Based on a True Story

by Delphine de Vigan

  I was very shy as a child and young girl but, for as long as I can remember, this handicap revealed itself especially when faced with a group (that is, when I had to deal with more than three or four people at once). The classroom in particular was the first manifestation of a collective phenomenon that has never ceased to terrify me. Until the end of my schooldays, I was incapable of sleeping the night before I had to do a recitation or make a presentation, and I shall pass over in silence the avoidance strategies I’ve developed over the years in an effort to avoid all public speaking.

  By contrast, from a very young age, I seem to have been at ease in face-to-face situations, one-to-ones, and to possess a genuine ability to meet the Other, as soon as that Other takes the form of an individual rather than a group, to link myself to him or her. Wherever I have visited or settled, I’ve always found individuals with whom I can play, talk, laugh, dream; wherever I’ve been, I’ve made friends and formed lasting bonds, as though I grasped early on that that was where my emotional protection was to be found. Until I met L.

  4

  That Saturday when I left the Book Fair, I’d intended to rush to the station to go to the country to meet the man I love and spend that evening and the next day with him. François had travelled to Courseilles the previous day, as he did most weekends. Over the years, the house, which he’d just bought when I met him, has become his refuge, his redoubt, and seeing him cross the threshold on a Friday night with a loud sigh of pleasure or relief makes me think of the little beep of satisfaction that cordless telephones make when you put them back on their stands to recharge. Our friends know how much of his equilibrium this house provides and how rarely he turns his back on it.

  François was expecting me. We’d agreed I’d call him when I caught the local stopping train, which halts in the middle of nowhere a few kilometres from Courseilles.

  When the metro stopped at Montparnasse station, I hesitated. I think I stood up, but I didn’t get off. I felt too troubled to set off again. Unavailable. The incident at the Book Fair had suddenly revealed how exhausted I was, how tense and fragile I’d become. François was already worried about this, but I had trouble acknowledging it. I travelled on to the 11th arrondissement. I sent him a text to let him know I was going back to my place and that I’d call him later.

  When I got to my neighbourhood, I called in at the Super U. The children were at their father’s for the weekend. François was in the country. During the journey, I’d formulated a plan for a quiet evening, an evening of silence and solitude, which was exactly what I needed.

  I was wandering the aisles of the Super U with a red plastic basket over my arm when I heard someone call me. Nathalie was behind me, looking delighted, but not entirely surprised; we ran into each other several times a year in the local supermarket. Inevitably, these chance encounters had become a sort of running gag in which we both played a role: we burst out laughing, we kissed, ‘Isn’t this funny?’, ‘What are the chances?’, ‘I never come in at this time’, ‘Neither do I’ . . .

  We chatted for a few minutes in the yoghurt aisle. Nathalie had also spent the afternoon signing at the Book Fair and had done an interview about her latest book, We Were Living Beings. She’d thought about coming to see me at my publisher’s stand, but hadn’t had time and decided to go home early, as she’d been invited to a party that evening, which was why she’d come to the Super U for a bottle of champagne. How I agreed to go to this party with her within a matter of seconds, when a moment earlier I’d been looking forward to being alone, I don’t remember.

  A few years ago, before I met François, I spent a number of evenings with Nathalie and another friend, Judith. All of us were more or less single and keen to have fun. We called our evenings ‘JDNs’ (Judith, Delphine, Nathalie). JDNs entailed one of us securing an invitation, along with the other two, to a wide range of celebrations (birthdays, housewarmings, New Year’s Eve parties), or even getting ourselves into the most bizarre places without any of us having been invited. In this way we managed to gatecrash local association inaugurations, dances, office leaving parties, and even a wedding where none of us knew the bride or groom.

  I like parties, but almost always avoid so-called ‘dinners in town’ (I don’t mean dinners with friends, but the kind of dinners that are deemed fashionable to some degree). My reluctance stems from the fact that I’m unable to fit in with the codes they require. It’s as if my shyness suddenly returns; I revert to being a blushing little girl or teenager, unable to take part in the conversation in a natural, fluid way. I have the terrible feeling of not being up to it, of being in the wrong place, and worst of all, when there are more than four guests, I generally become mute.

  With time, I’ve finally realised – or perhaps it’s an excuse to make it bearable – that relations with other people only interest me when there’s a certain degree of intimacy.

  JDNs became less frequent and then ceased, I don’t really know why. Perhaps simply because all our lives changed. That evening in the Super U, I said yes to Nathalie, thinking that a party would give me the opportunity to dance, which had become very rare. (Because although I remain terrified of the thought of having to make a good impression at a dinner, I am nonetheless capable of dancing alone in the living room at a party where I know no one.)

  I realise that these details may give the impression that I am digressing, losing my thread on the pretext of filling in context or background. But that’s not the case. The sequence of events seems important to me to understand how I met L., and in the course of this story I’ll probably have to go back again, further back, to try to grasp what was really at stake in this encounter.

  Given the disorder that she created in my life, it’s important for me to identify what made L.’s hold on me possible, and probably mine on L.

  Anyway, I was dancing when I first saw L. and, as I recollect, our hands brushed against each other.

  5

  L. and I were sitting on the sofa. I’d left the dance floor first, when some music I didn’t care for came on.

  It was not long before L., who’d been dancing near me for over an hour, sat down beside me. With a smile, she had acquired the narrow space between me and my neighbour, who moved up towards the arm of the sofa, leaving her room to sit down. She made a knowing face at me as a sign of victory.

  ‘You’re very beautiful when you’re dancing,’ she said, almost as soon as she sat down. ‘You’re beautiful because you dance as though you think no one’s looking at you, as though you’re alone. I bet you dance like that when you’re alone in your bedroom or living room.’

  (My daughter told me once when she was in her teens that she’d always have a memory of me as a mother who danced in the living room to express her joy.)

  I thanked L. for the compliment but didn’t know how to respond, and in any case she didn’t seem to expect a response; she kept her eyes on the dance floor, and was still smiling. I looked at her surreptitiously. L. was wearing loose black trousers and a cream-coloured blouse with a collar decorated with a fine satin ribbon or dark leather; I couldn’t identify the material with any certainty. L. was perfect. She made me think of Gérard Darel ads. I remember it clearly: precisely that – the simple, modern sophistication, the skilful mix of classic, conservative materials and bold details.

  ‘I know who you are and I’m pleased to meet you,’ she added a moment later. I should probably have asked her name, who invited her, even what she did for a living, but I felt intimidated by such a calmly assured woman. L. was exactly the sort of woman who fascinates me. L. was impeccable, with her smooth hair and perfectly filed vermilion nails that seemed to gleam in the dark.

  I’ve always admired women who wear nail varnish. To me, varnished nails represent a certain ideal of feminine sophistication that I have ended up acknowledging, in this respect at any rate, will remain beyond me. My hands are too broad, too big, too strong in a way, and when I try to paint my nails, they seem even bigger, as though this v
ain attempt at dressing up emphasised their masculine character (the operation in itself has always struck me in any case as laborious, requiring a meticulousness and patience I lack).

  How much time does it take to be a woman like that? I wondered as I looked at L., as I had observed dozens of women before, on the metro, in cinema queues and at restaurant tables. Coiffed, made up and neatly pressed. Without a crease. How much time to reach that state of perfection every morning and how much time for touch-ups before going out in the evening? What kind of life do you have to lead to have the time to tame your hair by blow-drying, to change your jewellery every day, to coordinate and vary your outfits, to leave nothing to chance?

  By now I know that it’s not simply a matter of having time, but rather of your type, what type of woman you choose to be, if indeed you have the choice.

  I remember the first time I met my editor, in her little office on rue Jacob, I was first of all fascinated by her sophistication; the nails, of course, but also all the rest, which was simple and impeccably tasteful. She emanated a femininity that was classical but perfectly judged and controlled, and it impressed me. When I met François, I thought that he liked women of a different type from me, more prepared, more refined, under control. I recall telling one of my friends in a café the reasons why we were bound to fail; it simply wasn’t possible, but yes, because of that, François liked women with smooth, well-behaved hair (I mimed ideal hair as I said it), whereas I was dishevelled. I felt this disparity in itself encapsulated more profound differences, fundamental ones; in a general way, our meeting was just a banal error of direction. It took me some time to admit that was not the case.

  A bit later, L. got up and started dancing again among the dozen or so people, slipping among them to face me. Today, and in the light of what happened, I do not doubt that this scene could be read as a seduction display and indeed that’s how it strikes me. But at the time it seemed more a sort of game between the two of us, a silent complicity. Something about it intrigued me, amused me. L. sometimes shut her eyes. The movements of her body were discreetly sensual, unostentatious. L. was beautiful and men were looking at her; I tried to catch the look in the men’s eyes, to capture the moment when their gaze became engaged. I am sensitive to women’s beauty and always have been. I like watching them, trying to imagine which curve, which hollow, which dimple, which slight mistake in pronunciation, which imperfection in them arouses desire.

  L. was dancing, scarcely moving, her body gently swaying in rhythm, matching each note, each nuance. Her feet were now stuck to the floor and no longer moved. L. was a stem, a liana, yielding to the breeze, to the cadence. It was beautiful to watch.

  Later, though I cannot now link these two moments, L. and I found ourselves sitting at the kitchen table in front of a bottle of vodka. In between, I think I remember people I didn’t know coming to talk to me. I spent some time with them and then L. held out her hand to invite me to come and dance. I lost sight of Nathalie; perhaps she’d gone home. There were lots of people and the atmosphere of the party was happy.

  I don’t know how I came to tell L. about the woman at the Book Fair, about my remorse, a bitter aftertaste that lingered. I couldn’t stop thinking about that moment and my reaction; there was something in that scene that revolted me, that wasn’t me. I had no way of contacting the woman, of apologising to her, signing her book. It had happened; the scene had been played; there was no possibility of going back.

  ‘Deep down, what’s worrying you isn’t just that the woman may have been hurt and maybe travelled miles to see you, left her children with her sister, that she may have had a row with her husband because he’d planned to go shopping and didn’t understand why she was so keen on meeting you. The thing that’s actually haunting you is that that woman may no longer like you.’

  She said this gently and without irony.

  ‘Maybe,’ I admitted.

  ‘I don’t imagine the place you’re in is easy. The comments, the reactions, this sudden attention. I imagine there must be a risk of collapse.’

  I tried to play this down, keep it in proportion.

  She went on: ‘All the same, you must sometimes feel very alone, as though you were standing completely naked in the road, caught in the headlights.’

  I looked at L., astonished. That was exactly how I felt, naked in the road, and I’d expressed it in those exact terms a few days earlier. Who had I confessed that to? My editor? A journalist? How could L. have used exactly the same words as me? Had I even uttered them aloud?

  Even today, I don’t know if that evening L. was reproducing words she’d read or heard, or if she’d really intuited them. I realised quite quickly that L. had an incredible sense of the Other, a gift for saying the right thing, telling people exactly what they needed to hear. She was never slow to ask the most pertinent question or come out with the remark that showed the person she was speaking to that she alone could understand and comfort them. L. not only knew how to identify at first glance the source of the problem, but especially how to pinpoint the flaw, however deeply buried, that each of us has.

  I remember explaining my concept of success to L. without any pretence, certain that my words would not be misinterpreted. To me, the success of a book was an accident. In the strict sense. An abrupt, unexpected event caused by the chance conjunction of different, irreproducible factors. So that she didn’t take this as false modesty, I made clear that the book itself did of course have something to do with it, but it was merely one of the variables. Other books could potentially have had a similar, or even greater, success, but in their case the conjunction was less favourable, one or other of the variables was missing.

  L. didn’t take her eyes off me.

  ‘But an accident,’ she said, emphasising the word to show that it was not hers, ‘causes damage – sometimes irreversible damage – doesn’t it?’

  I finished the glass of vodka in front of me that she’d refilled several times. I wasn’t drunk, in fact I felt as if I’d reached a degree of consciousness I had rarely attained before. It was very late. The party had suddenly wound down and we were alone in the kitchen, which had been thronged with people just a few minutes before. I smiled before replying.

  ‘It’s true that the success of a book is an accident from which you don’t emerge intact, but it would be wrong to complain. I’m sure about that.’

  We took a taxi together. L. insisted. It was very easy to drop me off, my place was on her route; it wasn’t even out of her way.

  In the car we were silent. I felt tiredness take over my limbs, pressing my neck, gradually numbing me.

  The driver stopped in front of my apartment.

  L. stroked my cheek.

  I have often thought back on that gesture, its gentleness, its tenderness, perhaps its desire. Or maybe nothing of the sort. Because, ultimately, I know nothing about L. and never have.

  I got out the car, went up the stairs and collapsed on the bed fully dressed.

  6

  I don’t have a precise recollection of the days that followed, I probably had some commitments to fulfil: events in bookshops and media centres, talks in schools. I had tried to limit my trips outside Paris to one a week so that I could be with the children and had planned to stop all events at the end of May. There comes a point when you have to re-establish silence around you, get back to work, recover your path. I desired this moment as much as I feared it, but I’d arranged things so as to bring it about and turned down all invitations after this deadline.

  When I got home one Friday evening after two days away (I’d been invited to Geneva by a reading group), I found a letter in my mailbox among the bills. My name and address were printed on a label on the lower half of the envelope. I concluded from this that it was junk mail and very nearly threw it away without checking what was inside. But a detail caught my attention. On the label in large characters was the number of my apartment, a number that doesn’t appear on any official correspondence. I didn’t kn
ow it existed for a long time. In the real world, it appears on a little bronze plaque to the left of each door, beside the old post-office plaques. It took me several years to notice it. My apartment is no. 8 and my neighbours’ no. 5, and this lack of logic deepened my sense of the numbers’ mystery.

  Intrigued, I opened the envelope and unfolded the letter inside, which was typed on a sheet of A4. What sort of person nowadays still has a typewriter? I wondered before I began reading.

  I shall reproduce the text in its entirety here. Its syntax and vocabulary were presumably chosen so that I’d be unable to determine the sex of its author.

  Delphine,

  You probably think you’ve got away with it. Perhaps you think you’ve got away with it scot free, because your book is a so-called novel and you changed some names. You may even think you can just pick up your miserable little life again. But it’s too late. You’ve sown hatred and you’ll reap your reward. The arse-lickers all around you pretend they’ve forgiven you, but they’ve no intention of doing so, take it from me. They’re furious and they’re waiting for their moment. They won’t let you get away with it when the time comes. I’m well placed to know. You’ve planted a bomb and you’ll have to pick up the pieces. No one will do it for you.

  Don’t misunderstand my intentions. I don’t wish you harm. In fact I wish you the best. I wish you a brilliant success, up there in the supertax bracket, as I imagine you’re on the left like all you Bobos, and that you plan to vote for François Hollande.

  You sold your mother and hit pay dirt. You’re doing all right, aren’t you? Family sagas pay well, don’t they? They rake it in.

  So stick the cheque in the post, pls.

  Back then, I used to get a lot of mail via my publisher, dozens of letters from readers, sent on every week in little bundles in a manila envelope. Emails too, forwarded to my mailbox from my publisher’s site.