Having been put in his place, Edmond grunted something and walked out.
François-Maxime finished carefully putting away his suit, shoes, and socks, annoyed at the fact that no sooner did men meet in a dressing room than they took the liberty of becoming familiar.
He was about to leave the room when he noticed that he had dropped the envelope he had picked up from his letterbox half an hour earlier. He slipped it in his pocket, promising himself that he would open it on his ride.
He walked to the looseboxes, paid his respects to the owner of the stables, then went to Bella, his bay mare. The stable boy had already groomed and saddled her, and was in the process of sliding in the bit. He patted the mare’s nose. She had a slender head and broad shoulders. She closed her eyes as he caressed her.
Finally, he mounted her; the animal’s high-set tail whipped the air, and they left the riding center.
At this time of day, there were few people tramping up and down the forest paths. An old lady was pulling a paralyzed poodle at the end of a leash. Farther on, a cheerful young Arab was walking some unleashed dogs, mutts he would collect from their owners in the morning and take out as a pack.
After riding past the tennis courts and bypassing the old racetrack, he took a path on which horses were allowed, then, leaving the Bois de Cambre, that part of the forest enclosed within the city, he plunged into the vast Forêt de Soignes itself and set off at a sitting gallop.
His thighs quivered against the mass of muscles. Giving his commands without shouting, in an even, almost low voice, he managed to forget himself in the saddle and merge with Bella.
At the crossroads, after glancing around to make sure nobody saw him, he left the riding track and followed a path strictly reserved for pedestrians.
After three sharp turns, he made his way into the trees and glimpsed the figures of solitary men walking around with their hands behind their backs.
He carried on straight ahead, then, some hundred yards from the first walkers, dismounted and tied his horse to a tree. He took five or six steps into the forest and leaned nonchalantly against the trunk of a squat oak.
A minute later, a young man of twenty in a white T-shirt appeared. His fists stuffed into the pocket of his jeans, he admired the horse, noticed its master, and approached, shifting his balance from one leg to the other, hesitating to cross the last few yards.
François-Maxime gave him a brooding look.
The young man hesitated shyly, unsure whether or not to continue. Then François-Maxime slid his fingers under his polo shirt, sensually caressed his chest, and lifted his face ecstatically to the sunbeam piercing the foliage, as if the young man wasn’t there.
The young man froze, stared at François-Maxime with lust, wet his lips several times, checked that nobody was coming in their direction, and took the last few steps toward him.
Their pelvises came together. Then the young man grabbed François-Maxime’s fly and opened it.
Without a word, content with sighs that expressed their level of satisfaction, each tended to the other’s organ.
François-Maxime kept his eyes on the path. Whether he was the one who desired or the one who was desired, he loved the fear that came with the tension: not only was he indulging in forbidden love, he was doing so in the open air, which added the pleasure of transgression. Such a contrast with the cozy bedroom where he would go to Séverine for more predictable embraces! Here, there was the fresh air of nature, the smell of humus and heather and spring and game, and the possibility that an intruder might appear. There was also the risk of a forest warden suddenly bursting in on him. Or even a police officer. There was no knowing.
François-Maxime indicated with a groan and more rapid breathing that he was about to come. The young man understood and reached his climax at the same time.
Their excitement subsided.
A blackbird flew across the undergrowth.
Sensing her master’s return, Bella gave a long neigh, impatient to stretch her legs. François-Maxime was jubilant: he was going to have a good day. The young man got up, rearranged his clothes, and smiled. François-Maxime responded with a benevolent look. Then the young man murmured, “My name’s Nikkos.”
François-Maxime closed his eyes for a second; he loathed that stupid compulsion men had to introduce themselves. What was pleasant in these fleeting exchanges was the furtiveness, the fact that bodies could exult far from the social comedy.
The young man was staring at him with large, beseeching eyes, waiting for a reply.
“I’m Maxence,” François-Maxime murmured.
The young man received the name as if it were a precious gift. Nikkos grabbed François-Maxime’s hand and whispered, shyly, “Goodbye, Maxence.”
“Ciao!”
François-Maxime went to Bella, stroked her muzzle, untied her, got in the saddle, and rode away; he hated postcoital tenderness; that kind of cloying sentiment could retrospectively spoil the pleasure he had experienced. As far as feelings went, he had an ample supply of them at home, with Séverine and the children. So it was best not to get his wires crossed.
Once he and his horse were back on the paths where riders were allowed, he relaxed, forgot about what he’d just done, and, pressing his long legs to the animal’s sides, thought about his work. He worked out a few plans and strategies for the current transactions, delighted with his mental clarity. He was sure he was going to have a splendid day.
The stiff corner of the envelope dug into his pelvis, and he realized he hadn’t opened the letter he had received that morning. He unsealed it and read it.
Just a note to tell you I love you. Signed: You know who.
He gave a gentle laugh. “Ah, Séverine . . . ” Smiling at the horizon, he declared out loud to the trees lining the paths, “I love you too, my darling!”
Delighted, he put the note in his pocket and decided that he would devote twenty minutes of his work time to going and buying the overpriced handbag she had seen on Avenue Louise. She deserved it, after all.
7
Two hundred and forty-two euros! Can you imagine? I gave him two hundred and forty-two euros up front to build my night table!”
Pulling on the thread of her tapestry, Mademoiselle Beauvert was only half-listening to Marcelle’s recriminations; careful not to ruin her embroidered rose, she lent only a casual ear because, whatever happened, the concierge’s prattling never veered away from two main lines: complaining or talking about money.
“I really need that night table, Mademoiselle! Because I changed my mattress. Because of my Afghan. Two hundred and forty-two euros I gave my son. Two hundred and forty-two euros, that’s quite a lot for a few pieces of wood!” Marcelle shook then spanked the heavy velvet folds, punishing them for attracting dust. “Two hundred and forty-two euros in his hand, and now he tells me he has other things to do.”
“What other things, my dear Marcelle?”
“Getting married!”
Furiously, Marcelle put the curtains back in their place against the wall. Then she crossed the room like an angry buffalo.
Deciphering what Marcelle had just told her, Mademoiselle Beauvert gave a start. “Your son’s getting married?”
“Yes, and because of that, the young gentleman isn’t doing odd jobs anymore. I can forget about my night table . . . And I’ve lost two hundred and forty-two euros.”
She said, “Two hundred and forty-two euros”, one more time, and disappeared into the kitchen.
Mademoiselle Beauvert wanted to follow her but decided not to, choosing instead to finish her pink rose petal, and above all to wait for Marcelle to get over her moaning.
Mademoiselle Beauvert raised her eyes to heaven. How did Marcelle organize her priorities? Putting two hundred and forty-two euros and a night table above her son’s wedding—that was just being stubborn! She could only see things from
her standpoint, a short, heavyset woman with a low forehead.
“Sergio! Sergio!”
“Yes, my darling, you’re right,” Mademoiselle Beauvert sighed.
“Sergio!” the voice insisted.
Mademoiselle Beauvert went over to the flame-red parrot, opened his cage, and put her arm in, inviting him to come out.
The bird gripped Mademoiselle Beauvert’s ring finger with his eight digits, let her release him from his prison, and rubbed himself on her angora pullover.
“Sergio!”
She increased her caresses; the parrot seemed insatiable, wriggling as if every stroke increased his craving.
“Yes, you understand me, Copernicus!”
Copernicus danced from one leg to the other.
At that moment, Marcelle reappeared, her fleshy lower lip drooping, her eyes bulging, her neck drawn down into her stout bust, displaying all the grace of a pit bull. “Yes, believe it or not, the little bastard’s getting married. And without even asking my opinion.”
“Aren’t you happy?”
“About what?”
“I don’t know . . . that he’s in love . . . that he’s finally found the right woman . . . ?”
“Well, he certainly looked for her. But whether or not he’s found her . . . ”
“Don’t you like her?”
“I don’t know. He hasn’t introduced her to me.”
“What?”
“That’s right. He doesn’t want it to happen at my place. He wants it to happen outside.”
In Mademoiselle Beauvert’s opinion, the son was right. Better not scare the girl off by bringing her to the lodge where Marcelle lived. A storage room that smelled of leeks and cabbage soup; the decoration was nothing but a heap of frightful trinkets, wooden roosters, porcelain spaniels, fluffy kittens, post office calendars, Vosges barometers, Swiss cuckoo clocks; armchairs, chest of drawers, and tables were decked out in crocheted doilies; as for the cleanliness of the place, it left a lot to be desired, even though Marcelle cleaned other people’s homes extremely well. Even if the bride came from a deprived background, she might still have taste.
“Sergio!” the parrot cried, Mademoiselle Beauvert having neglected him for a moment. She resumed stroking his hard skull.
Marcelle started polishing the TV set with great vigor. She gave it priority, considering it an important centerpiece in a home. “He’s obsessed, your Copernicus, isn’t he?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“He keeps repeating, ‘Sergio.’”
“Copernicus isn’t obsessed, he’s telepathic,” Mademoiselle Beauvert said huffily.
“Pardon me?”
“Telepathic.”
Marcelle looked blank, unable to catch the name of what she assumed was a medical condition.
“Look!” Pleased to demonstrate, Mademoiselle Beauvert set Copernicus down on the perch next to the TV. “He senses what I’m thinking.”
She walked away, sat in the armchair, ten feet away from him, and leafed through a magazine, staring down at it but hiding it from him. After a few seconds, the bird cried, “Oh, what a nice car!”
Radiant, Mademoiselle Beauvert stood up and showed Marcelle the magazine: one of the pages had an advertisement for a sports convertible.
“Amazing,” Marcelle grunted, looking at the parrot suspiciously.
“And now he’s going to guess what I’m about to do.”
She walked around the room, hesitated twice, then froze, struck by an idea. Immediately, the parrot chattered, “Telephone. Ring. Ring. Telephone.”
Simultaneously, Mademoiselle Beauvert showed Marcelle that she was already holding her cell phone in her right hand.
Marcelle scowled. She didn’t doubt the animal’s accomplishments but found them suspect.
Mademoiselle Beauvert advanced triumphantly. “I’ve calculated that he knows four hundred words.”
“Four hundred words! I’m not sure I know four hundred words.”
Mademoiselle Beauvert gave a high-pitched laugh bordering on hysteria. “Linguists claim that three hundred words are enough to get by in a language.”
Tight-jawed and grim-eyed, Marcelle looked at the parrot. “Get by? In that case, my Afghan knows fewer words than your parrot.”
Delighted by the triumph of her pet, Mademoiselle Beauvert decided to indulge herself even more and tapped Marcelle’s arm. “Marcelle, why do you say ‘my Afghan?’ Anyone would think you’re talking about a dog.”
“So? I love dogs too. I’ve had two. A Pekingese and a Bernese Mountain Dog. Unfortunately, they both died poisoned. Never had any luck with animals.”
Mademoiselle Beauvert bowed her head, eager to conceal from Marcelle the reason for those deaths: some of the building’s tenants had been unable to stand those noisy, flea-ridden mutts, so they had put rat poison in some meatballs and given them to the two wretched gluttons. Dismissing this thought, she said, “I insist, Marcelle: you shouldn’t say ‘my Afghan.’ The young man has a name.”
“Ghuncha Gul.”
“How’s that?”
“Ghuncha Gul. His first name is Ghuncha Gul.”
“Oh, dear . . . ”
“I won’t tell you his surname because I still can’t pronounce it.”
“Yes, it can’t be easy . . . And does it mean something?”
“Ghuncha Gul?”
“These names that are so exotic to our Western ears often express unexpectedly beautiful and poetic things.”
“Apparently, it means ‘bunch of flowers.’”
Mademoiselle Beauvert looked at her openmouthed: it was hard to connect a bunch of flowers with the hairy, broad-chested, dark-eyed fellow who shared the concierge’s bed.
Marcelle shrugged. “That’s why I prefer to call him my Afghan.”
The conversation being over, she went back into the kitchen.
Mademoiselle Beauvert withdrew into her shell. Too bad for her. Marcelle doesn’t deserve to know . . .
After her telepathy demonstration with Copernicus, she had expected Marcelle to ask: “Since the parrot says Sergio forty times a day, who is Sergio?” Yes, a minute ago, she would have divulged her secret, because there are times when you feel like disclosing something you’ve been hiding forever, mysteries you’ve kept under wraps for the longest time because they define you, because they are part of your identity, because they allow you to assert: This is me. Fortunately, the circumstances had prevented her from revealing her private truth.
At that moment, Marcelle reappeared, head forward, fists clenched. “Who’s Sergio?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Your parrot there, the psychopath who can read your thoughts, keeps saying Sergio. Does it mean you think about Sergio all day long?”
Mademoiselle Beauvert stood up, blushing as if she had been caught in the arms of a scoundrel, walked forward a few steps, making her skirt whirl around her, sat back down, arranged a couple of folds, made sure her hair had kept the shape she had fixed with spray, then murmured, her eyes sparkling, “Sergio was my first love.”
“No, really?” Marcelle came closer, her curiosity aroused. “How does he know that?”
“Who?”
“The parrot.”
Mademoiselle Beauvert studied the tips of her pumps, comfortable in her own embarrassment, delighted with the attention Marcelle was paying her. “When I was given Copernicus, I taught him the word.”
“Did Sergio give you Copernicus?”
“Good Lord, no. Copernicus arrived years later.”
“Phew . . . I wouldn’t have liked my lover to give me a parrot that kept repeating his name after he left me.”
Mademoiselle Beauvert got on her high horse. “What are you talking about, Marcelle? Sergio didn’t leave me.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
“He died.”
“He died?”
“Yes, obviously! Sergio drowned in the sea off the coast of Cyprus. His sailboat sank.”
“Was he alone?”
“Unfortunately, I was never able to share his passion for sailing, because I get seasick. And now I’m sorry. I would have preferred us to die together.”
A thousand times, Mademoiselle Beauvert had pictured that moment: the two of them standing side by side on the deck, the fatal wave sweeping them away . . . She would imagine their two bodies, lost in the storm, clinging to one another, then, aware that they were going to die, kissing for a long time before sinking. This way, they would not have died from drowning, but from a long slow kiss.
Overwhelmed with regret, she blinked. Marcelle grabbed her wrist in her callous palms. “Don’t cry, Mademoiselle.”
Liberated by these words, Mademoiselle Beauvert let tears flood her face. It was such a delight to display this suffering in public, yes, a delight, for once, not to sit and sob in a corner on her own.
Marcelle was saying affectionate words to her, accompanying them with rough little slaps. She seemed embarrassed.
At last, Mademoiselle Beauvert took a deep breath, a sign that she was determined to pull herself together.
Marcelle sighed. “Such a shame you didn’t have time to get married or have children.”
“Oh . . . Would it really have been a good idea to produce orphans?”
“Funny,” Marcelle said, trying to distract her. “I never think about my first love. I remember it well, but it’s in the past.”
“Not for me.”
“What stops me from thinking about it is the ones that came after.”
“What do you think, Marcelle, that I’ve only had one man in my life?”
“Well . . . yes . . . I mean, the parrot keeps repeating his name . . . ”
“I’ve known some extraordinary men, many extraordinary men.”
“Of course, Mademoiselle. You’re so pretty, so classy, so well turned out, I have no doubt men must find you attractive.”