Someone Else

by Tonino Benacquista

  “It takes quite a few years of studying to be an oenologist, and quite a bit of talent to be a good one – I don’t have any of that. Wine’s a friend, a real friend who gives me a lot of happiness and very rarely disappoints me. A friend I don’t have to keep proving my friendship to; we can even go for weeks without seeing each other, the friendship stays the same.”

  She raised her glass in the air, solemnly, and looked at it as if gazing into a crystal ball.

  “Wine brings out the best in what we eat, it’s a celebration. A couple of glasses of good wine at my table, I couldn’t ask for anything else in life. It’s our bodies and a big proportion of our souls. Our imagination.”

  Nicolas suddenly grasped something which had always been clear. He had had to come all the way to Rome to concede that he and Loraine would never be the same species, that they lived in completely different latitudes. Wherever he went, Nicolas felt he was in a hostile climate; but Loraine was at peace with the world. Nicolas was always afraid of what the next day might bring; Loraine agreed with the proverb “sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof”. She had a gift for capturing happiness; Nicolas drove it away the moment he felt it nearby. She never tried to get drunk; Nicolas did as soon as he started drinking. She did not anticipate the end that comes to us all; he was sometimes tempted to precipitate it so that he need no longer worry about it. That was what their interlude in the casa vinicola had shown him.

  “There’s a story that we all tell in my family,” Loraine said. “One of my mother’s great-uncles inherited his father-in-law’s wine cellar. A real prize, a dream collection with all the grands crus, all the best years, nothing but masterpieces. The problem was that he, bless him, had only ever known table wine and gut-rot in carafes. Just holding one of these bottles gave him a complex. Uncorking one for his guests was quite a drama. Choosing the right one, properly appreciating it, knowing how to drink it, remembering its name and its history, respecting its rituals . . . nothing but trouble. Until the day when the cellar was flooded for long enough to soak all the labels off. There was no longer any way he could know anything about all those wines. He would uncork any old bottle as the fancy took him, and taste it. That was when he started to appreciate good wine.”

  Nicolas was hardly listening to her but watching himself drinking; he knew that his way of dealing with his feelings of helplessness could not go on, that fleeing like this was doomed to failure. And yet, the moment he felt the alcohol breathing through him, he regretted going for so many years without drinking, having lagged behind, bowing to everything without rebelling. Buried under his unhappiness, one thing was sure: he had been born one of those people who is happy when he is drinking. He did not try to understand this little miracle, he accepted it like a gift. As he brought the glass up to his lips, he imagined the child he could have been if he had had the chance to cheat as he did now. Another little boy, a happier and more reckless one, the sort of smart, rebellious boy people like. He would have spent his time inventing war machines and sniffing around the girls, intrigued by how implacably fragile they were. But he had never been that boy, he had sat motionless, waiting to grow up. He had dreamed of being an adult, when everything would change, everything would happen quickly, he would become a hero at last. He had made the most wonderful scenario of it in his mind, the most exciting adventure. It was that dream that – so many years later – he had rediscovered, still intact, in the bottom of a tiny little glass of iced vodka.

  “It’s that hint of freshly turned soil that I like in Barolo, can you taste it?”

  “No.”

  “It doesn’t matter, it isn’t important.”

  “I’ll never be an aesthete. I think I prefer quantity to quality.”

  “The two can go hand in hand, you know. The record for the most expensive drunken spree in the world is actually held by a sommelier. I heard about it from a friend who sells wine in New York, he was there at the time. It was about fifteen years ago at the Waldorf Astoria, they’d organized a very special wine-tasting for an American oenologists’ society. The wines were from France, and they were all worthy of a place in the great-uncle’s cellar, Pétrus ’29s, Pommards ’47s, all legendary – they were the sort of people who could afford them. The cases travelled from Paris with an escort worthy of a head of state, like a convoy of gold on its way to Fort Knox. The treasure was put into the cellar and only the Waldorf’s sommelier had the key. When all the cases had been ticked off, the insurance company had registered their safe arrival, the organizers were convinced they were all right, and the transport company could wipe the sweat from their brows, the sommelier tugged sharply on the reinforced door to the cellar and locked himself in. Through the hatch he said: ‘I’m going to go to prison, I know that. And I don’t give a damn. My career’s ruined, I don’t give a damn about that either. I’m going to experience something that no one who loves wine has ever dared dream about. The most wonderful wine-tasting in the world, the time of my life, I’m going to have it now, on my own, until I’m completely drunk. I’m going to treat myself to the most incredible journey through the centuries. No one’s done it before today, no one will do it again. Gentlemen, I’ll see you in three days.’”

  The wine was flowing through Nicolas’s veins and warming him at last. He felt close to this wonderfully fanatical sommelier. He closed his eyes for a moment and gave a sigh which marked the boundary between this world and that one.

  He had always known this world, it was the world of his childhood and of the passing years. A good old reality to which he was condemned like everyone else. This particular world was almost everything to him, it was the depository of the past and the guarantor of the future. It made you want to exist, if not to live. This particular world was not what men could make of it but what they did make of it. It would endure, men would not. It was made up of compromises, of stopgaps, a place where we looked for what little happiness each day could offer and where we soothed the pain of the moment. When we tried to flee, it became a prison; we could not live on the periphery of this world. It made anyone who had been weak enough to look towards that world pay a high price.

  And that world was very different.

  It was a place of asylum for anyone who might, occasionally, want to escape this world. An inn which was open day and night, a warm welcome at a modest price. Here, at last, all men were equals, all men could be proud. Who was not welcome in that world? Its door was always open, a brotherhood which took in everyone, from all walks of life: the happiest, the saddest, the strongest, the wisest. It was somewhere we could catch our breath, we could stay long enough to smile again. The most desperate took up residence there. The most lucid did too. All it took was a glass. And, above all, a sigh.

  “For dessert, I’ll take another plate of aubergine,” she said.

  He was far more fascinated by Loraine’s gentle, impish smile than all the masterpieces in Rome. He put down his fork and watched her eating, drinking, smiling, amazed by her every gesture; he wanted to hold on to that brief moment of harmony, seeing so many qualities with one glance. Even though he knew that in a few seconds, an hour or a day all the troubles in the world would bear down on him again, at that precise moment his heart was happy. He ordered another bottle saying that, if he opened enough, he would eventually find a note from someone shipwrecked on an island, a treasure map or the secret of happiness.

  “Shall we start with the Sistine Chapel or the Pietà?” she asked.

  “We’re going straight to the hotel to make love. If you want, I can work on the Renaissance style.”

  “You talk a lot of nonsense . . .”

  “We’ll go and see the Pietà, if you like. But promise me that once we’re back in Paris you won’t talk about Michelangelo for a fortnight.”

  At that precise moment, if Mephistopheles himself had appeared to grant one single wish in exchange for his soul, Nicolas would have asked to be included in Loraine’s collection. He would never be an inventor, even a mino
r one, he was the very opposite; the Trickpack demonstrated a certain imagination which he allowed to express itself when he was half cut, but his creative abilities stopped there, with silly excesses which humanity could easily cope without. What was he left with to impress the woman he loved, to dazzle her eyes only, to feel unique? He would have condemned his eternal soul to find that breath of inspiration, the strength, the beauty.

  A crazy idea came to him and he gave a little laugh, a laugh dredged up from way back in his past.

  The piano, standing silently in the corner, reminded him of a scolded pupil.

  No, you’d never dare.

  He drank a whole glass from the second bottle, and looked at the backs of his hands stretched out in front of him, perfectly motionless.

  It’s been too long, Nicolas. You’re going to make a fool of yourself.

  No, he no longer needed his intrinsic shyness, it could no longer protect him. Trampling over it was becoming a source of pleasure.

  You wouldn’t know how to any more, it’s the sort of thing you forget.

  And yet . . .

  How old had he been . . . Fifteen? Twenty?

  The tips of his fingers were itching. He clenched his fists.

  Loraine looked up when, without any warning, he headed for the piano. The waiters and other customers paid no attention, she was the only one to be surprised. He sat down like a real pianist, rubbed his hands together and toyed with the keys for a moment. Loraine watched him with her mouth open, her fork in mid air, amused, worried. The quiet hubbub in the room reassured Nicolas; he was alone with the keyboard, trying to remember a few moments stolen from his youth. Bent over the keys, he tried to identify them by association of ideas, as he had done at the time. That one there over the lock is where the thumb goes, then a gap of three keys to the little finger. Now where was the right hand again? I had the first finger on a black key, somewhere to the left.

  Loraine crossed her arms; she loved surprises. She loved Nicolas even more.

  What have I got to lose.

  Had Debussy’s notes ever rippled round this little trattoria on the Piazza del Popolo?

  Nicolas remembered “Clair de Lune” from twenty years earlier.

  The false notes were forgotten. The company fell silent.

  Soon, there was nothing but the music.

  *

  The Pietà and the Sistine Chapel; they did not need to see anything else. After all, that was what they had come to Rome for; gorging themselves on art would probably have ruined it somehow. Nicolas could not wait to leave these marvels to go and drink, but settled for discreetly draining his flask. Alcoholism may have been gaining the upper hand, but he did not want to read it in Loraine’s eyes. He wanted to be alone with her again, to get away from public places – even if they were sublime – and to mess around, to say and do whatever he felt like in a few square yards of space, so long as it had a mini-bar and curtains. She had absolutely no desire to go back to the hotel and wanted to make the most of Rome and of seeing Nicolas by the light of day. That was when he understood that he needed to drink to jam the cogs of his worrying, but also to ensure that the cogs of happiness did not get too carried away.

  They had an aperitif on the Piazza Navona, like the tourists that they were, then wandered through the streets looking for places to take snapshots. Late into the night they went back to the hotel and threw themselves at each other. A full bottle of Wyborowa in one corner of the room would take responsibility for driving away Nicolas’s demons should they threaten to come back in force. All he had to do now was to love, without thinking about anything else.

  It would have been unthinkable for him to turn back into the unsavoury character he had always been, anxious for a thousand absurd reasons. From now on, at any time of day or night, he knew how to get in touch with his Hyde when he was Jekyll, so that he could take over the controls. His sense of the moment no longer betrayed him. He had learned to change gear as the fancy took him, to call on his double on demand. The Other knew how to make everything exciting: a conversation in a bistro, a journey on the Métro, reading a daily paper. He could make something magical out of meeting a woman in a lift, he could find the words to calm people who had got heated and re-enthuse those who had lost their enthusiasm. It was not the darkness in Nicolas which was set free but the very opposite: his benevolence towards humanity, his curiosity for everything outside his own little world, his gentleness which had been held in check for too long. In the rare moments when he let the Other drift away, Nicolas quickly felt a nostalgic longing for his escapades, his brilliant and peculiar ideas, his pride.

  Be wary of the anxious, the day they lose their fears they will become the masters of the world.

  The words which escaped in the night inspired him for the day ahead, and the simple fact of having written proof that this other version of himself existed gave him strength. He was no longer afraid of his shadow, his shadow was this Other, who protected him.

  Beware those who confuse lighting with light.

  Paul Vermeiren

  He sat up suddenly and remained paralysed for quite a time, the newspaper in his hand, unable to react. Far away he could hear Julien Grillet’s voice without grasping what he was saying. Paul took a few steps across his office, opened the window, let his gaze linger vaguely on the school playground opposite, and brought his hand up to his mouth to repress a retch. He desperately needed to get outside but he did not know where to go.

  “I’m popping out for a minute. Can you field any calls?”

  “. . . Are you OK?”

  Paul gave no reply.

  “You’re white as a sheet.”

  “I’ve got a meeting here in an hour, but I won’t be here. Give some sort of excuse, suggest another time. I never do this . . .”

  “I’ll take care of it. Call me if you need to.”

  Julien followed him as far as the hall and closed the door gently behind him. At the foot of the stairs, drained of all his strength, Paul sat down on a step and opened the crumpled paper again.

  The friends of Thierry Blin, who left us a year ago, are invited to meet on Tuesday, 16 May at 6pm, at 170 Rue de Turenne, Paris 75003, to have a drink in his memory.

  *

  There must be some mistake.

  It was the perfect crime.

  He had committed it.

  He had disappeared, this Blin, he was crossed off the list of the living. He was neither good nor bad, he was mortal: Paul had only precipitated the inevitable. And, God knew, a year after his withdrawal, Vermeiren had thought he was in the clear. He had enjoyed his impunity as if the screenplay for his crime and its incomparable execution had given him the right never to worry again. A year – it was longer than a statute of limitation. He deserved to be filed with the Pointless to Search cases, he had earned the right to exist, to live his life, to do his job, to see whoever he felt like seeing. He was not doing anyone any harm, he was even rather useful to the community; he paid all sorts of taxes, which should give an idea of how much society needed him. Paul Vermeiren had paid a high price for his place in the world and he would not give it up just like that.

  Stay rational, analyse. The words “left us” could imply that Blin was considered to be dead. With a little luck, it meant that whoever had put the notice in had mourned their dear friend. Friend! Just the word itself, written in black and white in a daily newspaper, was unthinkable. Blin did not have any friends, not a single one to have a drink in his memory. Blin would almost certainly have loathed having a friend who would use wording like that. Who wanted to bring Blin up like this? Who had noticed his disappearance? Who remembered him a year later? Let him die! You bloody left him alone when he was here. Blin had a right to be done with it, he had a right to demand that no one spoke his name ever again. All Vermeiren had done was help him.

  This drink in his memory was to happen the next day; Paul had time to sniff around this 170 Rue de Turenne, an address which meant nothing to him. A bus dropped
him on the Place de la République, and he went into the Grand Turenne café, where he passed himself off as a friend of Thierry Blin.

  “I can’t come tomorrow. Could you tell me who’s organizing the gathering?”

  The café owner often let out the first-floor room for various receptions; Paul managed to get the name of the woman who had contacted him: Mme Reynouard.

  “. . . Reynouard?”

  His first reaction was to pick up the telephone to get Julien on the job. If he spent the day on it, his associate had a chance of tracking her down with just her name to go on. He changed his mind straight away, hung up, thanked the owner and left the area.

  As he walked back to the agency, Paul pictured himself having that drink to his memory in amongst the ghosts who remembered the ghost of Blin. He went over all the bad reasons why he should go and the thousand opportunities he would have to give himself away. The most obvious was the risk of being surrounded by the only people capable of flushing Blin out from behind Vermeiren. All it needed was one insignificant detail that Paul could not have anticipated. This drink in his memory was a poisoned chalice.

  But there it was. Was there a get-together in the world more fascinating than that one?

  *

  Twenty-four hours later, the temptation to play the living dead had got the upper hand.

  He went into the Grand Turenne at 6.30. There was a slight hubbub from the room on the first floor, and Paul went up the stairs without a moment’s hesitation. This evening he would find himself face to face with the devil. This was the opportunity he had dreamed of to hear the speculation about Blin’s death, the follow-up to his disappearance, the results of the various searches. Some pieces of information might even help him avoid future mistakes. More than anything else, he would finally see whether Blin had any friends. Meet them. Measure their pain. Speak to them but, more importantly, listen to them. In less than an hour, he would have the confidence not to bother with him any longer. It was an ordeal by fire, but also the only way of shaking off the spectre of Blin once and for all. He was in fact going to put the nails in his own coffin.