Happy Are the Happy by Yasmina Reza Read Free Book Online

Bastille. We walked to a restaurant he knew. It was fully booked. Luc protested, but to noavail. We were already far from the car, and we’d wandered around quite a bit before finding a place to park. At one point, while we were still on the street, I said I was cold, and Luc said, let’s go there. I could hear the irritation in his voice. —No, why there? —You’re cold. We walked into a place I disliked on sight, and Luc immediately accepted the table the owner proposed. He didn’t ask whether the choice suited me until we were taking our seats. The evening had already turned dicey, I didn’t have the nerve to say no. He sat across from me, his elbows on the table, his hands crossed, his fingers at play. I was still feeling so cold that I couldn’t take off my coat or my scarf. The waiter brought the menu. Luc pretended to be interested in it. His features looked drawn in the pale neon light. He got a text message on his cell phone from his youngest daughter and showed it to me: “We’re eating a raklet!” His wife and children were on a mountain holiday. I begrudged Luc his lack of delicacy and incidentally found his parental doting pathetic. But I smiled amiably. I said, she’s lucky. Luc said, yes she is. An emphatic yes. Nothing lighthearted about it. I was in no mood to figure out how to protect myself from that tone of voice. I said, aren’t you joining them? —Yes, this Friday. I thought, he can go to hell. There was absolutely nothing on the menu that I could eat. Nor on any other menu in the world, in my opinion, and I said, I’m not hungry, I’d like just a glass of cognac. Luc said, I’m going to have the breaded veal escalope with fries. I was stricken by melancholy in this crummy, supposedly intimate booth. The waiter wiped the varnished table but stopped before it was really clean. I wonder if men suffer from this sort of attack without ever admitting it. I thought about the baby girl who was living through the firsthours of her life, swaddled in her waxen room. A story occurred to me and I immediately told it to Luc by way of filling the silence. One evening at dinner, a psychiatrist – who’s also a psychoanalyst – recalled the words of a patient of his, a man who suffered from solitude. This patient said to the psychoanalyst, when I’m home, I’m afraid someone will pay me a visit and see how alone I am. The analyst had added, sniggering a little, the guy’s a broken record. I told Luc that part too. Luc was ordering a glass of white wine, and he sniggered exactly the way the psychoanalyst, Igor Lorrain, had sniggered–stupidly, and tediously, and appallingly. I should have walked out, I should have left him there in that absurd booth, but instead I said, I’d like to see where you live. Luc feigned astonishment and acted like a man who’s not sure he understands. I repeated, I’d like to go home with you and see how you live. Luc looked at me as though I was getting interesting again and crooned, aha, home with me, my little hussy? I nodded in a vaguely mischievous way and immediately scolded myself for simpering like that, for being unable to stay my own course in Luc’s presence. Nevertheless, I backed up a little (the waiter had just brought my glass of cognac) and said, you didn’t like the story about the patient? You didn’t understand it as a perfect allegory of absence? Luc said, absence from what? —From the other. —Oh, yes, yes, of course, Luc said, squeezing the mustard container. Are you sure you don’t want to eat anything? At least take some fries. I took a fry. I’m not used to cognac or any strong liquor. My head starts to spin at the first swallow. It didn’t even occur to Luc to take me to a hotel. He was so used to coming to my apartment that he couldn’t conceive an alternate idea. Men are totallyimmobile creatures. We women are the ones who create movement. We wear ourselves out invigorating love. I’ve been going to a great deal of trouble ever