Consolation

  *

  He got up very early, checked with the concierge about the delivery of his hired tuxedo, drank a coffee from a paper cup on his way down Madison Avenue and, as always when he was in New York, walked around staring up at the sky. New York, for someone who as a child used to like playing with Meccano sets, meant one stiff neck after another.

  For the first time in years, he went into boutiques and bought clothes. A jacket and four new shirts.

  Four of them!

  He turned round and looked behind him from time to time. Keeping a lookout, fearful of something. A hand on his shoulder, an eye in a triangle, a voice bellowing at him from a skyscraper, Hey . . . you. You have no right to feel so happy . . . What did you go and steal this time, what are you hiding there, against your heart?

  No . . . but I . . . I think I have a cracked rib.

  Raise your arms so I can check.

  And Charles did as he was told, and was carried away on the flow of passers-by.

  He shook his head, called himself an idiot, and looked at his watch to remind himself of where he was.

  Almost four o’clock . . . Last day of school but one . . . The children must have emptied their cubbyholes into their worn-out schoolbags . . . She had told him that every evening she went with the dogs to wait for them at the end of the lane, at the spot where the school bus dropped them off, and they loaded all their stuff into the donkey’s saddle-pack – ‘when I manage to catch him!’

  And she’d gone on to add that a hundred or more oak trees barely sufficed to give them time to tell her all the goss, and . . .

  A hand had just closed on his shoulder. He turned round.

  With his other hand a man in a dark suit was pointing at the traffic light: DON’T WALK. Charles thanked him and was told that he was Welcome.

  He found the vitamin shop and made a clean sweep of the six remaining tins they had in stock. Enough to fill quite a few cracks. He left the paper bag on the counter and slipped them into his pockets.

  He liked the idea.

  To feel her weight, as it were.

  He pushed open the door at Strand’s. ‘Eighteen miles of books’ bragged the slogan. He couldn’t go through them all, but spent a few hours. Ransacked the architecture section of course, but also treated himself to a selection of Oscar Wilde’s correspondence, and a short novel by Thomas Hardy, Fellow-Townsmen, because of the blurb: ‘Notables in the Wessex town of Port Bredy, Barnet and Downe are old friends. Yet fate has treated them differently. Barnet, a prosperous man, has been unlucky in love and now lives with the consequences of a judicious but loveless marriage. Downe, a poor solicitor, is radiantly happy, with a doting wife and adoring children. A chance meeting one night causes them to reflect on their disparate lots in life . . .’And a genial More Than Words by Liza Kirwin, which he read with delight while eating a sandwich on the steps, in the sun.

  It was a selection of illustrated letters from the Smithsonian Archive of American Art.

  Letters to spouses, lovers, friends, patrons, clients or close confidants, from painters, young artists, and total unknowns, but also Man Ray, the brilliant Gio Ponti, Calder, Warhol, and even Frida Kahlo.

  Letters that were discreet or moving or purely informative, always illustrated with a drawing, a sketch, a caricature or a vignette showing a place, a landscape, a state of mind or even an emotion, when the alphabet did not suffice.

  More than words . . . This book, which our laconic Charles had found on a cart as he was headed for the till, reconciled him with a part of himself. The part he had abandoned in a drawer with his cloth-covered notebooks and his tiny box of watercolours.

  And who drew for the pleasure of it, back then . . . When he didn’t just sketch to find a solution to a problem; when he couldn’t give a damn about steel counterbalancing systems and other prestressed cables . . .

  He developed a soft spot for Alfred Frueh, who would go on to become one of the New Yorker’s great caricaturists, and who sent hundreds of truly extraordinary missives to his fiancée. He told her about his trip to Europe shortly before the First World War, describing in detail the local customs of each destination and the world he discovered around him . . . He tucked a real dried edelweiss under his arm and, by means of a lead pencil, sent it to her all the way from Switzerland; he proved his delight in reading her letters, cutting them up into bits the size of postage stamps which he then used to tell her the story of his life so far: reading those same letters in his bath, or in front of his easel, at his table, in the street, under a lorry driving over him, in his bed, while his house was burning down or a crazy tiger was piercing his body with a sword. He also sent her his own art gallery, a thousand little three-dimensional cut-out figures, so that he could share with her the paintings that had most touched him in Paris – and all of it adorned with texts that were tender, full of humour, and oh so elegant.

  He would have liked to be that man. Jolly, confident, loving. And talented.

  And then there was Joseph Lindon Smith, with his perfect pencil stroke, telling his very worried parents about his ordeal as a painter on the Grand Tour in the Old World. Drawing himself beneath a shower of coins in a Venice street, or half-dead from eating too much melon.

  Dear Mother and Father, Behold Jojo eating fruit!

  Saint-Exupéry disguised as the Little Prince, asking Hedda Sterne if she were free for dinner and . . . Come on, you can have another look later on . . . then leafing through one last time before closing the book, spotted the self-portrait of a lost man, with his head in his hands, bent over a photo of his beloved . . . Oh! I wish I were with you.

  Yes. Oh.

  I wish.

  He took a detour to see the immense Flatiron Building, which had made such an impression on him during his first visit. Constructed in 1902, it was one of the highest edifices at the time and, above all, one of the first steel structures. Charles raised his eyes.

  1902.

  1902, for Christ’s sake!

  Such genius.

  And because he got lost, he ended up looking into a shop window full of bakery equipment. N.Y. Cake Supplies. He thought of her, thought of all of them, and spent a fortune on cookie cutters.

  He had never seen so many in his life. Every possible, imaginable shape . . .

  He made a pile, of dogs, cats, a hen, a duck, a horse, a chick, a goat, a llama (yes, there were llama-shaped cookie cutters . . .), a star, a moon, a cloud, a sparrow, a mouse, a tractor, a boot, a fish, a frog, a flower, a tree, a strawberry, a kennel, a dove, a guitar, a firefly, a basket, a bottle and, uh, a heart.

  The salesgirl asked him if he had a lot of children.

  Yes, he replied.

  He went back to the hotel exhausted and loaded down with carrier bags like the good little bloody stupid tourist that he was, and he couldn’t have been happier.

  He took a shower, then donned his penguin suit, and spent a delightful evening. Howard gave him a big hug and called him, ‘My son!’, and introduced him to a load of fascinating people. He spoke at length with a Brazilian man about Ove Arup, and managed to find an engineer who had worked on the shells of the Sydney Opera House. The more he drank, the more fluent his English, and he even wandered out onto a terrace overlooking Central Park, chatting with a pretty young girl in the moonlight.

  He eventually asked her if she was an architect.

  ‘Nat meeee,’ she drawled.

  She was . . .

  He didn’t grasp what she said. He added that that was great, then listened to her spew a load of bullshit about Paris, which was so romantic, and the cheese was so good, and the French were such great lovers.

  He looked at her perfect teeth, her manicured fingernails, her skinny arms, listened to her non-Queen’s English, offered to get her another glass of champagne, and got lost on the way.

  He bought some Sellotape and a pad of paper in a Pakistani corner store, hailed a taxi, yanked off his fake shirtfront, and stayed up late.

  He wrapped each one
separately: the dogs, the cats, the hen, the duck, the horse, the chick, the goat, the llama, the star, the moon, the cloud, the sparrow, the mouse, the tractor, the boot, the fish, the frog, the flower, the tree, the strawberry, the kennel, the dove, the guitar, the firefly, the basket, the bottle and the heart.

  All of it nicely bundled and mixed up in a package, she’d be none the wiser.

  He fell asleep thinking about her.

  About her body, a little.

  But mostly about her.

  About her, with her body round her.

  It was a huge bed, a sort of double-size obese King Size, so how was it possible?

  That this woman, whom he hardly knew, was already taking up all the room?

  Yet another question for Yacine.

  He had his breakfast brought out to the patio, and on the hotel letterhead he drew the tribulations of a badger in New York.

  His own tribulations, that is.

  His pockets full of badger grease, his peregrinations around Strand’s, his reading session surrounded by bums and rebellious teenagers (he went to a lot of trouble to make sure he reproduced the graphics on the T-shirt one of them was wearing: Keep shopping everything is under control), his smooth badger fur in his fine tuxedo, his tail wagging in the breeze as he chats on the terrace with a badgerette who keeps badgering him about France, his night spent tearing off bits of Sellotape, getting it all stuck in his claws and . . . no . . . he wouldn’t tell her about how cramped the bed was . . .

  He found the postal code for Les Marzeray on the Internet, went to the Post Office, and wrote Kate and Co. on the parcel.

  He flew back over the ocean, immersed in the disparate lots of Downe and Barnet.

  Terrible.

  Then he read the letters Wilde wrote in prison.

  Refreshing.

  Upon arrival, he was annoyed at having lost five hours of his life. He put together his ‘solvent tenant’ file, went by Laurence’s, put his clothes, a few CDs and a few books into a bigger suitcase, and left his key ring out where she was sure to see it, on the kitchen table.

  No. She wouldn’t see it there.

  On the shelf in the bathroom.

  A completely idiotic gesture. He still had loads of things to pick up, but oh well . . . Let’s chalk it up to that dandy’s bad influence. The same one who, after everyone had abandoned him and he was dying in a drab Paris hotel room, with wallpaper that he despised, still had the swagger to declare, ‘Either that wallpaper goes, or I do.’

  So Charles went.

  7

  NEVER HAD HE worked as hard as during that month of July.

  Two of their projects had got past the first round. One was not terribly interesting – an administrative building that would pay the bills; the other, more exciting but far more complicated, was one that Philippe cared greatly about. The design and realization of a new urban development zone in a new suburb. It was a huge project and Charles was not easy to convince.

  The land was on a slope.

  ‘So what?’ retorted his associate.

  ‘Well, let me give you just a random example . . . Here, last January 15, for instance: “When a slope is necessary in order to overcome a difference in level, it shall be less than 5%. If it is above 4%, a landing will be installed at the top and the bottom of each gradient and every 10 metres continuously. A support railing will be required at any point where the level is broken at a height of more than 0.40 metres. If this should prove technically impossible, due in particular to the topography or the disposition of existing edifices, a ramp of greater than 5% will be tolerated. This slope may attain 8% over a length less than or equal to two metres and up to . . .”’

  ‘Stop.’

  He sat down at his work table, shaking his head. Somewhere in the midst of all those arcane Ubuesque figures, regulations were notifying them that the average slope on any plot earmarked for construction must not exceed 4%.

  Oh?

  He thought of the huge danger represented by the Rue Mouffetard, the Rue Lepic, the Fourvière Hill in Lyon, the stradine struggling up the hills of Rome . . .

  And the Alfama and Chiado districts in Lisbon, and San Francisco . . .

  Come on. Get to work. Let’s flatten and level and make it all uniform, since that’s what they want, to transform the country into a gigantic suburban sprawl.

  And obviously it must all be sustainable development, right?

  Naturally. Of course.

  He consoled himself with keeping the footbridges for the end. Charles loved to draw and cogitate suspended walkways and bridges. There, at least, you could see the trace of the hand of man.

  Where the void was concerned, industry still had to make concessions to the designer . . .

  If he could have chosen, he would have been born in the 19th century, at a time when great engineers were also great architects. The most successful projects, to his mind, were those where certain materials were used for the first time. Concrete by Maillart, steel by Brunel and Eiffel, cast iron by Telford . . .

  Yes, those fellows must have had a good time . . . Engineers in those days were also entrepreneurs, and they corrected their errors when they came to light. As a result, their errors were perfect.

  The work of someone like Heinrich Gerber, Ammann or Freyssinet, or Leonhardt’s Kochertal viaduct, or Brunel’s Clifton Suspension Bridge. And the Verrazano . . . Well, you’re wandering off, now, yes you are. You’ve got an urban development zone on your plate so zone in on it and get out your urban land use code.

  ‘. . . up to 12% on a length equal to or less than 0.50 metres.’

  But perhaps something good would come of all his doubts. If you set yourself up to win, you’re also setting yourself up to lose. If you wanted a deal at any price, you’d end up being timid and conservative in your dealings. Not to shock . . . Philippe and Charles did agree on that point, so he worked on the project like a madman. But relaxed.

  Supple, sloping.

  Life was elsewhere.

  He had dinner nearly every evening with young Marc. Together they discovered, at the end of the most improbable cul-de-sacs, the back rooms of dingy little bistros still open after midnight, where they would eat in silence and sample beers from all over the world.

  Drunk with exhaustion, they always ended up declaring that they would write a guidebook. A Very Sloping Gullet, or, Urban Intoxication Zone, and then finally, finally, their genius would be recognized.

  Then Charles would drop him off by taxi, and collapse on the mattress on the floor of his empty room.

  A mattress, a duvet, soap, and a razor: that was all he had for the moment. He could hear Kate’s voice, ‘this Robinson Crusoe lifestyle saved us all’, and he fell asleep naked, rose with the first light, and got the impression that it was here, at this point, that he was beginning to build the bridge of his life.

  He spoke several times by telephone to Mathilde, told her that he had left Rue Lhomond and was camping on the other side, at the foot of the Montagne Sainte-Geneviève.

  No, he hadn’t picked his room yet.

  He was waiting until she got back . . .

  He had never had such long conversations with her before, and he realized how much she had matured over the last few months. She talked to him about her father, about Laurence, about her little half-sister; she asked him if he had seen Led Zeppelin in concert, and why Claire had never had children, and was it true, this business about bumping into a door?

  For the first time, Charles talked about Anouk to someone who hadn’t known her. During the night, long after he’d kissed Mathilde goodnight, he found it perfectly normal. To have shared Anouk with a heart that was the age he’d been when . . .

  ‘But you loved her – like, you were in love?’ she’d asked eventually.

  And as he hadn’t been able to reply right away, while he searched for another word, a word more accurate and fair and less compromising, he heard her give a jaded grunt, which twenty years on had the effect of a slap in
the face, bringing him back to his senses:

  ‘What a dork I am . . .’ she added. ‘Like, how else can you love someone?’

  *

  On the 17th, he squeezed the huge paw of his Russian chauffeur for the last time. He had just spent two days tearing out the few hairs he had left over a phantom construction site. Pavlovich had disappeared, most of the men had gone over to the Bouygues project, the few who’d stayed behind threatened to sabotage the works if they weren’t paid syu minutu, two hundred and fifty kilometres of cables had shrunk to twelve, and they still needed that authorization in order to –

  ‘What authorization?’ he fumed, without even bothering to switch to English. ‘What sort of blackmail is it this time? How much do you want altogether, for fuck’s sake?’

  And where was that bastard Pavlovich? Gone over to Bouygues as well?

  The project had been a shambles from the start. It wasn’t even their project to begin with, it was a friend of Philippe’s, an Italian bloke who had come and begged them di salvargli, to save l’onore and his reputazione and le finanze and lo studio and la famiglia e la Santa Vergine. He came that close to kissing their fingers on signing . . . Philippe had accepted; Charles said nothing.

  He suspected that beneath it all there was a sort of devious underhand game being played, the sort to which his incorruptible associate held the secret. If they rescued the site, it meant they’d have Whosit in their pocket, and Whosit was Thingie’s right-hand man, and Thingie had 10,000 square metres to rebuild somewhere else now, and . . . In short, Charles had read the plans, thought it would be an easy job, had grabbed his dog-eared Tolstoy and, like the little Emperor, had set off with six hundred thousand men to show them what great tacticians the French were . . .

  And like Bonaparte, he went home devastated.

  No, not even. He couldn’t give a damn. He’d simply held Viktor’s hand in his own for a little while, and felt his knuckles, and their smiles, crack a little. In another life, they would have been good comrades . . .

  He handed him a wad of roubles that he had on him. Viktor grumbled.

  ‘For the Russian lessons.’