“You can’t imagine. When I go back there, everybody tells me I’m a live wire. Do you believe it? Me, a live wire?”
“Certainly.”
“Back there, being gloomy is a full-time job.”
That is how the evening continued, moments of discovery alternating with moments in which a sense of well-being made the other person feel familiar. Although she’d been planning to go home early, it was already past midnight. The people around them were leaving. In a way that was far from subtle, the waiter tried to make them understand that perhaps it was time they think about it, too. Markus got up to go the men’s room and paid the bill. The gesture was done with a lot of elegance. Once outside, he offered to take her back in a taxi. He was so considerate. In front of her apartment, he placed a hand on her shoulder and kissed her on the cheek. At that moment he understood what he already knew, that he was desperately in love with her. Natalie thought that every instance of thoughtfulness on his part had shown sensitivity. She had actually felt happy during this time with him. She couldn’t think of any other. Lying on her bed, she sent him a text message to thank him. Then she put out the light.
Fifty-seven
Natalie’s Text Message to Markus
After Their First Dinner
Thanks for the lovely evening.
Fifty-eight
His answer was simply, “Thanks for having made it lovely.” He had wanted to answer with something that was more original, amusing, moving, romantic, literary, Russian, purple. But in reality, what he did write went very well with the tone of the moment. In his bed, he knew that he wouldn’t be able to fall asleep; how could you go into dreamland when you’d just left it?
He managed to sleep a little but was awoken by an anxiety. When a date goes well, you’re crazy with joy. And then, little by little, lucidity pushes you to think about what’s coming next. If things go badly, at least they’re clear: you won’t see each other again. But how to deal with this? All the confidence and certainty acquired during dinner had dissolved during the night; you should never close your eyes. A simple occurrence brought this to a head. Early in the day, Natalie and Markus ran into each other in the hallway. One was going to the coffee machine, the other coming back from it. After exchanging self-conscious smiles, they somewhat overplayed greeting each other. Neither of them could say another word, or find an anecdote that could end up in conversation. Not a single thing. Not even a brief mention of the weather, whether it was cloudy, sunny—nothing at all, with no hope of the situation improving. They separated on this feeling of uneasiness. They’d had nothing to say to each other. Some people call this the sidereal emptiness of afterward.
In his office, Markus tried to put his mind at rest. It was altogether normal for perfection not to remain constant at all times. Life certainly has its muddled moments, erasures, blank spaces. Put Romeo and Juliet in a hallway the morning after a lovely evening and they definitely won’t have a thing to say to each other. No big deal. He should be concentrating on the future instead. That’s what’s important. And you could say he was coping pretty well. Very quickly, he became absorbed in ideas for evenings, nocturnal strategies. He put it all on a large sheet of paper, like a plan of attack. In his little office, file 114 ceased to exist; file 114 had been obliterated by the file on Natalie. He didn’t know whom to talk to about it, whom to ask for advice. He did have good relationships with several coworkers. With Berthier, especially, he shared some personal secrets and vented in a way you could call intimate. But when it was a question of Natalie, talking to anybody at all in this place was out of the question. He’d have to shore up his uncertainties behind a wall of silence. Silence, yes, although he was afraid his heart would beat so loud it would make too much of a racket.
On the Internet, he checked out all the sites with suggestions for romantic evenings, boat excursions (although it was cold) or a night at the theater (though it was often hot inside and, anyway, he couldn’t stand plays). He found nothing very exciting that wouldn’t seem pompous or not enough so. In other words, he had no idea what she’d want, or what she was thinking. Maybe she didn’t want to see him anymore. She’d agreed to go to dinner with him once. Maybe that was it. She’d seen to it that it went okay. Now it was all over. Promises are only valid at the time of the promise. On the other hand, she’d thanked him for the lovely evening. Yes, she had, she’d written the word “lovely.” Markus relished that word. That wasn’t nothing, “a lovely evening.” She could have written “a nice evening,” but no, she’d chosen the word “lovely.” “Lovely”—what a beautiful word. Clearly, what a lovely evening. It was enough to make you think you were in that heyday of long dresses and horse-drawn carriages … But what was I thinking about? he thought, suddenly going into a tailspin. I’ve got to act and stop letting my mind wander. Yes, “lovely” certainly was beautiful, but it wasn’t even a foot in the door; now he needed to shake a leg and go the extra mile. Oh, he felt desperate. He didn’t have the slightest idea. Being at ease yesterday was only the ease of one evening. An illusion. He was reverting to his pathetic condition of being a man without qualities, a man without the slightest idea how to set up a second date with Natalie.
There was a knock on the door.
Markus said, “Come in.” The person who appeared was the one who’d written about having had a lovely evening with him. Yes, Natalie was there, it was really her.
“You’re okay? I’m not interrupting you? You look like you’re really absorbed in something.”
“Uh … no … no, it’s okay.”
“I was wondering if you’d like to go to a play with me tomorrow … I’ve got two tickets … so if it’s …”
“Great. I love the theater.”
“Great, then. Tomorrow evening.”
He murmured, “Tomorrow night,” too, but it was too late. The reply floated in thin air, disturbed by having no ear to land on. Every atom of Markus melted into intense pleasure. And at the center of this ecstatic realm, his heart leapt with joy throughout his entire body.
Strangely, this happiness made him serious. In the subway, he studied every person in his car, all those people stuck in their humdrum days, and no longer really felt anonymous among them. He stood there and, more than ever, knew that he loved women. Once he was home, he went through the steps of his routine. But he didn’t feel much like dinner. He lay down on his bed and tried to read a few pages. Then he turned out the light. The only problem was: he couldn’t fall asleep, just as he’d barely slept after Natalie’s kiss. She’d amputated sleep from his repertoire.
Fifty-nine
Excerpt from the Package Insert for Guronsan
For treatment of temporary states of fatigue in adults.
Sixty
The day went by easily. There was even a meeting of the team, something normal, and no one had any clue that Natalie was going to see a play that evening with Markus. It was kind of a nice feeling. Employees love having secrets, starting underground affairs, living a life no one knows about. It adds spice to the couple they form with their company. Natalie knew how to compartmentalize things. In certain respects, her tragedy had anesthetized her. Which is to say that she ran the meeting robotically, almost forgetting that the day was leading to an evening out. Markus certainly would have liked seeing some special attention, some sign of intrigue, in Natalie’s eyes, but that wasn’t part of her m.o.
The same was true of Chloé, who from time to time would have liked others to notice her privileged relationship with their supervisor. She was the only one who spent time with her that could be categorized as “casual.” Since Natalie had walked out on her, Chloé hadn’t tried to set up a second time out together. She knew the dangerous element that could enter into those moments: witnessing her superior’s fragility could backfire. That’s why she made a point of not mixing categories and scrupulously respecting hierarchy. At the end of the day, she went to see her.
“How are you? We’ve hardly talked since the last time.”
“Yes, it was my fault, Chloé. But it was a nice time, really.”
“Oh, really? You took off like a bat out of hell, and it was a nice time?”
“Yes, I mean it.”
“Great, then … want to go back there tonight?”
“Oh, no, sorry, I can’t. I’m going to a play,” said Natalie as if she were announcing the birth of a green baby.
Chloé didn’t want to seem surprised, but there certainly was reason to be. It was better not to emphasize the momentous character of such a statement, and to act as if it were nothing. Once back in her office, she lingered a while to put the final elements of her report in order, check her e-mails; then she put on her coat and left. As she was walking to the elevator, she was struck by an improbable sight: Markus and Natalie leaving together. She got nearer to them without being seen. She thought she heard the word “theater.” Immediately, she sensed something she couldn’t define. Distress, even dislike.
Sixty-one
Theater seats are so narrow. Markus definitely wasn’t comfortable. He was sorry about having long legs; as regrets go, it certainly was a useless one.j Not to mention another fact that amped up his torture: there’s nothing worse than being seated next to a woman you’re dying with desire to look at. The show was to his left, where she was, not on stage. Not only that, but what was he seeing? It was so-so. The fact that it was a Swedish play wasn’t exactly helping matters! Had she done it on purpose? As if that weren’t enough, the playwright had studied in Uppsala. Might as well have dinner at his parents’. He was too distracted to follow whatever the plot was. They were sure to talk about it afterward, and he’d come off as a retard. How could he have forgotten that possibility? He absolutely had to concentrate and prepare a few clever comments.
All the same, at the end of the play, he was surprised to be affected by a strong emotion. Maybe even on the order of a Swedish identification with the work. Natalie seemed content, too. But it’s difficult to know at the theater; sometimes people seem happy for the simple reason that the ordeal is finally over. Once they were outside, Markus wanted to launch into the theory he’d constructed during Act III, but Natalie cut the discussion short.
“I think we should try to unwind now.”
Markus thought of his legs, but Natalie elucidated, “Let’s get a drink.”
So that was it, unwind.
Sixty-two
Excerpt from Miss Julie
by August Strindberg,
the Play Seen by Natalie and Markus
on Their Second Date
JULIE: Shall I obey you?
JEAN: For once—for your own sake. I beg of you. Night is crawling along, sleepiness makes one irresponsible and the brain grows hot.k
Sixty-three
Then something decisive happened. An insignificant factor that would enlarge into a major determinant. Everything went exactly as it had during their first evening. Charm took effect, and even progressed. Markus came out of it elegantly. He was smiling with his least Swedish smile possible, almost a kind of Spanish smile. He strung out some tasty anecdotes, skillfully mixed in cultural and personal references, successfully managed transitions from the intimate to the general. He gracefully unfurled a fine piece of engineering known as “man of the world.” But, at the heart of his sense of well-being, he was suddenly prisoner of a confusion that was going to derail the machine: he was having an outbreak of melancholy.
At the beginning, it wasn’t much at all to deal with, more like a form of nostalgia. But no, as you drew much nearer, you could discern the mauve look of melancholy. And even closer up, you could see the real nature of a certain sadness. From one second to another, like a morbid, pathetic urge, he found himself face to face with the emptiness of that evening. But why am I trying to put on my best face, he asked himself? Why try to make this woman laugh, do my damnedest to delight her, a woman who’s so completely inaccessible? His past as a man unsure of himself caught him in its claws. And that wasn’t all. The development of this withdrawal was tragically reinforced by a second determinant: he spilled his glass of red wine on the tablecloth. It could have been seen as a simple blunder. Maybe even a charming one; Natalie had always had a spot in her heart for awkwardness. But at the moment, he was no longer thinking of her. He was seeing that trivial event as a much more serious harbinger: the reappearance of red. The never-ending eruption of red in his life.
“It’s not such a big deal,” said Natalie, noticing Markus’s look of catastrophe.
Of course not; it wasn’t a big deal. It was tragic. The red sent him back to Marilyn. Back to a vision of all the women in the world who were rejecting him. A snicker droned in his ears. Images of all his apprehensions surfaced again: he was a child being mocked on the school playground, a soldier being hazed, a tourist being swindled. All of it represented by the spreading of the red stain on a white tablecloth. He imagined the world watching him, whispering as he walked by. He was swimming in his too-large suit of a womanizer. Nothing could stop this drift into paranoia. A drift heralded by melancholy, and the simple feeling of seeing the past as a refuge. At that moment, the present stopped existing. Natalie was a shadow, a ghost from the world of women.
Markus rose and was lost in silence for a moment. Natalie watched him, without knowing what he was going to say. Was he going to be funny? Grim? Finally, he declared in a calm tone of voice, “I’d better leave.”
“Why? Because of the wine? But … that happens to everybody.”
“No … it’s not that … it’s just …”
“Just what? I bore you?”
“But no … of course not … even dead you couldn’t bore me …”
“Then what?”
“Then nothing. It’s just that I’m attracted to you. I’m attracted to you a lot.”
“…”
“I have only one desire, to kiss you again … but I can’t imagine for a single moment your being attracted to me … so, I think it would be best for us to stop seeing each other … I’m bound to suffer, but that suffering won’t be as harsh, if I have the nerve to say …”
“You think like that all the time?”
“But how can I not? What do I have to do just to be here, opposite you? Do you know how to do that, do you?”
“Be opposite myself?”
“You see, what I’m saying is idiotic. It would be better for me to leave.”
“I’d like you to stay.”
“To do what?”
“I don’t know.”
“What are you trying to do to me?”
“I don’t know. I only know that I feel good when I’m with you, that you’re unpretentious … considerate … delicate with me. And I’m realizing that it’s what I need, plain and simple.”
“And that’s all?”
“That’s already a lot, isn’t it?”
Markus was still standing. Natalie got up, too. They remained like that for a moment, frozen in uncertainty. Heads turned in their direction. It’s pretty rare not to move when you’re standing. It might bring up the idea of that painting by Magritte with men falling from the sky like stalactites. So there was a bit of Belgian painter in the bearing of the two of them, which isn’t, obviously, the most reassuring of images.
Markus left Natalie and walked out of the café. The moment had turned perfect, and he had to escape. She didn’t understand his attitude. She’d been having a nice evening, and now, she held this against him. Without realizing it, Markus had acted brilliantly. He’d reawakened Natalie. He’d pushed her into asking herself some questions. He’d said that he wanted to kiss her. Then was that all it was? Did she want to? No, she didn’t think so. She didn’t find him particularly … but that wasn’t really important … then, why not … she thought he had something … and he was fun, too … then why had he left? What an idiot. Now everything was spoiled. She was deeply annoyed … what an idiot he was, yes, what an idiot, she kept repeating while the customers in the café studied her. Such a beautiful wom
an dumped by a second-rate guy like that. She didn’t even notice their glances. She stood there frustrated and annoyed about not having mastered the situation, not having known how to hold him back, how to understand him. There was no reason to blame herself; she wouldn’t have been able to do anything. In his eyes, she was much too desirable to be near.
When she got home, she dialed his number, but hung up before it rang. She wanted him to call her. After all, she was the one who’d taken the initiative for this second date. He could have at least thanked her. Sent a message. There she was, waiting in front of the telephone, and it was the first time in so long that she’d experienced such a thing: waiting. She couldn’t sleep and poured herself a little wine. Put on some music. Alain Souchon. A song she used to love listening to with François. She couldn’t get over being able to listen to it like this without breaking down. She kept walking in circles around the living room, even danced a little, let the feeling of being high enter her with the energy of something promised.
Sixty-four
First Verse of “L’amour en fuite” (“Love on the Run”),
the Alain Souchon Song Natalie Listened to
After Her Second Evening with Markus
Loving pictures shot with cameras on my skin,
we lived it.
Tear them up and all those times we cried,
forgive it.
We’ve got all the glue and sticky tape
To put those broken hearts back into shape.
What images we formed back in those days,
cute couple.
I moved in with you and found your world,
your bubble.
Delicacy Page 8