Nicolò gave you his vision of things, in this rich and personal article .
And Jordan takes you into another genre: that of the short story.
This isn't the first time he's written about it! He has already portrayed eight fashion characters in his extraordinary stories.
Today it's about a man who wants to seduce a woman. We won't say more.
Like last time, the illustrations are by the very talented Alexis Bruchon.
She's not normal, Celeste.
There are poor devils who follow her wherever she goes. No spark shines in their eyes anymore. They are zombified by the trail she leaves behind her.
She smells like sugar and heaven.
I know it, I felt it.
You just have to get closer to understand. And there is something else. And for me, who is a Cartesian, I admit that it is beyond me.
In these kinds of undignified days that we endure in the depths of winter, when we don't know whether it's day or night, Céleste always finds the sun. Or rather, he's the one who finds it.
It is very serious.
If it is in the middle of the stands of the amphitheater, we can be sure that solar rays will travel these 150 million kilometers which separate us from our star, make their way among the asteroids, avoid black holes, burst our orbit , pierce the clouds right above the university, tap against the window of the old brick building opposite, ricochet against the professor's metal-rimmed glasses and end up flooding her and her exquisite contours.
I'll have to ask my friend we call "Copernicus". He is a physics major. He's an astronomy nut. He knows more about the cosmos than about himself. Maybe he could explain that to me. Maybe it has to do with protons, neutrons and all the extreme complexity of matter.
I don't know. He already told me we were stardust. Maybe the star it comes from is the sun itself. And he is looking to reconnect.
Or maybe it’s metaphysical or supernatural. And I don't know anyone who knows enough about this to help me.
In any case, it must be admitted that there is a sort of deformation of space-time when it passes close by.
It's an Einstein-Rosen bridge all on its own.
I don't know how that's possible.
She's not normal, Celeste.
And that's why I'm going to ask her out for Valentine's Day.
*******
When I got up this morning, I rushed into the bathroom. I inspected my face. Nose pressed against the mirror. Every square centimeter of skin visible under a magnifying glass. Nothing should be left to chance. No chapping at the corner of the lip. No mischievous hair. No redness. And above all no button.
It is generally in the fateful moments of life that a pimple decides to grow between the two eyes like a sniper's red dot. But not today.
It's Thursday afternoon, just before Mr. Etarcos's ancient Greek class. There's always a sense of collective melancholy that grips us all at that moment.
This is the moment I chose to act.
I tell myself that, compared to the prospect of spending two hours with Mr. Etarcos who is a sort of despotic mole of 1m50, half man, half sweat, Hellenist with vermouth breath, I have my chances.
The sky is clear. The light not too harsh. The wind is almost zero. If I ignore the worm of shame and perdition that gnaws at my insides, I should be fine.
I'm going for it.
My Nikes, dilapidated from years of wandering around the playgrounds, sit comfortably on the ground. One after the other. Celeste is in the very center of the court and around her are her confidants and courtiers.
The sweat is starting to come. Sweaty hands at first. And then the wet armpit. On the Etarcos scale, I'm at 2. Still okay.
Another 20 meters.
What would life be like with her? I bet on tender mornings in pastel light. I'm betting on the smell of chicken in the oven. Long car rides and long conversations too. A ring on each finger. A sublime pearl necklace less beautiful than her beautiful neck. Say yes to everything as long as it’s with her.
I am now a quarter of the way across the yard. My head turns. Some Celeste seekers are looking at me now.
She looks at me and my face smiles. Soon you, soon me, soon us. Get on my boat, I'll take you far away, I...
That's when I hear the aggressive breathing of a guy running towards me. The wind is coming from the right and so is he. The impact is brutal. It's my friend Hector. He just slammed into my side and escorted me away from the center of the courtyard and away from Céleste.
Hector is the kind of guy you obey. First of all, he weighs almost a hundred kilos. And then, he has one of those looks that cuts your soul.
I let myself be dragged away from my bride and the landscape passes by at full speed. I glance behind me and see Céleste sighing a few words to her court in the center of the courtyard. My legs are like cotton. Fortunately, Hector hoisted me onto his shoulder, like someone carrying a bag of cement. And I can wander my gaze over the silhouette of the one who smells of sugar and heaven.
Even upside down, it's worth a look.
He took me to the darkest corner of the school grounds. This is the zone for hilarious botany students and also those who work on human fluid mechanics.
Hector looks evil. He pushes me against a wall and looks me up and down. He opens his arms wide to show me his size. An albatross type. He paces back and forth, ruminating. This guy does theater, you should know that. It's less impressive when you know it.
At the moment, he is playing Beckett so I cannot guarantee the coherence of the remarks which follow. He attacks :
“So that’s all you say!” »
" I said nothing… "
" That is exactly the problem. »
“What would you like me to say? »
“Thank you…for starters.” »
" And after ? »
" After, I do not know. You could ask me for forgiveness. »
He blows. He ruminates. He snorts, shakes his head and scratches behind his ear with a paw. The animal has a bad temper. I say :
" THANKS. Pardon. »
A cloud of botanist students tickles our nostrils and neurons with it. I continue :
" You're welcome. »
“Well thank you!
“You’re welcome… What, anyway? »
“For saving you from certain death.” »
I laugh. Perhaps helped a little by the cloud of budding students. Hector doesn't laugh. He is serious when he says:
“Shame can kill my friend, I’ve seen that before.” »
When he says that, I remember that it is not a play by Beckett that he is preparing, but Racine. But makes his voice tremble:
“You love him, it’s obvious. Besides, yours betray you. Your silences too. You don't hide this fire that your soul contains..."
I look at my watch, it is ancient Greek time.
“Okay, Hec’. This is what we're going to do. I'm going to go screw my ass in the Greek amphitheater and you're going to go and rehearse your theater to someone who wants to hear it. »
“No, buddy. I've thought about your problem. »
He's not in the game at all anymore.
“Your problem is that you're poorly dressed. And you won't have a chance with her as long as you dress like that. »
“Have you seen yourself with your t-shirt not long enough to hide your stomach and your vest hanging on each side? »
“For me it’s something else, it’s my characters who dress me. Sometimes I am a king (he mimes a crown, holding his head high), sometimes I am an acrobat (he juggles)…”
“See you later!” Say hello to showbiz for me, I'm going. »
He grabs my arm and stops me in my tracks.
“Wait-ten-ten-ten. It is serious ! You see with Molière, Racine and the others, to talk about seduction, we sometimes said “commerce”. And it is exactly thanks to this metaphor that you will succeed in seducing her... You have to sell yourself to her. You're like... let's say like... like a cream puff. Not the best cabbage but let's say you're an average cabbage. In a wedding cake, you have nothing to be ashamed of. So yes, it's already not bad, you could be something else less attractive, but here it is: would you eat a cabbage lying on a window sill, which presented itself to you without any other form of introduction than the simple fact that it is cute. No, of course ! Suspicious. You go your way. But then take the same cabbage. This time, it's in a cute pale pink and blue box, with an inscription that says something like, I don't know, "Pâtisserie Mon Chou, since 1957". The box is closed with a Hermès ribbon. She looks left and right down the street. Something pushes her to gently pull on the ribbon to see what the box contains and there, oh magic! O enchantment! A cabbage appears! The most appetizing cabbage! It sits on a small golden plate and on it a small chocolate plaque on which she can read: “I was waiting for you”…”
After a long silence he said:
“So, believe me my darling, this cabbage… she would eat it. »
And then he leaves. He pretends to greet an imaginary crowd, bowing to the standing ovation taking place in his mind. It’s a triumph, it’s the assured Molière! He disappears behind the curtain. He leaves me with his cabbage story, in the middle of psychotropic cumulonimbus clouds. And I've had Greek for five minutes so I'm hurrying.
The old lecture hall door screams when I open it. I hurt him I think. All eyes are on me. Etarcos says something I can barely hear. The room chuckles and I hurry.
As I pass by, I see Céleste in the middle of the stands. She splashes around in her usual bath of light.
When I sit down, I scan the guys around him: moccasins… with leather tassels! Sweater on the shoulders and well-ironed shirt; colored pants; sometimes velvet pants with embroidery.
These cabbages are sold with a beautiful box, there's no denying it. I look at myself now: Smashed Nikes, brown-black Arctic Monkeys t-shirt with the crumbling battery, pants with no defined color, distorted zipped hoodie.
While Etarcos launches into one of his monologues that no one listens to, roughly quoting Homer with the chanting hand, he sails in the boat with Odysseus, I send a message to Hector: "Okay. I'm a cabbage and I need a nice box. Meet in front of the university at 6 p.m. »
*******
When I arrive, he says to me “my darling”, I answer him “shut up”.
The sky is pink with burning trails of clouds and I tell myself that it is under this kind of sky that I want to take a walk with Céleste. We get into Hector's car. It smells like motor oil and stale tobacco. The suspensions squeaked when it went up. At my feet, there are books of poetry. I say hello to Apollinaire, Reverdy and Paul Valéry.
We slip through the teeming streets. Hector only presses the brake when he has to, otherwise it's the gas pedal. If necessary, the conversation does not really take place. I hold on and say goodbye to Céleste, once, twice, three times. I'm going to finish in the crushed cabbage section. I will never know what it feels like to touch her mouth with my mouth and know if she doesn't smell of anything other than sugar and heaven.
We begin to sink into the part of the city that we never see.
The walls become beige, then light gray, then medium gray, then dark gray. Then it's black soot. The pink of the sky turned disgusting. Apparently, we don't have the right to the same sky wherever we are on this Earth. Here, we didn't pay the magical supplement.
Hector secures the car with the handbrake. I eject myself from the cabin and my Nikes sink into the pavement. Here the tar is softer than elsewhere. I lean against the cold chrome of his crate while he rolls a cigarette. After adding a few clouds to the sky, he signals me to follow him.
We are side by side in a lifeless street, without anyone. Not even a cat would cross from the wrong side. On the right, we have small houses that waver in front of their gardens of withered flowers, on the left we have no better. And we walk in the middle of this misery with Hector who insists on using big grandiloquent words.
“The one we are going to see is an aesthete. A prince of pageantry! Don't trust his creaking house. He is not rich in money, my uncle, he is rich in knowledge. He knows a lot about the whys and wherefores of seduction. He sold his soul to the Devil to be successful with women. Truthful. He could write books and books on the subject. Sure they would become bestsellers. But he prefers oral transmission. From mouth to ear. »
We stop in front of one of the houses. Small, formerly white plaster wall, an avenue of large flat stones, dead rose bushes, a weather vane on the roof.
I notice a small yellow sign on the gate that says “Beware of naughty dog”. But the “bad guy” is crossed out with a red marker and instead it reads: “elegant”.
I burst out laughing and turned towards Hector. He doesn't laugh at all:
“Don’t laugh. He is the most elegant dog I have ever seen. »
Exactly. The dog arrives with short, splendid strides, a wonderment at every step. His body rocks like a boat on a calm sea. He inspects us with his blue eyes. Its dress is black and white and fawn and gray. His two ears break and frame his head advantageously. Its hair is more like hair than a mane. He has a navy silk scarf with white polka dots around his neck which highlights his eyes.
He sits down and stretches his paw towards the latch of the gate. Hector activates it and we exchange an admiring look.
Okay, uncle, your dog is classy. Let's see what you look like.
The dog escorts us to the front door and as I don't see any doorbell, I get ready to knock. But before I could do so, the dog barked once and the door opened.
Soon he will ask me if I want something to drink. Or he'll say "good evening" to me when I leave here. And I bet he has a nice tenor voice too, like Pavarotti.
“Ah, Hector! »
I look at the dog at my feet. The dog looks at me. It’s still not him who…
" And you are ? »
It's the uncle who is standing in front of us. It shines. I don't know how else to say it. He is wearing a silk dressing gown probably with patterns like small coats of arms all over the surface and a large collar, like a bathrobe in another material, velvet I think! He also wears a white shirt underneath with gold jeweled cuffs protruding from the loose sleeves of the dress. Between the neck and the collar of the shirt, he put a navy silk scarf with white polka dots. At the bottom, black pants are forgotten and, on the feet, some kind of velvet slippers too, embroidered with the letter “B” on each foot.
A prince in exile. In a house too narrow for him.
I have rarely seen people dressed like that. Neither man, nor woman, nor any gender for that matter. I don't know, if I had dedicated my life to adventure, to travel, to the study of tribal art, perhaps one day I would have crossed paths with a maharaja adorned with sapphires, gold and diamond rings in the nose and silver embroidery all over the fabric. And then perhaps this one, this prince in front of me, would have appeared to me as artificial, fake, a little dull even!
But I'm just me, a literature student, and I'm dazzled by so much exquisite obsolescence.
Hector makes the introductions. I shake the prince's hand. And that's when I notice that the scarf he's wearing is similar to the dog's.
I look at the dog. The dog looks at me. Then I look at the uncle.
I had to examine him as if I had seen some strange bird because the prince said:
“Well, what’s wrong with your boyfriend! He has never seen Lyon silk woven by the Canuts? »
I receive a slap on the back from one of Hector's obese hands, which throws me inside the house.
I find the same plaster there as on the exterior walls. No gilded frames, no trinkets of any kind, no crystal chandelier of I-ne-sais-quoi, no lizard-skin curtains, no magic sheep-hair rugs. The prince must put all his money into his clothes. The furniture is sparse and only the dog's cushion has royal pompoms on each corner.
I look at the dog. The dog looks at me.
Hector tells his uncle the reason for our visit. He doesn't skimp on details. And I have my portrait redone with broad, unflattering brush strokes. The transfixed lover. The one who despaired of love. Meanwhile, the uncle pours us full glasses of whiskey to make faces. I sip mine with little licks of my neophyte tongue.
“What does this Celeste look like? »
He is speaking to me. Hector encourages me to speak.
“To an angel.” »
My answer hangs in the air for a second. I want to put it back in my mouth because it's the stupidest thing I've ever heard in my life. But it's too late. This causes the two idiots to laugh and the dog looks at me but I don't look at the dog.
A little sip of whiskey to wash away the shame.
“But what is his social environment? What does she like ? What kind of people does she hang out with? »
“Her father is number 2 in the CDA Vortex automobile group, which is what she likes, I have no idea, and she hangs out with some kind of asshole in colored pants and moccasins with fucking tassels! »
The prince takes what I tell him very seriously. He looks at me intently. I sip my whiskey to calm myself down but it's empty so I shove an ice cube into my mouth but almost choke. I manage to bring it up just barely. I'm waiting for it to melt.
The prince is so absorbed in his complex thoughts that he saw nothing of my near-death experience. He didn't see my soul escape from my body for a split second. I bet his soul isn't naked like mine. She is dressed in Nantes canoe silk and flies superbly, with a perfect knowledge of the art of aerodynamics. While mine would be shaken by nasty turbulence.
The prince comes out of his thoughts and says to me:
" It's OK. »
I look at Hector but he snoozes in his sky chair. One glass of whiskey and the Earth is depopulated. The prince gets up and so does his dog.
“Come,” he said to me.
Naturally, I tell myself that this is the end of the film. Now he's going to cut me into pieces. What's the crazy thing about this house? Did he kill the owner with an axe? No, not the kind. Rather with an elegant dagger with a golden hilt. His arm will make a perfect arc, cutting through the air and my glottis.
Obviously, we go down to the cellar. I act like nothing. The staircase is endless.
What reassures me is that he won't want to get his dressing gown dirty. It doesn't look like him. He's going to have to change, Patrick Bateman style, and that's where I'm going to come in. I did judo for ten years. I was a brown belt.
The horrors this dog must have seen.
At the bottom of the stairs, he stops. His hand slowly touches something on the wall and the light shines. He walks into the room. The dog is behind me. He pushes me on the back with his nose. If I get out alive, I'll add "and sadistic" to the "elegant dog" sign at the gate.
I go down. Farewell Celeste. Love of my life. The dog passes me, barking, and runs toward the light.
Arriving at the bottom, I discover a huge room. I can't estimate the size. Wide rows of light wood cabinets line up in parallel, like a bookcase. Persian rugs cover the floor. Mirrors appear regularly as we walk. I see low, velvet-covered benches every five meters or so. A wall is riddled with hats of all colors! Another, 15 meters long and 3 high, has hundreds of cells in which there are ties rolled up on themselves. This whole little town is organized by districts: there is that of jackets, that of coats and jackets, that of pants, that of shirts and others.
And at the very back of this incredible room, which appeared to me like a mirage in a desert, the entire wall is covered with shoe boxes and I cannot count them. I can't even take them in with one look because there are so many of them.
“To seduce Céleste, I suggest you use a classic clothing strategy: I named her “the beauty and the rascal”. The mistake would be to dress preppy like the people she hangs out with. Or like his father I imagine in a power suit . I prefer for you Marlon Brando in The Wild Team or James Dean in The Fury of Living. I'm going to make you the young rebel with a big heart. The one capable of the worst thefts but who becomes all marshmallow when it comes to girlfriends. »
“You have to pay a huge electricity bill with all these spots,” I tell him.
“Listen to me carefully, I’m not helping you because I’m a philanthropist. I'm helping you because I love my nephew. That's all. So keep quiet and above all keep your smart-ass thoughts to yourself. »
I didn't move an ear. The whole time the fittings lasted. The dog looked at me, he was impressed. A first-class “step by step”. The prince told me to put on a certain item of clothing, and I did so. That's how I ended up with a worn leather, threadbare everywhere but beautiful like an old collector's car that you discover under a ton of dust. I also had a bright white t-shirt on that one. Clean and fresh. The thug equivalent of the banker's shirt. He also gave me narrow jeans because I had thin legs. And finally, he handed me a pair of cowboy boots:
“You’re kidding your majesty!” ", I tell him.
He shakes his head at me and I can tell that his patience has reached a certain limit. I put on the cowboy boots and say adios muchachos . I wake up Hector. I look at the dog. The dog looks at me. You blinked! And we set sail.
It's cold but he opens the windows wide to smoke. He opens both windows because he says the draft keeps the smell from settling into the leather in his car. Lost Totor. Even if you have pneumonia, you might as well smoke. I take a cigarette from her and suck on it.
On the way home, he tells me it's in my pocket. That the Celestial, she is for me. Because there is no woman in the world who has ever resisted this guy. And the reason is that he elevated dressing to the rank of art.
After his little nap, Hector is all fired up. He wants us to go and throw a little behind the tie. Finally the t-shirt. But I'm making up an excuse. I need all my mental faculties for tomorrow. Because tomorrow is the big day.
*******
I wake up from a pitiful sleep. I spent the night gasping for air, drowned in dense waters of nightmares.
I swallow nothing but a poorly diluted coffee whose beans roll down my throat. I stuff my fateful outfit into my bag. It will be that of my triumph or my shame. I'd rather not think about it. No matter how much we surround ourselves with friends, there are times in life when we are alone in the world: when we are born, when we die and when we are about to tell someone that we love them. .
I spend the whole day of classes stranded in my cruel dreams. I want to go a hundred times and I give up just as much. And then, at the end of the day and the last class, my will takes over me. I'm in the bathroom getting dressed. I know exactly where she will be when I come out of the bathroom. She'll be in the middle of this damn yard, with all her damn horde, laughing one last time Before the day is over.
I leave the building and walk towards her. I move forward in the long tunnel towards the light. They see me, she sees me. One step after another. The tintinnabule leather jacket. I'm the prince today. You can put away your red pants, your sweaters on your shoulders, your tasseled moccasins, today I take my destiny in hand. I finished first at the end of the race. Céleste will end up on the arm of the thug. On the arm of its opposite. Because that's how things are made, opposites attract, and the world is full of mysteries.
While I am five meters away and I have a small group of people in front of me who are shearing my leather with sharp looks, my right cowboy boot plants itself in the ground and my ankle twists. I collapse to the ground in slow motion. My body is spinning too. And I'm on my back. Right in the middle of this courtyard and I'm looking at the sky.
I hear the laughter. The cruel laughter echoes. Echo in against the walls, against the clouds and which ricochet in my head. I'm not moving. My body refuses. The night begins to fall. The curtain falls.
I don't know how long I stood there on my back in the middle of the yard looking at the sky without seeing it.
At one point I felt something tap my shoulder. It was a cane and at the end of it was the lame guard. I didn't hear what he said to me. I left, with my cowboy boots. Left my bag and its contents in the downstairs toilet. If anyone finds them, keep everything.
That night I didn't go home. Not directly anyway. I made a detour to see the prince. And when he got to his house, the dog was sitting in the driveway watching the night. I looked at the dog and he looked at me. I opened the gate and took off his ridiculous scarf. And he left with me. I didn't ask him anything.
I can't say exactly why I did that. But what is certain is that, since that day, I have only listened to myself.
