A Frozen Woman

by Annie Ernaux

  Now we hit the bumpy part of the story, telling my good fortune, la-dee-da, except it isn’t that good, more like a drubbing that leads to humiliation and revolt. I head toward boys the way one sets out on a journey. With fear and curiosity. I don’t know what they’re like. The last time I looked, they were throwing chestnuts at me on street corners in the summer, and snowballs outside the school gate in the winter. Or shouting insults at us from the opposite sidewalk with me calling them jerks or assholes, depending on the circumstances, namely whether there were any adults around or not. Restless, manic creatures, a bit silly. It has taken a whole blessed afternoon of roller-skating to transfigure one of them. They have probably changed as much as I have. I set off in their direction, lightly equipped with advice gleaned from girl talk, Echo de la mode, novels, songs, a few poems of Musset and an overdose of dreams. Bovary’s little sister. And deep down inside, hidden away as indecent, the desire for a pleasure I’ve discovered on my own. This other half of the world is a mystery to me, true, but I am sure I’m going to enjoy the party. The idea of any inequality between boys and myself, of any difference beyond the physical ones, simply never occurs to me because I’ve never experienced such a distinction. What a disaster.

  The party never gets going. A strapping girl, dressed okay but hardly fetchingly, her straight hair ritually permanented each May ever since her First Communion—in men’s language we’re talking “dog.” Lots of girls know “instinctively” how to make themselves attractive. Not me. One day, in despair, I spit at my face in the mirror. Sunday afternoons get more and more grim, and there is Brigitte, always so leery of being approached. It takes me a long time to figure out she is looking for the real thing, she is dying to make love, but only after getting married. Always turning her nose up at our Sunday followers, but then I’m not interested in them, either. “Hey girlies, haven’t we met somewhere before? “The admiration of zeroes—that’s twice nothing. I ignore them with no trouble, quite as unfairly as the guys I’m sure I’d like are ignoring me. But how and where to meet them? Brigitte has just one male coworker in her office and he’s “going steady” with a hairdresser. The only girls who would invite me to their parties are the daughters of dentists, wholesalers, and foundry engineers, my former goody-goody classmates, and they aren’t my friends. There’s not much mixing in a little town of eight thousand inhabitants. The public dance on Saturday nights, you’re kidding, nothing but housemaids and factory girls. Why don’t I have a brother—he’d take me out, he’d have friends; all those girls constantly talking about their brothers, he just got his baccalaureat, he’s home on leave, he says that motor scooters are kid stuff. The brother-god. Too bad for me. Sometimes the trip isn’t an easy one. Which leaves luck, and there’s not a whole lot of that around.

  As pickups go, it’s a good one. He says his lines perfectly, perhaps just a bit too quickly. Tall, tanned like a model in an Ambre Solaire ad, a warm voice with a pleasant timbre, like a soap opera star’s. He says something complicated, adding, “That’s from Racine, I think.” I can’t tell if he’s putting us on because the only Racinian play I’ve read is Les Plaideurs. Brigitte is flipping through her magazines and I’m eating peaches at the edge of a field right outside town. The Racine part is just before he lays his Vespa at the side of the gravel road and comes over to sit down casually, wrapping his arms around his knees, playing with his dark glasses and speaking in a relaxed manner. Well-phrased things, not like that haven’t-I-seen-you­someplace-before bunk, quite nicely done. Just like a movie, without the music. And yet it’s horrible. I have never been so upset, my hands are trembling as I try to peel my peach, dribbling juice all down my wrist. Panicky embarrassment. Alone, I would have bolted. I hate him for talking and because we really don’t know what to reply, aside from yes, no, it depends, fourteen, ninth grade, Gerard Philipe, Becaud’s my favorite singer. He’s studying us from behind his sunglasses. Brigitte is sucking on her grass blade and periodically emitting little bleating laughs. He’s wearing shorts, no shirt; I can see his muscles, his skin. Good-looking. It’s scary. That’s when I leave childhood behind, in the shame of that gaze directed half at me, half at my friend, that all-purpose sweet talk intended for either one of us at the same time. I could stop here, pretend that the game horrifies me. Not true, since I stay right where I am. After all, it’s wonderful to be watched from behind dark glasses. He leans over to look at Brigitte’s magazines, looking up at each of us in turn. “You ought to wear your hair like this.” He shows me a girl on the cover of Nous Deux. “And you, Brigitte, like this.” He doesn’t tell us we’re cute—even better, he implies it. What’s the expression, “to tame.” Frightened young things, wary little kittens, the nice tanned boy isn’t going to hurt you. It’s probably normal for men to talk to girls this way. I grow tame. Slowly I persuade myself that this chance meeting resembles an Adventure. An interesting guy, twenty-three, a chemist, he says. I even dare ask him where he lives. Despite his skillful patter, however, our vacation pickup artist is unable to pry apart the Siamese twins we form out of fear, even more out of jealousy, so that he can take us for a ride on the Vespa, each in turn.”Ciao,” he tells us, “see you tomorrow!” Ciao, a new word. We’re impressed.

  Then, for the first time, I indulge in that strange conversation about boys and feelings, the circular conversation you keep thinking will clear everything up, an interminable commentary in which you become all bogged down. Did you hear, he’s a chemist. Did you hear, he’s twenty-three, I didn’t think he was that old. Me neither. Laughter, you could see the hair on his stomach; laughter again, there’s more where that came from. We can’t save ourselves with obscenity. A really neat guy, he must have all the girls he wants. Flattered that he chose us, when there’s so much better around. The murmurs of slaves, incense offered to the god. Just talking about him I’m falling in love. I make resolutions for the following day: I shouldn’t be so aggressive, it must have put him off a bit. We debate who should take the first ride on the Vespa. Brigitte hums “Mes mains dessinent dans le soir, la forme d’un espoir.” Hope springs eternal . . . Our bikes are leaning against the embankment where we left them three hours earlier. What an adventure. Later on, when I’m twenty, I watch Moliere ‘s Don Juan up on stage, putting the moves on Mathurine and Charlotte each in turn; it’s fascinating, and I feel sick. We weren’t that silly and provincial. That taken in, yes.

  The next day, I put my hair in a ponytail like the one on the cover of lntimite. Even though we go back the following days as well, until Brigitte’s vacation is over, he never shows up again. Sometimes we tell ourselves he had to return unexpectedly to Le Havre, and sometimes we decide he thought we were mousy or prissy. Too late. Not one iota of revolt or contempt. We aren’t angry at him. Submissiveness in all its perfection at fourteen years old. Later on, I take that ride on the Vespa a hundred times, between the Defenestration of Prague and verbs that take the subjunctive. My first adventure, somewhat revised (in particular by consigning Brigitte to oblivion), becomes one more of the many love stories with which we all while away the time in class. Now I can say it, a lousy creep who couldn’t manage to chalk up two morons, but that’s not how I think of it at the time. Gerard I love you, that’s how I write it up on my scratch pad, and in my head, “my first love.” It’s the only language I know.

  Actually, he doesn’t make it past Christmas. I think he’s old,

  at twenty-three, an inequality I do notice, and easily find repulsive. And I have hopes of meeting other Vespas. “What will happen to me?” There it is, the one and only big question, my entire metaphysics until the age of seventeen. Leaving school after class, nose to the wind, wearing a fashionably baggy coat, a hard­won “look” that makes me seem like a big gawk of a girl, but too bad. 0 this fragile victory, my appearance: a trifle—a look, a remark—is enough to demolish me. And they’re past masters of the deflating pin prick, Brigitte and my classmates, but they’re not the ones I have to please. It’s over,
Mother, I can’t hear you anymore. Listen to my high, thin little voice: it doesn’t sound like yours. You drive me crazy by missing the point when I tell you Françoise is going out with So-and-so, that Marie-Jo goes to parties every Saturday. I harp on the freedom of others in hopes of cadging a bit for my own personal use. Nothing doing, blind to comparisons, “Luckily you’re not like them.” But I am. At sixteen I no longer recognize the upright and determined image of myself you throw in my face.

  Relaxed, small-town pickups, more like impromptu palling around: either you know each other or you will one day, never any rough stuff. Strolling along, watched by the same old ladies at their windows and the same shopkeepers standing in their doors, we feel spied on but protected. A far cry from the big city prowled by tomcats of sex and crime. Who’s picking up whom, I’m not too clear on the difference at this point. Like many other girls, I “do the roundabout,” passing and repassing in front of the stores, while boys pass and repass as well, sized up out of the corners of our eyes, the not-too-bads and the god-awfuls. We loiter. Office workers, students at a business school, a few from the lycées of Rouen on Saturdays and Sundays. They’re a late discovery for me, boys my own age. At first I find them funny, more or less amusing, with their puns and spoonerisms, so sure that we girls can’t do that, really witty, how did I manage to live without “I thought it was an oyster but it’s not.” I’m not forearmed by a bourgeois-intellectual education against the nastier wordplay and I haven’t got the proper young lady’s oh­my-virgin-ears reflex of wrinkling my nose at vulgar allusions. Of course I laugh. But I must soon admit, it’s always the same tired jokes—she’s a carpenter’s dream, flat as a board—and I’ve already heard the dirty stories from Brigitte. The boys seem almost as wild and ridiculous as they did in their snowball period. And surprise: always talking about themselves, their likes and dislikes, their classes, their detentions, their motor scooters, and their balls. Listening to men, paying attention to them—now it starts. You can let them talk, or you can laugh. Unless you choose to play dumb, saying silly things on purpose to crack them up. “She’s sweet,” they laugh, mocking and conceited. And always dragging us into their universe: come bowling, play some pool, I’ve a race, a match today, yes, yes I’ll come watch you. They never imagine we might also have our own world, interests, school, girlfriends, but that’s enough of that, you know those nuns of yours are all old dykes, period. When I feel like talking about the difficulties of advanced math, about my favorite writers, Rousseau for exam ple, they’re annoyed, and girls’ algebra problems are nothing compared to theirs. At home, at my school, girls have always been encouraged to study hard, but with them such success is a drawback, makes them suspicious, another pain in the ass, bookworms turn them off, they like their girls unspoiled, with no complexes. They make fun of me when I want to go home and study. I must get used to the idea that for a long time, no boy, no man, except my father, will attach any importance to what I do. Teacher? Up shoot the eyebrows. Lawyer? You’ll get swollen ankles from being on your feet all day. Some of them are repelled—that nice blond guy, so kind and loving: but honey, I’m afraid all this studying will wear you out, why don’t you find a job as a secretary? Having brains must be what means you’re not a real woman anymore to them. One day I’m with some boys and we run into Leguet, the top student in my school; when I say hello, the others start hooting and choking with laughter. “What a ghastly sight! Who is that horror?” She’s incredibly smart, I protest, because I do envy her a little, deep down, in spite of my timidity. But I’d rather die than hear people talk about me the way they do behind her back, and I can’t even imagine giving up the things she sacrifices. Admiring glances, my vague hopes for the future, love, intimacy, the Other . . .

  There it is already, the awful mess I won’t be able to escape. I need boys, but to please them I’d have to be simperingly sweet, admit that they’re always right, use “feminine wiles.” Kill what still resists, the love of accomplishment, the desire to be really truly myself. That or loneliness. That or looking at my lips and breasts and telling myself they’re useless. That, obviously. But I don’t go about it the right way. I sneer aggressively at their boasting. I try stubbornly to talk about what I love, books, poetry, oh enough they say, stuff it—why, when I can put up with the talk about soccer and inoculations against hoof-and-mouth disease (a vet school student) and the ritual jokes about comparing penis sizes in the shower at the Iycee? Just a minute, my girl, not the same thing at all, listen carefully, prick up your ears, ha ha! You mustn’t be a pain around boys, don’t you know that? What I don’t know is how to hide from a boy that I like him. Men want to do the choosing, sweetheart. So what, I like to choose too, I still don’t understand the difference. This blunder—switching roles—immediately gets you labeled a pushover: she’s easy. No such thing as an easy boy. One day I’m out there cruising happily, without thinking about it; I pass in front of the business school, he should be getting out now . . . Not there. Never one to stand around, where is he, rue du Nord, the roundabout, I’m off and running. A bunch of them, then a voice, like a punch in the face: “Her again!” The dirty creep. I storm off with my book­bag, seething with rage. I don’t know how to behave, I’m either too much or not enough, standoffish and boy-crazy at the same time, a dizzy smile, breathless with admiration, and then tired of the role I have to play. I don’t want that ride on the scooter anymore. I feel it’s all my fault. “Boys will be boys,” it says in my English grammar book. An example of a universal truth.

  That trip, what am I waiting for, . . . If l’d listened to myself, I think I’d still be there waiting. True love would be so wonderful. But all around me in class, and Brigitte, too, they “know.” While I don’t. The best way to get it over with—just calmly choose a partner. He’s on line with me at the post office; furtive glances, harmless conversation, kept up until the roundabout. Boring, and his thick mouth, his math­student look—good grades, but not one of the top stars don’t say anything to me. He’ll be the one. Trot out the smiles, friendly expressions, fine, see you Monday. No, really, it’s not bad, even if it isn’t like a scene from a novel, even if I am tossing all the tender preliminaries out the window. Why always drench things in syrup, carve two hearts on a tree trunk to guarantee a fond memory? Three days of waiting, windy days in late March, like a three-day retreat before First Communion, the same slowness, the same torpor. I prepare myself, and my head a lot more than my body. I go over everything in my imagination, figure out how much time I have, because my mother keeps a close watch on me. My navy blue sweater, the white collar, my bangs combed, I’m ready an hour early. Liberation, ceremony or sacrifice, who knows. I can still feel how determined I was, striding off to the traffic circle. What’s going to happen to me? Whatever it is, I’m the one making it happen. When I see him coming toward me in a duffel coat, wearing a big smile, I’d like to run away. You take the rough with the smooth, and I’m the one who started this. Limp phrases, our steps echoing on the deserted sidewalks; it’s Monday, so three-quarters of the shops are closed. The poster from Sunday’s film is still up: Les Jeunes Annees d’une reine, with Romy Schneider. Quietly boring. Not so much freedom after all, I’m not in charge; at most I’m allowed to suggest, “Why don’t we take that street?” He gives me a funny look, quick put on the ditzy act, “I just love daffodils, the gardens over that way are full of them, come on!” First the arm around the shoulders, heavy, terrible. The voice, suddenly lower and softer. Aha. Here it comes. The opposite sex has scratchy cheeks, a hard body, and breathes heavily. Touched neither by the grace of pleasure nor the blessing of a great emotion, I am somewhat surprised. There is no sunshine, and I don’t feel at all as though I were in a dream. It’s more like the acute consciousness that follows a night of insomnia, when you can see and hear everything but just can’t find the right words. An old woman chatting over a gate with her neighbor looks over at us and remarks, “Everyone has their springtime, that’s how it goes.” He’s holding
me too tightly, I feel like a fool walking along stiff­legged, stopping every ten yards. I’m thinking of the baccalaureat exams, and the coming summer. I’ve moved on to the next stage; one of my questions has been answered. I trot home happily. “You were at the dentist’s a long time!” “Yes, the office was crowded.” My mother looks at me from behind her counter. Today I’m paying her back for her silence about nooky and everything else. I go up to my room, thinking about what the other girls have told me: “I washed myself right after, I absolutely had to, and my heart was beating like wild.” Me, I look at myself in the mirror, wondering why I feel just the same.