bécarre
nom, masculin
En musique, le bécarre est un symbole graphique appartenant à la famille des altérations, dont la fonction est d'indiquer sur la partition qu'il convient de restituer sa hauteur naturelle à une note précédemment altérée.
There's a melancholy to him.
He senses it the same way they do. Just like the orange leaves on the darkened ground brings him back to feelings he can't fully reach.
So he pushes them away with all his might, with the same force they use to pursue him.
He hides. He covers his being from head to toe. He plunges his hands in his jacket, he covers his face with his scarf, his head with a cap, and his cover with a hood. He's a shadow among the living, in all black, nondescript, so he doesn't exist.
He walks up the brick stairs, their red matching the sunset, and he doesn't give a glance at people he crosses. He only looks up once he reaches the final steps leading to a large building.
From where he stands, the hospital splits the sky. Mostly white, some of the structures covered in wood for the aspect of it. He doesn't stop, he keeps on going, he takes the same route three times a week.
He follows a way he knows by heart, a path he's sure of. Some things are familiar, through the new routine. But can it truly be new if he can't grasp what the old one used to be?
He enters through a service door, he enters from the back, away from visitors and patients alike. They know him, and he knows everyone. It's like an all access pass.
The scarf slides down but there's still a mask.
Then there's the escalator. The second one doesn't work so he climbs each and every step, always on the same rhythm, regular and familiar too. There's the third escalator, and he makes his way in the labyrinth of hallways. The lights are reflecting on the linoleum and he never truly got used to the scent.
.
The day is almost over when she catches a glimpse of him, of a feature, of a special, silver-blonde characteristic. A jolt hits her body and she does a double take, interrupting her own sentence, surprising her colleague.
She steps sideways, she tries to get a clear look, but the man is not only walking away, he has put his hood up over his cap, a scarf over his mask.
"Hermione?"
She turns to her colleague, she places a small strand that escaped her bun behind her ear as she stammers her apology. She can't think, she can't believe. So she leaves for him.
She hurries out of the main entrance and she spots him. It's easy, he stands out to her, so she follows him, holding her handbag close to her.
She closes her light raincoat over her dress, without ever dragging her gaze away from his back. She doesn't know why, he could be anyone. It's the 'what if' that clouds her reason. She can't let the chance escape.
She can't lose him, he's a head over the others. And yet, he, too, cranes his neck, he's noticed something he doesn't want to miss as well.
The next second, he doesn't want to miss his bus. He's running after it, and she runs after him. Her heels hit the pavement with each rushed step, and he notices because he looks back, but he doesn't react if not for a finger pointed in her direction to tell the conductor, and her hope falters.
But she doesn't have a choice anymore; the bus is waiting for her. Since she can't go back, she goes in.
She finds a way through the crowd, she wants to reach the closest doors, she wants to escape as soon as she can, she wants to leave her wish behind. But before she can, the bus comes to a sudden halt and she topples forward. She's caught by a hand on her arm and she looks up at him.
There was no mistaking him.
His grey eyes do the talking through his camouflage and she knows there's no way he can't recognize her, this time.
He doesn't. He looks away politely as he releases her arm.
She stares and he still looks away. Either he pretends he doesn't recognize her, or he pretends he can't feel her gaze. Maybe he wants to stay hidden, and she hesitates.
They looked for him after the battle, because no one knew where he was. They had found his parents. That, they did. But they had stopped looking for his body a long time ago, and for him even earlier. Seven years had passed, double the time they had spent together, however unpleasant that time had been. But he didn't change, at least not completely.
She looks at what he was staring at — a young boy sat on his father's lap — and she gets back to his eyes, wondering what thought crosses his mind.
When he moves, she's almost startled. She does the same, thinking he's about to leave, and he stops. They glance at each other, he's almost timid, and he misinterprets. He gestures to the newly empty seat, she gestures no — she doesn't dare speak. Besides, she's okay, but she doesn't think he is.
But as he closes on his needed rest, he stops again. He helps an old lady to the seat and Hermione knows that what she wanted to be real definitely isn't. She turns around, finally ready to leave him behind, and yet she can't help but glance.
He bends over, removes a brownish leaf caught in the small wheel of the lady's shopping trolley, full with groceries.
"Aren't you too hot?" The lady asks him, waving her hand in front of her face to indicate his scarf. He doesn't reply verbally, but she chuckles at what his eyes and nod say.
She doesn't know if he doesn't speak because of the scarf, the mask, or because of his voice. She still wants to think he doesn't want her to hear his voice. Maybe he's hoping she didn't actually recognized him, maybe he doesn't want to give himself away.
Why was she holding on to her wishful thinking? She had made her choice.
The bus stops, she doesn't know where she is but she steps out of her dream. She doesn't want to look back, she doesn't want to watch him leave. Again, she can't help it. It was her first thought of him in years, and probably her last for years to come, so she might as well give him one last look.
When she turns, a leaf brushes her face as it spins away with the draft, and she watches him walk away, the bus already in the distance.
She interprets the sign, she clings onto it, and she puts even more distance between her and the leaf, she lessens the distance with his back.
But they're in the city, and while he still seems to avoid people with an intuitive ease, she doesn't. She's in the middle of an emergency, of a delectable panic, so she had more obstacles.
The traffic light isn't working, it's blinking, and cars stop when he arrives, he doesn't have to pause but she does. And when she crosses the road, finally, she can't see him. She's drowning in the crowd but she doubts she'll find him at the bottom.
As the mass of people lightens, she looks around frantically. She's distressed; she lost him again.
She feels stupid when she finds him. He's a few paces away, quite still, maybe too close to the road. He's staring at the traffic, or at the roundabout, maybe at the statue in the center, and the lights all around. They illuminate the city and his way.
He starts again and they leave the noise and confusion together.
As they make their way into silent streets, she's afraid he'll turn to her again, even if it looks like he hasn't heard anything that has happened around him for a while now.
The night is out, the road the same color as the sky, leaves covering the pavement. He slows down as he reaches hedges decorated with fairy lights on both sides of a small, dark gate. He opens it, closes it, and she listens to his step on the stony path leading to his habitation.
She crosses the road when he closes the door, so she can observe his home. The walls are off-white and contain three small apartments. From the outside, they all look the same. She waits still. She knows he lives in the highest one, because there's still no light on. And she knows she's right when there is. She can't see anything through the two windows on her side, close to each other. She's completely outside of his world. But she doesn't move.
Then, he appears once again. He's free of his scarf, free of his mask, and she sees him. The dream becomes reality, her heart beats furiously and she can't fight the tears that leave her eyes.
He is alive.
He is closing the curtains and only leaves his shape into view. He walks away, and she's still looking.
.
He approaches one of the walls. They were all almost completely covered, too, with empty frames, with paintings, small and big, with clocks of different size and shapes. None of them work.
He places a vinyl disc on his record player and starts it. He closes his eyes and lets the sound of the recording fill his ear, he lets the instrumental jazz blues fill his place, and he feels better than he has all day.
There's a sudden, unusual crack outside and he turns around. He comes back to the window, moves the curtain aside with two fingers as he looks at the other side of the road. Nothing. Maybe he dreamed it.
So, he moves to the usual next step. He approaches one of the clocks, the same one, always, and he inspects it closely. It's made of glass and he almost places his ear against the wall as he observes it from the side. It's thin and from there, he observes the relief of the markings. There's no hands to indicate the time, clock working or not, it should be useless. He approaches his hand from the center, slowly, febrile, almost trembling. The tip of his middle finger reaches the surface first, and he taps three times on it, carefully.
Everything is in order when he finally hears the tick.