First, the signs, the symptoms. The alienation that comes over you, it’s no longer me. The causes, which are blinding, immediately discernable. It’s November 28, 1998. I can’t mix things up this time. The kind of connections I’ve drawn until now between everything, everything and anything, I want to stop making them. Cloning, Viagra, Baya, Yassou, Muzil, poor dead Guibert, I’m going to let it all drop. I’ll make do with my own little things, my stuff, Christmas, Nadine Casta, Marie-Christine Adrey. Without bringing in anything larger or universal. Time to calm down, to try to be what I am, that is to say, not much. Putting all this more or less in order would already be something, not bad. Everything will be in the proper order from here and maybe even make me happy some day. And I’m going to try to be polite.
Precise, logical, and clear for once. Maybe things will go better afterward. I’m suffering from paranoia, I think, delusions too, I think. I ordered some books for the definitions and borrowed others. I’m not going insane, I already am insane, I definitely am insane.
Signs, symptoms, immediately discernable causes, trigger, deep causes, concrete manifestations, and word games, folle, a crazy woman but also a gay man, a folle with a limp wrist, (mine are often limp, too, I’ll get back to that). I’d like some classification, maybe even footnotes at the bottom of the page, a critical apparatus including all the books I already have at my disposal.
There are testimonies, many people have told me, it’s not just something I’m inventing. There are witnesses, people who saw me. Waking up this morning, I myself was a witness, it’s Saturday, tomorrow’s Sunday, the day after is Monday. I ask Moufid Zériahen, doctor, psychoanalyst, if he could find a place for me in his clinic for a while. I woke up this morning (very early, in any case I’d barely slept, one of the signs is insomnia of course), I said this to myself very clearly. I don’t know for how long, I know it’s necessary. My reactions are off. The clinic is called L’Alironde, it’s bit outside of Montpellier. (A friend’s son is there, manic-depressive. He just applied for disability assistance, you certainly can’t work with that condition.) You can have yourself committed, Walser did, as a matter of fact. That’s not why I want to do it, but because I have the feeling that I can’t take it anymore. I’m at my limit, what with my mental structure, incestuous, I mix everything up, it has advantages, connections others don’t make, but too much is too much as they say, it’s the limit. I mix everything up, I go too far, I wreck everything. I called Claude this morning to tell him I wanted to spend some time in a clinic and why, he said to me “the good thing is you’re lucid.” Yes, I’m lucid, yes, I’m going to explain everything to you, everything, everything, everything.
Claude said something else when I telephoned again later to read him these two pages: “what’s more it’s mischievous and impertinent.” No, not at all. It’s not at all mischievous and impertinent. It’s not at all a game. I’m not mocking you. I really did wake up this morning thinking of L’Alironde, I’m paranoid and delusional. I’m at risk. It’s not mischievous and impertinent. I can be serious. I can explain. I can try, I don’t know if I’ll be able to, it’s complicated, especially for me, because I’m insane, it will be difficult. I have a tendency to mix things up, you saw it in the first section. No order at all, everything’s mixed together, my mental structure is incestuous, OK, I’m at my limit, I’m not joking, I can feel it. Screaming into the telephone at two in the morning, insulting someone you don’t know, or barely know, who didn’t do anything to you, nothing special but who talks like others did a long time ago, I dragged her through the mud, I said it was worse than a pile of shit even though I didn’t even know her and I don’t care. I’m putting on an act. Stop. Until then I let my insanity show, I exposed my defective mental world. Laclave said it three years ago “her mental world is one of morbid imprisonment.” Since Wednesday, it culminated last night, I’ve been at my limit. It has been nothing but a permanent howl since, I slapped my face, I beat my own body, I was red, I was home alone, if Marie-Christine had been here I might have killed her, if it were Nadine Casta, I would have. I lay on the ground all night. The series of telephone calls described in the first section started up again and I didn’t even realize at the time that it was the work of a deranged mind. Oh, I know perfectly well why.
I associate things others don’t associate, I bring together things that don’t fit together. Dog-child, incest-homosexuality or AIDS, cousin-couple, blonde-bitch, money-hate, movie star-bitch, Léonore-gold, mass grave-gold mine, Holocaust-ghetto, worker-black, etc., etc., and what’s more, I highlight opposites, all the time, for example: Eustache is better than Nadine Casta, Dominique Quentin is also better than NC, I bring things into focus. Frédéric is right, she’s Nadine’s cousin, she could have been a cousin of Le Pen. He’s right but it blocks me. I have to get rid of the block, unblock it all.
I am used to rather particular punctuation. I punctuate my sentences in an unusual way, I’m going to try to stop. I will use punctuation only for clarity, so that readers can find their way. The clarity of my statements. So that my statements are clear, are understood. A bit fastidious, maybe, but this time properly. I won’t write anymore, for example, “I licked her, this woman, whose child is a dog,” I won’t write that anymore, what’s the point? Other than ending up alone. We’re now separated for good, for good this time. I will no longer write, Nadine Casta, NC, haine c’est, hate is, it’s hatred. Not that either.
How I went insane because of a simple trigger, Christmas. A three-day momentary fit of insanity. Before I would have written: momentary fit of insanity, three days. My system of punctuation, I need to get rid of it, to find one that’s more common, more natural, so that people won’t have to make as much of an effort, it’s ridiculous, it was ridiculous. Especially since virgule, comma, etymologically means verge, little penis. I just learned this, I had lunch with Laurent Goumarre and two of his friends, psychoanalysts. I’m losing the thread, I was talking about the trigger. About the three-day momentary fit of insanity. Of breakdown. Which does not mean that I didn’t become profoundly and completely, totally insane, no, I really am insane. The trigger. What the trigger is that occurred, let’s be precise, on Wednesday, at noon on Wednesday, that led me this morning, after a night of trembling, trembling really trembling, my entire body, even though I took my dose of pills, to decide to ask Moufid Zériahen to accept me into L’Alironde for a time.
The trigger
November 25th, a month to the day before Christmas. For years Marie-Christine has spent Christmas in Paris with Nadine Casta, her actress cousin. Surrounded by family. It’s a “ritual” from “time immemorial,” it’s “family” and besides, it’s “one day of the year.”
Rewind: November 15th, we’re at Frédéric’s. We’re happy to see each other, it’s obvious. A pleasant evening aside from two false notes, nothing serious, life is full of them. The conversation turned to Nadine Casta’s Chambord with Decourt, Dupont, Durand. Doesn’t matter. I’m not obligated to like her cousin’s films. Like Frédéric says, she could have been a cousin of Le Pen. At least Le Pen is not an artist. I rant, I take it back, I let it go so everyone knows where I stand. Second false note, during dinner, someone trots out Christmas. Second slap in the face. It was still a very nice evening, our need to be alone together was urgent. We call a taxi, in the taxi, we’ve barely sat down, we start in. We get to the hotel, far from making love, we hate each other, we go to bed, I cry. I cry, I cry, I can’t breathe and am in a very very bad way, my anxiety level is rising. It’s horrible. It’s because of Christmas. I put on an act, OK, maybe, no doubt. I ask her to go back to her cousin’s to sleep, it was a mistake to get together again, we were better apart. It’s too late, but she’s going to get another room, she calls reception, I stop her at the last minute, she lets me. She goes back to bed. My anxiety level is still rising. I get out of bed, fall to my knees, I try to breathe, it’s blocked, I pant (putting on an act doesn’t mean you aren’t suffering), I insult her, with her
cousin, like all good homosexuals, she’s the family lackey, always available to serve the real woman. She has paid no attention to me at all for Christmas, and yet she still claims she loves me. In response, I get to hear it all, in short: poor thing, you’re not making any sense, you’re mixing everything up. The ‘poor thing’ is the insult-trigger: I screamed, I think the entire hotel heard me. I hit her hard, on the head, and for a long time. She hit me on the side of the head, my temple, her fingernail on my eyelid, another fingernail on my ear. I had a hematoma, I still have it, a scar on my eye.
Back in Montpellier, I telephone her, my anxiety builds, several calls and hang-ups later, I tell her it would have been really nice if we had prepared, the two of us, a beautiful Christmas for Léonore, her mother, mine, André, and Frédéric, of course. On the 24th, Claude would have taken Léonore on the 25th, we would have gone on peacefully, we would have spent a quiet day, we would have gone to the movies or taken a nap. Impossible, concepts like family, godchildren, obligations to people who have always been there, it’s not like things are going to change all of a sudden, just because I’m there, like they’ll change at all. It’s all normal, it’s all considered completely normal. I’m the one who’s raving. All I need to do is look around me. She was talking to me about the civil solidarity pact just a few weeks earlier, I remind her. You have to keep this shift in mind. I cry, I go to bed, I don’t want to see her anymore, I tell myself I don’t want to see her anymore, I unplug the telephone. The next day, there’s a message, “answer me, please pick up” in a nice voice, “it’s twenty past eleven, pick up the phone.” She calls again, she really wants to spend Christmas with me, she’ll do whatever she can to make it happen. She hopes it won’t cause any scenes, if there are any conflicts, she’ll go to Paris after all. That’s what she tells me. I’m happy, I buy a copy of Marie-Claire, the special New Year’s issue. I tell my mother, I tell Frédéric, I don’t tell Léonore yet, though, “you never know, let’s be cautious.” But I believe Marie-Christine, she’s happy, our first Christmas together. It’s very important. She telephones her aunt, “I can’t bring Mother to Paris.” Her aunt understands. Marie-Christine, delighted, was very wily. She said to her aunt, “Godmother, I’d like to ask you for some advice,” not a bad opening, it worked, Marie-Christine felt very clever. The big nut, Nadine, was still in Acapulco. She telephoned Marie-Christine on Wednesday, the call went badly, Nadine cried, there will be about twenty-five people, but she needs Marie-Christine to bring some lightness to the holiday. Everyone needs her, it’s not possible, she has to come. Twenty-five people and she must be one of them. It’s not possible, you have to come. She cries. She flips the person I was ready to take as my love like a crêpe. The person who calls me, tells me the news on Wednesday around noon. It takes my breath away, I tell her I’m done with her, I can’t, it’s too much, too much is too much. She could at least have waited until after my reading at the CRL. How am I going to manage?
The day of my reading at the CRL
November 26th, the reading has been announced and it has to be good. The 27th will be just as dark, the night of the 27th to the 28th will be terrible.
But the 26th: at 6:30 p.m., I have a reading, it has to be good. It’s a day full of symptoms.
Breathing: Ragged. I can’t get my breath back. Noisy. Desperate panting. Enormous anxiety. It comes from a very deep source, you can feel it.
Insomnia: I take sleeping medication, I can’t sleep. Even when it’s warm, I’m cold under the duvet, I’m shivering, my fingers are blue, my knees are knocking. My lips are dry, purple.
My face: Drawn with fatigue because of the insomnia, vacuous, eyes blank, someone in a forest who can’t see her feet under autumn’s dead leaves. Eyes blank and terrified, what is there to hold onto?
My whole body hurts, my joints, my back, my lips and my temples. But worst of all, I have the feeling that the next five minutes will be terrible.
I don’t know what it is. A neurosis, a psychosis, I’ve got the definitions, I will look them up. I have to go to L’Alironde, maybe not for long. I can’t take it anymore. Besides, I keep repeating the same thing. I say “I can’t take it anymore” or “I can’t stand it any longer.” Even if I’m alone, I tell myself that I can’t take it anymore.
I slap my face. On the 26th I slapped my face in front of the mirror. Not just once, several times. If someone were here, I’d kill him. Nadine. It could have been anyone. Who represents hate. It’s hatred, I call people, I make a lot of telephone calls, I beg (these calls are like gulps of strong liquor to give me a last, I don’t know), I search, I don’t find. There’s no one. Apparently, I’m overdoing it, my reaction is out of proportion. Me, I don’t think so. People find everything normal. When it’s all insane except me. What’s it called when you have that feeling? For the series of telephone calls, here’s a list of the most symptomatic:
I search through boxes for the telephone number of my father, Pierre, in Strasbourg along with the number of my half-sister, who’s married to a dentist, and of my half-brother, married to a Marie-Christine. I don’t find anything, not one number. I don’t have the strength to check the Minitel or to call information. That would require consistency, a clear desire to reach a particular person, which I don’t have. I would have dialed a number if I’d happened on the piece of paper it was written on. I hadn’t wanted to put them into my address book, to do them the honor, which may well, on its own, be a sign of instability. I had put them in a box. Just in case. This is the case. (And if I did call them, really called them, if I decided to call them now and suggest we spend Christmas together. After all, why not? Is it that bad of an idea?)
Around one p.m. I call Nadine Casta at home, in Paris. In a fit of insanity. I hesitate. I open my address book, I close it again, I hesitate. Finally, I open it. Then there’s another sign:
I entered the number in my book wrong. I put the Cs under A. Chatelain, Constant, Casta. AFAA, Attoun, Art-Press, then all of a sudden Chatelain, Constant, Casta, it ends with an A, Angot begins with an A. I put them on the same page, but Angot wasn’t there. That itself was a sign. The melting of my personality, associating, mixing up, that’s my mental structure, between Élisabeth Angot, EA, and Nadine Casta, NC. EA, an abandoned child, not her but me, NC, it’s hate, not her but me, I already explained it. There you have it, now if that’s not a symptom! Like Emmanuel Adely, there are a ton of EAs among writers.
I put down the telephone, I take a small piece of paper, I write down what I intend to say so I’ll remember, me with my stammering and her, an actress who has mastered language. I’m in tears, my cheeks flushed, eyes blank, hair a mess, I’m sweating and shivering at the same time, I remember. My back is stiff, so stiff it aches, it’s my vertebrae, my back, always my back that’s trembling it seems to me. My lower back. I write it down on a little piece of graph paper: Marie-Christine and I wanted to spend Christmas together in Montpellier. In a new relationship, in love, the two of us wanted to build something together, around us, without any other ties, not even very old ones. Things are complicated, I’m suffering. Her decision to go to Paris has been making me suffer since Wednesday, after your phone call, you insisted she come. We’re going to break up because I can’t tolerate it anymore. You need to know this and the pain that it will cause.
I’m rewriting it from memory, I threw the paper away. I called her, with the paper in front of my vacant eyes, so that Nadine would understand. I got the housekeeper (not two hours a week, all day every day, she takes care of everything, the cleaning, the laundry, the errands, food, at night when she comes home, NC can stretch her feet out under the table, the maid is there, and for everything else, there’s a secretary, professional papers, train tickets, plane tickets, for vacations, Nadine’s or the children’s, or hotel reservations at La Mamounia in Marrakesh, at La Gazelle d’or in Taroundant, she wanted to have a party there when she turned fifty, or in New York, in the Pierre, everyone would have been invited). Close paren, I don’t
want to leave the reader stranded like before. Polite, proper, and comprehensible. Frédéric told me the first section was hard to read because things were jumbled. The birthday party ended up being held on Île de Ré. The point of bringing up this anecdote is to underline the modest end, going round the world and ending up in the house on Île de Ré, two storeys, fifteen rooms. In the village of Ars, with the same old people, the Casadesus, the Wiazemskys, Chouraqui, Chesnais, Baye, a little farther away, in the village of Loix, more secret, more secluded, more simple, at least in appearance, it’s much more expensive. “It’s crazy how high real estate prices are now on Île de Ré,” say Marie-Christine and Nadine sitting in the garden of the large house they bought together. I telephone. Chatelain, Constant, Casta, on the A page as if by chance, the little piece of graph paper, the housekeeper answers, “who may I say is calling?” A horrible question. It’s Christine.
—Hello Nadine. It’s Christine. I’d like to talk.
—So would I. But I’m on my way out, I have a lunch date and the taxi is waiting downstairs. When can I call you back?
It was before my reading, afterward I wouldn’t give a shit. Too bad. Go ahead, go to lunch.
—Late afternoon? You’ll be around?
—No, I won’t be around.
—And in the evening?
—No, I won’t be around.
—Tomorrow afternoon?
—Tomorrow afternoon, yes.
Incest Page 6
