A TIGER DEFYING THE LAWS OF GRAVITY

They do not say anything. The silence is marvellous. If you have ever found yourself in a substantial residence, high up, protected from the sea but with a full panorama; if you have had the chance to experience that silence and that sense of security, you will know what deep calm…you will know how Los Angeles…and them, both minuscule and gigantic up above the canyon, and the city, lying low, spread out, turbulent and glowing.

He stayed there with her, on the pretext of sharing the bottle. Instead of following the group around George and Lola. Instead of following Steven or Ted or some other purveyor of roles and fortune and fame. Or, at the very least, of a stimulating conversation. Or of some decent cocaine. He stays with her. She has known him forever and is getting to know him second by second: it is here and now, just the right moment in life, taking a risk on adventure, good times, the union of the present and the ever-after. She is drunk. They discover similar interests.

He likes to read. She plucks up her courage and laughs for real. ‘There’s nothing more sexy than a man who reads.’ She would like to elaborate. She would like to explain to him—as he leans in, alone, needing no one, caught up in a crowd but with his unfathomable head held high, a smile to light up his entrance, his welcome interruption: hello, hello, my love. She would have so many things to tell him. So many things to explain to him. He is reading for a project he’s working on. He reads a lot on set. ‘All those actors who want to stay focused between takes, all that fuss about the Actors Studio, what a joke.’ He gives a short laugh. The two of them are not American. He reads at night. She pictures him wrapped in a white sheet, naked to the waist and hunched forwards, his long hair slipping over the book. He recites the names of writers she has never heard of; she catches the two syllables of Conrad and whips out some French names. He doesn’t pick up on it. But he stays there.

The silence unfolds, changes direction. He smells good. She wants to touch him. He smells like a church, like an Indian temple. The moon has risen. The sea has expanded, black and starless, a second sky. She racks her brains for something to say. She would like to say that she came to Los Angeles for the sea. In Paris the sea was too far away; even when she was small she missed the sea. But he won’t believe her. Especially coming from an actress. He is standing in profile against the charcoal-grey sky. Between her and the sea there is only him. She can look at him just by raising her eyes. A high, rounded forehead. Some kind of grooves in his skin: she can’t tell in this light. Scars? Invisible eyes, slits. A long, thin nose, aquiline. Large lips, firmly closed, well defined. How does it happen, why do these particular elements form such consummate beauty?

She thinks back to early school drawings: 2, and 4, and 6…by lining up the numbers in a column you produced a strange, bumpy shape. She can hear him breathing in the silence. He doesn’t like chatterboxes, it must be that. Or explanations. He likes to go at his own pace. Or else it is all in her own head, and the city is nothing but a projection; she thinks she has been living there for four years but all she does is float on the surface. She tries to cling to the illusion that her feet are grounded, that the vibrations she feels are part of the city of Los Angeles itself. She would like to tell him about the week when a huge image of her face was displayed on a billboard, at the intersection of Sunset Boulevard and La Cienega Boulevard, for the launch of Musette. There were so many things she could say about it, say to him, that would be unexpected, witty. Not at all what he imagines, not at all like other actresses. She asks him for another glass of champagne.

‘I like the way you say champagne,’ he says. ‘It’s so chic, so French.’ She laughs. He makes fun of the American accent: ‘They say champayne like John Wayne.’ She laughs again. Every word he says is precious, reveals a little more behind his unfathomable demeanour. His eyes reveal nothing. Perhaps he saw her in Musette. Perhaps he’s got a thing for French girls, the usual thing.

A few people walk back towards them. Of all these bipeds only George and he know how to carry with elegance our lot as upright creatures. Everyone else uses cigarettes, glasses or studied gestures in order to keep their hands beside their bodies. Those two are simply upright on Earth. He reminds her of someone but it’s not George, despite their shared elegance. She casts about, compares the nose, the mouth, but it’s more about the look, or the stature…or, she’s not sure, a strong sense of self, a powerful torso, the neck a Greek pillar—a statue from antiquity, the human race, all in one.

They head towards the cars. George takes the keys out of her hand: there is apparently no question of her driving. George’s limousine turns into a deluxe minibus. He is not far from her, two seats away, two bodies away. George speaks to the chauffeur before they set off and Ted, who works for George in his production company, settles in next to her. A joint does the rounds. The starlet is chatting with Steven (what on earth will Solange’s agent, Lloyd, say when he finds out that she told Steven, the famous Steven, that she’d call him back). She should go to bed early. They’re driving along a boulevard; it’s been four years but she still gets them muddled, whatever, it must be Hollywood Boulevard. They’re outside the Chinese Theatre, the starlet knows a nightclub, the Montmartre Lounge—unbelievable, she pronounces Montt-martt-re with ts everywhere. Solange wants to keep passing the joint but no one is paying any attention, so she smokes it with Ted. George has left. And Steven. Next thing there are bright lights and lots of people and an old Queen hit single and Freddy Mercury’s razor-sharp voice: he’s a star leaping through the skies like a tiger defying the laws of gravity.

Because of the joint each syllable is enunciated, the drums detach from the piano and the piano from the guitar and the guitar from the voice, all the trajectories divide and reunite: celestial harmony. She has never particularly liked Queen but she remembers an anecdote, well, an interesting fact, she starts shouting in his ear—he’s tall but she has very high heels—that Freddy Mercury was a Parsi, a what, a Parsi—how do you say Parsi in English, Parsi sounds just fine—in any case she’s off and running: a fascinating religion, sun worshippers, strict vegans, they don’t bury their dead but perform an extremely civilised ritual—he asks her to repeat, she shouts at the top of her voice: they lay them out on the top of towers, the Towers of Silence—she’s yelling—the vultures come and devour them; it takes twenty-odd vultures ten minutes to reduce the bodies to perfectly white bones, which are then arranged in the tower, in circles, in a super-sophisticated system, gutters and drains for the bodily fluids, so clean, much more hygienic than burial when you think about it. The problem is that there are almost no vultures in Bombay anymore because of the pollution, so the neighbouring Hindus complain about the bodies.

‘Interesting,’ he says.

It looks like he thinks it is. It’s perhaps not the ideal conversation but he’s looking her in the eye. They step aside at the same time to get clear of the music, which is everywhere, she can’t hear a word he’s saying, the image of the decomposing bodies is sort of floating between them—‘I’ve heard’—she scarcely changes the subject—‘that elephants are the only animals to have a ritual for their dead.’ She is full of hope. Hope that he might talk to her. The elephants are swaying from side to side, rocking the white bones of their comrades in their trunks. Hope that he might explain things to her, take her away, carry her off elephant-style. But his face is impassive again. Almost stony.

‘I know nothing about elephants,’ he replies dryly.

‘I know a lot about Parsis.’ She laughs feebly.

He is still wearing his improbable Jedi coat and drops of sweat are pearling at the roots of his hair; it’s either the heat of the nightclub or a sort of annoyance that she can’t identify, exhaustion, a kind of impatience, pity for her. She wouldn’t have believed it, but perhaps he’s one of those men with whom you have to make the first move.

There is a slippage in time and space, a plunge forward and she’s dancing with Ted. Donna Summer pants and moans and whispers ooooohhh I feel love I feel love I feel love. Ted is irrelevant but at least he’s acting normally, normally for someone whose nose is white with powder. He sways his hips, holds out his hand, caresses her shoulder, mouthing the lyrics, and she spins around. The Canadian Jedi is standing at the bar, motionless, staring into space. Under the tilting lights she watches him move away across the dance floor towards the exit—she has to follow him; she has no choice. The perfumed flapping of his big coat envelops her; she hears Ted’s voice tinged with bitterness: ‘You’re heading for trouble.’