If one day you were to write this story, you would call it Gründlich.

That would be an odd title.

It’s a German word, not quite easy to translate. Let’s say it evokes the idea of doing the job carefully, meticulously, thoroughly, right until the end.

She loved Germany so much.

She always was so gründlich, your little girl. She loved you gründlich, right from the first night. You were so seductive, in your unhappiness. After that, she did the job gründlich, nothing to complain about. She mended you, reconciled you, swallowed you in one piece, just like she did with cherries, including the pit.

If only you had wanted to, she would have taken you to the end of the world. And to China, since you have a meeting there, with the secret of your life.

Yet, little judge, China is far. And one fine day, you knew it all along, she would stand you up there, all alone with a bag of cherries, in the pleasant avenues of your lovely district.

Gründlich is the second novel of David Serge, after Les langues paternelles (2006).