Déchetterie Beach

Déchetterie Beach is a lakeside place tied first to Anthony’s childhood outings with his cousin and, much later, to a picnic with his mother, Hélène. Its decisive significance lies in the gap between what Anthony intends and what the place brings forward: he chooses it simply to do something different, while Hélène understands the outing as an opening to talk about Patrick’s death. The beach holds both an old routine and an unplanned encounter with family grief, before Anthony leaves it with the valley’s familiar summer sensations pressing close around him.

A Remembered Place and an Unplanned Invitation

On the bus home, Anthony notices the lack of crowds, the smooth traffic, and the warmth of the air. Two older women discuss tomatoes that no longer grow as they once did and frosts arriving out of season. After getting off farther from home than necessary, he walks without thinking about anything and realizes that he feels good. At home, he phones Hélène with an idea: they could eat at Déchetterie Beach, which he identifies as the place where he and his cousin used to go all the time. The memory is specific in its frequency but otherwise left open; the novel does not reconstruct those earlier visits. The beach matters here as a familiar destination Anthony can return to without first giving that return a larger meaning.

Hélène is already waiting when Anthony arrives. She has spread a checked cloth and paper plates, and brought tabouli under foil, chicken thighs in a plastic container, and paper napkins. Anthony has ridden there on a Suzuki DR 125, racing through the woods as evening falls; the ride has made him feel free. The practical care of the picnic and the speed of the journey meet at the same shore: a meal prepared by his mother, a familiar place from his past, and the independent movement of a nearly twenty-year-old returning on his motorcycle.

The Picnic and Patrick’s Absence

The meal does not begin as a deliberate reckoning. Anthony himself has not connected the invitation to his father; he had wanted a change of scene, the weather was pleasant, and it had been a long time since he had gone on a picnic. Hélène, however, says she thought he wanted to talk about Patrick. The difference in their expectations gives the outing its emotional turn. A casual invitation becomes an opportunity to approach a subject that mother and son have never properly discussed.

After Patrick died, they had little time together to address the loss. Anthony was serving in Germany when Hélène told him in a letter. He came home for the funeral, but formalities, paperwork, and clearing out the apartment occupied their time. At Déchetterie Beach, mother and son sit looking across the lake as evening settles. The scene does not supply a full conversation or resolve what remains between them; instead, the setting makes room for the subject to be named after its earlier displacement by distance and practical arrangements. The water and fading light hold their pause, while the contrast between Hélène’s expectation and Anthony’s uncomplicated reason for coming keeps the moment tentative.

Other Young People at the Water

A little farther down the shore, a small group of teenagers gathers around a fire with beers and a guitar. Anthony estimates that they are fifteen or sixteen: three girls and five boys. Their presence is not tied to his family’s past, but it gives the beach another generation and another kind of evening life. While Hélène and Anthony share their meal, the young people occupy the water’s edge with music, teasing, and movement.

After Hélène leaves, Anthony sits alone, smokes, and thinks of his father and of the life imposed on them. He wishes he had something to drink, checks his empty pockets for money to buy beer from the teenagers, and watches the sun descend. The guitar player performs a complicated piece, probably Spanish; two girls clap along. Two teenagers then undress and go swimming as their friends tease them good-naturedly. The boy is long and slim, with a swimmer’s build; his girlfriend is described as sturdy and smiling. They dive and splash before the guitar player challenges them to swim across the lake. The others gather on shore to cheer and whistle as the pair set off through the water with smooth strokes.

Leaving the Beach, Carrying the Valley

Anthony chooses not to watch the swimmers. He climbs onto the Suzuki DR 125 and quickly reaches the departmental highway. The departure turns the beach into a threshold: behind him, the teenagers cheer their friends across open water; around him, the road and motorcycle return him to motion. The narration lingers on the engine’s vibration and noise, the smell of the exhaust, the woods’ shadows, and the wind against his face. These details belong to the valley as much as to the ride. The road’s texture and the precise smell of the summer air are familiar to him, and the landscape is described as having left its imprint on his body.

That ending complicates any simple idea of leaving. Anthony can ride away from Déchetterie Beach, but the familiar evening light and road carry Heillange with him. The location has gathered several kinds of return without making them identical: a childhood place recalled through his cousin, a picnic that opens onto his father’s death, and a final departure into the sensations of home. The book’s phrase for this attachment is the terrible sweetness of belonging; at the beach, that feeling emerges not from a declaration but from Anthony’s decision to leave the swimmers behind and from the valley’s continued presence in his body.