Delicacy (25 page)

One Hundred Five

Excerpt from “The Kiss,” a Story
by Guy de Maupassant

Do you know the real source of our strength? The kiss, the kiss alone! … The kiss is only a preface, however …

One Hundred Six

Markus got off the train. He, too, had left without telling anyone. They were going to find each other again, like two fugitives. He saw her, standing stock-still, at the other side of the station concourse. He began to walk toward her, slowly, sort of like in a movie. You’d have no trouble imagining the music that accompanied this moment. Or else silence. Yes, silence would be good. You’d only hear their breathing. You’d almost be able to forget the sadness of the décor. Salvador Dalí would never have been able to be inspired by the Lisieux train station. It was empty and cold. Markus spotted a poster advertising the museum devoted to Thérèse de Lisieux. As he walked toward Natalie, he thought, “Hmm, strange, I always though that Lisieux was her last name …” Yes, that’s really what he was thinking. And there was Natalie, so close to him. With those lips of the kiss. But her face was shut down. Her face was the Lisieux train station.

They went to the car. Natalie climbed into the driver’s seat, and Markus rode shotgun. She started off. They hadn’t said a word to each other yet. They looked like those teenagers who don’t know what to say to each other on the first date. Markus had
no idea where they were, no idea where they were going. He was following Natalie, and that was enough. After a moment, unable to stand the emptiness, he decided to turn on the radio. It was tuned to the oldies station. Alain Souchon’s “L’amour en fuite” (“Love on the Run”) reverberated through the car.

“Oh, it’s incredible!” said Natalie.

“What?”

“This song. It’s crazy. It’s my song. And there … just like that.”

Markus looked fondly at the radio. This contraption had let him renew his dialogue with Natalie. She was still saying how strange and crazy it was. That it was a sign. What kind of sign? That, Markus couldn’t know. He was surprised at the effect this song had on his companion. But he was familiar with the strange facts of life, with strokes of luck, coincidences. The evidence that made you doubt rationality. At the end of that piece of music, she asked Markus to turn off the radio. She wanted to stay suspended in that song she’d always loved so much. Which she’d discovered in the last installment of the film series
The Adventures of Antoine Doinel
. She’d been born during that period, and maybe it was a complex feeling to define, but she felt she’d come from that moment. As if she were a product of that melody. Her sweet, sometimes melancholy personality, its lightness, all of it was absolutely 1978. It was her song, it was her life. And she couldn’t get over such a stroke of luck.

She pulled over at the edge of the road. The darkness prevented Markus from seeing where they were. They got out. Then he made out some big metal bars, those at the entrance to a cemetery.
Next he discovered that they weren’t big—they were immense. The same kind you’d find in front of a prison. Certainly the dead are condemned to perpetuity, but it’s hard to imagine them trying to escape. Finally Natalie started to speak.

“François is buried there. He spent his childhood in this region.”

“… “

“Of course, he never said anything to me. He didn’t think he was going to die … but I know he wanted to be here … near the place where he’d grown up.”

“I understand,” murmured Markus.

“You know, it’s funny, but I spent my childhood here, too. When François and I met, we thought it was a crazy coincidence. We could have run into each other hundreds of times during our adolescence, but we never saw each other. And it was in Paris that we met. Which just goes to show you … when you’re supposed to meet somebody …”

Natalie stopped with that phrase. But the phrase kept going on inside Markus’s mind. Whom was she talking about? About François, of course. About him, too, maybe? The double reading of the remark brought the symbolic nature of the situation into focus. It had a rare intensity. There they were, the two of them, side by side, just a few feet away from François’s grave. Just a few feet away from a past that never finished finishing. So much rain fell on Natalie’s face that you couldn’t tell where the tears began. Markus saw them. He knew how to interpret the tears. Natalie’s tears. He went to her and held her tight in his arms, as if he were encircling her suffering.

One Hundred Seven

Second Part of “L’amour en fuite” (“Love on the Run”),
by Alain Souchon,
Heard by Markus and Natalie in the Car

You, me, we just couldn’t cope.
Boohoo, tears without hope.
Leavin’ each other, and both of us are mum.
It’s love on the run,
Love on the run.

While I was sleeping,
a kid on the pillow.
We flew back and forth,
just like a swallow.
I moved in, then left our two rooms and kitchen,
Named the kid Colette, Gregory, or Christian.

Spent my whole life chasin’ things that will run:
Girls wearing perfume, tears of lilac and mum.
My mom also put that stuff behind her ears.
Those same old songs, the types that cause tears.

One Hundred Eight

They started driving again. Markus was surprised by the number of curves. In Sweden the roads are straight; they lead to a destination that you can see. He let himself be lulled by the dizzy feeling, without daring to ask Natalie where they were going. Did it really matter? It was far from original to say, but he was ready to follow her to the end of the world. Did she at least know where they were headed? Maybe she just wanted to tear into the night. Race into forgetfulness.

Finally she stopped. This time in front of a small iron fence. Was this the theme of their wandering? Variations on iron fences. She got out to open the gate, then climbed back into the car. In Markus’s mind, every action seemed important, stood out as something in and of itself, because that’s the way you live the details of a personal mythology. The car sped up a narrow path and stopped in front of a house.

“We’re at Madeleine’s, my grandmother’s, place. She’s been living alone since my grandfather died.”

“Okay. I’d like to meet her,” Markus answered politely.

Natalie knocked on the door, once, twice, then a little
harder. Still nothing. “She’s a bit deaf. It’s better to walk around. She must be in the living room, and we’ll be able to see through the window.”

To get around the house, you had to take a path that had turned completely muddy in the rain. Markus held onto Natalie. He couldn’t see very much. Maybe she’d gone around the wrong side? Between the house and the foliage bristling with thorns, there was practically no room to walk. Natalie slipped, taking Markus down with her. Now they were drenched and covered with mud. There certainly had been more glorious invasions; this one was becoming laughable. Natalie announced, “The best thing is to finish this on our hands and knees.”

“Sure is fun following you,” said Markus.

Once they’d gotten to the other side, they saw the little granny sitting in front of her fireplace. She wasn’t doing anything. The image really caught Markus by surprise. That way of being there, on hold, almost oblivious to herself. Natalie knocked on the window, and this time her grandmother heard. Her face lit up immediately, and she rushed to open the window.

“Oh, my darling … what are you doing here? What a lovely surprise!”

“I wanted to see you … and to do that you have to go round.”

“Yes, I know. I’m sorry, you’re not the first.”

They climbed through the window and were out of the rain and mud at last.

Natalie introduced Markus to her grandmother. She ran her hand over his face, then turned to her granddaughter, saying,
“He seems nice.” Markus cracked a big smile as if to say, yes, it’s true, I’m nice. Madeleine went on, “I think I knew another Markus a long time ago. Or maybe his name was Paulus … or Charlus … well, something that ended in -us … but I don’t remember very well …”

There was an embarrassed silence. What did she mean by “I knew”? Natalie smiled and took her grandmother tightly in her arms. Watching them, Markus could imagine Natalie as a little girl. The eighties were there, with them. After a moment, he asked, “Where can I wash my hands?”

“Oh, yes. Come with me.”

Natalie took his hand covered with mud and briskly led him to the bathroom.

Yes, that was it, the little girl aspect that Markus brought out in her. That way of running. That way of living the next moment before the present one. Something unbridled. They were side by side in front of the two washbasins now. As they washed, they smiled at each other almost idiotically. There were bubbles, lots of bubbles, but they weren’t the bubbles of nostalgia. Markus thought, This is the most beautiful washing up of my life.

They had to change. For Natalie, it was simple. She had some of her things in her room. Madeleine asked Markus, “Do you have a change of clothes?”

“No. We left on the spur of the moment.”

“Just like that?”

“Yes, just like that, exactly.”

Natalie thought both of them were happy about having used the expression “just like that.” They seemed excited by the idea
of an unpremeditated gesture. The grandmother told Markus to go rummage through her husband’s closet. She led him to the end of the hallway and left him alone to choose what he wanted. A few minutes later, he appeared wearing a suit that was half beige and half a color that was unidentifiable. His shirt collar was so enormous that his neck looked as if it were drowning. Such an outlandish getup didn’t in the slightest impede his good humor. He seemed happy about being dressed this way and even mused, I’m floating inside this, but I feel good. Natalie burst out laughing to the point of getting tears in her eyes. Tears of laughter flowed down cheeks whose tears of suffering had barely dried. Madeleine came up to him, but it seemed as though she were coming up to the suit more than the man. Behind each crease was the memory of a lifetime. For an instant she stayed near her surprise guest without moving.