Mon amie américaine

by Michéle Halberstadt

  Molly, tell me the truth, have I become that conventional mother who’s blind and deaf? Have I become that cliché? Such a bad farce? Really? Since when?

  You know how much I hate reading that kind of predictable scenario. The husband, the wife, and the other woman, that intruder who embodies the serpent of temptation.

  In that type of story, the resolution is completely binary. Like your two-column sheet. For or against?

  Say something or keep quiet.

  Leave or stay.

  Protest or forgive.

  Suffer or forget.

  Molly, what would you say in my place? Enough is enough or more?

  As you’re finally coming back from your planet Comma, I’m going out on the attack, in a land that was unknown to me and that I thought I’d never have to visit someday. I have no choice. I have to confront it. Jealousy. That bad counselor. That scorching lava that blinds the senses and muddles the brain. If I surrender to it, I’m done for.

  FOR THE MOMENT, I’M KEEPING MY MOUTH SHUT. I’m much too crazed to start the battle. I’m not armed for that kind of combat. Quite the opposite — it feels like all my strength has left me. During the day, I deal with it. I have no choice in front of the children. At night, I drift from one nightmare to another. I dream we’re divorcing, that I’m single again, that I’m invited to dinners where they seat me at the end of the table, that I go out with men I don’t know anything about, and to whom I have nothing to say. I understand that you’re supposed to talk, to explain who you are, to seduce, to sell yourself, but I’m not capable of it. I live alone. Vincent has made a new life for himself, but I can’t stop undoing mine. You’re going to laugh; in my dreams I’ve changed occupations. I’ve become a librarian, and I’ve got all the answers when it comes to the books in the romance section. Some nights, I’ve gained forty-five pounds. On others, I’m anorexic, have lost my teeth, my hair. I smoke filterless Gitanes and live in bed. In the morning, I wake up crying, but I feel Vincent’s breath on the nape of my neck, so I hurry out of bed to keep him from noticing how red my eyes are.

  I haven’t said anything, haven’t made the slightest remark; but it’s obvious to me that I’m different. I’ve stiffened. Vincent must have guessed that I’m not myself. He seems particularly considerate. In normal times, I would have said thoughtful, but now I see him more as attentive, as if he were on his guard and had a foreboding of everything I’ve guessed.

  Everything is so crystal clear when I think about it! I’m an idiot, Molly. I would have made a lousy detective. How couldn’t I have noticed that Vincent, who never knew where he’d put his cell phone, now never lets it out of his sight? It’s with him everywhere, even — and especially — in the bathroom, where the flowing of the faucets is getting noisier and noisier. No, I’m not paranoid. It’s simply that all these things I hadn’t noticed, at least not consciously, are exploding in my brain and in front of my eyes in very big close-ups, in 3-D and Technicolor. Vincent forgets his doctors’ appointments, a hypochondriac like him; but it does occur to him to stop in for a haircut, whereas usually I have to force him to do that. He’s wearing a new cologne, despite the fact that he used to swear only by his Penhaligon’s English Fern, which the two of us went and bought for him in London, and that you insisted on paying for because you’d forgotten his birthday. He has bought a collection of shirts, even though he hates wearing new clothes. He’s jaunty, absentminded, flippant. More than anything, I sense he’s unavailable, faraway, vague, elsewhere …

  I’m losing faith, can no longer hope that tomorrow will be another day. I’m out of patience. You know my motto: The best defense is to attack. It isn’t very far away from yours: The best way out is always through.

  Molly, I’ve got to act, make a decision, do something. I can’t stand waiting any longer. Waiting for you to wake up. And waiting for him to announce his desires to me.

  Since I sense that he wants to be able to do as he pleases, I leave him alone. Never mind if it’s suicidal. I’m the one who leaves. I’m traveling more and more, to the great displeasure of the children, who hate to see me go and start sulking as soon as they catch sight of my little red suitcase, the one I take out when I’m traveling without them. Benoît opens the drawers, helps me with a sad look, whereas Clara, who is always more drastic, runs away to entangle herself in our nanny Lala’s apron strings, who will toss her some crepes whenever as she thinks Clara is sad. And it enrages me to see her stuffing my daughter like that, but I can read in her eyes that if I wasn’t absent so often, she wouldn’t need to give her substitute pleasures. So I let her go ahead with it, feeling contrite, guilty.

  My life feels like water flowing from my clenched fist as I try in vain to hold on to it. I’m running away. Without you, Molly, I don’t know where to turn. You’re the only person I can tell all this to.

  I think I’ve never felt so alone.

  I sleep in impersonal hotel rooms in which I burn incense that Vincent is crazy about and that makes me feel like I’m home. I try to escape through the films I’m watching, but now I can’t stand any of them. The comedies exacerbate me, the misunderstandings are oppressive, the cross-purposes give me a stomachache, the dramas bore me, the science fictions fill me with anguish. I’m not interested in any kind of thriller. I’m focused on the burdens in my own life, my marriage, my family. The future terrifies me, Molly. A life without him? It doesn’t make sense.

  FINALLY!

  You’re finally conscious, finally awake, finally allowed to see a few visitors.

  I’m coming!

  I’m so delighted to be going to your bedside before everybody. Only your family and the boys have this privilege. I’ve promised to give your three other friends news about you, to call them as soon as I leave the hospital.

  This morning I got up very early, printed out these pages; and I put them in an envelope the same bright pink color as your baggage labels. I’m sure it’s going to make you burst out laughing. I’ve just deleted the parts about Vincent. For the time being, to hell with my married life. You’re the one who counts, you, my enduring spirit. You stayed lost for more than three months on your planet Comma; you’ve practically beat all records, but we’re going to forget fast about all of that.

  Molly, I’m too excited to have the patience to reread what I’ve written. All of these sentences are probably meaningless now that you’ve woken up. I’ll bring them to you anyway. It’s my way of showing you in concrete terms that I didn’t stop thinking of you.

  I don’t know a thing about what state you’re in. I don’t want to think about it. I want to see you and decide for myself how you seem to me. I know that you became conscious again three weeks ago, that you recognized your family. You were transferred to another hospital two hours away from Manhattan. I don’t know if you were told of my visit. I hope not. You’ve always adored surprises.

  My head’s spinning, my ears ringing, my throat dry. Visits aren’t allowed after six p.m. I didn’t even take the time to stop by the hotel and drop my suitcase off. In any case, the instructions are not to stay in your room more than fifteen minutes, because you’re too tired to sustain a conversation. My hands are sweating. I’m shaking a little. If the taxi driver were a smoker, I think just this once I would have asked him for a cigarette. Have you gone back to smoking? Have they cut your hair? And your fingernails? They must be long; for once you weren’t able to bite them. Have you lost weight, gained it? Do you already have permission to wear one of your pairs of striped men’s pajamas that I love, or are you wearing an off-white hospital gown like the ones in those American films, the kind that are tied with a knot at the left side? I realize that I’ve avoided imagining you concretely until now. My legs are giving way. You’re the one who’s sick, and I’m the one who’s afraid.

  The taxi driver tells me that he’s very familiar with the route to the medical center, that it’s a renowned establishment that specializes in extensive rehabilitation. What’s he talking about? What does it mean?
That ready-made expression annoys me. What’s the meaning of such an impenetrable adjective? Extensive. Is it a PC word to avoid saying serious?

  I half-open the window and breathe the humid air. It won’t be long before it snows. I close my eyes. I’ve never so much wanted to have faith as I do at this second.

  For pity’s sake, make it be that you’re well.

  It was the girl at reception who called the taxi to take me back. The driver must be used to it. He made note of the address, turned his music all the way up, and belted into the night without so much as a look at me. Curled up in back, I watch the scenery flash by. I would really like to cry, which would soothe me. I can’t. I spend the trip bushed, frozen stiff, moving my head slightly to the rhythm of the potholed road and the monotonous Hindu tunes the driver hums along with.

  It doesn’t bother me. It keeps me from hearing the sounds of the car.

  Your voice is playing in a loop in my ears.

  A thick voice that croaks to me, “You know I almost died?”

  You repeated that to me four times.

  You’re just at the start of discovering the fear that made us tremble for so many months.

  For you, this is an enormous, astounding piece of information.

  You almost died, and you can’t get over it.

  When I entered your room, as soon as you saw my face, you let out a kind of minicry, held out your hand, your cheek, breathed in my perfume and recognized it, which made you smile. You smiled with your eyes, and I nearly burst into tears. I don’t think it surprised you to see me, and I sensed that it was giving you pleasure. You murmured my name, but your reedy voice was so thin, so close to inaudible, that I came very close to you and bent to speak to you in your ear. You were listening to my words, blinking, nodding, your eyes shining.

  I didn’t take out the pink envelope from my bag to put it on the bedside table, which was already too crowded. It would have seemed incongruous in this spartan room with its flaking paint, medical smell, lack of ventilation, and underfloor heating, which was already drying out my mucous membranes.

  I did my best not to let you see the shock that I felt in discovering you on this metal bed.

  My Molly, they’ve massacred your hair, cut it at every angle, which isn’t serious; but your face … has gotten so drawn. It’s still pallid, almost translucent. It’s a face snatched from death but not yet returned to life, a face with ringed eyes in which I can read a terrible fear that goes right into me and punches a hole in my stomach. You try to make the half gesture of a kiss, but your lips have trouble grazing my cheek.

  Your mother, who is at your bedside as I’d expected, gets up to meet me. She’s shorter than you, heavier, too, especially in that beige suit that’s too tight for her. She’s just as you have always described her, with auburn hair that has too much hairspray, hoop earrings, a “French manicure,” and misshapen athletic shoes. She takes me in her arms as if I were a family member, interrupts me as soon as I greet her: “Oh no, no ‘Mrs.’ between us. You must call me Dora,” and then takes control of the conversation. She’s staying at a hotel very nearby, not even five minutes by car, and luckily, right across the street, there is a “wonderful steakhouse” where she’s a regular customer. Your father can only spend time with you on weekends, whereas she’s at your side “around the clock.” This gives her a chance to have continuous contact with the medical team that is treating you. “And thanks to them, Molly is going to make so much progress!” Her forced enthusiasm is oppressive. It’s as if her mouth were sucking in all the air in the room.

  You have closed your eyes. I come and sit down next to you. I take your right hand. I can feel it trembling in mine. Your left hand is resting on the sheet. It isn’t moving. Your mother covers it with hers. “And all this is going to take a little time.” She looks me straight in the eye. I get the impression she’s trying to tell me something. I don’t see what it could be.

  The nurse enters without knocking, and from her stony face I understand I should leave. I get up quickly, bend over you, and murmur a few more words into your ear. I tell you how much I care about you, Molly, my Molly, I love you so much. I can feel your breath against my cheek. As I’ve always done because that habit amuses you, I add, “And quick, my two Parisian kisses.”

  I place my lips against your cheeks.

  One of them is very warm, the other not at all.

  Your mother is still staring at me. Her eyes move from me to your left hand, still lying on the sheet. It hasn’t moved since I came into your room.

  Your unmoving hand. Your cold cheek.

  Your inert leg under the blanket.

  Your mouth, Molly, a corner of which does not manage to smile.

  Peter and Paul say they had decided not to warn me so that I’d be as natural as possible in front of you. They were even hoping that the visit would be too brief for me to have the time to notice what was going on. In any case — and Peter’s voice over the telephone increases in volume, as if that would make it easier to convince me — the doctors haven’t lost hope about seeing you regain the feeling on your left side. That’s the reason you’ve been transferred to this special unit. With intense rehabilitation, they say that they can obtain unexpected results. A real battle awaits you, and you will all wage it together.

  Seated in front of my computer, I type these words the way tears spill out, without stopping, almost without breathing.

  I no longer know very well exactly whom I write to.

  To you, of course.

  But not to the person I saw today, who wasn’t moving, as if she’d been washed up onto her overly stiff bed. To that person, I can’t. Let’s just say that for the time being, I’m speaking to your brain, which is functioning very well. You recognized me, asked me right away for news of Vincent and the children without mistaking their names; and you even remembered that Benoît was going to be six. I saw — or at least sensed — the glimmer of the old Molly in your eyes. Even if your voice has changed, even if those eyes appear haunted by a terror that seemed inexplicable to me until I noticed your left hand, I know that deep inside you’re still there.

  I’ve found you again, incredibly fragile and battered, but still near and still so familiar. I’ve missed you so much.

  Describing my visit to anyone at all is out of the question. I’d rather turn off my laptop. Taking a small break is also prolonging the illusion for a few more hours of the Molly your three friends are hoping to see again. What can I tell them without lying? The truth?

  I would have liked to record the following message for those who’ll call the hospital for news of you: “Molly is not here for the moment. She’s away from herself. If you’re looking for her, it would be better to find her again in your memories.”

  Mine have disappeared, momentarily erased by your distorted voice that murmured in my ear, “You know I almost died?”

  Tonight, I’m not there for anyone.

  Four in the morning. Impossible to sleep. Lying in front of a nonstop news channel, I cut off the sound and play devil’s advocate. I put myself in your place. When you’re an adult, independent, a globe-trotter, and you find yourself infantilized by an overprotective mother and a glum nurse; when you’re in shock about what has happened, and you find yourself dependent upon a body that you can’t control as you did before; when your brain is laboring to process all this new data, can you find the energy in yourself to wage such a struggle? Poor Molly, you seem so destitute. Even the modulation of your voice has changed. It seemed more muffled, lower.

  Normally, I would have called Vincent to tell him everything. But I can’t handle speaking to him. I don’t know how to behave with him any more. There are few possible options and — you know me — I’ve already imagined all the scenarios. Confronting him will be a relief for me but will free him from the fear that he might have of hurting me. With no more need to conceal things, maybe he will want to live this story even more fully? Keeping quiet would require a superhuman effort on my
part. I’m afraid resentment is making me aggressive, which is bringing grist to the other woman’s mill, as she already has the advantage of being the younger one and now would also become the nicer one.

  Molly, you’ve often criticized me for this, and you certainly are right, but I’m so used to reasoning in reference to him, from a point of view in which he’s included, by taking him into consideration! He’s my partner, my foundation, my base, the direction in which I aim all my serves. For the first time in twenty years of life together, I find myself alone on the court without him standing on the other side of the net. And I’m not talking to you about the children. Can a couple make themselves suffer without them becoming the collateral victims? If that were possible, it would be known.

  Already they’re complaining that I’m away too often …

  Molly, I never told you about that famous night. I’m not boasting about it. I’m much too ashamed. The worst night of my life as a mother. The one when I felt stupendously guilty. Clara was barely three years old. She was in bed with a fever. I heard her coughing in her sleep. I opened the door of her room and bent over her bed. She opened her eyes; but instead of snuggling up in the arms I held out for her, she turned on her side, her expression shut me out, and she whined, “Not you. I want Lala.” I stood firm. I explained that at night the Lalas of the entire world were sleeping, whereas the moms got up no matter what time it was to give cuddles and take care of boo-boos. She ended up letting herself be cuddled and fell asleep again against my chest. I listened to her breathing, curled up against me. I felt her fevered head against my neck, and I took stock of the extent of the damages. Being able to juggle a profession and a family life was a myth; then, an illusion. A child doesn’t relate to the concept of a proxy. She needs you, body and soul. If you’re not there, she’ll need someone else. That’s the way it is. Nature abhors a vacuum.