Pétronille

by Amélie Nothomb

Ventura was her fantasy father. Whenever one of his films was on television, Pétronille would invite me over to her place to watch it. The moment he appeared on the screen she went into a trance.

  “Don’t you think he kind of looks like me?” she asked.

  “There is a faint resemblance, yes.”

  “He’s my father, I’m sure of it.”

  The odds that Françoise Fanto might have sinned with the famous actor back in the seventies were close to minus twenty, but as for choosing an ideal father figure, Pétronille could have done a lot worse.

  In 2005, I published Sulfuric Acid. To date, it is my only novel that has elicited a hostile reaction. I was criticized for comparing the barbarity of certain reality TV programs with that of concentration camps. The attacks were disingenuous: my novel was set in the near future, and in no way sought to call anyone a fascist. It was pure fiction, and as such eventually things calmed down.

  Nevertheless, I went through a period that, if not altogether difficult, was trying to say the least. Champagne was a precious ally, as was the young woman in my orbit.

  Pétronille had just published her most exhilarating novel, The Tough Ones. In a way it was her version of the Hollywood masterpiece What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? She was right to complain that the press did not give her book enough coverage. We emptied our champagne glasses, sharing our respective disappointments.

  One day, she vented her anger at me: “You just don’t realize! I dream of being in your shoes!”

  “Do you think it’s pleasant to be insulted?”

  “And to be ignored—is that any easier?”

  “Don’t exaggerate. Your book has not gone unnoticed.”

  “Oh, stop it, please. I cannot stand your pathetic indulgence. Why don’t you say it straight out: my book got what it deserved.”

  “And stop putting the words in my mouth. I never said that, and for good reason: it’s not what I think.”

  “Then stop whining. You are not to be pitied.”

  “I’m not whining, I’m just feeling a bit disgruntled.”

  “Old fussbudget!”

  Our squabbling gave us something in common with her characters: had we been younger, we would have been like the angry lushes she had portrayed. You can tell a writer from their immediately prophetic nature: I don’t know whether my Sulfuric Acid turned out to be true regarding the evolution of reality television, but I am sure that her Tough Ones were incarnated in our quarrels that autumn. Which was proof, if any were needed, that Pétronille Fanto was a genuine writer.

  At the end of the year, I found this message on my voicemail: “Bird, get out your best champagne. I’ll be at your place tomorrow at six in the evening. I have some news for you.”

  I immediately put a 1976 Dom Pérignon on ice. What did she have to tell me? Had she met someone? Was she in love?

  She luxuriated in the first sip and told me that she would miss it.

  “Are you going to stop drinking?” I asked, alarmed.

  “After a fashion. I’m going away.”

  “Where?”

  She made a vague gesture as if sweeping her hand over vast territories.

  “I’m going to cross the Sahara desert on foot.”

  Coming from anyone else, a statement like this would have made me laugh out loud. But Pétronille did not have a drop of indecisiveness in her blood, and I knew she really intended to go through with her rash scheme.

  “Whatever for?” I stammered.

  “I must. If I stay here any longer, I’ll be infected by the filthy mannerisms of the literati.”

  “But you can avoid that. Look at me, I haven’t got them.”

  “You’re not normal. It’s something I need to do, really. I don’t want to go stale.”

  “You, go stale? That’s impossible.”

  “I just turned thirty.”

  You would never have known. She hardly seemed a day older than when we first met and I thought she was fifteen. She looked seventeen.

  “How long will you be gone?”

  “Who knows.”

  “Will you come back?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you sure?”

  As if in reply, she reached into her bag and handed me a parcel.

  “I’m entrusting you with my latest manuscript. It’s valuable. I’m totally fed up with publishers. If you think it deserves to be published, then please look into it. I’m proud of this manuscript and I have every intention of assuming my parental role. So you can consider it proof of my return.”

  Only with great effort did I take a sip of the best champagne on earth.

  “I’m grateful you haven’t offered to come with me,” she said.

  “I’m like you: I never come out and make statements regarding things I don’t think I’ll go through with. To be sure, crossing the Sahara on foot is bound to be sublime, but it’s not my thing. When are you leaving?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I’ve got to. Otherwise, I’ll start having this literati attitude: I’ll be waiting to hear what you think of my manuscript.”

  “I can read it tonight.”

  “No. I know you: you never read when you’re drunk.”

  “What makes you think I’ll be drunk?” I asked, raising the flute to my lips.

  She laughed, her marvelous radiantly healthy laugh.

  “I’ll miss you,” I said.

  My chin was trembling.

  “You’re so sentimental!” she exclaimed, rolling her eyes.

  And indeed, I belong to the race of those who weep when their friends go away and don’t know when they’ll be coming back. I have a long experience of separation, and I know better than anyone what is at risk: when you leave someone and promise you’ll meet again, this can be an omen of the most terrible things. Most often, you never see the person in question again. And that is not the worst thing that can happen. The worst is when you do see the person again and you don’t recognize them: either they’ve truly changed a great deal, or you find that they have some incredibly unpleasant characteristic they must have always had, but you had managed to blind yourself to it, in the name of that strange sort of love which is so mysterious and so dangerous and where you never quite know what is at stake: friendship.

  Sentimentality needs fuel. We had to open a second bottle. When I sensed that I would soon stop being presentable, I threw Pétronille out.

  Through the window, I watched her fragile little figure walk away into the night. Tears were pouring down my cheeks.

  “How will I manage without you, you monkey?” I wailed.

  I went and collapsed on the bed, more dead than alive.

  In the morning when I’d finished my writing, I opened my fugitive friend’s parcel and saw the title of her manuscript: I Cannot Feel My Strength. “That certainly is true,” I thought. I immediately started reading. I prefer not to say anything about the book other than: if ever a text deserved to be called “awe-inspiring,” this is the one.

  I would have to contact publishers about the novel in Miss Fanto’s place. It would be no easy thing. “Good old Pétronille! You’ve only just left, and you’re already a bigger pain than when you were here.”

  I am someone who keeps her promises. That very afternoon I photocopied the manuscript and sent it out to various publishers, leaving my name and address. As far as the French publishing industry was concerned, the results were both laudatory and disgraceful. The fact that my name made things go considerably faster was to be expected. The fact that all those publishers turned down such a beautiful and risky text was shameful. But I might point out that none of them suspected me of writing the manuscript. Which proves one remarkable and reassuring thing: people in this town still know how to read.

  I would not admit defeat for all that. S
ince mailing out the manuscript had been fruitless, I would go and deliver the manuscript to the next batch of publishers in person. The fact that I was making the effort to go there in person would reflect the depth of my conviction.

  And that is what I did. A great number of appointments followed: they were all stunned to see me, because I am reputed to be as loyal to my publisher, Albin Michel, as Penelope was to Ulysses. I quickly disappointed them with my announcement that it was not a text of my own that was the purpose of my visit.

  “Do you do this for many authors?” they asked.

  “This is a first, and will no doubt remain the only time.”

  Then I had to wait for their verdict.

  I, too, happened to be a writer and a human being. So I went on writing and living.

  The hardest thing was finding another drinking companion. Worst luck, the marvelous Théodora, who drank so gracefully, chose that moment to pull up stakes and move to Taiwan. For me, 2006 was much the same as it had been for Pétronille: a crossing of the desert.

  And anyway, this was no time for pleasure. Through my intervention, Pétronille’s manuscript was accumulating one rejection after another, and this was getting me down. One nice young female editor even wrote to me and said point-blank: “Why are you going to all this trouble for this Fanto woman? You know very well that in the literary world, people with a proletarian background don’t stand a chance.”

  I could never have made up such a remark, and it left me speechless. If I’m relaying it here, it is because I do not want to hide the fact that in Paris, in 2006, a person wrote to me to point out such a thing in all seriousness. I leave it to others to make of it what they will.

  When I started feeling truly dejected, I took comfort in thinking, “What if an editor actually accepts the manuscript then asks to meet the author? You’ll be obliged to say that Pétronille Fanto is in the Sahara desert for an unspecified length of time, and the contract would be deferred, and thus immediately forgotten. It’s enough to set you to grinding your teeth, isn’t it? It’s better this way.”

  And I had my own novels to stick up for. My Italian publisher sent me to a book signing in Venice, and I arrived right in the middle of the Carnival. People in the street congratulated me on my disguise; I was simply wearing my work clothes. There was some controversy over my hat, which according to the French was that of a nonjuring priest, but the Italians insisted that it was the same that was worn by plague-era physicians.

  That autumn I watched the wild geese migrating. “Pétronille, when you coming back?” Needless to say, I had no news. Perhaps she was dead. At the same time, as I still hadn’t found her a publisher. It was just as well she wasn’t here.

  I read a text Rimbaud wrote just before he disappeared: “I shall come back, with limbs of iron, dark skin, and a vengeful eye: from my mask, it will be said I belong to a strong race. I will have gold: I will be indolent and brutal.”

  These splendid words resonated curiously with me. Would I ever see Pétronille again? And if I did, what sort of state would she be in?

  In November, I found a drinking companion worthy of the name in the person of Nathanaëlle, a young friend who had just moved to Paris. She was totally reliable, which is the most important characteristic for this position: after several flutes of champagne, you are bound to unveil a few secrets. By definition, trust must be absolute, therefore you can count on one hand the people you can trust.

  The second-most important characteristic of the drinking companions is that they must not turn up their noses at the bubbly. Otherwise, you are left with the impression that you are drinking on your own, which is precisely what you had wanted to avoid.

  Thirdly, drinking companions must be happy drinkers: they are not there to divulge their bitterness. Nathanaëlle turned out to be ideal. In this matter as in all others, the point is not to replace someone: no one can replace another person. But life became more lighthearted.

  The editorial curse only lasted through 2006. At the end of January, 2007, I received a favorable response from Fayard regarding Pétronille’s manuscript. My joy was even greater than when my own first novel was accepted by Albin Michel. All that is missing is the author’s presence for everything to be perfect, I thought.

  As the letter from Fayard stipulated that they would like to meet Mademoiselle Fanto, I had begun entertaining the idea of hiring an actress who looked like her to play her part, when the telephone rang:

  “It’s Pétronille.”

  “Pétro! Are you calling from the desert?”

  “No, I’m at the Gare Montparnasse. Come and get me, I’ve forgotten how things work here.”

  I rushed to the station, expecting to find the reincarnation of Lawrence of Arabia. She was merely dark brown, thinner, with wild eyes, but recognizable.

  “Hi there, bird.”

  “Where do you want to go? Home?”

  “I don’t know. Where do I live?”

  While the taxi took us to the twentieth arrondissement, I urged her to tell me all about it. She hardly said a thing.

  “It’s January 31,” I said. “You’ve been gone for more than a year. Did you enjoy it?”

  “More than that. Much more than that!”

  Fortunately, I had kept a set of her keys, because she no longer had her own. She gazed around her apartment as if in a stupor.

  “It’s going to be strange not sleeping under the stars.”

  A pile of bills and other mail awaited, which the concierge had slipped under the door. Pétronille picked it all up and threw it into the trash. I intervened: “And your taxes?”

  “I wasn’t in France in 2006. If they don’t like it, they can put me in jail. I’m hungry. What do people eat in this country?”

  At the corner bistro, I ordered her some salt pork with lentils, so she would become reacclimatized to her biotope. Then I told her the big news:

  “I’ve found a publisher for your manuscript.”

  “Oh, right,” she answered, as if this were the most normal thing in the world.

  And as I knew how hard it had been, I was somewhat put out. I was tempted to tell her about the repeated humiliation I had suffered on her behalf. But I decided against it, because it was too unpleasant. And she might have been so disgusted that she would have turned around and gone straight back to the Sahara.

  The worst thing is that I understood her: the fact that her novel had found a publisher was indeed the most normal thing in the world.

  “What was it called already, my manuscript?”

  “I Cannot Feel My Strength.”

  “I cannot feel my strength? That’s certainly true.”

  “You should reread it. Fayard want to meet you.”

  “There’s no rush.”

  “Yes, there is. I made an appointment for you on February 6.”

  This wasn’t true, but her offhand behavior was beginning to annoy me.

  Our food arrived. Pétronille began eating the lentils with her hands.

  “Now you’re going too far,” I said.

  “The Tuaregs,” she said, absently.

  “Obviously. But if, by some miracle, the publisher invites you to lunch on February 6, use your knife and fork.”

  That afternoon I ordered her to bed, although she claimed that she now slept on the floor, and I called Fayard to make an appointment for February 6.

  I spent the days that followed breathlessly dreading that Pétronille might behave disastrously during the appointment.

  On February 6, in the evening, she called me to assure me that she had put her best foot forward. As that could mean anything, I asked her whether she had signed a contract.

  “Who do you take me for? Of course I did. My book will come out in the autumn, like yours.”

  I immediately invited her over to celebrate, and noted with relief that at least th
e Tuaregs had not managed to put her off champagne.

  The desert remained a mystery. When I tried to get Pétronille to talk about it, she dodged the issue. One day I provoked her.

  “You never went to the Sahara. For thirteen months you hid out in Palavas-les-Flots.”

  “If that was the case, I would bore you with stories about the desert.”

  One evening as we were starting on the second bottle of an excellent Dom-Ruinart blanc de blancs, she confessed that she had been sleeping very badly.

  “Ever since I got back,” she said. “I can’t stand this urban racket anymore.”

  “Your neighborhood is not that noisy.”

  “But it is, compared to the Sahara. You have no idea of the silence there. What I liked best of all about the desert was the nighttime. I would pitch my tent as far away as possible from the Tuaregs. You don’t know what silence is if you’ve never heard that silence.”

  “Wasn’t it frightening?”

  “Anything but. There is nothing more restful. I slept like an angel. Sometimes I would wake up, nature calling. The sand was so white, so luminous, it was like walking in snow. Overhead, this unbelievable sky, a profusion of stars, bigger and brighter, like constellations from a hundred thousand years ago. I could have wept with joy.”

  “No snakes?”

  “I didn’t see any. In the morning, I would go back to the caravan. The men baked bread in the sand. It was wonderful. I don’t know why I came back here.”

  “To drink champagne with me.”

  “Quite a job.”

  “That it is. You have to be strong.”

  Even though she didn’t talk about it, she must have been pleased when I Cannot Feel My Strength was published. The novel garnered the admiration of the happy few. And these happy few included my father.

  “Nietzsche has been reborn,” he said. “Who is this author?”

  After giving it some thought, I decided that Patrick Nothomb—a man who had shot the breeze with rebels who were armed to the teeth, and drunk tea in the company of Chairman Mao—would be up to meeting Pétronille.

  My parents invited us to lunch in Brussels. My mother, who simply cannot get her titles right, congratulated her guest on her book May You Find The Strength.