William Boyd: The Destiny of Nathalie X

“Yeah. At Cannes, I think. Or possibly Berlin. Have we got a script yet, Kaiser?”

“There is no script. Extant.”

“We’ve got to get a synopsis. A treatment at least. Mike’ll want to see something on paper. He’ll never let Lanier go otherwise.”

“Shit. We need a goddamn writer, then,” Prevost said.

“Davide?” Berger said into the speakerphone. “We need a writer. Get Matt Friedrich.” He turned to Aurélien. “You’ll like him. One of the old school. What?” He listened to the phone again and sighed. “Aurélien, we’re having some trouble tracking down your beer. What do you say to a Dr Pepper?”

BOB BERGER. I have a theory about this town, this place. You have people in powerful executive positions who are, to put it kindly, very ordinary-looking types. I’m not talking about intellect, I’m talking about looks. The problem is these ordinary-looking people control the lives of individuals with sensational genetic advantages. That’s an unbelievably volatile mix, I can tell you. And it cuts both ways; it can be very uncomfortable. It’s fine for me, I’m a handsome guy, I’m in good shape. But for most of my colleagues … It’s the source of many of our problems. That’s why I took up golf.

LANIER CROSS. Tolstoy said: “Life is a tartine de merde that we are obliged to consume daily.”

“This is for me?” Aurélien said, looking at the house, its landscaped, multileveled sprawl, the wide maw of its vast garage.

“You can’t stay down by the airport,” Prevost said. “Not anymore. You can shoot in Westchester but you can’t live there.”

A young woman emerged from the front door. She had short chestnut hair, a wide white smile and was wearing a spandex leotard and heavy climbing boots.

“This is Nancy, your assistant.”

“Hi. Good to meet you, Aurélien. Did I say that right?”

“Aurélien.”

“Aurélien?”

“It’s not important.”

“The office is in back of the tennis court. It’s in good shape.”

“Look, I got to fly, Aurélien. You’re meeting Lanier Cross 7:30 a.m. at the Hamburger Heaven on the Shore. Nancy’ll fix everything up.”

To his surprise Kaiser Prevost then embraced him. When they broke apart Aurélien thought he saw tears in his eyes.

“We’ll fucking show them, man, we’ll fucking show them. Onward and upward, way to fucking go.”

“Any news of Delphine?”

“Who? No. Nothing yet. Any problems, call me, Aurélien. Twenty-four hours a day.”

MATT FRIEDRICH. Le Destin de Nathalie X was not as boring as I had expected, but then I was expecting terminal boredom. I was bored, sure, but it was nice to see Paris again. That’s the great thing they’ve got going for them, French films, they carry this wonderful cargo of nostalgic Francophilia for all non-French audiences. Pretty girl too, easy on the eye. I never thought I could happily watch a girl drink herself drunk in a French café, but I did. It was not a wasted hour and a half.

It sure freaked out Prevost and Berger, though. “Extraordinary,” Prevost said, clearly moved, “extraordinary piece.” Berger mused awhile before announcing, “That girl is a fox.” “Michael Scott Gehn thinks it’s a masterpiece,” I said. They agreed, vehemently. It’s one of my tricks: when you don’t know what to say, when you hated it or you’re really stuck and anything qualified won’t pass muster, use someone else’s praise. Make it up if you have to. It’s infallible, I promise.

I asked them how long they wanted the synopsis to be: sentence length or half a page. Berger said it had to be over forty pages, closely spaced, so people would be reluctant to read it. “We already have coverage,” he said, “but we need a document.” “Make it as surreal and weird as you like,” Prevost said, handing me the videocassette. “That’s the whole point.”

We walked out into the Alcazar lot and went in search of our automobiles. “When’s he meeting Lanier?” Berger said. “Tomorrow morning. She’ll love him, Bob,” Prevost said. “It’s a done deal.” Berger gestured at the heavens. “Bountiful Jehovah,” he said. “Get me Lanier.”

I looked at these two guys, young enough to be my sons, as they crouched into their sleek, haunchy cars under a tallow moon, fantasizing loudly, belligerently, about this notional film, the deals, the stars, and I felt enormous pity for them. I have a theory about this town: our trouble is we are at once the most confident and the most insecure people in the world. We seem bulging with self-assurance, full of loud-voiced swagger, but in reality we’re terrified, or we hate ourselves, or we’re all taking happy pills of some order or another, or seeing shrinks, or getting counseled by fakirs and shamans, or fleeced by a whole gallimaufry of frauds and mountebanks. This is the Faustian pact — or should I say this is the Faust deal — you have to make in order to live and work here: you get it all, sure, but you get royally fucked up in the process. That’s the price you pay. It’s in the contract.

Aurélien No was directed to Lanier Cross’s table in the dark rear angles of the Hamburger Heaven. Another man and a woman were sitting with her. Aurélien shook her thin hand. She was beautiful, he saw, but so small, a child-woman, the musculature of a twelve-year-old with the sexual features of an adult.

She introduced the others, an amiable, grinning, broad-shouldered youngster and a lean crop-haired woman in her forties with a fierce strong face.

“This is my husband,” she said. “Kit Vermeer. And this is Naomi Tashourian. She’s a writer we work with.”

“We love your work,” Kit said.

“Beautiful film,” echoed Lanier.

“You’ve seen it?” Aurélien said.

“We saw it two hours ago,” Lanier said.

Aurélien looked at his watch: Nancy had made sure he was punctual—7:30 a.m.

“I called Berger, said I had to see it before we met.”

“We tend to sleep in the day,” Kit said. “Like bats.”

“Like lemurs,” Lanier said. “I don’t like bats.”

“Like lemurs.”

“It’s a beautiful film,” Lanier said. “That’s why we wanted to meet with you.” She reached up and unfastened a large plastic bulldog clip on the top of her head and uncoiled a great dark glossy hank of hair a yard long. She pulled and tightened it, screwing it up, winding it around her right hand, piling it back on the top of her head before she refastened it in position with the clip. Everyone remained silent during this operation.

“That’s why we wanted you to meet Naomi.”

“This is a remake, right?” Naomi said.

“Yes. I think so.”

“Excellent,” Lanier said. “I know Kit wants to put something to you. Kit?”

Kit leaned across the table. “I want to play the waiter,” he said.

Aurélien thought before answering. “The waiter is only in the film for about two minutes, right at the end.”

“Which is why we thought you should meet Naomi.”

“The way I see it,” Naomi said, “is that Nathalie has been in a relationship with the waiter. That’s why she goes to the restaurant. And we could see, in flashback, you know, their relationship.”

“I think it could be extraordinary, Aurélien,” Lanier said.

“And I know that because of our situation, I and Lanier, our marital situation,” Kit added, “we could bring something extraordinary to that relationship. And beautiful.”

Lanier and Kit kissed each other, briefly but with some passion, before resuming the argument in favor of the flashback. Aurélien ordered some steak and french fries as they fleshed out the relationship between Nathalie X and her waiter-lover.

“And Naomi would write this?” Aurélien asked.