“Abkhazian?”
“From Abkhazia. It’s a small state to the north of the Black Sea.”
“They’re both good titles. A bit intellectual, though, wouldn’t you say? My daughter’s right, I’m teasing you.”
“Um … Yes, what I wanted was—”
“Okay, I’m ready.”
Anna emerges from the bedroom, sheathed in a red satin dress with oriental patterns on it. Yves thinks she looks dazzling. She has bare feet, and is holding a pair of sandals in each hand.
“Mom, do you think these ones, the Cretan look, or these which are more Roman?”
Yves can see no difference at all. The mother can, though. She opts for the Cretan pair.
“We’re off, mom. Maureen’s just called. She can’t find anywhere to park and she’s waiting outside. Bye, daddy. Kids, are you going to give me a kiss?”
Lea and Karl hurtle out of their room and almost suffocate her with hugs, Lea acting abandoned, laughing as she pretends to snivel. Anna tears herself away from them gently in the hallway. She goes into the elevator and Yves follows her. He has one last look at the little red Ferrari. The door closes.
There are four inches separating Yves and Anna. She wears a fresh perfume, all woods and ivy, she says nothing, smiles, lowers her eyes. To resist the urge to take her in his arms, Yves concentrates on their surroundings: elevator branded ART, tinted mirror, coarse black carpeting on the walls. A copper plaque: MAX: 3 PEOPLE, 240 KG. A control panel with six black buttons, GROUND, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, one red button, STOP, one green button, 24 HR. CALL. A cutout area covered with wire netting, a loudspeaker, and a microphone. IN THE EVENT OF AN INCIDENT, PLEASE REFER TO TL1034.
But there is no incident, and the trip down takes fifteen seconds. Yves succeeds in trying nothing. All through the evening he will not have another opportunity, however slight, to kiss Anna. She and her cousin Maureen will go home early.
In the morning, when Stan comes home from night duty, she will tell him about Christiane’s party, at length, more than usual. About Jean, Maureen’s new boyfriend, “charming, but maybe a bit smug,” about Christiane’s illness, “stabilized,” about the famous and very talented filmmaker who was there, “of course you remember, Stan, Thirty Years Without Seeing the Sea, he directed that, we saw it together.”
“Thirty Years Without Seeing the Sea,” Stan says. “Yes.”
About Yves, Anna says nothing.
3. Pascal published a challenge, offering prizes for solutions to two complex mathematical problems involving Cavalieri’s calculus of indivisibles, problems he himself had already solved. He sent the challenge out to Wren, Laloubère, Leibniz, Huygens, Wallis, Fermat, and several other mathematicians.
ROMAIN AND LOUISE
• • •
Paris, October 3, midnight.
Romain, it’s late, you’re still working at the lab and I’m writing this letter on the computer while I wait for you, which is in fact my way of not waiting for you. It’s nighttime, I’ve put the our children to bed, they’re asleep. I haven’t written to you for a long time I wish I didn’t have to write you this letter. Maybe I’m only writing it so that I’ve written it, and I’m hesitating I don’t know if I’ll give it to you. When you leave a man, what’s the point of explaining?
I’ve met a man, Romain I made lo. I think what matters isn’t the person, but the fact that I could, that I wanted to meet him. I was surprised, surprised to feel so little guilt, so little shame. Just happy like a girl kid of twenty of fifteen on her first date.
We’ve been together ten years, Romain. I have so much affection for you. Over the years, you’ve become my best friend, almost a brother. But, of course, you can’t be a brother. That wouldn’t doesn’t mean anything anymore. Sometimes, at night, I lie next to you, I touch your skin, I want some intimacy, sometimes sex, without really wanting you. I’m forty years old, or will be in a few months. It’s not the first time I’ve been unfaithful I’ve wanted a man another man. In fact It’s the first time that there’s been nothing there to stop me, that I can’t picture for a minute not seeing him again.
Romain, I’d like I want we need
Louise closes the document without saving it, switches off the computer. She will never find the words to describe the abandon Thomas has brought about in her; it is crucial that she does not find them. She would like to venture an image—a window thrown open by a squall, sugar melting in coffee—but this is about bodies, nudity, desire, a stark, self-evident need, and she had no say in the matter. Yes, that’s it, she thinks. I didn’t have any say in it. Louise smiles to think how Thomas would interpret her choice of expression.
She is in love, she craves sugar, eats a dried apricot, another. All at once she is really tired. She will not wait any longer for Romain, and goes to bed. She is not guilty because, she keeps telling herself, thrilled, she had no say in it. She falls asleep immediately.
THOMAS AND LOUISE
• • •
IT IS LATE. The Thursday evening patient has left. Thomas looks at his Le Monde, rereads the date bitterly. Tomorrow it will be twenty-six years since Piette died. The photo Thomas always keeps on his desk shows her smiling, lying on a bed with pages of notes scattered around her. She is four months pregnant. She will lose the baby in a few weeks’ time, and commit suicide a year later. On the back of the snapshot, Thomas has written out a canzone from La vita nuova, the blue ink is gradually fading:
Sì che volendo far come coloro So that I desire to be like one
Che per vergogna celan lor mancanza, Who, to conceal his poverty through shame,
Di fuor mostro allegranza, Shows joy outwardly,
E dentro da lo core struggo e ploro. And within my heart am troubled and weep.
There are some works so luminous that they fill us with shame for the meager life to which we are resigned, that they implore us to lead another, wiser, fuller life; works so powerful that they give us strength, and force us to new undertakings. A book can play this role. For Thomas, it is La vita nuova, in which Dante weeps for his Beatrice. A friend gave it to him shortly after Piette’s death. But Thomas does not believe that his Piette waits for him in a future life, he doubts that anywhere in the infinite plurality of Lewis’s worlds there is a peaceful universe where a happy Piette gave birth to their little boy.
There are two other photographs on the desk: the larger frame holds a picture of his daughters, Alice and Esther, they are five and seven years old, sitting astride ponies, with their mother. The divorce is already under way. The third picture, black-and-white, shows three men, two of them are recognizably Lacan and Barthes. The youngest, in the middle, has the thick black hair of a twenty-year-old, he is smiling, holding a bulging file in his hand. Thomas is now the least identifiable. Piette took it at the Collège de France, in January 1978. It gives the impression that they are the best of friends, Lacan seems to be laughing at a joke the young psychology student has made. If anyone is sufficiently inquisitive to ask about it, he just says, “That’s me with Jacques and Roland.”
From his office, Thomas has heard the door to the gate opening, recognized the metallic click of Louise’s heels on the paving stones in the courtyard and the staircase, and has opened the door before she could knock. He does not really like displaying how eager he is to see her every time, but he is even less keen to affect patience.
She sees him on the landing and smiles. “What if it wasn’t me?”
“I don’t know anyone who walks like you.”
“I’ll sound different when I’m carrying a suitcase.”
“Which means?”
“Soon, as soon as I can find the courage, I’m going to talk to Romain. I’ll tell him I want us to separate. I’ll tell him about you too. Something inside me’s broken and it won’t come back together again. And it’s not just since we met. Do you still want anything to do with me, this madwoman with two children?”
“Yes.”
“Because you do realize I’m mad, d
on’t you?”
Thomas looks at Louise, smiles. “I’m very happy to have a madwoman. I’ve always wanted to take work home with me.”
ANNA AND YVES
• • •
ANNA HAS NOT SEEN YVES again since Christiane’s party. He sent her a recent piece of writing, a play for four characters, and they have arranged to meet in a bistro on the rue de Belleville.
When Anna arrives, she looks around the room, sees him, and is amazed not to have recognized him. She thought he was taller, a ridiculous idea given he is sitting down, remembers a younger man, had not noticed how much hair had deserted his forehead. He is reading a magazine, has a cup of coffee, catches sight of her, smiles. The thrill that has gripped her every other time fails to materialize. She was as apprehensive about the sensation as she was looking forward to it, and the fact that she does not feel it frustrates and placates her at the same time.
She sits down and launches straight into criticizing the dialogue, the trajectory of the play, confessing that she prefers novels. He offers to show her his first novel: he lives very close by, the coffee is much better at his apartment, she accepts. Walking beside him, the feeling grips her again, just as acute, and she welcomes it excitedly.
They cut across the tree-lined courtyard of a renovated apartment building, climb the stairs, and he opens the door to a spacious apartment with high ceilings and a warm masculine atmosphere. The huge, bright living room is littered with a jumble of things, movie lighting equipment, an écorché model in an opera hat, a driftwood sculpture. Anna walks over to the large bay window, looks at Paris gradually picked out by sunlight, the basilica of Sacré Coeur, Beaubourg to the south, the apex of the Eiffel Tower in the distance. Yves rummages through a cardboard box, takes out a book, and hands it to Anna.
“I’ve found it. There you are. Sorry about the mess, Anna. I’ve only just moved in.”
“It’s huge.”
“Yes. Too big for me and my daughter.”
“Do you rent it?”
“No, I have too many different employers to keep a landlord happy. I’ve always had to buy. I live off my capital.”
So it is possible then, Anna thinks, quashed. She had pictured a dirty, dilapidated building, a small cluttered apartment, modest means, even slight embarrassment. She wanted him to be poor, wanted his poverty to make him unthinkable, she would have preferred having some excuse at hand, wanted to be able to say reproachfully: “Whatever sort of life could you offer my children?”
“I promised you a coffee. Over here.”
Anna cannot help smiling at the American-style kitchen: she and Stan have the same design, from the same Swedish supplier.
She walks ahead of him, he breathes in her perfume. She moves very slowly. Yves will learn later that when she cannot cope with tension, she slows her pace as if the moment itself were taking all her energy. Now she stops altogether, suffocating. Yves’s arms are around her, she does not push him away, his arms turn her, she pivots, Yves draws her to him, she half opens her lips, he takes them. Without a word, he leads her to the bedroom, she lets herself be led.
ANNA AND STAN
• • •
THE DAY AFTER, an earthquake comes on an evening like any other. The children are in their bedroom, Lea drawing, Karl practicing his scales on the piano. Anna is preparing dinner and Stan is setting the table. Anna talks about her day: a young autistic patient said the word “chocolate” for the first time.
Stan does not ask many questions, listens to his wife, watches her affectionately. Talking is never an effort for Anna. The more tired she is the more she seems to ramble.
While she cooks, Anna has put her rings on the counter. They are all presents from Stan. Her narrow wedding band punctuated by thirty-three diamonds. A chunkier ring, an ancient-looking disk of yellow gold set with uncut rubies and sapphires and mounted on a band of white gold; she has never known what it cost, it was an unreasonable amount. Finally, a simple red-and-black agate pearl, mounted on a circle of silver, she chose it at a market in Avignon, when she and Stan still used to go to the theater festival, before the children were born.
Anna cuts up fennel, turnips, and zucchini, tosses them into a frying pan, sprinkles mild spices, and covers them with a glass lid that immediately steams up. The rice is boiling in a saucepan. A sad expression, tinted with irritation, hovers over her face. She feels as if, rather than wanting to be somewhere else, she already is somewhere else. Looking at her own life through a window.
She drains the rice and puts her rings back onto her wet fingers. She suddenly grasps the fact that if she leaves Stan, if he becomes involved with another woman, she would feel no jealousy at all. She knows everything about the life the woman would lead, Stan’s thoughtfulness, his least little consideration, she even knows what presents he would give her, would have no trouble recognizing them on the new girlfriend’s fingers, around her neck.
She puts the steaming rice into a bowl, also thinking of all the women Yves has known, women about whom she knows nothing. She pictures them happy, walking arm in arm, cleaving to him. These are fleeting images, but so violently sensual that they disturb her.
“What are you thinking about?” asks Stan.
“I’m so sorry,” Anna replies, spontaneously.
It is not an answer, it is an admission. If Stan realizes this, he does not show it, goes on pouring water into the children’s glasses.
“Are you thinking about your brother’s Fuch’s spot?”
Anna does not reply.
“It’s a really rare condition, you know. It could easily not happen to the other eye. He’ll just have to be vigilant, that’s all.”
“Karl, Lea, it’s ready.”
She has pulled herself together, her voice is cheerful.
LOUISE AND THOMAS
• • •
THOMAS HAS HAD A NIGHTMARE and is describing it to Louise in a quiet café on the Place de la Contrescarpe:
“I’m in my kitchen with Maud—”
“What, my Maud? My daughter?” Louise interjects.
“Yes. You’ve shown me a picture of her, but I wouldn’t recognize her in the street. In my dream, she looks a bit like Judy Garland in The Wizard of Oz, in other words nothing like herself. I’m teaching her to make pancakes. There’s a bulky old TV in the kitchen with a film on. It’s a spy film, a black-and-white B movie. A woman’s been tied up in a kitchen exactly like mine. A man comes in from time to time and slaps her. She wants to scream but she’s gagged. I know that the woman is you, even though she doesn’t look at all like you, and I also know that although the scene is innocuous, Maud finds it terrifying. But it doesn’t occur to me to switch the TV off, I just try to get between her and the screen, and I talk very loudly to drown out the woman’s moans. A man in a suit, who could be Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca, comes in and yells at the woman, ‘Go home, now.’ She’s immediately released and limps away, turning around to throw him a pack of Q-tips.”
“A pack of what?”
“I know, it’s ridiculous, it was a dream, I can’t think what the Q-tips are meant to be. The TV stops all by itself, I hope Maud didn’t see any of it, and I yammer on about yeast making the pancake batter rise. Your little girl looks at me angrily, she wanted to watch the film.”
“Is that it?” Louise says.
“That’s it. I’m telling you because I think it has to do with my guilt.”
“Is Humphrey Bogart my husband? Wasn’t Bogart really short?” she laughs, shaking her head.
“I don’t know if it’s him. Dreams are always complex.”
“I don’t have nightmares, I just have an impossible client. A rapist. He’s chosen a completely untenable line of defense. I said: ‘Look, stop this, don’t be so stupid, she has bruises where she was hit, and the fluid found on her clothes is your sperm.’ ”
Hearing the word “sperm” pronounced too loudly, the whole café turns toward them and falls silent, but Louise does not notice. She continues
: “Just admit that you raped this girl. The jury’s never going to believe you. If you carry on denying it, you won’t be getting four or five years, but ten.”
“Louise …”
“Yes?”
“Don’t talk so loud. Everyone’s looking at us. Well, it’s me they’re all looking at.”
Louise turns around. All eyes are on Thomas, brimming with anger and contempt. She stands up immediately and addresses them all.
“Let’s stop right there. I’m a lawyer. This is the love of my life and I’m telling him about my day at work, I love him, we’re getting married on Sunday.”
She sits down beside Thomas and kisses him full on the mouth. The kiss lasts some time, there is whistling, some laughter, clapping even. When she breaks away from him, Thomas roars with laughter.
“You really are crazy.”
“About you.”
ANNA AND YVES
• • •
DESIRE WILL NOT ALLOW for simple explanations. When a cat runs after a mouse, it is not because cat molecules are drawn to mouse molecules. Anna does not understand why her body likes Yves’s hands so much, no more than Yves can explain what drives his hands toward Anna’s body.
Because she allows him to do everything, everything feels natural. Nothing is shameless anymore. Or is it because nothing goes against nature that there is nothing she forbids him? All the same, one evening, after he has taken her way beyond the bounds of convention, she is suddenly worried and whispers: “If you write a book about us one day, don’t talk about that.”
“What do you mean ‘that’?” Yves asks.
“You know what I mean. That.”
Yves shakes his head, kisses her. Why worry, he could never put it into words.
Anna does not like Yves’s desire to be derived from her own. She would sometimes like his passion not to be addressed to her, would like him to take her “as a woman,” “just like that,” so she is reduced to an object in his hands, losing herself in an almost mechanical thirst for sex. She once had a lover—“a bit of a prick,” she admits—who, seeing her naked, said, “A woman is such a beautiful thing,” and that sentence struck her as the most wonderful declaration. Yves, by contrast, finds it utterly predictable, naive, the pronouncement of a truck-driver poet, of a romantic in a wifebeater.
Enough About Love Page 7
