The Fata Morgana Books (8 page)

* * *

When it came down to it, I liked this girl. She was cheerful, light-hearted, she said yes to everything. But something in her always escaped me. In my arms, naked, she trembled like a bird flapping its wings, my gestures drew from her body long sighs that became stifled moans, but no matter how much I touched her, caressed her, spread her supple limbs to burrow into her, I never managed to grasp her, and the feeling of her constantly slipped between my fingers. I came too, in long whitish streams on her golden skin, then I lay down next to her, gathered her in my arms, slept a little; when I woke up, everything began again, without end, without conclusion, without appeasement. When we spoke, she answered me laughing, with words as light as her, not really empty, but without any consistency, like a pleasant punctuation to my statements. We ate whatever fell into our hands, in bistros or diners chosen at random; I swallowed the dishes with appetite but without discernment, to regain my strength before I brought her back to the room. As for her, everything was the same to her, she took her pleasures without concern, in the lightness of the moment, at once greedy and indifferent. But she couldn’t tell me anything, and I could never be sure of her, of her body or her words. Nonetheless, in this room with its walls covered with photographs, I felt entirely myself, a being equal to others, living its own life, according to the general rules, like everything that exists. Only the girl escaped this unexpressed harmony, her presence remained a constant dissonance, forever oblique. Her very vivacity turned her into an apparition, a little moth that flutters between four walls and then dies in the dawn light. I never tired of her, it wasn’t a question of that, but I didn’t know what to do with her, where or how to place her to ensure even a temporary equilibrium, I ran into the angles of her small mobile body as into disjointed surfaces, unable to place her in the same space as me, even for an instant.

* * *

I joined my friends in the train compartment with some satisfaction. One of them had called me, laughing: “You haven’t forgotten, have you? It’s tomorrow morning, the train leaves at 8:43. I have your ticket.”—“What’s the weather like, there?”—“I don’t know. They’re still predicting rain, but for now it’s nice.”As I closed the red door of the room, I realized I hadn’t brought a bag; as for the girl, I didn’t really know where she was; it was possible that she had stayed in the bed, and that I hadn’t seen her, or she might have left before me, I don’t know. In front of the door to my building stood two men in dark suits: one, his foot resting on a step, was jotting something down in a notebook; the other stopped me for a second to ask for a light. On the way, I passed large modern apartment buildings, constructions of cubes with bluish, brown and rust tones, where the windows alternated with metal strips to form long vertical bands, divided in sections of varying width. The streets were getting crowded; I passed many people, men and women hurrying to work, lost in their thoughts; from time to time, however, a young woman would raise her eyes and smile at me, and I would return the favor, but it was rare. In the station’s concourse a cheerful agitation reigned; my friends, in the compartment we had reserved, were trading books; I went to order a sandwich in the café car and settled on a tall stool.The train had gotten underway with a grinding noise, behind the window the city’s buildings were already rushing by, then increasingly disorderly and dirty suburbs, which finally gave way to the first trees and to fields dotted with pretty little cemeteries. The sky was clear, luminous, streaked with long white contrails; in the distance a few clouds were gathering, casting large shapeless shadows on the fields of wheat and pale barley. It wasn’t I who had chosen the destination but the friend who had called me the night before; she had enumerated the charms of this little provincial town one after the other, as well as the pleasure of the crowd that filled its streets at night, in this season: everything, she said, made it an ideal goal for our excursion. She had picked the hotel as well: my room was all white, with an ivory carpet and a white bedspread, a black leather chair, and as sole decoration the picture of a red square framed over the bed. The shower, tiled in white and grey, was roomy; I stood under the water with pleasure, vaguely regretting that the girl wasn’t there, for this shower would have pleased her, I was sure of it; but I forgot this thought as soon as it had arisen, abandoning myself to the burning stream hammering the back of my neck.

* * *

My friends wished to visit a church, then go for a stroll; as for me, I opted for the museum, and agreed to meet up with them in the early evening. The sky, above the maze of narrow streets that led to the museum square, was turning grey, and I told myself I should have listened to the forecasts and brought an umbrella, or at least a raincoat. The museum, still little known, had just recently opened its doors: a local eccentric millionaire, whose only daughter, they said, had hanged herself, had left his collection to the city, along with a large enough endowment to ensure its preservation and exhibition. The rooms were not large, but they were tall and filled with light, white like my hotel room, which gave a feeling of space conducive to meditation.There weren’t many visitors, the rare sounds remained hushed, even footsteps scarcely echoed on the waxed floor. I passed through these rooms aligned like chapels, casting my gaze over the images hanging there, most of which, in fact, said nothing to me. They were beautiful paintings, painted with talent and vigor; the figures, rendered according to all the rules of art, seemed endowed with life and movement, but they didn’t speak to me, and I kept moving. I finally came to a halt in front of a large, almost square canvas, slightly taller than me, a red background on which was painted a large black rectangle, then below it another narrower rectangle, red too but darker than the background, and more irregular. This indeed was not much, but what struck me is that if you stood your ground for a moment as you contemplated them, these rectangles began to move, to float forward or to withdraw, vertiginously. When I stepped back a little, the black rectangle advanced gently toward me, as if it were inviting me to join it; but as soon as I took a step forward, it speedily withdrew and passed far behind the background, revealing itself as a gaping abyss into which I nearly fell. Overcome with fear, I would stumble back, and immediately it leaped forward, recovering in an instant its place suspended in front of the background, opening up to me with a light, silent smile. As for the lower rectangle, it evaded me more mischievously: for instance, if you took one or two steps to the side, it changed color, veering to orange, a more muted, slightly burnt color; otherwise, it danced from side to side, always a little behind the large black rectangle. This surprising painting acted as if it were the one looking at me, it was a face, smiling seriously and kindly, a face that was watching me watch it, without taking its gaze off me, preventing me from moving away or even looking elsewhere. Finally, a guard had to come over to tap me on the shoulder: “We’re closing, sir, it’s time.” Freed by his intervention, I joined the last visitors heading for the exit. Outside, a few drops had begun to fleck the grey stone of the sidewalk; one hit me on the forehead, another on my hand. Just opposite, a store was closing its doors; the storekeeper, quite politely, allowed me to buy a felt hat from her before she pulled down her metal grate. On the square where I was supposed to meet my friends, the crowd was dense, compact and noisy, the first signs of rain discouraging neither its cheerfulness nor its animation. I found my friends at the covered terrace of a café and ordered a drink as they made fun of my hat, which, however, was quite practical. We drank and smoked as they described the church in detail; for my part I was silent, happy to hear the excited sound of their voices. When we left the bistro, the rain had intensified; umbrellas in the crowd unfurled one after the other and began to bump against each other, so that I sometimes had to duck my head to avoid being hit in the eye. Little by little, in the heart of this crowd, I lost sight of my friends; finally they disappeared altogether, and I found myself alone. I wasn’t worried: It’s not such a big town, I said to myself, I’ll find them again soon. I was walking alongside a curved stone parapet; behind, I knew, flowed the river in whose bend the town nestled, but it was too dark on that side to see anything. Two men in raincoats were approaching me, walking at the same pace, their faces invisible beneath their large black umbrellas. I found their appearance vaguely threatening; but as they reached me, they separated without a word, passing on either side of me to join up again behind me. Further on, the street rose and widened, leading to a broad stone bridge that connected this bank to the new part of town; at the entrance to the bridge, I turned back, picking a narrow street that rose toward the squares further up. But I didn’t find my friends there either. Dodgy-looking figures in long coats were clustered in little groups beneath the trees, whispering furtively; cars with tinted windows came and went in an incessant ballet; sometimes, one would pull up next to one of the groups, a door would open, a few words would be exchanged, or else a man would get in, slam the door, and the car would start up again. Above the streets and the little squares, lamps hanging from wires shone in the night, their gleam, under the now continuous rain, forming large, ovoid haloes. There are strange things going on here, I said to myself as I avoided these groups of suspicious-looking men; as for my friends, no matter how much I paced up and down the streets, there was no sign of them; as it got late, passersby grew more and more infrequent, but still I persisted, searching each corner with a growing feeling of unease. I thus found myself in a little park nestled between some old houses; tall old trees grew between the paths, perched on mounds surrounded by metal gates; set a little back, in a recess, one could make out the opening to a sort of bower, accessible by a few steps and feebly lit; I stuck my head in, in the vain hope of finding my friends chatting away, sheltered from the rain, but on the stone benches there were only three soldiers, in officer’s uniforms with wet epaulets; they were smoking cigarettes and speaking loudly, without paying any attention to me. “Frankly, they’re going too far,” one of them was saying, his grey mustache, yellow with nicotine, quivering over his unpleasant mouth.—“Yes, that’s for sure. They’re provoking us,” declared the second one ,lifting his cap to scratch his forehead. “We can’t let them get away with it,” gravely concluded the third. “We have to react.” I left them to their discussion and regained the street, profoundly discouraged. My hotel, I knew, wasn’t far away; perhaps it would be better to go back and wait there, rather than wander like this in the rain. And also, all these sinister figures had me a bit worried. In fact, two of them, hands in pockets, were standing in front of the hotel; despite the night and the rain, which was still falling in small, thin droplets, they wore dark glasses, as if they were playing cops, or spies. I walked past the entrance without stopping; they followed me with their gaze, but didn’t move. The street dipped down to join the main street; here the crowd grew thicker, but I kept catching glimpses of one of the sinister gentlemen standing beneath a tree or seated behind the window of a diner. At the end of the main street stood the station; a train was leaving within the hour, I bought a ticket and took a seat with relief, wiping with the back of my sleeve the damp felt of my new hat.

* * *

The rain streaked the train’s windows; beyond, everything was dark, opaque, unreachable. It was still raining when I got out, a firm, sustained shower now; I reached my apartment soaking wet, a little annoyed. The girl, wearing nothing but cotton panties, chartreuse green with thin red stripes, was leafing through a magazine, lying on her belly on the lilac rectangle of the bed. “What are you doing here?” I asked, surprised, shedding my wet clothes. She smiled at me as I was struggling with my pants: “Well, I was waiting for you.”—“You could have turned on the heat, at least,” I grumbled. “It’s freezing in here.” Although she was nearly naked, she didn’t seem to notice, whereas I was shivering; I hurried to pull on a dry pair of pants, then a shirt and a sweater. That didn’t help much and I sat down at the round table to pour myself a drink. The girl had sat up and, sitting cross-legged, was looking at me with an amused air: her smile, her thin waist, her pert little breasts, the bones of her knees, everything in her was like a rebuke addressed to me, friendly and indistinct. Glass in hand, I rose and went to sit down behind the desk. The girl fell back, her head in the pillows, her knees touching and forming, with her feet flat on the violet sheets, an unstable triangle that she swung quietly from side to side. “Come here, if you’re cold.”—“No, not now,” I answered distractedly as I fiddled with a pen and shifted some papers, running my gaze over the countless pictures adorning the walls without really seeing them. “Take a hot bath, then,” she suggested. I rubbed my shoulders: “No, not now.” A little glass egg, opaque and rather rough, had made its way into my fingers; I weighed it, slid it over my palm, then lifted it to the light: it glowed with a warm, red, dark, shifting light, as if it were filled with blood, or else incubating a mysterious creature intimately linked to fire. I finished my drink and looked around for the bottle, but the girl, I’m not sure how, had gotten hold of it and was rolling it between her legs, laughing: “You want it? Come and get it.”—“Oh, you’re annoying.” My shoulders were shuddering in spasms: I must have really caught cold. The rain was still falling heavily behind the window, darkening the space, almost masking the brick wall even though it was quite close. I got up and headed for the bathroom; the girl had taken up her magazine again and was turning the pages, toying with the bottle between her feet. I stood in front of the mirror and examined my face: it looked strangely vague to me, half erased, I couldn’t seem to grasp its workings; mystified, I rubbed it, but it was as if the skin were peeling away between my fingers, leaving me even more insubstantial. I preferred not to see this so I returned to the room; the girl was still reading, quite alive and absolutely real with her thin bones and delicate joints, her warm, golden skin, her hair with its reddish reflections, her dark, always slightly amused eyes. I was afraid of touching her, it seemed to me as if my fingers would pass through her skin, or else would crumble against her like wet sand. I returned to the desk after grabbing the bottle, poured myself another glass, and began reading the pages piled there. The handwriting was not at all unlike my own, I myself must have written these lines, these pages of text, but they said absolutely nothing to me, and I could barely grasp their meaning. It was a kind of story: the narrator, a lost shade, was wandering through a vast house whose rooms echoed with the laughter of small children. The setting seemed vaguely Russian, it could have been a story by Chekhov if it had had the slightest psychological substance; in any case, it had nothing to do with me. Perhaps it was a translation I had done and then forgotten? Or the copy of a text I had come across? I had no idea, and it didn’t matter. On the bed, the girl seemed to be sleeping, her breasts hidden under the overturned magazine, her head on its side, her face half masked by her hair. She is taking up more and more room, I said to myself, soon she’ll be treating this place like her own. I was still very cold, my whole body was trembling, but I didn’t want to lie down next to her, I was afraid of hurting myself on her sharp bones, her hard, piercing body; so I stacked the papers, went out into the hallway, and opened the second door, the one on the left. I crossed the room, walking on the plastic tarps, climbed the ladder to the loft, and slipped under the tarp that covered it, rolled into a ball, my eyes closed, my legs racked with long shivers. How long did this last? I couldn’t say, an eternity of sand and lava, my body had rid itself of all solidity and all presence, it was floating very high up on the fever as if on a funeral barge, traveling over the years all the seas of the world, unable to find its way, neither toward life, nor toward death. When at the end of this centuries-long journey I opened my eyes, the tarp had disappeared; I was lying beneath a thick comforter wrapped in a beige cover, completely soaked with my sweat. I turned over and examined the room: all the tarps had been removed, the floor was covered in a thick sky-blue carpet spotted with dark blue patterns, everything looked crisp and clean, the colorful toy was still resting on the stool. Against the wall stood a tall rectangular mirror, set in a thin orange frame: I looked for my reflection in it, but could only see that of the toy, which looked bigger and more elaborate than the one I remembered, as if it had grown during the long night. I heard a door open under the loft, I had never noticed there was one, and the girl appeared on the blue carpet. This time, she wore a lightweight pair of dark-brown pants and a red tank top with a large black circle across the chest. “That’s better, isn’t it?” she said, raising her head toward me and smiling widely. “You should knock down the wall, or at least put in a double door, that would give you more space.” I didn’t have the strength to tell her to keep her advice to herself and I closed my eyes, rolling onto my back and stretching my aching legs. My clothes, I noticed only then, had disappeared along with the tarps, I was lying naked under the comforter, and I felt a sudden shame at this, as if I had been turned into a plucked bird, bristling and scared. “Where are my clothes?” I asked in a murmur, but if she heard me, she didn’t reply, she had disappeared again. A vague sound of water reached me, she was probably running a bath, on the other side; all of a sudden, the sound became clearer, and even before she reappeared I understood that the mysterious door must communicate with the bathroom, allowing passage between the two contiguous rooms. This time, she was holding a green apple, which she brought to her nose before biting into it. She held out to me another one which she had kept hidden behind her back: “Here, take it.” Since I didn’t react, she insisted, shaking the apple almost in front of my face: “Go on, it’ll do you good.” I didn’t move and she bit again into her own apple, chewing slowly and carefully as she slipped the other one into her pants pocket. “The bath will be ready. Are you coming?” I couldn’t take my eyes away from the round ball on her hip; finally, I raised my eyes to the mirror, which reflected in its orange frame the long supple line of her body. “Where are my clothes?”—“Oh, what a pain you can be!” she laughed. “They’re here, on a chair. I added some clean underwear, you hadn’t put any on.” She went back under the loft and closed the door. I listened to her busying herself behind the wall, she had turned off the water and must have been undressing, then I heard her body slide into the bath. She kept eating her apple; the water made little lapping sounds. Then I squirmed out from under the comforter and managed with difficulty to reach the ladder, which creaked beneath my weight as I somehow descended, holding on with all my strength so as not to fall. My clothes were indeed where she had said; but my hat was still in the other room, along with my jacket, wallet, and cigarettes. Yet passing through this bathroom, which I imagined completely overflowing with this girl’s excess of life, was beyond me, and the key to the hallway door was precisely still in my jacket pocket. I tried to consider my situation, but my thoughts, foggy, kept shredding apart and contradicting one another in turn; the rain, still drumming in the air shaft, complicated things even more, since going out in the downpour in just a shirt was unthinkable, but as for confronting this impossible girl once again, I was incapable of it, and no other options presented themselves to me for the moment. I could have stayed there for a long time pointlessly turning over these thoughts, but every time I moved, the large mirror set against the wall sent back a reflection, too fragmented and aggressive to be my own, which put me ill at ease. Undecided, I opened the hallway door: a large tan canvas umbrella stood there, open and overturned ,soaking the old red carpet with water. That solves everything! I exclaimed joyfully, grasping the black leather handle. Leaning against the railing, I shook it, sprinkling the carpet and the lavender floor with a rainfall of droplets, then closed it and started down the steps, leaning with all my weight on the handle in a vain attempt to control my legs which, lost, were each trying to move in a different direction.