Hervé Le Tellier
The Intervention of a Good Man
Everything invented is real.
GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
I get attached very easily.
ROMAIN GARY
Overly long prologue
Inverness comes from the Gaelic Ibhir Ness, meaning “mouth of the Ness.” A monster lurks in its loch, but our hero, who will arrive there tomorrow (Flight BA823), has no interest in that at all. He is coming to the heart of the Highlands to be with a woman, a very blond woman as they sometimes are in Scotland, who is twenty years younger than he is, none of which constitutes even the bare bones of a portrait.
He is coming to be with her in a place where, for the last two weeks, she has been staying with her mother and in a few days will be joined by the man with whom she spends her nights, therefore almost a husband. Of course people would call this madness, a mistake. He has made many mistakes and will make more. He is convinced — perfectly aware that he is quoting Oscar Wilde — that the only things we never regret are our mistakes.
It seems appropriate at this stage to say a little more about our hero. He will soon turn fifty. There are not fifty different ways to tackle fifty. There are two: in the first instance, you persuade yourself you are still young; in the second, you complain you are already old. Our hero ought to reject both, one out of realism, the other out of a concerted effort of will, but he settles for an obstinate pendulum swing, depending on the time of day. He is not altogether wrong in this: after all, in ten years his testosterone level will most likely start to drop and, in the absence of actual crutches for medicinal purposes, this defining question may be definitively settled. Suffice it to say that, if these are not his first old years, they are at least the last of his young ones.
Our hero has made quite an effort. He arrives tanned (there are those who would say red-faced, but some of these creams work miracles), with a bit of new muscle tone (the starting point was very low), and slightly slimmer (he was not all that fat). He hopes that these slight differences will be apparent to the young woman, but would still like to be not too different from the man he was when he managed to seduce her. He remembers the story of the woman who — because her older partner constantly strove to stay young — eventually left him for an even older man.
Our heroine, you see, seems to appreciate mature men. Her regular partner — I think we can call him that — is the same age as the irregular one, to within a month. Better two lovers of fifty than one of a hundred, the more facetious among us would quip. The reason our heroine appreciates mature men (we much prefer this expression to “old”) is not something our hero knows. He imagines it is for their wisdom, their experience, perhaps their social status — all things that do not affect him — and does not for a moment feel that wrinkles, spare tires, and creeping baldness could come under the jurisdiction of sex appeal. He thinks that whatever there is between himself and her is a misunderstanding, but feels happier saying nothing about it. Our hero is forgetting that the young, who can seduce without even thinking about it, are not always thinking of seducing. The more mature exhaust themselves with it from the moment they wake. Perhaps, with all the anxious application these two men put into appealing to her, our heroine gets what she wants.
When our hero met this heroine for the first time at a party, she was escorted by her official partner. He gave this Other (we will adopt this pleasingly nebulous term) not a moment’s thought. He found he lacked charm, but the gauging process was very swift. Our hero has not met him since but, out of curiosity, made discreet inquiries, deftly questioning mutual acquaintances. Nothing he should worry about, that was his deduction. Let us say that — if social elements matter to her — they are playing in the same league.
Mind you, the Other has stolen a march on him. Three years in a lifetime is huge, at least that is what she seems to think, because he constantly hears her saying so. The Other has become her family, while he is just a stranger. True, our hero has known her only two months, and they have seen each other, what, ten, fifteen times. How, in such a short time, he has managed to weave the web that grows tighter with every passing hour is quite another question.
No one would disagree with us on this: our heroine is pretty, very pretty. She knows it, of course. We cannot keep asking pretty women, whom men are always reminding of the fact, to behave as if they were ugly. Ours is tall, slender, with delightful little breasts, and her regular bicycling keeps her small buttocks firm; her face is dusted with freckles, her eyes are blue with flecks of gold and deep purple, and her blond hair is cut short. From a particular angle our heroine is fractionally less pretty, but the impression is terribly fleeting. As for our hero, similarly, from one specific angle he is very good-looking, but this vision is even more transient.
She is also intelligent and cultivated, although perhaps a little too ponderously so — her fondness for German authors sometimes worries him. He himself tends more toward advocates of derision: he has trouble taking seriously anyone who actually takes themselves too seriously on the third planet in a second-rate solar system. If he does not know whether she has a sense of humor, then on his own head be it: for fear of boring her, he tries to have enough for two when he is with her. He knows she can be sweet and gentle. He is afraid she could sometimes prove hard, but does not suspect her of cruelty.
Does he love her? His current state presents all the symptoms of love: painful impatience, shortness of breath, constricted chest, complete loss of appetite. For days on end he has thought of nothing but her, with a feeling of genuine dependence. An addiction which, with hindsight, justifies the term “heroine.” What does he think of when he thinks of her? Her eyes, her mouth, the back of her neck, other parts of her body that no listing could ever exhaust. This is a physical desire, one he could never fight. But what drives him toward her first and foremost is a sense of suffering, which at some points he lucidly analyzes as a fear of losing her, a fear made all the more agonizing and incomprehensible by the fact that we cannot lose what we do not possess. Does he dream about her, about what might, one day, be possible? With salutary prudence, he tries to forbid himself any plans. He does love her — we should not be afraid to use the words — and is aware that he should not.
Does she love him? No, any sensible person would reply. She is not especially considerate with him, never allows him to believe she depends on him for anything. She is quite capable of going for days on end without giving any sign of life. If we are not talking of love, but only of proof of love, the latter is sorely lacking. Unless we consider that offering her body and opening her lips for his kisses amount to indications of any such feeling for him, which is what our hero has decided to believe. He finds comfort in remembering their embraces, which are always intense. He knows from the taut feel of her young body beneath his hands that he has been synonymous with pleasure for her, every time they have met.
Let us say then that declarations, tender pronouncements, are rare. But that does not prove anything either, our hero has decided, remembering that he has received them in the past, some of them quite lovely. He prefers to believe that if our heroine occasionally seems very inflexible, it is because she feels any superfluous admission would represent a promise, and that her own honest nature means she can never leave him room for hope, because hopes dashed are a source of suffering. If our hero could read the awkward cumbersome sentence the narrator has just hatched, he would sigh, because, poor chap, he is so perfectly incapable of such strategies himself.
With the passing years and the traces they leave on his body and his features, our hero has taken to doubting whether anyone could desire him. But, oddly, as soon as a woman shows that she does, he is
convinced she can but love him. He is aware of his good qualities: a degree of intelligence, a sense of humor that he manages to maintain in any situation, and indisputable gentleness. He is not a bad lover, he is also sincere, attentive, and tender. He is vulnerable and sensitive, which, in some women’s eyes, can be an asset. Lastly, if he wants to seduce or even just convince someone, he can draw on energies even he finds astonishing. Which is why he is amazed that this young woman who certainly desires him finds it so easy to resist the love he inspires and, equally, the love she inspires in him. Every indication is that she finds our hero’s feelings for her distressing. We will not take this any further at this juncture.
The rendezvous has been arranged on a main road, where the A32 crosses the S70 to be precise, beside a sign that shows the way to the improbably named “Inchnadamph.” Our hero stayed up late into the night the day before, poring over maps of the Highlands on which the A32 was marked in bright red and the S70, deemed a tourist route, was edged in green. On the Internet he consulted ten different online route finders, zooming in on satellite views until he had transformed Inchnadamph into a fog of pixels. If the map were the landscape, he would know how to find his way with his eyes closed. By matching up a local directory with the telephone number that appeared on his cell phone when she called from Scotland, he managed to find the address and first name of this mother she had come to stay with. A very Scottish first name, one our hero could never even have guessed existed. In desperation and if he hired a taxi, he could always play the trick of the guy who broke down just outside their house, which, metaphorically, would not be far from the truth.
What will be the first thing this young woman says by the roadside? Of course, not everything hangs on that. But this question provides as good an opportunity as any to close the prologue.
1
In which our hero becomes the victim of logistics.
A number of depressing possibilities.
We should always beware an overprepared journey, says no proverb at all. Our hero has thought of everything, except for the three-hour delay before takeoff. He has to change flights and his arrival is now scheduled for early evening. Unhappy at the airport, happy in love?
He warns the heroine he will be late, by text, then with a call (he too frequently adopts this “belt and suspenders” approach with her). He has learned that indifference and distance, even feigned, are weapons. But our hero is not a man of weapons, not calculating. On the telephone, she shows little evidence of disappointment at this hitch, and immediately proposes meeting the following day rather than that evening, however late. A subtle pause on the other end of the line does commit her to suggesting he call as soon as he lands, and to see where they stand then. He agrees. It is a short call. She does not want the conversation to go on, he has no wish to insist, or rather to appear insistent.
He hangs up. The rather false smile he forced on himself falls from his lips. He had constructed a perfectly lighthearted expression, and here he is now plunged straight back into gloom. It is nearly a week since he called her — and it is almost always he who calls her. She had asked for some time to herself, he granted it. There was her voice again, lilting and distant, its very distinctive articulation suggesting constant impatience. For a long time he could not bring himself to erase a banal message from his answering machine simply because in it, and this was too rare an event for his liking, she let slip a note of tenderness. He wishes he could listen to it again right now.
I shouldn’t go, our hero keeps thinking. Seeing me again isn’t at all important to her, it even seems a nuisance. And that is yet more proof she doesn’t care.
But, although all his logic dictates this conclusion, he would still rather cling to less regrettable interpretations: she might not have told her mother, she doesn’t want to be bicycling late into the evening, in the pitch dark, plenty of explanations that do little to satisfy him. He finds himself ridiculous and now views himself with a degree of contempt, which, in his eyes, might eventually justify the disdain felt for him. He must pull himself together. Have strength, for goodness’ sake! If he’s seeing her tomorrow, what does it matter! What will he gain by insisting on seeing her this evening, if it’s to be for a few minutes in the rain, in a rental car? The mounting absurdity of the situation is not lost on him.
Our hero goes back to his cell phone. He calls his children. No need perhaps to point out he has two: a girl of twelve, a boy of ten, utterly adorable. He has just spent three weeks of July with them, beside the sea. The day before — as is the rule — they left to vacation with their mother for the whole of August. He is not ashamed of needing the sparkle in their laughter, needing the color in their voices. Hearing them, he knows, will for a few sweet moments bring him back to the happiness of uncomplicated love, to his second life, the radiant, fatherly one. At the other end someone picks up, and the magic works. All enthusiasm, the boy talks about soccer (PSG beat Lens 2–1, epic); all exuberance, the girl describes the small swimming pool their grandparents have just had made (there’s a porthole to light it up at night, awesome). They talk about everything and nothing, his eyes are full of laughter, everything is better, everything is fine.
He hangs up and goes to find out about the refreshments generously offered by the airline. An autumnal chill is gradually pervading this airport with its military and presidential name, where no one, except for him, seems to be growing impatient. The passengers at Gate 26 are leaving for Tel Aviv, those at Gate 23 for Algiers, and those at Gate 22 for Reykjavík.
The staff of the British airline has opted for invisibility, when the scheduled takeoff time is already long gone. Will he leave before nightfall? He slips on the cotton cardigan he brought to tackle the cool Celtic evenings. The cream of his knitwear clashes with the faded burgundy of the seats in the waiting area.
2
In which Charles de Gaulle is a bastard.
In which our hero gets the heroine to speak.
The intervention of a good man.
Takeoff is scheduled with a five-hour delay. A relief airplane is coming in from London. Our hero can no longer soothe himself with the hope of arriving any sooner than late into the night. He has called back the young woman to let her know, and suggests one last time coming to pick her up so he can spend the night with her. She dismisses the offer, insists he call back in the morning. She argues that she would really rather not invent some lie for her mother. Our hero takes this pretext at face value and will have to make do with it. All the same, he tries — we really do never learn — to extract a few kind words from our heroine, or at least some sort of encouragement. She will not be moved but does concede that she is very sorry he is stuck at Charles de Gaulle. Then she agrees he can call once he is on the way to Braemore. She said Very sorry. It’s not much. Not much at all. To be honest, it’s enough to make you cry. But our hero is too grown up to cry.
Let’s laugh instead: from the Paris airport, our hero has also contacted his hotel to let them know about the delay. A kindly Scotsman — a warmly dressed redhead with alopecia, waiting to catch the same flight — overheard his administrative conversation. He starts talking to our hero, who looks him up and down in amazement. My God, I bet this guy’s the same age as me, he shudders. He wonders how, in all honesty, he could be sure of looking any younger.
As friendly as you please, the man tells him the best way to get to the town he referred to. He goes so far as to say the hotel in question is magnificent. And finishes with a You’re lucky to be spending a night there. Our hero thinks that, in actual fact, this night will be spent alone, and he will leave the hotel when the time comes to check out without having been joined by the young woman. Still, he thanks the kindly Scotsman as best he can.
But four stars for one man on his own is a lot less fun than two stars for two people.
3
The kindliness of fate. In which our hero, in
the face of adversity, rallies himself.
In the end, it is almost
eight o’clock in the evening when the DC-10 deigns to alight on Scottish soil, not before the airline (whom we will not name and shame) has stuffed its occupants with filthy paninis, unblushingly billed at five euros apiece. Our hero, the first to emerge from the baggage hall — precisely because he has no baggage — rushes over to the Avis Car Rental desk, picks up his keys, runs to find the car, lobs his bag into the trunk, opens the door, and sits inanely in the passenger seat, this, of course, being a British car. No witnesses to the procedure, by good fortune. Facing this absence of a steering wheel, in the passenger seat of a foreign sedan, stationary and driverless, it occurs to him that this is a remarkable allegory for his own amorous situation.
A long hour’s drive spent changing gear with his left hand, a phone call that was as pointless as it was depressing — Tomorrow would be better, she reiterated — and now here he is at his hotel in a state of unusual physical and emotional exhaustion. But fate has a way of playing an elegant hand: the place is as ugly as could be, and this fact is not without its jubilant compensation, so utterly inappropriate would it be to spend a night of passion here. The Braemore Great Southern Hotel is a building with about a dozen rooms, marshmallow-style lighting, long corridors, and ugly carpeting with a leafy, gilded, cross-hatched design on a black background. It would be no surprise to meet the blond twins from The Shining at the end of a corridor, and streams of blood could easily spring from the elevator shaft. In the lobby, Maria Callas is singing from La forza del destino, but who is taken in by that? His room is vast, the bed equally so, and our hero promises himself to sleep across it, in order to reap the best return on his investment.
He also congratulates himself for deciding to keep a diary of his misadventures — he dare not think in terms of “adventure.” This sort of work in progress means he can sustain an illusion that his being here is not entirely without purpose, but surely illusions are the driving force behind his situation? His love of the aesthetic and the absurd are both amply gratified. This is going to need footnotes, he thinks. He will write those later, perhaps.
The Intervention of a Good Man Page 1