Delicacy (8 page)

“…”

“I couldn’t go home like that. I’d rather it be said.”

“It has been said. You said it. Yes, it’s been said. If I understand, then you’ve said it. You did say it, yes.”

Natalie watched Charles as he spluttered on. Words left hanging, snapped up one by one by silence. Words like the eyes of a dying man. She made a vague gesture of fondness: a hand on the shoulder. And returned the way she’d come. Left again toward the smaller and smaller Natalie. Charles wanted to stay standing there, and it wasn’t easy. He couldn’t get over it. Especially the tone she’d used. Completely unaffected, without the slightest nastiness. He had to face facts: she wasn’t attracted to him and never would be. He wasn’t feeling any anger. It was like the sudden end of something that had made him feel alive for years. The end of a possibility. The evening had followed the voyage of the
Titanic
. Festive at first, then shipwrecked. Truth often had the look of an iceberg. Natalie was still in his field of vision, and he wanted to see her leave as quickly as possible. Even the tiny speck she’d become was inordinately unbearable.

Twenty-eight

Charles walked a little, until the parking lot. Once he was in his car, he smoked a cigarette. What he was feeling was a perfect match for the jarringly yellow neon. He pulled out of the parking space and turned on the radio. The announcer was talking about a strange series of ties tonight in League 1 soccer. Everything was coherent. He was like the least interesting of all the sports associations, lost in the most unexciting part of the championship games. He was married, he had a daughter, was in charge of an excellent company, but he felt an immense emptiness. Only the dream of Natalie had the ability to make him feel alive. All of it was over now, obliterated, destroyed, ruined. He could string together a list of synonyms, but it wouldn’t change anything now. Then he thought that there was something worse than being rejected by a woman you love: having to come across her every day. Ending up near her in a hallway at any moment. He was thinking of the hallway for a reason. She was beautiful in the offices, but he’d always thought that her eroticism displayed itself more powerfully in the hallways. Yes, in his mind, she was a woman of the hallways. And now he’d just realized that at the end of the hallway he was going to have to make a U-turn.

On the other hand, to get home, you must never make a U-turn. Charles’s car drove along the street he took every day. You would have thought it was the subway, to the extent that the route radiated sameness. He parked and smoked another cigarette in the lot of his building. As he opened the door to his place, he caught sight of his wife in front of the television. No one would have guessed that Laurence had once possessed a kind of furious sexual energy. Slowly but inevitably she was slipping into the prototype of the depressed bourgeoise. Strangely, Charles was affected by that image. He walked slowly up to the television and turned it off. His wife protested, without very much conviction. He walked over to her and firmly took her arm. She wanted to react, but no sound came from her mouth. Deep down she’d dreamed of this moment, dreamed that her husband would touch her, that he’d stop walking past her as if she no longer existed. Their life together was a daily lesson in self-effacement. Without exchanging a word, they headed toward their bedroom. The bed was made, and suddenly it was unmade. Charles turned Laurence around and lowered her panties. Natalie’s rejection had given him the desire to have sex with his wife, even a little violently.

Twenty-nine

League 1 Soccer Scores the Evening Charles Understood
Natalie Would Never Be Attracted to Him

Auxerre–Marseille: 2-2

*

Lens–Lille: 1-1

*

Toulouse–Sochaux: 1-0

*

Paris SG–Nantes: 1-1

*

Grenoble–Le Mans: 3-3

*

Saint-Étienne–Lyon: 0-0

*

Monaco–Nice: 0-0

*

Rennes–Bordeaux: 0-1

*

Nancy–Caen: 1-1

*

Lorient–Le Havre: 2-2

Thirty

After that dinner, their relationship was no longer the same. Charles kept his distance, and Natalie understood perfectly. Rare as their exchanges were, they became strictly professional. Dealing with their respective files didn’t cause much of a problem. Since her promotion, Natalie had been managing a team of six people.
^d
She’d changed her office, and that had been the best thing for her. Why hadn’t she thought of it before? Was changing décor enough to change your state of mind? Maybe she ought to think about moving? But she’d barely imagined the possibility before she understood that she wouldn’t feel up to it. Mourning possesses a double-edged power, an uncompromising power that propels everything as much toward the necessity for change as toward the morbid temptation to stay faithful to the past. So she assigned her professional life the task of looking to the future. Her new office, on the top floor of the building, seemed to touch the sky, and she congratulated herself for not being afraid of heights. Here was one kind of rejoicing that was simple to do.

The months that followed were still marked by binge working. She’d even had two minds about studying Swedish in case she needed to take on new duties. You couldn’t say she was ambitious. She was just trying to use files as a palliative. Her friends and family were still worried, taking her habit of working too much as a sign of depression. That theory irritated her to the max. For her, things were simple: she just wanted to work a lot to keep from thinking, to live in a void. We struggle the best we can, and she would have liked those close to her to support her fight instead of holding forth with their murky theories. She was proud of what she’d managed to do. She went to the office even on weekends, brought work home with her, forgot about hours. Inevitably there’d be a moment when she’d collapse from exhaustion, but for the time being she was making progress thanks only to Swedish adrenaline.

Her energy impressed everybody. Since she showed not the slightest flaw, her coworkers started to forget what she’d been through. François became a memory for the others, and perhaps this is what he could become for her as well. Her long hours made her constantly available, especially for the members of her team. Chloé, the last to arrive, was also the youngest. She in particular loved confiding in Natalie, specifically when it came to her problems with her boyfriend and her constant worrying: she was terribly jealous. She knew it was ridiculous, but she couldn’t control it and act more rationally. As a result, something unusual happened: Chloé’s stories, tinged as they were with immaturity, allowed Natalie to reconnect with
a world she’d lost, that of her youth and the fears she’d had about not finding a man she’d enjoy being with. Something in Chloé’s words created the impression of a memory taking shape again.

Thirty-one

Excerpt from the Scenario
Delicacy

SCENE
31:
INTERIOR. BAR
.

Natalie and Chloé
^e
walk into a bar. It isn’t the first time they’ve come to this place. Natalie follows behind Chloé. They sit down in a corner near a window
.

Exterior: the possibility of rain
.

CHLOÉ
(
in a very spontaneous way
): How are you? You okay?
NATALIE
: Yes, great.

Chloé studies Natalie
.

NATALIE
: Why are you looking at me like that?
CHLOÉ
: I’d like our relationship to be more equal. For
you to talk to me about you. It’s true that we only talk about me.

NATALIE
: What do you want to know?

CHLOÉ
: Your husband has been dead for a long time … and … and … does it bother you to talk about it?

Natalie seems surprised. Nobody brings up the subject that directly. There’s a pause, and Chloé continues
.

CHLOÉ
: It’s true … you’re young, beautiful … and look at that man over there—he hasn’t stopped looking at you since we came into the bar.

Natalie turns her head, and her eyes meet those of the man who is looking at her
.

CHLOÉ
: He’s really not bad, I think. I bet he’s a Scorpio. And since you’re a Pisces, it’s perfect.

NATALIE
: I’ve barely seen him, and you’re already making predictions?

CHLOÉ
: Well, astrology’s important. It’s the key to my problem with my boyfriend.

NATALIE
: Then nothing can be done? He can’t change his sign.

CHLOÉ
: No, that idiot will always be a Taurus.

Shot of Natalie’s expressionless face.

CUT

Thirty-two