by Jean Echenoz
But it really hurts, Christian insisted while Jean-Pierre picked up the dirty plates. It’s painful. Not at all, Lessertisseur said evenly. I’m sure you still have a bit of propofol left; that should do the trick. As for the, uh, surgical material, we have it here, he went on, pointing to the manicure kit that was lying on the knees of Lucile, who was staring with even deeper devotion at Lessertisseur. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves; it was only a suggestion. A possible scenario. A hypothesis. In any case, he pointed out, we can’t make a decision of that order without first submitting it to the silent partner. Let me remind you that we are mere subcontractors—project managers, if you will—and we must first seek our client’s advice. After that, we can always come to an arrangement, he concluded, turning toward Lucile. I’ll go to see the silent partner as soon as possible. What time is it? Ah yes, that’s unfortunate, it’s a little late; we are only able to reach him in the mornings. And what about the girl, in fact? Christian asked anxiously. She must be hungry. And we’ve eaten all the merguez. I think we bought some ham, too, Jean-Pierre remembered, and there’s plenty of cheese left. I’ll go and fix her something to eat.
And I have to get going, said Victor, rising to his feet. Things to do. So, he said to Jean-Pierre and Christian, I’m leaving you alone with the girl but I don’t want anything to happen with her, you understand? No messing around with that girl. What? exclaimed Christian. Of course not! You know us. Exactly, said Victor, I do know you.
After his departure, Jean-Pierre prepares Constance’s lunch. He puts the ham and cheese on a plate. He pours some wine in a Pyrex glass. He adds two slices of bread, the saltshaker, and a paper towel, then he heads over to the farm. Constance does not look up at him when he opens the door. She has moved her chair over to the French doors to read. Having decided that she may as well start at the beginning, she is still on the first volume of the Quillet encyclopedia (A–Class). She is currently reading the entry for argent.
10
WHILE WE’RE ON THE SUBJECT of money, let’s see how Lou Tausk is doing.
From what we know of him, his material situation might seem comfortable, but no more than that. We might even be surprised that strangers are inciting him to pay a ransom, the amount of which we imagine as being very high, even exorbitant. This apparent disproportion, however, ceases to exist if we go into detail on certain facts concerning his life and work.
Tausk’s career was marked, about fifteen years ago, by a rare musical and commercial event. He is one of those lucky few to have composed, even if only once in their life, a hit song. And when I say a hit, I mean an enormous hit, the royalties for which will allow you a wealthy existence, without ever having to lift a finger again, for the rest of your life, you and at least two generations of your assignees. I am talking about a global, cosmic, universal hit, bought and frenetically danced to by the inhabitants of the entire earth, from Yemenites to Laplanders. A hit that, fifteen years later, is engraved in their memory to the point of being genetically transmitted to their children, their grandchildren, and so on. A hit that was awarded some fifty gold discs—of which there remains, framed for posterity, only the single example that we glimpsed in the studio the other day.
Lou Tausk is not the first person to have experienced this, of course; there have been others, albeit not many. Take Patrick Hernandez, for example, who did nothing at all with his life except “Born to Be Alive”—written in ten minutes, recorded in two days, initially rejected by every record label in France before becoming an intercontinental success whose royalties enabled its author to take it easy for the rest of his life. Tausk could, like Mr. Hernandez—who is, as I write, still wisely taking it easy—sleep peacefully forever on his gold. Because, just like Mr. Hernandez, after blowing a large portion of the massive windfall that landed on him back then, as young men will, he invested the rest in shares, risk-free bonds, and property—including the pied-à-terre in Trocadéro that he gave to Constance—and he still receives a pretty good sum in royalties, a steady cash flow pouring down on him every God-given day from his old hit: each week, his checking account is blessed with the equivalent of what a middle manager would consider a good monthly wage.
So Tausk is not far from being rich, particularly as his later singles (“Dent de Sagesse,” “N’est-il pas,” “Te Voici, Me Voilà!,” and a few others), while they never sold anything like as well as that first hit, did bring him some money, even if he had to share the royalties with his partner, Franck Pélestor—a chronic melancholic after paying his dues as a lyricist in the pop industry. But for Tausk’s megahit, entitled “Excessif,” it was he and he alone who reaped the rewards. It was a success in France first of all, and then the foreign adaptations—“Desmesurado,” “Senza Limiti,” “Perda Total,” “Too Too Too,” “Reiner Wahnsinn,” “Abnormaal,” “Taşkin,” among others, and restricting ourselves to those that are still available—sold like hot cakes in Europe and the three Americas before really taking off in the Far East, where, not content with having occupied the number one spot in China and Japan the song became a massive bestseller in South Korea, followed by even greater success in North Korea—albeit this time under the counter and only in the highest spheres of power
And Tausk did indeed create “Excessif” on his own: composed it, wrote it, produced it. The vocal line was sung, in a rush and completely by chance, by Constance, who had just entered his life, who had never sung anything in hers, and who recorded it in a single afternoon under the first pseudonym—So Thalasso—that came to Tausk’s mind. And then: triumph, against all expectations, first in its original version and then in numerous cover versions—Gloria Stella, Boz Scaggs, Coco Schmidt, and many others. And the profit from all of this: a magnificent hoard coveted by everyone. That might have been enough, but no: Tausk wants more. Tausk is not content to stick with what he has. Aware that the world has forgotten him a little bit, that his glory is dog-eared, that the people in his agent’s office no longer greet him the way they used to, Tausk wants to create a new global hit, more adapted to today’s tastes, in order to earn another fortune, naturally, but above all to win the world’s admiration once again.
Having made clear this point, let’s join him in bed as we did the other morning, just as he’s waking up. He has opened his eyes, but this morning, instead of getting out of bed right away, he picks up his tablet from his nightstand, clicks on a newspaper website, scrolls down through politics, economics, and sports, and heads straight for the crime section, in which he finds nothing about Constance. Then, just to see, he types his own name into a search engine. It’s true that he hasn’t done this for a long time: there’s no reason, after all, why anyone should be talking about him, but you never know, maybe this or that new star might have mentioned his influence on them. But no, there’s nothing. He gets out of bed.
Black screen 1: The opening of a white door prompts the incandescence of a bulb, casting a stark light on the interior of a stainless steel, four-door, 535-liter fridge-freezer with multiple compartments, a minibar, and a water and ice dispenser. This appliance contains lots of food, behind which, between two racks, we see Tausk, his hair mussed up, in a Missoni bathrobe. He looks like he’s in a bad mood. He hesitates, then decides not to bother. The door closes.
Black screen 2: Twenty minutes later, the opening of a sliding panel triggers a fiber-optic system that softly lights a walk-in closet. In the foreground: a collection of shirts and suits arranged in chromatic order, through which we again see Tausk, his hair combed now, wearing boxer shorts. Same thing happens: he hesitates, then decides not to bother. These clothes don’t really suit him anymore anyway, most of them dating from the golden age of “Excessif,” when he was constantly appearing on television. He makes do with a pair of jeans, a long-sleeved T-shirt, an old, worn Arnys jacket, and even more worn pair of Fratelli Rossetti loafers. The panel closes.
From the office in his apartment—a comfortable place, but we’re not going to kill ourselves describing it in
detail*—Tausk phones Pélestor since he has to start somewhere. He has a few tunes in reserve, all of them at a standstill, but as he has no desire to go to the studio, it might be a good idea to deal with the lyrics before starting on the sound. Franck, would it bother you to come to my place instead? Silence, then a drawn-out sigh. It wouldn’t take you much longer to get here, Tausk argues. You can come on the metro without changing trains. It’s not that it’s far to go, Pélestor points out, but morally it’s a long way. And the metro, you know . . . I’ll order you a taxi if you want, Tausk says. Another sigh and then Pélestor says, All right, I’ll drop by.
He actually arrives pretty quickly. Still wearing his coat like a suit of armor, he looks like he’s having a bad day. Admittedly he looks like that more or less every day. That was fast, remarks Tausk. Yeah, says his partner, but the taxi driver was a pain. And it’s too hot: I don’t have enough air, or any ideas. Conciliatory, Tausk suggests they go and work somewhere else for a while, mentioning his two second homes—one near Honfleur, the other near Hendaye, both close to the beach—which he rarely visits. We can take a break for a few days, it’s nice and cool down there, and then we can get started. What do you think? It’s kind of you, Pélestor acknowledges, but I think that’s the sort of place I like hearing about more than I actually like going there myself.
So they’re not off to a good start. They are sitting in the office, facing each other. Neither says a word. It goes on for a while like this; then the conversation goes around and around in circles without any result, before getting bogged down, and at last the lyricist checks his watch and says, I’d better get going. Tausk tries not to look too relieved. So I’ll see you at the studio tomorrow morning? Of course, says Pélestor. As Tausk has not paid for his return taxi trip, Pélestor walks to the Rome metro station. Let’s follow him. He stares at his feet as he walks, as usual, and sees some of the things that surround them, and all of it depresses him. A lost playing card, for example, behind the news kiosk on Place Prosper-Goubaux. It doesn’t look like much at first sight, a stray card, but all the same it ruins the career and future prospects of fifty-one others, who are mourning it or maybe cursing it, and who are no longer any use to anyone, finding themselves out of work because of that one card. The fate of those other cards saddens Pélestor.
Next, the legs of a passing woman. It’s easy to forget that women’s legs are also useful for helping them move forward: we hold them so dear as art objects that we tend to neglect that functional aspect. Uncovered and inelegant, the legs that Pélestor sees not far from his own feet force him to pose an important question: if ugly legs serve no other purpose than walking, then why expose them? This thought depresses him, but worse than that, the guilty knowledge of having had it distresses him, oppresses him exceedingly, and to subdue this feeling he reaches into his pocket for a new pack of anti-anxiety capsules. He starts to open them, but.
But on that subject, Pélestor would like us to explain why, when he opens a new box of medication, it is always from the wrong side: the one with the package insert folded around the pills, tablets, or capsules, forming a barrier to their extrication, so that Pélestor has to close the box every single time and open the other side, where the pills, tablets, or capsules are easy to reach. This phenomenon seems inevitable, in the same way that a dropped piece of toast always lands on the buttered side, as if influenced by a curse that pursues him even after the initial opening of the box: each time he needs the same box in the future, it is always the insert side that he chooses, invariably, over and over again. One solution would be to get rid of that damn insert, particularly as Pélestor knows it by heart anyway so it’s completely pointless, but, well, you never know.
In any case, he does not have a glass of water to hand to help him swallow the pills, so he postpones that operation and goes down the stairs to the Rome metro station, which is a large rectangular parallelepiped, the only nonvaulted station on the underground network. The train that arrives is full, so Pélestor has to stand, which is trying, but, because of the microbes, germs, viruses, and other bacteria, it is out of the question for him to hold himself upright by grabbing onto any of the available handles or bars. It takes an effort to keep his balance: Pélestor dances on the spot, without any particular method, hopping from foot to foot until the train stops at Barbès-Rochechouart and a seat becomes available: an individual folding seat, ideal in theory. But as it is out of the question to occupy a seat that has been warmed by anonymous buttocks, Pélestor has to wait for it to return to its normal temperature. And then, finally seated, increasingly oppressed, he reaches for the capsules in his pocket: he’ll just have to manage without the water. Using his tongue and his cheeks, Pélestor tries to accumulate enough saliva in his mouth to wash the medicine down; it takes him several goes before he has the necessary volume. But in the meantime the capsule has melted against his palate and it tastes disgusting. Life really is totally shit.
* VILLIERS. On the fifth floor of a cut-stone building, a superb 6-room apartment, 2,023 sq ft, consisting of an entrance hall, a very large living room, a dining room, an American kitchen, four bedrooms, a bathroom, a shower room, two WCs, and a cellar. Calm and light-filled. Five minutes from Parc Monceau. Price: upon request.
11
AFTER THE LYRICIST’S DEPARTURE, Tausk went back to his office. Several things seemed to have left him impatient. Constance’s disappearance, Pélestor’s depression, the deadline for his tax returns, the weather, his cleaning lady’s vacation, the international political situation, and decisions to make, which he was still, always, putting off. Drumming his fingers on his desktop, as you do when you’re impatient, he had the impression that his fingernails, based purely on the sound they made, were too long. Finally he made a decision, with immediate effect: taking a pair of nail-clippers from the drawer, he began to shorten his nails, a useful pastime that can take you quite a while if you really apply yourself.
Too short. So much so that, for the hours that followed, his fingertips felt suddenly fragile, as defenseless as a newborn, their tender flesh touching the open air and breathing it, an uncomfortable sensation, like the moment when a plaster cast is removed. This postoperative effect never lasts long: soon you stop thinking about it, and in the days that follow you are happy with your short, clean nails, freed of those corners where dust and grime can insinuate themselves. You wait to cut them again, knowing that the entire cycle of nail regrowth, for the fingers, lasts three months. For the toes, you can count a good nine months because they spend their existence in the dark so they are slower to grow.
Having done this, Tausk leaves his office and opens a window in the living room. A huge fly with a glistening blue thorax enters the room and flies warily around it a few times; it must find the apartment to its taste because it then flutters from room to room, lingering like a bailiff on each piece of furniture, each painting hung on the wall, without any apparent intention of leaving, then going through to the library, which, buzzing, it inventories, volume by volume, until Tausk turns on the television: an American series; medium shot of a busty blond actress in a Californian apartment? Yeah, why not. Distracted by this new spectacle, the fly lands on the actress’s left breast and Tausk, using animal magnetism, evacuates the dipteran from the screen.
The actress is explaining that it’s you, Burt, who got Bob to poison Shirley with the aim of disinheriting Howard, with Nancy’s help, and getting your hands on Malcolm’s legacy, just so you can marry Barbara. Whom you don’t love. And Walter? Have you thought about Walter’s future? (With this being a very long reply and the actress having to reread the script on set to remind herself of her lines, the tirade is interrupted on two occasions with cutaways to Burt, who, in fact, does not look particularly confident.) You’re a monster, Burt, diagnoses the actress, and you’ll get just what you deserve. And at the moment when she takes a stubby Smith & Wesson from her Prada purse, the doorbell of the apartment rings—not the Californian apartment, but ours. My God, it ne
ver stops, does it?
Over the intercom, the concierge informs Tausk that a parcel has arrived for him: I can bring it up, if you’re there now? Of course, says Tausk as a gunshot explodes in the living room. When the concierge has delivered the parcel, Tausk turns off the television, leaving the fly to get by on its own, and goes off to find some scissors while continuing to examine the package: a standard French post office parcel, delivered without signature or any indication of the sender’s name. A gray-printed line gives the date and place of the package’s origin: day before yesterday, Agen Carnot post office. Tausk, who does not know Agen or anyone in Agen, weighs the parcel in his hands. Very light, the size of a pack of playing cards or cigarettes. It could be a lighter, a knickknack, a pair of cuff links, or a USB key.
In fact, it is a box of matches with the matches removed and, in their place, a slender cylindrical object wrapped in a cloth held in place by a Band-Aid. Unwrapped on the work surface of the kitchen, this object looks to us very much like a finger. A real human finger: Tausk recoils, sickened, turns away, and feels slightly dizzy. But let’s not overdramatize the situation. It’s not an entire finger, just the tip of one. Anatomy is not Lou Tausk’s strong point but, glancing at his own hand to compare it, he estimates that it is probably the tip of a pinkie finger, extended and protected by one varnished nail. It’s hard to say whether it’s from a right or left hand: nothing looks quite so similar to the first phalanx of a little finger as the first phalanx of another little finger.