Natalie was rather private (a kind of Swiss femininity). She’d gone through adolescence without trauma, and she respected crosswalks. At twenty, she saw the future as a promise. She liked to laugh, read: two pastimes that weren’t often simultaneous because she preferred sad stories. Since a literary bent wasn’t concrete enough for her taste, she’d decided to study economics. Under her dreamer’s demeanor, there wasn’t much room for “kind-of’s.” With a strange smile on her face, she spent hours studying curves that showed fluctuations in Estonia’s gross domestic product. When adulthood approached, she occasionally happened to go back in her mind to her childhood. Instants of happiness condensed into a few episodes—always the same ones. Running on the beach, boarding an airplane, sleeping in her father’s arms. But she never ever felt nostalgia. That was something that was quite rare for Natalie.
^a

Two

Most couples love to tell each other their stories and assume their meeting had something exceptional about it; countless pairings formed under the most banal conditions are, all the same, spiced up with details that produce a minor thrill. In the end, they try to analyze everything.

Natalie and François met on the street. It’s always a tricky thing when a man comes up to a woman. She’s bound to wonder, Is that what he spends his time doing? Quite often the men are going to claim that it’s the first time. To listen to them, they are suddenly struck by a unique charm that gives them permission to brave their customary shyness. The women automatically answer that they don’t have the time. Natalie wasn’t breaking that rule. It was idiotic: she didn’t have much to do and liked the idea of being approached like that. No one had ever dared. Several times she’d asked herself, Do I seem too sullen, too lethargic? One of her friends had told her: nobody ever stops you because you have the look of a woman hounded by passing time.

When a man comes up to a woman he doesn’t know, he’s supposed to say lovely things. Could there ever be a male kamikaze who’d stop a woman and fling at her, “How can you be wearing those shoes? Your toes look like they’re in a gulag. It’s shameful, you’re Stalin when it comes to your feet!” Who would say such a thing? Certainly not François, who’d wisely settled on the complimentary approach. He tried to define the least definable thing that exists: confusion. Why had he stopped her? It had mostly to do with the way she walked. He’d sensed something new, almost childlike, like a rhapsody of kneecaps. She emanated a kind of touchingly natural manner, a grace of movement, and he thought, She’s exactly the kind of woman I’d like to go with me to Geneva for the weekend. So he took himself firmly in hand (both hands, though at that moment he wished he had four). Especially because this really was the first time for him. Right then and right there on this sidewalk, they were meeting. An absolutely classical beginning, which is often how things that end up less so start.

He stammered the first few words, when suddenly all of it came pouring out, crystal clear. A somewhat pathetic and desperate, yet terribly touching, energy took control. Therein lies the magic of our paradoxes: the situation was so uncomfortable that he pulled through with elegance. By the end of thirty seconds he’d even managed to make her smile. This created a breach in the anonymity. She agreed to have coffee, and he understood that she wasn’t in the slightest hurry. He found it amazing to be able to spend a moment like this with a woman who’d just entered his field of vision. He’d always liked to watch women in
the street. He even remembered having been kind of a romantic teenager who was capable of following girls from good families right up to the door of their apartments. He’d even changed cars in the subway to get near a passenger he’d spotted from a distance. Although prey to the dictates of physical desire, he remained no less a romantic man, believing that the realm of women could be shrunk to one woman.

So he asked her what she’d like to drink. Her choice would be crucial. If she orders a decaf, he thought, I’m getting up and leaving. No one was entitled to drink a decaf when it came to this type of encounter. It’s the least gregarious drink there is. Tea isn’t much better. Just met, and already settling into some kind of dull cocoon. You feel like you’re going to end up spending Sunday afternoons watching TV. Or worse: at the in-laws’. Yes, tea is indisputably in-law territory. Then what? Alcohol? No good for this time of day. You could have qualms about a woman who starts drinking right away like that. Even a glass of red wine isn’t going to cut it. François kept waiting for her to choose what she’d like to drink, and this was how he kept up his liquid analysis of first impressions of women. What was left now? Coke, or any type of soda … no, not possible, that didn’t say woman at all. Might as well ask for a straw, too, while she was at it. Finally he decided that juice was good. Yes, juice, that was nice. It’s friendly and not too aggressive. You can sense the kind of sweet, well-balanced woman who would make such a choice. But which juice? Better to avoid the great classics: apple, orange, too popular. It would have to be only slightly original without being completely eccentric. Papaya or guava—frightening. No,
the best is choosing something in between, like apricot. That’s it. Apricot juice: perfect. If she chooses it, I’ll marry her, thought François. At that precise instant, Natalie raised her head from the menu, as if emerging from a long reflection. It was the same reflection in which the stranger opposite her had just been absorbed.

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