The Disoriented Read online

  “You can go home, Francis, it’s after midnight. I’ll turn off the lights. Just leave the champagne here.”

  The man brought over the bottle and the ice bucket, bowed to his boss and her guest, and then disappeared.

  “My first memory of you,” said the hostess as soon as they were alone, “was when you offered to take me home after some evening out. Do you remember?”

  “Like it was yesterday.”

  That evening, a group of them had had dinner in a little student restaurant near the law faculty, appropriately named Le Code Civil. After the meal, Sémiramis had asked if anyone could take her home. Adam had volunteered instantly. They had stepped out into the street. Then they had walked and walked.

  “The first five minutes, I assumed we were heading to your car and I was just wondering why you’d parked so far away. It took a while before I realized you intended to walk me home.”

  “I had been staring at you all through the meal, I was completely captivated. And when you asked if someone would take you home, I didn’t think for a second, I instantly volunteered; like those children who when they hear the words ‘Who wants …?’ immediately scream ‘Me!’ before they even know what is on offer. In my case, I knew, and I was afraid someone would get in before me.”

  “At first, I was livid. Mourad had his car with him, Tania had hers, and there were probably others. They could have run me home in five minutes. It was late, my parents were expecting me, and because of you I was going to get a telling-off. But, gradually, I started to enjoy the walk. The weather was pleasantly cool, I was seeing the city in a new light, and I found your conversation amusing. Later, I found out that you didn’t talk much, but that night you couldn’t stop. You must have been nervous …”

  “I was mortified! I remember the feeling as though it were yesterday. When we left the restaurant, I realized that there had been a misunderstanding. You obviously assumed that I was driving you home in my car, but I didn’t have one, not then. What could I do? Apologize, then run after the others to try and catch someone with wheels? I would have felt humiliated. So, I pretended that my plan had always been to walk you home.”

  “In Paris, it would have seemed natural, I suppose. But here, it was so weird. No one went anywhere on foot …”

  “Especially at night! There were hardly any footpaths, and even long before there were armed militiamen, and roadblocks and booby-trapped cars, there were potholes in the roads bad enough to break your leg.”

  “I was convinced that when we reached my parents’ building, in the dimly lit corner next to the stairs, you would say goodnight and you’d kiss me.”

  “That’s exactly what I wanted to do! But I didn’t have the guts. In my head there was a miserable little voice whispering: ‘Don’t spoil this beautiful moment by doing something inappropriate. This girl trusts you, don’t take advantage. Behave like a gentleman!’ All the precepts of my so-called ‘good breeding’ conspired to leave me paralyzed. But there was a moment when I decided to defy them. There was a gaping hole in the road and I took your hand to guide you around it. Then I ‘forgot’ to let go. We walked a little way hand in hand, and you were the one who let go.”

  “Now that, I don’t remember at all!”

  “I still remember it because I went over and over it in my mind. When you let go of my hand, I concluded you were trying to tell me not to go too far, too fast. You’d done it gently, tactfully, without offending me, but to me, it was a message.”

  “If that’s what you thought, you were wrong. I don’t remember all these details, but I do remember one thing: I wasn’t trying to put you off. Quite the opposite; I wanted you to kiss me in the doorway, I was convinced you were going to, and I was disappointed when you didn’t. That, I’ve never forgotten.”

  “Even now, I feel a twinge of regret. Can you imagine? How many years later?”

  “Let’s not count. And it’s not just the years, but the lives, the consecutive lives …”

  What the two friends did not say, though the thought had occurred to both of them, was that the opportunity to kiss had never again presented itself. Since this had occurred early in their first year at university, when they were taking the same courses and belonged to the same circle of friends, Adam should have had dozens of opportunities to walk Sémiramis home and to say goodnight on the very spot where he had failed to kiss her the first time. But that first time had been the last.

  When, a few days later, the group had met up again, Sémiramis had arrived with one of their friends. Their every gesture proclaimed that they were “together.” Adam could not tear his eyes away from their entwined hands. To save himself heartache, he decided right then to convince himself that she had been with this “other guy” for some time and that he had therefore been right not to try to kiss her since she could not but have rejected him. But this was not the case. The truth was that the “other guy” had had the courage to take her in his arms, whereas he had not.

  Even after so many years, so many “consecutive lives,” Adam still felt regret, and he felt shame. It was this which, in part as an apology to his “chatelaine,” in part as a consolation for himself, led him to say:

  “I’ve always been cripplingly shy. And although it’s something I’ve managed to hide with age and with years of training, it’s something I’ve never managed to get rid of. I rarely speak at historical conferences, for example. Oh, I put myself forward without much conviction, and then feel stupidly relieved when they forget to call on me. Put me in the company of a chatterbox and I can spend hours without opening my mouth. When I was young, it was even worse. I was constantly paralyzed by the fear of being humiliated, of losing face. I tried to convince myself that this lack of confidence was actually an excessive pride: if I didn’t ask for anything, it was because I couldn’t bear the thought of someone saying no; rather than take a risk, I found it easier not to ask.”

  “The same way you found it easier not to kiss me,” Sémiramis concluded with a sad smile.

  “Afraid so,” said Adam with the same smile. “And it’s something I’ll regret to my dying day.”

  They laughed cheerfully, though without making a sound. Sémiramis divided the dregs of the champagne between their glasses and put the bottle in the ice bucket upside down.

  “How about a little walk in the fresh air?” she suggested.

  “That sounds reasonable. Then, I’ll take you home.”

  “On foot, like last time?”

  “Exactly … like last time,” Adam echoed, thrilled to see the years, the decades, swept away.

  -

  4

  Sémiramis did not live in the hotel that bore her name; at least not in the main building, but a few steps away, in a little house ringed with dense trees.

  “These few metres are my protection. Without them, there would be a knock every time there was a reservation, a cancellation, or a leak. In my little house, I can read, as you can see,” she said, ushering her guest inside and turning on the lights to reveal walls lined with books.

  “It’s not as small as all that, your little house.”

  “There’s nothing more than what you can see. This is my library, upstairs is my bedroom, my bathroom, and a veranda.”

  “Where you sunbathe in summer, wearing only a fig leaf …”

  “When it comes to fantasies, I’ve gone one better. I had an electric service lift installed. Every morning, someone brings my breakfast and puts it in the dumbwaiter; I simply press a button and the tray appears on the veranda. It’s a pleasure I never tire of.”

  There was a silence. They were still standing on the threshold; Adam’s hostess had not suggested that he take a seat. He glanced at his watch and took a step towards the door, which was still ajar.

  “If you kiss me goodnight, I promise not to cry for help.”

  He turned back. Sémiramis was standing w
ith her eyes closed, her arms by her sides, her lips parted in a mischievous smile. He came back and planted a kiss on her right cheek, then her left and, after a moment of hesitation, a third more furtive kiss on her lips. Not a single part of her moved, not her arms, not her eyelids, not a single muscle in her face. Adam took a step back, prepared to leave, but seeing her still standing there motionless, he stepped towards her again, took her in his arms, and drew her gently towards him in a friendly hug. Still, she did not move. He hugged a little harder and she nestled, or allowed herself to be nestled, against him.

  And there they stood, fused, body pressed against body, with no words, no apparent passion, each happy simply to inhale the other’s warmth and scent. Then Sémiramis pulled away and said innocuously:

  “You’ll need to make sure that the door is properly closed.”

  This said, she stooped, slipped off her shoes, picked them up and set off up the stairs to her room without a backward glance.

  As he reached the door, Adam felt the same nagging doubt he had “last time.” Was he supposed to close the door from within or without? He felt confused and a little ashamed. But also amused to discover that, even at his age, he retained the same scruples, the same doubts he had as an adolescent. Would his friend be surprised to see him appear in her bedroom? Or, on the contrary, would she be disappointed and hurt if he did not appear?

  Eventually, he closed the door, fastened the latch, pressed the light switch off, and headed towards the stairs, guided by the glow from above.

  When he reached the boudoir of “the beautiful Sémi,” he could not stop himself announcing, in a faltering voice, “I didn’t leave …” All he could hear by way of reply was the pounding of the shower.

  Three minutes later, his friend reappeared, wrapped in a large white towel.

  “Don’t count on me to throw you out,” she said.

  Their eyes met, and each saw in the other a glimmer of expectation.

  “Have you got another towel like that?”

  “A whole pile of them. I’ve even left you a little hot water.”

  When Adam returned from the bathroom, the lights had been turned out, but the room was still bathed in a glow from outside. He unwrapped his towel and tossed it onto the shadowy form of a chair. Then he quickly slipped under the covers. Sémiramis shivered at the first contact with the cold skin of the “intruder”; but rather than move away, she pulled him to her breast so that he could share her warmth.

  For a long time, they lay, pressed together, motionless, as though waiting for their bodies to be warm and dry, to become familiar with each other. Then, throwing back the covers, the man propped himself on his left elbow and slowly ran the palm of his right hand over the skin of the woman. First her shoulders, then her brow, her shoulders once again, then her hips, then her breasts, gently, patiently, painstakingly, as though carrying out a topographical survey.

  As he applied himself to the task, he whispered in a low voice:

  “Take the time to discover the landscape of your body. The hills, the plains, the thickets, the gorges …”

  Sémiramis did not move. Eyes closed, she seemed to be focusing her full attention, her every sense, on her friend’s hand as it discovered her body, redrew it, paid homage to it.

  Then Adam leaned over her and pressed his lips to the places his hands had just smoothed. Brow, shoulders, breasts, but also cheeks, lips, eyelids, with no insistence, no pressures, nothing that might give the impression that this was an erotic prelude. As though, once again, he was conducting a survey. Carefully, seriously, reverently, his breath accompanied by whispered words that his friend did not quite hear, yet understood.

  Then it was she who sat up and he lay motionless. She precisely repeated his every gesture, as though her skin had memorized them. First with her palm, then with her lips.

  After this, she twined her limbs around him, rolling him from side to side, finding herself above him, beneath him, until she lost all sense of space. The bed, now stripped of its covers and its pillows, was a bare, white expanse on which their bodies turned in every sense, like the hands of a clock out of time.

  Neither of them wanted a fleeting encounter, quickly consummated, quickly concluded. On the contrary, they wanted their night of passion to draw out, to last, to avenge themselves on time past, as though the future was but an illusion, as though the two of them had just one night, just one, this night. It was up to them to see to it that the sun rose as late as possible. Up to them to find the perfect balance between ardour and endurance.

  In the middle of the night, as he caressed his lover’s brow, her shoulders, the man could not help saying:

  “When I kissed you, downstairs, you didn’t even put your arms around me. You were so stiff, so rigid, that I wondered if it might not be better if I left.”

  “That’s exactly what I wanted.”

  “You wanted me to leave?”

  “No, stupid!” Sémiramis said. “But I wanted you to wonder, and I wanted you to make the decision.”

  “At the risk of me leaving?”

  “Yes, at the risk of you leaving. I would have hated you if you’d left, and I would have been angry with myself. But I had already gone too far …”

  “Too far?”

  “I had brought you to my house, in the middle of the night. I had told you that I wouldn’t cry for help. I was not about to take you by the hand and drag you to my bed. The ball was in your court; it was for you to decide whether you wanted to take me in your arms, to kiss me, to climb the few steps to my room. Or whether you wanted to run away, like last time.”

  “Like last time,” he echoed, smiling, attempting to mimic his lover’s voice.

  And they found themselves twined about each other again, animated by a new surge of passion.

  By the time they finally dozed off, contented, exhausted, the sky was already beginning to brighten.

  The night had been theirs and theirs alone, until the dawn.

  -

  The Fifth Day

  -

  1

  By the time the lovers awoke, the encircling trees were already filled with a chirruping symphony of birdsong. From farther off, they could also hear the blare of car horns and the clink of cutlery from the hotel.

  “The tray is probably in the service lift. Shall we have coffee, or shall we go back to sleep?”

  “Coffee,” muttered the man, who did not yet seem able to string together a whole sentence.

  A few minutes later, he was sitting out on the veranda, wrapped in a bath towel. Wide awake and already hungry. Sémiramis had slipped on a light dress. The light was glaring and Adam had to borrow a pair of sunglasses.

  “Paris is a magnificent city …” his friend said suddenly, for no apparent reason.

  He turned to her, intrigued. She continued her thought:

  “… but not one where you can have your breakfast on a veranda.”

  Adam nodded. She went on:

  “And you never get this vivid sunshine.”

  He nodded again. But the very mention of his adoptive city sparked in him a twinge of remorse.

  “Last night, I was a coward and turned off my phone. Dolores was probably trying to call me.”

  A silence. Then he added, as though to himself:

  “And if she couldn’t get me, she probably called reception.”

  “No, I don’t think so,” Sémiramis said, taking a sip of her café au lait.

  “Really? So the receptionist provides you with an itemized report of guests’ communications?”

  “Absolutely not, guests are free to do as they please. As for Dolores, I know she wasn’t planning to call you last night.”

  “And how, precisely, do you know that, my dear Miss Marple?”

  “It’s not a deduction, she told me herself when I phoned her yesterday.”
>
  “When you called her,” Adam repeated, without the slightest hint of a question in his words.

  “I called yesterday to ask if we could sleep together.”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  The man tried to force a laugh, but all that came was a snicker.

  “Are you always so witty when you’ve just got out of bed?” Adam said, “I admire you. Personally, my sense of humour doesn’t wake up until a couple of hours after I do.”

  “When it does wake up, let me know and I’ll tell you everything …”

  “Tell me what?”

  “About my conversation with Dolores.”

  He set down his coffee cup and studied Sémiramis’s face. Her smile was impossible to interpret. He had no choice but to explicitly ask her whether she had genuinely telephoned Dolores. She nodded.

  “We became friends, as you know, that time I came to dinner at your apartment. Since then, we phone each other occasionally. I’m very fond of her. I didn’t want there to be any secrets between us.”

  He looked at her sceptically, expecting that she would burst out laughing. But, after a moment, she continued, her voice suddenly grave.

  “I thought that, if I did have an affair with you, sooner or later you’d tell her, she’d end up hating me, and you’d never speak to me again. I had no desire to lose two dear friends for the sake of a night of love. So, I phoned her.”

  By now, the lover’s face was ashen, he was breathing heavily and finding it difficult to swallow. Meanwhile, Sémiramis carried on in the same tone of voice, without turning to face him.

  “Dolores already knew the story of our nocturnal stroll back when we were students. I said to her, ‘I hoped Adam would kiss me that night, but he didn’t. When I saw him again, I knew I wanted him to walk me home again, and this time summon up the courage to kiss me.’ She laughed, and said, ‘You and Adam are under the same roof and I’m five thousand kilometres away, you can do whatever you like, I can’t stop you.’ I said, ‘That’s only how things appear. This is how it feels to me: I’m in your house, standing in front of your wardrobe, and I see an outfit that I really like. Either I steal it, like a common thief, or I call and ask if you wouldn’t mind lending it to me.’ Dolores was silent for a minute. Then she said, ‘So, how is he, my outfit?’ I said, ‘He’s in good form. Though, obviously, he doesn’t know I’m calling, or what I’m plotting; if you tell me to drop it, he’ll never know anything about it.’ Again, there was a nervous laugh and then a silence on the other end of the line. So I said, ‘Let’s just forget it, Dolores. It was just a passing whim. Since he’s been here, I’ve been mollycoddling him, without you he seems lost, like a hatchling fallen from the nest that will die of starvation unless someone feeds it. It awakened a maternal feeling in me, and some old desires … But, it’s too complicated, so let’s just let it drop, okay?’ There was another silence, then Dolores said, ‘If I do lend you my outfit, will you give it back?’ I said, ‘On my father’s grave, I swear I’ll return it in the same condition I found it.’ There you go, Adam, now you know everything!”