“I don’t know how to start. I don’t know where to start,” Romain blurts eventually.
Always start at the end, Thomas does not say. If you think of life as a book, you’ll never be able to see where it finishes.
Essentially, however strange it may seem, this conversation might be not unlike a normal session. A man comes to see another man, with a secret that is not entirely a secret, one he will have to consent to disclose. A man who often says nothing.
“Right,” Fabien-Romain says briskly. “In a nutshell, I’m married, we have children, two children, my wife’s met someone, and she said she’s leaving me. It’s pretty straightforward. I’m very … unhappy, but I don’t think having analysis is the answer. It takes years, doesn’t it, but it’s right now that my wife’s leaving.”
Romain stops talking. Thomas opens a notebook, jots down a few words to create a semblance of composure, but can keep the pretense up no longer: “You’re Romain Vidal, aren’t you? I’m sorry but playing cat and mouse isn’t a very good idea.”
Romain looks at him, then lowers his eyes and stares at the foot of the desk lamp. His whole face closes in, his breathing accelerates. Thomas stands up to break away from an analyst’s typical aloof, seated position. He walks over to the window, gently tilts the slats of a blind. He is waiting for Romain to give in to his anger, his sorrow. As Louise’s husband stays locked in silence, Thomas toys with the blind, smirking as he cannot help thinking this sort of blind is also known as a jalousie—a jealousy.
“I can understand why you’re here,” he says. “I felt the same curiosity, to see who you were. I went to one of your conferences.”
An ambulance passes outside, barely audible through the door. Thomas lets it pass, the sound fades.
“As you’re here in my office, you must be expecting something from this meeting. But I don’t know what. You haven’t come to ask me to stop loving Louise.”
“I—I don’t th-think so,” Romain murmurs, possessed by his teenager stammer.
“You’re here to put a face to your fears. That’s a good enough reason.”
Thomas stays looking at the sky, the trees in the courtyard. He is probably not who Romain was expecting.
“You don’t understand. By confronting me here, in this particular place, you’re trying to find the strength to win Louise back. But I’m five years older than you, ten years older than Louise; in other words, I’m old. You’re brilliant, famous even. So why me? It’s almost worse.”
Romain has looked up again. Thomas is still waiting for him to speak, but Romain gazes at motes of dust twinkling in rays of sunlight. The analyst continues, calmly, through a silence punctured by the least noise. “You’re looking at your shattered life as if it were someone else’s. You’re hurt, humiliated. You’ve lost your self-esteem. That’s what most people feel.”
Between each of his sentences, Thomas establishes a pause, leaves a space he would like Romain to fill. But Vidal cannot do it.
“You know, dozens of people have been through this room. People full of pain. My job is to step up and tackle that pain with my own experience of pain. My own pain, Romain, is grief, from a long time ago.”
Thomas has removed any emotion from his voice. By using Romain’s first name, he hopes to extract a response, but the man shows no reaction.
“I know nothing about you,” Thomas goes on. “That’s why what I’m about to say may not apply to you. Often, when a man wants a woman, it gives her a mysterious charm to other people. I’m not casting any doubt on the sincerity of—”
“Shut up.”
Thomas stops talking. They stay like that for a long time, not saying anything. The doorbell rings. The six o’clock appointment is early. Romain unfolds his great body, which seems to be a burden to him today. Thomas follows him, opens the door of his office. At the last moment, Romain turns around. Thomas looks at the hand held out to him, amazed; shakes it. Romain’s handshake is genuine.
All he says is: “Maud told me. About Judith.” The giant’s throat constricts. He cannot get the words “Thank you” out.
ANNA AND MORAD
• • •
“WHAT DOES ‘UPSET’ MEAN?”
A little boy asked Anna this question.
Sometimes, on the way home from the hospital, Anna makes a slight detour and drops in on Yves, staying for an hour, or two. She tells him about her day, the patients, the progress they are making. That day, a woman had come to see her with her five-year-old son. It was their tenth visit, she is from Mali, very young, speaks French badly. Her little boy Morad is very restless, has trouble concentrating; it was his nursery school that asked for him to be seen. He sat, quietly, drawing with colored pencils, a tree, a path, in dark shades. Within a few sessions a difficult truth emerged: the mother had never dared tell the child that his father died on a building site two years ago. All she had managed was to say, Daddy’s not here anymore, he’s gone. This absence filled the child with unutterable shame, as he pretended to wait, in vain, for his father to come back, although he had probably grasped the truth. His mother—powerless and overwhelmed—clung stubbornly to her lie. She thought she could protect her son, distance him from that suffering, but it was from herself that she was distancing him: Morad was alone in his distress.
Anna went on the journey with the mother and child as they took the first steps toward this revelation. All of a sudden, the words were said, and Morad looked at his mother in amazement. It was when Anna told Morad, “Now when you’re upset you can talk to mommy about it,” that the child asked his question.
“What does ‘upset’ mean?”
“Sad. Do you know what it is to be sad?”
The child nodded. Anna looked at him, smiled, and said: “Do you remember your father, Morad?”
The child did not answer. The mother had tears in her eyes.
“What about you,” Anna said, turning to her. “What could you tell Morad about his father? What sort of thing did he like doing with Morad, for example?”
The mother thought for a long time, then murmured: “My husband liked singing. He sang a song, a song from our village.”
“And do you still sing this song with Morad?”
“Oh no, I don’t sing it. I can’t sing.”
“How about you, Morad, can you sing?”
The child looked at his mother, drew a little bear. Anna did not give up.
“Would you agree to sing the song for us?” she asked the mother. “Maybe just the tune?”
The woman consented, squeezing her handkerchief in her hand, silent. Her knuckles went pale. She sang softly, but it took considerable effort.
“Aandi d’beyyib ya mahleh ya mahleh gannouchou khachmou wateh.”
“What’s the song about?”
“It means: ‘I have a little teddy bear, soft and cute, with an adorable nose …’ ”
“So, do you remember it at all, Morad? If you’re sad, maybe you and mommy could sing the song your daddy used to sing when you were a little baby.”
The child smiled at Anna and nodded his head. Yes, he knew the song, “Aandi d’beyyib ya mahleh.” He would sing it with his mommy. For his daddy who’s dead. He got it. “Aandi d’beyyib ya mahleh.” He was allowed to be upset. Now he knew he could turn to his mother once more, to talk about his father. The mother would be back in her rightful place. She could cope with it now.
Yves listens to Anna. He feels a surge of tenderness, and goes to make a cup of tea before Anna notices the tears in his eyes and makes fun of him.
YVES AND STAN
• • •
THERE ARE NOT MANY PEOPLE left in the More or Less Bookstore, and Yves is about to get up from the table where he has been doing signings and join the manager at the register. A man approaches, Yves has not spotted him, he has been waiting until the very last moment to come over: he hands him a copy of Two-Leaf Clover.
“Who is it for?” Yves asks.
“To Stanislas and Anna, please. Anna is m
y wife.”
The tone of voice is not very friendly. Yves looks up, quickly appraises the man. He is tall, early forties, wearing horn-rimmed glasses. His brown cord jacket is like the one Anna tried to get him to buy just three days ago. Of course this Stanislas right here is Anna’s husband, he knows everything, this moment had to happen. Perhaps he has seen them together, perhaps a friend has tipped him off.
Yves wants to buy some time.
“You did say Anna, not Hannah with aitches?”
“No aitches.”
“To Stanislas and Anna …” Yves writes, then he says: “I’m sorry, but do we know each other?”
“No,” Stan replies. “I’m sure we’ve never spoken.”
Stan’s voice is cold, hostile. He opens and closes his fist, agitatedly. Anna once told Yves that if Stan ever found out about the two of them, he might “smash his face in.” He warned Anna: if her husband insulted him, he could accept that, but at the first punch, he would press charges.
The punch never comes. Neither does the bland but subtle dedication appropriate for these exceptional circumstances. Yves merely writes this frequently quoted sentence, borrowed from Diotima in Plato’s Banquet and ably transformed by Lacan who then appropriated it:
… a story of love, that thing we give without ever possessing it.
Yves Janvier
He hands the book to Stanislas, who glances briefly at the dedication. He is not the man Yves imagined he was. Anna definitely described him the way a child describes her father, overestimating everything. Stan was “very tall”: Yves smiled when he discovered his actual height. It was the same as his. Stan pulls up a chair, sits down close to him.
“I’ve just read one of your books. Follow On, is that what it’s called?”
His voice is deep, Yves finds it melodious.
“Yes, it’s a short novel, quite old now.”
“Your writing is very, how shall I put this? Very fluent.”
Yves wrote Follow On fifteen years ago. The story of a man with a lot of time on his hands who, out of curiosity, starts following a woman in the street. He takes pleasure in walking behind her every day. At first the book is built around the notes he makes. He spies on her when she does her shopping or goes for a walk with her children or her husband. Weeks go by. He decides to try and seduce her: he is charming and intelligent, he succeeds, and when the woman falls, becomes infatuated with him, separates from her husband, quite irretrievably, he is suddenly afraid, he leaves her and disappears. Having ravaged the woman’s life.
It is crystal clear where Stan is going with this.
“It isn’t a portrait of a woman, even though it does describe her the whole time. It tells us about a man through the way he sees a woman. What’s his name again?”
“Kostas. And the woman is Camille,” says Yves.
“Kostas, that’s right. Camille has a husband and children, she’s happy. The more he watches her life, the more he realizes how alone he is. It’s her happiness he falls in love with. But he doesn’t really love her.”
“I don’t know. I think he does.”
“No, wanting someone isn’t the same as loving them, Mr. Janvier. He doesn’t measure the consequences of what he does to this woman’s life, to her children. He’s not interested in that, his intentions are egotistical. It’s a portrait of a bastard.”
“Why a bastard?”
“Kostas would have every right if he knew for sure what he really wanted. But he doesn’t, he has his doubts, is torn, and he knows that. Being sure of what you actually want, that’s the bare minimum you’d expect of yourself if you’re about to break up a marriage, making a woman—and her children—suffer. Wouldn’t you say?”
“Yes. Perhaps. Kostas is a bastard in spite of himself.”
Stan opens and closes his fist, his knuckles go white.
“A bastard in spite of himself is still a bastard. There is something fragile about Camille, a dissatisfaction with things. But she has a good life. Perhaps too good. Camille carries a deep-seated melancholy in her, and her husband helps her carry it, very tenderly. When Kostas turns up, she hopes she can actually live, at last. Kostas can tell she is vulnerable, he also suspects she loves him because he embodies unpredictability, a sense of adventure she always longed for, but he exploits her dreams to draw her in. It’s a woman thing, like Emma Bovary meeting her Rodolphe. Very traditional, in fact. But you’re too understanding with Kostas. You adopt his point of view. There are several novels that need writing there, Camille’s, her husband’s, the children’s. Those are the ones you should have written.”
“They’re tragic novels. I …”
“Well, maybe Madame Bovary can’t be written more than once, after all.”
There is a note of sadness in Stan’s voice, but no longer any anger. He is still rubbing his fist against his palm, but talking seems to have soothed him. The bookstore is gradually emptying and the manager signals discreetly to Yves.
“Do you have children, Mr. Janvier?” Stan goes on.
“A daughter. Her name is Julie.”
Stan shakes his head.
“Anna and I have two, you know. I read every page of Follow On, imagining a Kostas following Anna, meeting her, seducing her. It made me really sad to think a man that immature, who did so little to deserve her trust, could come and destroy my Anna’s life, hurt our family, for nothing, just because he never really gauged what he wanted.”
“I understand what you’re saying.”
“I know you understand what I’m saying. There’s a bit of Camille in every woman, and a bit of Kostas in every man.”
Stan stops talking for a moment. Yves flicks his pen back and forth between his fingers. He does not want to argue; he is moved by Stan, more than he expected. Anna’s respect and affection for Stan hatched a peculiar empathy in him some time ago. Yves now knows that the love two men feel for the same woman weaves secret connections, even forbidding that lover’s privilege, jealousy.
“I’m sure I wouldn’t write the same book now.”
“Do you think? Yet they say people always write the same book.”
“It’s not true. Books are like the days of your life. They come one after another and you learn from each of them.”
“Well … that’s a good thing, then. That’s a good thing.”
“Kostas doesn’t want to make anyone unhappy.”
Stan gives a furious shrug and stands up. Yves stands too.
“That’s not possible, Mr. Janvier. People like Kostas aren’t happy and they can’t make anyone happy.”
All at once Yves feels cold, puts on his coat. Stan gives a slight bow and steps away.
“I’m very glad I’ve had a chance to meet you, Mr. Janvier. To talk about Kostas and Camille with you. I hope I haven’t bored you.”
Yves shakes his head. Stan walks off without offering a handshake. Before he leaves the bookstore, he opens the book, leafs through it. He comes back, looking determined, fists balled. From the look in his eye, Yves can suddenly tell they are going to fight. He prepares for it. Deep down, he prefers this to their restrained discussion in which they both affected detachment. But Stan simply shows him the dedication.
“Excuse me. You wrote ‘To Stanislas and Anna.’ ”
“Yes?”
“My name’s Ladislas, not Stanislas. Could you write ‘To Ladislas and Anna’?”
Yves is dumbstruck. He apologizes, takes another copy, and corrects his mistake. Ladislas walks away, satisfied. The manager smiles at the writer, slightly dismayed: “I’m so sorry, Yves. I should have warned you. Ladislas is a regular. He’s—how shall I put this?—a bit different. One time, when Delcourt was doing a signing, he came and explained his own book to him for nearly an hour. You can just imagine how Delcourt … And he’s also got that nervous tic with his fists, you always feel he’s about to smash your face in.”
“I didn’t notice,” says Yves.
YVES AND ANNA
• • •
She is walking along the street, in a hurry. She is meeting Yves and he has promised her a present. Not long after they met, he gave her a ring, a silver one, which swivels and opens like an oyster to reveal its secret, a yellow diamond nestled in golden mother-of-pearl. But this piece of jewelry has stayed in the bottom of a drawer, under a silk scarf.
Of course Yves is already at the café, he is reading the paper, in no rush. Anna hates being waited for impatiently, she hates being a prisoner to someone else’s attachment. She wants something that does not exist: a lover who adores her, but is utterly indifferent.
She has hardly sat down opposite him before he hands her a small package wrapped in red crepe paper. She opens it, it contains five books, all identical. They are small, ivory-colored, about sixty pages long.
She looks up again. Almost frightened.
“Don’t worry,” says Yves. “Only ten copies were made. You have half the edition there.”
“Thank you,” says Anna. “Can I read it now?”
“I hope you will,” Yves replies. “It’s not very long.”
Where do our memories file themselves away? Broca proved that the left hemisphere controls speech, Penfield maintains that the temporal lobes house memory. So an arrangement of neurons, a chemistry within the brain stocks the images, sounds, and smells that I call memories of you. Why is it my hands themselves hold the memory of your skin?
I want forty memories of you, Anna. For the reason you can guess. Forty is a lot, think of Ali Baba’s thieves. And forty is too few: it means resigning myself to never retracing a gesture you make, one so specific to you, so intimate; not describing the sight of a street with your silhouette outlined against it; not referring to something you said even though it touched me; it means abandoning certain characteristics on the grounds that I have already put them in writing, somewhere else.
Enough About Love Page 13