Elle

by Philippe Djian

  He smiles. At this rate, pretty soon he’ll be hugging me every morning and every night.

  I don’t regret promising I’ll be there for him. It’s absolutely true. I’ll be there for him to my dying breath, but he’s in my office practically all day long, pacing up and down, gnashing his teeth behind my back, standing at my window opposite the office towers sticking up into the white, once again snowy sky, walking up and down, checking his cell, ostentatiously smoking cigarettes, while I am overloaded with work. Anna motions for me to be patient.

  I have nothing for lunch and nothing that night either. “The first day is the hardest,” I say.

  “Really? What do you know about it?”

  He picks up a shovel and in near total darkness—the moonlight isn’t very hardy—he starts frantically clearing the snow outside.

  When he comes back inside, he’s soaked with sweat but I can see he’s gotten rid of a lot of the tension building inside him. His father used to do the same thing in winter when we had arguments. At other times he would take it out on the dead leaves, burning them, or yanking up weeds or chopping wood. I never realized Josie—though I have always been wary of the attraction weak-minded men can have for heavy-set women—I never realized Josie could leave him so distraught, that he cared about her that much. I just don’t get it. I haven’t been as quick, or sharp, or clever as I should have been in this whole thing. I’m nearing fifty, so that isn’t exactly reassuring.

  A little later, I realize once again that I’m all wrong. It’s lousy mothering, but I resort to a few glasses of white wine to loosen his tongue. Be that as it may, I’m beginning to glimpse another reality taking shape little by little like a jigsaw puzzle, and the obvious fact suddenly leaps out at me: It’s not Josie he wants, it’s his son. It’s not the woman, it’s the child.

  All sorts of attitudes and remarks suddenly make sense, but I couldn’t see it when it was right there in front of me, couldn’t hear it ringing in my ears. I wasn’t capable of imagining anything beyond these never-ending couple’s quarrels. I have been completely blind. I sit quietly next to him and take his hand, and he’s drunk enough not to find this worrisome. I can’t sleep that night. It’s an enormous, dizzying, endless jumble of a night, and bright and early the next day, we run into Patrick at the minimart. Actually, Vincent and Patrick run into each other in who-knows-what aisle and come toward me together, talking and smiling like friends.

  And that loathsome Patrick—wouldn’t you know it?—has the gall to lean over and kiss me hello. I stiffen like I’m going to be touched by a leper, but he pays no attention, his lips landing on each cheek, even more insistently since he is holding me tightly by the biceps as he does it. When he lets go, I quickly attempt to hide my confusion, my jumpiness and flutter, grabbing the first thing I find, in this case a five-pack of number-three spaghettini, which I add to my cart and go on my way, ignoring him.

  Unfortunately, he is charming this morning and, although I am as recalcitrant as I can possibly be, he winds up making me smile. Still, I avoid meeting eyes with him, in order to keep my head. Why does this have to be so complicated? Why do I wind up with a sex maniac when all I want is gentleness, calm, a little respite after all the tumultuous events of these last few months?

  We’re at his place, having a drink, joking, slapping together a meal on the spur of the moment. I must be hallucinating. I don’t know how on earth we got here, how I could have agreed to set foot inside this house—it’s a total mystery to me. It was probably Vincent in part. He thinks Patrick is a really nice guy and he’s eager to get a look at that collection of five thousand vinyl LPs Patrick told us about as we came through the checkout counter and outside, under a blue sky. But I didn’t merely cave in to Vincent. It’s this other me coming out, though I fight it tooth and nail. It’s a me that invites confusion, flux, unexplored territories. I don’t know. I can’t screw open my head and take a look inside. Regardless, here I am setting the table, astounded by my own fearlessness, while the boys are at work in the kitchen, clamoring for another bottle of wine. Vincent drank just the night before, but he argues that in light of the awful uncertainty in his life right now he could use a little break, a couple of laughs. He waves off my objections as he pours himself another glass. I watch him and I can feel the first signs of desertion in my ranks.

  When last heard from, Rébecca spent the night somewhere near Gijón, in the Asturias region. I listen with rapt attention as Patrick goes on about his wife’s pilgrimage, while Vincent sleeps with his eyes open at my side, having ignored my recommendation to go easy, thus leaving me ostensibly alone with our host who seems to want only to appear as pleasant as he can and who—however unjust this may be—succeeds with alarming ease. I know this comes from me, from my wanting him to succeed, and any prison screw could seem likable under those circumstances, but that’s just the way it is.

  It’s so nice and warm here that I unbutton my sweater and ask him about his heating system.

  “Wood boiler,” he says, “with inverted flame combustion.”

  “Oh, really? Inverted flame, uh-huh.”

  I don’t know the first thing about this, but I nod and look informed. The living room is decorated in “young white-collar”—pallid reissues and faux vintage—which gets boring very quickly, but the afternoon sun darts rays around the room, sprucing things up a little. Half asleep, Vincent slides down on the couch. His presence nevertheless changes everything and I feel fairly relaxed now that Patrick has given me some vintage brandy to taste and it has come gunning for my last lines of defense.

  “I’ve heard good things about ceiling heaters,” I blurt.

  His heating system is in the laundry room. I tell him I’m glad I got a look at all those machines, meters, electric cables, red, blue, black, and yellow pipes, the elbow joints, couplers, joiners, conduits, stopcocks, lag bolts, nuts, all that machinery. Continuing his little tour, he shows me the water heater. That’s fine, too, and huge. Next to it, the highly touted boiler purrs away. I’m about to ask him if heating oil is still a viable option when he suddenly grabs my wrist. I resist. I look at him straight in the eyes. “No, not here. Not now,” I tell him in a hush. He doesn’t let go, backs me up against the wall, sticks his knee between my legs. I back him off with a pelvic thrust. “Vincent is upstairs,” I say. He jumps me again. In our struggle, we knock over a metal cabinet and the drawers clatter onto the ground. I hit him in the face with my free hand. He roars and rubs himself against me. We go sprawling on the floor. Against a man’s body, a man’s strength, I don’t stand a chance. But what spices it up, the thing that would make me smile if I weren’t so busy fighting like a madwoman while he tries to get his penis inside me, is that it is within my power to stop this assault in one second, that it is up to me, a mere woman, whether or not to send this imbecile slinking back to his nest.

  It’s getting late in the afternoon but it’s still nice out. I gently shake Vincent’s shoulder. He has gone on with his innocent nap while, only a few steps away, I was being violated. He asks where he is, rubs his eyes and smiles, explaining that he fell asleep, though we had already gleaned as much. “It’s time to go home,” I say. He straightens up. Patrick brings our coats. I avoid his eyes. He sees us to the door. Vincent and I leave the house—upon closer examination, it is apparent that I am actually a step behind my son and, making use of that extra beat, I quickly turn toward Patrick and brush his lips with mine before continuing on past the car, cheeks still burning hot and cursing myself.

  As evening falls, Vincent starts pacing back and forth. Now and then, passing a window, he stops and looks outside at the dusk, growing darker with every passing minute. Then he goes back to his pacing. He’s very tense and nervous, the opposite of me. I’m very calmly garnishing a pizza—according to a recipe I got from Gino Sorbillo himself. I’m entirely relaxed, smooth forehead, shoulders loose, restless mood.

  He finally asks me if I have any grass left because he can’t take it anymore, Jos
ie’s silence has become intolerable. “Relax, they’re not going anywhere,” I tell him, but he isn’t reassured. When we sit down to eat he feels better, but he would feel even better if that bitch—this is more often than not how he now refers to Josie—would just tell him what’s going on.

  I’m sorry he isn’t happy. I’ve enjoyed these few days spent together—so different from the nightmare he and I went through after the divorce, where every day he blamed me for throwing his father out of the house, destroying our family, being merciless—and I would love to see him satisfied, like I am right now, so we can make the most of this unexpected, totally spontaneous time together.

  I watch him eat the pizza I made, and for the moment that’s enough to make me happy. I’m sort of floating. I’m probably still in shock—under the spell?—of this afternoon’s episode, which at the same time scares me. I feel somehow ashamed. I’m well aware of all that is sick about what Patrick and I engaged in this afternoon in the laundry room, about that demented relationship, that savage encounter, but I must be honest, I must face the truth. I liked holding his body in my arms, our limbs intermingled, his penis inside me, his wet tongue, his fingers like claws digging into my burning wrists, his hands in my hair, his lips forcing me to open my mouth. I liked all of that, I got off on it, I can’t pretend otherwise. I have fantasized about him so many times that I’m only half surprised, but the pure pleasure of it is such a rare prize that I’m still a little stunned, and so I only peck parsimoniously at my share of the cheese pizza.

  You can’t say that Vincent’s powers of observation have been at their peak since we sat down, but he does start staring at me as a little smile forms on his face. “Why do you look like that?” he asks.

  My eyes go wide. “I don’t know. What do I look like?”

  “You’re somewhere else completely.”

  “You’re the one who smoked up, Vincent. Not me.”

  I smile and stand up, supposedly because the salad needs spinning, in order to cut the conversation short. I feel like I’ve been caught with my hand in the cookie jar.

  I’m glad to see that Vincent has returned to his dark brooding about being a dispossessed father and has forgotten about me. This gives me a chance to slip away for a minute and get my honest woman face back on, adjusting the clip in my hair, wiping my forehead and my slightly flush cheeks with a moist washcloth.

  A little later, he really can’t take it anymore and, since I’m in a good mood and I’m short on ideas, I suggest we go get a closer look at what’s going on. I haven’t even finished my sentence and he’s already putting on his anorak.

  When we get to the building, the lights are on in his apartment. We park the car. I look at Vincent. “So now what do we do? Listen, my advice is to do nothing. Look. They’re in there. Everything is fine. You can relax now, right? He’s her son, too. She’s not going to eat him, right? Vincent, are you listening?”

  No, obviously, he’s not. He’s leaning over, his neck craned up toward those windows. Then he says, “Do me a favor and wait for me here. Five minutes.”

  “No, hey, honey, this is a bad idea.”

  He puts his hand on mine. “It’s all right,” he says. “Relax. I’m just going to put my ear to the door.”

  “What? No, that’s stupid. Don’t.”

  “Look, I’m a grown-up.”

  I follow him with my eyes as he rushes through the doors of the building. I keep the motor running for the heat. This is a quiet, peaceful neighborhood on a Saturday night, but there is an icy wind blowing. This is his show, after all. His mistakes and failures will help him grow. He’s almost twenty-five, I should stay out of this. He knows my opinion, whether he takes it to heart or not is up to him. I smoke a cigarette once I’ve opened my window an inch. I can feel I’m going to sleep very well tonight. My God. This is atrocious. I make sure I don’t have any messages on my phone. I remember one man very clearly, someone I knew a few years before I met Richard, who really blew me away sexually, so much so that his memory remained painfully keen deep in my heart. Now I feel that Patrick has reactivated those forgotten sensations, which I feared I would never feel again, given that some say these are once-in-a-lifetime thrills.

  My policy has been not to rush, in either direction, to keep my head. It’s clear that the problem has no solution. Having kissed Patrick on the lips is not going to make things any simpler, I’m well aware of that. I am pondering with regret that stupid adolescent kiss I bestowed upon him on my way out, as if the rest were not enough, and at that instant I see Vincent bursting through the lobby and racing to the car with the newborn in his arms. He jumps into the backseat. “Drive!” he barks. “Fucking drive!”

  I drive for a good minute without a word, then I pull over and turn around to Vincent to ask him if he’s completely out of his mind. I start to explain what kind of trouble he’s in but Édouard abruptly starts screaming his head off, making communication impossible and splitting our eardrums for a while.

  Then Vincent manages to calm him down. I watch him in the rearview mirror and he seems rather good at it, rather self-assured.

  “Is there any milk at home?” he asks.

  “You think I might have infant formula in my cupboard? That I have an assortment of diapers on hand? Vincent, you’re going to give this child back to his mother. You understand?”

  He’s not foolish enough to think he can pull this off, knows he acted too impulsively. But I think in the end he has what he wanted. He has taken Édouard upstairs for a bath and I am bowled over by his attentions with this baby, by the tenderness he shows him. I have never imagined Vincent in this light and he is also showing Josie that he is willing to fight, that there are no limits to what he’ll do. He’s killed two birds with one stone. That’s a good thing. I warm up in front of the fire and I call Josie to explain the situation to her.

  Right off the bat, she spares me no part of her bad mood. If I am hearing correctly, Vincent’s exploit caused a bit of a stir inside the apartment and now her compact stereo is in pieces.

  “Don’t worry about your stereo, Josie, I’ll take care of that. Concerning your child, he’s safe, you know that. You can come get him when you like, Josie. Come tomorrow if it’s convenient. Vincent is aware that his act was over the line. But apart from that, is everything all right? Nothing else was broken? I can hear them laughing right upstairs. Vincent is giving him a bath. Really, what a terrible fuss!”

  “Well, you were the one driving the car.”

  “Excuse me? I was driving the car? What? Well, yeah, I guess I was at the wheel, but what would you have me do? I’m his mother, Josie. You’ll see, very soon, exactly what that means. But all’s well that ends well, right? I was driving, but I was shivering in fright, you know. Are you mad at me? Come on now, let’s put this whole thing behind us. You like movies. I’m going to get you a subscription to the movie channels, all right?”

  “I like animals and history, too. And the human body.”

  I can never tell if this girl has a ferocious sense of humor or if it’s just the opposite, no sense of humor at all. I sigh with relief when I hang up and immediately pour myself a drink. I have had enough emotion for one day, and as if by magic, snow starts to fall once again and the house is wrapped and muffled in its alb.

  I smoke near the window, listening to Dustin O’Halloran’s “We Move Lightly,” then I go up to join them. Édouard is wriggling around on the bed, a terry cloth towel around him. “I found some talcum powder,” Vincent says. I nod, leaning against the doorjamb. I usually never enter his bedroom—not for sentimental reasons but because the only reason I have to go inside is to air it out. The picture of the two of them here together in this setting pretty much makes my head spin.

  “Josie will stop by tomorrow,” I say.

  He doesn’t answer. In the attic I find the carriage that was his, and that vindicates Richard who had decided to keep it even though all I wanted was to get rid of it once and for all, burn it if we had to,
just to make sure I never had to go through that experience again. “Maybe he doesn’t have much to eat or wear,” I remark as I extract the contraption from its cover, “but now he’s got a bed.”

  Vincent joins me once the baby’s asleep. “I traveled miles and miles with you in that thing,” I say. “It has wonderful suspension.” As he is less interested in my youthful memories than in Josie’s reaction, I endeavor to relate our conversation as faithfully as I can. He thinks it over a moment, then calls Anna to clear up a few legal points, while I squeeze lemons and whip up some hot toddies. Through the kitchen window, I can see lights on at Patrick’s. Nothing more than a flickering glow behind a curtain of snow, but I refuse to think about it.

  Totally impossible. Not thinking about it is totally impossible. Experience, reason, intelligence, age are of no assistance. I am ashamed of it, I am slain. At this rate, what will be left of my pride? Vincent has stepped out to get some firewood and an icy draft comes through the room at the very moment I ask myself that question, and it chills me to the bone.

  I’m sorry I’m not a believer, I’d go see a priest. Faith is still the best remedy in the world. I think a good old-fashioned confession would soothe me. I would love to be convinced that God sees me.

  We’re speaking of just how fragile love relationships are and how couples most often fly apart—and with time, Vincent concedes that the blame was shared between his father and me—when Anna arrives to join the party and, taking off her coat, announces that it’s all over between her and Robert, who in the end has always been a pig.

  “Wait, what are you talking about?” I ask, a little worried.

  “He’s having an affair,” she says. “Really, can you imagine?”

  She kisses us hello. It’s a good thing there’s a fire—you can’t see I’ve gone white.