A Very Bold Leap (10 page)

Some day he would try to explain all this to Céline, but for the moment the confession she had just made to him so flattered his ego and revived his love for her that he was filled with a delicious transport of joy, which was quickly transmitted to Céline. They began their reconciliation with a passion that sent them to the old carpet and didn’t end for three hours. For the first time in her life, Céline experienced multiple orgasms. Afterwards, she slept for a long time, blissfully, her hand resting on Charles’s chest, while he stared at the wall so hard that he might have been trying to see what was happening on the other side of it.

C
harles had begun work on his second novel, but the writing wasn’t going as well as he would have liked. Although he had little hope of its success, he had mailed the manuscript of
The Dark Night
to two other publishers. Discouragement was sapping his energy; each time he sat down at his typewriter, his head became a desert, in which only dry, uninteresting ideas would sprout, like cactuses, covered with sharp needles that made them impossible to handle. “I’m not cut out for this kind of work,” he told himself repeatedly. “No wonder nothing is working.”

That wasn’t Steve Lachapelle’s view. For Steve, who couldn’t write a six-page essay without jumping subjects three times and who manufactured errors in spelling and punctuation as a queen bee manufactured eggs, the very sight of Charles’s manuscript filled him with respectful awe. Neither was it Blonblon’s or Céline’s analysis of the situation; despite a few early draggy bits and two or three questionable scenes, they had thoroughly enjoyed reading
The Dark Night
, and believed that it foretold other, even better books to come. Finally, it wasn’t Lucie’s opinion, either. She saw in Charles evidence of a great destiny, and almost succeeded in convincing her husband to see it as well.

None of this enthusiasm was enough to draw Charles out of his funk. The verdict handed down by Jean-Philippe L’Archevêque, which now appeared to be confirmed by the silence of the other two publishers, seemed to have pulled the rug out from under him. For the first time in his life, his future was beginning to worry him. Did this mean his youth was over? Did he have to pay attention to the passing of time from now on? Although he had developed some competence as a hardware-store employee, the thought of doing that for a living was about as appealing as a sewer cover. His dream of a career
as a man of letters was coming apart at the seams. What could he turn his hand to next? Go back to school? To study what? Life had become so complicated! Things would be so much simpler if he had suffered the same fate as his little sister…

Then one night, after having wrung three whole pages out of his unwilling typewriter and tossed them directly into the wastepaper basket, he leapt from his chair with determination: the next day he would telephone the silent publishers and demand a reaction from them, a verdict, anything; and, in the meantime, he would go down to L’Express “to make some contacts.”

He wasn’t fooled by the pretext he had come up with, of course. He knew full well that he was returning to the popular and expensive restaurant more in the hopes of running into Brigitte Loiseau than on the off chance of meeting a publisher or a journalist or a writer willing to lend him a helping hand. To salve his conscience, he asked Céline to go with him. But she had to study for an exam the next day and couldn’t leave the house; careful not to show the slightest misgiving, she told him to enjoy himself on his own.

He took the subway. But as he arrived at the Berri-de Montigny station, the futility of his project hit him with such force that he stopped at the platform, once again so overcome with discouragement that he almost turned around and went home.

Then his eye fell on a young man who was sleeping in the subway station, stretched out across a row of seats. The man was wearing clean clothes of good quality. His arm was thrown across his eyes, and on his exposed wrist Charles could see an expensive silver bracelet. He also wore a moustache, black and full, which gave to his half-opened mouth, his white teeth, his pink, fleshy lips, a primitive look that was faintly attractive. Why was he sleeping in a subway station? Alcohol? Drugs? Extreme disgust for life? Was this the beginning of a long descent that would eventually lead him to the city’s alleys, and finally to the morgue?

Charles almost shook the man’s shoulder to awaken him, but stopped himself: there was nothing he could do for him. He would probably ask Charles for money so he could buy more drugs. But it wasn’t money the man needed.

The sight of the young man acted as a tonic on Charles. No, he would not become one of those who let themselves slip through life’s cracks! His novel would be published — there could be no more doubt about it — and readers would go crazy over it.

Now he couldn’t wait to get to L’Express, where others like him would be gathered. Brigitte Loiseau might even be there and able to help him.

Hadn’t she wanted to find some way to express her gratitude? With the celebrity she enjoyed, it would be a snap.

It was Monday night and the restaurant was almost empty. It was filled instead with a sleepy torpor, as though the weekend had exhausted its clientele and emptied their wallets, forcing them to make the wise decision to stay home and watch television. Charles was on his second Americano and flipping through
Le Monde Diplomatique
(on his previous visit he had seen two customers reading it with such intense gravity that he thought it would be a good idea to buy a copy himself). An hour had gone by, Brigitte Loiseau still hadn’t shown up, and he was wondering whether he should bother ordering a third coffee when he heard a familiar “Ahem! Ahem!” and looked up. Bernard Délicieux had just sat down at the next table and greeted him with a huge smile. This time he was wearing a raspberry-red tie that clashed brilliantly with his pale blue shirt, and from his whole person there emanated a sense of sophistication and cunning that both attracted and repulsed Charles at the same time.

“So,” said Suet-Ball, “how goes the writing?”

Charles made a gesture that indicated it wasn’t going all that well.

“Ah!” Délicieux sighed. “It’s not an easy job, is it? I may be just a journalist, but I know a few things. There are days, believe me, when even pounding out a short piece on nothing at all makes me sweat bullets. People who aren’t writers have no idea what we have to go through, no idea whatsoever! Will you have a cognac? Oh, come on, be a good boy and say yes, I beg of you. I so enjoyed our little chat the other night…”

He signalled to a waiter, and before he knew it, Charles had joined him, amused and a bit intimidated, and a Courvoisier Grande Réserve Spéciale was placed in front of him. Maybe this was the time to start establishing one of those “contacts,” he told himself, that seemed to be so essential to one’s career.

“So tell me what’s not going so well with your work … Sometimes just talking about it can help you get past a bout of writer’s block.”

Charles found the question too intimate, almost improper, but when he looked into the journalist’s glistening, warm gaze, his mistrust vanished without trace.

“It’s just that I feel discouraged.”

“Discouraged about what?”

“No one wants to publish my first novel. But despite that I’ve begun writing a second one, which is, well… you know… It’s a bit like calling up a girl you’ve already sent packing.”

“I see, I see,” said Délicieux, nodding his head gravely. “Sounds fairly normal to me. But this first novel of yours, you’ve shown it around your circle, I take it?”

“Oh, yes.”

“And their reactions?”

“Ohhh … fairly positive. But they’re friends, or family, you know what I mean? I can’t really rely on their judgment.”

“Well, what if I read it!” offered the journalist, flashing a brilliant smile. “I barely know you. I don’t owe you anything. And I promise you I’ll be … merciless!”

Charles was silent for a moment, not knowing what to make of this stranger’s sudden interest. “No,” he said, “you’re much too busy. But thanks all the same. Anyway, it’s more than two hundred pages long!”

“But that’s nothing, not a thing! I adore reading, and I read very quickly. And I have a lot more free time than you’d think.”

“I’d be afraid of boring you,” Charles continued, shaking his head with a thin smile, torn between suspicion and temptation. “And it would take a great deal of your time, especially since you’d have to give it a careful reading.”

“Pfa! A piece of cake! If that’s all that’s holding you back… Bring me your manuscript tomorrow and I’ll go through it in two days — two days to the minute!… at least, according to my own watch,” he added quickly, rubbing his ear in an odd way.

Charles finally gave in. Bernard Délicieux was beside himself. He ordered more cognacs, then began telling Charles about the picturesque life he’d been living for the past several years in the world of “artistic journalism.” Charles noted with satisfaction that not once did the name Brigitte Loiseau appear on his lips. It would seem that the service the man was offering him was not part of some hidden agenda: maybe the journalist was simply trying to be friendly. Such things happen in life without our really knowing why. And it wasn’t the first time in his life that he had attracted this kind of sympathy. In any case, he was a child no longer and he couldn’t be drawn into anything against his will.

He suggested they meet the next day at four o’clock at La Brioche Lyonnaise, on rue Saint-Denis, and he would bring his manuscript. Then, slightly woozy from the cognac and knowing he had to be at the hardware store early in the morning, he got up and left the restaurant. The encounter with the journalist seemed to have reinvigorated him, and despite his fatigue and the vague feeling of unreality that had come over him, he sat down at his work table and managed to write three pages before taking himself off to bed.

Bernard Délicieux loved
The Dark Night
. A few days later, Charles went to his apartment on avenue Pare La Fontaine. The journalist opened the door in a dressing gown and slippers, with a two-day growth on his chin and in such a state of excitement it raised his voice to falsetto pitch; he began prattling to Charles with grand, theatrical gestures, stopping at odd moments to peer into the young man’s eyes and pat him on the shoulder. His thin, hairless legs contrasted comically with his protruding belly, making him look vaguely like an ostrich, but Charles was too absorbed in the praise being heaped on him to notice anything unusual about his host’s appearance. His months and months of work had finally begun to pay off. Through the voice of this overexcited individual, who was delivering his praise while pacing about the room, Charles could hear the approval of his public.

“Your book had me in its grip from the moment I opened it, Charles. I put everything aside and read it in one go. Then I read it again, something I haven’t done for thirty years. You can pride yourself on having given me the most intense experience! I didn’t even put it down to get dressed. I haven’t shaved or eaten anything but a few cinnamon buns and coffee! This novel absolutely must be published. You are a born writer, one of the future greats of our literature, and any publisher who doesn’t see that is an imbecile who should be demoted to selling bicycles or woollen goods or something, or better still, retired so their place can be taken by someone intelligent.”

“Maybe, but they all say the same thing,” Charles said sadly. “My book will never be published.”

“It will, it will, mark my words. Give me some time to think about it. I’ll figure something out. Obviously, it isn’t entirely perfect, it’ll need a few improvements here and there. I’ll make a few notes — you can read them when
your head has cleared; make of them what you will — you’re the master, after all. Me, I’m nothing, a poor, old journalist, worn out by work.”

And he launched into a fresh string of praises. Suddenly, Charles found his enthusiasm suspect, his mannerisms and appearance unpleasant, even slimy. Délicieux offered him a coffee, but he turned it down, saying he had to meet someone, and after thanking the journalist as warmly as he could manage, he left, his manuscript under his arm, confused and perplexed without quite knowing why. Once again, he felt himself to be back at square one.