I’ve seen Manuela again, several times, always for lunch, never in the evening. The man she lives with, a very tall man with a beautiful, calm, regular-featured face, always says something to remind me how much he dislikes me.
My brother Paul got married. He has two boys I find unappealing and have no affection for, and he got divorced after five years. I didn’t feel sorry for him, I thought his wife was a stupid, horse-faced woman. We don’t see each other much.
Cátia Moniz—it doesn’t make much sense to call her Duck now—has another daughter. I heard that from Custódia. But I lied earlier when I implied I hadn’t seen her again. I didn’t have new business cards made—I had more than one hundred and eighty left from my old address—but I saw her at the botanical gardens with her family. Vitor was pushing the baby’s stroller and his little sister was pulling a toy behind her, a painted wooden duck with metal wheels. A duck. I smiled. I knew Custódia had made it, and I hoped he’d used off-cuts from my orders.
And then there’s me: I translated the one thousand and seventy-three Contos aquosos but haven’t found a publisher. The only one who showed any interest couldn’t find anyone responsible for Jaime Montestrela’s estate to sign the contract, and was worried there might be a court case after publication. Unless that was an excuse. As for the novel about Pescheux d’Herbinville, I never finished it, of course. I copied out my notes, but as the years went by, I lost interest in the project. I don’t feel I need to apologize for that. I didn’t make you any promises, as far as I know.
I haven’t had any luck with women, or haven’t known how to seize it if I did. Let’s say the ones I liked didn’t like me enough, and the ones I could have attracted were too ready to be attracted by pretty much anyone. Still, I’d have liked to have a child. Children. I’m sixty-five now and I’m not Picasso. The question stopped arising. There was never a Lena Balmer.
I may also know why Dad hanged himself. I’m growing steadily blind and, according to the doctor, it’s a hereditary condition. This book is a result of that sense of urgency and terror, I’ve called it Eléctrico W—although the tramline no longer exists—and I don’t know if it’s good or bad. All bad novels are alike, but every good one is good in its own way.
And every day I look at the map of the Okavango Delta, that river that doesn’t know how to find its way to the sea.
HERVÉ LE TELLIER is a writer, journalist, mathematician, food critic, and teacher. He has been a member of the Oulipo group since 1992 and one of the “papous” of the famous France Culture radio show. He has published fifteen books of stories, essays, and novels, including Enough About Love (Other Press, 2011), The Sextine Chapel (Dalkey Archive Press, 2011), and A Thousand Pearls (for a Thousand Pennies) (Dalkey Archive Press, 2011).
ADRIANA HUNTER studied French and Drama at the University of London. She has translated more than fifty books including Enough About Love by Hervé Le Tellier. She won the 2011 Scott Moncrieff Prize and has been short-listed twice for the French-American Foundation and Florence Gould Foundation Translation Prize. She lives in Norfolk, England.
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