Consequences (7 page)

“I'm supposed to look after the one percent that's left, Annie, and that's something we can't avoid. It wouldn't be fun for either of us.”

He gave her a cigarette. Part of his notoriety among students had to do with the fact that he was incapable of preventing anyone from smoking—when he wasn't busy encouraging himself to do the same.

“The hardest thing is admitting you're hopeless,” he said with a shrug, stepping away from the desk. “It's really very hard . . . but everything depends on what you do with that idea, right? Some people would rather not set their standards too high in exchange for more of a guarantee. Don't you want that? Take a look at me. Do I seem unhappy? Listen to me, Annie, let it go. It's nothing to be ashamed of. Don't make yourself unhappy. Don't wait until you're my age to open your eyes. You're young, not damaged yet. Face facts. Face facts, young lady.”

He wondered if she was about to sit on his desk, thought things were leading to that. The atmosphere was right, the hallways quiet, and to the east, the morning sunlight sparkled through trees bordering the campus. It was still cold, but most of the female students had already dusted off their miniskirts, and Annie hadn't chosen the longest. Quite a few teachers
were complaining about the phenomenon, and their wives got together regularly at teatime to denounce such outrageous, unacceptable outfits, too prevalent at the arrival of spring.

Marianne herself wasn't the latest to take offense at the size of those scraps of cloth some dared wear, which weren't much larger than handkerchieves. Every year she had dwelled on the issue a little more viciously. Nor was he spared. Hypocritical, spineless, and willing as he was supposed to be, he was labeled a potential victim, a shell of a man who could be blown away by the slightest puff of air. The hint of bitterness in her words, her tone of reproach, clued him in to the fact that she was aging—that both of them were—but it still didn't mean she'd ever really caught him in the act.

“Class is in less than ten minutes,” he said.

“That sounds about right,” Annie answered. “Listen, there's nothing I can do about it if my father's rich. It's not something I chose.”

“Wish mine had been, come to think of it.”

“Actually, it's not ten minutes. It's twenty. At the soonest. They're mesmerized by those types.”

“Of course they're mesmerized. I figure they have to take notes. Which of us hasn't eyed the other side of the Atlantic at least once? You're not fascinated with Martin Scorsese? You wouldn't like to be able to use his brain to write a screenplay?”

“Is he here?”

“Of course he isn't. Martin Scorsese? Wake up, Annie. Martin Scorsese here? With what money? Look at what they give to Culture. Peanuts, Annie. Sometimes I'm ashamed of this country.”

Her bosom was freckled.

“Listen, Annie, we'll talk about all this another time if you really want to because, whether they're mesmerized or not, I can hear your classmates coming. I think you'd better get off my desk. I think you'd better. Be nice. I'm going to see what I can do to help you. What would it be? Once? Twice a week?”

He devoted part of the
afternoon to cooling them down, worked up as they were by one of those Hollywood types, who must have been the writer of a successful series, or big-budget films, or best sellers—somebody on the way up with a house and pool, who got splendiferous fees, prizes, awards. The Golden Age was over, but they didn't want to hear it. He passed for the perfect wet blanket and spoilsport, the soon-to-be retired. He smoked a cigarette for a little peace and quiet while he made them work on a short dialogue from
Doctor Strangelove.

But if he was thinking he'd get Myriam out of his mind that way, he was wrong.

After class, he made a detour through the cafeteria. The day was ending, gilding the edges of the windows. The room was nearly empty. He had a brief exchange with the waitress, who was busy filling up the little jars of mustard on the tables, but she hadn't seen her, hadn't seen Myriam that day. He got up and silently served himself another coffee.

Annie Eggbaum reappeared just as he was deciding to leave.

“First of all, I hated that movie,” she declared.

It was a very, very black mark against her. But at least she had nerve. Then she ended up admitting that she didn't detest it that much. He felt under the table for her knee, which wasn't to say that Myriam had been erased from his mind.

He glanced around. The only person left was the waitress, now busy with the saltshakers. Dusk was setting in. He wasn't sure what Annie Eggbaum had swallowed, but she seemed to want to devour him with her eyes. She was rubbing her knee against him without the slightest restraint, with an insistence that almost seemed bad-tempered.

It had to be because of a bet. Or too many vitamins. How could you know what a girl was capable of inventing?

“Are you driving?” he asked, in a lowered voice. She shook her head. He looked into her eyes. “Wait for me in front of the parking lot,” he said, after a moment of hesitation. “I'll be there in five.”

He'd acted in haste before, but not to the point of being spotted with the wrong kind of company; and recently, caution had proved itself indispensable in the case of Barbara, which could have led to nothing but absolutely pointless hassles and harrassments when you took into account the police and their methods and the fact that they had put a stranglehold on Human Rights Watch and company.

The entrance door closed on Annie's heels after she stole a last glance in his direction. A wave of heat coursed through him. He blotted his forehead with a recycled paper towel and offered a cigarette to the waitress. She slipped it behind her ear. “For later,” she said. They chatted a little, then he said good-bye.

There was a moon now. He walked outside and, keeping his head down, headed straight for the Fiat, his damp forehead immediately beginning to ice. The perfect way to catch a chill.

He got behind the wheel. Annie was standing on the sidewalk about a hundred yards away, in front of the service entrance to the cafeteria. It was lit by a streetlight with a yellow
glow, and the vision—a young woman waiting patiently—quickened his breath. He switched on the ignition. True, Annie had pressured him, and he wasn't going to pretend that hadn't happened; Annie had thrown herself at him, but he didn't see much risk in it. If it had to come to this to escape an infinitely more awful, infinitely more dangerous threat, he was ready to submit. His instinct for survival had developed considerably these last years.

He pulled up along the sidewalk, and, once again, as he approached, enjoyed the appealing-looking body of the student with the rich father—and with the future lover who was the owner of the smallest car in the world. Just as he leaned over to open the door for her, he saw the waitress behind her, coming out in a hurry to smoke her cigarette.

He clenched his teeth. In a fraction of a second, his hand changed its course and flattened itself against the button that locked the door. His eyes crossed the waitress's as she flicked her lighter, while Annie, very much in the foreground, frowned.

Straightening up, he bore down on the accelerator, taking off immediately at top speed. Without a single glance in his rearview mirror—Annie couldn't have been smiling, he told himself—he slammed through the gears.

He felt bad for her. It wasn't going to be easy to come up with a believable explanation for the dirty trick he'd played on her. Obviously, he'd have to make the gesture of private lessons to redeem himself.

It didn't matter what the job was, it had to be meticulous. Things had to be done well. He had no intention of committing such a ludicrous mistake. Because of that insane, intolerable rule that stopped professors from going to bed with students,
you had to stay in the shadows at any cost; and this was something he stuck to, not letting anything get in the way. It didn't matter what the job was, it had to be meticulous. Nothing could ever come out of the shadows. Every man had to keep tabs on his own security.

As he tore along the road to the cottage, the radio announced new clashes in Afghanistan—more soldiers falling during new ambushes along distant frontiers—and he thought immediately of Myriam.

He'd never had relations with a woman of more than twenty-six. As stupid as it was. It was certainly no great feat. Quite simply, the occasion hadn't presented itself. He hadn't looked for it, either. His sister was enough of a cruel complication of existence. He'd had enough of her complicating everything.

Not that Myriam had failed his expectations—on the contrary. Only women had better orgasms when they had feelings for their partner. Obviously, it wasn't yet at that emotional level; he mustn't exaggerate. But the rapport they'd had on the backseat of his cramped car, acrobatic and crude as it may have been, had literally enthralled him. He was still thinking about it, feeling the greatest confusion—he'd had an incredibly long, incredibly expressive ejaculation, which wasn't even the slightest bit usual.

The Fiat climbed upward among firs and chestnut trees in the feeble gleam of the yellow headlights of that year's make of car. By now, the last traces of snow had melted; a light mist had begun to hover above the clearcut areas—above meadows, houses, sheep and cow pens, brushwood, fields, fallow land that bordered the road embankments slanting toward the lake in the gloom.

Living outside the city was a blessing—a way of keeping your head above water, of allowing yourself to breathe. He and Marianne had been born in that house. Their father was a teacher at that university. He'd bought the house at the beginning of the fifties, at a time when the price of real estate hadn't yet reached surreal sums and it was still available to ordinary mortals. Supposedly, their mother had lived her most beautiful years there—until the moment she became pregnant, first with Marianne and then, immediately after, with him. Holding Marc on one knee and Marianne on the other, their father had explained to them that their mother hadn't always been the woman they now knew. Then he'd begun to cry his heart out for not having intervened, for yet again having been so weak, for being a perfect creep.

Richard Olso's car was parked in the driveway. It was a red Alfa Romeo, tailor-made for his persona. As soon as the first sunny days arrived, he'd put the top down and stick one of his pathetic caps on his head. As he went by, the girls would burst into concealed laughter—nobody wanted to antagonize the head of the literature department as he grinningly drove at a crawl across campus, his arm resting on the windowsill.

In front of the entrance to the house, the vehicle gleamed idiotically under the porch light. Anyone who'd been brought up a little better would have parked a bit farther away, but Richard Olso wasn't a man to trouble with such subtleties. Unfortunately. For a moment, he imagined Olso becoming a sort of brother-in-law, in case Marianne gave in, and he shuddered yet again. Switched off the motor. Sighed.

The die wasn't cast yet, however.

Was there even a chance he could put up with a guy like that under their roof?

From outside, he glimpsed them near the fire in the living room, munching on chocolates. Almost instantly, his migraine came back. Migraines go hand in hand with annoyance. He went inside. Hung his parka in the hallway—next to a camel's-hair overcoat that didn't belong to anyone living in this house.

“You've got to watch your sugar. Richard, she has to watch her sugar, you know that.”

“Just let her get a little of her strength back, old man, and don't worry about it. I think we have the situation under control.”

“I can eat as many chocolates as I want,” she declared, holding a ganache between thumb and forefinger.

It was obvious she was trying to punish him by acting unpleasant toward him and conspicuously friendly toward Richard, whose face shone with deep satisfaction.

Before ruling over the fates of members of the literature department, Richard had worked as a cultural attaché in the depths of Europe, where he'd caught a case of Lyme disease. This was the cause of his slight—but crippling—facial paralysis, the bitter fruit of one of those poorly treated diseases caused by ticks, which also gave him certain joint problems and, to top it off, stiffened his walk. It wasn't hard to imagine that a physique like that didn't exactly make it a cinch to turn heads. When you looked at it objectively.

And yet, Marianne. What could she possibly see in him? Why the devil was she letting him woo her so disgustingly, what kind of perversion was it covering up? What mental abnormality?

Marc decided to keep them company. After all, this was his home, and it was time to make Richard understand that the
moment to leave had come because the house was closing up for the night and its inhabitants were going to bed. He sat down in a chair and yawned, refusing Richard's offer of chocolate.

“No thanks, it'll keep me from sleeping,” he declared.

The moon outside shone in the cold air like a porcelain disc.

“Anyway, thanks for coming by, Richard. I parked so you could get out without any trouble, but if you're at all worried about it, here I am, at your service. Thanks again for stopping over. Personally, I'm exhausted. I have a migraine. And Marianne, I wouldn't say you've gotten much of your color back. You should get some rest. It's well past the time, you know. You were having trouble standing not that long ago. Don't overestimate your strength. We just scraped you up off the ground, remember.”

Again, how could a woman like her be attracted—little as she claimed she was—to a man like that? A woman who usually showed such judgment, taste, diligence, intelligence. Did it have anything to do with the fact that Richard was the head of the literature department and Marc was under his control? Was that a turn-on? Could you exhibit such a mad passion for Nabokov and yet subsist on such paltry little scenarios?