Electrico W by Herve Le Tellier Read Free Book Online Page B

after that instant, unfounded attraction, the fraction of time when anonymous desire gives way to specific tenderness, when the attraction of a face is replaced by the sweet pleasure of memories.
    I paused for a while, pretended to drink my beer, but the glass was empty.
    “And then nearly two months ago, I fell in love with someone else, so …”
    “Do you want another Sagres?” Antonio asked.
    Don’t interrupt me, Antonio, please, because this is where the real lie begins. I’m going to tell you about Irene, about her and me. Hiding feelings is so much harder than inventing new ones. I smiled and shook my head.
    “No thanks, no more beer. The woman I was in love with, you’ll never guess … it was Irene.”
    Just saying her name was painful.
    “Irene?”
    Antonio looked genuinely amazed. I had guessed right, Irene hadn’t said a thing.
    “Yes … Oh, it wasn’t very serious. Anyway, there’s nothing between us now.”
    “I don’t understand …”
    “We had dinner together, quite often, we even went away together, but she was always distant. Seriously distant in fact.”
    I laughed. A bright, cheerful laugh, truly.
    “I don’t think she knew what she wanted. And I must have been really, really heavy. An analyst would have said I was developing a fixation. I should probably have gone out and got myself a goldfish or a cat.”
    I burst out laughing stupidly, and thought to myself that Irene most likely cared more for her cat than for me. What was his name again? More of a dog’s name, I think. Pluto, Plato?
    “Is she the reason you left Paris?”
    “No. This trip was planned a long time ago … Three or four months.”
    Antonio looked concerned, far more than I would have suspected. I panicked slightly. My confession was meant to protect me, and I suddenly realized that my desire for Irene might rekindle his own feelings for her. Worse, it could fan the flames of those feelings, give them a whole new meaning.
    “And do you still think about her?”
    There was a pressing, almost anxious note in his voice. I needed to reassure him, take a step back, stop being a threat.
    “No. Sometimes, a bit. But it doesn’t hurt, I’m just amazed to have misread things so badly. And anyway, there’s Lena …”
    I looked at my watch, a quasi-instinctive gesture, discreet but almost impatient, to make Antonio assume I was supposed to be meeting Lena. I said a bit more about this woman, the amber of her eyes, such a rare color, the smell of her. I think I was plausible.
    Antonio let me talk, and when I ran out of empty sentences, a sad-looking smile flitted across his face.
    “You and Irene … I didn’t know, I would never have imagined …”
    He gave a small private laugh, little more than a breath, and it hurt me.
    Why would you never have imagined, Antonio? Was there something absurd, ridiculous about her and me? Yes, of course, you’re right. What with her being so young next to my forty years, my thinning hair, my deepening wrinkles, my body which wants to pass itself off as smooth and firm but isn’t very convincing anymore. What was it Irene once said? Oh yes, it was a young man’s body that hadn’t aged well. It was a cruel turn of phrase, and a pointless one too, because surely she knew no one ever ages well.
    “Do you know why I’m laughing?” he asked. “I wanted to ask you to help me. To help me write to her.”
    “Write to her? About what?”
    “I don’t know, to say I love her, or I don’t love her yet … to tell her … about how confused my feelings are. I write so badly, I’m so awkward. I don’t want to hurt her. You’d have been better at finding the words than me. I honestly thought you didn’t know her. Well, not like that. I read a short story you once wrote for the paper. For you it would have been …”
    I put down my glass, afraid Antonio would notice my hand shaking. And I finished his sentence: “… just an exercise in style … a little Cyrano de