The Destiny of Nathalie X

by William Boyd

  Slept well. For the first time since leaving London did not dream of Louise.

  Monday

  Encountered the woman in the hotel’s small garden. I was sitting at a tin table beneath a chestnut tree, spreading fig jam on a croissant, when I heard her call.

  “Thierry?”

  I turned, and her face fell. She apologized for interrupting me, she said she thought I was someone else, the linen jacket I was wearing had made her think I was her husband. He had one very similar, the same hair color too. I introduced myself. She said she was la Comtesse de Benoît-Voulon.

  “Your husband is staying here?” I asked. She was tall, her eyes were almost on the same level as mine. I could not help noticing the way the taupe silk singlet she wore clung to her breasts. Her eyes were very pale brown, they seemed to look at me with unusual curiosity.

  She told me her husband was visiting his mother. The arc of an eyebrow lifted. “The old lady and I …” She paused diplomatically. “We do not enjoy each other’s company so, so I prefer to wait in the hotel. And besides, our car is being repaired.”

  “So is mine,” I said with a silly laugh, which I instantly regretted. “Quite a coincidence.”

  “Yes,” she said thoughtfully, frowning. That curious glance again. “It is, isn’t it?”

  To fill my empty day I walked to the next village, called Argenson, and lunched on a tough steak and a delicious tangy vin rouge en carafe. On the way back I was given a lift in a lorry piled high with sappy pine logs. My nose prickled with resin all the way back to Saint-Barthélemy

  The hotel was quiet, no one was in the lobby. My key was missing from its hook behind the desk so I assumed the maid was still cleaning the room. Upstairs, the door was very slightly ajar, the room beyond dark and shuttered against the sun. I stepped inside. La Comtesse de Benoît-Voulon was lifting a book from my open suitcase.

  “Mr. Mountstewart,” she said, the guilt and surprise absent from her face within a second. “I’m so glad you decided to come back early.”

  Monday

  I must make sure I have this right. Must make sure I forget nothing.

  We made love in the cool afternoon darkness of my room. There was a strange relaxed confidence about it all, as if it had been prefigured in some way, in the unhurried, tolerant manner our bodies moved to accommodate each other. And afterward we chatted, like old friends. Her name, she said, was Giselle. They were going to Hyères, they had a house there. They always spent August in Hyères, she and her husband.

  Then she turned to face me and said: “Logan?… Have we ever met before?”

  I laughed. “I think I would have remembered.”

  “Perhaps you know Thierry? Perhaps I’ve seen you with Thierry.”

  “Definitely not.”

  She cradled my face in her hands and stared fiercely at me. She said in a quiet voice, “He didn’t send you, did he? If he did you must tell me now.” Then she herself laughed, when she saw my baffled look, heard my baffled protestations. “Forget it,” she said. “I always think he’s playing tricks on me. He’s like that, Thierry, with his games.”

  I slept that afternoon, and when I awoke she had gone. Downstairs, the old waiter had set only one table for dinner. I asked where the lady was and he said she had paid her bill and left the hotel.

  At the garage the limousine had gone. The young garagiste proudly brandished the spare part for my Packard and said it would be ready tomorrow. I pointed at the empty blocks where the count’s car had been.

  “Did he come for his car?”

  “Two hours ago.”

  “With his wife?”

  “Who?”

  “Was there a woman with him, a lady?”

  “Oh yes.” The garagiste smiled at me and offered me one of his yellow cigarettes, which I accepted. “Every year he spends two days with his mother, on his way south. Every year there’s a different one.”

  “Different wife?”

  He looked at me knowingly. He drew heavily on his cigarette, his eyes wistfully distant. “They’re from Paris, these girls. Amazing.” He shook his head in frustrated admiration. Once a year Saint-Barthélemy was graced by one of these astonishing women, he said, these radiant visitors. They stayed in the Hôtel des Voyageurs … One day, one day he was going to go to Paris and see them for himself.

  Tuesday

  At the Café Riche et des Sports in Bergerac, I finish my article on Sainte-Beuve. I pour a cognac into my coffee and compose a telegram to Douglas canceling my visit. O qu’ils sont pittoresques les trains manqués! That will not be my fate. I unfold my road map and plot a route to Hyères.

  Never Saw Brazil

  ON ONE of the sunniest of bright May mornings Senator Dom Liceu Maximiliano Lobo needlessly ran his comb through his neat goatee and ordered his chauffeur to pull off to the side of the road. On mornings like these he liked to walk the remaining five hundred meters to his office, which he maintained, out of sentiment’s sake, and because of the sea breezes, in Salvador’s Cidada Alta. He sauntered along the sidewalks, debating pleasantly whether to linger a moment with a coffee and a newspaper on the terrace of the hotel, or whether to stop off at Olímpia’s little apartment, which he kept for her, at very reasonable expense, in an old colonial building in a square near the cathedral. She would not be expecting him, and it might be an amusing, not to say sensuous, experience to dally an hour or so this early before the day’s work called. How bright the sun was, this fine morning, Senator Dom Liceu Maximiliano Lobo thought as he turned toward the cathedral, his heels ringing on the cobbles, and how vivid the solar benefaction made the geraniums. Life was indeed good.

  The name was the problem, he saw. The problem lay there, definitely. Because … Because if you were not happy with your name, he realized, then a small but sustained lifelong stress was imposed on your psyche, your sense of self. It was like being condemned to wear too small shoes all the time; you could still get about but there would always be a pinching, a corn or two aching, something unnaturally hobbled about your gait.

  Wesley Bright. Wesley. Bright.

  The trouble with his name was that it wasn’t quite stupid enough—he was not a Wesley Bilderbeest or a Wesley Bugger; in fact it was almost a good name. If he had been Wesley Blade, say, or Wesley Beauregard he would have no complaints.

  “Wesley?”

  Janice passed him the docket. He clicked the switch on the mike.

  “Four-seven? Four-seven?”

  Silence. Just the permanent death rattle of the ether.

  Four-seven answered. “Four-seven.”

  “Parcel, four-seven. Pick up at Track-Track. Going to Heathrow, as directed.”

  “Account?”

  Wesley sighed. “Yes, four-seven. We do not do cash.”

  “Oh yeah. Roger, Rog.”

  He could always change his name, he supposed. Roger, perhaps. Roger Bright. Wesley Roger … No. There was that option, though: choose a new moniker, a new handle. But he wondered about that too: hard to shake off an old name, he would guess. It was the way you thought of yourself, after all, your tag on the pigeonhole. And when you were young, you never thought your name was odd—it was a source of dissatisfaction that came with aging, a realization that one didn’t really like being a “Wesley Bright” sort of person at all. In his case it had started at college, this chafing, this discomfort. He wondered about these fellows, actors and rock musicians, who called themselves Tsar, or Zane Zorro or DJ Sofaman … He was sure that, to themselves, they were always Norman Sidcup or Wilbur Dongdorfer in their private moments.

  Colonel Liceu “o Falção” Lobo opened his eyes and he saw that the sun had risen sharp and green through the leafmass outside his bedroom. He shifted and stretched and felt the warm flank of Nilda brush his thigh. He eased himself out of bed and stood naked in the greenbright gloom. He freed his sweaty balls, tugging delicately at his scrotum. He rubbed his face and chest, inhaled, walked quietly out onto the balcony and felt the cool morning on h
is nakedness. He stood there, the wooden planks rough beneath his bare feet, and leaned on the balustrade looking at the beaten-earth parade ground his battalion had spent two weeks clearing out of the virgin jungle. There was nothing like a new parade ground, Colonel Liceu Lobo thought, with a thin smile of satisfaction, to signal you were here to stay.

  He saw Sergeant Elias Galvão emerge from the latrines and amble across the square toward the battalion mess, tightening his belt as he went. A good man, Galvão, a professional, up this early too. “Morning, Sergeant,” Colonel Licen Lobo called from his balcony. Sergeant Elias Galvão came abruptly to attention, swiveled to face his naked colonel and saluted.

  “Carry on,” Colonel Liceu Lobo instructed. Not a flicker on his impassive face, excellent. Sergeant Galvão’s lieutenant’s pips could not be long away.

  “Liceu?” Nilda’s husky sleepy voice came from the bedroom. “Where are you?” The colonel felt his manhood stir, as if of its own accord. Yes, he thought, there were some compensations to be had from a provincial command.

  Wesley, trying not to inhale, walked with his business partner, Gerald Brockway, co-owner of B.B. Radio Cars, through the humid fug of the “bullpen” toward the front door. There were three drivers there waiting for jobs and naturally they were talking about cars.

  “How’s the Carlton, Tone,” Gerald asked.

  “Magic.”

  “Brilliant.”

  “Cheers.”

  Outside, Wesley opened the passenger door of his Rover for Gerald.

  “You happy with this?” Gerald asked. “I thought you wanted an Orion.”

  “It’s fine,” Wesley said.

  “Noël got five grand for his Granada.”

  “Really?”

  “They hold their value, the old ones. Amazing. Years later. It’s well rubbish what they did, restyling like that.”

  Wesley couldn’t think of what to say. He thought a shrill ringing had started in his inner ear. Tinnitus. He lived in constant fear of tinnitus.

  “Change for the sake of change,” Gerald said, slowly, sadly, shaking his head.

  Wesley started the engine and pulled away.

  “Look at Saab.”

  “Sorry?”

  “They’ve had to bring back the 900. You can’t give away a 9000.”

  “Can we talk about something else, Ger?”

  Gerald looked at him. “You all right?”

  “Of course. Just, you know.”

  “No prob, my son. Where are we going to eat?”

  “Everyone has heard of samba and bossa nova, sure,” Wesley said. “But this is another type of music called chorinho—not many people know about it. Love it. Play it all the time. I can lend you some CDs.”

  “I’d like to give him a break, Wes. But something in me says fire the bastard. Why should we help him, Wes? Why? Big error. ‘No good deed goes unpunished,’ that’s my personal philosophy. Is there any way we can turn this down? What the hell is it?”

  “Chorinho.”

  “You cannot diddle major account customers. Two hours’ waiting time? I mean, what does he take us for? Couple of merchant bankers?”

  “It means ‘little cry.’ ”

  “What is this stuff, Wesley? You got any English music?”

  Wesley watched Gerald mash his egg mayonnaise into a creamy pulp. He dribbled thin streams of olive oil and vinegar onto the mixture, which he stirred, and then freely sprinkled on pepper and salt.

  “That’s disgusting,” Wesley said. “How am I meant to eat this?” He pointed his knife at his steak.

  “I haven’t had a steak for two years. You should have my teeth problems, Wesley. You should feel sorry for me, mate.”

  “I do feel sorry for you. I’d feel more sorry for you if you’d been to a dentist. You can be helped, you know. You don’t have to suffer. A man of your age. Jesus.”

  Gerald ate some of his mixture. Wesley looked around for a waitress and saw Elizabetta, the plump one. She came over, beaming.

  “Pint of lager, please. Ger?”

  “Large gin and tonic.”

  Wesley lowered his voice. “Is, um, Margarita in today?” he asked Elizabetta.

  “This afternoon she come.”

  He shifted his shoulders around. Gerald was not listening. “Tell her I’ll phone. Say Wesley will phone. Wesley.”

  “Wesley. OK.”

  Gerald pulped his apple crumble with the back of his spoon.

  “Nice little place this, Wes. Worth the drive. What is it, Italian?”

  “Sort of. Bit of everything.”

  “ ‘International cuisine,’ then.”

  Wesley looked around the Caravelle. There was no nautical theme visible in its pragmatic decor, unless you counted the one seascape among its five reproductions on the wall. He and Gerald sat in a row of booths reminiscent more of—what was the word? Seating arrangements in libraries …—carrels, yes. Maybe the name was a malapropism, he thought. An asparagus on the banks of the Nile. Someone had blundered: it should have been called the Carrel Café & Restaurant. Names, again … He stopped thinking about it and thought instead about Margarita.

  Mar-ga-ri-ta. Not Margaret.

  He rolled the “r”s. Marrrrgarrrita.

  She was dark, of course, very Latin, with a severe thin face that possessed, he thought, what you might call a strong beauty. Not pretty, exactly, but there was a look about her that attracted him, although, he realized, she was one of these southern European women who would not age well. But now she was young and slim and her hair was long and, most important of all, she was Portuguese. Uma moça bonita.

  Gerald offered him one of his small cigars.

  Dr. Liceu Lobo put down his coffee cup and relit his real excelente. He drew, with pedantic and practiced care, a steady thin stream of smoke from the neatly docked and already nicely moist end and held it in his mouth, savoring the tobacco’s dry tang before pluming it at the small sunbird that pecked at the crumbs of his pastry on the patio table. The bird flew off with a shrill shgrreakakak and Dr. Liceu Lobo chuckled. It was time to return to the clinic, Senhora Fontenova was due for her vitamin D injections.

  He felt Adalgisa’s hand on his shoulder and he leaned his head back against her firm midriff, her finger trickled down over his collarbone and tangled and twirled the dense gray hairs on his chest.

  “Your mother wants to see you.”

  Wesley swung open the gate to his small and scruffy garden and reminded himself yet again to do something about the clematis that overburdened the trellis on either side of his front door. Pauline was bloody meant to be i.c. garden, he told himself, irritated at her, but then he also remembered he had contrived to keep her away from the house the last month or so, prepared to spend weekends and the odd night at her small flat rather than have her in his home. As he hooked his door keys out of his tight pocket with one hand he tugged with the other at a frond of clematis that dangled annoyingly close to his face, and a fine confetti of dust and dead leaves fell quickly onto his hair and shoulders.

  After he had showered he lay naked on his bed, his hand on his cock, and thought about masturbating but decided against. He felt clean and, for the first time that day, almost relaxed. He thought about Margarita and wondered what she looked like with her clothes off. She was thin, perhaps a little on the thin side for his taste, if he were honest, but she did have a distinct bust and her long straight hair was always clean, though he wished she wouldn’t tuck it behind her ears and drag it taut into a lank swishing ponytail. Restaurant regulations, he supposed. He realized then that he had never seen her with her hair down and felt, for a moment, a sharp intense sorrow for himself and his lot in life. He sat up and swung his legs off the bed, amazed that there was a shimmer of tears in his eyes.

  “God. Jesus!” he said mockingly to himself, out loud. “Poor little chap.”

  He dressed himself brusquely.

  Downstairs, he poured himself a large rum and coke and put Milton Nascimento on the CD
player and hummed along to the great man’s ethereal falsetto. Never failed to cheer him up. Never failed. He took a great gulp of the chilled drink and felt the alcohol surge. He swayed over to the drinks cabinet and added another slug. It was only four-thirty in the afternoon. Fuck it, he thought. Fuck it.

  He should have parked somewhere else, he realized crossly, as unexpected sun warmed the Rover while he waited outside Pauline’s bank. He didn’t have a headache but his palate was dry and stretched and his sinuses were responding unhappily to the rum. He flared his nostrils and exhaled into his cupped hand. His breath felt unnaturally hot on his palm. He sneezed, three times, violently. Come on, Pauline. Jesus.

  She emerged from the stout teak doors of the bank, waved and skittered over toward the car. High heels, he saw. She has got nice legs. Definitely, he thought. Thin ankles. They must be three-inch heels, he reckoned, she’ll be taller than me. Was it his imagination or was that the sun flashing off the small diamond cluster of her engagement ring?

  He leaned across the seat and flung the door open for her.

  “Wesley! You going to a funeral or something? Gaw!”

  “It’s just a suit. Jesus.”

  “It’s a black suit. Black. Really.”

  “Charcoal gray.”

  “Where’s your Prince of Wales check? I love that one.”

  “Cleaners.”

  “You don’t wear a black suit to a christening, Wesley. Honestly.”

  Professor Liceu Lobo kissed the top of his mother’s head and sat down at her feet.

  “Hey, little Mama, how are you today?”

  “Oh, I’m fine. A little closer to God.”

  “Nah, little Mama, He needs you here, to look after me.”

  She laughed softly and smoothed the hair back from his forehead in gentle combing motions.

  “Are you going to the university today?”

  “Tomorrow. Today is for you, little Mama.”