by Eduardo Lalo
“What’s her name? Do I know her?”
“What are you after? You’re making things up.”
“Tell me her name. Tell me her name or I’ll start breaking things!”
On my desk next to her were a half-empty wine bottle and an opened notebook. I didn’t want to deal with either her hysterics or the mess. I’d lose nothing by giving in.
“Simone.”
“Her last name?”
“I don’t know it.”
“Tell me!”
“Marie, I told you I don’t know, and I really don’t. Why all this fuss? You go out with other people and I don’t ask you anything or persecute you.”
“So, you’re going out with her.”
“I told you that I ran into her at the movies and then we went out to have a beer.”
“So, you’re going out with her.”
“No, and stop already. Sit down.”
“I want to know what you were doing with her. I don’t want to sit down.”
“It doesn’t concern you. I don’t have to answer. What the fuck is the matter with you?”
Marie was silent and turned her back on me. I could see she was crying so much she was trembling. I went over to her but she whirled around, pushing me away in order to flee. She slammed the door, which had remained opened during the fight, and I listened to her sobbing fade as she ran down the stairs.
I was completely in the dark. I had known Marie for years but had never seen anything remotely like this. She could be impulsive, irrational, and unfair, and I had often been the object of her fits of anger, but the senseless scene that had just occurred was weird and disturbing. I thought and thought but finally went back to bed. Later, assuming the coast was clear, I wiped the door clean. I spent the day uselessly, without concentration or energy, distracted by worry. I hadn’t the slightest intention of going to the apartment on Rue de Sèvres to see what was going on, but neither did I want to continue pestering Sandrine with my problems. It was another lonely day.
At ten at night Marie knocked on my door. I opened it; she sat on the bed and began to cry. Interrupted by hiccups, she was weeping softly, which for her was unusual, and begging me to forgive her. She stretched out in bed and asked, with a voice I had a hard time hearing, if she could stay. I remembered my visits to her house a few months ago and thought how impossible it was to overcome fate. I covered her and waited for her to fall asleep before lying down beside her.
When I awoke, I could hear Marie scurrying between the two ranges and the sink, in our excuse for a kitchen. The aroma of coffee flooded the apartment. While I was sleeping, she had gone out to get cheese and bread. The skies were clear this morning, apparently. At breakfast there was no mention of what had happened. I tried to approach the subject with some lighthearted humorous reference, but I saw her change the subject immediately.
I don’t know if we fall in love with a person, or with the need for love. I suspect both are true. Marie and I had begun this deaf and dumb dance of blindly groping toward intimacy years earlier. We were united by a passion that coincided with our entry into the adult world. We had assumed (or at least I had) that our relationship was the most solid thing we possessed, but the last few months had proved us wrong. Our separation helped me realize many things. I had lost something, possibly forever. I could no longer naïvely take for granted the meaning of grand words. Here was the unquestionable problem of falling out of love, the human capacity to create suffering. Marie had abandoned me once knowing that I had nowhere to go, knowing that her actions betrayed everything we had said to each other for years. However, she could not erase our history. That last night proved just this. I could imagine her motivations, and what might have happened to her with the man she was after. Who was I for her now? While I provided warmth that had not yet faded away, I was not the being she loved or the one to whom she was committed. We were no longer sharing a life together, nor could we until we could re-create what we had lost. Automatic gestures, affectionate habits, were all that was left, and most probably we both knew this now. Perhaps this seeking of leftovers was why Marie had come to show her desire to be loved, staining my door with an insult. Despite everything I must have been able to see and know in that moment, I stubbornly believed that enduring love was possible. Falling out of love was human, after all, as was our lack of forethought.
That morning, having barely finished breakfast, we made love. This served as an antidote to the bad taste left over from the previous night and all those months. On top of her, in a timeless dimension, I was returning to something that seemed like home. I couldn’t or didn’t want to admit that sex was a way to avoid talk. We preferred the efficacy of blindness, an intimacy that was really anguish, and loved each other without really knowing the object of our love.
We went out to lunch. We recovered the rhythm of our conversations. We walked around the city bathed by a spring sunlight that accentuated happiness. In a shop, with the concentration and ease with which women pick out clothes for their men, Marie bought a shirt. Then we visited a couple of bookstores. Returning to that place where I could find the things I most cherished, in the company of my female accomplice, was an experience of intense pleasure. I left with books by Neptune and Plon, a novel by Genet, and an illustrated volume of Amazon ethnology. I had no money left and this fact filled me with anxiety as well as joy.
It was starting to get dark later, and at that hour, a little before the stores closed, we bought cheese, bread, wine, and a slice of pâté in a place on Rue de Sèvres. I went with Marie up to an apartment I hadn’t seen in weeks. I noticed a few small changes: an old church chair occupied one corner, a shawl covering the bed, in the sink, cups I had never seen, and on the table books I couldn’t imagine Marie wanting to read. I suppressed a comment, knowing it would elicit an angry response about my absence. The bed we would share again had been, and perhaps still was, shared with someone. I tried to push that thought aside and to enjoy the supper we enjoyed on the rug Marie’s parents had brought from Morocco. But the strain of the day weighed on me, the exhaustion veiling doubts and aggravation over what I was doing. We made love in the mechanical, subdued way Marie tended to do everything, as if she wanted to show me that she was willing to give of herself without asking for anything in return.
We lay there holding each other. Lying face up, I felt her sleeping on my chest. There I was again, beside the woman I loved but whom I had tried so hard to forget. What had just happened, even though I had enjoyed the sex, placed me in a difficult situation. My weakness disgusted me. I was throwing overboard all the work I had done.
I got out of bed and began to dress. Marie opened her eyes and asked what I was doing.
“I’m going home.”
“You’re not staying.”
“I need to be home. It’s been a long day. Come see me tomorrow.”
“Stay.”
“Another day will be better,” I said as I bent down to say good-bye.
“You call me.”
Marie made it sound like an order. I was too weak and too unwise.
Exams were just around the corner. I was so far behind that, even with the effort made since I had a place of my own, I found myself in desperate straits. I spent the next few days surrounded by books, knowing this was a good excuse to avoid seeing Marie.
When I got back from my first test, I found a note slipped under the door. It was from Sandrine asking me to go see her that night.
I must have suspected that something was going on, because instead of walking over to Les Invalides, I took the bus, cutting short the time it would take to get there. I hugged my two friends (whom I’d barely seen since I had left), realizing I still felt disgust about the time spent in their cold, dark apartment. After chatting about trivialities with Eve, Sandrine took me to her room and closed the door. Marie, whom Sandrine had known since they were teenagers and whom she considered one of her best friends, had come over that morning to accuse her of having gone to bed with me
. They had had a shouting match, with insults and recriminations over old injuries that had nothing to do with the present. Confronted with the question of what proof she had, Marie had asserted that I had told her so. Sandrine was beside herself; her friend had convinced her I had lied, and now she attacked me with the intention of unloading all her fury and indignation.
It took a lot of work to calm her down and convince her that Marie was lying. When I lived there, I had ample opportunity to hit on Sandrine and hadn’t done so, even when I felt most vulnerable, even knowing that our daily contact had made me like her. Feeling compelled to be sincere, I told her that probably, if she was honest, she had felt the same. We had done many things together and had always had a good time. It wouldn’t be surprising if, at some moment, we might have imagined that we could fall in love. Sandrine looked at me with her little blue eyes, nervously twitching the corners of her mouth. I had convinced her, but she tried to keep arguing for a while. She digressed, adding confusion, and while annoyed she also seemed curious or happy about the attraction I had just admitted. I picked up my package of tobacco and rolled cigarettes that were too thin, full of saliva.
We ended up exhausted, with nothing left to say. We lit our cigarettes. She brought over what remained of a bottle of wine.
“I don’t know whom to believe,” she said.
“You know that I’ve told the truth.”
“Maybe . . . But then why did Marie come to tell me that?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why did she come to accuse you if you didn’t tell her that?”
“I can’t explain it, but it’s clear that Marie is not well.”
“Why isn’t it you who’s in bad shape?”
I told her all about the last few days, the insult on my door, and briefly, about the rapprochement with Marie. As I told the story, I acknowledged its contradictions, the disturbing gaps along the way. As she listened, Sandrine seemed convinced.
A little later she accompanied me to the door. This time I walked back to my apartment even though it was late and cold, and I had an exam the next day. I would have to get up before dawn to study. I needed to shake off the feeling all this had left me with. It was useless. I arrived home not knowing what to think, and some hours later, in a classroom at the Sorbonne, I did what I could.
I began to dread Marie’s visits. I would catch myself making as little noise as possible in the studio, standing absolutely still when I’d hear footsteps on the staircase. I would postpone going home after class, reading in the noisy library at the university, or refueling at a table in a café. It was absurd since Marie was a student like me, and even if I stopped going to classes, she still knew where to find me.
Sometimes I wondered if I should call her. My silence might make her suspect that Sandrine had spoken with me, and given her recent behavior, this could complicate matters even more. I wanted to protect myself by getting away from her problems. This plan was useless because one evening, when I was fed up with wasting time at the Café Universitaire, I took the metro and got off at the station two steps from the Bon Marché. I had gotten off the stop before hers, so I could think on my way. The store’s street stands had been dismantled and the sidewalks finally looked as wide as they actually were. After a few minutes I made it to her building, crossed the familiar courtyard, and went up to the fourth floor. When I had already raised my fist to knock, I heard voices. I stopped short and stepped back when I noticed that one was a man’s voice. It was deep and did not sound young. As I had never asked about Marie’s lover, I knew nothing about him except that he was married. Any detail, therefore, was news.
Against my better judgment, I pressed my ear to the door. I could barely decipher a sentence here and there. The man spoke slowly, with apparent indifference. Sometimes I could hear the creaking of a chair or the pouring of a liquid. At some point I couldn’t stand it any longer. I heard a door open and hurried to descend the stairs, trying not to make a sound with my footsteps. Between the third and second floors, I went faster until I was almost running and just missed bumping into a couple.
On the street I found a café that was just a few steps from the entrance to the house, on the opposite side of the street. I stood at the bar, ordered a beer, and rolled a cigarette with too many loose threads of tobacco on either end. I felt my heart palpitating and my hands trembling as I raised my glass.
For a whole hour, I didn’t take my eyes off the door. However, I knew that if the man or Marie came out, I would not approach them. I also knew that if Marie remained alone in the apartment, I would no longer go up there. Ever since the whole story began, I had never been this close to its mystery. These events (Marie being with her lover) were nothing out of the ordinary; the problem was that she had recently come back to me as if none of this existed and, shortly after, had gone to her best friend inventing the story of my betrayal.
When it seemed that nothing was going to happen, and I was thinking of leaving, I saw the door open. A mature-looking man glanced in both directions as if to get his bearings, and then walked toward the Duroc metro. I left a bill on the counter and did not wait for change. Watching him from the other side of the street, I saw him take a street parallel to the Boulevard Montparnasse, so I crossed and followed him about twenty steps behind. There was no one else on the sidewalk. I saw him stop and search for something in his pockets, next to a car. I continued on and passed him as he was getting into the vehicle. The inside light, which went on when he opened the door, allowed me to see him. He seemed to be about fifty, perhaps a little older; his face had deep lines on his cheeks, his hairline receding in places with gray hair that was carefully combed. He could be anything: businessman, architect, or administrator. His Citroën, without being the most luxurious, was not a modest car. Before the door closed and the light went off, just as I was passing him, I saw, on the back seat, Marie’s bag. Now I knew who he was.
One day I heard someone calling me from the street. Sandrine was arriving with a bottle of wine. Her visit, after the bittersweet taste of our last encounter, couldn’t help but cheer me up. Far into the night we sat on the worn rug sharing first her bottle and then another bottle we went out to get: making loud toasts and clinking glasses, we laughed our heads off, kicking each other with our bare feet. For dinner I prepared an omelet, while Sandrine looked over the piles of books balanced precariously in a corner of the studio and then she turned the volume of the radio up, perhaps too high. The subject of Marie never came up and I didn’t know if it was for the best. On the one hand, I was glad that our friendship left her out of the equation, but on the other hand, I wanted to tell Sandrine what I had witnessed. What was important then was that this visit proved that Sandrine had believed me, and the bottle of wine and her good cheer were an apology for the unfair things she had said to me.
This was the first of many, almost always unexpected, visits. The loneliness I had endured the previous months gradually diminished. One afternoon Sandrine brought, along with some raspberry tarts, news of Marie. She was moving in with her méc, or to be more precise, he was moving into her apartment. The news was astonishing. It didn’t seem normal that the person I had seen would be willing to live in the reduced confines of the apartment on Rue de Sèvres. We discussed it a bit more but I let the subject drop. I didn’t want to admit how much this news hurt me.
I seldom went to class. I spent the days reading texts that almost never had anything to do with my courses. The streets of Paris were always lush with life, and the days turned rapidly into weeks. One night, moved by great determination, I picked up a notebook and wrote the first pages of a story. I returned thus to the calling that had brought me to the city and I spent days writing, enthusiastic and happy. When she’d visit me, I’d tell Sandrine the anecdotes in my stories, seeking in her a substitute for the understanding in these matters I had had with Marie. I’d watch her listening to me with attention and patience, but would suffer when I’d notice a lost look in her eyes. I rarely m
anaged to interest her with the books I’d lend her and the movies I’d take her to see.
At that time, we were a step away from our friendship turning into something more, but the ghost of Marie got in the way. Not even when she invited me to spend a few days at her family home, in a nearby province, did our dealings move beyond spending a beautiful day gathering apples and strolling around the potato fields. At the end of our chats beside the fireplace in the large kitchen, there were a few good-night kisses and each to his or her room with lots of questions in our minds.
One day, at the university, I ran into Simone, who still felt familiar from that night when we’d seen a film together and then shouted at each other over loud music. She was a big smoker, with yellow stains on her fingers. She lived with her father, a disabled war veteran. Her mother, who couldn’t get over what had happened during the Occupation, had hung herself when Simone was seven. The wounds left by the family history could be seen in her impulsive behavior, her constant smoking, and her way, at the slightest provocation, of pressing her body against mine. Without meaning to, I felt her hips bump against me when we walked along the sidewalks or got up from a table in a café. It was impossible to walk in a straight line. I was tempted, but held back because Marie, despite everything, was still a part of me.
I don’t know how many opportunities I missed out on because, in my loneliness, I still wanted her, a desire that in the long run led nowhere. I kept waiting for something to happen, and assuming that I still had a role to play in the drama of Marie’s life. Despite the reality, clear as the nose on my face, I went on being faithful.
2
The uncertainty became unbearable. One day I couldn’t restrain myself and walked over to Rue de Sèvres, after calling Marie to let her know I was coming. When the door opened, I thought for a moment I had knocked on the wrong one. She had cut her hair above the shoulders and was now a redhead. She had gained weight and was wearing a suit, something she never wore.
