The birds made a contribution to the upkeep of the square by scattering a daily dose of fertilizer on the ground.
Hippolyte loved coming to Place d’Arezzo, not only because he was taking care of a garden threatened by urban pollution, but also because he always felt as if he had gone on a journey; watching the parrots, listening to their hullaballoo, admiring their huge, dark nests made up of modified twigs, as compact, watertight and solidly built as Noah’s Ark, he would escape Brussels, its asphalt and its bricks, and come to a world that was untouched, colorful, lemon-scented, talkative, as young as the Earth and as immutable, showing by its refreshing persistence that it didn’t give a damn for human civilizations. Whenever he caught a glimpse of a parrot’s round head, its dark, startled eye, its lack of interest in the activities of the city, he felt relief; so there were other creatures that lived as he did, absorbed in the present moment, with little concern for what preoccupied sophisticated minds.
He had no interest in the Bidermann affair, for instance. That a man should have forced himself on a woman was, unfortunately, a commonplace act of violence. They should pity the victim, punish the culprit, then stop talking about it. Why couldn’t the media let go of the subject? Why were people clamoring for more details? Anyone would think they had discovered evil for the first time . . . I’m not clever enough, I must be missing something.
Whenever there was something he didn’t understand, Hippolyte would lash out at himself, blaming his own shortcomings; he always lent credibility to his contemporaries, society, the universe. Any stupidity or absurdity could only be coming from him. He lived with the conviction that everything had a meaning, and if the meaning escaped him, then it was because of his wretched head, not because something was meaningless. Naturally, the world was so much more complex than him that his little mind couldn’t grasp its structure or its details.
“I’m happy.”
The thought of his happiness had emerged all by itself from his mouth. Startled, he propped his chin on the handle of his shovel.
“Strange to be happy when . . . ”
Yes, he had just been rejected by Patricia, Patricia whom he loved, Patricia with whom he had dreamed of spending his days and his nights, and yet this morning, holding his tools, in the process of spreading bird shit, he felt really happy. Was that normal?
He went up to Germain. “Tell me, Germain, are you happy?”
“Of course,” the dwarf replied. He wiped his forehead and looked up at his colleague’s face. “Why do you ask?”
“Because I’m happy too, and I find it strange.”
Germain was amused by this feeling of surprise. “What do you mean?”
“I should be sad, gloomy, downhearted, lacking in appetite. I miss Patricia, you know. All I want is to have her back again but, in spite of that, I feel good. My soul is at peace.”
“Maybe you have no soul!”
Germain had meant it as a joke, but Hippolyte took it seriously. “Maybe . . . Do animals have souls? Do parrots and parakeets have them?”
“Most people say they don’t.”
“That’s what it is, then . . . No wonder animals are my friends. I’m like them. Every morning is a new day.”
He left Germain and went back to work. No wonder Patricia had left him. How could an intelligent woman be crazy about such a boring man?
He had to mow the lawn now. He hesitated, partly because there were lots of people on the sidewalk, drawn here by the Bidermann affair, and partly because he liked to push the machine bare-chested but didn’t want Patricia to see him like this. If it was all over between them, he didn’t want to feel again the way he had felt so many times on this square, knowing that not only was he being warmed by the rays of the sun but also being caressed by her eyes.
And indeed, the back of his neck was burning, as though she was there. He didn’t dare turn to see if she was spying on him through her window.
“You couldn’t mow instead of me, could you, Germain?”
“You’re kidding. You know the handles are too high.”
He had stupidly hoped that Germain wouldn’t remember that. Keeping his T-shirt on, he started the motor and pulled the machine. He had only just begun when Xavière appeared, brows knitted in fury.
“Do you have to make all that noise, Hippolyte? You’re stopping my flowers from growing.”
Hippolyte was scared of Xavière; the delight this woman took in annoying her contemporaries was one of the mysteries he couldn’t fathom. He immediately stopped the noise. “I have to, madame, otherwise the grass will take over everything.”
“You call this grass, these few hairs chasing after one another? It looks more like my husband’s skull than a lawn.”
Hippolyte glanced at the lawn and had to admit she was right. “It’s because people walk over it.”
“Yes, everybody wanders around this square, and once they’ve trampled the grass, they wipe their shit-stained shoes on the sidewalk outside my house. This area is becoming shit on toast. I’m going to write to the mayor.”
“I have to mow, madame, I have my instructions.”
He started the motor again.
She glared at him. “You would have followed any order during the war, wouldn’t you?”
“Excuse me?”
“Never mind, I know what I’m talking about.”
Before starting on a first strip, Hippolyte turned down the noise of the engine to ask a question. “Is it true there are flowers that stop growing if it’s noisy?”
“Of course. Why do you think they play Mozart to grapes in the Bordeaux vineyards?”
Hippolyte shook his head in admiration and got down to work, full of new ideas.
As for Xavière, she smiled, delighted with what she had said; every time she spoke to Hippolyte, she loved to make up new nonsense. Is there such a thing as immanent justice? In his case it’s easy to believe: he’s as stupid as he is decorative.
By the time Hippolyte got home, Isis was back from school. She eagerly told him what she had learned that day and pulled out a list from her exercise book. “Daddy, our teacher told us to buy a calibrated ruler, a compass, and a set square. We’re going to learn geometry. Brilliant, isn’t it? Can you take me to the stationery shop, please?”
Hippolyte shuddered. There were two kinds of shops he hated: bookshops and stationers’, because he felt out of place in them. Worse still, he felt like an impostor. He could never find what he had come to buy and would end up having to show his shopping list to the assistants, who would either spout something incomprehensible that made him even more confused, or treat him with condescension.
Germain came out from behind the oven. “I’ll go. Do you mind, Isis?”
“No, that’s great! Shall we walk or take the streetcar?”
“We’ll walk.”
“How long will you be?” Hippolyte asked, feeling defeated.
“To get to the end of Avenue Louise and back? At least an hour and a half. More likely two hours.”
Once he was on his own, Hippolyte sighed. He had to use this time fruitfully. Between a girlfriend—ex-girlfriend—who devoured novels, and a daughter who couldn’t get enough of them, he felt like such a snotty-nosed kid that he had decided to make up for the lost years and become a reader. So he forced himself to spend hours over books whose titles he had noticed in Patricia’s apartment.
He had a shower—a tribute to the books: he never touched them unless he was clean, well shaved, and scented—put on some boxer shorts, and lay down on the bed.
Without hesitation, he grabbed, from among his ten books, the slimmest one, which was by Baptiste Monier. When she had recommended it to him, Patricia had whispered, “When you begin a story by Monier, you can’t stop, you have to read to the end. He takes you by the hand and leads you. Trust him, he won’t let go of you.”
He opened it, hoping for the miracle. “When I was thirteen, I smashed my piggy bank and went to visit whores.” He looked around, embarrassed. Such language! Honestly, was this literature? “Whores.” Couldn’t they have used a nicer word? And it’s so unrealistic! At thirteen, you can’t yet . . . Oh, actually, yes, you can . . . A little bit, anyway . . . And who was speaking? Where was it taking place? When? It would probably be mentioned later, but he’d rather know now, so that he could decide if he wanted to continue or not. He turned the book over and examined the cover. The publisher should have specified if it was a true story or if it was made up. Or if it had any true facts in it. Hippolyte was quite willing to make an effort, but what was the point if it was the product of the author’s imagination?
Annoyed, he put the book down on his stomach. For the time being, he seemed doomed to disappointment. He had only just finished a mystery novel that had made him angry. He’d liked the crime at the beginning, but the investigation had dragged on: the identity of the murderer was revealed only at the end, even though the writer clearly knew who it was from the start and had concealed it for two hundred pages. That was just cheating! Even worse, she had misled Hippolyte with red herrings. If he ever had the chance to meet this Agatha Christie, he would tell her exactly what he thought of her manners: when you know something, you come out and say it!
As for the romantic novel he had tried, La Princesse de Clèves, he had found that long-winded too. When it came down to it, what was it all about? Some kind of Lady Diana falls in love with an aristocrat but, because she’s married, she doesn’t allow herself to see him, so she languishes and dies. Talk about unrealistic! Yes, there were some interesting things in the details. In the details! But you weren’t going to tell him that literature was just about details!
The doorbell rang.
Thinking it was Germain or a neighbor, he went to open the door in his boxer shorts.
Patricia was standing on the landing, red-faced, out of breath, stamping her feet. “Oh!” she exclaimed, seeing him practically naked.
He didn’t have time to express either surprise or joy. She suddenly turned pale, swayed, and tried to hold on to the door frame. Then her eyes rolled back and she collapsed.
Hippolyte was quick-witted enough to catch her before her knees or head hit the floor. He carried her in his arms as far as the bed, laid her down, and opened the window to let the air in, then dabbed her cheeks with a towel soaked in cold water.
Patricia opened her eyes, saw him, and seemed reassured.
“It’s all right, I’m here,” Hippolyte murmured.
She blinked affirmatively.
He gave her something to drink and helped her to sit up against the pillows. She was struggling to regain her strength.
“Are you sick?”
She fanned herself before replying, and the delay worried him.
“I’ll call an ambulance. We’re going to Emergency.”
“No!” she said firmly.
He froze.
“I’m going to be all right. It’s—”
“The emotion?” Hippolyte whispered, remembering their first encounter, when he had passed out on Patricia’s landing.
“Maybe . . . but mostly the dieting.”
Then Patricia told him everything, her hang-ups, her mood swings, her occasional weakness, her fits of temper when, to stop hating herself, she hated the whole world. He found out about the sacrifices she had imposed on herself since they had met, the way she was endangering her health.
“I wanted to tell you the truth, Hippolyte. It’s not because of you that I’m breaking up with you, but because of me.”
“I love you just as you are, Patricia.”
“Stop it! Don’t say that! I can’t bear anyone to say that! I feel as if I’m being given charity, or if I’m a madwoman they’re trying to calm down.”
“Patricia, I love you the way you are. I don’t want you to be any different.”
“You have blinkers on!”
“No, I can see perfectly well.”
Hippolyte explained his passion for her. Since he lacked the gift of eloquence, he expressed his adoration using his fingers and hands and eyes as well as words; even his chest, against which she had huddled, spoke, through its warmth, of his determination. This time, Patricia let herself be taken into Hippolyte’s world. What could be more graceful than a plump woman’s wrist? No bones, no tendons, just silky skin. You marvel at the fact that it can also be functional, that, according to doctors, it’s still a joint. The thighs must be the promise of a secret: if they’re skinny and far apart, they become sticks to move the skeleton, whereas when they’re wide and overflowing, when they conceal what is between them, they invite caresses, kisses, myriad tender attentions designed to open them. A woman must always be something of a mother, of a nurturer, a large, powerful queen bee who would crush the half-starved males around her if she didn’t inspire their devotion.
Cradled by this litany, Patricia quivered, abandoning herself more with every passing minute. When she felt him grow hard against her hip, she panicked. “Hippolyte, I haven’t come to make up!”
In reply, he stroked her arms.
“Hippolyte, even if I believe you, even if you’re being sincere, I have a problem being with you.”
He froze. What was it? Money? No, not with Patricia . . . She was about to tell him that she thought he was stupid. She had already alluded to that when they had broken up, saying, “Look deep inside yourself and you’ll understand why I’m leaving you.”
“You know, I’ve started reading,” he suddenly exclaimed.
“Really?”
“Yes. The books you told me about.”
“Don’t change the subject, Hippolyte.”
She felt behind her back that he had lost his erection.
“My worry, if I stayed with you . . . How can I explain it? . . . Well, I guess I don’t like being seen as a slut.”
“Excuse me?”
“A horny woman, a woman who thinks only about fucking.”
“Patricia, mind your language!”
She looked at him tenderly: she often forgot how easily shocked he could be. His sensitivity to words was exquisite. This strapping lad would be incapable of singing a bawdy song, which was something Patricia did at dinner parties as soon as she’d had a few drinks.
She made an effort to be more specific. “When people see us, they’ll think I’m with you because you’re handsome.”
“I’m not handsome.”
“Yes, you are. And I know it.”
“All right, let’s say I am. What of it?”
“I’m not the kind of woman who lives with an Apollo.”
“I really don’t understand.”
“Because I’m plain.”
“I’ve just told you you’re stunning, Patricia. And I’d very much like to be seen with you on my arm, because that would be a way of saying to all the other guys, ‘Look at this wonder! Well, I’m the one who bagged her!’”
“This is me you’re talking about?”
“Yes, of course it’s you.”
“I really don’t understand.”
He kissed her neck. She blushed and tried to protest. “Hippolyte, we’re not together.”
“Yes, we are. It’s what you came to tell me.”
He gently slipped beneath her and smiled. She felt their hunger return, hers as well as his.
They made love. The narrow bed forced them to be even gentler than usual.
For Hippolyte, this was the apotheosis of his relationship with Patricia. She had come to see him here, in a poor neighborhood, in this tiny studio apartment where the clutter had removed any desire for decoration, a place that did nothing to conceal his true condition, in this bed he had never dared invite a woman into, and not for a second, with either with a look or a word, had she judged or belittled him.
As for Patricia, she had come to hear what she had already guessed: that he loved her in a totally lucid way, and wanted her as she was. For someone who had so little love for herself, there was something dizzying about this revelation, and she shook constantly as she reached her climax.
As if drunk, they rested after their lovemaking, staring up at the cracked ceiling, which seemed to them as sumptuous as the fresco of a Venetian palazzo.
“What gave you the courage to come here?” Hippolyte asked.
“Your letter, of course.”
“My letter?”
“The yellow letter telling me you’d wait for me all your life and that I was blind not to see your love. Like last time, you signed it ‘You know who.’”
He slowly sat up. He felt sure enough of himself and of her to reveal the truth. “Patricia, I didn’t write that letter. Or the previous one.”
“What?”
“I swear. Those two letters have played a decisive role, they’ve brought us together, but I want you to know that I wasn’t the one who wrote them.”
Patricia leaned pensively on her elbow. “Then . . . ” She gave a little laugh. “Then it was him.”
Hippolyte frowned. “Excuse me?”
“He’s the one who writes them. I thought he was simply your messenger when I saw him run off down the street the other day after the message was slipped under my door.”
“Who?”
“Germain, of course. He didn’t just deliver the letter, he wrote it.”