Happy Are the Happy (8 page)

Darius sat in the huge orthopedic chair, in which, if you ask me, no one can be comfortable. He sat down and slumped against the back of the chair like a defeated man. If anyone had come into the room just then, they wouldn’t have been able to tell which of us – Darius, collapsed in the chair, or me, lying bandaged in the bed and hooked up to a drip – was the more pitiful. I waited for him to speak. He sat there for a while, and then, with his neck thrust forward by the sausage-shaped headrest, he said, Anita has left me. Even though I was reclining on my hospital bed, I found myself looking down at him. The fact that he’d been able to pronounce those words with that crestfallen look on his face struck me as verging on comical. And all the more so when he added, in a barely audible voice, she left with the landscaper. —The landscaper? —Yes, the guy who’s been designing that shitty garden in Gassin for the past three years, who’s making me spend a fortune on scary sub-Saharan plants. I first met Darius long before he was kicked out of the Third Circle, one of those exclusive clubs where oligarchs from both right and left connive together, steeped in right-mindedness and filled with devoted allegiance to the power of money. At the time I met him, he was the director of several companies, one of them a team of engineering consultants and another that manufactured smart cards, if memory serves. As for me, I had just left the international division of Safranz-Ulm
Electric to take over as chairman of its board of directors. I was filled with affection for that young man, nearly twenty-five years my junior, and his Oriental charm. He was married to Anita, the daughter of a British lord, with whom he had two children, both of them more or less messed up. Darius Ardashir was as cunning as could be. He slithered into the system with disarming nonchalance, showing great aptitude for the mutual boosting, the favor-swapping, the manipulation of pawns in high places. He was never in a hurry, his feelings never hurt. The same way with women. Eventually he made a fortune as an intermediary in some international contracts. He got entangled in various cases of corruption, the thorniest of which concerned the sale of a border surveillance system to Nigeria, which incidentally led to his ouster from the Third Circle (the way I see it, a club that expels its rogues is a fucked-up club). Some of his connections did a bit of time in prison, but he himself escaped without any real damage. I’ve always found him a resilient man and a faithful friend. When I was attacked by this blasted cancer, Darius behaved like a son. Before engaging in a serious conversation with him, I pressed all sorts of buttons in an effort to raise the head of my bed. Darius contemplated my efforts and the succession of preposterous positions they resulted in with dull eyes and without moving. A nurse came in – I’d no doubt rung for her – and said, Monsieur Ehrenfried, what are you trying to do? —Sit up! —Doctor Chemla will be dropping in. He knows you’re not running a fever anymore. —Tell him I’m fed up and I want him to let me leave. She tidied my bed and tucked me in like a child. I asked Darius if he wanted something to drink. He declined, and the girl left the room. I said, all right, this landscaper, isn’t
he simply a moment of passing madness? —She wants a divorce. I let a minute or so pass and then said, you’ve never paid much attention to Anita. He gave me an astonished look, as if I’d uttered some insanity. —She had the best life in the world. I understand, I said. —I gave her everything. Name one thing she didn’t have. Houses, jewelry, servants. Extravagant trips. She won’t get anything, Jean. All my assets are in my companies. The villa in Gassin, the house on Rue de la Tour, the furniture, the art, nothing’s in my name. Those two can die for all I care. —You cheated on her day and night. —What does that have to do with anything? —You can’t begrudge her taking a lover. —Women don’t take lovers. They get infatuated, they make it into a big drama, they go completely crazy. A man needs a safe place to go to so he can face the world. You can’t deploy if you don’t have a fixed point, a base camp. Anita’s the house. She’s the family. If you want a breath of fresh air, it doesn’t mean you don’t want to go home. I don’t get attached to women. The only one that counts is the next one. But that stupid bitch goes to bed with the gardener and wants to run off with him. What sense does that make? While listening to Darius, I was watching my IV drip. The drops looked strangely irregular, and I was on the verge of calling the nurse. I said, would you have accepted it if she lived the way you do? —What does that mean? —If she had insignificant affairs. He shook his head. Then he reached into a pocket, extracted a white handkerchief, and folded it carefully before blowing his nose. I thought, that gesture’s the exclusive property of this particular type of man. He said, no, because that’s not her style. Then, in a mournful voice, he added, I was in London the past two days – an important trip, which she totally wrecked for me – and on
the way back, the TGV stopped a few minutes north of the French border, in some outlying area. Right in front of my window there was a little detached house, red brick, red roof tiles, well-maintained wooden fence. Geraniums in the windows. And more flowers in hanging pots on the walls. You know what I thought, Jean? I thought, in that house, someone has decided you have to be happy. I thought he was going to continue, but he fell silent. He was staring at the floor with a face full of gloom. I said to myself, he’s at the end of his rope. If a Darius Ardashir starts finding evidence of happiness in brickwork and macramé, that’s the hallmark of total dejection. Or a simpler sign, I thought, and a more troubling one as far as he was concerned, was the mere fact that he could refer to happiness as an end in itself. As for me, I thought I should summon the emergency medical staff, because the IV tube was carrying air bubbles to my arm. Do you know how old Anita is? Darius asked. —Are those bubbles normal? —What bubbles? Those are drops. It’s the product. —Do you think so? Look closer. He took out his glasses and got up to observe the tube. —They’re drops. —Are you sure? Tap the bag. —What for? —Just tap it, tap it. It helps. Darius tapped the bag of intravenous fluid a few times and sat back down. I said, I can’t see anything anymore. I’m sick of being hooked up to all this plumbing. —Do you know how old Anita is? —Tell me. —Forty-nine years old. You think that’s the age to develop blossoming ambitions, romantic passions, and other nonsense? You know, I often think about Dina, Jean. You had a wife who understood life. Dina’s in heaven. You all don’t have Paradise, do you? Jews? What do you have? —We don’t have anything. —Well, she’s surely in a good place. She left you
your sons, very nice boys who take care of you, and your daughter too, your son-in-law, your grandchildren. Dina knew how to create an environment. When you’re old, having a hand to grab on to is important. Me, I’m going to end up like a rat. Anita will tell you I got what I deserved. Another idiotic phrase. What does whatever I deserve have to do with any of this? I have a magnificent apartment, magnificent properties, what do people think, do they think all that just falls out of the sky? It happens because I’m killing myself, I leave at eight in the morning, I go to bed at midnight, and she doesn’t understand that I do it for her? And the boys – a pair of zeros who are going to squander everything – they don’t understand it’s for them? No, they don’t. They complain, complain, complain. And have a fling with a moron who plants frangipani. I would’ve liked it better if she’d run off with a woman. I asked him, are you all right in that chair? —I’m just fine. The previous evening, Ernest sat there for less than a minute before opting for the folding chair. While I listened to Darius, I remembered an afternoon of tidying up that Dina and I had spent at home. We found some old-fashioned linens, hand-embroidered, passed down from her mother, and a lovely Italian dinner service. We said to each other, what’s the use of all this now? Dina spread out a well-ironed, yellowing tablecloth on a sofa. She lined up the inlaid porcelain cups. As time passes, objects that once had value become useless burdens. I didn’t know what to say to Darius. The couple is the most impenetrable thing there is. You can’t understand a couple, even if you’re part of it. Doctor Chemla came into the room. As smiling and congenial as always. I was glad he’d come, because I was getting gangrene in my arm. I introduced them: Darius Ardashir, a dear friend,
Doctor Philip Chemla, my savior. And I immediately added, Doctor, don’t you think my arm is swollen? If you ask me, the fluid’s missing the vein. Chemla palpated my fingers and my forearm. He looked at my wrist, turned the thumb wheel that regulated the IV flow, and said, we’ll finish this bag and that’ll be it. You’ll be home tomorrow. I’ll come back and see you this evening, we’ll take a little walk in the corridor. After he left, Darius asked, what exactly did you have? —A urinary infection. —How old is he, this doc of yours? —Thirty-six. —Too young. —He’s a genius. —Too young. I said, so what are you going to do? He bent forward, spread his arms like a guy lifting the void, and let them drop back down. I saw his eyes wander over my night table, and he said, what are you reading?
—The Destruction of the European Jews
, by Raul Hilberg. —That’s all you could find for the hospital? —It’s perfect for the hospital. When things aren’t going right, you have to read sad books. Darius picked up the thick volume. He flipped through it dull-eyed. —So you recommend this? —Heartily. He managed a smile. Then he put the book down and said, she should have warned me. I can’t accept that she cheated on me in secret. Despite Chemla’s inspection, I still had the feeling that my arm was swelling up. I said, look at my arms, do you think they’re the same size? Darius got up, put his glasses on again, looked at my arms, and said, exactly the same. Then he sat back down. We remained in silence for a brief while, listening to the noises in the corridor, the gurneys, the voices. Then Darius said, women have swiped the martyr’s role for themselves. They’ve theorized about it out loud. They groan and make people feel sorry for them. Whereas in reality, the real martyr is the man. When I heard that, I thought about something
my friend Serge said right at the beginning of his struggle with Alzheimer’s. For some unknown reason, he wanted to go to Married Man Street. No one knew where Married Man Street was. Eventually, it dawned on his friends that he was talking about Martyrs’ Street. I related this story to Darius, who knew Serge distantly. He asked me, how’s he doing now? I said, as well as can be expected. The main thing is not to contradict him. I always tell him he’s right. Darius nodded. He looked at a point on the floor near the door and said, what a marvelous disease.

My father used to tell me, if anyone asks you what your father does, say he’s a technical consultant. In actual fact, he used to receive a paycheck as a technical consultant in exchange for partnering at bridge with a guy who managed concession agreements. My grandfather bankrupted himself at the races, and for several years my father was banned from the gambling casinos. Loula listens to me while I tell her incredible stories. She’s really pretty. She gets into my car every morning, that is, into the car the movie production company provides to pick her up and bring her back. She sits in the front beside me, still a little drowsy. I have orders not to speak to her unless she addresses me, I’m supposed to respect her concentration and her exhaustion. But Loula Moreno asks me questions, she takes an interest in me, she doesn’t talk only about herself the way actresses generally do. I tell her I like movies, I work in production, but I’d prefer to be involved on the creative side. To tell the truth, I don’t have a very good idea of what I want to do. I’m the first Barnèche who’s not a gambler. Loula uses
tu
when she talks to me and I reply with
vous
, even though I’m twenty-two and she’s just barely thirty (she told me so). As the days pass, I tell her my life story. Loula Moreno is curious and observant. She was quick to notice that I’m interested in Géraldine, the assistant dresser, a little brunette with bright eyes and masses of hair. My first impression of this girl was
mixed, because we were talking about music and she revealed right away that she liked the Black-Eyed Peas and Zaz. Normally that would have stopped me in my tracks. But the fact that we were in Klosterneuburg – filming had begun in Austria – may have made me more tolerant (or lamer). Especially as we very quickly discovered a mutual passion for Pim’s. We remembered that when we were little, they used to make a white chocolate/cherry Pim’s, and we found ourselves agreeing that Casino’s later version wasn’t as good. Géraldine asked me if I thought Pim’s would make a Pim’s caramel someday. I said yes, but on the condition that they make the biscuit harder or the liquid caramel very light, because it wouldn’t work with soft on soft. Géraldine said, but then it wouldn’t be a Pim’s anymore. I agreed completely. She’d never tasted Pim’s pear, which are quite rare and little known. I told her, the pear is Pim’s best product. The jam’s relatively thick, unlike the raspberry or orange jam, but you don’t notice that except for the moment you bite into it. Then it thins and spreads. The orange cookie gives itself up immediately, the pear takes its time. It melts into the biscuit. Even the wrapper is perfect, the packaging’s very chic. They haven’t made it some tacky green color, you see, the color they’ve chosen has some taupe in it. Géraldine was enthused. In the end I said, when you have your first Pim’s pear, you’ve got to look at the package while you eat it. She said, yes, yes, of course! I fell in love with her because it’s very rare to find a girl who understands that sort of thing. Loula approves. I can’t figure out whether I have a chance with Géraldine. When a girl really attracts me, I’m not the type that goes charging in blindly. I need a guarantee. In Klosterneuburg, I had the
impression that she liked me. But ever since we came back, she’s been selling herself to the sound assistant. A giant prawn who greets you with the Boy Scout salute (I’m not sure whether he means it or if it’s a joke; if it’s a joke, it’s even worse). And another difficulty, one that didn’t exist in Austria, has arisen: she wears ballet shoes. Even with a dress. In college, if you leaned forward you could see a whole forest of legs ending in ballet shoes. To me, ballet shoes are a synonym for boredom and the absence of sex. Loula asked me to make a list of the things I find irritating in girls. I said such a list would extend beyond infinity. —Give it a try. I said, when a girl has a dumb hairdo. When she analyzes everything. When she’s religious. When she’s a political activist. When all her friends are girls. When she likes Justin Timberlake. When she has a blog. Loula laughed. I said, when she can’t laugh like you. One evening, there was a little party for one of the actors who had finished his last day on the shoot. Loula advised me not to let the sound assistant have the field to himself. I wound up sitting shoulder to shoulder with Géraldine at the bottom of the stairs to the basement where the sets are stored. I’d swiped a bottle of red wine, and we were drinking it from plastic cups. Especially me. I said (in the murmuring voice American TV actors use in pre-screw sequences), if I were president, there are a certain number of reforms I’d institute immediately. A European directive against hangers that are supposed to hold your trousers suspended but let them fall as soon as you turn your back. A law against tissue paper in socks (it’s called tissue paper, but it’s halfway between tissue paper and tracing paper), which is only there to make you waste time and to say to you, I’m new. A law that would protect you from
being bothered by the leaflet when trying to open a box of medication. You’re groping around for your sleeping pill, your fingers close on paper, and you immediately throw the leaflet away because it’s such a pain in the ass. The pharmaceutical companies ought to be indicted for murder, given the risks they force you to run. Géraldine said, you take sleeping pills? —No, antihistamines. —What are they? I wasn’t so hammered that I couldn’t see the enormity of the problem. Not only was Géraldine not gradually collapsing against my body, charmed by the idiocies I was spouting, she also didn’t know the word
antihistamine
. And there was, furthermore, her disapproving tone regarding sleeping pills, a tone that betrayed a rigid personality and new age tendencies. I said, allergy medicine. —You have allergies? —Asthma. —Asthma? What was her problem, why did she repeat everything like that? I took a swig straight from the bottle, put on a doleful voice, and said, and hay fever, and other kinds of allergies. And then I kissed her. She let me. I tipped her over onto the stairs, against the wall of the warehouse, and began feeling her up all over. She wriggled and said something I didn’t understand, and that irritated me. I said, what, rubbing myself against her the whole time, what? What did you say? She repeated it, she said, not here, not here, Damien! She tried to push me away the way girls do, half yes, half no, I stuck my head under her T-shirt, she wasn’t wearing a bra, I caught a nipple between my lips, I heard incomprehensible moans, I stroked her thighs, her buttocks, I slid my fingers under her panties, I tried to guide her hand to my cock, and all of a sudden she totally arched her back, she thrust me away with her arms, her legs, kicking in all directions and crying out, stop, stop! I found
myself flattened against the opposite wall, and in front of me there was a red-faced, infuriated girl. She said, you’re crazy! I said, what did I do? —Are you kidding? —I’m sorry, I thought you … you didn’t seem to have anything against … —Not here. Not like that. —What does that mean, not like that? —Not so brutally, she said. Not without preliminaries. A woman needs preliminaries, nobody ever taught you that? She tried to fix her hair, she repeated the same gesture ten times in an effort to gather all the strands behind her head. I thought,
preliminaries
, what a dreadful word. I said, leave your hair alone, it looks good when it’s a mess. —Messy hair is exactly what I don’t want. I drained the bottle to the dregs and said, disgusting rotgut. —Then why are you drinking it? —Come kiss me. —No. They’d put on some music upstairs, but I couldn’t make out what it was. I put out a hand like a beggar and said, come on. —No. She fixed her hair in a chignon and stood up. I lay sprawled, my head pressed against the wall. Nothing was happening, absolutely nothing. She stood there before me, her arms dangling at her sides. I slouched on the steps, crushing the plastic cup in one hand. So that was what it was to be young, to have years ahead of you. In other words, nothing. A deep abyss. But not an abyss you fall into. It’s above you, in front of you. My father was right to live in a world of cards. Géraldine crouched down next to me. I was starting to get a headache. She asked, are you all right? —Yes. —What are you thinking about? —Nothing. —Yes you are. Tell me. —Nothing, believe me. I waited until I calmed down a little and kissed her without touching anything else. I stood up, straightened my clothes, and said, I’m going back up. She got up at once. I’m going back up too, she said, are you
mad? —No. They were getting on my nerves, those equivocations of hers. That soppy voice she had all of a sudden. I climbed the stairs two at a time, I could sense her hurrying to keep up with me. Just before we got to the top, she said, Damien? —What? —Nothing. Up on the ground floor, the party was in full swing, people were dancing. Loula Moreno, of course, had already left. The following day, in the car, I gave her a general description of the evening. Loula asked, how did you part? —I took the car and went home. —How did you say good-bye? —See you, see you, a peck on the cheek. Zero, Loula said. Zero, I repeated. The sun was barely up, the weather was crappy. I’d turned on everything you can turn on in a car, windshield wipers, defogger, defroster, multidirectional heat. I said, in real life I have a scooter. Loula nodded. —I was on roller skates when my friends were riding bicycles, on a bicycle when they had scooters, and now on a scooter when they’re driving cars. I’m a boy who knows how to keep in step. I said, there’s a very well-known method for getting women, everybody knows it, it’s not to say a word. The guys girls like are silent types who make faces. Me, I don’t think I’m good-looking enough or intriguing enough to keep quiet. I talk too much, I babble incoherently, I want to be funny all the time. Even with you, I want to be funny. A lot of times, after a barrage of jokes and nonsense, I get gloomy and angry at myself. Especially when they fall flat, I hunker down, I become sinister for fifteen minutes or so. Then I’m my old jolly self again. The whole seduction song-and-dance is a pain in the ass. Loula asked, what kind of scooter do you have? —A Yamaha Xenter 125. Do you know a lot about scooters? —For a while I had a Vespa. Pink, like
the one in
Roman Holiday
. I said, I can just picture you. You must have been really cute. Wasn’t that movie in black and white? She reflected and then said, ah, yes, it’s true, it was. But the scooter seemed pink. Maybe it wasn’t pink, after all.