by Dan Rhodes
Those were four very solid reasons for happiness, and Jean-Didier Delacroix was content as he leafed through the research materials his assistants had collated for him. He drafted the article in his head, smiling at the occasional mot juste that drifted into view. He was going to interview Le Machine shortly before he went on stage, and be there for the first two hours of the performance, turning the copy over in his mind as he watched. Then he would retreat to a private booth in a nearby restaurant and while eating his pre-ordered food he would write, incorporating his review of the event into the body of the piece. He had seen the layout, which was just waiting for his words to be added. He would finish the job with lightning speed. He was known for this: Jean-Didier Delacroix did not waste time.
Once it was ready, he would email the article to the subeditor, who would neither dare nor feel the need to change a single word, and it would be emblazoned across the front page of the arts supplement on Saturday morning.
He yawned and stretched, and imagined the looks on the faces of the rivals he was trouncing with this coup. He was well aware that it wasn’t possible to reach the position he had reached without ruffling feathers. He knew that people were jealous of him, and he knew that there were those who accused him of taking advantage of the nepotism that is considered to be endemic across the media. But he also knew that his uncle had been absolutely right to employ him – he was brilliant. And now, with this article, more people than ever would become aware of this.
His uncle, Jean-Claude Delacroix, was an honourable man who had agonised over his appointment, spending hours in conference with the arts editor as he tried to avoid hiring his nephew, but the conversation kept coming back to the same point: they would not find anyone better than Jean-Didier Delacroix. His mind was incredible, his knowledge encyclopaedic. He could write extensively, impeccably and at lightning speed on ballet, opera, sculpture, classical music, rock, theatre, circus; anything from the world of the arts that was thrown at him. His mind was as sharp and as deadly as Damascus steel, and he wrote with a lightness of touch that belied the incisiveness and the gravity of his analyses. Even the harshest critics of his life story and his modus operandi found themselves obliged to acknowledge, though only ever through gritted teeth, that Jean-Didier Delacroix had an exceptional talent. His freelance pieces had attracted a lot of attention, and it would only be a matter of time before he was snapped up. If L’Univers didn’t get him, then a rival would, and then where would they be? There was nothing they could do but offer him a generous contract.
His piece on Le Machine was going to be a simple undertaking. It was already more or less written in his head. Without having seen it, he knew that he hated Life more than anything he had written about before. He saw it as vulgar, sensationalist and populist, in the worst possible senses of all three. And what’s more, he was convinced that it had not one iota of intellectual foundation. The more he read about Le Machine, the more evasive he found him to be. In the interviews he had given prior to his previous presentations of the piece, he had never provided a satisfactory answer to the simplest of questions: Why do you do what you do? and What is the meaning of Life?, and if an artist cannot, or will not, answer such basic questions when they are put to them by an arts correspondent, then they are not worthy of the name. Le Machine was no artist. He was nothing more than a charlatan. And now, he smiled as he thought about it, he was a doomed charlatan.
Jean-Didier Delacroix’s research had not only been into the man and his supposed art. He had also looked into Le Machine’s business dealings, sending the newspaper’s keenest financial researchers on his tail, a small battalion of business-minded Lisbeth Salanders, all pierced faces and magical powers.
He knew that Life’s Paris run was to be an independent production, that the risk of presenting it outside an established gallery had been taken by Le Machine’s management, using the profits that had built up over the course of its previous stagings. It had not been a cheap production, either. To read his rivals’ previews of the event, it would seem as if the show consisted of nothing more than a naked man and a few bottles. He knew better, though. The technical side was complex, and required a skilled team led by audio-visual experts whose time and expertise were expensive. Some were employees, and others had been embedded within the production from the start, and had stakes in it.
In addition to the payroll for his team, there was the money needed up front to make the cinema suitable for their needs, not to mention round-the-clock stewarding and security. He learned that they had emptied their account to get it all set up, sure that they would recoup the investment and much, much more through ticket sales and merchandising. They had taken out insurance, of course, to cover themselves in the event of a fire, or the star of the show being taken gravely ill. What they could not insure against though, was the abject failure of Life. With nobody coming through the doors, they would be sunk.
Le Machine’s organisation had confidently bet everything they had on the success of this run. The public might have fallen for this rubbish in London and Tokyo, but he would personally see that Paris did not follow suit.
The interview itself was almost incidental. Jean-Didier Delacroix needed only a handful of quotes from the man with which to flay him, and it would all be over. He would turn Le Machine into a laughing stock, and his coup de grâce would be to present him as such a monumental fraud that all the serious art lovers, the curiosity seekers, the armies of people who had professed their determination to see him so they could make up their own minds, the students, the tourists and even the perverts would steer clear for fear of being seen to fall for such a blatant con.
A few days from now, once the unlucky few who had bought advance tickets had come and gone, Le Machine would be standing naked on a stage in an empty porno cinema, desperate for his contractual obligations, and his pathetic excuse for an art exhibition, to end. With nothing to show for it but a mountain of unsold merchandise, he would find himself with little to think about but what he was going to do now that all his money was gone.
Jean-Didier Delacroix carried on reading the research material. It was thorough. He felt a momentary pang of pity for the seedy little man who had leased them the cinema. He had been offered a fair deal by Le Machine’s organisation, but as the bulk of his remuneration came from a cut of the ticket sales, he was dependent on the exhibition being as successful as they had assured him it would be. There was no way his business was going to survive the impending catastrophe, but Jean-Didier Delacroix turned the page and forgot about him. He wasn’t going to lose sleep over the fate of a middle-aged pornographer. He would be going down with the rest of them. Call it collateral damage.
The one thing that was missing from his pages of research was a positive identification: they could not verify the real name of Le Machine. It had been buried by a maze of paperwork, a network of holding companies and trails of deliberately placed red herrings. There had been a rumour that the original Le Machine had quit after Tokyo and been replaced by a doppelgänger, and even one that he was really a pair of identical twins who would work in shifts. Jean-Didier Delacroix’s researchers had examined official and clandestine photographs, and had found no truth in these stories.
It was not of crucial importance, anyway; he had chosen not to make any mention of the mystery surrounding his identity. To do so would be to play into his hands. Who cared who he was anyway? All that mattered was taking him down.
Jean-Didier Delacroix had already settled on the headline with his editor, who was right behind him in his efforts to contain and destroy this monstrosity.
The article was to be called The End of Life.
Jean-Didier Delacroix’s girlfriend walked into the room, a tower of perfect skin. She looked at him as though he were a dead spider in a bowl of soup.
What a woman! he thought. What a day! What a life!
XII
Sylvie enjoyed all her jobs, but the day of the week she looked forward to more than any other was
Thursday. This was when she helped out with the ponies in the Jardin des Tuileries. Extra hands were needed on Thursdays, because that was when the children with special needs came for a ride. She had just finished helping a group of children with Down’s syndrome get down from their ponies and out of their gear. She took so much satisfaction from her Thursdays that she had spoken to one of the visiting teachers about the possibility of enrolling on a course so she could begin to get some qualifications and take on more responsibility. She had even begun to think about leaving her job-flitting days behind, and embarking on a career in the field. The teacher had met Sylvie a few times and said she could see her making a great success of such a move, that she had a very natural and easy manner with the children, and that they responded well to her. She said she would be happy to offer advice and provide a reference for her if she were to decide that it really was what she wanted to do.
Sylvie’s primary misgiving was that such a decision would be a terrible blow to her exes, many of whom, as a survival mechanism, told themselves over and over again that she was a bitch. She knew this from the letters they sent and the messages they left on her phone (she maintained a special number for these calls, which she checked every few days), but she also knew that in their hearts they knew that she wasn’t, that her only crime was not loving them, but the that bitch mantra helped them to get through the day. If news was ever to reach them of her taking such a direction, it could be quite disastrous. The thought of her devoting her professional life to being helpful and compassionate towards those less fortunate than herself might prove too much for them to cope with.
It had been a good day so far, and she was getting ready for the arrival of her final batch of riders when she spotted familiar faces approaching. It was Lucien and the Akiyamas. She had told Lucien where she would be that day, and had known he would take the hint and drop by. She felt herself becoming nervous as Monsieur and Madame Akiyama approached. Just being close to Toshiro’s parents had given her romantic butterflies. This was a new sensation, but she felt invigorated by it even as it frightened her. She waved a greeting.
She had been grooming one of the ponies, and she introduced him. ‘This is Poirot.’
Madame Akiyama raced up and petted him. ‘Bonjour, Poirot,’ she said. Her French was coming along. Then she reverted to Japanese.
Lucien interpreted. Madame Akiyama was wondering whether she could have a quick ride.
There were a few minutes before the next group was due, so Sylvie supposed that it wouldn’t be too much of a problem. They were small horses though, and their riders were usually children. ‘Ask her how much she weighs,’ she said.
Lucien turned white. ‘No. I’m not going to ask the mother of my future bride how much she weighs. Just let her get on the horse.’
Sylvie laughed. Madame Akiyama had a slight build – Poirot would be fine. A minute later she was being led by Sylvie around the park. Lucien and Monsieur Akiyama accompanied them. Madame Akiyama said something to Sylvie, and Lucien translated.
‘Madame Akiyama says that she thinks you are very pretty and very nice, and that one day you will be a wonderful wife for a lucky husband.’
Sylvie was speechless. She felt like crying. It was such a lovely thing for Madame Akiyama to have said. Madame Akiyama carried on, and again Lucien provided her with a translation. ‘She says that Monsieur Akiyama feels the same way.’
Monsieur Akiyama looked as cross as ever, but he gruffly nodded his agreement.
Sylvie could stand it no longer. ‘Monsieur Akiyama, Madame Akiyama,’ she said, standing still with Poirot’s leading rein in her hand, ‘please tell me everything about Toshiro.’
So they told her: the good news and the bad.
Aurélie had arranged to meet Sylvie at the end of her shift, and following their long conversation the night before she wasn’t too surprised to find Lucien and the Akiyamas in the outdoor café. Madame Akiyama was happy to see Herbert again, and immediately took him on her knee. Aurélie noticed that she was wearing a particularly nice scarf, and through Lucien, she asked her where she had bought it.
‘La Foularderie,’ she said. ‘It’s in Le Marais. It’s such a wonderful shop – I bought a scarf there for Akiko too.’
Aurélie smiled. With everything that had been happening, she had forgotten about her quest for La Foularderie. With Madame Akiyama’s recommendation, though, coupled with the loveliness of her scarf, its legendary status in her life grew to even greater proportions. She would find it at the next opportunity.
Soon they were joined by Sylvie, who had said goodbye to her final group of children and helped put all the equipment away. Aurélie was shocked when she saw her. Her friend looked sad.
In all the time she had known her, she had never seen Sylvie looking defeated. Even at the most trying moments she smiled, and elevated the mood around her. Lucien asked her permission to explain the situation, and she silently nodded her consent. Earlier it had been up to him to translate the news from Madame Akiyama to a shellshocked Sylvie, and it hadn’t been an easy task.
Toshiro, Madame Akiyama had told her from the saddle, was twenty-nine years old, and had established himself as an accomplished musician. Working mainly alone, he recorded his own compositions digitally, providing soundtracks for television shows and video games. At this point Monsieur Akiyama had chipped in with a comment about how this was not a steady occupation, and that his son was leaving it too late to take up a position in a large corporation, but this was brushed aside by Madame Akiyama. She continued. Toshiro’s work was in demand, and he was – she gave her husband a look – fending for himself perfectly well. This, of course, was good news for Sylvie. As well as being incredibly handsome, he sounded interesting and independent, and what’s more his work was portable. He could move to Paris. They would get an apartment with an extra bedroom, and he could turn it into his studio.
Then the bad news began. It started as a trickle, but soon the dam burst and it became a deluge. First of all, Madame Akiyama explained that he didn’t speak a word of French. Sylvie spoke no Japanese. Communication was going to be a problem. Sylvie had already considered this, though, and knew it could be overcome. She had Lucien to teach her the basics, and she would enrol in classes at the earliest opportunity. Likewise, Toshiro could learn French. People learn languages all the time.
Then came the death blow.
As Lucien related Madame Akiyama’s next misgiving to Aurélie, Sylvie looked close to tears at having to sit through it a second time, and Madame Akiyama gave her a look of sympathy as she bounced Herbert on her knee. For the last four years, Toshiro had been in a serious relationship with a fashion stylist called Natsuki Kobayashi. They weren’t engaged or living together but, Madame Akiyama explained, they might as well have been. They had a very modern arrangement, one of which Monsieur Akiyama did not approve. Each had a key to the other’s apartment, and they rarely spent a night apart. Madame Akiyama told Sylvie that she and her husband had spoken to Toshiro about this relationship, and he had reassured them that he loved her, and hoped one day to marry her.
The first time Sylvie heard this unhappy fact, Madame Akiyama had just dismounted from Poirot. She had merely nodded, excused herself and taken the pony to get ready for the arrival of the final group of children.
Her abiding feeling had been one of pity, for herself and for other people. She felt a sudden rush of empathy with everybody she had upset throughout the years. She wanted to track down each and every one of the surviving boys whose hearts she had broken, and say sorry for putting them through such a terrible ordeal. It was only now that she truly understood. She had been wrong to ever have allowed them as close as she had, to have given their dreams a chance to grow wings. She should never have let them love her. She should never even have agreed to go on a date with them. It was only as she joined their ranks that she truly realised the depth of the pain she had caused, and the extent of the destruction she had wrought. But those days were behind her
now. The universe was exacting its revenge, and it was no more than she deserved. For her, the possibility of love was over. She would be alone for the rest of her life.
She had put on a smile for the children, a lot of whom recognised her from previous visits and were pleased to see her again. For the duration of their stay she was able to function. This was where her future lay. As the children dismounted she arranged to meet their teacher for a coffee and an informal chat about ways into the profession. She was looking to a future free of Toshiro Akiyama. A future free of love.
As they sat at the outdoor table, Lucien finished updating Aurélie, who reached over and took Sylvie’s hand. They all sat in silence for a while, then Madame Akiyama gave Sylvie a determined look, and launched into a short speech in Japanese. Some of the words sounded familiar to the French speakers, and they were eager to find out what was going on.
Lucien smiled as he told Sylvie what Madame Akiyama had said: I don’t want Toshiro to marry Natsuki Kobayashi. I want him to marry Sylvie Dupont.
Sylvie allowed a tear to run down her cheek. She didn’t know if it was a breach of Japanese etiquette, but she didn’t care – she threw herself on Madame Akiyama and hugged her tight. Madame Akiyama still had Herbert on her knee, so this turned into something of a group hug, but it didn’t matter. She felt Toshiro’s mother’s hand on her back, holding her tight, and everything melted away, all her toughness and her self-sufficiency. For that moment she allowed herself to be the little orphan girl. She had been searching so long for a family to call her own, and maybe – maybe – she had found it.