The Return (16 page)

The Renault pulled up in front of a mansion in one of the most
exclusive neighborhoods of Paris.
That’s how it seemed to me, anyway.
One of the
pseudo-artists got out of the car and rang a bell.
After a while, a voice from
the darkness told him to move, no,
suggested
that he move a little to
the right and lift his chin.
The orderly did as he was told and lifted his head.
The other one looked out the window of the car and waved in the direction of a
television camera that was observing us from the top of the gate.
The voice made
a throat-clearing sound (at that point I
knew
that I would soon meet a
man of the utmost reserve) and said that we could enter.

Straightaway the gate opened with a faint squeaking sound and the car
drove in along a paved drive that snaked through a garden full of trees and
shrubs, with a slightly overgrown look that owed more to whim than to neglect.
We stopped beside one of the wings of the house.
While the orderlies were
removing my body from the trunk, I looked at the building in dismay and awe.
Never in all my life had I been inside a house like that.
It looked old.
It must
have been worth a fortune.
I couldn’t say any more without stretching my
knowledge of architecture.

We went in through one of the service entrances.
We crossed the
kitchen, which was spotless and cold like the kitchen in a restaurant that has
been closed for many years, and then we followed a dim corridor at the end of
which we took an elevator down to the basement.
When the doors of the elevator
opened, there was Jean-Claude Villeneuve.
I recognized him immediately.
The
long white hair, the thick glasses, the gray gaze that seemed to belong to a
helpless child, while the firm narrow lips denoted, on the contrary, a man who
knew very well what he wanted.
He was wearing jeans and a white,
short-sleeved shirt.
I was shocked, because in the photos of Villeneuve
that I had seen, his clothes had always been elegant.
Discreet, yes, but
elegant.
The Villeneuve before me now, by contrast, looked like an old rock star
suffering from insomnia.
His gait, however, was unmistakable; he moved with the
same unsteadiness that I had seen so often on television, when he stepped up
onto the catwalk at the end of his autumn-winter or spring-summer
shows, almost as if it was a chore, hauled out by his favorite models to receive
the public’s unanimous applause.

The orderlies put my body on a dark green sofa and took a few
steps back, waiting for Villeneuve’s verdict.
He approached my body,
uncovered my face, and then without saying a word went over to a little desk
made (I assume) of fine wood, from which he extracted an envelope.
The
orderlies took the envelope, which almost certainly contained a considerable
sum of cash, though neither of them bothered to count it, and then one of
them said that they would come back at seven the next morning to pick me up,
and they left.
Villeneueve ignored his parting words.
The orderlies went out
the way we’d come in; I heard the sound of the elevator and then silence.
Paying no attention to my body, Villeneuve switched on a television monitor.
I looked over his shoulder.
The pseudo-artists were at the gate,
waiting for Villeneuve to let them out.
Then the car drove off into the
streets of that highly exclusive neighborhood and the metal gate shut with a
brief squeaking noise.

From that moment on, everything in my new supernatural life began to
change, in accelerating phases that were perfectly distinct from each other, in
spite of their rapid succession.
Villeneuve went over to what looked like a
standard hotel minibar and took out an apple juice.
He removed the cap, began to
drink straight from the bottle and switched off the security monitor.
As he
drank, he put on some music.
Music I had never heard, or maybe I had, but when I
listened carefully it didn’t seem familiar: electric guitars, a piano, a
saxophone, a sorrowful and melancholic piece, but strong as well, as if the
composer’s spirit was determined not to yield.
I went over to the stereo hoping
to see the name on the cover of the CD but I couldn’t see anything.
Only
Villeneuve’s face, which looked strange in the semi-darkness, as if being
on his own again and drinking the apple juice had given him a hot flush.
I
noticed a drop of sweat in the middle of his cheek.
A tiny drop rolling slowly
down toward his chin.
I also thought I could see him trembling slightly.

Then Villeneuve put the glass down beside the CD player and approached
my body.
For a while he looked at me as if he didn’t know what to do, though he
did, or as if he was attempting to guess what hopes and desires had once
agitated the contents of that plastic body bag, which were now at his disposal.
He stayed like that for some time.
I didn’t know what his intentions
were—I’ve always been an innocent.
If I’d known, I would have been nervous.
But I didn’t, so I sat down in one of the comfortable leather armchairs in the
room and waited.

With extreme care, Villeneuve unwrapped the parcel containing my body,
rucking the bag up under my legs, and then (after two or three endless minutes)
he removed it entirely and left my corpse naked on the sofa, which was
upholstered with green leather.
He stood up straightaway—he’d been
kneeling—took off his shirt and paused, but keeping his eyes on me, and
that was when I stood up too, came a little closer and saw my naked body,
slightly fatter than I would have liked, but not too bad—eyes closed, an
absent expression on my face—and I saw Villeneuve’s torso, a sight very few
people have seen, since the great designer is renowned for his discretion among
many other qualities (the press, for example, has never published photos of him
at the beach), and I tried to read his expression and guess what would happen
next, but all I could see in his face was diffidence; he looked more diffident
than in the photos,
infinitely
more
diffident in fact than he looked in the photos in the fashion and gossip
magazines.

Villeneuve removed his trousers and socks and lay down beside my body.
Well, at that point I
did
realize
what was going on, and I was dumbstruck.
It’s easy enough to imagine what came
next, but it wasn’t what you’d call bacchanalian.
Villeneuve hugged me, caressed
me, kissed me chastely on the lips.
He massaged my penis and testicles with
something of the delicacy once lavished on me by Cécile Lamballe, the woman of
my dreams, and after a quarter of an hour of cuddling in the semi-darkness
I noticed that he had an erection.
My god, I thought, now he’s going to sodomize
me.
But that’s not what happened.
To my surprise, the designer rubbed himself
against one of my thighs till he came.
I would have liked to shut my eyes at
that point but I couldn’t.
My reactions were contradictory; I felt disgusted by
what I was seeing, grateful for not having been sodomized, surprised to discover
Villeneuve’s secret, angry at the orderlies for having rented out my body, and
even flattered to have served, unwillingly, as an object of desire for one of
the most famous men in France.

After coming, Villeneuve closed his eyes and sighed.
In that sigh I
thought I could detect a hint of disgust.
He sat up quickly and stayed there on
the sofa with his back to my body for a few seconds, while he wiped his dripping
member with his hand.
You should be ashamed, I said.

It was the first time I’d spoken since my death.
Villeneuve raised his
head, quite unsurprised, or at any rate much less surprised than I would have
been in his situation, while reaching down with one hand to feel for his glasses
on the carpet.

I knew at once that he had heard me.
It seemed like a miracle.
Suddenly I felt so happy that I forgave him his act of depravity.
And yet, like
an idiot, I repeated: You should be ashamed.
Who’s there?
said Villeneuve.
It’s
me, I said, the ghost of the body you just raped.
Villeneuve went pale, and
then, almost simultaneously, a blush rose in his cheeks.
I was worried that he
would have a heart attack or die of fright, although to tell the truth he didn’t
look all that frightened.

It’s not a problem, I said in a conciliatory tone, You’re forgiven.

Villeneuve switched on the light and looked in all the corners
of the room.
I thought he’d gone crazy, because there was clearly no one
else there; only a pygmy could have hidden in that room, not even a pygmy, a
gnome.
But then I realized that, far from being crazy, the designer was
displaying nerves of steel: he wasn’t looking for a person but a speaker.
As
I calmed down, I felt a surge of sympathy for him.
There was something
admirable about his methodical way of searching the room.
Me, I’d have been
out of there like a shot.

I’m no speaker, I said.
Nor am I a video camera.
Please, try to calm
down; take a seat and we can talk.
And most of all, don’t be afraid of me.
I’m
not going to do anything to you.
That’s what I said; then I kept quiet and
watched Villeneuve, who barely hesitated before continuing his search.
I let him
go ahead.
While he messed up the room, I remained seated in one of the
comfortable armchairs.
Then I had an idea.
I suggested that we shut ourselves in
a small room (as small as a coffin were my exact words), where no speakers or
cameras could possibly have been planted, and I could go on talking to him there
and convince him to accept my nature, my new nature, that is.
But while he was
considering my proposal, it occurred to me that I hadn’t expressed myself very
well, since my ghostly state could not be called, in any sense, a “nature.”
My
nature, however you looked at it, was still that of a living being.
And yet it
was clear that I was not alive.
The thought crossed my mind that it might all be
a dream.
Summoning some ghostly courage, I told myself that if it was a dream,
the best (and the only) thing I could do was to go on dreaming.
From experience
I know that trying to wrench yourself out of a nightmare is futile and simply
adds pain to pain or terror to terror.

So I repeated my proposal, and this time Villeneuve stopped searching
and froze (I examined his face, which I’d seen so often in the glossy magazines,
and saw the same expression, a solitary, elegant expression, although now there
were a few telltale drops of sweat rolling down his forehead and his cheeks).
He
left the room.
I followed him.
Halfway down a long corridor, he stopped and
said: Are you still with me?
His voice was strangely appealing, rich in tones
that seemed to be converging on a genuine warmth, though perhaps it was just an
illusion.

I’m here, I said.

Villeneuve moved his head in a way I couldn’t interpret and continued
to wander through his house, stopping in each room and on each landing to ask if
I was still with him, a question to which I replied without fail, trying to make
my voice sound relaxed, or at least trying to give it a singular tone (in life
it was always an ordinary, run-of-the-mill sort of voice), no
doubt influenced by the reedy (sometimes almost whistle-like) yet extremely
distinguished voice of the designer.
To each reply I also added details about
the place where we happened to be, with the aim of achieving greater
credibility; for example, if there was a lamp with a tobacco-colored shade
and a wrought iron stand, I said so.
I’m still here, next to you, and now we’re
in a room where the only source of light is a lamp with a tobacco-colored
shade and a wrought iron stand.
And Villeneuve said yes or corrected
me—That’s cast iron—but his eyes were fixed on the ground as he spoke,
as if he was afraid that I might suddenly materialize, or didn’t want to
embarrass me, and I’d say: Sorry, I didn’t notice, or: That’s what I meant.
And
Villeneuve moved his head ambivalently, as if accepting my excuses or just
getting a clearer idea of the ghost he had to deal with.

And so we went all around the house, and as we moved from place to
place, Villeneuve grew or seemed to grow calmer, while I became more nervous,
because I’ve never been much good at describing things, especially if they’re
not objects in everyday use, or if they happen to be paintings no doubt worth a
fortune by contemporary artists I know absolutely nothing about, or sculptures
that Villeneuve had collected in the course of his travels (incognito) all
around the world.