Delicacy

by David Foenkinos

  Markus was captivated by the determination of Obama, who was willing to fight with extraordinary—if not to say supernatural—will. In the drive of this political animal he saw everything that he was not. And it was indeed on that Saturday night, absorbed in reports about the American presidential election, that he decided to fight. That he decided not to leave things as they were with Natalie. Even if she had told him that all was lost, that nothing could be considered, he continued to believe in it. Whatever it cost, he would be the president and commander in chief of his life.

  His first decision was easy: reciprocation. If she’d kissed him without asking, he didn’t see why he couldn’t do the same. Monday morning, first thing, he was going to see her and pay her back in kind with his lips. To do it, he’d stride toward her with a determined step (the most complex part of the strategy: he’d never been very adept when it came to walking with a determined step) and would take hold of her in a virile manner (the other complex part of the strategy: he’d never been very gifted when it came to doing anything at all in a somewhat virile manner). In other words, the attack was promising to be complicated. But he still had all of Sunday to get ready. A long Sunday of the American Democrats.

  Forty-nine

  President Obama’s Remark at the Al Smith Dinner

  Regarding the Issue of His National Origin

  “Contrary to the rumors you have heard, I was not born in a manger. I was actually born on Krypton and sent here by my father, Jor-El, to save the planet Earth.”

  Fifty

  Markus was at Natalie’s door. It was time to act, something that plunged him into the most perfect inaction. Benoît, a coworker from his team, walked by.

  “Hey, what are you doing?”

  “Um … I’ve got a meeting with Natalie.”

  “And you think you’re going to see her by standing stock-still in front of her door?”

  “No … it’s just that we have a ten o’clock meeting … and it’s nine fifty-nine … so, you know me, I don’t like to be early …”

  The coworker walked away feeling more or less the same way he did one day in April 1992. When he’d seen a Samuel Beckett play in a suburban theater.

  At that point, Markus was forced to act. He went into Natalie’s office. Her head was buried in a file (114, maybe?) and she raised it immediately. He walked toward her with a determined step. But nothing can ever be simple. On the way to Natalie, he had to slow down. His heart was beating harder and harder, in a real Election Day symphony. Natalie wondered what was going to happen. In fact, she was somewhat afraid. However, she was well aware that Markus was niceness incarnate. What did he want? Why wasn’t he moving? His body was a computer in need of debugging because of data overload. His data was all emotional. She got up and asked him, “What’s happening, Markus?”

  “…”

  “Is everything okay?”

  He managed to focus on what he’d come to do. He took her suddenly by the waist and kissed her with energy he didn’t know he had. There was no time for her to react before he’d already left the office.

  Fifty-one

  Markus left that strange scene of a stolen kiss behind him. Natalie wanted to plunge back into her report but finally decided to go and look for him. She’d felt something complicated to define. As a matter of fact, this was the first time in three years that someone had taken hold of her like that. Without thinking of her as something fragile. Yes, it was strange, but she’d been shaken up by his hit-and-run, nearly savage gesture of virility. She walked through the hallway asking the employees she passed on her left and her right where he was. No one knew. He hadn’t gone back to his office. That was when she thought of the roof of the building. In this season no one went up there, because it was very cold. He had to be there. It was just as she’d thought. There he was near the edge of the roof, looking quite calm. He was making little movements with his lips—puffs, obviously. He looked like he was smoking, but without a cigarette. Natalie walked silently up to him. “I come up here, too, sometimes, to hide. To breathe,” she said.

  Markus was surprised to see her. He never would have thought she’d go and look for him after what had just happened.

  “You’re going to catch cold,” he replied. “And I don’t even have a coat to offer you.”

  “Well, then, we’ll both catch cold. That’s at least one way of being that’s the same for both of us.”

  “Clever.”

  “No, it’s not. And the way I acted wasn’t clever, either … I mean, really, it’s not like I committed a crime or something!”

  “Then you don’t know anything about desire. A kiss from you, and then nothing more, of course it’s a crime. Even in the land of hard hearts you’d be convicted.”

  “The land of hard hearts? … That isn’t how you usually talk to me.”

  “I’m certainly not going to break into poetry about 114.”

  The cold was changing their faces. And aggravating a certain injustice. Markus was becoming slightly blue, not to say pallid, and Natalie was becoming as pale as a depressed princess.

  “Maybe it would be better to leave,” she said.

  “Okay … then what’ll we do?”

  “Well … that’s enough for now. There’s nothing to do. I apologized. We’re not going to make a big production out of it, are we?”

  “Why not? I wouldn’t be opposed to the idea of seeing an extravaganza like that.”

  “Then we stop. I don’t even know what I’m doing talking to you here.”

  “Okay, we stop. But after we go out to dinner.”

  “What?”

  “We have dinner together. And after that, I promise you we won’t talk about it anymore.”

  “I can’t.”

  “You really owe me that … just dinner.”

  Certain people have the rare ability to come out with such a statement. An ability that keeps the other person from answering in the negative. Natalie sensed all the conviction in Markus’s voice. She knew it would be a mistake to accept. She knew she should back away now, before it was too late. But, in front of him, it was impossible to say no. And then, she was so cold.

  Fifty-two

  Concrete Information About

  File 114

  It consisted of a comparative analysis between France and Sweden of the regulation of the balances of external trade in rural areas during a period ranging from November 1967 to October 1974.

  Fifty-three

  Markus had gone home first and was pacing in front of his closet. What do you wear to have dinner with Natalie? He wanted to be dressed to the nines. But even that number was too small for her. He would have like to have been dressed to the 47s, or the 112s, or even the 387s. He wanted to deaden himself with numbers to keep from thinking about the pressing issues. Should he wear a tie? He didn’t have anyone to help him. He was alone in the world, and the world was Natalie. Usually quite confident about his wardrobe preferences, he was losing his footing in everything and didn’t know how to choose the shoes, either. He really had no habit of getting dressed to go out at night. And then, this one was tricky: she was also his supervisor, which added to the pressure. Finally he managed to calm down by telling himself that appearance didn’t have to be the most important thing. Above all, he had to seem relaxed and be good at chatting glibly about lots of different subjects. And especially avoid talking about work. The number one taboo would be bringing up file 114. Letting the afternoon rub off on their evening. Then what were they going to talk about? You can’t change context with a snap of the fingers. They’d be like two butchers at a vegetarians’ convention. No, it was silly. Maybe the best idea was to cancel. There was still time. Unforeseeable circumstances. Yes, sorry, Natalie. You know, I’d really love to have gone, but, well, Mom died today. Nope, that was no good, too brutal. Too Camus, as well; and Camus was no good for canceling. Sartre: a lot better. I can’t tonight, you see, because hell is other people. A hint of existentialism in the tone—that would go o
ver nicely. As he raved on, it occurred to him that she must be looking for last-minute excuses, too. But for the moment, still nothing. They were meeting in an hour, and no message. She had to be looking for one, had to be. Or else, maybe there was a problem with her phone battery that was keeping her from notifying him that something had cropped up. His thoughts kept spinning like this a while longer, and then, since there was no news, he went out feeling like he was being asked to perform a mission in space.

  Fifty-four

  He’d chosen an Italian restaurant not far from her place. It was already so nice of her to have dinner with him that he didn’t want to make her go across town. Since he was early, he threw down two vodkas at the bistro opposite. He was hoping they would give him a little nerve and get him a little high, too. The alcohol produced no effect, and he went to sit down in the restaurant. Therefore he was in a state of perfect lucidity when he saw Natalie, who was on time. It occurred to him right away that he was glad he wasn’t potted. He wouldn’t have wanted drunkenness to ruin any of his pleasure in seeing that she’d come. As she walked toward him … she was so beautiful … the kind of beauty that puts three ellipsis dots after phrases all over the place … And then, he thought about the fact that he’d never before seen her in the evening. He was just short of being astounded that she could exist at this hour. He must have been the type who thought that beauty gets put in a box at night. But it couldn’t be true, no, because there she was, facing him.

  He got up to greet her. She’d never noticed he was that tall. N.B.: Employees sank into the wall-to-wall carpeting at their company. Outside, everybody looked taller. She’d remember this first impression of height for a long time.

  “Thanks for coming,” Markus couldn’t stop himself from saying.

  “You’re welcome …”

  “No … I mean it, I know you work a lot … especially right now … with file 114 …”

  She gave him a look.

  He let out an embarrassed laugh.

  “Actually, I’d promised myself not to talk about file … my God, I’m ridiculous …”

  Natalie smiled in response. It was the first time since François’s death that she’d found herself in the position of having to reassure somebody. It felt good. There was something touching about his embarrassment. She remembered the dinner with Charles, the confidence he’d displayed, and she felt more at ease this time. Having dinner with a man who was looking at her like a politician who’s finding out he’s won an election he hasn’t run in.

  “It’s better not to talk about work,” she said.

  “Then what will we talk about? Our interests? Interests are great for starting a discussion.”

  “Yes … but it’s a little weird to think like that—about what you can say to each other.”

  “I think looking for a subject of conversation seems like a good subject of conversation.”

  She liked that turn of phrase and the way he’d said it. “You’re pretty funny.”

  “Thanks. Do I look as grim as all that?”

  “Kind of … yeah,” she said, smiling.

  “Let’s get back to interests. That would be better.”

  “I’m going to tell you something. I don’t really think about what I like or don’t like anymore.”

  “Can I ask you a question?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you nostalgic?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “That’s kind of rare for a Natalie.”

  “Oh, really?”

  “Yes, Natalies have a marked tendency for nostalgia.”

  She smiled again. She wasn’t used to it anymore. But this man’s words were baffling her a lot. You never knew what he was going to say. The words in his brain seemed like lotto balls before they came out of the machine. Did he have any other theories about her? Nostalgia. She looked frankly at her relationship to nostalgia. All of a sudden Markus had flung her into images from the past. Instinctively she thought of the summer when she was eight. When she’d gone to America with her parents for two fabulous months, traveling all around the West. That vacation was marked by an obsession: Pez. Those little candies that you stack inside figurines. You just push the head and the toy serves you a candy. The identity of one summer was embodied by that object. She never found any again. The memory surfaced in Natalie just as the waiter appeared.

  “Would you like to order?” he asked.

  “Yes. We’ll have two risottos with asparagus. And for dessert … we’ll have Pez,” said Markus.

  “You’ll have what?”

  “Pez.”

  “We don’t have any … Pez, sir.”

  “What a pity,” concluded Markus.

  The waiter walked away mildly ruffled. In his body, a professional bent and a humorous bent were lines that curved in opposite directions. He couldn’t understand what that woman was doing with that man. Beyond a doubt, he was a producer and she an actress. There had to be a professional reason she was having dinner with such a freak. And what was this business about wanting a “pest” for dessert? He hadn’t at all liked that reference to bugs. He knew the type of customer who spent his time putting down waiters. That wasn’t going to happen.

  Natalie was thinking that the evening had taken a delightful turn. Markus was fun to be with.

  “You know something? This is only the second time in three years that I’ve gone out.”

  “You want to add pressure to pressure?”

  “Why, no, everything’s fine.”

  “Glad to hear it. I’m going to see to it that you enjoy the evening, because you’ll go back to hibernating if I don’t.”

  Their rapport had very little pretension. Natalie felt good. Markus wasn’t a friend or somebody she could see as a future flirtation. He was a realm of comfort, one unconnected to her past. All the conditions for a painless evening had ended up coming together.

  Fifty-five

  Ingredients for Risotto with Asparagus

  7 oz. Arborio rice (Italian short-grained rice)

  1 lb. 2 oz. asparagus

  4 oz. pine nuts

  1 onion

  7 oz. dry white wine

  3 oz. light cream

  3 oz. grated Parmesan

  hazelnut oil

  salt

  pepper

  *

  For the Parmesan Tuiles

  3 oz. grated Parmesan

  2 oz. pine nuts

  2 tablespoons flour

  a few drops of water

  Fifty-six

  Markus had often had his eye on Natalie. He loved to see her walking on the wall-to-wall carpeting through the hallways in her spectacular suits. Now her fantasy image was colliding with her real image. Like everyone, he was aware of what she’d been through. However, his only glimpse of her had been what she revealed: a reassuring woman who had a lot of self-assurance. Suddenly discovering her in a context where she had less reason to keep up appearances gave him the feeling he was in touch with her fragility. It’s true the change was minimal, but in flashes she lowered her guard. The more she relaxed, the more her real nature showed through. Her weaknesses, having to do with her suffering, came paradoxically to the fore with her smiles. Like the other side of a balance, Markus started taking on a stronger role that came close to being that of the protector. In her presence, he felt amusing and full of life, virile even. He would have liked to lead his entire life with the energy of those moments.

  Despite his man-with-the-situation-in-hand suit, his performance had flaws. When he ordered a second bottle, he confused the names of the wines. He’d put on a show of knowing about them, and the waiter hadn’t passed up the chance to put in a dig about his ignorance. A little private payback. Markus was more than annoyed enough to dare say to the waiter when he came back with the bottle, “Ah, thank you, sir. We were thirsty. Here’s to your health.”

  “Thank you. That’s nice of you.”

  “No, it isn’t. There’s a Swedish expression saying that anybody can
change places at any time. And that nothing’s ever final. So you may be standing up, but will be able to sit down someday. In fact, if you want me to, I’ll get up now and give you my place.”

  Markus stood up abruptly, and the waiter didn’t know how to react. He gave a pained smile and left the bottle. Natalie started laughing, without really understanding Markus’s mind-set. She’d liked that sudden switch into the ludicrous. Giving your seat to the waiter could very well be the best way to put him in his place. She appreciated what she thought of as a poetic moment. She thought Markus had a touch of “the East” in him and found it absolutely charming. It was like Romania or Poland in Sweden.

  “Are you sure you’re Swedish?” she asked.

  “You can’t imagine how much I like that question. You’re the first person to put my ethnic background in doubt … you are truly fabulous.”

  “Is being Swedish as hard as all that?”