Apocalypse Baby. Виржини Депант

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СКАЧАТЬ to dress. Anna used to slide her finger up his ass every time she gave him a blow job, just the end of her finger and slide it. Without ever referring to it when the sheets were back in place. As soon as he hears that accent, he gets a hard-on. Her sophisticated Italian look when he took her out, her way of wrapping herself up so that you could only see her dark eyes, the curve of a shapely lip. The nonchalant way she let him open doors, or would give him a package to carry. Her regal manner, but without the irritating arrogance of Parisian women. Never trying to be a brilliant conversationalist when they were out for the evening, too beautiful for that. And when they broke up, a fury. Magnificently feminine, when she was shouting insults at him and throwing his clothes out of the door. Then she had hammered him with a series of rapid and vicious little blows with her clenched fists, fists so delicate he would have sworn they could do no damage, but when used like that in repeated, regular fashion, they had left a constellation of bruises on his chest and back. He had had to resort to various subterfuges for two weeks so as not to undress in front of Clothilde, his official wife at the time, with whom he was still living. That was his second marriage. Two divorces, three marriages, a respectable average as he approached fifty. Clothilde had never wished to acknowledge that he was cheating on her. He hadn’t bothered to hide it from her anymore than from the others. But she chose not to know about it. She had invented an extremely flattering portrait of him, as being not the kind of man to cheat on his wife. She maintained it, come hell or high water. So he could say he was returning home after playing poker with his friends all night, that he was doing research in bars for his novel, that he’d had a late-night discussion with his publisher. He had only to take the trouble to invent an excuse for her to choose to believe it. Her trust had at first bothered him with remorse. A woman so affectionate and upright that she couldn’t even imagine he would lie to her. He felt guilty, but unable to stop himself being turned on by a new acquaintance, a presence, a way of moving, of standing in a room, a smile, or a voice. He couldn’t not do it. He had felt guilty for months, before he realized that Clothilde’s lack of jealousy was entirely founded on the deeply condescending idea she had of him. She put up with him because his small-scale fame gave her some kudos, but at heart she found him insignificant, lacking breeding or sophistication, slow-witted and uncharismatic. She viewed him as so far below her that he was reassuring: a little frog like him could only adore a princess like her, and be grateful that she had raised him to her level. It had taken him a while to work out how this functioned, but once he had decoded it, he began to hate her. She had come into his life only a short while after Vanessa had left him. The wound was still too raw for him to forgive Clothilde for making him feel useless and unimportant all over again. He had left her in the lousiest way possible, taking care to make plans for a holiday with friends before walking out one July morning without a word of explanation, to join another woman. Clothilde had wept for months, telling all their friends about it, exhibiting her pain as proof of his ingratitude and dangerous nature. By so doing, she had rendered him extremely desirable to all her female acquaintances. What a stroke of luck. Clothilde hadn’t made him happy, but thanks to her he had felt good, being labeled as a bastard, a seducer, and a breaker of hearts. Anything was better than the taste in his mouth of the humiliation that Vanessa had forced on him. A little boy, abused and at risk.

      “So sorry to be late, it was hard to find a parking place.”

      Slight disappointment: she must be in her forties. But the excitement comes back once she takes off her coat: she’s taken care with her outfit, sure of herself, flirtatious without being vulgar, available for games of seduction without looking as if she’s already conquered. Better than pretty. “Shall we do the photos first? Liam’s got another photo shoot after this.” François agrees with enthusiasm, he too would prefer to be left alone with her. The publicist had warned him there’d be photos, to which he’d replied that he’d prefer to do both together, the interview and the portrait, he’s taken care to wash his hair to destroy the ridiculous blow dry the TV makeup man had inflicted on him the previous day, in spite of his protests. The photographer accompanying the Italian woman is an ape. On the pretext of finding “a good spot,” with the right light, one that would inspire him, he was preparing to roll around on François’s bed, a move from which he had to be dissuaded practically by force. Occupied in making the acquaintance of the journalist, François has had no time to stop the photographer rushing into his bedroom, “to check what it’s like.” He keeps flashing around a black box, a light meter, he’s here, there, and everywhere, standing up against the windows, looking through every room with the air of a madman, muttering comments that are incomprehensible but not necessarily complimentary about the decor. A little ape let loose in the house, you feel like taking him by the scruff of the neck to shake him, as you would a kitten that’s peeing everywhere. Photographers are capable of anything. Earlier that week, a young idiot with acne had spent ten minutes insisting that François be shouting, with his mouth wide open, because “I only do that kind of shot.” “Glad to hear it, but I don’t shout in my photographs.” The young man had sulked, apparently convinced that anyone his magazine sent him to photograph was duty-bound to satisfy the slightest wishes of an untalented child. A year or two back, another one had wanted him to jump in the air in front of the Pyramid of the Louvre. “We need some movement, you see, otherwise it’s too static,” he’d explained in the tone of voice you might use to get a senile old man to go back to his nursing home. “We need the shot to look interesting, you see. I can’t take you sitting in a chair with your chin in your hands, we’d lose all our readers.” François couldn’t decently jump about in front of the Louvre, with all the people going past. He usually manages to hold out, but sometimes they cancel the article and his publicist scolds him. “It seems you wouldn’t play ball when it came to the photos.” He tries to check on the lunatic galloping around the house.

      “We usually do the photos in my office or in the library.”

      “Yeah, that’s just it,” says the imbecile, as he darts into the kitchen. “I’d like to find a fresh angle, more everyday, more human.”

      François wants to shout, “I write books, you fucking moron, why should I have my picture taken in the kitchen? I’m not going to appear in La Repubblica cooking a cassoulet!” The journalist realizes the situation is getting grotesque, so she tries to mediate, succeeding fairly well. She seems taller than she is, just coming up to his shoulder, although she looks long and willowy. She smiles as she tells him about her project, he hardly listens to the list of authors she hopes to include in the series, he presses a cup of coffee on her, unable to concentrate on what she’s saying while the photographer is scampering around the twenty-five hundred square feet of the apartment. He hears him opening the french doors to the balcony and joins him, feeling infuriated. The idiot is leaning over the guard rail. “If you don’t mind, I’d prefer we stick to the library. I don’t like photo shoots and I want to get it over with.” The photographer turns around, holding the camera, and twisting himself into a ridiculous attitude, takes a picture, “from life,” while repeating, “Yeah, yeah, super, got it all, the light, need some light, turn your face a bit to the right, chin down a bit, no lower, like that, look at the camera, that’s super, face the light, yeah, yeah, got it, perfect, in the can!” All over in a minute, leaving François with the bittersweet impression that he’s being treated like some bimbo. “What do you mean, it’s in the can?” he asks, leaning across to the camera to see the result for himself. It’s all very well not liking photo shoots, he knows from experience that it normally takes longer than this. The degenerate ape shrugs, “I don’t do digital, it’s all about getting the atmosphere and the definition, sorry, can’t show you now, but I’ve got an eye for it, I felt it here, we’ve got it.” Con man. Italian. Half-wit. François’s sure he’ll end up looking like an idiot, surprised by the cretin waving his arms around on the balcony. Well, too bad, after all he isn’t there to look like a film star, he’ll concentrate on being brilliant in the interview. Just before leaving, the imbecile points to one of his bags. “You got Wi-Fi? Can I just check my email before I go?” François can’t suppress an irritable sigh. “I do have Wi-Fi, but it’s a bit of a nuisance to go and look for the code.” “No problem, I’ve got my own dongle, it’s just that it’s easier here than on my scooter.” François indicates the Mies van der Rohe chair in the vestibule—“Okay, СКАЧАТЬ