|
From Romania to France
via America Novels ¥ La Traversee du Styx
(Recrossing the Styx) Plays:
a Tragedy, a Comedy, a Farce & a Highly Controversial Sequel ¥ Flush Game,
or the Gospel According to Henry Miller ¥ Beyond The Styx
Nightingales DonÕt Sing |
A Marquise of Our Time: First two chapters Lucky Is the
Author Who Doesn't Have to InventÉ Light of my
art, trickster of my heart, my letters may reach you in Montparnasse, but
your real address is MonParnasse. From the summit of my mythical mountain, you beckon the tireless climber.
Every drop of perspiration is a river of inspiration, every word echoed down
to me -un bon mot. You're my
twin mate separated by fate. Zola wrote Nana to condemn the sexual overload of La Belle Epoque,
a turn-of-the-past-century paradise which the French are mourning still. He
gave birth to a snow-white Venus (not on frothy waves but on bubbling
champagne) with a talent for manipulating the bourgeois hounds chasing her,
extracting bullion and anteroom praises with her origine du monde in all its pink glory. An intelligent woman in his
opinion would have been a mistake. The only indulgence granted: she had to be
good-natured. What if an
author wishes to write about an eye-filling nana (don't confuse her with a nursemaid!) of
substance? A contemporary Nana whose sallies and follies keep him awake at
night? At first he doesn't know what to make of her, her past shrouded in
mystery, her chocolate-coated present, her Slavic unpredictability, her
erotic novel which fuels the flames of adultery in certain publishers. As he
gets to know this Russian beauty from the Biblical sense to Freudian
nonsense, he discovers that he is willing to handle more than he can fondle,
that the Cosmic Joker has answered his prayers and then some, that he has
become a character in a drama with no synopsis and no foreseeable dash into
the sunset. This author
has never kept a journal. Like vintage wine, literature has to mature before
reaching the taste buds of the reader. But this time he's beside himself. He
has put all his other projects on hold in order to write this tale of lust
cum love, curiosity cum recklessness as it began one drizzling February evening
in the year of Our Lord 2001. Pity, this
tale bears only my nom de plume. Our
original intention was to weave our efforts into a novelistic octopus with a
ferocious appetite. I would write a chapter and she would follow up with a
chapter of her own. The fascination lay in the fact that two authors would be
describing the same events as they unfolded with two different voices and
gender sensibilities. Reader, this
is not a novel in the ordinary sense of Webster's. I can make an ass of
myself, but I cannot play God. I am at the mercy of an untamable monster:
Reality. Consider this life-imitates-art-and-vice-versa. No matter where the
story takes me and how it will end, no matter the rise and fall of my passion
for the Marquise, every chapter vows to reflect faithfully the state of my
heart and moods accordingly. I won't change a single epithet—even if my
heroine turns out to have more fangs than toes! Jealousy Is
a Wildcat from Mars The lioness
of my jealous rage didn't maul me until Ida's return to Paris. So far I'd managed
to accept her double life—that of a married woman having a literary
thrill with deplorably yours. When lust is the octane impetus, a mŽnage ˆ
trois runs as smooth as a Lexus. But when love gets in the way, it's like
driving under the influence with an expired license and cancelled insurance.
To add insult to adultery, I even promised my mistress that I would do
nothing foolish to quake her matrimonial tower, that she would be sound and
safe in my arms, three hours at a time. Easier ingested than digested. Her arrival
from Russia was prime torture. How much I wanted to greet her at the airport
and bring her to my place and get drunk on her perilous peach lips and
diaphanous body! How much I wanted to caress her flaming mane and melt in the
green pastures of her pupils! But someone else was greeting her and holding
her in his mercenary arms that very night. No matter how hard I tried to
quiet the roaring beast making a square meal of my howling entrails, I failed
like a lardy zebra on the scorching savanna. The movie on TV featuring Kevin
Costner madly in lust with Anthony Quinn's wife (Madeline Stowe) only added
aviation fuel to my fire; Gao Xingjian's Book of a Lonely Man cast me on a surreal mountain teeming with red
scorpions and fire ants; the bittersweet French music on the radio made me
cry in my Mirabelle—a 45% proof eau d'angoisse et tristeseÉ Life is a rhino
to face Without Ida's
pretty face. I had never
been in such a dire mess before because I had never in my life been in love
with someone's wife. Until I met the Russian belle, I usually kept my distance
from married women because half an hour of fun wasn't worth the monsters in
their closets. Until Ida stepped into my life, I considered jealousy the
curse of the unconfident and unsophisticated. If not channeled to improve
one's heart defenses, jealousy only causes disaster. So far I'd managed to
impale my visceral vampires, but this time I ended up with the short end of
the stake. A love-stunned Valmont, I lost my head over Madame de Tourval
alias Ida de MonParnasse. I had to have my duel with the Marquis, the aristocrat
to whom she is legally bound. As I was
taking my daily stroll down to the Seine, my feet carried me to a certain art
gallery on the Left Bank. Mais non,
I'm not giving out its exact location because I don't want eccentric readers
venturing out for autographs! It was a lazy Saturday afternoon—that
time of the day when the go-getter and the blasŽ linger on the terrace in a siesta
mood, stifling belches and yawns, when stores and galleries are nearly
deserted. People were pouring in the Jardin du Luxembourg as if a rock
concert was about to take place. The breasts on the statues looked perkier
than ever and the trickling water in the fountains was Chinese music to my
ears. A tyrant spirit of vitality and renewal hung in the scented air. Spring
was in full bloom, and I was in fool gloom! I knew
something about the Marquis' genealogic tree from my mistress. His ancestors
had fled to England during the French Revolution. In two centuries his family
had acquired plenty of British blood, making up for what Danton and
Robespierre had spilled. England was the country of his boyhood, where he had
his fair share of maids and wenches. Now his name rings a collector's bell in
the art world. Some of his impressionist possessions were auctioned off at
Sotheby's. But he doesn't flaunt his wealth like some British squire rolling
his Rolls in front of a soup kitchen with a bumper sticker that broadcasts:
POVERTY SUCKS! His visible assets, according to my mistress, are two
apartments of "grand standing" in Paris and a couple more in
Biarritz and Dinard. Since his marriage, a bulgy snub-nosed painter with less
talent than luck has been running the gallery, except on weekends. In the back
of my head I've always wanted to get a glimpse of the aristocrat in Ida's
life, the man whom she loves in an incestuous daughterly fashion. What kind
of blue-blooder is he? Is he a gentleman or a shrewd sensualist? Is he
Molire's villain from School for Wives
or a retired Don Juan? These questions pounded in my ears like the bells of
Notre Dame at noon. One can learn a great deal about a wife by getting to
know her husband. If the purse master turns out to be a pedantic bore with a
physique that scares dog and underdog, it shows how much she hates to work
for a living, or how hard her pointy assets get at the prospect of a deluxe lifestyle,
or, in Ida's case, how vulnerable she must have been. Through the
window I saw an aging Casanova talking to a starchy grand dame with a severe
facelift and feathery hat. Sideways he resembled Hannibal the Cannibal,
except that he sported a fine brush of hair and a pleasanter nose than Louis
XIV's brother. Overall he had fared well, considering he was pushing sixty.
The more I looked at him, the more at ease I became. He struck me as a man of
the world, whom I could entrust my keyhole life for safekeeping. According to
Ida, he used to enjoy slow cuisine and fast women. Now the lucky devil enjoys
haute cuisine and one woman—my mistress. A bachelor tying the knot in
his fifties says a lot about Ida's bewitching sway. Such a reminder sent
electric jolts of jealousy through my bleeding heart, urging me to dash in as
soon as the withered grand dame was solemnly discarded at the curb. I pushed the
glass door with a bellicose "bonjour"
looking through him, past him, and away from him. The Marquise acknowledged
my presence with a grunt and woke up the sleeping Apple Powerbook on his
desk. On the wall behind him a family coat of arms with crossed sabers and
pistols depicted a fierce mounted knight, a chess tower missing a rampart, a
well-endowed Great Dane, and an agonizing wild pig with a truffle in its
mouth. (The truffle is my contribution to his family coat of arms.) With the
air of a connoisseur, constantly changing angles, shifting the weight of my
chin from one hand to another while whistling in sotto voce, I worked my way
to the next room where several of Ida's paintings beckoned to me like old
chums. All this time I had a feeling that I was being watched with
aristocratic disdain. The
Franco-Brit squire owns an eclectic gallery. The old mixes with the contemporary,
the surreal with the abstract, the jolly with the holy. Many of the paintings
and sculptures depict nudes, which the French never grow tired of. While
leering at them I couldn't help musing about my own artistic goal had I been
a brush-pusher—to manufacture nudes until I exhaust the subject matter:
from anorexic skeletons to fat mamas, from pubescent nymphets to sullen spinsters. His desk was
at such an angle that he could see all my movements in the next room. With a
deep sigh I planted myself in front of Ida's paintings, which claimed a
strategic corner of the gallery. Nicely confined in gilded frames, they were
old acquaintances from her website: Fatuous Faunlet, Naughty Nocturne, Fiddler
under the Table, and Fatal
Angel with White Gloves. The last
portrait was my favorite, for the expression on the woman's face resembled
Ida's after lovemaking, a post-coital sadness that fallen angels must have
had when banished from paradise. I badly wanted that painting and was willing
to stretch my modest solvency for its sake. Great was my
surprise when I saw Ida's bio below her picture. The English version was
mine, and so was the critical evaluation of her portraits: "You wish you
had met these people; you wish they were your friends, your lovers, your guardian
angelsÉ" "Aren't
they divine?" my foe finally addressed me, his Brit accent subduing a
French one. I swiftly
pirouetted, my eyesight crashing into his like two TGVs at full speed. His
bushy left eyebrow twitched gently and a ghost of a smile appeared at the corner
of his mouth. "Whoever wrote those words says it all about her
paintings, n'est-ce pas?" he
added, without taking his eyes off me. I couldn't
help blushing, as if he'd caught me in his boudoir with my pants down. "Pourquoi
vous m'adressez en anglais? Tous
vos clients sont des amŽricains?" "Not at
all," he laughed. "It was pure intuition." "Does
your intuition also tell you that I am interested in bleeding my bank account
for Fatal Angel with White Gloves?" "You
don't say! My wife will be delighted." "Is she
your wife?" I feigned ignorance. "She
hasn't told you?" My answer was a blank stare. I let him carry on in his
gently mocking fashion. "You don't tickle my eardrums like a Yankee. You
sound more like my mother's housekeeper—a Romanian chain smoker with an
insatiable sweet tooth. She can put away a box of liquor-filled chocolates in
no time! Let me scroll my faulty memory. I recall your voice but not your
face." He expected me to introduce myself. I didn't. "May I have l'honneur of knowing my client's name? Or do you prefer to
remain anonymous?" He pompously
stretched out his steak-for-two palm, as if he intended to seal a sweet
business deal before it got sour. "In your matrimonial universe I am an
asteroid named Doru Moraru," the sentimental viper delivered. "You
sure have a fancy way of speaking. It's obvious English is not your native
tongue." "I
refuse to talk like the average Joe." His untamed
laughter clattered the chandelier and pained my highly sensitive left ear.
"In that case I'll have to live up to your literary standards." It just
happened that a couple of tourists in hiking gear were about to enter—a
welcome diversion under the circumstance. The Marquis furiously plunged
toward the door, crying out in English: "Closed!" And he turned the
dead bolt twice and the sign to "fermŽ" in their stunned faces. "That's better. We can negotiate
in peace." He fumbled in his mahogany desk's bottom drawer and produced
a fancy bottle and a couple of crystal glasses which could have been cleaner.
"How about a drink? Mind you, this Armagnac is as young as my wife. I
only drink it on special occasions." "I
wouldn't call this a special occasion." "Why
not? You're a friend of ma femme who
wants to own a piece of her universe." I turned my titter into a cough.
"I'm sure she'll give you a discount. Your critique has earned it." I took a sip
from my glass. It pleasantly burned my palette. He took quite a gulp. It was
obvious that my unexpected visit had unhinged him somehow, and he needed the
drink more than I did. He had never been in the awkward position of a husband
confronted with his wife's admirer. Was he worried that his greatest fear
might come true? That what he had tried to avoid all his life had finally
caught up with him? Was I indeed the amant of his femme? The
question was written all over his face, as if it was branded with a hot iron.
His eyelids were twitching for an answer, but his proper aristocratic
upbringing was fighting a losing battle to conceal it. A man who had always
been in the position of a privileged conqueror was suddenly terrified by the
new role he was about to play. "Funny
how this Armagnac brings back memories," he digressed, his eyes darting
across the room to Ida's paintings. "It was about this time nearly six
years ago, Ida walked into my gallery with a couple of rolled-up canvases
under her delightful arm. A sight to behold and told! She was dressed in the
colors of turning leaves, which make one miserably aware of the passage of
time. Her pants were a bit too tight, I thought. In grammatically correct
French she confessed that she was a painter fighting deportation. I became
curious about her story, as I assume you had too, and offered her a drink as
soon as I turned the sign on the door so no nincompoops in hiking boots would
camp out in my gallery. "She
told me about her misfortunes," he went on after swallowing the remnants
in his glass, "about the fellow who brought her to France, her hostage
days and her daring escape. The paintings she brought featured a dancing couple
and a girl clown. What was striking about the former was that you only saw
the unhappy face of a taxi dancer who didn't feel like dancing." The devil's
art critic was about to comment that the unhappy woman resembling his wife
was a metaphor for Ida's marriage, for having to dance with people she didn't love, but I preferred to
swallow my words because that would have been the end of our verbal
duel—a premature climax to all the things I wanted to say. I let him go
on. "Despite
the fact that I only deal with artists I know or who are recommended by professionals,
I made her a generous offer for her work." "Why
beat around the bush?" I snapped. "The bird was in your hand." "Has it
ever occurred to you that sapiens appeal most when they are vulnerable? Happiness
doesn't bring out the best in people. Suffering does. Their gestures, sighs,
eye contact are as genuine as they can be. Of course, plenty of opportunists
have tried to deceive me with their cock-and-bull stories, but I had no doubt
that Ida was telling the truth. Sure, she's irresistible; we can't deny it.
No Frenchman would allow a jolie artiste
to starve in his country." "Sure,
but it always comes with a price—a pound of her best flesh." "I
didn't force myself on her. I sold her work, put her in contact with a good
lawyer—sans kissing the sweet hollow of her arm. There were times when
I considered buying a painting from a woman only if she surrendered her
folded charms, sometimes only if she kept them. Jeune homme, the gourmand before you sampled nature to the
hilt without guilt. From pretty dolls short of a major nervous breakdown to
disgruntled wives and voracious divorcŽes, they all paraded through my
designer back room (he pointed to the curtain on his right) and my
Restoration bedroom. Now, don't get me wrong. This Epicurean didn't rule out
love. I did consider marrying a languid brunette once, a retired dancer from
the Opera, but I'd rather not go into it." He poured
himself another drink, offering me one with a gesture of his hand. I shook my
head. "There
are artists I wouldn't even want to have lunch with, but Ida is different.
She isn't like any other woman I've known—those golden gold diggers who
lack even the decency of concealing their dig. She has something to say and
says it charmingly. Her intelligence, which is rare in an attractive woman,
complements her looks, and her divine chemistry penetrates any man's line of
defense. France deported her, but I corrected that. I didn't rush things. A
year had passed by the time I proposed to her. For the first time in her life
she had the means and freedom to be a fulltime, worry-free artist. Two
exhibits in Paris and a novel published in Russia are the fruits of our
marriage. I do hope she boasted of her achievements." He stopped
and looked at me more inquisitively than ever. What was I going to say? That
he had had his fair share of fun with my mistress, and that it was high time
he handed her over to me with a handshake and a pat on the back? I smiled to
myself. The aristocrat would have laughed in my face. And so would have Ida.
Love is a bulldog teased by a juicy bone, and I felt like barking. I'd walked
into his gallery for more than just buying a painting. I'd come to let him
know how I really felt about his wife—even if we had to exchange insults,
punches, sword blows, or lead from the arsenal on his coat of arms. There was
no turning back empty-handed. Jealousy is a lean lioness whose litter is
starving in the den. I gulped the remnants in my glass. "I am
in love with your wife." Rolling his
eyes speechlessly, the Marquis poured me another drink. For a fraction of a
second I feared that he might break the bottle on my head. All my concentration
was on the bottle and the bronze nude on his desk—in case I had to use
her services. "With
married women one doesn't fall in love, mon cher amŽricain; one falls in lust," he calmly stated as if
he were sharing an important fact of life with an amateur. "Well, I am
not surprised. You're neither the first nor the last. There was a worthless
sculptor dealing in throwaway objects who, after too much champagne during
the opening of an art exhibit, begged her on his knees to move in with him. I
saw the scene with my own eyes. A woman's heart is like heaven's gates. Many
knock but only a few are let in. "We've been
having a cinq ˆ sept for the last
couple of months," I delivered the coup de grace, preferring the French
euphemism for extramarital sex, often mistaken by English ladies for tea
before dinner. He took two sips in quick succession. "Do you
have proof?" I handed him
my cell-phone with a couple of saved messages under the same number—Ida's.
The Marquis took note with a sigh and an itch in his crotch, which he
scratched discreetly. It only took a push of the button, but his thumb
hesitated. Maybe I'd made a mistake by admitting so bluntly how I felt about
his wife. Maybe I should have left right after getting an eyeful of my
beloved portrait, thus giving him more time to digest the real motives of my
unexpected visit. On the other hand, what was the point of prolonging the agony?
Life is cruel for everybody, lovers especially. His thumb jerked and his
heart ached. Ida's message paraded before his eyes: "Is it possible to
make love over the phone? You melted the frost in my heartÉ" "That
will suffice, thank you." He handed back my cell-phone without opening
the next message: "Don't watch any kinky stuff tonightÉ" In a way I
was glad he didn't. He might have come to the end of his wits, and no more
Armagnac for me. The
distraught aristocrat dropped in his revolving chair with a thump, mourning
the irretrievability of the past, the impotence of the present and the misery
of the future. With a sweep of his hand he offered me a seat. Had it been
possible to hook up his brains to the laptop on the desk and download his
mental turmoil, smoke would have come out of it. I scrutinized him furtively.
He finally
broke the glacial silence: "Ever since you called my wife and discussed
questionable literature for nearly an hour, I've had a funny feeling about
you. It's rare when she talks on the phone for more than ten minutes,
although her portable had been beeping
constantly with messages from some fellow whom she enjoyed teasing. I knew
that she was meeting you more often than her Russian friend. I thought
perhaps she wanted to add another character for the French version of her
novel. She made no secret about you. We even laughed at your expense—le
bavard!" He paused, turned his smile
into grimace, and added sarcastically: "Thanks for enriching my wife's vocabulary
with a new word: 'quickie.' If your book gets published, you'd better claim
it's a work of fiction, otherwise I'll sue your ass—comme
disent les amŽricains." Merde, he must have read the first installment of A
Marquise of Our Time! The fifty-some,
"for-your-emerald-eyes-only" pages I'd shared with my mistress must
have met his suspicious gaze. How could she be so reckless, leaving it lying
around? Unless she left it intentionallyÉ After all, a dose of jealousy is
not a bad thing for a husband. It's been suspected that fidelity breeds more
contempt than familiarity. Chance has it that I was still working on the
chapter that took place on my sofa bed, so the prying Marquis had been on
tenterhooks. He wasn't sure whether we had consummated our affair, like
Parisian lovers zestfully do. But my visit put his doubts at rest—a
rest without peace, that is. "While
she was in Russia I checked the phone bill," he replied to my silent
smirk. "Hardly a day went by without placing at least one call or
sending messages to the same number: 067É" I was about to congratulate
his memory, but he cut me off. "I do admit I poked through her
belongings. It was an awful thing to do, but I couldn't help it." "Are
you interested in what happens next?" I punished the snooping aristocrat.
Among the treasures on his desk, a toy Pluto with a gyrating head and tail
caught my attention. My itchy index upset the fragile mechanism, Pluto's head
falling off with a bang. "I'd
rather wait until it's published," he said, gazing in agony at his toy
pet. "I also read most of your Beastly Fifth. Your narrator sure knows a great deal about seducing
women—especially those determined not to fork over their panties. I was worried."
He tried to fix his toy. Pluto's head fell off with another bang. With a
sweeping gesture he discarded the whole thing in the wastebasket. "A bird
of paradise doesn't thrive in a cage," I charged. "It's high time
she flies away." "That's
literature, mon cher. Life is more
complicated than that." "How
come she's having an affair?" "That
doesn't change a thing." "What
makes you so sure?" "She
won't leave me." "Would
she miss her dollhouse?" "You
know nothing about women." "Ida is
not an ordinary woman." "Of
course not. That's why I married her! But if you really believe she's going
to leave me, you'd better prepare yourself for a very long wait. You may as
well start waiting for what's-his-name. Aren't you the one who wrote the sequel?" "I
don't give a damn about sequels, rewrites, or spin-offs!" I annihilated
his sarcasm. "For the most part they are the worthless masturbation of
pretentious pen pushers who want to cash in on someone else's glory. But when
that someone puts humanity on trial and passes a verdict, he triggers a
philosophical debate. And instead of writing a dull academic essay, this
humanist chose the art form he expresses himself best in: playwriting."
He gazed at me with a benevolent grin. There was no point hammering him over
the head with the dynamics of the waiting game. "Retournons ˆ nos
moutons prŽ-salŽ." The gourmand who
ate lamb from the sea-salted pastures of Mt. St Michel didn't smack his lips.
A more luscious piece of meat must have crisscrossed his brain. "Don't
tell me your wife is in love
with you." "It's
not love that governs the world, mon pauvre roumain, it's economics. Nobody loves his neighbor, unless
he's a pŽdŽ! (He chuckled. I
didn't.) The best you can do under the burden of Christianity is to love his
wife. (I chuckled. He didn't.) Perhaps I should have used a different exampleÉ
Ida is a marquise for PeterÕs sake! Any proletarian dreams of being in her
designer shoes—especially those who grew up under communism. If
Stalin's daughter were asked to become the Queen of England, she would have
packed her bags in a jiffy. Bye, bye Soviet pie! By the way, who were your
grandparents before communism?" "It's
interesting how the rich think they can insult anybody who has less income
than they do." "I
didn't mean to do that. Je m'excuse.
However, what do you have to offer Ida? A studio full of cockroaches on a
noisy street?" "My
studio is not on a noisy street! Occasionally, one or two solitary crawlers
may decorate the ceiling, but that's about it." "I
assume you don't even own your garret." "I
don't want to own a garret!" "You
have absolutely nothing to offer a woman." "We
won't starve. I don't own luxurious dollhouses and valuable art consisting of
spring in the hall, summer time in the living room and winter in the bedroom.
With me Ida is truly alive and herself; she doesn't have to wear the mask of
the grateful martyr while contemplating the snowflakes above the bed." "You
think you know my wife, my sarcastic interior designer. One of the reasons
she married me is because I don't interfere with her monde imaginaire. I am not the overbearing lover who constantly offers
pennies for her thoughts and dimes for her kisses." "That's
just an excuse for not being bothered with le monde pratique. If she's really happy in your golden cage, why is
she having an affair?" "Having
an affair and being married are two different things. The point is she won't
leave me." "Maybe
some day she'll have breakfast in my
bed." "You
must have delusions of grandeur, cher romancier. Whoever said that life, love and libraries have no future was a
visionary. Literature nowadays is someone's ordeal in a country that happens to be in the news.
Romania is not in the news, so forget it. Communism is a thing of the past;
still writing about it is a waste of time. Actually, Ida has more of a chance
to succeed as an artist because sheÕs young, sexy, intelligent, and her bills are paid. If I'm not mistaken you're
making your living from a banal import business. By the time your books pay
off, you'll be either dead or too old to tolerate a woman in your life other
than la femme de
mŽnage. I feel sorry for you." "I
see," I retorted, making a super-human effort not to hurl the contents
of my glass in his face. "Wealth also gives you the right to be
impertinent." I gazed at his family coat of arms, tempted to draw a
weapon. "Aren't you glad we're not living in the 19th Century? Your sarcasm
demands satisfaction." "Truth
is always impertinent," he said calmly. "But I'd better be nice to
young authors. They always have the final say." His last
comment made me snicker without being cheerful. "Any famous last words, ma”tre?" "Take a
wife, mon fils, before it's too
late." "Whose
wife shall I take? Yours, gladly!" "TouchŽ,"
the joker recoiled, feigning a wound below the belt. The ancient
clock on the wall ticked away, and I felt like breaking something else on his
desk. His engraved fountain pen was an arm stretch away. Guessing my
intention, he confined it to his breast pocket with a grin that degenerated
into laughter. "What's
so funny?" I asked. "I too
am guilty of literary ambitions. Long ago I wrote the synopsis of an historical
novel called Le Duel." "That's
why literature is going to the dogs," I sighed, "because of people
like you who can afford to write. "I
assure you my novel will interest you." "If the
husband wins the duel, I'm leaving!" "He
gets killed before he fires a shot." "Good
for him. Fire away." "What
did I tell you! My novel takes place before the Revolution and deals with a
young couple in heat. Like most lovebirds, they come from ruined families.
Their only hope is to marry well. The young woman is forced to accept an old
aristocrat as perverse as the Marquis de Sade. The turtledoves conceive a
plan to get rid of the old goat. Once the Marquis is maggot meat, the
charming widow will marry her sweetheart and live happily ever after off the
sucker's fortune. The penniless lover challenges the husband. They meet in
the Bois for a shooting spree. The Marquis is killed." "I
can't stand cheap-shot happy endings." "Who
said that's the ending? By the time the Marquis gets wasted, the wife has already
been initiated into the pleasures of the flesh and good living. A jealous husband
is the last thing she has on her mind. She has outgrown plan A. She goes for
plan B—to remain a cheerful widow in the pursuit of sensual foxiness, a
kind of a distant cousin to Madame de Merteuil. But alas, the young man
doesn't want to play the role of Valmont! Pas mal, huh? Do I have a Goncourt in the bush?" "When a
major literary prize goes to an historical stuffed bird, it says more than
enough about the sorrowful state of contemporary literature. What happens
next?" His tapping on the desk annoyed me. "I
cannot tell you. I'm afraid you'll steal my story." "Expect
a rough draft in three months." "What
would your ending be like?" "He
confesses to the priest who's a stool pigeon for the police. Their pretty
heads will end up kissing in the basket." "I
don't like it a bit. Sad endings give me indigestion!" "In
that case we can get some inspiration from the Romans. Forget about the duel.
It's more fun the husband stays in the picture. The lover complains to the
acquiescent old goat for not making it difficult to sleep with the wife and
to the mistress for not trying a little harder to make him jealous. Boredom
is the death of romance, so the husband and wife must work harder to prevent
the lover from pursuing more exciting conquests." My subdued
twitter burst like an over-inflated balloon. I thought the aristocrat was
going to throw me out with a shove and a kick. He watched me with repressed
fascination. Had we met in different circumstances other than me being his
wife's lover, we could have been chums everlasting. Hate is only possible
between superficial and indoctrinated people. Between governments hate is
pure propaganda. I imagined myself a French poilu exchanging cigarettes and family pictures with a
German during Christmas truce. How could I shoot him the next morning? "You
haven't answered my question," I reminded him. "Which
question is that?" "What
if some day I can offer Ida the bourgeois lifestyle you're so fond of it? According
to you, that's the only scenario in which she'll leave you." He thought
for a moment and said: "You won't want her anymore. You'll despise
her." "Nonsense." "Are
you familiar with the Martin Eden syndrome?" I shook my head even though
the name was familiar. "The syndrome springs from a novel with the same
name by Jack London. Martin has a sweetheart he wishes to marry, but she,
following her family's advice, refuses to have anything to do with a penniless
writer. Then he strikes gold and glory, and his old flame is now too willing
to tie the knot. He declines and, disgusted with the world's hypocrisy, jumps
off an ocean liner. You may not jump off an ocean liner, but you'll feel terribly
disappointed. You'll feel betrayed. You won't want anything to do with
Ida." His chiseled
speech made me speechless. The old playboy had made a devastating point and I
was at a loss to refute it. Bleakly, I looked toward Ida's paintings. The
angel with white gloves looked at me with infinite sadness. The clocked
ticked away. "Love
doesn't conquer all; love destroys all," concluded the Marquis.
"See Marilyn Monroe. Apropos, do you know what Kennedy's pick-up line
was?" I pleaded ignorance. "Don't ask what I can do for you, ask what you can do for the President of the United
States." "I
thought that was Clinton's pick-up line." "It was
Kennedy's, but Clinton is the one who got caught. The same line applies to
the panoply of society women. A homo erectus without money or prospectus is a
sexually finished being, condemned to cheap booze and masturbation. What I am
getting at is that one's ego is stronger than love. Had Ida said to me: 'Hey,
old man, marry me so I can live in Paris worry-free with a lover of my
choice,' I would have sent her straight to the devil. I know I am not the
love of her life and never will be, but without the illusion that I am
someone special, I wouldn't be able to wake up next to her." Slowly, the
Marquis turned around and contemplated his family coat of arms. I sensed he
was about to make a painful decision and was hesitating for fear of later
regrets. He grabbed one of the ancient pistols and laid it in front of him.
He stared at it for quite some time, making me worry. "I only
keep one loaded," he said. "Just in case someone intends to rob
me." His poignant
grimace implied that I was the king of robbers. Here was a ripe man drifting
happily with a woman who surpassed his expectations on a sea without a ripple
of financial worries when Doru the Hurricane, Doru Captain Hook threatened to
steal his most cherished possession. He wished to remain seaworthy, but he
knew all along that, no matter how much wealth and wit one possessed, happiness
is a leaking boat at the mercy of the weather and roaming pirates. He pointed
the single-barrel gun at me without saying a word. I was petrified. It was either
my foolish heart or the oysters in my cloister. "Are
you going to shoot every lover your wife will ever have?" asked a
distant voice from beyond the tunnel of light in which I was expecting to
tumble any moment like a skydiver with a prayer for a parachute. Reader, I
must leave the story hanging and you dangling. I can start anywhere in the
plot, but I can't go too far without having to revert to the very beginning.
You may wonder how a passable dasher with a promising head on his warrior
shoulders, with mensano in corpore sano—like
the Romans used to say—could end up facing the barrel of an old pistol.
What lethal lure did this particular wife possess? What magic potion did she
have me drink? |