XIII

Some Enchanted Life

Je est un autre.

—Rimbaud

I’m living an enchanted life. A desirable life. I hear it all the time. My mother, who hasn’t contacted me in months, sends letters written in her tidy, perfect handwriting: “Have you found a job yet? Who do you think you are?” Nelly tells me the same thing, when Louis isn’t listening, in her own words: la vie privilégiée.

“When I was your age,” she always whispers, “I had my men give me the biggest jewels and entire wardrobes from Chanel, Balenciaga.” Then she shows me her bare arthritic fingers with thick, grayish veins running like shriveled waterways across her hands.

Despite this privileged life everyone seems to think I am living, or because of it, panic has begun to strike more and more, like lightning. I hold my breath between bolts, counting the diminishing seconds in between. I panic on the drive to Italy via the Riviera. I’ve counted up to 346 tunnels so far, each one a possible collapse, like a failing lung. I gorge myself on the evening news and discover that earthquakes are possible in the South of France, a fault line not far enough from our house. Radiation from Chernobyl is still present in the crops in Provence. Tornadoes in Europe. Train derailments. Sarin gas in the Japanese underground system. Strange viruses that invade the lungs and penetrate the skin. Panic is the sound of a full jet in the bankrupt sky, flying lower and lower until I’m sure it will crash into our kitchen.

I drop hints to Olivier that I need help, but my words are too indistinct, inaudible. Instead, I fall asleep at odd hours of the day. When the maid arrives at our Paris apartment, I turn off the lights in the bedroom until she has finished. She taps softly on the door, and I pay her quickly, silently, like some underground madame. After she’s left, I walk into the hallway with all the lights off and just the evening streetlights filtering through.

The rhythmic turning of the dryer and hum of the refrigerator remind me that I’m in the domestic world. I open the refrigerator, close it, open it again. Nothing smells familiar as I scan the shelves. Iranian caviar, a ripe Saint-Marcellin cheese, lamb’s lettuce, riz au lait à l’ancienne. A spoonful of the cold thick rice pudding, one of Flora’s favorite sweets, along with crème caramel, feels good gliding down my throat. I greedily devour the sweetened grains and throw away the container. Feeling guilty, I try to cook—practice a perfect beurre blanc for Olivier and bake madeleines for Laure’s after-school snack. But Olivier calls to tell me there has been a change of plans, Laure is going to be with her mother this week, so he has made reservations for us at Apicius to have dinner with his best friend, Jean Lenoir, and a host of several Saudi moneymen.

My heart’s no longer in it. I dump it all in the garbage, the broken eggshells and lumpy batter. I can’t make anyone happy with sugar and eggs, butter and wine. Olivier can’t help. He insists that he loves me too much, he needs me in excess.

“I’m going to get professional help,” I announce one night in bed as he’s reading the Amnesty International newsletter.

“I can help you, what do you want?”

I don’t know what I want, I want to say. And not knowing . . . “Loneliness. I’m lonely,” I blurt out, not really finding the words I’m looking for, feeling ridiculous now as he continues to read about the poor in Africa.

“Oh, Keem. Petite Keem.” He tucks me under one arm while still reading. “I was thinking we could set up something in Mali or India.” He kisses me on my cheek and eyes. “To help the women. When I was in Burkina . . .”

I drift off into a false hope of sleep, thick layers of sommeil to make me forget the heaviness of my limbs and organs, the pounding of my heart that resonates louder and more hollow every day. I dream there’s an explosion in Gandhi’s tomb. I’m summoned to investigate the site and identify the body. My father’s burning incense at the mouth of the river. My mother and sister are measuring cups of water, hanging linens to dry in the wet heat of the city. My job is to read from the hot, singed map.

The next morning, while Olivier’s meeting with journalists who want to interview him for French Elle, I pull out the Pages Jaunes. I keep checking over my shoulder, my finger shaking as I glide it up and down the columns. M for Médecin, P for Psychanalyste, Psychiatre. I don’t know the difference among the three. But I want to call someone, anyone, a woman preferably in the fifth, sixth, seventh, or fourteenth arrondissement.

I open the front door, check to make sure Olivier’s not near, then dial the number of a French doctor’s name. By the fourth bleep, I’m about to hang up when a Françoise something-or-other answers in a nasal monotone. After a brief exchange of words, she tells me, “ Rendezvous mardi à quatorze heures.” She repeats the address slowly and then hangs up.

I arrive at her rue Raymond Losserand address the following Tuesday at exactly 2:00 p.m. A woman opens the door to a second-floor office, which actually turns out to be a two-bedroom apartment. A firm handshake and a half smile; she’s wearing a sensible gray suit, pinched neatly at the waist. The color of the fabric matches her silvery hair and eyes. She doesn’t say anything else, just turns and starts down the hallway. I have no choice but to follow. She leads me into a room with a king-size bed in the middle of it. She folds herself neatly into an armchair next to the door and gestures for me to sit opposite her.

“Quel est votre problème?” What is your problem? she asks sternly, not even looking directly at me. I can hardly hear her as I sit staring at the immense bed between us. Charcoal-colored knotted rug and a pale gray cotton bedspread with darker gray piping.

“Um . . . ,” I begin. I don’t really know what to say. “Il n’y a pas de fenêtre,” I mumble. I could have thought of something more enlightening to say than to point out there’s no window. Obviously she knows there’s no window. If I knew what my problem was, I wouldn’t be here in the first place. It stinks of dusty sheets. I want to ask her what her problem is, what’s up with the bed, the bedroom? But I’ve never done this before, and I think, Maybe this is how it is when you want someone else to help you take out something as deep as the hole inside. I start babbling, and after about ten minutes Madame Grisaille stands up and looks at me.

“ Très bien. Vous avez beaucoup de problèmes. You are divided, and that will cost you two hundred fifty francs. Come back next Thursday same time so I can make you whole.”

I somehow manage to stand up and, with the hollowness knocking in my legs, follow her back down the empty hallway. I pull out a 200-franc bill and a blue 50. She takes the multicolored money in one palm and shakes my hand hard with the other, opens and then closes the door with me on the other side. I stand for a moment with my wadded fist suspended, about to knock. I don’t, of course, but there’s something left unsaid. I have been summed up and dismissed, abandoned, but how can I tell that to some strange woman?

Back out on the street, day is slipping into the Seine and I make my way to La Grande Épicerie du Bon Marché. Everything in this department store food market is remarkable—the exotic fruit stand promising joy with its array of passion, carambola, crimson cactus. I want to be lost here, swallowed up whole among the endless displays of imported water in colored glass bottles—blue Ramlösa, sea green Pellegrino—among the cheeses and marble-colored olives, bread baked in their individual baskets. When I return to the apartment, Olivier’s waiting, anxious.

“ Alors?”

I shrug. I hate to admit that he was right.

He smiles, triumphant, and takes me in his arms. “When I was your age, I went through analysis, but I was a baba cool . . . it’s what we did. Analysis,” he warns me, “is the opposite of poetry. You’ll lose your entire poetic sensibility.”

“Did you?” I ask.

“Look,” he says, ignoring my question, “we have everything. Tout. People go to see people like analysts and psychoanalysts for happiness. You don’t need to pay a stranger to tell you that we have everything to be happy.”

I walk to the kitchen and let the water pour out of the faucet full blast. I cup my hands and drink. It’s cold and hurts slicing down my throat, caressing the scars from China.

“You never drink tap water—”

“Well, I just feel like it today.” I sound angry and regret it instantly. Olivier walks over to me and turns the faucet handle so the water falls in slow oval drops into the drain. I lean over to stare into the water until I can’t see it any longer. He bends down low to look into my eyes.

“What?” I splash water into his face, and we can’t help laughing. Soon we’re both wet and dripping on the kitchen floor. I make tea and stand next to Olivier, overlooking the courtyard below.

“I talked to my lawyers today. I’m going to see a notary as soon as possible.”

I start shaking my head. I don’t know why I must object to everything, but I do. I pour more tea and stir in some honey.

“Kimette, you never sweeten your tea.”

I glare at him.

“The notary,” he continues. “It’s important. In case anything happens to me before . . . I want to protect you, and Laure. I don’t want Dominique involved.”

Right, I want to say, like she’s not going to butt her way in. Am I becoming bitter? “But Dominique isn’t going to let you go through with the divorce, you know it.”

“Marie-Claire will be there, too, to help you through, if anything happens to me. She’s been in business with me since the beginning of L’Occitane . . . since 1976 . . . I’m so old.”

“Why don’t you just get the divorce over with? You’ve been officially separated for years now.”

“I don’t want to jeopardize custody of Laure, you know that.”

I nod patiently and let him talk about marriage even if we can’t discuss it seriously until the divorce is final. And I’m terrified. Maybe it’s our age difference. And how do I tell him that I don’t want to be another Madame Olivier Baussan; I want to become Kim Sunée before becoming anyone else.

I’m relieved that we’re having dinner at Louis and Nelly’s tonight, even though she will tell me I should have bought the chouette new sac at Yves Saint Laurent, or that my jewelry—bracelets and rings Olivier brought back from West Africa—is all wrong, except for the Cartier watch, or that we haven’t spent enough money on art this year.

In some strange way, I am attached to Nelly. She can be charming and insists I am like the daughter she and Louis would have loved to adopt. Tonight is one of her dinners for the patrons, and I’m always thrilled to talk with Louis, see what he is creating. I tell him my dreams in between courses when no one is listening, and he smiles before interpreting them.

First, Olivier and I are to meet and ride with Henri Cartier-Bresson and his wife, Martine, at their rue de Rivoli apartment. Olivier is honored, and even though he has known Henri for several years, he gets excited but tries to remain nonchalant.

“What’s he like?” I ask.

“A genius.” He pauses and then adds, “Dominique contacted him some time back, told him about the divorce, and I’ve been waiting for the right moment to introduce you.”

“Maybe I shouldn’t go,” I say, thinking that here’s one more person from his past that I have to impress. What do I say to Henri Cartier-Bresson?

“Whatever you do,” Olivier says, reading my mind, “don’t ask him anything about photography. He doesn’t want to speak of it, to anyone . . . he’s drawing now.”

No photography, I remind myself as Henri greets us outside and we follow him up to his apartment. He stops to greet an American woman with a delightful accent. They are old friends, he tells us nostalgically as he slowly makes his way up the several flights of stairs.

Once inside, he explains that we are waiting for Martine, his wife, as he offers to fix us a drink. There are drawings everywhere, nudes and airy figures. A photo of Matisse, landscapes, some just strewn about. I try not to stare, try to think of something smart to say. No photography questions, I remind myself.

“Olivier tells me you’re a poet.” Henri smiles and hands me a glass. His voice is gentle, his words deliberate. “You’ve opened a poetry bookshop on the island.” Before I can correct him, he stands up, searches his bookshelves, and hands me a book. “My first wife, she was a poet . . . ”

I am grateful for his kindness, for not letting me make a fool of myself in his presence, in front of Olivier, who admires him so.

“Please,” he tells me in French, “I offer you this book of her poetry, in English.”

I thank him as I flip through the pages. While Henri looks for his coat and gloves, a young woman, elegant, tall, and beautiful, suddenly appears in the doorway, holding out a scarf.

“Papa. Looking for this?” Henri introduces his daughter. She looks to be in her early twenties. I try to calculate the age difference. “How are you feeling?” she asks in French. He smiles and nods. “We’re having dinner together this weekend, right? Remember? You promised.”

When she leaves with her friend, Henri tells me that she was adopted as a baby. She’s a grown woman now, where does the time go? Martine arrives, and we all pile into her car to go to the fifteenth arrondissement. Henri is old and tired, but there is still so much life in the way he looks at the streetlights, listens silently to the undersounds of the city. There’s so much I want to ask him, learn from him, but I’m tongue-tied. I clasp the book close to me.

When we arrive, Nelly kisses me and whispers in my ear that my dress is lovely. I’m relieved, but she makes a point of saying, “ Mais, chérie, you must have him take you to this fabulous little boutique, rue Bonaparte.”

She seats me in between Louis and Henri. Olivier and I have several of his photos at the apartment—scenes from China and Mexico. He’s more fragile than I imagined. Martine, quite a bit younger than Henri, a photographer as well, warns him about spices. He turns to me, unscrewing the top from the Tabasco bottle.

“D’où viens-tu exactement?”

I answer South Korea, more or less, but I don’t know exactly where. “ Nulle part.”

“Everyone comes from somewhere,” he says sternly. “You can’t be from nowhere.” He shakes his head, pushes the Tabasco out of the way, and mixes some red hot harissa instead with his couscous grains. I stare at my reflection, upside down in the spoon. The light makes me look swollen, undefined.

In the hallway, Nelly reproaches me for not being charming and anecdotal. Sullenly, I clear dishes and help her set up the cheese tray.

“What’s wrong, chérie? Ça ne va pas avec la petite?”

I tell her everything’s fine with Laure, la petite. I carefully remove the damp paper from the wedge of Roquefort and busy myself with slicing Comice pears, arranging the fresh tiny rounds of Rocamadour cheese on the plate.

“You have everything,” she reproaches. “I’ve lost it all, except Louis. He drives me crazy, but what a brilliant artist.” She sighs wistfully. “I sold everything I had to support us. My jewels, garde-robe, tout. Sometimes I think I was foolish giving it all up, never marrying Pierre, especially before he married that other woman, and then the accident.” Nelly pauses. “Money is important, and if you can have love, too, tant mieux. A woman must have her priorities straight. You’re too young to know this now. If Pierre were alive today, I would still be his mistress. I had a rich life, not richer than yours, but . . . ”

“Nel, do you know of a good . . . psychoanalyst?”

“Pour toi?” She starts fanning herself frantically and stuffs a slice of pear in her mouth.

I nod, the tears welling up.

“Mais ce n’est pas possible. Pas toi.” Her voice is shrill, and she starts screaming, out of control now, about how scandalous it is to be unhappy when I have so much.

“Please,” I beg her to whisper. “I just thought you would know of someone.”

“ Bien sûr, I know. Who do you want? Moscovici? Dolto’s daughter? I know many, but . . .” She pauses to lower her head and squint at me. “Does Olivier know?”

“Laisse tomber.” Forget it, I tell her, carrying out the cheese tray. I set it on the table, and Henri pours me a glass of vin jaune. I gesture for him to fill it up all the way and then take a big gulp.

Nelly’s radiant at the other end of the table. Fanning herself wildly, flirting with the young Cuban dancer at her side, she keeps reminding him that she was once a very beautiful woman. “I don’t have youth on my side, like Keem, but,” she says, catching my gaze, “I have wisdom.”