I was receiving increasingly aggressive anonymous letters.
The children had left home and had begun making their own lives elsewhere.
The man I loved was busy with his work, his trips and a thousand projects, which I encouraged him to accept. We’d chosen this lifestyle that left room for other obsessions, other passions. Out of naiveté or overconfidence, we’d believed ourselves safe from any attempt at conquest.
When you’re an adult, friendship is built on a kind of recognition, of complicity: a shared territory. But it seems to me that in the other person we also look for something that we only possess in a minor, embryonic or frustrated form. So we tend to form links with those who have been able to develop a way of being that we incline towards but have not attained.
I know what I admire about each of my friends. In every case I could name what quality she possesses that I do not, or possess in too small a quantity.
L. probably embodied a sort of assurance, reflection, conviction in my eyes, which I felt I lacked.
L. returned almost every afternoon.
L. was better than anyone at divining my mood, my worries, and seemed to have a pre-existing awareness of the events that concerned me. She had the upper hand over me in a way that none of my friends ever had.
L. remembered everything. Since the very first time, she’d registered the most insignificant anecdote, the smallest detail, dates, places, names mentioned in passing in conversation. I did wonder if she might be taking notes after each time we met. Today, I know that it was second nature for her, a type of selective hyperthymesia.
L. seemed the only person to have appreciated the struggle I was engaged in, in which the stakes might well seem ridiculous – whether or not I wrote a book would not change the way the world turned – but L. had understood that it affected my centre of gravity.
L. had become necessary, indispensable to me. She was there. And perhaps I needed that: for someone to be interested in me exclusively. Don’t we all have that crazy desire? A desire that comes from childhood and that we’ve had to abandon, sometimes too early. A desire that, by the time we’re adults, we know to be egocentric, excessive and dangerous. But to which we succumb nevertheless.
L. probably filled a sort of emptiness I was unaware of, soothed a fear I couldn’t have named.
L. caused the reappearance of something I believed to be buried, repaired.
L. seemed to fill that insatiable need for solace that exists in all of us.
I didn’t need a new friend. But in the course of our conversations, and through the constant attention she showed me, I eventually came to believe that L. alone could understand me.
L. rang me very early one morning. Her voice was less controlled than usual, she seemed slightly breathless. As I began to get worried, she confessed that she had a few problems, nothing serious, but she had a favour to ask: could I put her up for two or three weeks until she found a new apartment?
31
L. moved in with me the following Monday. She arrived with a boy of about twenty. The boy’s height, his exceptionally long eyelashes and the adolescent nonchalance of his movements encouraged your eyes to linger. He was handsome.
He’d called round to her place a little earlier and helped her to transport the four sizeable suitcases that she had chosen to bring. He was scarcely through the door before he went back downstairs to collect the ones he’d left there. He put them down on the landing, then went back again to collect some bags from L.’s car. I live on the sixth floor and there’s no lift, but the boy didn’t seem to be struggling. When I saw all the luggage, it occurred to me that L. had thought big. I couldn’t imagine her moving without some of her wardrobe and she’d probably brought some of her work files.
When the boy returned for the third time, I offered him coffee. He turned to L., seeking her approval, but L. appeared to ignore his questioning look. After a few seconds, the boy declined.
When he’d gone, I asked L. who he was. She laughed. What did it matter? It doesn’t, I said, I was just curious. L. told me he was the son of a friend. She never said his name, didn’t thank him and barely said goodbye.
I’d planned to put L. in Paul’s room. I remembered she had really admired the colour of the walls the first time she visited. I gave L. time to unpack. I’d cleared several shelves and part of the cupboard so that she could put her things away. I’d made the bed and cleared the desk, on which she had soon installed her laptop. She had very little time left to finish the actress’s biography to meet the publisher’s deadline; that was why it was impossible for her to look for a new apartment at the moment. I never found out why she’d had to move out in such a rush.
It wasn’t long before I realised that L. had moved in almost everything she owned, apart from four or five boxes she’d been able to leave in a neighbour’s cellar. L. had no furniture, she explained; she’d sold everything after her husband’s death (she emphasised everything several times, indicating that no object had escaped this decision). Since then, she’d always preferred to rent furnished apartments. She didn’t want to weigh herself down, still less establish roots. On the other hand, L. did own clothes. A lot of them, she freely admitted.
I have few memories of the first few weeks L. spent with me.
That’s probably because she was very busy with the manuscript she was working on and rarely came out of her room. Through the door I could hear her listening over and over to her interviews, the raw material, hesitant and sometimes confused, from which she worked. She would stop at a phrase, go back and replay it. She could listen to the same passage ten times, as though she was trying to catch something beyond the words that could not be expressed and that she had to guess at. She would fill a teapot with boiling water, and then go four or five hours without leaving her room in a silence that nothing could disturb. I didn’t hear her chair slide across the floor. I never heard her pace around to stretch her legs. I never heard her cough or open the window. Her ability to concentrate impressed me.
I’d hoped that living with L. would help me get down to work.
It had often struck me that it was easier to work alongside someone. In relative solitude. I like the idea that not far from me someone else is in a similar situation and is making the same effort. That’s why, as a student, I spent so much time in the library.
But L.’s assiduousness at her desk did not stop me pacing the floor.
I couldn’t now say what I was doing; the time slipped by, but nothing emerged.
During the morning, I would make a salad or some pasta for L. and me.
Around one, I’d call her and we’d have a quick lunch at the little kitchen table, sitting opposite each other.
Then I’d go for long solitary walks. I’d wrap myself in the huge orange scarf L. had given me the day she moved in, and I would walk. I dreamt about books I was no longer able to write. I trailed around outside until nightfall. I would always finish these wanderings by crossing the square where I used to take Louise and Paul when they were little. At a time when the play area was empty, I would stand in front of the slides and the rocking animals and try to summon up their faces as children. I’d seek their laughter, the sound of coarse sand under their shoes; I’d see the colour of their hats, their wobbly first steps. Something happened here that is impossible to hold on to.
In the evening I’d sometimes hear L. on the phone. Quite long conversations whose tone I could catch but not content. I sometimes also heard her laugh – roar with laughter. As I never heard her mobile ring or vibrate, I remember wondering if L. was talking to herself.
After she’d settled in, L. came to take charge of everything – the mail, statements, subscriptions, in short, everything that required turning the computer on or picking up a pen. Things that seemed insurmountable to me, she dealt with in a few minutes.
When she’d answered correspondence on my behalf, she would give me a quick update on it in the evening: we had said no to such and such a thing; we had got an extension for an
other; we had postponed writing a short play for Le Paris des femmes till next year.
L. compensated for my failure. I was incapable of writing anything or of holding a pen for more than a few minutes, but in the end I wasn’t doing so badly.
We were coping.
When L. went out on an errand or to a meeting, I couldn’t stop myself going into her room. My eyes took it all in within seconds – the clothes on the chair, the shoes lined up under the radiator, the work left out. That was really what interested me most, and was probably my greatest indiscretion: looking at the drafts spread out on the table, corrected in pencil, covered in rubbings-out, which I drew my hand across without reading. And the ochre rings left by her teacup on the paper.
I looked at this space that she had taken possession of, the clear signs of work in progress, notes, Post-its, printed and corrected pages, and all this, far from being familiar to me, seemed to belong to an unknown world, a world that was forbidden to me.
It was at this time that L. began what I soon came to refer to as ‘the bookcase ritual’. In the evening, several times a week, L. would devote several minutes to examining the books on the shelves in my living room. She was not content merely to scan the spines casually, as most people do. She took the time to examine each shelf, sometimes taking a book out to handle it. Sometimes I’d see her face relax in a sign of approval; sometimes she’d frown, visibly displeased. And there would always come the moment, yet again, when she would ask me if I had read them all. Yes, almost all of them, I’d say again, apart from a few. So L. would run her finger from one book to another, reading the titles aloud, as though they were a single sentence, a huge, magnificent sentence whose meaning eluded me. Had I read the declaration, if on a winter’s night a traveller, perfect happiness, by the seaside, not one day, the frozen woman, the echo chamber, boy heaven, the life of birds, cliffs, yesterday, after, now, what do you think of me, slow emergencies, Angelina’s children, the invention of solitude, what we talk about when we talk about love, oh what a paradise it seems, pray for us, memories, the breakers, I loved her, all I loved, cries, bodies, Friday evening, the kites, the origin of violence, infamy, promenade, scraps, in the photo, in memoriam, sisters, the interval, tiny lives, the night watch, my little boy, other people’s skin, any resemblance to the father, those who knew, Joséphine, the sexual night, beginning, the missing part, dead fist, the rain before it falls, between noises, the adversary, dry eyes, the interrogation, the surge, the future, the red notebook, the stand-in, too sensitive, toxic, childhood, play it as it lays, lost memory of skin.
32
Delphine,
Your lack of response proves how ashamed you must be feeling. Rightly so.
You’re scary. You can tell just by looking at how you dress, how you stand, you only have to look at your gestures, and see your crafty look. And that’s not new. It’s obvious that something about you’s not right, it’s as plain as the nose on your face, and things haven’t improved. You’re not right in the head, my child.
On the marketing side, no complaints, you’re the tops. As for the packaging, you scrape by. You start by selling your mother and then you go out with a literary journalist to do your promotion. Hats off, you had no choice. The poor man must have serious sexual problems to be with a woman like you. And do you believe he loves you? Do you believe a man like him could love a woman like you? When he dumps you, I guess you’ll turn it into a book. One of those nice crowd-pleasers you know how to churn out. Give him my number and I’ll tell him a thing or two.
You’ve caused a lot of harm around you. Considerable damage.
Do you know why?
Because people believe what they see in print. They believe it’s true.
And that’s disgusting.
I slipped the typewritten sheet back in the envelope and put it away with the others. I told François about it on the phone without going into details. I said I’d received another letter, even more abusive than the previous ones. I reassured him: it wasn’t that serious; they’d stop eventually.
At the time, I don’t think I told L. about it.
One morning two or three days later, I got up, dressed, made some coffee and then all of a sudden, for no reason, burst into tears. L. was right in front of me and I had time to register her panicked expression before I got up and took refuge in my room. I cried for several minutes. I couldn’t stop.
The letters were in my blood: a poison. Since the very first. They’d finally released their poison, a poison designed to be slow-release, capable of breaching all my immunity barriers.
When I re-emerged, L. handed me a packet of paper tissues. She’d made tea. She put her hand on my arm, visibly upset.
I calmed down and she asked to see the letters. She reread them in order, her lips pursed in disgust. She examined the paper as though it could provide an answer, on the lookout for the smallest detail that would betray their author’s identity. The address was typed, like the text; the letters had been put in standard envelopes and posted in different districts of Paris. There was nothing more to be deduced from them.
L. found the right words to soothe me, to take the drama out of the situation. To put things back in place. I shouldn’t get everything mixed up; take them at face value. L. reminded me of the warm messages I’d received from many people in my family after the book came out. That didn’t mean it was straightforward for them, but it meant they’d understood. The book had not put their affection in doubt. In some cases, it may even have strengthened it. Of course, it was obvious that the author was someone close to me. Someone who had borne a grudge for ages, long before the book. Someone who had been nursing their hatred and anger and had now found the opportunity to vent it.
L. didn’t think it was sad. Quite the reverse. My book had provoked something, had enabled that aggression to be expressed. An aggression that already existed. That was literature’s vocation, a performative vocation, and that was fortunate. It was good news that literature had real-life consequences, that it provoked anger, contempt, jealousy. It meant something was happening. We were at the heart of the matter. And those letters should bring me back to the essential.
L. believed in the violence of domestic and familial relations as a source of literary inspiration. She had outlined this theory to me several times. This violence, whether dormant or expressed, was one of the necessary conditions of creation. Its starting point.
The letters were upsetting me. She could see that and she was sorry. She understood. These letters were eating away at me insidiously, because they were aimed at the child I’d once been but also the woman I’d become. Because they marked me out as guilty. Reminded me of the origin of the violence.
L. reread the last letter in silence before she said: ‘Yes, people believe what’s written and so much the better. People know that only through literature is it possible to access the truth. People know how much writing about yourself costs. They know how to recognise what’s authentic and what isn’t. And believe me, they never get that wrong. Yes, people, as your friend here says, want truth. They want to know that this existed. People no longer believe in fiction. I’d even go as far as to say they distrust it. They believe in the example, in testimony. Look around. Writers are writing about news stories, or looking inwards, or creating documentary accounts. They’re interested in sportsmen, rogues, singers, kings and queens; they’re investigating their own families. Why do you think that is? Because that is the only worthwhile material. Why go backwards? You mustn’t pick the wrong fight. You’re taking flight; you’re intending to go back to fiction for one reason: you refuse to write the book that’s haunting you. Yes, I’m sorry, I’m going back to that, but you’re the one who talked about it, I’m not making it up. Anyway, those are the exact words you used, I reread the article. You can look for yourself – it’s easy to find online. Whoever’s sending those letters is afraid you’ll start again. Those letters should open your eyes, give you the electric shock you need to regain the st
rength and courage to confront what’s ahead of you. Writing is a combat sport. It involves risks; it makes you vulnerable. Otherwise it’s worthless. You can put yourself in danger because I’m here. I’m here, Delphine, I won’t leave you. I’ll stay by your side, trust me, for as long as it takes. And no one will hurt you.’
When she launched into one of her monologues, L. was impervious to any argument. I listened without saying a word. I waited for her to finish before replying. Once again, I couldn’t help but feel relieved that she was taking this all so much to heart. I spoke softly, as though to an exhausted child you fear you might anger: ‘Yes, it’s true, you’re right. I remember it. I talked about a hidden book, the book I might write. I didn’t rule out going back to it one day in some form or another. But not now. My work has led me somewhere else. I don’t want to . . .’
L. interrupted:
‘Where? Where has it led you? As far as I can see, right now it’s led you precisely nowhere.’
I didn’t answer. She was right.
And the fact was, she was here. She was the only person who was really here.
I think it was the same evening, or perhaps the next day, that L. saved me from choking. Subsequently, we often referred to this episode as ‘the evening that L. saved my life’. We liked the emphatic sound of this phrase, its dramatic tone, as though it were a piece of third-rate fiction, a pseudo-epic incident in our friendship. But deep down each of us knew that that was exactly what had happened: L. had saved my life.
We were both in the kitchen making dinner, when I swallowed a salted almond, whole and sideways. I’ve had things go down the wrong way, but never that far. The almond was particularly large and I felt it enter my windpipe. My throat gave a sort of gasp of shock, and I immediately felt short of breath. I tried to cough, and then to speak, but there was no airflow, none at all, as though a tap had been shut off with a single turn. I looked at L. and saw in her eyes the exact moment when, having thought it was a bad joke, she realised what was happening. She hit me on the back three or four times without result, then she grabbed me from behind, put her arms around my body and with her fist gave me a sharp blow in the stomach. At her second attempt, the almond popped out and the air returned. I spent several minutes coughing. My throat was on fire and I had a sudden desire to be sick. Tears of pain and relief streamed from my eyes. I gradually regained my breath, and picked the almond up from the floor.
Based on a True Story Page 14