Delicacy (19 page)

“You wanted to see me to ask that?”

“No … no … we spend our time walking past each other … and I just wanted to know how you’re doing … how it’s going these days …”

He’d practically stammered these last words. Face to face with such a woman, he was a train derailed. He didn’t understand why she had such an effect on him. She was beautiful, of course, had a way of dovetailing with his idea of the sublime, but still: was that enough? He was a powerful man, and sometimes
redheaded secretaries tittered as he went by. He could have had women, he could have spent every day from five to seven in five-star hotels. Then why hadn’t he? He had no answer. He was a slave to his first impression. It had to be that. The moment he’d seen her face on her résumé, when he’d said, let me do the interview with her. Then she’d appeared, young and married, pale and indecisive, and a few seconds after, he’d offered her some Krisprolls. Could he have fallen in love with a photo? Because nothing wears you out more than living under the sensual dictates of beauty set in stone. He kept studying her. She didn’t want to sit down. She walked around the office, touching things, smiling at some trifle: an intense incarnation of femininity. Finally, she walked around his desk and stood behind him.

“What … are you doing?”

“I’m looking at your head.”

“But why?”

“I’m looking behind your head. Because I think you have an idea at the back of your mind.”

That’s all he needed: some humor on her part. Charles was no longer at all in control of the situation. She was behind him, amused. For the first time, the past seemed really past. He’d been in the dress circle during the dark days. He’d spent nights thinking that she might commit suicide, and there she was now, behind him, extremely alive.

“Come and sit down, please,” he said calmly.

“All right.”

“You seem happy. And it makes you look beautiful.”

Natalie didn’t answer. She was hoping that he hadn’t asked
her to come so he could make some new admission. He went on, “You have nothing to tell me?”

“No, you’re the one who wanted to see me.”

“Everything is going well with your team?”

“Yes, I think so. Actually, you know better than I do. You have the figures.”

“And with … Markus?”

So that was the idea in the back of his mind. He wanted to talk about Markus. How could she not have thought of it before?”

“I’ve heard you go out to dinner with him a lot.”

“Who told you that?”

“Everything gets out in this place.”

“So what? That’s my private life. What’s it have to do with you?” Suddenly Natalie stopped. Her face changed color. She looked at Charles, at how shabby he seemed, hanging on her words, lying in wait for an explanation, hoping more than anything for a denial. She kept watching him for a long time, without knowing what to do. Finally she decided to leave the office, without adding another word. She left her boss in his uncertainty, in his fine frustration. She hadn’t been able to stand the gossip, people talking behind her back. She detested the entire routine: notions in the backs of their minds, words behind her back, shooting below the belt. It was the phrase “everything gets out” in particular that had bothered her. Now that she thought about it again, she could see it was true: yes, she’d sensed something in the eyes of others. Somebody having seen them at the restaurant, or simply leaving together, was enough to make the entire company go into action. Why was she getting excited?
She’d answered curtly that it was her life. She could have easily said to Charles, “Yes, I can see us becoming a man and a woman.” With conviction. But no, she didn’t want to label the situation, and it was out of the question for anyone at all to push her into doing so. As she headed back to her office, she passed some coworkers and noticed the change. The looks of compassion and sympathy were being eaten away by something else. But she still couldn’t imagine what was going to happen.

Seventy-nine

Release Date of the Claude Lelouch Film
A Man and a Woman
With Anouk Aimée and Jean-Louis Trintignant

July 12, 1966

Eighty

After Natalie left, Charles kept still for a long period of time. He understood perfectly how poorly he’d conducted that conversation. He’d been clumsy. In particular, he’d been incapable of telling her what he was really feeling, of saying, “Yes, it does have something to do with me. You didn’t want to go out with me, because you didn’t want to be with any man again. So, yes, I have the right to know what you’re feeling. I have the right to know what you like about him, and what you don’t like about me. You know very well how in love with you I was, how difficult it was for me. You owe me an explanation, that’s all I’m asking.” That’s about what he would have wanted to say. But it’s never like that: you’re always five minutes behind when it comes to having a conversation about love.

He couldn’t concentrate the rest of the day. When he’d set matters straight with Natalie, on that evening of so many ties in championship soccer, he’d come to terms with things. By some strange sexual logic, it had even led to reconnecting with his wife. They’d made love for weeks, finding each other through the medium of their bodies. You could even have called it a
magnificent time. There can be a lot more emotion in the rediscovery of love than there is in its mere discovery. And then, the agony had slowly resumed its course, like snickering; how could they have believed they loved each other again? It had been a passage, a parenthesis in the form of masked despair, a patch of level terrain between two mountains of pathos.

Charles felt worn out, exhausted. He was sick of Sweden and the Swedish. Of their taxing habit of always trying to stay calm. Never shouting on the telephone. Their way of being Zen, providing employee massages. All this well-being was beginning to grate on him. He missed Mediterranean hysteria, and he sometimes dreamed of doing business with carpet salesmen. This was his frame of mind when he got the information about Natalie’s private life. Since then, he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about this Markus person. How had someone with such an idiotic first name been able to attract Natalie? He hadn’t wanted to believe it. He was in a good enough position to know that her heart was sort of like the mirage of an oasis; as soon as you got closer, it vanished. But this time was different. Her extravagant, disproportionate reaction seemed to confirm the rumor. Oh no, it couldn’t be. He’d never be able to bear it. “How did it happen?” Charles kept repeating. The Swede must have cast a spell on her, or something like that. Put her under, hypnotized her, given her a potion to drink. It could only have been that. She’d seemed so different. Yes, maybe that’s what had hurt him the most: she wasn’t his Natalie anymore. Something had changed. A bona fide modification. There was only one solution, then: call in this Markus and see what he was made of. Discover his secret.

Eighty-one

Number of Languages, Including Swedish,
in Which You Can Read
Michel Butor’s
La Modification (Second Thoughts),
Prix Renaudot, 1957

Eighty-two

Markus had been raised with the notion that you must never make waves. That wherever you went, you must keep being discreet. Life was supposed to be like a passageway. So, when called in by the director, he was bound to panic. He could be a man, he could have a sense of humor and a sense of responsibility, he could be counted on; but as soon as it was a matter of relating to authority, he found himself becoming a child again. He was in turmoil, assailed by a host of questions. Why does he want to see me? What have I done? Did I do a bad job negotiating the insurance part of file 114? Have I gone to the dentist too often lately? Guilt besieged him from all sides. And maybe that was his true nature. The absurd feeling of punishment to come, hanging permanently over him like a sword of Damocles.

He knocked on the door his way, always with two fingers. Charles told him to enter.

“Hello, I’m here to see you … since you asked for …”

“I don’t have the time right now … I have a meeting.”

“Oh, fine then.”

“… “

“Good, I’ll leave then. I’ll stop by later.”

Charles dismissed the employee, because he didn’t have time to see him. He was waiting for the famous Markus, without imagining for a second that he’d just seen him. The bastard had snared Natalie’s heart, and now he had the nerve not to show up when he was called. What kind of rebel could he be? It wasn’t going to happen like this. Who did he think he was? Charles telephoned his secretary.

“I asked a Markus Lundell to come and see me, and he still isn’t here. Can you see what’s going on?”

“But you asked him to leave.”

“No, he didn’t come.”

“Yes, he did. I just saw him leaving your office.”

Then Charles’s mind went blank, as if wind had suddenly blown through his body. The wind of the north, undoubtedly. He almost fainted. He asked his secretary to call him back. Markus, who’d barely sat down on his chair, had to get up again. He wondered if his boss was having some fun with him. Perhaps he was irritated with the Swedish shareholders and was getting even using one of the employees who came from that country. Markus didn’t want to be a yo-yo. If this kept up, he really was going to give in to pressure from Jean-Pierre, the union representative on the second floor.