Monsieur (29 page)

And he dutifully followed my instructions.

After love, Monsieur looks at me distractedly, the way you look at a still warm cadaver. My legs are spread open across the bed and I feel like a doll that's been torn apart, caught in the web of his fascination with what he's done to me, made of me. I have toothmarks on the inside of my thighs. As I make a feeble attempt to turn onto my back, Monsieur grasps me in a vice-like grip, somehow trying to communicate the necessary, clumsy tenderness that men who have become indifferent to us feel obliged to express after the act of love. But, with one of his arms braced around my neck and the other across my stomach, it makes me think of a snake suffocating its victim, following a hail of deadly bites.

A few minutes later, I'm lying on my back and I can see us in the mirror on the right-hand wall of the room, me deep in my obsession: how could I ever have believed that I could one day control this man? Monsieur's muscles are delicate, seemingly designed to capture prey and escape from predators in a flash. And you have merely to look briefly at me to know that I'm the sort of creature who is fleet of foot and tricky only in the bedroom. Otherwise I'm like a slug, round and heavy and moving in eternally slow motion.

‘Did you fuck in Berlin?' Monsieur suddenly asks me.

‘I told you, it was a sexual desert,' I answered, sliding against his back, grazing his flanks.

‘With all those guys at your beck and call, you did nothing?'

‘None of them came to Berlin.'

Monsieur drapes his arm across my chest, turns and looks at me. There is a hint of a dimple in his cheek, the pattern of a smile in its early stages. ‘Of course, I remember now, the hairbrush.'

‘I made it very clear I wanted you never to refer to that episode again.'

‘But it's a funny story, isn't it?'

In an attempt to turn Monsieur's mind away from the ridiculous image of me with a hairbrush sticking out of my cunt, I continue: ‘Zylberstein, Atlan, Landauer, they're all guys I'm willing to fuck, but not to the extent of having them around for two whole days.'

‘Tell me . . . Zylberstein, Atlan, Landauer . . .'

‘I know. All my lovers happen to be Jewish. God knows why, no particular reason.' And God only knows why I added: ‘Jewish and doctors.'

Monsieur's face develops the sort of vexed pout my father always adopts when hearing of my fibs. ‘That's bad.'

‘What is?'

‘To fuck just doctors.'

‘It's not . . . my choice. It just happens that way. I met one, then another, and yet another . . . and as they all know each other, there's no end to it.'

Monsieur remains silent, as if satisfied by my explanation. But the way his mouth curls tells me he is already coming up with some new fantastical theory: maybe this would-be romantic writer and careerist tramp is excited by collecting doctors – perhaps it makes her story more exciting, if predictable. A theory I decry, but sadly I haven't the energy to defend myself.

My three
Monsieur
notebooks are under my pillow. I pull them out and leaf through them as I look at him, full of arousal and consumed by anguish. His eyes, with their customary hunger, swiftly move across the lines. My heart beats out of control. With every successive paragraph, I want to snatch the notebook away from him. Towards the final chapter (the one, of course, which looks at his wife and the couple they form from every possible angle), his grey eyes land softly on a word, maybe a sentence, and I find the situation remarkable. My life suspended. Just as slowly, Monsieur looks up at me, a harsh question racing across his thick lips, the tone of his voice much too calm for me not to worry: ‘How would you know if my wife was cheating on me?'

‘I wouldn't,' I said (I'm scared to death, dear God,
terrified
). ‘It was just a supposition. But it's not impossible.' I add, defensive like a coward. ‘It's not me who says it. It's just a character.' I take a breath, continue: ‘Anyway, I've naturally changed all the names, including yours.' Monsieur slowly turns the pages, unmoved. I cunningly add: ‘I even changed your wife's name.'

‘You should still explain to me what my wife has to do with all this.'

‘But . . . so much! You can't imagine all that the story implies. It's evident that mentioning your wife is significant. Even though I know nothing about her.
Particularly
as I know nothing about her. That's what I keep saying throughout
Monsieur
.'

He's now deciphering the inside covers of the notebooks where, from the very beginning, I've been in the habit of jotting down my witticisms, my still unformed ideas, my rambling thoughts. A whole jumble of incomprehensible sentences to anyone but myself, apart from words once said by Monsieur, hastily remembered and jotted down between cautious inverted commas, black on white, all the wonderful obscenities he would whisper to me on Tuesday mornings and that I was afraid I'd forget (I'm certain that in fifty years' time they will still resonate as strongly in the memory of the old woman I will be): ‘Touch your sweet pussy for me.' That, and so many others murmured in the darkness, that I wanted to incorporate into my story: ‘Monsieur's cock nestling inside his trousers. Monsieur when he is jerking off. Monsieur's balls?' (Having written page after page about what he did to me, I had realized I had no precise visual memory of his impressive set of balls . . . Bizarre.)

I can easily imagine the coldness of his incomprehension, the anguish that fills him as he confronts all the topsy-turvy sentences that refer to him, ‘Monsieur' written down a thousand times in a thousand different ways. My notebooks are like the walls psychopaths deface, every available inch covered with photos of victims, cuttings from newspapers, locks of hair. He enters the lair, noting how I've retained so many details of us that he now no longer remembers. Maybe he thinks I'm pathological, but as far as I'm concerned, this was the only way to be objective about our affair and also to keep him alive, as the fire he lit inside me just won't go out, despite his absence. I watch him woefully as he feeds on my secrets, enters the pink and black little-girl world I have unwittingly brought to life. I am already indignant at the prospect of how he will judge it.

Closing the final notebook, he knits his brows and exhales a long, long sigh, with all the finality of a guy presented with a
fait accompli
.

‘How do you refer to me in your book?'

‘As Monsieur. You already know that.'

‘What sort of job have you given me?'

‘Surgeon. I've already told you I couldn't change that. It's you.'

Once again Monsieur sighs with dismay, whispering as if to himself: ‘Everyone will know.'

I feel like screaming, but say softly, ‘You're not the
only
surgeon in Paris.'

‘I'm the only one who is known for his appreciation of erotic literature.'

‘So what? Should I make Monsieur a doughnut vendor who reads pulp thrillers?'

The outline of a smile appears on Monsieur's lips, defusing the tension.

I come to realize that, having read these two pages, it's not just that Monsieur is scared: he understands that the clever idea of getting me to write a book about our relationship has now turned against him. Of course, it makes him nervous. I can no longer read on his face what he is thinking. Staring at him through my eyelashes, I ask: ‘You hate me now?'

‘Me, hate you?' he remarks, with a look of genuine shock. ‘Why should I hate you, sweetie?'

‘You don't approve of anything I do or show you.'

‘On the contrary, I approve of everything you do.'

‘You think I'm trying to land you in the shit?'

‘You're not landing me in the shit,' he answers (translate as
I will not allow you to land me in the shit
). ‘I just don't want to hurt anyone. Understand?'

‘I have as much to lose as you do.'

‘I have nothing to lose! There's no point in hurting people. That's why you must change all the names.'

‘I will.'

Discreetly, I pull the notebooks back to my side of the bed. Now, it's just Monsieur, me and our now unfamiliar bodies. Chin tucked into the fold of his armpit, I am no longer listening to his darling voice commenting on my book. I silently study his features. Monsieur is beside me, but kilometres away, his tirade against the supposed rashness of my book now just a detail. He is on this bed, and so am I, but
we
(the abstract but instantly recognizable concept of ‘we') have missed the boat.

‘I have to leave,' he proclaims, at ten to eleven, a mere half-hour after his triumphant arrival.

‘You're kidding.' I jump off the bed, staring at him with incredulity. ‘Now? You've only just arrived!'

‘I know, but what can I do? It's all I could manage. Actually, I almost didn't come at all.'

Half an hour. That's what I get for my efforts. I pout, which seems to affect Monsieur as, still naked on his knees in the tangle of sheets, he groans. ‘Don't look at me like that. You know that if I could do otherwise I would.'

‘That's just it. I don't know. All I can do is
think
I know.'

‘So accept it. I have no choice.'

I respond bitterly: ‘You sure haven't courted me much of late.'

‘When?'

‘Last weekend, for instance.'

As he doesn't appear to understand, now busy looking for his trousers, I continue: ‘I remember the first times we saw each other. You had as much work as you do now on your plate, but you made time. You spent your life on the phone to me, sending me texts. And now, fuck all. Until the very last moment, I was even unsure whether you'd turn up today.'

‘I do what I can. It's lack of time, for everything. You can't imagine how it is. I'm working fourteen hours a day, think of that.'

‘I've always known you were busy. That's not what I'm talking about.'

‘These days it's worse.'

Holding his trousers in one hand, Monsieur is deep in thought. Then he asks: ‘When did we start seeing each other?'

‘It began in May,' I answer mournfully, unable to look him in the eyes and control the horrible thought flashing through my mind:
Monsieur passed through my life like a ghost.

‘May . . . Must have been the recession. I had less work.'

Monsieur, his beautiful eyes so accustomed to lying, insolently holding my gaze. I recognize this shaky form of poise. Like him, I am capable of lying, but Monsieur doesn't know this, believing he owns the copyright to every subterfuge in the book.

I light my joint again in an attempt to fill the awkward silence. Clumsily exhale the smoke.

‘Do you distrust me now?'

Isn't it preposterous that you can brush away your whole life with one swipe of the hand, like emptying a table of hot dishes? But it isn't funny. It would take only a word or two for Monsieur to antagonize his wife, alienate his children, become the object of ridicule at work and be laughed at by his friends. I am twenty, just a clumsy sketch of a woman, and I have the power to do all this. It's like holding a gun. Sometimes I'm dying to pull the trigger, but my conscience keeps my fingers away from the firing mechanism.

Monsieur kneels in search of his second sock, his face turned towards mine. ‘No. No, I don't distrust you.'

‘You'd never say so, but I see it in your eyes.
Monsieur
worries the hell out of you.'

‘If you changed all those things people close to us might recognize, why should I be distrustful? Hell, on the contrary! It's your first novel! I always encouraged you to write, no?'

‘True.'

‘All I'm saying is, we still have some time before they start printing thirty thousand copies. Time enough to make the characters opaque.'

‘Thirty thousand copies seems a lot,' I remark, eyes glazed.

I probably look the picture of disappointment, and Monsieur moves over to stroke my knee.

‘Believe me, you're a born writer. I knew it from the moment I read your piece in
Stupre
.'

‘Oh, by the way . . .' I grabbed my bulging handbag, from which the pink cover of my last copy, duly inscribed, had been peeping out.

With a broad smile, Monsieur took the magazine, folding and unfolding the yellowing cover, exploring every page with expert attention. ‘It's beautiful!' he exclaimed, and for those two words, repeated over and over again, I would have given him my life.

Why did I attach so much importance to Monsieur's approval? Every compliment he bestows on me has always been measured, distilled, analysed, formatted, and I'm not even talking about the dreadful flattery with which he bombards me while I squirm below him as we make love, an immediate consequence of all the cum accumulating in his brain. When Monsieur says something is ‘beautiful', the word is filled with brightness.

‘I wrote you a great dedication.'

While others would only see the words ‘cock' and ‘cunt', you truly saw Lucie, and understood her. So I place this copy in your expert hands. ‘For Monsieur C.S., Ellie Becker.'

His charming lips parted, uncovering a row of superbly white teeth.

‘It's for me?' Monsieur asks shyly, surprisingly coy.

‘I promised I'd give you a copy.'

‘This magazine is great. Thank you.'

I already imagine my slot in the library on the Île Saint-Louis, among the ribald books in which Monsieur conceals my letters. No one can even guess at the assortment of fictional orgies permanently taking place in that study, which in my mind is alternately a boudoir and a castle. All the great books are there, their dust communing with the fat smell of old pages, a thousand concepts battling away, overlapping. And, from tonight, I will be there too, with my vagina-pink cover still carrying the smell of printer's ink and my quiet teenage fantasies.