Electrico W by Herve Le Tellier Read Free Book Online

rest flat on the limestone surface, it was cold, rough, damp. My eyes misted over for a moment. I was afraid I would betray myself, afraid to know more too, but I asked, “Why did she call you?”
    “Because she’s in love with me. Or she thinks she is, which comes down to the same thing.”
    “Are you—together?”
    “Yes, no, I don’t know. We sleep together, that’s all.”
    That’s all. Two tiny words that described their meaningless lovemaking, their nights without tomorrows. And there was I who would have been able to love her so much more, so much better. A cold anger was growing inside me, a remote loathing, nothing violent, the sort you would feel for a torturer a long way away, one whose barbarity you only learned from the terrible accounts of his victims.
    I thought of Galois’s assassin, Pescheux d’Herbinville, and his murderous rage. It was not Stéphanie’s lover he had challenged to a duel, it was the living reflection of his own powerlessness to be loved. Perhaps his jealousy had also revealed a hatred for Évariste that he had not previously admitted to himself, a hatred for this unnecessarily brilliant adolescent whose intelligence and sheer life force eclipsed everything else, a hatred further fueled by the illusion of a long-standing friendship. I recognized that feeling of being nothing. It crushed me once again, this time thanks to this man and his instant and yet inexplicable charm, this man who didn’t even have to do anything to defeat me.
    I kept a portrait of Galois on me, one of only a very few to have survived, an undated pencil drawing by an unknown artist. Galois’s lips were thin and yet sensual, his nosed turned up at the end, his eyes bright and almost childlike. In that penciled image he could as easily bethirteen as twenty, even though it’s not difficult to imagine he has the beginnings of a beard. The artist only had time to sketch his collar and the curve of his coat. Évariste must have posed for quite a while, before tiring. I often studied that face as if his incandescent gaze would somehow produce the words of my novel.

    In the distance a man hailed a taxi in the dark. The car stopped and put on its hazard lights for a moment, and I thought that
Hazard Lights
would be a good title for this book or another, one day. The driver opened the door for the passenger and, with a squeal of tires, made a quick U-turn on the deserted Avenida da Liberdade. I watched the two red dots of his rear lights growing smaller, then fusing together and disappearing as the taxi turned right.
    Antonio came to join me on the balcony, he looked down at the street and the square and brought his glass to his lips.
    “I don’t know what to do. Really.”
    He was waiting for a word from me, a sign of encouragement. On Restauradores Square a man and woman were kissing by the obscene yellow glow of streetlamps.
    Antonio had no idea about our relationship. Otherwise, he would never have dared discuss Irene with me. Besides, I was sure she hadn’t talked to anyone about me, sure I had never really existed as far as she was concerned.
    Antonio’s gaze roved over the city, alighting on every lurid neon sign, the red and electric blue of the Pasteleria Guzman, the red and yellow of the Splendid movie theater. He drank some more beer, the foam leaving a fold of white on his lips. For a moment I considered confessing everything to him. Telling him that because of her, every night, or almost, I left my room and walked aimlessly toward the river. Or I could throw my glass on the ground. But the least word, the least gesture would have sent me headlong into reality, and I did nothing, said nothing.
    Antonio sighed and looked at my untouched beer.
    “Aren’t you drinking, don’t you want it?”
    I shook my head. A sense of calm settled. Over Irene and him. I didn’t want answers to any questions.
    A smile hovered over his lips. Which surprised me.
    “You went out last night,” he said. “I heard