Hunting and Gathering (12 page)

“. . . door . . . open,” she moaned.

 
The garret room was icy. Philibert had trouble getting through the door because of the mattress, and he stumbled against a pile of discarded clothes. He knelt down, lifted one blanket, then another, then a comforter, and finally came to her face. She was drenched in sweat.

He put his hand on her forehead:

“You've got a raging temperature! You can't stay like this, not here, not all alone. And what happened with your fireplace?”

“. . . no strength to move it . . .”

“Do you mind if I take you with me?”

“Where?”

“To my place.”

“I don't feel like moving . . .”

“I shall carry you in my arms.”

“Like Prince Charming?”

Philibert smiled. “All right, I see you're so feverish that you've become delirious.”

He pulled the mattress over to the middle of the room, removed her heavy shoes and lifted her up with an exemplary lack of grace.

“I guess I'm not as strong as a real prince. Uh, can you try to slide your arms around my neck, please?”

She dropped her head onto his shoulder and he was troubled by the acrid smell which rose from her neck.

 
The abduction was a disaster. At every turn Philibert bumped his sleeping beauty into something, and with every step he took he almost toppled over. Fortunately he had remembered to take the service key with him and only had to go down three flights. He went through the pantry and the kitchen, almost dropped her ten times along the corridor, then finally laid her down on his aunt Edmée's bed.

“Listen, I ought to undress you a bit, I think. I . . . rather . . . you, well, it's all very embarrassing.”

She had closed her eyes.

 
Right.

Philibert Marquet de La Durbellière found himself in an extraordinarily tricky situation.

He thought of the daring deeds of his ancestors, but neither the Convention of 1793, nor the conquest of Cholet, nor the courage of Cathelineau or the bravery of La Rochejaquelin seemed to be of the slightest conceivable use at the moment.

 
The irate angel was now perched on Philibert's shoulder, with Baroness Staffe's etiquette guide under his arm, and he went at it with a vengeance: “Well, my fine friend, you're pleased with yourself, aren't you? Ah! He's in a fine situation, our valiant knight! Congratulations are in order, surely. And now? What are you going to do now?” Philibert was completely disoriented. Camille murmured, “. . . thirsty . . .”

Her savior rushed to the kitchen, but the killjoy devil was waiting there on the edge of the sink: “Attaboy! Go on! And what about the dragon? Aren't you going to go off and slay the dragon?”

“Oh, do shut up!” replied Philibert. His sudden courage had bolstered him, and he went back to his patient's bedside with a lighter heart. In the end it wasn't all that complicated. Franck was right: sometimes a few rude words were more effective than a long speech. Feeling brighter, Philibert helped her to drink, then took his courage in both hands: he undressed her.

 
It was no easy task because Camille was wrapped in more layers than an onion. First he took off her coat, then her denim jacket. Then a sweater, another sweater, a turtleneck and finally he arrived at a sort of long-sleeved undershirt. Okay, he said to himself, I can't leave this thing on her, you could practically wring it out. Well, never mind, I'll see her—well, her bra . . .

Horror of horrors! Jesus and Mary and all the saints! She isn't wearing one!

Philibert quickly pulled the sheet up over her chest. Right. Now for her bottoms. This was a little easier because he was able to maneuver by working under the covers. He pulled with all his strength on her pant legs. God be praised, her underpants didn't come off with her pants.

“Camille? Do you have the strength to take a shower?”

No answer.

 
He shook his head disapprovingly, went into the bathroom, filled a pitcher with hot water into which he splashed a little eau de cologne and armed himself with a washcloth.

 
Courage, soldier!

 
He pulled back the sheet and began to freshen her up gently with the edge of the washcloth to begin with, then more boldly.

Philibert scrubbed her head, neck, face, back, armpits, breasts since he had to (and could you even really call them breasts?), stomach and legs. For the rest, well, she'd have to manage. He wrung out the washcloth and put it on her forehead.

He had to get her some aspirin now. He pulled so hard on the knob of the drawer in the kitchen that the entire contents spilled out onto the floor. Rats. Aspirin, aspirin.

 
Franck was standing in the doorway, one arm up under his T-shirt, scratching his stomach.

He yawned loudly and said, “What the hell's going on? What is all this shit?”

“I'm looking for aspirin.”

“In the cupboard.”

“Thanks.”

“Got a headache?”

“No, it is for a friend.”

“Your girlfriend from the eighth floor?”

“Yes.”

Franck cackled, “Hey, wait, you were with her just now? Up there?”

“Yes. Out of the way, please.”

“No way, I don't believe it. So you're not a virgin anymore!”

His sarcasm followed Philibert down the hall:

“Hey! Is she giving you the bullshit about a headache already on the first night? Shit, you're not off to a great start, pal . . .”

 
Philibert closed the door behind him, turned around and muttered audibly, “And you shut up too.”

 
He waited for the tablet to stop fizzing before disturbing her one last time. He thought he heard her whispering, “Daddy.” Unless it was “Don't, don't” because she probably wasn't thirsty anymore. He couldn't tell.

He dampened the washcloth again, pulled back the sheet and paused for a moment.

Speechless, frightened and proud of himself.

Yes, proud of himself.

21

CAMILLE woke up to the sound of U2. At first she thought she was back at the Kesslers' and she nearly dozed off again. Then, confused, she thought, No, that's not possible. Neither Pierre nor Mathilde nor their maid would ever have Bono on full blast like that. There was something funny going on. Slowly she opened her eyes, moaned from the throbbing in her skull and waited in the half dark until things came into focus.

 
But where was she? What the . . .

 
Camille turned her head. Her entire body ached in protest. Her muscles and joints and what little flesh she had all refused to budge. Clenching her teeth, she managed to move up a few inches. She was shivering and drenched in sweat all over again.

The blood was pounding in her temples. With her eyes closed she waited a moment, motionless, for the pain to subside.

 
Gingerly she opened her eyes and saw that she was in a strange bed. The light hardly penetrated the gaps in the inner shutters or the enormous velvet curtains which hung lopsided on either side of the window, sliding off their rods. Facing the bed below a spotty mirror was a marble fireplace. The room was papered with a flowered design; she could not quite make out the colors. There were paintings everywhere, portraits of men and women dressed in black who seemed as astonished to find her there as she was herself. Then she turned toward the bedside table and saw a lovely engraved pitcher next to a Scooby-Doo glass which had been a mustard jar. She was dying of thirst and the pitcher was full of water, but she didn't dare touch it: in what century had it been filled?

 
Where the hell was she, and who had brought her into this museum?

 
A sheet of paper lay folded in half next to a candlestick:
I did not dare to disturb you this morning. I've gone to work. I shall be back around seven. Your clothes are folded on the wing chair. There's some duck in the fridge and a bottle of mineral water at the foot of the bed. Philibert.

Philibert? What on earth was she doing in this guy's bed?

Help.

 
Camille thought hard, trying to summon even a trace of some unlikely debauchery, but her memory would not take her beyond the boulevard Brune . . . She'd keeled over on her side in a bus shelter and begged some tall guy with a dark coat on to call a taxi . . . Was that Philibert? No, and yet . . . No, it wasn't him, she would have remembered.

Someone had just turned off the music. She could hear steps, grunts, a door slamming, a second door, then nothing. Silence.

Camille was desperate but she waited a little while longer, attentive to the slightest sound, already exhausted at the idea of having to move her poor carcass.

She pushed back the sheets and lifted the duvet, which seemed as heavy as a dead donkey.

When her feet hit the floor, her toes curled up. A pair of oriental kid slippers was waiting at the edge of the carpet. She stood up and saw that she was dressed in a man's pajama top, put her feet in the slippers and threw her denim jacket over her shoulders.

She turned the door handle gently and found herself in an immense corridor, very dark, at least fifty feet long.

Now, where was the toilet . . .

 
No, that was a closet, and that was a kid's room with two twin beds and a moth-eaten rocking horse. Here? How could she tell? This must be a study—there were so many books piled on a table in front of the window that the daylight could scarcely enter. A saber and a white scarf hung on the wall along with a horse tail attached to the end of a brass ring. A real tail from a real horse. Kind of special, as relics go.

There! The toilet!

 
The seat was wooden, as was the handle of the flush. The bowl, given its age, must have witnessed generations of fannies in crinolines. Camille felt a bit reticent at first, but it proved to work perfectly, though the flush made a disconcerting amount of noise. As if Niagara Falls were crashing down around her.

 
She was getting dizzy, but she continued her journey in search of a bottle of aspirin. In one of the rooms she discovered an incredible mess. Clothes were strewn everywhere among magazines, empty beer cans and scraps of paper: pay stubs, complicated recipe cards, the instruction manual for a GSXR and various reminder notices from the tax office. Someone had put a horrible multicolored comforter on the lovely Louis XVI bed, and drug paraphernalia lay at the ready on the fine marquetry of the bedside table. Well, it certainly smelled like the lair of some wild beast . . .

 
At the end of the hall she found the kitchen. It was a cold room, gray and sad, with a floor of pale old tiles enhanced with black cabochons. The work surfaces were marble and nearly all the cupboards were empty. There was nothing, except perhaps the presence of an antique Frigidaire, to indicate that anyone actually lived here. Somehow she found a tube of effervescent aspirin tablets, took a glass from next to the sink and sat down on a Formica chair. The ceiling was dizzyingly high and she noticed how white the walls were. The paint must be very old, lead-based; the years had given it a smooth patina. It was neither off-white nor eggshell; this was the white of rice pudding or the insipid desserts served at cafeterias. Mentally Camille mixed up a few tints and promised herself she'd come back one day with two or three tubes of paint to get a clearer picture.

On the way back down the hall she got lost and thought she'd never find her room again. As she collapsed on the bed it crossed her mind that she ought to call that old cow at All-Kleen, but then she fell asleep at once.

22

“ARE you all right?”

“Is that you, Philibert?”

“Yes.”

“Am I in your bed?”

“My bed? No, but—but. No, please, listen. I would never—”

“Where am I?”

“In the apartments of my aunt Edmée, Auntie Mée to her friends. How are you feeling, my dear?”

“Exhausted. I feel like I've been hit by a steamroller.”

“I called a doctor.”

“Oh, no! You shouldn't have!”

“I shouldn't have?”

“Oh, well, maybe, yes, I suppose you did the right thing . . . I'll need sick leave from work in any case.”

“I'm heating up some soup.”

“I'm not hungry.”

“You have to force yourself. You need to recoup and rally the troops to drive the enemy virus back beyond the border. Why are you smiling?”

“Because you're talking as if it were the Hundred Years' War.”

“Not quite as long, I hope! Oh, listen, that must be the doctor.”

“Philibert?”

“Yes?”

“I have nothing with me, no checkbook, no money, not a thing.”

“Do not worry. We shall figure it out later on . . . once the peace treaty is signed.”

23

“WELL?” asked Philibert anxiously.

“She's asleep.”

“Oh?”

“Is she a member of your family?”

“A friend.”

“What sort of friend?”

“Well, she's a, uh, neighbor, a neighbor friend,” mumbled Philibert.

“Do you know her well?”

“No. Not very.”

“Does she live alone?”

“Yes.”

The doctor frowned.

“Is something bothering you?”

“You might put it that way. Do you have a table? Somewhere I can sit down?”

Philibert led him into the kitchen. The doctor pulled out his prescription pad.

“Do you know her name?”

“Fauque, I think.”

“You think or you're sure?”

 
“How old is she?”