Men Page 17

  At Roissy she was shocked by the countless number of white people. Soft, pink, speckled skin, plucked chickens, walking serious-serious.

  There she is collecting her bags, the correct label: all the bags look the same. There she is pulling on a big sweater. It’s April and she’s shivering. There she is walking towards the line of taxis. She is going to have a rest at Daniel and Lætitia’s place; there will be fresh bread on the table, baguette; the little Christmas tree will have been dismantled. Then she will take the train to Clèves and recharge her batteries, as they say, with her parents and her son.

  THE END

  She got dressed in a flash. She had known forever that she would wear her blue lamé sheath, a vintage Dior from the seventies, the most beautiful item in her wardrobe. Forever, since the beginning, since the first mention of the film, and even when she didn’t believe in it, she had seen herself at the premiere in this sheath. She had seen herself in this sheath on his arm.

  She was swimming in it. She had lost a lot of weight since their separation. They lived in the same city but he had remained immersed in his project, preoccupied with his editing, deep in the teeming river of his film, in his teeming river, over there somewhere, making no contact whatsoever, and when her messages became more like pleas he sent a final text, one of his one-liners that took her breath away: ‘You have to turn the page, Solange.’

  Solange. He called her Solange. Right until the end, in her mind, that would be their secret.

  Afterwards, nothing. News via other people. She was not waiting for anything anymore, other than the premiere. Stopping waiting became another life, breathable and sad. And now she was concentrating on how to put on the sheath without damaging the lamé. She pretended as if the only thing that mattered from now on was wearing a dress.

  Her hairdresser opted for a nicely textured chignon, deceptively loose on the nape of her neck. She closed her eyes; the urge to cry came over her again.

  She sent a limousine to collect her father and her mother and her son at LAX. She was putting them up in a hotel. It was too much to have them at her place. She left them with Olga to find something stylish at Vanessa Bruno and Paul Smith on Melrose (her mother would have wanted to rent dinner suits). Most importantly, she had managed to convince Rose and her husband to come—she had sent them two plane tickets. And Olga was coming with her. She needed Olga. The poster featured only George and Vincent, and some trees and a river. Well, Favour wasn’t on it, either.

  On the ivory and gold invitation card in the shape of a tree, the venue of the premiere was listed as the Chinese Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard. Before leaving, she downed a few whiskies, perhaps one too many, as confirmed by the Hollywood Reporter online videos: she seemed to hesitate as she stepped out of the limousine; if you looked carefully, she staggered a little, by herself, on no one’s arm. Her son and her father were walking behind, then her mother, then Rose and her husband, then Olga and her boyfriend. Red carpet, random camera flashes. She was looking around (you can make that out from the video, too) for a welcoming look. Ted. Or even Lloyd, despite their disagreements. Not one of the Africans was there, not Patricien, or Glueboy, or Hilaire, or Ignatius, or Freeboy, obviously. Things were back to normal: almost all the world was white.

  Welcome: she missed his expert make-up brush, his straightened hair and his poor person’s dream of white skin. How old was Welcome? Twenty? The same age as her son. The only thing she knew for sure was that she would never see him again. Back there, down in Poco, down in Kribi, perhaps the invitation cards were decorations on the dried-mud walls. Perhaps they had landed, through some miraculous journey, inside the palm-leaf hut of one M’Bali or of one Tumelo, if those huts were still standing, stuck between the rubber plantations and the palm-oil groves. Perhaps they had landed on the mirror of Welcome’s make-up table, somewhere in Lagos, if Welcome was still alive. Perhaps the Company had sent the invitations; perhaps Kouhouesso had thought to arrange it. But without goody bags, without plane tickets or visas.

  She waited for the new press attaché, deep in conversation with Oprah, to come over and say hello. They raved about her sheath, then, looking around, raved about the Chinese-style decor that they knew inside out. They talked about George, who was filming in Berlin with Steven. And about Vincent, who was, such a pity, in Japan. They were waiting for Jessie.

  George’s agent completely ignored her, as if he didn’t know her at all. He had always regarded her from the perspective of a man for whom passion, in a woman, at whatever level it might be, professional or romantic, is an inappropriate demonstration of feeling. As if, in this whole story, there had been, on her behalf, a lack of taste, immoderate behaviour, an unacceptable crossing of boundaries. There was a rumour that, in the forest, he had caught a debilitating parasite, the type that enters through the soles of your feet.

  Father, mother, son, Rose, Rose’s husband, Olga, Olga’s boyfriend—she sat in the middle of the kebab skewer, row fourteen on the left. Floria arrived, magnificent, followed by Lilian in her hat. She stood up, disturbing the whole row, to go and give them a kiss. Still no sign of Kouhouesso. The evening was running late. There was a commotion, Jessie was arriving, with Alma. Two years later, who would have thought? In the chaos, she had managed to end up, standing, a few rows further ahead. She bobbed up and down, laughing loudly, trying to catch Jessie’s eye. Then she climbed back up to her seat, disturbing everyone all over again.

  In the meantime, Kouhouesso appeared out of nowhere. He kissed Jessie and Alma, back down where she’d just come from. He waved, perhaps at her, no, more towards the centre of the theatre.

  He was alone. Extremely handsome in a leather suit and an open white shirt. The only thing she didn’t like was his hair, re-braided American-style, the braids right on the scalp. Welcome would have done better.

  She scarcely heard the speeches—from Ted on behalf of the Company, from Oprah, from Kouhouesso. She listened out for her name—in the thanks, perhaps? Jessie went up on stage, applause. And Lola! Lola Behn was in the first row. The Lola from Suriname. What was Lola doing there? Kouhouesso returned to his seat between Jessie and Oprah, and just before the lights went out she caught sight of the top of his head, the braids in perfect ridges. She wondered if he still smelled of incense; she was even convinced of it, from this far away…Oh, she knew him well, no one knew him so well as she…She was certain that beneath that skull not a single thought slipped away from the screen, away from the night, from London and the Thames and the schooner at anchor, and the men’s voices and the sooty shadows, then the immense light of the African coast, the sky so much bigger than the Earth, the sea the colour of zinc, the white foam far off on the reefs, and like foam, the green moss, of trees, of mangroves, and like a gushing of grey milk, the mouth of the river, making its appearance, infiltrating deep into the ocean, the river navigable right from the ocean, Africa wide open well beyond its coastline, everything she hadn’t seen looking from the plane from Douala and that she saw right there, from the water, from her seat in the fourteenth row and from all her missing of him, right there, fourteen rows further down, perfectly locatable in the darkness of the cinema, and invisible, and apart.

  Then the boat. ‘A continuous noise of the rapids…’ It became, how should she put it, more distinct; she recalled some of the rushes. The editing was phenomenal; she was overwhelmed by the sensitivity of it, his sensitivity, when he was sensitive—as well as the violence within that sensitivity. The film she saw was what remained of the film, its milky, churning surface. The film she saw was the memory she would have of it: what was being etched into her memory, seamlessly, without time passing. She would remember forever being there, fourteen rows from him, caressing the screen with her eyes. She was remembering already, as if it was her own past.

  She tried to reactivate her critical faculties. To see if there was anything not quite right. Something was not quite right, but what? Was it an issue with the pacing? Did it lose dramatic tension? She shoul
d have been on the screen. Now. Emerging. White dress and arms outstretched. ‘…Her and him in the same instant of time…’ She was not emerging. The white shape that she should have been. ‘This eloquent phantom.’ The phantom, no one. Her voice, lost.

  Olga took her hand and the warmth of her skin held her there, enclosed, in the fourteenth row.

  George, his ivory face among the torches. The forest. Then the body of someone else, of Kouhouesso, carried on board, the white face, eyes shut, carried…Cut, and it was convincing, yes, no one knew, no one could tell…

  The beats were missing from her heart. The forest was coiling like a mirage, never thinning, never diminishing, hurtling all at once to the sea, yes, it was the sea and she was not there. A Congo for the movies, the mouth of the Ntem River transplanted as if the planet had been refashioned, a better model, more practical, telluric plastic surgery, the Chinese Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard.

  Why weren’t they in ‘Europe’? Where were the scenes shot in Kribi? Where was she? Where had she been left; in which pixels had she got stuck? Why was the music fading and the film ending and why were the words The End appearing in cursive script, like in the old days, like in the old movies: why bother with the words when it’s already over?

  Applause, deafening applause over her absence. She was not there. She was not in the film. Murderous lights. Her three scenes were missing. Even Olga was getting agitated. Perhaps there was a glimpse of her…the ash-blonde halo… the vampire pallor…Kurtz said, ‘The horror! The horror!’… and perhaps you could make out a white glow, some kind of retinal impression…No. He had cut out every trace of her. And she had summoned them all here—her father, her mother, her son, her friends. Imperious, she had organised everything, bought the plane tickets, arranged their seating, right here, in order to witness her absence.

  ‘It’s because of your dress,’ whispered Olga. ‘They were hideous, those dresses.’

  ‘What a beautiful film,’ said her mother. ‘But I didn’t see you, darling?’ And she hugged her and said, ‘It was really good. It was really good anyway, darling. Sweetheart.’ And the fourteenth row stood up, the cinema emptied, emptied out her blood. Kouhouesso, right there, his head ridged with parted hair. She remembered the beautiful, serene head in the loft in Topanga, the King of Ife, not a woman but a king. And she was the thread he had undone, a character easily unspooled from the film, who is not missed, a ghost who does not leave behind the outline of her absence: she was unnecessary and everyone was in raptures, and Kouhouesso would go to Cannes and to the Oscars, without her, snip go the scissors.

  AFTERWARDS

  Afterwards there is a cocktail party, a crush of people, and she has to have a drink, quick, champagne. And he comes over to see her; he is walking towards her. She immediately raises her hand, refusing. He can keep his upset look to himself. And yet they’re together. It’s astounding. He has inched forwards, crossed the threshold, the circle of ashes, and now they have entered the same sphere. That gesture she made—putting out her hand to stop him, her open palm, vertical, raised—she would never have made that gesture to anyone else; that decisive, familiar gesture is for him: she knows him. Oh, she knows him well. And the way he looks at her: he looked at her like that in the canyons. When the coyotes were howling. And later in the forest. Among the swarms of fireflies. The sea and the forest: he looks at her like he looked at them. She does not know why. But what she does know—if he comes any nearer, she will die. There will be nothing left of her but powder. Nothing but a blur. If he touches her. She will disappear. If he talks to her; even one word will be enough.

  EXTRAS

  Years later, almost ten, at another cocktail for another premiere, Jessie is the star this time, Favour is there, perhaps Gwyneth, George is there, and he is there. She is about to turn forty-six but she has worked with Soderbergh, with Malick, with Michel Gomez, with Nuri Ceylan, with Kaurismäki.

  He has cut his hair short. She recognises him immediately, of course, but he is no longer quite the same man. He smells different now. The air between them, when they enter each other’s respective spheres, thickens and heats up, and the vibration of the air is tiresome, but she breathes and holds her own. Heart of Darkness was released on DVD Director’s Cut. One day she found it in her letterbox: the scenes of the Intended had been incorporated, but in the Extras section. The rumour is that he left Lola after the film’s success. That he had a short fling with Bianca Brittany, and that he was devastated by the suicide of the young star. Tonight he is with an amazing creature, half-Canadian, half-South African, the one who was in Battlestar Galactica. It seems he’s writing a film for her.

  He opens his hands in surprise, he pretends awkwardness; they kiss each other à la française, on both cheeks, firmly. They laugh. They have a glass of champagne each. Another. It’s crazy, how their friendship is still so close. The affection as well as the resentment. Whatever, whatever, companionship. Companionship despite everything, two survivors of the same odyssey or, let’s not go overboard, of the same bumpy journey. They end up speaking French, he in his deep, mellow voice, and she takes on his smooth, humming accent. In the end it’s affection, from a past long ago-long ago: she has known him forever.

  He tells her about a sort of illness he had. ‘I have never forgotten you. For three years, after the film, I never found a single woman who came close to you. Yes, for three years, there was not a single woman I liked as much as you.’ And from his matter-of-fact, admiring, kind tone, she knows that it is the most beautiful declaration of love that he will ever make to her.

  NOTES

  The epigraph by Marguerite Duras is from Practicalities, translated by Barbara Bray, Harper Collins, 1990 (from La Vie Matérielle, Éditions P.O.L., 1987).

  The lyrics by Josephine Baker are translated by Penny Hueston.

  The proverb on p. 193, ‘Only people without a vision resort to reality’ is cited by the South African photo-grapher Santu Mofokeng in his book Chasseur d’Ombre, Prestel, 2011.

  The quotations from Aimé Césaire are from the translation of Aimé Césaire’s Notebook of a Return to My Native Land (Cahier d’un Retour au Pays Natal), translated by Clayton Eshelman and Annette Smith, Wesleyan University Press, 2001.

  Marie Darrieussecq received a Stendhal Travel Grant from the Institut Français for the writing of this novel.

  _______________________

  1‘Locked in such a bold embrace, how could I keep my wits about me?’ From a popular French song, ‘Mon Amant de Saint-Jean’, written by Léon Agel in 1942, interpreted by many singers, including Edith Piaf and Patrick Bruel.

  2 A Cameroonian dish of stewed nuts, ndoleh leaves and fish or beef.

  3 Central African word for a white person, ‘one who has come out of the belly of a fish’.

  4 Camfranglais: Off we go. Let’s hit the road.

  5 Camfranglais: forbidden