When Jonathan Died

by Tony Duvert

  Secondly, she wasn’t bad. She couldn’t see the importance of anything; her kindnesses and her cruelties both came from this same incapacity to see anything but herself, just herself at that precise moment. She was one of these people who mur­der without wanting to kill, who save a life without knowing. Short-sighted, with an enormous navel.

  And finally, she felt that she had over her child an absolute right, which she might enjoy according to her whims, and which authorised all the contradictions. Serge served her as a reserve human being when there was no one else left. He was a doll on whom she could experiment with those activities she would try again later on less lowly victims. A partner for rehearsal, for stage design and research. Whence the incoher­ence in her behaviour towards him: it depended on the play.

  But it was clear that in all these theatres, Jonathan himself was the enemy and the danger. Barbara probably didn’t think particularly unfavourably of him; his problem, his clear quali­fication as unconditional enemy, was simply that Serge pre­ferred him to her.

  This was the problem now. If the man and the child were to meet, Barbara would feel injured; and as Simon definitely seemed too spineless to line up with the two boys, their whole future seemed to be in the hands, or in the claws, of this woman. So they would need to deceive her. The question was how?

  ‘You can come when she’s not there!’ Serge suggested. ‘How would I know?’

  ‘I’ll tell you!’

  ‘And if she comes back when I’m at your house?’

  ‘Well, we’ll invent something.’

  ‘Okay. But it wouldn’t work twice. She’s got it in for me, and she knows why I’d come. She knows well enough.’

  ‘So what can we do?’

  This wasn’t a conclusion. It only meant that they couldn’t plan ahead. It would be a guerilla war, relying on expedients and improvisations.

  This situation reminded Jonathan miserably of an adultery and its shabby conspiracies. How to meet and to love without the knowledge of a jealous husband. Except that here the husband was a mother, because the wife was a little boy.

  ‘We’ll have to decide, just the same,’ Serge insisted.

  But a wife over whom the husband had unlimited rights, such as no longer exist in real cuckoldry. The enjoyment of such powers by this nameless marriage, maternity, explained Jonathan’s reply to another question of Serge’s:

  ‘But what could she do to you?’

  ‘She could call the cops,’ said Jonathan. ‘She’s not bad, you know. No, I really mean it. But we’re not entitled to anything, that’s all. And it’s not her that’s going to give it to us.’

  ‘I could kill her. Only that…’

  Jonathan lowered his eyes. He was thinking rather of killing himself. But the child was right. Jonathan’s death, that too would have been a murder: for suicide doesn’t exist. One is always killed by somebody.

  But they needed to get away from this talk of death. Serge’s thought, too energetic, too straightforward, didn’t suit a situ­ation as delicate as their own. Jonathan forced himself to be­come accustomed to uncertainty. He hardly succeeded. Serge imagined things according to his own experience. How to tell him that their amorous encounters, for example, were not what he believed, not what he lived himself, not what he innocently and frivolously insisted upon, in the perfection of his personality as yet intact. How to tell him it was a crime, to be corroborated by commissioning doctors to spread apart his buttocks; and that their pleasures would bring Jonathan ten years in prison, and bring upon Serge a flood of psycho­therapy, torture without instruments.

  Jonathan’s silence on this subject meant their discussions about the future could have no meaning. But never, never could he explain to the freest of men, the purest of boys, that he was a criminal.

  ‘When I grow up, I’m going to do underwater fishing. No, eh, I won’t kill them! I know you don’t like it. We eat them just the same. But no I won’t. Don’t you worry!

  ‘Anyway, you know, we don’t have to eat them any more. I prefer beefburgers, see.

  ‘No, it’s to go under water, You have a gas mask, you know, for oxygen. It’s heavy with the bottles! And d’you know what, they have them when they go to the Himalayas as well. Have you seen pictures? …It would be good if they worked for two people. I wouldn’t mind doing both!

  ‘But you know it’s hard, you have to learn for a really long time. There’s Cyril, he’s ten like me, his father took him. He’s got everything, with flippers and a mask like that. Where you breathe, it’s a thing you put in your mouth, you suck it! I’ve tried it! It makes the air go in you! It was quite strong! His father’s nice. He calls them all dumbos and his brother is Celestin, he’s little, and then there’s a baby, their little sister, actually, that’s Julie! Like our cat, remember. We’ve still got him. But he goes roaming.

  ‘So, it’s in the sea again, with a big octopus.

  ‘You know, you can eat them, octopuses. There are tins, there are really small ones, as big as that. It stings, because of the sauce. They kill them in the eye. Whop!

  ‘That, you don’t know. It’s in the microscope, but it’s bigger. They’re in the water as well, it’s what all the animals eat. Except sharks! I’m going to ask my father for a micro­scope. You see all the tiny things in the sea. They’re pretty.’

  If Serge’s vigour contrasted with his new lightness of appear­ance, he had his periods, or minutes rather, of disembodiedness, during which Jonathan, on the other hand, had to redis­cover all his weight.

  It wasn’t that Jonathan tried so hard at all other times to fade into the background. But he was certain that to show himself, to be who he was, would harm the child. Adults who are proud of it, even the best of them, he thought, did nothing but spread a miasma. Authorised — by love, or the interest that another has in them — to show themselves, to be free, to express themselves, they did no better than display a hideous mish-mash of infirmities, grotesque sincerities, diseased af-fectivity, manic possessiveness and greedy narcissism. The times allowed nothing else in the guise of humanity. It was better to recognise it, and incapable of doing anything about it, simply forbid yourself from entangling people you loved — especially children.

  ‘That’s in the water as well. It’s a little house where someone lives. There’s all the garden with the vegetables. When you go and pick the vegetables, it’s not snails, it’s octopuses inside! You have to wash them really well! The fishes eat spinach. It’s always full of holes, isn’t it. It’s a pity, ‘cos it’s nice. With plenty of onions and then butter. I don’t know if he’s got any butter down there.

  ‘It carries on here. He never gets bored. Wouldn’t you like to live in his house?’

  Serge’s parents didn’t come back. Simon simply sent a tele­gram asking Jonathan to put the child on the Paris train straight away.

  It was the beginning of September, as was proved by the calendar. But Serge and Jonathan had hardly begun their holi­days; the two months flown by so quickly were only an outline, an introduction to a new life — which wouldn’t happen. They had acted towards each other as if nothing would ever separate them, neither men, nor time, nor age.

  It was just one additional mistake. Certain of having warded off the misfortunes of ordinary life, they had forgotten their very own, which the telegram, polite and cheerful, now summed up, like a sentence.

  ‘I hope you had a good time, we did, but now that’s it. Break your hearts if you like, we are resuming our rights;’ this was the only meaning of the friendly message.

  Impossible to disobey. Serge and Jonathan took the train together.

  Jonathan told a lie, perhaps the first tactical lie of his life. He told Simon he had spoken of him to the boss of the gallery: the dealer was. very interested, he trusted the judgment of Jon­athan — who certainly had no illusions about his influence — so, if Simon had anything he could show…

  It was well calculated, for Simon, thrilled, insisted mod­estly that he had nothing, but t
hat soon… But it was a disaster as well, for Jonathan had never said such a thing to Barbara, who didn’ t think of herself as a Sunday painter. The woman wasn’t just annoyed; she realised that Jonathan was flattering Simon, and she guessed why. She mocked, carelessly. Simon didn’t realise what was going on, but Jonathan saw what a mistake he’d made. His first attempt at diplomacy had ended in a fine mess.

  He consoled himself with the thought that in any case there was no pleasing Barbara. He might have been a flatterer of genius and he wouldn’t have got a millimetre further. On the other hand, he could gain Simon for their cause, as long as he didn’t rely on his intelligence. But when you lose a war, alliance with another defeated party doesn’t change the bal­ance of forces.

  The outcome of the holiday Simon and Barbara had taken together without their sprog was the establishment of Bar­bara’s reign — and the flat stank of it. A domination which seemed to suit Simon, the happy husband, but which rendered any alliance with him futile.

  During the evening Jonathan suffered nausea, and occa­sionally almost fainted, listening, looking, seeing Serge there. He felt, in his turn, the desire to murder. The ideal couple under whom the child was to live was beyond reproach. An employer would have loved them, leftists given them their blessing, psychiatrists (apart from a few acid ironies to sug­gest that they really knew what was going on) would have warmed the cockles of their bastards’ hearts at the sight of them. Jonathan drank glass after glass, then left. Serge was watching him, often on his feet, always far from the three of them, and his look was almost like that of the children Jonathan had scandalised in the countryside the year before.

  Jonathan forgot this mess completely, until the moment when he discovered himself seated in the train which would take him home. But what was he doing there? He didn’t want to go home. But he would go. Obviously. Inevitably.

  He remembered that on the journey up, Serge and he had made rough plans to stay in touch. The child would write to Jonathan, who couldn’t reply, because unquestionably, Bar­bara would intercept the mail, and what was worse, would read it and discover things which would confirm her feelings. Serge was going to play the spy, note the times of his parents’ absence and presence, and all the other practical details; make a note of his hours at school (he was going to enter the sixth year, at a lycee a good distance from his home); let Jonathan know of every opportunity to meet. For his part, Jonathan would move to Paris, and make sure he had a telephone. And try and live somewhere between Serge’s school and his home.

  The best, perhaps, would be to cut off all relations with the boy’s parents (so much the worse for Jonathan’s gallery…). Serge would explain his absences by saying he was going to friends; he was free, very free, that wouldn’t bother anyone, especially if Jonathan’s disappearance put an end to all suspi­cion. Serge, too, knew how to show he’d forgotten the young painter, that boring jerk.

  These plans had a major problem. If Jonathan broke with Serge’s parents, there would no longer be any question of holidays together, of life together, no question of living in that other world, the vast world they had discovered. In fact, a break with Simon and Barbara would be premature; the intensity of the woman’s suspicions, jealousies and hatreds would have to be closely assessed, as well as the possible value of the husband as a future accomplice. Their profound indifference towards Serge — who didn’t begin to interest them until he was far away — was another precious asset.

  No, they had to be stroked and sung to sleep, better to be there than otherwise. In any case, until the moment one knew what could be expected from them, things would have to be taken from them — without their knowing.

  As for Jonathan’s moving house, it was impossible in the immediate future, for lack of money. He’d had to talk about that on the train with Serge, whose ideas relied too much on the supposed riches and freedom of the young painter. At the absolute minimum, and then with no more than a livable room in Paris, Jonathan would have to wait until the begin­ning of the following year before he abandoned his little house. And he forgot, in his calculations, the taxes which he’d have to pay on last year’s tremendous income, now that he’d practically nothing left.

  Serge didn’t seem to find these three months of patience long. He made a list of the school holidays that fell within the period; he said he would ask his father if he could go to Jonathan’s on each occasion. He was sure to manage it — because, after all, he’d already succeeded in doing so that summer.

  Jonathan himself didn’t really think he could. The child underestimated the situation, and overestimated at the same time his father’s power and his own. Jonathan was sure Serge would soon have to change his tune; but he was careful not to say so.

  In any case, they had their plans. Now, they were sepa­rated. The real war had begun — the war Jonathan knew deep inside was already lost, but which the child felt sure of winning. Jonathan remembered that he too, twenty years before, had had such blind and burning energy; and that too had been in vain. You could fight against people, ordinary people, but not against personalities, against roles, for they have a whole society behind them. And you don’t learn this quickly or willingly. Jonathan knew, Serge didn’t; because of this child, still whole, Jonathan was willing to forget his knowledge; but he felt too strongly, at the same time, that this didn’t change things at all.

  First letters from Serge were negative. Barbara wasn’t work­ing any longer, she was there all the time, and her alternative friends with her. Serge, cheerful, drew them with flies flying about them, and all with beards, even his mother.

  But his line, the crosshatching in crayon, had almost torn through the paper.

  Jonathan had never seen the boy’s writing, nor imagined his written expression. Serge seemed to be five or six years younger than when he was drawing or talking. Jonathan understood that the fruits of this means of communication, now out of fashion, taught by nobody, learnt by nobody, used by nobody, would be extremely meagre. Almost like smoke signals.

  To recognise Serge, it was better to take the great papyrus. Slowly, he unrolled it; and he looked at each image until the moment he remembered the words the boy had used in speaking of it. He had every right to be moved, to cry; that life, whatever happened, would never return.

  ‘After that it’s just to see under the water. That’s just the water. Here’s the sand at the bottom. Here there are different fish. These are the flowers under the sea.’

  At the beginning of October a letter from Serge said that his parents — taking advantage, Jonathan concluded, of a quiet period in Jonathan’s work — were going to spend a week in England. Without the boy, as usual. Serge was going to try and get himself sent down to Jonathan. He had spoken to his father, who had been agreeable. It left only Barbara to deal with.

  This too was the first letter to contain expressions of love. Jonathan was thrown into confusion, for the child never said such things, and their extraordinary foolishness wasn’t Serge’s but that of a model he must have copied. When you don’t know how to write, then everything is good. It was just as if the little boy, intending to honour his correspondent, had offered him a Latin quotation. Phrases not understood, nor ever spoken, but which enjoy a good reputation. A present of flowers or chocolates. An effort made, for affection’s sake, with the result that the mawkish words achieved their aim. Serge had wanted — had dared — to tell Jonathan something; where he was, he had only this culture at his disposal. He had conscientiously taken advantage of it. It wasn’t his fault if his means of expression were as meagre as they were; nor that he was as yet unaware of it.

  His parents’ trip was arranged for the following week. Jon­athan would hear. He mustn’t move!

  Simon finished undressing, modestly. Despite Barbara’s habits of nudity, he no longer dared behave more freely. Barbara had told him (and had repeated in conversations with friends) that nothing seemed to her more ugly than a man’s cock when it was soft (it was true that Simon’s was a bit small an
d wrinkled). Whence her regret that she and her husband hadn’t yet found — they were in such a hurry to get one — a flat where they could have separate rooms.

  Simon wore striped cotton pyjamas, and left in the cupboard any more elegant nightclothes he might be given. When he got into bed, he took off the pyjama trousers.

  The flat was badly designed, the work of a half-wit, he used to say. Between their room and Serge’s there was a thin wall, and because of the poor lay-out, they had to put the beds one on each side of this divide. It embarrassed Simon, when he went to bed, to think of Serge six inches away on the other side; then he forgot him.

  Barbara, naked, took her time about coming to bed, talking in a low voice, smoothly and emphatically, like an actress in a scene from married life, whispering to two thousand spec­tators. She took off her make-up sitting down, got up, looked at herself, relaxed, offered herself congratulations.

  During the holidays, she’d put on again the weight she’d lost. The back of her thighs and the lower part of her buttocks seemed pitted by smallpox; the primal scream, the incense, the Zen and her bold opinions on important matters made her forget this cellulite, and she thought of herself as an Amazon.

  Simon had a difficult matter to raise; it concerned Serge. A coward, Simon was nonetheless loyal to the boy; he loved him without cheating too much; secretly he felt himself to be be­neath him, and vaguely impressed by this, he didn’t dare betray him. Serge was just the son he would have wanted; having had him, he discovered he had aimed too high.

  It was the same feeling with Jonathan, this friend to whom he dared say nothing.