He coughs a little. “Don’t hesitate to call if there’s anything at all I can do,” he says, putting his hand in his coat pocket to get his phone out, so we can exchange numbers he explains, and for a second I think he’s going about it in a fairly strange way.
“Did you just take my picture?” I ask. “Is that what you just did, Patrick?”
He frowns, blushes. “Oh, of course not, Michèle. Of course not.”
“I think you did, Patrick. Is that for Facebook or just for yourself?”
He denies it, shakes his head back and forth, and finally, as I am about to shut the door in his face in bitter disappointment, he taps “Photos” to show me the most recent shots and I recognize that it’s not me, or rather it’s me but I’m not half naked on my doorstep. I’m curled up on the bench in the hospital, surprised at the first glimmers of dawn coming in to bathe me in a pale communion light.
Once my surprise has passed, I can’t help laughing and making a remark about how stupid I look when I’m asleep.
“You certainly do not, you’re very beautiful,” he tells me.
It’s really very cold, dressed as I am. Every inch of flesh has bristled, every last pubic hair standing on end. I’m still buzzing from the incredibly touching tone of voice he used to make that declaration. I’m speechless.
I want to thank him for the smooth pleasure he gave me, but I don’t because I don’t want to encourage any more advances. “We’ll talk about all this another time, Patrick. I’m freezing to death.” He smiles, gives me a little wave. I close the door. I throw the bolt.
Through the peephole, I watch him go back to his car. And all of a sudden I realize that when you weigh the pros and cons of beginning a relationship, you’re taking one step into old age—even two steps.
I wake up in midafternoon. I go see her—I can make out only what’s visible through the masks, the tubes, and the wires—but there’s nothing to see. She isn’t moving an eyelash. I hold her hand for a moment, but I don’t feel her presence. To put it another way, I can’t feel her here. We didn’t get along very well any longer. Our relationship took a turn for the worse after Richard and I separated because I had ruled out the idea of her moving into the house with me, a situation she had ardently hoped for, in order to lean on me as abundantly as I had been able to lean on her during those dark years. But though I could go a month or more without seeing her, I knew she was there. Now I don’t know exactly where she is.
That fear of being unmasked, that we might be recognized and forced to face all those deaths, all that injustice, all that insanity. Thirty years later that fear is still just as tenacious, just as penetrating. Irène wound up thinking that time had carried us beyond the danger, but she could never convince me of that. Like a grown child who continues to suck her thumb, I kept the habit of being more or less on the lookout—more less than more, I guess, since I did manage to get raped like anyone else.
When I met Richard, I was on the verge of going insane. Not a week went by when we weren’t assaulted in one manner or another—shoved, shaken, slapped, humiliated. I spent hours crying in my room. I even had to leave college, where I was assaulted, bullied, harassed even more than outside. Of course, they all had a brother or a sister who was taken by my father’s murderous spree, or one of their loved ones had perished or been devastated. I lived in perpetual anguish and I cursed him every day, every second of every day for pulling us along with him in his downfall. Some people let it go at conking me over the head with a book as they passed by.
I would have killed him myself if I could have. He had always been cold and distant with me, I wouldn’t have missed him much. Irène jumped out of her skin when I said this sort of thing and she even punished me for it once in a while. Those words were blasphemy for her and, being as it took her a while to lose faith, there was plenty of it left at the beginning, enough to show me the lines I absolutely must not cross.
I was not allowed to want my father to die, and even less allowed to say I was ready to take care of that by my own hand. That was the devil expressing himself through me, and it earned me a shower of slaps, which I nimbly protected against by folding my arms in front of my face and remaining somewhat stoical. I couldn’t understand why she went on defending him when we were enduring sheer torture because of him. I had a boyfriend and I was in love with him, the first boy I had ever really slept with, the first who meant something to me. I was sixteen and he spit in my face. That was one of the only things that ever really hurt me in life. Not only did he humiliate me in front of everyone else, he killed me socially. What pity could I have felt back then for the man who caused all the pain inflicted on my mother and me?
I wouldn’t meet Richard for another six long years. Enough time to grow calloused and enough for Irène to realize that too much religion, too much moralizing had us headed straight for disaster, and that she was rather an attractive woman, if only she would make an effort, work on her appearance. She did so, with great enthusiasm, and had a few considerable successes, though unfortunately none of them lasted. Six years of chaos, wandering lost, running scared, and thinking hard. The only memory I have of that period is of a long eclipse, a world without light where I thought we would remain forever. Then one day a man is standing there, picks up the steak someone threw at my face, and sticks it right on the kisser of the guy who’d thrown it, even trying to shove it down his throat, and that man was Richard, and three months later he married me.
My father was in prison and he was going to stay there. It took me a while before I realized that this was a good thing. I had time to lead an entire life, completely new, fully renovated, while he rotted away in his cell. I’m only becoming aware of this now, but it’s not enough for me to shed a tear.
I let go of Irène’s hand, which sent me no signal and which my hand did not warm. Her heart is beating, though. I also remember that we were a tough team during those years, and I don’t want to lose her. I knew what she was doing. I knew where the money was coming from, though she wouldn’t talk about it and made up some idiotic story or another, which I accepted in the end, because it was easier.
The days are short, I leave before evening. I’m overcome by a strange sense of solitude. I stop by her apartment on the way, thinking of something else.
I open the door, and there’s Ralf standing there. And so that problem comes up right away.
I meet Anna and we discuss the idea of throwing a party for the twenty-fifth anniversary of AV Productions, the downside of which is that it would be expensive and would net us no immediate benefit. But not having one could be seen as an admission of financial strain or a sign of rebellious or crabby personalities, and none of that is good.
I’ve always really admired Anna’s total commitment to the company we founded—in that maternity ward where the walls trembled from my screaming—sixty percent for her and forty for me. She’s the executive president. She’s the one who works late, evenings, Saturdays, and sometimes even Sundays. Only takes short vacations. Talks to the bankers. I’ve always admired her for that.
I advise her to throw the party. Just because she deserves it, because she should be proud of herself. The number of production companies that have closed down in the last few years is staggering, but AV Productions is still here.
“You never know,” she says, “the wind might turn. It could turn just like that, in one day.”
Anna had another miscarriage in 2001, in late August, and though her schedule couldn’t explain everything, most everyone agreed that it played a big role. In fact, Robert felt that she had sacrificed their child to her goddamn production company, as he called it then and has kept calling it ever since. Your goddamn production company. You want to talk about your goddamn production company? Don’t talk to me about your goddamn production company, okay? Still at that goddamn company, huh? Not only is it distance that saves their marriage—the distance they maintain between one another, Robert always on the road, at the wheel of his oversize Merce
des, hardly ever at home more than two weeks in a row—but also and especially Anna’s complete lack of interest in anything that isn’t AV Productions. She has men at her feet but it doesn’t interest her, sex doesn’t interest her. Not that she’ll turn it down when the moment is right, when she’s got nothing better to do and Robert is coming out of the shower and he’s well scrubbed. But expending precious energy just to wind up in a bed under some sweaty, hairy, out-of-breath man would be asking too much of her. That’s just the way she is, and she’s no more interested in women. We tried it out once, during a vacation at the seaside, but we couldn’t manage to stay focused and serious long enough.
It’s past one in the morning when we leave her office, and the cold night once again hits me while we’re striding across the parking lot. I stop. I think I’m going to cry, but I don’t. I bite my lip. Anna holds me in her arms. Losing her without losing her is even harder than really losing her. Anna understands that very well. It’s like I’ve stopped breathing. “Yeah, of course,” she says, running her hand over my back.
I wind up at her place. In the fridge, we find salmon roe and blinis and it feels good to eat a little. The glass of white wine feels good, too. We speak loudly. We have another glass, we laugh.
Robert appears in the doorway, in Armani boxers, face all wrinkled with sleep, shoulders slumped.
He sighs. “Girls, what the hell are you doing? You know what time it is? You decided to go wild? Wow!”
We wait for him to turn and go back to his bedroom before we react. “I don’t know what it is with him lately,” she says. “He’s just so unpleasant all the time.” I shrug. It’s high time I ended that stupid affair. Sometimes I wonder if it’s not his very stupidity that attracted me. I know it isn’t going to be easy, but I’m ready and I promise myself, this very evening, in a burst of new energy and a crushing need to be honest with Anna, considering that my mother’s life is hanging by a thread, et cetera, that at the very first opportunity I will twist the knife in the wound by telling Robert that I’ve decided to discontinue our romantic interludes.
The opportunity presents itself right away. When I open my eyes in the morning, the curtains are still drawn but there is daylight. I am not at home. And that’s not Marty crawling between the warm sheets and padding all over me. It’s Robert’s brazen hand moving up between my legs like he owns them.
I jump aside, clutching the sheet. “What the hell are you doing?” I cry out.
“What? What do you think I’m doing?”
“Where is Anna?”
“It’s fine, she’s gone.”
He’s naked. I’m wearing underwear, nervous, on edge.
“What is it?” he asks. “What’s the matter?”
“We’ve never done this here, Robert. This is her home.”
“It’s also my home.”
“Yeah, whatever. Look, I can’t do this anymore. This is getting ridiculous. We have to stop. You know, Robert, I can feel things. I never spoke to you about it—of course, when did we ever talk about anything? But I have kind of a gift and I just know we have to stop doing this. I think we would grow from it.”
“You think we would grow from it?”
“I’m not blaming you. You were a great partner and we’ll still be friends. But it was getting to be too much to bear, wasn’t it? You know very well, you can’t say you don’t.”
“It was too much for you? It wasn’t for me, not at all.”
I have had time to jump into my skirt. I snap the curtains back.
“Your breasts have gotten bigger,” he says.
“No, I don’t think so. Not that I’m aware of.”
“No question about it.”
I slip my sweater on. I look around for my shoes.
“All right,” he says with a sigh, “tell me the desire is gone and that’ll be the end of it.”
“It’s not as simple as that, Robert. But all right, I’m telling you, my desire for this situation, for these lies, is gone.”
“You’re not answering the question I’m asking.”
“Sorry. I no longer want to have sexual relations with you. Was that the question?”
“This is terribly sudden, Michèle. Give me a little time to get used to the idea.”
“No, no way. That’s not going to happen.”
I put on my shoes, button my coat, grab my bag.
“It’s like smoking, Robert. If you don’t quit all at once, you’ll never get anywhere. We’re old friends. It’ll be fine.”
I give him a friendly wave on my way out. I tie a scarf over my head, turn up the collar of my coat, and rush through the bright, icy air of midmorning toward a quiet bar where Anna and I sometimes meet. The bathrooms are perfect—low light, Brian Eno music, perfume (Petite Chérie or Sous le Figuier or something), potted plants, self-cleaning toilet seats, variable-speed water nozzles replacing the toilet paper, a blast of warm air if you want it. Whatever, I needed to fix my appearance, brush my hair. It was a close call, though. I don’t know how, by some miracle, I managed to pull it off. I really thought I might have to give in to him one last time, under the circumstances and considering our history, but fortunately the worst can sometimes be avoided. As men approach fifty, they get slower, grow stingingly hesitant, uncertain, even come completely unraveled. I take a careful look at my breasts in the mirror. Facing forward. Profile.
I go to the office and kiss Anna, tell her she was wrong to let me sleep—and also to have left me alone with Robert, I know it’s silly, but you know very well there’s this slightly uptight girl inside me and even though that girl knows that nothing could ever happen, I can’t help it, even after all these years, I don’t want to wake up alone in my best friend’s apartment with her husband sleeping in the next room. I know, but I would rather avoid it. I know, I’m an old fuddy-duddy. No, really, it really bothers me. Anyway, whatever. I slept like a rock.
She listens to me, bemused, then tells me that Édouard-baby’s father is in prison somewhere in Thailand for narcotics trafficking. “Vincent is not in debt,” she says. “If I understood correctly, this guy needs money for a lawyer. Vincent is sending him some.”
“You mean you’re sending him some.”
“But now it’s over. I’ve drawn the line. Josie is pushing it, isn’t she? Vincent has got some knack for picking girlfriends.”
She hasn’t, of course, judged a single one to be worthy of him, but I admit that with Josie he has been particularly clever, particularly sensible.
From my office, I call Richard.
“Yes,” he says, “I know about it, actually. This drug thing is a total farce. That guy was just in the way, that’s all there is to it.”
“Well, thanks again, Richard! Thanks for going to all that trouble to keep me informed.”
“What? Hang on. It seems to me I don’t have any obligation to report back to you on my conversations with Vincent. So just cool it, okay?”
“You’re lucky I’m not standing in front of you.”
“I could come over. I can be there in ten minutes.”
“Christ, how can you be so vulgar? Don’t you have anything more elegant to say? Considering my only crime is asking to be kept up to date on what is going on in this family. Especially where it concerns Vincent. Well, thanks for that reaction, Richard. Thanks for that reaction. But save a little of your sweetness for your new girlfriend, don’t dump it all on me.”
This was the general tone of our conversations a few years ago, almost every day, before we both threw in the towel. It’s a bad memory. That’s the period when our first illusions got dashed, our first sour fruits tasted, our first renouncements declared. We were barely forty.
I hang up. I’ve learned to cut it short—nothing is worse than a conversation allowed to degenerate, getting nastier and nastier, and from which there is nothing to be gained. It’s better to leave a clean, fresh wound. I’ll call back later when the tension has come down. We’ll cover the same ground with cooler heads.
I have a right to act like this with him. I have even more of a right now that there’s this girl between us and she is breaking all the rules we set for one another to live in harmony following our separation, this Hélène. It’s like he’s throwing her right in my face.
I don’t know anyone who likes to get hung up on. I let an hour go by, ignoring his messages, getting my notes together, making a few work calls, then I call him back. “Richard, I don’t want to argue with you. Let’s have this conversation again, starting off on the right foot. Please. Let’s do it for Vincent. Let’s try not to think about ourselves, all right?”
He answers with an eloquent silence.
“What are you doing?” I ask him.
“Who, me? Oh, nothing. You mean right this second? Nothing special.”
“So I’m not disturbing you?”
“Not at all. I’m taking a bath. What’s going on with Irène? I went by to see her. She scared the shit out of me, you know?”
“Sure. No, there’s no news. She’s old, after all. She’s old inside. She’s used up her energy. But it’s frightening to see her like that, you’re right. Those were your flowers. I figured as much. I changed the water in the vase.”
“And are you all right?”
“Yes and no. I don’t know how to express what I’m feeling, I’m still in shock, I’m taking Ativan. I’m sorry for hanging up before. You won’t believe me, but I’m shaking like I’m freezing cold.”
“Don’t apologize. I know what you’re going through.”
“I know you know, Richard. And it’s comforting to me that someone knows. It makes me feel not quite so alone. In any case, I’m glad you know about this thing with Vincent. At least that’s a load off my mind and I can sleep well at night, knowing that you have an eye on this situation, just as much as I would have, if not better.”
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