The Lovers

by Catherine Rey

  Let me tell you more about Nietzsche… Poor old Friedrich! He roams around Switzerland and Italy. Imagine him in Sils Maria. He rents a room in a boarding-house. Cheap lodgings, flophouses, that’s all he can afford. His old suitcase in a corner and that threadbare black suit hanging on a hook. On a table is a tray stacked with a dozen phials. His body is a mess. He’s going blind. He’s going deaf. He has migraines, fragile nerves, insomnia, lazy bowels, haemorrhoids… He can’t drink wine, not even tea! He’s a small guy, with a slight stoop, a funny old bachelor whose books don’t sell. No one has ever heard of him. He is estranged from Wagner, his only friend. Meanwhile Lou Andréa Salomé, the one woman who might alleviate his solitude prefers another man. A better-looking one.

  Nietzsche keeps writing… ten hours a day. He’ll have to pay to get the last part of Zarathustra published. He knows he’s a genius. He knows writing is his salvation. He doesn’t know that he’s going to spend the last twelve years of his life in darkness… It happens one day in Turin… He is watching a horse being mercilessly flogged by his owner. He rushes over, throws his arms around the horse’s neck, and there and then he loses his mind. Yes, his power of reasoning disappears… Yes, he goes mad… Anyone in such a state of loneliness and wretchedness would lose their mind. Anyone! Forget about the horse, forget about the syphilis, forget about the misery, what drove him mad is the world’s indifference… By 1900 he would be the most read and discussed philosopher of the time. The most read and the most dead philosopher of his time!

  See, Officer Lawson, Nietzsche’s work has been my gospel since I was eighteen. I never believed in God. My parents dragged me to church each Sunday, but the bloody rigmarole bored me to tears. It didn’t make sense. Up you stand! Down on your knees! The Renfields had to be seen in church. My mother would only receive the Host after a thorough confession, after she thought she’d dusted every nook and cranny of her soul… They didn’t go to church because they were good and righteous, no… The way they shafted their servants wasn’t righteous at all… Did they ponder ashamedly over their sins, beseeching forgiveness? No, every week at mass they prayed for their collieries to yield better returns in the forthcoming year. They badgered God once a week because church was a bargaining place. Yes, church on Sunday and hating thy neighbour as thyself on any other day of the week… God is a tale for the dreamers and the retarded.

  Still, I wish there was nothing to fear, Officer Lawson… But every so often I can feel a fucking jester trying to make me trip over, shouting at me: lazybones, smuggler, pale-face, you ought to be locked up! He’s been trailing me even closer since Lucie ran away…

  Between you and me, I thought she loved me. Men are so easily fooled and old age turns them into blubbering imbeciles. Yes, I thought she was in love with me… Come a bit closer, Officer Lawson, I wish to display the most intimate details of my life, since I guess you are after the naked truth… Yes, see, the way we fucked, Lucie and I… Women, you wouldn’t think they’d lie when they love a good fuck as she did. Because she loved it, I’m telling you… I know they are damn liars. It’s in their blood, trying to con you, but when you’re screwing, who do they think they’re fooling? I know she wasn’t fooling me. She was giving herself to me and she loved it. She came all the way across the world to be screwed by me… And now, she’s gone. She’s off to where? She’s found a younger shag. You might want to ask my brother Raph. He’d have an idea. I saw him wooing her. Bloody Raphaël, he would do anything to wreck my life, even pinch the new bride from under her husband’s nose… Anyhow if that’s what she wants, good riddance. She can fuck off!

  You want her papers? Be my guest, grab the lot! Take anything that might remind me of her. I don’t want to hear any more about that bitch! Lucie… Bloody slut! Where are you? Sixteen days. I’ve lost sleep. She doesn’t realise. If only she could understand what she’s putting me through. Let me tell you something: she never liked me. She came here to find a roof, to live off a sucker. She came, made herself comfortable and I gave her what she needed. She was looking for a sugar daddy who’d provide an easy life… Take everything! Please clear the table! I’ll give you a garbage bag. I don’t want to look at her shit anymore. She’s killing me. Soon there will be nothing left of me but bitterness, resentment, impotence. You understand, Officer Lawson?

  Look it’s only eleven o’clock, and I’d like to stay here all day with this bottle of rum. Life isn’t bearable if you don’t blunt its sharp edges. But I should go back to painting, really, I’d be better off in my studio. I just haven’t got the energy. I don’t give a shit anymore. Lucie is killing me. Life is killing me. Honestly, isn’t life killing you? I bet you have a lovely wife… and two fine kids. I bet you love your wife and relish playing cricket with your sons down at the park on Sundays. They’re such good boys. The younger one wants to be a doctor, the older is studying to be a lawyer, someone standing up for lost causes like his daddy. Good on him! I haven’t any children. I never wanted to father a child, to have to look at another version of myself. Ugh!

  Yeah, take all of her papers! Her bloody poetry! Here is the bin bag. I don’t want to see any trace of her. Good riddance and thanks for clearing up the mess! Do you mind if I don’t walk you back to your car? I feel a bit gone…

  Raphaël Renfield

  Eight Mile Plains

  Brisbane

  Queensland

  Has Lucie Bruyère been in touch with me? Yes, I did give her my number… Do you really think Lucie hides out at my joint? Sorry, boss, she isn’t here… Bit of a shame, Brissie is a nice place, warm and sunny. She’d love it here.

  Forget Renfield, people around here call me Raph. And Longland is another planet. I pissed off as soon as I could and been in Brissie for the past twenty-eight years. Sunnybank Motorbikes, that’s me! And I’m fine where I am, thank you!

  What sort of relationship do I have with my brother? Really want to know? Your ears will bleed… I hate the guy. Yep, hate’s the right word. I hate his guts. So? Why did I drive all the way from Brissie to his fucking party? Why not? He sent me an invite. We hadn’t talked to each other in donkey’s years. Maybe time to patch things up… He’s not that young. I thought it’d be a shame to pass up a chat before he croaked…

  How did I feel going back there? Like shit. Why? Because I grew up in that house and the joint is mine as much as his. When I walked in I got a massive shock… The downstairs rooms hadn’t changed… My mother loved having a rest in the sitting-room or the library. The tower was my father’s getaway. My old bedroom was on the first floor, last one on the right, the corner room facing the lake. Ernest’s room was on the opposite side of the house. Better that way.

  Yeah, going to Longland, being back home and feeling like a stranger at my brother’s place was a real downer. The wallpaper, the antiques, the knick-knacks, even the smell was the same. Ernest has just stacked up more stuff in twelve years, expensive stuff. I could see that much. Thinking of the past was hard to take.

  Our parents died twelve years ago, just months apart. I wanted to sell the property but Ernest didn’t. So he organised a valuation and bought me out of Longland. I got my half and I’ve since blown it. Moolah doesn’t last. I’ve nothing to show for it while Ernest owns that grand house and acres of land… Ernest is Ernest… We’ve never liked each other. There’s always been bad blood between us. Since the day we were born we’ve fought. As a kid, he was mean to me. At thirteen he was already built like a brick shithouse. One day he split open my upper lip. You know I’ve still got the scar…

  So I did drive all the way to his party, Officer Lawson. Yeah, I did. I hoped he’d changed. Hoped that this time we’d be able to talk to each other. Forget it! He walked up to me and barked, how nice of you, Raph. We shook hands. Cold as ice. Just by the way he shook my hand, I knew I’d made a mistake coming back. His whole court was prancing around, green-haired crackpots, tattooed dykes, bum-bandits. Jesus Christ, what a mob! And then this girl swanning around in the middle of them,
this Lucie Bruyère you’re talking about, Ernest’s latest plaything.

  What did I think of her? Not much… When I saw her flouncing about, I said to myself, here’s the new trophy. Ernest’s into collecting. He started with insects as a kid. Pinned them alive. Then he moved on to stamps, keyrings, foreign coins, tin soldiers and miniature cars. Wasn’t long before he got a taste for collecting sheilas, mostly sluts, picked them up in bars, parties, at the beach. He liked the foreigners. He started with the Wogs and the Poms, then he landed a Frog. Lucie’s a good catch for Ernest, a pretty one. At first glance, I thought, this one’s a bit too good-looking to be smart. But we got yacking when she was having a smoke outside and she was smarter than she looked.

  Huh? What did we talk about? I asked her what she was going to do in this shithole. There isn’t much to do around there, unless you like watching birds. She told me she was writing the life-story of a French musician. I asked a few questions. It was all pleasant enough, until she started asking about the names of the people who’d lived here before. Well, the house and the land belonged to my family, I said. She carried on, saying, no, I’m not talking about your family, but the people who lived here before, I mean before the whites came here… What are you talking about, I asked. What do you mean whites? My olds got the house and the land from their olds, if that’s what you want to know. That’s not what she was asking, she said. She was talking about the Aborigines. You mean the blackfellas, I said, a bit stunned. Yes, what were they called, she wanted to know. How would I know their bloody names, they’re Abos, that’s all! What do you want to know that for? She reckoned she was interested in their music and painting, that sort of stuff, if you get my drift. And then she tells me she hasn’t met a black since she’s been in Australia. I laughed my head off! It’s not around here you’ll find them blackfellas. You’ve got to drive up north for that. Come to Brissie with me, you’ll see truckloads of blackfellas up there. My ex, Terry, nice chick, she’s an Abo.

  You know, Officer, foreigners, they’re all the same. They walk around town thinking they’ll bump into Abos playing the didgeridoo. And they don’t. And they wonder why! She sounded like a real drongo. It’s the twenty-first century. Hello? Wakey, wakey! Foreigners, they have no fucking idea…

  What else did we talk about? Not much. Still I couldn’t see what she was doing with Ernest. This chick, I thought, she’s too good for him…

  Huh? Why do I say that? Because I haven’t a good thing to say about my brother and I’m not the only one… My parents wrote him off… When he came back from New York, he was out of control… My father went berserk… Why? Old stories, ask him if you really want to know. But Ernest is a weirdo…

  Twenty years down the track his paintings were selling like crazy. The fucking art dealers asked him to paint shitloads of naked babes. He spat them out like a machine-gun. That wasn’t smart. His work went off. I know… I’ve been told. But he was hungry for the loot, the sheilas, to be on top of the ant-heap… You can say he’s some kind of a lunatic… Years ago, he decided to go to the museum every day, don’t know which one, a big one, to copy a gross picture. Yeah, disgusting! He’s got it upstairs in his studio. It’s a woman’s muff! He spent an entire month staring at a cunt. Nothing’s missing. Each hair, each bit of rosy flesh…

  No, I’ve never seen it. He just told me. He was proud of his feat. It’s up in the tower. The bunker is always locked. He keeps the key on a string around his neck. You didn’t know? Shows you how sick he is! I wonder what he does with this revolting painting. If he jerks off just looking at it…

  The girls who sit for him? You know what? He just wants to have a good perve and hump them straight after they’ve sat for him. You didn’t know, eh? He’s a crowd-puller, Officer… You paint a woman’s muff, that’s the easiest way to make money and people love it. That’s what the world wants to get a load of, the hairy pit…

  Huh? Me? Jealous of him? Get real. Why would I envy him? I’ve got a good life here in Brissie. Queensland is the best place on earth. I’m not jealous, I just hate his guts. At least I’m honest enough to speak my mind. When my business wasn’t going great and I asked for his help, he didn’t lift a finger to get me out of the shit. He hides in his rock hole like a big fat crab waiting for the next morsel of prey to swim past.

  Why do I say that? You ask him… He’s such a smug bastard. And the girl, I kind of liked her when she was having a smoke outside, but you know what, I don’t feel sorry for her. She’s a lost soul, bored to tears in godforsaken Longland. We had a good chat. I made her laugh. That was quite an achievement seeing she didn’t look that cheery for a chick about to get engaged.

  Maybe I got it all wrong, but that’s what I gathered when I saw he’d given her a ring. Nothing flash. Well, she didn’t look that thrilled, the poor darl’. I’ve seen these girls in and out of Ernest’s life. Truckloads of them. Why would you want to be with a guy like Ernest? You’ve got to be a bit of a crackpot yourself to want to hang around with that nutter. Ernest hasn’t got any respect for women. He doesn’t love women. He doesn’t love anyone. He hasn’t got what it takes to love.

  Rosy Barth

  Kings Cross

  Sydney

  New South Wales

  Ernest’s partner? What about her? Jealous of me? Well, she did give me the cold shoulder… Hang on a minute, what are you getting at? Nothing to do with me… The darling was angry because that night Ernest had his eye on other women. And yes, he did look at me too. I’m not over the hill just yet. He and I talked about the good old days, when we were in love…

  Of course, I knocked him back! I’m not that sort of woman. I’m a married woman. I have three children. I told him to cut the flirting… Ever thought about retirement, I joked. He laughed. Retire from what? Rosy dear, it’s in my blood… Ernest can be good fun when he’s drunk. I also had a bit too much to drink…

  No, I didn’t go to Ernest’s party to revive some old passion. No way! I went because I wanted to meet her, yes, I wanted to see the Venus in the flesh. That’s what I call her, the Venus… Tall, stylish, well-spoken. But, you know, I don’t think this French girl is actually Ernest’s type. He always preferred Rubenesque women. He loves Callipygian Venuses, as he calls them… He finds them more inspiring…

  Anyway, when I saw Ernest ogling every young woman at the party, I thought, Lucie dear, I give you six months… Huh? Yes, that’s right… Ernest and I spent a few moments in the sitting-room… He cornered me… He pushed me in there as I was going to the bathroom, and shut the door. What time? How would I know?

  He wanted to know what I thought. Of what, I asked. Of her, he responded. I laughed. It’s not what you think, he said very seriously. I want to marry her. I shook my head. He got upset, really upset. You reckon I’m unable to make a woman happy? But you were happy with me Rosy, weren’t you? I said, of course I was. Say it again louder, he demanded. I foolishly played along and repeated the words I was happy with you! I wished him good luck with his new girl. He picked up on my cynicism and accused me of jealousy. Well, perhaps it’s true, I am a little jealous. Especially when he comes up close and pinches my cheek and says with that radiant smile, you haven’t changed, Rosy dear, you are still my sweet golden doe. He can be romantic… He knows how to talk to women…

  Look, Ernest and me, it’s a long story… He was my teacher at Sydney School of Fine Arts. I instantly fell in love with him. He was so captivating, handsome, so athletic. He’s put on a lot of weight since then, though he still has undeniable sex-appeal… He’d walk into the class, ascend the podium gracefully like a big cat. In winter, he even wore a fur coat. I tagged it his Oscar Wilde period, actually, he looked like Wilde with his grey eyes and lustrous, long hair. Both girls and boys stared in wonder. Next minute he would fumble through his papers, turn the projector on, get his long wooden ruler and point at every detail of the painting we were studying, its bold lines, the structure, the perspective. He’d go through Delacroix, Titian, Malevich, Kandinsky
. Nothing deterred him. Sharp as a tack. He had a reputation for having affairs with his female students. I didn’t tell any of my girlfriends, of course, but I wanted to sleep with him too. I’ll have him, I said to myself. I was eighteen. He was in his late twenties, early thirties maybe. I was pretty, like any eighteen-year old. I just had to smile and men fell at my feet…

  Anyhow, it wasn’t very difficult to seduce him. One day I came to class in a low-cut top and leather mini-skirt. I had borrowed a pair of high-heeled boots from a girlfriend. I sat in the front row, right under his nose. After the lecture he called me over, asked if I liked Klee. I looked him in the eye and said he was my favourite painter. He smiled and said, come with me. He took my hand, led me down the corridor to a store-room, where we made love. He was such a brilliant lover… I had been with a few men… But none like him.

  That day was the first time he called me his sweet golden doe. It could have just ended up as casual sex, but we stayed together for two years. And I’m sure he was faithful… Even if it’s hard to believe… He was mad about my body… I was the first, yes, the first woman to sit for him. All those paintings from the Seventies, they’re of me. He’d paint all day. In the evening, he was exhausted. Didn’t matter… We had to make love. After each sitting, we had to make love… We couldn’t help it. Him, looking at me. Me, looking at him. It was electric. And then I had to go back to Scotland for a while.

  Yes, we were very much in love, but as soon I left he started seeing other girls. That’s Ernest. You can’t keep him on a leash. You just have to look at his work to understand that he worships the female body. What he paints is… very erotic. Yeah, he worships women. He would eat them if he could… But his art comes first, not the woman… I could never see him in a domestic relationship. That’s why I was so surprised when I first heard that Lucie Bruyère had moved in to Longland… How did I hear about it? Through the grapevine. The Sydney art scene isn’t that big and people gossip.