Adam Haberberg

by Yasmina Reza

  Adam dials Albert's number.

  “I'm in Sceaux.” “In Sceaux?” “After that I'm going to Viry-Ch^tillon.” “Very nice.” “So what are you doing?” “I'm on the stairs. I'm taking out Martine's King Charles spaniel.” “She has a King Charles spaniel?” “These dogs are the ugliest things in the world. This guy's a four-legged thyroid deficiency.” “You're going out walking on your own with the King Charles spaniel?” “Seventy-five percent of the time I carry it in my arms, it doesn't like walking. I put it down when it wants to shit.” “Why does she have a King Charles spaniel?” “She likes King Charles spaniels.” “You can't stick with a woman who works in Lognes at Eldorauto and has a King Charles spaniel.” “You're right.” “Dump her. I've got someone for you.” “Who?” “Marie-Thérèse Lyoc.” “Big boobs?” “Not bad.” “Introduce me.” Adam puts the cell phone back in his pocket. By the tentative evening light shadowy figures are emerging from the park. Adam puts his hand over his eye. He thinks, I'll need to explain this evening's happening to the optometrist. I'll need to find the exact word, I'll need to direct him with precise care toward a fresh appreciation of the situation, I'll need to find the exact word and then, for want of being able to select one that comes just below it in the scale of impact, for the calibration of words is crude, I'll need to tone it down with an adjective, for it's essential, Adam considers, essential not to put the optometrist in a panic. Doctor, what I suddenly experienced was a disturbance … no … a spasm of pain … no, not a pain … a dislocation, yes, a type of dislocation, as if, Doctor, my blood vessels were parting company with the artery and dispersing aimlessly into aberrant places. Now could this be that famous extravasation process you told me about, the very name of which haunts me? My vision hasn't been affected by it, that's a good sign, isn't it, Doctor, as if my eye wanted to know nothing about what was being plotted behind its back, as if my eye were following a kind of metaphysical false trail that arose above the organs, declaring, you'll go on seeing to the very end, even if you're no longer irrigated, even if nothing binds you to the roots of life you'll see, until your last blink, the world will be clear. Note, Doctor, that I should like the same thing to happen to the whole of me. For I experience this feeling of dislocation in the depths of my being, as if its component elements were no longer connected either to one another or to a unique self, as if at any moment and anywhere at all, a fragment of myself could go floating off toward the outer margins where I'm lost. Doctor, do you believe the world can remain clear if you're traveling toward the future with no prospect of joy, because you're no longer whole enough to grasp it? The other day we set off, my children, my wife, and I, to spend a weekend at Saint-Vaast-la-Hougue. As I was heaving the suitcase and bags out of the elevator various tales of exile and headlong flight came into my mind and it occurred to me, Doctor, that these must have been less painful than this departure for the Cotentin, I reflected that ineluctable fate is easier to bear than the duty to be happy. As I pick up the vacation suitcase at the foot of the stairs I'm picking up the burden of life. My first publisher was a gentle man, not very tall. He was bald and had hair implants that were an utter failure. Yesterday I passed the hospital where he died. I hope you don't have a problem with this little digression, Doctor. After all, who is to say that the thrombosis that concerns us today has no connection with my beginnings as a writer? My first publisher had faith in my future. That's no small thing in life, someone who has faith in your future. It gives you spirit and courage. His diary, written in the Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital, which his wife photocopied, contained these words, “At the end I bear helpless witness to the frenzy of self-destruction that is overwhelming my heart. … It is the body, our body, that is the ultimate and principal foundation of our being… . Adam Haberberg brought me a radio, one of those actions of great thoughtfulness that makes the night bearable.” So, maybe he swallowed up my future with him? My future crumbled to dust in the pit, along with one of those handfuls of earth cast onto the wood. You prescribed Veinamitol for me, Doctor, when I told Professor Guen of this he made a little gesture with his hand, one of those gestures that signify blithe indifference, and said, you can always go on taking it if you like. I'm naive enough, Doctor, to think a patient needs to have faith in the virtues of his medicine for it to be effective. I'd read the label on the Veinamitol, I'm a great reader of labels, and I'd felt encouraged by the clarity of what it indicated. Professor Guen blew Veinamitol sky-high for me. I go on drinking it superstitiously and also because I couldn't confront the prospect of this malfunction without some kind of support, however absurd. And let me remark in passing that his Spécialfoldine, a medicine for pregnant women, is not going to motivate me. To abandon the Veinamitol, Doctor, would be to admit officially that nothing can be done, either for this eye or for the other one, which might well be attacked in its turn, or for any other part of my body where a blood vessel might choose to become obstructed. On the label it said, “increases the resistance of blood vessels, reduces their permeability.” I liked increases and reduces, two honest, dynamic verbs and, above all, I liked resistance. This label gave me authority for a semblance of optimism, Doctor, it acted like the resolutions we make at the start of the new year when we tell ourselves this year you'll do this and you'll no longer do that, when we declare what lies within our own willpower, faced with the chaos of life. Indeed, Doctor, do we not owe to Veinamitol the fact of having overcome the phenomenon of dislocation? That's right! That's what I told myself yesterday during the crisis, I even stopped off at a pharmacy, as I was a long way from home and didn't have my evening dose with me. What does this Guen know about general medicine? What do these highfliers know when it comes to prevention? You're on familiar territory, Doctor, when you say Veinamitol you know what you're talking about, and I find it unacceptable that this Guen, whom you were so keen to send me to, already fortified by your prescription, should denigrate it with such frivolity. I have the feeling you like me, Doctor. Or maybe I should attribute your solicitude to the fact that when a man has a vascular problem at my age, the prognosis is not good. But even so I sense in you, when I come, a certain pleasure in seeing me. I'm presumptuous enough to believe it's not every five minutes you see a patient with whom you can joke and even laugh at the worst, with whom you can talk literature and music, and I appreciate this desire for culture in you, something that normally exasperates me about people in the circles I move in. For you to like me, Doctor, is as essential to my recovery as the Veinamitol, for the man who arrives on your landing and rings your bell is a man trembling with fear. He'll make jokes, he'll discuss books and music, he'll hold forth about fishing if need be, or football, or do-it-yourself, anything, Doctor, which might enthrall you and render untimely some announcement of the darkness that awaits me. To remain what he is, that is to say invulnerable, the Prince of Mea-Hor mustn't be liked by anyone. I wrote The Black Prince of Mea-Hor in two and a half weeks, an anonymous book that can be found only at train stations and some newsstands. By portraying myself, how shall I put it, a contrario, through this character, who needs to remain free of the affection of others, Doctor, I've put more of myself into this work, written to order, than into any of my other books. I've constructed the anti-Adam Haberberg, an anti-Adam Haberberg created by my own pen, who gives me the courage today to reveal my weakness to you, to say to you, like me, Doctor, protect me, Doctor, save me.

  Marie-Thérèse is running. I haven't been too long, she says, you're not cold? She presses the controls and drives off. You don't look very well.

  “I'm fine, Marie-Thérèse.”

  “You know, it's really great we met up.”

  “Yes.”

  “So, to answer your question,” says Marie-Thérèse, playfully, as they drive down the road from the Chateau to rejoin the Route Nationale, “no, we were not together at the lycée.”

  “Who?”

  “Serge and me.”

  “I see,” says Adam, striving vainly to conjure up a picture of
Serge Gautheron.

  “We weren't even particularly friendly. He was on the rugby team with Tristan, I don't know if you recall, we used to go to cheer on the team at Bagatelle Park. Then I happened to meet him again when I was a trainee with Canon, three years after passing my diploma. That was the odd thing.”

  “Very odd.”

  “When we got married we took over his parents' store at Rueil-Malmaison.”

  “It didn't go well?”

  “Us or the store?” she laughed.

  “Both. The store.”

  “The store went fantastically well. But we opened another one in the Bercy 2 shopping mall that never took off. We had to starve Rueil to keep Bercy alive. At a shopping mall, the customers behave quite differently. If your salesclerk is good you make a healthy profit, if she's no good you make nothing. We had the two stores for two years, it was a disaster. We sold Bercy and Rueil folded very soon after that.”

  “How did you end up in Viry-Châtillon?”

  “I made some contacts at Bercy and I was offered the job of managing one of the Caroli ready-to-wear outlets at Juvisy-sur-Orge. I lived in Juvisy first and then Viry.”

  Adam attempts to study Marie-Thérèse's breasts. Nothing can be seen beneath her overcoat. The Rue d'Antony has everything one could wish for, a hairdresser, a locksmith, an optician, a greengrocer, a pharmacy. I need to buy something at the pharmacy, he says.

  It was difficult all on my own, says Marie-Thérèse, turning in front of the Buffalo Grill, I wasn't used to managing a boutique on my own, managing the staff, selecting the stock, being quick to replace it to satisfy customer demand, you've got to take care of everything, if you're not around you're just playing at it. I wanted to be more independent, to have more freedom in my schedules. After three years I resigned and for almost two years I had no work. Through the window, sheds, more sheds, cranes, more cranes, detached houses, Maxauto, Auto Distribution, Hertz. Through the window, warehouses, pylons, heathland streaked with electricity. They're driving along the throughway toward Savigny-sur-Orge. The new box of Veinamitol is on Adam's knees. Marie-Thérèse is talking about her life. The edema may take between twelve and eighteen months to be absorbed, the optometrist said. What Adam understands is that the edema may take between twelve and eighteen months to be absorbed comma and may equally never be absorbed. The word may filters this rhythm into Adam's awareness. It's a remark that leaves the way open to tragedy. Why didn't the optometrist say the edema will take et cetera, because he refuses to employ an affirmative form of words, and why does he refuse to employ an affirmative form of words? Because the absorption of the edema is in itself uncertain, because nothing's less certain than the absorption of the edema. When the optometrist says the edema may take between twelve and eighteen months to be absorbed, he's saying we must wait several months to know if the edema, this stubborn and unpredictable entity, will oblige us by being absorbed at all. We, that is to say you, me, Professor Guen, and the whole medical profession, will have to wait patiently for the time it takes our planet to make a complete revolution around the sun in order to know how the stars are going to incline, in which case, thinks Adam, why not cut to the chase and consult an astrologer. Seven thousand francs net plus incentive bonuses when I started, continues Marie-Thérèse, now if all goes well I earn about four thousand euros. In winter there are not so many tourists at the sites. When we move into the September to March season, which is the worst, I bank on the Japanese. The Japanese travel all year round. All the business we do in France is my doing. Thanks to what I've done in France the company, which is American, has taken on a commercial manager in Spain and another in Italy, they've built up a whole business in Europe from nothing. At the start I was hired to sell publicity items. They hired me on the first of January five years ago. By March I hadn't done a single deal. The Americans are people who want results and no messing around. As it happened, I opened my first account on a visit to Versailles with my godson and that gave me the idea of specializing in historical sites and switching to souvenirs instead of publicity items. Then I opened another customer at Chantilly and after that the whole thing took off like a rocket. All the business in France is my doing. That's great, says Adam. It is, isn't it, it's great. I just love my profession. It's the first time in my life I've positively bloomed like this in a job. Fog is still passing them and a little rain as well. Adam delights in being ferried along amid darkness, rain, warmth, the dreary outskirts. Marie-Thérèse takes off her coat. An Albertian bosom, thinks Adam, and is within an ace of calling him when he realizes he cannot speak. A heavy and prominent bosom, of which he'd no recollection, never, in any case, having had an appetite for heavy and prominent bosoms, unlike Albert. Adam thinks back to that last great drama with Irene. Perhaps the final drama, he tells himself. I'll send you my courier, Adam had said to Albert on the telephone, referring to Irene. On her way to Issy-les-Moulineaux Irène used to pass the Rue de la Convention, where Albert lived. A courier with small boobs, Albert had joked at the other end of the line. He says a courier with small boobs, Adam had stupidly repeated. Screw him, Irene had replied. He says he'll take a look at them all the same. That'll be the day, Irene had remarked frostily. But you'll need your glasses, Adam had quipped into the handset. Screw you, Irene had said, other people have no complaints! And she left the room slamming the door. What do you mean, other people have no complaints, what exactly does that mean, other people have no complaints?! Adam had yelled, pursuing her to the other end of the apartment. Do you have any idea, Irene had wept, lying prone on the bed and turning the face of a demented woman toward him, do you have any idea of the vulgarity of this conversation? Don't change the subject. I want to know who these other people are, I want to know the meaning of that remark immediately. Do you find it normal to discuss your wife's breasts on the telephone?! Irene, you've given yourself away. You can't begin to imagine what I'm capable of now! Do you find it normal to joke about my breasts with a stupid prick who likes only whores and manicurists, a notoriously brainless scrounger who eats sprats for breakfast?! I don't give a flying fuck about Albert, don't change the subject!

  Say you're sorry, Irene had bawled, down on your knees and say you're sorry, say I'll never discuss my wife's breasts with anyone ever again! I should kill you now, Adam had replied. So what are you waiting for? Irene don't push me! Given the life we lead you might as well go ahead! she'd challenged him, kneeling on the bed and offering her neck. Adam hears her voice saying go ahead, squeeze, squeeze, he sees her legs twitching, he hears the little boy's voice saying, what's happening and his own commanding, get out, get out, shut the door. And then the older boy appears and says you're nuts and starts crying, followed by the little one and Adam wants to murder the lot of them.

  If you don't understand self-destructiveness in a man, you don't understand men, he remembers saying, during the hellish discussions that follow crises. Better stark tragedy, he thinks, than these nauseating postmortems. You had to understand this mania for talking, this mania women had for always wanting to talk. This ignoble need for explanations. Considering how rare and insipid their sexual encounters were it would make sense if Irene had a lover. Adam resisted this bitter hypothesis. Adam wanted no talk of this bitter hypothesis. And if an access of madness or violent behavior overcame him, he didn't want to talk about it. Madness yes, discussion no. Irene charged him with irrational jealousy. Where will this irrational jealousy lead you? she said. Adam didn't take irrational to mean groundless, he took it to mean absurd, given that the ties now binding us are minimal. A spurious jealousy, he thinks, there in the Wrangler Jeep, that's what he takes it to mean. A terrible word, he thinks, there in the Wrangler Jeep, that he could apply to his entire condition, for a man must be recognized for what he aspires to be, and who am I, he thinks, staring out through the windows at the darkness sullied with fog, if not a spurious paterfamilias, a spurious writer, in other words, he thinks in the Jeep idling in the traffic on the A6 throughway, a spurious man? Do
you have children? he says to Marie-Thérèse.

  “No, sadly, no.”

  “Would you have liked to?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why didn't you?”

  “That's how it was.”

  “Didn't Serge Gautheron want them?”

  “That's not it.”

  “So you weren't able?” he says, knowing he should have stopped two questions earlier.

  “That's not it.”

  “So what happened?” he asks, made impatient by her

  hushed tones.

  “I lost the baby, twice.”

  “You had two miscarriages?” he insists, irritated by