Liège, un soir, une nuit…
Some evenings, I let the hour for going home slip past.
I stay outside with the ones crossing the snow. What they carry away, I will never know.
On the Meuse, the lights come undone. Across the water, someone closes a curtain.
The seasons come back to me out of order. Autumn in Le Laveu. The exact spot where I had stopped.
Saint-Martin, above the cars. Headlights slide across the façades.
An evening in May, a stranger. We share a few seconds of light.
December, outside the Opera. I have forgotten what was on my mind.
I remember the snow. Two figures under one umbrella.
Then a narrow street, and everything moves away.
Three figures pressed together. I watch them go. I am the one being left.
Faces go by. Some of them stay with me, I don’t know why.
The hanging lights shine on those going home. I am still walking.
I slow down outside the cafés. Hands around glasses. Voices reaching the windows.
I could push the door open. I stay on this side of it.
A lamp on a doorstep. I stop for no reason. Or none I care to know.
Someone picks up a song I thought forgotten. I stay for the chorus.
The song follows me. In Roture, it is lost among the voices.
Outside the Randaxhe, they part several times over. There is always one more sentence.
A hand settles on a coat. I walk on before I know whether it is a farewell.
An empty chair. For a moment, I put a face back in it.
In the end I go in. From the shadow, I watch the crowd. One window is enough to keep me apart.
I step back out. My absence interrupted no one’s sentence.
Rue Hazinelle, a cigarette between two words. I will not hear the rest.
Someone leans into a car door. I look down, to leave them a little darkness.
Ahead of me, a man and his bag. I envy him a reason to go home.
Then the crowd takes me back. A few metres without deciding where to go.
When it lets me go, I hear my own steps. Heavier.
A figure keeps close to the façades. Each of us keeps to our own side of the street.
The walls close in. A man comes towards me. Just enough room to avoid each other.
The terraces, fewer voices now. The chairs stay turned towards one another.
The snow comes back to me. A man walks away. Soon, no more tracks.
Another evening, rain. Headlights open paths that close again at once.
I walk past the dark windows. Whole days behind those walls. I will see none of it.
A woman under her umbrella. Her reflection stays at my feet, then breaks.
At the end of the street, a lit window. I slow down, as if someone were waiting for me there.
Towards Pierreuse, the shadows of the bollards bar the cobbles. Mine stretches out among them.
Impasse de l’Ange, I sit down on a bench. The silence has kept someone’s place.
I set off again by the steps. At the top, a gate. I did not think that light could be closed.
A man steps out of the shadow. This time, I do not look away.
I let him pass. Outside, a woman cuts across the square. I wait for her to disappear.
The lockdown nights come back. I had looked so hard for empty streets. I was not ready for their silence.
One figure is enough. Someone is walking ahead of me. I let them get further ahead.
At Guillemins, the fog erases distances. Under the shelter, someone is still waiting. I stay a while.
It is time to go home. I carry away faces that will never know they kept me company.
Thierry Lechanteur
I look up for so long that the noise of the street falls away.
It is still daylight at Saint-Pholien. Under the trees, the figures are already dressed for night.
Under the viaduct, I wait for a train. A departure that will pass through me without taking me along.
A man stops under a lamp. I know that need for light before going on.
Someone is sweeping outside their door. A gesture that erases where the others have passed.
At the Ange d’Or, a voice comes through the glass. I stay outside until the cold calls me back.
Three boys stretch the summer out in the middle of the street. I too believed we had time.
The uniforms cross the festival. Beside them, a couple embraces. I walk between the two.
Masks under the festival lights. We had decorated the waiting.
I pass beneath the open hands of a Virgin, with everything I keep to myself.
At Guillemins, whole floors stay lit. The light goes on with its day in the empty offices.
From sign to sign, so many places to go. I keep walking.
In Outremeuse, I know the detours. And still I am looking for someone I could not name.
Rue Beauregard, the doors are so close that walking past feels indiscreet.
Of that summer, I have forgotten almost everything. What is left is the mild air on my arms.
A woman comes towards me in the rain. In the time it takes to look at her, I forget what I was waiting for.
The year was about to turn. People walked as if we could really step out of this one.
At Pierreuse, the arms of Christ stay open above the closed doors. I walk past looking at my feet.
Two people walk away in step. I stay behind. I have walked like that.
I count the floors. At that height, lives are no more than rectangles of light.
In the crypt, a harp. I wait for each note to leave the stone.
A few windows above the steps. Ordinary evenings, like countries I will not enter.
I walk along the rails. No train. The metal keeps the smell of departures.
A man crosses the footbridge. His shadow reaches me first.
Someone passes so close that their face escapes me. What is left is the rustle of a coat.
Railings around a tree. Its shadow reaches out on the other side.
A woman walks away on the phone. What voice goes with her, there where the light no longer reaches?
