“The more I think of it, the more I think my idea is brilliant.”
“What?”
“That you sleep with Félix.”
“Do you realize what you’re suggesting?”
“I realize perfectly well.”
“If that’s how you express your love, I have to say it’s kind of twisted.”
“You don’t understand a thing. I want you and me to embark on an existentialist experiment. We have to think outside the box. Find new ways to experience human relations. We’re young, we aren’t going to stupidly repeat what our parents did.”
“And Félix in all that?”
“Exactly, Félix.”
“Could you be clearer?”
“Never mind, you don’t understand a thing.”
“Stop telling me I don’t understand a thing.”
They leave the restaurant. At once, powerful gusts wrap them in snow.
“Coming to my place?”
“Not tonight, Antoine.”
He explores her body without modesty, patiently opens it. Doing so, Vincent feels unhealthy joy. His gestures are not so much caresses as deliberate, thoughtful acts. Laure, surprised, exhausted, lets out a cry of pleasure in which her pain is drowned. After their lovemaking, she insists on leaving before Vincent’s sister, Rachel, with whom he shares the apartment, comes home. She couldn’t tolerate another person’s gaze on their love, love that has been made, not merely dreamed, feared, hoped for, love that has an odour.
Alone again, Vincent rolls a joint, savours it slowly. He looks at the blood-stained sheets. A satisfied smile lingers on his face. “Nice job, I’ve just saved her from years of mental confusion. She knows now what love does to a body. As much good as ill. It’s up to her to choose. It’s Philippe’s turn to lose his illusions.”
The next day he goes to Philippe’s and, without even saying hello, hands him a small metal box.
“What’s that?”
“The proof that I was right.”
Then leaves without another word. Philippe opens the box. In it he finds letters. He takes one out of the package. He recognizes the delicacy of the paper, the slight scent of lavender that it gives off, the violet ink that Laure likes to use. His heart panicking he realizes that Laure has written them to Vincent. There are around thirty, often very short, but giving a clear idea of the content of those that Laure received from her correspondent: he was pursuing her.
He goes immediately to Laure’s school. After an interminable hour-long wait, the four o’clock bell signals the end of classes. He tries unsuccessfully to spot her in the wave of girls escaping through the school’s front door. He finally decides to go to her place. Laure’s brother opens the door.
“Is your sister here?”
“No, she’s at our grandmother’s. She had a fall this morning, and Mom and Laure have gone over to help her out.”
Philippe rushes out. Back home, he watches nervously as night falls behind his bedroom window. The Chicoutimi cemetery that lines the college campus gradually disappears in a dense shadow. A lugubrious dusk swallows up the last patches of snow.
The first thing that Félix sees on entering Antoine’s apartment is a huge poster of Che Guevara.
“Pretty big place you’ve got here.”
“Yes, not bad for a basement.”
“I wanted to talk to you about something. Actually, it’s about you and … someone else.”
“I’m intrigued.”
“It’s kind of annoying. I’m getting letters from Alice.”
“And?”
“Aren’t you surprised? You and Alice are a couple.”
“No, we’re not.”
“You’re often seen together.”
“We like to talk about things or go to movies, that’s all.”
“But I thought …”
“In her letters, does she say that we’re together?”
“Not really.”
“So? Have you answered?”
“Hardly! Because I thought that …”
“And her letters, what does she write about?”
“Alice writes about me as if she knew me. And I wondered if …”
“If what?”
“… if you’d told her anything about me.”
“I’ve talked about you, obviously. Only good things.”
“She has a gift for guessing my innermost secrets. It’s unsettling. Sometimes it feels as if Anaïs is writing to me from the realm of the dead. I know that she sometimes has her eyes on me at college.”
“That’s idiotic, you could see each other every day.”
“In her last letter, she wrote that she’s waiting for my reply to speak to me. I found that incredibly moving, such thoughtfulness.”
Antoine goes to the fridge for two beers.
“So are you going to answer her?”
“I don’t know.”
An hour later Félix leaves the apartment. He didn’t touch his beer, he was so wrapped up in his conversation with Antoine.
“You can come out now, Alice, he’s gone.”
She leaves Antoine’s bedroom, from where she has heard everything.
“Well? What did you think?”
At last, he decides to call Laure at her grandmother’s. With sweaty hands, he dials the number. Laure answers. He is so surprised that he stammers.
“It’s me, Philippe.”
“I didn’t recognize your voice. Who told you where I was?”
“Your brother. How’s your grandmother? Is it serious?”
“She sprained her ankle. We’re spending the night with her and tomorrow morning Mom and I will go home. I’ve already lost a day of school. What … What exactly are you calling about?”
“Laure, do you know what I’m holding in my hands? A little metal box. Inside it are the letters you wrote to a guy named Vincent.”
“Who gave you those letters?”
“He wants to hurt you.”
“Who gave them to you?”
“He did, who do you think? Don’t see him again.”
“You can’t give me orders.”
“He’s manipulating you. It’s just a game for him.”
“You’re jealous.”
“When he gets what he wants from you, he’ll move on to another girl.”
“It’s too late.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re going out of your way to not understand. I was at his place last night.”
“You …”
“Forget me.”
“You’re just a whore.”
“My mother’s coming out of the kitchen.”
“God will punish you.”
“I don’t want her to hear me.”
“You heard me, God will punish you!”
“I’m hanging up.”
“Laure! Laure!”
Antoine is now coming every day to the Fleur d’oranger. He sits on the terrace, hoping to see Claire Langlois once again. No matter if he looks up from his paper and glances furtively at the female silhouettes going by on the sidewalk, luck is not with him, there’s no sign of her. He decides to
