The Other Story (17 page)

As soon as he hears her voice, Nicolas knows it is not good news. Dita never stalls. He appreciates that. She only has to say “Laurence Taillefer.”

“Tell me,” he says.

“I don’t think you should read her piece.”

“Is it that awful?”

“Yes.”

“It came out this morning?”

“Yes.”

“Has Alice read it?”

“Yes. She wants you to call her.”

Nicolas can see the page clearly, as if the article is spread out on the table in front of him. One full page, in a newspaper the whole of France reads on a weekend.

“Send it to me,” he says.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“I have to learn to face this, Dita,” he replies.

She hesitates, then says, “Okay. Sending it now. Call me if you need me. Call Alice, or she’ll get worried. And remember, Laurence Taillefer never liked you. This is not a surprise.”

Nicolas mutters good-bye.

“What is it?” says Malvina.

He tries to smile. “A bad article.”

He recalls that the last time he laid eyes on the redoubtable, raven-haired Laurence Taillefer was during his interview with Bertrand Chalais last year at the Hôtel Lutetia. She rarely interviewed authors, he learned. Her reviews decoded books, writers, publishing phenomena. She was capable of promoting an author to glory, or catapulting another to flames.

“Who cares about a bad article when you have millions of readers around the world?” says Malvina, reaching out to pat his hand.

She is right, of course. He should not even read it. Who cares, when so many people love his book, when it is still selling strong? But at this fragile, tricky moment of his life, he feels he has to know.

Dita sends the article by e-mail, and all he has to do is click on it.

“The ‘Nicolas Kolt’ Syndrome and Other Vanities,” by Laurence Taillefer.

He looks down to his BlackBerry, shielding it against the sun with his hand. He can no longer hear the music; he no longer sees the models, the young photographer, Cassia Carper in her white dress, the guests sitting around him, as if they are all in a theater, watching a show. He has eyes only for the words that are about to leap out at him with venom, and against which he does not know how to protect himself. Perhaps not reading the article is the only protection, he thinks, glancing up once to the blue of the sea, then down again. It is too late. He has started.

At first, the words do not make sense; they are jumbled, incoherent, and he has to go back to the beginning and take it slowly.

Nicolas Duhamel lost his passport in 2006. Because both his parents were born abroad, according to new governmental laws, he had to prove his French nationality, even if he was born in France. This gave him the idea for
The Envelope,
as the world now knows. In those less glorious days before publication stardom, Nicolas Duhamel was a struggling private tutor. One can imagine him teaching Plato or Nietzsche to young girls, the latter no doubt thunderstruck by his tenebrous good looks. That is the problem with “Nicolas Kolt.” He is easy to look at, and easy to read. Too easy?
The Envelope
is on everybody’s lips, in everyone’s hands. Why? Isn’t this due more to the ingenious, bludgeonlike marketing by his artful publishers around the world than to his talent? “Nicolas Kolt” has become an inescapable, unavoidable brand name. His rugged bad-boy features grace the covers of magazines, cologne bottles, ads for watches and sunglasses. “Nicolas Kolt” looks stunning on TV. He played a cameo part in the movie of his book, and his innumerable fans adored it. (If you don’t believe me, check his Facebook page.) “Nicolas Kolt” has become the cult writer of the famed Generation Y, the breed who thrives on cut, copy, and paste, on channel surfing, on social networking, on e-books and smartphones, on “likes,” “Retweets,” and “pokes,” on friends, fans, and followers, on vacuity and vanity.
The Envelope
is a less than average novel, for a first-time novelist. It is neither terribly good nor bad. It deals adequately enough with a dark family secret. It strikes the right chords. It is an efficient sob story your granny will love, and your young nephew might like, too. Why are we still enduring its success, three years later? Is this to do with Robin Wright’s Oscar? What is it about
The Envelope
that makes so many people read it? The answer is because “Nicolas Kolt” is like an easy lay. “Nicolas Kolt” is a success only because his publishers have decided he will be a success, and, sheeplike, masses follow. “Nicolas Kolt,” the best-selling international author, read from Stockholm to Seattle, adored by millions of followers around the world, is no writer. He is a product.

At this point, Nicolas looks up again and gazes at to sea.

“Are you okay?” Malvina asks.

He does not answer. He thinks of Alice Dor, who is waiting for his call. She would find the words to comfort him, one way or another, but he does not want to speak to her right now. He thinks of all the people he knows, reading the newspaper this morning over their breakfast tables; he thinks of those who will smile, or even laugh; he thinks of those who will be saddened; he thinks of his fans, of what will be written on his Facebook wall, on Twitter, in his e-mail; he thinks of those who won’t care, and he longs to be like them. He cannot bear reading the rest. He decides to skip a large chunk, scrolling down on his BlackBerry until he gets to the end.

Nicolas Duhamel should distance himself from the frenzied social networking he’s been indulging in. Perhaps he should stop Tweeting once and for all. The question is, will “Nicolas Kolt” ever write a novel again? Will he surf forever on the wave of
The Envelope
’s success, fueled by avid publishers raking in the profits, until those good looks wilt and another writer product takes over? There will be no new book from “Nicolas Kolt.” He is too busy preening in the hundreds of mirrors held up to him.

Nicolas gets up, dizzy. He finds he cannot speak. There is a stark truth in the article that hits home, even if Laurence Taillefer laid it on thick. He feels weak. His mouth is dry. A pit punctures his stomach. He walks to the side of the terrace overlooking the sea, heedless of the music, the models, the chatter. Malvina follows him, her hand on his back. They stand there in silence for a while, staring out to the blueness. He thinks of Laurence Taillefer writing. He imagines her in her office, wherever that may be, hunched over her computer, choosing the cruelest words, the ones with the sharpest bite. Does she smile when she writes her articles? When she wrote this one? He should post something on Twitter, on Facebook, anticipating the reactions. The last thing he wants is his readers’ pity. Nicolas feels hot in his bathrobe, and he yearns for the cool water. Another swim might revive his spirits. But what if he bumps into Dagmar Hunoldt again? He could not endure another repudiation, not in his present state.

“You said you wanted to call your mother,” suggests Malvina gently.

She is right: That is what he should do. Get ahold of Emma. Keep calling until he hears her voice. He walks a little farther off, so that he can be alone. He still feels dazed, as if someone has hit him on the head. He calls his mother’s mobile. He expects to get voice mail, and is startled when a man’s voice is heard.

“Hullo?” says Nicolas.

“Yes?” replies the stranger.

“I must have made a mistake.… I’m looking for Emma Duhamel.”

“This is her phone,” the stranger replies politely.

Who is this guy? Nicolas wonders. Why is he answering my mother’s mobile? His heart misses a beat. What if Emma is in the hospital and this man is a doctor? A doctor with bad news.

Stuttering, he says, “Is … is Emma Duhamel around?”

The stranger clears his throat.

“And you are?”

“I’m her son.”

“Her son?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

There is a silence. Nicolas hears music, very faintly.

“Hullo?”

“I’m still here,” says the stranger.

“Is my mother okay?”

“She’s fine, yes, just fine.”

Is Nicolas imagining things, or is the man on the other end smiling?

“Who are you?” he asks. “Her doctor?”

“What? No!”

“Well, who are you?”

Silence. Then he says, “I’m Ed.”

Nicolas says nothing. Who the hell is Ed? A friend? A student?

“Your mother is still asleep.”

His mother, still asleep at noon? She, who always stated that the early bird catches the worm?

“I see,” he says aimlessly.

“I’ll tell her you called.”

“Thank you, Ed. Where are you, if I may ask?”

“Sure. In Saint-Tropez.”

Nicolas nearly drops the phone.

“In Saint-Tropez?” he echoes.

“Yes. Staying with friends. On a boat.”

“I see,” says Nicolas again, bewildered. “On a boat?”

“Indeed,” says Ed. “A very nice boat.”

Ed has a young, friendly voice.

“And you are … a friend of my mother?” Nicolas asks tentatively.

Another silence. Music in the background, and the hum of other voices. Emma still asleep at noon. A disturbing image wafts his way: an unmade bed, rumpled sheets, bare skin, an intimacy he does not want to see.

Ed laughs, not an unpleasant laugh, but it grates in Nicolas’s ear. Then he simply says, “Um … I’m her boyfriend.”

T
HE ENVELOPE
WAS READ
by people of all ages, of all nationalities, of all backgrounds, people who had nothing in common except his book. Nicolas began to meet and know his readers when he traveled, but he also met them virtually through Facebook and Twitter. He found it quicker, more practical, to interact with them by way of the social networks. However, that was also time-consuming, he had to admit. He became engrossed in the process. He seemed to be perpetually bent over his phone. He even slept with it by his pillow. It irked his entourage. His mother often asked him, with a weary sigh, if she had to follow him on Twitter in order to get him to answer her. Alice Dor complained that even during their lunches, he had to peek at his phone. Lara teased him about the number of Tweets he posted every day. “No wonder you still haven’t finished your book,” she taunted. He did admit to her he was hooked, to such an extent that whenever he tried to write, he disabled the Internet connection and left his phone in another room. This never lasted. He inevitably went back online, like an alcoholic reaches for another glass and hates himself for it. He needed to cure his addiction. He knew programs existed to help people like him get over it. Everyone, these days, seemed to have an eye on their texts, their e-mails, on their Facebook pages, on their Twitter feeds. Couples dined in restaurants, eating in silence, face-to-face, each riveted to a phone. Even during funerals, weddings, movies, Nicolas noticed people glancing down at their phones. Those who deliberately did not have mobiles or computers were a mystery to him. Did they live in the Dark Ages? But now, as he was faced with the increasingly worrying chasm of his intellectual inertia, he began to wonder if maybe those people were right in removing themselves from the never-ending, hypnotizing enticement of being online. Was Internet overuse slowing brains down? Had his been addled? Nicolas had opened a Facebook page before he became famous, when he was still Nicolas Duhamel, but he had to close it down when Hurricane Margaux started to blow, simply because Nicolas Duhamel no longer existed. The new Nicolas Kolt fan page immediately attracted thousands of readers.

Online, his readers prepared surprises for him. He was entranced to discover one day that “Margaux Dansor” had befriended him on Facebook. Whoever had created that profile page knew his character as well as he did. There was Margaux, exactly as she was described in his novel. He never found out who had imagined the online Margaux, and it did not matter. He enjoyed interacting with his heroine. Many readers thought Margaux truly existed, and that Nicolas had put her in his book after he’d met her. He let some of them believe that. It amused him.

Nicolas used social networks because he liked to share, he told journalists. He liked to communicate, and he reveled in the feedback, not merely because it was often appraising but also because it was a challenge. His Tweets were never inane. He thought carefully about what he Tweeted, tailoring those 140 characters to perfection, using a wry humor his followers hungered for. He Retweeted breaking news, pleased to be the first one to do so, the first one who seized the information as it fleeted past, and passed it on. He answered his reader’s questions as best as he could. Some of those dialogues became famous, and journalists brought them up during interviews.

The Assen episode was often mentioned. Nicolas’s Dutch publisher, Marije Gert, had coerced him, despite his exhaustion, into accepting an event in a town named Assen, near Amsterdam. She had assured him that the drive would take under two hours, a good meal awaited them, the entire event would not last too long, his numerous fans were waiting for him with intense anticipation, and, most important, he would be back at the Ambassade Hotel before midnight, as he had an eight o’clock plane the next morning to Oslo for the rest of his book tour. Nicolas had accepted. But the supposedly swift drive out to Assen turned out differently. They got caught in rush-hour traffic jams and slowed down by construction, while monsoonlike rains poured down from the black sky. Marije, who was driving, hardly dared look across at her author, who was sprawled out in the front seat on her right, concentrating on his BlackBerry. They inched along the wet, jammed highway in silence. The drive took over four excruciating hours. What Marije never knew at the time was that Nicolas was Tweeting it all. He Tweeted about his fatigue, her cautious driving (chin to the wheel), the sluggish traffic, the rain, his painfully full bladder, his stomach rumbling with hunger, his growing reluctance to attend the event. He Tweeted descriptions of objects left in Marije’s car by her children and husband (a skateboard, a tie, a map, a Barbie doll). He Tweeted about his exasperation, his impatience, his helplessness. One Tweet in particular created an incredible buzz: “This feels like when you know her orgasm is not going to happen for a very very long time. #drivetoassen.” By the time they finally arrived, the event had been canceled. Everyone had gone home. Nicolas was too tired to be angry or disappointed. He slept all the way back to Amsterdam.