Flowers of Darkness by Tatiana Rosnay (free ebook reader for iphone TXT) 📗

in his fifties came to join them, and she didn’t catch his name. The interviews took place around a white oval table. A young man came to offer them tea and coffee. Clarissa had decided not to dress up for this. Most of her clothes were still in the flat she shared with François. She wanted to be seen exactly as she was. What was the point of pretending to be someone else? She wore a green shirt, white jeans, and sneakers. Her red hair was braided. She was convinced she would never get in anyhow. She was too old, not famous enough, she didn’t sell enough books, she wasn’t trendy. There were probably hundreds of younger, brighter candidates on their list. She hoped this wouldn’t be too humiliating.

They had no files in front of them. Not even a device, a pen, or a piece of paper. They asked her if she minded being filmed. Yet she couldn’t see a camera anywhere. She said, no problem. She wondered where the camera was hidden. The man in his fifties had a pleasant face. It was his eyes that bothered her, how they took her in. Two black shiny marbles that never left her.

Clémence sipped her coffee, and beamed. The silence lasted, and it didn’t bother Clarissa. She wasn’t afraid of silence. If they were expecting her to talk, to fill in the blanks, then they were wrong. She wasn’t going to come across as eager, or even desperate. She had nothing to lose. So she smiled back. There was probably an invisible team, tucked away in the building, or perhaps behind one of those mirrors, watching her every move, dissecting whatever she did.

“Thank you very much for coming in today,” said Clémence Dutilleul at last.

The man with the shiny black eyes spoke up.

“This has nothing to do with a formal interview. The conversation we’ll be having is meant to be a relaxed, cordial one. Not an examination. We want to hear you talk about yourself, about your work. Our artists’ residence is a real estate elaboration that holds great promise. We crafted it so that people like you, artists, can live and work there serenely. We need to get to know you a little better. We’re not interested in what’s already been said or written about you. However, what does interest us is your own approach to your artistic output and the implementation of your body of work. We want to know more about your career history, your development. You can take all the time you wish, or, on the contrary, be succinct. It doesn’t matter. What does matter is the quality of your project and your artistic endeavor. I hope I’ve been clear, now. Over to you.”

Two grins, slightly inflexible, and two pairs of inquisitive eyes. A fit of giggles nearly swept over her for a quick moment. Where should she begin? She hated talking about herself, and always had. She hadn’t prepared anything, no speech, no presentation. She couldn’t stand authors who took themselves seriously, who delighted in their own rhetoric. She couldn’t figure out what criteria these people’s selection process depended on. However, what does interest us is your own approach to your own artistic output and the implementation of your body of work. What the fuck, as her dad would say. She made up her mind fast. She was going to be to the point. Her application was never going to be chosen anyway. In ten minutes, she’d be out of here.

“I’ve just left my husband.”

It just slipped out. She hadn’t meant to bring up her personal life. Too bad. They were still staring at her attentively, nodding. She went on.

She explained she had never lived alone. She had to feel good within a home, not only in order to live there but to write there, as well. She was looking for an apartment that could be a sort of shelter. A haven that would keep her safe, that would protect her. Fittingly, her work explored houses and homes, what they conveyed. She had come to writing late in life. She was already over fifty by the time her first novel was published. The path to writing had opened up as she had pieced together the link between writers and places. She hadn’t planned on writing a book at all. The novel foisted itself upon her after a personal tragedy and her discovery of hypnosis. It had been published, almost by chance, after a series of encounters, and it had done well. There was something else she wanted to tell them. In her opinion, artists don’t need to explain their work. If people didn’t get the gist of it or became sidelined, that was their problem. Why should an artist be heard? Creation spoke for itself. Occasionally, readers asked her to explain the endings of her books. It made her chuckle, weep at times, or even become downright furious. She wrote to make others think, not to give them answers.

She realized her voice was loud, ringing out within the huge room, and her hands were waving around. The video team was probably sniggering while they filmed. No doubt they had crossed her name off the list.

“Please go on,” said the man with the glasses.

She replied that she didn’t have much more to add. Oh, just one last point. She had been raised by a British father and a French mother; she was perfectly bilingual. She had two writing languages and had never been able to pick one over the other. So she had used both. This was a well-known fact about her. The difference was that today she had started to write in both languages at the same time. This was the first time, ever, that she had chosen to do this.

“That’s most interesting,” said Clémence slowly. “Could you please tell us more?”

They ogled her with the same yearning. What glistening, voracious eyes!

Could she trust them? They had such intense stares. She said that no, she couldn’t