Leper Tango (26 page)

As I entered the apartment,
rue de Mulhouse
, the phone rang.

“Franck,” said a female voice as I answered. “Franck,” the voice repeated.

I wrenched the receiver away from my mouth and held it at a distance. Covered the mouthpiece. Slowed my breathing down.

“
C'est moi
. Caroline. Committee for the Re-election of the President.” She laughed.

“Caroline,” I repeated, still excavating the memory banks for something recognizable.

“Caroline. The girl from Aveyron.”

“Sainte Radégonde.”

“
Elle-même
.”

During the three or four seconds it took me to place her, I watched the wallpaper change hues, darkening as if the electricity had powered out.

“How are you? That is, how are you, Caroline?” I managed to get out.

“I'm available. That's how I am.”

I still had a couple of hours to kill before she arrived.

I picked up some Sancerre, champagne, smoked Norwegian salmon and cigarettes. By early evening, I was refilling a daiquiri glass with Triple Sec, cutting off orange wedges for an improvised martini, when I heard the tackety-tack of high heels coming up the stairs. I opened the door, watched her climb the last few steps up to the stairhead.

“
Putain.
”

Her high heels cocked at an awkward angle, inwards.

She was pigeon-toed, asthmatic enough to enter a bagpipes competition. I noticed a beauty spot on her cheek.

Decided she had put it on for the night. She had the kind of legs which only Parisians have. Thin, but unmarked by exercise. None of the rippling musculature of American women. She wore a black one-sided shoulder dress. A gold chiffon draped over the covered shoulder.

She examined the room, fumbling for something in her purse while she caught her breath.

“Why didn't you tell me you were on the sixth floor?”

“They are hoping to put in an elevator. Drink?”

“Champagne.” She remained standing while I poured out the champagne. I handed her the glass, clinked mine against hers. Placed my arm around her, and kissed her on the mouth. She wriggled away, retreated a step, sat on the bed, drank some of the champagne.

“Take your coat off.”

She allowed the coat to fall from her shoulders onto the bed.

“
Tu viens?
”

After she finished the champagne, I offered her one of my own concoctions, a simple boardwalk martini.

Vodka, dry vermouth, maraschino liqueur and lemon juice.

She seemed pretty happy with that. I pulled her micro-skirt to her knees, revealing a white panty with a tiny bow in the centre and a black garter belt holding up sheer panty hose. It was like unravelling a Christmas present. The martini glass propped against the head of the bed.

Her facial features had initially reminded me of a burnished rock sculpture of a bird of prey. She had something which was drawn from the same genetic source code as Sheba's. I always watched a woman's face while we fucked. To see where the truth stopped and the simulacra started. Caroline's ang ular features becoming translucent, like the sheen of her white, lace-top hose now leaning against a half-empty bottle of Vermouth in the corner of the room.

Some time later, we lay in bed, both of us smoking, thinking whatever people think after fucking someone they hardly know. Basking in the zone of relief before the shit begins.

“If you wake up in the middle of the night, I want you to start making love to me before I regain consciousness.” She paused, slowly exhaling.

“And, then, tomorrow, I want to move to a proper hotel. This place is a dump.
Un vrai taudis.
”

We holed up in
Hôtel de Crillon
and were laying in bed in the
Duc de Crillon
suite, a large living room decorated with six metre high, hand
-
painted, wooden panels, all in an 18
th
century style. A rectangular, teak coffee table at the foot of our bed was littered with the remains of chilled melon, parma ham, grilled salmon, grapefruit and morellos and pistachio cream, and some champagne.

Italian marble bathrooms are all right, and it wasn't my bill, but to me this was the real shite end of the city, who cares if a Duke shat in the same urn three hundred years previous. At any rate, royalty had been replaced with New York Jewesses and wives of dictators, in short people out to prove a point, and pollute the air with their hair dyes and the landscape with the sight of dead animals wrapped round their necks. I was one hundred per cent on the same page as the ecologists on this point.

Dead animals were meant to be food, not apparel.

“You know, Franck, there is a copy of this suite in the Metropolitan Museum of New York.”

Caroline picked up a
chocolatine
, dabbed it absently with
beurre de Normandie
, considering something.

“Where did you go last night, Franck?”

“For a walk.”

“Where?”

“Wee Willie's.”

“Wee Willie? Who
eez zat
?”

How could you not like a people whose Englishspeaking chromosome had been removed at birth.

“Serves the best
Andouillette pommes à l ' huile
in Paris.”

“I wish you would talk to me the way you talk about Wee Willie's.” I recalled the last good day I had spent there, with a bottle of chilled Chablis on a lazy spring afternoon, to the tune of that second
arrondissement
tart with the pigtails playing the accordion. Nir vana. For the simple, deal-clinching reason that the only thing you had to pay for at Wee Willie's was the bill, and then it was over and done with and you could move on to the next self-gratifying piece of sense-titillation, of a particular sub-brand which can only be found in cities like Paris, because they hit you with so much sense-bombardment that any thoughts about the starving children of Africa or social duties, or even paying child support, were safely expunged into the netherworld of worthy thoughts, giving hedonism sufficient time and space to run rampant. That wasn't sustainable either, but it sure as hell was enjoyable while running the gamut between cutting the umbilical cord and being kicked into a grave.

“You've never loved anyone, have you, Franck?” “Depends on your definition of love.”

“If you don't feel love, what do you feel, Franck?”

“I just feel what I feel. I don't pretend to know what other people are feeling. Nobody can do that.”

She wore her blond hair short, pageboy style. Her skin was fresh, pubescent. Her eyes wide open, a blue that reminded me of robins' eggs. Her cheeks were flush and her skin downy-soft. She wore a white blouse, unbuttoned down the middle, exposing her breasts. It was easy enough to see that Caroline fell into the subset of those with something tainted from the outset, of the kind of depravity that can only be self-taught, rather than learned through abuse, rape, or by a mentor in the sex-trade business.

Below the white blouse, she wore a grey peasant dress, which fell to her ankles. The peasant dress was a wraparound, held around her waist by a cord and covering nothing but a cunt shaved like an apricot. I reached for the cord and pulled it lightly, which peeled away the folds of her skirt. I bent down to one knee, and began suckling her right tit. After a few minutes, she was obviously stoked up. I mounted her from behind, taking my time, torturing her a bit, then thrusting harder and harder. I didn't hear any objections.

The satin sheets beneath us were seeping with blood and menstrual waste. Washing beneath her in a thick, suppurating flow that had dried upon contact, and now was caked to the sheet like a fossilized rock formation that had hardened into tectonic plate. She turned towards me. I noticed that her own face was also covered in a mix of lactation and blood, which reminded me of afterbirth. Somehow, I had pushed her face right into the sheets as I fucked her. She smiled.

“Hold on, Caroline, just have to make a quick phone call.”

I dialed Sheba's cell number, but received a recorded message.

“Sheba Goldenstein.
Adieu, tout le monde
. No need to call, Franck. I have departed for the land of no memories.”

I waited for the tone.

“Hey, Sheba, sorry you're not there. Listen to this. My new girlfriend, even loopier than you, baby.”

I handed Caroline the phone.

“Just say something. Anything.”

I wondered whether I knew Caroline's middle name.

I thought the initial might be J. If you don't know someone's middle name, you're not interested in them. That's a rule. And, despite all of this, I was thinking, you and me, baby, we are like everyone else on this planet. And no matter how you dress it up, and no matter how good it looks on paper, not even a good piece of cunt tastes better than Wee Willie's
andouillette
. Caroline hung up the phone.

“Who was that?” “A friend.”

“Franck, you know, we don't come from the same place. But, can't you see, Franck, I gave up everything so we could finish our life together?”

“We've known each other for four days. Don't expect commitment from me, baby.”

“I can't live without you, Franck. I'll kill myself.” She didn't seem to like what she was seeing on my face, but she was simultaneously reflecting on something, reviewing her options. So to speak. I kept an eye on her, but my mind was doing a fast rewind to the preSheba era, and what followed, thinking because you let yourself listen to this hot little piece of tail and her weird take on destiny, you can say goodbye to Wee Willie's Filet Mignon
sauce tartare maison
, washing it down with Chablis or Sancerre and consulting Omar Sharif 's weekly advice on the Friday night race card at Vincennes, just when you're on the verge of retrieving it.

I glanced at Caroline. If Omar Sharif were checking out this filly for afts and raceability, the verdict would be runs like hell, but turns right off the track when she hits the stretch. And if you're riding her, be careful getting off after the race is over, because she might hoof you right in the head.

“Did I ever tell you my first wife killed herself ?” “Non.
Et alors?
”

“I'm not even sure where she's buried. I guess I missed the funeral. Kind of caught me during a busy week.”

I lit a cigarette. Didn't offer her one. Looked her straight in her eyes, which were azure that day. Or at least her lenses were.

“Franck, your end is going to be slow and painful.” “It's what precedes the end that interests me, not the end.”

“You just don't know how to give.”

“That's good. Actually, I think you're just pissed because my world doesn't revolve around you. Every beautiful woman experiences it sooner or later, and career women with looks are the worst of the lot. When men get obsessed with them, they confuse the obsession with them being interesting people. Neither side is sustainable. Count yourself lucky.”

“You are a real
minus
, Franck. You'll never amount to anything.”

“Hey, that's good. My mother used to say that.”

“Really. Tell me, Franck. What did she say?”

“She'd say, Franck, you're too young to understand.

But it's a genetic thing. You come from a worthless line of sons of bitches.”

She didn't seem amused.

“Franck, you have completely missed what I am about.”

“No, I've got a pretty clear read on you.”

“Tell me, Franck. I'm intrigued.”

“Well, you think you're a fascinating individual, basically because you've relieved a few men of their hard
-
earned funds in support of the President, who from what I've heard is a bona fide criminal with blood on his hands. You've ridden in some sleek vehicles and attended a few gala evenings. Big fucking deal. You're the nobody, baby, because you think you're somebody.”

She's listening, and looking pretty homicidal, but her strongest argument is that pair of tits popping out of the half-cup bra, and I'm starting to think they're watching me as well.

“Franck, have you ever thought of fucking your mother? You want to suck on mommy's tit, Franck? Come to mommy, Francky?” Bad habits are the hardest ones to k ick. She's no longer a face, or a brain, or a set of legs. Just a cunt, speaking via invisible fibre optic cable directly wired to my pituitary gland, taunting me. You're a loser, Franck, you' ll never amount to anything — can you smell me, Franck? You're a bottom-feeding crustacean, scuttling across the ocean floor, and I'm a sea urchin. And, I'm talking right back to this sea urchin of a cunt, because Sheba has disappeared, nothing left but a fleshy slab oozing more slime which draws me in closer. And, I'm not caring too much about what I just said, or what will happen after, because the t wo of us, i.e. me and that cunt, have developed our own Esperanto from hell.

I pulled my belt out of its loops, wrapped it around my right hand in a coil, and approached. Two ambulatory human shapes, host organisms for a cock and a cunt, secreting, pulsating, throbbing. We were fulfilling our purpose on planet earth. And maybe it was putting off the inevitable, but it kept us from killing each other for another day.

I was about a step away from her, and could see that she was happy, i.e. in a state of remission, while she waited to get serviced, or beaten or whatever. Then, a knock on the door.

“Who is it?” “Police.”

She crossed the room and disappeared into the bathroom. I opened the door. The man was alone. Dressed in civilian clothes. I stood in front of him.

“Thierry Duboeuf.
Brigade Criminelle
. May I come in?” “What's the problem?”

“We've had a number of complaints concerning you.” I nodded in the direction of the bathroom. “Take a seat. Just have to take care of something, and I'll be right with you.” Caroline was busy pasting foundation onto her face. “You're going to have to leave.”