by Emma Becker
Monsieur answers within seconds: ‘No.’
Permission to remain happy . . . for the time being.
The following day at a quarter past eight, I’m smoking my first cigarette of the day in my grandmother’s small garden. As Alice, Lucy and I stayed up late, I have difficulty in keeping my eyes open. Right now, Monsieur must be rushing out of the misted-up bathroom, a towel round his waist. Perfectly shaven, a discreet touch of cologne behind his ears and across his wrists. I’m sure he jerks off under the shower, slowly, beneath the streams of hot water. What he’s thinking of when he does so I cannot fathom, but he could possibly be thinking of me. Then he dresses in silence in the muggy heat of the bedroom where his wife is still sleeping. He meets Charles in the corridor, briefly strokes his long hair. In the kitchen Monsieur drinks a cup of coffee and initials Adam’s schoolwork. He doesn’t sit down, breakfasts in a hurry. It’s only at the surgery that Monsieur allows himself to slow down, act with care. It’s only at the clinic that he is a genius. In the rest of his life, he runs, is always on the run, no matter what. I’ve often heard him complain about it, but he would find it difficult to live any differently.
Eight thirty: Monsieur kisses Estelle, who’s just emerged from the bedroom in her nightie. The kids have already left.
‘See you tonight,’ he says, and a few minutes later he is in the car.
His mobile is in the side pocket, connected to a speaker. The world outside appears smoky behind the dark windows. I can see it all without much thought: I imagine his smell in the car, the corners of his lips that would still taste of coffee if I were to lick him there. Monsieur exits the car park, negotiating the sharp corners by instinct, ready to face the new day. Outside, on the quai de la Mégisserie, all pink and pale in the sun, pedestrians nod to him, as if he weren’t even there, just a shadow behind the tinted glass of the windscreen. If Monsieur allowed me to cross his car’s path, I think I’d stand paralysed in the glare of his headlights.
A quarter to nine: amid the traffic jams, Monsieur is fuming. He speaks to Estelle about the holiday arrangements, but he’s not really concentrating on what he’s saying as the holidays are still so far in the future. Three operations today, and God only knows how many consultations. His head is full to bursting. No space left for thoughts of being alone in the sun with his wife. Or me.
Five to nine: Monsieur parks in front of the clinic’s iron gates. As soon as he leaves his car, he’s intercepted by a colleague who wants to talk and walks with him to the main building. In the changing room, where he slips on his scrubs, Monsieur leaves his briefcase, his wallet, his mobile and me, and locks them all away. Monsieur is operating. Monsieur is a grown-up. Monsieur has responsibilities.
As I have no genuine responsibilities, I go back to bed. In the bed, my youngest sister turns over, grumbling: ‘What’s up with you?’
‘Nothing. I just couldn’t sleep.’
Louise has probably fallen asleep again. The living room is in total darkness. In a few minutes, my grandmother will be up. If I don’t doze off by then, I’ll be in trouble. What should I do? My hatred for Monsieur is keeping me awake.
Once I’ve sufficiently annoyed Louise with my fidgeting, I get out of bed. I go to the first floor where Alice and Lucy are sleeping in a blue room full of damp. I squeeze into my sister’s bed and, still snoring, she shifts to make room for me. In the depths of my desolation (or should I say my infinite sadness?) the only prospect I can dangle in front of me to reach a blessed state of sleep is the thought of smoking. Since the advent of Monsieur, it’s a good thing I have drugs to compensate for his absence.
AUGUST
Tuesday.
I’ve been in Berlin for a week already, surrounded by a bevy of loving girls, including the now legendary Lucy, whom I greeted with a hearty slap on the back; it was either that or a somewhat more awkward form of contact. I had to make a choice. The heat was leaden on the first day and I initiated the whole gang into the art of smoking, lying on the grass in Monbijoupark, clad only in our underwear, speakers from our iPods at either side of us. I kept staring at the girls, my eyes following one and then another, wondering how long it would be before none of them wanted ever to leave. After barely five minutes spread out like starfish, they had clearly given up all resistance. I had warned them.
Halfway through a game of tarot, Lucy stole Monsieur from me, so whatever I had written about her was no longer a secret. She was so wrapped up in her reading that we constantly had to remind her when it was her turn to play. My stomach in knots, I was trying to guess what was going on inside her pretty head, behind her wide dark eyes, whether she believed she was reading fiction or knew she was travelling along the tortured roads of my sexual imagination over which Monsieur and she now sat in judgement. She calmly set the notebook down, not saying a word, as if it wasn’t worth debating all the whys and wherefores. When she’s around I no longer think of Monsieur but of her, why his cock is no longer as important to me as the idea of her naked body.
Thursday.
If I’m dying to have sex, it’s probably because Zylberstein and Landauer are repeatedly calling me, artful doctors’ voices enquiring about the fate of a patient. I’ve been an expatriate for ten days, happy enough for my little fingers to be covered in ink; it appears to be a serious challenge for them and their egos. As soon as I come off the phone to Landauer, Octave calls me up to check he has his facts right: has Ellie Becker actually gone away to spend a whole month without a man? Such a momentous event!
For the sake of accuracy, I could have emphasized ‘a month without a man’. But to involve Lucy in this circus, imprint her name in the boys’ memories and pretend the situation was more significant than it had appeared at first, would have been quite wrong. It would have been tempting Fate to pretend that a period of fast would do me a world of good.
And I’m not convinced that’s true.
Anyway, it’s meaningless to talk about fasting when, since my arrival in Berlin, I haven’t missed a single opportunity to play with myself as I lie in my uncomfortable bed. It’s a comfort: despite all the travelling, the world I immerse myself in for ten minutes or so never changes. The protagonists and their attitudes remain immutable: Monsieur, Lucy . . . and me standing in the middle, my will bending under the weight of every possible vice, however unlikely or inexpressible.
I met up with the girls in Viktoriapark, in Mehringdamm. It was so hot we sprawled across the lawn in our swimsuits, surrounded by a pleasant cloud of weed and the honeyed taste of a beer I’ve never come across elsewhere. By amusing coincidence, every time I opened my eyes I could see Lucy framed between my open thighs.
On the way back, on Kreuzbergstrasse, we found a sort of coffee shop cunningly disguised as a camping-equipment store. The salesman obviously didn’t have any grass, but let us have fifteen or so magic seeds. As I write this, we’re skipping our way towards Wedding, and I’ve enough stuff in my backpack to spend a rather pleasant or, alternatively, a most unpleasant evening.
Have I previously mentioned that I find Monsieur stronger than any drug? No artificial paradise can banish him from my thoughts. The girls and I made such a fuss before we swallowed the seeds that I ended up feeling full of love for them. We were ambling between the living room and the wide, shadowy courtyard in a bid to settle our nausea, Lucy leading us. We were almost silent, our conversation interrupted by the unpleasant waves coursing through our stomachs. At first, there were only four of us, by the bicycle sheds; the others had gone for a lie-down. Lucy was puffing at a fag, while I attempted to cheer everyone up with a feeble string of jokes in a bid to hold back my unease. Alice, with sisterly solidarity, sketched a twisted smile then buried her face in my shoulder again. Flora, cross-legged on the lawn, was nibbling her nails and staring into space. There was nothing embarrassing about our silences: it was just our way of placing our respective burdens on some metaphorical pedestal, as we sat hunched, short of breath and about to spew up our guts. It looked as if
the salesman had played a bad trick on us, but all of a sudden everything became so warm and beautiful, the air smelling so pleasant, that all thoughts of disaster faded away. I waited.
‘Cheer up!’ I cried, so sharply I even surprised myself, as acute pain stabbed my stomach.
Alice stood up, lit another cigarette and came to join me, our backs to the wall. ‘How long is it since we swallowed the seeds?’ she asked.
‘Almost an hour,’ Flora answered laconically, then also got to her feet, a fag to her lips. ‘Can I have a light?’
Lucy’s golden arm stretched out: she was holding a lighter.
‘Do you think this is going to last much longer?’ I heard her ask, lost in a cloud of smoke.
‘The nausea? I think it should end soon.’
But the truth was I didn’t know. I was pleased that, so far, I’d avoided vomiting. The thought of feeling sick for another eight hours was dreadful.
‘Do you all feel funny?’ Flora asked.
‘I don’t know what to say,’ Lucy answered. ‘I’ve got awful pains in my thighs. Never felt like this before.’
‘I feel . . . odd,’ I replied.
‘Your pupils are fully dilated,’ Alice added, leaning closer to me, her own eyes Lovecraft dark.
‘We’re mad,’ I said, rushing to the glass door to check out my eyes.
‘We’d look like a bunch of bloody fools if the cops turned up.’ Alice laughed manically.
All I could do was hiccup, then noticed that I couldn’t stop smiling. As if some poison carried by the seeds was forcing every muscle in my face to contract.
Five minutes later, we were rolling about, cackling like witches in the block’s inner courtyard, our stomachs finally at peace. Mistakenly feeling normal again, Alice and I suggested fetching some music when a tenant on her fifth-floor balcony threatened to call the police. We bolted into the apartment, all trying to get through the door at the same time (I still have a shapely bruise on my arm, which I finger idly as I recall the sheer euphoria of the moment). Clémence then walked out of the room where she had been enjoying a siesta in a bid to control her nausea, followed by Claire and Anne-Lise, and finally Hermance, who appeared when she heard us all shrieking with laughter. It’s a moment that will stay with me all my life: ten minutes after she’d arrived on the scene, as we were all frantically trying to describe to each other our overwhelming meaningless happiness, cuddling each other on the couch like a litter of kittens, Hermance stood up, holding her face in her elegant hands. Convinced she had hurt herself, Clémence and Alice jumped up, squeaking, ‘Hermi, Hermi, Hermi,’ and I was overtaken by hysterical laughter! Hermance began to howl like a banshee, totally out of control, her hands spasmodically moving across her stomach and Flora cried: ‘Oh, she’s crying! Hermi’s crying!’
Yes, she was, but it was for joy. Which we finally realized when she gasped: ‘I don’t know why I’m crying! I don’t even know if I’m crying! Everything is just perfect, everything, everything, everything! This city is perfect, you are all perfect, the music is perfect!’ Her chin shaking, and her voice as sharp as a violin, she added: ‘It fucking breaks my heart!’ And cried even harder as she poured herself another glass of punch.
We enjoyed a whole bunch of further epiphanies throughout the seven hours of that particular evening. The few things I clearly remember: Alice, overcome by unexplained weariness, finding herself unable to hold on to her plate of spaghetti and allowing it to spill over her dress. Laughing. Later, sitting cross-legged in the wicker chair between the two couches, I tried to describe each of the girls present as if she were a fictional household member of the Maison Tellier. The first object of the exercise was to see what type of woman they each corresponded to in the world of the brothel in the Maupassant story where you might come across the Pretty Blonde, the Pretty Jewess, the girl from Normandy. But confronted by all these different faces, observing the diversity of their bodies, the hairstyles, the sheer confusion, I began to flounder. Who cared about the commercial arguments the Madame would put forward to entice the clients? From the outset I could imagine only a single client. I was the only one whose eyes could appreciate how beautiful they all were. How could a man ever understand? Their succulent limbs were relaxing across cushions, their lazy eyelids falling across dark pupils, and every element of the scene gave itself up to the flattery and caresses of the more baroque words in my repertoire. It was an effort to stick to respectable language, not indulge in four-letter words or vulgarity, but I managed it. Even if, where Flora was concerned, I was unable to escape from the mental image of her, head over heels in a wide satin bed, mouth open, hands clenched, in the centre of a huge pillow. Unable to find the right, elegant words to describe the curious loveliness of her face, all I could visualize was her swooning in the arms of some faceless man.
‘Flora is like no other,’ I said, pulling my legs up under myself.
‘And now Lucy!’ Clémence shouted.
When it comes to Lucy, her eyes seem to smell of sex and I’ll devour her raw as soon as you all have your backs turned, I thought, as I watched her, crouching by one of the low tables, waiting to be judged with a sphinx-like half-smile on her lips. Composing myself, I sighed. ‘Lucy . . . Lucy is Lucy. You all know she’s impossible to describe.’
Visibly flattered, she lowered her eyes.
Pleased with the effect of my words, I crossed and uncrossed my legs, feeling a rush of heat between my thighs.
Later, she and I went to the swings in the square that bisected the street. Hurling myself high, I felt as if I was about to be consumed by the sky, so full of stars, shining brighter than ever before. My eyes created haloes around each pinprick of light. The world was like a watercolour and, seemingly kilometres below me, Lucy followed my ascent with appreciative shrieks. When the laws of gravity threw me back, I felt euphorically nauseous, drunk with vertigo, and a sensation of freedom, almost as strong as an orgasm, passed through me. My hair was falling back against my forehead, and every breath I took moved straight to my crotch, Monsieur’s name flashing like neon behind my closed eyes.
Monsieur.
Can you explain to me how Monsieur appeared unbidden in all this? Why, when I had eyes only for Lucy, did I allow him to take over again? At what point in the evening did it happen?
We were, I think, still in the apartment. Yes, I’m sure that’s when it was. God only knows why I was wearing a swimsuit. The conversation was in full swing and I regretfully pulled myself off the couch to pee. A glance in the mirror, the sort of glassy look my parents would instantly have seen through, and I became fascinated by my own reflection. Standing, all of a sudden no longer noticing my bursting bladder, I stroked my cheeks. How amazing! A young woman who looked just like me was facing me, wearing the same black swimsuit, with the same unkempt hair, displaying the same incoherent smile. I kept hearing something chirp in the background.
Reluctantly looking away from the mirror, I sat down heavily. And as I peed, chuckling to myself, the door half opened. Probably just a draught, I realized later, but at that moment I suddenly came to believe that Monsieur was about to make an impromptu appearance. And why not, after all? Why should I enjoy the most unlikely hallucinations, and not allow him to be part of them? There I was, my swimsuit around my ankles, stark naked on the throne, my wide dark eyes hypnotized by the gap between the door and the wall, captivated by the vision of Monsieur, standing motionless in the doorway. Monsieur, his gaze digging deep into my flesh. Each flutter of his eyelashes saying, It’s me, me and my cock that always stays hard for you, for you in that particular position, for instance, you pissing with your little deep pink slit all wet because the rest of you is too; if you’re having such a hallucination, it’s because it makes you wet, no? Tell me the truth, my sweet little whore: at first you were disgusted by the thought of me watching you, but the more you think about it, the more you feel aroused, don’t you? Surely an area where Lucy can’t compete with me (in truth, could she ever? Ellie?), all
these stray thoughts of peeing in front of me emerging from nowhere. She wouldn’t understand. She’s too young, but I am, dear God, of an age when nothing can shock me. The worst perversions you could think of wouldn’t come as a surprise, because I know every single one down to the tip of my fingers and, Ellie, because I always had an inkling all these vices were there inside you, swarming like maggots. So, tell me: did you really think you could forget me for a whole summer? What a joke. Now I’m here, and we’re going to have so much fun.
And I was smiling, like a bitch, watching the doorway. Monsieur leaning towards me, his fingers reaching for me, and right then Alice kicked the door wide open. Monsieur faded and I shook my head, dazed.
‘Hurry up, I have to go!’ she screamed, sounding like a drunkard.
Later, we went to bed. Flora and Alice had assigned me a bed in their small room. I was about to treat myself to one of those silent pillow-biting orgasms when, from the darkness behind my closed eyelids, Monsieur returned, all cunning looks and a smile full of open-handed spanking, whispering, ‘Where were we?’
There, Monsieur. Right there.
Monday.
It was in a small intimate Berlin museum, at an exhibition of black-and-white erotic photography, that Monsieur took his rightful place again, full of his customary spiteful lover’s intransigence. I was pacing through the corridors, trying to distance myself from a group of tourists, when I saw them. Saw them, not just noticed. Not right away.
‘Aubrey Beardsley, illustrating Oscar Wilde’s Salome,’ I read, before my brain made the right connection at supersonic speed and I remembered all the mails he had sent me in which he had mentioned this particular piece of art, these specific illustrations. I felt for a moment like bursting into tears because I wanted so much to see him, right there in the museum, under the gaze of the attendants, at the heart of the church-like silence.
That night, I came up with the cunning idea. In the morning, the sky still pink, I sent him a text: ‘Saw Beardsley’s drawings for Salome at an exhibition. Wonderful.’