My neighbor Lucien was found dead on Sunday.
Alone, in his kitchen of the last 52 years, in a modest four and a half apartment that he rented and that he considered his family home.
The previous Thursday, he was still waiting for the neighborhood children and his favorite dog at the corner of Rosemont and Saint-Michel for the last day of school. The dog then generously licked his face and I can hear his laugh, unmistakable among all, ever since.
The day was warm, bright, full of the frenzy of recent times, and Lucien was in a good mood, like every morning.
Over the years of living next door, he told me his life stories, how he raised his daughters alone, worked hard to provide for the family, overcame hardships and conquered vices. He was proud of not “taking pills,” as he put it, of walking every day, of his bowling games and his recipe for spaghetti sauce.
Lucien had not only lived in the neighborhood for over half a century, he breathed a little something into it. He filled it with his raspy voice, his teasing look, his grand political flights of fancy against a backdrop of cigarette smoke and, above all, humanity.
His death upsets and revolts me because it is both tragic and banal.
Tragic, because it was in front of an eviction notice placed on the table that Lucien was found dead. And you couldn’t make this up, Madame Duranceau: his heart stopped beating in the face of an implacable destiny of struggle, or uprooting.
But it is also banal because I feel that these broken lives have no value in your eyes, and that is precisely what revolts me.
In this time of moving, I wanted to share this story with you to honor the memory of this man, who deserved to still make plenty of spaghetti sauce recipes in his house.
It seems to me, Madam Minister, that as long as tenants are not better considered, protected and supported, history will lamentably repeat itself.