This was a field that Frédéric knew thoroughly, and she always loved getting the most informed advice. She made a point of ignoring whatever the public knew, and knowing what it didn’t. If anyone mentioned Charlie Chaplin, she would reply Harold Lloyd—not even Buster Keaton. If you brought up Maria Callas, she would respond with Claudia Muzio—not even Renata Tebaldi. If people went into raptures about Balzac, she would mention Xavier Forneret. It was impossible to interest her in what was generally accepted and popular. This taste for swimming against the tide produced in her whole oceans of ignorance, dotted with tiny islands only she and an elite frequented. Never would it have occurred to her that, like any snob, she deprived herself of some masterly works by restricting herself to the marginal. Perhaps in another life, she would have loved Charlie Chaplin’s lecherous eccentricity, Callas’s tragic sense, the power of Balzac . . . She treated religion in the same way. A long time ago, she had rejected the related monotheisms, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, in favor of Hindu polytheism and Tibetan spirituality. But ever since Buddhism had been taken up in Europe, she had turned away from it, preferring to study the early Church fathers, with Origen becoming her hero. In truth, there was only one religion she ever practiced: her own originality.
Because Frédéric saw her only occasionally, he was curious: when she wasn’t there, if he couldn’t love her he could at least try to understand her. After some good musical advice, he changed the subject. “Tell me again about your father.”
Diane was taken aback. “What’s he got to do with anything?”
“Nothing. You wanted to talk about music, and I want to hear about your father again.”
Diane slapped herself on the chest. “I never talk about my father.”
“You did tell me about him once.”
“That’s not likely.”
“Yes, you did.”
“I don’t talk about him even when I’m plastered.”
“It depends on what you’ve been taking. That night, it wasn’t booze, it was something more illegal.”
“Damn!” She bit her lip, having no memory of what she might have mouthed off about while under the influence of drugs. “What did I tell you?”
“That you never knew your father. That he’d slept with your mother two or three times, and left without acknowledging you. When she contacted him again, he said she was delusional.”
“Poor Mommy,” Diane said, surprised that these memories should come back into her mind.
“You also told me that, when you were a child, people called you ‘the bastard.’”
She hadn’t been slapped in the face with that word for decades. She tried to overcome her emotion by bragging, “That’s right. The bastard. I admit it. Because bastards are the salt of the earth. Just look at Jesus Christ.”
Not taken in by this false self-confidence, Frédéric continued prodding. “Are you avenging your mother by sleeping with lots of men?”
The question was asked so gently that Diane accepted it and took time to think about it. “Maybe . . . I don’t know. I think it’s more that I’m trying to . . . ” It was as if her thoughts were being clarified for the first time. “I’m trying not to get swallowed up by the majority, to remain different, to lay claim to my bastard status.” She took another drink. “Conformity rejected me, so now I reject conformity.”
“Do you know who your father is?”
It took several seconds before she made up her mind to reply. “Yes.”
He nodded. “Does he have a family? Do you have any half brothers or sisters?”
She stood up wearily, feigning indifference. “What’s the point in going over all this? Do I dig into your past? Do I ask why you like motorbikes? Or what made you drive at a hundred and twenty miles an hour?”
Again, he fell silent. She had won. He would keep quiet now.
Without waiting, Diane got dressed. Strange how it had suddenly gotten cold.
For several minutes, nothing was said. When she was ready, Diane went and kissed Frédéric on the mouth, more like a friend than a lover.
“Tell me, Diane, you have everything, so what the hell are you doing here with me? Do you feel sorry for me? Do you think you’re a high priestess of pleasure come to rescue a lost lamb, a difficult member of your flock? Are you here to practice your erotic cult? Has sex assumed such an important place in your life that you consider it your mission? When it comes down to it, are you the Mother Teresa of fucking?”
No longer considering the consequences, he was pouring out the thoughts he had mulled over a thousand times.
Diane walked to the door, opened it, and froze on the threshold. “You really want to know?”
“Yes.”
“Your penis is a bit twisted. It leans to the left. You’re the only person I know with that feature, and it gives me some amazing sensations.”
And with these words, she left Fred feeling overjoyed, happy for the next three weeks.
2
In the game of seduction, it was usually Ève who aroused desire and encouraged a man to come forward.
But that night, in the villa in Knokke-le-Zoute, Quentin had usurped her role. Shy, skittish, willing, disloyal, he was content just to be there, near her, looking wonderful, with his long, well-proportioned body showing unreservedly through his slim-fitting shirt and tight pants, lively then languid, silent, suddenly talkative, his almond-shaped eyes flashing with conflicting emotions, fear, lust, despair, bravado, helplessness.
Ève was thrown by finding herself in the position of her elderly lovers. As performed by Quentin, this act, seeming to give itself while giving nothing, struck her as a little ridiculous. Still, it was effective, since she desired him.
Would she accept his manipulation?
For the last two hours, since he had suddenly appeared in the night, Quentin and Ève had been circling each other, drinking and chatting.
When he had slipped into the hallway, she had liked his audacity, all the more so because she had found the mixture of panic and desire on his face touching. Wondering if she should send him back to his teenage party, she had looked at him for a long time, saying nothing, then decided to let him in. This way, if his father showed up, Quentin would provide another tool with which to annoy, dominate, and tame the lover who was cheating on her.
Now that it was nearly midnight, Philippe must be in the marriage bed, so she could longer use that excuse. If she was going to keep Quentin with her, it would be for her own sake.
For the time being, she was pretending to ignore the boy’s silent plea to remain here, kiss her, hold her in his arms. With enormous effort, she managed to keep the conversation going on various topics, such as his studies, TV series, sports, and favorite songs. At times, she didn’t hear his answers, just looked at his full, soft, red lips, marveled at how long his eyelashes were, and stared at the base of his neck, where the skin was so fine it seemed like golden butter.
As for Quentin, he kept giving her intense looks, which vanished as soon as she noticed them, looks that cried out that he idolized her.
When the clock struck twelve, Ève shuddered. So did Quentin. What were they doing together? It was time to get real. They were entering the wild, nonsocial part of the night. The grave tolling of the bell drifted across the village and petered out in the infinity of the sea.
Ève was trembling. She knew that he was expecting her to do everything, that he wouldn’t be the one to make the decision. With him there, she had the role of the man.
The room filled with palpable tension. Darkness was again the place that allowed lovers to come together. The silence swarmed with the noise of thoughts, urges, impulses, frustrations.
Ève knew she had to do something, anything, to put an end to this atmosphere of hysterical yearning.
She stared at him. He held her gaze. In his indolence, the boy was crying, “Go on,
I’m game!”
But Ève was used to men coming to her, their hands reaching out. She hated having to do it all herself, as if it were some kind of defeat, and she didn’t budge.
Did she desire him? Of course. For several reasons. He was not . . . unpleasant, and, by opening her arms to him, she would be taking revenge on his father, who had dared ridicule her by treating her like a thing of no importance. The act would also erase her age, and prove to Philippe that she had a part in the world of youth—his son’s world—a long way from his own sixty years. Was it immoral? Asking this question made her feel like an admirable person: to be concerned with decorum when Philippe trampled all over the rules by cheating on both his wife and his mistress! She didn’t have to justify herself to a man like that. Which meant she had to take the initiative.
But what would she do with Quentin afterwards? What if he got attached? He would probably follow her around. He certainly wouldn’t behave as discreetly as the married men she usually went with . . . Would she be able to . . .
Quentin’s large, burning lips suddenly pressed down on hers.
In the morning, a new Ève and a new Quentin welcomed the daylight.
Outside, a white, opaline light bathed the horizon. The sea still seemed asleep, motionless, reluctant to regain its colors.
Quentin emerged from the sheets as if from the waves, eyes half shut, hair disheveled. He looked at her with soft, smoldering, imploring eyes.
Ève answered his entreaty by whispering, “I’m happy.”
He growled with pleasure and snuggled up against her.
During the night, she had found and accepted her role as initiator, a position that required a lot of love, not necessarily love for Quentin, but rather love for the human race. Because she believed that the relationship between a man and a woman was sacred, she had dispensed advice, exercised patience, allowed the young man to control his passion and emotion in order to attain the path to their joy. For hours, they had moved together and broken apart, intoxicated with each other, breathless, quivering.
“I’m staying here!” Quentin announced. “I’m not going back home!”
“All right. Me, neither!”
This rebellion against the timetable sealed their adventure: Quentin informed his parents that he would be returning to Brussels with a friend, so they needn’t worry. More discreetly, Ève canceled her appointments—with the agency, female friends, lovers—and switched off her cell phone so that she could ignore Philippe’s calls.
The days to come belonged to them, and they were delighted by that. They were on vacation from their ordinary lives, aware that they were venturing on an enchanted interlude.
Fearing to meet familiar people outside, they idled within the walls that had housed their encounter. Quentin walked around the rooms wearing only boxer shorts—something an older man would have never risked—his chest chiseled with newfound muscles. There were times when he struck Ève as so perfect and so aware of being perfect that she felt as if she was touching not a lover, but a rival.
And yet he moved her deeply. After every kiss, his face would throb, as if quivering inside. When they made love, his orgasm overwhelmed him and he couldn’t help crying out in awestruck surprise. In discovering sensuality, he was refreshing Ève’s sensations after all the years when habit had dulled the beneficial violence of pleasure in her.
Whenever she walked past a mirror, she noticed a new seriousness in her face. Previously, the practice of lying had fixed her features in a perpetual smile, but now that she was keeping less watch on herself, she had shed this mask.
On Monday, knowing that the Brussels residents they wished to avoid had left the resort, they went out. They strolled by the water, cycled out into the green, flat countryside, had drinks on café terraces, played mini golf, and did all the clichéd things people did in romantic movies, Quentin for the first time, and Ève with a new genuineness. Usually, she would display the outward signs of a love affair more than she actually felt them, without cynicism but with determination: so strong was her need to believe in what she was doing, it could even be said that she displayed those outward signs with sincerity. But there was always a degree of calculation in these romantic scenes: the men would pay for everything, not to mention buying her lots of gifts. It was not enough to keep her, they had to spoil her too. With Quentin, she was experiencing a previously unknown pleasure: that of taking out her purse at the end of a meal, paying for a waffle, a cocktail, an ice-cream cone. Whenever she did so, she felt stronger, more loving. Quentin accepted the situation quite naturally, more naturally than she ever had in her entire life, because he didn’t keep count, whereas she had always added everything up in her kind so that she could measure the men’s commitment.
All the same, when, on impulse, she tried to buy him some clothes, he got angry. Believing she had hurt his male pride, she tried to justify herself, but stopped when she realized that, for Quentin, the purchase of clothes was something a mother did.
Who cared? Even Quentin’s occasional brusqueness had charm. Being somewhat unsure of himself, he dared to give her the kind of imploring looks no man ever would. Whenever he took her, he was ardent, feverish, both tremulous and passionate, so astonished by the feelings he was experiencing and those he aroused that he seemed to be shot through with a thousand different emotions.
They had decided they would have three days of happiness. On the second, Ève changed. The more Quentin bloomed, the deeper she sank into her thoughts. She was a woman everyone thought as happy as a lark, but her carefree demeanor was merely a façade. She was constantly obsessed with her security and her future; the lark concealed a squirrel.
On the third day, she plunged into gloom. The more successful their shared moments, the sadder she became. At around noon, she understood what was happening: in spending time with Quentin, she had realized that she was getting old. It wasn’t something she saw in his eyes, or in anybody else’s. She herself sensed her lack of enthusiasm, the fact that her joy was a response to Quentin’s, rather than an instigator of it. She had always been the nymphet, the spirited, slightly crazy girl, and now here she was, the wise, thoughtful, experienced one. In the course of a conversation, he boasted that he was having an affair with “a mature woman.” She nearly strangled him. Nobody had ever considered her “a mature woman” before. What would tomorrow bring? If Quentin wished to continue this relationship, in six months, a year, three at the most, he would leave her for a girl his own age. She studied her face in the mirror: if this affair were to continue, she would be a pathetic woman, fearing and expecting her downfall. She might think she was spring, but he was hurrying her to her autumn. Only pride could shield her from decay.
It was best to break up, to break up as soon as possible. This fling had to be curtailed. Three days were enough for Ève. Any more would depress her.
If she rejected Quentin, she would become young again—or at least, a child in comparison with her aged lovers. If she rejected him, she would go back to being a woman who used men, not a woman who kept a prince. If she rejected him, she would become the center of her own life again.
At five o’clock, when they returned from a cycling trip along the canals, she stopped him from fantasizing about their evening.
“Go, Quentin. Go back to Brussels. Now you know how to act like a man with a woman. The world is your oyster.”
“When are we going to see each other again?”
“Never.”
Taken aback, he frowned so much it was if he was trying to stop a cap from being blown off by the wind, and blinked, convinced she was joking.
She took his warm hand, so smooth and impatient. “Forget my phone number. I won’t say hello if I see you in the street, I won’t answer if you speak to me, and I’ll leave you waiting outside if you knock at my door. We’ll never touch again, Quentin. From now on, you’ll keep a nice place in your mind where I’ll
be one of your memories, your first memory of a woman . . . and you . . . you’ll be one of my memories too . . . ” She was surprised to feel her eyes fill with tears. “One of my most beautiful memories . . . ” she said.
Her voice broke. How dreadful! She had to fight against the emotion! No heartache! Not here! She felt sorry for herself, for her lost youth, for this unknown, frightening period of maturity that lay before her. Compelled by the gun pointed at her head, the woman sentenced to death was moving forward along the path leading to her destruction.
She threw herself into his arms, so that she could sob without his seeing her. He clasped her to his hollow young chest, stroked her face with his huge hands, surprised by this searing pain. Who had ever cried for him before? Albane, but not like this. She had never sought refuge in her tormentor’s arms.
His chest swelled with pride. Holding this woman to comfort her, he was taking another step in his initiation into manhood and, although Ève’s vulnerability upset him, it also filled him with pride.
As for the separation, he didn’t believe it.
The doorbell rang.
The taxi Ève had ordered had arrived to pick up its customer. Quentin couldn’t accept the fact that she had made up her mind. But he kept quiet.
Ève kissed him one last time, and escorted him majestically to the door. Distraught, intimidated, Quentin let himself be led. The cab set off.
Once she was alone, and the door was closed, Ève stood frozen, overwhelmed by a pain she was only too familiar with: the obligation not to admit to anyone the things she wanted to scream.
A minute later, pulling herself together, she sighed with satisfaction. She had just escaped a huge danger, an unknown force that could have defeated her, a mysterious force that would have led her to favor Quentin’s happiness over her own, an intolerable force that would have made her forget about herself, a generous force that would have destroyed her interests instead of strengthening them.
The Carousel of Desire Page 27