A Singular Man

by Emmanuel Bove

  I go away, disappointed. The whole while my mother confided in me she was holding me at arm's length. For me it had been very disagreeable. I do not want to involve myself in her personal affairs. My past indifference forbids it, moreover. I think about André. We exchanged perhaps three words. He resembles me physically. I have an older brother's sense of superiority. Oh! I was careful not to let it appear. I believe now that my efforts were to little purpose for there is no doubt about it, André, in my mother's view, is her only son.

  Though I have eaten nothing since morning (fixed mealtimes, what has become of you!), I am neither hungry nor thirsty. I feel a kind of pressure in my temples, something like a pain which is unwilling to declare itself. And when I touch my fingers to them, this sensation disappears. It is a beautiful day. I look at the sun. I am able to maintain my stare for a second, focussing upon a point in its center that is less blinding than the fire it gives off. And this surprises me. The crowd is an unending succession of new faces without there being one that is known to me and without the whole striking me as unfamiliar. Life is an admirable thing, that is what I think. The distant memories whose happiness oppresses me ... it seems to me that I am going to relive them in the future.

  At a sidewalk café I sit down at one of the outermost tables, from a sudden urge to make myself conspicuous. I rub my hands together with extraordinary rapidity, as though this gesture had some immediate utility. I feel strong enough to break something. I am seething. I am ready to explode. I point to a newspaper leaning a little too far out of a pocket.

  "Your newspaper is going to fall, Monsieur."

  I intervene in this wise more and more frequently. I clamp my jaws together. I don't need anybody. I ask nothing from anyone. I simply am. Consequently I have the right to contract my features, to challenge people, to strike my heels against the pavement.

  "Monsieur!"

  A fat man turns around.

  "Beg your pardon. I beg your pardon, you resemble a friend of mine."

  This time I clench my fists. I am trembling in a way that is altogether different from the trembling prompted by fear, by anxiety, by nervousness. I am trembling from strength. I am trembling like a fencing-foil. The future remains dazzling before my eyes. It is a way of being happy. I catch a confused glimpse of a time when all my dreams will be fulfilled, and I am transported with joy.

  The weeding out has begun. No longer shall I preserve, deep within me, an unwarranted tenderness for Madame Mobecourt's sister. It is years since I last had a glimpse of her, and yet I went on imagining that we were connected by some secret link. Every time I took a decision I would ask myself what that woman would have recommended. What a strange thing it is, this belief that we inspire a special feeling in someone who knew us as children, this need we have to preserve, against who knows what calamity, an ultimate protection! Those calamities occurred, but to me they never appeared great enough to turn toward that protection. And today, though nothing grave has occurred, I am taking the train to Versailles.

  An old, undistinguished building, ill-situated since it is on a narrow street where the tram hugs the sidewalks and then waits, before proceeding, until the other tram has got through the switch. But in all that has to do with wealth I place no faith in appearances. For all its decrepit look, certain signs tell me that the people inhabiting the building are rich. The wide open doorway lends a ceremonial air to the dark vaulted passage within. The latter opens into a broad courtyard. Half the trellises upon which ivy must have climbed have been torn out. How that was done is something to see. The trellises were torn out cleanly, as they say, with no bits of lath left dangling, and the pieces that remain look like precious fragments. This courtyard is completely empty. No bucket anywhere about, no broom, no crate. I sense that for the inhabitants this emptiness is of value in itself, a luxury, something like the desire, from the entranceway on in, to afford no purchase whatever to malevolence.

  I hide my agitation. It is instinct that commands me to show no emotion. To keep what you possess, you must begin by appearing unafraid of losing it. I climb the wide polished marble stairway. But I suddenly perceive that my self-assurance may proclaim the feeling that the barrier between us has fallen, that the years have brought us closer together, and that my natural character suffices to make up for that which is lacking to me. I have arrived. I do not want to ring. But I am too close to the bell to adjust to the idea of a trip made for nothing. I raise my hand. I bring my finger near the button of white bone right in the center of a circle of brass. I do not ring the bell.

  At seven o'clock I am to meet Lucette, a clerk at Métyl's, by the Etoile metro station. She is keen on these meetings in the midst of a crowd. Each time I wonder whether she is going to turn up. You really have to want to get together in order to peer at every face coming up out of the metro. Is it because Denise hated this sort of rendezvous that I accept them with Lucette? I wait. People swirl around me. This is the shining hour for those who are at loose ends. It is the hour that makes all the others look dull, the hour for which certain people live. I remember a woman who used to sleep during the day, but who would not have missed being up and out at seven o'clock. I remember wanting to imitate her, to organize my life in such a way that it would not start until seven o'clock. Newspapers are being hawked beside me. The buses are full, and their bells ring merrily several times in a row. A constant circle of automobiles moves around the Arc de Triomphe. And here is Lucette. She is only a step or two away but she does not see me. I call to her just as she is about to move off. Oh, she would have come back, but I had a moment of fear. I look her over from head to toe. Not a word until I have done that. She is pretty. Upon her lips she has painted other, thicker ones. I think about all those people who called me a false friend.

  Together we walk down avenue Wagram. I slip behind her to the other side so as to leave her on the left, for she is looking at the movie theaters. Behind her: that's what I said. Having reached the bottom of the sloping part of the avenue, we turn toward porte des Ternes in order to stay with the crowd. That morning I received a registered letter from a dentist concerning work done five years ago. I flew into a temper. How can a reasonable man neglect his debts? Were Denise there, we could have talked of that letter. What can I tell Lucette about it? She would advise me to pay a first installment, or not to answer. But she would not tell me what I desire to hear.

  We stop to read a restaurant menu. Then we continue along. At nine o'clock we go to a movie. At midnight, without much conviction, I try and talk Lucette into staying. I know that she cannot, that her parents are expecting her. She leaves me.

  Now I am alone. I am unable to return to my room. I am looking for an adventure: a woman in the grip of erotic frenzy, having left her place of residence in order to give herself to the first man she sets eyes on. I dream of being that man, I dream that there be no choice, that it truly be because I am the first man she happens upon.

  I walk down avenue Foch, but when I reach porte Dauphine I retreat despite the temptation to keep on. I am afraid of the Bois de Boulogne. Even in the worst moments I remain prudent. Some reassuring professionals accost me. I fend them off politely, giving them to understand that I look upon them as human beings. I must not be the only one to show them such consideration for they express no gratitude at all. When Denise was alive, I so arranged things that I was never in this plight, on my own for a whole evening. But, at present, I am on my own every evening.

  A white light illuminates the Arc de Triomphe. Without knowing how, I end up at the point I started from. To be so without anything to do! To have walked so far just to wind up back at the Etoile metro station! For a few minutes I pretend to be waiting for someone. Then I head off again along avenue Foch. The women must recognize me because, depending on the idea they have of me, they either ignore me or have at me more persistently. I turn and start back. I cannot keep on walking any longer. My shoulders hurt and, as always, I think it's the weight of my overcoat. I have a longing t
o take a bath, to read a newspaper that may have just begun publication. How I would love to have a mother, a sister, a wife waiting for me! They would ask me questions. They would wonder what could have kept me. No more unavowable desires. But nobody is waiting for me and I am incapable of returning to my room. I know I shall return only when it has become very late, once I have realized that the streets are as empty as my room.

  I recross all the spokes of the Etoile. Now I am back standing in front of the grim metro station. The steel grill at the bottom of the stairs is closed. It has something terrifying about it. I walk into a café and lean my elbows on the counter. A man is already there. He may be forty-five. Though he is not heavy, I notice that his abdomen sags a little. On the lapel of his threadbare overcoat are the ribbons corresponding to two military decorations. He fought in the war, he is now a petty official or a clerk. Such is the warmth I feel for this sort of man that I make his acquaintance. How close I feel to him and, at the same time, how far away! The war has been over for twenty years. For twenty years he has been freely moving about in Paris, and yet nothing in his life is not familiar to me. I did not fight in the war, to his mind I am still wet behind the ears, and yet he is not interested in having an edge over me. There is the man I should have been in order to talk to Richard, I should have been the glorious captain wearing the Legion of Honor, the Military Medal and a Military Cross with three palms, who would dine with his general in Paris, who, once discharged, became president of the 153rd's chapter of the Veterans' Association.

  We go on talking. I ask him whether he got up to Verdun. He tells me a few stories. He has seen that I was a soldier. At no time does he question me. Oh, the admirable discretion of those who have been to war! He has himself another brandy. This is the third glass he has drunk while I am there. How I wish I had the right to live this openly! How I wish the influence of the war upon my life were more evident! How I wish my distress, instead of proceeding from such miserable causes, were that of all the men of my generation! It is two o'clock in the morning. As someone who has finished her work, a woman joins us at the counter. She listens to us, talks not about her brother but her father who was killed in 1916. For the first time, my companion has questions to ask. He wants to know where, in what regiment.

  Soon there are only the two of us, she and I, and I abandon my restraint. The seriousness of our conversation had indeed held me back for a few moments. Then I smiled. That was all it took. She understood and asked me to follow her. We walked down rue Brey, we went into an hotel. Never would I have followed a woman but for this combination of circumstances. Going up the stairs, I try to explain to myself what has happened. Now I am about to be ridiculous with my fear of catching a disease. My companion is too prompt to understand my fear for me to have been the only man to experience it in her presence. This discovery of the points that we men have in common gives me an uneasy feeling. Then I realize that behind this woman's total obedience to my desires there lies a certain skill in guiding them toward a kind of love suiting to her. I am touched by this as though by a maternal attention. "Just make yourself comfortable, my little guy. I am going to get myself ready. Do you want me to pull the curtains?" Tomorrow, I think to myself, I shall be back again in the presence of children, of old people. Is there something in my intimate life that makes it worse than that of others?

  "You're afraid I've got something? You can just set your mind at rest."

  "It's hard to," I say, as if my business in life forbade me from putting myself at risk.

  "I'm in good shape, I swear to you."

  She is sincere. I feel she has a sense of professional responsibility. I visualize, in the event she were to infect me, all the trouble they will give her at police headquarters. Police headquarters! And now I visualize the boulevard Saint-Michel—I have forgotten all about the lady-friend of mine who lives there. I want to remain the serious gentleman, apprehensive, who is readying himself to rejoin his family.

  The city is still as brightly lit as after dinner, but the streets are almost deserted. I am in an odd frame of mind. On the one hand I feel a deep disgust with myself for having lain with that woman, and on the other hand I know that I used discretion and that it is materially impossible that I be punished for it. So there is no element of fear in the uneasiness that grips me. Nevertheless, the girl may well have contaminated me simply by shaking hands with me, or by that very chaste kiss with which she had wished to express affection at the start, not knowing the sort of man she was dealing with. Then I find comfort in the thought that, come daylight, in a few hours' time, these fears shall vanish once and for all. Now that it's all over with, how pleased I am not to have given in! But I came very close to it. At a certain moment I had felt ashamed of my precautions. I had thought: "I'm acting like a little old timid soul." I almost clasped her in my arms.

  I have both elbows resting upon the telephone book shelf in the booth. I am talking in a way that aims at pleasing. After that I walk back up into the open air. My adventure with Madame Vallosier strikes me as most mysterious. I can see her only on certain days, at certain hours. I have to seem as though I know where I am going when I pass in front of the concierges' wing. The concierges' wing! I had forgotten about that, too! A few years ago I would have been afraid of a scandal. But today it does not matter what happens.

  I go up to Madame Vallosier's. Gone is the time when a simple rendezvous with a woman was enough to gladden a day. Madame Vallosier lives in an apartment in a group of buildings owned by a cooperative. The garden in the middle of the central courtyard, the wrought-iron gates, the spa-style lamp posts, give this little complex an air of luxuriousness. There is still something of the provincial in me and it allows me to imagine that one of these buildings contains Jules Dechatellux's bachelor's establishment of which I had heard so much. Perhaps I shall bump into him one day. I must confess that it would please me.

  Her apartment looks out on the gardens of the Villa des Ternes. It is comfortable, tastefully furnished, and in it you don't so much sense the regard for money as in the homes in Compiègne. Here spending is done without much forethought.

  Madame Vallosier likes me a whole lot. I felt that she thought me well brought up, that she secretly admired my manners, my sophisticated ease, my familiarity with conventions, which proves that you always have for somebody else those qualities that you suffer from not having. I have won her trust. If this woman were the only person I knew in the world, I might believe that there was no difference between Richard and myself.

  On leaving her, something occurred to me and I was much struck by it. The present is a continual struggle. One cannot foresee how a new friendship will evolve. Newly-made acquaintances may turn into our enemies, whereas those whom we have neglected may love us. Of my old friends I have none left. I suffer from being surrounded by nothing but precarious friendships. Whenever I see the clerk at Métyl's, I am happy, but will she not hate me tomorrow?

  I catch myself thinking longingly of Denise. I imagine our life, our happiness if we were sharing the room in the Hôtel Maillot. Now that she is dead, everything seems so easy to me. Why were we so very concerned with family, with fortune, with self-esteem, when it would have been so simple to love each other in peace and quiet at the Hôtel Maillot? Why? So it is the same ignorance that has always kept me from being happy! Just as I was once incapable of joining the army, so, three years ago, I was not able to live with Denise in a modest room. Life unfolds as if things were outside our control and suddenly, when it is too late, we realize it would have been easy to render it favorable to us.

  I go back to my mother's. It has been freezing weather for the past several days and the apartment, although barely heated, feels warm. It is early, but even so my mother already has her hat on. She does not want a cozy family atmosphere around her. Not one cushion anywhere, not one comfortable armchair. Everything is subordinate to her son's success.

  On my first visit I was received rather ceremoniously and I entered no fa
rther than the dining room. Now I go into the other rooms. I am surprised by the disorder and the dirt. Through an unclosed door I behold André pulling on his clothes while seated on a folding cot whose sheets trail upon the floor. A wooden box serves as his night table, for his newspapers, and for something to put his feet on. Such slovenliness is incomprehensible. Nothing can account for it. It is not the result of carelessness or poverty. Rather it is a kind of defying of the demands of everyday life. Lost in her dream of the future, my mother refuses to see them. She struggled against them for years, and every time she saw them come back as numerous as before. She gave up the fight. Dirt no longer bothers her. She no longer feels the need to get rid of it because she knows that, tomorrow, she will have to begin anew. A far wiser course is to surrender the place to the enemy, accomodate yourself to him so as not to have to think about him anymore.

  We chat in a bedroom that she has arranged for herself, but which is just as dirty as the other rooms, with the one difference that the furniture has been pushed to the farther end and that one corner of a table, where she in the habit of having her coffee, is covered with a napkin. Why is it that all the furniture is rickety, broken, that the upholstery is torn, stained? Nothing is clean, neither the writing paper nor the insides of the drawers, where you would think it had rained. They are full of crumbs, dust, dried mud from I don't know where. The bathroom is in the same condition. Entire clumps of bristles are missing from the toothbrushes. The glass, a piece of it gone from one side, can be filled only halfway. The rod running around the wooden shelf the wash-basin sits upon is dangling at one side. As for the bathtub, it is black. But what is inconceivable is that I feel no aversion for this interior, that foremost among my thoughts is the effect it would produce upon a Dechatellux. Actually, I don't feel all that uncomfortable here. I move around in all this easily enough. It even seems to me that if I had to live here, I would quickly feel at home. The gatekeepers' lodge looms out of the past. Behind it stands the woodcutter's shack. We have the same origins, my mother and I. We had forgotten them, she on her side, I on mine. One winter day our paths cross again. I realize that the life I have led far away from her does not prevent me from being her son.