It was a late-autumn weekend. A cold rain, nearly icy, poured heavily over the humble, fast-growing town of Joujou City.

Built around a toy factory, the town might seem as though it no longer truly exists. The plant, located in the city center, had closed after the tragic death of its eccentric owner… Henri Toutrec, the man who had roughly sketched out the city’s layout in a single night.

One rather unusual architectural feature remained: the factory still enclosed a chapel adorned with childlike, stylized icons. Before the closure, the factory’s deeply devout administrators would ring the bell tower with fervor to announce mandatory overtime for their loyal and obedient workers. Sometimes satirical, the pealing also heralded the brutal dismissal of union activists—and even secretaries whose perfume was deemed rebellious. Workers from that era still say, even now, that those bells had mighty clappers!

But on that thirteenth of November, the anniversary of the founder’s death, they remained silent. A vague unease had settled over the town. It was a dreary morning when, despite everything, small inconveniences became irritating: the oppressive roar of the boulevards, the maddening drip of leaking faucets, flies seeking winter refuge in kitchens. All these little annoyances seemed to distract from the sharp glances constantly cast at clocks of every kind.

The misty atmosphere hanging over Joujou City became fertile ground for mysteries and existential questioning.

The weather imposed its gloom. But even more than that, so did the mood of those who lived on dead-end streets, for they felt trapped like rats.

The relentless downpour, together with the lingering fog, seemed to discourage the usual wanderers: joggers, contemplative strollers, voyeurs in search of fantasies, and lost tourists. Everyone, that is, except hyperactive children.

The most noticeable absence?… The dog owners, who until just the day before had littered their neighbors’ lawns like disgruntled pastry chefs. Lovely flowerbeds, meticulously maintained and decorated in the kitschiest style imaginable! Bronze Manneken-Pis statues and pink flamingos, granite Venuses, and little tinplate fishermen.

Incredible though it seemed, all those objects looked rather pitiful beside the factory’s oversized promotional resin toys: clowns, teddy bears with waterproof fur, ducks, and flying heroes. Or, more down-to-earth… vicious enemies with toothless grins and oversized feet, painted in mauve and faded daffodil shades.

This strange and somber atmosphere, this naïve ostentation, seemed worthy of the finest psychological thriller.

Truly, it was not the sort of day to let your dog run loose.

Every street in this town bears the name of a dog. Say what you will, it gives each neighborhood a certain canine charm. Imagine curious Bulldog Avenue, broad Labrador Boulevard, or tiny Chihuahua Street. And what of lively Bastard Street, born at the crossroads of Fox Terrier Street and Spaniel Street? Then there is the former “Poodle-on-your-Mat Crescent,” recently renamed Wagging Tail Crescent.

The word “poodle” disappeared from the town’s odonyms. The last of that breed in Joujou City was Arthur. His owner, Henri Toutrec, had him dyed khaki green—as though trying to give a little more gravity and masculinity to the curly coat of his precious yapper. Whenever a neighbor asked why he dyed his poodle, Henri would answer with pedantic solemnity, pulling a scrap of paper from his pocket to read a statement drafted under his direction by a neurotic secretary.

“Little… a! If his name is Arthur, it is in honor of the writer Arthur Miller. ‘Little’… for peer, because his kind lives a dog’s life. The misfits. What do you think?”

And everyone would fall silent, understanding not a word.

Besides, who would have dared contradict him? Was he not the unbeatable mayor of Joujou City—and above all, the founder of the toy factory “The Little Crooks”?

A bit like the famous Howard Hughes, and resembling a sorrowful sunset, Henri suffered from psychological instability and a spectacular decline in character. As proof of his morbid foolishness, in one of his delirious fantasies as a mad millionaire, he had traded Arthur—freshly dyed and groomed—for a few bags of plaster of Paris.

A complex born of repression? Henri Toutrec suffered from a paradoxical and inexplicable shyness for a business leader. Without contradicting himself, he compensated for this flaw in his personality by frequently changing both his appearance and his name.

He always made sure to stay within the law by consulting his perfidious lawyers. The cycle began on June first—a landmark date in his life: the birth of Norma Jean! At this autumnal time of year, he could be recognized by his small pointed beard, round glasses, bowler hat, cane with a pommel, a cat’s-tongue paintbrush tucked behind his ear, and… a diplomat’s briefcase. All this pastiche was meant to evoke both the American politician Henry Kissinger and the painter Toulouse-Lautrec. That is also why he preferred to be called Henri!

His obsession lay mainly in turning his appearance into paired aliases. Thus, in previous years, he had gone by names such as “Elvis Einstein,” “Woody Marx” (for Karl), “Marius Mandela,” “Alexander the Great-Piaf,” “René Trudeau,” “Buffalo Confucius,” “Pablo de Gaulle,” and “Walt Lennon.” The latest and most surprising official alias, with its archaic and androgynous tone, was “Adam Eve.” However, his somewhat frail build and his unexpected reactions to female hormones forced him to abandon that daring identity.

Conceived almost like a totem, in the manner of scout nicknames, each of his identities was carefully shaped. The first word—the given name—represented what he firmly believed himself to be; the second, what he dreamed of becoming. He had once inspired respect among his fellow citizens, before he drifted into these civic indignities. Since then, both at “The Little Crooks” factory and throughout the town, in everyday conversation, he had come to be known as the weathercock with a thousand hats.

As if for a celebration, on the first day of June, a few valiant townspeople would dress up according to the era that suited their mayor’s latest whim. Yet none of them could bring themselves to admit that the company founder worked on the assembly line in a swimsuit three times a week instead of managing the factory from his office in a dark suit and company tie. In his lucid business phases, he had planned to produce toys representing his curious transformations by the thousands.

Every cloud has a silver lining! The entire town eagerly awaited that notable month, curious to discover the boss’s new identity. The day the citizens felt most duped was undoubtedly when he appeared as “Adolph Teresa,” dressed like an SS officer in a pristine white veil trimmed with three blue stripes. Still, that year, they were relieved he had not chosen “Mother Führer.”

On that rainy Saturday, the factory’s closed doors betrayed the final holiday granted to all.

Yet the day before, Henri Toutrec had gone through his usual weekend ritual, which he wished to prolong more and more. He would shut himself inside his home, lie on his bed, Arthur’s fur close beside a photograph of his favorite star. It was a familiar ritual of his final weekends: Henri tried to sip his lukewarm grapefruit juice (cold gave him cramps) and nibbled with little appetite at toast prepared the day before.

At exactly eight o’clock, it was time for television, the Internet, or an old-fashioned screening. Animated films for children… his favorite escape. What he loved most were cartoons featuring ducks. His peculiar habit was to count the violent gags. His tools: a notebook and an abacus, a relic from childhood. His compilations read: 8,100 explosions, 150 broken arms, 310 falls from cliffs, 39 electrocutions, 1,026 hammer blows, 72 decapitations, and only 2 cream pies. Do not imagine that he hated ducks. But every year, with each migration and each flock, one of them would inevitably mock him with its droppings.

Then he would take a lavender bubble bath—without ducks of any kind. Finally, he would wrap himself in an old, slightly torn straitjacket whose sleeves he patiently rolled up. He also wore a pair of floral overalls from a century-old hippie phase, which he boldly kept on. All this, so that he could finally plunge into what he considered the most inventive and entertaining project of his life.

Quickly he would go downstairs, then back upstairs. Then the reverse, and so on. All that physical exertion had one purpose: to haul the last of his plaster bags up to the attic. That strange gymnastics helped advance the work.

He was sculpting, at the center of his luxurious home, a six-meter-tall nude woman. Her pose: that of the Statue of Liberty in contrapposto.

Last weekend, last bag of plaster, last effort. The final stage before applying color. He anticipated the tender sensation of caressing the plaster woman—his Liberty—with brushstrokes. The desire to finish as quickly as possible emboldened him. In his haste, he forgot all the advice he had been given. Desire and obsession drove from his memory the gossip, as well as the suggestions—ranging from the most banal to the most urgent.

It was not only the nudity of his creation that fueled gossip. There was also the white dust, the result of vigorous sanding, which settled throughout his house and startled the neighbors.

The comments on the architectural remodeling of his home, however, annoyed him a little. Everyone agreed that a double opening ten meters high across two floors dangerously compromised the structure of the house. Reinforcing those levels would have been essential.

Only one more bag of plaster was needed to complete the work. With its metal framework, the sculpture had reached the astonishing weight of two thousand and thirty-six kilos. He had even installed a heating system inside it to keep him warm during the harsh winter. The mechanism was activated by the little toe.

Until then, nothing had hindered his remarkable creativity or his indefinable passion. Fanatical obsession with women? No—rather, a twisted love for just one. Henri had made the irrevocable decision to reproduce her. Her!… The one and only!… The liveliest and most deliciously pastel of blondes!… The most American of stars!… Her—Marilyn Monroe! His unscrupulous fidelity rested on nothing more than a simple promise made decades earlier.

Henri Toutrec remembered being eight years old—pious, and remarkably devoted to the Holy Virgin. As an altar boy, he listened absentmindedly to Father Narcisse Tourabalais’s sermon. The priest was enthusiastically paraphrasing the Wedding at Cana. Henri, dreamy like all children his age, imagined himself in a white satin tuxedo, standing on a chair and smiling as he offered an invaluable ring to a very beautiful woman far older than himself. With Jesus’s approval as officiant, he kissed his holy “Love-you.”

Returning halfway to reality, the young altar boy discreetly and shyly raised his eyes toward a statue of the Virgin. Reverent, yet dazzled by the glittering drapery illuminated by sunlight through the magnificent stained-glass windows, he uttered aloud, with naïve sincerity, a bold and catastrophic prayer.

“Oh, beautiful lady, whom I admire both in statues and on the lovely cards I receive when I behave… I would love for you to be mine. But you sleep with the man who hammers nails. Sometimes, when I mess up, they say I’m hard-headed… Don’t I have everything to please you?… Can’t you see that I love you?”

In the church, one could have heard a devil fly. Even Tourabalais had fallen silent.

Then the boy continued, in an authoritative tone, just as firmly:

“What? You won’t answer me!… Fine! If you won’t change husbands, I’ll marry another Mary. Too bad—it will be the first girl I see, and I’ll make a little Jesus with her. I swear it!”

The congregation burst into irrepressible laughter. The priest tried in vain not to snicker.

The laughter, like the incense, rose toward the vault and toward heaven, carrying with it the promise tinged with blackmail. In all the distraction young Henri was capable of, he had spoken that vow aloud. And clearly, Tourabalais, once he had regained his composure, reddened with anger, hoping to contain his jealousy until the Ite missa est.

But after the ceremony—and after the sermonizer’s reprimands—the imaginative yet sincere child was still waiting for an answer from the Holy Virgin enthroned upon the altar. Alone in the sacristy, surrounded by sacred objects and ghostly sins, he was carefully putting away the priest’s liturgical items when his attention was caught by a curious holy book.

At the back of a drawer, on the cover of the manuscript, a charming and radiant Mary seemed to greet him! A miracle of beauty! Yes! Just for him, his Mary was answering him! As Henri had only just begun to read, and being dyslexic, he deciphered the essential information with excruciating slowness. Holding that stitched and revealing missal—his own sacred book—he wandered at random through its words.

“P… L… A… Y… B… O… Y…: Playboy! — M… A… R… I… L… Y… N… M… O… N… R… O… E…: Marilyn Monroe!”

Holding his breath, overwhelmed with emotion, he added: Marilyn is practically a Mary, after all!

Convinced that this was a sign from God, just as some adults claimed such things to be, he fell silent for a moment. This was so he could weigh the consequences of his daydreams and make sure they were not sinful. In his mind, a memorable click occurred: the clergyman should henceforth do penance for possessing that icon-filled volume.

“Father Tourabalais won’t say anything. He already told me I could take all the holy pictures I wanted.”

The child devoured the cover of the men’s magazine with his eyes.

“I would have chosen the sacred statues of Saint Mary Magdalene or Saint Veronica. But to do as the abbot does—wandering the aisles on my ‘Kissing Way,’ kissing the statues of holy women on the mouth—I can’t. I’m too small.”

In the center of the magazine, there was an anomaly for a holy book: a foldout page, which he noticed with great surprise.

Henri punctuated his reflection with another silence, then…

“Oh!… Wicked people wanted to martyr Saint Marilyn! They stole all her clothes. Too bad—I will always remember you as the holy naked one. Do you recognize me? It’s me, your husband,”

he concluded, not imagining that later that very evening it would become his first communion with blessed orgasm. Precocious indeed!

That trick of fate, that innocent interpretation of a simple magazine, marked the beginning of an unshakable fidelity to Marilyn Monroe.

Now an adult, he was busy recreating the star on a scale he believed worthy of the traumatizing promise of his childhood.

Anxious to finish the sculpture, he seemed to dance like Nureyev imitating a butterfly in flight. As swift as lightning, he rushed downstairs once more, hurried back up to the first floor, and then continued into the attic. Down again, up again, down again. Whether climbing or descending, scrambling or stumbling, it made no difference. All these maneuvers served to gauge the proportions of the immense nude, despite the strange, odd, unfamiliar noises coming from the floors and surrounding walls. Creaks he ignored, for he was ready—and so was the plaster.

In the attic, holding the final, ultimate, conclusive mixture in his hands, Henri was about to pour the white compound onto that famous lock of hair on the right side of the statue’s face—the lock that made it seem as though the actress perceived only half of things.

Henri felt the hairstyle lacked volume. To make his Marilyn more enticing, more captivating, he applied the thickening substance gently, yet without hesitation.

Just enough volume… but too many creaks and too much weight! A little more of that… and CRACK!

Then came the sudden collapse. A thunderous crash. The ground floor gave way and sank into the basement. Some walls folded inward onto the completed statue, which toppled and crumbled like a house of cards—with the sculptor beneath it. Made too heavy, the plaster woman, his tormented love, dragged him violently to his death.

A fine, suffocating cloud of gypsum dust slowly dispersed, making it harder for the panicked neighbors to intervene. As they searched the rubble, they discovered the lifeless body of the foolish millionaire in the basement, pinned beneath the statue’s head. Bloody lips beneath dry plaster lips, like the final station of a Kissing Way—a last-minute wedding.

Standing all around the corpse, the flour-covered neighbors silently pondered the future of the factory and the town.