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there was more than one question, she took it to mean what she wanted. And I suddenly found myself with a dead soldier with the same surname as me for a father, which should have felt weird. Chazes is my mother’s surname, she was single when she got knocked up and she stayed single when she had me on her hands.
    Or “got lumbered with me” as she often put it. Because I was a burden to my mother. And she made no bones about letting everyone know. But, as Landremont would say,the converse is reciprocal—or something like that—which means that she was a pain in the arse for me too.
    I didn’t want to disappoint Margueritte, to explain about the 14th July celebrations and my mother in the bushes learning about the birds and the bees from some thirty-year-old guy from the next village which left her with a bad reputation and a halfwit son. I got the impression that this wasn’t the kind of thing that happened in Margueritte’s world. That’s why I said yes. And suddenly, I was a poor unfortunate orphan whose dad had died in the war, which sounds a lot classier than the result of some random shag, if you want my opinion.
    She gave a little sigh, like she felt sorry for me.
    Sorry about what? I wondered. What was there to feel sorry about? My life’s pretty good, actually.
    I remember she looked at me, all serious, and she said:
    “I find it profoundly touching that you should be so passionate about righting what must seem a terrible injustice… In fact, when I think about it, it’s absurd: if your father died during the Algerian War, why is his name not engraved on the memorial?”
    What could I say, what sort of convincing excuse could I come up with to explain why my old man’s name wasn’t on the list? Given that, from what I know, his real name is Despuis, he was a carpenter and he didn’t die in combat, he died in a car accident in Spain when I was about four or five. To say nothing of the fact that he’d never set foot in the Algerian War (1954–1962). And that if he’d died in theAlgerian War, I’d never have been born—which would have been a relief for all concerned—seeing as how I came into this world in April 1963. The 17th, to be exact.
    But however much I thought about it, I couldn’t find a way of piecing the truth together and presenting it for this little old lady. I sat there like a lemon, fretting over my version of the story, but I couldn’t find a way to tart it up.
    It was at this point she said:
    “I’m so sorry, Monsieur Chazes… I realize my question was deeply indiscreet, please forgive me. I did not intend to make you feel uncomfortable. I’m sorry…”
    I said:
    “No harm done.”
    And it was true. I don’t give a toss about my father. For me, he’s just biology.

 
     
    T HAT DAY , as I headed home, I wondered why I was so obsessed with adding my name on that stupid slab of marble. Because deep down, if I really thought about it—something I didn’t much like doing back then—I knew perfectly well I’d never committed war. And I knew that you had to be dead to be on the list. Even if I played the idiot for Devallée, the deputy mayor.
    I, Germain Chazes, knew that only people who’d snuffed it had a right to be there, engraved in capital letters, being shat on by the pigeons from the park.
    Why then was I so obsessed with being one of them? Maybe so I’d feel that I belonged, that I existed even just a little bit, even if I wasn’t really indelible on all surfaces. Or maybe so someone would say, Hey, who is this guy who’s always writing his name on the war memorial? I wonder why he does it?
    I would have liked to talk about all this stuff to someone, but who? Landremont or Marco would be a waste of time, they’d have thought I was stupid, just for a change. Julien, I wasn’t sure about. Or Jojo, or Youssef. Maybe Annette?
    Yeah, maybe it was the sort of thing you could talk about with a woman.
    Women are funny: they don’t have a clue about anything, you