Delicacy (23 page)

She didn’t understand why her affair with Markus was so interesting. Was it because of him? Because of what he gave off? Is that how pairings that lack rationality are seen? But it was ridiculous: is there anything less logical than an attraction?
Since her last discussion with Chloé, Natalie’s anger hadn’t subsided. Who did they all think they were? She reinterpreted brief glances from everyone as attacks.

“We’ve barely kissed, and I get the impression that everyone hates me now,” she said.

“And everyone adores me!”

“Now that’s clever, isn’t it …”

“Just say the hell with it. Look at the menu. That’s what counts. You want endives with Roquefort or the soup of the day as an appetizer? That’s all that matters.”

He certainly was right. However, she couldn’t relax. She didn’t understand why she was having such a strong reaction. Maybe she needed some time to understand that it was all connected to the rebirth of her emotions. It was a giddy sensation that she was transforming into aggression. Against all of them, and above all, against Charles.

“You know, the more I think about it, the more I tell myself that Charles’s reaction is disgraceful.”

“I think he loves you, that’s all.”

“That’s no reason to play the clown with you.”

“Calm down, it isn’t that serious.”

“I can’t calm down, I can’t …”

Natalie announced that she was going to see Charles after lunch so that he’d stop with the dramatics. Markus chose not to hinder her determination. He left room for a bit of silence, which she broke off with a confession. “Sorry, I’m on edge …”

“It’s no big deal. Besides, you know news changes quickly … and two days from now they won’t be talking about us
anymore … there’s a new secretary who just arrived, and I think Berthier’s attracted to her … so you see …”

“That’s no scoop. He jumps on everything that moves.”

“Yes, true. But this is different. Remember he just got married to the accountant … so we’re not safe from a little soap opera.”

“More than anything I think I’m lost.”

She’d spoken the sentence abruptly. Without the slightest transition. Instinctively, Markus took the soft part of the bread and started to crumble it in his hand.

“What are you doing?” Natalie asked him.

“I’m doing what they did in
Tom Thumb
. If you’re lost, you’ve got to leave a trail of crumbs behind you as you go. That way, you can find your way back.”

“Which leads me here … to you, I suppose?”

“Yes. Unless I’m hungry, and decide to eat the crumbs while I’m waiting for you.”

Ninety-five

Which Appetizer Natalie Chose
at Lunch with Markus

Soup of the day.
m

Ninety-six

Charles was no longer at all the same man who’d passed the night with Markus. Halfway through the morning, he’d recovered his spirits and regretted his behavior. He was still wondering why he’d lost his footing at the sight of the Swede. Maybe he wasn’t totally fulfilled and suffered from a variety of anxieties, but that was no reason for reacting like that. Especially in front of somebody. He was ashamed. It was going to push him into drastic behavior. Just like a lover can prove to be aggressive after a far from stellar sexual performance. He felt all the fragments of combat coalescing in him again. He began to do a few push-ups, but at that very moment, Natalie came into his office. He got up.

“You could have knocked,” he said curtly.

She walked toward him the same way she’d walked toward Markus to kiss him. But this time it was to deliver a slap.

“There, I did it.”

“But you can’t do that! I can fire you for that.”

Charles brought a hand to his face. And tremblingly repeated his threat.

“And I can attack you for harassment. You want me to show you the e-mails you sent me?”

“But why are you talking to me like that? I’ve always respected you.”

“Yes, that’s it. Put on your little act for me. All you wanted to do was sleep with me.”

“I honestly don’t understand you.”

“Well, I don’t understand what you went and did with Markus.”

“Don’t I have the right to have dinner with an employee?”

“Yes, okay, that’s enough! Understand?” she shouted.

This did her a world of good, and she would have wanted to fly into an even bigger rage. Her reaction was excessive. By defending her territory with Markus like that, she was betraying her confusion. The confusion she was always incapable of defining. Dictionaries stop where the heart starts. And maybe that’s why Charles had stopped reading definitions when Natalie returned to work. There was nothing to say beyond giving voice to primal reactions.

As she was about to leave the office, Charles declared, “I had dinner with him because I wanted to get to know him … to know how you could have chosen a man that ugly, that insignificant. I can understand your rejecting me, but that’s something, you see, I’ll never understand …”

“Shut up!”

“I you think I’m going to leave things just as they are. I’ve just been with the stockholders. Any moment now, your dear Markus is going to get a very important offer. An offer he’d be suicidal to refuse. Just one small problem: the job is in
Stockholm. But with the benefits he’ll get, I think he won’t hesitate long.”

“You’re pathetic. Especially since nothing can prevent me from resigning and going with him.”

“You can’t do that! I forbid it!”

“You’re a pain, you really are …”

“And you can’t do that to François, either!”

Natalie stared at him. Immediately he wanted to apologize for what he’d said; he knew he’d gone too far. But he couldn’t move a muscle. Neither could she. That last sentence had knocked the life out of them. Finally, she left Charles’s office, slowly, without saying anything. He sat there alone, certain of having lost her forever. Then he walked to the window to gaze out into empty space, intensely tempted.

Ninety-seven

Once she was back sitting at her desk, Natalie consulted her calendar. She called Chloé to ask her to cancel all her meetings.

“But it isn’t possible! You have to head the committee in an hour.”

“Yes, I know,” interrupted Natalie. “Okay, good, I’ll call later.”

She hung up, not knowing what to do. It was an important meeting, and she’d spent a lot of time preparing for it. But it was obvious that she could no longer work in this company after what had just happened. She remembered the first time she’d come to this building. She was still a young girl. She recalled those beginnings, François’s advice. Perhaps that’s what had been the hardest thing about his death. The sudden, brutal absence of their discussions. The end of those moments when you talked about each other’s life, when you commented on it. She was finding herself alone at the edge of the abyss and deeply understood that her fragility was degrading her. That for three years she’d been putting on the most pathetic act there is. That deep down she had never been persuaded she wanted to live. She still felt so much guilt, so much ridiculous guilt when
she returned again to the memory of the Sunday her husband had died. She should have held him back, kept him from going running. Wasn’t that a wife’s role? See to it that men stop running. She should have held him back, kissed him, loved him. She should have set down her book, interrupted her reading instead of letting him smash his life to pieces.

Her anger had subsided now. She gazed at her desk a moment more, then threw a few belongings into her bag. She turned off her computer, tidied up the drawers, and left. She was glad she didn’t pass anyone, didn’t have to say a word. Her escape had to be a silent one. She took a taxi, told the driver to go to the Saint-Lazare railroad station, and bought a ticket. As the train was leaving, she began to weep.

Ninety-eight

Schedule of the Paris–Lisieux Train
Taken by Natalie

Departure: 4:33 p.m. Paris/Saint-Lazare

Arrival: 6:02 p.m. Lisieux

Ninety-nine

Natalie’s disappearance immediately jammed the functioning of every floor. She was supposed to preside over the most important meeting of the quarter. She’d left without giving the slightest instruction, hadn’t notified anyone. In the hallways, some were rankled and criticized her lack of professionalism. In a few minutes, her reputation took a nosedive: the authority of the present over a reputation acquired in the course of years. Since everyone was aware of her connection to Markus, they continually went to see him. “Do you know where she could be?” He had to admit that he didn’t. And that amounted almost to saying, “No, I have no particular connection to her. She doesn’t share her wanderings with me.” It was hard to have to express his lack of responsibility for the situation like that. This new episode was going to strip him of the prestige he’d accumulated the day before. It was as if they were suddenly remembering that he wasn’t as important as all that. And people began to wonder how they could have thought—even only for an instant—that he was close to Natalie Portman.