History of Violence

by Édouard Louis

  When I first got there, though, talking was a relief. The two police had welcomed me with compassion, tenderness almost; I kept losing my place, my mind wandered, I said things that in context made no sense, I made a fool of myself, I made stupid pronouncements, I kept coming back to the same thing, the same moment of the night, in different words, in different tones, as if to get at the truth: “I imagine we’d have looked odd to another person, if they saw him, Reda, I mean, standing there frozen—as if his legs were welded to the ground and reinforced with steel rods that ran down into the earth—and me just sitting there across from him while he strangled me with his scarf, and the wool of the scarf kept squeaking when it tightened around my neck, with that squeaking sound wool makes, it’s like nails on a blackboard, and all I could do was sit there, squirming like an earthworm stuck under a shoe, all I could do was twist and turn.” The policeman watched me talk. He wasn’t listening, he was watching. His fingers hung over the keyboard he was using to take down my statement. There were long pauses in his typing. His power, I now realized, was above all a power over time; he could drag this interview out or he could end it, he could let the silences linger and harden, he could make me talk, he could rush me or, suddenly, without my even knowing or understanding, he could slow me down. He had asked me to tell him the facts—tell me everything, he said, and don’t leave anything out; every minute, every exchange, every word Reda said, however insignificant it might seem, could help them find him and arrest him (and it was exactly the least likely details, he went on, that usually cracked a case, even if—to the untrained and untutored eye—the information seemed meaningless or nonexistent, even if it seemed like nothing).

  He asked me: “Wait—you brought a stranger up to your apartment, in the middle of the night?” I answered: “But everybody does that…,” and in an ironic, mocking, sarcastic voice, he asked, “Everybody?” It wasn’t a question. Obviously, he wasn’t asking me whether or not everybody did that, he was saying nobody did that. Or at least, not everybody. So finally I answered, “What I mean is, people like me…” He started to say something else, “But come on—” when suddenly: “Stop right there!” The female officer standing beside him ordered him to stop typing. We both jumped. Her “Stop” was brusque and angry and, at the same time, amused, as if this latest development was merely the final straw, as if she was at her wit’s end; it was too late, the harsh glare of the fluorescents was driving her crazy, so was the smell of the floor cleaner, so was the flicker of the computer screens; she couldn’t take it seriously anymore, her with her hair a mess and the dark rings under her eyes.

  Start over, she told us: that’s not how you go about it, in a completely anarchic way—and I remember how she winced when she said the word anarchic. We had to go back to the beginning. “Tell it in the order that it happened.”

  * * *

  TO HOLD STILL, I keep my eyes fixed on the door, so I don’t give myself away. I study the grain, the branching pathways of dark brown in the light brown wood, and I try to follow the paths as they wander from the center of the door to its edges, where they disappear.

  Clara tells her husband that Reda asked if I was ever going to speak to him. Although I said nothing, clearly he took my silence to mean I couldn’t say no. I could hear the smile in his voice but I didn’t yet turn to look at him, except furtively—I looked as discreetly as I could, I was still trying to get away, and I thought Nietzsche, Simon, Nietzsche, Simon, Nietzsche, Simon. A few steps later, I gave in.

  “He gave in, he talked to him.” I told myself I was only responding so he’d leave me alone, but I knew that whatever I was about to say, it would start a conversation.

  “He said he was coming home from his Christmas dinner and he wanted to get some sleep.” I rebuffed him, and it worked. He insisted—just as I’d expected, just as I’d hoped. “I’m Reda, couldn’t we hang out? Maybe we could get a drink, or I could roll us a joint, or—” I tell him I don’t do drugs. And then he doubles down, “No problem, we’ll just talk … What’s your name?”

  * * *

  WHEN I DESCRIBED this interaction to the police, I tried to tell it in chronological order, the way they wanted, but the male officer, the one sitting at the desk, kept interrupting; he’d never let me finish … “But you’re sure he had a handgun? You know that changes everything, right?” I looked to his colleague, asking her for help, I was begging her to help me. For the moment she kept her distance, and he went on: “Still, rape is pretty bad, too—they say it can be worse than death.”

  * * *

  I LISTEN.

  “So then Reda says why don’t they go up and have a drink at Édouard’s place. He wasn’t stupid, he knew he lived nearby. He must have known from the way he was walking. Guys like that, they know what they’re doing. And since Édouard still wasn’t saying yes or no, the other guy starts trying to take it back about the drugs.

  “He says, I’ll keep the hash in my pocket if you’re not into that, I won’t touch it, we don’t have to smoke. He says they could just have a couple of beers together, that’s all. Just a couple of beers. And he wouldn’t stay long, either, and Édouard says he hates beer. And I’m thinking, This takes some serious patience. I wouldn’t be wasting my time on some random guy who kept telling me no. And see, right there, it doesn’t make sense. That he’s patient. Why is he being so patient, right?”

  * * *

  I KEPT SAYING NO and he kept walking along beside me, still smiling the whole time, still just as energetic and undiscouraged; maybe he’d noticed the hesitation in my voice, maybe he’d seen me glancing over, maybe he knew how little it would take to win me over, all I needed was the slightest gesture and he’d bring me around, I’d confess I’d wanted to talk to him ever since he stopped me on the square, all I’d wanted was to take him home with me, to put my hand on his, maybe he knew I was fighting, maybe he knew I was struggling, maybe he knew it was all I could do to hide how badly I wanted him. I remember how cold it was, and it was windy, too, so windy that my eyes were watering and I’d stopped even trying to dry them, and he was sniffling while he spoke, his words were punctuated with great burning sniffs and I could hear them echo through his nasal cavities. He turned away to wipe his nose on his hand, then he wiped his hand on his pants, and it left a shiny trail. I didn’t care. Ordinarily a thing like that would have made me sick. But not that night, not with him.

  * * *

  “BUT WHAT I WAS TRYING TO SAY IS, the guy didn’t seem suspicious. There was no reason for Édouard to be scared of him. It’s not like he was trying to start some kind of fight. He was calm. He was friendly. But Édouard wanted to go home and he wouldn’t budge. He just kept saying: I have to go home and read, I have to go home and read.

  She takes another sip of water.

  “So finally the guy asks the question. He puts out his hand and says what have you got there, and what does Édouard say? Books, they’re just books, and Reda says to him, Interesting, and now I’m like, Édouard, have you never noticed that whenever you explain something to somebody, or tell somebody what you do, that’s all they ever say, Interesting? Everything’s ‘interesting,’ but if they’re so interested how come there’s never a follow-up question? Funny, right? What they mean is, they’ve heard enough. If you feel like going on about yourself, or telling them more about your life, well, that’s on you.

  “And that’s what I said to Édouard. I told him, You’re not interesting. He didn’t flinch when I said it. He just froze. I’m not saying this to put you down, I’m not trying to be mean, but when people tell you that what you do is ‘interesting,’ they’re telling you a lie. If they say it to you, if they say it to me, if they say it to anyone, it’s a lie. It doesn’t make any difference who you are, you hear me, every life matters the same, and so why should the world take any special interest in yours? Don’t kid yourself. People always think their own lives are so fascinating, and yes they realize everyone else thinks the same, but still they tell themselves
that everyone else is wrong and they’re right. But it doesn’t work that way. I’m sorry to break it to you, but you can live in Paris or be a philosopher or whatever you want to do, it doesn’t change a thing (that part’s made up, she never said that. I’m sure she thought it when we were talking, but she never said it).

  “We never get tired of lying to ourselves.”

  Her husband doesn’t speak any actual words. He just says “unh-hunh” every now and then to show he’s listening, or when she asks him a direct question, and his grunts reach me through the door.

  “I don’t get it, I told him. Because really, come on, nobody believes these lies but still everybody tells them, even though they know better. And you, why pretend to be dumber than you already are? You must have known Reda was lying.

  “It’s exactly like with my neighbor Océane, when I’m at her house. Now, I admit she’s plain, whatever—I say that not as a criticism, I love Océane—but the other thing is, and there’s no way to get around it, she isn’t thin. And it gets to her, poor thing. She feels it. She feels it because everybody rejects her, I mean the guys. They won’t go near her. And since nobody’s going to touch her, there she was, eighteen, nineteen years old, and still a virgin, everyone turned her down. You know how stupid they are, if you’re walking by with Océane and there’s a group of them hanging out at the bus stop, or wherever, and they’re drinking they’ll say, Here comes double-wide Océane, or, Here comes Océane, you can’t pick her up but you can roll her, all that kind of thing. You know how bad they can be. Whatever, they’re trash. As I’ve gotten older I’ve seen guys that, if you get them off on their own, they can be nice enough, but I don’t care—as soon as you get a few of them together, that’s it. Men turn into idiots when there’s a few of them around. You don’t even recognize them anymore.

  “So on Wednesday afternoons it’s become our little tradition, we all get together at Océane’s to play cards and we play double solitaire. Even if there’s three of us, we play in teams. Or we play tarot. And every single time, we just know that sooner or later Océane is going to say it, she’s going to say how bad she feels, and every time, sure enough, at a certain point she says it, and when she says how bad she feels, about herself, about her body—and you can be sure she’d never say that to anyone but us girls, because we support each other, because we stick together—what I say is: What do you mean, Océane? You’re so pretty, don’t you listen to those guys, you know how guys are, they’ve all got their head up their ass, that’s just the way they are. And the funny thing is, as I’m saying it, I know I’m lying—not about guys being dumb, I’m lying about her body—and Océane knows I’m lying, and it’s like I feel this chill come over me because of what I think, not what I say, and Vanessa, who’s usually there with us too, she’ll chime in, she’ll nod her head and say, It’s true, you really are pretty, Océane, you’ve just got a beauty that’s all your own, you can’t go comparing yourself with the girls in the magazines, you know if you catch them when they wake up, before they do all their makeup and hair and everything, they’re pigs—they only look good because they put on all of that foundation. But you’re beautiful the way you are, naturally. That’s what really matters, to have a natural beauty. And none of us believes a word we’re saying. None of us, but we pretend to, and each of us leans on the other girl’s lie, hoping her lie will make it all a little more true, and what I mean to say is, that must be how it was with Édouard, he had to know the guy was handing him a line (but so what if Reda didn’t care what I had to say, that truth meant nothing to me, the form meant everything, the content nothing; it was fine if Reda had no interest in the content of what I said, as long as he wanted to win me over, even if that meant telling a lie).

  “He asked some more questions, nothing special, just the questions people ask, How long have you lived in Paris? Are you doing anything later on? And Édouard was still thinking: I have to go to bed. I have to go to bed. But he told me it was like that sentence made less and less sense. It made less sense with every step they took. That’s when the guy asked if Édouard’s family came from England or from Germany, he says, I can’t figure out if you’re English or German, and Édouard says, Unfortunately, neither one. He laughed and told him what our father liked to say about our family. He likes to say how our parents were French, and theirs were French, and theirs, and theirs, and theirs—that our bloodline is pure. And now the guy finds it funny, too, our father’s saying. In fact it cracks him up.”

  5.

  He told me that he was Kabyle and that his father had come to France in the early sixties. This was twenty years before Reda was born. When we met, Reda must have been in his early thirties. They sent his father to a designated immigrant hostel somewhere to the north of Paris, I forget the exact town, with no more than a change of clothes and a few things stuffed into a little suitcase—and not because he had nothing, though it’s true he didn’t have much, but because he wasn’t allowed to bring any more with him; as if it weren’t enough to be poor, he had to seem poor too. Reda began to tell me all this when we were standing outside my building, but it was later—when we were lying together in bed and I was begging to know more about him, about his life—that he told me the rest. He rested his head on my chest as he talked. I just listened. I ran my fingers over his skin and listened. His father had crossed all of Kabylia to get away. He hiked day after day, all by himself. He didn’t want to go with the others. He crossed the desert, he slept on the sand and in the dirt, hidden in the bushes.

  I told Clara his father must always have dreamed of leaving, of running away. It’s an ordinary dream, but the truth is, ordinary dreams are often what set us free. Maybe, I told her, he wanted to go to a place where he had no friends, no family, no past; that’s how I felt the first time I left for the city, and I can’t be the only one, and of course I know it’s naïve—I was naïve—but naïveté, I’ve learned, is a necessary condition of escape. Without naïveté you’d never try. Clara listened as I made my speculations, and chimed in with her own. By leaving, I said, he must have thought he could get rid of his past, that with no past, no history, and thus no shame, he could try on all the styles and poses we secretly want to try but deny ourselves, he could have followed every crazy urge we dream of but suppress, whether it’s dyeing our hair, walking differently, laughing differently, getting a tattoo, whatever urge we silently dismiss for fear we’ll be put in our place: “Who do you think you are? What are you playing at? What is this part you’re acting out? This isn’t you, we don’t know you anymore.” Even if the change is superficial. How we speak, or dress, or hold ourselves. Reda said his father came here to make money, but that doesn’t prove anything one way or another.

  * * *

  HE LEFT PARTLY TO REDEEM THE PAST. When he thought of leaving, it wasn’t just to help the son he would have, the son he already planned to have; it wasn’t to improve his own situation—it was too late for him; he told himself, “It’s too late”—nor was he trying to reinvent the present, it was too late for that, too; no, when he took action, it was to reinvent the past. He wanted the “after” to give meaning to the “before,” he dwelled on his son’s future success—as if in the final moments of a fight to the death—so that he could see it as the result of his own life, so that he could reassure himself that everything he’d done, lived through, seen, and endured had not been for nothing, as if he’d done it all for this one reason, as if it all had meaning—a meaning he’d intended, wished for, researched, weighed, as if none of it were a waste; as if all his past suffering and failure were investments in the future, sacrifices willingly made toward the future. The past is the one thing we can change, and I have no doubt he feared the future less than he feared the past.

  * * *

  WHEN HIS FATHER ARRIVED, he was carrying a map that showed the way to the hostel. He had admired this map for weeks before he actually made the trip; it seemed to him that each letter might come to life and materialize before him, that each l
etter might live and breathe, that if he looked hard enough at the map, he might discover the truth—the masked and hidden truth, for now completely silent—about the new life he had in store. Now that he was actually here, he stopped, he nearly turned around and went back the way he’d come. Didier once said: “When we get something we really want, from that moment on, our only thought is how to put it behind us.” There he was at the door of the hostel and he couldn’t do it, he couldn’t decide, he couldn’t move, he thought: Now I have to ring the doorbell. But he didn’t. Maybe it was raining, and maybe he was smiling; maybe a faint smile flickered over his features, wet with rain, and betrayed his happiness because we associate rain with gloom, and a smile in the rain stands out; a smile in the rain means that much more. I see him standing in front of the hostel. I see him pacing in front of the great big building, back and forth—a long scene of hesitation as he moves from one side of the picture to the other, while across the road the street sweepers laugh in their fluorescent overalls, doubled over with laughter to see him lost in his quandary.