Delicacy by David Foenkinos Read Free Book Online Page B

uninspiredly.
Chloé accepted, and he sat down near them with his feeling of being halfway to the prize. Once he’d sat down, Natalie thought, He’s stupid. He offers me a drink when mine has hardly been touched. Then, suddenly, she changed her mind. She told herself that his hesitation at the moment of approaching them was touching. Then once more aggression took the fore. Incessantly shifting, contradictory moods gripped her. She simply did not know what to think. Each of her gestures was quashed by an impulse against it.
Chloé took charge of the conversation, piling on positive stories about Natalie, building her up. To hear her, this was a modern, brilliant, amusing, cultivated, dynamic, scrupulous, generous, uncompromising woman. All of it in under five minutes, so complete that the man only had one question in mind: whatwas the hitch? During each of Chloé’s lyric transports, Natalie had tried to emit believable smiles, to relax the planes of her face, and in rare flashes, she seemed natural. But the energy had drained her. Why put on a face? Why use all her strength to seem affable and agreeable? And then, what would come next? Another date? The need to be more and more candid? Suddenly, everything that was simple and easy was cast in a dark light. Underneath a harmless conversation, she could detect the monstrous mechanism of the life of the couple.
She excused herself and got up to go to the ladies’ room. For a long moment, she examined herself in the mirror. Every detail of her face. She splashed a little water on her cheeks. Did she think she was beautiful? Did she have an opinion about herself? About her femininity? It was time to go back. But she stayed there for several minutes without moving, thinking, afloat in her reflections. When she got back to her table, she grabbed her coat. She made an excuse, without taking the trouble to make it seem believable. Chloé said something that she didn’t hear. She was already outside. A little later, as he was going to bed, the man wondered if he’d made a fool of himself.

Thirty-three

    Astrological Signs of the People on Natalie’s Team
    Chloé: Libra
    *
    Jean-Pierre: Pisces
    *
    Albert: Taurus
    *
    Markus: Scorpio
    *
    Marie: Virgo
    *
    Benoît: Capricorn

Thirty-four

The next morning, she apologized to Chloé without going into detail. At the office, she was Chloé’s boss. She was a strong woman. She simply explained that, for the time being, she didn’t feel able to go out. “It’s too bad,” murmured her young colleague. That was all. They had to pass on to something else. After that exchange, Natalie stayed in the hallway for a moment. Then she went back to her office. All the files finally appeared to her under their real light: holding absolutely no interest.
She had never completely withdrawn from the world of the senses. She had never really stopped being a woman, even during moments when she wanted to die. Maybe it was homage to François, or merely came from the idea that sometimes it’s enough to put on makeup to seem alive. He’d been dead for three years. Three years of frittering away a life lived in emptiness. They’d often suggested that she leave her memories behind. Maybe it was the best way to stop living in the past. She remembered the expression: leaving your memories behind . How do you give up a memory? She’d accepted the idea when it came to objects. She couldn’t tolerate having those he’d touchedaround her anymore. As a result, there wasn’t much left, except for a photo she’d put away in the big drawer of her desk. A photo that seemed lost. She looked at it often, as if she were persuading herself that their story had really existed. In the drawer, there was also a small mirror. She took it out to take a look at herself the way a man would if he were seeing her for the very first time. She got up, began walking back and forth in her office, her hands on her hips. Because of the carpeting, her spike heels made no noise.