Authors: Emma Becker
Monsieur (21 page)
What's it like, Monsieur, to be a drug addict? It's just like it was that first Tuesday morning. Frantically waiting for you locked into that room with the shutters hermetically sealed until nine thirty. Falling apart as I realize you've forgotten me, despite yesterday's promises. Watching the day pass and shivering for an hour when I know you're on your way home. Yet again, like a bar of soap, you slipped through my fingers.
ELLIE
I hope you're feeling better. That you've overcome the blues. My problem, right now, is that I feel like a downright beggar for wanting news of you, and it's something I can't bear. It's not a question of pride but I hate it when you see me like this. I know I'm better than that. And what I hate most is that our story (if you can call it that) is suddenly growing ugly, even if I was never sufficiently stupid enough to believe I was on the threshold of some mad romance. I know who we are, how we live.
Which is why I don't understand. It would be wrong for you to take pity on me; I'd rather you hated me. I'm just surprised by the lack of understanding I have of the current situation. I'd come to the conclusion that you were manifestly unwell, partly my fault, and there is little I can do about it. I reckon you don't need my assistance either; it would be somewhat presumptuous to think I could help. But I can't bear the thought you might forget me, and I have to know how you are, because I have known you and, for me, that sort of detail is so important right now.
I've thought about it over and over, but you know I'm not too good at interpreting male hints, and can't decipher your âdepression'. It might feel clear cut to you, but put yourself in my shoes and try to spell things out. It would be so much easier and come as a huge relief.
I was under the impression that everything was going smoothly between the two of us. We talked so much and the suddenness of this break in communication is just killing me. I realize you're not always available, for a variety of reasons, but this is evidently different. You don't talk at all now. And I can't help thinking it's not my fault.
I'm a simple person, you know, in many ways. When I met you, I knew I shouldn't invest too much in the whole thing, that our contact would sometimes be minimal. I was never stupid enough to believe I could change things, and never wanted to. I entered into this relationship with the firm intention of being honest with you, and forbidding myself ever to get hurt by it. Which is why I believe it's only fair that you should keep me in the loop, in simple terms, letting me know how your feelings evolve as we go along.
I also told myself that my letters possibly made you think I was growing too attached to you. I'm fond of you, I confess, but it's the only way I can manage things, in the midst of this relationship. Despite the violent strength of the passion that binds us, I need emotion too.
When I think back to where we began, I tend to say to myself: âOK, something must have happened for him not to be in touch. He was fine when we last talked.' The only thing I did wrong was to ignore your cowardice. All men are cowards. As cowardly as women are complicated. At any rate, I can't believe you've been lying to me all along, playing a game just to get me into bed. It makes no sense because I was the one who came to you.
I've also come to the conclusion that, being married, you didn't want a normal sort of relationship, just the occasional encounter. If that's the case, I understand totally. I can understand everything, as long as it's made crystal clear to me.
I'm not asking for much. I'm not begging you to come back to me. All I'm asking for is an explanation. At most ten minutes of your time. I just want to understand, have things settled once and for all. And if you think I'm planning to hunt you down in a dizzy attempt to get you back, you're mistaken. I may have crawled all over the floor a fair few times for men, but not to that extent, and I'm not about to start now. What I'm proposing, and have been from the start, is childishly simple. I've never asked for commitment. Or love. Or anything that either of us might see as a chain. You're a fascinating person and I fancy you, and if you want me, I have so much more to show you, say and do to you. I have fun with you. It's that simple. If you don't want me any more, I won't stick around.
A few hours ago, I sent you a text asking for a clear answer. As you've not responded, I'm asking you, please, to give me a call when you can. If you don't want to do it for me, do it for yourself, and tell me to stop texting you. I can imagine how annoying you might find it.
Darling . . . I just cannot believe you didn't enjoy our Tuesday mornings. And everything we did. But I might be wrong, I often am. Make a small effort. Surely a man like you must know how irritating it can be to wait for others to show signs of life.
And it hurts to know you're sad. If I told you I understand how you feel about getting old, you wouldn't believe me, but I truly do. I believe it's even more tragic for a woman, to see her beauty fade. But you're still young, in the prime of your life â look, you have a twenty-year-old girl hanging on your every word. Surely that counts for something.
I'm touched by your sadness. That's why I was saying: âJust use me.' I'm a sponge, and I absorb everything you teach me, do to me, say to me. There are a lot of things we haven't talked about, but I know how to listen. And if you don't particularly wish to be heard, I know other ways to help you forget everything. It might not sound much, but the power to make you forget is mighty. You can use me because I'm strong. I know I am. Sometimes I can feel myself bending in the wind, but I never break. And I can take over your grief, if only you'll talk to me.
I'll keep it simple. I can give you delicious early-in-the-week moments in small rooms, with my body at your disposal.
Ellie
(Oh, I know it's not the right moment, but if you've got the blues, maybe a photo of my arse might function like a really tiny fix of heroin. I quite like the idea of lurking inside a syringe . . .)
PS And the book is making good progress! But how in hell can I end it, if I don't know where to put the final full stop.
MONSIEUR
Please, please, don't stop writing
Monsieur
.
ELLIE
Damn it, really, what am I supposed to write?
Monsieur passed through my life like a flash of lightning and, if I'm to believe you, I had the same effect on you? Monsieur fucked me so well, made me realize how much more there was to sex, but only by a fraction, because at the end of the day he left me with the panache of a thirteen-year-old, just stopped communicating with me. Monsieur dropped me like a sack of potatoes, never had the courage to tell me why.
What sort of story can I concoct, with such a pitiful ending?
I'm angry. The last time you had me on the telephone, I gave you plenty of opportunity to say, âIt's over,' there and then. I was ready to accept it. I don't understand why you're behaving like this. I did everything I could to make you happy, never asked for anything in exchange. All I wanted was honesty. You couldn't even call me and talk about it. You've trodden on everything I gave you.
There are better ways of feeling young than acting like a spoiled teenager. I could have given you all of it, renewal, passion. No strings. God, I just can't pinpoint the precise moment I lost you. I thought maybe I was too kind, but that's not it. I'll never blame myself for this, or for falling in love.
So, the only thing I'm asking of you today is to call me tomorrow. And let's sort it out. Because I have no wish to think you're an arsehole, as the Monsieur I once knew was anything but. Be that Monsieur again, charming, elegant, full of flattery, witty, but don't be a coward.
Do it for me. Leave me with the memory of a worthy man. It's the least you can do if you expect a book from me.
Somehow things are so much worse at the shop. It was hard enough anyway to summon the energy to get up at seven thirty on Saturday mornings, and now I was on the verge of tears at the thought of the long, long day behind the counter, when all I wanted was the solitude of my basement room. I had no desire to speak to anyone. Every time I opened my mouth I was sort of hoping that whoever was facing me would evoke Monsieur. It's as if that man was lodged in my every pore, and always had been. In my mind, I conjured up acts of revenge, sophisticated schemes to make him pay for his silence. Or Monsieur returned to me, saying he didn't know why he had done it. Sometimes, while I was assembling yet another bouquet for yet another customer, floundering among the scattered flowers on the table, I would look up, my eyes scanning the emptiness, my hands mechanically completing the task, and for an infinitesimal moment I thought I could see his tall silhouette or hear his voice. My fingers were badly at risk every time I had to use the pruning shears.
Those were the dark days when Monsieur had stopped answering me, despite the clear signals I sent him. I was going against everything I had ever learned about men. If ever I interrupted my endless stream of communications, even for a couple of days, I was terrified that Monsieur might believe I no longer loved him. So I typed another text, hating myself more with every passing second, thinking I could fool him if I restricted myself to sex, but my words were incoherent with pain. And while I struggled hopelessly with the story the world continued to ignore, I had to face Andrea and my family. I explained to my mother that my bad mood was due to the students' strike, which went on and on. I found excuses not to visit my aunt, to avoid the memories of that birthday dinner and the fact that my uncle knew Monsieur, having worked with him for fifteen years. I couldn't even
look
at my uncle without thinking of Monsieur. I feigned concern when Andrea cancelled one of our dates, and joy when he rearranged it, dreamed up amusing texts to prevent him becoming suspicious. I thought only of my silent mobile phone on the bedside table when we made love. I concealed my broken heart from them all as if it was a contagious illness. Sometimes, in the car with my mother, I would feel a confession rising up my throat, making every single breath a stab of pain. I had to tell somebody how bad he was and that, despite my mistakes, I didn't deserve to suffer like this. I could see myself ditching everything, the beautiful Mandiargues edition in my room, telling my mother about the Wednesday when she'd thought I was playing poker at Timothée's while Monsieur touched me up at the clinic, all the times I'd scampered away from home with a bag of food and lingerie.
But I always summoned the strength to bury the confession because I knew how hurt she would be, and by the time my mother looked at me again, I had fabricated a neutral, or falsely cheerful, face. Those smiles literally splintered me in half. I would return to my small room where the sheets had remained untouched since Monsieur's visit, still displaying the traces of my catastrophe, to my silent mobile, my empty in-box. I lived in a museum dedicated to his glory. And time ticked on.
How I hated the lonely moments when I was overcome by the need to ask myself so many unanswerable questions. As if there was the slightest chance of getting to the truth, I kept blindly assembling clues that might help me understand why Monsieur had gone silent. I was tearing my hair out. I didn't know how to behave with him now, how to know if he had lied to me and, if so, to what purpose. While a part of me began to believe that he had fled to protect me, another part was hanging on to the hypothesis that he was just another arsehole who enjoyed exercising his declining powers on a defenceless girl. It was awful to think I might have fallen into such a clumsy trap â but the truth was childishly simple: Monsieur had had enough of me. And when he felt like that, he just went silent. Over and over I told Babette: âI
should
have seen it coming. I
should
have known nothing could ever be so simple.'
And Babette, who had been aware of this from the very beginning, would never confirm in words what her sighs meant. What could she have said? The whole world could legitimately mock me. There was a boring logic to laughter.
I remember one morning when I was getting home after a too-long night with Andrea. Still sleepy, I was walking like an automaton along dirty underpasses, when I was sharply assaulted by a trace of Monsieur's fragrance. I had stood motionless for ten minutes, trying to determine where it was coming from, what man, what shadow. I was hurting. I was hurting so much. Smells can be so treacherous. A thousand souls will smell like your beloved. Unknowingly, they walk past you, brush against you, apologize and leave you rooted to the spot, blood draining from your face. Empty to the point of tears, invaded by a battalion of memories, his heartbeat and the softness of his skin.
One Saturday morning, everything went wrong. After weeks of uncertainty, I had concluded that I no longer played any part in his life. I had resigned myself to the fact that he wouldn't answer me again. How had we moved from one extreme to the other in just a few days? How could he ignore a person he had once called âmy love'? Why could he not explain it to me? All I wanted was to understand. And if Monsieur was determined to forget the whole story, why had he sent me, in response to my break-up monologue, this message: âPlease, please, don't stop writing
Monsieur
'?
Of course I had to continue. He was bound to encourage the writing of a book that was all about him. How gratifying to know that a young woman on the edge of despair was exercising her small writing talent in the service of a man she could no longer have.
It was when I received his message that I began to hate myself, to find my lack of dignity contemptible. If I was capable of writing for the love of it or had ambitions to be published, Monsieur had swept them aside, leaving me with only one goal: I had to finish the book so I could see him again. Full stop. The pages I was scribbling were just a pitiful form of bait, an outlet to praise and hate him. So, at the end of the day, there was no longer any difference between the novelist I'd thought I was and those others who found writing cathartic. Writing was a way for me to see Monsieur again; a man who was too much in love with himself to resist the lure of two or three hundred pages devoted to him.
