Reader for Hire Page 5

  I ask him what inspired this love of cats. He instantly stops grimacing, changes his expression, his whole face and tone of voice, and says: Baudelaire did. It’s difficult to disguise my surprise. His mother looks dumbstruck. He explains calmly that he found a copy of The Flowers of Evil in the library of the institution he attends three days a week. He read it, he didn’t completely understand everything but really loved some of the poems. Like the one called ‘Cats’. He recites a few lines from memory:

  Powerful yet gentle cats,

  The pride of the household,

  Shying from the cold as they do

  And just as sedentary…

  He speaks in one breath, in a rush, with something utterly smooth and clear about his voice. I think of how I myself intoned Baudelaire not that long ago in the echo chamber. His voice, as a strange echo of my own. He certainly doesn’t lack sensitivity, or talent even. His mother, who clearly knows nothing of this talent, looks astonished and is dumbstruck. After a moment, though, she regains the power of speech and asks Eric whether he’s brought home the book he’s just mentioned. Yes, he says, and, turning the wheels of his chair with swift thrusts of his palms, he rolls out of the room, heads for his bedroom and comes back at the same speed, still pushing his wheels and threading his way around the furniture as if paddling between reefs, bringing with him the book, a classic edition, which he brandishes like a trophy. The Flowers of Evil! exclaims his mother, with no other comment. She takes the book from Eric’s hand, slaps it on the table and, as if governed by an irresistible impulse, grabs the wheelchair and, pushing it even more quickly than her son did, takes him to his bedroom, shuts him in and locks the door with a turn of the key.

  Ashen-faced, she comes back over to me, picks up the book, shows it to me and says: You see? Did you hear that? Do you understand? Do you think Eric can read this book at his age? Her fingers are shaking as she clutches the book. I take time formulating a reply. And deliver it as coolly, as serenely, as possible: Yes, I think he can. She looks relieved. She clearly trusts me. I have the rather pleasant impression that we’ve almost toppled into another laughable melodrama but have escaped just in time. Unless, back in his room, Eric’s having a fit as we speak. And actually, in a way, he has reason enough. He’s really being treated like a little boy. I listen out. Is he ranting? Is he crying? No. Silence. Go and get him, I tell his mother. She complies, sheepish and embarrassed. She unlocks the bedroom door and wheels the chair back out. Eric is very calm, almost indifferent. Gazing around him. In order to settle the matter and break the tension once and for all, I turn to him and say: You’re right, Baudelaire’s a great poet, and a great cat lover… That’s exactly what we’re going to read today, his poem ‘Cats’, and perhaps some others… The idea just came to me from nowhere. It must be a good one, because Eric is beaming. His mother seems to be beaming too. She leaves us together and we go off to his bedroom, where the reading session begins.

  We go back to Baudelaire’s ‘Cats’:

  Devotees of learning and

  voluptuous pleasure,

  They seek out the silence and horror

  of darkest night…

  Eric is listening very attentively, with a sort of contained passion. I’m oddly transported by my own voice too and, as I read, I feel as if the poem is an extraordinary mechanism, a fantastical clockwork machine, and all its component parts, its every articulation, could be laid bare, if that was what I wanted, if I took the trouble, if I was still up to those textual analyses that I handled pretty well at school, or so they said, so they assured me, so they insisted, promising me a future I’ve never had, given that I’m here now, reduced to the pathetic position of reader-cum-sick nurse. Pathetic, no. Bathetic. Just modest, very modest. But, at the end of the day, not actually as modest as that, because I do seem to be making someone happy right now.

  Eric’s feverish attention really is growing increasingly intense. We carry on to the end of the poem. I say we because, although I’m the only one reading, I can tell that the two of us are very much sharing something. And that’s just as it should be. Now we’ve reached the end of the piece, I look up at Eric. But he doesn’t even give me time to catch my breath. He’s rolled his wheelchair over to me, taken the book from my hand and is leafing through it hurriedly, as if he knows every inch of every page. He opens it to a particular poem, which he points out to me, then hands the book back, saying: What about reading this one? This one? It’s the one called ‘Jewels’. I don’t remember it very well. I glance through it quickly: it’s beautiful, but risqué. Something of it hovers in the back of my mind, a half-memory, not so much because of Baudelaire, I admit, but a song – by which I mean a musical setting – that someone must have made of it. I’ve forgotten exactly who, Ferré or Montand, more likely Montand; I can hear the characteristic inflections of his voice, warm, soft and smooth… It’s actually one of the most famous of Baudelaire’s ‘condemned poems’. Eric has chosen well. He has good taste, good intuition; he certainly is a special case.

  Should I read it? I hesitate for a moment, then make up my mind:

  My beloved was naked and, knowing my desire,

  Wore nothing on her person but her tinkling jewels.

  Thus richly attired, she had the grace and fire

  Of Moorish slave girls on high days and holidays…

  Eric is now even more attentive. He looks utterly spellbound, not missing one word of the poem. And he glances down at my legs – in trousers again today – with that strange furtive movement he manages to make with his eyes. I carry on reading slowly, right up to the famous verse:

  Her arm, her leg, her loins and her thighs,

  Shiny as oil and sinuous as a swan,

  Paraded before my serene, receptive eyes…

  At this point Eric interrupts me and, in the silence of that shadowy sick room with its drawn curtains, he says: Next time, couldn’t you come in the dress from the other day, please?

  The temperature has changed. The season is marching on. It’s still a sunny autumn but there’s already that tobacco colour stealing over everything, from trees to buildings, proving that we’re tipping towards winter. The pavement I’m walking on is ash grey. I’m wearing a pair of soft, supple boots that I’m comfortable in for my visit to La Générale. The second visit. I’m not filled with excessive enthusiasm, I have to admit. But duty calls.

  The unavoidable maid greets me even more starchily than last time, and shows me into a sitting room I haven’t yet had the privilege of seeing. Madame is asleep, she says, you’ll have to wait a moment. It strikes me that La Générale sleeps a lot. And here I am bang on time: three o’clock in the afternoon, on the agreed day, Tuesday. Would you like some orange tea? the maid asks in a steely voice. That’s when I notice the peculiar coincidence that she too is wearing boots. But hers are completely different from mine. First, because they’re being worn indoors, which is slightly surprising. Then because they’re not supple at all but rather stiff-looking, buttoned right up and austerely black. Besides, they’re partly hidden by a long leather skirt which is even more unusual-looking. The strange character is also wearing a blouse (is it the same as last time?) that’s tight enough around her neck to strangle her. And her hair is raked into a severe bun. I thank her, say I’ll have some tea later, if she really insists. She seems to think that my unfortunate wording, ‘if you really insist’, has a very unpleasant ring to it. She looks offended but also saddened, pained. As I sit down in an armchair, she brazenly sits herself bang opposite me and starts watching me in silence, as if trying to communicate some unspoken reproach.

  I wonder whether this will go on long. And it does seem to go on. There is a large nineteenth-century clock to my right. I look at it, as if asking for help. But the two long metal hands look depressingly immobile. She’s immobile too, sitting there so upright, facing me, and watching me in that pointed way that all of a sudden appears to slip into something almost affectionate. The seconds pass. I let my eyes rove
around the room, in order not to confront hers. The walls are full of souvenirs and old paintings. In a frame hang military decorations, medals, a wide sash with a sort of imperial eagle. Navigation charts, prints. Dusty museum pieces. But in the corner over there stands a small display cabinet that looks a bit more spruce, caught in the beams of two electric lights, as if they were spotlights. How curious. I stand to have a look, an opportunity to break up this oppressive one-to-one. The cabinet is filled with little red flags imprinted with the hammer and sickle; one of them is pierced, shredded, as if lacerated by bullets. There are also all sorts of insignia and engravings, presumably of revolutionary incidents, various scenes from the Paris Commune, two large pictures with primary colours like tarot cards depicting historical characters with their names inscribed above them: if I’m reading correctly (but I have to lean forward to see), Matthias Corvinus Rex and (really very tricky to decipher) Béla Kun. Above the cabinet there is a photograph of Lenin on a stand designed to look like a sheaf of corn and topped with a red star. The two spotlights are illuminating this photo, like a pair of tapers on an altar.

  That’s Madame’s special corner, the knife-edged voice tells me. Then, after a huge sigh: What a waste of electricity! She has to have it lit up the whole time. I carry on peering, leaning forward, my hands behind my back. Another sigh. It’s a complete craze of Madame’s, she goes on, an affliction. She’ll never be cured of it now. She’s even said she’ll disinherit her entire family if they don’t take her seriously. Third sigh. Of course we have to take her seriously, but it causes such consternation. No one comes to see her any more, and I have to put up with everything. For how long? She’ll end up all alone and completely mad. Well, you’ve already seen that for yourself! I reply without turning round: I haven’t seen anything. She’s charming and full of energy for her age, remarkably lucid. Searing retort: Well, you’d better go and see her, then!

  At that exact moment a bell rings. La Générale calls from her bedroom. She must have noticed that she’s missed our appointment. I find her sitting up in bed with a huge pillow behind her, looking perfectly refreshed and sparkly-eyed. Nouchka, she says, reaching her hand towards me, I’ve slept a little longer than I meant to. Forgive me, but I’m ready now. We can carry on reading exactly where we left off. Just let me throw a shawl over my shoulders, or actually you could help me do it. I help her cover herself with a large red woollen shawl. Wonderful, gorgeous colour! she says with an impressive Magyar roll. She sits back comfortably. There, off we go! She hands me the book, with a marker on the page where I had to stop last time. I have no choice. I have to carry on with this awful passage:

  From the time when the private ownership of movable objects developed, all companies that recognized such ownership had to comply with the commonly held moral commandment: Thou shalt not steal…

  She interrupts me with a snigger: Thou shalt not steal! And how! That’s all they did all their lives, those boyars, they stole from the people! Carry on, Nouchka.

  But did this commandment thereby become an everlasting moral commandment? Not in any sense. In a society in which there is no longer any motivation for theft, where eventually thefts would therefore be committed only by the insane, how laughable seems the moralizing preacher who tries solemnly to pronounce this eternal truth: Thou shalt not steal!

  Yes, she says, interrupting me again, laughable! The insane, there would be no one left to steal but the insane! That’s true genius! Don’t you think, Nouchka? But I think you’re finding this boring… Put the book down and take this one, here… It’s The Critique of Political Economy… I’m sure you think Marx only wrote excruciatingly boring things. It’s clear from your expression and the slightly disgusted way you read… Well, think again. Have a look at this passage, the one on the page with the tortoiseshell bookmark – it must be page 166… You’ll see, it’s a wonderful piece about precious metals… It could have been written by a poet… wouldn’t you say?… Well, read on.

  I open the book at the indicated page. I’m very irritated, tense even, and it must show. I still read, though. This passage is marked with a cross too:

  Gold and silver do not display the negative characteristics of superfluity, are not dispensable: their aesthetic qualities make them naturally appropriate to pomp, adornment and sumptuousness, prerequisites for feast days and holidays; they are, in a sense, the positive form of all things superfluous and luxurious…

  She gestures for me to stop and asks: What do you say to that, Nouchka? Pomp, adornment and sumptuousness? Prerequisites for feast days? Be honest. Tell me you weren’t expecting that!… I’m wondering what on earth to say to her, how to reply, when I hear the door open slowly. I turn around, thinking it’s that other creature bringing her tea. But it isn’t. It’s the mauve cat. The door can’t have been completely closed and he’s pushed it open with his neck and his arched back. He pads into the room and, without a moment’s hesitation, jumps on to the bed. The countess takes him in her arms and starts stroking him, meanwhile indicating (rather emphatically) that I should carry on. Which I do:

  They are to some extent like light in its pristine purity, extracted from the underworld by man; since silver reflects all the light rays in the spectrum in their original combination, and gold reflects only red, the most potent of colours…

  Do you hear that? she says. (No, I can’t hear anything. I’ve said I find it hard hearing the sound of my own voice, and that’s certainly not going to change here with her!) Do you hear that? Light in its pristine purity! Gold reflects only red, the most potent of colours! Red! Is there any better way of putting it! It’s so beautiful! She closes her eyes, literally swooning, still stroking the cat.

  A sense of colour is in fact the most widespread form of aesthetic appreciation in general. The etymological similarities in various Indo-European languages linking the names of precious metals and expressions of colour were established by Jacob Grimm…

  In such a swoon, with her eyes so tightly closed that I wonder whether she hasn’t drifted off to sleep again. And the cat too.

  I’ve put on a pair of glasses and a nicely tailored jacket.

  I’ve made up my mind. I’m off to see my managing director. His name is Michel Dautrand. We arranged the appointment by telephone. Six o’clock in the evening: a respectable time. As I walk into the achingly modern building where he lives – the Résidence Ravel – I’m clearly not coming to see just anyone. Such luxury and elegance. The lift shaft is made entirely of glass: a cylinder of smoked glass through which you can look down on to the building’s closely mown lawns. Even this late in the year they look perfectly green and fresh.

  The gentleman who opens the door to me is well groomed, distinguished, still young, not bad. Still young: this means he must be between forty and fifty, let’s say forty-five, if I’ve got my eye in. Not bad: like a rather tired John Wayne, unless I’m deluding myself. But this John Wayne isn’t easy company at all. From our first exchange he seems curt, strict, stiff, straight. Mademoiselle, he says, offering me a magnificent white leather pouffe, here’s the thing. I have extremely demanding responsibilities in this town, where my company has set up its head office. Here and elsewhere in fact, because I travel a great deal, and I don’t have a moment to myself to read anything at all. Now, for the purposes of my job, I attend a good many important dinners where the conversation covers everything, and very frequently literature, by which I mean contemporary literature, and because I’d rather not always look like an idiot or illiterate, I thought that with your help, Mademoiselle… Having had no opportunity to interrupt because he’s spoken this without drawing breath, I break in suddenly now, as curt as he is: It’s Madame. He doesn’t seem to understand, looks rather thrown. It’s not Mademoiselle, it’s Madame, I say again. Ah, he says, yes… Ah, yes…

  I can tell he’s going to find it hard to pick up the thread. In fact, he seems to have given up on unravelling his long sentence and asks whether I’d like something to drink. Perhaps a small w
hisky, I say, thinking this will make a change from tea and coffee. He looks rather surprised but tries not to show it. He goes over to a beautiful sideboard in Scandinavian pine to fetch a bottle of Famous Grouse and two glasses. He pours mine. Is that all right? he asks. A little more, I say. He looks up at me, eyeing me with obvious concern. He pours some more (too much this time). Pours himself some. Asks whether I’d like ice. I don’t want any. He does, though. He fetches it. Swirls the ice cubes in his glass. Yes, he says… (but his voice is one degree deeper), yes… my life’s too busy… you know, with business… particularly a business like mine… I deal with metals… Even as a tiny child I dreamed of metals. I adored them… seeing them, touching them… In a way I’ve succeeded, I’ve done what I wanted to do… I extract metals from the earth and import them… You see what I mean, mining…

  I raise my glass to eye level, as if drinking his health, and say: So are you digging things up from the earth locally? Our mines are pretty much all over the world, he says, particularly in New Caledonia. Nickel… But I’m sure I don’t need to draw you a picture of New Caledonia. You see what I’m talking about… and I don’t know whether we’ll be able to carry on with the nickel for very long… Luckily we have mines in Africa too, major mines… Just tilting my drink to my lips, I say I can now see why he travels. Ah, he says, yes, I do travel, planes, airports, the awful jet set… but also trains, the high-speed TGV quite a lot, to get to Paris… I’m beginning to wonder why he doesn’t have time to read if he’s often on the TGV or a plane. I ask him. Oh well, Madame, he says, of course I read on journeys, but files, always work files!