—OK, I’ll call you tomorrow afternoon.
—Yes, because there are some things that are complicated.
—Complicated? How?
—We’ll talk.
I regretted calling, she was going to call me back, I didn’t want her to. It was done. The damage was done. As they say. On the 26th, in tears before the reading, I might have moved her.
Then, a call to Moufid Zériahen. I’ve been trying to reach him since ten in the morning. I had thought of calling him the day before, on Wednesday, but I held back.
Another process was underway, also by phone, with Marie-Christine. Plans to break up, screams, I made her listen to my ragged breathing, gasps, my hoarse cries, almost groans on some phrases, interspersed with yelling. After certain words, family, obligation, duty, godchildren, cousin, since forever. Another fit was setting in. It was being sparked again. The receiver was slammed down several times, after “it’s over,” “goodbye,” “well, see you some day.” You know. I threw in dry comments, alternating with death rattles, I made her listen to my constricted throat. Not from exhibitionism, not to draw her attention to it, but simply because I was suffering. She said some words, followed her logic, spouted some things that made me puke with horror, or at least scream. Just the thought of it, just picturing it. Imagining certain scenes, to see what it was related to, all the things it brought up. She was poking around in my childhood, stirring it up, not even realizing it. She was the last, absolutely the very last person on earth I could get along with. We had nothing to say to each other, we were complete strangers. She was in one camp, I was in the other. Eight days earlier she was talking about a civil solidarity pact. A dream. I was getting nowhere, it was exhausting. I take the blame for everything. I was trying to destroy her and her cousin, it was that or me, I preferred me, you think that’s not normal?
The morning of the 26th, of Thursday the 26th, I worked. Alain Françon is staging Les Autres, Sujet Angot, and No Man’s Land as one play, I’d suggested combining the three, to make them all one language, my usual stew, my classic incestuous mix, which I wasn’t repressing up to that point. ‘Everything can always be mashed together’ could have been my motto.
Late that morning, I don’t know which of us called the other. She did, I think. She’s free after two thirty, to get together before the reading if I want or to go for a walk. After the blow with the Christmas…I ask if she’s joking. If it helps for her not to come, she agrees not to. Implacable reasoning, repetition of the reasons for Christmas, Nadine needs support, you don’t suddenly let drop people who have helped you at some point, she has a family, turn of the century morality, nineteenth century, I spew at her. Intolerable notions of loyalty and fairness. So ancient and arbitrary, to be honest. So vile.
When I recount my day on the 27th, Friday the 27th, you’ll be treated to Nadine’s phone call, you’ll see, it’s something else.
To summarize. A few dozen phone calls, at half past noon she asks me – I was in tears – if I want her to come over at two thirty. I tell her it will be too late, that I’ll be dead by then. We hang up and I go lie down.
At two o’clock Denis rings, we had a rendez-vous, I was in no condition to speak. Marie-Christine telephoned, hung up, called back. Two good hours have passed before she hangs up, saying “I’ll be right there,” without giving me time to say “no,” I could feel her exasperation. It was about four o’clock, about two hours before the reading. I wasn’t ready. I hadn’t prepared, I hadn’t showered, I didn’t have the strength to get to 20 Rue de la République, to say hello to Anne and Gil who had invited me to the CRL. I knew if I did, at what cost?
I called Moufid Zériahen. He was in.
—It’s Christine Angot. I have a reading at six o’clock, I’m not in any shape to do it, I’ve been having an anxiety attack since yesterday noon.
—Come right away.
—I can’t, I don’t have time. (Marie-Christine was going to come over. Unless I were to stand her up. After all!…Like Christmas.)
Despite all that she inflicts on me, I haven’t stopped loving her yet, what masochism. Paranoid, that’s certain, delusional, too, masochist, I’d have to check. The doorbell. It’s her. Moufid must have heard the bell. I tell him:
—I’d like you to say something that will calm me down.
I weep.
I go into another room with the hand-held phone.
—A few words.
—In that case, I need you to tell me a bit more.
—It’s about Christmas and Nadine, Do you remember?
—Yes, I do.
—Do you remember Marie-Christine told me she’d try?
—Yes, I do.
—She called Nadine yesterday, who told her it was impossible. And so she’s going. She’s going to Paris.
—And you’re surprised?
—Yes.
—Those are archaic relationships, you know, what would you have done if your father or your sister called, wouldn’t you have answered?
He’s feeling around, that’s not the issue, no, that’s not it. It’s difficult over the phone.
—No, I would have been ‘out.’ She called me yesterday, and I’ve been in this state since then, I have to do this reading. I’m very, very anxious, I scream and slap myself. I can’t stand it.
—What time does your reading end?
—Around eight thirty.
—Come see me after.
—But after it will be over.
—It may help you during the reading to know that you’ll be coming here when it’s done.
—Or I could come now.
—You just told me you couldn’t.
—I’ll see.
Marie-Christine arrived, exasperated. She saw I was on the phone, she kept making signs of impatience. Of anger, “I can’t believe it,” “No this isn’t possible, I must be dreaming,” “I came I’m here and you’re on the phone. I’m here, I’m paying a price to be here, and you’re on the phone, you’re unbearable and on top of that, when I’m here, when I come over despite everything, despite all the horrible phone calls this afternoon, despite the fact that your personality is impossible, delusional, paranoid, perverse, masochistic and sadistic, you are on the phone.” Completely exasperated.
I hang up, I say to Marie-Christine:
—Don’t get upset, I was talking to Moufid, he recommends I go see him.
—That would be a good thing.
She offers to take me in her car, we’d come back after, we’d drive straight to the reading if time is too tight. I call Moufid back, I tell him I’m on my way.
He fit me in for ten minutes between two patients and I went to do my reading. Things were a bit better. And it went well.
Night
She tells me she’s going to go to bed, that she’s going back to her place. I can’t possibly be alone that night, not at night. After all the effort. She’s dumping me, Christmas, and now at night. Again. When I’m in my worst state. Her reasoning: 1. She doesn’t have her things, 2. If she leaves her car parked where it is, she’ll get a ticket like the last time.
—OK, then I’ll go sleep at Claude’s, I can’t stay alone.
—If you go sleep at Claude’s then we’re done, do you hear me? Done. Come sleep at my place.
—I can’t, not after everything I’ve gone through since Wednesday, I don’t have enough faith in you to fall asleep at your place. Don’t you understand?
I started shivering again. Always the same spot, my lower back, around my kidneys. Gil and Anne had barely turned the corner. I collapsed onto my bed, on my back, my head hanging backwards, my eyes blank again, my fingers blue, it had started again. And Nadine getting ready for Christmas with twenty-five people. Her cousin is coming, that’s great, as always, it’s a ritual, an ancient ritual, it will happen again, once more, in a few weeks, since forever.
It must have been one in the morning, I couldn’t take it any more, I had to go to her place, make one more effort, go to th
e enemy’s, or else she’d leave me on my own. If I went to Claude’s, she’d leave me. She finally grabbed my bag, threw two or three things in it, took my hand, quick and easy. I put on my coat, I was like a huge bear that couldn’t walk anymore, nose dripping, crying, face contorted, a huge bear at the end of its tether. She goes downstairs, I stop on the landing, I can’t move.
—I’m downstairs and you’re staying upstairs, is that it?
Shouted up at me at half past midnight.
She climbs the stairs again, without any trace of tenderness, exasperated. She pulls me along to the street where her car is parked. I don’t cross the street, I’m petrified. I want to scream. I head back towards my place. She drives up, opens the door, she says “hurry up.” I get in the car. I say “take me back to my place.” An ancient ritual practiced since forever with people who have helped her and whom she can’t abandon. Out of loyalty, yes, out of duty, yes. Yes. It’s her family, she has a family, yes. Nadine is essential, Nadine is a fundamental part of me. If you can’t stand her, then you can’t stand me either. A cousin, godchildren, yes. I sleep very little. I wake up very early, the morning of the 27th, I call Claude. I say to him “please, I can’t take this any more, introduce me to some new people.” That very evening, there will be Nicolas and Judith, the daughter of my first psychoanalyst in Reims, she was at the reading yesterday, she liked it a lot. She’d heard about me all through her childhood, I shaped her father as an analyst, “the young woman” in exceptional terms. I’m too tired.
The day of the 27th
I clean the house. In the evening I may see Marie-Christine, we still haven’t decided. I’m also invited to Claude’s with Judith. I have a five o’clock appointment with Toro, my chiropractor, he’s Colombian. He helps me. Finally relaxed, I get home at six thirty. I’m doing well. Maybe I’ll even draw myself a bath. I call Marie-Christine in this tranquil state. I don’t want to see her, I’d rather rest, eat a few raviolis, watch the movie about Thomas Bernhard I’d recorded, and go to bed early without discussing everything again. We talk calmly, a call comes in, it’s Nadine.
I summarize what’s on my little piece of graph paper, which I’d kept. Her answer:
—We’re a family. It’s a family of octogenarians, of ghosts, of this family, of ghosts, of shades, you see, Marie-Christine and I are the only ones that have a bit of life left in them.
—…
—They’re like ghosts. When you have kids, you want Christmas to be joyful, Marie-Christine is the only one who brings the slightest bit of joy to this holiday. If I didn’t have children, I wouldn’t care at all about Christmas, and I wouldn’t do anything, I’d go to the movies, I’d do whatever. (So the movies are whatever…)
—I have a child and I’ll be alone with her.
—Like everything that reminds you of childhood, Christmas is important for everyone, obviously. (In that brisk tone that made her famous, the slightly haughty woman who is suffering.)
Ancient, a ritual, ghosts, a family of octogenarians, and that I was perverse to express my suffering the way I did, that she understood very well, very well indeed, perfectly, everything I was saying about legitimacy and illegitimacy, but it’s not her responsibility. Besides, it’s a very male thing to do, to meet someone and say “everything you’ve done before me, everything that existed before I came on the scene doesn’t exist anymore, men do that.” But she’ll telephone Marie-Christine and will give her clearance. Because, anyway, she has lost interest. She doesn’t want to be responsible for our break-up. It’s really not worth it. She had put pressure on Marie-Christine over the phone the other day, she’ll give her clearance.
I didn’t say: I know you broke out in tears.
—Give her clearance? But you don’t have to give her clearance.
—Yes, I do, I’ll give her clearance. I don’t like it when people do things out of obligation, on the phone I put pressure on her. I want to take that pressure off her and for her to spend Christmas with you. Because, in any case, under these circumstances, I don’t like it.
Another phone call to Marie-Christine, this time I got told off. Later she told me she had bought and chilled a bottle of champagne, she also bought filets of fish because I love them. She should have told me instead of insulting me and hanging up on me. I tell her “I’m leaving,” I’d decided to go to Claude’s.
—Right, you do that, go see Claude and your old analyst’s daughter. Go have a nice time with others who are more interesting than I am. You’re exhausted, but go ahead, go out. This time you’ll be with people who suit you.
—You’re right, I’m going to have dinner with my husband and my old analyst’s daughter.
We hang up on each other. At Claude’s, Léonore is asleep, I stroke her hair. Judith and Nicolas are seated with a bowl of salted things between them. We go to the table. What Claude has cooked is not good, the store-bought gnocchi are hard, fortunately there’s a salad and bread, the ham isn’t good either. I don’t at all like the way he talks about the sauce he made. The conversation, anecdotes and more anecdotes, that’s it. I leave early. A little bit of cheese, I don’t wait for the ice cream. To be polite, I tell them about my insomnia, the reason I have to leave, ten hours over three nights. Two messages from Marie-Christine are waiting for me “you are a real shit, a real shit. You left, I can’t believe it, you are a real shit, a real shit.” The line is busy, then it rings. She was on with Nadine. What is it some women have against their relationship, why do they find it objectionable? It got poisonous. I was still screaming at two in the morning. Even though I was calm before, I’m now in my bed, deformed and disfigured with pain. She’ll end up unplugging her phone. After a particular thing I said.
She hangs up. It’s Friday night. I call her back a good dozen times, I leave pleading messages. “Please pick up, I’m begging you, please,” I’m garbage, I’m a masochist, I have no dignity, I treat myself like shit, I plead with her. She picks up, she tells me again that this is her last sentence, that there’s no point calling back, because Nadine is objectionable, that I’m not the first to say, it’s part of her, it is her.
—You wouldn’t defend me the way you defend her.
And so on until the end, I don’t know any more. I must have fallen asleep. I woke up around six o’clock Saturday morning, the 28th, on Monday I was to see Moufid Zériahen, I was going to ask if I could be admitted to L’Alironde for a while. I wrote, things got a bit better. There are rooms for writing in the hospitals and psychiatric clinics, but things shouldn’t be mixed up.
There would be other signs, other symptoms and other physical manifestations, I only mentioned the most recent, the ones right after the trigger. If I went back in time, I could write pages and pages. A sense of suffocation, vomiting, nausea, bouts of colitis, insomnia, breakdowns, suicidal urges, spectacular ones, I picture myself again one evening in Spain, in Rosas, lying on the sidewalk, I was eighteen years old, I was on vacation with Pierre, a summer evening, I was stretched out on the sidewalk because my stomach hurt so much, people passed by, it was vacation time. Vertigo, fits of hysteria, I remember a Place d’Erlon in Reims, on the corner of Rue Burette, near the Espace store, I’d thrown my eyeglasses on the ground, I’d broken them (like I did when Chirac was elected), Place d’Erlon, I remember the reason: I didn’t know what to buy for dinner, slapping my own face, in public but mostly alone, and my speech, a way of talking that constantly associated disparate things. François told me “you should put yourself to the side a bit.” A way of unintentionally attacking with language, obstructed breathing, in the end you’re alone. You feel contempt for people who help you, you feel contempt for people who don’t. When I got married, I had insomnia for eight whole days and lots and lots and lots of violence, perverse language, this chapter could have been long and detailed, I’ve forgotten some, and I have to be precise, clear, accurate, and orderly. I don’t want to end up with something more or less impressionistic, what they call: artistically vague.
&nb
sp; Definitions
These are taken from Elisabeth Roudinesco and Michel Plon’s Dictionary of Psychoanalysis, published by Fayard. We’re now on Wednesday, December 2nd. I’ll get back to Sunday the 29th, Monday the 30th, and Tuesday the 1st. I was affected by certain definitions. I made an initial diagnosis, empirically, I’m not a doctor. I took some words, I understood what kind of insanity I have, what form. I figure it out, and it’s not pretty: it’s terrible. As they say: the rules of the game. The rules of the game as they say, I’m somewhat mad as they say, I’ve got my feet on the ground as they say. It’s a kind of excuse, this “as they say,” a kind of regret, and of innocence. I’ve underlined certain words to make reading easier. At the same time, it’s for emphasis. And finally, it builds something. Earlier my motto could have been ‘Everything can always be mashed together.’ I couldn’t take it anymore, as they say: enough was enough.
Incest
We call incest a sexual relation without force or constraint between blood relatives to a degree prohibited by the laws of each society. In almost all known societies, except for a few cases including Egyptian pharaohs or the ancient nobility of Hawaii, incest has always been severely chastised then prohibited. That is why it is so often kept secret and experienced as a tragedy by those who engage in it. Prohibition is the negative side of a positive regulation: the obligation of exogamy. The act is disapproved of by social opinion and always experienced as a tragedy caused by irrationality or leading to madness or suicide.
Mental illness
Whether called fury, mania, delusion, rage, frenzy, or alienation, madness has always been considered reason’s ‘other.’ Extravagance, senselessness, confused thinking, mood swings, excessive emotion: these are the manifestations of this affliction that human beings have suffered since the beginning of time.
Paranoia
This type of mental illness – which Freud compared to a philosophical system due to its logical mode of expression and an internal consistency that is close to “normal” reasoning – could be defined as the insidious development, determined by internal causes and following an extended evolution of a delusional, lasting, and impervious system that preserves from its inception complete clarity and order of thought, will, and action. Paranoia consists of two basic mechanisms: delusions of reference and illusions of memory, both of which produce different delusional beliefs of persecution, jealousy, and grandeur. The paranoid individual suffers from a chronic illness, believing himself a prophet, an emperor, a great person, an inventor. It is a pathological defense mechanism, people develop paranoia because they cannot tolerate certain things, provided, naturally, that their psyches are predisposed to it. Paranoid individuals love their delusion as they love themselves, this is their secret. Paranoia is defined as a defense against homosexuality.
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