Chapter 8 — Four hundred meters too far

On Friday, at 5:11 p.m., I was still at home.

Which, technically, meant nothing.

I wasn’t late.

I wasn’t even required to go.

An event called “Go Out” on my phone did not constitute a legally binding contract. At most, it was a vague intention created by a tired, impressionable man who had perhaps been slightly weakened by a conversation on the landing.

At 5:12, I looked at my phone.

“Go Out.”

The event had not disappeared out of respect for my discomfort.

Fine.

I crossed the studio to Lapin’s corner.

He was sitting beside his bowl, perfectly still.

“I’m going out.”

His nose twitched.

“Not for long.”

From the couch, Eugène opened one eye.

“You’re staying here.”

He closed it again.

No written commitment.

I checked the glass door.

Closed.

The balcony mesh.

Reinforced.

The chair.

Removed, because it had eventually revealed itself to be a disguised launchpad.

I pulled the curtain slightly, just enough to stop Eugène from treating the outside world as a personal suggestion.

Then I stood in the middle of the studio with my jacket over one arm.

I picked up my keys.

Put them down again to check that I had my phone.

Then picked up the keys once more.

5:16.

The stadium was twenty-five minutes away by tram.

So naturally, I would arrive early, because the only alternative would have been arriving exactly on time.

I finally left.

In the hallway, Liora’s door was closed.

No sound.

She was probably already there.

Inside her world.

I was leaving mine.

I walked down the stairs with an excessive awareness of my own footsteps. Outside, the street had that cold late-afternoon light that made shop windows seem more awake than the people passing them.

I got off at Delorme with several people who looked as though they regretted their athletic choices. Two teenagers in tracksuits walked ahead of me with enormous bags on their backs. A girl drank from a water bottle as she walked. A man in shorts, despite the questionable temperature, jogged along the sidewalk as though walking were a form of defeat.

I followed them.

Discreetly.

Well, I tried.

After five minutes, the gates appeared.

Municipal stadium.

The entrance was open. Beyond it, the track surrounded the field like a broad red line divided into lanes. Bodies moved everywhere.

People talking.

Laughing.

Calling to one another from opposite ends of the track.

I stopped just inside the entrance.

Mistake.

There is nowhere more conspicuous than the place where someone hesitates.

A boy jogged past me.

Then another.

Then a girl in blue went around me with the ease of someone who had correctly identified me as a stationary obstacle.

Fine.

I had become furniture.

Eventually, I sat down in the second row of the bleachers.

A neutral position.

Perfect in theory.

In practice, I felt like an administrative error sitting on concrete.

I took out my sketchbook.

At least that gave me an excuse.

Drawing.

Or pretending to.

I traced a vague line across the page.

A barrier. A post.

Nothing brilliant.

In front of me, the stadium continued existing without showing any concern for my integration.

“Aurèl!”

I looked up too quickly.

Liora was standing beside the railing about thirty feet away.

I hadn’t seen her arrive, which was impressive considering she was wearing a red sweatshirt, black leggings, her hair tied high, and an expression that was far too satisfied.

She raised a hand.

I responded with a gesture that was too small.

She laughed.

Even from that distance, I saw it.

Then she grabbed her bag, set it down near a group, and crossed toward me at a quick walk. Not her hallway walk. Not her stairwell walk either. This one had direction. Economy. She was coming toward me without wasting movement.

“You came.”

“Apparently.”

“You say that like someone dropped you here against your will.”

“My calendar bears some responsibility.”

“The ‘Go Out’ event?”

I froze.

Her eyes widened.

“Wait. Was that really what you called it?”

“No.”

Too quick.

She burst out laughing.

“You called it ‘Go Out.’”

“Almost. It was a temporary title.”

“For coming to the stadium?”

“For going out.”

“Very precise.”

“Sufficient.”

She was still smiling, her cheeks already slightly red, probably from the cold or the warm-up she had begun before I saw her.

“You picked a good spot,” she said, looking at the bleachers.

I looked around.

“I have no idea what I’m doing.”

“It’s less obvious than you think.”

“Which means it’s obvious.”

“A little.”

Perfect.

Someone called her from the track.

“Liora, warm-up.”

“Coming!”

She looked at me again.

“I have to go. You can stay here. Unless you want to do drills with us.”

“I don’t know what that means, and the answer is already no.”

“Wise decision.”

She stepped back.

“If anyone asks, say you came to watch practice.”

“That’s true.”

“Exactly. Keep it simple.”

“I can try.”

She took two steps, then almost came back.

“And don’t make your ‘I’m here by accident, but I’m assessing the emergency exits’ face.”

“According to you, that’s my normal face.”

“Then vary it.”

She left.

I watched her despite myself.

She went quiet.

Not gradually.

Not after finishing one last sentence.

Immediately.

I noticed it before I understood why.

Her face changed too.

She was still herself.

Bright eyes, moving hands, that way of being present without apologizing for it.

But her attention had shifted somewhere else.

Like turning a lamp.

The coach pointed toward the track.

They set off on a slow jog around the field.

I settled back, my sketchbook open on my knees.

Liora ran in the middle of the group.

She spoke occasionally.

Less than expected.

She listened a lot.

I had expected her to run the way she talked.

Fast.

Too fast.

With the feeling that energy was escaping from every angle.

That wasn’t it.

On the track, her movement had edges.

Once, Liora missed a step.

Not exactly missed.

She placed her foot slightly too close to the inside line.

She grimaced, corrected it immediately, and tried again.

No one commented.

Neither did she.

The coach approached, said something while pointing to her left arm. She nodded. Not with her hallway version, the one that meant, yes, yes, I heard you, but I already have an objection.

Here, she nodded to remember.

Then repeated the movement.

Better.

Without realizing it, I drew a small curve on the page.

A shoulder.

Maybe.

I partially closed the sketchbook.

Fine.

No need to get carried away.

The coach gathered everyone near the starting line.

I couldn’t hear everything.

Only fragments carried by the wind.

“Three times four hundred... two-minute recovery... clean... no stupid starts...”

One of the boys muttered something.

The coach pointed his stopwatch at him.

“I’m watching everyone.”

A few people laughed.

Then he turned toward Liora.

“You especially. Do not take off like the first turn personally insulted you.”

Liora put a hand over her chest in mock outrage.

“I’m very calm.”

The group laughed.

The coach barely did.

“You’re many things, Liora. Calm is a theory.”

She smiled.

But when he continued, she listened.

“First four hundred controlled. The goal isn’t to prove you have legs after the first hundred meters. The eight is about pacing. Give everything too soon, and the second lap sends you the bill.”

I sat a little straighter.

The eight.

The 800 meters.

Two laps.

A scam, according to the person most directly affected.

The coach continued.

“You have to feel the pace. Not let it control you. Wait for the right moment. Attack when it’s useful.”

I wasn’t sure I understood the sport.

I understood the idea.

Don’t spend everything at the beginning.

Stay at a speed you want to exceed.

Hold on long enough to have something left when the right moment comes.

I looked at Liora.

She was staring down at the white line. She shook one leg, then the other. Adjusted her hair tie. Pulled lightly at her sweatshirt sleeves, then pushed them up. Her fingers moved once, quickly, before closing.

The coach raised his hand.

The group took their places.

I held my breath.

Ridiculous.

I wasn’t on the track.

The whistle blew.

They launched forward.

The sound changed immediately.

Denser.

Sharper.

Shoes struck the track with nervous regularity. I could make out Liora in the middle, slightly outside another girl. After a hundred meters, she seemed to want to move up.

I saw it in her torso.

In the way her shoulder went forward slightly before the rest of her.

Then she held back.

Almost nothing.

A tiny movement.

But her whole body looked as though it had received an irritating instruction.

The coach shouted:

“Yes, hold it! Not yet!”

Liora didn’t answer.

Obviously.

She was running.

Still, I could almost imagine the sentence she wanted to throw back.

She stayed in position.

The group was already beginning to stretch out. The gaps between them widened by three feet, then six. Their breathing became audible when they passed the finish line.

Liora completed the four hundred with her stride still clean, but her face had changed.

Not dramatic suffering.

Not heroism.

Effort.

Sharp.

Concrete.

She slowed after the line, placed her hands on her hips, walked, and breathed in deeply.

The coach called out times.

I remembered none of them.

“Too fast through the first two hundred, Liora.”

She raised one hand without arguing.

Acknowledgment.

Not submission.

She knew.

I saw that too.

The recovery was brief.

Far too brief, according to my expert seated opinion.

They started again.

Second four hundred.

This time, Liora looked almost different from the beginning. She let a boy move ahead. Stayed behind a dark-haired girl.

Hold.

Adjust.

Wait.

“That’s it. Yes. Stay there.”

She stayed.

I saw her frustration.

Nothing in her face shouted. She made no unnecessary movements. But there was tension in her jaw, restrained impatience in her shoulders. As though her body negotiated with the instruction on every stride.

In the final turn, the coach shouted:

“Now you can go.”

She accelerated.

Not an explosion.

A decision.

She passed the girl ahead of her in the final straight and crossed the line six feet in front.

Then she bent slightly, hands on her thighs.

“Better,” the coach said.

Liora raised her thumb.

She looked both satisfied and annoyed.

A familiar combination.

I looked down at my sketchbook.

I had drawn three lines.

A curve in the track.

A bent silhouette.

A foot touching the ground.

I didn’t remember starting them.

Fine.

My hand had also decided to make itself useful without permission.

The third repetition was harder.

Even I could see it, and I understood very little.

The group started with less lightness.

Shoulders rose sooner.

Breathing opened up.

The cold could no longer hide the heat in their faces.

Liora held the first two hundred meters in silence, then I saw her stride shorten slightly. The coach shouted something I couldn’t hear.

She clenched her teeth.

In the final hundred, she accelerated anyway.

Too early, perhaps.

Or too hard.

Or simply however she could.

She finished, walked two steps, then looked up at the sky with an expression I almost recognized.

The face of someone who wanted to insult an abstract concept.

The track.

Her body.

The idea of distance.

The coach approached.

She listened to him.

Actually listened.

Even tired.

Even irritated.

He made a gesture with his hand.

A line.

A brake.

Then a point farther ahead.

Wait.

Attack.

She nodded.

More slowly than before.

More seriously.

I thought the session was finished.

Mistake.

The coach announced something else.

“Six hundred to finish. Clean. Not heroic. I want rhythm, not theater.”

I wanted to object on their behalf.

No one objected.

Well, one boy said:

“Is that legal?”

The coach smiled.

“Obviously.”

Liora walked over to her bag, took a drink, shook out her arms, then returned to the line. She passed close enough to the bleachers to see me.

Our eyes met.

She raised her eyebrows.

As though asking, See?

I lifted a hand vaguely.

As though answering, Unfortunately.

She smiled.

For a second.

Then the coach spoke, and she immediately turned away.

That switch again.

Hallway Liora would have added another sentence.

Track Liora took her position.

The six hundred began.

A lap and a half.

The group seemed to be searching for a speed.

Not simply moving forward.

Finding a place between too slow and too fast.

The coach shouted cues.

“Relax!”

“Breathe!”

“Not yet!”

“Hold there!”

“Another hundred before you move!”

Liora was third.

Then second.

Then third again, when a boy moved past her on the turn.

She didn’t respond immediately.

I saw what it cost her.

She wanted to answer.

To follow.

To prove herself.

To refuse to leave another body ahead of hers when her own body could pass it.

The coach shouted:

“Liora, wait!”

She waited.

I don’t know how you can see someone waiting while they’re running.

But I saw it.

She stayed behind.

On the inside, slightly boxed in, stride controlled, arms held tighter.

At four hundred meters, she passed in front of me. Her breathing was clear.

Loud.

Not panicked.

Her eyes were fixed somewhere beyond the line.

The coach shouted:

“Now!”

Liora moved.

This time, accelerated wasn’t enough.

She seemed to release a lock.

Her stride opened. Her arms took up more space. The fatigue remained, visible, but it wasn’t making the decision alone. The final hundred meters were less beautiful than the first.

More real, perhaps.

Hard.

Face strained.

Mouth open.

Shoulders trying to rise and being forced down again.

She crossed the line, continued for several yards before slowing, then walked with her hands on her head, then on her hips, then back on her head, as though no position suited the aftermath.

The coach called something out.

She grimaced.

He spoke to her.

She finally answered, too far away for me to understand.

But she was smiling slightly.

Not happy.

Not disappointed.

A mixture.

Alive, in a very concrete sense.

The group set off on a slow recovery jog.

I remained seated.

The concrete was cold beneath me.

I had barely noticed until then.

My sketchbook was open.

The lines on the page had taken shape without a plan.

A bend in the track.

A figure seen from behind.

Hair tied back.

An arm moving behind her.

I closed it gently.

Not too quickly.

There was no one beside me.

No witness.

Which didn’t improve the situation.

The practice continued for a little longer.

Stretching.

Conversations.

Water bottles.

Jackets pulled over shoulders.

The stadium gradually lost its tension. The bodies became people again. Voices took up more space. Someone complained about an assignment. A girl searched for her keys. A boy asked whether anyone wanted to get crêpes.

Normal life, exhausted edition.

No running.

Thankfully.

Liora climbed the two steps of the bleachers and stopped in front of me, still out of breath, her hair slightly loose, her face opened by the effort. Up close, she looked more tired than she had from a distance.

And happier.

And furious.

All at once.

“So,” she said.

I stood because staying seated while she stood felt strange.

Then I realized standing made me look too formal.

Too late.

“So,” I repeated.

“That was your first experience of municipal track and field.”

“I emerge from it changed.”

“That much?”

“The bleachers are indeed ugly.”

She narrowed her eyes.

“That’s your analysis?”

“I start with the environment.”

“Very professional.”

She caught her breath, drank from her bottle, then looked at me over it.

“And the rest?”

A simple question.

Not entirely.

She was trying to sound casual.

I was beginning to recognize that too.

I looked at the track.

Then her.

“I didn’t realize so much of it was about not running.”

She went still.

“What?”

I regretted it immediately.

Obscure sentence.

Excellent work.

“I mean,” I said, “you are running. Obviously.”

“Thank you for confirming.”

“I mean... I thought the point was just to go fast.”

She didn’t answer.

So I continued, because my mouth always chose the worst moments to become autonomous.

“But it looked like the hardest parts for you were the moments when you had to hold back. Especially during the six hundred. When that boy passed you on the turn. You wanted to follow him immediately.”

She lowered her bottle slightly.

“Oh.”

“I think.”

“No.”

I froze.

“No?”

“I mean, yes. Keep going.”

Fine.

Order received.

Moderate panic.

“You looked more annoyed about having to wait than tired from running.”

Silence.

Around us, the stadium continued. A bag zipped shut. Someone laughed near the railing. The coach shouted a name in the distance.

Liora was looking at me.

Not with her hallway smile.

Not with her expression of triumph after successfully delivering something absurd.

Something steadier.

Almost surprised.

I thought I had said something too personal.

Which was ridiculous.

We were talking about running.

A bend in the track.

A boy ahead of her.

Nothing intimate.

In theory.

She looked down at the track, then smiled.

Small.

“That is offensively accurate.”

I breathed a little easier.

“Sorry.”

“No. It’s good.”

She ran a hand over her forehead, then shook her head as though trying to dislodge the fatigue from her hair.

“That’s exactly it. I hate waiting.”

“I had gathered.”

She gave me a look.

“In life, I mean.”

“I had gathered that too.”

“You haven’t seen me in life for very long.”

“I have thin walls.”

She burst out laughing, then had to place one hand against her ribs.

“Don’t make me laugh after practice.”

“I’ll remember.”

“Are you actually taking notes?”

“Mentally.”

“Worse.”

She sat on the step beside my former seat with the caution of someone whose legs had just filed an official complaint. I remained standing for a second, then sat too, leaving a reasonable distance between us.

Neighbor distance.

Stadium distance.

The distance between two people who didn’t know exactly what they were doing there.

She looked at the track.

“The eight is horrible because you can’t just take off. Well, you can. Then you die on the second lap.”

“Metaphorically?”

“Athletically.”

“Is that worse?”

“At the time, yes.”

She stretched one leg in front of her, rotated her ankle, then grimaced.

“The coach always says I sometimes run like I’m trying to settle a personal dispute with the distance.”

“Is he wrong?”

“No.”

“Oh.”

“That’s the problem.”

She sighed, but her smile remained.

Slightly tired.

“You saw everything in one session.”

“I didn’t see everything.”

“You saw the annoying part.”

“Sorry.”

“Stop apologizing when you pay attention properly.”

I didn’t answer.

Because the sentence had a strange shape.

And because she hadn’t said it like a joke.

Or not only as a joke.

Someone called from beside the railing.

“Liora! We’re leaving!”

She raised a hand.

“Two seconds!”

Then turned toward me.

“How are you getting home?”

“Tram.”

“Me too, but I’m going to get a drink with them first. Something that isn’t an energy gel or lukewarm water that tastes like plastic.”

“Ambitious.”

“You can come.”

I looked at the group near the exit.

Several people.

Athletes.

People who knew how to exist inside a stadium, talk loudly, carry enormous bags, and laugh after running distances that should have justified a medical evacuation.

“I’m going home,” I said.

She didn’t seem offended.

Or surprised.

“Okay.”

Then, after a second:

“It’s already good that you came.”

I shrugged slightly.

“I had an event.”

“Go Out.”

“Temporary.”

“Historic.”

She stood more slowly than she would have liked, I thought. Her hand brushed the metal railing to steady herself. I made a movement too small to count as offering help.

Ridiculous.

She didn’t need it.

She saw anyway.

Obviously.

“I’m fine,” she said.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You thought loudly.”

“That’s a difficult accusation to prove.”

“I know you.”

I looked at her.

She seemed to realize what she had said only after saying it.

Or I imagined that.

She pulled her bag onto her shoulder.

“I mean, I know your normal face.”

“The one assessing the exits.”

“Exactly.”

She took two steps backward.

“Next time, I’ll put you closer to the turn. It’s better for watching disasters.”

“There’s a next time?”

“Socially, when someone stays through an entire session without fleeing, yes.”

“Maybe I simply have excellent seated endurance.”

“It’s a start.”

She smiled.

“See you, Aurèl.”

“See you.”

I put my sketchbook in the inside pocket of my jacket and walked down from the bleachers.

As I left the track, I noticed that the soles of my shoes had picked up a little red dust.

Physical evidence.

I had actually come.

The sound remained in my head.

Not the voices.

Not the coach.

Not even the whistle.

The footsteps.

That sharp rhythm against the track.

Liora waiting.

Liora moving.

Liora holding something back before releasing it at the right moment.

I got off at my stop, walked to the building, and climbed the stairs.

On the landing, her door was closed.

No sound behind it.

I went inside.

Eugène was waiting behind the door.

Not in front of it.

Behind it.

Exactly close enough to create a scene of accusation.

“Good evening.”

He sniffed my shoe.

For a long time.

Then looked up at me with an outraged expression.

“Yes, I saw other humans.”

He sniffed again.

“And track surface, probably.”

He turned and walked toward the couch.

Judgment delivered.

Demitrius accepted a green leaf with the generous neutrality of a quiet sovereign.

The studio was calm.

Actually calm.

I placed my keys in the dish, removed my jacket, and turned on the lamp beside the bookcase.

My desk was waiting.

So was the cabin.

I opened the file.

The light I had added beside the door looked too obvious.

I softened it.

Then saved.

Once.

Twice.

The third time waited several seconds.

Spectacular progress.

I took out my sketchbook to check a perspective detail.

At least, that was the available explanation.

The sketchbook opened to the stadium page.

The figure was there.

Not very detailed.

A body in a turn.

One shoulder held back.

A leg driving into the ground.

Tied hair following the movement a fraction too late.

I remained still.

I didn’t remember drawing it.

Not really.

I remembered the track, the sound, the way she had waited before moving.

My hand had apparently taken notes differently.

I closed the sketchbook too quickly.

As though someone could accuse me.

No one was there.

Eugène was asleep on the couch.

Demitrius was eating.

The fridge hummed.

The city breathed beyond the windows.

It was almost worse.

I placed the sketchbook facedown on the desk.

Then, after a few seconds, opened it again.

Just enough to look at the figure one more time.

I picked up the pencil.

Added one line.

Only one.

The continuation of the arm.

Then I closed it.

More gently.

A sound finally came from the other side of the wall.

A door.

Footsteps.

Slower than usual.

Then Liora’s voice, muffled, tired, alive anyway.

I couldn’t make out the words.

I didn’t need to.