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tactician. He would launch one operation on top of the other, reflecting upon them after the event. He could turn his coat without batting an eyelid, in order to straighten out a false impression. He might challenge a restaurant bill, and then, haunted by the dread of being taken for a miser, he’d shower her with lavish gifts. Had he been too eager, he’d stand her up the next day.
    Not given to gab, he would suddenly discourse with eloquence. He’d move on request from one register to the next, as a copyist goes from Cézanne to Rembrandt. He’d talk a blue streak saying nothing, finding the right intonations and formulaic expressions for each circumstance. It was for the sake of alleviating Amélie’s anxieties, to fill in blanks when the conversation lagged, and gaps in an affair that he feared might be cut short.
    In sum, he was bending over backward simply to please her. But his plan of action was set, and that’s what counted. He would pleasure her in bed, entertain her over the telephone, make her laugh over dinner. He’d make life beautiful and easy so that their liaison would seem innocuous. He wanted her open, dilated, creamy, as she was, with her thighs spread wide apart. Gradually, he’d prevail.
    T hey shared fits of uncontrollable laugher, and tender feelings. Amélie took David to her favorite candy store in Montmartre, A la Mère de Familie; she introduced him to marshmallows, praline caramels, apple rockcandy, aniseed cookies. David made faces, sickened by this surfeit of sweets. He got back at her, taking her to a poolroom where she scoffed at the green wool covering the tables, the ivory balls. In short, they put themselves out for each other. And their meetings acquired the joyous hue of a musical comedy.

CHAPTER THREE
    D avid did not speak much of his childhood. The Orient oozed from the music of his phrasing, his untimely invocations of Allah, but he claimed to be French, unaware of the imperceptible condescension of the elegant Parisians whom he thought to be his friends. One day, recalling the city where he was raised, he suggested to Amélie:
    —What if we left for Marrakech on Friday?
    She began to plan at once the excuse she’d use to leave Paris for a weekend. She’d manage. She was good at lying without stammering or blushing, the aplomb of experience, no doubt . . . Deception had been part of her daily life for a long time, even before her meeting with David, before she ever had anything to hide.
    She had never liked accounting for her schedule. In the evening, when she’d come home later than usual, she would say she had gone to the movies, when in actual fact she hadbeen at the beauty parlor. She would then tell the story of the film, praise the acting, express her reservations as to the scenario. Of course this meant she had to go to the movies often enough, to nourish her memory and fill out her previous comments. She went with pleasure when her husband was away, in the evening, or on weekends. When he returned he would inquire about what she had done, and she’d describe her walks through the Bagatelle gardens of the Bois de Boulogne, or her meandering through the showrooms of the auction house of Drouot. She had to keep a careful record of her fibs to avoid telling the same story twice.
    She did not want to dupe or betray anyone; she simply marked with her secrets the borders of her private territory, as animals do by spraying it with their urine. The span of her imagination encompassed vast areas; to her, truth was elastic, as malleable as a toothpaste tube. She played with it by hiding it under layers of silence, modifying it to her taste. Sometimes she took the liberty of reinventing it.
    Beauty parlors were a source of inspiration. She enjoyed their stealthy softness, which instigated confessions, and the sweet perfume of hair spray. She tried a number of them, singling out two. The first was a den of old ladies who kept on praising the use of corsets and stretch hose.