“Liar. I can tell, from your performance. Your fine manners, your airs of lord and master, all that.”
“Are you jealous?”
“Hell, no. That’s all I need. How can I be jealous of a bag of bones? Hey, do I have Salvation Army written all over my forehead or something?”
“You’re not jealous of me, not jealous of her—so maybe you just feel it’s become a tad too crowded here all of a sudden and you don’t feel like moving your rinse cup a scant few inches to the right?”
“Well, there you go. Your fancy speeches . . . Every time you open your mouth it’s as if you think you sound so good someone should be writing down everything you say.”
Philibert didn’t reply.
“Hey, I know this is your place and all, that’s not the problem. You can invite whoever you want, provide a home for whoever you want, go ahead and open a soup kitchen if you feel like it, but shit, I don’t know, we were a good little team, the two of us, no?”
“Do you think so?”
“Yeah, I think so. Okay—I know I have my moods and you have all your weird hang-ups, all your junk, your obsessive-compulsive disorder, but on the whole things were going fine until today.”
“And why should they change?”
“Pfff . . . I can see you know nothing about women, Philibert. Listen, I’m not saying that to hurt you, okay? It’s just true, that’s all. The minute you let a girl in, all hell breaks loose, man. Everything gets complicated, everything becomes a hassle and even the best buddies end up at each other’s throats . . . Now why are you laughing?”
“Because the way you express yourself . . . like a cowboy. I did not know I was your . . . buddy.”
“Okay, forget it. I just think you could have talked to me about it beforehand, you know?”
“I was going to talk to you.”
“When?”
“Here, right now, over my bowl of chocolate, if you’d let me make it properly.”
“I’m sorry about—no, I’m not supposed to say sorry about, right? I’m sorry for doing whatever it was I did. Right?”
“Exactly so.”
“You on your way to work?”
“Yes.”
“Me too. C’mon. I’ll buy you a hot chocolate downstairs.”
When they were already in the courtyard, Franck fired his last round:
“On top of everything else, you don’t even know who she is, where she comes from or anything about her.”
“I shall show you where she comes from. Follow me.”
“Huh. You won’t get me climbing up seven flights of stairs.”
“I will too. I am absolutely counting on you to do just that. Follow me.”
This was the first time in their entire acquaintance that Philibert had asked Franck to do something. Franck grumbled as much as he could and followed him up the service stairway.
“Shit, it’s freezing in here!”
“This is nothing. Wait until we get up under the roof.”
Philibert opened the padlock and pushed the door.
Franck was silent for a moment, then said, “This is where she sleeps?”
“Yes.”
“You sure?”
“Come here, I want to show you something else.”
He led Franck down the corridor, kicked another wobbly door and added, “This is her bathroom. The toilet below, the shower above. You have to admit it’s pretty ingenious.”
They went back down the stairs in silence.
Franck said nothing until after his third coffee: “Okay, just one thing, then. You explain to her that it’s real important for me to get my sleep in the afternoon and all that.”
“Yes, I shall tell her. We’ll both tell her. But I don’t imagine it will be a problem, because she’ll be sleeping, too.”
“Why?”
“She works at night.”
“What does she do?”
“Cleans houses.”
“What?”
“She’s a cleaning lady.”
“Are you sure?”
“Why would she lie to me?”
“How do I know? Could be she’s actually a call girl.”
“She would be more, uh, curvaceous.”
“Yeah, you’re right. Hey, you’re not so dumb!” he added, giving Philibert a big slap on the back.
“Oh, w-watch it, you’ve made me drop my cr-croissant, i-idiot. Look, it is like an old je-je-jellyfish now.”
Franck didn’t care, he was reading the headlines of the Parisien on the counter.
Outside the café they shook themselves as if to banish the cold.
“Hey—”
“What?”
“Hasn’t that chick got any family?”
“You see,” began Philibert, tying his scarf, “that is precisely the sort of question I have never allowed myself to ask you.”
Franck looked up and smiled at him.
When he got to work he asked his commis to put some bouillon aside for him.
“And hey.”
“What?”
“The good stuff, okay?”
27
CAMILLE decided to stop taking the half tablet of Lexomil every evening that the doctor had prescribed. For one thing she couldn’t stand the sort of semicomatose state she was floundering in, and for another she didn’t want to run the risk of getting accustomed to it. All through her childhood she had been witness to her mother’s hysteria at the thought of trying to sleep without her pills, and those crises had had a lasting traumatic effect.
Camille had just awoken from yet another nap and had no idea of the time, but she decided to get up, give herself a good shake and, for a change, get dressed, then go up to her place to see if she was ready to pick up the thread of her little life where she had left it.
On her way through the kitchen to take the back stairs she came upon a note stuck under a bottle filled with a yellowish liquid.
Reheat in a saucepan, make sure you dont boil it. Add the noodles when its bubbling and let it cook 4 minutes, stiring gentley.
It didn’t look like Philibert’s handwriting.
The lock had been broken and the little she owned on this planet—her last ties to the past, her tiny little realm—had been devastated.
Instinctively she rushed to the little plaid suitcase gaping open on the floor. No, that was okay, they hadn’t taken anything and her art portfolios were still there.
Her mouth twisted to one side, her heart in her throat, she steeled herself to tidy up and see what was missing.
Nothing was missing, and for good reason: she didn’t own a thing. Well, there had been a clock radio. That was it. What carnage for one little piece of junk she probably paid next to nothing for at a Chinese shop.
Camille picked up her clothes, piled them into a box, bent down to retrieve her suitcase and left the room without a backward glance. She waited until she was in the stairway and then she let it all out.
Outside the pantry she blew her nose, put her stuff down on the landing, and sat on a step to roll a cigarette. The first one in a long time . . . The automatic timer on the overhead light had switched off, but it didn’t matter, quite the reverse.
Quite the reverse, she murmured, quite the reverse.
She thought about that nasty theory which held that as long as you were on your way down, there was no point in trying anything new and you had to wait until you touched bottom before you could give that salutary little kick that was the only thing that would help you back up to the surface.
Right.
She’d done that now, no?
She glanced at her box, ran her hand over her angular face and scooted over to avoid the nasty insect that was scampering between two cracks.
Uh, say that again? She’d done that now, no?
When Camille went into the kitchen, it was Franck’s turn to jump.
“You’re up? I thought you were asleep.”
“Hello.”
“Franck Lestafier.”
“Camille.??
?
“Did you, did you see my note?”
“Yes, but I—”
“Are you moving your things? You need a hand?”
“No, I . . . well, this is all I’ve got left, to be honest. I’ve been burgled.”
“Oh, shit.”
“Yup, that’s right. That about sums it up. Well, I’m going back to bed, because I feel kind of dizzy and—”
“Want me to fix the consommé for you?”
“Pardon?”
“The consommé?”
“Consumer what?”
“The bouillon!”
“Oh, sorry. No. Thanks. I’m going to sleep some, first.”
“Hey!” he shouted when she was already in the hall, “the very reason you feel dizzy is because you’re not eating enough!”
Camille sighed. Diplomacy, diplomacy . . . Given that he seemed to be a real idiot, better not screw up already in the first scene. So she went back into the kitchen and sat down at the end of the table.
“You’re right.”
Franck began muttering to himself. Make up your mind . . . Of course I’m right . . . Fuck it anyway . . . Now I’ll be in a rush.
He turned his back and set to work.
He poured the contents of the saucepan into a soup plate, then took a folded paper towel out of the fridge and proceeded to unfold it with care. Inside was some sort of green stuff that he cut into tiny slivers over the steaming soup.
“What’s that?” she asked.
“Coriander.”
“And what do you call those little noodles?”
“Pearls from Japan.”
“Really? That’s a pretty name.”
He grabbed his jacket and slammed the front door as he went out, shaking his head: Really? That’s a pretty name.
What a fucking moron, that girl.
28
CAMILLE sighed and pulled the soup plate absentmindedly toward herself, thinking about her burglar. Who’d done it? The ghost in the corridor? Some stray visitor? Did they get in from the roof? Was there a chance they’d come back? Should she mention it to Pierre?
The smell—the fumet, more like—of the bouillon stopped her from brooding. Mmm, it was wonderful; she almost felt like draping her napkin over her head to better inhale the steam. What on earth was in it? It was a very particular color: warm, oily, golden brown, cadmium yellow. With the translucent pearls and the emerald slivers of chopped herb, it was a joy to behold. She stayed like that for a few seconds, respectfully, with her spoon poised. Then, quite slowly because it was very hot, she took her first sip.
Camille then found herself in the same state as Marcel Proust, minus the childhood memory: “intent upon the extraordinary thing that was happening . . .” and she finished her plate religiously, closing her eyes between each spoonful.
Maybe it was just that she’d been dying of hunger without knowing it, or maybe it was because for three days she’d been forcing herself, with a grimace, to swallow down Philibert’s cartons of soup, or maybe it was due to the fact that she hadn’t been smoking as much as usual, but in any event, one thing was certain: never in her life had she had such a pleasurable experience of solitary dining. She got up to see if there was anything left in the bottom of the pan: alas, no. She lifted the soup plate to her lips, so as not to miss a drop, then clicked her tongue, washed the dish and reached for the open packet of noodles. Lining up some of the pearls on top of Franck’s note, she wrote, “Wow!” then went back to bed, where she ran her palm over her nicely distended tummy.
Sweet Jesus, thank you.
29
THE end of Camille’s convalescence went by too quickly. She never saw Franck, but she knew when he was there: by the sound of the stereo, the television, slamming doors, animated phone conversations, rowdy laughter and rough cussing—and she could tell that the noise was not entirely accidental. He was the restless type, and he let his life reverberate to the four corners of the apartment, like a dog pissing everywhere to mark its territory. There were times Camille really wanted to go back to her room upstairs and be on her own again, not beholden to anyone. But other times she didn’t. Other times she would begin to shiver at the very idea of sleeping on the floor again, or of climbing up seven flights of stairs, clinging to the banister so she wouldn’t fall.
So it was complicated.
She didn’t know where she belonged anymore, and besides, she liked Philibert. Why was she always berating herself—beating her breast, with clenched teeth? For the sake of her independence? What the hell kind of victory was that? She’d scarcely talked about anything else for years—and for what? How far had she come? To a dump where she spent her afternoons smoking one cigarette after the other, rehashing her destiny yet again? It was pathetic. She was pathetic. Here she was going to be twenty-seven years old and up to now she hadn’t managed to produce a single thing she could call her own. No friends, no memories, not one reason to be the least bit kind to herself. What had happened? Why had she never managed to clasp her hands together and keep just two or three precious things between them?
Camille grew thoughtful. She felt rested. And when that sweet gangly monkey would come and read to her, then quietly shut the door behind him—rolling his eyes to the ceiling since that other baboon was listening to his “Zulu” music—Camille would smile at him and, for a moment, escape the force of the hurricane.
She had begun drawing again.
Just like that.
For no particular reason. For her own sake. For the pleasure of it.
She had picked out a new sketchbook, the last one she had, and broken it in by recording everything she saw around her: the fireplace, the designs on the drapes, the window catch, the goofy smiles of Shaggy and Scooby-Doo, the picture frames, the paintings themselves, the lady’s cameo and the gentleman’s severe-looking riding coat. A still life of her clothes with her belt buckle left on the floor; clouds, a vapor trail, the treetops beyond the ironwork of the balcony; and a self-portrait taken from her bed.
Because of the spots on the mirror and her short hair, she looked like a kid with chicken pox.
It felt as natural as breathing to be drawing again. Turning the pages without thinking, stopping only to pour a little India ink into a small dish and refill her pen. She had not felt this calm, this alive—so simply alive—for years.
But it was Philibert, the way he had about him, that she liked best of all. He would get so absorbed by his own stories, his face suddenly so expressive or passionate or crestfallen (oh, poor Marie Antoinette!), that she asked for permission to sketch him.
Of course he stuttered a bit in the beginning, a pure formality, then just as quickly forgot about the sound of the pen scratching across the paper.
Sometimes it went:
“ ‘But Madame d’Étampes did not fall in love in the same way as Madame de Châteaubriant, she could scarcely be satisfied with mere trifles. She dreamt above all of obtaining favors for herself and her family. Indeed, she had thirty brothers and sisters. Courageously, she set to work.
“ ‘She was clever, and she knew how to take advantage of every spare moment which the need to catch her breath between two spells of embracing afforded her, in order to wrench from the King—now sated and out of breath—the nominations or advances she desired.
“ ‘Finally, all the Pisseleu family were endowed with important duties, generally of an ecclesiastic nature, for the King’s mistress was “the religious sort.”
“ ‘Antoine Seguin, her maternal uncle, became abbot of Fleury-sur-Loire, bishop of Orléans, cardinal, and finally, archbishop of Toulouse. Charles de Pisseleu, her second brother, had the abbey at Bourgueil and the Bishopric of Condom.’ ”
He raised his head: “Condom. You have to admit it is rather naughty.”
And Camille would hurry to capture that particular smile, the amused rapture of a young man who could leaf his way through the history of France the way others would flip through a girlie magazine.
Or it
might be something like:
“ ‘. . . as the prisons had become inadequate, Carrier, an all-powerful autocrat, surrounded by deserving collaborators, opened new jails and requisitioned ships in the harbor. Soon typhoid fever would ravage the thousands of people incarcerated in abominable conditions. The guillotine could not keep up, so the proconsul ordered that thousands of prisoners be shot, and to the firing squads he assigned a “burial corps.” Then, as the number of prisoners in the city continued to grow, he invented the drownings.
“ ‘For his part, General Westermann wrote: “Citizens of the Republic, the Vendée no longer exists. Beneath our saber of freedom, with its women and children it has died. I have buried it in the swamps and forests of Savenay. Upon your orders, I have crushed the children beneath the hooves of my horses and massacred the women who—these women at least—will no longer give birth to brigands. I do not have a single prisoner with which to reproach myself.” ’ ”
And all it took was a shadow sketched across his tense face.
“Are you drawing or are you listening?”
“I’m listening while I draw.”
“That Westermann. That same monster who served his fine new motherland with so much fervor, well, just imagine, he was captured with Danton a few months later and lost his head alongside him.”
“Why?”
“Accused of cowardice. He was lukewarm.”
At other times Philibert would ask Camille’s permission to sit in the wing chair and the two of them would read in silence.
“Philibert?”
“Mmm?”
“The postcards?”
“Yes?”
“Are you going to do that for long?”
“I beg your pardon?”