Reading Nijinsky. Hélène Rioux

in Rome.

      I listen to this without too much surprise.

      “Don’t you want to know what I’m doing here?”

      “I’m not curious, but if you insist, I’ll certainly ask you.”

      “You’re not helping me very much.”

      “No.”

      “Would you like another cup of coffee?” he suggests. “Would you like something else? A drink, perhaps?” “A curaçao.”

      He motions to the waiter.

      “And now,” he says, “may I ask you?”

      “What?”

      “What brings you to Almuñecar?”

      “It’s a pretty city.”

      They bring the curaçao.

      “You don’t look as if you’re… on vacation.”

      “I’m not. And you?”

      “Finally you’re showing a bit of interest in me. To tell you the truth, I’m not on vacation either. I’ve had a house built here, in Cotobro. I’ve come to keep an eye on things during the final stages.”

      “Cotobro?”

      “Up on the hill.”

      “There’s a song like that.”

      “Yes?”

      I hum: “Up on the hill, people never stare…”

      “You’re funny.”

      “Not always. Rarely, in fact.”

      “I was sitting right in front of you in the airplane. I heard a bit of your conversation.” “Was it funny?”

      “Not always. But I didn’t hear everything.” “No?”

      “I didn’t want to pry. I didn’t know you. I found your conversation more interesting than the film.”

      “You heard that I’d come to translate a book?” “Yes.”

      “Yet you just asked me what I’m doing here.”

      “To break the ice. I was surprised to see you again. It was completely unexpected.”

      “Does that change anything?”

      “I’m delighted. At the same time, seeing you again intimidates me. You are, in a way, not exactly a stranger. To be frank, I was hoping to see you again.”

      “You were hoping to?”

      “Hoping without hope. A little daydream rather than an obsession. I like to hear women speak,” he continued. “Hear them without their knowing. I am something of a voyeur, but I use my ears. An eavesdropper, if you will. At one point you used an expression that intrigued me, that I liked. You said there are other fish in the sea. I liked that, a kind of offhand way of presenting things. It was direct and nice.”

      “I am not a nice woman. Nor offhand. The opposite is true.”

      “I think that you are. Nice, I mean. Offhand, too, in a way. I thought of you often.” “Thought of me?”

      “You kept returning to my thoughts. I was sitting in front of you in the plane. I heard your voice, but couldn’t see you. My curiosity was aroused and I went to get something to drink so I could see your face on the way back. You were next to the window and it was dark, but I got an idea. Afterwards, listening to you took on another dimension. At one point, you went to get soda and ice cubes with your friend. I got up and was able to see your body. Quickly, fleetingly. But I saw how you walked, how you moved in the confined space of the aisle.”

      “Why are you telling me this?” “To explain that I was thinking of you. I was hoping you’d say where you were going in Spain, but you didn’t know. You spoke of Andalusia. It was vague, but gave me a little hope. I knew you wouldn’t go to Marbella. That relieved me – that place revolts me. I understood that you were here to translate a book, a romance novel.” “Yes.”

      I don’t disillusion him. I don’t tell him about the autobiography of the killer. I act as if I spend my life in sugar-coated stories.

      “Would you like another curaçao?” he inquires. “Would you like to eat something? To go for a walk? I have my car. Do you know the area?”

      “Not really.”

      “There is a small town about twenty kilometres from here called Maro. We could go there. The beach is very pretty.”

      “I have work,” I say.

      “Of course.”

      “But I’ll do it tonight. I always work at night.”

      In Maro, standing up at the counter of a deserted bar, we have another cup of coffee, then take the steep, dusty trail leading to the beach. We remove our shoes and walk along the rough, greyish sand strewn with pebbles and rusty beer and Coca-Cola cans.

      I watch him as he walks alongside me. I let my mind drift. I think his body must be warm, smooth, comfortable, that his voice is reassuring as well as his silence. A man’s voice, a man’s body. Full of life, like a tree. Hard as a tree, and fragrant. Well-rooted, planted firmly on the ground. Heavy, I imagine the weight of his body on mine, heavy and light at the same time. Sweaty during love, emitting a slightly salty smell. I imagine his firm thighs locking mine, feel their hardness. The sight of his broad shoulders beneath his shirt excites me. We stop walking for a moment. I look into his eyes and imagine his sex. The thought comes to me and lingers a while.

      I do not speak to him about a killer and his victims: babies, little children, teenagers, women, men shut up in a bunker somewhere in a northern California settlement, I don’t ask him what he thinks of it, but I think about it endlessly. I’m afraid to mention this to him, that he’ll answer me the way Philippe did, telling me I’m obsessed with morbidity.

      For two nights I read, thinking myself detached, but now the images rain down upon me and I shiver and suddenly various parts of my body ache. In my left breast most of all, because of the passage in which Leonard Ming describes how, with a carving knife, he cut off the left nipple of a girl. Faces contorted, howling, begging, distorted by pain, spin round me while the body of this man standing before me makes me shudder. Confused impressions, cold sweat, then heat. Contradictory sensations. What is making me dizzy? The body of a man standing before me is making me dizzy. Somewhere else in the world, a woman’s nipple is being sliced off. But that’s what’s making me dizzy: the simultaneity of pleasure and pain.

      “You don’t look well,” he says.

      “Probably because I’m tired. I haven’t slept yet. And I drank too much coffee.”

      “Would you prefer to go back and rest?”

      “Yes.”

      We take the path in the opposite direction, bare feet in the wet sand, and as we walk, our footsteps, like those of separated lovers, are obliterated by the sea. We climb back up the steep, dusty trail and he slides a hand under my arm. I remain silent. Ever since I read Leonard Ming, since I agreed to translate his story, I feel an excess of guilt, have the impression I’m carrying a secret I can’t reveal. I have the impression that if I speak, I’ll betray myself, a certain look, a quavering voice, will betray me. He’ll realize I know something he doesn’t.