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Authors: Marie Darrieussecq

Men (9 page)

BOOK: Men
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She remembered the interview with Cassavetes, in black and white, right here on Mulholland. Cassavetes so cool and sexy in his convertible under the bright light, Cassavetes who wanted to film
Crime and Punishment
as a musical comedy, Cassavetes saying of this town, ‘People never meet here', and ‘California Girls' starts up on the radio, starts right at the moment when the camera is filming Cassavetes. Start there, in life itself, in the present, forever, the Beach Boys forever
as a soundtrack to Cassavetes direct from Hollywood time.

She looked at him side-on, at the wheel, in the hills at night. Yes, you could see it…the resemblance…the same mouth, the same forehead. Cassavetes as a black guy: without the dreadlocks, okay…but that irresistible feeling of déjà vu, that devastating
motion blur
where she kept on seeing faces she knew…The Cassavetes night had just fallen; Cassavetes was going home while they continued to drive, from that day to that night where she was here, in the canyons, with this man who looked so much like someone.

‘
Crime and Punishment
as a musical comedy?' Kouhouesso shook his head. ‘What a stupid idea.' According to him, it would have been a disaster: microphones in the fields, drunken actors, a hysterical Gena Rowlands, the place on Mulholland made up as a Russian log house. Once he had finished
Heart of Darkness
, he planned to shoot a musical—a serious project, about Miriam Makeba.

She assumed her knowing look. Fatigue hovered around them again; they would have to drive faster, leave behind this strange burden. He kept exceeding the speed limit (he hated automatic cars), he conceded that Cassavetes was probably brilliant, okay; but what about Polanski; what about Kubrick. Even Sydney Pollack. Professionals. Truly great filmmakers. The framework of cinema was a combination of genius and technical mastery. The New Wave had done a lot of damage to cinema.

She sniggered. ‘Sydney Pollack!' He protested: he'd
mentioned Polanski first. Cassavetes' films were all over the shop, scraps of films,
trial
films. She praised the passion of his hysterical women, extolled the virtues of the unsuccessful films, films all the more brilliant for the flaws that illuminated them. He lit another cigarette, blew hard: he
despised
shoddy workmanship—the more he scorned the idea the more he rolled his
r
s—he would be the first filmmaker born in Africa to have the necessary resources, serious resources, professional resources!

She had never disagreed! The mist had dispersed. The night was sparkling, sharp and dry. He accelerated. Faster and faster, the GPS rattled off the list of places that were hastening her home. Wilshire, South Beverly Glen, Copa de Oro, Bellagio, end of the road. He parked in front of the metal gates of the apartment block, got out to open the door, but didn't turn off the engine. He was tired.

She begged him. She didn't want to go into her empty home by herself. No, he wasn't in the mood
.
He gestured with his arm for her to let go of him.

IL FAUT BEAUCOUP AIMER LES HOMMES

She watched
Dazzled
again. She forced herself to open books. She came across a sentence that she texted to him: ‘We have to love men a lot. A lot, a lot. Love them a lot in order to love them. Otherwise it's impossible; we couldn't bear them. Marguerite Duras'

He didn't reply. Not five minutes later. Not three days later. She complained to Rose that he lacked a sense of humour.

‘He'll contact you,' said Rose. She wanted to see a photo. Solange sent her an internet link: the clip of
Dazzled
that made her weak at the knees. Rose went into raptures over his good looks, compared him to George. One more handsome guy in Solange's already thriving love-life. She didn't push it too far.

Except that it wasn't one more guy in her life; it was life itself.

She searched through her computer history. Her computer that he often borrowed at night. And indeed he had nothing to hide: he was studying actors' record sheets and budgets, watching films, comparing cinematographers, investigating the feasibility of sound engineering in the forest, reading all he could about Conrad and the Congo, finding out about equatorial diseases, waterproof cameras, portable mosquito nets, drinking-water tanks, lightweight tents, plane tickets, film studios in Lagos and Capetown, the cost of an interpreter in places inhabited by the Baka people. ‘Gwyneth Paltrow naked' was the one slightly jarring item in this coherent record. And also—lots of time spent correcting Wikipedia entries and discussing with other contributors, on the topic of Conrad or Makeba or even the catfish (with poisonous antennae) in the Ogooué River. He was the sole author of the entry ‘King of Ife', in three languages. The length of the article demoralised her.

So that's what he was doing at night, instead of coming to bed with her?

His screenplay was also there, in a folder called
HOD. Heart of Darkness.
She typed in ‘the Intended', and found nothing; she typed in ‘Gwyneth' and the role appeared. Short: three pages, three scenes, three minutes. Scarcely more than what she'd done with Damon. Gwyneth wouldn't want it. Of course, there was George. And now Jessie. But
even if Gwyneth had a gap in her schedule…three minutes for a first-time director?

She held her hair up in the mirror: an old-fashioned bun, a few loose strands. Very pale make-up. A dress with a corset, the bodice buttoned to the neck but fitted. ‘No one knew him so well as I! I had all his noble confidence. I knew him best.' Softer, a whisper: ‘No one knows him so well as I! I have all his noble confidence. I know him best…'

It was striking how so little of the novel was devoted to women or to Africans (so what role was Jessie going to play?). She thought about possible improvements. Everything changed if the Intended accompanied Kurtz to the Congo. She then became a particular type of expatriate woman: dashing and rebellious, close to the black people, both timid and sensual, stricken with boredom and with wonder. They got married there, in a little evangelical chapel. And when her man left the colonial army, she followed him, of course, into the heart of darkness.

She was the heart of darkness: it was her, with her kindness, her big heart, shining a light on the infernal sorcery of colonialism.

It was a magnificent role, encompassing the whole film. The type of role where she would be on the poster with George, like Isabelle Huppert with Kristofferson in
Heaven's Gate.
She sketched a few drafts of scenes and filed them in
HOD-2.

A week had passed. She couldn't decide whether to call him or not.

Time took hold of her again. She was time's catfish, a fish from stagnant waters, a large fish from a slow river. She was decomposing. Lloyd had told her about a little role in
ER
but she wasn't sure. She had left a polite message on Steven Soderbergh's phone but he hadn't called back. At a dinner she surprised herself by not listening to a thing, until the word
Kinshasa
hit her like an explosion—the guests were amazed by her Congological knowledge. Had they heard about the new adaptation of
Heart of Darkness
? The conversation drifted on to Coppola, his daughter, his vineyards, and she stopped listening.

Dazzled
by Michael Mann. She remembered that Lloyd had mentioned it to her at the time, but she'd been on the set of
Musette
, so it wouldn't have fitted in. A scene where the two cops burst into a French restaurant—she could have been the sexy waitress. Their paths would have crossed. Would she already have fallen for him? Or?
Synchronicity
: one of Kouhouesso's words. A practical man, who thinks in terms of compatible schedules. But she knew that—at any time, in Clèves, in Paris, in Los Angeles—at any time, she would have followed him.

No. She had found him handsome, that black guy who played Hamlet, not Othello, at Bouffes du Nord Theatre,
but she had not gone out of her way to get to know him. She was twenty-two. She had crossed paths with the prince; it was unintentional. Or perhaps he was too princely for the Solange of that period.

The waitress in
Dazzled
ends up sleeping with the white guy. She couldn't remember a film, American or otherwise, in which a black guy and a white woman—a white guy and a black woman—sleep together without it being the subject itself of the drama. When a white guy and a black woman—a black guy and a white woman—get a bit too close, it's as if an alarm goes off, the public stiffens, the producers have said stop, the scriptwriters have already sorted out the issue, the black actor knows that he will not seduce the white actress: or else we're in another film, a morality tale, an affair, a problem.

She rewound…there…he's going to do it, he's going to turn towards the sea and the light stays with him, obscuring his expression, and he becomes the focus, becomes everything…That motion blur, that tiny degree of motion blur, like a photo stared at for too long…

Their world was
tolerant.
Hollywood, Paris, Manhattan: homosexual couples, threesome couples, couples where the man was older than the woman. A few white-Asian couples. But Asians are white. And who did Rihanna and Beyoncé go out with? With black guys. And then there was Halle Berry, who went out with a white guy, but her skin was much paler than Kouhouesso's. And she had seen photos
of Lenny Kravitz with a Brazilian top model who, as white as she looked, was much darker than Solange.

Her head was starting to spin—like when you go through those wallpaper colour charts that look like giant phone directories of colours—from wondering if black is black. And she didn't have a clue.

TOM-TOM AT SOHO HOUSE

He called. His name came up on her phone. Yes, come. Yes, ring the buzzer. The lock turned by itself, magic: he opened it with the key she had given him. She wrapped her arms around him, right there, straightaway. He asked for a glass of water first; he'd played tennis and had a headache. A fever? A spot of sunstroke? She didn't know he played tennis. Or that he could get sunstroke. She put a wet cloth on his forehead. She kissed his eyelids gently. She fluttered her eyelashes against his cheeks, butterfly kisses, like her father used to give her when she was little. He fell asleep against her and she didn't dare move.

He was worried. Gwyneth's agent hadn't called. A week passed before they were told that she had other commitments. Jessie suggested Scarlett Johansson. Too voluptuous.
Ted could see Charlize in the role, with her aloofness. Too masculine, according to Kouhouesso.

They were at Soho House, at the edge of the square pond under the olive trees. Fifteen storeys below, the cars had discreetly hastened to make room for George and Jessie and their amazing vehicles. It was the first time she had been part of an
HOD
meeting. She didn't know if she was with Kouhouesso as his girlfriend or as an actress. Or because of the group's inertia? Or because, for George, she was obviously with them? Or because she was attractive? In the alcoholic languor of a late afternoon in Los Angeles, in the polluted heat, in the Californian pre-Christmas, she felt as beautiful and strong as a palm tree. The word
Intended
was whistling softly in her head.

The waitress came to take their orders. George gave the waitress the eye. The waitress laughed. She looked like Anne Hathaway. George's agent suggested Anne Hathaway. Jessie's agent boasted about one of his clients, Kelye, a little bit has-been
.
Eva Green would be better, said George's agent. Three starlets in fake Versace sat down at the next table. At the end of the terrace, near the fountain, Kate Bosworth was drinking a smoothie. She called out hi to George. A role was hovering over Hollywood, a role with its little wings, its flimsy little dress, its little ‘where to land?' look. Los Angeles was starting to buzz, to raise a fine golden dust on its crackleware back.

The waitress moved off. The fish in the pond darted around and the men talked. An English girl? Keira Knightley? A clever and classy European girl? A French girl? Ted said the name Audrey Tautou four times. Jessie suggested Catherine Deneuve, young. Jessie's agent said Julie Delpy. Ted said Audrey Tautou for the fifth time.

Kouhouesso looked at her. She gave him her audition smile. He looked at her as he did often: his head slightly tilted, mildly worried, as if he was surprised she was there. Or else (the idea suddenly struck her) he, too, was trying to work it out. Since the beginning. Who she looked like. That face. Those eyes.

He had tied back his dreadlocks. He was wearing a thin cashmere sweater, pale turquoise, nothing underneath, and a scarf of yellow linen. He seemed even taller and almost skinny, apart from the breadth of his shoulders under the mass of hair. Jessie suggested Kim Wilde. When she was young. He'd be happy to have young Kim Wilde for himself. Ted was sulking. Kouhouesso called the waitress for a second Eastern Standard (vodka-tonic cucumber-mint) and excused himself to go out for a cigarette. George took Solange by the elbow and led her out to the terrace, on the heels of Kouhouesso.

BOOK: Men
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