Holiday in a Coma & Love Lasts Three Years: two novels by Frédéric Beigbeder. Frédéric Beigbeder
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‘You know,’ he continues, ‘I’m the baby of the family. I like coming second in everything. It’s something I’m pretty good at.’
‘At least you have no illusions about your abilities …’
Marc realises he is wasting his time blethering with this duenna. On her cheek, he notices a wart which she’s painted black to make it look like a beauty spot. Has anyone ever seen a 3D mole? Well, yes, but only a real mole. Loulou Zibeline has unveiled a new concept: the ugly spot.
*
Irène lights her cigarette from the candelabra. Marc turns towards her. He finds her attractive, but the feeling is not mutual: she’s only interested in Fab.
‘But you must agree,’ she is telling him, ‘that la mode, il n’est pas the same en France and in England. Le British people, they love les habits qu’ils sont strange et original, very uncommon, mais les français, they are not interested in le couleur or la délire, don’t you think?’
‘Okay, okay,’ Fab retorts, ‘it’s hardly a techno diva but you’ve still got atomic bombs in a murder stylee and if you get the supersonic babe on the dance floor, I gotta tell you, you don’t fuck with it, you more grooving on, like alpha and theta waves, capito?’
The vast speakers are blasting ‘Sex Machine’. A song recorded before Marc Marronnier was born and one which will probably still have people dancing long after he is dead.
Marc samples the soirée, turning full circle. Transformed into a human periscope, he tries to sort the sexy dogs from the ugly babes. He spots Jérémy Coquette, dealer to the stars (best little black book in town). And Donald Suldiras, kissing his boyfriend in front of his wife. The Hardissons showed up with their three-month-old (uncircumcised) baby. They’re getting him to smoke a joint for a laugh. Baron von Meinerhof, former female toilet attendant at Sky Fantasy in Strasbourg, is laughing in German. The attentive barmen jiggle their cocktail shakers in slow motion. People come and go, they can’t stand still. It’s difficult to sit when you’re eagerly waiting for something to happen. Everyone is so beautiful and so unhappy.
Solange Justerini, ex-smack addict turned soap star, stretches out her long arms like sneering seaweed. All the holes have been filled in. Her sylph-like waist seems almost too narrow. How many ribs has she had sawn off since Marc fucked her last?
The lights dim, but not the commotion. Joss Dumoulin is spinning a Yma Sumac – Kraftwerk remix over a soft background of crickets in Provence. Ondine Quinsac, the famous photographer, walks by, naked under a tulle dress, her face painted green. Someone has painted stripes on her back with nail-polish. Unless maybe they’re real.
Marc is surrounded by superwomen. Fashion celebrates models who have been nip/tucked. The most famous supermodels are posing at Christian Lacroix’s table. Marc admires their seasonally-adjusted fake breasts. He’s already felt such things: silicone breasts are hard with huge nipples. A million times better than the real thing.
Marc is their voyeur. He stares at these life-size models straight out of a fan-boy comic, a pornographic paint box. These creatures are the modern-day Brides of Frankenstein, synthetic sex symbols in patent leather thigh-boots, studded bracelets, dog-collars. Somewhere in California some lunatic with a workshop is mass-producing them. Marc can imagine the factory. Roofs in the shape of breasts, a vaginal doorway with a new girl stepping out every minute! He wipes his forehead with a hanky.
‘Hey Marco, you done eyeballing the vamps?’
Fab must have noticed his eyes on stalks. Marc downs his oyster in one (pearl included).
‘Just remember, Fab,’ he shouts, ‘you used to think the world was yours for the taking. You used to say: “All you have to do is bend down and pick it up.” Remember? Do you remember when you still believed that shit? Look me in the eye, Fab, do you remember back when girls placed bets on us?’
‘Chill, man. Where there’s collagen, there’s no fun.’
‘Bollocks. Double bollocks. Look at them, they’re the twelfth wonder of the world! Fuck nature! These cybersluts should be right up your street.’
‘They’re just a bunch of Klaus Barbie dolls!’ declares Fab, which makes Irène smile.
‘I think someone should work on plastic surgery for men,’ Loulou butts in. ‘There’s no reason why they shouldn’t. They could start with a scrotal lift for men who wear boxer shorts. Now that would be a good idea, don’t you think?’
‘No way, José,’ says Fab, ‘I go commando, no problemo!’
‘She’s right,’ says Marc. ‘Everyone needs something done. Look at Baroness Truffaldine over there! There’s plenty there to liposuck. And what about you, Irène, you wouldn’t say no to a 46-inch bust, would you?’
‘What did he say?’ asks Irène.
Marc is having it large. He’d give anything to be a hot girl for a couple of hours. It must be exhilarating to have such power … Right now, he doesn’t know where to look, there are so many!
Question: Is the world a wonderful place, or is it that Marc can’t hold his liquor?
For his part, Joss Dumoulin is still more or less on top of the situation. Though the assembled company is anything but disciplined. But for the moment, everyone seems to be laying the groundwork, warming up. In a book of lesser stylistic ambition, the author would say this is the ‘calm before the storm’.
Impotent millionaires knock back carafes of wine as they wait for the outbreak of hostilities. Underlings snub their masters. No one is eating the food.
Marc decides to subject the girls at his table to his famous ‘Triple Why’ experiment. Usually no one survives it. The ‘Triple Why Theorem’ is simple: when you pose the question ‘Why?’ for the third time, a person’s thoughts invariably turn to death.
‘I feel like some more wine,’ says Loulou Zibeline.
‘Why?’ asks Marc.
‘To get hammered.’
‘Why?’
‘Because … I feel like having a good time tonight and if I have to sit here listening to your jokes, there’s not much chance of that.’
‘Why?’
‘Why do I want to have a good time? Because you’re a long time dead, that’s why!’
The first candidate for the Triple Why experiment passes with the jury’s congratulations. But in order to scientifically establish a theorem, it must be repeatable and verifiable. And so Marc turns to Irène Kazatchok.
‘I work too hard,’ she says.
‘Why?’ Marc asks, all smiles.
‘Well … to make money.’
‘Why?’
‘Get out of here! Because we all have to eat, that’s why.’
‘Why?’
‘Gimme a break. Because otherwise you die, my boy.’
It goes without saying that Marc Marronnier is jubilant. His experiment is utterly pointless, but he enjoys rigorously testing the futile theories he dreams up to kill time. The only drawback is that now he’s riled Irène, leaving the field open for Fab. Never mind: the advance of science is surely worth a few setbacks.
*
‘Hey, Marc, the tall man over there with the walking-stick, that’s not Boris Yeltsin, is it?’ asks Loulou.
‘Looks like him. We’re being invaded by Eastern Europeans, what can you do …’
‘Shhh. Here he comes.’
Boris Yeltsin has clearly been working on