Charles nodded and allowed himself a slight smile. So far he had found the man about as interesting as a heap of pebbles, but this was different. He gave his name.
“Come on, sit down and have a cognac with me. I’ll pay, and no strings attached! I just feel like chatting for a bit.”
Charles stood. “I can’t stay long,” he said. “I have to get up early tomorrow.”
“Stay as long as you like. Too bad I can’t offer a cognac to your girlfriend, as well. She is your girlfriend, I take it?”
“Yes,” Charles said, frowning slightly.
“Well, aren’t you the careful one,” said Délicieux happily. “If you only knew how harmless I am! Not only would I never hurt a fly, I couldn’t if my life depended on it! I’m totally incapable of inflicting pain. I’m much too lazy. And the flies know it, too. You can tell by the way they follow me around… Incredible, isn’t it?”
He ordered the drinks and Charles saw by the way the waiter behaved that Bernard Délicieux was not only a regular at the restaurant, but an esteemed customer as well.
“Your young friend didn’t seem to be in a very good mood when she left,” he said, turning the cognac slowly in its glass.
“Well, since you were obviously listening in on our conversation,” Charles replied acidly, “you must know why she was so upset.”
“Aha, another cunning response!” Délicieux guffawed. “Good for you, good for you! You don’t exactly run off at the mouth, do you? I like that. There are enough windbags out there already, spouting their idiocies day and night, grousing at the world three ways from Sunday…. In my line of work, I have to put up with them, what can I say? Often enough I even rely on them to make my living. Yes, you’re right, I did listen in on your conversation. I wouldn’t take it too seriously, Charles — if you don’t mind my calling you by your first name? Thanks. All women have their little jealous fits: you should take them as proofs of their love. Because all women, without exception, are the jealous type, and especially those who pretend not to be! There are a thousand ways of expressing this jealousy, each one more bizarre than the last. It’s enough to make you lose … your trousers! I could tell you a tale or two …”
Charles listened as he sipped his cognac, falling more and more under the spell of his companion’s jovial charm. Every now and then he risked a glance towards Brigitte Loiseau. Alfred de Musset had left, and now she seemed to be absorbed in a serious conversation with her companion. Suddenly she turned and met Charles’s gaze, and her eyelids fluttered slightly.
Charles was in no doubt that the Suet-Ball had invited him to his table to dig up material for an article, having also overheard his conversation with Brigitte Loiseau. And sure enough, after a long preamble composed of cock-and-bull stories and amusing anecdotes, the name Brigitte Loiseau crossed the journalist’s lips. But Charles ignored it, having no intention of betraying his Blond Angel! He amused himself by toying with his companion’s thinly disguised curiosity, and the latter soon realized he was wasting his time and gave up with good grace. His metier demanded patience. Someone whose lips were sealed on Sunday would often enough be spilling his guts on Tuesday.
“So, Charles, what do you do? You’re a student, I presume?”
Charles was pleased with himself for the way he was handling this wily old fox, and the cognac was going to his head. He talked eagerly about having sent his first novel to a publisher, mentioned that he was already well into his second, said how much he loved books, described his difficult childhood, the people who had helped him and those who had tried to take advantage of him, recounted the tricks he had played to revenge a wrong or to get out of a dangerous situation, but carefully avoided any mention of the time he had been involved with trafficking prescription drugs. Bernard Délicieux listened, cognac in hand and a wide, beaming smile on his face, charmed by his new acquaintance’s lively frankness.
“You’re a good storyteller, my friend,” he said when, just before midnight, Charles stood up to leave. “I’m sure you must be a good writer. Here, let me give you my card. If I can ever be of service to you, don’t hesitate to call. Nothing would give me more pleasure. And if you ever feel like a good glass of cognac, you know where to find me …”
Brigitte Loiseau had left the restaurant a bit earlier, without looking in Charles’s direction. Had she been worried about his chatting with the journalist?
Did she suspect him of being a leaky bucket? He strode down rue Saint-Denis towards the Mont-Royal metro station, going over in his mind the events of this bizarre evening: his conversation with his idol, Céline going off in a huff, his meeting with an amiable blowhard. What sort of mood would Céline be in tomorrow? But any anxiety he felt about that was almost completely overshadowed by thoughts of the call he would be making in the morning to his Blond Angel.
After a night of much tossing and sudden, bolt-upright awakenings, Charles was about to pick up the receiver to call the actress when the telephone rang. It was the notary, Parfait Michaud, and he sounded excited.
“Something strange and wonderful has happened, my boy. Can you come over to my office right away?”
“Sorry, no, I have to meet someone,” Charles replied, wanting to reserve as much time as possible for Brigitte Loiseau.
“Well, how about noon, then? Come and have lunch with us after your meeting. I can’t wait to talk to you, Charles.”
When he put down the phone, Charles picked up the card the actress had given him. After gazing at it thoughtfully for quite a while the previous night, he had placed it on his bedside table before going to sleep. Now he looked at his watch: ten to eight. Would it be impolite to call so early? What kind of welcome would he get? The way she had batted her eyelids when she’d seen him sitting at Bernard Délicieux’s table had tortured him all night. She must have taken him for Judas in the act of betraying her for a few pieces of silver.
He drank two cups of coffee to give himself courage, smoked a cigarette, then dialled Brigitte Loiseau’s number. The series included three lucky 7s, which in Charles’s mind conferred a formidable if not sacred character to his enterprise.
“Hello?” The voice was female and slightly common.
“Madame Loiseau?”
Silence at the other end. Then a slight click and the voice, coming from far off, calling, “Madame Loiseau!” but gently, with an attempt at sounding distinguished. But he also detected a note of exasperation.
“Everyone calls her,” Charles told himself, “everyone… I’m just a microbe in her eyes, a dog fart, a rusty old nail.”
“Yes?”
It was her voice, lovely and smiling and golden, with a certain erotic undertone that instantly grabbed his attention.
“Hello, madame. It’s Charles Thibodeau.” His own voice had become a choked whisper. “I hope I’m not calling too early, madame?”
The actress laughed. “Charles, do you think we could get back on a first-name basis, as we once were? For one thing, it would get rid of this ridiculous ‘madame’ stuff.”
Seconds went by as Charles tried to regain his composure and, with it, his courage.
“Well, if you insist, er, Brigitte, it’s fine by me,” he finally managed.
Then he burst into a long, breathless declaration that he had not said a word about her to the journalist he’d met at L’Express, not a word, in fact he had not even let on that he had ever had anything to do with her except on the vague, occasional, and superficial occasions when he’d worked as a street vendor. The journalist hadn’t believed him at first, but Charles had stuck to his story despite the best efforts of his companion to draw more information out of him.
Brigitte Loiseau remained silent for a moment, then spoke in a voice that sent a thrill of pleasure down the length of Charles’s body. “Do you think we could get together for a coffee somewhere, say, at nine o’clock?”
“Yes, yes, of course.”
“What say we meet at… La Brioche Lyonnaise, on Saint-Denis just up from de
Maisonneuve? I think I remember that you live near a metro station, is that right?”
“Yes,” Charles lied. “Very near. That’s great. I know the place. I’ll be there.”
He then called Fernand Fafard and told him he wouldn’t be able to get to work until the early afternoon.
“All right,” said the hardware-store owner, without asking any questions. “It’s bad timing, because we have two big shipments coming in this morning, but we’ll try to manage somehow.”
“I wonder what’s up?” the hardware-store owner muttered to himself when he had hung up. “He sounds pretty excited… I hope he’s not about to serve us another bowl of dog-turd soup …”
She was sitting across from him, smiling. She’d come just for him, no one else, her coat wide open displaying an exquisite pink silk blouse that followed the shape of her lovely breasts, and she was calmly waiting for the waitress to bring their coffees; elbows on the table, looking at him with pleasure in her eyes, as though the fact of being there with him, with nothing else to do, in a restaurant, in the morning’s slow advance, was for her a kind of reward, a reprieve. When she’d arrived, the waitress had given her one of those exaggerated, cautious smiles reserved for film stars and other important personages, then she had looked at Charles, who’d been waiting, taking nervous little sips from a glass of mineral water, and she’d stared at him for a moment with an air of respectful surprise: he was one of the initiates into the world of celebrity, one of those with a brilliant future; she was not.
Brigitte Loiseau raised the creamy foam to her lips and checked out of the corner of her eye that the waitress was out of earshot. She had returned to her post behind the counter and was busy with another customer, a man stamping his snow-covered boots on the floor. Brigitte turned her attention back to Charles.
“I’ve been wanting to see you for a long time,” she said, “but I was afraid.”
Charles made a vaguely embarrassed gesture and said nothing.
“It was you who called the police, wasn’t it? That day when I swallowed the bottle of Valium?”
He nodded.
“That’s what I thought. You saved my life, Charles. I was well off on that voyage from whose bourne no traveller returns.”
“I know,” he said. He pushed his spoon about in his cup with a trembling hand, his face blank, recalling the scene. “You… it scared me to look at you,” he said, looking up. “I nearly panicked.”
Her lips compressed, her eyes narrowed, and her face took on a hardness that made her look fierce and sad at the same time; she appeared tough, almost vulgar, but it lasted only an instant.
“I wanted to thank you, Charles. A lot of other people would have just left me there. Out of laziness, or indifference, or because they’d seen so many others in the same state, or maybe for no reason at all, who knows? But not you. You called for help.”
“I couldn’t have done any different,” he assured her, flushing with pleasure.
“I could never have left you like that, Brigitte… I’d have hated myself for the rest of my life. You’d been so kind to me … You didn’t treat me like some drug pusher, you know what I mean? You … I don’t know…”
He turned away, not trusting himself to continue.
“Even though that’s what you were,” she said, laughing.
“Not really,” he said. “And I haven’t been for some time. I’m ashamed of ever having been. That was a time in my life that I’ve come to hate. I wish I could just vomit it up or something, and get rid of it.”
She put her hand affectionately on his, and he turned scarlet.
“I feel the same way, as you can see. It was a hard lesson, but one I’ve benefited from.”
“And now everyone’s better off,” he said, with a broad smile. “You’ve become a big star. I went to see your film twice. I loved it. You were magnificent!”
She patted his hand with a skeptical but amused smile, then looked him in the eye and suddenly became serious.
“How are you, Charles? I mean, really?”
“I’m fine. Really.” He paused for a moment, then added, “I’ve taken up writing, if you can believe that. I want to be a novelist, no less! In the meantime, I’m working part-time at my father’s hardware store … that is, my adoptive father.”
Astonished, intrigued, she questioned him at length about his work as a writer, and he began talking openly about it, amazed at having something to say about himself that she would find interesting. He talked about the difficulties and pitfalls he’d come across in his new career. She encouraged him as much as she could, and promised to buy his novel the minute it came out.
“I’ll send you one, if it ever does come out.”
They fell silent for a moment, sipping their coffees, neither of them knowing where to take the conversation from there. Charles was floating in a sea of ecstasy at being with her; she was deeply touched and slightly embarrassed by the boundless adoration she seemed to have inspired in him without meaning to.
Behind the counter, the waitress interpreted their silence as that of two lovers, and she watched Charles closely as she arranged a row of cream puffs on a tray. She thought he looked a bit young for her, but he was still a very handsome boy.
“Charles,” Brigitte asked suddenly, leaning towards him, “tell me how I can thank you. What can I do to show you how grateful I am?”
He looked at her for a second, unable to reply, then blurted out without thinking, “Oh, just be the person you are …”
It was a phrase she’d heard a dozen times, a heartfelt but idiotic declaration of absolute love. She’d probably even used it herself once or twice. But now it stopped her in her tracks. So that was how it was going to be: she would have to repay his goodness with pain, and there was no hope of it being otherwise.
Now she had to leave and not see him again, despite the pleasure it would have given her, because seeing him would just make things worse. Affection bordering on pity was what inspired her to cut things off now; she found it small and mean. And she could tell by the expression on his face that he understood, too, although he was trying hard not to let it show. She smiled at him (if such a forced grimace could be called a smile); his hand was gripping the edge of the table, and she almost placed her own on it but restrained herself in time. The meeting had become painful to her. She looked at her watch, let out a sigh. Nearly ten o’clock. She had to go to a rehearsal. She was sorry she had to leave so soon. What could she leave him as a memento?
“Give me your address,” she said, taking out a small notebook. “A month from now I’ll send you tickets to La Locandiera, by Goldoni. I’ve got the title role. You like the theatre, don’t you?”
“Yes, very much,” Charles replied, looking away. He, too, was in a hurry to leave.
“And your … friend?”
“Loves it.”
“I don’t know where my career is going to take me, Charles,” she said, after quickly writing down the address he had given her in a dull, almost distracted voice, “ft could be nothing but a will-o’-the-wisp, you know? It all hangs so much on luck and fifty thousand other things that nobody knows about. But I can tell you this: you’ll never have to pay a cent to see any of my performances, neither you nor your girlfriend. It’s not much, I know, but I’m just a poor actress, after all…. And if you ever need my help, for anything, you’ll call me, won’t you? Any time, day or night. Promise?”
He nodded, annoyed, already doing up his coat. She kissed him on both cheeks and reached for the bill, but he snatched it up almost angrily. A few moments later he was on the snow-covered street, hands thrust into his coat pockets. He was furious with life, furious with himself, and nearly overcome by a desire to be disagreeable to someone. The next person he met would be in real trouble!
“Come in, come in, you look like a frozen rat,” said Parfait Michaud with a catch in his voice. “Amélie has just made a delicious vegetable soup that’ll warm your insides for you. But before we eat, if you d
on’t mind, I want a few words with you in my office. Is something wrong?” he added, looking more closely at Charles.
“Wrong?” said Charles morosely. “No, nothing’s wrong.”
The notary hesitated a second, then decided to let it go. He ushered Charles into his office and carefully shut the door.
“What’s up?” Charles asked, shooting him a worried look.
“Something very strange, my dear boy, and it concerns you. Did you know a certain Conrad Saint-Amour, the man who died about a year and a half ago in the fire that burned down your apartment building on Rachel? I seem to recall meeting him somewhere, but it was a long time ago and it’s all very blurry.”
Charles turned pale. “A bit,” he murmured after a moment. “When I was a kid, working part-time at Chez Robert, delivering pizzas. That’s all.”
“Well, then, I’m even more confused!” exclaimed the notary, sitting behind his desk. He began rummaging through a pile of papers and finally extracted a brown envelope, from which he drew a document. “Sit down, sit down,” he said, spreading the paper out in front of him.
Charles sat in an easy chair with stiff, jerking movements. The lower part of his face trembled, a small tic.
“Here’s the situation. I ran into a colleague yesterday who was probating this Saint-Amour’s will. During the course of the conversation, the fire came up, and I happened to mention your name. To my astonishment, this colleague told me that you were one of Saint-Amour’s beneficiaries! He’d been trying to get in touch with you for ages but hadn’t been able to find hide nor hair of you. I don’t understand a thing about this whole business. Would it be rude of me to ask you to explain it to me?”
“I don’t know any more than what I’ve told you,” Charles replied sulkily, his chin twitching more conspicuously than ever.
“What’s this all about, Charles? Here’s a poor fellow who has left you a legacy of five thousand dollars … but with conditions attached that are, at the very least, perplexing. You cannot use the money for any other purpose … than to pay for treatments by a psychologist!”
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