Hotelles (28 page)

But I didn't have to say anything to encourage his erudition, which eventually told me what I wanted to know:

“Like Napoleon when he met Josephine, David fell under Aurora's spell. She did whatever she wanted with him. You know, her borderline episodes . . . She even cheated on him without the slightest remorse.”

I had trouble imagining David as a mistreated and betrayed suitor.

“Then, after they got married, he started taking on more responsibility at the company, just like Bonaparte, who began his career as a cadet and quickly moved up the ranks, from officer to general to supreme magistrate. And as he grew more powerful, the relationship of power became inverted. Now he was the star, the man all the women wanted . . .”

“And Aurora?”

“She wilted. She stewed impatiently at the house and eventually gave in to her depression.”

“David started cheating on her, too, is that it?”

Just as I was now cheating on David, in my own way  . . .

“Almost compulsively, and he didn't bother hiding it,” said Louie, without judgment. “There was a service stairway in the Tuileries that linked the ground floor to a second, smaller bedroom above the emperor's office. Napoleon's valet, Constant, led young women from court up to this room for his emperor's pleasure.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

At last, he turned and faced me. His look was severe and intense, like a predator who was so certain of his power that he could afford to let his prey wander. But there was no doubt he would be eating it in the end. In fact, his gaze was already devouring me.

“Because at the time, David did not yet reside at Duchesnois House. He lived in what is today my apartment, on Avenue Georges Mandel, in the 16th Arrondissement. An apartment that is entirely reminiscent of the Tuileries: there is a small one-bedroom flat, which we also own, over the apartment. It can, of course, be accessed by the main staircase, but there are also stairs in my apartment that link the two. I sealed the access a long time ago. But, back then, David often made use of it . . .”

I wondered what kind of women David used to choose for one-night stands.

How many women has David known before me? We have never discussed it. Have there been dozens, hundreds . . . more? Is there a way not to be jealous of past affairs? When once you possess a body, is it possible to erase the memory and forget the men or women you once knew?

 

Handwritten note by me, 6/11/2009

 

WAS THAT DAVID'S TRUE NATURE?
A tireless hunter, always searching for fresh prey, while Louie tended to be mono-focused—on me?

I wondered if there were any hidden staircases in Duchesnois House.

“Did he talk to you about them?”

“Yes. With me, David would brag. It was another competition for him.” A tiny smile passed over his otherwise blank expression.

“Were you surprised by his behavior?”

“No . . . I was revolted! I hated that he was treating Aurora like a broken toy, just because she was more fragile than he. Just because she . . .” He flattened his hand against his window, as though trying to erase the view.

“Because . . . ?”

“David justified himself by saying that Aurora had very limited
talents
. He said he'd really tried to resist temptation, but that she could not satisfy him.”

He did not have to specify what he meant by talents.

“And you saw things differently . . . ,” I ventured.

Saying this, I placed a hand on his knee. He stared at it with desire and pain, and I quickly took it back. I did not want to ruin the moment, as chaste as the gesture may have been. Nor did I want to frighten him out of telling me his secrets.

Louie the libertine, Louie the pervert, had been transformed. I saw him now as Louie the bashful lover, a man torn between desire and the crushing weight of his memories. I could tell he was trying to spare me his pain, and this concern for me was confusing.

“Yes. I think David was the one who suffocated her. When they first met, he saw her as a perfect object, a kind of untouchable being. He idealized her too much. And when he learned of Aurora's troubles, he did everything in his power to cut her off from the world.”

“He made her pay for them.”

“I would say, rather, that he wanted to regain control in their relationship. Don't forget: David is Napoleon. He will let you take everything, except power. Locking up Aurora in the house was the easiest way for him to assert dominance. He blamed her health and paid doctors to prescribe constant rest.”

“So she never left the house?”

“Toward the end, almost never . . . On Avenue Mandel or in Dinard, she lived under a bell jar. The worst is that she never complained. She had become completely dependent on him.”

Napoleon and Josephine, the sovereign and his old, abandoned mistress. But the passion between David and Aurora had not died because of a difference in age. What, then? Was this bitter conjecture the answer: their divergent sexual needs had driven them apart?

“And then?”

He knocked on the partition, signaling to Richard the chauffeur that it was time to go.

“The day of Aurora's death, we were all in Dinard, at Brown Rocks, Dad's immense villa on the cliff tops of Saint-Malo in Brittany. He had bought it for himself some twenty years earlier on a whim, after having sold some of his shares in
The Ocean
.”

Dinard.

“To the sea . . . but not on the other side of the world,” David had proposed for our honeymoon. Is that where he wanted to take me? Where his memories were etched into the tormented landscape  . . .

“Do you still go there?”

“No . . . ,” he replied quietly. “I have never returned. The villa is as it was, or almost. I believe Armand goes once a year to clean house.”

“So what happened that day?” I urged.

“As usual, David had run off somewhere, supposedly on business. Aurora locked herself in her room. She cried and cried. She had found a message from one of his lovers.”

“You were there, too?”

“Yes, with my girlfriend at the time.”

So Louie Barlet had had “girlfriends.” He, the wild animal, had let himself be locked in the prison of coupledom. Would he ever choose to do it again?

“My girlfriend was the one who managed to get Aurora to talk, through the door, and learn what had happened. A banal episode . . . and, unfortunately, nothing new as far as she and David were concerned.”

I did not interrupt. Judging from the serious look on his face, I understood that he needed to get it all off his chest.

“Then she and I went out for dinner in Saint-Malo. My parents were there. Armand as well. There was no reason to worry.”

And yet  . . .

“She snuck away in the night. You'll see when you go . . .”

Had David told him about our honeymoon destination?

“The house is built on a cliff. The only way to access the beach is via a very steep set of stairs that leads to a coastal path that gets submerged during high tide.”

I could not ignore the dark image that suddenly came to mind:

“That's where she drowned?”

“Yes . . . I mean, it's not very clear. But there are big, angular rocks just under that path. When they are covered by the sea, it looks as though you could walk on them. But in reality, they are full of holes and crevices. All it takes is for a foot to step into one of them, and you're trapped.”

“Why?”

“The water acts like a vacuum. It sucks you in. And it does not take long for the sea to rise and submerge you. If no one comes to your rescue in the minutes after you get caught . . .”

The story echoed the one he had told me the other day while we were having tea.

I didn't say anything, but I noticed that our car was now going west, past Place de la Concorde and then the Arc de Triomphe.

“Do you think it could have been an accident?”

“Honestly, no. I don't think so.”

He spoke without emotion.

Throughout our conversation, he had been gazing out the window. Now, he turned toward me, visibly relieved. Could it be that I was the first person in whom he had been able to confide like this?

“In any case, we'll never know . . . When I got there, it was too late, of course. A swath of white nightgown floated on the water's surface. Like an idiot, I dived . . . All I managed to achieve was get sucked in, too. I was luckier. All I lost was this . . .”

He tapped his bad knee.

“How did you survive?”

“A fisherman on his way back to the port. He was not supposed to bring his boat in so close to shore, but he took the risk, to save me.”

“You owe him your life!”

“Yes. And I don't even know who it was. He refused to give his name to the staff at the Saint-Malo hospital. He took off as soon as we arrived.”

“And Aurora?”

“When I awoke, my girlfriend told me that they could not find her body. Her remains are no doubt still there, somewhere on the seafloor . . . Maybe they've already mixed in with the shells.”

“And David . . . What was his reaction?”

“Exactly what I've already told you, Elle. He who had been so bad at loving her could not handle her death. Several years later, he cut himself on the arm. And for a while, he even blamed me: he went around telling everyone that I was the one who had pushed her onto the rocks.”

Another point for his version of the story. It included what David had recently told me.

“It's absurd, of course. My girlfriend could testify to the fact that I was with her in the car when everything happened.”

And the authorities concluded that it was an accident. End of story. End of Aurora. “Pleasure always wins out over death,” Louie had claimed earlier in the day. Personally, I was having trouble figuring out how. How had Eros won out over Thanatos in this tragedy?

I sat up in my seat, the leather squeaked under my weight, and Louie abandoned himself once more to quietly contemplating the landscape. The story had dissipated the sensual fog that had been floating between us since our departure from the park.

Near La Défense, we drove through a long succession of tunnels, which spat us out onto a peripheric avenue I knew well, the N13, where it crosses lower Suresnes and Mont Valérien, then Nanterre. I was terrified that he might be taking me to my mom's house, but the car kept going west, without any sign of stopping.

At last, after going through Rueil's city center, we turned left onto an alley lined with chestnut trees. The car parked in front of an elegant castle, which I had no trouble recognizing: Malmaison, a haven of peace and greenery, known today for its roses. It was a gift from Bonaparte to his Josephine, once his fortune had been assured.

What did Louie expect? That we would visit the original version of the room whose replica I had experienced at the Hôtel des Charmes? I doubted it, given his mood.

Yet after telling me his weighty secrets, he was suddenly himself again: light, unpredictable. He was an ungraspable piece on a strange chessboard, whose spaces were always shifting color and place.

For the first time on our journey, I turned and faced him head-on, ready to confront him. I was tired of putting up with his mood swings:

“What exactly do you want with me? What game are you playing?”

“I am not playing, Annabelle,” he replied in all seriousness. “I never play. All I do is . . . reveal.”

His eyes were sincere, innocent. They were also piercing through me from head to toe.

“Reveal?”

“Yes, that's right. Consider me . . . like a solution in photography. The agent that makes the invisible image contained in your silver crystals appear. No doubt you do not notice it . . . but I do. I see it beginning to work on you . . .”

The color of my Ten-Times-a-Day and the wrapping of my other presents was not random? Silver. The color that reveals.

“Photographic solutions don't exist anymore” was my retort. “Nobody uses them. They're finished. Everything is digital now.”

“Not for me.”

 

A SMILE BLOOMED OVER HIS
face like a new flower in his garden. Discreetly, modestly, he pointed toward the neoclassical building with its white stone and slate roof:

“You already knew I was from another age!”

He jumped brusquely from the limousine—with all the vivacity that his injured limb would allow. His pant leg briefly rode up his ankle, revealing another tattoo, of which I only caught a glimpse: another letter that vaguely recalled the ‘a' on his wrist. This time, it was an uppercase
D
in an ornate font.

A
and
D
. In other words:
AD
.

“Aurora Delbard,” I couldn't help murmuring.

23

T
he rest of the day unfolded into a succession of light and playful moments, in the sweet presence of rosebushes and under the shade of linden trees. The floral scents reminded me of my mother, and a wave of guilt passed through me as I considered how little time I had been spending with her recently.

Happily, the modest park at Malmaison was delightful: it was a no-frill affair, without elaborate water displays or other such things, but it offered an immense space for strolling that was cut off from both the city and time. As in Paris, Louie labored to be the perfect guide, providing spicy and even sulfurous anecdotes that transformed history into a veritable encyclopedia of dissolute mores. And he went into more detail than was necessary on the annex that Napoleon had built to receive his mistresses without having to disturb the woman of the house.

We ate a late lunch in a nearby brasserie, and the afternoon was already at its end by the time the limousine dropped me off outside Duchesnois House.

“See you soon?” Louie asked, with a hopeful and humble smile.

I had not noticed it until then: a little dimple at the bottom of his right cheek that only seemed to appear when he was being sincere. I instantly dubbed it his dimple of truth, and remembered that I'd seen it on the few occasions when he'd been open with me. In the garden at the Museum of Romantic Life. And also, earlier that same day, in the car, when he had told me the complete story of Aurora's death.

“Perhaps,” I replied. “In any case, we will definitely have a chance to see each other at one of BTV's exciting meetings!”

He appreciated the irony and rubbed my hand with his fingertips.

The door on my side suddenly opened, before I even had the chance to grasp the handle. Richard the Chauffeur, who had spent the entire day behind the wheel without showing himself, appeared on the other side.

“Mademoiselle,” mumbled the giant as he moved aside to let me out.

Surprisingly thoughtful, after so much discretion.

But once I had stepped outside into the light, I instantly recognized the bald head, the jaw, and, above all, the surly expression . . . “curiouser and curiouser.” The rude neighbor who had found Felicity and handed her to me like a turd. It was him!

I gaped. He got back into the driver's seat and slammed the door. The motor purred. I was wondering about this strange mystery when the car ambled to the other side of the street. A modern pumpkin, loud and fast.

 

AS WAS OFTEN THE CASE
at that time of day, and even more now that Armand had so much to do for the wedding, the house was empty. As for the three hairy rascals, they were probably in the garden, enjoying the sun on the south side of Duchesnois House.

Beside the silver envelope—could I really call it a surprise anymore?—I noticed a handwritten message from David, proof he had stopped by at some point during the day.

      
Another work dinner with the Koreans.

Considering how they do things, well lubricated,

I probably won't be home until late. Don't wait up.

I love you.

D.

 

I took my time opening the silver message, which seemed slimmer than the others. Sure enough, its sole contents were the usual magnetic key from the Hôtel des Charmes and two cards.

The absence of a note was a kind of test: by now, I was supposed to know the place and hour of our rendezvous. The Hôtel des Charmes, at ten p.m.

I turned over the two rectangles of rigid paper and was surprised to discover that each one contained a different commandment. Louie didn't need the first one to convince me to go. He knew I would show up, and that now he could pull out the stops. Step it up a notch:

4—Thou shalt submit to thy master.

Then, perhaps more menacing, though in all appearances indulgent, this second order:

5—Thou shalt listen to thy desires.

What did I really know about my desires? Louie's strategy had awoken in me wants that time and botched experiences had erased—he called himself a revealer—but was I so sure I wanted to abandon myself to him? What were these moments of pleasure, their sharp and inherently ephemeral delight, really worth? Especially compared to the immense landscape of peaceful happiness with David Barlet.

For the time being, I decided to respect David's deceitful silence. If his older brother's story was true, then David was not really a despicable liar. He was at once the first victim of Aurora's madness as well as her torturer. And I could only imagine the shame and infamy he had borne over the years. Time could not erase the sharp pain of these events. It was powerless to lighten the burden of his errors. For him, I was virgin territory, an enterprise at which he could succeed this time, and such an aim justified a few secrets, as weighty and disloyal as they may seem at first.

I locked myself in the bedroom and dug out the treasures Louie had given me over the past few days: mysterious key; riding crop; egg, which made part of me contract when I saw it; Païva necklace; and precious comb, which David may have paid for but which Louie had chosen. I turned the objects over in my hands, noting the softness of one or the rich ornamentation of another. Hard and refined, smooth and rigid, penetrating and impenetrable, they made for a strange mosaic, a collection of odds and ends that reflected their sender's contradictions. Subtle and equivocal. However, all these erotic objects would mean nothing if I decided not to give them power. Louie's lessons only had one aim: to make me an agent of my own pleasure, and the inanimate objects my living partners.

Why, then, had I not received an object for today's meeting? Would another surprise be waiting for me there? Or was I to expect something more
incarnate
?

 

YES, I HAD CHANGED, I
could see it in the bedroom mirror. No doubt definitively. I wasn't a Hotelle anymore. Nor was I a malleable thing that David could fashion as he pleased. And what if I continued acquiescing to the luxuries he offered—this house, that dress, the first-class wedding—and had carefully adjusted to me, what part of me would remain? Was it still me in this gilded life? Had the little girl from Nanterre survived in me? As for the new Elle, the one who was blossoming with each secret rendezvous, what did she want? Did she even know? In which room would she soon find herself?

 

I HAD NO MATERIAL CLUES
this time when I arrived in front of the Hôtel des Charmes a few minutes before the usual hour. Ten o'clock minus a few ticks.

I entered the lobby with neither a glance nor a word in Monsieur Jacques's direction. He was busy writing something. After our recent dispute, I did not want to ask for his help and instead made a beeline for the elevators.

“Good evening, Mademoiselle!”

I was happy to see Ysiam's smile. His long lashes blinked a little faster, a sign that he, too, was glad to see me. He may have been Louie's submissive servant, but I still saw an innocence in him that made me like him, in spite of everything.

“Good evening, Ysiam. Will you please take me to the right room?”

“Of course. Which one?”

His lips spread wide. He was playing.

“Well . . . You know, don't you?”

“Me, yes. But you have to tell me!”

Well, if that was how it was going to be  . . .

“Okay. Let's see, what do I still have: a key, an old key that might open any door . . .”

“Any door,” he confirmed, thrilled to continue the game. “So no door.”

“Hmm, I've used the necklace and the egg . . . I have a silver comb.”

“Are you sure that's one of your tools?”

“No . . . You're right. In that case, the only thing I still have left is . . . a riding crop!”

He winked, delighted.

“Yes! That's a tool!”

“A riding crop . . . ,” I repeated, thinking.

Which legendary courtesan could have used such a toy? I tried to remember all the room names I knew, but nothing came to mind. When suddenly, a few paces behind Ysiam, I noticed a retro poster  . . .

Ysiam caught the direction of my gaze. He turned around. The framed poster was a recent replica of a period advertisement featuring a Spanish dancer holding a fan in one hand and, as if to highlight her martial attitude, a switch in the other. Now all I had to do was read the name of this dark beauty: Lola Montez.

“Lola Montez?” I asked, accentuating the final
z
. “It isn't spelled ‘Montès'?”

“
Lola Montès
is the movie that Max Ophuls made of her life. But her real name was Montez.”

After this little lesson—the source of which I didn't doubt for a second—he led me to the elevator and pushed the button for the third floor.

The decor was striking. Where the other hallways in the hotel were known for their bright colors, the third floor was dressed in black—walls, doors, and carpet included. The lamps let off an intense light that barely pierced through the obscurity. And afraid we might fall, we had to proceed carefully, almost on tiptoes, to the room.

 

THE ROOM, WHICH WAS PLUNGED
in thick darkness, was hardly any gayer. The gilded baseboards and ceiling glowed under the iridescent light of one or two small lamps. This sepulcher to the memory of the most mythical darling of the Romantic era inspired more reverence than excitement. But the click of the lock on the door suddenly reminded me why I was here, like a first lash of the switch at my senses.

“Come nearer . . .”

Like the last time, the irruption of these faceless words in the closed space drew me out of my stupor. The sudden sound almost made me scream in fright. But this time, it did not come from a set of speakers. The metallic timbre, which was distorted by some electronic artifice, did not come from above but from the other side of the room, whose tenebrosity made it impossible to see anything, bodies and decorative features alike.

Nevertheless, I did perceive a hurried movement within the opacity. I could have sworn: someone was approaching me. And I took a step back. My movements grew slower, from a mix of fear and desire—old friends in our most odious nightmares. I was frozen, half expecting to wake up.

“Do not be afraid. If you are here, it is because you are no longer afraid.”

The sound was terrifying, but something about the inflection told me he was trying to be reassuring. At last, with these words, he half appeared. He was still anonymous, though. He wore black latex over his head and slight body, right down to his toenails. This surprising costume resuscitated random images from my childhood—a wrestler and a circus Hercules—as well as more adult fantasies—Catwoman, the submissive in an S-M role-playing game, and I don't know what else.

A bulge in the elastic material, a shard protruding under his lower abdomen, told me that he was already erect.

“Right?” he insisted.

Out of prudence, I agreed:

“No, I am not scared . . .”

From behind his back, he withdrew a long, thin object that I could not immediately identify.

“Come here. There's nothing to be afraid of.”

A riding crop! Like the one Louie had sent me, and which I had remembered a few minutes earlier with Ysiam.

Suddenly I noticed something: despite the darkness, it was clear that the man in front of me was not holding anything that resembled a cane, nor did he seem to need any support.

“You aren't going to . . . ,” I choked.

“Whip you? No. Not unless I have to. Not if you're good.”

I tried to control my voice and slow my racing thoughts.

“Okay, okay . . . This is going a little too far for me.”

“Tsss . . . ,” he whistled as he came toward me. “We haven't done anything yet and you're already retreating!”

“I do not want to be beaten.”

“Who said that you would? You know, there are a thousand other things we can do with
this
.”

To illustrate his point, he started caressing my body with the soft tip of leather, through the minimal shielding of my clothes. It was electrifying, as if it were his tongue.

In other circumstances, as a simple spectator, I probably would have found the gesture grotesque. But now, it released a sweet and venomous elixir in me. Being the center of his attention toppled my reason, a fragile screen between my desires and myself. My defenses fell one by one, and I felt the pressing need to let myself give in to his injunctions.

“Close your eyes . . . Concentrate on what you're feeling.”

I did not need to open them to know that he had drawn nearer—almost in direct contact, judging from the breath that swept across my face and neck at regular intervals. What confused me, however, was the flagrant absence of body odor. Nothing emanated from him, not even a hint of cologne. Nothing but the overwhelming, artificial, and acrid scent of latex.

He took my hand and, with the utmost delicacy, led me to a bed dressed in black sheets. Then he slowly bent me back onto the silken bier.

Odd occurrence: When I fell onto the bed, it set off a musical piece, which swelled throughout the room and fell upon us like drizzle that grew stronger and stronger.

I did not recognize the piece, but I had to admit that it fit the situation perfectly. A bewitching chant with just one musical layer, in a language I was incapable of naming. It sounded like a Gregorian chant by a new religious group, in which women were high priestesses. The words mattered little. I let the high-pitched voices carry me away, up to their peak.

One by one, the man took off my clothes—I had dressed soberly and simply that night—and continued to tease my naked body with languid strokes of the leather whip. The precision of his movements hinted at a developed but lithe musculature.