Even though she was some distance away, Meg, observing the scene, suddenly understood her boss: with her fashionable body, Oxana added to Wim’s reputation. Never mind the fact that Madame Vandenboren was looking daggers at her, or that Monsieur Vandenboren was standing there frozen in order not to alarm his wife. Both saw Oxana as a sign of wealth and success. Oxana enhanced the luxury surrounding Wim.
The taxi driver rang the doorbell.
Meg interrupted the quartet and reminded Oxana that she had to go. She lifted her strand of hair and ran to the exit.
“Three little coffees, please, Meg.”
The sale was going to take a bit longer . . .
Meg got three tasty espressos from the coffee machine.
Leaving the Vandenborens in front of the Basquiat they liked, Wim joined her. “Anything new in the mail?”
She gave him a brief summary, which he mentally registered, then handed him the anonymous letter. “There was also this. Sorry I opened it.”
He grabbed the note and read it. Taken aback, he looked at Meg, then read it again, grimaced, and left it on the marble kitchen counter.
“A woman would have to be fat and ugly to write a note like this. Throw it away.”
Then he took the coffees and went to rejoin the Vandenborens.
Meg rushed to the toilet, not because she needed to, but because she liked to be alone when she felt overwhelmed by events.
Once locked in the charcoal-black space, she gave free rein to her thoughts. Why doesn’t he love me? Why doesn’t he ever look at me the way you look at a woman who loves and is loved?
The mirror answered her: in it, she saw a short, rather broad woman with low shoulders, blotchy skin, and an outmoded hairstyle. For a moment, she thought she recognized her mother’s image. Not her mother at the age of twenty, but her mother now.
She looked away, threw the note in the toilet bowl, flushed, closed the lid, sat down, and allowed herself a few minutes to weep.
10
Pleasant night owl, chatty, a smoker, a drinker, socially inept, hates to go out more than one evening a month and would rather stay at home, a snob, overdoses on music, which he talks about when not listening to it, seeks lady owl of similar nature, depressive, excessive—hysterics welcome—unskilled in the kitchen, housework-impaired, for passionate conversations. No sex maniacs or marriage candidates need apply. Sole condition: a pleasant and not too loud voice. Please send tape, which will be listened to. All applicants will be considered impartially.
Pencil in hand, Ludovic was going over his ad, trying to put himself in the shoes of the woman reading it. Satisfied, he also jotted down Wealth irrelevant, a detail that struck him as particularly appealing.
Tiffany, a new friend, came out of the kitchen with the croissants she had bought him on the way, and resumed their conversation.
“What? Come on, Ludo, you’re not going to tell me that at the age of twenty-six you haven’t had sex with a woman?”
“Did I say that?”
“That’s what I understood.”
“Strange . . . ”
Tiffany laid the table, an inquisitive smile on her lips. Ludo pushed his notebook aside.
“Now stop playing cat and mouse. Once and for all, Ludo, have you ever had sex with a woman?”
“Good question. I wonder that myself.”
“That’s cheating. Just answer yes or no. Have you ever had sex with a woman?”
“Hmm . . . ”
“Hmm?”
“‘Hmm’ is a word.”
“And what does ‘Hmm’ mean?”
“Something between yes and no.”
“Be more specific.”
“There’s been nothing specific in my rare sexual experiences.”
“You’re so discouraging!”
“That’s what I think too.”
Tiffany looked fondly at Ludo. On the short side, with the beginnings of a belly and a pleasant face thanks to his abundant black hair, pale gray eyes, and scarlet mouth, he made the perfect friend: funny, helpful, never forgetting a confidence. Dressed in jeans that were too large for him and baggy pullovers—often blue and worn—he looked quite ordinary. And yet compared with other young people his age, his behavior was unusual: he was single, passionate about classical music, owned thousands of CDs, and had just set up a specialist magazine, La Clé des scènes, available both in print and online, which provided highly pertinent and independent comments on cultural life.
Peculiar as he was, Ludo aroused feelings of affection in everyone he met. Not only did people become friends with him, they felt as if they’d been friends forever . . . Was it because he looked more like a boy trying to grow up than a man? There were still childlike elements in his appearance. His softness, his roundness, the clarity of his expression, the blatant absence of muscles suggested a boy who has just broken out of the small children’s playground to the older children’s one. Hormones and testosterone had almost forgotten to visit his body. Of course, he’d done enough growing to reach five foot seven, and for a few fine hairs to grow here and there on his chin, but he still had a prepubescent look. There was no erotic glow in his pupils; his movements didn’t originate from his pelvis, and his center of gravity was above his navel; he kissed cheeks the way most people shook hands: out of politeness, automatically, without suggesting that he was crossing an intimate boundary by bringing his body closer. Was it this obvious lack of sexuality that made everybody call him Ludo instead of Ludovic? Although intended to be friendly, the diminutive was a reminder that this likable creature lacked something.
For weeks now, in her eagerness to help him, Tiffany had been striving to understand why he lived alone.
Far from finding her investigation intrusive, Ludo responded to it good-naturedly, happy to talk about himself and giving answers that dumbfounded her. Tiffany now resumed her interrogation, spelling it out clearly as if speaking to someone who was hard of hearing.
“‘Sex,’ Ludo, ‘sex.’ It’s not as if I’m asking you anything technical.”
“Is there something technical about sex?”
“I mean, I’m not asking you for physical details.”
“You’re right. When it comes to physical things, the devil is in the details.”
“How far have you gone beyond . . . beyond flirtations?”
Ludo burst out laughing. “Flirtations! I’m honored by your use of the plural. I’ve only had one or two flirtations, as you call them. Or maybe three . . . ”
“Maybe?”
“I only get then in very small slices . . . ”
“Ludo, have you ever gone . . . beyond flirting?”
“My flirtations have gone beyond me.”
Tiffany sighed.
Sensing that he was exasperating her, Ludo leaned forward obligingly and tried to express himself clearly. “Would you like me to tell you about my longest, most beautiful love affair? I was fifteen. A new family had moved in on my street. From my window, I could see Oriane, who was also fifteen, and was the eldest of the four Morin sisters. Oriane had curly, implausibly thick auburn hair. I fell so much in love with her that I had to repeat my school year.”
“Repeat your school year?”
“That’s right! If putting your feelings before your education isn’t love, I don’t know what is! In the evenings, instead of doing my homework, I used to watch her doing hers. Nothing else mattered. I spent a year and a half like that.”
“What happened in the end?”
“Her parents moved to Spain.”
“You must have both cried a lot when you parted.”
“I did, yes, because I’d devoted a year and a half of my life to her. No idea about her.”
“Oh, come on!”
“Did she even know I existed? We never spoke. I’d investigated and found out her name was
Oriane, but she almost certainly didn’t know my name.”
“And what happened afterwards? You said you were going to tell me about your most beautiful love affair.”
Ludo burst out laughing. “That was it! You see, Tiffany, when I have a crush on a girl, I turn stupider than an ass and show as much initiative as a mollusk. The girl I love becomes the girl I don’t come near, the girl I don’t speak to, the girl I look away from.”
“So you wouldn’t behave any differently toward a girl you didn’t give a damn about or even hated?”
“Ah, I feel understood.” Pleased, Ludo started rolling himself a cigarette.
Tiffany crossed her arms and looked at him.
The telephone rang. “Want to bet it’s my mother?” Ludo said sardonically.
“How do you know?”
He picked up the phone. “Yes, Mom. Of course, Mom. I swear, Mom. See you later, Mom.” He smiled playfully. “My mother has just pointed out that it’s her birthday today and that I mustn’t get her anything. She was quite insistent on that. ‘No flowers, no books, no perfume.’ So now I have her order, I know what to look for.”
He seized the tobacco between his fingers, rolled the strip of paper, shook it, tamped down the contents, and glued it with a flick of the tongue.
“Well done!” Tiffany cried admiringly.
“If you only knew how many pouches of tobacco I used up before I succeeded. I have butterfingers.”
“Can’t you say anything nice about yourself?”
“It doesn’t come easily. Probably the way I was brought up . . . ”
“Are you suggesting you were brought up better than the rest of us?” Tiffany said indignantly, as Ludo lit an old lighter.
“I didn’t grow up with compliments. My father was stingy with them; he never praised my sisters or me; all he dispensed was sarcasm, criticism, mockery, and insults. As for my mother . . . well, the poor thing had no idea. People often try to work out why she didn’t do this or that; I think it’s quite simply that it didn’t occur to her.”
“You’re joking!”
“My mother’s neither horrible nor manipulative: she just forgets to think.”
“You’re not very nice about her.”
“On the contrary, there’s no politer way to justify her shortcomings. Anyway, for twenty-six years I’ve received about as much praise as the Sahel desert has had rain.”
“Then it’s time to change, Ludo. No point putting yourself down.”
“I always get in first. Since my father dished out nastiness, I anticipate out of caution: I’d rather be the one to condemn myself than wait for my friends to do it. And sometimes, like you, they pleasantly surprise me . . . Thank you, by the way.”
Tiffany didn’t insist. She knew he wasn’t one of those narcissists who denigrate themselves because they’re fishing for compliments; far from seeking flattery by cynical means, Ludo was his own severest judge, convinced that he possessed no good qualities whatsoever.
“Seeing yourself that way, Ludo, hardly gives you wings. All that self-criticism makes you inhibited.”
“You’re not wrong there.” He stared at the smoke slowly drifting up from his nostrils. “Spot-on, in fact.”
Tiffany took advantage of this consent to say, “You don’t dare come on to women because you’re afraid of rejection.”
“It isn’t fear, it’s memory: I’ve had nothing but rejection. Not surprising when you think about it. What do I have to offer? I’m not exactly handsome, I don’t have much money, and nobody knows if I’d be any good in the sack, not even me. No wonder they aren’t exactly lining up.”
“A woman could take a chance on you.”
“She’d have to be a gambler.”
“I know guys who don’t have a third of what you have and are still fixed up.”
Ludo recoiled from the words “fixed up.”
Regretting her choice of language, which rather moved the goalposts, Tiffany went on, “I have lots of female friends who think you’re charming. Really. I also think you’re charming, Ludo. If I wasn’t already with Josh, who’s to say I—”
He put his hand on her wrist, both to thank her and to interrupt her. “No point in continuing, Tiffany. I’m touched. The problem is, it’s always girls who are ‘fixed up,’ who are in love and faithful to their lovers, who tell me that, in another life, they’d probably have considered me. The ones who are free and looking for a husband at all costs don’t exactly throw themselves at me. That’s what I am: the man you don’t immediately think of, but who comes to mind once it’s become impossible.” He laughed. “They should invent a new expression. There are the ‘has beens’ and the ‘wannabes.’ I’m the ‘would have been,’ the faithful woman’s regret . . . I’d rather be their remorse.”
Ludo spoke with brio, intent on embroidering and varying his expressions, as if his failure didn’t affect him. Surprised, Tiffany wondered if this detachment was a male characteristic or something specific to Ludo: a woman would never talk about such a painful subject without crying.
Ludo was wallowing in his own eloquence now. All at once, his lips looked fleshy, his eyes misted over, and he sank voluptuously into his armchair. Was this his only pleasure?
Tiffany found him bewildering: she genuinely liked him, but her friendship for him was full of surprises.
The telephone rang again.
“Yes, Mom,” Ludo answered, without even looking at the number on the display screen. A voice crackled in the receiver for a minute, then Ludo hung up, saying, “Me too, Mom, me too.”
He took another croissant.
“She’s wondering if she left her Chanel body milk here, and since she’s never taken a bath or a shower here, the order’s even clearer.”
“The order?”
“The order for what I mustn’t buy her but will give her this evening.”
He grabbed the notebook where he had scribbled his ad and gave it to Tiffany.
“Here. As a woman, how would you react to this? Be honest.”
Tiffany read through the draft:
Pleasant night owl, chatty, a smoker, a drinker, socially inept, hates to go out more than one evening a month and would rather stay at home, a snob, overdoses on music, which he talks about when not listening to it, seeks lady owl of similar nature, depressive, excessive—hysterics welcome—unskilled in the kitchen, housework-impaired, for passionate conversations. Wealth irrelevant. No sex maniacs or marriage candidates need apply. Sole condition: a pleasant and not too loud voice. Please send tape, which will be listened to. All applicants will be considered impartially.
She swallowed. “How long did this take you?”
“Three minutes and a lifetime. How is it?”
“A disaster.”
Ludovic perked up, genuinely delighted.
For her, this was another surprise. “Are you doing it on purpose? Do you want it to fail?”
“No, I want it to sound like me.”
“You’re hopeless.”
“Once more, I agree with you.”
Since it was time for her to go to work, Tiffany stood up, moaning, “My poor Ludo,” several times.
Ludovic walked her down to the front door of the building in order to pick up his mail.
Longing to smoke outside, he took his letters, stood in the doorway, facing Place d’Arezzo, where the birds were singing, and opened the envelopes.
When he opened the one written on yellow paper—Just a note to tell you I love you. Signed: You know who—he gave a tender laugh and shrugged, muttering, “Mom, you’re going too far . . . ”
11
Victor had been really lighthearted when he came down to pick up his mail, but now he sat huddled at the foot of the stairs, his back against the ceramic tiles, panting in the dark hallway. His hands were shaking.
On
ce again, he read the handwritten words:
Just a note to tell you I love you. Signed: You know who.
No other message could have inflicted this amount of suffering on him. It didn’t matter who had sent it to him, it really didn’t: he didn’t want to hear that kind of declaration.
Feeling suffocated, he knew he was unable to go back up to the attic apartment where his classmates from the university were waiting for him. Besides, the woman—or man—who had written the letter might be one of the group upstairs . . .
He shook his head in exasperation. Why can’t they leave me alone? Why does it always end up this way?
He decided to walk. On the pretext of buying something to eat for breakfast, he broke out of his torpor, left the building, and felt the warmth of the sun on his face.
“Good morning, Victor,” said Ludo, who was smoking a cigarette on the front steps.
He stammered a greeting and hurried along the sidewalk.
“Good morning, Victor!” shouted Ève from her oxblood coupé, her hair blowing in the wind.
“Good morning, Victor!” cried Hippolyte as Victor crossed the parrot-infested square.
“Good morning, Victor!” the florist called out, arranging orchids outside his window.
To each, he responded with an awkward gesture. Everybody looked fondly on him: people loved Victor at first sight.
He was the embodiment of the attractive young man who is unaware of being attractive, well-built but bewildered by his own body, often leaning forward to make people forget how tall he was, hiding under several layers of clothing. He usually walked with the quiet suppleness of a cat, like a wild tiger lost in the city jungle, until someone addressed him, at which point he become another person: open, forthcoming, delighted to exchange ideas, asking pertinent questions and sustaining the conversation with manifest joy.
The Carousel of Desire Page 9