Jonathan Littell - The Fata Morgana Books

* * *

That night, I found myself in a cellar; on a stage in the back, some men dressed in black, sitting on simple wooden chairs, their feet flat on the stage, were playing music. It was very beautiful; but to tell the truth, what I especially liked was the curtain drawn behind them, a long curtain with folds of garnet velvet, illumined with a bright light. Someone had handed me a drink, red also, in a tall, straight glass, I didn’t really know what it was, wine perhaps; I was sitting at a little round table, in the company of many people, I didn’t quite know who they were; my friend must have been there, but maybe he had gone away. After a while, a few young women came out onto the stage, wearing long black dresses spangled with red dots, like fat blood-red moons scattered across a night sky; they danced with stiff movements, yet their stiffness was strangely supple, forming and then unmaking squares and circles; when they twirled, upright and proud, their ample skirts flew around their fine muscular legs, opening up into large fluid circlets, like the wheel of a cape spun out behind his back by a haughty matador ending a series of passes by bringing his bull to its knees. The women stood out from the red curtain like shadows, they whirled round clicking their heels; they were made even more present by these rhythmic sounds and the figures they formed, static, almost clumsily linked figures, like the poorly connected passes of a novice still unsure of his animal, than by their bodies eclipsed behind the cloth of the moon-dresses; only the sweat soaking their armpits, visible when they raised their arms to snake their wrists around and snap their fingers, reminded one from time to time of their materiality. I was slowly getting drunk, and this drunkenness made me euphoric; yet at the same time, just like the bullfighter’s gestures in the center of the arena’s red circle, just like the movements of the dancers on the rectangle of the stage, it too, I realized, was a form of communion, the step beyond that imperceptibly opens up the road to the world of death, revealing to the one taking it that it already stretches far behind him, and always has.

* * *

I returned to the arena; beneath the flaming wheel of the sun, the red barrier was gleaming, its sweeping curve diagonally sliced by the line of shadow. Yet I passed from one circle to the other: for when I plunged my gaze into the circle formed by the arena, I finally found myself faced not with the bull and its horns, but with myself, my pale, distraught face, reflected in the dull halo of the mirror in my bedroom; and the flesh the bull’s horn gouged, when it caught the unfortunate matador in the muscular triangle inside the thigh, almost by chance and in exactly the same way I sometimes happened to catch the soft, vulnerable triangle of a girl chance drove into my arms, this flesh then was in a way probably none other than my own, offered naked, without any protection — neither the ridiculous covering afforded by lace underwear, nor the dazzling and sovereign protection signified by the matador’s fabulous suit of light — possibly only the protection of endless desire, flitting back and forth like a muleta shaken by the wind, a bloody, elusive, derisory rag, confusing all these forms into one impossible gesture, only to separate them forever.

* * *

In my bedroom, I would spend hour after hour resting, lying on my mattress, the curtains drawn but the French door wide open, letting the breeze play over my bare skin. My head turned to the wall, the round mirror reminded me of its presence; it no longer reflected my body, but its circle was filled with the dark, rumpled folds of the curtain, constantly agitated by the wind. When some need or other came over me, I would get up. The water, stretched out far beyond my windows, drew me; all of a sudden, I desired it passionately, frantically, but this desire brought with it neither the patience to leave the city again, nor the courage to confront the crowds and the noise and dirtiness of the beaches at the bottom of the streets. Further along, though, up the little hill, there was a swimming pool, a simple solution to these difficulties, and to get there, the metro. At one stop, a young couple came and sat down next to me, first the boy, then, on his lap, her back to his chest, the girl. She wore white overalls cut short and was greedily devouring a banana; from the side, I could see her freckles, she seemed rather ordinary, but lively and high-spirited. I couldn’t see the boy at all: with his hand, he was caressing his friend’s belly, and at each movement his smooth, downy arm brushed against my own, as if we were all three taking part in this affectionate gesture, as if without consulting each other they wanted to include me with them, and I was delighted at this, I was grateful to them for this friendly presence. The girl had finished her banana; taking advantage of another stop, she leaped out of the car to throw away the skin, then quickly flung herself back inside, laughing, and returned to slide down onto the legs of the boy, who resumed his caresses. Their image was reflected in the rectangle of the window opposite, I observed the girl, now slumped back in her man’s arms, leaning on him with all her weight, happy. At the pool, a large open-air blue square overlooking the city, I gaily plunged my body into the cool, clear water; as I paddled about, or leaned on the edge, my eyes could run over the vast expanses of buildings, piles of blocks confusedly heaped up by a clumsy child, or else, drifting on my back, I could lose myself in the immense wavering dome of the sky. All around me rang out laughter, happy shouts, the sounds of water; bare bodies glistened in the sun; nearby, in another pool, bold, graceful children were attempting acrobatic dives from high diving boards of various heights. They always dove in groups, the girls with the girls and the boys with the boys; their temerity filled me with wonder: never would I have been capable of such beautiful, precise, courageous movements. When I climbed out of the water, I sat down still dripping at a little round table and ordered a dish of lime sorbet; I let the sun dry me as I ate the ice and watched the children dive. Two little girls had placed themselves at the edge of the highest diving board, a dozen meters above the water, with their backs to the pool, their arms alongside their body, their little muscles distinct and taut: as if on cue, they simultaneously let themselves topple backward into the void, stiff as boards; suspended in mid-air, they slowly unfolded their arms to form a point above their heads, just in time to break the surface of the water like a powerful arrow. Already other laughing kids were taking their place, I happily finished my sorbet, with each little spoonful savoring the wait before returning to the sweetness of the water.

* * *

My friend had invited me to celebrate his birthday. Reaching the foot of his building, I rang several times at the number I had been told: finally, an oldish-sounding lady replied, in a reedy, almost inaudible voice: “It’s not here.”—“But this is the address I was given!” I said indignantly. — “I know, you’re not the first one. But it’s not here.”—“Where is it, then?”— “I don’t know.” In fact, it was the apartment right across the landing; shrewdly, I waited in the street, smoking, until other people arrived to show me the way. “Ah, you brought something to drink, excellent!” my friend exclaimed, brushing off my complaints about his mistake: “It’s nothing, it’s nothing.” The apartment was small, the crowd dense, noisy; people were drinking, talking, there was no music. I didn’t know many people here, no one actually, aside from my friend. But the people were drunk and excited and it wasn’t difficult to strike up a conversation with them. I found myself talking with a young woman, a Russian. She was drinking a lot and laughing, a brittle laugh, but an agreeable one; one of her white arms had a series of scars on it, thick uneven strokes, which she told me she had inflicted herself, without really explaining either how or why in a way I could make sense of. But maybe she didn’t really want to say. A fat blond woman, rather vulgar, had come in and was kissing her; this was her mother, already drunk, accompanied by a much younger man, his goatee carefully trimmed. “My stepfather,” the Russian girl smirked; I went on drinking. In the hallway, another woman, the mistress of the house I think, caught me by the neck and greedily kissed my mouth. I gently pushed her away. “No? You don’t want to?” She gave me a startled, frightened look. — “No,” I replied, smiling kindly, “I don’t want to.”—“It’s nothing,” she snapped, continuing heavily toward the kitchen. In the living room, the Russian girl’s mother was emitting loud, guttural laughter and shaking her full breasts in front of her companion’s dazzled gaze. Her daughter was sitting at a low table; together with two of her friends (twins, seemingly identical, but who revealed surprisingly contrary characters as soon as you talked to them — one gentle, attentive, and patient, the other harsh, almost enraged, nursing a secret resentment that cast a shadow over all her words), she was taking cocaine, indifferent to her mother who was toying with her lover’s curly hair and drinking. She was drinking too, methodically, she must have already been completely drunk yet she remained lucid, clear, friendly. I too was probably very drunk, like her. She spoke to me a lot; yet she didn’t seem especially interested in me, she would disappear suddenly in the middle of a sentence, leaving me with her two friends or else my friend. I tried to talk with him, but he was completely incoherent, I couldn’t understand anything. His brother, who was seven years younger than he but whose birthday we were also celebrating — one was born before midnight, the other after, and we had thus moved seamlessly from one birthday to the other — was nodding and chuckling knowingly; from time to time, he would take a little packet out of his pocket and pour some cocaine onto the table, inviting the guests to help themselves with a sweeping gesture. When I could, I resumed my conversation with the Russian girl. Her mother had disappeared, the woman who had wanted to kiss me was slumped next to the table, staring at me with mean and greedy eyes, I responded with a smile and kept talking with the girl. She was looking for more to drink. All the bottles were empty, now she was grabbing the glasses left on the table and without hesitating poured their contents into her own, laughingly mixing the different wines and drinking without respite. Finally, I managed to convince her to leave. In the street, the sky was turning pale, she immediately dragged me into a bar where I bought her several drinks; she had moved on to beer, while I was still drinking shots of vodka. When she looked at me, curiously, her pupils reflected not just my face, puffy and sagging from drink, but also seemed framed by the reflection of the window behind me, two little black marbles set in two luminous squares. I was trying to convince her to come back to my place, but she gently yet firmly refused my offers; she was filled with alcohol and cocaine, they made her thin body vibrate with a wicked joy; yet she remained completely in control of herself: “That’s not how it’s done,” she said with a clear, slightly broken laugh. I laughed along with her, we understood each other very well. Outside, it was daylight. As I got into the taxi, I offered at least to drop her off on the way, but she refused this too and finally pushed me somewhat abruptly into the car. As it was starting up she walked off with long strides, waving a last goodbye with a broad, brittle smile, fragile and happy. I rapidly developed a vivid passion for this girl. I would call her on the phone, and we would chat about trivial, inconsequential things; she always kept the same friendly distance. I invited her to the pool: she refused, citing an allergy to chlorine, and nothing could convince her to go to the sea. At night, we would get drunk together. She was learning Persian: happy at this incongruous pretext, I held forth on the evolution of the Indo-European languages, a subject I actually knew not much about, but enjoyed a lot. Sometimes, in her confident, precise way, she would interrupt me and abruptly go on to a different, completely unrelated subject; an hour later, just as abruptly, she would come back to it, only quickly to drop it again. While she spoke, I would look at her. She was not, strictly speaking, pretty; but the ease and confidence with which she inhabited her body and face delighted me. Her laughter pealed, the glasses and the ice clinked, the lighters scraped and clacked, the coins jingled on the zinc of the round tables, oh, sweet idyll. At the end of the night, she would always leave me in the same way, cordial, laughing, firm and cheerful.