Story of Love in Solitude

by Roger Lewinter

  Nameless

  WHEN I SAW HIM that Monday morning — at the end of May, beginning of June 1986 — starting out at the Liotard Market — he had his stand, on the rue de la Poterie, about thirty feet from the farm stand where I regularly buy eggs and apples, so that I could, as I waited my turn, by placing myself at a slight angle let my eyes wander over him —, I knew that I shouldn’t have looked at him; turning my head back toward him as, in order to buy oranges and chèvre, I now walked back up the rue Liotard; retracing my steps, studying him more at my leisure, across from me, on the diagonal of the right triangle covered in grass and planted with trees, along whose two sides the market extends — self-absorbed as he was that morning, he didn’t pay any attention —; putting off approaching him until Thursday — Saturday morning, I saw that he also worked the Coutance Market, across from La Placette, assisted by a girl his age, whom I supposed, from the similarity of their appearance as well as from their ease together, to be his sister, since he didn’t have the opacity of those who live with another as one —; prolonging the suspense of the vision without an exchange as long as the surprise of it carried me; so that it wasn’t until two weeks later that I decided, one Monday morning, to buy from him eight ounces of peas — which I add, in season, to a cup of barley, oats, or millet for the last meal of the evening, after yoga —, without his appearing, as he served me, to notice me in particular, holding the peas out to me with that courteous kindness that was his own; so that, Thursday, when I saw him, lifting his eyes as he noticed me waiting at his stand, blush, overpowered then, lowering his eyes immediately, by a smile that transfigured him, in my incredulity that I could appeal to him — the enlightenment that had struck me when I saw him, was it anything other than this certainty? —, I remained, before the sweetness of the gift in its simplicity, by the feeling that I had only to stretch out my hand — purity, a matter of a movement of exact madness, depending on that instant —, transfixed, while he now offered me the peas — I asked myself whether he knew that he was radiant —, in the fullness of his restrained happiness not seeming even to expect anything from me, speechless before his resplendence, which, in its modesty, I would have doubted as I moved away if his warmth, spreading to me, hadn’t lightened me until Saturday, when, at the return of the flea market, at eleven thirty, I again found myself in front of his stand — I no longer recall whether he was alone —, rebelling at there being only one admission, which I couldn’t accept, that wouldn’t be indecent — noticing me, he had blushed again —, so that I indicated — when to his look I had responded, “Oh, you know . . . ,” turning bright crimson he had cried out in a tone rendered despairing by its intensity, “But I know nothing!” — the peas, which he gave me, stammering, “Good day,” and turning away, flashing with anger; while on Monday, having regained his self-control, he greeted me with a neutrality he never again abandoned; so that — persuading myself that it had been only a matter of effervescence, without reflecting that I had evidently not responded to his feeling, while I must, for the exactly inverse reasons of age and life, have intimidated him —, gradually I spaced out my stops at his stand, contenting myself with looking at him in passing as he was working — always alone now, he had also, since August, been at the Coutance Market on Wednesdays, at the corner of the rue Grenus, so that going down to the flea market at eight in the morning, I noticed him from a distance, perpetually dressed in the same petrol-blue anorak, with the red shoulders, as on the first day —; refusing, when I had begun to translate Rilke’s Sonnets to Orpheus, at the end of August, even to look at him, in the void where I dwelled in his glory — once, at the end of September, touching ground, I stopped at his stand, where, noticing from my gesture that he was off by half in giving me back change for twenty francs, he looked at me with vivacity: “My mind’s somewhere else” —; after the end of the Sonnets, approaching him occasionally again, though he was now without fail shut off from my gaze, until that Wednesday, at the end of October — the sky was gray, and the market almost deserted —, when, suddenly deciding to pass by his stand to greet him, as I had done in the past, he remained, his head bent slightly forward, his eyes resting on me without caring how long, staring at me as I moved away, so that I was forced, in order not to stop and speak, to break his gaze, his call remaining stuck in me; without my realizing, the next times, the weather being bad, that he was no longer there — in the summer when it rained too hard in the morning, he wouldn’t come —, since he could also have been taking his vacation then; so that I realized only at the end of November that he evidently didn’t work the winter markets; convinced, however, that he would return in the spring — so much did he seem to me to have taken to the routine with detachment —; no longer even thinking about it until the moment when, at the beginning of May, having gone to Dijon to give a reading from the Duino Elegies on the occasion of the release of the Sonnets to Orpheus, in allusion to an episode from L’attrait des choses, someone handed me — “Do you know Maurice Betz’s novel? Here, you might be interested to see what another translator of Rilke has written” — Le démon impur — the story of an irreproachable politician who, after a debate in the Chamber on the status of juvenile offenders, suddenly weary, paying a visit to a childhood friend in Marseille, in the latter’s absence and after a night in a dubious hotel, comes across in the port a young sailor who fascinates him, without daring to approach him, only to attempt later, obstinately, to find him again, in vain, and, finally letting himself go, accosts another sailor and loses himself in an erotomaniacal delirium —, knowing then, staggering, that I had lost sight of him, when: as he approached me from behind, taking off his gloves to slap them together, exclaiming, “It’s hell out today,” turning back to him with a start — waiting for him, I was looking over some books at this stand at the flea market —, when I saw his body, which, lifting my eyes to his face, I suddenly had the feeling that I had only to stretch out my hand to make mine, a force beyond my control gripping the nape of my neck had made me move away without a word — believing that he wanted to go on browsing —, while he had rejoined me to have, as I had at last suggested, coming across him ten minutes earlier, a coffee; so that when, a moment later, emerging from my absence, I attempted to find him again, he had disappeared — that Saturday, December 29, 1984, the north wind having unleashed its fury in the morning, bitterly cold, I doubted whether I would meet him; while, on the evening of December 24, in the elation of having finished, that same morning, L’attrait des choses — on which I had been working for eight months —, invoking — in the alcove, to the four cardinal points of the figured Kash­mir shawl — the Angel of Duino, I had sworn I would take the step that I had forbidden myself since August, when a few words from him, not addressed to me — with the charm of a cuddly infant, asking the friend who lent him his stand — he still didn’t have a place of his own — to put stickers on some records: “I’ll mark the price” —, had captivated me by their intonation — in April, at the first book that I had bought from him — he was just starting out at the flea market —, his face had made me look at his fly and the way his jeans fell to his sneakers; from that time on avoiding paying him attention —; thus bewitched by sweetness — although — I realized — the possession burning within me proceeded from the trance that I was in to write, the one nourishing the other to the point where, soon, I was uncertain which would prevail —, particularly since, one Wednesday in September, he had read me — passing by his stand without stopping, I had looked back, not knowing that his gaze had followed me pensively —, responding to my greeting from then on with this conscious candor that, in his voice, had gripped me; his coquetry — sporting at each market another T-shirt — lemon, pistachio, raspberry, lavender, plum —, before stripping his chest bare in the sun, the adolescent suppleness of his body, which made life stay a moment on his most fragile grace, troubling —, in contradiction to the solitude in which he seemed to move, ending in subjugating me; thus finally going to the flea market to subject m
yself to his fascination — antagonist of the book, in which I sought, by grasping my mechanism of ascendancy, to exorcise the passions that were binding me to my body, so that in its void something unknown might arise — as one plays Russian roulette, the admission magnetized by his approach wanting to escape me; while now, when I realized that I had left him there, the sweetness he had inexorably aroused in me froze, from the evidence that something inconceivable had come to pass at the moment when, in front of the density of his body in its unbearable splendor, I’d drawn back; by the idea that I didn’t even know his name, which would have allowed me to make it right — not thinking, however, that I might look to see whether he wasn’t perhaps in one of the bistros around, nor that I could, in reality, find him again —, suddenly burned to cinders, leaving the flea market as if this would be my last market — the next had been set for January 5 —, while the cold, with the dark north wind always more biting, was intensifying — noticing then that the device worked out in L’attrait des choses had just served its purpose; in the faint into which I had collapsed understanding why his body, the more I approached the end — the thunderstroke of joy —, out of a nostalgia that I couldn’t explain to myself, tormented me unspeakably —; in the devourment of not knowing his name, in which the agony of losing him was exacerbated nearly to madness — the certainty, against which I struggled, that I no longer had a hold over him —, not thinking to react against the cold that was now taking possession of the apartment, seeping in at the cracks around the doors, the windows, and the walls of the house, which was exposed to the full brunt of the gusts — the north wind not ceasing for three weeks, the temperature fell to eight below, making any market whatsoever impossible —, continuing to extinguish, each evening as I went to bed, the oil heater in the hall, not relighting it until the next day around noon — intrigued, admittedly, that a bouquet of violets received at Christmas, on the low round table in the kitchen, three weeks later still retained all the freshness of its colors, while the volume of space around me, notably in the kitchen when I ate there, grew, reducing me to a figurine, as everything froze in silence —, until finally, from the description I gave of my dereliction — my eyelids now twitched nervously, as in the exhaustion of insomnia —, while I undertook to translate the second Kraus, Pro domo et mundo, someone pointed out that I was perishing; only then leaving the stove lit continuously, arming myself besides, to hold out in the now irretrievable apartment, with a hot-water bottle; while, on Saturday, January 26, at the first lull, the market taking place, going for a coffee with one of the merchants, when I saw him seated in front of a cup of tea reading his newspaper, approaching him in order to apologize for my mistake, the feeling of separation sweeping over me, I didn’t even think to ask him his name: the light with which he had been invested, having touched me, had deserted him, leaving me with the call of a look, of a smile, whose warmth would exile me from the solitary loving body; though even then:

  Histoire d’amour dans la solitude

  UN SOIR D’AOÛT, en me couchant dans la chambre située au Nord-Est, que je m’étais décidé à enfin habiter — la communication avec l’autre appartement avait été percée il y a deux ans —, j’aperçus sur le rebord transversal de l’alcôve, à l’oblique au-dessus de ma tête, une araignée, noire, grosse, et comme je n’avais pas envie de l’avoir ainsi au-dessus de moi pendant la nuit, j’allai dans la cuisine de l’autre appartement — il faut traverser deux pièces et un couloir formant la hampe d’un grand L orienté au Sud-Ouest —, chercher un verre et une soucoupe, puis, posant un pouf sur le lit pour atteindre le plafond, je capturai l’araignée et retournai dans la cuisine pour la relâcher sur le balcon.

  Le lendemain soir, au moment de me coucher, dans l’angle entre les deux fenêtres, j’aperçus, un peu étonné de la prolifération, une autre araignée, de la même espèce, que je capturai pareillement, pour la relâcher comme je l’avais fait de la première; mais, le jour suivant, au même endroit — dans l’angle entre les deux fenêtres —, il y avait une araignée de nouveau, noire, grosse, que je capturai, maintenant avec une certaine exaspération, me demandant s’il ne faudrait pas peut-être fermer la fenêtre de la chambre, que je laissais entrouverte pendant la journée.

  Les trois jours suivants, je n’aperçus plus d’araignée, mais, le quatrième soir, dans l’angle à gauche au-dessus de la tête du lit, il y avait une araignée, toujours de la même espèce, que je capturai avec le calme maintenant de la routine, pour la relâcher sur le balcon de la cuisine et me recoucher après, me relevant toutefois aussitôt pour retourner dans la cuisine fumer une cigarette, assis, selon mon habitude, en tailleur sur l’accoudoir du canapé défoncé contre le mur, apercevant alors, sur le dossier du canapé, courant à toute allure, l’araignée que je venais de lâcher sur le balcon et qui était rentrée par la fenêtre entrouverte : comprenant alors, je la capturai de justesse sur le carrelage du sol — affolée, elle esquivait le verre adroitement —, pour la relâcher cette fois sur le palier — pensant la désorienter ainsi — : je la vis se diriger, toujours courant, vers l’escalier en face, dont elle descendit la première marche.

  Le lendemain, je n’aperçus pas d’araignée, en effet, non plus que les trois jours suivants, mais le cinquième soir, au même endroit, exactement, que la première fois — sur le rebord transversal de l’alcôve —, l’araignée était de retour : désarmé par cette obstination, je me résolus à la laisser tranquille; et, au matin, elle était invisible — elle avait dû se glisser dans quelque fente —, mais je m’attendais, avec une certaine impatience, à la revoir le soir, désappointé alors de ne pouvoir la découvrir dans l’alcôve, non plus que dans l’angle entre les deux fenêtres, et je ne la revis non plus le lendemain, interloqué par sa disparition sitôt que je l’avais acceptée — les araignées, routinières, d’une ponctualité absolue, sont le seul animal, pratiquement, avec qui il soit possible de cohabiter dans des territoires strictement délimités, et respectés —; mais, deux jours plus tard, passant l’aspirateur en fin d’après-midi — je devais faire un peu d’ordre —, par terre, au bord du tapis, dans l’angle entre les deux fenêtres, je découvris, sur le dos, pattes recroquevillées, une araignée morte, que je ne touchai pas, la laissant là, alors, comme ça.

  Passion

  UN CAMÉLIA AUQUEL je m’identifiais — placé, dans le salon de mes parents, en face de mon bureau —, en novembre 1978, une semaine après la mort de ma mère, avait séché sur pied, perdant ses feuilles soudain — je l’avais offert, une dizaine d’années auparavant, pour l’anniversaire de mariage de mes parents, un 27 décembre —, cependant qu’un second camélia, acheté, pour la même circonstance, l’année suivante, et que ma mère, six mois plus tard, alors qu’il dépérissait — je disais qu’il faudrait le jeter bientôt —, sans avoir la main verte mais s’obstinant, avait su ramener à la vie, gagnait en force; dès lors, au scandale m’étant mépris, lanciné par l’impulsion d’acheter un camélia qui restaurât le premier, dans la mesure même où le second répondait — en décembre 1980, et tandis que ses boutons, jusque-là, tombaient, un coup de foudre m’exaltant, il avait donné deux fleurs longuement s’épanouissant; pour refleurir, régulièrement, quand je l’eus emporté chez moi, en novembre 1982, peu avant la mort de mon père —, me retenant : celui, toutefois, que je vis, le 1er février 1986, à huit heures du matin en allant aux Puces, dans la devanture de Fleuriot, me rivant sur place — il s’agissait d’un arbuste de plus d’un mètre de haut, non, simplement, d’une tige fleurie de la taille d’une azalée, comme les autres —, je résolus de laisser le sort trancher; car, cherchant quelque chose qui m’incitât à habiter l’appartement à côté du mien me servant, depuis huit ans, de débarras — la communication avait été percée en mai dernier, sans que j’eusse franchi le pas —, j’envisageais d’acheter un tapis chinois ancien dont les dimensions correspondaient à la pièce d’angle que je pensais aménager d’abord — la propriétaire du tapis voulait s’en défaire pour raisons de sant�
�, et, quand on m’en avait parlé, en janvier, j’avais lancé que j’étais preneur à 1 000 F — le prix tournait autour de 5 000 F —, les transactions s’engageant de la sorte, par personne interposée, sans que j’eusse vu le tapis —, le jeudi suivant rendez-vous étant enfin fixé au dimanche matin, lorsque, samedi 15 dans l’après-midi, la propriétaire fit savoir que le tapis venait de trouver acquéreur; alors me décidant à franchir le pas.