Men by Marie Darrieussecq Page B

about the Heart of Darkness project. Jessie (she guessed as soon as she saw the villa) was the famous Jessie, the film star, one of the rare black Hollywood superstars. Less famous than George, but still…She reached her hand out to him. Jessie shot a few salacious glances at his buddy. She smiled, modest. Intimidated, not by this guy, but by Kouhouesso’s silence.He was looking away. Was he annoyed at being seen with her? Or with a white woman ? She swatted the idea like a fly. Jessie offered her some green tea: ‘All girls drink green tea.’ She went for the green tea. A Mexican housemaid appeared; she hadn’t come across her the day before. ‘I said to Kou,’ he continued, ‘never date a French girl. The last time I dated a French girl, there was a slight disagreement. Petite chérie was driving down the canyon at full speed—never argue with a woman at the wheel—I told her, slow down, you’re going to kill us. She peels off into the side road and bang! There goes my Maybach.’
    He was not speaking to her or to Kouhouesso, but to the canyon, so it seemed. From what he was saying, Maybach was a make of car. She guessed it from the context, as she did with a lot of things.
    ‘I want to get out. She backs up. And bang , again. There goes the the back left bumper!’
    Kouhouesso was laughing; he had obviously heard the story before. It was a shrill laugh, a bit impatient. She tried to catch his eye. To discern any criticism, but he had put on his mask. And they had gone back to talking about the film. Things were more advanced than she had imagined.
    She got the impression that it was time for her to go, leave them—to work.

BEL AIR
    The waiting began again, waiting as a chronic disease. A sticky fever, a torpor. And, between the times she saw him, the reinfections, she slowly immersed herself in the paradox that she was waiting for a man she was losing sight of, an invented man. The waiting was the reality; her waiting was the proof of his life, as if the body of this man, when she held him in her arms, was made of the texture of time, fatally fleeting.
    It was twelve days later, through what seemed a coincidence to her, that she learned of the date of the Leonard Cohen concert. Because exactly twelve days later she received a text: ‘Amazing concert. Wish you were here.’
    She saw on the internet that Leonard Cohen was playing, right then, at the Nokia Theatre. She couldn’tcare less about Leonard Cohen: she had pinpointed him, Kouhouesso, here , like those arrows on street maps. Wish you were here —the fury and the frustration (all he had to do was invite her, get organised, plan!)—and then another beep, a second message: ‘ Je ne t’oublie guère .’
    Je ne t’oublie guère.
    Twelve days, not a word, and now ‘I can scarcely stop thinking about you.’ Only an African could write such quaint French, so charming—she understood (knowing him, yes, knowing him better and better) that he wasn’t the slightest bit interested in her feelings for him. In English he treated her as an equal. As one foreigner to another foreigner. In America. On American territory.
    Suzanne takes you down…
    She let Leonard Cohen’s song ripple through her mind. Replacing Suzanne with Solange. Sorrowfully. Later, in the middle of the night, by dint of humming (if she hummed enough, he would return), he returned. She did not chastise him at all. They opened a bottle; he had already drunk a lot. An amazing concert—his friends loved it. So he might have been ready, as well, to introduce her to his friends?
    ‘I never know when we’re going to see each other again.’
    ‘But I’m here.’
    Every exchange in French was a victory. Proof, even, of his love for her. She had lured him onto her turf. He couldn’t stop thinking about her. In French.
    ‘Twelve days without even a text message.’
    ‘Twelve days?’
    He didn’t believe her. He was truly sorry. ‘I’ve been really busy.’
    She was in between jobs, and