The Thursday Night Men (12 page)

“What I am about to say may seem like a paradox, but I think only swingers have attained true sexual equality. Neither one of us makes sacrifices, or looks for compromises, or simulates or dissimulates, or forces him or herself to do something to make their partner happy. I might add that, in spite of our multiple partners, the most intense pleasure we ever have is when we are just the two of us, alone, in our bed at home. The love I feel for Carole remains the most powerful aphrodisiac I know.”

Up to now the audience had been captivated: they wondered why this swinger was in their midst. In spite of his crude explanations he had never been indecent, but he might prove so after all if he went on flaunting his marital happiness and his talents as a sexual conquistador. If he did not justify his presence there among the brotherhood very soon, his listeners would begin to view him as a despicable agitator, and that very evening they might well be provoked into their very first attempt at lynching.

From the very start, Denis Benitez hadn’t listened to any of it, so he expected nothing from what was to follow. Still, after many long weeks, he was there, present. At the brasserie, they had greeted the rebirth of the prodigal child, not as cheerful as he used to be, but ready for an active convalescence—to serve up a plate of leeks
vinaigrette with stuffed cabbage was, for Denis, tangible proof that he had returned to reality. At the rate of three hundred place settings a day, Denis was reconnecting with his fellow human beings. He agreed to do two services and even stayed late after closing; he had plenty of energy. Everyone saw this as a sign that he wanted to make up for lost time, but everyone was wrong: he was forced to flee his apartment, now that an intruder had moved in.

The very evening that creature had stepped across his threshold, Denis’s final certainties had melted away. The four walls that had been protecting him from the outside world had now become a theater of the absurd, home to outrageous situations. His refuge was a danger zone, and the vast outside world had become a refuge. If only these men here tonight, this brotherhood, knew how much their stories, which they thought were exceptional, seemed insignificant in comparison to his ordeal! But while they had once listened to him and felt sorry for him, this time they would merely view him as a lost cause, driven into mental confusion by his celibacy.

After a brief silence, as if to announce an epilogue, Laurent said that he too was puzzled, why had he felt this need to share his private life with a group of strangers, who must have envied his healthy debauchery?

“I am one of those people who believe that all life on earth is subject to a certain logic, a certain equilibrium, that there is a price for happiness, and a flip side to every coin, even if we don’t realize it until the time comes for the final reckoning. By making love with thousands of woman, perhaps I’ve violated some natural law and I ought to fear some sort of retribution. Perhaps I should be prepared to have to sacrifice something precious. So far, I don’t know what that might be. But I promise you that if any such misfortune befalls me, you will be the first to know.”

No sooner had they poured their beers than Denis, Philippe and Yves were drinking to the health of Laurent the swinger, paying tribute as if he were there with them.

“This evening I have learnt something yet again,” said Yves. “Women keep you young!”

“Not exactly,” said Philippe. “What keeps you young is knowing not to do your head in over them.”

He had deliberately used one of Mia’s expressions, which seemed to suit the occasion. In a literary gathering he would no doubt have turned the phrase differently, to convey the notion that only those rare male specimens who had been liberated from their emotions, their jealousy, and their predatory instincts could attain any sort of eternal carnal bliss.

Denis agreed with a smile. What he wouldn’t give to feel even just a tiny bit casual around women. To be able to stop seeing them as creatures who could be magical or diabolical in turn, and view them rather as individuals whose mechanism might be intricate but certainly no more complex than his own.

Over their beers they continued to chat without any further reference to the session they had just left. They did not broach any subjects that were too personal, or display any curiosity about the others’ future, yet god knows, since they had first met, each of them had experienced things that were far more disconcerting than anything anyone had come out with in public.

Philippe resisted the urge to tell them about his night with one of the most coveted women on the planet—most men would dream of making such a confession between two pints. Making his buddies jealous would be less important than his need to describe his extravagant affair for the very first time. Once the moment of astonishment was over, he would answer their eager questions less from a sense of boastfulness than to see his fair mistress through their eyes. Out of superstition, he would start off by saying,
We have nothing in common
, because he had learned at his own expense that those stories that start off
We are made for each other
come to an abrupt end. He would also like to affirm that he was not in love:
I tend to fall in love at first sight but in this case, no.
Neither Denis nor Yves would believe him, and to convince them he would have to tell them the story of his first love, at the age of eighteen. Two years of passionate love, followed by three months of living together in a maid’s garret to get over it. Juliette came almost ten years later. Everything since then in Philippe’s life had been nothing but the post-Juliette era, an afterwards. Even Mia was part of this ongoing period, but the most delightful, the most unhoped-for part of it. Then Denis and Yves would press him to describe her
the way she really is
, and Philippe would make a stab at this mandatory exercise, but how could you describe Mia other than to say she was a young lady who was capable of simplicity, with the naïveté of a young woman of her age, and the seasoned nature of a young woman of her time? Burdened by the image of herself that the world sent back to her, yet aware that all this hullabaloo would not last, that life already had episodes in store that would prove far more authentic. At the risk of disconcerting them, he would describe her as an aquatic creature, with an insular soul, who even in the heart of Paris lived as if she were by the sea. That was how he saw her, that Thursday night, but Philippe would not break their pact, he would keep their idyll a secret as long as was necessary.

Yves’s secret, far less romantic, would be no easier to confess. If one woman had come into his life, he would not have hesitated to share his happiness with witnesses—but ten? Which name would he choose? Sibylle, Claire, Jessica, Samia? How could he introduce Sibylle other than as a gray-eyed brunette, fortysomething, with a body capable of bending itself into positions so indecent they were outlawed? And what about Lili, brainy Lili? More than just a pair of buttocks, she was a shoulder where a lost man could find refuge—a guy like Yves, obviously upset about something, but instead of trying to find women to hit on he paid a prostitute for the night. But the questions Lili asked him revealed more about her, and while Yves had stood fast and never mentioned Pauline’s name, Lili had cracked and gone on to describe the way her ex-husband had snubbed her. Claire was more reserved, almost shy, ashamed no doubt at being a sex worker, as she confessed her lack of experience to Yves, who had so little himself. She had gone through the gestures she thought a pro would make, all of them clumsy. He had clearly had been one of her first clients, and surely one of the last. Then he had met Jessica, through Sibylle; Samia had been sent to him by Jessica, but Yves already liked Agnieszka best of all. He did not know her yet, but Kris had lavished praise on her charms.

Nor would the name Marie-Jeanne Pereyres be spoken that night, any more than Mia or Kris. Denis had kept quiet about the reasons for his illness, and he would have been incapable of coming up with any reasons for his sudden recovery either. By moving into his place the intruder had dispossessed him of his right to complain. His long bout of despair had yielded to an indignation that awoke his faculties of resistance; the superb thing about trying to come up with explanations for the presence of this intruder in his house was that it had unblocked the gears in his mind and restored his fighting spirit.

By ordering a third round, they were extending their post-session ritual. The three of them enjoyed each other’s company, but they didn’t realize it. Philippe Saint-Jean, in his everyday life, rarely came across people like Yves Lehaleur or Denis Benitez. No matter how he lauded the reigning eclecticism and dreaded the degeneracy of milieus that were blood relations, he rarely took the time to get to know the man in the street, unless there was some immediate benefit to be had—his wineseller, his computer consultant, or his ear, nose, and throat specialist—they could boast that they knew him. Unburdened at last of his role as a thinker, of his defects as a dialectician, he could savor the sweet futility of their confabulations at the bistro. Denis Benitez appreciated the way in which the
intellectual
refrained from being judgmental, but remained attentive, ready to learn—and even if it was all a pose, their exchange seemed sincere. And Denis also appreciated the outspokenness of a man like Lehaleur, his independent spirit, the fact that he did not seem in the least inclined to make this into a pissing contest. In fact, Yves knew how to avoid the usual guy talk or any topic that might lead to discussing their hopeless fascination with performance. He was thankful to Philippe and Denis for sparing him the usual clichés, and the tiresome complicity of men among men.

Everything seemed to indicate that Marie-Jeanne Pereyres had finagled her way into Denis’s house to seek revenge: was there any other explanation for this kind of meddling? He must be paying for some major sin committed long ago. When he was around twenty, Denis and a buddy had embarked on a tour of all the nightclubs in France, getting themselves hired as waiter and bartender respectively. Three months in Marseille, two in Antibes, the same in Montélimar, ten days in Bordeaux—but what a ten days it had been!—and short stays everywhere they were wanted, and even where they were not wanted. They had filled their pockets, and fornicated like devils, clearing out at dawn; they had sown their wild oats to the point of exhaustion. How many Marie-Jeanne Pereyres had they met and charmed and intoxicated and betrayed with complete impunity? Was it not obvious that sooner or later, even twenty years later, one of them would call them to account? Someone had caught up with Denis at last for his juvenile misconduct: it made sense. The intruder was clearly of the opinionated sort, not to be deterred from her goal, and when that goal was revenge, she would mete out her punishment, ineluctably, ever harsher as time went by. Perhaps women were more spiteful than men when it came to things like this, and there were a good number of such crimes that knew no statute of limitations.

The intruder lay sprawled on the couch, her nightgown up to her knees, white socks up to her calves. With her glasses on her nose, she was reading a book that looked like a guidebook to some faraway country.

“You’re back early,” she said, without budging from her languid position.

“You seem annoyed.”

“Not at all, I’m just surprised. Usually you don’t finish your service until after midnight.”

“Usually? What usually? What do you know about my life and what I usually do or don’t do? Do you even have any idea what I was doing this evening?”

“No idea.”

“Well, I spent the evening digging through my memory and I couldn’t find you. Maybe we’ve already met somewhere, but for the life of me I don’t know where or when, and do you know why?”

“No.”

“Because you don’t look like anything. And I’m not even saying that to hurt you.”

Denis had studied her from head to toe, spied on her as she slept, clothed her in a host of different outfits: no memory of Marie-Jeanne Pereyres.

“Not like anything at all?”

“Everyone has some distinguishing feature. You don’t. Your shape is the kind people meet all their lives, in the street, in a corridor, but which leaves no impression on the retina or the memory. Everyone knows that people like you exist somewhere, but they don’t really want to know where. For me you represent, all on your own, exactly what goes to make
other people
. You’re a kind of vague, indistinct entity—at best, you could be characterized as a woman, but your specificity goes no further. And on that very point, you may not believe me, but as a rule I have a sort of gift for decrypting women, I know where they come from and where they’re going, I can sense instinctively what is missing in their lives, what they desire more than anything. With you I can’t see a thing, nothing at all, no matter how much I watch you sleep or move around, you don’t give off any particular truth, nothing in your physical being gives me the slightest clue, you are indescribable. For example, the impression you give is that you have brown hair, let’s say a light chestnut, as indefinable a color as it gets, like gray walls and off-white raincoats. But in artificial light you look blonde, a kind of half-hearted blonde, not forthright, not the blondness of a blonde. Likewise, it is impossible to say what color your eyes are, and yet eyes are supposed to light up a face, to release a kind of inner light—well, in your case, nothing. Apparently you’re of medium height, and when someone sees you coming from a distance they might say, ‘Look at that little woman over there,’ but when I see you curled up on the sofa here, I get the impression you don’t know where to put your legs. Your features could correspond to absolutely any professional profile; you don’t look right for the job, you look right for every job. You could be a dental assistant as easily as a senior executive, the kind who’s always in a hurry, who lives intensely, or you could be the head of a team of hostesses at a convention or a car show.”

“My eyes are green.”