I had nothing to say to reassure her and nothing intelligent to defend myself with. Besides, I had a party to host.
“Excuse me, Claire, but I really don’t have time … ”
“He needs you. You have no idea how much.”
The last time I’d asked that moron for help, when I was inches away from a burnout, my “friend” had suggested I screw Juliana for a while. What could I do for him in return? Find him a third girl?
Claire had quickly got him to a psychiatrist, and he was luckier than some people because his medication was already starting to take effect. The dose still needed to be adjusted. Since they had caught the problem early and were combining the drugs with therapy, Michel had a good chance of coming through this without too much damage. While Claire was explaining all this, knots were forming between my shoulder blades. My head was working so hard to block what was trying to come up from the depths, what was trying to escape from a certain barricaded apartment, that it felt like my whole body was being twisted. Not to mention the ice pick that kept stabbing my testicle. With a cold sweat beading my temples, I forced myself to concentrate on the portions of cognac and rum I was putting in the blender. When I looked up, I could see Michel in the middle of the yard, wondering why I had levelled everything, how I could have done such a thing. Or he was simply trying to convince himself not to go lie down in the middle of the street.
“I’d like you to drop your little game and come talk to him a bit.”
“Sorry, I’m fresh out of words. I’ve been talking to Michel for years and he hasn’t listened.”
“That’s changing, he’s changing.”
“You know what, so am I.”
She looked at me as if I were the worst scum in the world.
“Is that it, your supposed compassion? I’d just like to know, Édouard, when you go on and on about the state of the world, and you rage and you sigh, basically, it’s not that you want to do anything, but that you want everyone to know what a sensitive soul you are. Isn’t that it?”
That did it for her and me, the one link that connected us—our love for Michel—was broken. Her eyes looking away, her mouth disdainful, she walked out, remarking that Simone had been right not to come.
I found myself alone in the midst of a huge mess. The CD ended precisely at that moment, and the silence struck me like a thunderbolt. I followed Claire with my eyes. I saw her join Michel and take his arm. They took a few steps, talking. I thought she was trying to convince him that the yard was much better like this. She was pointing in one direction and then another and explaining something, I don’t what, maybe what I could eventually plant there. Michel was nodding, not very interested.
I went upstairs to the bathroom and took three ibuprofen, and then went to the bedroom to put on looser underwear. Through the window—still with no glass in it—I saw Véronique go over to join Claire and Michel. It had been years since they’d seen each other. They greeted each other enthusiastically, and Véronique gave Michel a big hug. She kept her hand on his shoulder and spoke to him tenderly, casually but with sensitivity. I imagined she was trying to give him encouragement. And I’m sure she had the right tone and the right words. All of a sudden, tears welled up in my eyes. It had been ages since I’d shed tears, how could they be surfacing now from so far, so fast? What was it about that image? Illness had stripped away Michel’s self-assured facade, and what he presented now was the spitting image of me. It was like I was seeing myself from my window, in the middle of the yard. That other part of me that I had never managed to unmuzzle and that Michel exposed to the light of day every second, at least until not so long ago—the part that gave him the freedom to laugh out loud, to screw two girls at the same time, to lift up those he loved, and above all, the strength to love many at the same time, the part that was ready to do anything to protect his loved ones from the cruelty of the world, ready even to cheat, to lie, to turn a blind eye—that part was gone, and all that was left now was another me, handicapped, abnormal, unfit.
I went downstairs, crossed the kitchen, hanging on to the doorframe and then the counter, and stepped outside. My son looked up and his smile vanished at the sight of the expression on my face. I left the patio and headed over to Michel. Instinctively, the girls stepped back. I looked Michel straight in the eye. I wanted to pull him out of the depths of his apathy. Eye to eye with him, I waited for him to drag himself out of the molasses, and when I was convinced I had his attention, I grabbed him by the neck and pulled his fat head onto my shoulder. He started whimpering.
“I’m scared, Édouard, I don’t understand what’s happening to me.”
I think, in fact, he understood all too well. And I imagined what he might be thinking about. He had several choices: his fourteen-year-old brother hanged in the barn; Betty coming out of the hospital in her wheelchair pushed by her mother, laid low but still so alive; the screams of his father in the woods; his mother disfigured by hours and days and months of sorrow, and finally Eddy, eleven years old, standing still in the middle of an empty house. In short, everything he had refused to face throughout his adult life, the goddamn human condition, all that suffering, especially his own. Especially his own.
His bloody eye doctor’s eyes were finally being opened to the harshness of the world.
“You’re not alone, Michel, don’t worry, we’re going to get you through this.”
“What, what’d you say?”
And oddly, just when his eyes opened, his ears closed.
24
WITH MY GUESTS GONE, I made my way through the empty bottles and pineapple carcasses to get a bag of frozen peas. When I got to the living room, I noticed that the television and stereo had disappeared. Great! Someone had taken advantage of the fact that we were all in the yard to upgrade their audiovisual equipment. This little party had at least been good for something. I lay down on the floor naked and placed the bag of peas on my balls.
The revolver was still asleep in the glove compartment of the car, curled up on its side with its four bullets nestled inside. I could send those projectiles through the barrel and into my head, but what difference would it make? Weren’t they already there, in a way? Once again, the outside and the inside had merged to become one. Everything had changed places with its opposite, and what had seemed to be the hidden side was looking you right in the face. Once the workings of this amazing house of mirrors were revealed, it became easier and easier to determine whether we were still alive or already dead. I thought of drawing up a list with two columns, dead and alive, and putting everyone I knew on it. But then I wondered if I’d really need two columns.
The caress of the wind on my skin, its enveloping presence, finally brought a sense of relief I hadn’t felt for a long time. The cool breeze swept across the floor of the house, dusting the furniture—and me at the same time—and ionizing and disinfecting the air. As soon as I thought I’d caught a whiff of something familiar, it disappeared. When it started to rain, the smell of wet asphalt came from the street, and the smell of fresh peat from the yard. It all blended together in my humble living room. I was drunk and I felt good, and more than anything, I had the feeling of having done my duty, of having reached the end of something. I had wanted to hit out at the world with my sterile balls, to give it a good whack in the snout with my two empty little bags, and I’d done it. Although I’d got nothing out of it. Except maybe my son’s hand on my shoulder when we said goodbye. The wind became stronger, blowing volleys of rain into the house. My hair stood up on end and my skin tightened, but I didn’t feel cold. When I opened my eyes and turned my head to one side, I could see the floor of the dining room shining with rain. Upstairs, everything must be soaked. It was perfect. It was inspired. I was hoping for nothing less than a deluge. I dreamed of seeing the remaining furniture, the beds, the dresser, tumble down the stairs carried by a torrent of cold, fast-flowing water. I closed my eyes again for a few instants. Strangely, when I opened them, day was br
eaking, and a ray of sunshine was slanting into the house. A smell that could have been called “dawn in the clearing” was wafting through the room. It must have been coming from the yard. I chortled like a fool. “The clearing,” that was a good one. The scent persisted for a little while—five minutes? an hour? I don’t know—and since it was slowly getting warmer, it became sweeter. Although I was paralyzed with fatigue, I had the impression, as the mercury rose, that I could feel the pores of my skin opening. In my testicles, millions of spermatozoa would now go around in circles, unable to find a way out. Was this really what I had wanted? Total, complete sterility? My mind kept slipping. I would be there for a few moments, then suddenly everything would disappear and I’d be thrown into a world of signs and symbols. When I came around, everything had changed again, the light was filtered through Véronique’s mountain ash and fell green into the house. Dazzled, I put a hand over my eyes. So tired. Such total fatigue. I caught a musky smell, and a strange feeling of being watched came over me. I slowly turned my head. A white-tailed deer was standing warily on the patio, its ears pricked up, its coat white in the light, ready to flee on its dainty hooves. Its big, black-ringed eyes were staring at me. It obviously wanted to come inside but was afraid of being surprised from behind. It was as if I’d been waiting my whole life for this moment. I wanted to hear the click of its hooves on the wood floor, its uncertain footsteps echoing on the slippery surface. I wanted it to come to me, I wanted to feel its breath on my face, I wanted to feel the warmth emanating from its body with its rapid metabolism, and to see its heart beating beneath the skin of its neck. To see its heart beating. Betty was living somewhere in the world with her legs that no longer obeyed her. She had found a man to love her. She moved around with ease in a house he had designed for her. She put her hands on the wheels of her wheelchair and pushed. She could also brake or turn sharply to answer the phone or stop a child who was about to do something dangerous with the utensil drawer. Sometimes she would laugh at the sight of some simple thing. She sighed easily with happiness, perhaps when eating a fresh tomato drizzled with oil. In the evening, after they had put the children to bed and tidied the kitchen, the man would undress her and lay her in a bath he had drawn for her. Then he either carried her to the bedroom or she rolled herself there naked in her wheelchair and swung herself onto the bed using only the strength of her arms. She lifted her legs one by one with her hands and stretched out, numb with that fatigue that’s very good because it’s very physical. The man came a bit later and cuddled with her and stroked her hair, her neck and her breasts. Her breasts had become so sensitive. All the sensations she no longer had in the lower half of her body had become concentrated in the upper half. Betty’s breasts in the man’s hands, Betty in ecstasy, the blood rushing to her pretty vulva and the stirring and warmth that go with it. And Betty’s hand searching between the man’s legs and finding a hard penis. He gets hard for me, she would say to herself, he gets hard for me and my different body. I am desired, I am saved. And Betty’s hand stroking the penis to feel its power and vitality, and the fire and passion she kindles in it just by her presence. And his sparkling eyes and his hot breath coming faster and faster, and his face opening up and his head tilting back braced against the bed. Then the man pulls back the covers and, looking into her eyes, gently spreads her legs. And Betty, now leaning on her elbows, watches him move her legs. She doesn’t think of those limbs as dead, but as sleeping or simply as too heavy. She watches him with amusement, pleasure and even lust. That’s it, spread my legs, look at my belly and my thighs, look at my pussy, desire them, open them, I won’t be able to stop you, go ahead, use me, turn me over if you want, on my belly, my back, my side, I’m yours, your wife, your possession for the moment, the object of your whole life’s concentrated desires. And the man slides his sex into hers. Human beings kill one other; they also must embrace one other. Time is running out. And happiness comes from everywhere, from bellies and chests close together, necks crossing, lips joined, but above all, from the fabric of a life for two, like a soft, inviting blanket laid out on the ground. The deer had stuck its head through the doorway, but fear kept it rooted to the spot. Come on, come to me, little one, I’m here, naked, unburdened of everything, of people and of customs, I’m that child who can’t believe there’s no way but death to escape from yourself, and who’s trying so hard to find pathways, access ramps, to life, and who does everything possible to make a big story of his life, with lots of excitement, who tries to impress everyone he meets, but who ends up pushing them away so that distance finally turns into absence and absence into emptiness, because in emptiness there’s nothing to bear witness to our existence. That’s it, I introduce myself with the fatigue of a person who has realized that this life is exhausting when you must live it as an orphan. My one and only conviction after all these years. My only damn certainty. And finally the animal decided to take a few steps. It stopped near the dining room table. Its eyes stared at me while its whole body was alert. I made it all up, no one makes love to Betty. Betty hasn’t made love in twenty-one years. The last time was with me. Now she lives cloistered in her room. Her father has died, leaving the way clear for her mother to take complete control of her. She has devoured her. Betty is ugly and nasty now. She dreams only of one thing: killing her mother. She fantasizes scenes of extreme violence, bloody murders featuring her holding the scissors her mother uses to cut the cloth with which she sews their ugly, badly made clothes. And the whole world that Betty wanted to discover, to walk upon with her own feet and to judge harshly but also to love madly, will never hear about her. Little twin sister, just as orphaned, just as forgotten, there isn’t a man who looks at you with love, no man who understands that sometimes the world hurts so much that you have to invent a new world for the people you love, smaller, perhaps the size of a family, in order to push away suffering, hatred and indifference.
Suddenly I felt the animal’s warm breath on my face. I opened my eyes abruptly. It was there, a few centimetres from me, and its big eyes were taking in all of me. My heart started to pound in my chest. Adrenalin was pouring from its adrenal glands and I could sense its agitation. We were both at the same point. Our two worlds were not just touching, they were mingling, merging, becoming one. Édouard the strange animal, the wild animal, the fierce, agitated animal. I stared at it for a long time. I even came close to reaching up to stroke its muzzle, but I was so tired. With a fatigue that sprang from the centre of things. The deer slowly became blurred until a powerful black wave knocked me over.
“Édouard?”
His body is spinning in the emptiness. It turns over and over, moving through a dark, silent world. It would take a lot more than hearing the reverberation of his name to bring him back from so far away.
“Édouard?”
Or maybe not. Despite his immense fatigue, he chooses to gather his strength the way you pick up broken glass, shard by shard, slowly, patiently, carefully, as meditatively as an artist decorating the grave of a sovereign. Then, in the liquid darkness, in that abstract composition, he projects his head and torso forward and opens his eyes for good.
Simone is standing close to him, motionless. Simone, with her newly released body. Édouard is stretched out at her feet, naked, with a bag of liquefied peas on his testicles. He can’t make out the expression on her face, his eyelids are too heavy and his vision too blurry with excess moisture.
“Charming outfit,” she says.
Impelled by some inner command, Simone kneels in front of him. Now Édouard can see her more clearly.
“May I?” she says, taking the bag of peas with the tips of her fingers.
“Help yourself … ”
She lifts it to examine the work. Since Édouard doesn’t have the strength to raise his head to see the spectacle for himself, he decides to go by the expression on her face. Which is a slight grimace.
“Are you happy, at least?”
“I don’t know, it seems I’
m beginning to have doubts.”
“Are you cold? Do you want me to bring you a blanket?”
Édouard doesn’t want anything, everything is fine. Simone stands up and takes a few steps across the room as he follows her with his eyes. He tries to sit up, but his strength fails him a third of the way and his hundred-kilo head falls back to the floor. He’s not quite alive yet, but he will be soon.
“I really like what you’ve done in here, she says, pointing to the holes in place of windows and doors. “Is this what they call an open-concept design?”
He thinks again of her full breasts, ass and belly. And about all the sadness in the air in her bedroom when they made love, those strands of sadness dancing above them. He had wondered if they were Simone’s or his. Today he has the impression that they were the mingled sorrows of the two of them.
“Are you mad at me, Simone?”
“I don’t feel like talking, I’m tired, do you know what time it is?”
Simone wants things to appear the way they really are. She won’t accept ambiguity, lies, or pretence. Her perception of life is vaguely cubist: she wants to see all the facets at the same time, the ugly as well as the beautiful, those that break your heart as well as those that soothe it. So Édouard is surprised that there’s nothing that needs to be cleared up between them. Perhaps everything is already clear for her.
“All right if I lie down too?”
He invites her to make herself at home, and Simone lies down next to him on the floor. After a few calm breaths, she comes out with these words as simply as one might hum a tune while sewing or gardening:
“I’m not afraid of you, Édouard.”
That’s the only important thing they say to each other. Édouard turns his head. So does she, and they find themselves nose to nose. She asks him if he has any plans, if he feels like spending part of the day with her.
A Slight Case of Fatigue Page 18