Delicacy (3 page)

Seven

Examples of Ridiculous Sayings People Love to Repeat

One lost, ten found.

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To live happy, live hidden.

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A laughing woman is halfway to bed.

Eight

They’d been on a honeymoon, they’d taken photos, and they’d come back. Now it was time to start real life. Natalie had finished school more than six months ago. Up until now, she’d used the alibi of getting ready for the wedding to keep from looking for work. Organizing a marriage is like forming a government after a war. And what should be done with collaborators? Justifying all the time put into it is so complicated. Well, that wasn’t altogether true. More than anything, she’d wanted to spend some time on herself, time to read, hang out, as if she’d known she wasn’t going to get such times later. That she’d be snatched up by professional life and, of course, her life as a wife.

It was time to go to interviews. After a few tries, she realized it wasn’t that easy. So this was normal life? But she thought she’d landed a degree that was recognized, and gained experience through several important internships that hadn’t been confined to serving coffee between two Xerox sessions. She had an appointment for a job interview at a Swedish company. She was surprised to be welcomed directly by the boss, instead of the director of human resources. When it came to recruitment, he
wanted full control. That was his official version of the facts. The truth was much more pragmatic: he’d stopped by the department of human resources and seen Natalie’s photo on her CV. It was a strange enough photo; you couldn’t really assess her body. Of course, you suspected she wasn’t devoid of beauty, but this wasn’t what had attracted the boss’s eye. It was something else. Something he couldn’t seem to define but had a feeling about: good sense. Yes, that’s what he’d suspected. He thought this woman seemed sensible.

Charles Delamain wasn’t Swedish. But you need only enter his office to wonder whether he harbored an ambition to be, no doubt to please his shareholders. On a piece of Ikea furniture could be seen a plate with several small biscuits that make a lot of crumbs.

“I thought your career path was very interesting … and …”

“Yes?”

“You’re wearing a wedding ring. Are you married?”

“Uh … yes.”

There was a pause in the conversation. Charles had looked at the young woman’s CV a number of times, and he hadn’t seen that she was married. The moment she said “yes,” he took another look at the CV. So, she was married. It was as if, in his brain, the photo had scrambled the young woman’s personal status. But was it really so important? He had to keep the interview going to keep the slightest discomfort from building.

“And are you planning on having children?” he continued.

“Not for the moment,” Natalie answered, without the slightest hesitation.

Such a question could seem completely normal during an interview with a young woman who’d just gotten married. But she sensed something different, without really being able to define it. Charles had stopped talking and was looking hard at her. Finally, he got up and took a biscuit.

“Would you like a Krisprolls?”

“No thanks.”

“You ought to.”

“Nice of you, but I’m not hungry.”

“You ought to get used to it. That’s all we eat here.”

“You mean … that … ?”

“Yes.”

Nine

Sometimes Natalie had the impression that people were jealous of her happiness. It was a vague feeling, nothing really concrete, just a passing hunch. But she felt it. Through details, smiles that barely registered but spoke volumes, ways of looking at her. No one could imagine that she sometimes was afraid of this happiness, afraid that it could contain the threat of unhappiness. Sometimes she stopped herself when she found herself saying, “I’m happy,” a sort of superstition, a sort of memory of all those moments when life had finally veered onto the wrong track.

Her family and the friends who’d come to the wedding formed what could be called the
first circle of social pressure
. Pressure to have a child. Could it be that they were sick enough at this point of their own lives to get worked up about those of others? That’s always the case. We live under the dictates of others’ desires. Natalie and François didn’t want to become a TV series for their crowd. For the moment, they loved the idea of being two people alone in the world, in the most perfect cliché of romantic schmaltzy serenity. Since they’d met, they’d been living in a momentum of absolute freedom. Adoring travel, taking advantage of the slightest
sunny weekend, they’d gone all over Europe with the innocence of romance. There was evidence of their love in Rome, Lisbon, or even Berlin. More than ever, spreading themselves thin gave them the feeling of being one. These trips also brought them a real sense of a storybook life. They were crazy about evenings during which they’d again tell the story of how they met, recalling the details with pleasure, glorying in the accuracy of chance. When it came to the mythology of their love, they were like children tirelessly interested in hearing the same story.

So, yes, such happiness could inspire fear.

Day-to-day life hadn’t worn them down. Both were working more and more, so they made sure to connect. Lunch together, even a quick one. Lunching “on a dime,” François would call it. And Natalie loved that expression. She’d imagine a contemporary painting showing a couple lunching on a dime, as in a picnic on the grass. That was a painting Dalí could have done, she’d say. Sometimes there are turns of phrase we adore, that we find delightful, whereas the person who said them doesn’t realize it. François liked the idea of a Dalí painting, liked the fact that his wife could invent, and even modify, the story of the painting. It was a form of naïveté pushed to the max. He whispered that he wanted her now, wanted to carry her off somewhere and take her, anywhere at all. Couldn’t, she had to leave. So he’d wait until evening and throw himself on her with the accumulated desire of the frustrated hours he’d passed. Time didn’t seem to dull their sex life. Something rare: every day together still had traces of their first day.

They also tried to keep up a social life, continue to see friends, go to the theater, and make surprise visits to their grandparents. They tried not to let themselves get isolated. To avoid the trap of losing enthusiasm. Years went by in this way, and everything seemed so simple. Whereas others had to work at it. Natalie didn’t understand the expression “Being in a relationship takes work.” As she saw it, things were simple or they weren’t. It’s quite easy to think such a thing when everything is on the level, when no one makes waves. Although there were some, at times. But that made you wonder if they argued only for the pleasure of making up. Come on, really? So much success was becoming disturbing. Time went by with such fluency, on that rare talent of being alive.

Ten

Natalie and François’s Future Travel Plans

Barcelona

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Miami

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La Baule

Eleven

Just breathe, and time will pass. It was already five years since Natalie had started working for her Swedish company. Five years of all types of work, going back and forth in the hallways and in and out of the elevator. Not far from the equivalent of a Paris–Moscow trip. Five years and 1,212 coffees drunk from the machine, 324 of which were drunk during four hundred meetings with clients. Charles was very happy about counting her among his close collaborators. It wasn’t unusual for him to call her into his office just to congratulate her. Certainly by preference he tended to do it in the evening. When everyone had left. But not in a crude way. He felt a lot of affection for her and valued those moments when they found themselves alone. Of course, he was trying to create a context favorable to ambiguity. No other woman would have been duped by such a ploy, but Natalie was living in the peculiar ether of monogamy. Sorry: of love. The love that annihilates all other men, but also any objectivity about seduction attempts. Charles had fun with it and thought of this François as a myth. Perhaps her way of never existing in a context of seduction also seemed like a kind of challenge to him. One day or another, he’d inevitably manage to create a dubious context
between them, be it minimal. Sometimes he changed his attitude radically and regretted having hired her. Gazing at that inaccessible womanliness day after day was draining for him.

Natalie’s relationship with her boss, which the others saw as privileged, created tensions. She tried to allay them, to keep away from the petty intrigues of office life. If she kept her distance with Charles, it was also for that reason. To avoid slipping into the old-fashioned role of favorite. Her gracefulness and the aura she created around her boss probably made it even more necessary. That’s what she resented, without knowing if it was justified. Everyone agreed that this brilliant, energetic, hardworking young woman was bound to have a great future with the company. On several occasions, the Swedish stockholders got wind of her excellent initiatives. The jealousies she aroused materialized in low blows. Attempts to undermine her. She wouldn’t complain, was never the type to moan when she came back to François in the evening. It was also a way of saying that the freak show of one-upmanship had no more importance than just that. Such a capacity for letting problems glance off her passed for strength. This was perhaps her most attractive talent: not letting her weaknesses show.