by Emma Becker
That was how understanding Babette now was. Back in June, Valentine had been unsupportive and now my best friend was moving in the same direction. My props were crumbling one by one. ‘I have to see him. You know that.’
‘And when he gets there, he’ll just spit in your face and you’ll thank him.’
‘Why do you have to say things like that?’ I protested, left short of breath by her unexpected sharpness.
‘I’m sorry, Ellie . . . but why are you such a sucker for punishment? This has been going on for too long, come on!’
‘Going on?’
‘Listen, there are times when it’s right and proper to grieve and be all over the place, but you’ve gone too far. Seriously, the guy is not worth seven whole months of your life. It’s crazy.’
‘I know. That’s why I have to speak to him. I need answers.’
‘Answers to what?’
‘For my book. I can’t write things that turn out to be unfair.’
‘An unfair book. Are you taking the piss? With all
the pain that book’s causing you, you won’t owe him anything whatsoever for the rest of your life.’
‘I know, but—’
‘And do you really believe that once you’re face to face with him you’ll want to ask all those questions? When you know all too well that they’ll get on his nerves?’
‘So, you just assume I’ll keep doing the wrong things?’
‘Let me guess: you’ve dressed to kill?’
A quick appraisal. Dress, suspenders, and split crotch Bensimon knickers. The epitome of modern chic. For Monsieur’s eyes only. ‘Not at all.’
‘You don’t sound like a girl who’s wearing Snoopy pants. Or a student who’s been to lectures this morning.’
Exasperated, I barked: ‘Oh, fuck you!’ And, in a foul mood, hung up. Fortunately, while we’d been talking, Monsieur had sent me a text asking me to meet him five minutes later in the Vinci Pont-Marie car park. The car park. The antechamber to hell.
I sat down on the dirty steps. My heart was beating wildly, loud enough to silence the soothing background music played in all such places, although no one is ever likely to stay around long enough to listen to it. Apart from me. And Monsieur. Then, head down, tying my laces, I caught a faint movement to my right, the sound of the door’s electric lock falling into place, a rush of displaced air. I looked up and Monsieur was there, his appreciative eyes running over my body. He was holding the door open, as if I was one of his patients, and when I brushed against him to pass through the door, I felt the space between us sizzle, heated in an instant by the guilty, wary lust this man inspired in me.
‘You said you had questions?’
‘For Monsieur. There are matters I need to shed light on, things I haven’t quite understood.’
‘What, for instance? Look at me.’
For a thousandth of a second, I looked into his eyes and regretted my audacity. I began again, gabbling: ‘I haven’t understood why we don’t see each other any more – if you tried to explain it, I couldn’t come to terms with it – why you don’t communicate with me any longer when it’s obvious we have so much to give to each other, why—’
‘Slow down, slow down,’ Monsieur interrupted. ‘You’re talking too fast.’
I bit my lower lip, trying to catch my breath.
‘Are you stressed because I’m here?’
‘You’re very full of yourself.’
‘I’m stressed too. Let me take your pulse.’
Before I could protest, Monsieur had clasped my wrist between his fingers. Raising my eyes to the heavens, irritated but smiling, I muttered: ‘There is nothing wrong with my pulse.’
‘It’s fast,’ Monsieur replied, almost in a whisper. ‘Just like mine.’
‘It’s not going fast at all,’ I concluded, snatching away my still madly throbbing wrist.
But, however curt I was trying to appear, I was already falling headlong into Monsieur’s fly-trap, unable to conceal anything from him. Not even what was hidden beneath my clothing: I was getting wet. I liked the way Monsieur was so elegantly invasive, able to see through me on every occasion. Because of the rising heat, I took off my coat, and his eyes opened wide when he noticed my cleavage. And the distinct lack of lingerie obscuring the view.
‘You’re crazy going out in public like that! It’s dangerous!’
‘I keep my coat buttoned up when I’m in the street. Like everyone does.’
‘I can see all of your breasts in that dress,’ Monsieur observed, swaying between concern and appreciation, while his fingers cautiously pinched one of my hard nipples.
‘What are you doing?’
Not even looking me straight in the eyes he smiled, unperturbed by the unusually aggressive reluctance I was displaying.
‘Would you mind terribly if I touched you a little while we speak?’
‘What’s the point of you doing that if we can’t fuck any more? Do you have any idea how I feel by the time I have to go home?’
‘What about me? Look!’
Peering down, I caught sight of the erection inside the smart trousers of his suit. Oh, God, how good it would be to open his flies. Just that. Once his cock was out, Monsieur would become another man altogether. He would soon forget to glance at the clock every couple of minutes, and the guillotine blade looming above us would fade away. Cold air streaming across warm skin would remind him of the harbour of my body. But, over the past months, I had changed, and no longer reacted in the same way to his boldness and bad manners and even though, today, Monsieur was rock hard under his trousers, a whole world separated us. Disturbed, I looked away. ‘What do you want me to say? Just look at you. What’s all this provocation leading to?’
‘What provocation? It’s just a normal fact of life that I should desire you. Look at me.’
Monsieur took hold of my chin between his fingers, and his smile widened, unveiling his fascinating, carnivorous teeth. ‘You are so beautiful,’ he said. ‘I think you’re even prettier than you used to be.’
I answered him bitterly: ‘I don’t think that’s of much use to me.’
‘Ellie, it’s not that I don’t want to see you. I’d love to. I just can’t.’
We looked each other in the eye, as Monsieur sang his customary litany: ‘We’ll both end up miserable, you know. If I had enough time, I’d be with you constantly. I feel like seeing you all day long, talking to you, taking you in my arms. Nothing would please me more than to discuss literature over a glass of something. I can’t think of anyone I’d like to chat to more about books than you.’
Eyes fixed on the steering-wheel, he shook his head, perplexed. ‘Maybe our relationship could be platonic.’
Astounded, I roared with laughter, sounding like a dog barking. ‘Look at you! Look at your trousers! How do you think we’d manage that?’
‘The more I see you, the more I realize it wouldn’t be possible,’ Monsieur admitted sorrowfully.
‘No. Neither of us could. This is going nowhere.’
Moving between anger and dismay, I crossed and uncrossed my legs. All these hours of waiting, just to hear Monsieur wonder if we could ever be in the same room together and not end up in bed.
‘I can’t see you,’ he continued, ‘because ninety per cent of my life would be badly affected. I have my family, my work, and I’d need a whole new life to make enough space for you, the space you deserve.’
‘And . . . how do the others manage, all the other men who cheat on their wives?’
‘How do they do it?’ Monsieur choked back a sardonic laugh. ‘It’s easy! They meet up once a week in a hotel room, undress while listening to the story of each other’s week, fuck and go their own way. Maybe she’ll ask, “How’s your wife?” He’ll say, “Very well, thank you,” and there you are. You see how simple it is. But that’s not what I want.’
‘So what the hell have we been doing? It sounds just like what you’ve described.’
‘That’s not how
we were,’ Monsieur replied, shaking his head, visibly shocked by my vision of things.
‘Oh yes we were. Last time, in the fifteenth arrondissement, that’s exactly how it went.’ I looked at him sadly. ‘You arrived, we fucked, spoke for half an hour, and then you left.’
‘You think that’s all it was, really?’
‘I’m writing a novel about you. If that’s all it had been, a simple sordid story, a comic strip would have sufficed.’
At times, I could feel Monsieur’s jubilation at being in a book. I now know one thing: the relationship became so complicated, from its beginning to what is in all likelihood the end, partly because he can’t distinguish between reality and fiction. The life lovers lead in literature seems too beautiful to him, too exciting to fit into everyday routine. But what appears heroic or romantic in a book by Stendhal is just endless pain for someone like me, who only has real life to fall back on.
Monsieur couldn’t help peering at my suspenders, and probably wanted me to notice the insistence of his gaze. ‘It’s cool what you’re wearing.’
With all the bruised modesty I had gained from my contact with unsuitable lovers, surgeons, married men, forty-year-olds, passionate or full of vice, but never all at the same time, I hitched my dress up a little. I had no intention of provoking him: my body took the decision to do so, and it felt awful. I saw Monsieur smile, spurred on by this new challenge.
‘Let me see,’ he continued, his hand diving under my coat.
As it made its way towards my stomach, I leaned forward, determined to make it as difficult for him as I could, twisting my knees to repel his attack. Monsieur moved closer and whispered: ‘Don’t move. Don’t be afraid.’
I flinched a little.
‘All I want to do is touch that pretty little breast of yours. Don’t be afraid.’
His large hand was the perfect shape and size, surrounding me with such softness and heat that I became wet inside my open-crotch knickers. I could feel my breast shudder and convulse in his hand, my nipple held between his fingers screaming, ‘Yes yes yes,’ to his furtive touch. Then Monsieur journeyed all the way down my stomach and inserted his hand between my thighs. I bucked and stepped back; he withdrew, a smile dawning.
‘You shouldn’t be afraid of me,’ he kept repeating, caressing my cheek with his elegant fingers.
‘Am I afraid of you?’ I said haltingly, and in the cold crypt of his car my breath hung like heavy mist in the air, full of the fear I had for him.
‘Kiss me on the mouth.’ Monsieur imperceptibly moved his heavy lips towards me, as if daring me not to find them the very incarnation of seduction.
‘Why on earth should I do such a thing?’
‘Because we’re just friends,’ Monsieur said. I burst out laughing and he joined in.
‘Friends? Are you taking the piss?’
‘Aren’t we friends?’ Before I could say anything, Monsieur answered his own question: ‘We are friends. Kiss me.’
I allowed my small chapped mouth to meet Monsieur’s immense, welcoming lips. Not for long, half a second maybe. A half-second that reminded me of the days when Monsieur’s kisses were legal tender, and didn’t trigger my present mix of analysis and reluctance. But I never kiss my friends on the mouth. Now I know why: you can be a friend or you can be a lover, and when you happen to be lovers and enemies, like Monsieur and me, you end up with a broken heart.
‘It would be so much easier for me if you were married or had a full-time boyfriend.’
I dared not tell Monsieur the truth about Édouard. Or all the others who would have willingly taken his place if he’d allowed them to do so.
‘If you had any feelings for me, you’d lie to me! You’d have the guts to tell me you don’t want to see me again!’
‘I can’t do that,’ Monsieur replied. ‘I can’t lie when it comes to things like this.’
His wide grey eyes would never provide me with an answer, however long I might seek one. It was as though an immovable wall separated me from everything Monsieur might be thinking about. I could have left it at that, but I could already picture myself walking towards the Métro platform with all those thoughts swirling inside my head, like a washing-machine in full flight. I raised my chin. ‘Swear.’
‘What do you want me to swear?’
‘Swear you’re not saying that just to keep me on the hook.’
Monsieur’s face was unreadable, his unreadable eyes looking straight into mine. ‘But I don’t want to keep you on the hook!’
‘No?’
‘Of course not. The situation is already painful enough.’
He glanced at his watch. I could feel him itching to leave. Monsieur had to leave, Monsieur was about to leave, and until the next occasion, I would hate myself for not having done or said anything in an attempt to hold him back. Already his eyes were drawn to the passing crowds. Mentally he was in their anonymous midst, his long silhouette and expensive clothes cleverly fading into the mediocrity of all those other people. Maybe he was imagining himself in the arms of his wife. I stepped back, moving towards the Métro platforms. As he also moved away, he placed his hand on my face, took my nose between two fingers, and said: ‘You’re beautiful, Ellie.’
‘Farewell, then,’ I said, my face showing all the sadness in the world.
‘Why “farewell”?’ Monsieur asked.
Instead of answering, I gave a thin smile and kept walking away, until all I could see of him was a flap of ultramarine silk scarf, tucked inside the high collar of his Lanvin coat. Where others would have seen an assembly of expensive materials, I recognized the essence of Monsieur, his perfume, and beneath it the fragrance of his skin. I hadn’t been close to it for months but I knew it by heart.
As I jogged towards the Métro, Monsieur called after me and briefly walked alongside me. ‘Have you found an ending for the book?’
‘Not really.’
‘Maybe a violent one,’ Monsieur remarked.
‘I’m thinking about it.’
I had already thought of an ending, neither violent nor spectacular, that would have seen us bringing the relationship to a conclusion in which we were both equals. But I wasn’t about to exhaust myself by explaining all this to him, why I wished we could end things not owing each other anything. Owing? Owing what? Monsieur would ask. Love is not a set of accounts. And how would I have responded to that? How could I have explained over the telephone in two and a half minutes that love is never unilateral? Or that at the age of twenty I still keep a record of all the points scored during our skirmishes, alongside the count of my lovers. It would annoy Monsieur out of all proportion and confuse matters now that I had seen his true colours this evening.
‘One of us could die,’ he suggested, and I held back a mocking laugh.
‘I’m writing a true story, you know. Not a novel.’
‘I know, but how can you bring things to a proper conclusion if no one dies? You need something powerful and strong. Maybe one day she could learn of Monsieur’s death.’
I’d slowed my pace, if only to savour the sound of his voice and his interest in discussing my masterwork. It was only weeks later that I realized he had understood what was reality and what was fiction in the three hundred pages I was so proud of. We weren’t much different from the characters in the book. We needed a violent ending, something irreversible. Without a clean break, we could go on like this for years and years. Or I could. There was no place for tiredness in this weary game where I collided with Monsieur on every corner. Sometimes he wouldn’t notice, and at others he would look back and generously take five minutes to stroke my head, but every time I was with him, I couldn’t predict how he would react. And I dearly wanted to know if my shameful ability to give him a hard-on was still effective. All a bit breathless. Of course, Monsieur found it fun, as much, if not more so, as I did. Getting rid of him in the book would not get rid of him in reality. In fact, I could already imagine myself, depressed by my crime, rushing to the clinic, wait
ing for him to cross the courtyard and, wordless, throwing myself against him, if only to feel his warmth, the beat of his heart against my cheek, the overflow of his life. Killing Monsieur off was the most effective way to get back to the start; so banal. Surely there must be a way, dear God, to find the right ending.
I thought back to something he had said on the phone a few days earlier (not that Monsieur ever says anything in total innocence): ‘One day I will die. And when that time comes, I will regret that I didn’t spend more time with you.’
I had never thought in that way before: one day Monsieur would die. It was bound to happen. And when it did, I would be much older myself, maybe the age Monsieur was now, or more. With a husband, kids, a life. Of which Monsieur was no longer a part, I hoped. I prayed that I would only hear of it from a newspaper. Or never hear of it at all.
JANUARY
OK, so I said I was leaving. Bra, stockings, dress, cape. Shoes. My knickers are too far across the room. If I move any closer to the bed, he’ll wake up and, bloody hell, he’ll know why I’m leaving. And there’s no way I can let him know that without appearing rude.
Tuesday, half past noon, and I’m going home, or I think I am.
The door weighs a few tonnes. It says ‘Olivier Destelles’ on the card. If it works out this time, if I’m confident enough, it will have been the last time I read his name, the last time I touched the door handle, the last time I saw his face, the last time I confronted my own in his lift’s glass mirror.
I have a thousand transport connections to make before I get home, and right now my face is squashed against the window of a bus moving between Balard and the twelfth arrondissement, an area from which it will prove easier to reach my home. It’s not looking easy, but I’ve been in cruise control since I rushed out of the Destelles apartment. I’m not even sure if I managed to sleep. He’d snored. I’d cunningly switched my iPod on while still in the bed and listened to Atom Heart Mother. It didn’t move me as much as usual, and my idle brain had conjured up an elaborate theory about the parallels between Pink Floyd and Wagner. The first original thought I’d had in ages and I’d promised myself to write it down, although not quite now because of the awkward circumstances. I’d been having great difficulty writing down word after word, but this morning, on the bus, in the state I was in, it was virtually impossible. How I mourned all the frantic business of the past summer when I could sit at a table for hours, writing. Now inspiration goes walkabout every time I look at a sheet of paper. And I’m going out too much. I’m smoking too much. Too many vodkas. Too many guys. Too many days that begin at four in the afternoon. Too much sleep. I’ve become an expert at throwing myself into situations that never allow me any form of productivity.