The Carousel of Desire

by Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt

  “Out, Hippolyte! It’s over between us. You’re never to set foot in this apartment again. You hear me? Never!”

  The scene had lasted no longer than half an hour, but Patricia couldn’t stop going over it. Yes, in spite of Hippolyte’s protests, in spite of Albane’s incomprehension, she had rejected her lover and broken up with him for good.

  When he had demanded an explanation, she had replied that he already had an explanation, all he had to do was look into himself.

  At that moment, Hippolyte’s face had altered. His skin had turned gray, and the light had gone out of his eyes. He had even lost a few inches in height, and had left, dejected, without saying a word.

  Ever since, Albane and Patricia had barely spoken. They stuck to practical exchanges of no more than a few words. Patricia, on the other hand, had called Dr. Gemayel to her aid twice. The first time was because she had vaginal mycosis. The second time, because she had suddenly felt weak and fainted. The doctor had referred her for a blood test, to make sure it wasn’t anemia.

  On the third morning after the breakup, Madame Simon asked Patricia to have another talk.

  This time, I’m telling her everything—too bad.

  The psychiatrist looked at Patricia, at the apartment, sighed, then stared again at Patricia.

  “I’m going to be brutally honest.”

  “With everything else I’m going through . . . ”

  “With everything else you’re going through? That’s an interesting statement. Have you recently been the victim of violence?”

  “Are you joking?”

  “Not at all.”

  Patricia’s mouth fell open.

  The psychiatrist persevered. “I’d really like to know what violence you’ve been victim of.”

  Patricia nearly lost her temper, but restrained herself. Not in front of a psychiatrist. Calm down.

  “Who do you think you’re talking to, Madame Simon?” she asked, so levelheadedly that it felt like a victory.

  “I’m talking to the victim’s mother, not the actual victim.”

  Patricia gave a start.

  “You’re putting yourself in your daughter’s place,” the psychiatrist continued in her calm, even voice. “Listening to you, anyone would think you were the one who was assaulted, you were the one suffering physically, you were the one who’ll never make love again.”

  What? How does she know?

  “I think you’re a very good person, Patricia, but you lack emotional maturity. I know that from Albane: you’re more your daughter’s daughter than your daughter’s mother.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “You vegetate in this apartment, doing nothing except reading, you have no social life outside these walls, you expect too much from your interaction with your daughter. She’s the one who tells you about the outside world, she’s the one who forces you to fight against letting yourself go, who sometimes makes you wash, look after yourself, go to the hairdresser. Was it also she who had to force you to meet a man?”

  “What? That’s not true!”

  “Didn’t you meet Hippolyte after a scene with Albane that convinced you you couldn’t bury yourself like this anymore?”

  “It had nothing to do with it. I’d been admiring Hippolyte for three years, then I received a message from him, a letter full of affection, which triggered things between us.”

  “Really? I think the real trigger was your daughter, your daughter who, like a mother, told you it was time to grow up and fly the nest.”

  Patricia fell silent, confused and dismayed.

  “Please, Patricia, you must keep growing. It’s asking a lot of Albane to drag this baggage with her: a mother like a child, and then a rape. If you love her, Patricia, think of her. You, too, must heal! And that will speed up your daughter’s recovery.”

  As usual when she considered the interview to be over, Madame Simon stood up and left without another word. All those outlandish ideas! A bagful of theories had just been hurled at her, each stranger than the other. She—like a child? She had never considered herself that way. That was just silly . . .

  She got unsteadily to her feet. It had been quite a shock . . . This trauma specialist is pretty traumatic herself, isn’t she? What kind of healer is that? Oh, right, you treat like with like . . . Just been punched? Here’s another punch to stop you thinking about the first one.

  She went to the kitchen and instinctively opened the food drawer. No. She wasn’t hungry. She’d lost her appetite. If she got punched like that every day, she was sure to lose weight. Depression is perfect for shedding the pounds. Almost as good as cancer.

  She started to cry silently, placidly, without sobbing. Tears falling like blood.

  When she returned to the living room, she automatically looked out the window at the square.

  Hippolyte was working on the square with Germain. He had his back to her. Intentionally, no doubt. Around them, people were bustling, still preoccupied with the Bidermann affair. What a mess it all was!

  She looked at Germain. That’s what she must have looked like next to Hippolyte. Like a reject, a cripple. Just as grotesque. She quite liked Germain, but found it odd that Hippolyte should like him. As odd as the fact that he should love her. Well, Hippolyte was odd, which explained everything.

  Exhausted, she went back to the kitchen, automatically again, just as she always had in the past, when the slightest anxiety would lead her to raid the fridge. She opened it. There was nothing left. Bare shelves. Obviously, since she’d stopped going shopping. To feed Albane and herself, she ordered take-out Chinese, or sometimes Japanese. It was so extreme it encouraged you to diet. She had gone off food.

  She left the kitchen. Should she go and have a talk with Albane? Why not?

  At that very moment, as she crossed the hallway, she was aware of a figure moving on the landing. Somebody on the other side was sliding a letter under the door.

  It was on yellow paper, like the previous time, and the handwriting looked exactly the same.

  7

  It had probably been the worst night of her life. Sitting naked on her bed, her legs folded against her chest, her hands clutching her knees, Faustina was reflecting on what had happened.

  A man who for months had claimed to be in love with her, who had raved about how seductive she was, who had agreed to be rebuffed twenty times, so consumed was he by desire, this same man, once he had reached the Grail, once she had opened her arms to him, had been content to lie there, hurrying through foreplay and climaxing sluggishly after a number of limp, repetitive, boring, brief, passionless thrusts. He had then given her a conspiratorial, supposedly smoldering look, as if he had taken her up to seventh heaven. Worse still: he had fallen asleep, exhausted, like an athlete at the end of an Olympic event. In fact, nine hours later, he was still snoring. What an achievement!

  Faustina rubbed her chin against her left knee. This fiasco should have made her angry, yet she felt satisfied. She who loved torrid encounters, tempestuous sex, multiple orgasms, hadn’t been disturbed by this little venture into the calm waters of ordinary sex; she might even have liked it. The serenity she felt as she woke was a new sensation.

  She got up without disturbing Patrick Breton-Mollignon, who, taking up two-thirds of the mattress, had requisitioned most of the pillows to make his sleep more comfortable. Surprised that the director of Le Matin hadn’t been hassled by his colleagues on the phone since daybreak, she leaned over the night table and saw that he had switched off his cell phone. Should she feel flattered that he had prioritized her, or laugh at a man to whom such an ordinary night represented something exceptional?

  Going to the window, she checked that onlookers and photographers were still milling about outside the Bidermann residence. There they stood, in small, scattered groups. She sighed, happy that the excitement hadn’t subsided, that she lived in
a strategic spot that was the center of media attention.

  She noticed Patricia down below, striding into the building. “Oh, my God, I nearly forgot!”

  Panicking, she quickly covered up, gathered her hair in a rubber band, closed the doors to the bedroom, and ran to meet Patricia on the doorstep to stop the bell from waking Patrick Breton-Mollignon.

  After the ritual kisses, she led Patricia into the living room. Patricia, looking very tense in a somewhat severe purple dress, took some materials out of her canvas bag. “Here are your files.” Patricia spread the handwritten dossiers on the coffee table.

  “Don’t you want to add any comments?”

  “There’s no time,” Patricia grumbled. “You’ll find everything you need on those sheets. Have you prepared the money?”

  Faustina handed her an open envelope containing bills. “So, have you been following the story?”

  “What story?”

  “Our distinguished neighbor, that pig Zachary Bidermann.”

  “I think it’s disgusting.”

  “So do I.”

  “What I find even more disgusting is people who talk about it.”

  “Why?”

  “All they do is talk about him, what’s happening to him, his fall, his thwarted hopes, his broken career. But it’s that woman that something terrible happened to. She was raped!”

  “Yes, of course . . . ”

  “‘Of course’? You’re barking like the rest of the hounds, Faustina. You’re more interested in the executioner than in the victim. Where you see the tragedy of a powerful man, I see the drama of a woman.”

  “Are you joking? He’s the one who’s well-known. The country wanted him to be prime minister. Whereas she—”

  “What about female solidarity, Faustina?”

  “No, thanks! I stopped believing in that a long time ago. Female solidarity? The worst stabs in the back I’ve ever received have always been from women.”

  “Maybe you asked for them . . . Let’s drop the subject, before I get angry.”

  Angry, her mind on other things, Patricia stood up and walked quickly to the door.

  “Patricia, aren’t you forgetting something?” Faustina called after her in an abrupt tone.

  “What?”

  “The next books you have to review for me.” Faustina indicated a stack of six new publications on an armchair.

  “Oh, you’re right,” Patricia mumbled. “I did forget something.” She retraced her steps, and stood rooted to the spot. “I forgot to tell you. I quit.”

  “What?”

  “I’m not going to read instead of you anymore.”

  Automatically, Faustina corrected her, “To read for me.”

  “Precisely. You can manage on your own from now on.”

  “On my own? I won’t have the time.”

  “Neither will I.” Patricia turned and grabbed the door handle.

  Faustina rushed to stop her. “What’s wrong with you?”

  Patricia looked down at the floor, struggling with her emotions.

  “Problems?” Faustina asked in a gentler tone.

  “That’s my business.”

  “I’m your friend, Patricia.”

  Patricia shrugged. “You were my undeclared employer, but never my friend, definitely not.”

  “Well, thanks for that.”

  “Besides, I wouldn’t say a word even to a real friend. So, here’s the information that concerns you: I’ll no longer be reading novels or nonfiction in your place.”

  “What if I gave you a raise?”

  “It’s over! I’ve said it clearly, there’s no going back.”

  “Look here, Patricia, you come and announce this so suddenly, after years of collaboration! What am I supposed to do?”

  “You’ll just have to learn to read. Here, look, on your embroidered robe: you can start by revising the alphabet.” She went out onto the landing.

  Faustina caught her by the arm. “I’ve never seen you like this, Patricia!”

  Patricia’s eyes misted over. “Me neither. Goodbye.”

  Patricia escaped to the stairs.

  Faustina went back inside, furious. If that cow dropped her like this, how was she going to present books she hadn’t even leafed through to journalists? How would she make writers she entertained believe she had loved their most recent work? Not only would her own work suffer, her income would too, since she was in the habit of reselling these dossiers at an exorbitant price to a famous Parisian literary journalist, who, like her, preferred to talk about books rather than read them.

  She went to the kitchen and made breakfast. Funny how she liked the ritual! She found it reassuring, it helped her fight a sense of emptiness before the day monopolized all her attention.

  As she was finishing making the scrambled eggs, Patrick Breton-Mollignon appeared, a towel tied around his hips, looking nondescript with his hollow chest disrupted by a few sparse long hairs, his hunched shoulders, his soft, falsely-slim belly. Fleetingly, she thought about how Dany would look in the same towel, or even others who had preceded him . . . There was no comparison: Patrick Breton-Mollignon was her most mediocre suitor.

  “Good morning, my darling, how are you?” she asked, slipping easily into a maternal tone.

  “Wonderfully well. I’m happy.”

  Poor thing. He has no idea how pathetic he is.

  She slid a hand over his cheek. “You have every reason to be.”

  Patrick Breton-Mollignon’s eyes glistened with pride: with her words, Faustina was awarding him the good lover medal. “Really? Did you enjoy it?”

  Don’t dig or you’ll discover the truth, my pet.

  “I loved it, Patrick. It was so . . . ”

  Awful? Boring?

  “ . . . disconcerting.”

  “Disconcerting?”

  Why does he insist? He’s so vain. Does he really think he made the earth move?

  “Disconcerting that you and I should have done it . . . ”

  Is that enough for him? Probably not.

  “ . . . and done it so well.”

  She planted a kiss on his cheek. He purred with pleasure.

  Joyfully, she laid the table and they talked cheerfully about the various people they knew.

  Faustina had seldom felt so good. Not owing any pleasure to a man she had been to bed with, despising him gave rise to new gestures and words. Her pity for this disastrous stud aroused a commiserative kindness in her and made her not pretend tenderness, but actually feel it.

  Compared with him, she was freer than ever: he could leave, and she wouldn’t be sorry; he could stay, and it wouldn’t bother her. When it came down to it, she couldn’t care less.

  So when, at the end of breakfast, he asked her to marry him, she accepted without hesitation.

  The news traveled very fast, since Patrick Breton-Mollignon knew lots of people and spread the information unreservedly, savoring his upcoming marriage as a victory over previous women—not many, admittedly—who had rejected him, and a victory over men—there were many more of those—who looked lustfully at Faustina.

  She, on the other hand, imparted the information more economically, not even telling Nathan, Tom, or her other gay friends, knowing only too well that they would immediately quiz her about Patrick’s physical performance. Would they understand that she was agreeing to marry him only because he was awful in bed?

  One afternoon, her nose stuck in a hefty romantic tome whose author she would soon be accompanying on a media tour, she had a sudden revelation: Patricia was right!

  She grabbed the phone. “Patrick? Do you want to get one over on your competitors on the Zachary Bidermann story? Sell more papers? Beat your record? Be taken up by the world’s media?”

  “Do I even need to answer that? Do you have a scoop
?”

  “No, a piece of advice. Take it as a wedding gift.”

  “Tell me quickly!”

  “Focus on the victim.”

  Her suggestion was greeted by silence. It was followed by a scream. “You’re fucking brilliant!”

  When Patrick Breton-Mollignon and Faustina saw Petra von Tannenbaum walk into the editorial office of Le Matin, looking regal with her raven-black hair and eagle eyes, they immediately felt uneasy. This victim didn’t look like a victim.

  Now there’s poor casting, Faustina thought.

  Petra sat down elegantly in the armchair she was offered and took out a cigarette holder. “It was high time,” she said icily.

  “High time for what, madame?”

  “That someone took an interest in me.”

  Patrick agreed and announced his paper’s intention to devote two entire pages to her.

  “Two?” she murmured in a disgusted tone.

  “At least two,” he corrected himself.

  She put the folder she had under her arm on the table. “Here’s my file, with all the principal elements of my life. With regard to photographs, you have the names of agencies to contact at the back.”

  “Can you tell us what happened?”

  Petra told her story. Her thoughts, her choice of words: everything upset Patrick and Faustina. The more she spoke about the rape, the more unpleasantly Petra came across. Before she had even finished, they’d lost any desire to listen to her.

  They exchanged looks of despair. They were facing a real professional problem: the wronged party, the person you were supposed to feel sorry for, provoked revulsion.

  Patrick made a sign to Faustina to intervene. She waited for Petra’s final, categorical statements about the rudeness of the Belgian police, then said, “I looked at your official website—which is truly magnificent, as you are—but it lacks biographical details.”

  “A work of art should remain mysterious and incomprehensible. I am a work of art.”

  “But here, in this awful business, you’re more the plaything of a loathsome character. That’s what may attract the sympathy of a very large audience.”