Dany Laferrière - Heading South

“All right, I’ll be here.”

“Don’t be mad at me, Fanfan, dearest. This is the only way I can keep you here for more than two days.”

“Okay, get out of here.”

IT HAS BEEN months since Madame Saint-Pierre set foot in the Bellevue Circle. She is there now to meet Christina, who is sitting at the back, almost hidden behind a pair of large Japanese screens. It may seem odd that these two women, one French and the other American, should even have met. According to Madame Saint-Pierre, it was at a soirée at the American Embassy, organized by Harry, Christina’s husband. They were entertaining an anthropologist, a tall, black woman with a sad but gentle face, a disciple of Margaret Mead; she’d been working for the past dozen years on the mysterious rapport that African people and their American descendents have with death. It hadn’t been a very enticing subject, and only a handful of people had shown up in the huge reception hall to welcome this world-renowned specialist in death. One of them was Dr. Louis Mars, who had given a talk — too long, according to some, but nonetheless fascinating — about the role of death in Haitian voodoo. What could have been a somewhat macabre, if not deadly boring, evening turned out to have been a charming event. Christina never laughed so much, and it was largely on account of Madame Saint-Pierre. After that they became good friends, phoning each other every week and, at least once a month, getting together at a restaurant (usually Chez Gérard, rarely the Bellevue Circle) to keep in touch, or in other words to confide in one another relatively intimately about their personal lives and to share information that each of them, separately, managed to gather about their mutual acquaintances.

“Sorry I’m late,” Madame Saint-Pierre says, “but I had to go to my dressmaker’s and it took longer than I thought it would. .”

“Françoise, I hardly recognized you! I saw you come in and I said to myself, ‘Now I wonder who that could be. .’”

“Good!”

“You seem so different from the last time we met. Two totally different women. I’ve never seen anyone change so quickly. .”

“All I did was have my hair cut, Christina. .”

“No, it’s more than that. . There’s. . I don’t know what it is. . A new kind of vibe coming from you. .”

Madame Saint-Pierre gives a juvenile burst of laughter.

“What’s going on, Françoise?”

Madame Saint-Pierre smiles. Christina sits back. The waiter comes.

“Just a Perrier for me,” says Madame Saint-Pierre.

“You don’t even want a sandwich?” Christina asks.

“I’m not hungry.”

“You’ve already eaten?”

“No.”

“Are you in love, then?”

Madame Saint-Pierre turns violently red.

“Who with?”

“You don’t know him.”

Christina’s voice takes on the high-pitched tone of pubescence, even though she’s closer to the age of menopause.

“Tell me all!”

“I can’t, Christina. .”

“Oh, I see. . He’s married.”

“No. . Worse than that.”

“What can be worse than a married man?”

Christina’s bright, perceptive eye seems to capture something from the air.

“One of Duvalier’s henchmen. .”

“Christina! I don’t hang out with the secret police. .”

“Well, then it’s someone from the club. Is it that dentist you hate so much. .?”

“No-oo. .”

“What was his name, anyway?”

“I said no, it’s not him. . You’re not even warm.”

“So tell me. . I hate guessing games.”

“I can’t tell you who he is. . I’m too embarrassed, Tina. .”

“Oh, come on, Françoise. You’re not seventeen anymore.”

“No, but he is.”

“What? Françoise!”

“What I’m saying is, I’ve seduced a seventeen-year-old boy. .”

The waiter comes back with the Perrier and a slice of lemon. Madame Saint-Pierre puts the lemon in the bottle’s mouth and guzzles the entire contents in a single go, a feat that impresses Christina very much.

“That’s the kind of thing I’ve been doing for the past two weeks. . I can’t do anything the way I used to. . Even drinking a glass of water, I have to find a new way to do it. . You have no idea, Christina, I think I’m going crazy. .”

“It’s just that you’ve finally woken up, my dear. . Before you were asleep. .”

“How do you know that?”

“I don’t know anything. . You’ve just told me. . You used to do everything mechanically. Now you have a sense of purpose. .”

“That’s right, but it’s a terrible thing. . He’s seventeen. . He could be my son. . He’s my dressmaker’s son. .”

“Is that who you were with just now, before coming here?”

A pause.

“Yes. . I hadn’t seen him in two days. . I couldn’t breathe. . I drove past the café and he was there. I couldn’t help myself. . He came out to join me in the car and we drove around a bit. He told me when to turn. I didn’t even know where I was. It’s a miracle I didn’t run over someone. . But an unbelievable thing happened to me. . I felt like a child who was lost in the forest, and I absolutely had no wish to find the path out. . I was reduced to the simplest terms possible, Tina. . Nothing mattered but this thing that never gives me a moment of respite. I would feel totally ecstatic one minute, and then the next feel as though I were falling into a bottomless black pit. It’s like a clock, you know, that never stops, not even when I’m sleeping. . I talk and talk and never say anything. . Please, Tina, please don’t judge me. . Say something, Christina, scold me if you must, but say something. .”

“But I’m completely jealous of you, Françoise. .”

“Why would you be jealous of something that stops me from living. . And I have no idea how it’s going to end. .”

“Well, until then it’s made a new woman of you. . You look irresistible. . Haven’t you seen how all the men at the other tables are looking at you?”

“No, they don’t interest me in the slightest. I don’t even see them. In fact, I don’t see anything. Everything is fuzzy except him. What’s happening to me? Why have I never felt like this before, not even when I was younger? I sweat and sweat and it scares me. Can’t you smell it, this scent of a woman in her fifties?”

“What are you talking about. The only thing I smell is your Nina Ricci, Françoise.”

“You don’t understand, how could you! We have the same smell. Oh, his smell. . He smells. . vegetal, somehow. That’s not a perfume, it’s his scent. . Why has this happened to me in the middle of my menopause? Anyway, so how is June? I saw her playing tennis when I came in; she has a great smash. She’s got a good head on her shoulders, that one, Christina. . But what about her heart? Has she got a boyfriend?”

“No, there’s no one special at the moment, but I’m not getting desperate yet. . But you and this boy, have you slept together?”

Madame Saint-Pierre recoils slightly.

“Why do you ask?”

“Oh, no reason. .”

“I know you better than that, Christina; you don’t say things for no reason. . All right, yes, we’ve. . been together twice, so far. .”

“And did you come?”

Madame Saint-Pierre’s embarrassed laugh. Christina’s serious expression.

“The second he touches me. .”

“Do you mind if I ask you something?”

“Not at all. . But you’re beginning to make me nervous. I don’t know whether you approve or disapprove.”

“Are you passive or active?”

“Active. . I’m the one who initiates things, but as soon as I get too close to him everything in me goes haywire. . I’m like a mechanical doll that’s run amok, I have no control over what I do. .”