She pricked up her ears. A little hummed tune was now mingled with the sound of the dishes being washed. "My dear old Li," thought Olga. "I must be something like that in her thoughts-a lover, passion, palpitations. If she only knew that the thing that really upset me in this business is that I can't remember when this 'lover' of mine last came to see me. That I'm almost sure he didn't come in June, nor more recently. So this pregnancy strongly resembles an immaculate conception. No, he must have come in June, the proof of it is… But I simply don't recall, I have no memory of it. And so where Li pictures a tragedy there is just this infuriating confrontation with forgotten dates, meetings that have slipped the memory… Other people make us live in surprising worlds. And we live in them; they go and see us down there; they talk to these doubles, who are their own invention. And in reality we do not meet at all in this life."
Li's laughter woke her in the night. Sleeping in two armchairs arranged face to face for the occasion, her friend gave a rather shrill, childish little laugh. It took Olga several seconds to realize that Li was weeping softly in her sleep. The moon was melting on the lid of the piano; the furniture and objects seemed to be in suspense, interrupting the existence they had been leading a moment before. And her friend's wail rang out both close at hand and in the infinite remoteness of the life that enfolded her dreams… Olga remained awake for quite some time, listening as Li's breathing gradually calmed down.
In the morning, finding her friend neither in the room nor in the kitchen, Olga went out into the little yard at the back of the house. She sat down on an old stool in the soft, transparent sunlight and did not stir, her gaze fixed on a little stunted tree that persisted in growing in a crack under the gutter. It was important to her not to disturb the simple happiness, the absence of thoughts, the slow drifting of the air that still had the freshness of cold paving stones, of the night, but already carried the smell of grilled onions. Olga leaned the back of her neck against the rough surface of the wall. She suddenly felt she could live solely by following the permeation of these smells, live in this light, in the immediate physical sensation of happiness. On the wall facing her, several narrow windows, cut through at random, spoke of unknown lives that seemed touching to her in their simplicity…
This happiness lasted for the time she needed to take stock of her own reality. It was still there, but yesterday's thoughts, the thoughts of every day, in the guise they had had yesterday, were already flooding in: that "lover," certainly the last man in her life; the tiny lethal operation in her body. During the coming days all of that would give rise to a long, futile inner debate, arguments that excused her and those that damned her. She could already hear words forming in her head, that vigilant voice that kept watch over her moments of happiness: "So, you've had your instant of bliss thanks to a little murder. Bliss in a backyard that smells of onions. Well done!"
She got up, went closer to the tree, inhaled the bright little blossoms scattered over its branches… Her friend's words could be heard at the other end of the yard, coming from the cellar-Li's studio. Olga went down the steps: she could not yet imagine who might be on the receiving end of these cheerful and encouraging remarks.
"No no, my dear man, don't forget you're a satyr! Come on, give me a lewd grimace. Yes, very good, that's right, a look inflamed with desire, licking your lips with lust. Perfect! Hold it there… And you, Madame, look alarmed, tremble! A nymph already feeling this lubricious monster's breath on her neck… Good! Don't move…"
The cellar was lit with a sharp, theatrical light. Li, motionless behind a tripod, her eye glued to her camera, was pointing it at a huge plywood panel. Against an exuberant painted background of plants and leaves, it portrayed a beautiful nymph with a white, shapely body being embraced by a satyr surging up out of the rushes. The nymph blinked her eyes a little nervously. The satyr coughed.
"And-now-quite-still-everyone!" repeated Li in a magician's voice, and there was a click.
The faces of the satyr and the nymph detached themselves from the plywood and left two dark, empty circles in their place.
Li stood up, noticed Olga, and gave her a wink. A man and woman came out from behind the panel. It was comical to see their heads detach themselves from the painted figures and come down to earth on very correctly dressed bodies: a summer dress, a light shirt with a tie. They themselves seemed a little disconcerted by this sudden transformation.
"The photos will be ready the day after tomorrow, about noon," Li explained as she led them out.
They had lunch in this cellar where there were several painted panels arranged along the walls. On one of them Olga made out a castle in flames with a musketeer escaping out the window, clasping a swooning beauty in his arms. A little farther on a couple of suntanned bathers were basking at the edge of an expanse of blue, beneath the palm trees. The holes for their faces stood out oddly against the background of the tropical sky. In the foreground Olga was surprised to detect a streak of real sand, and a large seashell… Li followed her gaze.
"Oh that's quite an old one. From the days when I was going all out for the illusion of depth, trompe l'oeil. I noticed that people very much enjoyed the realism…"
Olga listened to her, amazed and touched, thinking: "This is Li. Elusive. Who is she? Conjurer. Painter. Photographer. Nurse. Three years at the front during the First World War. Imprisoned and tortured under the Occupation, yes, those hands covered in burns… Last night she cried in her sleep. What was she dreaming about?"
Li got up, forgetting the meal, and took out one panel after another, placing them all on the stands. It was not the first time she had shown her collection to Olga, but, as with all great enthusiasts, her passion was rekindled each time and gave spectators the impression of experiencing anew things they had seen before.
"I just had to keep inventing," she explained, putting her head through a cutout circle. "This is my mythological period. Recognize it?"
A girl clad in a transparent tunic was approaching a bed, by the light of a candle. A winged cupid lay there asleep in voluptuous abandon. Li's face appeared now in the aura of the candle, now on the pillow.
"And after that, one day, a flash of inspiration. And my literary period begins. Look!"
This time it was a man with a bushy beard, wearing a long peasant blouse, a giant standing beside an izba and leaning on the handle of a swing plow. The character posed beside him seemed, in his city clothes, to be the very epitome of the average man.
"You see," exclaimed the photographer, thrusting her face into the cutout, "a certain Mr. N calling on Tolstoy at Yasnaya Polyana. And you can't imagine how many Mr. Ns have already succeeded in convincing people they were on intimate terms with the writer. And not only the French: even the Russians allow themselves to be taken in."
Olga was beginning to feel slightly drunk. It was not the taste, now forgotten, of the wine Li had served, but intoxication at the nonchalance with which her friend conducted her life.
"I've even concocted my little theory on the subject of all these fantasies. This Mr. N who wants (mainly as a joke, but not only as a joke) to have himself photographed in the company of Tolstoy. What stopped him from shaking hands with him in real life? Minor hazards of existence. Not even his modest origins. Tolstoy used to walk about on foot just like him and lived in Moscow in the next street. It was not even his age: this Mr. N was twenty when Tolstoy died. In short, what kept them apart was the most trivial bad luck. The same that causes one passerby to slip on a banana peel and break his leg, while the one before just misses it."