The Man Who Risked It All Read Free

dark hair, and her breasts—my God, her breasts were sublime, simply sublime. Fifty times during the night I thanked her for not wearing perfume, as I delighted in the voluptuous scent of her skin at every point of her body, intoxicating like a drug. That night will remain engraved in my memory beyond my death.
    We woke up the next morning entwined. I ran to fetch croissants and breathlessly climbed back up the six stories to her room. I threw myself into her arms, and we made love again. For the first time in my life I was experiencing happiness. It was a new, strange sensation. I was far from suspecting that this happiness foreshadowed the fall from which I would not get up.
    For four months my life was centered on Audrey. She occupied my thoughts during the day and my dreams at night. Her schedule at art school was full of openings that left her available. During the week, we would often meet during the day. I would use a client meeting as an excuse and spend an hour or two with her in a hotel room that we rented nearby. I felt a bit guilty. Just a bit. Happiness makes you selfish.
    One day, I was in my office when Vanessa, the departmental secretary, called to say that my candidate had arrived. I was expecting no one but as my organizational skills left room for improvement, just to be safe I asked her to send the candidate up. I would rather see someone for nothing than give Vanessa proof of my lack of organization; my boss would have known in less than half an hour. I waited at the door to my office and nearly fainted when, at the end of the corridor, I saw Vanessa escorting Audrey, who was dressed as a caricature of an accountant, in a skimpy suit and metal-rimmed glasses that I’d never seen on her before, with her hair in a ponytail. A real cliché, borderline grotesque. As I thanked Vanessa, my voice stuck in my throat. I closed my door behind Audrey. She took her glasses off with a suggestive look, her lips in a slight pout. I immediately knew what she intended. I swallowed hard and felt a wave of fright pass through my body. I knew her enough to know that nothing would stop her.
    That day the conference table became a piece of furniture that I would never see in the same way again. I was scared stiff that someone would find us. She was crazy, but I loved it.
    When Audrey left me four months later, my life stopped at once. Without the slightest suspicion beforehand, one evening I took a little envelope out of the mailbox. Inside was one word, just one, in her very recognizable handwriting: Good-bye. I stood rooted to the spot in the hall of my apartment building, in front of the mailbox. My blood froze in my veins. My head was throbbing. I was nearly sick. I collapsed into the old wooden elevator, which discharged me at my floor, where I entered my apartment in a state of shock. Everything was swaying around me. I fell onto the sofa and sobbed. After a long while, I sat up and told myself it was impossible, quite simply impossible. It must be a practical joke or something. I grabbed my phone and tried to call her. I listened to her voice mail a hundred times and, each time, her voice seemed a little more neutral, more distant, colder. I gave up when her machine reached saturation point and stopped taking messages.
    Slowly, a distant but familiar feeling emerged from deep inside me, gradually rising to the surface. It was natural, the feeling said, quite natural that I should be left. That was the way it was. You don’t fight your destiny, Alan.
    It was at that moment that I realized my death was self-evident. It wasn’t an impulse. I wouldn’t have jumped under a train. No, it was just something obvious that imposed itself on me. I was going to pass to the other side, and everything would be fine. It was up to me to choose the place, the time; there was no hurry. It wasn’t a morbid, masochistic desire. Not at all. And it wasn’t just a desire to put an end to my suffering, however great that was. No, the