French Rhapsody

by Antoine Laurain

  Le Figaro had managed an opinion piece in which a respected old Academician had described Bubble as ‘the obscene display to all and sundry of a megalomaniac’s intimate organ’. But that was about all. In the short television reports about the installation, Lepelle had seen for himself how little interest it generated. ‘It’s fun,’ many said. ‘I can’t see any problem with it,’ several people had also commented, with an indifferent shrug. The comparison most often advanced had been aired on the one o’clock news by a journalist in his forties who said Bubble reminded him of Simon in Captain Future: ‘You know, that flying blue brain that spoke, that was always in a little clear capsule above the Captain’s shoulder.’

  Lepelle was furious with these infantile forty-year-olds always referencing Japanese cartoons or Star Wars, the galactic epic that was their bible. What was worse, acting the reclusive artist had not paid off. He had made a mistake there and he was annoyed with himself. He should have done many more interviews and in particular he should have accepted Thierry Ardisson and Laurent Ruquier’s offers. Instead he had sent a message to the two presenters via his gallery that the artist was ‘devoting himself to his work’ and would not be replying to any requests in the coming weeks. What an error! If you act mysterious and distant, people forget you. Even though the Minister for Culture was very satisfied with the installation, no one was going to be offering him such a prestigious site again any time soon.

  One morning, Lepelle’s dealer told him that he had heard Femen were going to stage a demonstration near the brain. Bubble represented a male brain, and the topless female activists were planning one of their anti-male-chauvinist displays at which they excelled. Lepelle had been delighted at the prospect of this unexpected publicity. But the days had passed and he had waited in vain. The hysterical blondes, their breasts garishly daubed with slogans, failed to materialise. ‘What are the bitches waiting for?’ he had emailed his dealer. ‘I don’t know – they must have changed their minds,’ he replied.

  Lepelle had also gone to the Tuileries Gardens incognito one afternoon to witness for himself the way people only looked at his work for a few seconds. Then they walked round it, pushing their buggies, or eating candyfloss in couples. They would have regarded a circus tent or hot-air balloon with more interest. Young Japanese girls took photos of themselves in front of it with fixed smiles, but they would have done the same with Pluto at Disneyland Paris. Most galling were the middle-management types returning to work through the gardens after their lunch break. They were in clusters of four or five, deep in conversation with each other, or more often on their mobiles. They didn’t so much as glance at Bubble. Not for a moment. Had you asked them on the way out of the gardens if they had noticed anything unusual in the Tuileries, they would have said, ‘No. Why?’

  The most encouraging news came from Qatar. The organisers of the 2022 World Cup had made contact with Lepelle’s art dealer to see if he would ‘possibly consider designing an inflatable structure to be unveiled at the opening of the stadium’. On hearing of the Gulf’s interest in his work, the artist immediately emailed his agent back, ‘Take them for everything they’ve got!’ He was already working up some ideas, notably a giant shoe stud of which he had made a model three metres high that now took centre stage in his studio. But he wasn’t satisfied with it. Separated from its host, the stud was no longer identifiable. It could have been a depiction of a type of nail or peg, advertising a weekend tool promo at Castorama. Before the stud, he had thought of a giant inflatable ball-bladder filled with helium before realising that the original bladders used as balls were pig bladders and that to offer the Qataris a giant pork bladder for display at the entrance to their stadium might get him into all sorts of trouble.

  ‘Are you just going to waste your life smoking joints from morning to night?’ demanded Lepelle.

  Ivana, stretched out on the sofa, turned to look at him, her pupils dilated.

  One of these days he was going to have to ask her to pack her bags and leave. Quite soon, in fact. There were some advantages to living with a porn star, but there were also disadvantages. The main one being the cloud of smoke that constantly billowed through the ground floor of the house.

  Lepelle had met her through his project Sexus – an explicit title for images that were indeed explicit. For some weeks he had considered the idea of moving away from large structures and producing instead large-scale digital photographs. A series of limited-edition images aimed at a rich clientele avid for modernity. The world revolved around money and sex, and Lepelle, not seeing how he could represent the first, had opted for the second. He had mined his contacts in search of two models, a boy and a girl, whom he could photograph as they made love. Someone had found him a young Russian girl who made porn films and who seemed to be inordinately expensive, and a pretentious young boy who was more modestly priced. Lepelle had organised sessions in his studio from which he had made a series of ten large boards, the images edited so that they were almost abstract, though it was still very clear what they depicted.

  ‘What on earth are these?’ his dealer had asked, looking through the series of photographs. ‘Are you trying to wreck your reputation? Buren’s known for his stripes, Annette Messager for hand-knitted animals in costumes, Warhol for colourised photo negatives, Lichtenstein for parody pop art, Damien Hirst for cows in formaldehyde. Your thing is giant structures. Stick to what you’re good at and don’t annoy me with this nonsense. You and all those others are identified with a style – do you want to kill the golden goose and me along with it? You’re being completely irresponsible. Put this bullshit away; I never want to see it again.’

  All that remained of this venture was Ivana who had come to stay with him for a week, and that had been six months ago. Ivana, with an accent you could cut with a knife and her terrible French. Ivana, who sometimes disappeared for several days before returning with no explanation. Lepelle suspected her of prostituting herself. Some of the luxury hotels of the capital had certainly seen her supple form passing furtively through their lobbies on the arm of one of her compatriots. Her porn films, of the more upmarket variety, provided her with an infallible calling card she could use whenever she liked. She could provide a real-life performance for a fee, with dinner, champagne and presents as well. Apart from the sex, the only benefit of having Ivana was that she did the shopping and her cooking was quite good. She also took care of the laundry. She was aesthetically very pleasing and his status was greatly enhanced by appearing with a six-foot consort at official cocktail parties. He enjoyed the look of panic on the faces of the other men when they understood that she was with him. That alone was worth putting up with her languor and her permanent state of intoxication. When she was not smoking a joint, she spent hours on Facebook or chatting in Russian on the phone, with her girlfriends or her lovers, he did not know. Lepelle couldn’t tell because he spoke not a word of Russian. From time to time he heard her mention his name and wondered what she could be saying about him.

  She came from a tiny godforsaken village in Siberia, so small it didn’t appear on any map. When she showed him the photos on her phone of her friends back home who, like her, dreamt of becoming a model and had suffered mixed fortunes, he could not get over it. The strapping farmers with wrinkled faces and their babushkas with reddened cheeks had all produced these slender creatures with legs that went on for ever, translucent skin and practically perfect features. It was a genetic mutation. Ivana, the fisherman’s daughter; Lena, the innkeeper’s daughter; Yuliana, the daughter of the bus driver; Tania, the mayor’s daughter; Anna, the woodcutter’s daughter, any one of them could happily have graced the cover of Vogue. ‘How many of you are there?’ he had asked her anxiously as if someone had shown him a video diary of extraterrestrials.

  One other little thing had struck him: one of her friends from the village, as beautiful as Ivana, had a scar on her right cheek. Ivana explained that her boyfriend had struck her with a stone when he heard that she also wanted to go
for a model casting. He had done it one day when they went for a swim in the river. He had chosen an especially sharp stone and hit the young woman in the face. He had done it so that she wouldn’t leave, so that no one would ever take her from him. According to Ivana, he had hidden himself away at his parents’ and had cried for three days, and the girl had done the same at her parents’ house. Then they had been reconciled and now everything was fine again.

  The model agencies knew where to go for an abundance of beautiful girls. Once or twice a year, casting directors would visit these regions like latter-day trappers. Instead of rifles they were equipped with digital cameras and shot their game from every angle – not forgetting a shot of their teeth – then reported back to the agencies. From time to time, one of the girls really did become a model. The chosen girl would then do the rounds of photo shoots and society parties, gathering thousands of contacts. Then she would marry a rich man, bear him some children, and spend the rest of her life in a beautiful house in California with an infinity pool, staff and a home hairdresser. Other girls would try their luck as escorts or sales assistants. Some, like Ivana, did not achieve a breakthrough and moved seamlessly on to making porn films. They travelled and lived off men they utterly despised until they found one that pleased them. Or not. This was modern-day adventuring.

  His computer pinged – an email from his art dealer: ‘Hello Stan, Alain Massoulier rang. He said he knows you. And he also said something about a letter and a song – I didn’t really understand. He’s a doctor. He had already sent an email which I forgot to pass on to you, so here it is. See you soon.’

  ‘Good news?’ asked Ivana.

  ‘An old friend would like to see me.’

  ‘Well, you should invite him over then.’

  ‘Hmm, maybe; he could turn out to be a pain in the neck – success always attracts people like that.’

  Then he went and shut himself away in his studio. The giant stud stared at him, like a reproach, an insult to his creativity. Lepelle could feel it; he would be utterly incapable of coming up with anything at all for the Qataris.

  The Commander

  ‘Have you won the lottery?’

  ‘Better than that, the EuroMillions,’ replied Vaugan.

  Alain was staring at him in disbelief when the noise of an electric saw filled the ground floor of the Black Billiard – what was left of it – making him jump. The tables had been consigned to the back, under dust sheets. The immense room with its moulded six-metre-high ceilings was undergoing a profound transformation. The French Billiards Academy founded in 1930 was closing its doors to re-open as the head office of ‘France République’. A huge sign bearing these words along with the slogan ‘To the Right of the Right’ was leaning against a wall. Alain and Vaugan faced each other, comfortably installed in Chesterfield armchairs, the only pieces of furniture left from the old decor. They each had a glass of red wine in their hand, and several workmen were busy about the room. Vaugan’s bodyguards, five young men with crew cuts and a young girl in military fatigues, had moved away when Alain arrived. They were now perched on bar stools, passing the time looking at their smartphones. The sawing stopped abruptly.

  ‘Yes,’ Vaugan was saying, swirling his wine, ‘I’m not kidding, I really did win, no joke. The guy from the Paris region who trousered a hundred and forty million euros five months ago? That was me. I’m sponsored by the State now!’ he cried. ‘I’m a public utility! I’ve played that shitty game for thirty years, it’s only fair that I’m the one. Just think it could have been an Islamist who won all that money.’ He looked at Alain in a meaningful way. ‘And what would he have used it all for? Have you thought of that?’

  ‘I don’t think they play the lotto,’ Alain said tentatively.

  ‘You never know,’ objected Vaugan, ‘but anyway, I was the winner. I’ve got more money than the Republicans and the Socialist Party put together. I bought this building, I’m putting my offices in at the top and I’m renaming the party. WWP won’t do any more. I have a communications adviser working on it. It’s that bastard who’s also telling me I have to put on a suit and tie to appear on the telly. Because we’ve arrived. You know what I mean? We’ve arrived. And not just in France, all over Europe,’ he said, his eyes shining. ‘Everyone will follow us, even the Chinese, in fact especially the Chinese – they’ve grown up under the cosh; they understand about homeland and discipline. You know, it’s only the Yanks and three or four European presidents who believe in democracy. Democracy, my arse! Look at what they’ve done in Iraq: a country which functioned, which existed, is now delivered into the hands of religious barbarians and gangs! We don’t even know who runs Iraq. Same goes for Libya.’

  Vaugan leant towards Alain and looked him straight in the eye. ‘Kings, my friend, and dictators, that’s all that works. Royalty or dictatorship. That’s what liberates people.’

  ‘But your party is called France République.’

  ‘Yes, big joke!’ laughed Vaugan. ‘But no one is taken in,’ he went on, before adding coldly, ‘Tito, Saddam, Franco, Mussolini, Gaddafi – may they rest in peace – were all great men.’

  ‘And Hitler?’ asked Alain.

  Vaugan fell back in his chair and looked at Alain with an amiable smile. ‘You’ll never change, will you?’

  ‘So your plan is to become the dictator of France?’ asked Alain in disbelief, before taking a sip of wine.

  ‘Why not? I’ve got the profile, haven’t I? I can go and talk to Putin, no problem; I can even talk to an American president, no problem. I speak very good English; I can explain France to him. I can tell him, “Our country is a thousand years old, yours has just been born. You’re five centuries behind us, so you can shut up! You’re in no position to give us lessons. Let’s see where your America is in a thousand years, if it even exists.”’

  ‘That’s a great way to introduce yourself to a head of state,’ Alain commented soberly.

  ‘Yes, I think it’s excellent! It shows him what’s what. Can you shut the fuck up with that noise? I can’t hear myself speak!’ Vaugan yelled at the workmen.

  The building noises quietened down immediately.

  ‘I can see that this is more than you can handle; you’re living in the past. I don’t blame you for that. We’ll be putting in place re-education programmes for people like you.’

  Alain looked at Vaugan, slouched in his armchair but absolutely certain of himself.

  ‘You know we’re a bit like 999 …’

  ‘999?’

  ‘Yes,’ replied Vaugan, drinking his wine. ‘The number you dial for the police. Plenty of people hate the police, badmouth the police, but the day they find themselves in trouble, those same people are happy to dial 999 and see the police arrive. When the country is facing ruin, you’ll be very glad to see me and my European comrades arriving with our flags, our straightforward ideas and our leather jackets. You will call on us, as always in the history of every great country. The radical right arrives and restores order at the request of the people.’

  After a brief silence, Vaugan said, ‘You wanted to ask me about “something”.’

  ‘It’s nothing at all to do with your interests now, but I received this in the post.’ Alain held out the envelope from Polydor.

  Vaugan took out the letter, unfolded it and began to read.

  ‘Bloody hell!’ he murmured, then he smothered a sort of sharp chuckle. ‘That’s fucking terrible.’

  He turned the envelope over and looked again at the postmark, holding it far from his eyes – thirty-three years late!

  ‘It doesn’t surprise me, there are so many blacks working for the Post Office. The last time I went there, it was like being in the Caribbean.’

  Alain did not reply to that.

  ‘Shit, mate. D’you realise what this means? It could have been us instead of Indochine; we could have played the Stade de France.’

  The idea seemed to set him daydreaming. ‘Sic transit gloria mundo,’ he said, handing the
letter back to Alain, who corrected him. ‘Gloria mundi.’

  ‘Same thing,’ retorted Vaugan. ‘Thus passes the glory of the world, ours too.’

  ‘Do you think you might have the tape?’

  ‘That was the “something” you wanted from me?’ asked Vaugan, disappointed.

  He made a sweeping gesture in the air with a look of disgust. ‘It went up in smoke, the tape, and everything else with it. The Black Billiard almost burnt down three years ago. Allegedly an electrical problem in the cellars in the middle of the night. I don’t really believe that. There are plenty of people who would like to make a bonfire out of this place. I had the most precious things in a safety deposit box at the bank, but I used to keep everything else here. And,’ he said despondently, ‘now I have nothing left, nothing at all. But I care about the past, my own and the past of France. The past, Alain: the struggles of the countryside and the churches, the little churches which are left abandoned with their leaking roofs and their young parish priests who get nothing for their trouble but a kick up the backside, whilst there are millions available to build new mosques. Have you ever thought about that, Alain? No, you don’t give it a thought. Happily, there are people who do think about it, more and more of them. They think about it and it hurts them! Hang on; what I’ve just said is genius.’