Badfellas (20 page)

“Hello… Who’s that?”

“It’s me, darling! Philippe!”

“Philippe… Where are you?”

“I love you! I love you so much!”

“?…”

“Can you hear me? I love you! I love all three of you! So much…”

“You’re scaring me, did something happen on the journey?”

“You’re my only reason for living, you’re everything, without you my life has no meaning.”

“…”

“I’m getting the first plane back, and I’m never leaving the house again without the three of you.”

“What about Perseil?”

“He can go to hell, and the company too. Do you still love me?”

“See if you can guess.”

Then there was another wave of tears, this time of happiness, which washed all the misery out of his heart.

A young Belgian called David Moens, arriving from Macao and bound for LA, was waiting, bored stiff with the interminable transit through Bangkok. He could no longer even remember why he had suddenly decided to set off to the Orient, just like that, on the spur of the moment. It was certainly something to do with proving something to himself and to the world, but he had completely forgotten what it was. To go… to leave… Asia… over the horizon, far away… All travellers are poets… Surely he deserved his share of exoticism as much as the next man? Or at least he had to find out what it was, and for that, the only way was to travel, alone, far away, without a bean. Life, destiny and chance would see to the rest.

To sum up the result so far: in less than a week he had lost the little he had left in some less than thrilling gambling and struck up a few random, already forgotten acquaintances; he had not experienced a single moment of excitement, and he was now desperate to get out of Asia and get to America, which might turn out to be a little less impenetrable. In fact California was his last throw of the dice – there was a couple there he was supposed to stay with, some couple he’d met in Brussels last year, with whom he had sworn friendship
and exchanged addresses over several Krieks, the usual thing. But a voice inside him was already whispering that nobody would be waiting for him in Los Angeles.

Besides, David was unable to say what part disappointment in love had played in this precipitous departure. He had left Brussels, not because of a woman, but because of all women. The three last years, devoid of either love or sex, had driven him to regard women as the enemy. He saw them all in each one, and each in all, all with the same faults, driven by the same urges, so different from his own. At the risk of sliding into obvious misogynistic clichés, even those of literature, he agreed with all the usual remarks about the female sex, and felt he could sum up all women with just a few well-chosen adjectives. When he bought that plane ticket, it was because he had subconsciously decided to find out if women on the other side of the world behaved in the same way. And he had convinced himself that this was the case before even meeting one.

He found out from the only representative of his airline in Thailand that his plane would be taking off three or four hours late. He turned back, exasperated, and lay down in a corner of the transit lounge, with his head on his rucksack. If only he had something to read… A novel, a magazine, a French prospectus, anything to pass the time. When he had packed his suitcase, the thought of reading hadn’t occurred to him. He wouldn’t read, he would keep a diary of his travels, one or two pages a day, to record new experiences as soon as they happened. Alas, as his pursuit of the exotic ran into the ground, he became bored of the exercise. He had written four days’ worth, and the last entry, Tuesday June 17th, consisted of one paragraph.

Suddenly he noticed a pile of crumpled paper under a row of seats on which he spotted the black-and-white squares of a crossword. It was an odd publication, the
Jules Vallès Gazette
, goodness knew how it had got there. But David Moens wasn’t concerned with that – it was in French! A chance to reclaim his language, and set his rusty brain to work again. There were texts, puzzles, drawings, lots of odd little items; he set to work at once on the crossword.

High above an ocean whose colour he would never see, because it was dark and he wasn’t by the window, David now felt happier about his fate, safe in the aeroplane cabin, at peace with the world. Everything seemed luxurious to him, the hostesses’ smiles, the cool drinks, the fragrant wipes, the air-conditioning, the sharp sweets. Safe at last, he could now concentrate on the crossword, which presented no great challenge.

The young compilers had made no attempt to limit the number of black squares, nor to make the clues particularly difficult. But they had embarked on a ten-by-ten grid, which was made it oddly complicated for
the crossword-solver. David dealt easily with all the three and four letter words which fitted smoothly into one another. Most of his neighbours were already asleep, and the plane travelled through the night in perfect silence, as he sipped his tepid mini-can of Coke through a straw. “Party people”, eight letters? These snotty-nosed brats were beginning to slow him down. David had to admit that he was one of those occasional crossword fanciers who only enjoy it when it’s easy and soon feel humiliated by clues with several layers of meaning. The easy start had too quickly made him overconfident. Once he’d found
“Noah”
, the second word in the fourth vertical column (“sheltered a lot of couples”),
revellers
occurred to him for “party people”. In full flight now, he got an awesome
adultery
, for “half plus a third”. These kids from Cholong-sur-Avre, some dump in the back of beyond, were definitely more sophisticated than he thought. David had automatically written down the word
adultery
without wondering what the word could possibly mean to a child of twelve. What could someone of that age know about adultery, when he, David, at the great age of twenty-four, was full of self-pity about his miserable libido. Adultery? It was his dream! To be the lover of a married woman represented the pinnacle of sexual experience. He imagined passionate afternoons in a slightly seedy hotel near the Bruxelles-Midi station, a bottle of white wine on the bedside table and a fine-looking bourgeoise of fifty from the smart streets by the Chaussée d’Ixelles, pink with shame and excitement at finding herself naked in a squalid room, with a yob who made her come by treating her like a tart. Such were the images that sprang into David’s mind at the very word
adultery
. Either the kids from the Jules Vallès
Lycée
had used some classical definition from Favalelli or Scipio, or one of their teachers was having a bit of fun inserting his own racy contributions under the noses of colleagues, directors and parents. There was no way a twelve-year-old pupil could have thought up this clue. He was even beginning to think
adultery
such a strange word to find that perhaps it was wrong, and that finding such a sexual double meaning had just been a product of his own fevered imaginings. To try and expel such thoughts he moved on to the next clue, “public transport”, four letters, which would need to end with a
y
in order to fit with the
y
in
adultery
.

“Orgy
,” said a high voice just behind him.

“?…”

“Public transport:
orgy
,” she repeated.

A young woman of about his age stood, leaning her chin on David’s headrest, with a saucy smile.

“What’s that mag? It looks smashing.”

The word “smashing”, which seemed to come from another era, left David speechless. Taken by surprise, he was at first unable to appreciate the delicacy of the young woman’s smile, a half-smile which lit up her whole face, the blue of her eyes, the soft pinkness of her cheeks and the redness of her lips. In fact, David failed to realize at once that here was his perfect type of woman – small, with smooth skin and long silky blond hair. She possessed the sort of physique that would stand the test of time and of all life’s hazards.

“I don’t know, I found it in the airport,” he replied defensively.

“Orgy
,” she said again.

“How long have you been reading over my shoulder?”

Two hours later, now sitting side by side, prodding each other in a familiar way, they still couldn’t finish the crossword.

“Perhaps we were wrong with ‘First jet’, suppose it’s not…” he said.

“What do you suggest?”

“
Caravel
.”

“Sorry?”

“It was a sort of ancestor to the jet. The little bastards are trying to catch us out. All these air pockets made me think of it.”

“Don’t forget that this puzzle has been compiled not just by little bastards, but by perverted little bastards. This jet idea isn’t an aeroplane – ‘first jet’, at their age, must mean something different…”

“Surely not…”

“First jet – you’re a boy…”

“
Wanking?
”

“Of course. We’d keep the
a
from
adultery
, but we’d have to find something else for ‘bodies in fusion’.”

“Debauchery
?” she almost whispered.

“Would they have
orgy
AND
debauchery
?”

“Of course, it can only be
debauchery
.”

“‘Something sensual’ in four letters could be anything:
lust… fuck…
even
love
!”

“…”

“…”

“Let’s allow
love
, but that means ‘needs a helping hand’, seven letters, would have to start with an
o
.”

“You know what I’m thinking?”

“I’m afraid I do…”

“I’m sorry to have to say it, but
onanism
means ‘on fire’, seven letters, can’t be
kindled
.”

“Why not
amorous
?”

“Yes, why not?”

The plane was about to land in Los Angeles. David no longer planned to call the American couple, who had probably forgotten his existence anyway; he suggested to Delphine that they might explore the city together. Twenty minutes later, the airport cleaners worked their way down the economy-class aisles, throwing all the rubbish into their binbags, including the
Jules Vallès Gazette
.