Читать книгу Holiday in a Coma & Love Lasts Three Years: two novels by Frédéric Beigbeder - Frédéric Beigbeder, Frank Wynne - Страница 7

My good-for-nothing city-dweller lives and

is set free by the variety of the night.

The night is a long and lonely party

Mi callejero no hacer nada vive y se suelta por la variedad de la noche. La noche es una fiesta larga y sola.

Jorge Luis Borges

Casi Juicio Final from Moon Across the Way

It is important to live dangerously, but from time to time Marc likes to have a snack at Ladurée.

Careful not to be too punctual, he orders a hot chocolate and composes this bilingual haiku:

Un homme au cou de giraffe Mangeait des clous de girofle.

And in her mouth he came Drinking Château-Yquem.

The elderly waitress brings him his drink and he is suddenly seized by violent anguish: the cocoa almost certainly came from Africa, it had to be picked, shipped, before being processed in a Van Houten factory transforming it into soluble powder, then shipped again; one had to boil the milk which came from a cow locked up in another factory in Normandy (Candia or maybe Lactel), the saucepan had to be watched to ensure it didn’t boil over, in short, thousands of people had to work hard just so he could let it sit there and go cold. All those people for a simple cup of hot chocolate. Maybe some of the factory workers died, crushed by the fearsome machines which press the cocoa beans, just so that Marc could stir it slowly. He feels as if all these people are watching him, telling him: ‘Drink your chocolate, Marc, drink it while it’s hot, it’s not your fault that this single cup of hot chocolate represents a year’s salary for us.’ He gets up from the table and, wrinkling his brow, gets the hell out of there. As you’ve already been advised, his behaviour is not always entirely rational. He is easily terrified by geometrically patterned wallpaper, the numbers on a car licence plate, even an overweight man eating pizza.

The Church of the Madeleine has not moved from the Place. Already there is a crowd queuing outside Shit. A ballet of rubbernecks and paparazzi. The vast loudspeakers sing Schubert’s ‘An die Nachtigall’ in a remix with Julee Cruise’s ‘The Nightingale’. Undoubtedly the first vesperal invention of Joss Dumoulin.

The vast toilet bowl in white marble is bathed in a mist of dry ice and surrounded by vertical spots which light up the sky. They look like columns of light from a Star Trek teleporter, or a V2 alert during the Blitz. Inquisitive bystanders are clustered like spermatozoa around the egg.

‘And you are … ?’ asks the human pit bull guarding the entrance. Since an accurate reply to this question would have taken hours, Marc simply says: ‘Marronnier’. The security guard repeats the name into his walkie-talkie. There is a tumbleweed moment. It’s the same deal every time you go out. ‘Let me just check the guest list.’ People think of nightclub doormen as watchdogs, but it’s not true: in fact they are directly descended from the Sphinx of Thebes. Their riddles raise genuine existential problems. Marc wonders whether he answered correctly. At length, the pit bull receives a burst of approving crackle in his headset. Marc exists! He’s on the list, therefore he is! The chamberlain deferentially parts the velvet rope a fraction to allow him through. The crowd parts just like the Red Sea for Moses, except that Marc is clean-shaven.

On the wall, a mosaic inscription reads: ‘Built by Porcine Industries, Paris–Revin 1905’ and just above it, a small blue hologram shows a naked girl, smiling, with a tattoo on her belly that reads: ‘Shit, Paris–Tokyo 1993’.

Joss Dumoulin greets his guests at the entrance, behind the metal detector and the TV crews setting up their spots. His hair is slicked back, his dinner jacket double-breasted, his bodyguards brick shit-houses, his telephone mobile.

‘Heeeeeeey! If it isn’t the great Marc Marronnier! How many years has it been?’

They kiss warmly in a showbiz style, making it easier for them to hide their actual emotions.

‘Great to see you again, Jocelyn.’

‘Bastard – don’t call me that,’ laughs Joss. ‘These days I’m young.’

‘So this is, like, your club?’

‘The Bog? Nah, the club belongs to some Japanese friends. You know, the kind with at least one finger missing … Jesus, I’m really happy you came, Bro.’

‘What, when one of us has finally made it big for once – I wasn’t going to miss that. And anyway, I wanted to know what it takes to become “Joss Dumoulin”.’

‘Yeah, yeah, that’s the star system for you. I’ll let you in on my secret: talent. Well? Don’t I get a laugh? Since I’ve been famous it’s mad how people always laugh at my jokes. Go on, go with the flow.’

‘Ha, ha, ha,’ Marc forces a laugh, ‘what a wit! Well, it’s been real, but can you point me to the nymphomaniacs?’

‘What’s the hurry, you old Reuben! Baroness, how aaaaaaare you?’

Joss Dumoulin kisses the Baroness Truffaldine greedily like a starving man devouring a slice of fresh bread, when in fact she looks like a slab of butter someone has stuck a pair of trifocals into. Then he turns back to Marc:

‘Get yourself a drink, you old bastard, I’ll be right over. And don’t worry about nymphos, the place is full of them. I just have to greet my six hundred nymphomaniac friends. Like Marguerite here! Oh my God, Marguerite, you look like such a nympho!’

There he goes, mispronouncing the name of Marjorie Lawrence, a fashion model famous in the fifties and ever since the fifties. Marc kisses her hand ceremoniously (with just a hint of urbane gerontophilia). Twisting people’s names seems to be one of Joss’s favourite sports. With most people, DJs are as sympathetic as the nervous system of the same name: it’s fight or flight.

Marc does as he is told and heads for the bar. It’s time to armour himself.

Hey – one important detail, he’s stopped frowning.

‘Two Lobotomies over ice, please.’

He is accustomed to ordering drinks in pairs, especially when they’re free. It gives him an excuse for not shaking hands with people.

While preserving the turn-of-the-century rococo style of the toilets, the architects have turned this vast hall into a high-tech neo-brutalist extravaganza which their Nippon backers will surely appreciate. Spread over two enormous floors is a toilet at least thirty yards in diameter. The ground floor, with its circular gallery dotted with small tables, represents the toilet seat. Below it is the dance floor set out with tables for dinner. Between the two, dominating the space, is the glass DJ booth, which looks like a giant soap bubble linked to the dance floor by two white water-slides. The place gives Marc the unpleasant sensation of being trapped in a Piranesi engraving.

For the moment, there aren’t many people. ‘A good sign,’ he thinks, ‘any party with crowds of people jostling outside and no one inside is off to a good start.’

‘Hey, Marc, getting warmed up?’ asks Joss who has joined him at the upstairs bar.

‘I like to get to a club early, just to build myself up.’

Feeling guilty, Marc offers Joss one of the drinks.

‘Thanks, I don’t drink. I’ve much better things to do. Come on, I’ll show you something.’

Marc follows him into a back room where Joss produces a Waldorf Astoria matchbox.

‘Listen, Joss, if you think you’re going to impress me with that … I’ve got an ashtray and a bathrobe from the Pierre at home …’

‘Just wait, darling …’

Joss opens the cardboard drawer. The box is filled with white capsules.

‘Euphoria. Pop one of these babies and you’ll become what you truly are. Each capsule contains the equivalent of six tabs of E. Go on, help yourself, from what I hear you can’t get anything in Paris these days.’

Marc doesn’t even have time to protest before Joss slips a tab into his pocket. Then he disappears towards the door, yelling out names as he goes. The lunatic actually likes him. But it’s wasted on Marc: he’s scared shitless of stuff like this. Usually, people take drugs because they’re cowards. With Marc, it’s cowardice that stops him taking them.

After all that, he’s still none the wiser. He still doesn’t know where the nymphos are.

Instinctively he fingers the pill in his jacket pocket: it might come in useful. The cocktail is already going to his head. The doctor distinctly told him not to drink on an empty stomach. But Marc loves feeling that first drink slip into his empty stomach. In fact, he wonders which is eroding his gut faster, the booze or the aspirin. The disease or the cure.

The music has moved on to a remix featuring the voice of Saddam Hussein and some syntho-rai. The screens are showing images of the war in Yugoslavia. Joss Dumoulin mixes it all up: that’s his job.

Marc thinks maybe he would have liked to have been a DJ; after all, it’s a good way of being a musician without having to play an instrument. Of creating something without having to have any talent. It’s a pretty good gig.

Slowly, the club, unlike the glasses, begins to fill. Marc, propping up the bar, watches the parade of guests. The major-domos relieve them of their coats in exchange for a cloakroom ticket. A famous arms dealer enters, a beautiful Houri on each arm. Which is the wife and which the daughter? Difficult to tell. The two mulattos have had themselves lifted more than once. Their sexy outfits are like them: borrowed. Every clique is represented: the Left Bank, the Right Bank, the Ile St-Louis, the northern slopes, the southern plains and the central valley of the seizième arrondissement, the quai Conti, the place des Vosges, a couple of flashy foreigners from the Ritz and the avenue Junot (75018), Kensington, the Piazza Navona, Riverside Drive …

The party swells its sails. Each new arrival represents a universe, each can be used later as ammunition, as an ingredient in Joss’s diabolic recipe. It’s as if he wanted to distil the earth itself into a single place, reduce the planet to a single night. A Jivaro party. Marc is on hand to witness the birth of the party live. There is no difference between clubbing and life itself: they are born in the same way, grow and decline in the same way. And when they die, you have to sort out the mess, pick up the overturned chairs and give everything a good sweep – those bastards, they’ve wrecked the place.

This type of tangent may perhaps be explained by the fact that Marc is currently finishing his second cocktail.

It has become almost impossible to impress the consummate dandy Marc Marronnier. He looks almost pitiful, alone at the bar, desperately pleading for a glance from the beautiful girls descending the staircase. Aficionados of body piercing set the metal detectors howling. Marc has arrived at the end of the night without making a Journey. He takes out a block of Post-it notes and jots down this last phrase so he can forget it.

He watches Joss Dumoulin flirting and orders a third sponsored drink. He wonders what has become of the idols of his youth. It’s true he didn’t know Jim Morrison: for him, his idols were Yves Adrien, Patrick Eudeline, Alain Pacadis. You have the role models the times bestow on you. Some of them are dead; for the others, it’s worse: we’ve forgotten them.

This time, Marc is no longer paying any attention to what is going on around him. He is feverishly writing on his yellow Post-its:

I’ve Forgotten

I’ve forgotten the eighties, the decade in which I turned twenty and thus that in which I became acquainted with my own mortality.

I’ve forgotten the title of the only novel by Guillaume Serp (who died of an overdose shortly after it was published).

I’ve forgotten the models Beth Todd, Dayle Haddon and Christie Brinkley.

I’ve forgotten all the magazines: Métal Hurlant, City, Façade, Elles sont de sortie, Le Palace Magazine.

I’ve forgotten the list of Hervé Guibert’s ex-boyfriends.

I’ve forgotten Number 7 on the rue Sainte-Anne and La Piscine on the rue de Tilsitt.

I’ve forgotten Soft Cell’s ‘Tainted Love,’ and Visage’s ‘Fade to Grey’.

I’ve forgotten Yves Mourousi.

I’ve forgotten the collected literary works of Richard Bohringer.

I’ve forgotten the movement known as ‘Allons-z-idées’.

I’ve forgotten Bazooka comics.

I’ve forgotten Divine’s movies.

I’ve forgotten Human League records.

I’ve forgotten the unpopular Alains: Alain Savary and Alain Deva-quet (which of them is dead again?).

I’ve forgotten ska.

I’ve forgotten millions of hours of administrative law, public finances and political economics.

I’ve forgotten to live (song title by Johnny Hallyday).

I’ve forgotten what Russia was called for the first three-quarters of the twentieth century.

I’ve forgotten Yohji Yamamoto.

I’ve forgotten the collected works of Hervé Claude.

I’ve forgotten the Twickenham.

I’ve forgotten the Cinéma Cluny which used to be on the corner of the boulevard Saint-Germain and the rue Saint-Jacques, The Bonaparte on the place Saint-Sulpice and the Studio Bertrand on the rue du Colonel-Bertrand.

I’ve forgotten the Élysées-Matignon and the Royal Lieu.

I’ve forgotten TV6.

I’ve forgotten myself.

I’ve forgotten what Bob Marley died of and the brand of sleeping pills Dalida committed suicide with.

I’ve forgotten Christian Nucci and Yves Chalier (YVES CHALIER, who the hell has a name like Yves Chalier?).

I’ve forgotten Darie Boutboul.

I’ve forgotten ‘La salle de bains’ (was it a book or a movie?).

I’ve forgotten how to solve the Rubik’s Cube.

I’ve forgotten the name of the Portuguese photographer who went back to pick up his film from the Rainbow Warrior at just the wrong moment.

I’ve forgotten ‘Mental AIDS‘.

I’ve forgotten Jean Lecanuet and Sigue Sigue Sputnik. And Bjorn Borg.

I’ve forgotten Opera Night, the Eldorado and Rose Bonbon.

I’ve forgotten the names of all the Lebanese hostages apart from Jean-Paul Kauffmann.

I’ve forgotten the make of car from which they lobbed the bomb into Tati on the rue de Rennes (Mercedes? BMW? Porsche? Saab Turbo?).

I’ve forgotten there used to be two-tone black and brown Westons.

I’ve forgotten sweets like Treets, Trois Mousquetaires and Daninos.

I’ve forgotten Fruité used to come in a purple apple and black¬ currant flavour.

I’ve forgotten the Partenaire Particulier group and ‘Peter and Sloane’. And Annabelle Mouloudji. And ‘Boule de Flipper’ by Corinne Charby! (Actually, that’s one I do remember.)

I’ve forgotten the International Diplomatic Academy, France– America, the American Legion, the Cercle Interallié, the Automobile Club de France, the Ermenonville Pavilion, the Pavilion des Oiseaux, the Pré Catelan and the swimming pool at Tir aux Pigeons.

(That’s not quite true, who could forget THE SWIMMING POOL AT TIR AUX PIGEONS skinny-dipping at four in the morning with the dogs right behind us?)

Downstairs, dinner has been served. Marc finally tracks down his table. His name is written on a small manila card between Irène de Kazatchok (the décolleté deaconess) and Loulou Zibeline (a pretty cool entrepreneuse). They haven’t arrived yet. Which one will Marc hit on first? Unless maybe they decide to take turns snogging him? His right hand down someone’s blouse and his left hand on the other’s arse. Marc’s penis is almost hard at the thought.

God be praised! Marc’s daydream is interrupted by a useful ally: Fab. This useful ally is wearing some sort of skin-tight, fluorescent lycra outfit. His head is shaved so that you can read the word ‘FLY’ on his bleached blond temple. Fab could be the result of Jean-Claude Van Damme mating with a Ninja Turtle. He speaks only in trance-speak. He is the sweetest moron on the planet, it’s just a pity for him he was born a century too early.

‘Yo chestnut tree.* Lookin’ pretty fresh there!’

‘Yeah, Fab. Actually, we’re at the same table.’

‘Phat! I gotta feeling this is gonna be massive!’

Tedium, it would seem, is not an option.

* Author’s note: Marronnier in English is ‘chestnut tree’. English is very trance.