Monsieur (2 page)

The following day, scampering towards the Métro, still bone tired from lack of sleep, I realized I knew no more than I had the day before. That older men can sometimes find it difficult to get hard was no surprise. The experience had not been psychologically exciting as I had expected; he had said none of the words I had hoped for, and my body showed no evidence of added maturity, even though I was twenty. When the phone rang and his number lit up, I didn't answer and, after a few weeks' silence, I received this message: ‘I'm tired of pursuing you, Ellie. Stop playing at being Lolita. You're too old for that sort of game, and I have no intention of becoming Humbert Humbert, even if I wanted to, which I don't.'

I didn't know Monsieur. I had heard his name a thousand times over meals with my uncle Philippe – they were not only colleagues but close friends. For me, his name evoked the hospital. I didn't
know
Monsieur. If I'm honest, it's all my mother's fault. In February this year I was slouching up the stairs from my room in the basement, holding my Bible under my arms (
La Mécanique des femmes
by Louis Calaferte), wondering what to do with myself during the students' strike. It's impossible now to determine what Mum had in mind when she mentioned the surgeon's name. According to her, he was the only person apart from me who appeared to want such a filthy piece of literature – in fact, he was
obsessed
with it. At first, I couldn't have cared less: Philippe's work colleague belonged to another world, whether or not we were obsessed by the same book, and I couldn't see myself arriving at the clinic to discuss erotica with a man of forty-five.

Forty-five.

Forty-five.

An insidious form of boredom allowed the idea to take root in me that I should meet this man. I would repeat his name aloud, surprised that I found it increasingly attractive in a dangerous sort of way. I searched for it on Facebook and gazed at the only hit, trying half-heartedly to come up with a reason to make him a ‘friend'. I had to enter his world like a spy, with literature, a charming Trojan horse, concealing my true purpose. The need to discover everything about him was like a mosquito bite I had to scratch. I had put two or three cunning questions to Philippe and learned that when I was still small I had passed the famous C.S. in the clinic's corridors when Philippe and he had been visiting patients. I plumbed the depths of my memory and recalled my uncle's birthday, two years ago: I had spent an entire evening among a crowd of elders without noticing the man who read the same books as I did, and just happened to have a twenty-five-year start on me. Twenty-five years: such an enormous gap. Twenty-five years spent caressing the bodies of women, subverting procreative sex, while I was still an innocent sucking milk from my mother's breasts. Must I also mention the strong ties connecting Monsieur and my family, thin but strong, like a nylon cord, with the same cutting edge? The heads of twenty-year-old girls are full of improbable romantic scripts: there's the one about the student and the surgeon, where she knows nothing and he knows everything and, standing between them, the dear old uncle, unaware of the drama unfolding around him. (Were he to find out, the erotic tale would swiftly turn into a drama by Racine!)

In March, I moved closer. I no longer needed a face for Monsieur. That he was a surgeon, that he harboured the same tastes as I did, that he was married and had a family made him stand out from the crowd easily enough; those attributes confirmed him as an inhabitant of an almost parallel world, that of Adults (it would be an aberration to define people of my age as such). I didn't need to find him physically attractive (just as long as he wasn't disgusting . . .). As I write, I can hear his theatrical indignation: ‘So you would have been content with any old fat guy!' To which I can only answer, yes, probably. But let me reassure him: as the story unfolds, we will see that his trap was perfect.

One day I became tired of circling him without his being aware of it. It was April. The shimmering month of April. Pollen was floating down from the chestnut trees and I was bored. The strike struggled on, I wasn't seeing anyone and, as spring came around, I spent my days sprawled on the terrace, sunbathing. I was desperate to meet up with people, men, and experience fever, ecstasy, passion, anything but this deadly lethargy. I had gone over and over the situation in my head and lay in wait, crouched in the shadows, for the moment to reveal myself to Monsieur.

At the time I was selfishly fearful because I had no idea how Monsieur might react: I imagined Philippe learning from his shaken colleague about my cunning manoeuvre and screaming at me, ‘What's wrong with you, trying to chase a guy of his age? Just wait until I tell your mother! See how clever she thinks you are!'

And me, red in the face, sweating like a pig as the rope tightens around my neck: ‘What do you mean,
chase
? I only wanted to talk about erotic literature!'

Explain yourself, Ellie. Try to explain to the man who changed your nappies and gave your first boyfriends dirty looks the subtle difference between discussing
Story of O
and shameless flirting. Philippe would see beyond the words. In the dry tone that always gave me the willies he would say, ‘Do you think I'm a complete fool? Do you think a
guy
knows the difference between talking about erotic literature and the chance to have it off?'

Maybe the subtle difference is that there is no difference: I was never stupid enough to believe that an appreciation for writing alone would provoke Monsieur into a response. I just wanted to see how he'd react. Compare my scruples with his. Assess the power of my youth, determine how much weight it held against a marriage and children. Already, in my absence of principles, I was toying with a seductive postscript, providing him with the assurance of my total discretion as long as he would show me what a man was like, a real man, a man who could fill my body
and
my mind.

MONSIEUR

At first I didn't mention my secret to anyone. It was like keeping a surprise in my pocket, or stifling a scream. On the evening that Monsieur answered me, Babette came to mine for a sleepover. She knitted her eyebrows, concentrating, as she read the first two messages, carefully weighing up every word, while I stood behind her and spilled out my fears.

‘No, really, Babette.
Really
. Do you think that's what he has in mind?'

‘I do.'

I was far from reassured by that. ‘I just suggested we chat by Internet. He's the one suggesting we meet.'

‘He's “
moved
”,' Babette added, like an amateur detective.

‘It's not uncommon to be
moved.
If all he wanted to do was talk, he could have written, “I'm surprised” or “It's unusual to come across people who read Mandiargues.”'

‘I reckon he's thinking about it.'

‘What should I do?'

‘I don't know. What do you want to do?'

We were in my room in Nogent. I lit a fag. ‘Generally speaking? I'd like to meet him, talk to him.'

Babette stood up and raised her eyebrows. She was dubious. ‘Even though I know how you feel about erotic literature, it'll be difficult to have some sort of innocuous relationship with him, if that's what you mean.'

‘You asked me what I wanted to do,
generally speaking
.'

‘Basically, you want to find out what he's all about.'

‘He's married, he has five kids, he's forty-six and used to work with my uncle. Should the situation ever become ambiguous, it would only mean the guy has balls.'

‘Or that he's a pervert.' She had picked up one of my old copies of Bataille and was leafing through it.

I sat down at my desk and stared at my computer keyboard. ‘So what is perversion at the end of the day? For me, it's just the opportunity to track pleasure down wherever it's hiding out. I don't know of any men who search for it in books. Especially this kind of book. Maybe it's worth taking a few risks. Well, I think so at least.'

ELLIE

MONSIEUR

‘Surely, you're not going to fall into bed with this guy!'

Having read the mails, Alice was rolling her eyes. I hadn't expected that. Or maybe I had, just a little. Once upon a time I might have reacted similarly, although I haven't a clue when.

‘Come on!' I said, looking her straight in the eye, with an assurance I knew I couldn't sustain.

‘Well, that's the way it looks.'

‘But he's thinking about it, no?'

Maybe Alice could see hope in my evasive gaze. She let out a deep sigh. ‘It's
you
who's thinking about it.'

‘But he is too! And I'm not going to sleep with him just because he feels like it.'

‘So if you have no intention of doing so, why are you furnishing him with such heavy hints?'

‘I'm not providing him with any hints whatsoever. All I'm doing is talking about erotic literature, which I agree is a bit much, but this guy reads the same books as I do. To discuss our taste in reading is not an invitation to fuck.'

‘Why couldn't you have simpler tastes, like sport or animals?'

For a moment, sitting cross-legged on my bed, we fell silent. That's how our conversations go when I shock my sister. We were watching our feet, fags in hand, music in the background connecting us. I'm never worried about losing Alice: she's as corruptible as I am and has the same sense of humour, and I knew that if I could find something funny in this story about the surgeon, she'd soon jump aboard. The only problem was that I couldn't see any humour in the situation, not yet at any rate. That it would be easy to corrupt the man amused me, but perhaps I would be the only one to laugh.

‘Anyway,' she went on, ‘I can feel it in my bones you're going to do it. No point in trying to deny it.'

‘So don't ask the question.'

New awkward silence. Alice probably hated me then, and was clinging to every scrap of sisterly love to defend my course of action. As for me, a perfect egotist, all I needed to find was the perfect lie, or the perfect excuse. I could have sworn to her that I wouldn't touch the man, but the story was already taking shape, whether I wanted it to or not, and I knew I could never keep from her a single detail. My next words rushed out of me: ‘He interests me. OK? It's bad, it's immoral, nobody must know, but he interests me. I don't know if I'll sleep with him, but I probably will if I get the opportunity. So, come on, have a go at me.'

Alice, wearing her I'm-beginning-to-give-in-but-that-doesn't-mean-I-like-it face, mumbled: ‘If Philippe knew . . .'

‘I don't see why he should. And at this stage the guy's suggesting we meet, not me. He's taken the first step.'

ELLIE