas on one side and a square surrounded by iron fences on the other.There, on the sidewalk that runs along the square, is a row of wooden benches.He sat down, feeling exhausted.He wanted to put his legs on the bench.He thought: That's how it really started, one day a guy put his legs on a long butt and then night fell and he fell asleep.That's how a man joins the Rangers overnight, becomes one of them. However, before long, he pulled himself together, controlled his fatigue, and sat up at once, just like an excellent elementary school student in the classroom.There are trees behind him, and in front of him, the villa across the road.They are all similar in structure, white, three floors, with two columns in front of the door, and four windows on each floor.He carefully observed every passer-by on this little-traveled street.He decided to stay there until Chantal showed up.Waiting was the only thing he could do for her, for both of them.

Suddenly, thirty meters to the right of the street, all the windows of a villa lit up.Someone drew the red curtains from the inside.Some hipster was throwing a party, he guessed.But he was surprised to find that no one went in.Were they always there, but only now turning on the lights?Or had he fallen asleep unknowingly, so he hadn't seen them coming?Godnet, what if you miss Chantal because you fell asleep?Suddenly he was dumbfounded by an indulgent suspicion.The words "You know why you want to go to London" echoed in his ears again, and the words "You know why" suddenly gave him another completely different thought; London, the city where the British live, That British guy, Brittany.At the train station, she was calling him, she had left Laila, her colleagues, everyone, because of him.

A sense of jealousy surrounded him, intense and melancholy—a jealousy not unlike the abstraction he had had when he stood before an open wardrobe or when he asked himself questions about the possibility of Chantal betraying him. Yes, purely spiritual jealousy is different.It was the same kind of jealousy that pierced through his body as the jealousy of his adolescence, the jealousy that Lang had hurt him unbearably.When he imagined Chantal giving himself to another man, submissively, aggressively, he could hardly contain himself.He stood up and ran towards the villa.The door was brightly lit by a lantern, and he turned the handle, and it swung open.He went in and saw the stairs covered with a red woolen blanket.He heard the movement upstairs and went upstairs.The second-floor counter was taken up by a long shelf that held not only coats, but also (with a tightening of his heart) some women's suits and a few men's shirts.Angrily, he sprinted through the pile of clothes and rushed out a double door, which was also white.Suddenly, he felt a hand rest heavily on his aching shoulder.He turned around, only to feel the hot breath of a muscular man hit his chest.The man was wearing a T-shirt, with flowers tattooed on his arm, and a few words of English popped out of his mouth.

He struggled to get rid of the hand that was hurting him more and more and pushing him toward the stairs.There, he nearly lost his balance as he was still struggling.At the last moment, he grabbed hold of the banister to keep from falling.He descended the stairs slowly and dejectedly.The tattooed man followed behind him.When Jean-Marc stopped hesitantly at the door, the man raised a hand and ordered him to leave, shouting something in English.