They kissed. She moved her hands under the sleeves of his T-shirt. He pulled her dress up so that he could see her stomach, her pubic hair.
‘I can’t see you. I want to see you piss.’
‘How?’
‘In the bath.’ They undressed. Nicole stood with one foot on each side of the bath and lowered herself down, using her hands for support. His prick reached up towards her.
‘Now.’
‘I’m trying,’ she laughed. ‘It’s too ridiculous.’
‘Doesn’t it turn you on?’
‘Hmm. I don’t know.’ He raised his hips so that his prick was touching her. ‘Don’t,’ she said. ‘If you do that I can’t. I have to concentrate.’ She shut her eyes. A few drips sprang from her, on to his prick and stomach.
‘More.’ There was another pulse of urine and then she was flooding over him. He pushed up and into her. Her balance was precarious. Luke’s back and shoulders began burning with the strain of keeping himself arched up like this and it was only by concentrating on that pain that he could stop himself coming and then he could hold back no longer. His arms gave way. Nicole collapsed on to him. He fell back into the tepid wash of piss at the bottom of the bath. In the space of a few seconds urine had reverted to its customary lavatorial character.
‘I didn’t come,’ said Nicole, clambering off him. ‘And now I don’t think I want to.’
‘Perhaps we should have a bath,’ he said.
In November Luke received a letter from the photographer saying that he was obliged to return to the city, would have to move back into his apartment ‘sooner than anticipated’. The letter was phrased like this in order to suggest that their arrangement had been vague, flexible, even though the photographer had been adamant about renting his place for a year. In different circumstances Luke would have refused to budge. As it was it made little difference because he and Nicole were spending almost every night together, usually at her place which was bigger, nicer. Luke wrote back to the photographer and claimed that he was being severely inconvenienced. He’d counted on being there a year, he said, had even spent money on having the bike repaired. The photographer phoned and offered to let him off three weeks’ rent. And Luke could keep the bike, he said.
‘Actually,’ said Luke, ‘there is one other thing I would like, if that’s OK.’
‘What’s that?’
‘A print of one of your photographs. The one of the demonstration.’
‘You like that picture?’
‘I love it,’ said Luke.
‘I’m flattered,’ said the photographer.
‘When did you take it, by the way?’
‘I can’t remember exactly. But I’d only been in Bucharest a day—’
‘Bucharest?’
‘I’d just got in and this demonstration blew up and I shot off a whole roll of film. There were a couple of good shots but that one on the wall was far and away the best. Anyway, I can get you a copy no problem,’ said the photographer
‘That would be great,’ said Luke. ‘Thank you.’ He hung up and called Nicole. ‘You know that picture?’ he said. ‘The Belgrade one.’
‘Yes.’
‘It was taken in Bucharest.’
‘No!’
‘I just spoke to the photographer.’
‘I did go to Bucharest once.’
‘How old were you?’
‘Ten.’
‘It’s funny isn’t it, how we persuaded ourselves that it was you?’
‘Perhaps it is me. A Romanian me. There might be several of me.’
‘There could never be another you,’ sang Luke.
A few days later he moved into her apartment. Luke’s only concern about this change in circumstances was that he now had little or no chance of protecting his property. Nicole had a knack of filling her apartment and life with things that delighted Luke — love someone, love their possessions had become something of a motto for him — and there were times when Luke would see her spectacle-case (i.e. her wallet) or her red string shopping bag, or one of her hats or shoes lying on the floor of her apartment and be so overcome with love for her that he felt like weeping. They were her things. Everything she touched became suffused with her personality. Nicole herself was aware of this capacity she had to lay claim to objects.
‘I only need to have something for two minutes and it’s completely mine,’ she said to Luke as they unpacked his few belongings.
‘You mean it’s completely broken. Broken or lost.’
‘That’s not true.’
‘Robust objects become fragile. Immovable objects disappear.’
‘That’s not true.’
‘It is actually. What about my sunglasses that you borrowed two days ago?’
‘I haven’t broken them.’
‘No. And the reason for that is that you lost them before you had a chance to break them.’
‘They’re not lost. I just mislaid them.’
‘No, you lost them. Mislaid means you know where they are but you can’t put your finger on them.’
‘Exactly. I’ve mislaid them somewhere in the city.’
The days grew shorter. It became cold. As promised, the photographer mailed a print of the picture of the demonstration which they framed and put on the wall. Nicole was finishing her studies and had begun applying for jobs. With Christmas deadlines looming the warehouse became busier than it had been for months. Lazare was under a lot of pressure and therefore happy. Luke and Alex worked late. The flu season started. Nicole stayed in bed for three days, coughing constantly. At night the sheets became so drenched and cold with her sweat that they had to get up and change them. Luke resigned himself to catching Nicole’s flu and as soon as she felt well enough to get up he began to feel lousy. He still felt bad when he felt better. Alex avoided flu but went down with a cold that, at any other time of year, would have passed for flu. Sahra remained healthy which was fortunate because there was a sudden rush of well-paid interpreting jobs. Christmas decorations went up on rue de la Roquette. A series of power cuts left the quartier in freezing darkness. It was too cold to play football. Sealed in against the weather, cafés became intolerably smoky — even more intolerably smoky than they were the rest of the time. Lazare decided to throw an impromptu — and somewhat premature — Christmas party. We all had to come, he said, and in the unlikely event of any of us having girlfriends or wives they should ‘get drunk at my expense too’. Nicole, Sahra and Sally came and were all shocked by Lazare — shocked, that is, by how charming he was. In the presence of women his belligerence was transformed into equally extravagant courtesy. Luke’s friend Miles came too, and some other pals of Lazare’s. Everyone got drunk and danced and went away happy and those of us who worked there came back the next day, hung over, and cleaned everything up.
The Cassavetes season had finished months ago but an Antonioni season had just begun. The four friends went to see every film, too stunned by boredom and colour and space even to consider leaving. In the black-and-white films there was no colour to be seen, just the space and the boredom and people saying things. Some of what was said was lost on Luke because the dialogue was often in Italian and the subtitles in French. They were all in love with Monica Vitti, especially her green dress in Red Desert. Nicole liked the way the photos in Blow-Up became clearer as they were enlarged.
‘That was amazing,’ said Luke when they came out of L’Avventura.
‘Amazingly boring, you mean?’ said Sahra.
‘Yes, exactly.’
At weekends they went dancing. Luke, Sahra and Alex took Ecstasy. Nicole didn’t want to and this became an issue between her and Luke. Nicole was adamant that she did not need to take drugs in order to enjoy anything. She was happy to get stoned — which she had done only occasionally before meeting Luke — but she drew the line at anything chemical.