Free Electrico W by Herve Le Tellier Page A

weird too.”
    She handed it back to me, made as if to leave the terrace along the paved path, but turned back, rummaged through her large canvas bag, and took out two invitation cards which she slipped into Antonio’s hand.
    “I almost forgot: you must come tomorrow, there’s a concert. Baroque music, Purcell, Monteverdi, you’ll see when you get here. It’s at eight o’clock sharp, on the nose, you need to wear a suit, it says so on the invitation. I’ll be wearing a full-length dress. You’ll see there are plenty of people who’ll want to get their tuxedos out, and it looks very funny in the hothouse, like a colony of penguins visiting the Amazon. Okay, see you tomorrow then?”
    She ran off, a gazelle, and vanished into her jungle. I heard the motor of Antonio’s Leica. She was already hidden but her voice echoed round the hothouse: “Come back soon, Antonio, and I’ll draw a cat for you on your other hand.”

    “ NO , ANTONIO, NOT like that … Don’t say
My Irene
, don’t start with that possessive, it’s too worn, too overused, just say
Irene
, it’s truer, stronger, more sensitive. She’ll read her name and hear your voice saying it, you breathing it, and
Irene
’s a word that never really ends, it hangs in the air long after you’ve said it, it doesn’t need anything else.
    “Write:
Irene, I’m lost, I don’t know what I want
. After all, that’s always true, we never have any idea what we want from other people.
When I left for Lisbon
—no, you weren’t leaving, it was a separation, a wrench, so write
When I set off from Paris
, yes, that’s better, it’s much better to refer to the place you’re leaving than some nebulous destination.
When I set off from Paris, I couldn’t know that you would become
—no, actually,
that I had become such an important part of your life. I don’t like thinking you’re hurt, I didn’t want either of us to be hurt
.
    “This letter needs to be short, it’s better to show you don’t feel comfortable with words, so start a new paragraph, pause, let your writing catch its breath:
Irene, dear sweet Irene
—but did you ever call her sweet? You didn’t? Well, do it then, it’ll be like you’re daring to use words in this letter that you held back in person, words you’ve never spoken, that will be hers all brand-new and subtly different.
    “Look out the window, Antonio, let the city speak for you. Tell her it’s two in the morning, or even later, it’s raining in Lisbon, and I can see the Avenida da Liberdade from the window, it’s glistening and gloomy as a canal in Amsterdam. That’s a bit of a hollow image, Antonio, I realize, but have a look, don’t you think that tonight Lisbon looks like a cold northern city, silent in the mist, and that the deserted street’s reflecting the darkness the way a slow-moving waterway would? And you need to give this letter a bit of color, even if it is gray, particularly if it’s gray. Say
I want to sleep, but I can’t, the sound of the rain, perhaps, or a feeling that I’m not getting anywhere with my work, or my life. I shot two or three rolls of film today, in the port. I don’t know what they’re going to be like, these articles I’m working on with Vincent. We have ten days left to wrap everything up, and I feel I don’t recognize this place, even though not much has changed in ten years
.
    “Then say,
Of course, I didn’t tell you Vincent Balmer’s in Lisbon with me
. There, Antonio, that’s when she needs to find out. Make the point
He lives here now. As of two months ago. Or a bit longer. A big room in the port neighborhood. Not very tidy. Anyway, we took rooms in a hotel together. It’s more practical
. Explain that
He’s doing the writing. He spends his days making notes, in the big black book he takes everywhere with him, and he speaks Portuguese with a funny accent, like he’s imitating a Portuguese imitating a Frenchman imitating a Portuguese, or the other way around
. Does that