Hysteric

by Nelly Arcan

  AT LAïKA A few months ago, Freddy showed me how badly I’d been forsaken when he kissed my hand after I offered my lips. To cover my shame, he blamed his mistake on alcohol. Inadvertently he spoke the words that should never be said around a thirty-year-old woman for fear of discouraging her from ever trying to seduce a man: he said he was flattered. We’d been friends for a long time and I’d talked to him about Nadine, I couldn’t believe he didn’t know her, everyone knew Nadine, it was the law of averages. I told every single story about her from the very beginning so he could get to know her. I told him everything so he would know that no man could resist her, even men who’d been warned in advance, besides, I told him, just hearing about her was enough to make a good dog break his leash. I invented extraordinary circumstances so he would take me seriously and understand the breadth of her power, but despite it all, he didn’t bite.

  That night at Laïka Nadine put in an appearance, proving I was right when I said she was omnipresent in the minds of men, and I pointed her out to Freddy. To my surprise he found her common, her frame reminded him of East German swimmers, when she smiled she showed her gums and that distressed him, they reminded him of the horse he fell off as a child. He’d almost become a quadriplegic and for months he had to use a wheelchair; for him, Nadine’s smile foreshadowed disaster. Beneath her black pants, he said, her legs showed a suspicious curvature as if she had no knees; her self-confidence, a bit forced and overstated, probably concealed bow legs.

  Freddy didn’t like dominating women. He didn’t care for signs of virility in women, for him it was a sexual imperative, he could only get a hard-on from protecting a weaker being. How could a man prefer that woman to you, he kept wondering. The question might have reassured me if Nadine hadn’t been surrounded by three men, and if those men weren’t fighting over her by talking loud and raising their voices to drown out their rivals. Nadine smiled too much at Laïka and I thought she was smiling against me, she was showily tossing her head back to project her laughter over everybody’s head the way she’d done with us one night at Bily Kun, as if she spent her life laughing, showing her teeth to impress the enemy the way animals mark their territory with piss, laughing over the heads of other women who knew her from the stories they’d heard from their boyfriends, the stories I heard too about what she was willing to do in bed, the way she took cocks in her mouth all the way to the root, her way of opening her throat and overcoming the gag reflex, her way of wailing with every caress. She wailed like she laughed, the way she did everything, knowing she was better than everyone else. At Laïka, Nadine’s laugh reminded me that I never laughed, often you complained about that.

  EVENTS INVOLVING HER contributed to my ruin. The first one happened in La Fontaine Park. Three times, three Wednesdays in a row, you and I saw her crossing the park. I spotted her first and the sight stuck with me for days, her being in the park could only mean she’d come back into your life. Both of us stood by your bedroom window three times, watching her cross the park and wondering what she was doing so far from her place in the middle of the week. The only reason was that she wanted to bump into you or be seen by you, Nadine knew very well where you lived, she probably wanted you to notice her without having to knock on your door. We saw her from a distance but she was unmistakable with that incomparable haircut she was famous for, short on one side and longer on the other. She was wearing an electric-blue Orion jacket covered with silvery stars that one of her old boyfriends had given her, the jacket identified her because there were only a dozen of them in Montreal, one for each DJ in the group. She crossed the park at an extraordinarily slow pace, as if coming to a full stop with each step and counting to ten and all three times I thought she wanted to increase her chances of being seen. Her walk made me think of a mountain range, she passed before us with the excruciating slowness of distant landscapes seen from a car window. She would look up at the sky as if to watch formations of birds flying south, her hands in her pockets, or she’d light a cigarette and take a few drags on it, sitting in the grass. Sometimes she would stop and retrace her steps, disappearing only to reappear ten minutes later, and continue her way along the other side of the park, then disappear again, this time for good.

  Knowing Nadine was so close to your apartment tormented me; you’d be flattered to finally have her buzzing around after she dropped you. Watching her, you had the same satisfied look as when you read your stories in Le Journal. You tried to reassure me, you said over and over that you’d never give her what she desired, you wouldn’t go into the park and ask her what she was doing there and what she wanted from you.

  The third time, as we watched her idly retracing her steps, I suddenly got up and walked out of your apartment. You tried to hold me back, you told me that being aggressive would only excite her and when you saw I wasn’t paying attention to you, you said I’d look hysteric. When I came near her, I froze and hid behind a tree to think. Leaving the house and rushing out toward her meant I’d lost the war, it meant my fate was being played out and it was one of failure and usurpation. People looked at me strangely, their attention reflected my madness but in my fugue state I wasn’t able to process that. Nadine’s back was turned and she was smoking a cigarette, facing Sherbrooke Street, then she sat down cross-legged. I stayed behind the tree looking at her back with that blue Orion jacket covered in silvery stars as if she were a target I had to reach, I didn’t know what I should do or say to her. I wished I’d had the courage to use physical force and throw myself on her and strangle her without a word of explanation but I was never good at killing anyone but myself. Then she threw her cigarette away, got up, and walked briskly in my direction. I had to spring from my hiding place like a jack-in-the-box. It wasn’t her. The woman backed away, her eyes wide with surprise at the sudden appearance of a crazy woman, she didn’t look like Nadine at all, at least not from up close, though she did have Nadine’s dark profile and that singular haircut, along with the Orion jacket that was a mystery for us. My eyes couldn’t quite surrender my first vision of Nadine; seeing my look, the woman frowned, she must have been waiting for me to say something. I asked her for a cigarette. When I went back to your place, I saw you watching from your window. You’d witnessed the whole scene, we had realized the woman wasn’t Nadine at the same time, I was relieved and started laughing, but you called me hysteric.

  The second event happened on the phone. You got all kinds of phone calls on your cell, at first you always answered them, then at one point, you started looking at your call display and filtering them. Sometimes you didn’t know whether to answer or not, you’d put the phone down on your desk then pick it up and put it back down again. I was convinced that Nadine was trying to weasel her way back into your life, and decided she would do it by phone. I noted every unknown phone number on your call display every day for almost a month. I’d write them down while you were taking a shower in the morning, and in the afternoon, when you’d go to write in some café, using my phone I’d call every number that had called you and ask to speak to Nadine.

  Among the people who answered, there were men, but most were women; I imagine some were your freelance colleagues you’d meet at happy hour. I asked May I speak to Nadine? and they answered Sorry, you’ve got the wrong number. I was tempted to ask the woman who answered what her name was but I never did, if she knew me, I wouldn’t want her to recognize me by letting her hear my voice more than necessary. Often I’d get voice mail, once a young voice answered Hello, you’ve reached Isabelle and Isabelle. I never discovered who the two Isabelles were.

  One afternoon it happened. I asked for Nadine and a voice said Yes, who’s calling? I hung up immediately. I stood there, my heart racing, my hand on the phone. Finally, I called back, a few minutes later. Despite the efforts I’d made, I couldn’t believe it was really her. I’d gone through all this trouble not out of the desire for clarity, nor to force you and I to face the reality of your love for Nadine that was expelling me from your life, but to catch myself in
the act, and tell myself the fears I’d need to pull away from you so I could return. I was ambushing myself, playing cowboys and Indians before coming back and sleeping next to you that night. I called back, I didn’t know what I would say, I asked for Nadine Lavallée and she said no, Duhamel. I apologized and hung up. I never found out who Nadine Duhamel was.

  The last event, soon after what happened with your call display, took the form of a message that appeared in your inbox one freezing December morning. I was getting dressed next to your bed, my eyes like yours fastened on your computer screen where your usual cascade of morning e-mail was appearing. You were reading them, coffee in hand, before breakfast. You always had twenty or thirty messages of which two or three might be from friends.

  That morning I immediately recognized Nadine’s address among the others, I knew it was hers even if I had never seen it because her name was written out in full: nadinelavallee@ hotmail.com. Her address was in the middle of the pack, in tenth position or so. At the time, it seemed that the speed with which you opened the messages and immediately closed them to move on to the next one that you barely even read meant you had seen her email too, and it was so distracting you couldn’t concentrate on the ones that came before hers; Nadine was blurring your vision, she surpassed everyone else. Here was the first sign of her existence for over a year. The ice was broken, it meant you might answer her, it meant the next time you bumped into her at Bily Kun or the SAT, or somewhere else, you could say hi to each other and talk a little since this email had ended your cold war.

  Seeing her name on your screen I froze, my pants halfway up my legs, my arms hanging slack along my sides. I felt both fat and unsubstantial with my slack arms and pants halfway on as Nadine burst forward through the cold December morning, and though I’d been expecting it, I lost all sense of myself. Outside, a cold gust of wind rattled the window, the strength of the world intruding to tear us apart. I stepped toward your screen and stood there the way you stand and watch the number of dead from an attack on the evening newscast.

  In her message she told you about some new independent newspaper for which you might want to write, she pointed out your skill with words and your sharp cynicism, both of which were sought by this paper, then she ended with her warm wishes.

  I felt dazed afterward, the growing madness in my mind should not be allowed out, reality should mount an opposition to it and not bend. I spent the afternoon reading and re-reading her message, searching for a reason not to worry.

  IN YOUR COMPUTER you kept nude pictures of her that you wouldn’t show me, you looked at them from time to time, a dozen of them maybe, you’d return to them, you confessed, without telling me what return to meant: return to make sure everything was in order, return to jerk off, return to unearth some detail previously hidden, to smooth out the wrinkles and refresh your memory, return with the journalist’s professionalism, wanting to avoid typos in his work, return in search of stories to tell or to clear your conscience, out of principle, or obsession, to visit her, to stroke her, to tame the beast.

  I looked for those pictures every time you had your back turned but I never had time to find them. Today they seem much too loaded, they must hold the secrets I could never discover that might have made you care, maybe they contain the secret codes of some Kabbalah. When I think of her, I don’t feel beautiful, I invented a prayer that she might find the man of her dreams, that she might travel far from here.

  When I die, I don’t want her around.

  THE DAY YOU left me, you talked about the yearly February depression that so many suffer from in Quebec and that has doctors busy writing prescriptions for antidepressants. You said the lack of sunshine might have turned you away from me, you said that with summer slowly returning in May or June, depending on the year, you would certainly rediscover me, the buds on the trees and the flowers would make you want to get back in touch with me. When you’ve stopped loving someone, you talk about the weather, you say who knows one day, you say next time; the gravity of true farewells is reserved for women you still love.

  That winter, we suffered the trials of everyday life, and they were fatal. We were both made for beginnings, for great ascensions, the escape into something better. To succeed in love these days, you need to know when to leave, you have to keep the suitcase by the door. My faults were clear and visible, I had to hover close and watch over you, fending off the others, for me love meant saving my skin by keeping other women away.

  At the time, I wasn’t working much and spent most of my time at your place. I was a stranger in my own house, I didn’t recognize my furniture and couldn’t remember where I kept my food, the stone walls of my apartment oppressed me though everyone in Montreal would have paid through the nose for an apartment like mine. I was a stranger in your house too. Your cat Oreo scared me because you petted her and called her puss, your computer scared me because it contained the chronicles of your release, hearing your phone scared me because a last-minute invitation might mean you were dumping me. When JP came to spend the night playing video games, you sent me back to my place.

  Having planned my death at age fifteen shielded me from nothing that winter; I was like my grandfather who died at a hundred and one despite his grotesque challenges to the invisible world that wanted to carry him away. In his last moments in the hospital room where children and grandchildren gathered, he straightened up, howling, his fingers crooked with rage grasping my father’s arm, eyes on the ceiling. Later my father said that with his last breath he looked as if he’d been exorcised, he said my grandfather might have tricked the whole family by proclaiming the Devil’s word, not God’s.

  Your roommate Martine who didn’t work much either was always there, winter kept us inside and boredom drew us together. Martine blew glass at home and her blown glass tableware was all over the place, there were hundreds of glass Christmas decorations hanging from the ceiling, once she made you a ring that I threw out the window. You spent your whole day in front of the computer writing your articles, either you stayed in your room or fled, laptop in hand, to write in some Plateau café, mostly you’d go to the Eldorado, a few times you went up to Mile End to write at the Olympico. You said that other journalists were writing there too, you told me journalists like to keep an eye on each other, they’d talk but never reveal their ideas. Often the words you wrote for Le Journal were repeated on Radio-Canada without anyone bothering to give the source, they were appropriating your property, but in your world, the fraudulent circulation of information was the rule.

  Your roommate Martine was in the “friends” category, she got a slap on the back when you were in a good mood. Sometimes you would go to a restaurant though you knew I was waiting, imagining you two playing footsies under the table, the thought killed me but you wouldn’t give in to my blackmail. You and Martine both agreed that true friendship requires going out together, otherwise you’d be nothing but roommates. You also agreed that true friendship should be enjoyed without the other’s better half, since according to both of you we were all full-fledged individuals; you were against alienation in love and hated those commuters who copulated to have a family with a designer backyard for their children. To live on the Plateau, physically and spiritually, meant defending the careerist vision, it meant following your priorities that were always yourself.

  Other times you’d go out with Annie, your other dark-haired ex-girlfriend who loved you too passionately and so kept you from loving her back, but whom I distrusted all the same; once she was free from your thrall, you might be tempted by her again. That sort of reversal is common, it’s a real classic. At times I tried to free myself from you so you might hold fast to me but it never worked; maybe because my aunt’s tarot cards had decided to keep silent about my life, my existence moved in the opposite direction from other people.

  Sometimes over that winter, we’d go out together to eat, always on the Plateau. Those few outings were the last moments of happiness I had with you, maybe because you cut yoursel
f loose from your computer screen and looked at me quietly, kissing my hands. Once you even got up and kissed me over the table and when your lips touched mine, people around us went silent and lowered their eyes as if they were in the presence of priests raising the body of Christ above their heads. That the world around us bowed to acknowledge our love made me so happy I paid the bill. I knew you didn’t like public displays of affection, in the five years you’d lived in Quebec, your European reserve had faltered only a few rare times.

  If Nadine hadn’t reappeared one December morning in your inbox, our little family — your roommate, your ex Annie, and I — might have maintained its balance but Nadine was too much. In the past she had conquered you and that gave her weight, she crushed those who tried to live with you. When you talked about Nadine, you had to sit down. When JP said he’d seen her somewhere in town, you would look at the palms of your hands as if realizing she had escaped you.

  I can’t believe you two didn’t love each other in La Fontaine Park framed by your bedroom window. La Fontaine was my favourite park before I met you but now it belongs to you, I can’t go there any more, its grand dimensions remind me too much of yours. It’s a park for couples walking in silence and squirrels accustomed to the sound of cars, and it’s the park for homosexuals and children. In summer, life is good there for everyone whose trade is to stay in shape. I say that because I spent entire summers sunning in the park as I waited to take my clients to the studio I rented on the corner of Sherbrooke and Amherst. I had to leave it and couldn’t even return to get my things after the neighbours snitched on me to the police. To ease their conscience they warned me that they’d ratted me out, I had to act fast, take my high heels and run, they wanted me to go but didn’t want to compromise my future, I was a student and being a student stirs the soul, it brings back the good old days. I always wondered what happened to my collection of Achille Talon comic books and the five hundred dollars hidden under the stovetop, I imagine everything, stove and all, must have been dragged to the dump. When I think of that period in my life, I regret what I said about it in my first book, today my memories are more forgiving.