Not a Clue

by Chloé Delaume

  The strange thing about amnesia is that it can affect its subject in a very partial way. This means Aline Maupin now knew nothing about herself, but she hadn’t forgotten anything at all about the rest of the world. She remembered wars, what time the train would arrive, the rule of threes, and Coco Chanel. She knew the five continents, the name of the president, and the habits and customs of Western illusions. She remembered that at 6 rue du Vieux Colombier there was an agnès b. shop, but she couldn’t give her own address, the name of her parents, or her date of birth.

  Dr. Benzecri knew from her family that Aline was partial to Parisian parties, counting a number of celebrities among her acquaintances. Parisian celebrities, obviously. Young people with sharp fins, smug fat cats under threat from the taxman and their cholesterol level, the gangster set from the gossip columns who were happy to raise a toast as long as the bottle cost more than three hundred euros. Magazines were brought in, the TV turned on: Aline faithfully reproduced cvs and rumors, having no difficulty recognizing sitcom actors, reality TV puppets, face-lifted emcees, and even more serious individuals, going so far as to notice their capillary modifications. She remarked on the covers, leafed through the articles and nodded, never ceasing to point out the faces touched by the grace of the cathode tube. The nurses themselves whispered to each other about the extent of this knowledge, all the while picking up one or two juicy bits of gossip. Only the heart of the matter. The doctor suspected what was coming next. A kind of intuition. From earliest childhood Dr. Benzecri had felt slight buzzing in his left ear, a muffled swarm announcing a future worry. So, ever since he’d been at Room 43’s bedside, his eardrum had been playing Cassandra with absolutely unpleasant insistence. He asked his patient to think farther back, but nothing helped. Photos from a party he was certain she had attended, simple because she was in them, left her utterly speechless. She only had to have crossed paths with someone for her not to know who they were, unaware, unable to give their profession and their name.

  Too fast with her we’re going too much too fast quiet concern a rest time will heal her time restore the scattered little pieces ugly little pieces like the echo of her soul little pieces chalk because she always fades back protecting from the storm torrent reality Aline inside waterlogged Aline inside bogged down how to armor her against the dripping self already splashing her at the edge of breathlessness how to protect her from permeability, Dr. Benzecri indecisively tortured himself as he picked up the phone.

  In order to distract the patient and study her progress while waiting for her condition to allow her to receive visits, she was given blank pages. A lot of them. The first day she didn’t do anything with them, crucified bed and ivs. The second day she touched them as she wrinkled her forehead so deeply that the nurse was afraid her veins would implode around her mossy temples. On the third day at about six o’clock Aline asked for a pen. The fourth, fifth, and sixth days the little white pack of paper thought it had been abandoned for good. The seventh day Aline meticulously folded each sheet in half and slipped them into the groove and made herself some ugly little makeshift notebooks. On the cover of the first, Aline drew many indeterminate shapes, immediately interpreted as simply decorative by the medical staff.

  The truth was something else again. Aline was afraid of everything that came out of her. She didn’t like her voice, a nasal trickle powdered with openings that were too cavernous on the vowels, clearing the way for the kinds of drafts particular to heavy carriage doors that protect certain classes with door codes and bronze door handles. With a sharp spasm she’d aborted her first laugh, her throat paralyzed by its cackling fruit. Oozing the great nothingness, how can I be able to expel so much everything, she disgusted herself as she cleared her glottis hard enough to tear her uvula. So she was often quiet, preferring the rhythm of her internal echoes, the monotonous chant of doubt, the litany of fear, more directly in agreement with what she seemed to be, to really be for good. I’m Aline Maupin, her body resonating with temptation and her voice like a maraca, hammered Aline deep down inside, I’m Aline Maupin but after all maybe. I’m not who you think I am. Her own sweat bothered her, as if her glands were actually too incompetent to secrete droplet scent balance. My words cluck my movements a peacock’s tail I think in fan shape how could I survive handwriting analysis, spasmophiled finger-and-thumb-tensed Aline.

  The loops and rosettes that Aline was drawing were accomplished in single lines, without lifting the pencil. The ballpoint pen tip adhered to the paper without ever piercing it, hypnotic nonchalant movement. Some space remained blank, framed by the dark lush doodles. The orgy of curves invading the cover was by no means made up of timid attempts at illustration, contrary to the deductions of Dr. Benzecri, whose tinnitus by the way was still on the rise. If Aline was blackening the sheets’ original whiteness with upstrokes, it was simply for the sake of procrastination. Pushing back the foreignness docking always more deeply and intimately, amnesia is a bottomless well, dizzied Aline, people think that when they have no memories men lose their balance, and nothing is more gaping than passivity. I saw face and body first dive.

  I explored corners enduring swan dive. I heard my voice and sniffed my skin, my auditory canals along with my scratched sinuses relapse. I thought the floor would stop falling away. Yes. When will the floor stop falling away, all I do is fall, panicked Aline, does my inside have a false bottom. When Aline’s fingers decided right hand to grab the old Bic, her whole body shivered with the organic mechanism engaged. She was a simple witness to the first line, then to those that followed. Aline held her breath and threw herself into the heart of the spared rectangle, center right of the page. Do I decorate my i’s with childish balloons, are my capitals constructed with energy or laziness, do my f’s flare out cancan like Nini Flat-on-Her-Back, or are they a stern frozen font. Shaking and awkward, words appeared in little bunches. Writing like a schoolgirl’s, wide and loose, impregnating the loops with helium and nonsense. I could feel it so much, waivered Aline’s tiny exhausted, entrenched voice, I write like emptiness, not even developing not even a crabgrass sprout, just perfect emptiness. At twenty-seven, having a child’s quirks in drawing a consonant, such breathlessness with the aspirates, decrepit punctuation, nasty senility, I write like a corpse or a stillborn earthworm. And for the first time since she’d been reborn, steam came to Aline.

  When the day finally deigned to decline, Aline had filled every space on each double folded page, cover back front. Thanks to some Tranxene 50 mg, Dr. Benzecri discreetly entered Room 43 and recorded the following:

  Notebook 1: Overboard Maybe

  Notebook 2: My Life: A User’s Manual

  Notebook 3: Why Anne Is a Dog’s Name

  Notebooks 4 & 5: Illegible

  Meanwhile, Aline was dreaming abrupt. She was hurtling down a hole with sibylline walls, a vertical tunnel, a narrow steaming gut. She didn’t feel carried away, but rather abandoned like an old piece of greasy paper ending up in the gutter just because that’s its place. You’re number 6, the Hatter informed her. Don’t try to pass me, I’m way ahead of you and your holier-than-thou attitude. But I didn’t do anything, Aline answered him, her voice echoing more than a little unreasonably. I don’t talk to girls who tilt their consonants, especially when they’re third to last, winced the Hatter, completing a double somersault demonstrating years of practice. Sit back down, we’re going to have tea. Please understand, Miss Maupin, I’m number 2 and we want information. Aline got ready to tell him something, but the Hatter almost disappeared, a little point farther down in the distance, much farther down, infinitely farther down. In six months I’ll have touched the center of the Earth, whispered Aline to herself. It must be too hot there, and that’s what woke me up. She smoothed out her dress, which ballooned out as she free-fell. It’s possible that I’ve gone all the way through, the shortest distance from point a to point b is always a straight line, but does that rule apply to speleology. Her elbow banged into a cup, a saucer, another cup. The Hatte
r liked taunting the latecomers. I’ll spend the fall in Beijing well, if it stops in time Aline calculated mentally as a teapot hit her full force. You hate blue, don’t you, uttered in the dark a toothy, thick-lipped croissant floating on its own at her level. Don’t be surprised if it’s cloudy, it’s just that you’ve gone out the other side.

  When she woke up, Aline had some bruises, and a few cat hairs were scattered across her gown.

  Miss Scarlet in the Kitchen

  Round 1

  (5 + 3, Total on the Dice = 8)

  You gave us such a scare. There’s no doubt about it, you really gave us such a scare. And on top of that your mother waited more than a week before she told me, I don’t know if you understand, more than a week, you could have been dead, besides she thought you were dead, we all thought you were dead, there’s no point in lying, artificial respiration the doctors had told us nothing proves she’ll come out of it, we were even thinking of unplugging you because of the cost but Charles insisted on taking care of everything, he’s the one who had you brought to Neuilly, your mother good-for-nothing as always do you think she could make any decisions, I was too far away I took the job in Lisbon you know, it’s a pretty city I’m happy there and Marie-France likes it a lot, I don’t speak Portuguese very well but I get by okay and besides at work everything happens in French or English anyway and English is my strong suit, you take after me as far as English is concerned, taking after your mother you wouldn’t have gotten the good grades you did in English, do you remember what your mother looked like when you failed your bac with such high grades in English of course you do. There’s no way you forgot something like that. There’s no doubt about it you really gave us a scare. You’ll have to be nice to Charles okay, because I don’t know if you have any idea how much the guy has spent, if it wasn’t for him we wouldn’t be here shooting the breeze right now, you can take it from me. He’s the one who let your mother know when you woke up, you know your mother off who knows where again spending her alimony with Josiane, lucky he got in touch with her, but I warned him, I warned Charles I told him the lay of the land, you know, because your mother doesn’t show strangers her real self, I told him what she’s really like that way he’ll see what she’s up to no problem and she won’t be tricking anyone. That’s just like you. You sleep for six months, then say you’re tired. You should be in tip-top shape, you know. We’d all like to sleep for six months, between work and Nancy cutting her teeth we don’t get five minutes, we never sleep through the night, I can’t tell you how tired we are. Exhausted is what we are. It’s going to be hard, Aline. You understand, things are complicated right now, I have too many responsibilities at work, and hospitals give me the creeps in the first place, so with a hospital for nutcases, you can imagine. That’s one of your mother’s ideas anyway. Since you live in the 14th arrondissement, we’ll just transfer you to the loony bin. Well, I’m saying that, but you couldn’t stay in Neuilly anyway, they didn’t know what to do with you. But that doesn’t mean your mother couldn’t do something, take you home to her place or something, I don’t know. Special care my eye. Just more to bill the insurance for nothing. They don’t know what pushed you over the edge, they’re not going to be able to figure out what will make you normal again either. Well, when I say normal, it’s just a word you use. You are normal, you’re just a little shaken up, but it’ll pass. Maybe tomorrow morning your brain will straighten itself out and everything will get right back on track. This thing isn’t going to last five thousand years anyway. You’re going to have to be strong my girl, okay, no giving up, I didn’t raise you like that, we’re tough in this family. Well, especially on my side. You think it feels good to have your kid in a psych hospital, honestly it doesn’t. You’re not crazy, you have no reason to be here, period, new paragraph. There are no crazies in the Maupin family. It’s a good thing your grandparents aren’t with us anymore, I swear. It’s just that it’s not an easy situation, you know. One minute you’re on death’s doorstep, the next you’re a vegetable, they get us all confused with euthanasia and everything, and then finally Her Highness wakes up one fine day but doesn’t remember anything.

  No, I’m telling you, you have to be tough. Luckily, our hearts are strong. Anyway, what’s important is that you’re better now, right. Like they say, as long as there’s.

  Notebook 1

  (Overboard Maybe)

  The dance at Vaubyessard following the dinner at 7:00 p.m., what an idiot I put my gloves in the bottom of my glass. I haven’t forgotten the smell of truffles, you can’t forget it, the supple note taunting the warm air climbed like ivy along the numb aroma of flowers and the upper crust, the smell of truffles certainly challenged the aroma of meat. Essence of fennel, I haven’t forgotten that either. Pure water doesn’t exist, the river is a peaceful sewer, Cidrolin refused the chlorinated tap, and Lamélie enjoyed it in the pontoon sun. In the hall a woman was singing, it wasn’t the same day, the same month, or even the same year, but she was singing, I’m sure Mrs. Johnson you’re wearing your dresses way too high. I can hear her slender voice easy as anything. I can also make out the rusty despair of a senile throat, dulled by wounds and tears, accompanied by ghosts grimacing as one, that still finds the strength to shout Maréchal never will I come to you never have I come from you. I can also describe, with absolute exactness, the main door of the Snoutfigs cathedral, the Land of Lace, and the Squitty Sea. I remember all that and so much more, who knows, even more.

  Round 2

  (4 + 1, Total on the Dice = 5)

  She started with us three and a half years ago, it was in December, no, January, we’d just expanded, and there were boxes everywhere. Charles had recruited her as an intern, through a friend of a friend, without even asking for a cv. As long as they’re blonde and under thirty, Charles doesn’t care about anything else. After all, it’s our job to take care of everything, to find them things to do, to check up on them, it always ends up on our plates, we’re used to it. Except for her, we saw her coming a mile away. Lolita is what we used to call her. She didn’t know how to do anything except flutter her eyelashes and follow Charles around like a puppy dog. We’ve seen scatterbrains before, there’s been a parade of super-short skirts, spaghetti straps, and thongs, which is apparently what it takes to replace Viagra. Every season there’s a new supply— paper, forms, office supplies, and bimbos, but it’s the same in every company. But like her, no way. I’ve been here for ten years, and a girl that types with two fingers and spends fifteen minutes looking for every letter was honestly something new. She didn’t know how to answer the phone either. We always had to explain everything, she never remembered anything, the coffee machine was always a mystery, and we didn’t even ask her to go anywhere near the fax machine and the photocopier, every time it was the same thing, it was always a catastrophe in the end, she’d get all red and cry, god, did she ever cry, she’d stand there with her mouth open and her nose running, acting like her dog just died until Charles would hear her and come yell at us, she was top-notch, a real office tragic actress, she was. I’ve seen other gold diggers after contract work, younger, prettier, and craftier, but never one like her. She would practice her poses, biting on her pen and glancing at herself in the window, adjusting the way a lock of hair fell or a neckline that wasn’t sexy enough. A real prototype for an upwardly mobile little slut. She would always stay late, so Charles would believe in her dedication and limitless motivation, though mostly to get a good sniff of her new territory. Marion and I used to see her going up and down the hallways, after a certain time, her face would relax, her barely hidden secret desires couldn’t be contained anymore, every movement betrayed her cheap ambition, her eyes oozed her lust when they fell on the assistant’s desk, like a fingernail scratching the associate director’s leather blotter, the trembling of lips when nearing a bouquet of roses the bookkeeper got for her birthday. We knew she wanted it all. All of it. Usually the girls shoot their wad because they don’t have anything to lose. They settle
for very little, a contract just over minimum wage, a piece of jewelry, a helping hand, a pro forma promise, and three notes on a violin. Generally, they’re realistic. That’s why they’re not too dangerous. They know they’re a pain for us, but they’re only temporary, we’re not there for the same reasons. You know, Doctor, these girls are very conscious of their weaknesses. Some are almost apologetic about using their bust, resorting to almost unfair competition, and wringing the neck of the sisterhood. Because they’re realistic, I’ll say it again. They know it’s all they have going for them, and that inside everything rattles around when they go down stairs. When they start sharing, they’re a little ashamed when they admit they can’t close a file. That’s why we tolerate them too. There are thirty-four employees in the company. We’re an equal-gender team, just by chance, but we want to keep it that way, we want to show Charles, and the others too, because it goes without saying that he put men in the key positions, that we know how to get the job done, and even better than they do. It’s not easy with their lewd jokes and dubious double entendres as soon as we show a little initiative. I understand. Of course not, it’s natural, that’s what I’m here for after all. With Aline it didn’t take us long to figure out it was doomed. Because she wasn’t like the others, the ones we usually have, I mean. Aline wasn’t realistic. And that’s what worked for her. She had no idea, so she got it all. Behind airheaded Barbie mask, she’s a real war machine. But a war machine that’s actually nuts, that was her strength, that much is clear, not lucid but so nuts she couldn’t actually fail. We could see her eyeing Charles like he was her chance, you know what I mean, like it was him and now, that she had to force the lock by any means necessary, and quick too. Where other people gave up, settled for a little bit, she put in twice the effort, patience, and dirty tricks. She observed the terrain, listened at doors, verified information, but always acted like a bit of a dimwitted filly. The others always dove in head first, Aline blew hot and cold, one day charming with her hair down, attentive, submissive, the next day armed with a Kim Novak bun and eyes pointed in the exact opposite direction. One morning she’d scold Charles about some unimportant matter, repeating word for word the criticism she’d heard through the executive assistants’ office door, thereby appearing extremely competent and just a little courageous for being so insolent but for everyone’s well-being, the company’s, and her embarrassed boss’s, predicting the future anger of a client who’d already complained farther down the food chain. Another she’d break down crying if a single harsh word was uttered, shivering like a baby bird mired down in a file that was so thin it looked like nothing but a brochure. Charles thought she was smart. The bizarre kind of smart that’s not immediately visible, mixed up in muddled neuroses, strange, mysterious neuroses, deserving of some attention. She hadn’t even been here for two months, and she was all he talked about, he would say she was sweet. You know, I’m forty-two years old, I wasn’t born yesterday. When a man, no matter how old he is, tells you a girl is sweet, you know it’s game over for him. She was doing it all at the same time, she wanted everything, like I told you. She didn’t have to put out till after her first promotion. I admit she amazed us all. Charles is married, he’s a serious businessman, it wasn’t as easy as it seems. She never tried to push aside his wife. She understood she never could. She did better. She made herself part of their couple. A ménage à trois, if you like. Actually not three but four, Charles’s wife has a lover, but that’s a different story. She wanted it all, the position, the power, the lifestyle, the days when she could perch on her Pradas looking down on the new interns, the nights when she could drink Cristal Rosé wrapped up in a dead animal. She was capable of anything, absolutely anything to get there. Charles isn’t that easy to get along with, he works too hard, you understand. She swallowed some tall stories, went through some bad public scenes, anyone else with the least bit of self-esteem would have thrown in the towel. When he bought her an apartment, we thought we’d have some peace. That in the worst case she’d sit home waiting for him, as is customary. But no. She wanted it all. She got it all. He created a department for her. Just for her. He hired three people who do her work for her. She came to every meeting, every single one, especially the ones that didn’t concern her. Charles himself would always bring her along. She’d repeat the ends of his sentences, systematically nodding her head like those stuffed dogs you see in the backs of cars. Daddy’s Yorkie, that’s what we called her behind her back, except Christelle from communications, she didn’t pull any punches. As a matter of fact, that’s why she got fired. You know we’re not completely stupid, we figured she’d give us a hell of a hard time, but still. Once she had her social status, her business cards with her tantalizing title, her brand-new bmw, her 1,200 square feet, and her shopping that would make the girls from the Emirates turn pale, we thought things would calm down. There were even some people who said that after all maybe she did love Charles, that thirty years difference isn’t important nowadays, and then other people like me who aren’t so easily fooled who said she’d been playing it close to the vest but now that she’d won there wasn’t anything left for her to take. That was without thinking about the rest. The rest, well, is that she’s a bitch. A real bitch. Who plans in advance and ruins everything. And not just to save her own skin, notice I didn’t say a whore, I said a bitch, it’s not the same thing. Do you have a dictionary? No, no, I mean it, it’s important. We may as well be precise while we’re at it. Thanks. I’m not very fast, sorry, it’s stupid, but I always have to recite the alphabet in my head to find the right letter, I can never get the right order right away. So, here we go. Whore. (1) Prostitute. (2) A woman of loose morals. (3) Willing to compromise oneself for monetary gain. I’d say that Aline did indeed act like a whore, among other things. But not that she was a whore. Let’s see the rest, no, no, I’m telling you. Here we go. Bitch.