Chapter Text
- Can I take a picture of you?
- Like this?
- Yes. I want to have many photos of us.
- Are you tired of painting and have you switched to photography?
She is naked in bed and I stand up, pointing at her with my mobile camera. We are in a hotel in London. I take the photo and go up to bed. Then I look at my work. She is looking at me with a disapproving face.
- This photo is a bomb, I tell her.
She takes my mobile away.
- I don't want to be naked on your mobile.
- Why?
- Because then anyone will have that photo if it is stolen.
- Oh, Adèle!
She gives me back my mobile.
- Delete the picture.
I erase the photo and I stay serious looking at the ceiling.
- Don't be angry.
She props herself up on one elbow and watches me.
- Tell me what happens to you. You have become very serious and it is not because of the photo.
I shake my head. I'm not going to say anything. She smiles and with a finger caresses my eyebrows, my nose, my ears.
- Do you know what we are going to do when we return home? She says.
I keep shaking my head.
- When we go home we are going to be alone you and me, and we are going to spend the day reading and making love. They are my two favorite activities. Yours too?
I'm looking at her in love.
- Your favorite activity is to eat Chocapics, ride a bike and play ping pong, don't be interesting.
Then I start messing with her. I like to make her angry.
- I've seen a photo of you reading on the subway. You look like an intellectual and you like yourself. That's what I mean.
- Of course I like me.
- Tell me the truth, you were posing for that photo. You made that bun and started reading to drive them crazy.
- Are you talking seriously? And since when do you look at photos of me on the internet?
- I also saw some videos of when Water Lilies was released.
- Oh.
- Yes. How young you were. You were a girl! And Céline is by your side and looks like your mother.
- But don't tell her.
- Did you like them older?
Adèle gets serious.
- I liked her.
- But I understand you. Céline is a very interesting and funny woman ...
I'm paraphrasing her and she realizes.
- Don't make fun of me.
I leave the game, but it's too late. I went too far.
After London we were able to stay in Paris until the end of October. Then Adèle and Céline would go to Stockholm alone because I had to stay preparing for my divorce.
On October 25, I had to go to the Club de L'Etoile because at 8pm there was a screening of Portrait with subtitles for the non-French speaking public and then a round of questions and answers. I would go alone, neither Adèle nor Céline would be. We had divided the program so we could get some rest. So they couldn't help me with my English. In my mind I went through the typical questions and answers, and I was nervous, as always.
When I was leaving the house, I met Simón in the portal.
- Can we talk?
It made my heart skip a beat. I said I was in a hurry.
- I can wait for you at the door of the Club de L'Etoile and we go somewhere to have a drink.
- For what?
- You and I were together three years and since you left me I have only been able to speak with you once.
I didn't know what to do, and maybe I didn't have to run away from him all the time and we could talk like adults.
- Okay, I said.
I could have sent a message to Adèle, but I thought there was no need, that we would only be there for a while and after all it was my thing and I didn't want to worry her.
At a quarter past ten Simon was, as he had said, at the door of L'Etoile and we went to a bar that he proposed.
- I noticed you were going to L'Etoile alone, he said.
- I see.
- I just have no other way to meet you.
- You hit me...
- It was an instinctive reaction. Desperate.
- Don't tell me you hadn't noticed anything.
He was silent. Of course he had realized that our marriage was not going well.
I insisted.
- I just looked the other way, like you, he answers.
We are both silent. Perhaps there was nothing more to say. I glanced at the other people in the bar and spotted Adèle in one corner. I was shocked and he noticed and turned to where I was looking. He got up and went to her table. I froze, unable to react. He got to where she was and said something to her. She recognized him, got up and hit him in the face. Then he grabbed her arm and said something else, something that lasted too long.
Simon returned to our table. Everything had lasted endless seconds and I was still in my seat with the face of having seen a dead man. Adèle saw me and came to where I was, I followed her and the waiter asked Simon to come out.
Adèle's friends looked at me with wide eyes.
- What happened? They asked.
- My ex.
It was all I said. They did not ask for more explanations.
Adèle went to the bathroom and when she returned to the table she wanted to finish her drink. I just wanted to get out of there.
- Let me finish my drink, she told me with her eyes.
We said goodbye to her friends and walked home. Silently all the way.
It had been a coincidence that we met in that bar, there was a minimal chance of meeting in Paris, but it happened. I said to me: I shouldn't have agreed to accompany him anywhere, I've been an idiot. I was thinking this all the way. I looked at Adèle: It was useless to apologize, she did not want to listen to me and she did not want to speak.
When we got home, she went to the room and closed the door. I took off my coat and cap and went to bed dressed on the sofa. I covered my face with my hands thinking about what had just happened. It was possible that he had insulted her in front of her friends, in front of everyone, and that was why she had hit him. I couldn't hear him because there was too much noise and her table was far away.
The next day, Adèle appeared at the door of the room in a T-shirt and panties. I looked at her. We had not slept at all. She got into the shower and I was wondering what I could say now so she wouldn't be mad at me. I thought: I just have to wait for her to come. But time passed and she didn't come and I was desperate, tears came to my eyes and I began to have anxiety. I put a cushion on my face and started counting.
She appeared and took the cushion from me.
- How can you think...?
I covered my face with my arm and kept counting mentally. But she pulled my arm from my face.
- Do you want to go back to him?
I was crying and couldn't even speak.
- Answer me!
Then she realized that I couldn't breath and she lay down and hugged me very tight. We stayed like this for a long time, until I calmed down.
- I don't have to run away from him or feel persecuted. I just wanted to show my face.
She didn't say anything.
We spent the day sleeping, and then I saw her start reading her essays. I also didn't want to get out of bed.
- Do you read something to me? I asked.
- Okay.
She read something a little long to me. When she finished she asked me for my opinion.
- I haven't understood a word. I just wanted to hear your voice.
She stared at me.
- You know what?
- What.
- I start to imagine a little Noé running around the house.