Free Delicacy by David Foenkinos Page A

reciprocation. If she’d kissed him without asking, he didn’t see why he couldn’t do the same. Monday morning, first thing, he was going to see her and pay her back in kind with his lips. To do it, he’d stride toward her with a determined step (the most complex part of the strategy: he’d never been very adept when it came to walking with a determined step) and would take hold of her in a virile manner (the other complex part of the strategy: he’d never been very gifted when it came to doing anything at all in a somewhat virile manner). In other words, the attack was promising to be complicated. But he still had all of Sunday to get ready. A long Sunday of the American Democrats.

Forty-nine

    President Obama’s Remark at the Al Smith Dinner
Regarding the Issue of His National Origin
“Contrary to the rumors you have heard, I was not born in a manger. I was actually born on Krypton and sent here by my father, Jor-El, to save the planet Earth.”

Fifty

Markus was at Natalie’s door. It was time to act, something that plunged him into the most perfect inaction. Benoît, a coworker from his team, walked by.
“Hey, what are you doing?”
“Um … I’ve got a meeting with Natalie.”
“And you think you’re going to see her by standing stock-still in front of her door?”
“No … it’s just that we have a ten o’clock meeting … and it’s nine fifty-nine … so, you know me, I don’t like to be early …”
The coworker walked away feeling more or less the same way he did one day in April 1992. When he’d seen a Samuel Beckett play in a suburban theater.
At that point, Markus was forced to act. He went into Natalie’s office. Her head was buried in a file (114, maybe?) and she raised it immediately. He walked toward her with a determined step. But nothing can ever be simple. On the way to Natalie, he had to slow down. His heart was beating harder and harder, in a real Election Day symphony. Natalie wondered what was going to happen. In fact, she was somewhat afraid. However, she was wellaware that Markus was niceness incarnate. What did he want? Why wasn’t he moving? His body was a computer in need of debugging because of data overload. His data was all emotional. She got up and asked him, “What’s happening, Markus?”
“…”
“Is everything okay?”
He managed to focus on what he’d come to do. He took her suddenly by the waist and kissed her with energy he didn’t know he had. There was no time for her to react before he’d already left the office.

Fifty-one

Markus left that strange scene of a stolen kiss behind him. Natalie wanted to plunge back into her report but finally decided to go and look for him. She’d felt something complicated to define. As a matter of fact, this was the first time in three years that someone had taken hold of her like that. Without thinking of her as something fragile. Yes, it was strange, but she’d been shaken up by his hit-and-run, nearly savage gesture of virility. She walked through the hallway asking the employees she passed on her left and her right where he was. No one knew. He hadn’t gone back to his office. That was when she thought of the roof of the building. In this season no one went up there, because it was very cold. He had to be there. It was just as she’d thought. There he was near the edge of the roof, looking quite calm. He was making little movements with his lips—puffs, obviously. He looked like he was smoking, but without a cigarette. Natalie walked silently up to him. “I come up here, too, sometimes, to hide. To breathe,” she said.
Markus was surprised to see her. He never would have thought she’d go and look for him after what had just happened.
“You’re going to catch cold,” he replied. “And I don’t even have a coat to offer you.”
“Well, then, we’ll both catch cold. That’s at least one way of being that’s the same for both of us.”
“Clever.”
“No, it’s not. And the way I acted wasn’t