The day the bay window was open, I made her come, though before I’d always quit after three licks. I suddenly felt my blood exposed, long before any tests. That’s it. My blood was stripped bare, exposed, it had always been clothed or covered until then without my being aware of it. It exposes your blood in three months. You’re undressed and then dressed again. Your blood has no more veins. The standard sexuality that was yours until then, you suddenly wonder how you manage. I had to live for three months with this blood stripped bare, exposed, in town, going shopping, I didn’t do my errands anymore the way “an unclothed body must make its way through a nightmare,” I had things delivered. My blood, unmasked, everywhere and all the time (in Europe, the United States, at the market or the seashore, in town, with friends), forever, except in the unlikely event of miraculous transfusions, an infatuation of two weeks, a miraculous disgust, a guy, I dreamed, my blood laid bare around the clock, on public transportation, the way I dressed to please him, when I’m walking in the street, always the target of an arrow constantly aimed at me. My shoes, I’d always chosen bulkier ones, and the jacket I wore everyday. Does it show in my eyes? That you can’t penetrate yourself. You find some expedient. There are always solutions. Living by your wits. You resort to alternatives. Yes. Wanting. For me, it was a question of expedients. And that has its appeal. Instead of wealth, longer lasting. Finding an alternative. I wanted to. Female homosexuality involves a lot of strains. I was lucky, she was a doctor, she prescribed me massages, respiratory rehabilitation, spinal physical therapy. My spine took a hit. During the forty-eight hours of anxiety (running around, telephone calls, letters, taxi) I skirted an asthma attack. Living on expedients is nice too, trying to catch your breath elsewhere, it’s over. I still could, that’s why I’m sad. “You’ve got to be two” – not her. There’s something about me she can’t stand, she says. “I want to live,” she finds me intolerable. People want to be tolerant. To be satisfied. One morning she tells me a dream she had, someone shot a little fallow deer in the ear. I was telling her: I want to write a book with you about all the different ways of dying. In her family they’re doctors from generation to generation. I need to write a book with you, please. “An aneurysm, it’s a kind of pocket, an abnormality, of course, on an artery wall, a cerebral artery, it’s a weak spot and it forms a kind of sack, weaker than the artery wall, that can rupture or tear at any moment. This anomaly occurs relatively frequently. The aneurysm can rupture. When this little sack tears or bursts. There’s a hemorrhage, in other words, the brain is flooded with blood because it’s an artery and the pressure is high, with each heartbeat, the blood floods in. The blood destroys the entire brain. When the rupture is complete, death is extremely sudden. People drop, just like that, right in front of you, boom, they’re dead. Sometimes it’s preceded by fierce headaches, that happens. Other times there are no indicators, it’s immediate. —And eczema, what’s eczema? —Eczema is a skin disease, caused by an allergy, often with bubble-like lesions covering different parts of the body that form crusts, which may start to ooze and are pruritic. —Are what? They itch.” But we never started, we were never able to do anything together, we never had time. We never seriously started. On one of the days we were breaking up, I told her, weeping, “I didn’t know how to enjoy you.” Even though she had offered herself. She gave me her father’s personal journal. I gave it back to her that weekend. Doctors from one generation to the next. All the ways of dying. I take praxinor. My blood pressure is so low, when I was getting on my bicycle yesterday, Léonore asked me, “Mama, are you going to die?” I could have dedicated this book to her, but I was afraid to. She uses her tongue like a cock. When she kissed me, I opened up. I wanted her. Living on expedients, that’s exciting. You lose half the world and there are lots of strains. But I still wanted her. Once she said to me: you’re a real little macho. I had trouble hiding my smile, of satisfaction. Like you see sometimes with actors who think they’re exceptionally good. What are you missing with me? Half the world, my dear, quite simply. With you I’m missing half the world, that’s all. I can’t get turned on by someone who hasn’t got anything. If there’s no dick, well, for me, it’s not enough. It was not important. And not true. You shouldn’t let yourself get worn down. By all the obstacles you meet. Stuck on the pubes, that works too. Without counting the satisfaction of solving the problem with only what you have at hand. When you think of all the ways there are of dying and you don’t die, it’s amazing. I was missing half the world, that was my big argument. A person is a whole world, that was hers. An entire world unto herself…incredible. Locked-in syndrome, what’s that? Literally ‘locked within.’ A rare form of brain damage. A drastic impairment of blood flow to one part of the brain because of a blocked artery that kills the nerve cells. Once or twice she called me a “little slut.” Homosexuality is when you can’t do otherwise, it’s that simple, Claude told me. No, the strains, the exhaustion, the disappointment. The exposed blood. But the freedom of not having to search anymore, I recognized that. That, yes. “I don’t care, I’m glad I’m done with her,” as we said when we were children. Good, good, good vibrations. Last night Claude dreamed good-bye, good vibrations, and he was crying. Good-bye, good vibrations, that got him sobbing. Everything gone, good-bye. Just as well. I met her on September 9th. I immediately fell in love with her mouth, her eyes, the way she walks. Her smell, her sex, the way she moves, her voice. More than anything, the way she looks at me. The way she walks. The way she runs after her dog, Baya. The way she throws a pebble into the sea for her dog when we’re on a walk. Her throat and the back of her neck. Her gold necklace, which she never takes off. Her slightly protruding shoulder blades. Her slightly hollow chest. I didn’t admit it for three months. I didn’t see anyone all winter long. Claude saw us through the window when he was watering the bonsais of neighbors across the street who had left for a weekend, friends of his. Valérie had her fit of jealousy. My mother said to me “love takes different forms.” Léonore told everyone at school “X and Mama are homosexuals.” Everyone understood. It was perfectly clear. I slunk along the walls in my jacket and my big shoes. Slunk along the walls, the barriers, like slicing them, with a razor, slicing veins and my luck. A razor in the rock wall, rock, pierre, my father’s name is Pierre, and on this rock I will build my church, that’s literature, I will carve it out, a wall of books, a wailing wall, incest, insanity, homosexuality, holocaust, start strong, my jacket, my big shoes, and my razor.
It wasn’t an illness, I’m simplifying. It was a state of weakness and abandonment that opened my cage, at least in the early days. The locked-in syndrome on the contrary, trapped inside. The afflicted person can’t move, or eat, or speak, only blink his eyelids, move his eyeballs vertically. He doesn’t feel physical pain. My ribcage is another matter. Strains, exhausting pressure. My back ached. She gave me orange oval-shaped pills, fenoprofen. I hardly have any more, just one left. I can call her right away, if it hurts, we’re going to remain friends, she’ll give me more. And prescriptions, physical therapy, with massages, for the lumbosacral region, and for my left leg because of lumbosciatica, an urgent case. To rise from the ranks of murderers, to write and heal, I tried to find. A state weakness and abandonment that opened my cage, it’s over. My blood was recovering. The pain is gone. Apropos Claude, thank you for the flowers. I got your flowers. Happy birthday, Christine, love of my life, Claude, Léonore, and three little hearts. He had called me, added “whatever you do, have a good day.” I was still with her. We had argued all week but that weekend we had dinner together at L’Escale.
“I wanted to write you, to send you a note to let you know I’m thinking of you – and love you. I read Calamity Jane in the plane, it was very beautiful and poignant. ‘Oh, how I wish I could live my life again.’ I hope you’re well, that your writing is going well. See you soon, Claude.” My phone was busy all evening yesterday, she was crying. I was listening to her. We now communicate only with our voices, she refuses to see me. She was c
rying, I had prepared some lines to read to her: Everything in this world is suffering, only love is a reason to live, Racine tells us it’s forbidden. And to explain my recent behavior, Dario Fo: the love of paradox, as is well known, often leads to inconsistency. I myself am a victim of it, it happens to me one day, then the next as well. I sat there with my books open on my lap. That morning she was at home, working quietly. Baya arrived with Yassou, the little cat, who looked strange. She seemed to be trying to show X something. She doesn’t want me to call her X. Neither her real name, nor her initials. The little cat’s paws were wobbling. She had been bitten on her soft underbelly, probably by a dog from the neighborhood. Yassou is not afraid of dogs, she’s used to Baya and Djinn who are “nice to her.” It’s the first time anything has happened to her, there was never anything wrong with this cat. X is fed up with pet issues. She was exhausted, but she still had to take the cat to the vet, you could see her insides. They had to give the cat anesthesia to sew her up. X went to work, suffering people all day long. Neither X, nor MCA, nor Marie-Christine Adrey, nor Aime CA, or Love CA. My love? My dear? My dear little sweetheart, my little darling, my dear, sweetheart, my love, beloved. Beloved, beloved. (In Savannah Bay, when she puts the necklaces on the older woman.) These patients could live for years in this state. They die of complications. Secondary pulmonary infections, sepsis, bedsores…Eczema, aneurysm, I’d have liked to do it all. We didn’t have time. To start something together, not even a photo album. She’s fed up with pet problems, Baya, who almost got run over. Then had to be spayed. And now Yassou, attacked by a dog. She left the answering machine on, didn’t pick up, she was putting on a new bandage. Yassou is in a terrible state…I didn’t tell Léonore, I’m worried about traumatizing her with suffering animals. Neighborhood dogs that bite…She’s preparing a course about stinging insect allergy, it’s tedious. Then the conversation deteriorated. She doesn’t want to make love anymore. She doesn’t want to love. There’s no point. No point, no point, no point, as I always put it so well. She’s not rejecting me personally. All women, no women, not one more woman. I asked a question I thought was innocent. A man? She swore at me and started crying. “I don’t give a shit about guys.” I let her talk. I sensed she wasn’t doing well, not at all. “You, you’ve got your life ahead of you, you’re straight, you, you don’t give a shit. But me, now I understand. Having sex with a woman, you’re right, it’s incest.” So then, I did it, I’d convinced her, I was right, I was alone. In three months. She started crying, nothing could stop her, no matter how many times I told her I loved her. I was torn between satisfaction that she finally understood and sadness at seeing it was over, that’s certain. Just when I was about to accept it, fully aware of its wounding aspect, oh well, too bad, it’s not serious. Once you’ve understood. Come on. Let’s dream. I’m dreaming. We have a house. We share it. We love it, both of us. We choose things we love. We love each other. Léonore is there. In our love. (Léonore in our love!!!…) I’m delirious. I’m dreaming. No one can find anything to criticize(!). You order a sofa from Domus in Nîmes, she knew I like to read lying down. You told me on the phone “you’re the first and only one.” You like what I write. You like it a lot. You often go to Paris with me. You brought your mother’s diamonds in a waist pack to sell so we could buy a big house together. We love each other. We feel strong together. And with Léonore. Pitou my heart watches over her. But her, it’s over. One day, I remember, we were at my place. I picture myself explaining the hierarchy. A man is better than a woman. (As a lover.) A doctor is better than a blue-collar worker, a White man is better than a Black man. She was outraged. Even though I specified “in the eyes of society.” Lots of things, little by little, and another mistake on my part: I shouldn’t have had her read my drafts. I wrote about her pussy, about her hair that would turn salt-and-pepper, about the beginning when I found her ugly. My disgust, and that’s all she saw. Not the positive things. I would tell her, “I’m heterosexual,” she would answer, “I’m not going to get operated on.” I’m leaving for Paris in twenty minutes. Claude and Léonore will take me to the airport. I called the hospital, I want her to call me back before I leave. This morning, the anxiety came back. Me, I don’t care. Goodbye calf, cow, pig, men, women. “We love each other. I’m sure we love each other. Why is it we don’t know how to be together? The two of us? Peacefully, happily. What I’m certain of: I love you. I love seeing you. I love seeing you walk in the door. I love your hair, your eyes, your clothes, your nose, your mouth, your waist.” My blood continued to deteriorate, putting me on a par with those who live in ghettos. I’m not wanted anymore in any case it’s too late. They defend themselves. Last night she didn’t want to talk to me on the phone. “I don’t have time, I don’t have time to call, I’m the one who saw all the patients today, I can’t go out, kisses.” It’s over. What’s impossible fascinated me. “I miss you.” In The Mother and the Whore, she says to him: You can’t even put up with drunkenness in people you love. My poor, poor, poor shitty Alexander. I said to her.
I was at her place yesterday. In the morning. While I was in Paris, she felt free, to do her usual things. One of the patients, a woman, said to her secretary “what beautiful eyes the doctor has,” in front of her. On Avenue Saint-Lazare last week, Sylvie was attracted by an androgynous young woman; she realized it was me when she saw my profile. At the hotel, I needed a taxi, I was asked “are you ready, sir…oh, I beg your pardon, miss?” My face and allure are ambiguous, always have been. The mark has only deepened given the test results. Even if it’s over. I call two hundred times, but after two days of emptiness, I don’t call on the third, and I don’t call anymore. I never call again. And I don’t care. Me, I wouldn’t have called her again. She called me and said “it would have taken locking me up to keep me from coming to pick you up.” Since you’re at the airport…And yet, I’d already taken out money for the cab fare. At night, I mentally filmed the weekend. I was going home. There was no one at the airport, I’d hoped. Phew. I was calm. I would need some time, some peace and quiet, and then…I’ll meet a guy. Unless I stop everything. We’ll see. For now, I take a cab, I head home. I don’t like taking taxis, they bore me. She had called me in Paris, I was at Frédéric’s, I told him, “tell her I’m gone.” He handed me the phone anyway. “I’ll come pick you up as we agreed? —No, not necessarily.” I’d filmed my arrival. It was fine. I took a taxi. I checked if she was there, she wasn’t. It didn’t make me angry, on the contrary, phew. Finally. Three months. Phew. Next week, I’ll call Mathilde, she’s getting back on Thursday, and we’ll go to a nightclub. I take a cab. It drops me off. I go in. Maybe there’s some mail for me. I look. I unpack. Calm. It’s nice to be home. After four days. I dream. I unpack, I separate out the dirty clothes. That was my movie, it’s not the way things happened. In my movie, I took my trousers to the dry cleaners. I washed a few things by hand. My sweaters smelled of sweat. You can’t even put up with drunkenness in people you love, I thought of that line again. Your little calculations. Your little savings. Your legacy. Your family. Your cousin. NC, Nadine Casta, haine c’est, hate is, this drama, this movie, this money. Since we’d separated, she had made all her little plans, filled all her little weekends in May. And me, naïvely, because she had come to pick me up: For the Ascension Day holiday, I’d like to go to Paris with you, we could stay at Frédéric’s, he’ll be in Italy. We’ll go to the theater, and especially we’ll go see The Mother and the Whore together. And all the other Eustache films. She had planned her weekends in conjunction with her sole heirs, we are separated. For the Ascension Day holiday, Île de Ré with NC.
Incest Page 2
