Someone Else

by Tonino Benacquista

  He went back across the hall towards the esplanade, haunted by the look in Jacot’s eyes. For the last few hours, Nicolas Gredzinski had no longer been immortal. He suddenly wondered whether his perennial anxiety was an irrepressible fear of death or, conversely, a twisted way of forgetting about it.

  “A table with Madame . . . I don’t know her name . . . Christian Broaters’ assistant.”

  “If you’d like to follow me.”

  She was there, looking fresh, with an explosive smile on her face, almond eyes, her hair almost shaved. Long, slender, with a coppery tan: a matchstick, incendiary.

  “I’m so glad you were able to find the time.”

  “I like off-the-cuff invitations. It makes a change from the canteen.”

  “I never have time to go there, too many outside meetings. Let’s order straight away, I’ve only got an hour.”

  She hailed a waiter and ordered a grilled steak with no sauce; Nicolas just had time to spot a fresh cod fillet with ceps.

  “What would you like to drink?”

  “Red wine, even with the fish,” he said as if it were self-evident.

  He was supposed to choose the wine but she did it spontaneously, which suited him: he knew nothing about wine, and he was going to find out how much he was valued by management.

  “Talbot ’82.”

  She handed the wine list back to the sommelier, then, seamlessly, launched into a diatribe on the lack of communication in the communication sector; Nicolas smiled to keep her happy and let her voice melt into the slight hubbub around them without paying attention to the content, a vague preamble which promised something more pointed to follow. The sommelier reappeared with the precious bottle in his hand, carried out the usual ceremony and poured a couple of drops into Alissa’s glass. She managed to ignore him completely but still brought the glass up to her lips. Here again Nicolas watched her with a certain detachment; the last time he had tasted the wine in front of a woman, she had been the one to point out it was corked.

  “It’s good,” she said, momentarily interrupting what she was saying about the problems in the art department.

  He brought his glass to his lips, took a sip of Château Talbot ’82 and held it in his mouth for a moment before swallowing.

  “Tell me, Nicolas – may I call you Nicolas?”

  “. . . Sorry?”

  “I asked whether I could call you Nicolas.”

  “Did you say this wine was good?”

  “Is there a problem . . .?” she asked anxiously, tasting it again.

  He took another mouthful, then another. He tried to hold them for a moment but he let them glide down his throat and finished the glass. He knew nothing about wine, about how it evolved in the mouth. He would not have known the body from the nose, he would have classed a fruity one as all tannin and an everyday bottle as vintage. And yet he had no doubt about how exceptional this moment was. He closed his eyes and opened them to find his glass full again, as if by a miracle.

  “A plate of spaghetti with basil on a summer’s evening after a swim is good. A warm towel on your cheeks after shaving is good. A winning passing shot at break point is good. But with the wine that you’ve chosen, we’re not in that category, we’re into wonderful. It’s like a fairy story with a castle, a princess and a dragon: all that’s inside this glass. The worst of it is I don’t even know if I’m really enjoying it. In fact, if I had to describe what I’m feeling at this precise moment, after drinking this wine, it would be something like sadness.”

  She look at him in perplexed silence.

  “It makes you want to cry like a bride at the high point of her wedding. Too much happiness brings tears to the eyes. But I’m also sad because it’s taken me forty years to experience this, sad because no wine of this calibre has ever come my way, sad when I think of the people who drink this sort of thing every day without appreciating what it is they have. And, finally, sad because from now on I’ll live in the knowledge that it exists and I’ll have to live with it, well without it, actually.”

  She was still speechless.

  “To get back to what you were saying about the art department, if there are any problems, money won’t resolve anything. Take on someone who knows how to talk to a printer, who knows how a rotary press works, that would save you a lot for a start. You’ve got people who know how to do things, find the ones who know how to get things done.”

  He regretted this last sentence almost before he had spoken it. Alissa did not need to hear more. “Don’t you think there was something awful about that meeting? A feeling of settling accounts. I like Bardane, but he sometimes turns something really minor into a matter of principle. Matters of honour, in the old-fashioned way.”

  The wine was already flowing in Nicolas’s veins. He felt confident, free to take liberties. “Bardane chose to be arrogant, a choice only someone mediocre would make. Trying to establish authority over underlings is a sign of servility. I don’t think he’s incompetent. If only he could be a bit more sure of himself, then he’d know how to lead his team.”

  “How would you feel about replacing him?”

  This time it was Nicolas who looked up in questioning silence, but Alissa did not answer.

  “It’s not me that you want, it’s him that you don’t want any longer.”

  “The position needs energy.”

  “Is this Broaters’ idea?”

  “Yes.”

  “The problem is I’m not ambitious.”

  “You like the Talbot ’82.”

  “What I really like is peace of mind, which is actually very new to me.”

  Alissa stood up, she was in a hurry and there was nothing to keep her at the table any more. Nicolas promised to ring her before the end of the week to give her his answer. He ordered a plate of cheese with the sole aim of finishing the half-full bottle. There was no question of leaving a single drop. He was experiencing the most delicate intoxication and was drinking, alone, not needing anything; this feeling of impunity was something he had always needed. No Mergault in the vicinity, no colleagues in the canteen ready to make stupid remarks, he no longer felt guilty. Loraine’s words came back to him: “Whatever you do, be discreet. Not from a feeling of shame, just to deprive them of their pleasure.” That simple sentence, under the alchemy of the precious molecule, acquired an unexpected dimension. Abstruse ideas came to him and a whole mental structure began to emerge. Feeling inspired, he left the restaurant, went back to the Group, took a can of Coke and a can of Heineken from the café and made a detour via José’s office because he had access to the tools in the technical workshop. He borrowed a fine metal chisel and some sandpaper, promising to bring them back before the end of the day.

  Half an hour later, hidden safely in his office, Nicolas attacked the can of Coke (which he had emptied out into a basin) with surgical precision. First he pierced the bottom with the point of the chisel and cut off the base, then he cut off the top, being careful to cut the metal as cleanly as possible. To finish the job, he split the cylinder vertically and opened it out like a shell. Despite a few snags at the edges, he managed not to chip the tin. The moment of truth had come, he felt slightly perturbed – it was such a long time since he had made anything with his hands! And this contraption must have been the greatest thing he’d ever seen. Holding the cylinder open, he slid the full can of Heineken in, and something miraculous happened: the red packaging of the Coke wrapped itself automatically around the green of the Heineken. It just took a little pressure of the hand to close the shell and make the full tin disappear completely. There it was, Nicolas Gredzinski had just invented decoy beer. To celebrate the fact, he pulled the seal off the can of Coke, which rewarded him with the crisp bitterness of hops.

  Muriel came into his office. “You’re lucky you can drink real Coke, Monsieur Gredzinski. I’m condemned to Diet Coke, otherwise it goes straight to my hips.”

  There was still the rest of the world to conquer.

  *

  �
�A pastis, a large one, with lots of ice.”

  In the summer, that was allowed. Nicolas was not the only one drinking it, José was on his second glass. Marcheschi and Arnaud were sticking to their daily beer, Régine and Cendrine to their kir.

  “What are you up to this weekend?” asked Régine.

  “Are you thinking about the weekend already?”

  “All the time, it’s how I hold out for the rest of the week.”

  “On Saturday I’m going to the country with the children,” said Arnaud.

  “What about you, Nicolas?”

  “Given how odd this week has been, I’m not making any plans.”

  “And you, Cendrine?”

  “I’m going to the fair at the Place du Trône with my sweetheart.”

  “I’d love to come with you,” said Régine.

  Nicolas listened to them as he let a warm sap rise through his arteries and invade his cerebral cortex. His state of intoxication needed to be aroused gently, voluptuously.

  “This weekend, rest,” said José. “I’m going to rent five videos, ones which will give me a complete change of scene, and punctuate them with little siestas right through to Sunday evening. When I need to catch up on sleep, it works well.”

  Sleep? What was the point of sleeping, Nicolas wondered. Did Loraine ever sleep? The night before, she had left as the bar closed, without suggesting anything further. Nicolas could not see straight and was stumbling over most of his words; what more could anyone envisage with a man in that state? He reached for the mobile number that she herself had slipped into his jacket pocket just before she put him in the back of a taxi.

  “And you, Monsieur Marcheschi, what about this weekend?”

  He was the only one they spoke to with a degree of respect, never using his first name; without really meaning to, he had created this distance. The thought that one of the Marcheschis of this world could come across Loraine, drink without reeling and end the night in her arms infuriated Nicolas. Everything about Marcheschi exasperated him. In him he could see an unstoppable mechanism; he did not make a meal of everything, nothing dampened his good humour, his purpose and initiative acted like a suit of armour, shielding him from doubt and all life’s petty disappointments. Nicolas could not get away from the thought that Marcheschi spent time with the Nemrod “club” with the sole purpose of having a guaranteed audience, conquering without glory, enjoying being admired for nothing.

  “Well, this weekend, I’m going to make the most of my ceiling . . .”

  He left his sentence dangling in the air, with a smile on his lips, waiting for one of them to probe further. Cendrine did the honours. Nicolas mentally dismissed her as an idiot.

  “What’s so special about your ceiling?”

  “In order to explain, I’ll have to tell you what I did last weekend. Have I already told you about my little place in the Eure? Well, picture this, last Saturday at eight in the morning, all on my own, I tackled some beams which had been abandoned for thirty years. Various different problems: insects, grease, rot – you’ve no idea the insults wood is subjected to. For months an architect friend had been telling me to deal with them as soon as possible if I didn’t want the roof to come crashing down on my head. But, you know what it’s like, the weeks go by and I kept putting the job off to the next weekend, then the next, and the whole thing started to overwhelm me. I no longer dared even to suggest a weekend in the country to my conquests for fear of ending up as a news item! So, last Saturday I took the bull by the horns and tackled the job, on my own, remember, to get it done once and for all. You should have seen the get-up! Khaki overalls splattered with paint, a bandana round my head, another scarf over my nose and mouth, like a bank robber. Armed with a brush, a rasp and sand paper, I went up the stepladder and what followed is tragic. A beam is a living thing, full of mystery; sometimes it gives in but it can put up resistance too. I started this hellish rasping with the patience of a saint, and the first hour was probably the hardest. With the very first brushstroke, the dust falls straight into your eyes, and there’s nothing you can do about it. Nothing! You try all sorts of solutions, but even goggles specially designed for that sort of thing get covered really quickly, so you have to clean them every two minutes, not to mention the sweat running over the bridge of your nose. When I got to the end of the first half it was already midday. Three yards in four hours . . . You think the world is a terrible place, and you can’t stand DIY, but you carry on. Gradually, the whole thing becomes a challenge, a challenge you set yourself, and that’s how you have to see it if you’re going to find the strength. By mid-afternoon, your arms are giving up, the smell’s seeping into your nose as the dust gets through the mask, and you’re sneezing every ten seconds, regular as clockwork. The work’s coming on, slowly, but you don’t notice it. Your neck’s about to explode from being twisted into the most stupid, the most absurd position the body ever had to tolerate. Your shoulders are reduced to a rod of pain, and all this pain joins forces to get you to give up. Your will wavers, and you’re about ready to make a bonfire of the whole bloody house to give the neighbours something to watch for miles around. When night fell, I went to sleep right there, on the ground, fully clothed, drunk on the pain, a broken man, groaning and feeling about as alone as I’d ever been. The next morning, the nightmare starts again, undimmed, but this time you’re no longer carried by the ignorance of innocence, you know you’re going to suffer for it right from the start, but you go back to it, because downing tools now – and it would be literally downing tools – would mean all the work so far was for nothing. When the spectre of giving up surfaces again, when all the elements are lined up against you to get you to give in, when your eyes are burning, when your mouth’s fetid, when your determination’s shrunk to a little puddle at your feet, the miracle happens at last: you’ve just finished the last bit of the last beam. But there’s no question of screaming triumphantly at this stage, the torture’s far from over. You have to face the rack again and varnish everything that you’ve rasped and sanded. And there are all sorts of new pleasures waiting for you now: asphyxia, headaches, burning eyes, tears, and still the same God-awful position, bent double, breaking your back so that you feel you’ll never stand upright again. To cut a long story short, it gets to 2 o’clock on Monday morning and now, at last, it’s all finished. I was overcome by hysterical laughter and I just lay on the floor for a good hour, letting my body relax. I got into the car to come back to Paris. The next morning I was in the office, fresh and clean, suffering like a martyr but that didn’t stop me securing the Solemax contract before the end of the day, and having an aperitif with you in this very spot.”

  Silence. Admiration. Stifled exclamations, a tentative ripple of applause, outspoken commentaries. On the strength of this, everyone had another drink. How could they not congratulate Marcheschi? What could you add to that? He would leave, convinced he was a hero, and there was something exasperating about that. Nicolas took a good swig of pastis, put down his glass and waited a little longer for the conversation to fade before speaking.

  “In 1508 Michelangelo Buonarroti took on a commission from the Pope: to paint the twelve apostles on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. He would be given five assistants and 3,000 ducats (the price of a house in Florence) for the work. He discovers that the scaffolding’s ineffective and is damaging the ceiling, so he designs a new, much cleverer one which puts purchase on the walls. He paints four apostles but isn’t satisfied, he wants to make something really exceptional of this place, and suggests to the Pope that he should tell the story of Genesis over the whole vault of the ceiling; more than 500 square yards of frescoes and 300 characters, each anatomically authentic, moving authentically and with a proper role to play. Michelangelo is down to just one assistant to prepare the filler and mix the colours. And the work starts in a terribly hard winter. It’s perishing cold and the chapel’s impossible to heat. He paints by day and at night he does the sketches for the following day. On the rare occa
sions when he sleeps, he sleeps fully clothed and doesn’t even take off his shoes because of the cramps and the swelling in his feet; when he does manage to get them off, the skin peals away with the leather. He takes his provisions and his chamber pot up on the scaffolding so he doesn’t have to come back down and works up to seventeen hours at a time, perched more than twenty yards up, standing, arching backwards with his neck twisted back and paint dripping onto his face; he has to close his eyes with every brushstroke, as he has learned to do when sculpting, to avoid the shards from the chisel. He’s afraid he’ll go blind from straining his eyes, and he can’t focus beyond the painting he’s working on; when he’s handed something, he has to hold it up above him to identify it. He refuses to speak to anyone to avoid questions about his work, and forbids access to the chapel, even to the Pope. People in the street think he’s a madman with his rags, his face daubed with paint and his teetering step. This torture goes on for four long years. On the day of its inauguration he’s not even there, too busy choosing blocks of marble for the tomb of Julius II (which he used to sculpt his Moses). The Sistine Chapel makes a living legend of him; his peers, his detractors, the whole world bows before his work, which, to this day, remains one of the most beautiful creations by the human hand. And yet Michelangelo was so excessively humble that he didn’t think of himself as a painter but as a sculptor. He was still only thirty-seven years old, he was to go on to build churches, construct domes, design flights of steps, paint hundreds of walls, sculpt tonnes of marble . . . In an age when life expectancy was forty, he died at eighty-nine, with his chisel in his hand.”

  After a moment’s silence, Marcheschi, with his eyes on his watch, stood up and took his leave.

  *

  Nicolas had to acknowledge the fact: Loraine liked him. God knows where she was and God knows what she was doing when he rang to suggest they meet for a drink at the Lynn. On the telephone he had not been able to help himself listening, in vain, for clues, noises, something in the background; was she at work, at home, in the street? He did not know how to interpret her quiet, almost meditative voice; at first he pictured a library, perhaps a church, then a child’s bedroom or a bathroom not far from where her husband was reading the paper. On the whole, he was happier thinking she was in a library researching her beloved geniuses. This beauty’s mysteries made him take a fresh look at his own daily existence; he only had to have Loraine beside him for his work to be reduced to a vague digression, a compulsory scuffle which was neither particularly captivating nor especially tedious. Things had changed overnight: his work for the Group could no longer claim the lion’s share of his life. Alissa’s proposal did not tempt him: however much energy he spent trying to work his way up the hierarchy, it would never earn him enough money to compensate for so much lost time. It was better to accept the idea that he would not make a career in anything, that he would experience no form of fulfilment from nine until six, and that this sacrifice in the name of the Group was his guarantee that he could keep the best of himself to be expressed where and when it suited him. With Loraine, for example.