Doris cannot have forgotten that.
The morning after, following Doris’s departure (upon waking I couldn’t reconstitute her prosaic identity, I would have an extremely difficult time separating my secretary from the chrysalis of our recent masquerade; for a part of her would remain the haughty CEO, the frisky Zorro, the lustful postman, dominatrix, Desdemona, Alice, etc., at the whim of our new roles, so much so that certain particularly groggy mornings I saw in Doris an ersatz of all those women and the few men, a beauty in constant metamorphosis for several stupefying seconds: each night I fell in love with a different woman who was always Doris), the morning after, following the departure of the woman who had somehow become Doris again, the prosaic Doris, an urgent task awaited me: I had to go through the apartment and gather all the various elements of our two costumes, before haphazardly patching them back together—I’ve never known how to sew, I used paper clips and the stapler from my desk, the result was pitiful—then I would descend into the secret passage formerly used by my father in order to return our night’s props to the Odéon storage room, where I would feverishly, joyfully pick out two more disguises for the next night’s performance.
I will have my revenge on her, that tramp.
Some men my age—I’m well into my fifties—jog, stretch, or hit the gym to maintain their physiques. I trudge (or rather, I trudged, until recently), sometimes on all fours, dragging costumes that each weigh more than twenty pounds, through the narrow underground tunnel of a long, dusty secret passage a good hundred yards long, going to and fro among rats, mice, spiderwebs, perhaps bats and vampires. Maybe it is nothing like the shiny stainless steel and waxed leather of the gleaming yuppie gyms where people pay a fortune for the privilege to be yelled at by sinister bodybuilder Adonises, but the entrance to my secret passage is free, the back-and-forth costs me only my sweat, there are no morons there to tell me I’m not going fast enough, and as for the question of “fitness,” you only have to ask Doris what she thinks of my muscles. Moreover, now that she seems to have taken French leave, my physical form is at risk of leaving with her: so long amorous stretching, goodbye underground trudging. Perhaps I will take up jogging in the Jardin du Luxembourg nearby; but when I pass those fake athletes, exhausted, purple in the face, wheezing, disoriented stares, in undershirts dark with sweat, I see them on the verge of cardiac arrest and I immediately want to call an ambulance, I have to restrain myself from reaching my arms toward them to gather up their breaking-down bodies (especially the pretty women). No, no jogging for me, a daily hour of walking peacefully through the sterilized streets of my neighborhood will suffice.
To hell with it.
This is, in all senses of the term, the end of my secret passage. And the end of this long letter to you, David Grey. At the start I was in complete control, I knew where I was going, I also knew where you would go and where you had been, no doubt about it. But after Doris’s letter I renounced all calculation, yielded to anger, to recollection, to suppositions, to exasperation. Destiny is no longer exhilarating. I have lost all confidence in it. It has abandoned me. She has abandoned me. The magic connection is severed. I will have a whiskey before going to bed. You arrive tomorrow, my translator. I have to in good form to show you around the apartment, in good form to take my flight to New York.
See you tomorrow, then.
Chapter 7
DAVID AND DORIS MEET AT ABEL’S PLACE
*
*“What are you doing in that outfit?” Doris asks the dusty Zorro who makes his way slowly from the tunnel to the bottom of the staircase.
He’s holding a candle in front of him, she has a flashlight. He seems shaken, she seems rather amused to discover him dressed in this costume that she wore herself not so long ago. She suddenly notices the rip at the top of the black pants and, suddenly breathless, remembers the feverish hand of Prote disguised as Donna Elvira tearing the black fabric to reach her bush.
“How did you get into the apartment?”
“I have a key,” Doris replies, blushing a little.
“You’ll never guess where this secret passage ends …”
“I know.”
“How do you know?”
“Come on, you look exhausted. Let’s get out of here. Let’s go back upstairs and have a drink.”
They kiss at the bottom of the stairs. They haven’t seen each other in over a week. Their bodies press together. The kiss prolongs, their tongues meet, caress, wrap around each other, Doris slides a determined hand into the rip of the black pants, her fingers meet the cold steel of a paper clip still pinned there, then a little metallic staple pricks the end of her index finger and makes her smile (she imagines Prote mending the two costumes mangled by the previous night’s ardor before laboriously bringing them back to the Odéon theater), finally her hand caresses a hot and palpitating stiffness, she sets her knee on the ground as if to pay tribute to him, or else as if it were a bizarre Mexican knighting ceremony at the foot of the slippery stairs, in the dark and dusty tunnel, beneath the not-so-Catholic, -apostolic, or -Roman blessing of the puppet who, six feet above them, falls endlessly toward the immobile sea, the valiant black knight placing the sword on one shoulder of the visibly emotional young woman, then the other, before ordering her to stand up for the final embrace. But the protocol is broken, the young woman remains on her knee, very reverential, and now she grasps the young Zorro’s cock between the fingers of her left hand, greedily licking the purplish head, while her right hand cups his balls. Zorro groans, his hands lost in Doris’s bountiful brown hair, his thighs begin to buckle softly, his cock wet with saliva enters and exits her mouth curved in the shape of an O, a perforated Easter egg, then Doris also starts to groan, she jerks him off more and more vigorously while tightly squeezing his balls and when he comes she swallows spurt after spurt of his bitter sperm.
A little later, after showering together, laughing and splashing, renewed caresses, kisses and bites leaving pink crescents in their flesh, more and more rapid panting while the water falls uniformly on their conjoined, spasmodic bodies, she finds a white comb hanging in the bathroom closet, while he rifles in his luggage for clean clothes. Then she serves herself a glass of port and David, who no longer wants to go anywhere near the dark bottle with the sinister man in the black cape and hat, takes a beer out of the refrigerator. Nestled against each other on the crimson sofa in the living room, they talk. Doris talks about her plane ride, David about his arrival at Prote’s place, his “treasure hunt” in the apartment, the provoked indiscretion, the discovery of the secret passage, his underground terrors, Mercury, the witches, the bombardment, the high-speed chase through the sewers, then his sudden entrance into the Odéon, the incomprehensible impulse that made him swap his jeans, shirt, and tennis shoes for the Zorro costume with the hat, domino mask, gloves, and sword; finally, he tells her about stumbling upon the wine cellar in which he found the white chest.
“In fact,” he says, “Prote’s letter is still in Zorro’s jacket. His famous ‘secret passage,’ which I still haven’t read. I’ll go get it.” When David returns, letter in hand, Doris, a bit nervous, serves herself another glass of port.
David reads out loud, punctuating the letter with heartfelt intrusions: “Fucking asshole,” “Piece of shit,” “Son of a bitch,” “The bastard,” “You pervert,” “Poor guy,” until he reaches Doris’s breakup letter, written on the onionskin hidden in the center of the violet crown. The translator turns pale, but continues. Doris lights an American Spirit, says nothing. David’s throat gets more and more dry, but he forges ahead courageously.
“To think I’ll have to translate this!” he says at one point.
Doris smiles, kisses his cheek. A nervous kiss.
After Prote’s description of the nightly dress-up ritual, David says, almost yelling:
“It’s magnificent and … disgusting.” He raises his eyes toward Doris. “You as Zorro, him as Donna Elvira? I can’t believe it! And now, tonight, me as Zorro
emerging from the passage, and you as Doris. Je suis sur le cul, as you say in French.”
At the end of “Prote’s secret passage,” David asks:
“Doris, is it true that in the middle of the stems of violets you found a letter from Abel’s father and kept it?”
“Uh, yes.”
“So where is it, the letter?”
“In my purse.”
“Can I read it?”
“Okay, but on the condition that you say nothing to Prote.”
“Go on, go get it, I promise I won’t say a thing to him.”
Doris gets up from the sofa, straightens her dressing gown, goes to get her purse from the chest of drawers, then sits back down. She jostles the clasp and takes out a brown envelope.
“In the center of the violet crown, by pure chance I found a thin sheet of paper, an onionskin, folded I don’t know how many times, and rather well preserved for its age.”
“Very odd …” says David.
“I was already furious at Abel, determined to break up with him. I saw that he was in the middle of preparing one of his secret ruses for you. He loves to manipulate people. But I also knew that he was fascinated by that violet crown, that he would examine it once again and would eventually find my letter. Which happened yesterday, at the very moment when he was setting the trap for you so, I have to admit, my plan worked perfectly!”
“Let’s not get carried away …”
“So, I replaced the letter hidden in the center of the crown with mine and took Abel for a ride. It’s my vengeance, the revenge of the ‘floater,’ as he used to call me mockingly.”*
“Okay. And that letter?” David says, losing patience.
“I’m getting to that.”
A ring interrupts Doris, who immediately recognizes the jingling stridence of the old doorbell installed in the hallway, level with the ceiling molding. David starts violently; the little time he’s spent in this apartment means he doesn’t know whether it’s an old-fashioned telephone, some kind of alarm, or the doorbell. Doris, also worried, places an index finger over her lips to tell her companion to keep quiet, then creeps quietly into the hallway, stops in front of the door, opens the peephole, and presses her left eye to the small distorting lens of the eyehole to identify the visitor. On the other side, a stubbly boy, in tiny tennis shoes, tight jeans, a trapezoidal T-shirt and a gigantic baseball cap, lifts his bulging eyes to the sky, whistling casually. He’s holding a monstrous bouquet of flowers wrapped in violet crepe paper.
Doris opens the door. The deliveryman magically resumes normal proportions. He lowers his head toward his clipboard. Heart racing, Doris eyes him carefully to make sure he’s not Prote in a new disguise.
“Mademoiselle Doris … Niguette?”
“Yes. Well no. Doris Naète, eneyegeeaychtee.”
“Here, this is for you,” he says holding out the large bouquet. “Your signature, pleaseanthankyou.”
“Thanks,” says Doris, placing the bouquet in the crease of her left elbow and the deliveryman’s pen in her right hand. She rapidly signs the clipboard, thanks him again, withdraws, closes the door. “Flowers!” she says to David, who comes into the hallway. “I bet it’s Abel again.”
“Look to see if there’s a note,” suggests David.
Doris turns the top of the bouquet toward his face. In the middle of the concentric circles of multicolored peonies, she notices a small white envelope, which she extracts from the splendid garland. On the pristine rectangle: “For D.”
“It’s not exactly clear,” says the young woman. “For David or for Doris?”
“Go on, open it,” says David.
Doris obeys, takes from the envelope two or three sheets of paper folded in four, and reads aloud:
I know, Doris, that peonies are your favorite flowers. (“I was right, it’s Abel!”) And while at the airport, before flying to New York, I could not resist the temptation of sending a final bouquet to you at my address. Because I know you’re there. I asked the young voluptuous florist to compose an arrangement in the shape of a crown and, when I have finished writing this note, I will insist that she slide the envelope into the center. Chrysanthemums seemed out of place to me, violets too (though I did choose the violet crepe paper). As you can see, I leave nothing to chance. I plan to give a generous tip and my card to this charming young woman, explaining to her that this is a “breakup bouquet,” as on other, more joyous occasions one might give someone an “engagement ring.” Before heading to my gate, I will also confide to her that my profession as a writer calls me to New York, but that I will be back in two weeks. No doubt she’ll be very interested and I will procure her phone number without much difficulty …
On the envelope, I almost wrote “For D&D,” but I changed my mind at the last minute: I’m not in the habit of sending flowers to men—I know that the little Gris is at your side, in my home—and even more rarely to boors. I know that you’re fond of his little snail (“Son of a bitch!”), but all the same you could get it on somewhere other than my home, for example in your small repugnant apartment in Belleville, where you invited me over one day for coffee. Or in a sordid hotel room with a squeaky box spring.
Do you understand my anger? I don’t know what’s keeping me from canceling my trip and returning to Paris immediately to deluge you both with insults and chase you from my home. When I think of the theft from the violet crown that you confessed to, when I think of the incivility of the little Gris, I feel rage invade me all over again. I won’t speak to you again until you return the letter hidden by my father in the middle of the flowers. As for Grey, I wonder if our collaboration will explode in the middle of my flight above the Atlantic. You can communicate that to him, but I know that you, Doris Night, my bouquet of peonies nested like a newborn in the hollow of your pretty plump arm, are reading this letter out loud for David Grey, who, considering the hour, has probably already swapped his ridiculous Mexican braggart outfit for the boring uniform of the international youth. (“Bloody asshole!”) Tell him also that I plan to redecorate his apartment in SoHo in my own fashion. Eye for an eye: not D&D, but ôô, two Easter eggs with pretty knotted ribbons, the eyes of an intrigued ghost with eyebrows raised, awe, fright, or reverent terror … Not the ephemeral smile of the Cheshire Cat perched on his disappearing branch, but the wide-open eyes of the unfortunate soul lost at the end of a dark tunnel.
Miss Night, Doris Lanuit, you will never be anything but a tiny footnote at the bottom of a page of my biography.
Abel Prote
P.S. Don’t tell me that you’ve completely forgotten about our disguised soirées. I bet that just the memory of them still makes you dizzy. Be that as it may, I gladly admit that I can never think about them anymore without feeling a tightening of my throat, a sudden acceleration of my pulse and—because I list my physical reactions from high to low—a visible animation of my downstairs region. How I regret today never having been a fervent supporter of those adult toys—cameras! What a gallery of portraits I could have created! One photo a night, in our disguises … Or rather two: an image before the encounter and the programmed seduction, a full-length portrait, you and me side by side, ignoring each other diligently; and then from another vantage point, a larger frame to emphasize the disorder of the room following our frolicking. I’m sure you remember the night when …
“Well,” says Doris, exasperated. “That’s enough.”
“No,” protests David. “Continue.”
“Why?”
“Go on. Read.”
“Don’t you see that Abel is still trying to pull the strings? That he anticipated, no, organized, planned this scenario: me reading you this letter out loud? As long as he can, he’ll keep hurting us.”
“I want to know what comes next,” insists David. “In any event,” he adds, “I’m going to have to translate all of it. I’m sure Prote will want to incorporate this letter into his novel, too.”
“If you insist.” Doris continues with a trembling, at t
imes broken voice:
I’m sure you remember our performance starring you as the Iron Lady, me as the wrestler known as the Executioner of Béthune enveloped in a large burgundy red cape. We feigned meeting each other by chance in my garden. The wrestling holds I subjected you to in my bed! The punishments you inflicted on me! I admit that our roles did not exactly suit us: you are too sensual to incarnate that stick-thin First Lady, I am not muscular enough to be convincing in the role of the mysterious Executioner. But still: I like to fight and I like to win, and I am no stranger to underhand strikes; since then I’ve seen in you a slight resemblance to the vile Iron Lady, a penchant for vengeance, a calculating and cruel side, hard and cold, the drive to inflict harm. (“Are you really like that, sweetheart?”) Our current roles, until further notice. (“No.”) I will be merciless until you have returned Maurice-Edgar Prote’s letter to me. In fact, I need it for my novel (N.d.T.), and I want for your little Gris to translate it along with the rest of the book.
Revenge of the Translator Page 10