Happiness

  Denis Robert is a French journalist, novelist, essayist and film director. He is highly regarded for uncovering political and financial scandals and for his unconventional journalism. Happiness is his first novel. He lives in Paris.

  Happiness

  Denis Robert

  Translated by John Innes

  A complete catalogue record for this book can be obtained from the

  British Library on request

  The right of Denis Robert to be identified as the author of this work

  has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs

  and Patents Act 1988

  Copyright © 2000 Les Arenes

  Translation copyright © 2009 John Innes

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored

  in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means,

  electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without

  the prior permission of the publisher.

  First published as Le Bonheur in 2000 by Les Arenes, Paris

  First published in this translation in 2009 by Serpent’s Tail,

  an imprint of Profile Books Ltd

  3A Exmouth House

  Pine Street

  London EC1R 0JH

  website: www.serpentstail.com

  ISBN 978 1 85242 959 1

  Designed and typeset by Sue Lamble

  Printed and bound in Great Britain by

  CPI Bookmarque Ltd, Croydon, Surrey

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Why is your mind so occupied with sex? Because that is a way of ultimate escape. It is a way of complete self-forgetfulness. For the time being, at least for that moment, you can forget yourself – and there is no other way of forgetting yourself… When there is only one thing in your life that is an avenue to ultimate escape… you cling to it because that is the only moment you are happy. Every other issue you touch becomes a nightmare… so you cling to the one thing that gives complete self-forgetfulness, which you call happiness. But when you cling to it, it too becomes a nightmare, because then you want to be free from it; you do not want to be a slave to it.

  Krishnamurti, On Love and Loneliness

  We had a drink together outside a bar. She sat opposite me, smiling, not saying anything. It was chilly, she was wearing a short skirt. There were a lot of people around us on the terrace. She crossed her legs so high that I could see the white triangle of her pants. She noticed this. I knew that when she lowered her eyes, and pulled her skirt up even higher.

  He attracted me, but I felt no desire for him. His freedom attracted me. That and his indifference. I was waiting to see what he would do. I didn’t want to push things. I liked the way he spoke, pausing to think between each sentence, and the way he undressed me with his eyes. At the same time he had that shyness that makes you fear the worst.

  Maybe he believed we met by chance. I was very self-conscious the first time.

  She had read my books. People think writers like to be recognised, even admired. That was true of me at first. These days I prefer to be anonymous, to get on with my stories without having to answer to anybody.

  At the time, I was dried up, blank. Not anxious, not depressed, just blank. I would have liked to be someone’s ghost writer, to start all over again from scratch.

  I had asked her to jot down her impressions in a little notebook. To keep a record of our meetings. I gave her the notebook as a present.

  He never tried to seduce me. He wasn’t particularly good-looking, by any fashionable criteria. He didn’t seem to care about his appearance. A bit of middle-age spread, a nice smile. He wore shapeless velvet trousers, rollnecks and classic English leather shoes, and smoked an awful lot of unfiltered cigarettes. He drank house wine. No one could guess his real character. He wouldn’t even know himself.

  He wasn’t the type to make the first move. He must have made up his mind that his wife was all he needed. He wasn’t on the prowl, he was just looking.

  Men think only of sex. Some admit it, but they’re rare. Usually they don’t practise it much. Others admit it to themselves and don’t talk about it. They dream up all sorts of steamy scenarios without ever making them real. He thought about it, talked about it, and practised it.

  She wasn’t doing much with her life. Literary studies, unfinished. Freelancing, secretarial work, the odd book started and abandoned. I couldn’t understand what she wanted from me. She already had that air of passivity and availability, a kind of self-sacrificial quality.

  Something happened quickly with her which I find hard to define. With her, there didn’t seem to be any danger.

  I like to look beautiful but I am not so sure that I do. I’ve got pretty legs, very pale skin, a little wrinkle at the corner of my left eye, decent breasts. If you looked hard you could spot a bit of fat at the top of my thighs. I look very good in jeans. I had got by till then without worrying too much about how men perceived me.

  ‘Hello, it’s me, from the other day in the café – you remember?’

  ‘Of course I do, how are you?’

  ‘Very well, and you?’

  ‘Not much happening.’

  ‘It’s about that piece of work on psychoanalysis that I have to deliver soon…’

  I felt a bit stupid. I was breathless on the phone. That’s how it always is when I’m impressed. He was polite, distant too. I called him the next day for some details. And then I left my number. I have never been able to call him without this fear in my stomach.

  I asked myself what she saw in me. I thought it was because of books. The fascination of a writer. But I was wrong. Maybe it was money? If I had been poor, none of this would have been possible. But money, in the end, didn’t interest her.

  From quite early on I wanted to play a game with her. I didn’t want an ordinary affair. Seducing women is tiresome. There is something predictable and depressing about making an effort to be wonderfully witty and attractive just so you can end up in bed with someone and stick your cock in their pussy. Dangerous and unprofitable, that’s what I thought of infidelity.

  This was something else.

  I was certain he would call me. I don’t think I doubted it for a moment. The knowledge that he had a wife and three children meant nothing to me. I expected nothing from him. I was available; I was up for anything. All I wanted was for him to take advantage of this.

  I made him believe that my husband was a strong presence in my life. In fact my husband loved me like you love a piece of furniture. I had become something for display. My husband never asks questions. He is always working in the laboratory or travelling somewhere. I don’t think my husband fucks other women. I think that sex has ceased to interest him, that he has buried the subject beneath a great heap of far more important concerns. He is making a mistake there. I have not yet found anything as serious as sex.

  Between twenty and thirty-five, I was very dependent on my wife. I spent my time dreaming and writing. I tried to come home early.

  A writer can only give what he has. Having never known hardship or cruelty, I could only be a kind of detached observer of everything that was falling apart around me. That’s what I was paid for. My books, a few articles: my work left me sufficient freedom. For some time I had the feeling that I’d reached my limit. I started to come home late. I waited for better days.

  It wasn’t him who called me but a girlfriend. I got myself ready. Short skirt, strapless bra. Make-up by Shiseido. There was going to be a little party in a restaurant. I knew he’d be there. I knew he’d arranged it so that I’d be there.

  I got a lot of attention during the evening. A boy in leather trousers, another in Armani, a piss-head with a fat cigar. He kept an eye on me from a distance. Just before he left, he
gave me the address of his hotel and his room number. As if he was giving me his phone number.

  ‘Here you are.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  We didn’t exchange another word.

  At this time, I did my work in a hotel room, as I often did when I needed complete seclusion in order to write. The hotel wasn’t far from where I lived. Originally it had been my wife’s idea: she had had enough of my bad moods at times like these. Starting a new book used to demand a lot of energy. With time, I have learned to go easier on myself. That particular evening everyone had been nice to me. My surly, asocial side didn’t bother anyone. I got out of the restaurant quite early. I had left her my room number.

  I masturbated while I was waiting for her. I often masturbate before fucking a woman I don’t know. It helps me be more sure of myself, to allow pleasure to come more calmly. I masturbated into a white hotel towel and then slept while waiting for her to arrive.

  I had spent the previous night channel-hopping on the television, having told my wife that I was working. On nights like these I often hunt for porn films on cable and masturbate while watching the screen. I sleep better after a good wank.

  When she opened the door, I closed my eyes. I waited for her to come and push against me under the sheets. I didn’t resist.

  I had put the pack of condoms under the bed. I fucked her slowly, whispering stories in her ear. I wanted to turn her on. I was a bit drunk from vodka tonics.

  I fixed a meeting with her for the next day. She seemed delighted. Her availability amazed me. She didn’t ask any questions. Nor did I.

  He started telling me stories straight away, his mouth against my ear. Words poured out, almost tenderly. When he penetrated me, his breath warmed me up. He told me of girls that do blow-jobs for cash, of bets involving sex and money, of strange places where lots of bodies can mingle together. Desire and fear.

  Did he guess straight away that when I knelt before him, his cock in my mouth, the curve of my arse was simply an invitation to be penetrated? Did he perhaps understand straight away that my mouth, sucking so greedily on his fingers, already hoped for other cocks?

  Perhaps he knew all that before I did? That day, I didn’t say anything. I let his words flow over me.

  What I liked most at the beginning was when she sucked me off. Not holding myself back. Never. Not thinking about her. Always hard. Letting her suck me as often as she wanted. She soon told me about her husband. I never encouraged her to do that again.

  I must keep my distance. He fucked her on Sundays. From behind. While squeezing her breasts. She said it wasn’t unpleasant and it was the least she owed him. Once, I think, I thought about my wife. I told myself that maybe she had a lover. I imagined her in bed with another guy. One of my friends. A couple cannot live off itself forever. Except by lying to themselves. Fidelity is a poor adhesive. An invention to make us believe that the two parties are bound together. But if you pull a bit, you know they come apart. The couple is based on a myth of fusion. As if together we make one. Whereas we are definitely two.

  Women immediately know they’re different. They don’t need any time to adapt, any time to reflect. They know it, that’s all. Men are much slower off the mark.

  At the start you didn’t matter much to me. I had noticed you, but there was something petty and provincial about you that got on my nerves.

  For a week we made love as often as we could. We hardly slept. We never discussed different positions. We just fitted ourselves together naturally, even if the configurations were sometimes rather unusual. I said very little. Two or three sentences a day. My silence astonished him.

  Had I already started to find it such a thrill to suck his cock?

  This girl is crazy. I must find out more about her before going any further. When she looks at me, I feel like I’m under investigation.

  What is it that makes me think about her all the time? To think about fucking her. To think about fucking her all the time. I must not phone her.

  I spend a long time getting ready before I go and meet him. Even in normal times, make-up is a ritual for me, putting on a second skin to face the world and other people’s eyes. When I’m ‘in love’ it’s even more important. I can spend two whole hours on it. It reminds me of those women of the orient, whose bodies are bathed, whose hair is styled, whose cheeks are painted and powdered and who are carefully dressed before they are presented. My preparations are just like that: I make myself shine from head to toe. And then the waiting, which fills my stomach, a bit like climbing a staircase that goes on forever. The uniformed hotel porter gives me the key to the room, telling me that he hasn’t arrived yet. He knows exactly what I’ve come here for. The word ‘whore’ crosses my mind. I prefer action to contemplation. With him, it doesn’t take a lot. He only has to look at me to make me wet.

  She lights a cigarette and tells me about her mother. I listen politely, while doodling on a piece of white paper that I’ve folded in half. I do that mechanically. Often. Observing, listening distractedly to her saying that fidelity is a lot of rubbish, She wants my assent. I’m somewhere else. All of a sudden I trust her. Yet something bothers me about the way she keeps looking at me. I’m suspicious, but intrigued.

  I carefully keep all his little drawings. They’re often funny, and very erotic. If he leaves me one day I could send them to his wife.

  No, I’ll never do that.

  I kept making notes about her. Especially at the start. I even filmed her, without telling her, on one of our first nights. I put a camcorder on the chest of drawers. The light was poor, but you can still make out her body. You can see her quite clearly sitting astride me. And hear her words.

  You’re very crude when you’re getting fucked. You like to be dominated. But I was rather quiet that time. I knew we were being spied on.

  I replayed the film once and masturbated.

  It wasn’t the same after that, except for the first time when we watched it together and you laughed like mad.

  I am trying to work out the difference between wanting someone and making love to him. I don’t see it. Why wouldn’t it be possible to love two people at once? Or three? At different moments? Why are lovers always so ungenerous to others?

  I do not know where I am going with her.

  After making love you often seem absent, as if you’ve withdrawn into yourself.

  I often wonder what you think of me.

  I wonder if you do think of me.

  I am not sure that I make you think.

  There’s something mechanical between us.

  Something fateful.

  I suggested that she buy a novel by Nicholson Baker. This was a few days after our first night. She had called me several times, always getting straight to the point. She wore flashy necklaces and rather short skirts. She had the voice of a child. She wanted me to recommend books that had impressed me. I told her about Vox. It’s the complete transcript of a very long telephone conversation. The man and the woman will never see each other, but they turn themselves on via the handsets that connect them. A powerful erotic tension runs through the whole book, ending in an apotheosis.

  It was a weekday, around noon. I had called him. I didn’t know that his answerphone was recording us. He hadn’t tried anything yet but he knew that he was on favourable ground with me.

  It was very pleasant. I remember a conversation we had about films. You had come back from a weekend in the country with your husband. I wanted to know if you had read my book. We had still not talked about sex together. I was disturbed at the thought of you with this book. We discussed films very politely and then all of a sudden I asked you if you had read Vox. There was a silence and then you said ‘Yes’. Then I asked you if you were wearing a bra, if it was a bit tight. I asked you to take it off. You hesitated, afraid that someone might come into the room. I suggested that you keep your blouse on. I wanted you to stroke yourself. Which you did. I could hear you breathing. During all this time we carried on talking about W
aterworld with Kevin Kostner. The story of a mutant who grows lemon trees.

  I was seeing you without seeing you. I saw your cock squeezed into your pants and the bulge that it made in your jeans.

  ‘I spent yesterday in the country. I chopped up some logs.’

  ‘You took the book with you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Was your husband there?’

  ‘Yes, and his son and one of his friends, and the dogs. The 4×4 got stuck in the mud. We had quite a struggle getting the wheels free. You should have seen me…’

  ‘Were you wearing rubber boots?’

  ‘Why are you asking me that?’

  ‘No reason. Just a question.’

  ‘Tell me about your wife, how is she?’

  ‘So-so. And your husband?’

  ‘I don’t like you talking about him like that.’

  ‘You started it… When you were reading in the country, where was your husband?’

  ‘Outside.’

  ‘What were you wearing?’

  ‘A baggy sweater and jeans.’

  ‘Did you have bare feet?’

  It was the first time I had spoken to her as ‘tu’ not ‘vous’.

  I could picture your hand getting to work on your cock while you thought of me. It made me hot, and proud.

  ‘Did you carry on reading when your husband came back?’

  ‘Yes, I made tea and we had some cake…’

  ‘And then you… you moved to the bedroom?

  ‘No, he was tired. That book put me in a funny mood. He must have seen me blushing. I picked up another book to cover my embarrassment.’