The Mystery of Henri Pick

by David Foenkinos

  The following weekend, back at her parents’ house, she’d spoken about that moment for more than an hour. She admired Houellebecq and his incredible novelistic sensibility. She was bored by all the controversies surrounding him; nobody ever paid enough attention to his language, his despair, his humour. She talked about him as though they were old friends, as if the simple fact of having passed him in a corridor enabled her to understand his work better than anyone else. She was in a state of exaltation, and her parents watched her with amusement; they’d done everything they could, when educating their daughter, to fill her with enthusiasm, fascination, wonder; in this sense, they had clearly succeeded. Delphine had developed an ability to sense the interior drives that gave life to a narrative. Everyone who met her during this period agreed that she had a promising future.

  After an internship at Grasset, she was hired as a junior editor. She was exceptionally young for such a position, but all success is the fruit of good timing; she had appeared in the publishing house at a time when the management wished to make the editorial team younger and more female. She was given a few authors—not the most prestigious, it has to be said, but they were all happy to have a young editor who would devote all her time and energy to them. She was also expected to look at the unsolicited manuscripts they received whenever she had some spare time. She was the one who discovered Laurent Binet’s extraordinary first novel, HHhH. As soon as she finished it, she hurried to see Olivier Nora, the CEO of Grasset, and urged him to read it as soon as possible. Her enthusiasm was rewarded. Binet signed with Grasset just before Gallimard offered him a contract. A few months later, the book won the Prix Goncourt for a First Novel, and Delphine Despero was given a promotion.

  2

  A few weeks after that, she was filled once again with a rush of enthusiasm when she read the first novel by a young author named Frédéric Koskas. The Bathtub was about a teenage boy who refused to leave the bathroom and decided to live inside the bathtub. The story was written in prose that was simultaneously joyous and melancholic, and Delphine had never read anything like it. She had no trouble convincing the reading committee to follow her advice by making an offer for the book. She was reminded of Goncharov’s Oblomov and Calvino’s Baron in the Trees, but there was also a contemporary dimension to the theme of the protagonist’s rejection of the world. The biggest difference was that, thanks to the internet, twenty-four-hour news, social media and so on, every adolescent in the world could potentially know everything there was to know about life… so why bother leaving the house? Delphine was capable of talking about this novel for hours on end. She immediately considered Koskas to be a genius. Despite her easily aroused excitement, this was a word that she used only rarely. However, we should bear in mind one additional detail: she had fallen head over heels in love with the author of The Bathtub.

  They met several times before the signing of the contract: first, in the offices of Grasset, then in a café, and lastly at the bar of a posh hotel. They spoke about the novel together, and about how it would be published. Koskas’s heart pounded at the thought that he would soon have a novel in print; this was his ultimate dream, his name on the cover of a book. He felt certain now that his life was about to begin. With his name on a novel, he had always imagined that he would become a floating being, torn free of all roots. He told Delphine about his influences, and they chatted about their favourite authors—she was very well read—but never did their conversation drift into the realms of intimacy. The young editor was dying to know if her new author had a girlfriend, but she never allowed herself to ask him that question. She tried to find out through more indirect means, but in vain. In the end it was Frédéric who made the first move.

  “May I ask you something personal?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Do you have a boyfriend?”

  “You want me to be honest?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t have a boyfriend.”

  “How is that possible?”

  “Because I was waiting for you,” Delphine replied, surprising herself with her spontaneity.

  She wanted to take the words back as soon as they were out of her mouth, to say that she was just kidding, but she knew perfectly well how sincere she had sounded. Of course, Frédéric had played his own part in this dialogue of seduction by asking her “How is that possible?” Clearly that implied that he liked her, didn’t it? She sat there blushing, while gradually admitting to herself that her words had been dictated by her true feelings—feelings that were pure, and therefore uncontrollable. Yes, she had always wanted a man like him. Physically and intellectually. It’s sometimes said that love at first sight is actually the recognition of a desire that has always existed inside us. From their first meeting, Delphine had felt this—the sensation that she already knew this man, that she had perhaps glimpsed him in premonitory dreams.

  Frédéric, taken by surprise, didn’t know what to say. To him, Delphine had seemed completely sincere. When she praised his novel, he could always detect a hint of hyperbole. A sort of professional obligation to appear upbeat, he imagined. But here, the tone was bereft of irony or exaggeration; her meaning could only be taken at face value. He had to say something, and the future of their relationship hung on the words he chose. Wouldn’t he prefer to keep her at a distance? To concentrate uniquely on interactions related to his novel, and the ones he would write in the future? But there was already a connection. He could not be indifferent to this woman who understood him so well, this woman who had changed his life. Lost in the labyrinth of his thoughts, he forced Delphine to speak again:

  “If my attraction for you isn’t reciprocated, I will of course publish your novel with the same enthusiasm.”

  “Thank you for clarifying that.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “So, let’s say we were together…” said Frédéric in a suddenly amused tone of voice.

  “Yes, let’s say we were…”

  “If we ever split up, what would happen?”

  “Wow, you’re really pessimistic. Nothing has even started yet, and you’re already talking about it ending.”

  “I’d like an answer, though: if one day you end up hating me, will you have all the copies of my book pulped?”

  “Well, yes, obviously. That’s just a risk you’ll have to take.”

  “…”

  He stared at her, and started to smile, and that was how it all began.

  3

  They left the bar and went for a walk through the streets of Paris. They became tourists in their own city, wandering around aimlessly before arriving at Delphine’s apartment. She rented a bedsit near Montmartre, a neighbourhood that can’t decide if it’s working class or bourgeois. They climbed the stairs leading to the second floor: a sort of foreplay. Frédéric watched Delphine’s legs, which, aware of being observed, advanced slowly. Once inside the apartment, they headed to the bed and lay down without any frenzy; sometimes, the most intense desire can lead to a calmness that is just as exciting. Soon after that, they made love. And remained in each other’s arms for a long time, the two of them struck by the wonderful weirdness of being suddenly and completely intimate with somebody who, a few hours before, had still been a stranger. The transformation was rapid, it was glorious. Delphine’s body had found the destination it had sought for so long. Frédéric felt finally at peace; a void that he hadn’t even realized was inside him had been filled. And they both knew that what they’d experienced simply never happened. Or only to other people. In the middle of the night, Delphine turned on the light.

  “It’s time to talk about your contract.”

  “Ah… so this was a negotiating tactic…”

  “Naturally. I sleep with all my authors before signing. It makes it easier to retain audiovisual rights.”

  “…”

  “So?”

  “You can have them. You can have all my rights.”

  4

  Unfortunately, The Batht
ub was a failure. And yet “failure” is perhaps an overstatement. What can anyone expect from the publication of a novel? Despite all Delphine Despero’s efforts, despite all her contacts in the press, despite several reviews praising the inspired storytelling of this promising talent, Frédéric’s novel suffered the classic destiny of most published novels. When you are unpublished, you believe that the holy grail is publication. But there is a fate worse than the pain of not being published: being published in complete obscurity.1 After only a few days, your book is nowhere to be seen, and you find yourself somewhat pathetically wandering from one bookshop to the next in search of some proof that it wasn’t all a dream. Publishing a novel that nobody reads is like encountering the world’s indifference in person.

  Delphine did her best to reassure Frédéric, telling him that this setback had not diminished Grasset’s faith in him. But nothing worked: he felt empty and humiliated. He had lived for years with the certainty that one day he would exist through words. He had enjoyed the image of being a young man who writes and who, soon, will have a first novel published. But what could he hope for now that reality had dressed his dream in rags? He had no desire to play-act, to go into false ecstasies over the critical acclaim his novel had received, like so many others who boast about a three-line mention in Le Monde. Frédéric Koskas had always viewed his situation objectively. And he realized that he shouldn’t change what was now his defining characteristic. People didn’t read him; that’s just how it was. “At least I met the woman I love through publishing this novel,” he thought consolingly. He had to keep going, with the conviction of a soldier who’s been left behind by his regiment. A few weeks later, he started writing again. A novel with the provisional title of The Bed. He didn’t tell Delphine what the book was about. All he said was: “If it’s going to be another failure, it may as well be more comfortable than a bathtub.”

  5

  They moved in together. In other words, Frédéric moved his stuff to Delphine’s apartment. To protect their love from gossip, they kept it a secret within the publishing house. In the morning, she went off to work and he sat down to write. He had decided to write this new book entirely in their bed. Writing provides you with some extraordinary alibis. Writing is the only job in the world where you can stay under the duvet all day long and still claim to be working. Sometimes he fell back asleep or daydreamed, persuading himself that it was useful for his creativity. The reality, however, was that his creativity was all dried up. It occurred to him that this lovely, comfortable happiness that had fallen from the sky might actually be damaging his ability to write. Did you have to be lost or fragile in order to create? No, that was absurd. Masterpieces had been written amid euphoria and masterpieces had been written amid despair. In fact, for the first time in his life, there was a support structure to his existence. And Delphine could earn enough money for both of them while he wrote his book. He didn’t think of himself as a parasite or a helpless person, but he’d accepted the idea of being kept. It was a sort of lovers’ pact: he was working for her, after all, because she would publish his novel. But he also knew that she would judge the book impartially, that her love for him would have no effect on her opinion of the novel’s quality.

  In the meantime, she was publishing other authors, and her reputation as an editor continued to grow. She turned down several offers from other publishers because she felt profoundly attached to Grasset, the company that had given her the big break she’d craved. Occasionally Frédéric would get jealous. “Oh really? You published this book? But why? It’s so bad.” She replied: “Don’t become one of those embittered authors who finds all other books unreadable. I have to deal with too many egotistical bores all day. When I get home, I want to see an author focused entirely on his work. The others don’t matter. Besides, I’m just publishing them while I wait for your bed. Everything I do in life is basically waiting for your bed.” Delphine had a brilliant knack for defusing Frédéric’s anxieties. She was a perfect mix of a literary dreamer and a pragmatic woman; she drew her strength from her origins, and from the love of her parents.

  6

  Ah yes, her parents. Delphine talked to her mother on the phone every day, recounting her life in minute detail. She talked to her father too, but the version she gave him was more succinct. The two of them were both recently retired. “I was raised by a French teacher and a maths teacher, which explains my schizophrenia,” Delphine would joke. Her father had taught in Brest, and her mother in Quimper, and every evening they would return to their home in the village of Morgat, near Crozon. It was a magical place, a refuge, dominated by the wildness of nature. It was impossible to be bored in a place like that; you could fill a whole life with contemplation of the sea.

  Delphine spent all her summer holidays at her parents’ house, and this one was no exception to that rule. She asked Frédéric to come with her. It would be an opportunity for him to finally meet Fabienne and Gérard. He pretended to hesitate, as if he might have something better to do. He asked her: “What’s your bed like?”

  “Unsullied by any man.”

  “So I’d be the first to sleep with you there?”

  “The first—and the last, I hope.”

  “I wish I could write the way you answer my questions. What you say is always so beautiful, powerful, precise.”

  “You write better than that. I know that better than anyone.”

  “You’re wonderful.”

  “You’re not bad yourself.”

  “…”

  “It’s the end of the world, where my parents live. We’ll go for walks by the sea, and everything will be clear.”

  “And your parents? I’m not always very sociable when I’m writing.”

  “They’ll understand. We talk all the time, but we don’t expect anyone else to do the same. That’s Brittany.”

  “What does that mean, ‘That’s Brittany’? You say that all the time.”

  “You’ll see.”

  “…”

  7

  Things didn’t go quite like that. As soon as they arrived in the house, Frédéric felt warmly devoured by Delphine’s parents. He was the first boyfriend she’d ever introduced to them; that was obvious. They wanted to know everything. So much for the supposed non-obligation to talk. He was uncomfortable with the idea of digging up the past, but they immediately interrogated him about his life, his parents, his childhood. He tried to throw them tokens of sociability, sprinkling his answers with charming anecdotes. Delphine had the feeling that he was inventing these stories to make his life sound more thrilling than the bleak reality. She was right.

  Gérard had read The Bathtub. It is always slightly depressing for an author who has published an unsuccessful book to meet a reader who tries to make them feel better by talking about it interminably. Of course, the intention is a good one. But, barely had they arrived, drinking the first aperitif on the terrace, overlooking that breathtakingly beautiful landscape, than Frédéric felt embarrassed that the moment should be encumbered by a conversation about his novel, which was, he thought, ultimately pretty mediocre. Gradually, he was beginning to detach himself from it, to perceive its faults, its try-hard prose. As if every sentence had to provide immediate proof of its author’s brilliance. A first novel is always a bit of a teacher’s pet. Only geniuses can instantly produce dunces. But it undoubtedly takes time to understand how to let a story breathe, how to create something behind the shows of brilliance. Frédéric had the feeling that his second novel would be better; he thought this constantly without ever mentioning it to anyone. He didn’t want to spread his intuitions too thin by sharing them.

  “The Bathtub is an excellent parable of contemporary life,” Gérard went on.

  “Ah…” replied Frédéric.

  “You’re right: profusion created confusion, to start with. And now it is producing a desire for renunciation. If everything is of equal value then nothing means anything. A very pertinent equation, in my opinion.”

&nb
sp; “Thank you. You’re making me blush with all these compliments…”

  “Better enjoy them. It’s not normally like that around here,” he said, laughing a little too heartily.

  “I sensed the influence of Robert Walser. Am I right?” Fabienne asked.

  “Robert Walser… I… yes… it’s true, I like his work a lot. I hadn’t thought about him as an influence, but you’re probably right.”

  “Your novel reminded me most of all of his short story, ‘The Promenade’. He has an incredible talent for evoking the act of walking. Swiss authors are often the best when it comes to boredom and solitude. There’s some of that in your novel: you make emptiness fascinating.”

  Frédéric was speechless; he felt choked by emotion. When had he last felt such kindliness, such attention? In a few phrases, they had bandaged the wounds left by the public’s incomprehension. He looked at Delphine, who had changed his life, and she smiled at him very tenderly. He thought how eager he was to discover that famous bed where no man had been before him. Here, their love seemed to have ascended to a higher plane.

  8

  After this chatty introduction, Delphine’s parents didn’t ask Frédéric too many questions. The days passed, and he took great pleasure in writing and in exploring this region that was, for him, unknown. He wrote in the mornings, and in the afternoons he went walking with Delphine, roaming the countryside and never meeting anyone. It was the ideal setting in which to forget himself. Here and there, she would tell him anecdotes about her adolescence. The past came together bit by bit, and now Frédéric was able to love every era of Delphine’s life.

  Delphine used her spare time to catch up with childhood friends. This is a particular category of friendship: affinities are, above all, geographical. In Paris, she would perhaps have nothing to say to Pierrick or Sophie, since they had become so different, but here they could talk for hours. They each recounted their life, year after year. The other two asked Delphine about the celebrities she’d met. “There are lots of superficial people,” she said, without really believing it. So often, we tell people what we think they want to hear. Delphine knew that her childhood friends wanted to hear her criticize Paris; it reassured them. Time passed pleasantly with them, but she was always eager to get back to Frédéric. She was happy that he felt at ease writing in Brittany. She recommended his novel to her friends, and they asked if it was out in paperback. She had to admit that it wasn’t. Despite her growing influence as an editor, she had not been able to convince anyone to publish a mass-market edition of a book that had flopped so completely. There was no objective reason to believe that a cheaper price would alter the commercial fate of The Bathtub.