Hygiene and the Assassin

by Amélie Nothomb

  “How thrilling.”

  “Indeed. If you could understand the meaning of the verb, you would be as thrilled as I am in this moment, Nina.”

  “Please spare me your thrill, would you? And stop calling me Nina, or I will no longer be able to answer for my acts.”

  “Do not answer for your acts, Nina. And let yourself be loved, since you cannot love me in return.”

  “Love you? That’s all I need. I’d have to be a real pervert to be able to love you.”

  “So be a pervert, Nina, it would make me so happy.”

  “The thought of making you happy is utterly revolting. No one is less deserving of happiness than you are.”

  “I disagree.”

  “Of course you do.”

  “I may be horrible, ugly, and nasty, I can be the most vile person on the planet, and yet I do possess one very rare quality, a quality so fine that I no longer find myself unworthy.”

  “Let me guess: modesty?”

  “No. My quality is that I am capable of love.”

  “And in the name of that sublime quality, you would like me to wash your feet with my tears and say, ‘Prétextat, I love you’?”

  “Say my name again, it feels so good.”

  “Be quiet, you make me want to puke.”

  “You are marvelous, Nina. You have an extraordinary personality, a fiery temperament cloaked in icy hardness. You are proud and bold. You have everything to make the perfect lover, if only you were capable of love.”

  “I should warn you that if you are taking me for the reincarnation of Léopoldine, you are mistaken. I have nothing in common with that ecstatic little girl.”

  “I know that. Have you ever known ecstasy, Nina?”

  “I find your question utterly inappropriate.”

  “And it is. Everything is inappropriate in this matter, the love you inspire to start with. So, since we’ve gotten this far, Nina, do not hesitate to answer my question, which is more chaste than you might expect: have you ever known ecstasy, Nina?”

  “I don’t know. What I do know is that at the moment I feel no ecstasy.”

  “You do not know love, you do not know ecstasy: you know nothing. My little Nina, how can you cling to life the way you do, when you don’t even know it?”

  “Why are you saying such things? So that I’ll be perfectly docile and let you kill me?”

  “I will not kill you, Nina. Just now I thought I might, but in the meantime I have crawled, and the urge disappeared.”

  “I could die laughing. So you actually thought you could murder me, old and disabled as you are? I thought you were repulsive, but in fact, you are simply stupid.”

  “Love makes us stupid, it’s a well-known fact, Nina.”

  “Oh please, spare me, don’t talk to me anymore about your love, I can feel a sort of murderous urge welling up inside me.”

  “Is that possible? But, Nina, that’s how it begins.”

  “The way what begins?”

  “Love. Might I have shown you the way to ecstasy? I can’t tell you how proud I am, Nina. The urge to kill has just died in me, and here it is reborn in you. You have just begun to live: are you aware of that?”

  “All I’m aware of is the depth of my exasperation.”

  “I am witnessing the most extraordinary spectacle: like any ordinary person, I believed that reincarnation was a postmortem phenomenon. And now before my very eyes, my very living eyes, I see you turning into me!”

  “I have never received a more libelous insult!”

  “The depth of your irritation is proof that your life has begun, Nina. Henceforth, you will always be as furious as I have been, you will be allergic to bad faith, you will explode with imprecations and ecstasy, you will be inspired, you will revel in your anger and fear nothing.”

  “Have you finished, you bloated boil?”

  “You know that I am right.”

  “Absolutely not! I am not you.”

  “Not yet completely, but it won’t take long.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’ll find out soon enough. It’s remarkable. The things I say come to pass before my very eyes, as I am saying them. I have become the prophet of the present—not the future, the present, do you understand?”

  “I understand that you have lost your mind.”

  “You are the one who has taken it, as you will take all the rest. Nina, I have never known such ecstasy!”

  “Where are your tranquilizers?”

  “Nina, I will have all eternity to be tranquil, once you kill me.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “Let me speak. What I have to say is too important. Whether you want to or not, you are becoming my avatar. With each metamorphosis of my being, an individual worthy of love was waiting: the first time, it was Léopoldine, and I’m the one who killed her; and now it’s you, and you will kill me. That is fair enough, don’t you think? I am so happy that it is you: thanks to me, you are about to discover what love is.”

  “Thanks to you, I am about to discover what consternation is.”

  “You see? You said so yourself. Love begins with consternation.”

  “Just now you said it began with a desire for murder.”

  “It’s the same thing. Listen to what is welling up inside you, Nina: feel that immense astonishment. Have you ever heard a better-constructed symphony? The workings of it are too perfect and too subtle for others to perceive. Have you noticed the amazing diversity of instruments? Their incongruous chords should create only cacophony—and yet, Nina, have you ever heard anything more beautiful? Dozens of movements are being superimposed through you, making your skull a cathedral, your body a vague and infinite sound box, your thin flesh a trance, all causing your cartilage to relax: you have been possessed by that which is unnamable.”

  Silence. The journalist threw her head back.

  “Your skull feels heavy, doesn’t it? I know what it is. You will see that you’ll never get used to it.”

  “To what?”

  “To the unnamable. Try to lift your head, Nina, however heavy your skull might be, and look at me.”

  The creature did as he asked, with an effort.

  “You must concede that despite the inconvenience, it is divinely pleasant. I’m very pleased that you have understood at last. Try to imagine now what Léopoldine’s death was like. Just now, the instant of my death seemed intolerable because I was crawling, in both senses of the term. But to go from life to death in a moment of ecstasy is a mere formality. Why? Because in such moments one does not know whether one is dead or alive. It would be inexact to say that my cousin died without suffering or without realizing it, like someone dying in their sleep: the truth is that she died without dying, because she was already no longer alive.”

  “Careful now, what you just said stinks of Tachian rhetoric.”

  “And what you are feeling, is that Tachian rhetoric, Nina? Look at me, my charming little avatar. You will have to get used to scorning other people’s logic from now on. Consequently, you will have to get used to being alone—don’t regret it.”

  “I’ll miss you.”

  “It’s very kind of you to say that.”

  “You know very well that kindness has nothing to do with any of this.”

  “Don’t worry, you will see me again at every moment of ecstasy.”

  “Will it happen often?”

  “To be honest, I had not experienced ecstasy for sixty-five and a half years, but the ecstasy I am feeling at the moment erases all the lost time as if it had never existed. You will also have to get used to ignoring the calendar.”

  “What next.”

  “Do not be sad, dear avatar. Do not forget that I love you. And love is eternal, as you well know.”

  “Do you know that, coming from a N
obel laureate, there is something irresistibly delicious about such platitudes?”

  “You don’t know how right you are. When you have attained my degree of sophistication, you do not dare say anything terribly ordinary without disfiguring it, without giving it a touch of the strangest of paradoxes. How many writers have taken up this career with the sole purpose of, some day, reaching a place beyond banality, a sort of no man’s land where words are always virginal. Perhaps that’s what immaculate conception is: to say the words that are a hair’s breadth away from bad taste, yet still retain a sort of miraculous state of grace, always above the crowd, above any ridiculous grumbling. I am the last individual on earth who can say ‘I love you’ without being obscene. You are very lucky indeed.”

  “Lucky? Is it not rather a curse?”

  “Lucky, Nina. Do you realize, without me, your life would have been so terribly boring!”

  “What do you know?”

  “It stands out a mile. Did you not say yourself that you were a dirty little muckraker? In the long term, you would have wearied of that. Sooner or later, you have to stop being interested in other people’s shit, and begin to create your own. Without me, you would never have been able to. Henceforth, oh avatar, you will have access to the divine initiatives of creators.”

  “I do feel a troubling initiative stirring in me.”

  “That’s normal. Doubt and fear are the accessories of great initiatives. You will gradually come to understand that your anxiety is part of the pleasure. And you need pleasure, Nina, don’t you? Clearly I’ve taught you everything and brought you everything. Love, for a start: darling avatar, I tremble at the thought that without me you would never have known what love is. A few minutes ago we were talking about verbs without an imperative: do you know that the verb ‘to love’ presents similar deficiencies?”

  “Now what are you going on about?”

  “It is only conjugated in the singular. Its plural forms are never anything other than disguised singulars.”

  “That’s your point of view.”

  “Not at all: have I not proven that when two people love each other, one of the two has to disappear to restore the singular—hence, no imperative?”

  “Don’t tell me that you killed Léopoldine to comply with some grammatical ideal?”

  “Does the cause seem so very futile to you? Do you know of a more imperious need than conjugation? I would have you know, little avatar, that if conjugation did not exist, we would not even be aware of being distinct individuals, and this sublime conversation would be impossible.”

  “If only.”

  “Come now, do not disdain your own pleasure.”

  “My pleasure? There is not a jot of pleasure in me, and I feel nothing, other than a terrible desire to strangle you.”

  “Well, well, you’ve taken your time, my dear avatar. I have spent at least ten minutes, with exemplary transparency, trying to get you to make your mind up. I’ve exasperated you, I’ve pushed you to the limit to tear away your last scruples, and still you haven’t gone through with it. What are you waiting for, my tender love?”

  “I find it hard to believe that it’s what you really want.”

  “I give you my word.”

  “And besides, I’m not in the habit . . . ”

  “It will come.”

  “I’m afraid.”

  “So much the better.”

  “And what if I don’t do it?”

  “The atmosphere will become unbearable. Believe me, we’ve gotten this far, you no longer have any choice. Besides, you are offering me the unique opportunity of dying in the same conditions as Léopoldine: at last I will know what she went through. Go to it, avatar, I am ripe.”

  The journalist did as he asked, flawlessly. It was quick and clean. Classicism never commits any errors of taste.

  When it was done, Nina switched off the tape recorder and sat down in the middle of the sofa. She was very calm. If she began talking to herself, it was not the effect of some mental disturbance. She spoke the way one speaks to a close friend, with a somewhat mirthful tenderness: “You mad old fool, you almost had me there. Your words annoyed me beyond belief; I was on the verge of losing my mind. Now I feel much better. I have to confess that you were right: strangling is a very pleasant rite.”

  And the avatar gazed admiringly at her hands.

  The paths that lead to God are impenetrable. More impenetrable still are those that lead to success. In the wake of this incident, there was a veritable stampede for the works of Prétextat Tach. Ten years later, he was a classic.

  About the Author

  Amélie Nothomb is the author of over twenty novels, including Tokyo Fiancée, published by Europa Editions in 2009. Nothomb’s books have been translated into over fifteen languages and have been awarded the French Academy’s 1999 Grand Prix for the Novel, the René-Fallet prize, the Alain-Fournier prize, and the Grand Prix Giono in 2008. Nothomb lives in Paris and Brussels.