Delicacy (11 page)

He rapped on the door to her office with a firm hand. “Come in,” she said, and he walked in unflinchingly. But then he had to face a major problem: she’d gone to the hairdresser’s. Markus had always been very sensitive when it came to hair. And now he was faced with a disconcerting sight: Natalie’s hair was wonderfully sleek. Of an astonishing beauty. If only she’d tied it back, as she did sometimes, everything would have been simpler. But in the face of such a capillary revelation, he felt at a loss for words.

“Yes, Markus, what is it?”

Interrupting the rush of thoughts in his mind, he ended up saying the first sentence that popped into his head:

“I really like your hair.”

“Thanks, that’s nice.”

“No, I mean, I adore it.”

Natalie was surprised by such an early morning admission. She didn’t know whether to smile or get embarrassed.

“Okay, and so?”

“…”

“You certainly didn’t come to see me just to talk about my hair?”

“No … no …”

“All right, then. I’m listening.”

“…”

“Markus, are you there?”

“Yes …”

“Well?”

“I’d like to know why you kissed me.”

The memory of the kiss returned to the foreground of her memory. How had she been able to forget it? Each instant was being pieced together again, and she couldn’t hold in a pout of disgust. Was she crazy? For three years, she hadn’t approached a single man, hadn’t even thought about being interested in anybody, and then she goes kissing this inconsequential coworker. He was waiting for an answer, which was perfectly understandable. Time was passing. She had to say something.

“I don’t know,” murmured Natalie.

Markus would have preferred any answer, even a rejection, to this nothing of an answer.

“You don’t know?”

“No, I don’t.”

“You can’t leave it like that. You need to explain it to me.”

There was nothing to say.

This kiss was like modern art.

Forty-four

Title of a Painting by Kazimir Malevich

White on White
(1918)

Forty-five

Afterward, she thought about it: why that kiss? It just happened. We’re not the masters of our biological clock. In this instance it was the one that concerns mourning. She’d wanted to die, had tried to breathe again, had succeeded, then was able to eat, had even succeeded in going back to work, smiling, being strong, affable, feminine; and then time had passed with that wobbly energy of reconstruction, until the day she’d gone into that bar but fled, unable to bear the cruising game, certain she’d never be able to be interested in a man; yet the next day, she’d started walking on the wall-to-wall carpeting, had just done it, an impulse stolen from doubt; she’d experienced her body as an object of desire, its shape and hips, and she’d even been disappointed she couldn’t hear the sound of her spike heels … All of it had come out of nowhere, the unforeseen birth of a sensation, a lucid force.

And that was when Markus had entered the room.

There was nothing else to say. Our biological clock isn’t rational. It’s exactly like an unhappy love affair: you don’t know when you’ll get over it. At the most painful moment, you think
that the wound will never heal. And then, one morning, you’re startled to discover that you no longer feel this terrible burden. What a surprise to notice that the angst has disappeared. Why on that particular day? Why not later, or sooner? It’s the totalitarian decision of our body. Markus shouldn’t have looked for a tangible explanation of that impulsive kiss. It had appeared all in good time. Besides, most stories can often be summed up by that simple question of the right moment. Markus, who’d made a mess of so many things in his life, had just discovered his ability to appear in the field of vision of a woman at the perfect moment.

Natalie had read the distress in Markus’s eyes. After their last exchange, he’d left slowly. Without making a sound. As unobtrusive as a semicolon in an eight-hundred-page novel. She couldn’t leave him like that. She was terribly upset about having acted as she did. She also thought he was a nice man to work with, respectful of everybody, and that made her even more upset about the notion of wounding him. She called him to her office. He put file 114 under his arm, in case she wanted to see him for a work reason. But he didn’t give a good goddamn about file 114. In responding to the call, he made a detour by way of the restroom and splashed a little water on his face. Curious about what she was going to say to him, he opened the door to her office.

“Thanks for coming.”

“You’re welcome.”

“I’d like to apologize. I didn’t know how to answer. And to be perfectly honest, I still don’t know …”

“…”

“I don’t know what came over me. It had to be some kind of physical drive … but we work together, and I must say that it was completely inappropriate.”

“You sound like an American. That’s never a good sign.”

She began to laugh. What a strange reply. It was the first time they were talking about anything other than a file. She was discovering a clue to his real personality. She had to get ahold of herself.

“I sound like somebody in charge of a six-person team that you belong to. You walked in just as I was daydreaming, and I didn’t grasp the real situation at that moment.”

“But that moment was the realest of my life,” protested Markus without thinking. It had come right out of his heart.

Things weren’t going to be simple, thought Natalie. It was best to put a stop to the conversation. Which she rapidly did. Somewhat curtly. Markus didn’t seem to understand. He stood stock-still in her office without moving, vainly looking for the strength to leave. The truth was, when she’d called him in ten minutes before, he’d imagined that she might want to kiss him again. He’d wandered into this dream and had just understood once and for all that nothing more was going to happen between them. He’d been crazy to think it would. She’d only kissed him on the spur of the moment. It was difficult to admit. It was like somebody offering you happiness and then immediately taking it back. He wished he’d never known the taste of Natalie’s lips. He wished he’d never experienced that moment, because he was deeply aware that he’d need months to get over those few seconds.

Markus headed for the door. Natalie was surprised to catch a tear forming in his eye. It hadn’t flowed yet, was waiting to come sliding out in the hallway. He wanted to hold it back. Certainly didn’t want to weep in front of Natalie. This was stupid, but the tear he was going to weep was unexpected.

It was the third time he’d wept in front of a woman.

Forty-six

Thought of a Polish Philosopher

There are incredible people
whom we meet at the wrong moment.
And there are people who are incredible
because we meet them at the right moment.

Forty-seven

Little Love Story About Markus,
Told Through His Tears

First and foremost, in this case, let’s disregard childhood tears, tears in front of his mother or schoolteacher. This is only about Markus’s romantically motivated tears. And so, before that tear he’d tried to control in front of Natalie, there had already been two other occasions.

The first tear went back to his life in Sweden, with a young girl answering to the sweet name of Marilyn. Not a very Swedish name, but surely, Marilyn Monroe respects no boundaries. Marilyn’s father had fantasized about this myth his entire life and hadn’t found any better idea than naming his daughter after it. Let us say no more about the psychological danger of naming a daughter in honor of one’s erotic fantasies. Marilyn’s family history is rather immaterial for us, isn’t it?

Marilyn belonged to that curious category of women who know their own mind. Regardless of the subject, she could always
keep from voicing the slightest uncertain opinion. It was the same when it came to her beauty: every morning, she rose with stardom on her face. Perfectly sure of herself, she always sat in the first row, sometimes trying to undermine male teachers by playfully using her obvious charms to deflect issues of geopolitics. When she entered a room, men fantasized immediately, and women instinctively detested her. She was the subject of every fantasy, which ended up getting on her nerves. Then she came up with a brilliant inspiration for throwing cold water on their enthusiasm: going out with the most insignificant boy. This would unnerve the males, and reassure the girls. Markus was the lucky elect, without understanding why the center of the universe was suddenly taking an interest in him. It was like the United States inviting Liechtenstein to lunch. She showered some compliments on him, claimed she looked at him a lot.

“But how can you see me? I’m always at the back of the class, and you’re always in the first row.”

“The back of my neck told me everything. There are eyes in the back of my neck,” said Marilyn.

Their understanding was born from this exchange.

An understanding that set tongues wagging. That evening, they left high school together under the flabbergasted eyes of everybody. During that period in time, Markus’s self-awareness was still not very acute. He knew he had a rather unattractive body, but being with a pretty woman didn’t strike him as uncanny. He’d always heard, “Women aren’t as superficial as men; for them looks count less. The important thing is to be cultured and amusing.” So he’d studied a lot of things and tried to offer
proof of his mind. With some success, it should be said; so that his pockmarked face nearly withdrew behind what you’d call a certain charm.