by Nizon, Paul.
I say, one can’t know for sure, Beat, in fact, one can’t know anything about couples, not even they themselves, the people in question, the married couples, those who’ve been forged together, can know it—what does the innkeeper know of what’s going on in his inn?
And I tell him about my Uncle Alois, my mother’s brother, who used to impress me when I was a kid, when he would call out, particularly after a good meal: now I’m game for anything again. He had several such turns of speech at his disposal, he also said, when the talk was of a criminal known throughout the city: then there’s only one thing to do, first you punch him in the gut, then you follow up with a hook to the chin, and he’ll collapse like a sack of flour. And as he said that, my Uncle Alois had this beaming smile, just like an American movie star, a toothpaste-ad smile, he did have very beautiful, pearly white, and even teeth, and his hair was beautifully waved, but otherwise there was nothing about him like a film hero, in fact nothing like a hero at all, he was bonhomie personified, a respectable businessman with a small pharmaceutical business in the country, and every Wednesday he came to our place in Bern, he came both for business as well as for selfless higher purposes, as a secondary occupation he was a preacher, a preacher in a congregation, led by him, of the global Pentecostal movement, if I’m not mistaken, the congregation, consisting mainly of poor people, the majority of them maidservants, old widows, or old maids, paid him, I believe, for his trip there and back, in addition to reimbursing his expenses, and they did so by taking up collections that made life very comfortable for my uncle, whom we also referred to as the “handsome” uncle or the “handsomely rewarded” uncle. He was really well off, he always drove up in this huge American car, and all the female simpletons in his congregation probably loved this smiling, good-looking man a good deal, I always had the suspicion that at those assemblies, which were held in the hall of an inn, there was something like veneration for a bridegroom involved, something sexual that was suppressed. When my uncle was ardently praying and calling upon God with his insatiable grumbling and groaning, reciting his words with sounds of pain mixed with ecstasy, so that his followers groaned along with him, rolling their eyes, this finale of his in the rented parish hall always made me feel sick to my stomach. Without question, my uncle was the shepherd and bridegroom of this congregation comprised primarily of women, and they proved their loyalty to him and dependence on him with cash from the collection that closed out their meetings, just as they did by falling into their atrocious speaking in tongues while praying with him. For my uncle, the Wednesday evening assembly was probably rewarding not only from the business standpoint, but also from the standpoint of his male vanity. At lunchtime, he came to our house, that is, he came to his sister’s, our mother’s, just to check on us a little, but also to stuff his face, and when he had eaten his fill and was feeling satisfied, he would yawn, give me that special look from the side, and call out the words I could never fully understand: now I’m game for anything again. After the assembly, he drove home through the dark night, with the collection money, in his streamlined American car.
Uncle Alois was not only the rich, handsome uncle with the winning ladies’-man smile, he was also the best husband on earth. And indeed, people thought that he and his wife, our Aunt Rudolfine, would be in love with each other forever, were an eternally cooing couple, whenever people saw them together he couldn’t resist pawing her over as demonstratively as possible, while she fended him off with feigned prudishness, mischievous eyes darting left and right, pleading for understanding. And also, when he visited us on Wednesdays, or ate at our table, his favorite topic of conversation was all the things he had bought for his better half, he could also go on at length about his planned weekend pilgrimages to take Rudolfine to four-star restaurants, he liked to talk about his own generosity, which was based of course on his solvency, which is why his relatives thought he was an incorrigible showoff and cock of the walk who simply smothered his wife with care and attention. When he was at our place, he went on and on about his obsession with spoiling his wife, which was embarrassing not only because my mother, his sister, was a widow living in straitened circumstances, but also because, other than with his appetite and his self-satisfaction, he was incapable of showing her the least brotherly affection.
This successful uncle of ours, Uncle Alois, took early retirement from his business life, he wasn’t yet sixty when he sold his pharmaceutical business and his house, at a profit, as he emphasized, in order to build an English country house in a select location, where he intended to spend many carefree years in the company of his beloved wife, who had remained youthful, if a little more grandiose around the hips, but this plan was then unfortunately thwarted by a higher power. The house had already been finished, but the garden was still just a sketch, and our rich, handsome Uncle Alois, prematurely freed from his life of hard work as a businessman, as well as from his self-sacrificing life as a sectarian preacher and as a driver of an American car, was working in this not-yet-completed showpiece of a flower garden when he was struck down, right out of the blue and without any advance warning, was hit by a stroke that paralyzed him and robbed him of his speech. From that point on, Uncle Alois was mute, that is, the only word he was able to mumble, the word he had known how to pronounce so captivatingly to the sisters of his sect and to groan out to his God, the only word that now escaped his lips, that remained with him was YES, in his misfortune he had been turned into a sickly yes-man. I was already grown up at the time and visited my uncle in the hospital, where he sat grimly threatening in an armchair, constantly fiddling with the cane in his hands, and whenever I approached him with any noncommittal words of consolation, such as “you’ll get better again, Uncle Alois,” horrified by the change that had come over him, horrified that my handsome, rich uncle had turned into this heap of a hospital inmate with his dark stare, he would mumbled his “yes yes,” which sounded awful to my ears, it was a total transformation, it left him stiff and mute, and on such occasions, whenever our Aunt Rudolfine came in the door, the wife he had spoiled all his life, the wife he had idolized, upon whom he had lavished so many loving words, cooing like a dove, Alois reached for his cane, raised it threateningly with an almost Old Testament gesture and aimed it at the woman entering the room, pure hatred in his face, whereupon he mumbled his “yes yes” and with eloquently wide eyes sought to meet the gaze of his male visitor, as if he wanted to reveal something terrible to him. Now Aunt Rudolfine had also developed a hard, furious expression, she had become a rich but caustic prospective widow, and when the hospital physician suggested that a skilled worker be engaged for the purpose of speech therapy, and that it was as good as certain that my uncle would regain at least partial ability to speak, actually it could be guaranteed with good treatment, she answered with an irreversible NO, she did not want him to receive any additional treatment, and anyway it was too expensive. My mother, Alois’s sister, wept sincerely and uncontrollably over her unfortunate brother, and she visited him loyally and untiringly in his sad room.
Uncle Alois belonged to a long series of disappointing father figures for me, there was no replacement father for me in my childhood, I was surrounded by men whose talk was just empty words, who were efficient businessmen for a while, if efficiency can be measured by material success, after which they became bedridden or worn out before their time, all of them, as it seemed to me, were living a sort of lie, and it was probably this lifelong illusion that had puffed up my Uncle Alois to such an extent that something ripped in his brain, until the lie burst, along with his fairy tale of marital bliss and the perfect marriage, and what remained behind was this heap of a person with the dark glare and the immense hatred for his better half, who not only left him in the lurch once he was in trouble, but even gloated over his misfortune. I hadn’t liked this Uncle Alois from the start because his behavior toward his sister, my mother, was so cold and merciless, even though he knew how to groan so profoundly to his God. Uncle Alois would have liked to s
ee my mother take my sister and me out of the academic stream and put us into simple vocational apprenticeships after my father died. Now it’s all over with the academic high school and the conservatory, he informed my mother, people who have no money should go out and work, not study. They should work, said my uncle, flying into a rage, even if they have to sweep up horse dung, it serves them right, they should learn to work.
My father’s academic degree had always been a thorn in my uncle’s side, as was my father’s indifference over pecuniary matters. My mother was steadfast in wanting to let us continue our studies despite everything, although she wasn’t ambitious and hardly thought it would lead to careers for us, but my uncle ran her down for that, said it was living beyond our means, he would have liked to see us children temporarily and, as he probably convinced himself, for educational purposes, treated like dirt, so that he could later raise us up to his level, which in my case would have meant an apprenticeship in his business.
If you should ever make public the story of that pair of doves, your relatives won’t exactly be thrilled, says Beat with a sardonic grin.
Beat loves dining out by himself in Paris; the meals can never last long enough for him. He also loves the company of young ladies, but he prefers to keep the one separate from the other, I think he’s a confirmed bachelor. I can well imagine him dropping a female acquaintance because the lady’s presence while he was dining didn’t please him; thanks to too much vivacity or a certain sort of absentmindedness, talkativeness, thoughtlessness, gluttony, or anything at all that he might consider to be in bad taste, she could have made it impossible for him to partake of his meal in the manner he so loves: appreciatively and circumspectly and with a hint of ritual. On the following day, he would have to go alone to a clean, well-lit, high-quality three-star restaurant that suited him perfectly, and he would strictly refrain from having a cigar between the individual courses, even if the time between said courses stretched out interminably, because he, as a nonsmoker out of principle, would only allow himself a cigar with his cognac after coffee, and during the meal he would consider himself lucky to be alone and to be able to dwell on such questions of style undisturbed.
I ask myself how my dear friend Beat behaves with women, he’s always making their acquaintance everywhere, even on the bus, and of course it always starts with him taking them out. I think he’s a terrific listener and he knows how to give the ladies the impression that they’re being fully understood, finally, for once, they feel understood and not ambushed; and they also feel protected, a discreet masculinity is directing things, even if unobtrusively, and this masculinity is combined with a high degree of cleanliness, the delicate scent of aftershave, which only reaches the lady’s nostrils now and then, so that she’s already forgotten this sensory impression by the time she smells it again, a subtle tangy smell, not sweet, not exotic, not reminiscent of pomade or of hair treated with pomade, it’s a clean, masculine scent, and with all that, with all his discretion, the lady decides that her new acquaintance is not the least bit boring, and certainly not sexless, but rather, presumably, when they reach that stage, that he’ll be a terrific lover.
You’re a creature of instinct, you glow, you’ve an incandescent mantle, I say to him, I don’t know if he likes to hear that, he doesn’t reply, but afterward he smiles this special, mischievous smile that can mean all sorts of things, in some respects he’s so secretive that one might suspect him of being quite depraved, behind closed doors, and, yes, he can also be brusque, because everything has its limits.
He’s a confirmed bachelor and a notorious admirer of women, he delights in women. Discriminating, all too discriminating perhaps, he’d probably go for it if he found all the qualities that he appreciates now in different women united in a single person, if he met the perfect woman, yes, then he wouldn’t hesitate a moment; but as it stands he prefers to procrastinate and drag things out. It’s difficult to make a decision, and as the years go by, it gets more and more difficult. And now he says, I don’t know if he says it to irritate me or out of brotherly love, as it were, to be on the safe side, nevertheless, in spite of everything, he says, you should find yourself a steady girlfriend—but he no longer mentions his cashier idea.
No, I don’t want a girlfriend. I have ONE, who is always on my mind, although I can’t stand to think about her. I force myself not to think about her, I do everything possible to keep myself from doing so. I tell myself: maybe it isn’t a case of love poisoning, it isn’t so bad at all. I tell myself: it’s wonderful to be so free in such a city, where the table is always set and ready for you, by table I mean those establishments, these maisons de rendez-vous where I like so much to go, to Madame Julie’s house, for example. I tell myself: what you find there is also something like love, and I think of Dorothée, or of Laurence, of Virginie—
But now I’m thinking of Laurence, yes, I met her at Madame Julie’s, where else, but then she also received me at her home.
I’m climbing up somewhere out of the Metro, almost like a thief, no, but with pent-up anticipation, nervously; by the way, I love this special nervousness in me, it may appear as shyness, because it leaves me breathless, unable to speak, but it’s just because I’m looking forward so very much to the encounter, I also toy with the thought of not going after all, of turning back at the last moment, I’m still leaving it open, but at the same time I’m worried that I might have come in vain, it’s possible that I might have come on the wrong day, or that she’s forgotten our arranged meeting.
Now I’m climbing up the stairs from the Metro, I’m not going to say where, I’m free and have an amorous afternoon ahead of me. This neighborhood can’t be compared with my quarter, the streets are wider, the people are different, above all there’s more light—the big city blocks are axially aligned so you can see a long way in each direction—then I come to a point where the Metro glides along aboveground, at another place I see the foreshortened tracks shooting straight into the light. I turn into the familiar side street, a street without any businesses at all, the only exception to that, I read, being a maternity home, private and probably prohibitively expensive. I go past the maternity home, I take the next street to the left at the intersection, there’s a lot of greenery on this street, there are even gardens in front of the tall, very exclusive homes or residences where happy children are playing, I hear children’s laughter. The air resounds with birdsong, a vague warbling of idleness, discretion is assured. The lobby of Laurence’s building is huge, like in a luxury hotel, it opens out to various staircases, I search the many nameplates for hers, press the buzzer, now her voice comes through the intercom, I go to the elevator.
The door of Laurence’s apartment is ajar, hello, Laurence. Then I go inside, into this high-ceilinged, spacious room that is now darkened and contains a large bed, also a glass table, cupboards, and closets in the background, on the glass table all sorts of small porcelain ornaments, glasses, decanters, on the walls tasteful pictures of butterflies, a small door leads into a pantry. Filtered afternoon light is coming in through the narrow gaps in the shutters that are rolled down outside the windows. Laurence is wearing a three-quarterlength dress that reaches far below her knees, it doesn’t suit her, she smiles in her half-Vietnamese way. How are you? asks the smile and this voice, which to me seems slightly Chinese.
I still have the quiet street with the chirping birds and the children’s voices in my ears, I blink in the darkened room in anticipation of the coming event, of the happiness I will experience, and at the same time it occurs to me that not a soul on earth knows where I am, not even you, Beat.
Laurence doesn’t look exactly sexy in her garden-party dress, just neat and, yes, very respectable. We drink a little, while we sit beside each other almost demurely on the wide bed with its patchwork quilt, in the half-light of the darkened room. The sounds of the late afternoon come humming in through the open windows. The siren of an ambulance winds its way through the steady hum, and in the background, the surf
of evening noise, the rush hour, is already slightly audible.
We sit on the bed, smoke, sip at our glasses, chat. Laurence has adopted this overly polite tone of hospitality, her voice has a nasal pitch that I attribute to her having a father from the Far East, and it gives her an expression of inscrutability, Laurence is a Eurasian.
You’ve already said that several times, says Beat, she’s a Eurasian—and what else? For all I care she could be a Hottentot.
She wears panties and a bra that say DIOR, I reply. Would you like to have her address?
You’re a racist and in addition to that you think you’re a member of the master race and furthermore you’re a braggart, says Beat with a face that’s more than just surly, the mask of surliness is designed to hide the fact that he’s also a voyeur.
I say: Beat, I say, you’re just jealous because you don’t have the guts to go to such establishments. You find it vieux jeu and bourgeois and reactionary, probably even fascist—but maybe you’re just afraid of getting an infection, you hygiene freak? And besides, I don’t give a damn about your advice, the last thing in the world I need is someone like that cashier of yours. To pick up a cashier and take her out with the intention of getting her into bed and keeping up with her just so she’ll be on call for sex would just be too insincere for me. I would have to feign feelings I don’t feel, and whenever I took her out to dinner or the movies, I’d always be thinking that I was just buying her. Whereas with Laurence there’s no talk about love, that’s where I go to make love, which doesn’t exclude my having all kinds of feelings into the bargain. And I have to say that when I’ve paid to make love with a prostitute, if it’s done well, everything seems pricelessly beautiful to me afterward, like a gift. Long live France and long live the former Indochina, long live this entire great culture, because so much tact and knowledge can only be explained on a cultural basis. Do you understand now why I love to abstain from all high-minded forms of culture, why I avoid the writers and artists and intellectuals, why I don’t give a damn about them? Culture either proves its worth in everyday life, for example in the brothel, or it doesn’t count, I say to Beat.
