by Dan Rhodes
At least, he thought, he had lost to a man who was amiable, and talented, and good-looking, and had a decent sense of humour. There was some consolation to be found in the knowledge that Sylvie was right to have chosen him: Toshiro Akiyama was a better man than he would ever be. It would have been harder still to watch her go off into the sunset with a man who was unpleasant, or dull, or who had a moustache, or who didn’t love her as she deserved to be loved. Even in defeat he could at least see that there was some sense to the world.
Toshiro was telling her how easily he could move his job to Paris, how most of the people he worked with wouldn’t even realise he had gone. She was saying that they could start out using her apartment, but that they would need to look for a bigger place if they were to have a room for them and a studio for him. ‘And when the baby comes,’ said Lucien, interpreting Toshiro, ‘I can rent a studio space elsewhere.’
Sylvie looked at Toshiro, and he looked surprised, as if only just realising how much he had revealed. ‘Baby?’ she asked. ‘What baby?’
Toshiro’s surprise turned to a smile. He seemed not to regret his revelation. ‘Our baby,’ he said, and Lucien interpreted. ‘We’ll be having a baby one day, right?’
Time was short, and Sylvie and Toshiro hadn’t bothered pretending that things were anything other than major between them. They had already spoken about her inevitable visit to Japan to meet Akiko and his grandparents, and to see where he had grown up. Neither had mentioned marriage yet, but Lucien knew Toshiro was only waiting for the right moment to ask her if she would be his wife, and it was clear that Sylvie had already decided upon her response. Toshiro had leapfrogged that particular conversation and moved straight on to babies.
Sylvie said nothing. She was speechless with happiness. She leaned across the table, and kissed Toshiro.
For Lucien, this was even worse than overseeing a marriage proposal. Just when he thought his life had reached its absolute nadir he was proved wrong, and things got worse. At last, it had all become too much for him.
Once their kiss had finally come to an end, he addressed Toshiro. ‘Please tell your mother and father that it has been a pleasure working for them. I’m sorry that I’m not going to be finishing my agreed time with them, but I’m sure that under the circumstances they will understand. Please wish them a pleasant journey home.’
And then he spoke to Sylvie. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘When we met I truly had no idea this would happen. I’ve really let you down.’
She shook her head. ‘No, you haven’t. You just need to . . .’ She didn’t know what he needed, and neither did he.
He carried on. ‘You’re going to have a great life with Toshiro. He’s a good man. I don’t know what I was thinking, falling in love with you.’ He then translated this exchange, word for word, to Toshiro, just to let him know what had been said.
None of them knew what they could do but give him a look of sympathy. He stood, put on his coat and slung his bag over his shoulder. Aurélie, Sylvie and Toshiro said nothing as they watched him go, hunched over in defeat. Of the three of them, only Toshiro Akiyama would ever set eyes on Lucien again.
Monsieur and Madame Akiyama had returned from Life. They had been there for an hour, and Madame Akiyama was bursting with excitement. ‘I feel like a girl again,’ she said, showing them the souvenirs she had bought, mainly official Life cutlery for friends and neighbours. Akiko was to get a miniature version of his huge urine bottle to use as a vase. She turned to Aurélie. ‘And he’s really your boyfriend?’ She had heard the story.
Aurélie hadn’t understood a thing, and without Lucien there, there was no hope of them being able to hold anything like a viable conversation.
Madame Akiyama was so full of her experience that she carried on anyway. ‘Lucky you,’ she said. It wasn’t until she realised that Aurélie wasn’t going to respond that she looked around for her interpreter. ‘So where’s Lucien?’
Toshiro explained what had happened. Madame Akiyama understood. ‘Poor boy,’ she said. ‘First Akiko and now Sylvie. He doesn’t have much luck, does he? But he falls in love fast; I’m sure he’ll have moved on to the next girl in a day or two.’
But somehow all of them, even Aurélie and Sylvie, who hadn’t understood a word she had said apart from the names, had a feeling that there would never be a next girl, not after Sylvie.
They sat in silence, every one of them overwhelmed with sorrow for him, and when Aurélie stood up to leave she felt as if she was interrupting a funeral service. She said goodbye to them all. She wished the Akiyamas a good flight. They couldn’t understand what she was saying, and just smiled at her. She was determined to bridge the linguistic divide, so she stuck her arms out in imitation of an aeroplane, pointed at them and gave two thumbs up.
It worked. ‘Thank you,’ they both said, in their finest French.
Resisting the temptation to go back into Life for a sneaky look at her boyfriend, Aurélie made her way to the Métro and back to the Papavoines’ place. She hoped Herbert would still be awake when she got there. She was missing him, and they only had one full day left together. She knew it would be a good one. She only wanted to keep him well, to have fun with him and to return him to his mother at nine twenty-two on Wednesday morning with a minimum of fuss.
As the Métro rolled on, there was no reason why it would have occurred to her for a moment that Sylvie would call her in the morning and, when she didn’t get an answer, leave a message on her phone asking her whether she had seen the papers that day, and that if she hadn’t, she might like to head down to a news-stand.
But whatever you do, Sylvie will say, don’t wear that coat you’ve been wearing, the professor’s wife’s one. And if there’s any hair dye in the house, give yourself a dose. Oh, and do you have a balaclava for Herbert?
XXXII
On the pavement outside Le Charmant Cinéma Érotique, the arts editor of L’Univers stared at his chief arts correspondent as he waited for his car to arrive. The chief arts correspondent of L’Univers could not bring himself to return the stare, and as he looked away he wore an expression that appeared to passers-by, many of whom recognised him, to be one of steely resolve. They weren’t to know that for the last two days Jean-Didier Delacroix had found himself suffering from momentary lapses of self-confidence, an experience so new to him that he had been knocked off balance, and neither the steeliness nor the resolve were quite what they appeared to be.
It was such an unusual situation for him to find himself in that it had even begun to affect his home life. That afternoon he had made love to his girlfriend, and she had tutted and yawned as he pounded away at her. There was nothing unusual about that, but for a moment he was sure he could sense a whole new layer of dissatisfaction over and above the default settings from which she had never deviated. He tried to tell himself that this couldn’t possibly be, but even so the experience had made him anxious to the point where he had felt himself begin to lose his prowess, and she had very nearly ended up really having something to be disappointed about for the first time in her life. It had been a close shave, but he had pulled himself back from the brink and finished the job with his customary aplomb. Even so, he couldn’t shake the feeling that she suspected that something was not quite right with his life, and he knew he would be rejected at the first sign of weakness. To lose her would be an incredible blow; it would be hard, even for Jean-Didier Delacroix, to find another girl as right for him as she was.
Standing with his boss as they waited for the car, he was more nervous than he had ever been, and it took every bit of strength he had to keep his lips in a steadfast line and his chin set at a defiant angle. He was determined for his inability to return his superior’s gaze to seem like a refusal rather than a failure. Just as had been the case with his girlfriend, he knew that no matter what was going on in his mind he must at least appear to be strong.
They had spent ninety minutes in the auditorium, and Jean-Didier Delacroix knew that this time ha
d been pivotal to his future. His editor had been so incensed with him for reneging on their agreed assault upon Le Machine that in that first, furious phone call he had fired him. As soon as he had slammed the phone down, he had called the newspaper’s head of dismissals and had Jean-Didier Delacroix’s termination papers drawn up and faxed to his apartment.
Jean-Didier Delacroix had waited a while before getting back in touch with his superior and, taking pains to make sure that at no point did it appear as if he was begging, he asked for a final chance to remain in his post. He had told him that he would accept the terms on offer without fuss, on one condition – that they go together to Life. If, after an hour and a half in the room with Le Machine, his editor still thought the man deserved to be destroyed, then he would go quietly. The arts editor knew that news of a scuffle over Jean-Didier Delacroix’s departure from the paper would get around the business within seconds, and be the source of a feeding frenzy for their rivals. He had no option but to accept this challenge.
The chauffer-driven limousine pulled up, and in silence the men got in. They were taken directly to the arts editor’s private club; a club so exclusive that even Jean-Didier Delacroix would not be considered for membership. He had only been there a handful of times, and until he was established as, for example, the arts editor of a major newspaper, he would have to suffer the indignity of being signed in as a guest. That day seemed farther away than ever as he made his way past marble busts to a private dining room.
They sat across the table from one another. A waiter entered, and poured them each a glass of wine. The arts editor of L’Univers found fault with the way he had done this, and with an explicit threat to the man’s body and livelihood he had efficiently put him in his place. The waiter apologised, as if for his very existence, and left the men alone.
‘So, Delacroix,’ he began, ‘I gave you the biggest break of your career when I took you on. And I took a great personal risk; I would even go so far as to say that I put my reputation on the line, and you of all people know how highly I value my reputation. I knew that if it was to backfire, if your work was to be anything short of exemplary, your uncle Jean-Claude and I would be accused of engaging in the most brazen nepotistic practices. You were always well aware of this. I put my trust in you, Delacroix. And how do you repay me? Let me tell you: by going behind my back and praising an art show which we had explicitly agreed had nothing to do with art, and which needed to be destroyed. By putting a love letter to a naked man who shits into bottles on the front page of my supplement. By undermining me, Delacroix.’
Jean-Didier Delacroix knew that the time had come for his veneer of defiance to be succeeded by a more appropriate expression: one of humility. He had to look as if he knew his place, and he tried to draw inspiration from the waiter’s expression. Humility didn’t sit well with Jean-Didier Delacroix – it required facial muscles that had never been exercised before, and as these muscles struggled to settle into place the arts editor almost spat his champagne out in mirthless laughter at the sight. Jean-Didier Delacroix said nothing, allowing his superior to compose himself and continue.
‘And you forced me to go along to a seedy pornographic cinema, and stand – yes, stand – alongside some rather questionable . . .’ He pulled a face and spat the words, ‘members of the public to watch this naked man do . . . do what, Delacroix? Tell me what we saw.’
This wasn’t looking good. Jean-Didier Delacroix decided not to go into his feelings about Le Machine, feelings which even days after his first encounter with him were still taking shape, and to go instead for a literal recounting of events. He cleared his throat. ‘He stood there naked for while, in a state of some considerable arousal, then he took out a test tube, and closed his eyes, and had a brief affair with himself. And when he had finished he put the results on display for all to see.’
‘And that was just the start of it. What else did he do while we were there, Delacroix?’ The arts editor of L’Univers thumped the table. ‘What else?’
‘He had a shower, then he made and ate a terrible sandwich. And he drank some water and a glass of white wine.’
‘And then?’
Jean-Didier Delacroix knew what he meant. ‘And then he urinated, and poured it into a big bottle, where it merged with several litres of urine he had already poured in. After which, he crouched down and . . .’
The arts editor of L’Univers held up a hand to stop him. ‘And you still stand by your recommendation of this . . . artwork?’
Jean-Didier Delacroix had been just as impressed by Life on this second visit as he had been on his first, but he knew his neck was in the guillotine. The time had come for him to stand by his beliefs, for integrity to reign. Either that or the time had come to do what he could to save his career.
He looked his editor in the eye, and said, ‘Yes, I stand by what I wrote.’
The arts editor of L’Univers leaned back in his chair, fixed Jean-Didier Delacroix with an icy gaze, and very, very slowly raised an eyebrow. Then he spoke. ‘It is very good, isn’t it? I’m rather glad we didn’t close it down. Somehow they’ve pulled it off. I can’t quite put my finger on why it works, but it does. What’s that Goethe quote? The one about art and life?’
This reminded Jean-Didier Delacroix of the interrogations he had received as a child, and he felt invigorated by it. He knew the answer, of course: ‘“Art and life are different; that is why one is called art and one is called life.”’
‘Why didn’t you use that in your review?’
‘Because it’s far too obvious, and I knew everybody else would.’ He had read his principal rivals’ take on Life. Several of them had used this line, and gone on for a number of pointless paragraphs about how Le Machine blurred these boundaries.
‘Correct.’
‘And besides, it’s hardly Goethe’s finest hour; I don’t suppose he ever found himself top of his Venn diagram class.’
The arts editor of L’Univers put a hand into his jacket pocket, and pulled out a cheque. ‘I brought this with me, in settlement of your dismissal terms. I was in no doubt that this conversation we are having now would have been about severance, and severance alone, but from the moment I walked in, it was clear that what I was seeing was art of the highest order. God knows why, though. Thinking back to your piece, I can tell you don’t either. But something is going on there. Never ever quote me on this, Delacroix, not to anybody, but I even found myself asking some fundamental questions about my own life while I was in there. And I came to a decision.’
Knowing he had been vindicated, Jean-Didier Delacroix’s humility had already evaporated, and his self-assurance was back, stronger than ever. It was as if his flirtation with insecurity had never happened. ‘Do tell.’
‘I can’t say my decision was entirely inspired by Le Machine; in truth I’ve been weighing up my options for some months now. But around the time he was eating that sandwich, and my God it was a terrible sandwich, everything seemed to crystallise. It made me acutely aware of how little idea I have of how many days I have left. I am becoming old and emotional, Delacroix, so it is time for me to leave the stage. I have taken my career as far as it can go, and I am going to retire earlier than I had planned. I shall be stepping down in a year’s time, and that’s going to leave something of a vacuum. I don’t see why we should go through the charade of making you deputy arts editor; I can’t think of a single reason why you shouldn’t go straight to the top. Of course I shall have to clear it with your uncle Jean-Claude, but I don’t see him raising too many objections. You have the ability, you have the profile, et cetera, et cetera, and thus far you have yet to put a foot wrong. How do you feel about becoming the nation’s youngest ever arts editor of a major newspaper?’
Jean-Didier Delacroix allowed himself a smile. Just minutes ago he had felt as if he was leaping from the top of a tall building, but now his birthright was more secure than ever. ‘That is welcome news,’ he said. ‘And I have you to thank. I’ve had the finest gr
ounding imaginable in my career, and in many ways you shall be carrying on. As my mentor, my successes are your successes.’ He raised his glass. ‘Father, I wish you a long and happy retirement.’
‘I’m sure you do, Delacroix,’ he said. ‘I’m sure you do. But don’t go thinking I’m going to be spending my days on the croquet lawn. Oh no, I’m going to be sitting on every committee you can think of. I’ll be advising the government, and taking up every foreign exchange junket I can worm my way on to. I’m going to be a menace, Delacroix.’ He raised his glass in return. ‘To the future.’
They drank.
‘So, Delacroix,’ said Jean-Didier Delacroix’s father, ‘enough shop talk. I see you’re still with that young lady.’
‘I am.’ She had accompanied him to a weekend get-together at the family’s ancestral château a few weeks earlier, during which she had only smiled once, and that had been when she had made one of the servants cry.
‘You do know, don’t you, that she is absolutely vile?’
There was something admiring in his father’s tone, and Jean-Didier Delacroix smiled. ‘Oh, yes. Very much so.’
‘You ought to think about sticking with that one, Delacroix. She’s my kind of girl.’
Jean-Didier Delacroix smiled. ‘So tell me, how is Mother?’
He looked triumphantly to the ceiling. ‘Just as appalling as ever,’ he said.
They raised their glasses, and drank to their women, and to their wonderful lives.
MARDI
XXXIII
Le Machine had not been quite as absent from Paris as his reputation suggested. Often over the past few years, Léandre Martin had left his home in London and taken a train beneath the Channel to Gare du Nord, where he would go down to the Métro and straight to his old neighbourhood.
Telling no one of his presence but those closest to him, he would stay at his parents’ apartment for a few days at a time, sleeping in his childhood bedroom. He never ventured into the city, but every morning he crossed the landing to spend the day by Dominique Gravoir’s bedside. He talked to him, read to him and took care of him, feeding him and cleaning up after him. He was glad of the opportunity to give his mother a break from her responsibilities. Every time he saw her, she seemed older, and more worn down.