The Carousel of Desire

by Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt

  Attention had now shifted to the victim, Petra von Tannenbaum, described as a “contemporary artist” who “performed” in the most fashionable galleries—clearly, a zealous press attaché had distributed the information. She was depicted as a well-balanced, self-confident woman who had transformed her body into a work of art, or rather into the instrument of works of art: the performances that she gave.

  Intrigued, François-Maxime examined the few images of her that kept passing on a loop. The woman’s evident sophistication attracted him. Not sexually, but in another way . . . It struck him that she was right, that artifice constituted an aim, or rather, a refuge. Strange thoughts sprang up in him. For an hour, he had the feeling he was forgetting his grief and his troubles, fascinated as he was by Petra von Tannenbaum.

  When the endless replaying of the identical clips and comments started to wear him down, he went to his bedroom.

  The room was filled with Séverine’s things.

  Mechanically, François-Maxime sat down on her seat by the dressing table, where every evening she would sit and methodically take off her jewelry and loosen her hair.

  He looked at himself in the mirror, grabbed the brush, and used it. This gesture filled him with an exquisite calm. Enchanted, he sat down and opened the drawers containing her makeup.

  Touched by the smell of lily of the valley that reminded him of Séverine, he applied foundation cream to his cheeks. Strange . . . he and she had almost identical complexions. Carried away by his experiment, he put on powder, mascara, and eyebrow pencil, finally choosing a lipstick for himself.

  Looking at the result in the mirror, he thought he looked ridiculous. Above all, he found himself neither handsome nor beautiful: he was no longer a man, but wasn’t a woman. Nevertheless, he took a genuine pleasure in gazing at himself, as if he were escaping a danger, a threat . . .

  Standing up, he opened the wardrobe and chose from among Séverine’s dresses the one that suited him. Completing the transformation, he put on stockings and high-heeled shoes—here, the choice was limited to those she had bought in the United States, getting the size wrong.

  He looked at himself in the stand-up mirror. What did he look like? A woman? No. A transvestite. He shrugged. Well, why not?

  Taking a few steps around the room, he evaluated his body sheathed in a dress on high heels: neither the balance nor the sensations was anything like what he was familiar with.

  He looked at the clock on the mantelpiece. Thirty minutes after midnight . . .

  Carrying his shoes in his hand, he descended the stairs, taking care not to make any noise, walked out through the front door, put his shoes back on, and set off into the night.

  For a hundred yards, he didn’t meet any of his neighbors. When he saw a friend of Séverine’s coming out of a house, he ran under a tree; once the danger was past, he hailed a passing taxi and told the driver to take him to the Flemish quarter in the lower town, where the chances of meeting people he knew were minimal.

  The following nights, he continued his quest for transformation. After midnight, he would do his hair, call a driver, and plunge into the Flemish-speaking quarters. His nocturnal wanderings had no aim other than to take him away from himself. He never let a man approach, let alone hit on him; nor did he allow any woman to start up a conversation. He didn’t want sex, he had no desire to shine, he just wanted to be. To be different. To leave the character of François-Maxime de Couvigny magnificently ensconced on Place d’Arezzo, to abandon the weeping widower, the devoted father, the efficient banker, and be content with an imprecise identity, to exist because he was walking on high heels, to feel the lace on his thighs or the thin straps on his collarbone. He offered to the air a face protected by cream that was even, beige, smooth, perfect, thick, and gave him a sense of perfection.

  Frequenting the all-night stores, the french-fry stalls, the bars, talking briefly with the traders, he discovered the people of the night, who were different and open to difference. Now it no longer seemed to him that Brussels comprised two cities, the French-speaking and the Flemish-speaking, but four, since on top of these two the day city and the night city were superimposed. Overwhelmed with joy, he discovered a Chinese supermarket open until two in the morning, where he could hang out as an ordinary customer, examining the underwear, the cosmetics, the hygienic articles.

  Before each escape, the time he spent in front of the mirror became a time of passionate involvement. He had become an expert at makeup, and loved to use it, like a Japanese Noh actor, adding, at the last moment, imperfections that produced an illusion of naturalness: blush on the cheeks, shading on the temples, marks on the bridge of the nose. Painting someone else on his face gave him a feeling of serenity.

  One Friday night, at one in the morning, he was walking up a cobbled street. At the end of the street, a group of revelers was coming out of a bar. He slowed down to avoid them, then continued on his way, his progress made difficult by the uneven ground.

  As he passed the bar, another man came running out after the others, crying, “Hey, wait for me!”

  François-Maxime found himself face-to-face with the trader he had interviewed not long before.

  The young man stopped in astonishment, thought for a moment, hesitated. The light from the street lamp was falling directly on them and its orange glow accentuated every feature, every contour of their faces, almost clinically. The man recognized the banker who had mistreated him.

  “It . . . It . . . It isn’t true!”

  A snigger hovered over his lips, invaded his eyes, his face, his body . . . The trader was screaming with laughter.

  François-Maxime stood there frozen, unable to react.

  The trader was holding his stomach, bent double, trying to control his breathing, savouring his discovery.

  François-Maxime tore himself away and started running. Alas, running on high-heeled shoes wasn’t something he was in the habit of doing, and he twisted his ankles several times, which merely increased the hilarity of the man watching him from a distance. At last, he turned several corners and disappeared from his sight, escaping his mockery.

  He hailed a taxi and returned home. Even though humiliated, he felt a curious relief: he knew that this excursion had been the last one; he would no longer resort to cross-dressing; he had exhausted its pleasures as well as the need for it. Chilling but effective, the trader’s infernal sneering had cured him.

  When the taxi dropped him on Place d’Arezzo, he had the impression that a shadowy figure was moving on the roof of his house. He thought he was dreaming, but then again glimpsed the figure between the chimney pots. At that moment, a man appeared, walking his dog, and François-Maxime hurriedly rushed into the house rather than take the risk of being identified. He ran up to his room, took off his clothes, hastily removed his makeup with a hot towel, put on a man’s robe, armed himself with a golf club, and went up to the attic. There was no doubt about it, someone was trying to break in through the roof.

  When he opened the skylight, the cold air hit him in the face. He couldn’t see anything abnormal. Either he had been the victim of a mirage, or the man had fled.

  Pensively, he went back downstairs, visited every room to make sure no intruder was hiding there, half-opened the doors to all the children’s rooms, then, reassured, went back to his own.

  The days resumed their normal form, and so did the nights. In the evening, François-Maxime would devote himself to his children, then go to bed, forcing himself to read a novel until sleep overcame him.

  One morning, a letter from Niger made his heart beat faster. Niamey? Wasn’t that the town where Séverine’s sister had moved twenty years earlier, when their family had broken up? Through the diplomatic service, he had attempted to inform her of the death.

  The letter was indeed from Ségolène. He read it immediately:

  Dear François-Maxime,

  I
hope you don’t mind me saying “dear.” I want to thank you for contacting me and for taking care of my sister’s children, who have nobody but you now.

  I’ll be brief. If I went into details, this letter would become a novel.

  I loved my sister Séverine. I’ve just been crying for a long time after learning of her tragic death. Although I hadn’t seen her for many years, it wasn’t because of her, but rather because of the context with which she was associated, in other words, my parents. I won’t go on about the sense of guilt that exists side by side with the grief because 1) it’s obvious 2) I feel no remorse.

  I fled my family a long time ago. Why? I wanted to save my life. Clearly I did the right thing, because my sister has just lost hers. Our family is cursed. The reason I’m writing to you is that I want it to cease.

  I have no memory of being taught to speak when we were children, whereas I remember perfectly well being taught to keep silent. We weren’t supposed to express our feelings or ask others to explain theirs, we weren’t supposed to ask indiscreet questions, let alone give answers to them. In short, I grew up with my parents, my brother, and my sister, like a cow in a cowshed.

  Our family wasn’t comprised of love but of silences. Learning of Séverine’s tragic end, I thought I should tell you that.

  Be vigilant, François-Maxime, because what happened in the past has just happened again, and may yet happen in the future.

  Our grandmother on our father’s side threw herself out of a window. I only discovered that recently, I don’t know if my sister knew it. Did she consciously copy her? Or had she stored deep in her mind a memory transmitted through some channel other than words?

  Yes, our grandmother threw herself off a building, just like Séverine. She was unhappy. She was a pretty woman, and she preferred women to men. Her husband discovered it, and threatened to have her institutionalized. She preferred to kill herself.

  Our father loved his mother, who died when he was seven. How do I know he loved her? When he died, we found lots of photographs of her in his room; he even kept one in his wallet. It seems my father felt terrible about her death and never got over it.

  Did Séverine tell you? Our family split apart when our elder brother Pierre discovered that our father was a transvestite. Oh, he didn’t sell his body, no, he dressed up in women’s clothes and paraded through the streets. At the time, this news destroyed us, put an end to whatever harmony we had. Because it revealed a monster beneath the outward shell of a father we feared and worshipped. Because it demonstrated that nobody knew anybody in our household. Because it said loud and clear that everybody was lying. I left France with Boubakar, my boyfriend then, my husband now.

  Although I don’t regret getting away, I regret that I didn’t try to understand. Why did our father dress as a woman? I’ve been putting together the threads and I realize my father was trying to find his mother again, to rejoin her through her clothes, her hairstyles, her accessories, her femininity; my father still loved his dead mother; if he couldn’t bring her back to life, at least he could get closer to her. It was pathetic, ridiculous, tender, beautiful, desperate. And we didn’t understand it. Did he understand it himself? You can’t cure yourself of yourself.

  After our father died, then our mother and our brother, I refused the inheritance. I advised Séverine to do the same. If she had followed my advice, we would have been close sisters, and she probably wouldn’t be dead now . . . She agreed to shoulder the burden. I remain convinced that she didn’t just inherit the family money but also the family fate. In getting those millions, she also got the problems, the silences, our curse.

  Traumas repeat themselves, François-Maxime, especially when we’re unaware of them. We inherit what we don’t know. Silence kills.

  That day, François-Maxime merely pretended to do his work; in reality he couldn’t stop thinking about Séverine, or about his children.

  At midnight, he was still thinking about them, sitting on the balcony, looking out over Place d’Arezzo, where the parrots and parakeets, quiet at last, were sleeping.

  Suddenly, a hurried takeoff broke the peace. In a cacophony of feathers and screeching, the birds perched on the highest branches flew up in a panic, scared by something opposite them.

  Trying to see what was going on, François-Maxime leaned forward and looked up at the top of his house.

  Once again, a shadowy figure was visible between the chimney pots.

  This time, François-Maxime rushed up to the top floor and came out onto the roof less than a minute after the commotion.

  Beneath the gray moon, Guillaume watched in astonishment as his father emerged from the skylight. In his fright, he almost slipped and had to hold on to a TV antenna.

  “Daddy?”

  “Guillaume, sweetheart, what are you doing here?”

  The boy was surprised to hear “sweetheart” instead of being bawled out. Seeing his son on the edge of the void, François-Maxime immediately realized what was going on: the child was trying to get to know his mother better, to resemble his mother, maybe even to see his mother again. He was flirting with oblivion, caressing suicide.

  He ran to the boy and hugged him in his arms. “Come, Guillaume. You have to talk to me.”

  “Aren’t you with the lady?”

  “What lady?”

  “The one who’s taken Mommy’s place. The one who comes to see you at night.”

  François-Maxime smiled, painfully. “Come, sweetheart. I have to talk to you too. Nobody’s perfect.”

  And, with his child in his arms, François-Maxime climbed back down the stepladder to the cluttered attic, vowing that he would never again hide from his son the complexity of human beings, not Severine’s, and not his own, even if it meant losing his pride or the ideal image of himself that he had fabricated.

  3

  Joséphine’s absence devastated both Isabelle and Baptiste, in her case because she didn’t know her very well, in his because he knew her all too well.

  During those last days, which had been so happy, Isabelle had never suspected that Joséphine could leave; on the contrary, galvanized by the novelty of it, she had cheerfully organized their life as a threesome, arranged the apartment so that they each had their own space, planned their next vacation. True, in the middle of this whirlwind of activity, Joséphine would occasionally demonstrate hints of irritation or melancholy, which Isabelle had attributed to her uncompromising, excessive, theatrical temperament. Everything she felt, Joséphine expressed in an emphatic way—quite unlike the reserved Baptiste. A badly presented dish would ruin her appetite even if she had come to the table feeling really hungry; an unpleasant smell would make her leave a department store in a huff; a grammatical mistake would make her lose track of the meaning of a speech; a regional accent would transform the speaker into an irresistible comic; a pimple, a rash, a hair on a face made her recoil. As far as she was concerned, details mattered as much as the overall picture, if not more. With her love of the absolute, her perfectionism, she couldn’t help being disappointed by reality. Either enthusiastic or exasperated, she alternated between appetite and anger, displaying an unceasing intensity that enchanted her camp followers and prevented most people from appreciating her. This extreme sensitivity, which deprived her of so many pleasures, was sometimes an affliction. As the first person to suffer from her moods, she would turn to Baptiste, her guide, her sage, wanting to absorb some of his moderation, hoping he would help her get things into proportion—but this, too, she demanded so frantically that she would fly into a temper if he took too long about it. Sweet Isabelle had been so in love with that tempestuous nature that she had been unaware of the depths of suffering it concealed.

  Baptiste, though, had had an inkling of the coming crisis. Since that first night, he had known he was being spied on, watched, judged. Although Joséphine had been delighted that he had welcomed Isabelle, she had later bee
n surprised by it, then suspicious. How could her husband accept the unacceptable; had he welcomed Isabelle into their household because he was bored with their relationship? Was it out of love for her, or out of weariness? At times she saw in their threesome the triumph of love, at other times its betrayal. Although she gave herself the right to love two people at the same time, she didn’t grant it to the same extent to her man. Baptiste had sensed this dilemma in the way Joséphine had looked at him, sometimes withdrawing from the moments the three of them shared and taking up a position as a spectator, an examiner, a judge, a prosecutor. Recently, she had even gotten into the habit of bursting into rooms, as if hoping to catch the truth unawares; if Baptiste and Isabelle so much as decided something without her, she would withdraw, morosely; if she got up before them, she would lose her temper if they lingered in bed after she had made them breakfast. The moments when Baptiste and Isabelle were working separately, she took as a personal offense. Even in the past, Joséphine had attacked Baptiste’s activities: “I get bored when you’re writing, Baptiste. I feel as if I’ve stopped existing.”

  With the years, though, she had learned to attenuate that jealousy, to consider these hours of creation not as a scandalously selfish passion or a punishment being inflicted on her, but as the basis of their life, the vocation she served by relieving the artist of additional worries. Deep down, she had found her place in her husband’s writing.

  Isabelle’s arrival had upset that balance, he knew. Now, there were two spheres outside Joséphine’s control: Baptiste at his desk, and Baptiste with Isabelle. It was too much for a woman who, in spite of her pleasure-loving character, had little respect for herself.

  So she had renewed contact with her old demons, those that Baptiste had fought against: her self-hatred, the certainty of her own emptiness, the metaphysical dismay that led her to doubt that she had a good reason to remain on earth. Joséphine, so alive, so forthright, so brazen, so feared, considered herself useless. Even though she appeared to be a shining sun, she saw herself as grayer than the moon. In her own eyes, she had no value, only the importance that other people gave her. Only Baptiste’s unconditional love had given her substance; now that he was suddenly infatuated with another woman, her fragile, painfully acquired self-confidence had been destroyed.