Nightwork

'Too many times. Don't be an emmerdeur[10], Philippe. He likes China,' Nadine explained to us.

'Do you like Chinese films?' Lily asked. She seemed to take delight in baiting the man, in her offhand, ladylike way.

'I haven't seen any - yet,' the man said. I wait. Five years. Ten years.' His English was heavily accented, but fluent. His eyes glittered. He was the sort of man who would debate happily in Sanskrit. I had the impression that if he ever got into a conversation with anybody who agreed with him he would jump up and storm out of the room.

'Tell me, old man,' Fabian said, hearty and friendly, 'what do you think of our little opus so far?'

'Merde. A piece of shit.'

'Really?' Lily sounded surprised.

'Philippe,' Nadine said warningly. 'Priscilla hunderstands English. You don't want to hundermine her performance, do you?'

"That's all right,' Priscilla said, in her pure corn-fed, high-school soprano, I never take what a Frenchman says seriously.'

'We are in the city where Racine presented Phèdre, where Molière died,' the critic recited, 'where Flaubert went to court to defend Madame Bovary, where they rioted in the streets after the first performance of Hernani, where Heine was welcomed because of his poetry in another language, and Turgenev found a home.' Philippe's beard was electric with argument, the great names luscious on his tongue. Tn our own time, in the same medium - film - we have to our credit at least Grande Illusion, Poil de Carotte, Forbidden Games.

And what have we gathered tonight to discuss? A comic and distasteful attempt to arouse our basest emotions...'

'Do not sound, chéri,' Nadine Bonheur said calmly, 'as though you are too fine to fuck. I could gather testimony.'

The critic glowered at her and waved for another beer. 'What have you shown me? The rutting of an empty-faced American poupée and a Moroccan pimp, the...'

'Chéri,' Nadine said, more sharply now, 'remember, you are halways signing petitions against racism.'

'That's all right, Nadine,' Priscilla said. She was spooning away at a huge bowl of ice cream with chocolate sauce. 'I never take what a Frenchman says seriously.'

The Moroccan smiled benignly, his English obviously not up to complicated observations on aesthetics in that language.

'Made in France,' the critic said, 'written in Prance, composed in France, painted in France - You remember—' He pointed an accusing finger at Nadine. 'I ask you to remember what that used to mean. Glory. Devotion to beauty, to art, to the highest aspirations of the human race. What does your Made in France mean? A tickling of the balls, a lubricity of the vagina ...'

'Hear, hear,' Lily said.

'English lightness of character,' the critic said, leaning forward over the table, jutting his beard fiercely at Lily. "The Empire is gone. Now we will emit a Buckingham Palace snicker.'

'Old man,' Miles said amiably, 'if I may say so, I think you're missing the point.'

'If I may say so, sir,' Philippe said, I think I am missing nothing. What is the point?'

'For one thing, the point is to make a dollar or two,' Miles said. 'From what I've heard, that isn't completely against the French character.'

'That is not the French character. That is capitalism in France. They are two different things, monsieur.'

'All right,' Fabian said good-naturedly, 'let's leave money out of it for the time being. Although permit me to point out in passing that the greatest number of pornographic films and the most - ah - explicit ones - come out of Sweden and Denmark, two Socialist countries, if I have my facts straight.'

'Scandinavians,' the critic said. He snorted, dismissing the North. 'A mockery of the word Socialism. I piss on such Socialism.'

Fabian sighed. 'You're a hard man to do business with, Philippe.'

'I have my definitions,' Philippe said. 'I define Socialism.'

'China, again,' Nadine said. She made a small, wailing sound.

'We can't all live m China, now, can we?' Fabian spoke reasonably. 'Whether we like it or not, we live in a world that has a different history, different tastes, different needs...'

'I piss on a world that needs merde[11] like the merde we saw tonight.' Philippe called for another beer. He would have a belly like a barrel by the time he was forty.

'I went to the Louvre with my young friend this afternoon.' Fabian waved in my direction, his voice gentle. 'And yesterday I treated myself to a visit to the Jeu de Paume. Where the Impressionists are collected.'

'I do not have to have the museums of Paris described to me, monsieur,' Philippe said coldly.

'Forgive me,' Fabian said. 'Tell me, monsieur, do you disapprove of the works of art in these museums?'

'Not all of them,' Philippe said reluctantly. 'No.' 'The nudes, the embracing figures, the busty madonnas, the goddesses promising all sorts of carnal pleasures to the poor mortals below, the beautiful boys, the reclining princesses ... Do you disapprove of all that?'

'I do not gather what you are heading for, monsieur,' Philippe said, sprinkling beer on his beard.