The Erotic Potential of my Wife by David Foenkinos

the collateral damage of such an attack. Gérard, with incredible good humour, suggested they go on this bike ride right away; it’s true, why postpone until tomorrow what we can do now? This Gérard was a real moron (now that the marriage was going down the pan, Hector was no longer going to rhapsodise on his brother-in-law’s bikes, and on this race of North African minions that the first doped-up European cyclist could have won), but as he was a moron whose muscular mass was inversely proportioned to his neuronal mass, he should not be provoked, as they say. Hector had to put on some shorts, and they gave him the appearance of a right-wing candidate in municipal elections. He looked in the mirror and found himself thinner, it was not necessary to come closer to spot the protuberance of some of his bones.
    Gérard kissed him on the cheek, they are family. ‘I have just done a hundred press-ups with my left arm’, he added by way of welcome. They immediately went to the cellar to take the spare bike that Hector would use, a bike that would reveal itself slightly under-pumped to ensure that the friend didn’t transform himself into a potential rival. In the staircase, they crossed a smiling neighbour; and if usually Gérard was always incredibly friendly, this meeting occurred in disconcerting coldness (an express handshake). You could enjoy cycling with your brother-in-law but to snub a neighbour was not on. Something was amiss. Hector had enough time to perceive incomprehension in the neighbour’s eyes, but let that sensation escape instantly. It was a bit later, when the Bois de Vincennes looked like a merry-go-round because he was turning around it so much, that he was caught up by a double notion:
    1) This neighbour was incontestably a friend of Gérard’s that he pretended not to know.
    2) If the second notion was even more diffuse, it was on the path to becoming clearer. Hector had the feeling that he had already seen that man; however he had never been to his brother-in-law’s before this business of alibi verification. Was he a celebrity? No, you do not snub celebrities in staircases. His azure eyes, these eyes, he knew him, he knew him from having seen him many times … Ouarzazate-Casablanca! It was one of the cyclists from the podium!
    They rode some more, Hector glanced at his watch: that was now almost twelve minutes they were pedalling. Why did time seem so slow while they were cycling? It is the perfect sport for all those who think that life passes too quickly. The calves and thighs in action were airing the mind, it was a wonder that Gérard had remained such an idiot. It was then that, in a very intelligent way (our hero), Hector faked discomfort and stopped on the roadside. As a great professional of sport medicine, Gérard strung a few invigorating slaps together to restore the dying man to health.
    ‘If you want to continue, go ahead, I’m going to stop,’ agonised Hector.
    He blamed this discomfort on his lack of training. After all, he had not committed a sportive act since 1981, on the march to celebrate François Mitterand’s victory like everyone else; François Mitterand was since dead as the result of a long illness hidden for a long time from the French, and he had never had a concrete occasion to perform any sport again. Cycling was suddenly beating ping-pong on his list of despised sports. Gérard seemed at a real loss because, for him, the idea of the family is as sacred as a king; he was not allowed to abandon a family member on the roadside, it was proscribed in the rules of his religion. But as his main God was cycling, he went back for a few solitary circuits. Hector went to sit down on a bench to recuperate, and it was on the bench that the Machiavellian thought came to him: to denounce Gérard. It was every man for himself, and if Brigitte’s whole family was uniting against him, he needed to use the weapons at his disposal, including the basest of them all, denouncement. He