Free Consequences by Philippe Djian

on chocolates. Almost instantly, his migraine came back. Migraines go hand in hand with annoyance. He went inside. Hung his parka in the hallway—next to a camel’s-hair overcoat that didn’t belong to anyone living in this house.
    â€œYou’ve got to watch your sugar. Richard, she has to watch her sugar, you know that.”
    â€œJust let her get a little of her strength back, old man, and don’t worry about it. I think we have the situation under control.”
    â€œI can eat as many chocolates as I want,” she declared, holding a ganache between thumb and forefinger.
    It was obvious she was trying to punish him by acting unpleasant toward him and conspicuously friendly toward Richard, whose face shone with deep satisfaction.
    Before ruling over the fates of members of the literature department, Richard had worked as a cultural attaché in the depths of Europe, where he’d caught a case of Lyme disease. This was the cause of his slight—but crippling—facial paralysis, the bitter fruit of one of those poorly treated diseases caused by ticks, which also gave him certain joint problems and, to top it off, stiffened his walk. It wasn’t hard to imagine that a physique like that didn’t exactly make it a cinch to turn heads. When you looked at it objectively.
    And yet, Marianne. What could she possibly see in him? Why the devil was she letting him woo her so disgustingly, what kind of perversion was it covering up? What mental abnormality?
    Marc decided to keep them company. After all, this was his home, and it was time to make Richard understand that themoment to leave had come because the house was closing up for the night and its inhabitants were going to bed. He sat down in a chair and yawned, refusing Richard’s offer of chocolate.
    â€œNo thanks, it’ll keep me from sleeping,” he declared.
    The moon outside shone in the cold air like a porcelain disc.
    â€œAnyway, thanks for coming by, Richard. I parked so you could get out without any trouble, but if you’re at all worried about it, here I am, at your service. Thanks again for stopping over. Personally, I’m exhausted. I have a migraine. And Marianne, I wouldn’t say you’ve gotten much of your color back. You should get some rest. It’s well past the time, you know. You were having trouble standing not that long ago. Don’t overestimate your strength. We just scraped you up off the ground, remember.”
    Again, how could a woman like her be attracted—little as she claimed she was—to a man like that? A woman who usually showed such judgment, taste, diligence, intelligence. Did it have anything to do with the fact that Richard was the head of the literature department and Marc was under his control? Was that a turn-on? Could you exhibit such a mad passion for Nabokov and yet subsist on such paltry little scenarios?
    She was his older sister, but didn’t he deserve respect? Didn’t he deserve to be spared humiliations and other betrayals of their routine after the thrashings he’d taken in her place out of a spirit of generosity? How many handfuls of hair had he lost, how many knockouts had he submitted to? Three, if you counted the time when he hadn’t passed out but lay staring at the beaten-earth floor at the bottom of the stairs where that woman had thrown him, leaving him incapable of the slightest movement for minutes that felt endless, barely able to breathe and peeing inhis short pants without being able to do anything about it in the state of shock he was in.
    He deserved her complete respect. She shouldn’t be pushing the joke too far. He stared hard at her. She resigned herself to lowering her eyes and reaching for her cigarettes. “Marc’s right,” she said. “It’s late. Your chocolates did do me some good, Richard. Thanks for visiting. Thanks for caring about what happens to me.”
    â€œListen. It’s nothing