The Fata Morgana Books by Jonathan Littell, Charlotte Mandell Page B

in pink was still contemplating me with her calm, almost complicit gaze, as if she wanted to invite me to share her peach. I poured myself a glass of wine and took a seat on the sofa, crossing my legs and authoritatively grasping the hand of the woman seated next to me. Whenever a new subject was introduced, I gave my opinion in a firm, clear, decisive voice; the people gathered around me gravely nodded, without ever contradicting me. In the evening, the doctor came by; I had in the meantime washed and changed, and put on a clean suit with a vest and even a tie made of crocheted wool, brown like the suit. I accompanied the doctor to the boy’s room and stood next to him as he examined him, auscultated him, and took his temperature. Several others had followed us into the room, women and men and even a little girl, they couldn’t stand still but came and went aimlessly, without saying a word but fortunately keeping their distance. The doctor finally delivered his prognosis, which coincided exactly with my own: continue the pills and compresses, watch over the child, make him drink. “Did you hear that?” I called out to the people huddling around. “Make him drink, that’s important, that’s what I said.” I thanked the doctor and escorted him to the front door; we separated with a frank handshake, and he promised to return the next morning, early.
* * *
During the meal, the banal, disjointed conversation continued; without arrogance but firmly, I discouraged useless discussions, put an end to pointless controversies with a fair opinion, warned off those who got too excited, supported those who spoke sensible words. It wasn’t that I took myself so seriously, on the contrary, I felt like a kid playing at being an adult, but playing seriously, so seriously that no one suspected, and when I commented in detail on the grave foreign policy crisis brewing, everyone listened to me attentively, drinking in my words without interrupting me. The children ate in silence, with just a slight clink of silverware, at times asking politely, in the interludes between subjects, for salt, or water, or some more food. A boy brought his hand to his lips: I looked at him, he blushed and grabbed his napkin to wipe his face. Their meal over, the children excused themselves and cleared their places; I poured more wine for the grownups and handed out cigarillos to those who wanted them. The woman seated to my left, who kept her beautiful clear eyes fixed on me as she listened to my words in silence, raised a lighter and lit it; I brought her hand to the tip of my cigar, thanking her with a smile, holding her fingers delicately so the flame wouldn’t tremble. She contemplated me with boundless gratitude, but at the same time a vague anxiety disturbed her gaze, making her indistinct and rarefying her features, just as was the case for all those gathered around this table. I heard a noise and raised my head: the blond child was standing in the doorway, his feet bare, pale as a sheet. I put my cigar down in the ashtray, got up, joined him and took him in my arms before heading for one of the empty rooms where I placed him on the embroidered bedspread. He murmured a few indistinct words, I brought my ear closer, the words took on strength and began to form phrases, I listened attentively, he spoke in a loud voice now, his eyes wide open and focused on a point that I couldn’t locate, his words had become clear but I was incapable of grasping their meaning, he was uttering sentences whose syntax was impeccable but whose key word, the one that would give meaning to all the others, remained incomprehensible, a group of syllables seemingly significant but tied to nothing, or else there came a word perfectly comprehensible, obvious, but inserted into a completely scrambled sentence, incapable of supporting its signification. I spoke too, calm and peaceful words, I answered his statements without thinking, trying to bring him back to a sense of