The Thursday Night Men by Tonino Benacquista Page A

preferred. To strike a pose, he hesitated between reading the menu and jotting down some not really necessary notes in his notebook. He saw some well-known faces at neighboring tables, though he wasn’t sure exactly who they were, men and women with perfect figures, as if designed for the setting. In his notebook Philippe wrote,
renew subscription to Paris-Match.
Finally he glanced at the menu, which immediately exasperated him. Philippe was not at all a foodie, and had no real interest in gastronomy, but what he despised more than anything was dietary terrorism, the ultimate hypocrisy of a handful of rich people prepared to pay top dollar for their fear of putting on one ounce. All it took was to read
lightly steamed John Dory on its bed of watercress sprouts
€45
for him to want to roast the chef on a spit with an apple in his mouth.
    Mia burst into the restaurant like a bullet, planted two quick kisses on Philippe’s cheeks, took off her baseball cap and dark glasses, dropped her cell phone on the table and gulped down the entire glass of cold tap water they had just served her.
    “So, what will it be, shall we say
tu
to each other?”
    “Whatever you like,” answered Philippe, still saying
vous
, in order to slow down the pace.
    Philippe used the brief moment while she was studying the menu to take a closer look: hardly any makeup, natural, but still watchful—Mia lived constantly with a third eye which kept her on stage. Whether one liked her type of looks or not, she did not go unnoticed. Such harmony between all the features of one human face—mouth, eyes, nose, skin—could not be the result of chance, and its sole purpose was to be admired. Her full lips, narrow at the corners, were not made to speak or eat or kiss, but to smile to men of goodwill. Those enormous eyes glinting with sapphire were not made for her to discover the world but to subjugate crowds, who were always in search of pagan idols. That skin of amber and copper, infinitely glowing, evoked every race in and of itself. Philippe believed in the determinism of nature, that it always tended toward a precise goal: to ensure the enjoyment of the greatest number.
    Right from the start they avoided the pitfalls of the previous dinner, which had opposed them on every level, and they risked, rather, going to the opposite extreme: emphatic self-criticism, constant approval of whatever the other one was experiencing. Mia was sorry her life was so constantly frenetic, and she was afraid she might be missing what was truly essential. Philippe emphasized his peace of mind but feared a certain inertia, for he was prisoner of an intellectual comfort that cut him off from contemporary turmoil. In order to find some common ground, they shared their mutual complaints. When Mia evoked the downside of fame, he dwelt on the inevitable risk that came with being
exposed.
When she confessed to a certain confusion between her professional life and her private life, Philippe regretted that his own mental processes never left him alone. When he, in turn, mentioned the handful of detractors who demolished even his most insignificant articles, she invoked the way the media hounded her shamelessly and relentlessly. In the course of the evening their chat reached a certain equilibrium; when one of them ventured a confession, the other would yield a bit more in return. They compared their solitude, fatal for her, necessary for him, trying for both of them. Oh, their dear solitude! Faithful companion, whether one is alone or surrounded. A solitude that returned ever stronger after one had cherished the illusion of being part of a twosome. But before they were to venture into that terrain, they needed to find a more intimate environment: she suggested they go to another one of her hideouts for a drink.
    They settled onto the back seat in beige leather of the chauffeur-driven Rover SUV which Mia’s agency put at her disposal. After a gray, laborious day, Philippe allowed himself