Whatever: a novel (11 page)

I then made for a more recent and luxurious residence, this time situated just a few metres from the sea. It bore the name `Buccaneer Cottages'. The ground floor was made up of a supermarket, a pizzeria and a discothèque; all three of them shut. A placard extended an invitation to visit the show flat.

This time an unpleasant sensation began taking hold of me. To imagine a family of holidaymakers returning to their Buccaneer Cottage before going to scoff their escalope of veal in pirate sauce, and that their youngest daughter might go and get laid in a `Ye Olde Cape-Horner'-style nightspot, was all becoming a bit too much; but there was nothing I could do about it.

By now I was hungry. I hooked up with a dentist at a waffle-seller's stand. In fact

`hooked up' is stretching it a bit; let's just say we exchanged a few words while waiting for the vendor to come back. I don't know why he thought it necessary to inform me that he was a dentist. In general I hate dentists; I take them to be exceedingly venal creatures whose only goal in life is to wrench out the most teeth possible and buy themselves a Mercedes with a sun-roof. And this one didn't have the air of being any exception to the rule.

Somewhat absurdly I thought it necessary to justify my presence one more time and spun him a whole line about how I had the intention of buying an apartment in Buccaneer Cottages. His interest was awakened right away, and with waffle in hand he weighed up the pros and cons for a while before finally concluding that the investment `seemed wise to him'. I ought to have guessed.

10

The Port of Call

Ah yes, to have values! . . .

When I got back to La Roche-sur-Yon I bought a steak knife in the Unico; I was beginning to perceive the rudiments of a plan.

Sunday was non-existent; Monday particularly dreary. I sensed, without needing to ask him, that Tisserand had had a lousy weekend; this didn't surprise me in the least. It was already 22 December. The following evening we went to eat in a pizzeria. The waiter had the air of actually being Italian; one imagined him to be both hairy and charming; he deeply disgusted me. On top of that he hurriedly set down our respective spaghettis without due care. Ah, if we'd been wearing slit skirts that would have been different! . . .

Tisserand was knocking back huge glasses of wine; I was evoking different tendencies within contemporary dance music. He wasn't responding; in fact I don't think he was even listening. Nevertheless, when I briefly described the timehonoured alternation of fast and slow records, so as to underline the ritual character it had lent to the procedures of seduction, his interest was re-awakened (had he already had occasion, personally, to dance to a slow number? It was by no means certain). I went on to the offensive:

-I suppose you're doing something for Christmas. With the folks, no doubt ...

-We do nothing at Christmas, I'm Jewish, he informed me with a touch of pride. At least, my parents are Jewish, he added in an undertone.

This revelation shut me up for a few seconds. But after all, Jewish or not, did that really change anything? If so, I couldn’t see what. I pressed on.

-What about doing something on the 24th? I know a club in Les Sables,
The Port of
Call
. Very friendly ...

I had the feeling my words were ringing false; I was ashamed of myself. But Tisserand was no longer in any state to pay attention to such subtleties. `Do you think there'll be lots of people? I get the impression the 24th is very "family",' that was his feeble, pathetic objection. I conceded that of course the 31st would be much better: `Girls really like
to sleep around
on the 31st,' I asserted with authority. But for all that the 24th wasn't to be dismissed: `Girls eat oysters with the parents and the grandmother, receive their presents. But after midnight they go clubbing,' I was getting excited, believing my own story; Tisserand proved easy to convince, just as I'd predicted.

The following evening he took three hours to get ready. I waited for him while playing dominoes in the hotel lounge; I played both hands at once, it was really boring; all the same I was rather anxious.

He showed up dressed in a black suit and a gold tie; his hair must have taken him a good while; they make gels now that give the most surprising results. In the end a black outfit was what suited him best; poor schmuck.

We still had almost an hour to kill; there was no point in going clubbing before eleven-thirty, I was categorical about that. After a brief discussion we went to have a look-see at the midnight mass; the priest was speaking of an immense hope rising in the hearts of men; I found nothing to object to in that. Tisserand was getting bored, was thinking of other things; I began to feel somewhat disgusted, but I had to go through with it. I'd placed the steak knife in a plastic bag in the front of the car.

I found
The Port of Call
again without difficulty; I'd passed many a dull evening there, it has to be said. This was going back more than ten years; but unpleasant memories are erased less quickly than one thinks.

The club was half-full: mainly of twenty-five-year-olds, which immediately did for the modest chances of Tisserand. A lot of miniskirts, low-cut bustiers; in short, fresh meat. I saw his eyes suddenly pop out on taking in the dance floor; I left to order a bourbon at the bar. On my return he was already standing nervously at the edge of the clutch of dancers. I vaguely murmured Ì'll rejoin you in a minute', and made off towards a table whose slightly prominent position would afford me an excellent view of the theatre of operations.

To begin with Tisserand appeared to be interested in a twenty-something brunette, a secretary most like. I was highly inclined to approve of his choice. On the one hand the girl was no great beauty, and would doubtless be a pushover; her breasts, though good-sized, were already a bit slack, and her buttocks appeared flaccid; in a few years, one felt, all this would sag completely. On the other hand her somewhat audacious get-up unambiguously underlined her intention to find a sexual partner: her thin taffeta dress twirled with every movement, revealing a suspender belt and minuscule g-string in black lace which left her buttocks completely naked. To be sure, her serious, even slightly obstinate face seemed to indicate a prudent character; here was a girl who must surely carry condoms in her bag.

For a few minutes Tisserand danced not far from her, thrusting his arms forward energetically to indicate the enthusiasm the music caused in him. On two or three occasions he even clapped his hands to the beat; but the girl didn't seem to notice him in the least. Profiting from a short break between records he took the initiative and addressed a few words to her. She turned, threw him a scornful glance and took off across the dance floor to get away from him. That was that.

Everything was going as planned. I left to order a second bourbon at the bar.

On my return I sensed that something new was in the offing. A girl was sitting at the table next to mine, alone. She was much younger than Véronique, she might have been seventeen; that aside, she horribly resembled her. Her extremely simple, rather ample dress of beige did not really show off the contours of her body; they scarcely had need of it. The wide hips, the firm and smooth buttocks; the suppleness of the waist which leads the hands up to a pair of round, ample and soft breasts; the hands which rest confidently on the waist, espousing the noble rotundity of the hips. I knew it all; all I had to do was close my eyes to remember. Up to the face, full and candid, expressing the calm seduction of the natural woman, confident of her beauty. The calm serenity of the young filly, still frisky, eager to try out her limbs in a short gallop. The calm tranquillity of Eve, in love with her own nakedness, knowing herself to be obviously and eternally desirable. I realized that two years of separation had changed nothing; I knocked back my bourbon in one. This was the moment Tisserand chose to return; he was perspiring slightly; he spoke to me; I think he wished to know if I intended trying something with the girl. I didn't reply; I was starting to feel like vomiting, and I had a hard-on; things were at a pretty pass. I said Èxcuse me a moment,' and crossed the discothèque in the direction of the toilets. Once inside I put two fingers down my throat, but the amount of vomit proved feeble and disappointing. Then I masturbated with altogether greater success: I began thinking of Véronique a bit, of course, but then I concentrated on vaginas in general and that did the trick. Ejaculation came after a couple of minutes; it brought me a feeling of confidence and certainty.

On my return I saw that Tisserand had engaged in conversation with the pseudoVéronique; she was regarding him calmly and without contempt. I knew deep down that this young girl was a marvel; but it was no big deal, I'd done my masturbating. From the amorous point of view Véronique belonged, as we all do, to a
sacrificed
generation
. She had certainly been capable of love; she wished to still be capable it, I'll say that for her; but it was no longer possible. A scarce, artificial and belated phenomenon, love can only blossom under certain mental conditions, rarely conjoined, and totally opposed to the freedom of morals which characterizes the modern era. Véronique had known too many discothèques, too many lovers; such a way of life impoverishes a human being, inflicting sometimes serious and always irreversible damage. Love as a kind of innocence and as a capacity for illusion, as an aptitude for epitomizing the whole of the other sex in a single loved being rarely resists a year of sexual immorality, and never two. In reality the successive sexual experiences accumulated during adolescence undermine and rapidly destroy all possibility of projection of an emotional and romantic sort; progressively, and in fact extremely quickly, one becomes as capable of love as an old slag. And so one leads, obviously, a slag's life; in ageing one becomes less seductive, and on that account bitter. One is jealous of the younger, and so one hates them. Condemned to remain unvowable, this hatred festers and becomes increasingly fervent; then it dies down and fades away, just as everything fades away. All that remains is resentment and disgust, sickness and the anticipation of death.

At the bar I managed to negotiate a bottle of bourbon with the barman for seven hundred francs. On turning round I banged into a young six foot electrician. 'Hey, what's your problem?' he said in a not unfriendly tone; gazing up at him, I replied

'The milk of human kindness.' I saw my face in the mirror; it was gripped by a clearly unpleasant rictus. The electrician shook his head in resignation; I negotiated the crossing of the dance floor, bottle in hand; just before arriving at my destination, I bumped into a woman at the cash desk and fell to the floor. Nobody helped me up. I was seeing the dancers' legs pumping all around me; I wanted to chop them off with an axe. The lighting effects were of an unbearable violence; I was in hell.

A group of boys and girls were sitting at our table; probably the pseudo-Véronique's classmates. Tisserand wasn't giving in, although he was starting to be a bit out of it; he was letting himself be progressively edged out of the conversation, as was all too obvious; and when one of the boys proposed buying a round at the bar he was already implicitly excluded. He nevertheless made the vague gesture of getting up, he tried to catch pseudo-Véronique's eye; in vain. Thinking better of it, he let himself fall back heavily on the wall-sofa; completely huddled in on himself, he wasn't even aware of my presence; I poured myself another drink.

Tisserand's immobility was maintained for a minute or so; then he gave a sudden start, doubtless imputable to what is usually called `the energy of despair'. Rising abruptly, he brushed past me as he made for the dance floor; his face was smiling and determined; he was still as ugly as ever, though.

Without hesitating he planted himself in front of a blond and very sexy girl of about fifteen. She was wearing a short and skimpy dress of an immaculate white; perspiration had glued it to her body, and it was visible that she had nothing on underneath; her little round buttocks were moulded with perfect precision; one could clearly make out, stiffened by excitement, the brown aureolae of her breasts; the disc jockey had just announced fifteen minutes of oldies.

Tisserand invited her to jive; taken rather unawares, she accepted. From the very first chords of
Come On Everybody
I sensed he was about to screw up. He was swinging the girl around brutally, teeth clenched, a vicious look to him; each time he pulled her towards him he took the opportunity to plant his hand on her buttocks. As soon as the last notes played the young girl rushed off towards a group of girls her own age. Tisserand remained resolutely in the middle of the floor; he was slobbering slightly. The girl was pointing to him while speaking to her chums; she guffawed as she looked his way.

At this moment the pseudo-Véronique returned from the bar with her group of friends; she was deep in conversation with a young black guy, or rather half black. He was slightly older than her; I reckoned he could be about twenty. They came and sat down near our table; as they passed I gave a friendly little wave of the hand to the pseudo-Véronique. She looked at me in surprise but didn't react.