The Carousel of Desire

by Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt

  “And do you remember what Dany Davon said when we were at Faustina’s? That writers of anonymous letters are individuals who are alienated from society because they’re different, sometimes deformed.”

  “The dwarf?”

  “Exactly.”

  They looked at Germain in a new light. He was smiling as he raked the gravel.

  “How shall we go about it?” Tom said.

  “Elementary, my dear Watson: the sandbox method.”

  “Meaning?”

  “The child. A female friend assured me that’s how you come on to attractive fathers in parks. You make sure your kids are playing together, then you casually start a conversation.”

  “Brilliant. Have you brought any children with you?”

  Nathan got to his feet. “You forget I’m still very much a child.”

  Nathan walked up to Isis and perfectly naturally began talking to her. Since he had read and loved Kipling’s Just So Stories, which she was finishing, they started a discussion of the book.

  Hippolyte and Germain, having noticed the scene, waved to Nathan and carried on working.

  Tom was seething with impatience. Why hadn’t he followed Nathan? At this point, it would be difficult for him to join in, especially since he could sometimes feel the gardener’s puzzled eyes on the back of his neck. The gardener probably hadn’t liked the way he’d flirted with him the other day.

  As for Nathan, he was laughing with Isis about the “Bi-Colored-Python-Rock-Snake.”

  Suddenly, Isis interrupted him. “Why is your friend over there? Did you have an argument?”

  “No.”

  “Tell Tom to join us.”

  Nathan was startled. “You know his name?”

  “Of course. And yours too, Nathan.”

  “What? That’s incredible.”

  “My name’s Isis.”

  Nathan gave a military salute. “Delighted to meet you, Mademoiselle Isis. How do you know all this?”

  “Oh, it’s Germain,” she replied. “He doesn’t talk to anyone, but he knows everybody.”

  Nathan sank deeper into the bench. His suspicions were confirmed. “Does Germain like coming to Place d’Arezzo?”

  “He says it’s the most magical place in the world.”

  “Really?”

  “I think so too. What about you?”

  “I share your enthusiasm, Mademoiselle Isis.” Nathan scratched his head. It seemed to him that a whole lot of clues were emerging. “Could Germain name all the people who live here?”

  “I’m sure he could.”

  Nathan was close to his goal. Risking everything, he took the yellow letters out of his pocket. “Tell me, have you ever seen Germain with a letter or a paper like this?”

  The little girl frowned and grew pale. This obviously brought back memories for her.

  Nathan gently insisted. “They’re wonderful letters, you know. Magical letters that make lots of people happy. Have you ever seen Germain with one of them?”

  The child raised her head and looked at Nathan. “Daddy got one.”

  “Your daddy’s the handsome gentleman over there, right?”

  She nodded. “He got one, and so did his girlfriend. They didn’t speak to each other and it’s because of the letters that they met. So I guess my daddy’s very happy now.”

  Nathan nearly cried out for joy. After the clues, he had just discovered the motive: the man had used this trick to make his best friend happy! Germain the dwarf was the Cupid!

  9

  Paralyzed, Xavière stared at the gynecologist, so astounded that she couldn’t think clearly.

  Dr. Plassard stood up, came and placed himself in front of her, put one buttock down on the desk, leaned forward, and took her hand. “Come on, cheer up.”

  He was surprised by how cold Xavière’s palm was. All the blood seemed to have drained from her face.

  At last, her eyelids fluttered. “That’s absurd.”

  “I’m sure of it: you’re pregnant.”

  Xavière slowly shook her head.

  “Xavière,” he joked, “you’re not going to tell me you’ve stopped having sexual relations?”

  “No, I do still have them.”

  “There you are, then!”

  “With a woman.” She looked up at him, suddenly childlike and touchingly helpless. “Is it possible with a woman?”

  “Listen, you may be having a relationship with a woman, but you have made love with a man.”

  “Never! I don’t desire men anymore.”

  “What about your husband?”

  “Orion? Oh, no, we haven’t done it in a long time. Ten years. It’d disgust me. That’s why I no longer use contraception. No point protecting myself from an ectoplasm.”

  “Well, it isn’t an ectoplasm you have in your womb, it’s an embryo.”

  “No!” She sat up straight and gave him a withering look. “It’s impossible, unless you can get pregnant by sitting on a toilet seat or drinking from someone else’s glass.”

  Xavière was denying it with such assurance that the gynecologist was shaken. “Would you like a second opinion? Would you like me to send you to see a colleague of mine?”

  “No.”

  “Xavière, you’re refusing to face facts.”

  “No.”

  “I tell you you’re pregnant, but you don’t want to listen because you’re convinced I’m making a mistake.”

  “It’s obvious you got it all wrong.”

  “Well, if you’re so sure of yourself, go to see my colleague to make sure I’m talking nonsense.”

  “All right, I will. And I hope you’ll feel ashamed of yourself!”

  Dr. Plassard went back to his seat, grabbed a sheet of paper, scribbled an address, and handed it to her. “Please be aware I’m not upset.”

  “This was all I needed. I come about menopause and I leave pregnant. Talk about customer service!”

  Three days later, the second gynecologist confirmed the opinion of the first. This time, Xavière accepted the verdict. As he saw her out, the doctor advised her to go back to his colleague Plassard.

  “You can tell him whether or not you want to keep the child. But don’t delay. You don’t have much time left to make the decision.”

  These words totally threw Xavière. Once the door had closed behind her, she stood there on the landing, unable to breathe. The child? She placed her hand on her belly . . . With that expression, her pregnancy stopped being a sickness, a series of dizzy spells and feelings of discomfort, and became something much worse, something insane: there was a human being inside her. She didn’t just have a bellyache, she was carrying a baby.

  The very thought of it struck her as intolerable. She retraced her steps and hammered on the door with her fists.

  The doctor’s secretary opened up, astonished by this racket.

  “I want it taken out immediately!” Xavière screamed.

  “I beg your pardon, madame?”

  Trying to force her way in, Xavière started scratching the secretary, who was barring the entrance; fortunately, the gynecologist, alerted by the noise, arrived immediately and grabbed Xavière by the shoulder.

  “Follow me.”

  Too late: she threw up on the waiting room carpet.

  Once back in the consulting room, she screamed, as if a complete stranger had suddenly taken up residence inside her, “You have to take it out! I can’t bear the thought of this thing squatting in me!”

  “We’ll do whatever you decide, madame, but in the meantime you won’t get rid of it by throwing up.”

  She scratched her abdomen. “This little alien is going to get bigger and make itself at home, it’s going to tear my skin, pull my guts to pieces. If it isn’t flushed away, I’m going to crack.” She brought her face threate
ningly close to the doctor’s. “Where did it come from? I haven’t slept with any men.”

  “Yes, my colleague did mention that on the telephone, so I did a bit of checking. Reproducing without a male is called parthenogenesis.”

  “Oh!”

  “It only occurs in plants and reptiles, not in mammals. Except perhaps—although some scientists dispute this—in female rabbits.”

  “Female rabbits? That’s nice, thanks very much.”

  The doctor tried to regain her attention. “Do you mind telling me why you’ve never had children before?”

  “Children are like television: not compulsory. None of us are forced to ruin our lives.”

  “I’m trying to understand you.”

  Xavière started sobbing. “What’s happening to me?”

  “Don’t worry. Your body is undergoing hormonal changes that affect your emotional state. Cry as much as you like, but then try to explain, if you can.”

  In a whining tone, a handkerchief in her hand, Xavière began her story. In spite of her tears, there was anger in her eyes. “I never wanted children because I suffered too much when I was a child. I had a strict family, and I was bored. It seemed to me that if I also brought a baby into the world, I’d be condemning it to the same torture, and it’d be just as impatient to come of age and leave as I was.”

  “You may be wrong, but you’re perfectly entitled to think that way.”

  Surprised by how indulgently he was treating her, Xavière sniffed, encouraged. “I married a man who’s useless and irresponsible.”

  “In other words, a man you were sure wouldn’t make a father.”

  Xavière had never explained her choice of Orion with such clarity. She nodded pensively.

  “Do the two of you often have sexual relations?” the doctor asked.

  “I haven’t had sex with him in years.”

  “That makes sense. If he’s no longer a lover, there’s no chance he’ll become a father.”

  “I’ve cheated on him with women.”

  “Another way to protect yourself against pregnancy.”

  She raised an eyebrow. The doctor’s insight opened new perspectives, even though she found it hard to bear the fact that in such a short time a stranger could read her so accurately.

  “Basically,” he insisted, “you couldn’t wait for the menopause, could you? There was still a woman in you who was able to have children, and you wanted to see the back of her.”

  Xavière’s eyes misted over again. She couldn’t get over how well this man could see through her. She had surrounded herself with barbed wire—her sharp tongue, her sarcasm, her cynicism, her contempt for Orion, her double life with Séverine—to such an extent that nobody knew who she really was.

  “May I go on?” the gynecologist asked, aware of her intense emotion. “What you’re telling me,” he resumed in a softer voice, “indicates that you’re going to ask for a termination of your pregnancy. In principle, I suggest that before you do that, you imagine the opposite, just imagine it . . . Something has clicked inside you, which has made this birth possible—because what’s happening in your womb is already a birth. That means that an intimate part of you has rebelled against the dictates of your conscious mind, that a secret part of you longs to attempt the adventure you’ve always refused. Think, madame, and listen to the whole of yourself. You have the opportunity to change, to free yourself of your fears, to accomplish your destiny. This birth could be the chance for a rebirth.”

  For a moment, she absorbed this speech, then shrugged. “So I have a baby that comes from God knows where, the child of God knows who, and I call him Jesus Christ. Is that the plan?” She gathered her things and, as she left the room, said, “I’m going back to your colleague to arrange for an abortion.”

  That afternoon, like the two previous ones, Xavière was due to see Séverine. Until now, she had done so with pleasure, because she had been in denial about her pregnancy; this time, she dreaded seeing her again.

  Lingering in the shop, she surreptitiously observed Orion, his grotesque figure—swollen abdomen over thin legs—his contorted torso, and, above all, that drunkard’s face with the puffy eyes and the skin covered in red blotches as if dipped in wine. He was busy doing his work, running from the shop to the storeroom, from the flowerpots to the rolls of paper, expending a hundred times more energy than his activities necessitated. For a moment, he noticed her watching him and winked at her: she lowered her head angrily. Did he have to inflict his unbearable good humor on her in addition to his ugliness?

  The vibration of her cell phone interrupted these dark thoughts. I miss you. Come. I’m waiting. Séverine. Xavière merely replied: Can’t.

  She spotted Patricia crossing the street and murmured without realizing it, “If I had legs like hers, I’d never wear skirts.”

  “Come now, Xavière,” Orion retorted. “She can wear whatever she likes.”

  “There should be a law to stop people who have a physical defect from inflicting the sight of it on others. Actually, I’m stupid, there already is a law: indecent assault. When Patricia exhibits those hams of hers, I call it indecent assault.”

  The art dealer Wim emerged from his house and, before getting into his car, waved cordially at Xavière, whom he glimpsed behind her window.

  “What an oily type that one is! Why’s he always smiling? Does he think he’s irresistible or what?”

  “He’s just in a good mood a lot of the time.”

  “He’s a fool. If I had teeth as gray as his, I wouldn’t smile that much.”

  “You don’t smile much anyway.”

  Xavière refrained from reacting to Orion’s remark, but thought: You’ll pay for that, my good man.

  At that moment a young woman looked in. “Isn’t Madame Dumont still here?”

  “No, she paid for her flowers and left.”

  “Which direction did she go?”

  Annoyed that a mere passerby, who wouldn’t even buy anything, should turn her shop into an information bureau, Xavière replied, “You just have to follow her smell.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “You can’t miss it. Does she stink because she has dogs?”

  Stunned, the young woman stood there in the doorway for a moment, then beat a hasty retreat.

  The cell phone in Xavière’s pocket vibrated again. If something’s wrong, let’s talk about it. Séverine.

  Suppressing a sigh of exasperation, Xavière imagined herself lying naked in Séverine’s arms, explaining what had happened to her, and, to her relief, being listened to and understood. Why not? If Séverine was her lover, why couldn’t she also be her best friend?

  Claiming she had an urgent errand to run, she left the shop and hurried to Number 6 Place d’Arezzo.

  “Is something wrong?” Séverine asked as she closed the door behind her.

  It suddenly occurred to Xavière how far-fetched what she was about to say would seem: she had to convince her friend that she hadn’t slept with a man but had nevertheless fallen pregnant.

  By way of reply, she pressed her lips to Séverine’s, as if placing a gag over her mouth. Then she demanded, by the insistence of her gestures, that they go up to the bedroom. Although surprised by such fervor, Séverine acquiesced.

  As soon as they were upstairs, Xavière made violent love to her, like a warrior raping a woman during a raid. Her eyes focused elsewhere, she crossed the border between caresses and blows. Séverine accepted it all, and even came more quickly than usual. Was it to avoid this whole thing going on too long?

  Xavière looked at her tenderly. “You liked that!”

  “Since it’s a game.”

  “How do you know it is?”

  “You were supposed to be telling me about your problems.”

  “I don’t have any problems. But I’m worried about a
friend of mine who does.”

  “One of your exes?” Séverine asked, unable to suppress a touch of jealousy.

  Xavière grimaced. “A friend—not an ex—who’s the same age as me has gotten herself accidentally pregnant.” She avoided adding “for the first time,” because that would have made it obvious that she was talking about herself. “She doesn’t know what to do.”

  “What to do?”

  “In other words, whether to keep the child or have an abortion.”

  Séverine shuddered. “As a Catholic, I’m opposed to abortion. But in this particular case, I’d advise it.”

  “Why?” Xavière exclaimed.

  “Having a child at the age of forty-five? Apart from the fact that it’s risky for the mother, there’s a good chance the child might be born with a defect. And your friend also needs to think of the future: she’ll be pushing seventy when her child is twenty. That’s no fun for her or the child.”

  What an idiot, Xavière thought. I’d never noticed before how stupid she is. But she tried to control her animosity in order not to give herself away.

  “Is that what I should tell my friend? ‘You’re too old, have an abortion, you won’t be able to have a normal child. And even if you do, the child will blame you later.’ Wouldn’t it be easier if I just told her to kill herself?”

  “Xavière, don’t fly off the handle: you asked for my advice.”

  “Well, you gave me your advice. And I think your advice is stupid.”

  Séverine’s eyes misted over, and her lips quivered. “That’s hurtful,” she said.

  Xavière exploded. “Oh, that takes the biscuit! You talk crap and expect me to console you? This is like a bad dream.”

  “I . . . I . . . I don’t know what’s gotten into you. I don’t know who you are anymore.”

  “There it is, then! You don’t know who I am, and I don’t know who you are. Goodbye!”

  “And good riddance,” Xavière muttered to herself as she crossed Place d’Arezzo.

  Back in her shop, she went over the discussion: even though she herself had been thinking about abortion, Severine’s reasons for advising it were so different from hers that she’d been unable to stand the suggestion. The main reason she didn’t want a child was because of her own childhood, and secondly, because she didn’t know whose kid it was. But old age, or the risk of deformity—no, she wouldn’t listen to that kind of argument. Worse still, it made her want to give birth just to prove to silly women like Séverine, dumb conformists who’d had their children young, that she too could produce a beautiful baby and bring it up. Honestly!