Whatever the case may be, she said, Loubna Minbar, who now lived among the Bohemian chic and the gauche caviar, had changed. She avoided her own sisters, forgot her father's existence, and, above all, looked down on her fellow creatures, only agreeing to meet with them in order to advance her literary projects. Like that poor guy who'd gone off to Greenland, and had spent his time, compass in hand, trying to determine which way was Mecca. Like that poor girl—tossed back and forth between the demands of her mother, who was crazy, and those of a country that was going down the tubes—who from one day to the next had proclaimed herself to be The Sultana of the Kasbah. Or the young girl stricken with amnesia whom you could read about in The Kidnapper in the House Across the Street. Or the one with a crippled toe, in The Time of Punishments. Or the one whose pubic hair was white as snow, in Djamila and her Mother. Had I read any of those books? she asked suddenly.
"Which books?"
"Well, the ones by you-know-who … Loubna Minbar …"
"Uh … no," I said. "In any case," she continued. "Anyone who goes near that woman—she steals people's lives—inevitably ends up losing their mind. Just reading her is enough to send you round the bend."
"Oh, really?"
"Yes," she said, nodding, gravely raising an eyebrow as if to reinforce the veracity of her words. And, she had concluded, she was in a good position to know …
As I was certain she didn't know you from Adam, and that I was dealing with an expert compulsive liar, to be honest, I really couldn't care less what sort of mental state she was in; my prevailing interest was to drag her off to my little Versailles and peel off the layers on top of the string that you could see sticking out of her trousers. So I insisted upon the fact that it really didn't matter to me to meet her friend, and I began to ask her questions about her life. At present …
Cheerful and obliging straight off the bat, she informed me that she lived in the 20th arrondissement, on rue de Ménilmontant, in a fairly spacious apartment on the sixth floor; there was an elevator, but the apartment faced north, and was so dark that she had to have the light on all the time, and above all it cost an arm and a leg, but she shared it, fortunately, with two colleagues from the publishing house where for the last five years she had been in charge of final edits on manuscripts. One of her colleagues was going to throw a big party for her for her fourtieth birthday, and she would invite me. If I wanted her to. I did not, obviously, but I said, "Please," and she said, "Good, good," and then she started on her communal living arrangements, how the chores were divided up, little dinner parties among friends, and so on. Addled by the wine, annoyed, I was no longer listening. I was struggling against the urge to grab hold of her and drag her to the very place where I had been intending to drag her all along, and I let my brain go into overdrive: Why must you wait for your girlfriend's party, my lovely? And if your insalubrious and overpopulated abode will not do, I shall cordially invite you to my own, which is hardly a dump, but rather a nest where you will be cosseted like a precious tropical bird. An aging tropical bird, to be sure, but one who leaves no doubts as to her erotic potential. You shall drink my scotch, you shall waddle among my furnishings and my magnificent ceiling, you shall gaze at your reflection in my authentic period mirrors and in the mother-of-pearl of my eyes, you will splash about in the oval bathtub and between my virile legs, you will roll on my carpets and on my perfumed skin, we shall rumple and soak the satin sheets …
My priceless satin sheets. An arm and a leg. A small fortune. She talked about her roommates—one was Chilean, the other Cuban, both refugees, and like her they'd had a rough time of it, they were survivors, damaged but full of life and talent, who scouted for Hispanic authors or something like that. I couldn't take it any more so I downed my digestif in one and asked her if they were pretty. "Who, pretty?" she said. "Your roommates," I replied indolently, one eye glued to the naked woman at the bottom of my little saké cup. For a moment her gaze once again took on that hard and frightened expression. And then, serenely, a bit royally even, she took a big gulp of wine and lit a cigarette. She blew the smoke sideways and raised an eyebrow, and her expression seemed to say that here was a guy who did not deserve her company, a guy who was insane, unhinged, a pervert …
No, mademoiselle, I am not insane, I am a virgin who has had enough, and I am inviting you to offer me your pussy, because, young-woman-who-is-close-to-my-mother's-age, while I do know more or less what that creature looks like (how often had I spent my lunch hour hanging out at the Musée d'Orsay to gaze at the dominant red tones of Courbet's L'Origine du monde), I know nothing about its odor or its texture. And you, young-woman-who-is-forty-four-years-old-who-could-be-themother-of-my-little-sister, what color is your fleece? as black as your smoldering irises? or already made hoary by time and the ageing pricks you have received therein? And so on with my rambling until silence reached a peak. Fearing that she might simply end the evening, I set out to repair my blunder. "I just wanted to know whether your roommates are as pretty as you are," I said, smiling to the full extent of my very white teeth. Shrugging her shoulders with disdain, she stubbed out her cigarette and poured herself another glass of wine. "You are very pretty, you know," I ventured. "Thank you," she said, without the slightest emotion. "And you?"
"Me?"
"What do you think of me?" She raised both eyebrows. "I mean, physically, and all …"
"Fine," she began, somewhat addled by my question, as if she had no clue as to my motivations, as if I had invited her there for no other purpose than to hear her reel off all her insane nonsense. "Fine, in what way?" I insisted. "Fine … Perfectly fine."
"And?"
"You are a regular sultan," she said, without a moment's hesitation, taking in my Ralph Lauren shirt, and the Montblanc pen that was peeking conspicuously out of the shirt pocket. "Thank you," I said, proud as a peacock, at that point far from suspecting anything that might remotely have resembled an allusion or a touch of irony on her part, still less a premonition. And what if this were a head-on attack on your part? "So, why don't we become lovers?" I added right away, lightly and discreetly touching my left ear, staring at the wrinklethat cut subtly across her forehead. "You've had a bit to drink," she said, with icy indulgence. "I'm serious," I persisted. At which point she laughed, gently, with that same indulgence. And then, utterly unexpectedly, she placed her hand on my arm. Convinced that she was accepting my proposition at last, that she would go with me right there and then to my quarters, I began chomping at the bit: "Fine. I'll get the check and let's get out of here."
"I'm already with someone," she said, withdrawing her hand. "I'm sure you are," I retorted. "Even if you had children and in-laws and cousins and an entire tribe—"
"Nothing like that," she interrupted. "Fine, fine," I said again, chomping some more at the bit and waving to the waiter. "Let me pay and we can go." She smiled, almost tenderly. "Listen, Mohamed, I just told you, I'm with someone …"
"Frankly, that doesn't bother me," I said. "Well it bothers me," she said sharply, crushing her cigarette. Sensing defeat, imagining my empty-handed return to my luxurious apartment, I was about to resign myself and leave this sicko behind, but I told her to think about my proposition. She poured some more wine and said, "Okay." She's flattered, I thought. Forty-four years old, a woman can be nothing but flattered by so much solicitude. And she must be making a list of all my qualities. Young. Single. Cultured. Enviable professional status. A fine address. Physique not bad, not bad at all, and I had neither bad breath nor smelly feet, and in fact I had just come from the hammam at Barbès, where I'd let myself be royally pampered, massaged, and exfoliated, and I'd had my pubic hair trimmed, my nails filed, and my armpits perfumed. That's what my father used to do when he had his paid leave. That's what any good Muslim will do before copulating. In any event, Arabs like me are in short supply on the streets of Saint-Germain. And I knew, or at least I thought I knew, through my cousin in particular, that Algerian women, of whatever stripe, educated or
illiterate, from a comfortable or modest milieu, born in Constantine or Amiens or Malibu, aspired to only one thing: to hook up with an Algerian man. No long-winded negotiations regarding conversion. No need to Islamicize the name.
No circumcision. So the "emancipated women" came looking for us, if not among the epicureans, at least among the non-practicing. Was I not, now, one of them? Moreover, I wasn't asking for the moon, in the name of a life of babasse.1 Just a few nights. One night. Had she not offered herself when she was young and surely prettier than she was now at the age of forty to men who were repulsive to her? Her mind suddenly elsewhere, as if she were in a hurry to leave the place, to leave me, basically, she again blew her cigarette smoke to one side and looked at her watch. "It's getting late," she murmured, just as the waiter was putting the check on the table. And she wished to contribute to her share of said check. Given the defeat I was about to suffer, I could have let her go ahead. But as a gentleman through and through, and one who wished he could keep her for the night—above all, perhaps, I had hoped she would at least agree to a nightcap at my place—I raised my hand ostentatiously and said, "It's out of the question." And paid for the lot with my American Express.
Outside the restaurant, my invitation for a "nightcap" was irremediably declined, and she thanked me for dinner, then placed a kiss on my cheek. One kiss. One alone. A sign, I thought, of encouragement, that next time, maybe tomorrow, since Monday was my day off, and the publishing house where she worked was in the neighborhood, after a nice boozy lunch, she would end up in my bed. Until the early morning.
"And tomorrow?"
"What about tomorrow?"
"We could have lunch …"
"Call me," she said, hailing a taxi with the ease of the true
1An abbot or a priest, pejorative word used to describe an old bachelor (Mohamed).
Parisian woman. "I don't have your number," I said. "Here," she said, handing me a business card. Then she got into the taxi and waved. She's flattered, I thought again, watching the taxi pull away. She's flattered, I could not stop thinking, as I closed the door to my apartment. Flattered, but the fact remained: I had come home alone. My first weekend as a free man, he said, and I had come home alone. Like a condemned man. How would I make it through the night? No television. No girly magazines to consult. Not even anyone across the way, some silhouette in the night to keep me company. As for writing, my soaked brain would not last a single line. What if I called her on her cell phone? I would excuse myself profusely for my lack of tact, and renew my invitation. Maybe this time she'd relent? Maybe I had just not insisted hard enough, and she was afraid of being taken for an easy lay? That must be it, I thought. She didn't want me to think she was fast.
So I put on my slippers, and opened my cell phone, ready to call her. If I insisted too much, however, it could compromise our next meeting. And this forty-something was all I had to nibble on, so to speak, because, although it may have been summer, my work at the bank was piling up, I had files to catch up on, and the intern, ugly as a louse—how in this day of lasers and contact lenses can anyone still have bifocal glasses?—was about as efficient as a twit. In short, I did not know any other women, and given the endless stacks of toil ahead, I would not know any other women until my vacation, scheduled for winter, during which, as I promised my mother, I would be somewhere between Mecca and Medina. Pilgrimage, I thought, rubbing my hands, during which I would have ample opportunity to expiate my upcoming infallible fornication.
For I was certain that the forty-something would fall into my arms. As of the very next day. Call me, she had said, as she was hailing her taxi.
In practice, I knew nothing about women. That is true. But in theory, I knew more than enough to suspect that she had acted cold all the better to give herself to me, warmed to perfection, when the time came. Could it be, too, that she had never suspected a cool dude like myself would court her, so she had neglected to wax? or she had her period? or maybe she was simply someone whose maxim in life was "slowly but surely"? Translation: a good fuck, all in good time. She'd methodically gone about getting her passport, in Algiers, and then her papers in Paris, and now she was planning to end her career as an old maid in exile without a family. Was I not the ideal candidate? The sultan of Saint-Germain? An excellent party, who would give her nothing to be ashamed of?
Thus, I gave up on the idea of calling her, and once again regretted the absence of a television. All that was left to do was inaugurate the bottle of single malt. Alone. I switched on my factory-style lamp, then lit the candle with its whiff of musk, the one I had set by the fireplace in anticipation of the evening, along with the dozen or so little candles all around the bathtub. But they would be for another time. Call me, she had said, hailing her taxi.
After I had put on a CD, Brahms's fourth symphony—also premeditated—I opened the bottle of scotch and breathed in thearoma of leather and peat. That forty-something seemed to like her booze and, despite her age and the hard times she'd been through, she could hold it well. She would have liked this scotch. But she'd run away.
As I took my first swallow, the flashing light on the answering machine caught my eye. And what if, while I was on my way home, she had phoned to tell me she'd come for that nightcap after all?
I swallowed the scotch down in one gulp, lit a cigarette, and listened to the calls. Five, all from my mother, and I erased them right away. I sank deep into my leather sofa, with my feet on the coffee table, poured another glass, and meditated upon the present moment, inclined to savor it just as I intended to savor this second glass.
Then I heard the iron curtain of the brasserie coming down, which told me that it was two o'clock in the morning, and that millions of men and women on the planet were swapping their saliva, their secretions. Whereas I was high and dry. In this labyrinth of boredom. No television. No slits or clefts or odors or sweat, I ruminated, cursing the old lady right back to her first ancestor.
I poured some more to drink, crumpled the empty pack of cigarettes and opened another. As I was clicking the lighter I thought that a call girl could get me out of all this. Out of solitude and out of abstinence. That the forty-something from the Kasbah could go to hell with her roommates and her "I'm with someone." A little surf on the Internet and no sooner said than done.
But how much would it cost me, I wondered, switching on the computer. I'm not stingy, but still. I had just maxed out my American Express card at the Thai restaurant; Mademoiselle Bouchnaffa had chosen the wine; her expensive tastes had shot up the total on the check and, of course, two whole bottles had endedup in our glasses. In hers, above all. Drunk to the dregs.
I gave up on the call girl idea and ordered a few books through my usual provider. I switched the machine off and took the few steps back into my lovely living room. I swept the room with my gaze, appreciating my furniture, the way I'd arranged things, the fireplace, the French doors that opened out onto the balcony. Mademoiselle Papinot would be really impressed by my expensive taste …
And what if I called her? I could use a sudden decision to buy an apartment as a pretext. In the 20th or the 18th arrondissement. I could say that such a decision warranted our meeting within the hour. She would climb out of her warm sheets and call a taxi, which I would pay for. I would wait for her downstairs, I'd open the front door to her, she'd be scantily dressed, perhaps even stark naked beneath a raincoat, she would reveal all her finery to me, in the elevator, I would promise her a fur coat, for winter, and a vacation in Chamonix. All pie in the sky. It goes without saying. But none the less persuasive. That too goes without saying.
And so on and so forth with all a novice's vague desires, until my brain grew quite soft and the bottle was empty. Then I took a Stilnox and went into the bedroom, taking my cell phone with me, just in case Hadda Bouchnaffa, filled with remorse or overcome with a sudden desire to get it off, decided to call me.
Naked as a worm, a luxury I could at last indulge in, I slipped under the comforter and promised
myself I would commit no more blunders.
Are they pretty? I heard myself say, just as I was drifting into a sleep as deep as death. I was dreaming of three brunettes, he said, with round, firm, quivering breasts, when the ringing of the phone woke me up. I switched on the night light and read the name on the screen. "Good morning, my mother …"
"How did you know it was me?"
"It says so on the screen, my mother …"
"But I'm not calling you on your cell phone."
"But it says so on the landline, too …"
"Aren't you up yet, apple of my eye?"
"I went to bed late. An urgent file …"
"These nights of staying up late are going to wear you out."
"Yes, my mother." I looked at my watch. It wasn't even nine o'clock. "It's Sunday, my mother, and at this time of day, the entire city is asleep."
"I won't bother you much longer, my son, but I hope you haven't forgotten that you're having lunch at home? Your brother-in-law and sister will be here …" Of course I had forgotten. Not only had I forgotten, but I had planned on spending the entire day in bed. With the fortysomething. Who had run away. "No, my mother, I hadn't forgotten."
"I called you over four times to remind you. You never pick up the phone."
"I stayed in my office."
"Your cell phone was switched off."
"I had a lot of work …"
"May God assist you, my son. But try to be on time for lunch. Your brother went to do the shopping. By metro, the poor boy. I hope he won't be late. We had all been counting on you to do the shopping. It's so much easier with the car. I asked you to in one of my messages." I yawned audibly. "So you don't listen to your messages?"
"I got home late, my mother."
"I'll be off now, but please be on time, apple of my eye."
The Sexual Life of an Islamist in Paris Page 9
