Monsieur (30 page)

But it's already eleven and Monsieur has to leave. The few minutes we have left are spent looking for his clothing scattered across the room (not that I remember such a tornado occurring on his arrival).

‘Don't look so sad, please.'

‘I'm not sad. It's just been too short.'

‘I know. For me too.'

I crawl away and sit near the desk, pretending to look for something on my laptop. Monsieur carefully laces his ankle-boots, his face serious. Then, upright and solemn, he rises, takes hold of his sunglasses and casts his eyes across the room, the deserted bed, the crumpled sheets. I already know what he is going to say once he's completed his visual search for things that might have inadvertently fallen from his pockets: ‘You'll check everything after I've gone?'

His final words at the end of every single encounter, as I've only just realized.

‘I'll check.'

‘Thanks.'

He moves, disturbing the blanket of air that surrounds us, and it already feels cold, like outside. Dragging poetic currents in his wake – the smell of me on his precious clothes – as I close my eyes against the growing pain. It's taken me months to get Monsieur here for just an hour and it's going to take me twice as long at least to manage it again. I'm exhausted at the mere thought.

‘Did you have company yesterday?' he asks, as he stumbles over a Japanese restaurant's carrier-bag.

‘My girlfriends.'

‘Which ones? Babette and Ines?' Monsieur ventures.

‘My sister and our girlfriends. Lucy, Flora, Clémence.'

‘They knew why you were here?'

Monsieur's worried eyebrows, almost a caricature.

‘They knew I was waiting for you, yes.'

‘Do they know who I am?'

I'm silent for a moment, horror-stricken that Monsieur might be hoping I did not confide in my best friends. Me. A
girl
. I manage to stammer: ‘But . . . of course they know who you are!'

‘They know my name?'

I lie: ‘No. They only know you as Monsieur.'

Just half a lie: that's how they refer to him, if only because, traumatized by the two crushing syllables of his first name, I do.

‘You have to be careful. Rumours can spread so fast.'

‘I know my girlfriends well. They have no contact with people who know you.'

Monsieur sighs again, with undue exaggeration. ‘How can you be sure? This is Paris.'

‘Trust me.'

Why should I? Monsieur might have asked himself. We wouldn't be discussing the matter of trust if I'd kept my mouth shut. But he leans towards me and gently kisses my forehead. ‘I have to go.'

I give him what I hope is a dirty look. ‘So go.'

Monsieur steps away.

‘You want to see me again?'

‘Of course.' And, still motionless and holding my gaze, he adds: ‘When we met each other, I had less work on my plate. Now the recession is over, or it seems that way, business is picking up. Which is welcome . . .' His eyes travel from my neck to my hips. ‘Or unfortunate, whichever the case may be.' The lust warming Monsieur's features fades to make way for a cold, dispassionate medical mask. ‘It's just the way it is.'

I nod, displaying neither sorrow nor joy.

‘Let me kiss you, anyway,' Monsieur pleads, as if I intended not to.

His lips have already lost their indolent warmth. Everything about him now belongs to his wife and his clinic. My tummy brushes against him and I whisper: ‘So call me, then.'

‘I will.'

He is visibly ill at ease in making me this promise, after so many false ones. He looks like my sister does when our grandmother gets her to promise to send a postcard during the holidays: a two-minute phone call is too much of a challenge so a three-word postcard is like a mountain to climb. Grandmother already knows she is unlikely to get any written news of our holidays and, to make it worse, is already smiling and forgiving us. Through her eyes, I stare at my ungrateful godson who's come along in the line of duty and picked up his present. Quite right, too, that the miserable sod should feel guilty as he walks down the stairs. Compared to what I might have said or done, he's getting off lightly.

Unable to watch him leave, I get back into bed, facing the mirror, and tuck myself between the sheets. I try to sleep, but keep thinking of Monsieur in ways that make it impossible. More to the point, I can't find the way! I can no longer imagine the torrid scenes that usually accompany me on my journey to sleep. The gap between fantasy and reality, that cruel abyss, is acting as a censor to all my daydreams.

I stare at myself, holding the remains of the joint in one hand. Ash falls across the sheets where the smell of Monsieur lingers, elusive, between the folds. The bites on my thighs are no longer a gift, the spreading heat in my stomach just a memory, an expression of his lust and the way he takes advantage of me. Barely two minutes following his departure, I already feel the emptiness of need. All the prayers and supplications in the world would fail to move Monsieur, who will be incapable of clearing some five minutes for me in his busy timetable, should the sudden wish to fuck assail him.

I already know what I will tell Babette on the phone. The guy is a monster. He doesn't love me, has never loved me. He's the worst kind of bastard, always unwilling to let me know until the last minute whether he's coming to see me or not. He gets here late, leaves early, and in between accumulates recriminations, almost blaming me for the fifty-six minutes we spend together, as if I've stolen an hour from him, with a knife to his throat. The guy lands on my doorstep overflowing with all the compliments I've paid him throughout the summer, full of the hope I've invested in him, the case of fantasies in which I've assigned him the leading role, and dares to stand in front of me full of his own importance. He mounts me before I'm even wet, making fun of my desire to communicate. I'm writing a book about him, but all he sees in me is the danger I pose, ready to consume his marriage, his life, danger advancing towards him on gifted literary legs and in search of revenge, and he pisses off with the audacity to make me further promises,
letting me pay for the room even
, but I forgive him, Babette. I forgive him everything. I am in love.

OCTOBER

‘Hello?'

‘Yes, it's me.'

‘Who's me?'

‘But . . .
me
!' I frown, like a customer of the Martinez Hotel in Cannes, who feels she has no need to give her name.

‘Who? I can barely hear you, sorry.'

‘Ellie!' I spit out indignantly.

‘
Ellie?
'

‘Yes!'

Shuffling at the other end of the line. I can hear Monsieur's shoes elegantly clattering along the hospital tiles.

‘I'm sorry. Who's that on the line?' There is a sharpness in his voice. Which I don't recognize.

Hurt, I repeat: ‘Ellie. Can't you hear me?'

‘Look, listen, I'm at the clinic, it's a bad line and I haven't time to struggle over the phone for long, so
who are you
?'

‘
Ellie!
'

‘Ellie who?'

‘Becker. Ellie Becker!' I'm red with shame, my mood turning black, spoiling the rest of my day.

It's humiliating enough to have your dress accidentally tucked into your tights or to tumble down the steps in the Métro, but it's something else altogether not to be recognized by a man you're writing a book about.

‘Ellie Becker,' Monsieur repeats, his voice warming. ‘Hello. How are you?'

‘How many Ellies do you know?' I ask him, annoyed.

Monsieur bursts out laughing, and it's like a slap in the face in the middle of lovemaking.

NOVEMBER

Friday. I recall it with utter precision. I was rather proud to have engineered a meeting with Monsieur but I hated myself. There was no real need to see him, no urgent reason. This was something I was inflicting on myself, the texts putting off the rendezvous ten, twenty, thirty minutes, standing waiting in the cold on rue François-Miron. I was like those smokers who've undergone six dreadful months without a cigarette, then allow themselves one puff and instantly regret it. You should never stop smoking. Guilt is already enough of a burden to have to add to it. Babette, whom I'd called to take my mind off my freezing toes, had responded with a lengthy sigh.

‘So, where are you right now?'

‘I'm . . . outside. Waiting for Monsieur.'

‘Outside? It's bloody freezing!'

‘If I go into a café, I won't be able to smoke.'

‘Since when have you been unable to function without a fag?'

‘Since the advent of Monsieur. I've been waiting for half an hour. Seeing how anxious I am, that's a fag for every five minutes. You do the sums.'

‘Is he late or is he standing you up?'

‘He had a call from the hospital just as he was leaving. I'm the one who agreed to wait, Babette.' I sniffed discreetly. ‘But I'm catching a cold here.'

‘That's
so
unlucky, the call from the hospital,' Babette remarked.

‘You said it. Absolutely.'

‘But why are you waiting for him? He'll chat to you for barely ten minutes on the street corner, then fuck off.'

That was how understanding Babette now was. Back in June, Valentine had been unsupportive and now my best friend was moving in the same direction. My props were crumbling one by one. ‘I
have
to see him. You know that.'

‘And when he gets there, he'll just spit in your face and you'll thank him.'

‘Why do you have to say things like that?' I protested, left short of breath by her unexpected sharpness.

‘I'm sorry, Ellie . . . but why are you such a sucker for punishment? This has been going on for too long, come on!'

‘Going on?'

‘Listen, there are times when it's right and proper to grieve and be all over the place, but you've gone too far. Seriously, the guy is not worth seven whole months of your life. It's crazy.'

‘I know. That's why I have to speak to him. I need answers.'

‘Answers to what?'

‘For my book. I can't write things that turn out to be unfair.'

‘An unfair book. Are you taking the piss? With all

the pain that book's causing you, you won't owe him anything whatsoever for the rest of your life.'

‘I know, but—'

‘And do you really believe that once you're face to face with him you'll want to ask all those questions? When you know all too well that they'll get on his nerves?'

‘So, you just assume I'll keep doing the wrong things?'

‘Let me guess: you've dressed to kill?'

A quick appraisal. Dress, suspenders, and split crotch Bensimon knickers. The epitome of modern chic. For Monsieur's eyes only. ‘Not at all.'

‘You don't sound like a girl who's wearing Snoopy pants. Or a student who's been to lectures this morning.'

Exasperated, I barked: ‘Oh, fuck you!' And, in a foul mood, hung up. Fortunately, while we'd been talking, Monsieur had sent me a text asking me to meet him five minutes later in the Vinci Pont-Marie car park.
The
car park. The antechamber to hell.

I sat down on the dirty steps. My heart was beating wildly, loud enough to silence the soothing background music played in all such places, although no one is ever likely to stay around long enough to listen to it. Apart from me. And Monsieur. Then, head down, tying my laces, I caught a faint movement to my right, the sound of the door's electric lock falling into place, a rush of displaced air. I looked up and Monsieur was there, his appreciative eyes running over my body. He was holding the door open, as if I was one of his patients, and when I brushed against him to pass through the door, I felt the space between us sizzle, heated in an instant by the guilty, wary lust this man inspired in me.

‘You said you had questions?'

‘For
Monsieur
. There are matters I need to shed light on, things I haven't quite understood.'

‘What, for instance? Look at me.'

For a thousandth of a second, I looked into his eyes and regretted my audacity. I began again, gabbling: ‘I haven't understood why we don't see each other any more – if you tried to explain it, I couldn't come to terms with it – why you don't communicate with me any longer when it's obvious we have so much to give to each other, why—'

‘Slow down, slow down,' Monsieur interrupted. ‘You're talking too fast.'

I bit my lower lip, trying to catch my breath.

‘Are you stressed because I'm here?'

‘You're
very
full of yourself.'

‘I'm stressed too. Let me take your pulse.'

Before I could protest, Monsieur had clasped my wrist between his fingers. Raising my eyes to the heavens, irritated but smiling, I muttered: ‘There is
nothing
wrong with my pulse.'

‘It's fast,' Monsieur replied, almost in a whisper. ‘Just like mine.'

‘It's not going fast at all,' I concluded, snatching away my still madly throbbing wrist.

But, however curt I was trying to appear, I was already falling headlong into Monsieur's fly-trap, unable to conceal anything from him. Not even what was hidden beneath my clothing: I was getting wet. I liked the way Monsieur was so elegantly invasive, able to see through me on every occasion. Because of the rising heat, I took off my coat, and his eyes opened wide when he noticed my cleavage. And the distinct lack of lingerie obscuring the view.

‘You're crazy going out in public like that! It's dangerous!'

‘I keep my coat buttoned up when I'm in the street. Like everyone does.'

‘I can see all of your breasts in that dress,' Monsieur observed, swaying between concern and appreciation, while his fingers cautiously pinched one of my hard nipples.

‘What are you doing?'