Not a Clue

by Chloé Delaume

  (1) A female dog. That’s the original meaning, they say so themselves.

  (2) A lewd woman. (3) A malicious, unpleasant, or selfish person, especially a woman. So, you see. That’s Aline exactly. Because not only is she contemptible down to the bone, but with everybody who’s gotten the ax at the office, I can assure you that people who complain about her are the only ones left. Once she was settled in, Aline managed to isolate herself. It’s not for nothing that our bottom line is in free fall. She only cared about her kingdom and about exercising her power. That’s where the problem lies in fact: even if it’s usurped, it’s still power. And for lack of using it for work, since she didn’t know what the hell to do, she used it on other people. Or rather against them. Other people are concrete. Individuals with bodies and affects, relationships and emotions, ideas, goals, and actions. She started cleaning house around Charles. Hell of a spring cleaning. She sent everything flying. She set

  him against everyone, especially his closest collaborators. Classic, right. Except in the end it really hurt. I’m not even talking about the depressions, packages of Valium next to the paper clips, sales reps who could only sleep when they took Rohypnol, before they ended up in the unemployment line, vacant positions immediately filled contrary to common sense and the harmful atmosphere it created in the company, no. I’m talking about Charles himself. He brought it on himself, according to some people. But we felt sorry for him, even now he still makes me feel sorry for him. He’s made a fool of himself, she’s turned him into a complete moron. You should have seen him at trade shows or in business meetings with her. He was proud of his Yorkie, lost all credibility before he even opened his mouth. Every time, he introduced her saying, This is Aline, my girlfriend. Discreet bourgeois charm Aline, my girlfriend. What happened to the word mistress, they think if they make it disappear, if they avoid trotting it out, then the situation isn’t so ugly, so grotesque, more acceptable, that the people opposite them don’t end up visualizing the grayness of his flabby tummy rubbing up against her taut skin. Really. That should help you understand why Aline’s not getting flowers from us. I’ll tell you a secret—I took up a collection this winter when Charles was talking about a coma. For two months we’ve all been sorry she didn’t get flowers for her funeral.

  Notebook 2

  (My Life: A User’s Manual)

  It’s impossible to love my mother, if you, and I, don’t mind my saying so. Love is worse than remembering: it feeds on memories, but you can’t cheat with it. I couldn’t touch my mother. When she’d come near me, the nausea was sharp, sudden, and uncontrollable. I hesitated a moment, a shard of a second, before hiding my disgust. Out of cowardice, I’m pretty sure. My cheek would bristle, the fine hairs like armor, I didn’t want to have to explain, and I certainly didn’t want to apologize for how irrational the feeling was. So I refused, once and for all. Every drama has its compensation. I suffer from being a vacancy, but what can compensate for my right to refuse the vile profusion.

  I never said mom. I couldn’t bring myself to. There are some words like that that are too foreign, words I lost when I was sick. Lost along the way. Unless they’re the ones that deserted me, aware of the fact that their very substance would always be impenetrable, without life experience so many words lack meaning. Hollowed out when they’re still on the shelf, so many words like dead fish and I can’t even feel their roughness or single guiding thread obstruct my nostrils, carcasses of words by the dozen, and I can’t grasp their curing salt, I’m the one who’s still unaware of the tears immobilizing them. Mom isn’t the only one no longer in me. So I know why father you abandoned me. My mother is a piece of information, an additional turn of the screw. That’s all mothers really are in the end. Items to add to the file to prove you exist. My mother, the source and origin, me her heifer make a note that’s right genetic traceability has to be recorded.

  I won’t write about the head-on collision, my eyebrow should have stitches the way I ran full force into the mirror. My mother sees herself in me, and I can read my mother. Rather than amnesia, I would have preferred alexia. I said as much to Dr. Lagarigue that same day: rather than temporary incompatibility, it’s actual conflict. Gabrielle Maupin goes by Gaby and really loves going to the gym, with me, it seems. We were so close it was scary, and I’m not trying in the least to deny that her whole being can be ripped apart by the indifference I’m offering her, by the gaping trench that I’m easily forcing myself to dig out by the shovelful. But who cares about tears and the sincerity of her chirping. Because everything has been said: this woman, in addition to her highly visible tan, yes, this woman, my mother, has an ankle bracelet.

  Round 3

  (6 + 3, Total on the Dice = 9)

  She doesn’t want to go home, not even to stop by, what do you want me to do? I wasn’t waiting for you before I gave her a day pass, she didn’t want one, she’s still refusing now. She’s fragile enough as it is, I don’t want to upset her. I’m not sure shocking her is useful, you really have to be careful. Yes, of course I contacted Marenstein and Pierroli and the behaviorist with the mustache that the neurological institute suggested. They don’t understand it a bit, what can I tell you. Yes, retrograde amnesia. The psychogenic kind. Hang on, please. Mr. Fouillot, you can see I’m on the phone, no, I’m not talking to your mother, no, of course I’m not talking about you behind your back, now please be nice and leave my office, then as soon as I’m done, I’ll come see you, that’s right, exactly. Sorry about that. It’s much more complicated than that, Antoine, a lot more complicated. It’s not even really a false memory. You must be kidding, we’d love that, if it were Korsakoff’s syndrome, at least we’d know what to do. How can I explain it. She doesn’t remember her mother, but she does remember Emma Bovary. No, not the book, the girl. You’re mixing me up, Antoine. The only memories she has come from literary objects, except that she perceives them to be real. No, no way, I can assure you she is not psychotic in the least. That’s the problem. She has a fictional memory. You said it, Antoine, you said it. This is the proof it does exist. No, she’s always very lucid about it, and I know it hurts her. The strangest thing is that according to her loved ones, she isn’t an intellectual, she quotes characters and situations from novels that she remembers very clearly, yet her family and her friends, too, are sure she couldn’t have read the sources. In here she’s always reading, yes. She’s quite pleasant, well, we think she’s pleasant, according to them she’s changed. Radically changed. Certainly passive, rather classic all in all, divorced parents, an absent father, a mother who reads Psychology Today I’m kidding Antoine, I’m kidding, I really liked your interview on fetal anxiety in an urban setting, it was very relevant. Yes, yes, there’s no problem there, she’s highly capable of adapting, her cognitive functions are intact, nothing to mention concerning her short-term memory either, but as far as long-term goes, nothing helps, there’s not even the smallest crumb, fictional recollections the subject has incorporated as real, and she quickly realizes the problem as well. Of course I’ll keep you up-to-date. Don’t hesitate to call me about Mrs. Cassianis’s transfer, of course. And tell her I’ll keep seeing her every Wednesday at the cmp. Are you going to keep her in for long? Lithium stabilizes her nicely, but you know how they are, they always have to stop their treatment, this is the third time for her, one of these days she’ll understand. Okay. You too, Antoine, bye.

  Circular NAC001

  [Not a Clue page 36, line 5]

  My Dear Readers,

  In my role as the omniscient narratrix, I’m taking the liberty of stepping in. Would you please grant me the extreme indulgence of excusing the suddenness of this intrusion, cavalier as it is if nothing else, I hope you will, retrospectively, see its merit. I hesitated for a long time, I can tell you, about appending myself, shyly, yes, but firmly, into this chapter, where I have no objective reason to be. Nonetheless, I thought it was necessary to very briefly explain some of the notions at play here. I could have certainly restricted m
y educational drive to the narrow office occupied by footnotes. Alas, as you are aware an omniscient narrator’s work consists of walking through the vast land of novels under his responsibility as well as rappelling along the many intimate crevices streaking across them, before committing himself to their highly enlightening inscription. Thus it will be easy for you to agree that, ontologically, I must suffer from claustrophobia. Consequently, I’m taking the liberty of submitting to you below a few definitions culled from a specialist publication. Without really making any of the events understandable or coherent, this short insert will at least have the merit of compensating the handful of lost souls who opened this book in the hopes of being caught up in the dizzying whirlwind that worshippers of cultural entertainment call “a story.” Once, according to the current terminology, they’ve at least learned something, I invite these individuals to immediately turn on their TVS. Because in a time when, more than ever, the media allows fiction to permeate reality and situationists to roll on the floor, it would be out of place to chip away anymore at the profitability of their days off. If you hold a ba in biology, psychology, or any other appropriate terminology or if you are rightfully on the verge of losing patience, I warmly recommend that you find something else. Otherwise, everyone’s going to take off, and I have no desire to be left alone with my characters: you have no idea how annoying they are.

  Sincerely,

  The Omniscient Narratrix

  Memory: Cognitive process allowing the preservation and retrieval of past states of consciousness and associated elements, including previously acquired information and impressions recorded in the brain and that continue to influence in the form of habits. It also allows reviviscence of former affective states, working on representations, without our being aware of it.

  Short-term memory: Buffer state in the memory system in which information is stored for treatment by the articulatory loop and the visuospatial sketchpad.

  Articulatory loop: Memory mechanism that stores and treats phonological and verbal information.

  Visuospatial sketchpad: Memory mechanism that stores and treats information in terms of visuospatial imagery.

  Long-term memory: Capacity for storing information beyond the short period of time afforded by short-term memory. Transmission of information to long-term memory occurs through the process of consolidation that begins as soon as the information reaches the short-term memory. Long-term memory is subdivided into declarative and procedural memory.

  Declarative memory: The kind of information, such as facts, events, images, proposals, that is stored and accessible in the form of explicit knowledge recorded in the long-term memory. It is subdivided into episodic memory (stocking and recovery of events or episodes personally experienced; the information is stored in long-term memory in a specific temporo-spatial context) and semantic memory (stocking of generally acquired knowledge; reference memory is generally spared in cases of total amnesia).

  Procedural memory: Acquisition of perceptual, motor, and intellectual skills or facilitation techniques for the execution of a variety of mental operations.

  Amnesia defines a total or partial loss of memory, either recent or distant, along with the ability to complete new learning.

  Psychogenic amnesia consists of sudden onset retrograde amnesia, often due to an emotional shock, and that may be reversible within a few days, as in fugue states or cases of memory loss due to specific situations (crimes, e.g.). Nonetheless, it can remain ongoing, as in cases of pseudodementia. The characteristics distinguishing it from organic amnesia are the speed and circumstances of its onset, the loss of personal identity (rare in cases of organic amnesia, except when advanced dementia is involved), the normally preserved ability to complete new learning, and, often, psychiatric antecedents.

  Retrograde amnesia consists of a memory disorder involving the events preceding a trauma or the beginning of an illness. It generally concerns the minutes or hours preceding the accident. Normally, islands of memory are discernible during this period, which can last several years, although more recent events in relation to the onset of cerebral damage are more susceptible to being forgotten than facts in more distant memory.