“Nicole? Nicole!”
The housekeeper appears behind the screen door.
“Madam?”
“Another drink, please.”
“It will soon be time for your medication. It would be wiser not to have any more.”
“All right, all right… Please, another drink.”
“Very well, Madam.”
“Nicole’s right, Irène, mixing the two ain’t good. Tell her, Rémi.”
“I’m staying out of it…”
“Pffff, sure, wash your hands of it!”
“Sunday is sacred to me, Lucienne; I don’t feel like playing police officer.”
“Anyways, I don’t need booze to have fun.”
“Is that a reproach, Lucienne?” Irène asks through pursed lips.
“Pass me the oil, Rémi?”
“You just put some on.”
“It dries too fast on me, whaddaya want me to say? I soak it up like a sponge. Guess I was made to be fat. My skin drinks grease like you wouldn’t believe!”
“Here’s your grease, beautiful.”
Lucienne laughs.
“No, it ain’t a reproach, Irène. I’m explaining that I never needed that stuff to have fun. I laugh naturally, you could say. And plenty loud too.”
Watching the suntan lotion sink into her skin as though it were begging for more, Lucienne bursts into hearty laughter.
“You’re lucky.”
Nicole returns with the requested drink. Irène thanks her.
“Why don’t you come sit with us, Nicole?” Lucienne asks. “Surely you ain’t cleaning in this heat?”
The housekeeper smiles at her.
“That’s kind of you, but I was about to leave. I’ve prepared a cold supper for this evening. Does Madam need anything else?”
“No, that will be all, thank you. Oh, your envelope is in the usual place.”
“Very well, Madam. See you Tuesday. You remember I have tomorrow off.”
“Of course, Nicole. Thank you for everything.”
After the housekeeper has left, Lucienne adds:
“Your maid seems efficient.”
“Yes, she’s a gem.”
“That’s what you need, Rémi.”
“I can hire you, if you like.”
“You’d like that way too much! I’m retired, my boy! From that, at least. I’d rather play cashier!”
“And it’s an enormous help to me.”
“I’m bored,” Irène protests. “I don’t have any company anymore! This house is too big for me. In fact, I’ve never even been to the second floor. What would I do up there anyway?”
“Shouldn’t have bought it…”
“It’s rented… I probably won’t stay here long.”
Surprised, Rémi raises his head towards her but says nothing. Irène continues:
“You see, I collect suburban stories. I settle in a neighbourhood and put out my feelers. Sometimes I glean nothing, sometimes…”
“And around here, does it give you ideas?”
“Not the ones I expected.”
“Must be hard, never really feeling at home.”
“It is a way of life, I admit, but it suits my blindness.”
“Poor you.”
“Please don’t pity me! When I spoke of my blindness, I meant my whole life…”
“I don’t get it. You like danger, I guess,” Lucienne adds.
“The danger is inside me, Lucienne; better to live intensely. And I don’t have your natural talent.”
Irène sets her glass on the ground. She rises unsteadily.
“I have often tried to move the pain somewhere else,” she says bitterly. “And now it is inside me forever.”
“You sure ain’t a happy drunk.”
Irène smiles weakly at Lucienne.
“Not really, no. I think I’ve had too much sun and, I’ll grant you, too much whisky.”
“Easy…”
“Thank you,” she says to Rémi, who is supporting her. “Shall we go for a swim?”
“I’m staying right here,” Lucienne announces.
Rémi guides Irène to the pool steps.
They enter the water slowly. Irène sighs with relief.
“This winter, I’ll go to Chile. I have a friend there who owns a villa on the Pacific. I usually spend all of January and February there. That’s where I write.”
“You’re spoiled.”
“What do you think? I pay him in kind, and he himself is generously endowed by nature… Everyone gets what they want. One more point in favour of writing. The lovers in almost all my books have Rrrrrrrrodrrrrigo’s cock!”
She turns in a circle, trailing her hands across the surface of the water.
“I don’t seem to have crossed paths with your Victor very often… In fact, we’ve never been introduced.”
“He’s very busy,” he lies.
She walks slowly, dipping her head beneath the water from time to time as though searching for something there.
“Are you going to leave him?”
“Why do you say that?”
“You aren’t meant to live together. Lucienne told me.”
Rémi glances at Lucienne, who pretends to be asleep.
“I’m very fond of Victor,” he ventures as the customary protest.
“But you’re also very fond of many others.”
“Including you.”
“Don’t be foolish. Are your lovers the suburbs you visit?”
“Are your escorts the streets you roam?”
She gives a knowing little laugh and turns around three times.
“For now, I’m letting things live,” Rémi concludes.
“And die?”
“And bring to life?”
“I should imitate you.”
“By starting with no longer drinking? Lucienne is right.”
Irène stops spinning and approaches him with a flat smile.
“Let’s make a pact, shall we? When I’ve hit bottom, I’ll signal you.”
“And what if it’s too late?”
“One mustn’t disturb the dying.”
“As long as there’s life…”
“Have mercy, please, spare me that.”
She fills her lungs and lets herself sink. Ten, fifteen seconds. He joins her, takes hold of her gently and forces her back to the surface. She pulls away with just enough firmness for him to sense her barely contained frustration. She finds the steps, climbs out of the water, feels around for her towel and returns to the patio.
“You should go for a swim, Lucienne. It’s relaxing!”
“I put on too much oil. I ain’t even touching that water!”
“Ah, the doorbell. Would you be so kind as to answer it? I’m soaking wet.”
“Shore thing.”
When Lucienne reappears, she trumpets:
“Rémi, you got company!”
“Hello,” Stéphane says, kissing Irène.
Rémi gets out of the water quickly.
“Well, well, speaking of streets one roams, Rémi!” Irène calls in a tone that might pass for spiteful.
Taken aback by Irène’s remark, Stéphane turns to Rémi and holds out a towel.
“Is this yours?”
“Hi. Yes, thanks. This is a lovely surprise. We’d given up on you.”
“I was passing by…”
Liar, Rémi thinks. This is a suburban street; it leads nowhere.
“…and since no one answered at your place, I came to pay my respects to Irène.”
“What a gallant man!”
“You know each other?” Lucienne asks.
“Quite well,” Rémi replies. “This is the Stéphane I told you about.”
“I figured that out, my boy…”
“Everyone needs a drink!” Irène announces.
“What’ll you have, Stéphane?”
“Is there any beer?”
“Yes, all kinds,” Irène replies.
“Then a good kind.”
“I’d rather have a lemonade, if there is any,” Lucienne says.
Irène leans against her, assuming an exaggeratedly cheerful expression.
“I have everything, my dear friend!”
“I’ll go,” Rémi says, finishing drying himself.
He expects Stéphane to follow him, but the latter merely smiles at the two women.
Rémi searches for the liquor in the living room; if he remembers correctly, the whisky is in the oval decanter. He smells it—no, that is scotch. That one, then. There it is. Now the glasses, ice, lemonade and beer.
“Need some help?” asks Stéphane, who has slipped quietly into the house.
“Yes, that’d be nice.”
Stéphane picks up the two glasses Rémi has prepared and says:
“I’m glad to see you again.”
Rémi holds on to one of the glasses to stop Stéphane from leaving too quickly.
“Were you working?”
Stéphane smiles nervously.
“Yes, a cruise with a lady. Have you seen my tan?”
“Yes, you look very handsome. You could have let me know.”
The reproach comes out on its own. Stéphane frees himself from Rémi’s grasp.
“I left in a hurry.”
He turns on his heel, making it clear he does not want to say anything more for the moment. He rejoins the two women.
“So, ladies, I imagine the whisky is for Lucienne and the fruit juice for Irène?”
“And where’s your glass of milk?” Irène retorts.
Rémi joins them and gives Stéphane his beer. He quickly tries to define his unease and determine its true causes. He is certainly glad to see this man again. He has never denied himself the sight of passing beauties; the eyes can replace sex, but never the heroin of the night, the methadone of his boredom. If there is one thing he has never known how to do, it is resist the feast of men. The drug, yes, white opium, dark musk, a lover’s supple leather.
He cannot suppress a deep sigh, which fortunately seems to go unnoticed. The true reason for his unease is that he no longer knows. He is lost. The fear of danger, no doubt, the desire to protect himself, to taste the forbidden fruit peacefully—yes, peacefully—without thinking of the next day’s desert sands.
He watches Stéphane. The movement of his lips, his proud bearing, the apparent firmness of his muscles, no longer that of youth but rather the result of regular training. The hours ahead could be delicious. But is the game now worth the effort?
Lucienne elbows him in the ribs. She has probably guessed what is brewing in his head, for she begins a barely discreet appraisal of Stéphane’s beauty before concluding:
“Anyways, Irène, Rémi’s a lucky man. A fine tan like that, you could spread it on instead of our lotion!”
“My client was of the same opinion.”
“You made her come, at least?”
Stéphane looks questioningly at Rémi. Rémi shrugs and smiles at him. There. Better to smile.
Stéphane knows how to make his companions laugh. It is his profession. Rémi downs his beer a little too quickly; his thoughts open up as though he must take inventory of the past few days all over again.
The memory of Luc overlays that of Stéphane. The desire is different, more vernacular and uncompromising, hot-blooded, so vividly do Luc’s veins radiate reds and blues beneath his skin. Stéphane-Luc makes the ladies laugh again. Victor’s features are added: lips that yield rich saliva, clear liquids, well distilled. Stéphane-Luc-Victor smiles at him with love. Rémi tastes the cold beer. His tongue seizes with fright.
Stéphane for novelty, Luc for intensity, Victor for satiety. The ideal man. Top with the first, bottom with the second, companion to the third. He tries reversing the order: companion to the first? Still bottom with the second? Top with Victor? What if he submitted to Victor instead? Stuffed by Stéphane? Intoxicated by Luc? The boundaries between the possibilities fade, and the result draws closer to zero than certainty. Emptiness, in short. Once again. Nothing to alter happiness, dislodge the pain. Just like that, his desire for Stéphane fades. Rémi worries about his future.
Lucienne is happy. She looks at Stéphane, then Rémi, and winks at him. What does it mean? Approval, or simply complicity? Does he need approval? He watches Irène chatting merrily, her eyes buried behind opaque lenses, her head still facing forward.
Looking at nothing in particular, he imagines himself as Irène, deprived of his sight, every feeler extended. What does he feel beside Stéphane? Strength, tenderness, complicity? He knows all that already. Each of his lovers has given him the same sensations for the duration of an escapade. He keeps searching. But the eye is not so easily subdued. Stéphane’s slightest movement is recorded, then offered up for analysis, finely ground to extract its invisible juice, the homeopathic scent that the brain will magnify until it attacks reality itself, ad hominem.
Lucienne yawns. Irène announces that someone will be arriving soon. They take their leave. Rémi brings Stéphane to his office and gives him a swimsuit. Naked, Stéphane approaches him. Not in this house, Rémi thinks. Yet he lets himself be overcome, and Stéphane’s kiss is as intense as it is brief. Stéphane puts on his swimsuit.
“What are you doing here?”
By way of an initial explanation, Stéphane bares his teeth with feigned honesty.
“Coming back for you.”
“Why? You haven’t been in touch.”
“I was very busy.”
“Try another one.”
Stéphane grows serious again.
“But it’s the truth. I’m here. That’s a sign in itself, isn’t it?”
Rémi feels himself weakening, unable to fight, and knows he probably never will.