Georges-Olivier Chateaureynaud - A Life on Paper - Stories

The other half had to do with women. He had long believed that what made them keep their distance was his way of being in the world. He was not all of a piece, simple and adaptable, as they expected a man to be. Reticence marked him, reservations plain as the nose on his face. To all appearances, women wanted men who were men the way women were women, with an almost animal innocence and authenticity akin to a gazelle's artlessness, a crocodile's candor. Whereas he had never managed to forget himself enough to feel wholly within his rights, a fact that lent almost all his acts, especially his amorous overtures, hints of haste and hesitation that most often led to disaster.

The skewed relationship Orne was aware of entertaining with conventional reality wasn't the only cause of his failure. He was also ugly. Large eyes over a large nose that jutted out above a lipless mouth like an open razor wound in winter, the opposite of a lover's mouth, and all of it framed by two oversized, indelicately colored ears. To this was added an extremely elastic expressiveness that led him to underline the slightest proposition with a grimace, as though to reveal bad teeth that no one wanted to see. One wondered how he'd managed to age in such ignorance, but the fact was that after fifty years, Orne was just beginning to suspect he was ugly.

Around the time the firing-squad machines made their appearance, Orne grew quite enamored of Philippina December. This splendid dollop of womanliness had remained single into her early forties. Nor had she been born to anything. When Orne fantasized about making a decisive connection with her, he considered the modest origins they shared a favorable sign. But although he managed his trade quite poorly, she conducted her career with verve. This pretty beanpole was generally held to be a lady of means. The fortunes of Ecorcheville had few secrets from the woman who saw them file through her office in her position as manager of the region's most prestigious banking institution.

There they were, then, having an aperitif at the Cafe du Centre, Orne and Philippina and a few members of a small circle of singles, divorcees, and premature widowers. They dubbed themselves the Club of Available Hearts. They applied themselves to the task, in fact, of availing, unavailing, and availing themselves once more of one another in a private ronde as the years grayed the men's temples and altered the ovals of the women's faces. The only strangers to these intricate exchanges were Orne and Philippina: Orne because he no longer managed to couple up even temporarily, and Philippina, who'd only have had to say the word, because she refused to say it. Also present that evening were the speculator Macassar; Ludwig Propinquor, rich like all the Propinquors; the dolceola virtuoso Blandeuil, who'd founded a conservatory devoted to his chosen instrument in Ecorcheville; and for the ladies, Brunehilde Laurencais and Gina Mordor in addition to Philippina. Brunehilde was a beauty-reconditioned but warrantied, according to the somewhat tactless Macassar, who sponged off her between bouts at the Exchange. Gina Mordor, a peach-golden, velvety, perfumed-had occupied Orne's thoughts before Philippina. He'd gotten nothing from her, and was almost certain she'd mocked him behind his back the whole time he'd wooed her.

"You'll see: they'll all have forgotten it in a month;" he flung into the conversation after spitting out the stone from the olive in his cocktail. "If it's death you're after, you do it at home, without making a spectacle of yourself."

"Who said anything about a spectacle?" said Propinquor, up in arms. "The rides are open round the clock. You can go and get yourself shot in the middle of the night, in the wee small hours of the morning… Not so dumb, really, now that I think about it."

"I agree with Ludwig," Philippina cut in. "The designers of these machines must have been counting on a sudden loss of self-control, anguished midnight urges, early morning suicidal impulses-"

"Really, Philippina, have you ever entertained such thoughts?" ventured Orne in what he hoped was an affectionate tone.

"Not personally, no," she retorted, "but it could happen to other people, and such impulses can't always be satisfied when they arise. Even if you don't have a shotgun, a rope, or a sufficient quantity of sleeping pills on hand, you almost always have some cash or a credit card. And these machines take both forms of payment. They fill a real need. With the basics settled, all that's left is adapting to demand: price, availability, selection."

"Perhaps that's where the shoe pinches-in the, um, yes, what you said! Being shot twelve times is a bit harsh, don't you think?" murmured Gina Mordor, trailing her fingertips over the sensitive skin of her crossed arms.

"Twelve? Is it really twelve?" asked Blandeuil.

"It's a la carte," Orne replied. "Like oysters on the half shell: a dozen or half a dozen. There's even a little round of just three. Of course, the price varies accordingly."

"I hope they haven't forgotten the coup degrdce;" rasped Macassar.

"Laugh if you want, but according to the piece by Lupus in the Rumor, there is indeed a coup de grdce."

Propinquor checked his watch with a worried eye. Homini Lupus, Ecorcheville's finest scribe, had promised to join them for dinner. "What's he up to? The owner of the Murky Maw will give our table away if we're too late."

"He knows where it is," said Macassar.

He was hungry, and didn't care much for Homini Lupus, whom he suspected of trying to sway Brunehilde into investing in the newspaper.

The Murky Maw had opened not long ago. It was just as good as, and less expensive than, Chez Pecunious, where its young chef had gotten his start. Orne managed to seat himself next to Philippina. Despite his age, he still never knew whether it was better to sit beside or across from someone you wished well, and from whom you hoped for the same in return. Doubtful that he made for a very inviting sight, he rallied to the solution of sitting at her side. He had reason to congratulate himself on his decision, for dinner went by like a dream in the nearness and immediacy of Philippina's bare shoulders and decollete. Orne was one of those men, to be both greatly pitied and condemned, who couldn't help believing that a woman who smiled while speaking to them was also romantically interested. Philippina didn't ordinarily smile all the time, but that night she was in high spirits, and so she smiled-at Orne, as at the champagne and the lights, the langoustines and the chablis, at the waiter, at Ludwig, at the sweetbread, at Gina, at the profiteroles… Homini Lupus never joined them; Macassar was secretly pleased. He was suffering losses and would have to seduce Brunehilde for the umpteenth time. Was she taken in? It remained a mystery. Gina pined away. She had always dreamed of an affair with a man like Propinquor. Upon his death, her husband had left her with a pretty stipend, but Ludwig was something else entirely: real money, concentrated, enriched the way one spoke of enriched uranium. She would have liked, much as fans stroke a boxer's biceps or a biker's calves, to press herself against that chest and feel his portfolio beating through his vest. Alas! Respectable women bored Ludwig. It was commonly known that he liked easy women. He paid Gina no mind, despite the licentious airs she tried to put on.

Orne deluded himself with hope. He imagined his dealings were going well because Philippina had smiled at him. He contemplated the best way to bring up, in an aside, the offer of a drink for just the two of them, to finish off the evening. Suddenly, a plump, fortyish stranger, olive-skinned and hook-nosed, with black curly hair and gleam in her eye, appeared at the table. A large gray parrot clung to a wooden perch set in a leather epaulette stitched to her gypsy dress. Frowning, Ludwig Propinquor looked about for the maitre d', but the parrot put his suspicions to rest with an amusing stunt. Not content simply to hail the guests one by one, telling men from women without fail, it called upon the former as witness to the latter's charms. The most marvelous part of the act was the aptness of the bird's compliments: it praised Gina's carnation, Philippina's decolletage, and Brunehilde's tresses. In a matter of moments, it had won over the table.