Hotelles (18 page)

At lunch, we had omelets in a brasserie called Le Central near Drouot. It wasn't far from the antique stores where Sophia and I liked to window-shop. Strange coincidence: Louie stopped directly in front of Antiquités Nativelle. My favorite boutique. After looking for a moment, he made to go inside.

“Will you give me a moment?”

Without waiting for my reply, he stepped into the store. Powerless, my heart stopped when I saw him speak with the clerk, a small man in spectacles, and point to the silver comb I had been ogling for weeks. The one that had belonged to Mademoiselle Mars, my new neighbor, with a couple centuries between us.

It only took a few minutes, and he was back out on the street again, holding a hastily wrapped package.

“Here.”

I refused the gift with a decisive gesture.

“Louie . . . I can't accept it. If David found out, he—”

He cut me off softly.

“There's nothing strange or untoward about it, Elle. I am just following my brother's instructions: take you on a stroll . . . and spoil you. He's paying for everything, of course.”

It sounded like my fiancé, who must have given this temporary power to his brother unsuspectingly.

“In that case . . . I guess I have to accept.”

His eyes gleamed. Right, he was only following David's orders, I thought. But the pleasure he derived was all his. He gave me the present, and in return I offered him my embarrassment and gratitude, two things he seemed to enjoy immensely.

“I have another errand. It's not very pleasant. Would you mind waiting for me in that café? It will only take about a half hour.”

 

I FOUND MY USUAL TABLE
at Café des Antiquaires really comforting after the tumult of the past several days. All that was missing was Sophia. Unfortunately, she wasn't picking up her phone. I wanted to tell her about everything that had happened since we'd last talked. Instead, I settled into the familiar café's cozy atmosphere and thought of how Louie's crazy lies had clouded my haloed image of his brother.

Why had he wanted to trick me? What exactly was he getting out of these games? The influence he had on me was not enough to explain his apparent need to test my nerves every time we met.

His sudden entry into the café whipped my face with cool air.

“There! It's done. Are you ready?”

He was holding a red-and-white plastic bag on which was printed a signature uppercase letter
D
: Drouot, the mecca of auction houses. What had he needed to purchase that had been so urgent? The long shape of the package, stuffed with newspaper, did not betray its contents.

I kept my questions to myself and followed him for the last stretch of our walk, through the elegant Jouffroy Passage, another architectural symbol of Romantic Paris. 1846, read the clock overhead, at the junction of the passage's L-shape. Like the clock and the wax statues in the Musée Grévin on our left, Louie seemed frozen in another time. Some of the people around us even stared at him as though he were a touristic curiosity, a vestige of turn-of-the-century dandyism.

“Are you coming back with me? I'm starting to feel a little tired . . .”

We had been walking since morning, and my request must have seemed legitimate to him because he agreed. A few paces farther, as we were stepping out onto Boulevard Montmartre, he hailed a taxi.

Ten minutes later, the car was starting up Rue de la Rochefoucauld, when I spotted a big-cylindered black motorcycle at the next intersection.

“Stop!” I said to the driver.

“It's farther up, on Rue de la Tour-des-Dames, Mademoiselle.”

“Yes, I know . . . but could you leave us here, please?”

“Okay, it's up to you,” he conceded, veering his white Mercedes toward the sidewalk.

Torn from his thoughts, Louie looked surprised.

“Is something wrong?”

“No, no, everything is fine,” I lied, feeling uneasy.

Then he saw him, too. A motorcyclist stretched across his mechanical monster, wrapped in a leather jacket, holding his helmet: Fred.

“You've gone pale, Elle. Is it because of that boy?”

“Yes . . . ,” I gasped, getting out of the vehicle.

“Who is it?”

“My ex . . . And he has no reason to be here.”

“Does he scare you?”

I stiffened. I didn't know what bothered me more: the unexpected appearance of my ex or that Louie was there to see me so shaken up.

“No . . . no. But still, I'd rather go in through the back.”

There was a cul-de-sac on the north, at 56 Rue Saint-Lazare, that offered secret access to the gardens of the houses on Rue de la Tour-des-Dames. Only locals knew about it.

But Louie seized my arm, gluing his side to mine, and, with a determined look, dragged me toward the man who was waiting for us.

“You know, I get it. You're not the kind of girl men let go of easily. But come on. Since he's here, we are going to give him something for his money.”

Terrible idea!

Fred saw us and started walking in our direction with a quick and precise step. I recognized the look he usually had before a fight: his eyes and shoulders were low, his head tucked, his fists tight.

“So you're the one?” he asked Louie.

“I am.”

Holding firm, Louie wasn't the least bit scared. His look was one of aristocratic defiance. Spurred by Louie's attitude, the motorcyclist thrust the palm of his hand into his opponent's chest.

“You son of a bitch! So now you want the proletariat's girls, huh? What, stepping on our backs all year isn't enough? You have to steal our women, too?”

He was oozing hate. Fred thought he was talking to David, and Louie, being a gentleman, played along in order to protect me from my ex-boyfriend's rancor.

Out of desperation, I grabbed Fred's rock-hard arm.

“Fred! Stop!”

“This is your great love? Fuck, he's a cripple!”

“Young man, you've gone too far.”

Now Louie approached him, brandishing his cane. Without thinking, I started screaming in the hope that Armand or someone else might hear and call the police.

“Stop it!”

“Oh, I'm sure all their fucking money helps when you close your eyes and open your thighs!” Fred spit, shielding himself with his helmet.

The cane came down hard on the visor, then again on Fred's hand; he shrieked in pain.

“Fuck!”

Drunk with pride and pain, the wounded man charged at his opponent. Just then, Louie rummaged through the Drouot bag. He quickly withdrew a long, flexible object and swooshed a
Z
in the air. A riding crop!

He punctuated each word with the sharp sound of leather cutting through the air:

“Don't you . . . come near . . . Elle . . . ever again! Do you understand?”

“Freak!” Fred bellowed, his tone markedly less proud.

It terrified me to see them on the verge of fighting. But I have to admit that it also struck an instinctual chord inside my animalistic female self: I wondered which of the two males would win the fight and throw himself on me. A fleeting desire crossed my mind to see them naked and tearing each other apart for me.

 

Anonymous handwritten note, 6/7/2009—“
Animalistic female self
”? Who did he think he was? A superhero?

 

AS FRED BACKED AWAY, THE
tip of the crop whipped his face, leaving a red welt—striking but superficial, judging from the lack of blood. Nevertheless, it convinced him to back off. Humiliated, he drew his hand to his face and staggered toward his motorcycle, a wild look in his eyes. Without stopping, he started the engine and got ready to leave.

But Louie didn't seem satisfied with his victory. He continued to threaten the other with his riding crop, whipping it all around. It wasn't until the motorcycle roared off in the other direction that he seemed to remember the person for whom he'd fought this battle. He collected his cane from the ground and approached me, acting more sheepish than boastful.

“I am sorry . . .”

“Don't be.”

He took my hand, turned it palm up, and ceremoniously placed the leather crop in it.

“What are you . . . ?”

“It's your second present. Though I hadn't planned on using it before giving it to you.”

“It's wonderful.”

But what am I supposed to do with a riding crop?
I wondered.

“It once belonged to an elegant English woman in the 1850s,” he added hastily. “At the time, that kind of accessory was very fashionable. Even for women who didn't ride.”

“Thanks . . .”

Two presents, one rescue . . . Despite his unpredictable behavior, as well as the odious way in which he was blackmailing me, I could not leave my hero of the day without thanking him. As I kissed him chastely on the cheeks, he put one of his soft, elegant hands on the nape of my neck. For the second time, I could smell his cologne: the fight had dissipated the scent of lavender, accentuating the notes of vanilla. I hated to admit it, but it was delicious. And together with the feeling of his fingers on my skin, it made me shiver, softly at first, then with increasing intensity, in waves that ran from my neck to my pelvis. Was it possible to come by stimulating as unlikely an erogenous zone as the neck?

I didn't wait to find out. I detached myself from him, my forehead burning, my gaze wild.

“Are you okay?” he asked, worried.

“Yes . . . I'm fine. Just a little shaken up.”

I pointed to the road where Fred had taken off on his motorcycle.

Armand had heard the racket and come out to meet us.

“I'm leaving you in the best hands in Paris.”

“Yes, I know,” I agreed. “Armand is—”

“What happened?” interrupted the butler, fraught with worry.

“Good-bye, Elle.”

Louie was already leaving. His limp looked worse, and he seemed to need his cane more than ever. Where and how had he hurt his leg? Wasn't he just a faker, an actor seeking to perfect his character? Wasn't the handicap just an eccentric accessory?

Armand helped me up the front steps as though I were wounded. I could have put up a fuss and pretended that I was in full possession of my faculties, but he still would have insisted on supporting me against his surprisingly robust shoulder.

When I saw the missive on the console, I thought I would really faint: a second silver envelope that looked just like the first.

“Who left that here?” I asked weakly.

“I don't know. I found it in the mail this morning. Is there a problem?”

“There's no stamp.”

“Oh . . . I hadn't noticed.”

“You didn't see who left it?”

Not Louie, I realized, since he hadn't left my side all day.

“No. I'm sorry . . . Is everything okay, Mademoiselle?”

“Yes, yes . . .” I forced a smile. “Thank you, Armand.”

I waited for him to turn around before opening the envelope. As before, it contained a key to a room at the Hôtel des Charmes, as well as a handwritten note and a printed card. Clearly this was becoming a ritual.

      
Tonight, ten o'clock,

the usual place.

Bring your equipment.

 

My equipment? What did my mysterious correspondent mean?

 

I was looking at the printed card  . . .

2—Thou shalt awaken thine senses.

. . . when Armand came back to the hall.

“With all the commotion, I forgot to tell you . . .”

“Yes?”

I quickly hid the little card behind my back, like a schoolgirl caught doing something wrong.

“David invited some people over for dinner tonight. At nine o'clock.”

“Dinner?”

Well, that decided things, much like an alarm clock wakes you from a bad dream.

“He wants you to meet some important people at BTV. Your future coworkers, in a way.”

But not Louie, I thought. I agreed hoarsely.

“Okay.”

“Nothing formal,” he reassured me. “A little dinner between friends. They're all really close to David. It's sort of his intimate circle.”

I understood perfectly, and my throat went dry: this dinner would be a kind of test. If I wanted to be accepted by the higher-ups at the station, it would have to be a success. I had to be brilliant, but without overdoing it. Smart, but without overshadowing the other women present. Happy, but not hysterical. And under no circumstances was I to play the role that my imminent marriage entailed, that of the lady of honor. I had to be professional, not silly.

“I'll take care of everything. All you have to do is be beautiful.”

Reflexively, I searched through my dress pocket. I had forgotten about it all day, and yet it had never left me. It weighed heavily on the light fabric: the big, jagged key that would unlock a whole new world, about which I still knew nothing.

15

June 8, 2009

N
o, but seriously . . . he's crazy!”

I had just given Sophia an account of the previous night's events over the phone. At first I wasn't sure if she was talking about Louie or Fred. The Machiavellianism of the one or the hotheadedness of the other. She was not being as frank as usual, but I could tell that she already had a well-developed opinion. My best friend had never really liked my boyfriend. Her favorite thing to say about him: “That guy is a loser
and
a headache.” Unfortunately, these past few years, Fred had only proved her right: unemployed, chronically broke, always getting into fights, etc. His violent outbursts at Mom's place and then here the evening before were two more examples of his messy life.

As for Louie, I measured my words, but Sophia wasn't fooled; she could tell that he was a whole other story. And even if there was no formal proof that David's brother was also the twisted man who had slipped the Ten-Times-a-Day notebook into my bag, the very prospect was enough to arouse the attention of Sophia's inner Esmeralda.

“Will you introduce me to him?”

“Who? Louie?”

“Yes! I love that kind of playfulness in a man.”

“Soph . . . He's crazy! He took advantage of a historical tour of the neighborhood to spend the whole day talking to me about sex.”

“I don't see what's wrong with that.” She smirked.

“And he wouldn't stop lying to me. He made me believe that David had hidden his past from me, all in an effort to get me to change my feelings about him. How is that not twisted?”

Was it, though? To be sure, he had recanted and tried to make it all out to be some big joke. But who was to say that Aurora hadn't been real? Or that David's silk armband wasn't really hiding the scars of such an episode?

“Hmm . . . ,” she minimized. “In any case, you know for sure that he's not your Ten-Times-a-Day.”

“Yeah, but I don't think you get it: in ten days, this guy will be my brother-in-law!”

“All the more reason to dump him on me, girl. It would be so great, right? We could be sisters-in-law!”

“If you don't mind, I'd rather you didn't end up in a psychiatric hospital. Nor do I want to only see you during visiting hours.”

She barely reacted when I asked her to be my maid of honor, and continued to daydream out loud:

“A well-connected sex freak like that, and with such a nice pedigree . . . Honestly, I think I could forget about his shortcomings.”

Sophia sure knew how to get herself into trouble! She could make fun of Fred, but she wasn't much better. One of her most recent overnight clients, who had taken her to the Hôtel des Charmes two or three times over the past couple of weeks, had become so infatuated with her that he'd asked her to quit her job to be with him, without any compensation but his eternal love. “Can you believe the rat? If he wants me to be his full-time hen, then he's going to have to give me more than ‘my darlings' and ‘my loves'!”

As for my own troubling feelings that day in Louie Barlet's presence, I kept them to myself. I remembered the fight and the animal that had taken hold of me, just as my harasser had described.
A real female in heat . . .

Over our chatter, I was surprised to hear the water running in the bathroom. For once, even though it was a Monday, David hadn't disappeared before my alarm.

“Oh, I haven't told you . . . I spoke with Rebecca over the phone. She's furious about the other night.”

“Weren't you the one who suggested I tell her to take a hike?”

“Yeah . . . I just wanted to warn you that it doesn't seem like she's going to forget about the money any time soon.”

“I'll handle it,” I said elusively.

Soon I would have more than enough to cover it.

The dinner David had put together on my behalf signaled my entry into the enchanting world of the media: the dozen or so guests spent the evening talking about people I had never heard of. I kept myself at a distance from the gossip, and I think it showed my independence and spirit. In other words, I wasn't just the boss's pretty ornament. Alice, a tall, sculpted blonde who had introduced herself by underscoring her title as the “BTV's director of international marketing,” spent the evening acting like a potential rival, what with her pointed looks, undercutting remarks, and the insidious way in which she shifted the conversation toward topics she knew were outside my field of knowledge, using cryptic acronyms and name-dropping.

 

Had she ever slept with David?

Probably . . . Why wouldn't he have been attracted to her perfect lips, her blue azure eyes, her breasts so perky they looked like she'd just had them done, her deliciously sculpted butt and the way it looked in her tight, low-cut sheath dress that tastefully showed off her cleavage? No man could resist such a creature  . . .

Alice and David. David and Alice. It sounded so nice. Maybe too nice. And what if one day, to keep him from getting bored, I suggested a threesome? Could there be a better partner for ménage à trois? I could also discover what it felt like to kiss such a beautiful woman. Was her hair down there as shiny as her mane? I don't picture her with a girlish, delicate, and pink vagina, but with a large cleft, fleshy lips, long-winged nymphae spread wide.
The pussy of an Amazon
woman, of a conqueress with a strong and musky odor.
How would my man like seeing me lick her or put my fingers in her? Would I be able to make her come?

 

Anonymous handwritten note, 6/8/2009

 

THE DINNER LASTED LONG INTO
the night, and David, being a responsible host and boss, had to dismiss our guests, whom he expected at work in the morning, though not without reminding them to drive carefully since Armand's beautifully prepared meal had been accompanied by a good amount of wine. We were both so tired he barely asked about my day with Louie, and only half listened to my abridged account.

“Did you like the brooch?” he asked.

“The brooch . . . Oh, the silver comb, you mean?”

“Right, yes, the comb.”

“It's wonderful. Thank you.”

He smiled absently as I kissed him.

Happily, I had been careful to tuck the English riding crop behind a few piles of clothes before going downstairs to greet our guests. I was aware, however, that it was not a very good hiding place, and that I would have to get rid of the compromising object as soon as possible.

 

DAVID APPEARED IN THE BEDROOM,
a white towel knotted around his hips. Flat stomach, chiseled pecs. He looked really athletic. Aside from his biweekly tennis dates with François Marchadeau—they always made me worry, as I speculated about what the two men might find to discuss—he also spent a half hour every day in the basement workout room. It was brief but intense.

He looked radiant, and his face did not show the slightest signs of the prior evening's excesses. He teased me:

“Get up, lazy bones! We're going to be late.”

“Umm . . . I thought I started tomorrow?”

Chloe had left a confirmation message two days before: “Tuesday, June ninth, eight thirty a.m.”

“That's right, Mademoiselle . . . But I didn't say anything about taking you to work.”

His striking smile was extremely communicative. It had the rare power of calming and reassuring people, of making your soul vibrate to its pitch. Compared to him, Louie was opaque, hard, and unreadable.

“Well, where then?”

“Uh-uh-uuh . . . Get dressed and you shall see the light!”

 

IT WAS NOT JUST A
play on words. The light started shining as we entered a dark tunnel almost two hours later. Okay, fine, I started putting the clues together well before that: the Gare du Nord train station; the escalator that took us up to the mezzanine; the customs official; the hostesses in what looked like airline uniforms; the yellow, white, and blue TGV  . . .

My eyes opened wide in childlike delight.

“We're going to London?”

“Yes, Madame. Are you thrilled? Now you can't complain about me not being around during the week.”

“You're spending the day with me?”

My feet were practically dancing, I was so delightfully surprised.

“No . . . ,” he admitted sheepishly. “I have back-to-back meetings after lunch. But I thought it would be fun for you to come on a trip with me. It's still going to be great . . . You can spend the day shopping.”

“No, it's going to be
really
great! When do we come back home? Tonight?”

“
You
are coming back tonight, yes. I have a really boring dinner and then another meeting tomorrow morning. There's no use dragging you to all that. Unless you are as interested in mergers and acquisitions in DTT as I.”

“Not really.” I fake pouted.

Since my presence wasn't needed at his side, I would be able to spend the evening in Nanterre. I was already thinking about what kind of British goodie I could bring Mom.

I curled into my first-class seat, enjoying the elegant gray leather and its comfy headrest. It wasn't long before I started dozing off. David was attending to some sort of emergency on his laptop, while I cuddled into his firm and warm body, allowing myself to daydream and ignoring the large breakfast we'd been served.

I gazed at the blurry landscape—which was reduced to long gray, green, and blue lines—and collected my thoughts . . . Playing with Hortensia's ring, which pinched my finger (it was still too small for me, even though David had had it resized), I finally settled my eyes on the silk armband peeking out from under David's shirtsleeve.

Who is Aurora Delbard, David? What does she mean to you?

No, I didn't really ask those questions. Yet in the comfort of the high-speed train, I kept thinking about Louie Barlet's cruel story. If the woman had never existed, or if she hadn't occupied the role in David's life that Louie had described, then why exactly had he gone to the trouble of telling me such a tale? And if the story was indeed true, then why had he taken it back? It only made him out to be a fabulist.

Contrary to Sophia's advice, I was not going to bring David in on the secret. Ten days before our wedding, it would be suicide. He would never understand. He would never forgive me. And no watch, no matter how gorgeous, no matter how much humiliation and sacrifice it represented, would be enough to win him back. In his eyes, I was as pure as he had seen me the night we'd met, in the room he had emptied of occupants in order to have a moment alone with me.

But I knew that by going to the Hôtel des Charmes the night before last, I had put my fate in his brother's hands. Now, in addition to the fact that my picture appeared in the Belles de Nuit catalogue, there were the naked and totally indecent photos of me posing for him. One of them was probably still at the bottom of my purse, right there, on the floor.

I shivered when I realized that something that could not be seen or heard, something that was quietly growing deep inside and making my sex palpitate, could hurt me more than any material evidence.

“Elle, is everything okay?”

Unwittingly, I must have stirred in my seat.

“Yes . . . I think I fell asleep.”

“Sleep, beautiful . . . Sleep—I want you to.”

His order was enchanting. Indeed, the timbre of his voice shifted to resemble that of another sorcerer, who had captivated generations of children through storytelling. Gérard Philipe and his magical tales.

“Stop!” I laughed. “When you do that, it really feels like he's right here.”

To kill time as well as get my mind off of all these dark thoughts, I retrieved my tablet and tried to retrace our route from the day before on a map: Rue de la Tour-des-Dames, Rue de la Rochefoucauld, Rue Chaptal on the left, then Rue Blanche up to La Trinité  . . .

Hmm, that's funny . . . it makes a lowercase
e
.

My interest was piqued. I continued mentally tracing our trek: east on Rue Saint-Lazare, then north on Rue Taitbout, then around Square d'Orléans, and back to Rue Saint-Lazare  . . .

I can't believe it . . . now an
l
!

Though it was an approximate drawing because of the disposition of the city streets, our stroll spelled out my nickname, letter for letter. Another
l
when we took our detour onto Rue la Bruyère, and then a final
e
when we walked through the elegant Place Saint-Georges, and up to the church Notre-Dame-de-Lorette, where we'd taken the metro to Rue Drouot. Just to be sure, I highlighted the route on my tablet.

“elle” . . . This wasn't just my imagination or a product of my troubled mind. Louie knew exactly what he was doing when he led me, step by step, through New Athens. He hadn't been content to put the city at my feet; he had written me into its history, into the pavement, as though I were one of the heroines he'd described.

An abrupt whistle as we entered the Chunnel and a sudden feeling of compression in the train car interrupted my thoughts. It was too much. I understood his game far too well: taking cues from his beloved Romantic authors, he was planting a “forest of symbols” around me, a vast field of hints and coincidences, in an effort to take me hostage. No matter where I looked, no matter where my attention was drawn, I had to think of him.

 

List of ambiguous symbols that invariably make me think of sex: tunnels, lollipops, two-scoop ice cream cones, Christmas ornaments, spears of asparagus, triangles pointed downward, flambéed bananas or bananas peeled from the top, cucumbers, acorns, mushrooms, cut apricots, small cartons, the fleshy folds of the elbow, fire hoses, the turgescent stamen of some flowers, etc.