What We Become (46 page)

“Take a couple more for your friends,” Max suggested.

The youth looked at him with vague unease. Then he plucked out three cigarettes, thanked him, glanced once more at Mecha, and went to join the others. Max went on walking. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her looking at him, amused.

“Old memories,” she said.

“Indeed.”

As they moved away, the tune playing on the Jetée-Promenade came to an end, and the orchestra struck up another melody.

“I don't believe it.” Mecha laughed, linking arms with Max. “You staged the whole thing for me . . . gigolos included.”

Max laughed as well, just as astonished: the strains of the Old School Tango wafted over from the casino dance hall, competing with the sound of the surf on the pebbles.

“Would you like to go in and dance to it?” he jested.

“Don't even think about it.”

They strolled along. Listening.

“It's beautiful,” she said, when they could no longer hear the tango. “Far better than Ravel's piece.”

They walked for a while in silence. Then Mecha gave Max's arm a squeeze.

“Without your contribution, that tango wouldn't exist.”

“On the contrary,” he said. “I'm sure your husband would never have succeeded in composing it without you. It's your tango, not his.”

“What nonsense.”

“I danced with you, remember. In that corner dive in Buenos Aires . . . I haven't forgotten how he looked at you. How we all did.”

It was completely dark outside by the time they crossed the bridge over the Paillon. On their left, beyond the gardens, Masséna Square was lit up by street lamps. A tram passed close by, between the dense, shadowy trees, scarcely visible but for the sparks from the trolley pole.

“Tell me something, Max.” She was fingering her neck beneath her raincoat. “Had you always planned to take the necklace, or were you improvising as you went along?”

“I was improvising,” he lied.

“You're lying.”

He looked straight at her with complete candor.

“No I'm not.”

There was almost no traffic: the odd horse-drawn carriage went by, hood up, lantern burning, rolling over wet leaves, and occasionally they were dazzled by the moist, hazy lights of a car. They crossed the road carelessly, leaving the Promenade behind them, and turned down a side street near Cours Saleya.

“What was that dive called again?” asked Mecha. “The tango place.”

“La Ferroviaria. Next to Barracas station.”

“Do you think it's still there?”

“I don't know. I never went back.”

Heavy raindrops were once more falling onto Max's hat. Still not enough to warrant opening his umbrella. The couple quickened their pace.

“I'd like to listen to music again in a place like that, with you. . . . Are there places like that in Nice?”

“You mean, seedy?”

“No, silly, I mean special. Perhaps a little sleazy.”

“Like that boardinghouse in Antibes?”

“For example.”

“With or without a mirror?”

She responded by forcing him to stop in his tracks and lower his head. Then she kissed him on the lips. A fleeting yet forceful kiss, thick with remembrances and immediate purpose. Max was seized by an urgent desire.

“Of course,” he said calmly. “There are places like that everywhere.”

“Name one.”

“Here, the only one I know is Lions at the Kill. A nightclub in the old part of town.”

“I love the name.” Mecha made as if to rub her hands together, knowingly. “Let's go there right now.”

Max took her arm, forcing her to walk on.

“I thought we were going to dinner. I reserved a table at Bouttau, next to the cathedral.”

Mecha pressed her face into his shoulder, almost bringing him to a halt.

“I can't stand that restaurant,” she said. “The chef always comes out to greet the diners.”

“What's so bad about that?”

“A lot of things. Everything started to go wrong the day dressmakers, hairdressers, and cooks began fraternizing with their customers.”

“And tango dancers,” Max added, chuckling.

“I have a better idea,” she proposed. “Let's have a snack at La Cambuse: oysters and a bottle of Chablis. And afterward you can take me to that nightclub.”

“As you like. But before we go in, put your necklace and bracelet away in your bag. We don't want to tempt fate.”

They were near to a street lamp in Cours Saleya when she looked up at him. Her eyes glinting like copper or tin.

“Will the boys from the old days be there, too?”

“I'm afraid not.” Max smiled, wistfully. “Only the ones from today.”

Lions at the Kill wasn't a bad name, but it promised more than it offered. There were bottles of cheap champagne in ice buckets; dark, dusty corners; a singer of indeterminate gender with a gravelly voice who dressed in black and imitated Edith Piaf; and, after ten o'clock, some striptease acts. The ambience was fake and self-conscious, somewhere between late Apache and tired Surrealist. The tables were taken up by a few American and German tourists mistakenly expecting to find some excitement, a few sailors from nearby Villefranche, and three or four individuals, with pointed sideburns and dark, pin-striped suits, who looked like movie gangsters, and whom Max suspected were employed by the owner to give the place atmosphere. Halfway through the second striptease act (a plump Egyptian woman with large, pale, quivering breasts), Mecha yawned and said she'd had enough, so Max asked for the bill, paid two hundred francs for the bottle they had scarcely touched, then once more they found themselves outside.

“Is that all there is?” Mecha seemed disappointed.

“Here in Nice, yes. Almost.”

“Take me to the almost, then.”

Max responded by opening his umbrella, while signaling the end of the street. The rain was dripping from the eaves. They were in Rue Saint-Joseph, near the crossroads and the hill up to the castle. Two women were standing close to the only streetlight, sheltering beneath the small awning of a closed florist shop. One
of the women stepped back into a doorway when she saw them, but the other stood her ground as they approached. She was skinny and tall. Dressed in a short jacket with a Persian lamb collar and a close-fitting, dark, midlength skirt. The skirt hugged the clean curve of her hips, accentuating her slender legs, which seemed even longer in her high, wedge shoes.

“She's pretty,” said Mecha.

Max studied the woman's face. In the light of the street lamp she looked young behind the dark stain of her painted lips. She wore thick eye shadow beneath eyebrows that were a penciled line, barely visible below the narrow brim of her dripping hat.

“Perhaps she is,” Max conceded.

“She has a nice body, supple. Almost elegant.”

They had drawn level with the woman who was looking at them: a professional, fleeting glance aimed at Max, which turned to blank indifference the moment she realized he and his companion were arm in arm. An inquisitive look followed, sizing up Mecha by her clothes and appearance. The raincoat and beret didn't give much away, but Max noticed her instantly taking in Mecha's shoes and handbag, as though reproaching her for not caring about ruining them in that rain.

“Ask her how much she charges,” whispered Mecha.

She had leaned toward Max as she spoke, almost fervently, her eyes still fixed on the woman. He looked at Mecha uneasily.

“It's none of our business.”

“Ask her.”

The woman had overheard their exchange (which was in Spanish), or was guessing. Her eyes moved from him to her, seeming to understand. A smile, somewhere between disdainful and expectant, played on her dark red lips. Mecha's bag and shoes had stopped being important. Marking limits or distances.

“How much?” Mecha asked her, in French.

With professional discretion, the woman replied that it de
pended on them. On the time, and the gentleman's preferences. Or those of the lady. She had stepped to one side to shelter from the rain, moving out of the light after looking over the couple's shoulder, her hand resting on her hip.

“Doing it with him while I watch,” Mecha said, with icy calm.

“Don't even think about it,” Max protested.

“Be quiet.”

The woman mentioned a figure. Max looked again at her long, slender legs, beneath the clinging skirt. He felt aroused, in spite of himself. Not so much by the prostitute, as by Mecha's attitude. For a brief moment he imagined a room somewhere nearby rented by the hour, a bed with soiled sheets, him penetrating that skinny, supple body while Mecha, naked, watched them attentively. Turning to her afterward, still moist from the other woman, to penetrate her in turn. To find himself once more inside that pure, natural, perfect body he could feel palpitating hungrily on his arm.

“Bring her with us,” Mecha demanded suddenly.

“No,” said Max.

In the Negresco, as the rain came drumming on the windowpanes, they came together in a frantic, passionate embrace that was like a combat: hungry, silent—except when they moaned, hit each other, or cried out, a silence made of avid, taut flesh and warm saliva, alternating with sudden, lewd curses, which Mecha whispered in Max's ear with obscene zeal. The memory of the tall, thin woman accompanied them throughout, as intensely as if she had been there watching or being watched, obeying their bodies saturated with perspiration and desire, locked in a fierce embrace.

“You would whip her while thrusting in and out of her,” Mecha whispered breathlessly, licking the sweat from Max's neck. “Bite her back, tear her flesh. Yes. Making her scream.”

In a moment of extreme violence, she punched Max's face until
his nose bled, and when he tried to stanch the blood that was spotting the sheets, she continued to kiss him furiously, hurting him even more, her nose and mouth caked in his blood, like a frenzied wolf devouring its prey, pulling it apart with its teeth; meanwhile, clasping the iron bars of the bedstead, Max tried to find a way of controlling himself on the verge of the abyss, forced to grit his teeth to repress a howl of animal anguish, as old as time itself, arising from deep inside him. Holding back as best he could the overwhelming desire, past the point of no return, the longing to plunge into the empty, soulless, desolate void of that woman dragging him to the verge of madness and oblivion.

“I feel like a drink,” she said later, putting out a cigarette.

Max thought that was a good idea. They slipped their clothes on over skin reeking of flesh and sex, and descended the wide staircase to the circular foyer and the wood panel bar, where Adolfo, the Spanish waiter, was closing up. The frown on his face relaxed when he saw who was approaching. For Adolfo had long considered Max a member of that select brotherhood, never officially defined, not even by their financial status, whom, out of habit or instinct, barmen, taxi drivers, headwaiters, florists, shoeshine boys, hotel receptionists, and other personnel essential to the smooth functioning of high society, could recognize at a glance. And there was a reason for all that goodwill. Max was aware that with the kind of life he led, such accomplices in the servant world could be invaluable, and he contrived at every opportunity to strengthen those ties, with a skillful mixture (which anyway came naturally to him) of easy amiability, thoughtfulness, and generous tips.

“Three West-Indians, Adolfo. Two for us and one for yourself.”

Although the barman was willing to prepare one of the tables (he had turned the bronze appliqué wall lights back on for them) they settled for two bar stools beneath the wooden balustrade of the floor above, sipping their drinks in silence, very close, gazing into each other's eyes.

“You smell of me,” she said. “Of us.”

It was true. Pungent, very physical. Max smiled, his head tilted, a broad strip of white flashing across his tanned skin, where a stubble was beginning to show. Despite having powdered her face before coming down, Mecha had red marks on her chin, neck, and mouth from chafing against it.