by Dan Rhodes
‘One was enough. I can’t get her out of my mind. Her name is Akiko.’ He smiled. ‘Akiko! Do you know what that means?’
‘Er, no.’
‘It means sparkling child. Sparkling child! And does Akiko sparkle? Yes, she sparkles. Akiko Akiyama sparkles, and so much more.’ He sighed.
‘It’s a really nice name.’ Sylvie put Akiko on her list of possibilities for her first daughter. She wanted three or four children, a mixture of girls and boys.
‘The problem is, she lives three hundred miles away from where I’m going to be working. The course of true love isn’t going to be easy for us. Oh, Akiko. Akiko! Akiko Akiyama!’ He sighed again, and a stern voice came from the back seat. Lucien looked embarrassed, craned his neck around and a brief conversation ensued.
‘What was that about?’ asked Sylvie when at last they were quiet again.
‘They wanted to know why I kept calling out their daughter’s name, and smiling and sighing.’
‘What did you tell them?’
‘I couldn’t stop myself. I revealed my feelings. I told them very sincerely that I was in love with her, and that my intentions towards her were entirely honourable. I don’t think they’re too happy about it, at least not Monsieur Akiyama. He says she has just graduated with honours from a prestigious university and has started in a junior position at a large corporation, and he expects her to find a husband from among the workforce.’
‘Have you been able to work out if there’s already a particular member of the workforce who has captured her heart?’
He sighed again. ‘Not yet. They’ve not mentioned anybody.’
‘Maybe they think it’s none of your business. Or maybe they don’t know. There’s no reason why she should tell her parents who she’s dating.’
‘Thank you for that upbeat contribution to my love story.’
‘Sorry.’
They drove on. Sylvie was having a good afternoon. She really liked Lucien, and was going to see what she could do to win the Akiyamas over to his cause. He and Akiko belonged together, she just knew it, and she was going to make it her business to see that the obstacles that lay between them were overcome. But first she had to get back to the job in hand.
‘Ask them if they’d like to go through the tunnel where Lady Di died.’
They did, of course.
Three and a half hours later, the 2CV was back in Mont-martre and making its way up the steep and narrow west end of rue Norvins. Sylvie had had a great afternoon racing through the streets, pointing out her favourite places, and stopping here and there so they could all stroll around. At no point had it seemed like work. The Akiyamas had enjoyed themselves, and she and Lucien had been making one another laugh as they compared notes on their romantic lives and recounted some of the many pitfalls they had faced. They were both delighted to have met someone who didn’t think that there was something wrong with them for wanting what they wanted.
At one point a passer-by had approached them and asked if she could take their photo. ‘You are the happiest couple I have ever seen,’ she had said. ‘You look so right together.’ Not wishing to disillusion her, they had posed with their arms around each other, and made up a story about how they had met while skiing three years earlier and been inseparable ever since. The wedding, booked for the coming spring, was to be a low-key event on a mutual friend’s llama farm in Avignon.
They were both keen to keep in touch, and had exchanged numbers on the Île Saint-Louis while the Akiyamas were buying ice cream, and when she took her phone out of her bag she picked up a text from her friend Aurélie, asking her if she wanted to go shopping. She didn’t want to go shopping, but she knew she wouldn’t have to. This was just a euphemism. She knew that what Aurélie really wanted was to sit in a bar and have a drink and a talk, and that suited Sylvie just fine.
She had arranged to meet her after work, which was going to be any minute now. They were nearly back where they had started.
Without warning, the car slowed to a halt. Sylvie put her foot on the gas pedal and pumped the clutch, but there was no response. The engine was going, but the car wasn’t. It just sat there, blocking the road. She worked the clutch again, but there was still no bite. ‘Right,’ she said. ‘Everybody out.’
Lucien and the Akiyamas got out and went around to the back of the car. Monsieur Akiyama didn’t seem particularly pleased by this, and delivered a brief monologue to Lucien, which was relayed to Sylvie through the open driver’s window: ‘Monsieur Akiyama wishes you to know that he worked for many years at a senior position in a large corporation, and has gone to great lengths to ensure that his wife, Madame Akiyama, has always had an adequate lifestyle, one free from the necessity of physical exertion. He requests, therefore, that in the interests of preserving his honour, she be exempt from this task.’
‘No,’ said Sylvie. ‘She’s in France now. We need her muscle.’
Madame Akiyama smiled when she heard this, and answered by putting both hands on the car and bracing herself. Monsieur Akiyama looked furious, but he too put his weight to the car.
‘Now, get ready. I’m going to take my foot off the brake. After three: one . . . two . . . three . . .’ Lucien translated as she went along. She lifted her foot, but for all their pushing the car didn’t move forward. She braked again, before it had a chance to roll back. ‘We’ll try again. One . . . two . . . three . . .’ Again, the car wouldn’t move. A line of traffic was starting to build up behind them. They just had to get it to the brow of the hill, where the road widened, and the other cars would be able to pass. Her boss could arrange to have it towed from there. She looked in her wing mirror, and saw Aurélie trudging up towards them. ‘Hey,’ she called. ‘Give us a push.’
Aurélie stuck her cigarette in the corner of her mouth, wedged Herbert’s buggy against a lamppost so it wouldn’t roll down the hill, and joined the gang at the back of the car. Together they pushed, and at last the car began to crawl upwards. A pair of passers-by joined in, and two minutes later it was tucked in at the side of the road at the top of the hill. Everyone was elated at having come through a crisis. Madame Akiyama announced that she hadn’t had so much fun in decades, and even Monsieur Akiyama allowed himself a smile of satisfaction.
Sylvie hadn’t seen Aurélie for two weeks. Never having been a great one for metropolitan reserve, she gave her an enthusiastic hug. She introduced her to the Akiyamas, and then Lucien. ‘You don’t have to worry about him hitting on you, because he’s obsessed with Japanese girls.’
‘Not girls, not any more. Just one girl,’ he said.
‘That’s right,’ clarified Sylvie. ‘Just one girl he’s never met.’
Aurélie thought it was a shame that he was an obsessive deviant. She could have done with someone to put his arms around her, and he was good-looking, in a gawky kind of way, and he seemed nice enough. Herbert could have benefited from a father figure for the next few days as well. But this was typical. She had grown quite used to not having much luck with men. Unlike Sylvie, she wasn’t looking for a husband, not yet at least, but a boyfriend would have been nice.
When it was Madame Akiyama’s turn to be introduced to Aurélie, she said something in Japanese, which Lucien translated.
‘She says you have a very adorable child.’
Aurélie smiled, vicariously flattered by the compliment. ‘Thank you,’ she said. She looked down, hoping that Herbert had taken the praise graciously. She turned white. He wasn’t there. She looked around, and there was no Herbert to be seen. She had completely forgotten that she had left him wedged against a lamppost somewhere down the hill. ‘Oh shit – Air-bear! I mean, oh shit – Herbert!’ She ran back down the hill. ‘Herbert!’ she cried. ‘Herbert!’
Air-bear? thought Sylvie, remembering that Aurélie had indeed been pushing some kind of cart. She hadn’t given much thought to it at the time, she had just wanted her to hurry up and start helping with the car. I wonder what that’s all about.
The Akiya
mas looked disconcerted by these events. Sylvie came to Aurélie’s rescue, and told Lucien to inform them that forgetting you’ve left your baby halfway down a hill is normal for France.
He obliged, and they seemed to accept this. They all waited for her to return.
A small crowd had gathered around the buggy, and Herbert was charming them with a sequence of amusing faces as they tried to work out what they ought to do with the abandoned child. They were starting to debate various possibilities when Aurélie arrived, out of breath.
‘Ah,’ she said to the baby. ‘There you are.’ Everyone stared at her as she puffed and panted. ‘He’s always running off,’ she explained. They kept staring at her. ‘Come along, Herbert,’ she said.
‘Air-bear?’ said one of the onlookers.
‘No – Herbert. H-H-H. Herbert. Say after me: Herbert.’
They all had a go at pronouncing his name. Some did better than others, but none of them came close to getting it right. Even though they still had so much to learn, Aurélie decided to cut the lesson short. She wasn’t about to go rooting through her bag for her mirror.
‘Very good, everyone,’ she lied. ‘Now say goodbye to all your nice new friends, Herbert.’
Herbert crossed his eyes and blew a bubble, and the crowd of onlookers waved and wished him well.
As Aurélie fumbled with the buggy, they started talking among themselves, as if she wasn’t there.
Air-bear? Isn’t that an English name? He doesn’t look English to me. He looks just like his mother, and she’s definitely not English – maybe the poor girl married an Englishman. I had a cousin who did that . . .
She left them to it, and made her way back up the hill.
To Monsieur Akiyama’s dismay, Madame Akiyama had insisted on buying everybody a drink, and after reporting the broken-down car to an embattled boss, they sidestepped the crowds of the Place du Tertre and made their way to a backstreet restaurant where they sat together under a gas heater in the courtyard, exchanging questions about each other’s homelands and ways of life. Sylvie had a cup of coffee, and Aurélie had a glass of wine. She popped Herbert on her lap, and gave him some grapes and a bottle of milk. When he had had enough, she handed him over to a delighted Madame Akiyama, who bounced him on her knee as Aurélie sketched the pair of them. She gave one sketch to the Akiyamas and kept another for her project.
When she could contain her curiosity no longer, Sylvie asked Madame Akiyama if she could see a picture of her now legendary daughter. Monsieur Akiyama was not delighted about this, but his wife gladly pulled out her phone, selected a photo and handed it to her. Sylvie could see at once where Lucien was coming from. Akiko was lovely, and you really did only need one picture to tell. Her skin, her smile, her eyes: everything about her was just right.
‘She’s beautiful,’ she said, and Lucien gladly passed this on. ‘May we see some more?’
Madame Akiyama agreed, and Lucien leaned over Sylvie’s shoulder as she looked through the album. There was Akiko petting a small dog, Akiko beside a lake, Akiko in a restaurant . . . With each new photograph Lucien let out a gasp, a sigh, a moan or a whimper. ‘It’s official,’ whispered Sylvie. ‘You love her. And I can completely see why.’ She continued scrolling through the photographs until disaster struck. There she was, the lovely Akiko, standing in what looked like a forest. This would have been fine, had it not been for the fact that beside her stood a young man, his arm resting around her shoulder. And this was not just any young man; he was a young man so handsome it was unbearable. He looked like an old school movie star.
Lucien buried his face in his hands. He tried not to cry. As well as learning the language, he had studied Japanese manners, and he knew that breaking down in front of the father of the woman you hoped to marry was considered a sign of weakness in their culture. As he held back the tears it struck him that breaking down in front of the father of the woman you hoped to marry was probably considered a sign of weakness all over the world – except in England, where that kind of thing was positively encouraged.
It was Sylvie who spoke. ‘And who is this?’ she asked Madame Akiyama.
Lucien was only just able to utter a translation, but when Madame Akiyama replied, his face radiated joy. ‘It’s Akiko’s brother, Toshiro.’ He turned back to the woman he hoped would one day be his mother-in-law. ‘Madame Akiyama, why didn’t you tell me you had a son?’
‘You only asked us if we had a daughter.’
‘Oh.’ He turned red. She was right, of course.
Sylvie was no longer listening. She was scrolling through Madame Akiyama’s photo collection, looking for more pictures of Toshiro. There were plenty. She was able to study him from a number of angles. After a long silence, she looked up. ‘You have wonderful children,’ she said to Monsieur and Madame Akiyama.
They accepted this, Monsieur Akiyama with a nod, and Madame Akiyama with a smile.
VII
For the run-up to his latest presentation of Life, Le Machine had taken an unremarkable apartment on rue Eugène Carrière. He hadn’t visited the place before moving in, but his manager had shown him a list of available properties, and the moment he saw the name of the street he had known this was the one, and had instructed her to rent it for him. Eugène Carrière was his favourite artist.
The apartment had been his base for the weeks leading up to the opening night, weeks he had spent in quiet contemplation and physical and dietary preparation. He had spent as much time as he could walking the streets, reacquainting himself with the city upon which he had turned his back. Apart from a single case containing clothes, all he had brought to the apartment was a set of dumb-bells and a print of Carrière’s painting Enfant avec casserole. He had had it enlarged to fifty times the size of the small original, and the huge canvas leaned against the bedroom wall. The first thing he had done on arrival was to go through the apartment and take down all the pictures that had been hanging there: the Eiffel Tower, the Sacré Coeur, Béatrice Dalle, and other such famous sights that the holidaymakers who usually rented the place would have been delighted to see on the wall. Now this huge baby, sitting in the shadows as he scooped the scrapings from an overturned pot, was the only adornment in an otherwise spartan bedroom.
It had been the work of Eugène Carrière that had made him want to pick up a paintbrush, and his earliest efforts had been attempts to emulate Carrière’s style, particularly his use of colour, which many described as monochromatic, but not Le Machine – he saw whole worlds within the browns and greys. After years of trying, he had given up. One day he had made a split-second decision and left Carrière alone in his twilit world. He knew he had to find his own way, which he had done, and this was how he had come to be lying naked on a mat on the floor while a woman he had met just twenty minutes earlier waxed every hair from his body.
The first time he had presented Life he had shaved off his body hair beforehand, but he now preferred waxing. It took longer for the hairs to grow back, and when they did they were less abrasive than stubble. For the course of the show he would begin to shave every third day once the hair had reached an appropriate length, using an electric razor that collected the bristles, which would then be transferred into a jar. The woman worked on in silence, smearing on the wax and ripping it off. It was not an enjoyable experience but it would soon be over, and he had become used to it.
The last time he had been waxed like this had been around nine months earlier, shortly after he had returned to London from his last show, which had been in São Paolo. That had been when his current batch of promotional photographs had been taken, after which he had allowed his hair to grow back. The city was full of the chosen picture from that shoot, in the Métro and on bus shelters. He had been walking past himself several times a day.
He wasn’t sure how he felt about getting ready to present Life once again. He loved what he had created, and was in no doubt about its power to move the people who came to see it, but he had begun to find keeping the secret beh
ind it to be an unbearable burden. It took more and more strength to stop himself from blurting it out in interviews, or even from the stage, telling the world what it was all about. There was also the problem that there was no longer anything new about it. The first time he had done it, it had been like taking a voyage upriver into an unknown land, but now there were no surprises, and there was a very real danger that the show would become stale, for him and for the people who came to see it.
He felt it was unrealistic of people to expect an artist to remain at the top of their game year after year, decade after decade. People repeat themselves, retreating into the comfort of familiar patterns, or they simply lose their grip on whatever it was that had once made their work great, and he didn’t see why he would be any different. He only hoped he would have the self-awareness to realise when that was happening to him, or better still to withdraw before the rot even began to set in. He was determined not to outstay his welcome, to kill off Life before it lost its power.
Every time, Life had unfolded in the same way, and so far Paris had not deviated from the template. He avoided reading about himself in newspapers, but his manager had yawned as she told him that, as with everywhere else, campaigners for public decency had been trying to force the mayor to close them down before they had even opened, but even so it had been allowed to go ahead. These campaigners always generated incredible amounts of free publicity and strong advance bookings, and his manager always worried that there wouldn’t be an outcry from their host city’s upstanding citizens.
It had helped their cause that they had been able to draw the city authorities’ attention to their having arranged for Life to take place in an area that was known for its risqué goings-on. Nobody could reasonably claim to have been enjoying a wholesome stroll with their family when they happened to pop into an innocent-looking art exhibition at Le Charmant Cinéma Érotique only to be confronted with a naked man squatting over glassware.
While not quite daring to call for a ban, conservative newspapers were already running articles critical of the nature of the exhibition, most of it synthesised outrage written by people whose stock-in-trade was synthe-sised outrage, none of whom had been to see any of Le Machine’s previous exhibitions. A lukewarm debate, based on absolute misunderstandings of the piece, had been running in their letters pages about what does or doesn’t (even should or shouldn’t) count as art. As ever, nobody in any corner of the press had come out firmly in favour of Life: the closest the event had to support were a few articles adopting a let’s-wait-and-see stance.
