The Red Notebook

by Antoine Laurain

One of his customers had said he looked like Chateaubriand, another like Rimbaud in Fantin-Latour’s painting Un coin de table (whilst making it clear that he was only referring to the poet’s hair).

It was commonly said that women had a sixth sense. But this was surely a case of witchcraft.

‘You must think I’m an idiot.’ Dominique’s face was suddenly impassive and Laurent experienced the vertigo of the falsely accused who finds that absolutely no one believes him, not even his own lawyer.

pot-au-feu.

If there was one thing that defined adolescence it was hysterical laughter. You never laughed like that again. In adolescence the brutal realisation that the world and life were completely absurd made you laugh until you couldn’t catch your breath, whereas in later life it would only result in a weary sigh.

So not true.

Only Patrick Modiano could tell you he didn’t remember the woman he had met in the street then immediately go on to give you a description that would have delighted any police force in the country.

There are places where it is so peculiar to find yourself that you can’t help thinking that your mind is playing tricks on you – that you are daydreaming and will soon wake up.

ate up his duck-flavoured cat food, then settled unhesitatingly on Laurent’s lap, immobilising him on the sofa. It’s an honour that cats bestow on you, as he was all too aware,

‘Are you nostalgic for what could have been?’

mind. Perhaps she would have liked that – probably in fact – but nothing ever happened. For some unknown reason, we never gave in to the exquisite vertigo that you feel when you move those few centimetres towards the face of the other for the first kiss. We passed by, we passed so close that something of the experience remains.

As soon as she stepped inside the door, she was hit by that feeling of coming home after a long time away, when the dust seems to have been blown off things you had become so used to looking at you had stopped seeing them. Everything suddenly seems more intense, like a photograph restored to its original colour and contrast.

He had probably taken it home with him and emptied out its contents, examining each item like a detective looking for clues. He must be slightly crazy. Or very romantic.