Tatiana de Rosnay - A Secret Kept

Early January, the no-smoking ban hits France. Funnily enough, submitting to it is easier than I thought. And there are so many people like me puffing away in the freezing cold in front of restaurants and offices that I feel I am part of a conspiracy. A blue-fingered one. I hear that Serge has returned. Lucas tells me he is home. I can’t help wondering if Astrid ever told him about us, about that night after Pauline’s funeral. And how he took it. Back at the office, Parimbert proves to be a troublemaker, just like his obnoxious son-in-law. Beneath the bland exterior and the beguiling smile, he rules with an iron fist. Negotiating with him is a punishing task that leaves me drained of vitality.

The only bright light in my bleak existence was the surprise birthday party thrown for me by Hélène, Didier, and Emmanuel. This took place at Didier’s apartment. Didier is a colleague, but the difference between him and me is that we started out roughly at the same time and he has gravitated to another galaxy of success and prosperity. He never became bigheaded about it. He could have. The only thing we now have in common is that his wife left him for a younger man, some arrogant Eurotrash banker from the city. His ex-wife, whom I was quite fond of, became Posh Spice’s clone. Her remarkable Grecian nose now looks like an electrical plug. Didier is a tall, emaciated fellow with long, thin hands and a startling howl of a laugh. He lives in a spectacular loft in the twentieth arrondissement, near Ménilmontant, converted from a vast old warehouse tucked away between two dilapidated buildings. When he bought it all those years ago, we’d sniggered, hooting that he’d freeze his ass off in the winter and bake during the summer. But he ignored us and slowly transformed the place into a centrally heated air-conditioned glass-and-brick glory that had us all green with envy.

I had not given much thought to my upcoming forty-fourth birthday. There was a time when, as a family man, it was endearing to receive presents from my children-those clumsy drawings and lopsided ceramic creations. But I was no longer a family man. And I knew I would spend my birthday evening alone. As I had last year. That morning, I received a text message from Mélanie and one from Astrid. And one from Patrick and Suzanne, who had gone off on a long trip east. I think I would have done just that if I had lost my daughter. My father usually never remembered my birthday. But surprisingly, he called me at the office. How soft and tired his voice sounded, I thought. Not at all the trumpetlike, bossy tone of yesterday.

“Do you want to come over for a bite for your birthday?” he said. “It will be just you and me. Régine has a bridge dinner.”

The avenue Kléber. The orange and brown seventies dining room with overbright lighting. My father and me, face-to-face at the oval table. His spotted, trembling hand pouring out the wine. You should go, Antoine. He’s an old man now, he’s probably lonely. You should make an effort, do something for him for once. For once.

“Thanks, but I have other plans for tonight.”

Liar. Coward.

When I hung up, guilt took over. I should call him back, say that I could make it finally. I uneasily turned to my computer, back to the Think Dome. The Think Dome, no matter how it had made me chortle in the beginning, was taking up a lot of energy, but in a surprisingly motivating way. This was the first time in ages I found myself working on a project I enjoyed, that egged me on, that stimulated me. I had researched igloos, their history, their specificity. I had looked up domes, remembered the beautiful ones I had visited in Florence, in Milan. I sketched page after page, drew shapes and forms I never imagined I could think up, hatched ideas I never thought I could possibly conceive.

A little beep signaled an incoming e-mail. It was from Didier: “Need your advice about an important business deal. A guy you worked with. Can you drop in tonight at around eightish? Urgent.”

I e-mailed back: “Yes, of course.”

So when I turned up on Didier’s doorstep, I was not expecting anything at all. He greeted me, let me in, poker-faced. I followed him into the huge main room, which I found oddly silent, as if a hush had fallen over it, and all of sudden, screams and shouts exploded from all around me. Bewildered, I discovered Hélène and her husband, Mélanie, Emmanuel, and two women I did not know, who ended up being Emmanuel’s and Didier’s new ladies. Music was turned on full blast, champagne was produced, pâté and tarama, salads, sandwiches, fruit, and a chocolate cake, followed by a shower of presents. I was delighted. For the first time in what seemed ages, I relaxed, enjoyed the champagne, enjoyed being the center of attention.

Didier kept looking at his watch, I couldn’t think why. When the doorbell rang, he rushed to his feet.

“Ah,” he announced, “the pièce de résistance.”

And he opened the door with a flourish.

She glided in, wearing a long white dress, an astounding dress for the middle of winter, just like that, out of nowhere, her chestnut hair tied back, a mysterious smile hovering on her lips.

“Happy birthday, Mister Parisian,” she whispered, à la Marilyn Monroe, and she came to kiss me.

Everybody clapped and cheered. I caught Mélanie and Didier exchanging triumphant glances and guessed they had rigged all this up behind my unsuspecting back. Nobody could take their eyes off Angèle. Emmanuel gawked and discreetly gave me a jovial thumbs-up. I could tell that the ladies-Hélène, Patricia, and Karine-were longing to ask Angèle about her job. I imagined she was used to this. She was most likely questioned like this every day. When the first timid question came, something like, “How can you handle dead people all day long?” she answered, without being flippant, “Because it helps other people stay alive.”

It was a wonderful evening. Angèle in her white dress, like a snow princess. The beauty of Didier’s loft, the skylight opening out onto the night’s cold darkness. We laughed, we drank, we even danced. Mélanie proclaimed it was the first time she had danced in a very long time. We all clapped again. I felt dizzy, a mixture of champagne and joy. When Didier asked me how Arno was, I replied flatly, “A disaster.” His hyena-like laugh burst out, which got everybody going. I then told them about the man-to-man conversation I’d finally had with my son when he was expelled from school. The talking-to I’d given him, my heart sinking as I realized how much I sounded like my own father, admonishing, rebuking, finger wagging. Then I got up and aped Arno’s languid slouch, his disgruntled scowl. And even took on his voice, raspy, drawling, immediately identifiable as that of a hip teenager: “C’mon, Dad, when you were my age, there was, like, no Internet, no mobile phones, you guys were living in the Middle Ages. I mean, come on, you were born in the sixties, what do you understand of today’s world?” This triggered another round of hoots. I felt elated, egged on by something I’d never experienced. I was making people laugh. I had never achieved that in my life. Astrid used to be the bubbly, funny one. She cracked the jokes, she had everyone in stitches. I was the silent onlooker. Until tonight.

“You’ve got to hear about my new boss, Parimbert,” I said to my new audience. They had of course heard of him. He had just about plastered himself on every poster on every street corner, and you couldn’t turn on the TV or your computer without being confronted with his Cheshire cat smile. I imitated how he marched around a room, fists deep in his pockets, shoulders hunched up, and his peculiar grimace-which I’d mastered to a T-as if to convey how hard, how powerfully he was thinking, an old ladyish pout followed by the rapid intake of his upper and lower lip, making him look like a dried-out prune. And then his way of orally capitalizing certain words to give them emphasis, sotto voce: “Now, Antoine. Remember how strong the Mountain must be in your Back. Remember how each Particle around you is Alive, full of Energy and Intelligence. Remember that Purifying your Inner Space is Absolutely necessary.”