The Body of My Enemy (Le Corps de mon ennemi)

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BODY OF MY ENEMY

Cournai... 10-minute stop.

PAPER DISPOSAL

Rene, look.

Keep calm.

A packet of Marlboros.

We will kill bastard murderers!

What do I owe you?

Ten francs seventy.

He didn't recognise you.

Does the Trade Hall on Moncey Street still exist?

Sure does!

To Moncey Street then.

Mine one or yours?

Funniest one yet.

What if I told you about this family...

Sorry?

A few gags...

My brother living in Paris rings any number when he's bored.

Asks for 'Your handsome' and inevitably gets the reply, 'Yes, your handsome'.

'So sit yourself down' he says.

What do you predict for Munich?

I say it won't be a walk in the park.

Look out! On their turf, the Germans shouldn't be underestimated.

Sometimes even on ours.

A. Beaumont Liegard Hospital

Is that new?

New? Been a long time since you were here?

Seven years.

I regret that the banning order wasn't removed from your sentence.

Understand that I'm saying this for your benefit.

Your return there isn't desirable.

Nor desired.

OK, so the Trade Hall's got two schools.

We either cut across town or take the ring road so you see what's new.

So which way then?

Whichever way you like.

I'm getting off here.

Take my suitcase to the hotel and book me a room.

That's enough?

..."Says the whale, hiding in the water."

It's a good one, huh?

"That's enough says the whale, hiding in the water."

Even too much.

That's fine. Keep the rest.

Which name do I book your room for?

Leclercq!

Wow! If only I was expecting this!

I'm not disturbing you?

No, not at all.

So come in.

This is amazing!

I was talking about you to my wife a few days ago.

Yes, I got married.

We all do. You know what it's like...

No...

Have a seat.

Have you had breakfast?

The last tin dish.

Oh, of course!

When did you get out?

Right after the last tin dish.

You see, you rarely stay on.

Oh, of course...

My wife's still asleep.

I'll wake her up... She'll be delighted.

Asleep... It is early...

She has trouble falling asleep.

She's forced to take tablets.

She's highly-strung.

So inevitably, in the morning...

I'm going to make two good coffees.

Nah, don't worry about it.

It won't take me long.

Was this idiot at my trial?

All rise!

Proceedings may begin.

Francois Leclercq, identity check.

Please confirm your birth on 18 November 1933 at Cournai.

You shaved your mustache, huh?

Yeah, what do you think?

What's my mustache to him?

He hasn't changed.

...Better than before.

...Necessarily, or there's a mistake.

Not even a friend, a classmate.

Same class, different group.

On Sundays, we laughed at him in 'Miss Remington's arms.

That's what we called the typist his father took as second wife.

Son and step-mother embracing like fiances...

in the majestic shadow of the Legal Department's Second-in-Command

at the Deposit and Consignment Office.

He must be here to thump me, but why me? We weren't really friends.

I'll get through this with...

Shit, 25 will do it.

It's ready, try it.

I buy it at the Coffee House.

They roast it themselves.

Francois... I wouldn't want you to be awkward with an old classmate.

Something to ask me?

Yes.

Are you sleeping with her?

Did you come just to ask me that?

Oh yes!

Here we go again!

Well no, would you believe.

I wasn't dim.

Walking with her, I could tell you made fun of me.

Of course not!

For the old days, she was very pretty, a little faded... I mean, pastel.

What can I say?

I felt it was silly...

But she wanted it that way.

To show she wasn't a farce.

That the son agreed.

That we were...

That you were happy.

That's it.

Not that after Dad's death... both in the same room...

...Doors closed...

You can't always control your thoughts.

Right.

But don't think that... No nothing at all.

Then... She grew old... Slowly.

Always cared for her appearance.

Then one morning, while watering her plants...

...Bam!

Everything’s changed now.

'Expansion', we're living at the American pace.

Life's changed, and people have too.

You won't recognise anything... Me neither.

Six months outside a neighbourhood, and you don't recognise it.

Expanding every day.

Would you believe the population has nearly doubled?

Two times more idiots?... Seems impossible.

Anyway, that doesn't change anything since nothing

ever does in this city which isn't a city...

...but the temple to the textile industry's prosperity and grandeur.

In other places it's sugar, spinach, nougat, cars... Here it's textiles.

No one escapes it.

Living from and for the textile industry... until death.

A life sentence of textiles.

Textiles and soccer... Factory above, soccer below...

The factory for money, the stadium for honor.

Young people wave banners, but not signs.

COJAC! COJAC!

Hungarian soccer star Serge Cojac, at the nationals 16

times, transferred to local team for 500 mill. fr...

Less than a strike costs.

We're not poor like Uruguay or Zaire, we know a

penalty's worth in the polls, so we pay Cojac.

We can't be bastards because we're French champions.

'Is the accused guilty of Karine Lechard's murder?

Yes.

Is the accused guilty of Serge Cojac s murder?- Yes.

'Were Lechard and Cojac's murders committed with

the aggravating circumstance of premeditation?

No.

'Should the accused benefit from attenuating circumstances? - Yes.

The court thus sentences you to ten years imprisonment.

The region's buggered off...

Commerce Street's become an enormous window

display, over flowing, eating up the street...

The town's become wild...

A gadgets trade fair with gaping mirror, steel,

plexiglas doors and commanding slogans.

'Bargain', 'Clearance', 'Our prices will shatter'.

A way to sell off, chuck out, or get rid of things

that serve no purpose, except being bought again.

GOAL, always cheapest!

Thousands o tems available!

GOAL, vehicle, hour free with 1200 franc purchase.

CHEAP

A fragment of a lost world, I remember the

stores you went into to make a purchase.

Bookshop - Stationery

Hello sir.

What are you after lad?

I'd like a 500 draft book please

I'd like three hard backs, one drawing book and coloring pencils.

Certainly miss.

And a pencil sharpener.

Very well miss.

I'll charge miss' account?

Please.

Goodbye miss.

Sorry about that sonny, it was the Liegards' daughter.

That's when I started to hate, I think.

'Sonny'!

Because of her priority, his casual...

way of speaking to me.

To her, 'yes miss', 'certainly miss'...

Later, much later, came justice when I slept with her.

I can remember the swans, the sloping lawn,

the Willow's moist shadow, everything.

...Except myself.

I certainly didn't have this face because it was 12 years ago.

With a cluttered memory, when you try to see