Incest

by Christine Angot

  There was also the trip to Carcassonne where we didn’t end up going, there were a lot of promises not kept. The trip to Rome is kind of the same thing. Ruining it, sabotaging it. Sabotaging life, messing it up. “That screws up a woman’s life,” like that person said in Interview, yes. You win, good answer, good conclusion, good look, good allusion, good hook. Yes, that’s it. Yes, it’s true. Yes, it screws up a woman’s life. It screws up a woman, even, we could take it that far. It’s an act of sabotage. Yes, we could put it like that. This book will be seen as testimony about the sabotage of women’s lives. The groups that are fighting incest will be all over it. Even my books are sabotaged. To take this book as a shit piece of testimony will be an act of sabotage, but you’ll do it. It screws up a woman’s life, it screws up a writer’s life, but, as they say, it doesn’t matter.

  Rome

  Contrary to what you’ll read in the end, we did go there. I mention it now because of the sabotage, it’s more logical. I open the parentheses to insert what happened after the end of the book. I didn’t know we would go to Rome when I wrote the last page. I came back and I ended it. As agreed, Marie-Christine left for Paris on December 22nd. That provoked very serious anxiety attacks again. I was once again in an unbearable state. I don’t want to revisit it. We broke up right before she left on the 22nd, this break seemed credible, there was still some hope, but very faint. I expected Frédéric the morning of the 24th. Marie-Christine was meant to return on the 25th on the twelve-thirty flight. She was hoping we would celebrate Christmas together that day, with Frédéric, my parents and Léonore of course. Even if we were separated, even if the break was confirmed, it didn’t matter, we could still celebrate Christmas together. I was impossible, I overdid it, again, I read the last two pages I’d just finished writing the morning of the 22nd to her over the phone. She got an ear infection, in Paris, and was not allowed to fly, if her fever went down, she might possibly take the train. I went to pick her up at the station with Léonore on the 25th, she had her presents from the day before, a pair of Jil Sander slacks in a bag, there was also a duvet cover, CDs, gifts from twenty-five people. She was deaf in one ear. She wanted me to be gentle and nice to her, I wasn’t, quite the opposite. In the end, Christmas went well. But things started up again the next day. We didn’t want to go to Rome. When she wanted to go, I no longer did. When I wanted to go, she no longer did. The delirium continued, the violence even intensified. We didn’t leave on Sunday as we were meant to, we were still billed for the night in the hotel. In the end, we did leave, but later, on Tuesday. In the airport we had six hundred francs stolen, it was all a waste. I was a fountain during the whole six days in Rome. I cried in the street, at the restaurants, everywhere, on a bicycle we’d rented. Again, she came close to hitting me, I said “no, I’m begging you.” She didn’t do it. It was still horrible. We really did separate on our return. It’s over. And this time, it’s permanent. It was sabotage up and down the line. We were lucky to be in Rome and we looked like we were at a funeral. One day she says to me “come, I’m going to get you a present, I’m going to buy you a Venini vase,” I lost her on the way to the shop on purpose. As soon as I lost her, I ran through the streets in a panic. I couldn’t find her. The streets were filled with people. I went to the shop where we’d seen the vases, I went to Prada, I went back to the hotel I went to another possible boutique, she was nowhere, the streets were packed, I thought she had gone for a bike ride to get rid of me. It was our last day in Rome, and our last day period. I went back the hotel yet again, she still wasn’t there. I left her a message: I’m looking for you, I went here, here, and here, I’m going out again, but I’ll be back. I went to a restaurant we liked, she wasn’t there, the weather was magnificent, we weren’t taking advantage of it, we weren’t taking advantage of anything. Our trip to Rome was screwed up just like my life. The Venini, which I wanted so much, also screwed up. It was supposed to be my Christmas present. The restaurant together, sabotaged. Claude, Judith, and their child were spoiling the landscape for me, I was having nightmares, I ate breakfast feeling nauseous. I returned to the hotel, she still wasn’t there. I lay down on my bed. The sobs came. We had two beds. She came back around three thirty. I was so happy I couldn’t believe it. But it all started up again. Before the Venini, we were supposed to go to Prada, just to see, we spent the last two hours we had left, it was full of people, foreigners, Japanese people, someone addressed me in English, I did my Pierre Angot impression “I’m not English nor American,” I was an idiot, a bitch, a cunt, a beast, Elisabeth, sassy, impertinent, stupid. At the moment I insult myself all the time, ultimately my narcissism took a real hit in this whole incest story. Marie-Christine was sitting on the ground, she’d had enough. I finally bought some shoes that hurt my feet, I’ll never be able to wear them. When what I really wanted was a beautiful Venini vase, a reflection of my life if she had kept her promises from the start. So we’re not together anymore. I’m not with anyone. I don’t think it’s worth it anymore.

  She doesn’t want to see me again, she told me she came close to killing herself several times. She told me she now thinks of herself first, that she has to save herself. That there were very serious consequences. It all weighs on my shoulders. At the beginning, after we broke up, I was calm and then on Saturday I had a very bad anxiety attack. With phone calls, slapping myself and screaming, countless calls to Marie-Christine. And finally calling yesterday, after all, you’d have to be completely drunk to call yesterday. I called Philippe yesterday, my half-brother. His tone was impassive, he didn’t know whom to believe, his father had spoken to him about it, he had said I was making things up. OK, fine, doesn’t matter. I’m fed up with talking about it. I’m happy the book is finished, happy. I’ve already got the opening sentence of my next book. It will be: “I’m not going to spend my time calling Philippe Angot, director of a company for spare antique auto parts.” It will be the first sentence of a very long response to an imaginary interview about art. Writing, art, what I was saying about limits, all that. Incest is the book in which I present myself as a real shit, all writers should do it at least once, after that, we’ll see. Or maybe they should do it several times, or maybe do nothing but that. Writing may only be doing that, showing one’s inner shit. Of course it isn’t. You’re ready to believe anything. Writing is not just one thing. Writing is everything. Within limits. Always. Of life, of one’s self, of the pen, of height and of weight.

  Since we broke up, I’ve received two letters from Marie-Christine. It’s hard not seeing her anymore. Yesterday I had just a glimpse, she just drove me to my psychoanalyst at nine at night, for the second time that day, it was nighttime, it was cold out, I asked her if she wouldn’t mind accompanying me. I was expecting her to refuse, to save herself, she really doesn’t want to see me again at all. She agreed, came to pick me up at nine and at ten she drove me home. I’d have liked to spend a bit more time with her, but she doesn’t want to anymore, she says I put her too much at risk. I don’t know if that’s true. Everything is always my fault. You’ve got to give and take. Since the break up she wrote me two letters:

  January 6, 1999 Christine One day after another; of course I’m sad alone without you it’s very hard loving someone with whom love is impossible I’m worried that this state of misery will last. I think of you so often. Everything brings me back to you to us and I can’t say us anymore MCA

  January 7, 1999 Christine One day follows another, hour after hour, not thinking farther ahead than that concentrating on the moment not thinking that your body is far from mine that tonight you won’t be in my arms that I won’t go out to dinner with you, to the movies with you, on vacation with you that I won’t make love to you that I won’t see your neck your eyes I have your eyes in mine Sunday night your sad frightened eyes No idea what to do too much hope too much despair I don’t know what to do to stop thinking of you all the time Still I know that I’m supposed to go on day after day trying to start living again to start hopin
g again but hoping for what going where I think too much about you MCA

  When I got into her car last night at nine, it was nice, there was music, it was Aznavour’s La Bohème la bohème. I was in a cozy little cockpit, but only for the duration of the drive. It was really, really, truly over.

  I’m not going to feel sorry for myself. I’m not going to spend my time calling Philippe Angot, director of a company for spare antique auto parts. But I’m not going to wallow in sweetness either. So:

  With Marc

  I’m sixteen. Marc is thirty. He’s a friend of my mother’s, he becomes my first lover, he’s from India, a chemical engineer with Henkel. He goes to see my father, he tells him he has to stop, the sodomy, he tells me it could be dangerous for me too. He talks to my father about it. The three of us go to the movies one day, I’m staying at the hotel with Marc and my father, but not with him. But in the cinema, a science fiction movie with Charlton Heston, Soylent Green. Soylent Green. I jerk them both off at the same time because I’m sitting between them. It’s my worst memory of all. I do it so as to not reject my father, he already feels so rejected because I’m with Marc and on top of that I told the secret. He hates talking about it. I won’t be able to tell Marie-Christine, it’s too dirty. Not even in her arms. Not even if she tells me she won’t be disgusted. I made a big slip more than once. I was quoting from Les Autres. The phrase the Arab girls say “because people who write disgust almost all of them,” I write instead: because almost all people who are disgusting write.

  Sodomy

  It was a village in Isère. It must have happened there. He looked for a pharmacy far out of the way to get Vaseline. He found some. He didn’t look before trying, but after. I was complaining. He told me to appreciate my luck, very few men did this, it might be a rare or maybe even the only chance in my life to experience it, this sensation that certain women, that many women adore and they complain that their husbands don’t do it, nor, most of the time, do their lovers.

  Stop

  I asked him to stop. I told him I didn’t see any advantage and I was scared of becoming disturbed, very scared, he saw the advantages: on the contrary, this way you know it’s a man who loves you. In Isère I wore a Shetland wool turtleneck sweater I liked a lot, red and tan. He loved it too, why? Because it flattered my breasts. This sweater I loved disgusted me, I’d have preferred he just like the sweater. He took pictures.

  The watch

  Grenoble isn’t far away. My birthday isn’t far off either. My birthday is not a date that matters to him but we’re so close, he’s going to give me a present, we shop for it together, it’s a silver watch, with a rigid wristband also made of silver.

  The clementines

  He has gotten some groceries. He’s naked. We almost never leave this house in Isère. But we go on walks, he loves nature, he loves the calm, he likes to hike in the mountain and along trails. Whenever he meets anyone, he says hello clearly. It’s polite. That’s what one does. He does. I have to, too. I have to be polite. He puts clementines on his penis for me to eat. It’s disgusting, disgusting disgusting disgusting.

  Food

  I met him in the Strasbourg train station buffet. He had ordered choucroute. Choucroute for lunch. It’s the specialty, the station buffet’s choucroute was meant to be good. He ate a lot at lunch. People who eat a lot at lunch disgust me. They often smell after. I hate the smell of food on someone’s breath. The smell of medicine or fatigue on someone’s breath, fine, but from something they’ve eaten, revolting. The worst being: garlic, raw onion, shallots, sauces, béarnaise, chives, even meat, especially at noon. I discovered restaurants with him, good restaurants, pleasant restaurants, with stars, I know what the symbols in the Michelin guide mean, stars, forks and spoons. Red, black. I often ordered smoked salmon. I discovered frogs’ legs, with toast, grilled, hot, warm. Sometimes though the conversation dragged. And the prospect of a nap weighed on me. When I was born, he was thin, there was a period when he was fat, at the time, he was average. He looked like Jean-Louis Trintignant, a less handsome version, he had the same smile, the same teeth, not the same voice, the same mouth, the same lips, the same type. He wore same kind of sportswear.

  I’m not looking to accuse him. Monsters only exist in fairy tales. I’m not looking to accuse or excuse him. Only one thing counts, the mark. He left a mark on me.

  Phrases that accompanied the gestures

  The week in Strasbourg when the others were away on vacation. I spend my vacation in their home, it goes badly, everyday I get yelled at. For the milk, for the keys, I remember one phrase. We’re in the marital room, “the marital bedroom,” I had suggested sleeping in Mouchi’s room, “no, the marital bedroom” said with a certain irony, a quip, a game, everything is funny. He is stretched out and I’m seated on the edge of the bed. He looks at me, I’m above him, he says “you are beautiful, very beautiful, you will be able to get yourself very handsome men.” Such a gift, such an opportunity, to have very handsome men, I’d never imagined, I’d never have dared, to go after such very handsome men. This is good news, unexpected news to me, but “you could have gone after” would be more fitting now. Because I realize that even if I could have, it’s finished now. He announces this piece of news, he’s the one who announces it, no one before him had announced it, his news is rotten. The fruit comes from dirt, it would have been a beautiful piece of fruit.

  “You have very soft skin, like your mother.”

  He compared the size of our breasts, me, my mother, Elisabeth, and Marianne, his mistress at the time. I was jealous of Marianne. She was a student, she was doing political science, she was young, she was free, he was in love with her, he hadn’t seen her for a while. She was an important part of his life, a student, young, free, making love to quite a few guys, including a Black man he saw her with once. Sometimes she just did it if she thought she’d “get pleasure” out of it. She could have been his daughter, I was jealous of her but not of Elisabeth, Elisabeth’s crotch smelled of “rotten fish,” he never licked her. That was something he didn’t like in general, he would tell her, he couldn’t tell her the real reason. But he told me. Another thing, the grimace she made when she came, he didn’t like seeing her face at those times. He had told her, but she started doing it again, maybe she didn’t realize what she was doing with her face, otherwise she would have paid attention. A German, a certain Brigitte, my mother remembered, me, I don’t recall her name. This German woman’s breasts, grapefruit, me, oranges, my mother, lemons, Elisabeth, oranges and not a bad figure besides, a lovely waist. And nice, above all very nice, very attentive. Stupid, but nice. Two problems, her face and her vagina. Marianne, lemons, “that can be touching, too, small breasts or no breasts at all.” I’ve had enough. One morning, with Marie-Christine, I started telling her about it all again. I told her about the clementines, the milk, the lock, she knew about it, the politeness, the complete lack of grammatical mistakes, perfect accent when speaking other languages. The rotten fish, Marianne, of whom I was jealous. The picture I had of Philippe and Mouchi, he gave it to me when I met him at fourteen. I wanted to have at least one photograph of them. Mouchi had a little tweed coat, she was smiling, one day my uncle said that Philippe looked like me. It was a big event. My mother didn’t comment on these resemblances, or didn’t notice them. I also told Marie about “you have very soft skin, like your mother,” I told her about it stroking her back gently. She left to take her dog Baya for a walk after, along the edge of the Lez, she left me alone to write before doing one or two Christmas shopping errands. We were planning on spending the 25th together. She was landing at the airport at twelve thirty. We had all of Christmas day together, Frédéric, who is coming down from Paris by train early in the morning of the 24th, will be there, my mother and André, and of course Léonore. Who, like me, has my father’s hands and feet.

  I could listen to anything, with me anything was possible, the clementines and above all talking. Marie-Christine was telling me this morning �
�there is a kind of naïveté, anything is possible, he can do anything, he is above everything.” Perversion, Marie-Christine was saying, Lacan called it père-version, the version of the father. As soon as I met him, there was only his version, the one reference, the only right one, above the others, above all others. And the Latin, German, English, Spanish, Iberian, Czech versions, not counting slang or dialects, the Angot version. Even religion was nonsense. Phrases:

  I had soft skin.

  I could get myself very handsome men.

  I was beautiful.

  I was free.

  You could talk about anything with me, it’s very rare to meet someone like me (as open).

  I was intelligent.

  Do you like being a woman? I didn’t care for that question. When I saw it coming, I always felt uncomfortable. Without really understanding why. The question seemed to imply “because I wouldn’t,” but maybe that wasn’t it. In any case, I gave an answer I liked even less than the question. An answer I will be ashamed of all my life. I would answer “at the moment, yes.” Next to Soylent Green it’s my worst memory.