The garden receives the wind’s slow undulations among its branches. The sky took its time draping itself in black. Rémi is glad he closed the shop. He need not endure the complaints of city dwellers deprived of air, whom he imagines praying all day for rain, clouds, even an early autumn, so weary are they of suffocating beneath the smog. Better yet, he need not hear them curse the still more tenacious heat of his bakery. Soon he will do them a favour by having air conditioning installed out front. He himself grew accustomed to the heat long ago and stopped fighting it; better to dress lightly, refine his breathing, slow his pace.
The returning mildness of the night is welcome. Nocturnal insects have returned to haunt the shrubs; the lungs draw deeper breaths. The air holds the promise of a storm that will not arrive for three good days, but no matter. Though the moon has lost some of its roundness, it still casts surprising calcified shadows that deepen the buildings’ torpor. As usual, Rémi sits on the steps.
From the other side come the muffled words and intermittent laughter of Stéphane and Irène, playing in the pool. Rémi imagines Stéphane trying to float an Irène who has lost her balance. Stéphane bursts into open laughter; Irène throws back her head in reply and seems to free herself of her anxieties. The two laughs are different, Rémi notes. Stéphane’s is controlled, escorting Irène’s more volatile one. On his garage roof, a bottle of beer in hand, Émile sits in a patio chair. Rémi waves, and Émile cheerfully returns the gesture. Émile had always kept his chair on the roof, his wife Alice once told him. She rarely climbs up, willingly doing so on new-moon nights when no clouds obscure the meagre stars of the urban sky. Otherwise, she plays the domestic groundhog, puts out the garbage, hangs washing on the line, opens a window, and sticks out an arm to judge the weather. “Émile isn’t mean, you know. For him, spying on people is like watching television.” She had said it without conviction. Rémi also looks through his window, mainly to spy on Cobra, that randy devil. Otherwise, he prefers ogling on the Internet—different fauna, different customs—or at the sauna—different beasts, different pleasures. “I understand your Émile. He’s killing time.” She had seemed unwilling to understand, or uninterested in offering a more honest assessment of her marriage. She had returned home, her back rounded.
Stéphane and Irène’s laughter erupts again. He has not yet digested the coincidence, almost too funny, too absurd. Irène knows Léo, Léo knows Rémi, Rémi knows Stéphane, Stéphane now knows Irène, Irène knows Rémi. Know six people, a mathematician theorized, and through the statistical play of formed relationships, you will know the entire planet. Might six days in one person’s life contain every hour of their countdown? Possible, but difficult to prove. More likely, he no longer possesses the ease of youth and has probably reached the peak of his energies. From now on, the curve will descend, despite the beauty that still serves him, he admits. He draws on it like an inexhaustible supply of water, sustaining the illusion that he is standing still. A youth working overtime that fools neither the universe nor his own demons.
“Rémi! Come join us!”
He starts.
“Come on, Monsieur Rémi,” Stéphane’s amused voice calls.
Rémi and Stéphane know a sauna. Stéphane and Rémi now know a pool.
“Are you there?”
“Of course he’s there,” Stéphane comments.
Is it that obvious? He hears them laugh. What has Stéphane told Irène? Is he anxious over so little? Is he not happy about what is happening? Something new to sink his teeth into, something that might break everything again. Émile watches him, no doubt awaiting his decision. Victor has not returned. His last clients left his office long ago. The possibilities are numerous. Perhaps Victor has a lover, as Rémi has fifty.
“Are you coming?”
Rémi hesitates. It is easy to topple over, to act blindly, to gouge out one’s eyes in dazzling pleasure or vitrify one’s thoughts upon impregnable reason. Both chasms hold as many dangers as answers. Only heroes try, for a time, to balance on the slender wire between them. He is not that hero.
“One moment!”
He hurries inside to put on his swimsuit. Instead of freeing him, the tight garment sends his cock fractal interpretations of his desires. It swells. So much the better, Rémi thinks; he will look all the more impressive.
He walks around his pool, crosses the hedge at the usual spot, registers the cedar branches’ sharp pressure against his skin. He is tense. Insects fly up around him. On the other side of the hedge, he stops. In the dimly lit pool, Irène floats naked, supported by Stéphane. Rémi looks towards the fat truck driver. Yes, he is still there.
“Someone’s spying on you, you know.”
“Yes, we know,” answers Stéphane, also naked, nodding for him to dive in.
Stéphane motions for him to remove his swimsuit. Rémi refuses. He dives into the deepest end. The water is not chlorinated enough.
He surfaces near them. Irène hums.
“I know everything about you two,” she says with a chuckle.
He clears the water streaming down his face. Stéphane smiles at him. As irresistible as the other day, Rémi thinks, and so different from Luc. A stranger. Yes, a foreign way of doing things. It took less than a second to reach that conclusion, to rejoice at being here in this water with him, and still less time to reveal nothing and take his place opposite him, on the other side of Irène’s floating wreck.
“You’re drunk,” he tells her.
“Naturally,” she replies in a worldly tone.
“Careful!” warns Stéphane, restoring the woman’s balance. “Help me keep her up, Rémi. Take her legs—here.”
Rémi obeys. Stéphane shoots him a sidelong smile that makes him melt. He gently holds Irène’s feet; Stéphane rocks her body.
“Ah, this feels so good! What I wouldn’t give to make love right now!”
“Would you like me to call the neighbour?” Stéphane whispers.
“Why not? It depends what he can put between my legs.”
“Madame is vulgar.”
“Madame is sincere,” she corrects him. “And Madame is paying.”
“Madame must forgive me.”
“Madame doesn’t give a fuck about your apologies, but she likes you.”
They both laugh. Stéphane’s playful tone reminds him of nothing. A stranger? In his new manners as much as in the trade he practises. Free?
Irène begins humming again. Stéphane blows softly over her body and contents himself with keeping her afloat as she seems to drift into blissful sleep. From time to time, Stéphane sends a leg towards Rémi, scouting. They speak with their eyes. Stéphane desires him; Rémi hardly dares believe it.
“Are we going to stay like this long?” he asks as a diversion.
“Yes,” Stéphane says. “Madame is relaxing. I am at her command.”
“What were you talking about before I arrived?”
“We were talking about you. Stéphane seems to like you very much.”
“Madame is right.”
“Monsieur thanks you,” Rémi replies.
“How beautiful love is,” Irène sighs.
“Is this love we’re talking about?” Rémi retorts.
Stéphane gives him a questioning look.
“Perhaps you’re merely blind, like me,” Irène suggests.
“Madame is too kind,” Stéphane says in an obsequious tone that sends her into unbridled laughter.
“Have you been drinking too?” Rémi asks.
“My blood is naturally alcoholic. I see everything through rose-coloured glasses.”
“Impossible,” Rémi replies. “I see everything in grey, and I’m all the better for it.”
“I doubt that…”
Rémi swallows; there is no point lying.
“You’re a curious butterfly, Irène, and nudity suits you beautifully.”
“Mmmmm,” she says, arching her back. Her breasts rise from the water like a new island.
“Easy,” says Stéphane.
Then, addressing Rémi:
“She hasn’t stopped drinking since I arrived. And with the medication she takes… Irène?”
“I’m listening,” she says weakly.
“Perhaps we should take her inside,” Rémi suggests.
Irène arches again.
“No, not yet!”
“Easy, easy,” Stéphane repeats.
“The neighbours may gossip, you know,” Rémi adds, unconvinced by his own argument.
“Let them gossip, my friend. Their lives are surely boring enough.”
“You said the opposite earlier.”
“Stop it, Rémi. You’re the one boring me.”
“I can leave…”
“What’s wrong with you?”
“He’s troubled,” Stéphane suggests.
“So am I! I’m disappointed. I would have so loved to have a man, a real one… Instead, I’m being paraded around by two gazelles.”
“Don’t you have a lover?” asks Rémi, gently rocking Irène’s legs simply to have something to do.
“That feels good. Keep going. Water can be so erotic… No, I don’t have a lover anymore. Sometimes I have lovers, beasts from my own clan.”
“Your clan?” Stéphane asks.
“Don’t tell me the agency didn’t warn you.”
“Oh, that…”
“Yes, that… Keep going, Rémi. Make me come.”
Irène’s request surprises him.
“You’ve had too much to drink…”
“You surprise me,” she says, disappointed.
“Because I don’t want to make love to you?”
She laughs.
“There are other ways. This water feels so good. Flap, flap, flap. Like a woman’s tongue. Or the fingers of a young slave. My God, I feel like Cleopatra! I’m a butterfly, as you say.”
With her arms, she imitates the beating of a butterfly’s wings, but slows down, unable to concentrate on her movements.
“You look more like a bird now.”
She opens her eyes, struggling out of the stupor threatening to claim her. The music, transmitted by a small stereo set at the pool’s edge, becomes less jazzy. Rémi continues moving Irène’s legs as she hums, occasionally keeping time with the water.
“Flap, flap, flap.”
“This pool needs more chlorine, don’t you think?” Rémi says.
“It certainly doesn’t need more nudity,” Stéphane adds.
Irène dissolves into spasmodic hilarity. Stéphane winks at Rémi, who cannot help making a bitter face. Stéphane encourages him to change his mood by thrusting out his chest and smiling, showing him that he too is a prisoner of the situation. Irène has begun humming again.
“So you know your neighbour across the way is spying on you from his roof?” Rémi asks.
“Everyone has their own way of coming, don’t you think?” Irène replies coldly.
“You’re not afraid of scandal.”
“I’m used to it, if you only knew. I’ve done worse—or rather, people have believed I was doing worse. Everything is appearance. I may be naked, but I’m only a poor butterfly in the hands of pretty gazelles.”
“Gazelles don’t play with butterflies,” Rémi suggests.
“And that’s why butterflies are drunk most of the time.”
“What do you know about butterflies, Irène?”
You’re going too far, he thinks.
“Do you hate lies that much?”
“I’d be lying if I said yes.”
She laughs.
“The truth, my friend—because you are my friend, aren’t you?”
“Yes, I think so.”
“He thinks so! My God! The truth, my dear friend, is a dish that may be eaten hot or cold. Our daily pain surely deserves a little seasoning now and then.”
“Lies?”
“No, poetry, entertainment! Have you heard of them? Take your truck driver. He’s hurting no one, and he doesn’t seem to be calling the police. He may think I’m mad, but I understand why he likes what he sees.”
“He’s probably jerking off,” Stéphane says.
“His name is Émile. What if his wife saw him?”
Rémi already knows the answer. His wife is an accomplice, in a way. Irène suggests another:
“If she were clever, she’d jerk off beside him.”
“On the roof?”
“Why not?”
“She could simply call the police herself.”
“And the police would ask what she was doing on her roof.”
They burst out laughing.
“But they could take pictures,” Rémi insists, amused.
“Don’t you think you’re going too far?”
“The situation could hardly be further from convention.”
“You like it. Admit it.”
“Certainly.”
“Stéphane, you’re still saying nothing?”
“I’m happy to be at Madame’s command.”
“You’re supposed to be my escort, not the resident idiot. And you, Rémi—your Victor might see you.”
“He wouldn’t understand. I know that.”
“So what?”
“He isn’t there. He deserted the house tonight.”
“Oh, how intriguing.”
“No, I’m the schemer in this affair.”
“You see, my dear Rémi, how interesting the suburbs are. Why live next door to Michael Jackson and his dolls?”
“You’re not quite that rich.”
“No!” she answers, bursting into laughter.
“And I’m very happy to see you again, Rémi.”
“So am I,” Rémi replies awkwardly.
“How sweet they are,” she says sadly. “Now let’s be quiet, shall we? Take us into deeper water. My radar is bored. Where are the bats?”
The two men move Irène across the surface of the pool. They smile at each other more and more. Stéphane is too handsome, Rémi thinks, though he does not really understand what that “too” means in his mind.
“Tell me about the moon, Rémi,” Irène asks.
“Which one?”
“Whichever you like. Everything suddenly feels so equal…”
“Well, the one in the sky is dying.”
After another moment of silence, Irène begins to cry.