by Anne H
“Tell your mother that Monsieur Athanase will be waiting for her at the promenade as soon as she’s recovered from her husband’s insults.”
He emerges from the shower, streaming wet from head to toe. I bring him a dry towel, big and wide, roughly textured the way he likes it. I get ready to rub him down like a horse after a gallop. Very gradually I’m getting used to his black nakedness.
ROSE-ALBA ALMEVIDA
No more being waited on hand and foot, no more bandages around my neck, no more contrite manner or indignant heart. I’m convalescing. I’m visibly regaining my strength. I long to go back to the Paradis Perdu. I return to the promenade gallery where Monsieur Athanase is waiting for me. The man who wrung my neck will pay what he must. Once, only once with Monsieur Athanase, such a beautiful lynx coat as a bonus, but it isn’t enough for my hunger and my thirst, my anger and my indignation. There will be a long series of encounters with Monsieur Athanase. In a four-star hotel. Along the Seine.
In the darkness of the room, Monsieur Athanase prefers no light at all, I could swear that the bateaux-mouches enter the dark air here, brushing against me like seaweed as they pass by in the night. He puffs like an ox long before I spread my legs. He’s crazy about me. I’m crazy about what he does to me, what he teaches me to do. We’ll go to hell, the two of us. Together or separately. It doesn’t matter. In any case, Monsieur Athanase won’t be forever. He’s too hairy and he smells of cologne.
The true demon in this world is Jean-Ephrem de la Tour.
Monsieur Athanase is going to America. He gave me a gold ring with a small blue stone that sparkles with a thousand fires. It reassures him about my faithfulness during his absence and it dispels his fears about the true generosity of his pathetic little soul. I wear my ring on the fourth finger of my left hand, like a bride. I ask forgiveness of no one, not God, not Pedro Almevida, my husband.
When Monsieur Athanase returns from America, if he returns, I’ll tell him about the apartment I dream of, bright and vast, with an unobstructed view of the Eiffel Tower.
MIGUEL ALMEVIDA
He looks at me as if he were turning me over and over in his fingers. His gaze on me, prying and incorruptible. He adds up my virtues and my flaws: “Back too bent, rib cage too narrow, legs magnificent, legs of a girl, with no hair or knobby kneecaps.”
I tell him I’ve always wanted to be a girl and that I was persecuted on account of it.
He replies: “You would not seek me out had you not already found me. It was Christ who said that, along with some other incomparable things. Remember, for one brief moment in your mother’s belly you were both boy and girl, before the preposterous choice to be only a boy. Remember how good it was, remember how sweet it was, a tiny girl without fingers or feet, a teeming mass of cells, the tiny sex of a girl, sealed like an envelope.”
I can’t understand what he’s saying and I think I’m crying. He gets a dress for me from his big closet, a gorgeous dress that’s just my size, and high boots that fit me perfectly, and elegant lingerie, everything makes me so happy I could die. He has just bought it all for me. I undress right away. My boy’s clothes fall to the floor around me. Briefly, he sees me naked.
For a long time I study myself in the mirror that covers one whole wall in the bedroom of Jean-Ephrem de la Tour. What I see surprises me, but I also recognize my true reflection in the mirror, haughty and innocent. I smile tenderly and my image replies, tender and smiling too, the image, the image, the beautiful image of me, Miguel Almevida.
He pulls me away from my contemplation, takes me out of my reflection in the mirror in a way, forces me to be real, to stand opposite him in the middle of the room, sharp and alive, changed into a girl and proud of it.
He offers me champagne. I learn how to drink, while my nose prickles and my eyes fill with tears. He talks to me about my hair, which is like silk, increasingly long and silky.
“Little Beast, thou art Little Beast and upon this Little Beast shall I build my happiness.”
He laughs hysterically with delight. He pulls himself up abruptly, comes over to me and strokes my hair for a long time, absentmindedly, no doubt meditating in silence upon his imminent fierceness.
Jean-Ephrem de la Tour is entertaining visitors. I serve champagne and, with a lock of hair over one eye, act as his maid in my brand-new dress.
With their backpacks, leather jackets, and worn jeans I barely recognize the performers from the Paradis Perdu, without makeup or fake jewels, just as they are, pale and dishevelled.
Jean-Ephrem de la Tour says that he’s never let down either a lady or a gentleman. He laughs. He struts. He’s vulgar. A lout. He selects a pale redheaded girl for himself and takes her into the bedroom with the canopy bed. He asks me not to leave, to be his witness, to wait there against the bedroom door until everything is done and well done between the redheaded girl and him.
I race away as if there were a mob at my heels. My heart sickened. My gorgeous dress wet with tears.
ROSE-ALBA ALMEVIDA
I dream about a little gilt chair with a red velvet seat, a little gilt chair just for me, Rosa, Rosie, Rosita Almevida. When I’m sitting on my shining chair, the frills of my skirt spilling over on all sides, I shall dominate the entire world and no one will be able to bring me down from my pedestal. When I dream like that it sometimes happens that I go beyond the permitted limits of dreaming, that I see too much, in mass and in number, that I imagine a whole string of little gilt chairs standing against the flaking walls of my hovel, like so many gleaming nuggets. I am enthroned in gold and red velvet. It’s my beloved son in whom I’ve placed all my indulgences who is urging me towards these extremes of daydreaming. Has he not described for me ecstatically, repeatedly, the splendours of Jean-Ephrem de la Tour’s loft?
I must see it all with my own eyes — the furniture and the silver cutlery, the books bound in tawny leather, the carpet, curly like a bison, the pure gold and the crimson velvet, the immense bed and its white gauze, false candour and light mist. One night will no doubt be sufficient for me to know everything about the black angel of the Paradis Perdu, all his secrets save for the mystery that exists between him and my son. I tremble because Jean-Ephrem de la Tour is black with green hair and I am white with hair dyed yellow like wheat. I tremble because my son adores that man who torments him, in the way that flagellants adore God during Holy Week processions in Seville.
He came home very late last night, half-suffocated in the muffled dawn, his tears running onto his neck, his girl’s dress all crumpled, his girl’s legs visible below his girl’s dress. Barely wakened from a heavy sleep, I saw it all in a fog. My son with his overlong hair, his heartbreaking tears because of a redheaded girl, he said. And I, I knew that it was because of Jean-Ephrem de la Tour. I hated that man, my son’s torturer, and, at the same time, I wanted to sleep with him so as to go deeper into humiliation and be ruined along with my son.
Now that Monsieur Athanase isn’t there, I’m terribly bored at the promenade. The men who brush against me in the shadows hardly deserve to live. More than ever I want Jean-Ephrem de la Tour to be crucified by his wings, then dropped onto the stage like a great black butterfly, his wings beating. The orchestra will play a shuddering tune then and I shall hear it from far beneath the earth when I’m nothing but ashes and dust.
Tonight, there’s no performance at the Paradis Perdu. My son is sleeping like a sick child. I’ll go to Jean-Ephrem de la Tour’s place. I’ll surprise him at home. I’ll soak up the overly sweet air of his loft. I’ll inhale American cigarettes, black skin, the deep carpet, the huge bed, the books dressed in fragrant leather. I’ll be like a retriever with an extremely keen nose who is let loose in public. Perhaps I’ll learn where Jean-Ephrem de la Tour keeps all that money he throws out his windows. I’ll bask in red velvet and white muslin. I’ll sleep with that very black man in a canopy bed. And maybe in
return he’ll give me the little gilt chair with the red velvet seat that I dream of.
MIGUEL ALMEVIDA
Her flowered muslin dress brushes against me as she goes by. Her agitated breath passes over my narrow camp bed on the floor in the kitchen where I pretend I’m asleep. Exasperating, the scent of sun-soaked geranium lingers in the room after she’s shut the front door behind her. I listen to the dwindling sound of her footsteps on the sidewalk. I get up and dress. Knowing nothing about my mother’s rendezvous. Wanting more than anything in the world to know nothing about what she’s doing so late in the dark. I convince myself that Monsieur Athanase is back from America. Very quickly I stop thinking about my mother and abandon her to her fate, the fate of a fallen woman on the run in the night. Only one thing is necessary. To get that well and truly into my head. To reconcile with Jean-Ephrem de la Tour who offended me greatly with a passing girl, redheaded and pale as a sparrow’s egg.
Once I’m outside, the familiar streets move along beneath my feet, like conveyor belts in the blue-grey of the night, illuminated here and there by the yellow glow of streetlamps. Rue Cochin, rue de Pontoise, boulevard Saint-Germain. Place Maubert. The black entrance to the Métro. To dive into it. The long journey to the end of night. Departures and arrivals. The wait on the deserted platforms. The open air. The Butte. Its hills and staircases. Sit at a café terrace. Wait for the time to pass, let it slip by in the distance without me. To be in this deserted café as if I weren’t there. Go over the things that are vague in my heart. Drink coffee, one after another.
Now they’re bringing in the tables and chairs. Obliged to get up and leave. Fear every footstep that brings me closer to Jean-Ephrem de la Tour. It’s the first time. Me, all alone in the night, going to him though he doesn’t expect me. Repeat his name like a prayer, Jean-Ephrem, Jean-Ephrem, stretch his false surname like a long thread of melted cheese that grows longer, de la Tour, de la Tour . . . Laugh at his theatrical nobility. Forgive him for the red-haired girl. Adore him like a god who is devastating and cruel. Hell and paradise for a child with nothing better to do.
I have the key. I go inside as if I were at home. Everything is in order. The red walls, the heavy curtains, the closed piano. You can almost hear the air in the room as it moves slowly, in rhythm with a calm invisible breathing, without even a hint of mist on the big mirror. Nothing is happening here. The ardent nocturnal life is somewhere else. Imagine that absent life. Feel it as it gradually makes its way into my heart like a foreign woman of whom one must be wary. Look at the two closed doors in the red wall. Desire more than anything in the world that these doors stay closed forever. Want to wall them in with stones, like tombs.
It won’t be long now. The air is thick all around me. I must learn the things I’ll need to know for all eternity. I’ve looked at the wall in front of me so hard it finally opens, so slowly that I die by inches.
My mother is a fury. Her muslin dress swollen with anger, Rose-Alba Almevida, more radiant than the crimson walls, a flame glowing red, walks out of the room that has the canopy bed, straightens her puffed sleeves, passes by without seeing me, slams the door, and goes out onto the street.
He follows behind her, towering, lanky, says that he’s impotent and that it’s my fault. “You’re never here when I need you, you little piece of trash.”
I answer him so softly that no one but me can hear what I say, so softly I am at the very edge of absolute silence. “I’m going to kill myself.”
LETTER FROM JEAN-EPHREM DE LA TOUR TO MIGUEL ALMEVIDA
My child, my sister, Little Beast, little spouse whom I see in my dream, little piece of flotsam destined for the fire of heaven, tiny lost thing. I must bid you adieu. Note carefully, by the way, that strange word “adieu.” I’ve obviously read too many books that are beyond me. Remembered whatever words aren’t ordinary. Adieu, then. I must tend to my affairs. For a long time I played an angel in the theatre and a beast in bed, with fleeting companions. I’ve been kicked out of the Paradis Perdu. Now I must swallow the unbreathable air of this world, without thinking about it, and slip away. Towards other climes. Enigmas don’t have such a hard life. Soon you’ll know everything.
But where shall I send this letter? Needless to say, not in care of your mother, that beautiful victim. I’ll look for you everywhere. You’ll never know it most likely. I’m writing just for myself. No stamp or postman. I’ll look for you in the streets. I’ll keep the secret of you to myself, like a hidden treasure.
Without breaking any silence, I am yours,
Jean-Ephrem de la Tour
MIGUEL ALMEVIDA
Which of them, my mother or Jean-Ephrem, having betrayed me equally, pushes me gently towards the Seine?
I lean over as far as I can to smell the bland odour of the water.
Behind the grey clouds the day is slowly breaking. On the riverbank, a clochard lies on his cardboard, rolled up in his blanket, yells at the top of his lungs in his dreams, shouting that it will be a beautiful day.
From looking so hard at the slow and monotonous Seine, I grow weary and listen to the booming, rusty voice of the clochard who proclaims the beauty of the day and calls to me in secret.
In no time I dash up to the Quai de la Tournelle and shake myself like a dog coming out of the water.
The day is dawning on all sides at once. I must flee without further delay. One last stop at the lodge to get my things. One last look at my sleeping mother. Her party dress in a heap on the chair. She who offered herself and was refused is sleeping like a baby gorged with milk. And I, her offended son, am leaving her at this moment forever.
Soon the silence of the sleeping house will be broken. Footsteps everywhere, on the stairs, the landings, doors opening and closing, voices greeting or grumbling. Hurry, before it’s too late. Hurry. The unlivable time in which I exist is becoming thinner, like worn fabric. So tired. My legs give way under me. To leave my mother without further delay. The keys there, hanging on the wall! Madame Guillou’s key, cold and shiny between my fingers. Madame Guillou on vacation in the south. Take advantage of her empty apartment. I enter her place like a thief. Go directly to the bedroom. Collapse on the bed on my stomach, my face in the pillow. Risk choking because of the tears. Fall asleep in Madame Guillou’s bed.
MADAME GUILLOU
They should all be kicked out. Loathsome people. The father, the mother, the son. Drive them out of the house without delay. The father, on the run who knows where, the mother, in desperate straits screaming from door to door, “Have you seen my son, Miguel?” and he, he, the little hypocrite who stayed in my apartment while I was away, he, the child I once loved, the serpent that I warmed in my bosom. Found his list when I came home from my vacation, sitting prominently next to the telephone on my night table where he’d forgotten it. It said:
Before leaving:
• buy package of Lustigru egg noodles and just leave half
• put a quarter litre of water in Evian bottle
• close all shutters
• tune radio back to France Musique
• buy Fruit d’or sunflower oil margarine
The perfect crime. All traces wiped clean. Now he is sinking deeper into the savage night as though nothing were amiss and no one the wiser. That child ate and drank in my house, he slept in my sheets. If I ever catch him. He, he, the affectionate little youngster I used to love.
ROSE-ALBA ALMEVIDA
A voice can be heard in the fifth arrondissement, an endless moaning and wailing, it is Rose-Alba Almevida, weeping for her son who has disappeared, refusing consolation because he’s been gone for five days now.
“God of my childhood, give me back my son and I’ll become a virgin again forever, beneath the habit and the veil as you want me to be, for eternity, amid the lighted altar candles, the swaying sanctuary lamps, the chubby-faced cherubs and rapturous madonnas.”
At the same time, there are the outcries of Madame Guillou who’s come back from her vacation. Wrinkles in her sheets, a strange odour in her bed, too much order throughout the apartment. And particularly that list left next to the telephone, written by Miguel Almevida, that she sticks under my nose.
Madame Guillou repeats “forcible entry,” “breach of trust.” Her upper lip curls up over her little green teeth, as if she were about to nip with a poisonous bite.
And I, I, his mother, the first to be betrayed, the first to be trampled on, I am foaming with rage. Light has been shed on every mystery. My son is a runaway, my son is a squatter, my son is a hoodlum. I’m going back to the Paradis Perdu. That will teach the child that I brought into this world for my damnation and his.
MIGUEL ALMEVIDA
On the run from my mother’s, can’t go back to Madame Guillou’s, no fixed address, I’ve been wandering from street to street since this morning. Windbreaker creased, shirt soiled, shoes worn down, I drag my muddy soles. As inattentive as in school, mind blank, ravenous, I am going I know not where to lose myself once and for all. And nothing more need be said.
The grey street, the grey sidewalk, the white stripes at intersections, the rotten gutter, the red lights, the green lights. I know only what I need to know about the city in order to advance, step by step.
For a while now garish lights have been reflected on the street. I walk through puddles of colour — red, green, blue, yellow. The air thickens, filled with obscene invitations from the clubs lined along the sidewalk. Voices come to me, muffled and hoarse. Pleasure is offered to me from door to door by barkers in richly coloured uniforms.
Who then has brought me here? Dragging me by the hand, pushing me by the shoulders, bringing me to this place where I’d sworn I would never return?
The scent of the wet air reminds me of the scent of his big body streaming under the shower.
If I don’t watch out, Jean-Ephrem de la Tour’s massive apartment building will rise before me like a blind fortress against the black sky.
