Destroy, She Said

by Marguerite Duras

  “Alissa and Stein are thinking about something else,” says Max Thor. “Look at them.”

  Elisabeth Alione hesitates.

  “I can't,” she says.

  “Cheat,” orders Max Thor. “I want you to.”

  Elisabeth Alione plays and misses the wicket. Again she is absolutely delighted.

  “I told you so,” she says.

  “Did you do it purposely?”

  “No, I didn't—really I didn't.”

  She looks at Alissa and Stein.

  “Try again,” Alissa says softly.

  Elisabeth is flustered. Max Thor picks up the ball and puts it back in front of the wicket. Elisabeth plays and misses the wicket. She drops her mallet. And doesn't pick it up. Nor does Max Thor.

  “My husband's coming to get me tomorrow,” she says.

  Silence.

  “We've lost the game,” Elisabeth Alione says.

  Silence.

  “Were we really playing?” Alissa asks at last. “I didn't think it was meant to count.”

  Alissa sits down and looks at them.

  “What's the matter?” she asks.

  “I'm leaving tomorrow,” Elisabeth Alione says. “I just said so.”

  Max Thor has sat down too.

  “I was wrong. My husband said he'd come and get me right away. Actually, I haven't been nearly so bored here since I met you. I was almost disappointed when he said he'd come.”

  She sits down too, and looks at them furtively.

  “You've been very kind to me. He's coming tomorrow morning.”

  They are silent.

  “If you like,” she says, “we could go for a walk now. We could go in the forest . . . You seemed very anxious to.”

  “Why did you telephone?” Alissa asks softly.

  Elisabeth Alione's face grows calm again.

  “To see if he'd agree, I suppose . . . I don't really know.”

  “Did you tell him about us?” Max Thor asks.

  “No.”

  “There, you see,” Alissa says, smiling. “You hide things from him. From the man you love.”

  Elisabeth Alione gives a little start

  “Oh, but it's not hiding things not to tell him that . . .”

  “What do you mean?”

  “People one meets in hotels . . .”

  “Where else does one meet them?” says Max Thor.

  He says it gently. She doesn't understand.

  “He'll probably never meet you . . . so there was no reason why I should tell him . . .”

  “Who knows?” Alissa says.

  “There'd be no point. I don't think you'd like each other . . . No, I don't think so . . . You're too different . . .”

  “What did you say on the phone to make him come?”

  “I don't really know myself. I said I'd stopped taking sleeping tablets . . .” She hesitates. “I mentioned you just vaguely. I said I played cards with some of the other people here. That's all. I didn't actually ask him to come right away . . . But I realized he suddenly missed me . . . Whereas. . .”

  They are silent. Max Thor has taken off his glasses and seems to be resting.

  “I must go in. I have to pack,” Elisabeth Alione says.

  The tennis players are back. The balls swish in the heat.

  “I'll help you,” Alissa says. “You've got plenty of time.”

  Alissa gets up, and she and Stein move slowly and evenly, as if dancing, away across the grounds. The other two watch them.

  “Where are they going?” Elisabeth Alione asks.

  “Into the forest, I expect,” Max Thor says, smiling.

  “I don't understand . . .”

  “We're Alissa's lovers. Don't try to understand.”

  She thinks this over. And begins to tremble.

  “Don't you think I'll ever be able to?”

  “It doesn't matter,” Max Thor says. He puts his glasses on again and looks at her.

  “What is it?” she asks.

  “I love Alissa desperately,” Max Thor says.

  Silence. She looks into his eyes.

  “Supposing I tried to understand . . .” Elisabeth Alione says.

  “I'd like to understand you,” he says. “Love you.”

  She doesn't answer.

  Silence.

  “What was that book you never read?” Max Thor says.

  “Oh yes, I must go and get it"—she makes a little grimace—"Oh, how I dislike reading.”

  “Why pretend to then?” He laughs. “No one else reads.”

  “When you're on your own . . . you do it to . . . to keep up appearances . . . or . . .” She smiles at him. “Where are they?”

  “They can't be far. But don't go counting on Alissa to help you pack.”

  “I know.”

  She can't take her eyes off the far side of the grounds.

  “Is your husband coming tonight?”

  “No, tomorrow. At noon, he said. Do you think they're listening?”

  “Maybe.”

  She comes closer, her face slightly drawn.

  “The book doesn't belong to me. I have to give it back. But perhaps you'd like it?”

  “No.”

  She comes nearer, still looking across the grounds.

  “What's going to become of you?” he says.

  She looks at him.

  “What do you mean? . . . Oh . . . The same as before . . .”

  “Sure?”

  She goes on looking at him.

  “Here comes Stein,” Max Thor says. “We're leaving tomorrow morning.”

  “I'm frightened,” Elisabeth Alione says. “I'm frightened of Alissa. Where is she?”

  She looks at him, waiting.

  “We've nothing to say to one another,” says Max Thor. “Nothing.”

  She doesn't move. He doesn't speak. She goes off. He doesn't turn around. Stein approaches.

  “The woman I've been looking for here so long,” Stein says, “is Alissa.”

  Brilliant weather. Light and sun in the dining room. In the mirrors.

  “We may meet again some day. Who knows?” Alissa says.

  Elisabeth and Alissa are sitting in the shade near the armchairs.

  “We live in an out-of-the-way place. You have to make a special trip.”

  “We could make a special trip,” Alissa says.

  She goes over to the bay windows.

  “They're watching the tennis match,” she says. “Waiting for us.”

  She comes back to Elisabeth Alione and sits down.

  “You've made a great impression on us.”

  “Why?”

  Alissa makes a negative gesture.

  “Don't bother,” Elisabeth Alione says. “I probably wouldn't understand even if you told me. I don't understand some things.”

  “That first doctor,” says Alissa. “Did he talk to you like this?”

  Elisabeth Alione gets up and goes and looks out into the grounds.

  “He wrote,” she says. “Out of the blue he wrote me a letter. That's all.”

  “Was there trouble?”

  “He tried to . . . He's left Grenoble now. They said it was because of me. They said horrible things. My husband was very upset. But fortunately he trusts me.”

  She's come back into the shade.

  ‘'It was about the middle of my pregnancy. I'd been ill and he came to see me. He was young, he'd only been in Grenoble a couple of years. My husband was away. He got into the habit of coming. And . . .”

  She stops.

  “Did they say he'd killed the baby?”

  “Yes. They said if it hadn't been for him my little girl . . .” She stops. “It isn't true. The baby was dead before it was born.” The last words are a cry.

  She waits.

  “It was after the confinement that I showed my husband the letter. And it was when he found out I'd done that that he realized . . . nothing would come of it, and tried to kill himself.”

  “How did he find out you showed him th
e letter?”

  “My husband went to see him. Or wrote. I'll never know which.”

  Alissa says nothing. Elisabeth Alione is uneasy.

  “You do believe me?”

  “Yes.”

  Elisabeth Alione sits up and looks at Alissa questioningly.

  “You see, I'm the sort of person who's afraid of everything. My husband's quite different. I'm lost without him . . .”

  She comes closer.

  “What have you got against me?”

  “Nothing,” Alissa says softly. “I'm just thinking about what you told me. It was because you showed your husband the letter that you were ill. You're ill because of what you did.”

  She gets up.

  “What's the matter?” Elisabeth Alione asks.

  “Disgust,” says Alissa. “Disgust.”

  Elisabeth Alione gives a cry.

  “Do you want to make me desperate?”

  Alissa smiles at her.

  “Yes. Don't say any more.”

  “No, let's not talk any more.”

  “It's too late,” says Alissa.

  “For what?”

  ‘To kill you.” She smiles. “It's too late.”

  Silence.

  Alissa draws nearer to Elisabeth Alione.

  “You've liked being with us, haven't you?”

  Elisabeth lets her approach without answering.

  “Is that why you phoned for your husband to come?”

  “I love my husband, I think.”

  Alissa smiles.

  “It's fascinating to see the way you live,” she says. “Fascinating and terrible.”

  “I realized,” Elisabeth Alione says softly, “you were only interested in me because of . . . that. And that perhaps you were right.”

  “What do you mean, ‘that'?”

  Elisabeth makes a gesture signifying she doesn't know. Alissa takes her by the shoulders.

  Elisabeth turns. They are both reflected in the mirror.

  “Who is it that makes you think of him?” Alissa asks in the mirror. “Of the doctor?”

  “Stein, perhaps.”

  “Look,” says Alissa.

  Silence. Their heads are close together.

  “We're alike,” says Alissa. “We'd love Stein if it were possible to love.”

  “I didn't say . . .” Elisabeth protests softly.

  “You meant to say Max Thor,” says Alissa. “And you said Stein. You can't even say what you mean.”

  “No.”

  They look at one another in the mirror and smile.

  “How beautiful you are,” Elisabeth says.

  “We're women,” Alissa says. “Look.”

  They go on looking at themselves. Then Elisabeth puts her head against Alissa's. Alissa's hand is on Elisabeth Alione's skin, on her shoulder.

  “I think we look alike,” Alissa murmurs. “Don't you think so? We're the same height.”

  They smile.

  “So we are.”

  Alissa slides Elisabeth's sleeve off her shoulder.

  “ . . . the same skin,” she goes on. “The same color skin.”

  “Perhaps . . .”

  “Look . . . the shape of the mouth . . . the hair.”

  “Why did you cut it? I was so sorry . . .”

  “To look more like you.”

  “Such lovely hair . . . I didn't say anything, but . . .”

  “Why?”

  She would never have said it. Does she know she is saying it now?

  “I knew you'd cut it because of me.”

  Alissa takes hold of Elisabeth Alione's hair and puts her face where she wants it—beside her own.

  “We look very much alike,” Alissa says. “How strange.”

  “You're younger than I am . . . and more intelligent . . .”

  “Not just now,” Alissa says.

  Alissa looks at Elisabeth Alione's clothed body in the glass.

  “I love and desire you,” Alissa says.

  Elisabeth Alione doesn't move. She shuts her eyes.

  “You're insane,” she murmurs.

  “Too bad,” Alissa says.

  Elisabeth Alione suddenly moves away. Alissa goes over to the bay windows.

  Silence.

  “Your husband's just arrived,” she says. “He's looking for you outside. Your daughter isn't with him.”

  Elisabeth Alione doesn't move.

  “And the others? Where are they?” she asks.

  “Watching him. They recognize him.” She turns. “What is it you're afraid of?”

  “I'm not afraid.”

  Alissa looks out into the grounds again. Elisabeth still stands motionless.

  “They're coming in so as not to have to see him,” Alissa says. “Disgust, I suppose. There, they've come in. I suppose they'll come in here unless they go through to the road.”

  Elisabeth doesn't answer.

  “We knew each other as children,” she says. “Our families were friends.”

  Alissa repeats softly:

  “'We knew each other as children. Our families were friends.’”

  Silence.

  “If you'd loved him, if you'd loved him once, just once in your life, you'd have loved the others,” Alissa says. “Stein and Max Thor.”

  “I don't understand . . .” Elisabeth says, “but . . .”

  “It'll happen other times,” Alissa says, “later. And it won't be you or them. Pay no attention to what I say.”

  “Stein says you're insane,” Elisabeth says.

  “Stein will say anything.”

  Alissa laughs. She turns back into the room and comes over.

  “The only thing that will ever have happened to you . . .” she says.

  “Is you,” Elisabeth says. “You, Alissa.”

  “Wrong again,” Alissa says. “But let's go down.”

  Elisabeth doesn't move.

  “We're having lunch together. Didn't you know?”

  “Whose idea was that?”

  “Stein's,” Alissa says.

  Stein comes in.

  “Your husband's waiting for you,” he says to Elisabeth Alione, “by the tennis courts. We're all to meet in ten minutes.”

  “But I don't understand,” she says.

  “It's irrevocable now,” Stein says, smiling. “Your husband's agreed.”

  She goes out. Stein takes Alissa in his arms.

  “Love . . . my love,” he says.

  “Stein,” says Alissa.

  “Last night I spoke your name.”

  “In your sleep.”

  “Yes. Alissa. Your name woke me up. I was outside. I looked in. You were both asleep. The room was in a mess. You were asleep on the floor and he had come and gone to sleep beside you. You'd forgotten to turn off the light.”

  “We had?”

  “Yes.”

  And now Max Thor is here.

  “We don't know where to go,” he says, “with him out there.”

  Alissa stands in front of Max Thor and looks straight at him.

  “Last night,” she says, “in your sleep, you spoke her name. Elisa.”

  “I don't remember,” Max Thor says. “I don't remember.”

  Alissa goes over to Stein.

  “Tell him, Stein.”

  “You spoke her name,” says Stein. “Elisa.”

  “How did I say it?”

  “Tenderly and longingly,” Stein says. “Elisa.”

  Silence.

  Max Thor to Alissa:

  “Perhaps I said Alissa and you misunderstood?”

  “No,” says Alissa. “Remember your dream.”

  Silence.

  “I think it was in the hotel grounds,” Max Thor says slowly. “She must have been asleep. I stood there watching her. Yes . . . that's it . . .”

  He is silent.

  Stein to Max Thor:

  “And she said, ‘Oh, it's you . . .’?”

  “'I wasn't really asleep'? ‘I was only pretending'? ‘Did you realize?'?”

&nbs
p; “For days I've been pretending'? ‘For days I've been sleeping? Ten days'?”

  “Perhaps,” Max Thor says. He speaks the name: “Elisa.”

  “Yes. You must have been calling her when you spoke her name.”

  Silence.

  “I answered you,” Alissa says. “But you were so sound asleep you didn't hear.”

  Max Thor goes over to the bay windows. The other two join him.

  “What could come of it?” Stein asks.

  “Desire,” Max Thor says. “In such circumstances, desire.”

  Alissa turns to Stein.

  “Sometimes,” she says, “he doesn't understand . . .”

  “It doesn't matter,” Stein says.

  “Yes,” says Max Thor. “It doesn't matter now.”

  Silence. They look out of the window at invisible guests. Among them Elisabeth Alione and her husband.

  Silence.

  “How can one live?” Alissa cries softly.

  The sun is shining brightly.

  “Hasn't the daughter come?” Max Thor asks.

  “She asked him not to bring her today.”

  “Fine,” Stein says. “She's . . .”

  “Here they come,” Max Thor says.

  They are coming round by the tennis courts to the hotel entrance.

  “How can one live?” Alissa breathes.

  “What will become of us?” Stein asks.

  The Aliones have come into the dining room.

  “Look how she's trembling,” Max Thor says.

  The two groups move toward each other.

  They are close enough to exchange greetings.

  “Bernard Alione,” Elisabeth breathes. “Alissa.”

  “Stein.”

  “Max Thor.”

  Bernard Alione looks at Alissa. There is a silence.

  “Oh,” he says. “So you're Alissa? She was just telling me about you.”

  “What did she say?” Stein asks.

  “Oh, nothing . . .” Bernard Alione says, smiling.

  They move toward their table.

  Brilliant weather. The blinds have been lowered. Sunday.

  They are having lunch.

  “We'll be in Grenoble by about five,” Bernard Alione says.

  “Such marvelous weather,” Alissa says. “It's a pity to leave today.”

  “All good things come to an end . . . I'm very glad to have met you . . . Elisabeth wasn't as bored as she might have been, because of you . . . the last few days, I mean.”

  “She wasn't bored even before we met.”

  “A little bit, in the evening,” Elisabeth Alione says.

  Silence. Elisabeth, in black, in the blue shade of the blinds, her back to the windows, stares in front of her like someone asleep.