A cappella

Chapter 27: Do we know where we are heading?

How had they met? Max, still half asleep, with his spirit still very much focused on his friends' wedding, would have gladly explained "in a cafe near the medical school, because babakar was the work collegue of Danielle's best friend, Marion", but after a moment of contemplation, Diderot's response seemed like the better one, simpler, and more definitive: "by chance, like everyone else." "That chance which made things so good, and which was written up there."

What were their name? What's it to you? There, Max felt that the author was mocking him... Was it not of his right, the reader - one that's somewhat focused and serious, with good will but without much patience - to know at least the name of the characters in the story that was beginning?

Babakar Saloum, for example, was a name that deserved to be quoted at the beginning of a beautiful love story, a name that promised travel and ancestral wisdom ... But Danielle had a name which was not hers, and which masked pains and questions. 

Again, Max ended up by agreeing with the author: what does it matter to you? Danielle was a strong-bodied girl, and her marriage to Babakar proved it, if need be. It would bring to their history the gentleness and mystery that it lacked. 

Where did they come from? From the nearest place. Where were they going? Does anyone really know where they're going?

Max put the book on the bed and stood up to look out the window. The garden stretched out, barely emerging from the night, damp bushes and barren trees, until the end of the field, to the house of his English neighbors, the Allans.

Does anyone really know where they're going? The question resonated in Max's mind, finding in him an echo almost haunting. Not only did he find himself at this moment, as he does often in his lifetime, with the world open before him like a chessboard with a thousand possible combinations, not knowing on what side to play his pawn, but on the other hand, he had the intimate conviction that everything was already written: the decisions he would take, as well as their foreseeable consequences, and the unpredictable, which can at any moment reverse a situation and turn things into a check mate.

It was all up to him to make his choice, to go blindly in one direction or another: to resume his studies in Vienna, or to innovate by enrolling himself in a British university as Lynn Allan had encouraged him, or to go with Saif to gain valuable professional experience in the thriving business world of the Gulf countries.

Do we know where we are going? 

He picked up the book and put it back on the bedside table, putting inside the photo that was his bookmark, then he lingered a moment to look at the picture, this picture of him and his friend, a Russian student in Vienna, it was already so long ago ... She wore a funny fur hat on her head that put her dark eyes in value, it was winter at Stephansplatz, and the snow marked a White line the Gothic architecture of the cathedral.

But the winter had finally reached the Basque coast, as it was the morning of the 21st of December, the first day of winter, also the first day of the Christmas holidays and the day on which Babakar was to have his marriage.

The phone vibrated on the desk. "Get up, Max," Babakar wrote. "Be at the town hall of Bayonne in an hour!", Max grinned. 

They were, he and a Senegalese from the African coffee place, the two witnesses of Babakar. He sent a quick reply, and grabbed his suit in the old wardrobe and headed out.

At the campus of the University of Bayonne, Babakar was ready. He had put on the traditional boubou, a tunic of brilliant blue with silver embroideries with trousers of the same fabric and regretted having to put on over his winter clothes, the navy blue jacket he wore every day. But the wind was blowing, the winter wind, and it was even threatening to rain. He glanced at his student room. 

As of this evening, he would sleep in the little apartment Danielle was renting above the dance studio. He would only return to take the rest of stuff. His true life, which he had prepared for during his childhood and teenage years, for which he had grown, learned, understood, was at last going to begin. 

Before going out, he checked his satchel one last time, his money, his passport, his student card, and, preciously kept in a small black box, the two wedding bands. Inhaling deeply to give himself courage, he also grabbed the large piece of shiny cloth that he planned using as a scarf to complete his Senegalese costume, and went out.

The dice was thrown. 

He had asked for Danielle's hand, a french woman, a student of letters, a classical dance teacher. She had accepted. It would be the companion of his life, the mother of his children ... It will not be easy, had predicted his parents. You will never be a full Senegalese any more, warned Max. 

But Babakar, who was now pacing the damp streets of Bayonne, adorned with his sparkling costume, had faith in the future, and walked straight towards the town hall with all the confidence of the world.

When Danielle got out of her cab, he was there to open the door for her. All smiles, they entered the official building together. She took off her long black coat and her beret, and appeared in her white dress, her fair hair dropped on her shoulders, fairy-tale like.

Max was there, moved and excited, and he quickly joined them, drowning them in a deluge of jokes that Danielle did not follow, were the teasing was mainly about how Babakar was proposing a marriage contract although he had no money, and to start a family while still being a student.

" You know what you're doing here, right? You know where you're going?" He pressed her questions in a low voice as they entered a small room where the deputy mayor was waiting for them to settle the final details.

"Does anyone really know where they're going?" She replied serenely, settling down at the table.

Max grinned his victorious smile. For the first time, he seized Danielle's literary references without her need to explain them ... And for the first time also, he, the tightrope walker, saw that it was possible to advance on a path, Like Babakar or like Danielle, without oscillating.

.....

How about you, the reader, do you know where you're heading?

❤Thank you for reading❤