by André Alexis
The plain fact of your situation struck you, around day four or five, when it occurred to you that the world was contriving to keep you in Neuilly. In the morning, Mylène would bring in an espresso, a croissant still warm from the boulangerie around the corner, and a small pot of the grapefruit marmalade she made herself. The night’s sleep having refreshed her — each morning brought her greater and greater well-being — you would go out for walks around Neuilly or take a bus into Paris proper. You spent two whole days in Paris, buying books, eating in well-known restaurants, walking along the Seine, visiting galleries and museums.
You would happily return to those few days in Paris, wouldn’t you? And you would find it easy to love the woman who offered them to you. At the time, however, you found all sorts of reasons to be unhappy. You resented it when Mylène refused to buy you a pair of black leather boots you wanted, or when she left too great a tip at Café Flores, or when, as you walked along the riverside, she walked too slowly. Every little thing annoyed you, because you were not her husband and you hadn’t chosen this life. Seeing that her behaviour irritated you, Mylène would try to accommodate your moods, walking more quickly, buying anything you happened to glance at. She did everything to put you at ease, though this desire to accommodate was as irritating as anything else. After five days, you could scarcely hide your resentment.
From Mylène’s perspective, the thought that the two of you were a bad match must have brought anxiety and distress. She had come to take your presence for granted. Your irritability, the fact that you were not a good match, must have brought her up against the realization that, sooner than she wanted, she would again be alone with “Georges.” Being an optimist, she must have assumed there were ways to meet both your needs: hers for company, yours for freedom. But there was not. There never was, was there? In the matter of Formentera, for instance, she again suggested you go together. She would be happy to pay for everything, so long as you could sleep in the same bed. You refused outright, telling her flatly that your friends did not like women and that you would find it awkward to have her with you. Suspecting, then, that you were homosexual and so in need of more “eroticism,” she made love to you
according to what she imagined your capacity to be. But, being twenty-one, you could barely keep up to yourself sexually and, after a few days of uninhibited lovemaking, she complained she was “uncomfortable.” You took this as an insult, and would not speak to her until she apologized.
Finally, when you had been living together for six days and things were at breaking point, she spoke to you simply and honestly, putting aside any desire to please or impress. You were reading when Mylène walked in and sat on the bed beside you.
— We have to talk, she said.
— About what?
— About me, she said.
A subject of no interest to you, but she pleaded for a little of your time. You could not imagine, she said, the life she had been leading for the past five years. Her world had been shattered. None of the wealth or any of the ideas her family had passed on were useful. As far as her family was concerned, there were no ghosts, and it was impossible that she should be assaulted by a man who was not there. So, she had not insisted, preferring to have them think there was something “neurologically” wrong with her. The word “neurology” was as mysterious and sinister to them as “ghost,” but by using a medical term she made herself an invalid and avoided an asylum in Bretagne. Agreeing to scientific terminology also meant that she had tacitly agreed to call the real horror she faced (and that you had witnessed) a delusion. So, over the last years, she had made herself as lonely as one could imagine. And then there was “Georges” himself, wasn’t there? She could not convey her revulsion at being violated. There wasn’t even the possibility of pleasure. “Georges” was not a man but rather a terrifying presence with whom she shared the knowledge of her violation. For years now, she had been unable to sleep at night. Night was for wandering the streets of Neuilly. She slept, if at all, from dawn until mid-afternoon. Yes, naturally, she had tried sleeping with other men, but none had been as faithful as you, none as courageous. They
had all fled. This is what made you miraculous: you had remained. You had brought night and sleep back into her life.
She was not blind. She knew the kind of man you were: a thief, at very least.
— I’ve never stolen anything from you, you said indignantly.
But of course you had, of course. She knew exactly how much money she kept on hand. But . . . but . . . she was pleased you’d stolen from her. It meant you might be influenced by money, that you might stay if she gave you more, if she bought things for you. Money meant nothing to her, if it kept you in Neuilly. In fact, she wished you were more greedy because, to her disappointment, it was clear money was not enough. She could not hold you with banknotes, nor with her body, nor with desire. She had nothing with which to keep you. So, there you were, then, two human beings, though only one was reduced to raw need. Perhaps, she said, you didn’t understand what it meant to have had night restored to her. To her, it was as if she had been returned to life. She would have traded love, money, anything at all for the sleep you’d brought. And so, appealing to your humanity, she asked you to stay, if only for a few more weeks, a month, long enough to give her the strength to go on.
It’s shameful to think, isn’t it, that this appeal to your humanity was an appeal to something you did not then possess. Indignant (and humiliated) as you were by the mention of your thieving, everything in you rose up against her. You pretended you’d understood her plea, you pretended you’d been moved. You said
— Yes, of course, I’ll stay.
though you intended to leave the very next morning. You must have said the words ironically, however, or maybe you put into them a hint of your intentions, because Mylène seemed unconvinced.
— I’m glad you’re staying, she said.
You weren’t any more convinced by her words than she had been by yours, but you didn’t care. You would spend the night. You would leave in the morning. Your only thought was whether you would finish the book you were reading.
— Let me make you some tea, she said.
It was a tisane of some sort, a verveine or vetiver, something herbal enough to overwhelm the medicinal taste of the tablet she must have dissolved in it. You drank the tea and, though it was only mid-afternoon, you fell easily and uncomprehendingly asleep.
You woke up light-headed, unsure where you were, but with a feeling of well-being. For a few moments you couldn’t understand why your wrist was sore and then, when you saw that you were handcuffed to the bed, you thought it was some strange (but not unusual) device used in Neuilly to protect one’s hands. It did not occur to you that you were being held against your will. Rather, you tried to puzzle out rational reasons for your state: one hand handcuffed to the head of the bed, your feet tied to the bottom. You called out, of course, still bewildered, and Mylène came in.
— What’s going on? you asked.
She sat on the bed beside you.
— I’m going to keep you here for a while, she answered. You’re going to stay with me for a while. It isn’t fair for you to leave. I’ve only had a week’s sleep. I need more.
You looked at her, then, as if meeting her for the first time. Suddenly you were given information that changed everything. Her light brown hair with its wayward mèche, her body, her voice, the taut muscles of her arm, her pale skin, her unpainted fingernails . . . everything now pointed to the crucial (and entirely obvious) detail you had missed: as well as being cultured, wealthy, and delicate, Mylène was ruthless. Moreover, she had the means to keep you for as long as she wanted. Another obvious thing: you were nothing to her but a passage to sleep. She had been friendly, because friendliness had been good strategy. She had tried to reason with you, because reason is less trouble than force. All that she had been she had been for conven
ience’ sake, a means of attracting you to her cause. Once you’d stayed the night, you became something else to her: a necessity, at least in her mind, and she would not let you go. Wide awake and fully aware of your situation, you began to call out for help.
— Calm down, she said. I won’t let you leave me. You have to accept that.
When you would not calm down, she tied your free hand to the headboard, wound duct tape over your mouth, and sat with you for a while.
Everything changed, the moment she bound you to the bed.
Although, over five nights, your fear of “Georges” had considerably lessened, the night you spent handcuffed and tied to Mylène’s bed was and is the worst night you have spent on Earth. It isn’t only because of what happened. It is, also, because you discovered your own vulnerability. And something deeper, a frightening thought that came in the middle of the night: what if there were no ghost, no “Georges,” but only the projection and will of Mylène herself?
As if in apology, Mylène had made one of your favourite meals: lamb tajine. She fed you herself, then brought you a bedpan. In the interim between being bound to the bed and the approach of evening, you had decided you would not give Mylène the satisfaction of hearing you plead or ask for anything. So, you refused to speak to her, eating because you were hungry and then turning away. Your silence did not disturb her at all, though. She again put tape over your mouth to keep you from calling out in the evening.
— Goodnight, she said. I’m sorry to do this, but at least you won’t have to suffer as long as I have.
Meaning: she would release you eventually?
Meaning: she was no monster, whatever you happened to think of her in this, the time of her distress?
At the thought that you were defenceless, that you could not even run from the room, you grew too distraught to sleep. You waited. The night was bright. The moon shone on the world, turning everything white, including the rectangles of light that passed through the French doors and illuminated your side of the bedroom. As the hours passed, the moonlight grew brighter and brighter until, at one in the morning, it would have been difficult to fall asleep, frightened or not.
Then, as the distant bells began ringing for two, “Georges” entered the room.
On this night, he came first to your side of the bed and looked down at you, his mouth open so you could see he had two teeth missing. Though the moonlight was behind him, you could see him clearly: a tall man with broad shoulders and a long neck, his ears as if pressed to his skull. He looked down at you, smiled maliciously, and touched your chest, a sensation you have often compared to swallowing a cold, partially deflated balloon: suffocating and vile. You would have said or done anything to stop him. But as it happened, he was not interested in you. He was simply pleased to see you bound and out of the way. He withdrew from the moonlight and went to Mylène’s side of the bed.
You did not see what followed. You heard it, rather, and felt it. First, there was his voice through hers: a kind of low rumbling. Then, as if a man had truly climbed onto the bed with you, the mattress sank under his weight and he began to fuck her. The noise of their fucking — his sighs and groans, her groans and cries of awareness and distress — was all in her voice, and it is the most disturbing thing you have heard: two beings using the same voice, almost simultaneously. And every nuance was conveyed, from “Georges’” pleasure to Mylène’s growing disgust and resistance. The whole of it lasted some fifteen minutes before you felt “Georges” rise from the bed. He came into the moonlight to look at you and smile, and then he was gone.
You felt, as “Georges” left the bedroom, that you would rather die than go through an episode like the one you had just survived. But if you were disgusted and afraid, it was obviously worse for Mylène. She was quiet for some time, but you could feel her body shaking on her side of the bed. Then it was as if a banshee had entered the room. Mylène let out a cry of grief and outrage that was itself as frightening as “Georges” had been. Jumping up from bed, she ran from the room, talking to herself and shouting words in your direction.
It was frightening, but it was also, strangely amusing: one hand cuffed to a bed, the other tied to the headboard, feet tied to the footboard, at the mercy of a woman who seemed to be mindlessly rushing about a house in Neuilly. You, of course, couldn’t speak, your mouth having been taped shut. Yes, it was, in its bewildering illogic, amusing. And you were helplessly amused even when Mylène returned to the room with a broom and began to strike you with its handle. Now, this changed your mind for you. She broke two of your fingers and hurt your ribs so that it was weeks before you could breathe without pain. Her frenzy, as she hit you, was indescribable, and it was not clear that she would stop.
But stop she did. When she had exhausted herself, Mylène dropped the broom and turned on the bedroom lights. Then, as if the light brought remorse, she began to cry. And this, oddly, was one of the more disturbing moments in an evening filled with them. Disturbing to you because, as Mylène sat on the bed crying, it finally occurred to you that you were in a world whose prelate was the woman who’d just beaten you with a broom handle. Save for you yourself, what in this compact universe was not of her making? “Georges,” the smell of almonds, the pictures and crucifixes? You were at the mercy of an unknowable and strange woman who might, on a whim, punish you as she was punishing herself.
When she could speak without sobbing, Mylène repeated the same question over and over, as much to herself as to you:
— Why didn’t you protect me? Why didn’t you protect me?
until, as the bells faintly struck three, the question exhausted itself as had her rage and she sat silently awake staring at the wall.
The following day, as she bandaged your broken fingers to a splint, you spoke together with surprisingly little rancour, bound by your shared experience of her demons and by a mutual fear, each of the other. Ashamed of herself, she had agreed to let you go, but only when she was certain you would not hurt her for what she had done. While you, naturally, found her unnerving and thought only of leaving.
— I’ve never done anything like this before, she said. I’ve never hurt anyone.
You assured her that you believed every word, but you could not stay. And it was thoroughly understood by both of you that, for whatever reason, you could not be held against your will and still defend her against “Georges.” Thank Christ for that. You were free to go and that is what you wanted, and yet, as you watched her bind your fingers to the splint, you were almost overwhelmed by pity.
Mylène Saint-Brieuc did nothing to elicit pity or any other emotion. Her hair held back by barrettes, she sat beside you on the bed, your hand in her hands as if it were a wounded bird. You watched as she carefully wound the bandage, pulling it taut around the splint, the ring finger, and the baby finger of your left hand. The white cloth, the clumsy scissors with the fading word “Singers” embossed on one of its blades, and the silver fasteners which she used to keep the bandage in place: like little insects, smooth figure eights on one side, with what looked like tiny, triangular teeth on the other.
She did not look at you as she bound your fingers. Embarrassed, humiliated, it’s likely she wanted you gone as much as you wanted to go. Now that you could not help her, what could your presence bring except further humiliation? It would have brought little consolation that you were the only other being on Earth who knew of what her nights consisted. When she had finished and there was nothing more to say, you got up to leave. She gave you twenty thousand francs for Formentera. She held the door open for you to leave.
— Forgive me, she said
looking down at the floor, no doubt already steeling herself against the visitations to come.
And you would have left without a word, were it not for the onset of a question: as she held the door open for you, as you passed beneath the lintel, you wondered if you had the right to leave, know
ing exactly what she would face when or if she fell asleep.
— I’ll give you five days, you said. I’ll stay for five nights. I can’t leave you like this.
And in that moment, briefly, you thought you knew what it meant to be human. And you have never forgotten the feeling, though, of course, you were wrong. Looking up at you in alarm, Mylène said
— I don’t want you here
and closed the door in your face.
The rest of your time in Europe was insignificant, or insignificant for you.
You did not go to Formentera. As you were on a train to Pamplona, you cracked your arm deflecting a suitcase that fell. A ridiculous, dispiriting accident. You might have spent time in Pamplona, but you were suddenly weary of travel. You returned to Paris, in the hope it would renew your spirits. But after only a day in Barbès, you gave up and went home.
Time passed.
And more time passed.
When you first returned from Europe, you were happy to tell your “ghost story.” Your moments of terror and revulsion were a source of amusement to dinner guests. Though few believed the particulars of your tale, the idea of your inconvenient courage was admired. In your telling, you were not kind to Mylène. In your telling, she was a needy harridan, so your escape from her was as admired as your courage in the room with “Georges.” For years, whenever a conversation turned to the supernatural you would be asked to recount your time with Mylène. Certain details were fixed in memory and in storytelling: the smell of almonds, furniture in the centre of a room, paintings and crucifixes nailed to a wall.
