The Thursday Night Men (29 page)

“You see, a degree in management doesn’t give me any particular advantage, so if I want to take the—”

“Shall we go to my place?”

In the roar of decibels, she thought she’d misheard. Denis looped his hand behind her neck, placed his lips by her ear, and with disturbing firmness said, “We’re going to my place.”

It was no longer even a rhetorical question.

The time of the taxi ride was hardly enough to sober up. Mélanie, too preoccupied with her descriptions of the ins and outs of her future career, suddenly noticed she had forgotten to ask Denis: “And what do you do?”

In another era, Denis would have sidestepped the question with humor, but now he answered,
waiter in a brasserie.
Finding nothing better, she said,
That’s cool,
and in the hall of his building she let him take her hand. Stunned by alcohol, he almost stumbled on his way up the stairs, and suppressed a peal of laughter. Outside his door he hunted for his key, and leaned down to kiss Mélanie on the neck.

Whether she was humiliated, disappointed, or panicked at the thought of losing him, the time had come for Marie-Jeanne to put aside her fine reserve and either burst into tears or spit in his face.

He went in first, turned on all the lights in the living room, made as much noise as he could, found a bottle of vodka in the freezer, put on some jazz, clinked glasses with Mélanie then put his arms around her.

Probably he hadn’t made enough noise; the door to the bedroom remained firmly shut. Marie-Jeanne was sound asleep, he was going to have to wake her up and fling some nasty drunken comment in her face, the worst thing he could think of, and while he was at it he’d introduce his casual acquaintance.

He went into the room, turned on the overhead light, and saw the bed was empty.

On the night table was a folded note.

I think you’re repaired now. Be happy, you deserve it.

Marie-Jeanne

Mélanie hesitated to follow him so soon into the bedroom. She called out, “Why don’t we get to know one another first?”

At six o’clock in the morning Yves Lehaleur awoke from a heavy, calm sleep, more than well-deserved, he thought. The women who had been a part of his life were now all gone from it, as of yesterday, and life, with its strokes of luck and misfortune, could get back to normal. He thought he’d take a long reprieve to give his senses a rest, dulled as they were by so many restless nights, by the inflation of pleasure, by his exhausting commerce with all his women.

In the semi-darkness he saw the red flashing of his answering machine, and curiosity drove him out of bed. He listened to a courteous but sententious message from one Mademoiselle Perrine Le Bihan, a counselor at his bank branch, and the only woman in the world who was questioning her client’s lifestyle. For several months she had been trying to get in touch with him, to explain the principle of life insurance to him and inquire tactfully why his insurance had been dwindling away. It was a losing battle, by now; in her message she informed him that his balance, once €87,000, now amounted to a credit of €26.45. Yves congratulated himself on such a fine job managing his debauchery budget. He put on a jacket and a pair of trousers, went down into the street, and took a long stroll to enjoy the cool morning air. He wondered how he should spend his last savings, with the weekend beginning. He stopped outside a fancy hotel that was offering a continental brunch for €22—he would not find better than this.

A few tables over on the deserted terrace, a very young couple, visibly the worse for wear after a sleepless night, were hunting in their pockets for enough change for a coffee. While they smoked their Camels, they commented with the arrogance of their age on the night’s indiscretions. Then they kissed, immodestly. Passionately. Radiant with their exclusive love. Convinced that Paris was at their feet. That the world had better watch out. That their future would never end.

As he gazed tenderly and discreetly at them, Yves Lehaleur told himself that, despite his best efforts, he was not safe from a future love.

“I think the last time we saw each other was that night at the Crillon.”

“Before that we ran into each other on the Rue de Tournon.”

“Or maybe it was the Rue Mazarine?”

“It doesn’t matter, it was also by chance. I don’t know if it’s a very good idea to let chance decide when we meet.”

“That’s why I called you.”

“I couldn’t believe it at first when I heard your message. To be honest, I thought,
Juliette is inviting me out for a meal, what’s behind it
?”

“It’s not every day you get to have lunch with a miraculous survivor.”

“Ah . . . you heard about all that, as well.”

“How could I avoid it? It was all over the papers, even on the evening news.”

“Something I could have done without.”

“The villa looked fabulous, even wrecked like it was. Is the version I heard the right one?”

“Which version?”

“You got left behind on the hill, had to fend for yourselves, etc.”

“I can hear the irony in your voice, but when you’re actually there and the ocean is starting to lick at your feet, you gradually lose your sense of irony. Once the hurricane had passed, there was so much destruction on the hill that we couldn’t even get down to the shore. We had to wait for the rescue team.”

“How long was it they took? Twenty-four hours?”

“That’s what they said, but it felt like twenty-four days. And the worst of it was that if it hadn’t been the world-famous Mia they were rescuing, I think I’d be there still.”

“Oh, right, the disappearance of Philippe Saint-Jean might have brought a tear to the eyes of, let’s say . . . one or two students hanging around the Sorbonne? And your older sister of course, and maybe your publisher.”

“Yeah, really; he was delighted. He had the nerve to ask me to dash off a little book about those twenty-four hours. All the ingredients were there: a natural disaster, a celebrity in distress, and a philosopher asking his final questions as he is surrounded by Nature’s fury. With already a heap of publicity before the book even came out. What could be better.”

“What did you tell him?”

“To go fuck himself.”

In fact, Philippe had started on a sociological essay, describing how contemporary man was harassed by demands of all sorts, and in his effort to keep up with his era, he could no longer keep up with himself. In the midst of this twenty-first century information overload, he was being instructed to be happy, forced to find pleasure, shackled to beauty, condemned to what was right; so many standards were being defined for him that he feared if he didn’t comply he’d be left out. If Philippe ever finished his study, he’d dedicate it to Mia.

“With hindsight, the most unpleasant part of the whole thing was the rescue operation. The minute she had a hemp blanket over her head and her very first sandwich in her mouth, Mia regained the composure befitting a star. First camera she saw and she put on a survivor’s persona worthy of
The Raft of the Medusa.
”

“I heard you on France Info. You sounded less inspired than she did.”

“That was the worst. Because I have this status as an intellectual, they asked me to put it all into words. They figured I had enough distance to be able to pontificate on what I’d been through; they wanted some sort of eloquent pathos. And I sat there like a dork in front of their microphones, still stunned to be alive, obliged to act solemn, to come up with something meaningful, when all I really wanted was a steak and a very very very long night’s sleep.”

“Well, you’re the one who went looking for that image as a media-friendly thinker, a prime-time philosopher, so you shouldn’t complain. There you are now, on YouTube.”

“The most absurd thing is that just before the disaster I had already decided to leave the island, and I was praying that no one would ever find out about my escapade beneath the coconut trees!”

“You have to hand it to that girl, though. To drag you,
you,
all the way to Indonesia. When you and I were living together, I could never have managed a feat like that.”

“I’m not with her anymore.”

Juliette looked at him.

“Are you surprised?” he said.

“To be honest, no. The two of you, it was sort of like a marriage between a carp and a rabbit.”

“Who was the carp and who was the rabbit?”

“All I hope is that this odd episode has taught you something.”

He would never answer that question; the tidal wave had carried away with it the very foundations of his thought. Why had the principle of reality, which he had invoked all through his career, been driven home to him there, of all places, with such brutality? How could he not see it as a lesson in humility, taught by Nature, how could he not question all his beliefs about chance, how could he not accept, in the end, the exceeding vanity of all things—his own little career as a sententious thinker to begin with? He who had always refused to see human beings as the playthings of superior forces, and now he found himself staring at a Pandora’s box he would never dare to open, for fear of seeing his last remaining certainties explode in his face. Until he breathed his last, he would keep that box buried deep inside him, like the treasure of a future life, if peradventure there was one.

Today there was only one moral he wished to append to this incredible fable: the return of Juliette, more luminous than ever.

“What did you do after they brought you home?”

“I reassured my parents, then I barricaded myself at home until the circus was over. You are the first person to get me out.”

“Me? I’m flattered.”

“I felt like seeing all six foot one and a hundred and thirty-nine pounds of you. Actually, is that still right?”

“With age, I fear it might be six foot and a hundred and forty-four pounds.”

“What are you doing this afternoon?”

Juliette would never confess how afraid she had been of losing him when she heard he had disappeared. How sorry she had been, in that moment, for having abandoned him, without leaving him an infinity of second chances. How relieved she had been to see him brought back to life, with or without that girl on his arm. How she was looking forward, from now on, to knowing he was no longer so full of himself, after his misadventure.

“Nothing, and you?”

In an elegant building on the Rue d’Assas in the sixth arrondissement there was an immense apartment on the fifth floor which the owner lent out once a week—in general on a Thursday evening, between seven and nine o’clock—to some sort of association, whose bylaws she was not really acquainted with. It would seem to be a group of women who’d had a rough time of it in life, and who felt the need to talk: that brief explanation had sufficed. In the main salon a hundred or so chairs had been set up, and they could stay there as long as the mistress of the house, treating her rheumatism in the South, did not return to her Parisian quarters.

That particular Thursday there were a few new faces. It was easy to spot them, with their anxious expressions, their false air of schoolgirls on their first day, their desire to be ignored. One of them, however, did not seem to be as ill at ease as the others; of medium height, shoulder-length light brown hair, wearing jeans and a woolen cardigan, she sat down in the first row with the firm intention not to stay for long. And in fact, right at the beginning of the session, as soon as they had closed the double doors, she raised her hand to volunteer. She was invited to go and sit in a large armchair there in front of the others.

“This is the first time I’ve come, and in all likelihood it will be the last. After I’ve told you my story, I’ll disappear, that’s something I’m very good at.”

Marie-Jeanne, pleased with the way she had started off, suddenly understood why she had come.

“I’m thirty-seven. I live alone. I haven’t suffered from love. I have no causes for complaint. But I recently had an experience that is worth describing here. For your information, I should point out that I haven’t had children, in spite of sustained efforts on the part of my companion and me. We pictured ourselves as perfect parents and lovers but, after an interminable ordeal, where we tried everything that science had to offer, it began to look as if this was not a role we would be asked to play. The companion in question got fed up and went to have children elsewhere, and for a long time I saw myself the way some people saw me: a dry sort of person who would never be truly a woman if she did not become a mother. In the long run I convinced myself that not all women are destined to be mothers, and I have spent ten years in a state of relative detachment, prepared to experience whatever life throws my way. In particular, the episode I am about to relate to you, because while it did not give me the opportunity to create a life, I managed nevertheless to save one.”

Having set out her basic premise, she paused before launching into the story, like a good storyteller who knows how to reel in her audience.

“One day I happened to hear—I say happened for the lack of a better word—someone telling their story, a story I should never have heard. This man was complaining. A man like so many others, not stupid but not particularly brilliant, rather funny, but often without intending to be, a man that some of you would have found charming, and others would not even have noticed, in short, the kind of man we have all known at some point. This one did have something exceptional about him, however: he had a grudge against every woman on the planet, because he was sure he was their chosen scapegoat, that they were taking their revenge on him for the age-old villainy of men.”

Where had she heard this story? Who had told it to her? Was it on that memorable evening when, before a hundred or more witnesses, the man had complained of such terrible injustice, with such cruel precision? Had she found her way into that secret society? And if so, how had she managed to deceive the congregation, who had never mingled with any women? Or had some tactless member relayed the story to her, thus betraying all his fellows? One thing seemed certain: Marie-Jeanne Pereyres had
heard
Denis Benitez.