Who You Think I Am

by Camille Laurens

  But in my case there was only one I wanted. I wasn’t interested in being seen, or even seen in a good light. I wanted to be recognized. For someone to say: there she is! You know, like when a baby’s born, when the father recognizes the child.

  Ah, okay, now the analyst is stirring—I thought as much! My father recognized me, yes, of course, don’t read too much into it. But he wanted a boy, like everyone in the world. I was the second daughter, the disappointment. When I say I want to be recognized, I mean with all the gratitude of recognition, re-cognition: it’s her, and I’m happy it is. There she is, here I am, and the link between us can’t be denied, can’t be erased. Indisputable. Inalienable. “I recognize you and I recognize how precious your existence is.”

  I did the exact opposite, it’s true. Such cruelty, Marc. You won’t let me get away with anything. But it’s true. I sent a picture of someone else, so I had no chance of being recognized, you’re right. Fine, okay, it’s the other way around, the opposite is true: maybe I wanted to die, deep down. A woman’s always threatened with death. Never safe, ever. Deep inside her, there’s this insecurity, this dependence: being female. Wanting to see what it was like, then, being forced to die. Being able to live only as a ghost. Haunting the Web as if hiding behind a veil. That’s what I was saying earlier—a death wish, is that what you call it?—a death wish can be for yourself or for someone else. It’s hard to unravel.

  On the other hand I’ve never felt so alive as I did in the few months of that virtual relationship with him. I wasn’t pretending to be twenty-four, I was twenty-four. A vestige of my time as an actress, maybe. And of memories. And desire. I slipped into character with all the ease of an actor. There was no established script so I improvised from what my partner offered me, I parried his shots. Every time Chris and I talked on Facebook, I heard the part I had to play in his words, I sight-read my score as a mirror of his, I became his ideal, his alter ego, his dream woman, the one men dream up with their eyes open. I played opposite him, literally. But it wasn’t an easy part, my whole being was gradually molded, reconfiguring itself out of love—yes, I think that’s the right word, love, doesn’t that mean surrendering yourself to someone, falling into them, no longer belonging to yourself?

  And anyway, the character wasn’t that far removed from me, you know. For instance, Claire Antunes really wasn’t that computer literate—like me. She was more than twenty years younger than me—a generation (I could have been her mother, oh my Lord)—but we had a lot in common: the shyness, the dreams, the search for love combined with a real longing for freedom, or at least autonomy (she earned a living, wasn’t dependent on a man or her parents), a liking for the arts (photography). Despite her age, then, there was nothing geeky about her. So I didn’t have to strain my abilities to play the fool when Chris suggested we Skype: “What’s Skype?” He never brought it up again. He liked me like that, a bit out of it, a bit spacey. Sentimental. A pure little soul waiting for love. He didn’t fit in either, in his own way. I had a sense of that. But didn’t know it yet.

  It stayed friendly for a long time, yes. He went off to Goa in March, late March I think, he messaged me from over there saying he wanted to get to know me better, we’d been live-chatting for three months. With him so far away it was easier for me, I felt freer to talk to him because there was no danger of it leading to a meeting. Mind you, he invited me to go see him over there—he and Joe had just rented an apartment near the beach. “Would your friend not mind if I turned up?” I asked. “No, he’s totally cool, and anyway he has people over too.” That last bit hurt me a lot less than I was afraid it would—at least, if it hurt me it was less in relation to Joe than because I found myself lumped into a generalization: people. I didn’t know whether Chris was having the same conversation with his girlfriend or other girls on Facebook, I might have thought so if I’d believed what Joe had told me about him. But I didn’t think he was. In fact, I was convinced I was the only one having such a peaceful yet passionate relationship with him. I could tell he was snared, bitten—no, I don’t like such obviously animal metaphors that imply a hunter and prey—not bitten, then, but smitten, and I was too. I already seemed unique to him, already stood out from the crowd, from people. Love means electing, not selecting. We’d mutually elected each other.

  Our Internet conversations had gotten more intimate with the distance, he talked about his plans, involved me in them, “you’ll see,” “I’ll show you,” I told him I loved his photos, especially the ones of destitute but smiling women that he posted on his wall, he went one further, stressing how dignified they were and how much he admired them, “they’re magnificent.” Our messages now ended with little hearts and stars, with thinking-of-yous and kisses. Incidentally, I loathed all that, sending or receiving little x-kisses, that’s for kids, I send my kids x-kisses. I wished Chris could have found a more mature way of sending kisses, something with a sexual dimension. Those x’s are stupid, emasculating, defeminizing, the very neutrality of an x is sexless, don’t you think? But I didn’t say anything because…

  Excuse me? Did I say that earlier? Yes, I remember. I’m not above the odd contradiction, you know. I am crazy, after all. I’m the child, okay? But that’s exactly why I was looking for a man who would recognize the woman in the child. Or the child in the woman? Aargh! You’re confusing me. Basically, we started exchanging sweet nothings—sweet but they really meant nothing. The things you say when you’re not looking someone in the eye. One time I even risked an “I miss you” and “When are you coming back?” He replied “Me too” and “I can’t wait.” Every now and then, in one of the pictures he posted, I’d see Joe in the background, leaning against a surfboard, chatting with girls, striding naked into the ocean, his jeering expression hardly bothered me anymore, and neither did his tanned body. I studied those images trying to make out the sort of life they had, and my pain was now focused on the absentee, the one holding the camera, any niggle of uncertainty came from what was out of shot. Chris was sort of the likable face of Joe, if you like, the loving side of him, the side I’d missed. He sent me pictures of lotus flowers and marigolds that he’d taken for me. “Little flower,” he wrote. The childish sweetness of his words and the hearts he sent gave me something I’d never had, or so little and so long ago: a youthfulness, the tenderness of a first love shared. At the same time I was teaching in college, I was explaining Shakespeare, Racine, Mlle de Scudéry, “love is an unknown quantity that comes from an unknown source and ends in an unknown way.” Ah! How it ends, you’re telling me I know how it ends! I know it all now. But back then, sitting at my screen, I experienced the relationship without irony, without detachment, without knowing: “I loved, my Lord, I loved, and wanted to be loved.” I had become a dual personality, yes, there were two of me, the sweet young blossom and the flower of the university staff. I gave myself free rein.

  Ah yes, your predecessor came up with that argument too. It probably worked well for him with his students. I can’t tell you how many of my male colleagues married one of their doctoral students! It’s become the norm. But it’s not the same for a woman. The social recognition and respect generated by professional success or personal charisma are all very well, they’re gratifying, but they’re not conducive to love. Being respected for your lectures or your books is like a parody of the desire you no longer inspire. Admiration is just another way of killing us, it feels too much like murder, cutting us in two once and for all, the body to one side, the mind to the other, with an ax. “I’m being dismembered here!” we want to scream—but what’s happened to our voices? We don’t know, we’ve been brought up not to cry out. Here at least I can scream. Aaaaah!

  It feels good. Yes and no. No one can hear it.

  You can, yes. But you’re being paid to. You’re paid so that everyone really gets the fact that it’s not love, you and me.

  So, to be honest, it wasn’t worth it.

  See you tomorrow.

  Me? Yes, I knew what Chris looked lik
e. First of all there was his profile photo, and anyway he was never shy about posting pictures, he was even quite proud of the way he looked, and so he could be—insofar as we have any right to be proud of something beyond our control. I’ll show you some pictures if you like. You won’t find them on Facebook, both our profiles were taken down a long time ago, and with good reason! But I printed out several, I still have them. I also saw him in a video that Joe showed me. A handsome guy, really. Tall, slim, nicely put together. Like Joe. With three days’ worth of stubble, mountaineer style, very sexy. A bit of a cliché, I know. But I like all those outward signs of virility, I don’t go in for subtlety, I lap up the Latin lover look. Chris played on that a lot, he made quite a point about his height, for example—six feet one inch. One time he asked me how tall I was, I lied, I made myself shorter, he sent me a picture of himself next to a foldout measuring stick, and he was pointing to where I would come up to on him, just about under his shoulder. It was almost annoying, puerile anyway, the way he promoted his physical assets—except maybe it actually showed great perceptiveness?

  It reminds me of that terrible passage in Belle du Seigneur. Have you read it? You’re not very cultured, Marc. How can you claim to plumb the human heart without reading all the great connoisseurs of the human heart? It’s absurd. Basically, Albert Cohen created this emblematic male character, Solal, who compares men’s rivalries regarding women with the physical battles between baboons: male baboons fight over females and the strongest wins, and the strongest is the tallest, and the one with the best teeth. If he’s ten centimeters shorter or has a front tooth missing, then no more lust for him and no more great love stories! Cohen makes us look like idiots, us women, but aren’t men worse, infinitely more dependent on our beauty, our appearance?

  It’s enough to make you cry, if you stop to think about it.

  In the end I was like all the rest, I’m just like everyone else, his looks kindled my desire. It works both ways, the absolute prestige of beauty. Personally I’ve never understood the supposed difference between women’s beauty and men’s. How many times have I heard that cliché: “A woman is much more beautiful than a man!” And both sexes agree on that, it’s a triumph of popular opinion. Well, I don’t think so. Aesthetically speaking, breasts are no more fascinating than a muscular torso. I take as much pleasure looking at a handsome man in the Métro or at a jogger’s legs as I do admiring a top model on the cover of a magazine. At least, I did.

  Oh! It’s not worth it: they come to me. And if you want proof, you’re here yourself. No, no, don’t bother protesting, Marc, I’m being serious, you’re good-looking, you’re very good-looking. And there are some young guys here who play basketball, they’re in rehab, failed suicides, you must have seen them. That’s enough for my contemplation. And my pain. Beauty makes you suffer if no one thinks to offer it to you.

  The phone came before the photo, yes. Chris gave me his number right away, but I didn’t call him for several months. The first time must have been in mid-May, he’d just come back from Goa and had headed straight to Lacanau, apparently to show off the videos he’d made and to work on his photo-reportage—I think none of it ever actually saw the light of day. I hid my number and called him one evening, late, on an impulse, in distress, I was home alone, it was my week without my kids, I needed something real. He picked up, I could hear a radio or a TV in the background but he went somewhere private straightaway, he said “Hello,” the mental picture of Joe slumped on a sofa vanished almost before it appeared. I said, “Chris, it’s me, it’s Claire, talk to me.” He was immediately focused, that’s what was wonderful, the instinct between us, I could hear in his voice that he was aware how fragile that moment was, he didn’t have my number, I had his, I could vanish and he wanted me to stay, he wanted to keep me. I heard all that in his voice, which was instantly tender, gentle, very gentle, as if he were speaking to a little girl. His voice protected me, gave me shelter, reassured me, his voice prioritized me—nothing like that acerbic “Go die.” He started talking about himself, his time in Goa, the people he met there, his work, how he wanted to become a well-known photographer. He said—not for the first time—that his art was his life, he told me he liked Guns N’Roses and Nirvana, but also rap and reggae, dance music, “I’m sure you like dancing,” he said to get the conversation started and I said yes and it’s true, I’ve always loved dancing, even here we have parties, will you come to one, Marc? Do you dance, Marc? If I don’t take my medication I dance really well, you’ll see. I laughed and said I’d had too much to drink and I had, I’d been drinking to resist the urge to call him, to make him a carnal reality, the human voice is carnal, it tells you something about a person’s body, don’t you think? And then I’d gone on drinking to be sure I succumbed to the urge to call him, and I’d done it, but I was shaking so much that I came across more drunk than I was, and I was very careful about what I said, I was frightened I’d give myself away, that my voice would betray me. “I love your voice,” he murmured. “But how old are you exactly?” I mumbled, my heartbeat accelerated, what if I’d ruined everything by calling him? I suddenly panicked, I wasn’t even sure what birthdate I’d put on Facebook. Luckily he said, “Twenty-four, is that right?” I said, “Yes, nearly twenty-five,” and he laughed at my exactness, “You seem younger, I mean, even younger,” he said. “You’re voice is like a teenager’s, I hope you’re legal,” then he corrected himself, afraid his joke was a bit risky, too sexual, “but with a wonderful tone, I’m crazy about your voice already.” He was wrong, of course, you could argue that he didn’t have a shred of intuition, that he was making a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, but I didn’t see it like that at all: he was getting me exactly as I was, in an adolescent state of love. And I was in that state because he wanted me like that, it’s that simple. Lacan has something very interesting to say about this, your predecessor had me read an article, I kept it, I’ll have to dig it out. Basically, it says love is always reciprocal. Not in the sense that you’re always loved if you love—oh my, that would be too perfect—but to the extent that when I love someone, it’s not random, that person is implicated in my love, he’s integral to it, a prerequisite for it, even, he’s the one I love and no one else, and it’s quite something to inspire someone’s love, it creates a connection, it’s not neutral. I like the notion that we can be responsible for the love we elicit, which means that in a way, by failing to respond to it, we respond. With Chris, the two tendencies were almost compounded, for him and for me. So when I eventually sent him the photo of Ka—, um, of the pretty brunette, it didn’t feel like a con to me, well, not really, because he already loved me: he loved my voice, he loved my words, the way I thought, and laughed, he told me he did, kept telling me. And you said so yourself: I’m beautiful too. Okay so I’m blond, and older, but nice. So what, then, what was wrong with that? At one point I did wonder whether he was looking for a woman to have children with, that was my one misgiving: if he had dreams of being a father, if that was what he wanted deep down—he was already thirty-six, after all. So I tested him a little, I said he took lots of photos of children, he said, “Yes, kids are beautiful,” but I felt he was saying that to please me, because he thought I loved children, and was thinking about them. That was when I told him I couldn’t have any, I wasn’t lying, even if I did give a false reason, some story about a genetic thing, I don’t really remember, either way, he was comforting, he wrote saying a woman could easily be happy without children, “and anyway, if you want them, you could always adopt.” He even added, “I’ll take you to India,” with a winking smiley. “Did you see how beautiful and cheerful they are there, despite the poverty?”

  But I’ve already told you this! I sent a picture chosen at random on Google—a pretty brunette leaning on her balcony on a sunny day, with a V-necked T-shirt and peachy breasts, but decent. What do you mean you don’t believe me? Why would I lie? Is it because I couldn’t find it to show to your predecessor? I’ve looked but it was more tha
n two, three years ago, she’s gone, I’m guessing turnover is quick on Google, especially with the tens of thousands of images that are thrown out every day. But it really doesn’t matter.

  Your intuition? Oh, well, now we’re in great shape! Listen, I’m tired. Isn’t that enough for today?

  Hello. You look fantastic. Blue suits you. I’ll take the liberty of telling you that, we can say whatever we like in this place, it doesn’t commit us to anything. Are you letting your beard grow? Right, what are we talking about today?

  Wow, you’re tenacious. You’re stubborn. I already said it isn’t at all important—a photo of a pretty brunette chosen at random. A fake just like so many others on social networks. It was just bait, a lure.

  Okay so it is important, because Chris homed in on her, got lost in that image, lost in the illusion. It was wrong of me, okay. Do I have to recite the confiteor or something? Do you think I haven’t cried enough? I haven’t repented enough?

  If you really want to know I think it’s disgusting how much a woman has to do to be appealing, to be attractive. Of course I do it, I do it grudgingly, I’ve always done it, even when I was very young, I was never the last to buy stupidly expensive face creams and dresses way beyond my budget, with low necklines and everything, like my mother, paying for waxing sessions at the beauty salon, which was agony, at fifteen I bought anticellulite gel with my first babysitting money, I remember putting it on my calves because my boyfriend thought they were too big. No, to be totally accurate, what I really can’t stand, what makes me bitter, is the fact that all that fussing about appearance works, it’s the only thing that works. I remember if I noticed a man eyeing up my figure in a closely tailored jacket or checking out my ass before coming over to talk to me, I was pleased but also terribly sad. I wished I could be loved for being me, do you see? Without the gym or the clothes or the lipstick. For him to meet me and not the artificially created object he was looking for. I remember a coworker who asked me out for lunch one time, he was fat and ugly, we talked about the faculty, about teaching, and in the middle of the conversation he looked at me and said reprovingly, “Why don’t you wear lipstick?” Not having to sell myself, to flaunt myself like something on a market stall. A market that sells women, the woman market. Constantly reiterating my sexuality. Being sexy, being…