Heredity
A grandmother who committed suicide, my father’s mother. She threw herself out the window at the moment her husband and his son, my father’s brother, were entering the courtyard on their way to take a walk. My father suffers from Alzheimer’s, as did his father before him. I suffer from the opposite disease, for almost fifteen days now, fifteen days on Wednesday, I can’t get Christmas out of my mind, I have cried every day because of Christmas. I can’t forget Christmas. I cry, I can’t forget, I want to, but I can’t. I cried, I broke up with her, I got myself strangled, I even slapped myself. Christmas Christmas Christmas. Memory loss is not what I suffer from. I don’t have amnesia, rather I suffer from hypermnesia, too strong a memory, if there is such a thing. Christmas Christmas Christmas. I have a six-and-a-half year old daughter, “you always have to bring in Léonore.” Nadine is just an intermediary, Christmas a trigger. I don’t want the legitimate family to take precedence over the unstable one. Paranoids cannot tolerate certain things, I can’t tolerate Marie-Christine not loving me enough to want my child to have a nice Christmas with her and going to celebrate Christmas with her godchildren. My child in other words my flesh in other words my body, what I am, my life, what I’ve lived through that makes Christmas, Christmas, Christmas, Christmas.
Now: to organize the mistakes I’ve made not by how I’ve made them but by why, things I’ll never recover from, “move on to other things” I’ll never move on to other things, the causes, suffering at its most ineradicable, I will be polite, because in the end it makes you very, very polite. It takes away all your aggression, all true hatred, the hatred we show, sometimes, it’s fake, it’s not real, it’s false hatred. It’s a pretense. I’ll try to talk to you. Just as I’m now trying to talk to Marie-Christine, to see if it can be any use. I’ll try to talk to you, here we go, there won’t be any plays on words, there won’t be any hatred, there won’t be anything, there won’t be any literary formulations, maybe this won’t be literature, there will be nothing; nothing, nothing, nothing, there will be nothing. There will be nothing but memories, each memory will be a wrenching that must be written down. Memory, a book of memories. I remember. I remember Ricola, Kréma candies, but something else too. I remember Vittel Délice soda, but something else too. A swing set, stitches in my head, near my eyebrow, my mother in a state, but something else too. I remember Marie-Hélène, the soft sand, my pleated tweed skirt with leather piping, the Nuts and Mars candy bars and Americanos when we got out of the swimming pool in Reims, but something else too. I remember my green skirt with suspenders, my wheelbarrow, my little friend Jean-Pierre, my neighbor Chantal, my grandmother, the rabbits and chicks at the Ligot’s house, Kréma candies, raspberry first, strawberry second, lemon third and orange to finish. I remember cookies with hazelnuts and all sorts of delicious things, I remember two-person swings, etc., etc., but something else too.
What?
Go on, spit it out, your Valda candy.
I was so happy to know him. Meeting him the first time was so much more than I’d hoped. And then, eight days later, not more than that, I swear, not more, I was so disillusioned, I couldn’t have imagined. Way beyond my expectations and eight days later, a disappointment I could never have dreamed of, never. I met him in Strasbourg with my mother at the Buffet de la Gare, he seemed so extraordinary to me. I, who had never had a father to introduce to my friends, all of a sudden I’d be able to tell them how extraordinary he was. I was charmed. I felt no desire for him, it wasn’t that at all. Charmed. Like you can be by someone you love. I found him intelligent, interesting, so much more cultured than your average person, so exceptional. My friends’ fathers could pack it in (this isn’t a quip, it’s not mischievous and impertinent, as I’ve said). Him, he spoke thirty languages, he was elegant. I don’t want to go into details, in short, he exceeded my expectations. By far. I told my mother, who was happy, she said to me “you see, I didn’t choose just anyone to be your father.” I agreed and then some, I said “no, you didn’t, you certainly didn’t.” And then eight days later, my mother and I were spending eight days at Gérardmer in a hotel, he came to see us. Dinner, a walk around the lake, bedtime. He came to say goodnight in my room, and there, he kissed me on the mouth. Already just the discovery of a kiss on the mouth, and that he kissed me like that. I didn’t understand, I understood very well, I didn’t believe it. I really did ask myself. He loved me, he said he loved me. I’m very sorry to tell you about this, I’d so much rather be able to talk about something else. But how I became insane, that’s it. I’m sure of it, it’s because of this that I became insane. This was the cause. In eight days I went from the ideal father, even more than ideal, unhoped for, a father I could never have imagined possible, and he was my father, and he loved me, and we looked like each other, and he was happy, and he found me extraordinary, me too, he was dazzled. There were so many promises. No, I repeat, I never felt any desire for him, no, I say it again. Never. I do know what desire is, after all. Pleasure, there may have been some, I don’t deny it. But never desire. I wanted to please him, of course. I am very sorry this has to be discussed. Very sorry. Why am I talking about it? Well, because I talked about it with Marie-Christine and she thinks it’s a good idea. I hope it’s not because it excites her, she says it doesn’t, that instead it makes her feel bad. It tears me up to talk about it. When I talk to her about it, it tears me up, fortunately I’m in her arms, otherwise I probably couldn’t. I shouldn’t write this. And I shouldn’t talk to her about it. What it will evoke, in her, and in you, will be the same thing, pity, you won’t be able to love me anymore, neither she nor you. She won’t love me anymore. We will no longer be able to make love. You won’t want to read me anymore. I think, well too bad, it’s a risk I have to take. We don’t like people who have suffered, we feel sorry for them, we don’t like the insane, we feel sorry for them. No one wants to live next door to an insane asylum. It’s normal, I understand. I’m the same. I’m a poor girl, no one falls in love with a poor girl. No one wants to make love to a poor girl, unless you’re a pervert. What else?
I didn’t talk about it to anyone. Not anyone. No one knew. Do you understand? From fourteen to sixteen. I talked about my father at school. All the things about him I could be proud about, the intellectual things, his knowledge, his culture, I was appropriating it, sometimes I shared it with others. I mostly talked about it to my friend Véronique. I would tell her what I’d learned over the weekend. She was interested, fascinated. All the things about him I was proud of. All the more since I hadn’t talked about my father at all for fourteen years, not to anyone. There were things I hid, things I was ashamed of, but there was plenty I could talk about.
And now, I tell myself the same thing, keep silent. If I talk it will be worse than before: it helps to talk, they’ll tell me. I hate having to write this. I hate you. I despise you. I don’t want to know what you’re thinking. I know what you’re thinking. Always the same thing and you’re all the same. Calf, cow, pig and I hate you. It’s that or the clinic. I have to. It’s the clinic or talking to you. To you. Writing is a kind of rampart against insanity, I’m already very lucky that I’m a writer, that at least I have this possibility. That’s already something. This book will be seen as a shit piece of testimony. What else could I do? What else? Orange Kréma candy, but also:
The Codec grocery store, Le Touquet, being sodomized, the car, giving him blow jobs in the car, eating clementines off his dick, stiff, seeing him on the toilet, hearing him groan, the pharaohs of Egypt, Champollion, the day we didn’t go to Carcassonne. I’ll give it a try in this order. Nancy.
The Codec
There was nothing left. I met him at fourteen, from fourteen to sixteen, it happened. Even though I asked him to stop, every time. On the phone, before we met, every time. Each time he told me yes. Each time it wasn’t possible. Like Marie-Christine, each time I break up over the phone, when I see her, it’s not possible. But, as she told me, between the two of us, nothing�
�s forbidden. Luckily. It was Thursday night (December 10th) I replied “luckily, luckily.” It stopped when I was sixteen, I told Marc, who told my mother. It could finally stop. From sixteen to eighteen we wrote each other. In his letters, he reproached me for stabbing him in the back. When I turned eighteen, he stopped writing and sending money to my mother because he could no longer be forced to pay support if my mother decided to take legal action. In any case, she wouldn’t have done it. Then there was Pierre, then Claude, then analysis, then I wrote. I wanted to see him again. To finally start to have a normal father-daughter relationship. I met him in Nancy. He had promised, he had absolutely guaranteed that nothing would happen. I remember his look in the café, he had just met me at the station, later that weekend we went to see Jacques Doillon’s Family Life, which I’d already seen, which I’d adored, I wanted to see it again with him, I thought he would like it as much as I did. But no, he didn’t understand what I meant. In any case, I picture the café again, there were a few steps leading down into the room, I see myself sitting at the table, facing him. Especially, at a certain moment, I see his look again. Which was a look of desire and I said to myself “it’s starting again.” “He’s not going to keep his promise,” or else I knew it would be hell, that he would show me his desire, that he kept hold of this desire to please me. The hotel, two rooms, time to say goodnight, and there it was. It started again. That’s the moment I decided to turn over, to turn my body over, to turn myself over. Why? To finally be considered a woman, not a piece of ass, an asshole, butter on the flipped crêpe, Vaseline, I wasn’t just a piece of ass, I started to take control from that moment. Control of this story and now I have it (let’s say). At first he had the upper hand, I was under his thumb. Suggesting, flipping myself over onto the good side, I wrote already, I had started. Taking control, having the upper hand. And now, I have it. He’s lost his mind, Alzheimer’s. Me, I’ve got an edge over the incest. The power, the sadistic penis, that’s it, thanks to the pen in my hand, confidently, fundamentally. The weaker hand, the upper hand, very well. Now I talk to Marie-Christine, I write and I’ll talk to Moufid Zériahen too. I don’t write the way I used to. I’m not out to attack, not anyone. If I say “the hell with those who’ll read it” it’s because I’d rather have had something else to write about. That’s all. Writing is not choosing your narrative. But taking it, into your arms, and putting it calmly down on the page, as calmly as possible, as accurately as possible. So that he will turn over in his grave yet again, if my body is his grave. If he turns over again, it’s because I’m not dead. I’m insane, but not dead. I’m not completely insane either. To take it in my arms as it is, I’d rather have taken another subject in my arms, no one asked me. It can take an entire lifetime for a writer to take in his arms something that doesn’t concern anyone. Hence this admonition not to be resentful, a regret, a last one, not to have been able to write other books than those, knowing how you’d react and that your reaction would hurt me. I’m getting sidetracked, I had left the Codec, to explain that there was “nothing left” at the Codec moment, I had to back up a bit. It wasn’t a lapse in logic, on the contrary. I’ll get there. You’ll see, I’m very, very polite, I don’t have a choice, I no longer have any choice, none at all. I said that I’d write certain things, and I’ll do it. You’ll see, I’ll go to the very end. How I went insane, you will understand, I hope. And if it’s not enough I’ll write more books. A lot more. And in the end, all the readers will have understood. Maybe it will take until I die, but in the end you will all have understood how I became crazy. All. I promise, it’s a promise. It will be kept. This is not a digression I’ve been on since the beginning of the Codec chapter. Otherwise I’d have put it in parentheses. It’s not a digression, I’m getting there. So. Nancy. I’ll get back to it, perhaps. It’s not pleasant to talk about, me, for whom speaking has been such a pleasure. Such a profound joy. I can hear it already, I can already read it: Christine Angot, the pain, the pain of writing, not the pleasure. That’s why: the hell with them. So, Nancy, it starts up again for a time, a short time. Luckily. Grand finale, swansong, the energy of despair, the drop that made the bucket overflow. As they say. One or two visits to Nice and it stops. I’ll explain how. I’ll explain it all in any case. All. How I went crazy after NC, a trigger, I hope no one else will tell me about it being out of proportion, exaggerated, ridiculous, the final drop that made the bucket overflow a long time ago, the whole bucket. The smallest extra drop, that falls, overflows with those that have already fallen from the bucket, forming a puddle at the base, there really is no room left, no room left at all, to understand that “no, Christmas, I’m going to spend it with my godchildren, my family, it’s normal, everyone understands that, everyone understands me, it’s not that all of a sudden anything will change just because you’re here now, just because you’re here I’m supposed to drop everyone?” No, don’t drop anyone. Go spend Christmas with your Nadine, and your Nadine, go ahead and fuck her. I said I was going to be polite. I will be. Thinking about it again does that to me. I’m going to calm down. Crazy people can calm down. They get worked up, there are crises, critical moments, and then things calm down again. It starts up again regularly, and then things calm back down. There are crises. It’s not serious. But when the bucket can’t even overflow. It’s not full to the brim, it’s already swamped, the bucket itself. The bucket itself is already swamped. It itself is already drowned, the bucket. If you add a ladle-full of Christmas, of grandchildren, of time immemorial, of family and ghosts, of Chambord, of slut cinema, OK, I take that back, whatever is done or not done in those cases, Catou and of that’s the way it’s always been, and of it’s a ritual, and of it’s not that anything will change just because you’re here now, that makes a crisis inevitable. I’m going to calm down. Give me a few seconds, I’m going to calm down. You can trust me, I know, all it takes is a little patience. I’m going to calm down. I am a polite person. Like my mother was telling me yesterday “at fourteen you were very nice,” “trusting,” “you were vulnerable,” “you were trusting because you’d never been hurt,” “and so it was easy to hurt you.” I was a nice person thanks to her, who had never hurt me, her, obviously. I don’t like it when anyone tells me that. What does it mean? That afterward I wasn’t nice anymore? That I’d become a sadistic penis, is that it? Is that what’s implied? Is that it? Or is it something else? Hunh? Kréma candy? Kréma candy and something else. Something else, but what? Yesterday she said to me “do you think it would have been better if you’d never met him?” Do I have time to answer questions like that? Do I have the time? And on top of that I’d have to pacify her, to reassure her. We’d have to talk about whether or not she did the right thing to introduce me to him. That question doesn’t interest me. The hell with those who’ll read the answer. Why not ask me straight out: Do think it would have been better not to be the person you’ve become? Why not? Why don’t you flat out ask me that question? Do you, Christine Angot, think that it would have been better not to be who you are? And another thing. Do you, Christine Angot, think it would have been better for you (and for us, too, is the implication, of course) if you could write other books, perhaps less negative? Perhaps with a bit more light? Do you think it would have been better for you if you were a piece of Kréma candy? With strawberry, raspberry, lemon, orange or clementine flavors? Because in general you always, you the public, you the critics, can never keep yourselves from describing the world as plus-minus, positive-negative, good-evil, candy-bile, intelligent-moron, man-woman, white-black. To which I answer, I’ll tell you to your face, I will give you an answer: Be polite. Fine, I’ll start again. It stopped in Nice, after one or two visits, I was an adult, I was twenty-six years old. It stopped for good, I don’t have time to talk about the circumstances right now. But I will. The Codec came after it stopped. It was about establishing a normal relationship. My half-brother and half-sister had finally learned about my existence, they’d gotten their diplomas, that is, their education wa
s no longer at risk, so they could be told of my existence. I was twenty-eight years old. Claude and I had decided to go to Strasbourg for a few days. Elisabeth was there in the beginning, after which there was only my father and my half-brother Philippe. My half-sister, who had visited me in Nice two weeks earlier was on holiday in Tunisia visiting a friend. Visiting the daughter of a friend of her mother, Elisabeth. Claude’s and I slept in her room. I’ll spare you the tour of the apartment. The welcome. I’ll spare you the quiche too. Elisabeth also leaves on holiday somewhere. No more quiche, nothing left. The refrigerator is empty. Claude and I offer to do some errands. My father tells us he has an account at the Codec. He gives us the information, explains which Codec, tells us how to get there, where it is. (He knows Claude knows, not that Claude knows where the Codec is, but that he knows, I should have said it earlier, it would have been more logical.) He says put it on the Angot account. I double-check how to do it. So all we need to do when we get to the register is to tell them to put it on the Angot account? Yes, that’s it. That’s all we need to do. (My name is Angot, has been since I was fourteen, when he acknowledged me under the 1972 law of filiation, before that my name was Christine Schwartz, but you know that already, I’ve written about it in almost all my books; or you haven’t been paying attention.) So, we’re getting the groceries, I can picture us again, Claude and me, in that Codec. Mouchi had told me in July that when she was little she dreamed of being a grocery bagger at Codec, she loved bagging groceries. Humor, kids are so cute. So very cute, given her social class, really too cute. Are there Codecs in Tunisia where she spends her vacations? Joking aside, as they say. I can see the two of us getting the groceries, filling a cart, coming up to the register. We put our things on the conveyor belt, and I say “put it on the Angot account please.” At that moment, some kind of neighbor, some lady behind us, a friend of Elisabeth’s, bourgeois just like her, a tennis player, surely, just like her, a woman in one of the liberal or intellectual professions working in an international organization, like her, intrudes (like her), and says (like her): “but you’re not part of the family, who are you?” Like the idiot I still was at the time, I answer “I’m his daughter.” She replies that she knows Elisabeth very well and the children very well too, that she’s very sorry, but I’m not Philippe or Mouchi, she knows them, it turns out she knows them, it turns out that I’m out of luck that she’s in line behind me, and that I’m not going to be able to take the Angots for a ride like that, me and my little boyfriend. It turns out she’s there. So no. I won’t be able to. While we bag up the things. Very quickly, we put everything in bags very quickly. I can’t stand listening to that lady. The godchildren, she knows them, the godchildren, and has for a long time, Léonore, no one’s seen her face, or maybe it was not quite a year ago, what’s that, a year, it was exactly a year. We run to the car with our bags, I don’t want to cry in front of them, the people in the store. So we run to the car, yes, like thieves. We run just like thieves. We close the doors and I cry. But the owner, who had been informed, came out of the store and ran after us to the car, and he knocks on the window, on Claude’s side. I tell him: quick, take off. He takes off very, very fast. Fortunately. We arrive at my father’s house, he’s on the phone with the owner. He defuses the situation. He says he knows that woman, but that she doesn’t know the entire family, no, everything’s fine, he reassures the owner. He tells me it’s not serious, that everything’s fine.
Incest Page 10
