The Thursday Night Men (30 page)

“I knocked on the man’s door, and I found him in such a state of confusion, of inner turmoil, that his last remnants of resistance could not stop me from moving in. My time was my own, I had enough savings to last for several months, why not give this unique adventure a try?”

The only one in the audience who wondered how such a thing could be possible was, as it happened, one of the new visitors. Pauline found that the speaker was skipping too quickly over some essential points: what words had she used to convince the man to let her invade his space? Had she ever questioned her true reasons for setting herself such an unbelievable challenge? Was this sudden devotion to a stranger not rather suspicious? Pauline was forced to admit that the story she had to tell would seem quite banal in comparison with what she was hearing.

For a time in the recent past, her name had been Madame Lehaleur, until one sad morning when, without even realizing it, she had become Pauline Revel once again. Because of a night’s escapade, she had been repudiated like a sinner, without the slightest chance to make amends, and to see herself through her husband’s eyes had left her feeling sullied. Henceforth, she needed to know how other women would react to her, women who would not judge her, the way the man she had once loved had judged her. Nowadays, she no longer felt guilty over the tragic end of their relationship, but she needed, for once, just once, to tell her version of the truth.

“The experiment lasted several months, with its rules and its constraints, but also its joy and sadness and excess.”

Another newcomer seemed to be devastated by what she was hearing. To interfere like that in a man’s life, without the slightest connection, the slightest obligation, and above all, without the slightest thing to gain, other than a vague moral satisfaction? Christelle had to admit that the notion of a gratuitous gesture put her ill at ease, particularly where men were concerned. When, during her work hours, she slipped on her uniform as Kris, and went to clients’ homes so that they could gorge themselves on her body, she did it solely for money and nothing else. And it was, no doubt, this “nothing else” that she would speak of to these women, hiding nothing about her profession, even if it meant she was the first sex worker who had ever crossed the threshold of this room.

“If you are interested in this story, I can tell it to you in detail.”

That Thursday evening, there would be time for only one testimony. Christelle, Pauline, and the others encouraged her with a simple silence.

Tonino Benacquista was born in France in 1961. He is a screenwriter, cartoonist, dramaturge, and the author of four crime novels published by Bitter Lemon Press, among them
Holy Smoke
. Benacquista won a César (French Oscar) in 2006 for the script of Jacques Audiard’s
The Beat that My Heart Skipped
. He lives in France.

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