Frédéric Beigbeder - Holiday in a Coma & Love Lasts Three Years - two novels by Frédéric Beigbeder

FRÉDÉRIC BEIGBEDER

Two Novels

TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH BY FRANK WYNNE

Title Page FRÉDÉRIC BEIGBEDER Holiday In A Coma HOLIDAY IN A COMA Dedication For Diane Β., I fell, Head over heels . Epigraph Let’s dance The last dance Tonight Yes it’s my last chance For romance Tonight. Donna Summer, ‘Last Dance’ Casablanca Records Second novels are written in a secondary frame of mind. Me 7.00 P.M. 8.00 P.M. 9.00 P.M. 10.00 P.M. 11.00 P.M. 12.00 A.M. 1.00 A.M. 2.00 A.M. Interval 3.00 A.M. 4.00 A.M. 5.00 A.M. 6.00 A.M. 7.00 A.M. Love Lasts Three Years Dedication Epigraph Chapter I: Connected Vessels Chapter I: Endless Love Chapter II: The Gay Divorcé Chapter III: On The Beach Chapter IV: The Saddest Human Being I Ever Met Chapter V: Best Before Date Chapter VI: The End Of The Road Chapter VII: Some Tips For Surviving Heartbreak Chapter VIII: For Those Who Missed The Beginning Chapter IX: Rain Over Copacabana Chapter X: Palais De Justice, Paris Chapter XI: The Human Man At Thirty Chapter XII: Lost Illusions Chapter XIII: Flirting With Disaster Chapter XIV: Provisional Resurrection Chapter XV: The Wailing Wall Chapter XVI: Would You Like To Be My Harem? Chapter XVII: The Horns Of A Dilemma Chapter XVIII: Highs And Lows Chapter XIX: Flee Happiness Lest It Run Away Chapter XX: Things Fall Apart Chapter XXI: Question Marks Chapter XXII: Reunion Chapter XXIII: Leave Chapter XXIV: The Beauty Of Beginnings Chapter XXV: Thank You, Wolfgang Chapter XXVI: Hot Sex Chapter Chapter XXVII: Letters (I) Chapter XXVIII: The Depths Of Despair Chapter XXIX: The South Bitch Diet Chapter XXX: Letters (Ii) Chapter XXXI: L’amant Chapter XXXII: Dunno Chapter XXXIII: The Impossible Decrystallisation Chapter XXXIV: The Theory Of Eternal Return Chapter XXXV: Tender Is The Night Chapter XXXVI: Freelance Chapter XXXVII: The Romantic Cynic Chapter XXXVIII: Letters (Iii) Chapter XXXIX: Still Falling Chapter XL: Conversation In A Palace Chapter XLI: Conjectures Chapter XLII: The Cunning Plan Chapter XLIII: A Cheap Trick Chapter XLIV: Letters (Iv) Chapter XLV: So Chapter II: Three Years Later In Formentera Chapter I: D-Day –7 Chapter II: D-Day –6 Chapter III: D-Day –5 Chapter IV: D-Day –4 Chapter V: D-Day –3 Chapter VI: D-Day –2 Chapter VII: D-Day –1 Chapter VIII: D-Day Also By Frédéric Beigbeder Copyright About the Publisher

For Diane Β., I fell, Head over heels .

Let’s dance

The last dance

Tonight

Yes it’s my last chance

For romance

Tonight.

Donna Summer, ‘Last Dance’

Casablanca Records

Second novels are written in a secondary frame of mind.

Me

He combs his hair, puts on or takes off his jacket or his scarf as one might toss a flower into a grave which is still open’

Jean-Jacques Schuhl

Rose Poussière

Marc Marronnier is twenty-seven years old, he has a beautiful apartment, a cool job and still he doesn’t kill himself. Go figure.

His doorbell rings. Marc Marronnier loves a lot of things: the photos in the American edition of Harper’s Bazaar , Irish whiskey straight up, the avenue Vélasquez, a song (‘God Only Knows’ by the Beach Boys), chocolate éclairs, a book ( les Deux Veuves by Dominique Noguez) and belated ejaculation. Doorbells ringing is not one of those things.

‘Monsieur Marronnier?’ asks a bell-boy in a motorcycle helmet.

‘In the flesh.’

‘This is for you.’

The bell-boy in the motorcycle helmet (he looks like ‘Spirou and the Golden Bowl’) hands him an envelope approximately three feet square, jiggling impatiently as though he urgently needs a piss. Marc takes the envelope and gives him a ten-franc piece to disappear out of his life. Marc Marronnier doesn’t need a bell-boy in a motorcycle helmet in his life.

Inside the envelope, he is utterly unsurprised to discover the following:

A NIGHT IN SHIT

* * * * * * * * *

Grand Opening Night

Place de la Madeleine

Paris

He is, however, pretty surprised to find, stapled to the invitation:

See you tonight, you old queer Joss Dumoulin DJ

JOSS DUMOULIN? Marc was sure he was living in permanent exile in Japan. Or dead.

But dead men don’t host club nights.

And so Marc Marronnier brushes his fingers through his hair, a gesture that indicates a certain inner contentment. It has to be said, he’s been waiting a long time for ‘a night in Shit’. Every day for the past year he’s walked past the construction site for the new club, ‘the biggest nightclub in Paris’. And every time he passes, he thinks, on opening night, there are going to be a truckload of honeys.

Marc Marronnier aims to please. This is probably why he wears glasses. When they’re perched on his nose, his colleagues think he looks like William Hurt, only uglier. (NB His myopia dates from his secondary school days at Louis-le-Grand, his scoliosis from his days studying at Sciences Po.)

It’s official: Marc Marronnier is going to have sexual relations tonight, whatever happens. He may even do the deed with more than one person, who knows? He has packed six condoms, for he is an ambitious young man.

Marc Marronnier senses he is going to die, in forty years or so. When he’s quite finished getting on our nerves.

Society scoundrel, armchair rebel, photo-opportunity mercenary, disgraceful bourgeois, his life consists of listening to messages on his answering machine and leaving them on other answering machines. All the while watching thirty channels simultaneously using picture-in-picture on cable TV. He sometimes forgets to eat for several days.

On the day he was born, he was already a has-been. There are countries where one dies at a ripe old age, in Neuilly-sur-Seine, you are born at an old age. Blasé before he had lived a day, he now cultivates his failures. For example, he boasts about writing slim volumes of barely a hundred pages with print runs of less than 3,000. ‘Since literature is dead, I make do with writing for my friends,’ he eructates at formal dinners, knocking back the dregs from the glasses of the girls sitting next to him. It is important that Neuilly-sur-Seine not give up hope.

A nightlife correspondent, copywriter–editor, literary journalist: Marc cannot commit to anything. He refuses to choose one life over another. These days, he says, ‘everyone is insane, the only choice left is between schizophrenia and paranoia: we are either many in one or one against all’. And yet, like all chameleons (Fregoli, Zelig, Thierry Le Luron), if there is one thing he hates, it is being alone. This is why there are multiple Marc Marronniers.

Delphine Seyrig passed away in the late morning, it is now 7 p.m. Marc has taken off his glasses to brush his teeth. I’ve just told you he is unstable by nature.

Is Marc Marronnier happy? Well, he’s got nothing to complain about. He spends vast sums of money every month and has no children. That, surely, is happiness: having no problems. And yet, from time to time he feels something like worry in his belly. The annoying thing is that he is unable to determine what kind of worry. It is an Unidentified Anguish. It makes him cry watching dreadful movies. He is definitely missing something, but what? Thank God the feeling invariably wears off.