Hotelles (36 page)

“That's disgusting . . .”

“Totally disgusting. But less so when you're a twenty-five-year-old doctor in chemistry making three hundred euros a month, with no prospects of job growth in your home country. They grin and bear it, thinking of the El Dorado they'll find when they get here.”

His way of synthesizing the problems these girls faced was raw, but unfortunately it reflected their sad truth.

He was clearly lucid about life's harsh realities. I could hear and read it in his haggard face—it was hard to believe he and David were the same age; he looked at least ten years older. But why did he apply this insight so parsimoniously? Why hadn't I paid the price the night we met?

I could not forget the real object of our rendezvous: a certain gala when David first appeared to me.

“Why haven't you said anything to him?”

“Said what?”

He looked like he was coming out of a bad dream.

“About me. About what I was to you that night . . .”

“To David?”

“Yes. To David. Parties, tennis matches . . . You've had plenty of opportunities to do it. It would have been easy to leave out any
details
that might embarrass you.”

The ones we attended to and explored in a beautifully decorated room like the Josephine, the Mata Hari, or another.

Since he didn't say anything, I put the final nail in my own coffin:

“Isn't that what friends do? You tell each other when you learn something compromising about the other's girlfriend. You protect each other from stepping into a bad marriage. You can call me an escort, a Hotelle if you want . . . But that night, I was nothing more than a whore.”

His eyes widened with almost childlike candor. I could tell he was not faking his surprise. A little girl running through Café Marly, down the long arcade where the central passage was barely wide enough for two pedestrians, crashed into his chair. He didn't react. He considered me, a rueful smile on his lips.

“Annabelle . . . He knew exactly
who
and especially
what
you were to me that night.”

Despite the rush of blood ringing in my ears, I had heard correctly.

The blast ricocheted off the walls of the gallery and fell heavily on me. No one in our vicinity had moved. My world was crumbling, not theirs.

“What makes you so sure?”

“What makes me so sure . . . ,” he repeated to himself, his eyes glazed. “So you know nothing about his business outside of broadcasting?”

“What do you mean?”

I gripped my chair as though it were threatening to disappear from under me.

“The agency, Belles de Nuit . . .”

“What about it?”

“He owns it,” he concluded sotto voce, as if to soften the blow.

And being a good manager of his estate and careful to make wise investments, he had put some money into what was for him a “small business,” according to François Marchadeau.

In other words, he knew all of the girls in Rebecca's catalogue—at least all of their sweet little faces on glossy paper—if only by reputation.

 

DO NOT SAY ANOTHER WORD.

Not even good-bye.

Leave the café without staggering. Or bumping into one of the children on my way.

Go to the metro.

Lose myself in the train car, and hope never to leave, and pray that the sharp screech of the metro takes me away and dissolves what is left of me.

Get back to Duchesnois House (empty), pack a bag, stuffing it with things at random. Without really thinking about what might be useful or the length of my time away.

Call Sophia, a lead weight in my stomach, another in my throat. Barely able to articulate. Feel her concern on the other end of the line. She is still my friend, unconditionally.

Then wait for her to take me somewhere far away. Collapse in a chair in the living room, Felicity on my knees, tears frozen on my eyelids. Incapable of falling, just as I am incapable of understanding what's happening to me.

 

I OPENED THE DOOR, DECIDING
to wait for Sophia outside. There I saw Ysiam, as gawky as usual, standing at the gate holding a small package inside a plastic bag. I hadn't been wrong. He was a cog in the machine set on my destruction after all. An innocent pawn, but still the person who had been delivering my ruination, day by day.

“Hello, Mademoiselle.”

“Hello, Ysiam.”

“Are you leaving?”

“Yes . . . ,” I stammered, as though he'd caught me. “Not long. What brings you here?”

“I have a package for you.”

“From whom?”

“I don't know. Monsieur Jacques told me to deliver it. So I'm delivering it.”

Click. The Ysiam gear had fulfilled his function.

“I understand. Give it to me.”

I opened the gate for him to hand me the bag, then sent him away with a smile that was infinitely less sweet and disarming than his.

“I hope it's good news,” he said as he walked away.

“Yes. I hope so, too.”

Standing on the cobblestones of the little circular courtyard, I opened the package in two nervous gestures. I wasn't hoping for anything. I just wanted to leave. Leave and understand. And I knew that, as usual, the box would offer more mysteries than answers.

However, no magnetic keycard for the Hôtel des Charmes. No note giving me a rendezvous. At the bottom of the box, one lone object accompanied by a card. A Venetian mask like the one I had already worn for Louie during one of our encounters. I stuffed it in my bag and seized the white rectangle. I read the commandment. One more. The seventh, and which I had no intention of fulfilling:

7—Thou shalt explore the unknown.

Yet I realized, just as the screech of rubber tires drew me out of my melancholy, that was exactly what I was about to do. Go spelunking in an abyss where I hoped I would find myself again.

31

T
he sun, which had been so radiant all day, was starting to set, and the atmosphere grew cooler. We stopped at a rest area to put the roof back on the Bug. I didn't notice which one. Two weeks before summer vacation, and it was still fairly empty. But soon, I knew, screaming children and litter would invade.

I gave Sophia some cash to fill up the gas tank. We still hadn't said a word. Sixty miles later, as we were veering right, toward Rennes, I broke the silence. Why then? I don't know. I guess I was just ready. And anyway, I've never been one to hold a grudge. Since I knew she'd already betrayed me, all that was left to figure out was why.

“How did you meet Louie?” I attacked head-on.

“I swear I didn't know it had anything to do with Louie Barlet.”

She seemed sincere.

“Who did you think it was?”

“A client . . . A client like any other.”

First painful realization: They had slept together.

Since I was now taking my turn at the wheel, both hands firmly gripping it, I was limited in how I could express my anger. I had only closed my eyes for half a second when I heard Sophia shout:

“Whoa! Be careful!”

I came back to attention.

“He never told you his name?”

“No, he went by a stupid first name, Richard.”

Richard, the name of his chauffeur.

“But he wasn't the only one to give a fake name,” she went on. “You know that: plenty of men prefer to remain completely anonymous, just in case . . .”

Just in case their wives got too curious. Just in case he ran across one of us in a . . . less private context. And why not, just in case the guy in question turned out to be the brother-in-law (and lover) of your best friend.

“Did you
see
him often?”

“Two, three times, I don't remember exactly.”

Yes, she did. But I could tell from the tone of humility in her voice—a rarity, I had to admit—that she was trying to spare me. And despite the rage I couldn't help feeling, I was grateful.

“And . . . how did he end up suggesting that you do an interview?”

“He pretended he was a journalist and a writer.”

“Did he say for whom?”

“No. Just that he worked freelance and then sold his work to production companies, news agencies, and sometimes directly to certain channels. He downplayed everything, though, and was always saying things like ‘if it ever even makes it on air.' ”

I trusted Louie to look sincere while piling on the lies. Sophia probably hadn't had the chance to discover his tell.

“But you knew Rebecca had forbidden us from talking about our missions.”

“Yes, of course . . . But he promised that he wouldn't show my face. And that they'd modify my voice. Everything was supposed to be completely anonymous.”

Anonymous for everyone but me.

“Did he pay you?”

I checked my side-view mirror before passing the car in front of us, a maneuver that momentarily let Sophia off the hook. But I wasn't fooled. The tick-tock of the turn signal was like a confession.

“So?” I probed. “Did he pay you a lot?”

“Two thousand.”

“Euros?” I was practically choking.

“Umm, yeah . . . not rubles.”

“In cash, I guess?”

“Yes. Bills of five hundred. I've never had so much in my hands at once . . . It was crazy. You can imagine how powerful that makes you feel!”

Under the circumstances, what had first seemed like a stab in the back finally showed its true face: she had only acted out of necessity, through her survival instinct. Also out of greed. Louie must have known about her situation, and her spendthrift ways, and also that she would accept his offer without hesitation.

I didn't believe for a second that he had chosen my friend by accident. And it certainly hadn't been innocent. Obviously, he had been targeting me.

So many details and questions remained unanswered. If the purpose of the report had been to unbalance me, what was Louie's endgame? That I get fired? That I quit? Leaving BTV would certainly make me more available to him. But did he need to humiliate me to do it?

Mile after mile, kilometer after kilometer, my thoughts turned from one brother to the other, from Louie to David. Because, and this seemed to be the crux of the mystery, if David had known all along about my actual role the night we'd first met . . . why had Louie blackmailed me?

My thoughts remained muddled as night fell. A pinkish-gray veil settled over the green landscape; then everything darkened.

“Have you seen him since?”

“Not since the interview, no. Rebecca told me once or twice that ‘Richard' wanted to see me again, but I said no. I thought it was a little weird, to slee—” She stopped herself, then began again: “To keep seeing the man who had interviewed me. Especially on that subject.”

The alarm and panic I'd seen on her face at Bois des Vincennes had been real. And that also explained why she had been keeping her distance from me ever since. She'd been clueless as to what she had gotten herself involved in. And as far as I could tell, from her state of confusion and the way she was curling up into the gray plastic of the car door, she knew even less than I.

After a while, she said in an almost playful tone:

“You know, he's kind of crazy . . .”

“Why do you say that?”

She turned toward me, her impish smile now mouthing surprise:

“Don't tell me you haven't seen his tattoos?”

“Yes. An
A
and a
D
. . . Why?”

I had mentioned the two that were visible to everyone, and that I had seen on my walks with Louie. Her look told me that, unlike me, she had seen them all.

“But that's just the tip of the iceberg. The very tip of Alphabet Man!”

“ ‘Alphabet Man'?” I almost burst out laughing. “What kind of nickname is that?”

“He didn't tell you? He has the entire alphabet tattooed on his body.”

“Right, I know,” I said.

“That's not crazy? It took him four or five years to have all twenty-six letters etched into his skin. Not all uniform, you know: he varies the size, the font, the decorations, et cetera.”

“He's obsessive . . . ,” I agreed.

As I said it, I realized the descriptor's ambiguity: Louie was crazy, but at the same time, he was also kind of brilliant. The contrast suited him perfectly; it was perfectly coherent. I didn't need Sophia to tell me the rest: Louie dreamed of living off his pen. He would have given anything to write and only write. Even his own body was like the living matter of his art, to be used like a palette.

I briefly recalled the body of a man in a latex suit, then naked, and how it had escaped into darkness. I tried to imagine each letter of the alphabet on his tight muscles, whose feline movements accentuated every stroke of every symbol.

I knew I should not lose myself in such fantasies. After all, this was the man who had trapped me! Who had been playing with me this whole time.

“Soph . . . I have just one last question . . .”

I gulped. An unexpected pain shot through my throat. I felt as though I were swallowing a bocce ball.

“Yes?”

“You have to tell me the truth.”

“Of course!” she cried, clearly wanting to make amends. “Of course I will.”

Another giant lump in my throat.

“Has . . . Have you ever had David as a client?”

“What?” She was practically screaming. “No, are you crazy?! Never!”

“You've done it with Louie without knowing who he was.”

“Yeah, but that's different. David is a public figure. I've already seen his picture.”

I didn't recall ever having shown her his portrait or one of his newspaper articles or one of the images on my phone.

“Admit it,” I teased, smiling. “You've Googled him!”

“Well, yeah, obviously. What do you think? My best friend is going out with a billionaire. The least I could do is see what he looks like! Am I right?”

“Right, right . . .”

The headlights swept over a sign that told us we were about to enter Rennes. We would have to exit soon to go west around the city and head north, toward Saint-Malo.

“Why do you ask? Do you think I'm so twisted I'd sleep with your fiancé?”

“Of course not. Don't be stupid . . . ,” I replied lightly. “It's not that.”

“What is it, then?”

“I don't know, really. A hunch . . .”

A nightmare was more like it. One of those ghosts that come out onto the road from the woods. I suddenly realized that we had just gone through the Mayenne, a region known for its dark legends, its skeletons and witches. Sure enough, a sign suddenly appeared in the night that announced where we were: Fairies' Rock. I shivered and stepped on the accelerator.

Happily, Sophia did not insist. Because, in the end, what could I tell her that wasn't just a raw expression of my fear? Of my gnawing terror?

Louie and David, accomplices? United in a twisted and ridiculous plot? I couldn't bring myself to believe it. Their fight over the phone, at just the moment when Fred called, was enough to convince me of their discord. At the very least of a deep disagreement, most likely over me.

Or had the two associates been fighting over their loot, me? Worse: Had the disagreement over the phone been part of their farce?

“You hungry?”

My friend brought me down to more earthly concerns, pointing to a rest area with a convenience store.

“Yes. You're right.”

My sandwich was rubbery and tasteless. My thoughts were hardly fresher. We ate quickly and sped back onto the highway, resolving not to stop again before we reached our destination.

We still had a good hour before we'd reach La Malouine Point, the seat of the most sumptuous villas on the coast. It faced Saint-Malo, which was wild, rough, and full of history. Dinard appeared to us like a sleeping beauty, a princess from the Belle Epoque in her dress of granite and stone pine. It felt stormy, and in the distance, we could make out heavy sea clouds rolling toward the shore.

 

Are our fantasies simply obsessions that we must keep ourselves from enacting? Or, instead, are they the fuel without which our libidos cannot purr?

All I know is that the few I've had the chance to test out were not pleasant in real life. Making love in water, for instance. Fred and I tried it once, while vacationing on the Balearic Islands. The salt, the sand, the water's perpetual movement, the difficulty of finding a stable position on the seafloor, the bodily fluids—nature's lubricants—washed away by the sea . . . Nothing was as nice as we'd imagined. Fred, surprised by how cold the water was, ended up losing his erection. The whole thing was unpleasant and fairly pathetic. Another bad idea. Next fantasy?

 

Handwritten note by me, 6/14/2009

 

WE SLOWED WHEN WE REACHED
Avenue Poussineau to stare at the turn-of-the-century buildings, all richly ornamented with friezes, ceramic decorations, and names that made us daydream: Kerozar, Beautiful Bedrock, Flat Rock, Ker Annick . . . Brown Rocks, the house we were looking for, was at the far end of the cliff, where a coastal path traced a right angle due west. The other constructions were mostly made of granite or brownstone, but the Barlet family house was in the style of a Louis XIII hunting lodge from Versailles. Brown Rocks was larger, more imposing than its neighboring houses, and was built into the cliff, apart from all the other villas, highlighting its privileged status. We parked in front without worry. No one would question us when we went to the gate, whose sharp points dissuaded impromptu visitors.

“Now what?” Sophia inquired. “How do we get in?”

I took the giant key out of my bag.

“With
this
. . . I mean, that's what I hope.”

I slipped the craggy metal object into the lock and twisted my wrist in two energetic movements. The gate did not resist. We took a few steps over the red gravel before reaching the front door, which proved easy to open, too. Security measures clearly were not up to date here, but it just went to show that the villa had been abandoned for some time. And besides, it suited us.

As soon as we set foot in the entryway, the smell of dust and mold filled our nostrils, choking us. As in ghost movies, all the furniture was covered in white sheets, which had grayed with time.

“Your man's vacation house is
so
charming!” Sophia couldn't help but comment.

It only took a few minutes to turn the electricity on, remove the sheets, and sweep up. The ground floor at least looked alive. It wasn't very late, but neither one of us had the energy just yet to go upstairs and prepare beds. And that was assuming we could find clean linens.

I rummaged through my bag for a tissue—too many mites for my allergies—and came across my phone. Five text messages and three voice mails. All from David. I didn't have a moment's hesitation before shutting it off, without consulting them.

Sophia, looking past the decrepitude, was marveling over the house's lustrous past, which shone through in many ways, especially in the sheer dimensions of the rooms:

“It's crazy to own such a beautiful place and let it go to waste . . . I'll never understand rich people. It's like they don't even care about the things they own. It must be because they have so much money . . .”

Outside of her moralizing lesson, she raised an interesting point: David wanted to have our honeymoon here, in these ruins, this dirty and dilapidated old house? I had trouble believing it.

While Sophia rummaged through the kitchen, I started exploring the upstairs. The rooms seemed frozen in a time more ancient than Aurora's tragedy. Some of them hadn't been redecorated in fifty years. There was a lot of flaking paint, and the beds looked as though they'd been molded by generations of sleepers. I did not linger on such relics. I was looking for something else. Memories, anything that could speak to the life the Barlet brothers had once had here. Something more than furniture or wall coverings. The first two rooms came up empty. The third was more promising: I yanked open the three drawers of an old dresser in dark wood. They were filled with papers, notebooks, and photo albums.