(I don’t have the right to use real names, the lawyer has forbidden it, not even real initials. “This manuscript repeatedly presents problems with regard to violating the privacy of individuals close to the author, notably her daughter Léonore, a minor, her former partner, Claude, her father [who was engaged in an incestuous relationship with her – see the extended description at the end of this work]. Other individuals also see intimate details of their private lives broadly exposed, notably Marie-Christine Adrey, the author’s lover and the ‘protagonist’ of this work, the actress Nadine Casta, etc. Beyond this general problem, which runs through the entire manuscript, the following passages, which contain particularly imprudent statements, must be removed. She doesn’t want me to call her X. Neither her real name, nor her initials. […] Neither X, nor MCA, nor Marie-Christine Adrey, nor Aime CA. This invasion of privacy is all the more intolerable as Marie-Christine Adrey’s refusal to be identified is emphasized by the author herself and because the revelation of her identity allows her to be connected to the work as a whole. Your cousin. NC, Nadine Casta, haine c’est, hate is, this drama, this movie, this money […] For the Ascension Day holiday, Île de Ré with NC. Invasion of privacy in addition to defamation. Then page 23, Eustache, I’m sorry, but it’s better than Nadine Casta, a defamation, which may not seem objectionable per se, but becomes so through repetition throughout the work of similar phrases that reveal a profound animosity, page 30, Your cousin. NC, Nadine Casta, haine c’est…, calumny, page 61, defamation, page 61, invasion of privacy, page 67, invasion of privacy and defamation, page 74, invasion of privacy and defamation, page 84, invasion of privacy and defamation, page 87, new defamation, page 106, invasion of privacy and defamation, page 110, invasion of privacy, page 111, libel with regard to an obvious attack on the reputation of Doctor Jean-Claude Brot, page 119 to page 123, serious invasion of the privacy of the author’s father, as she recounts their incestuous relations in precise detail. In conclusion: these passages are listed as examples, however the entire manuscript presents a comprehensive problematic of the invasion of privacy of persons mentioned, described, etc., whether they are explicitly identified, as is often the case, or identifiable. The risk of legal action is all the more evident given the pointedness and relentlessness of the attacks and the fact that they constitute attacks on the private lives of private individuals. The damages resulting from judicial action would be significant as no precautions were taken. The lack of moderation or compromise in the author’s statements is a determining element of the work to the extent that it allows the reader access – in so far as is possible – to the author’s passionate insanity.” Well, there you have it.)
X had magical moments. On the phone, comments I would have liked to transcribe. I love you. It’s good when we’re together. It’s good when we…and she was off, Nîmes, Domus, a sofa, we’ll go for a walk, I’ll call you…she laid out our daily life. She would have kept going but vampirism, feeding on, sucking me dry, taking everything, keeping me from living, from breathing, I’m sick of always being reproached for the same thing when the opposite is true. I made an appointment with a children’s shrink. Léonore needs help too. Locked-in syndrome, ways of dying. I pressed my palm against the back of her neck, gently, so she would keep the same rhythm. Bill told me about the disease. Equilibrium will return. No, everything was fine. I dreamed, I thought things over. One half of my life, men, the second, women. PS to Claude: I’ll be thirty-nine on Saturday, that’s probably why this week is so difficult. You’ve probably thought up an entire plan for my birthday, me, I don’t know what I’m going to do. A kiss. “Locked-in syndrome” is a rare form of brain injury. The test results were positive. Always. “Do you want to relax at your place? Do you want me to drop you off, so you can go through your mail in peace?” Yes. She drops me off, a quick kiss, I get out of the car. Ok, everything’s fine. It’s all going the way I filmed it. For my arrival in Montpellier. My departure and my arrival up to then. It’s fine. She came to get me but, apart from the drive, in her car, the Saab, nothing is different. From what I imagined in Paris last night before leaving, at Frédéric’s. The mail, the phone, the dirty laundry, the dry cleaning, the cinema listings, some reading, some rest, and tomorrow, writing. Phew. Three months. I couldn’t take it anymore. I couldn’t work. At that point it was getting dangerous. I open the front door. She leaves. I hear the Saab’s motor. The Saab, Île de Ré, NC, they’re supposed to be part of the charm. Yesterday, I said to X, Eustache, I’m sorry, but it’s better than Nadine Casta. She, that it was different, I answered “yes, like homosexuality, always the same argument.” And she, you really just say anything at all. But I insisted: Modiano is better than Rouaud, Eustache better than Nadine Casta, heterosexuality better than homosexuality, doctors better than blue-collar workers. She uses her tongue like a cock. The test results were positive, I loved her tongue. Like no other. My father spoke twenty-five tongues. The doctor and the writer rise from the ranks of murderers, that’s something we had in common. How’s Léonore? She sees Doctor Dhersigny on Thursday the 14th. She was fine when you got back on Saturday? I’m going to have my blood pressure checked this afternoon. If some dramatic event occurred, everything would be more bearable. In Beethoven, the concertos where the orchestra abandons its role of accompanist and comes into direct conflict with the soloist. With X, the change of scenery, transgress, transcribe, transfer, alas, this won’t last. I slept at her place after the airport. I cried. I was so moved. Calf, cow, pig, before falling asleep, I called her “my little girl.” I didn’t know what I was saying, I was falling asleep, I had come. Otherwise, too bad, I’d opened the gate. Carrying my bag, I was halfway upstairs. I dropped my bag. Flew down the stairs four at a time. I opened the door, the street, the car was blocked on the street, she hadn’t taken off yet. I got there. In front of her. I told her “you go and park.” And she “come here.” I let her kiss me in the middle of the street, I don’t give a shit now. Calf, cow. eczema, scaly hands, calf, cow. Her black hair and eyes like the last water lily. Genetically identical animals are rare. Among cows, several dozen for fundamental research. Why MCA? Léonore said to me “you’re crazy about babies,” we were watching television, and then “you’re a mad cow.” I wasn’t able to work before I quit. I did a little on Sunday, Sunday night phew again it’s over. Next to last. Water lily. Before starting again the next day and quitting. I quit, finally. I developed some ideas, scenarios, faxed them to Jean-Marc, they all fell down laughing. I was inspired by Tahar Ben Jelloun, explaining racism to his daughter, to do the same with homosexuality. Calf, cow, pig. What do you think? My sweet little five-and-a-half-year old. You are my love. I know you know this, that you’re my love. My great love. The greatest love of my life. You know it. You know that X slept at our house. You asked me last night, you said “where’s she sleeping?” She slept at our house. It’s quarter to ten, she’s still asleep. She’s tired. I was just making love to her, there it is, that’s what I wanted to explain to you. My love. You know, sweetheart? When she comes back up towards my face, the name on my lips is yours, my beauty. Lé-o-nore. You know what she said this morning when I woke her around six? I woke her up because I was writing down ideas. In my little notebook, you know, on the mantel? I turned on the light, I couldn’t see what I was writing. She said to me, “you’re a little devil with the face of an angel, and I love you.” A little devil because I’d woken her up. The face of an angel because she thinks I have an angelic face. And I love you, because she’s in love with me. You think that’s funny, hunh? A girl who’s in love with another girl. Well, yes, that’s the way it is. She’s homosexual. Frédéric is too, you see. He’s in love with a boy at the moment. They write each other letters but never see each other. That makes Frédéric sad. Some are happy, others are unhappy. I know a writer – unhappy – who masturbates dogs. You don’t know what that means, I’m sure. I’m heterosexual. My sweet. Of course. Straight. Or else how could I have had such a pretty little girl? Nev
er, you understand, not once have I ever felt desire for a woman. A man’s sex penetrates radically. I like what’s radical. Other kinds of penetration are possible, borders, journeys. Crossing borders, go get your globe, I’ll explain. The idea didn’t work, I kept going, I could have stopped. There was an interview with a singer right after the babies. “What effect did learning your father was homosexual have on you? —None, well yes, actually, laughter.” Léonore said “she shouldn’t laugh, it means that he doesn’t love her mama anymore.”
I talked to her about her eyes. Her answer was “my eyes are captivating and yours piercing.” My cousin Marie-Hélène always wanted to have red eyes. Genetically similar rabbits are a good tool for understanding…I was sinking. Into things that…I faxed Jean-Marc more than one hundred pages once. I was following threads without end. It was bad. I wept. I was falling apart, I waited. It was becoming dangerous, I couldn’t work anymore. The last water lily was rotting. I started again. I feel sick to my stomach, like in a car on hairpin turns, and I get dizzy spells. In front of a mirror, facing the audience, Bulle Ogier drapes necklaces around Madeleine Renaud’s neck, they lose themselves in a chant, the girl, the mother, the one, the other, my little sweetheart, little, little love, my little sweetheart, my love, etc. Marguerite Duras always addresses homosexuality and incest through the lens of the past and death, always aslant, which is hard to understand. I told her “you go and park.” I unpacked my things, it didn’t take long. I heard the bell. I had time to read the mail. She came upstairs. Marie-Hélène wanted red eyes. She got them. She was always asked “like rabbits?” It was her favorite color. Diversity, red eyes, that’s life, we had them more than once, Claude and I. I helped Marie hold Yassou still for the shot yesterday. The little creature’s fur has been shaved. The mark of the dog’s canine teeth still visible. The little creature was afraid. Her stomach was completely shredded, her insides exposed. It was a black dog, I saw it. Who did it. For the first night in a year, since Claude left, yesterday, last night, Léonore slept in her room, I slept in mine, you know what I did? For the first time? In a year? Since I’ve been living alone? I left the shutters open. I wasn’t afraid.
Marie and I were arguing, I shoved her dog, on purpose, she hugged it tight. I screamed “no, no, no, no, not that.” I don’t like that dog, Cartier jewelry is always numbered, the trinity ring she gave me was engraved 666, the number of the beast. She has very little direct contact with Léonore, we reject each other through Léonore and Baya, born the same day, July 9, not the same year. I was already infected when I was pregnant with Léonore, the incubation period was several years. I wouldn’t otherwise have experienced such joy, delivering a girl, it’s obvious, already incubating. I was already surrounded by clusters of homosexuals, I cried in her arms on Saturday. And Sunday, the scenario I’d filmed the previous day, during the night at Frédéric’s, I finally produced it. A day late. On Sunday night, the bag, but the blue one, I go up and this time I don’t stop in the middle of the staircase, I go up, and I get Léonore, at Claude’s. I think of Yassou, her stomach pierced by canines. “In a certain way, it works out well for me,” she claimed, “I’m always worried others won’t like my smell” when I didn’t want to lick her. For every impulse, there was repulsion. Repulsion also means disgust. Disgust means ghetto. Ghetto, prison. This group of female homosexuals, this “milieu,” which Claude, with reason, thinks doesn’t suit me. What use are animal clones? Exactly. Finally. Phew. Fortunately it’s over. I went home yesterday with my blue bag. I dreamed of a perfume called Hogana, which made me think of dogana, of a customhouse. She likes me in pants. If necessary, in a dress, not in a skirt. On the contrary, Mayen, last year. Wearing pants, a sweater, T-shirt, no bra. Loved me. I became sober once again, feminine, myself. I have an appointment on Thursday the 14th with a children’s shrink for my daughter. AIDS isn’t really an illness, it’s a state of weakness and surrender, my dear, that uncages the beast we had within. I give it free rein to devour me, I let it inflict on my life what it would have done to my corpse after. Claude: You let her give you a ring, after all. And this ring, after all, is a kind of engagement. And I know how you are, you, with symbols…A ring, on top of it all, is an engagement. I’m sorry, but the triple Cartier ring, it’s an engagement. I hesitated. I didn’t know if I should accept. (I didn’t hesitate at all, that’s not true, I was happy.) The next ring I wanted to give you. We talked about it just this summer. I’d put money aside. It’s crazy how you can be in someone’s life and it all evaporates. Sunday night it was over. Léonore was asleep. But I still called, no one home, left a message, not at all upset. It’s Christine. She called me back. She cried. When she sees the bed…I was calm, I calmed her down. “Yassou is doing better.” In her gay ghetto, conversations about animals. Baya, Yassou, Minou, Djinn, Misty, Victoire, Muzil. Last night on the phone it didn’t go well. Because of one detail that derailed everything. The first meeting at the Esplanade, it was no, homosexuals, heterosexuals, there are two camps. ‘Camps’ is not appropriate: gloves. To turn inside out like a glove, it’s sticky, you need gloves. And you see, I just made love with her, sweetheart. I was going crazy, you know. All autumn long. October, November, December, January. I wanted to hide it. I couldn’t bear the thought that anyone in our neighborhood might imagine me with a woman. That my little girl was the daughter of a woman who lets herself be licked by a lesbian. Your papa, I called him my love and my pet. Yassou is doing better. The civil solidarity pact set off a debate about all possible misuses. How are children made? The man puts his sex into the lady’s sex. Léonore sings with Clara “doing the thing with your lover is dis-gust-ing,” she laughs and starts again. The idea that Marie and I…doesn’t register. Her breasts, her feminine eyes, with make up, getting wet. On my thigh, who got wet on my thigh, how could it register, sweetheart? She left a letter lying around from Annie who was traveling in Africa, “I don’t give a shit about giraffes, with their big eyes, when there are children dying of starvation right next to them.” It might as well be Greece for me, I went back to my native land. She doesn’t want a graft, we’re not going to get a godemiche. I talked to Léonore about the Holocaust, the Jews, homosexuals, communists. Dr. Mazollier said to Léonore “your mom likes words.” Dr. Galy told me “a little early.” Dr. Zériahen said “no one can judge.” Dr. Dhersigny told me I was irresponsible. As a child Marie often had dizzy spells, without doing anything physical. In her head there was a kind of sound, she floated, completely. Claude: you’ll always be the only one, because you’re the first, because you’re the last one I loved, to whom I wanted to make love, to have a child, to go on vacation, to go to a restaurant, to discover the world with and see people live, the one with whom I’d have fought, against her and against myself, to live alone and together. You were my future. You will be my past. My only past. As for the rest, what good is it. In four days, you’ll be thirty-nine. I met you when you were barely sixteen. I want you to be happy. Claude. Thank you for the flowers. Yassou is doing better. Baya got hit by a car. The veterinarian treated her. Misty, Victoire, Muzil. She has a profession, as a doctor, in which you can’t make too many mistakes. I, of course, can afford to leave myself open all the time, to listen only to myself, it’s my stock in trade.
I call her Marie, her name is Marie-Christine. Yesterday, my psychoanalyst: Who chose your name? In Christine there’s an allusion to Christ. I talked about my mission, my drive to save others, to puncture their usual life preservers so that they’ll save themselves with me or on their own. Who chose your name, “my God!” I said. I’d just understood. Your father or your mother? My God. My mother wanted to call me Marie-Christine. My father said: No Marie. I got married and then separated. A husband, a mari, calf, cow, pig, or a Marie. No husband, no father, no man, no life preserver, the whole kit and caboodle, cousin Nadine, NC, haine c’est, hate is, the girlfriend, all that’s dragging behind her. I went to see her yesterday and called her “my treasure.” When she was little, the safe was kept in
her room. Her mother’s diamonds, their cash. In a little waist pack to buy an apartment. A diamond merchant in Paris, make an appointment, appraise the rocks. A large house for the two of us thanks to them. “You should sell them,” NC would tell her. Her cousin had met a diamond merchant. She gave me her father’s notebooks again. I was supposed to be named Marie-Christine too, in one of those families that throws money out the windows for the maid to pick up at the foot of the grapevine. The fruits of labor. Paintings on the walls. Léonore, my love, my gold. I’m in her room today, seated at the green table, a card table, where I’m writing. Through the window I see the garden, the oleander, the palm trees, the magnolia. At the back of the garden, my father watches the road to Clermont that borders my garden. Mon trésor, mon amour, mon or, Léonore. My treasure, my love, my gold, Léonore. My Léonore, my treasure. My treasure, my gold. No Marie, no marriage, no gold. The safe was in her room. Doctors were paid in cash at the time. Her father gave her mother money, which she put in the safe with the jewelry and other valuables every night. This house is crushing me, it was built by my grandfather, a doctor in Canet, himself a doctor’s son, who was also a doctor’s son, and so on for generations. Books and medical courses piled up, going back centuries. I had a fit of rage in Miaurey (Niger). We had gone to see the last herd of giraffes. Children came running from all directions. Since the first day at the Esplanade, I had told her it was all Greek to me. Knowing just one word – “gift” – and repeating it constantly, with their skinniness and swollen bellies. Maybe she’ll give me a bike so I can be more independent. She was born in Oran, the fellaghas, the bombs, an Arab killed right on her doorstep, and the beach house, hours with her mother, walking at least two hours on the beach every day. We’ll need a big house, a very big one, at least two hundred and fifty square meters. To shelter my tongue when it’s licking, I like the taste of blood, I even use it as an unguent at the same time. Everything gets turned inside out like a glove. Why is the devil’s tongue pictured as a flame that splits like two fused metal fingers that are separating? I hold on to the banister to climb the stairs to the lawyer’s office (my blood pressure is 80, 90 at the most), so that he can effectively complete the separation of bodies between Claude and me. The gold is separating. I feel nauseous. I’m dizzy. A herd of humans looking at giraffes. Suddenly I asked myself what the hell I was doing there. She gave me all that, the letter from Africa, her father’s notebooks, to help me get over my writer’s block, because I couldn’t work. I gave them back to her, it’s over. I was going crazy: the gap between outside and my room. And yet, I could have drunk the dregs. Even if, when you’re not fully developed it’s hard to get excited about something wet. Like a glove, it’s true, it can always be reversed. It’s true. That’s good. The term gloves fits better than camps. I see the stitches. I turn it inside out. I move the cock, I see the spot. I penetrate. My fingers become a cock. Cock, coda, tip, tail, that’s how you tell a dog’s breed. There’s no breed, just an odor. The mucous membranes, the caress, I’m not the one caressing, it’s the liquid moving under my fingers. Misty, Muzil. There it is, sadness, but also laughter. Ultimately, I don’t give a shit about the giraffes, their big eyes. I end up feeling like an unwanted spectator, feeling rejected, superfluous, Bénédicte writes me, I feel I’m in the way, I’m not a part of it, I’m there almost against my will and against yours, I resented you for the discomfort I felt. You build a wall, a wall of glass, transparent but impassable, exposing yourself the entire time. You put yourself callously on display, you don’t invite others to look, you don’t make the slightest gesture of welcome. The circle of solitude closes. We’re frozen, we can neither escape nor come into contact with you. Reading you, my stomach began to hurt, my limbs, my whole body and I asked myself “is this really living? So much darkness, no way out, so little light? It seems to me that you forget the light.” And my treasure, my love, my gold?
Incest Page 3
