You Will Not Have My Hate

by Antoine Leiris

  Every day, when I open the door of the day-care center, I hear: “Whose mama?” I’m Melvil’s papa. And because our children are the same age, because they know how hard it is to raise a baby, because they know the ties that bind a mother to her children, what they see in me is the man, the papa who will never be a mama. The man who will never manage, alone, with a baby. I see concern in their eyes. Where everyone else imagines me as a super-papa, they know that I am a simple papa.

  “Shall I put it in a bag?”

  I expect to see a little glass jar. Instead she takes a gigantic Tupperware box from the fridge, filled to the brim with a carrot-potato-squash soup blended with care.

  “Tomorrow, Yana’s mama will bring you something.”

  That was how it began.

  We went home, the two of us, with our gigantic box of soup. The next day, when I picked up Melvil, I was handed another Tupperware, this time filled with carrot-pumpkin-spinach soup.

  Then the brigade of mothers mobilized. Too many offers for the little belly of a seventeen-month-old boy. They had to get organized. Each one taking her turn.

  On Thursday, coming out of the day-care center, I had not one but two little glass pots in my bag. Manon’s mama had meticulously covered the first with a little square of cloth on which she had written the soup’s ingredients. Carrot–pumpkin–green beans. Around the second, she had noted on a sheet of paper: “Puree of broccoli, potatoes, corn, garlic, and ground lamb.” She must have started over several times, carefully choosing the color of the lids and the little elastic bands that hold the menus in place. As if everything she wanted to give us, give me, overflowed from this too-small pot and ended up in this origami bird that she left inside the bag. As if she had wanted to be there at the moment when I opened it. As if she had wanted to make sure that—even after that, even after that—my insides were looked after. “Bon appétit, Melvil—from Manon and her mama.”

  Friday’s pot is from Victor’s mama. Her specialty is the lightly caramelized apple-pear compote. Inside the bag, next to this meal, is a note bearing words of comfort: “Dear Antoine and Melvil, you can count on me.”

  Friday is also the day when I am supposed to return the containers. The day-care manager, who is in charge of planning the meal schedule, explains how things work to me. Everything must be washed, dried, and put in the little bag, which I will pick up again on Monday, when I leave the day-care center with Melvil.

  So things were organized like that. Without a word from me, the day-care mothers got together to ensure that, every day, Melvil ate meals made with a mama’s love.

  When Hélène was pregnant, we swore we would be the best parents in the world. We settled for being good parents, in particular abandoning our culinary ambitions. Melvil got used to supermarket meals. The first spoonful of soup made by “Salomé’s mama” ended up on the floor. Second spoon, pajamas. Third spoon, wall. That will be the last.

  Melvil never ate a single one of those homemade meals. I emptied the Tupperware boxes into the sink. After washing them, I took them back, and told them that Melvil had eaten it all.

  “Did Melvil like his soup?” After a little nod of affirmation, slightly embarrassed by my white lie, I made sure to give a big smile of someone well fed, which pleased them. “Yes, he ate every last mouthful.” And Melvil, at that moment, gave a little cry of disgust.

  I let them keep this little game going as long as they needed to. They wanted to give a little of a mother’s love to a child who was missing it so badly, and I took it. What did it matter if he actually ate the soup or not? I also understood that my son, although he would never have his own mother’s love, would be given tenderness by all these others, in little pots full of puree.

  I didn’t have the courage to tell them that Melvil never tasted their homemade meals, and that the little pots could not stay in our house. Maybe this is because, even while still full, sitting on the dresser, those pots nourished our hearts with a sweet, maternal tenderness.

  N.

  November 19

  9:00 p.m.

  N. wrote to me tonight. We haven’t talked since I told him about Hélène’s death. He wants to see me. I wait for him at a table on a terrace. Around me, the usual hubbub of a Parisian café on a weeknight. As before. I spot his figure at the corner of the street. He is limping. He has a wound in his buttock, a souvenir of Friday’s horror. I put on a suitable facial expression, then immediately change my mind. I don’t want to play that game.

  I take him in my arms. His is the biggest smile I have seen since Friday. A smile that cannot help but say, “I’m alive.” Yes, he is alive. He sits down and, almost immediately, begins to tell me all about it. The start of the concert. The beer at the bar. The crowded mosh pit. And then the gunfire. The noises, the smells, the bodies. He doesn’t spare me a single detail, he can’t stop, he forces me to watch on fast-forward the movie that stole my life from me.

  I called him that night, ten times, a hundred times, a thousand times. Probably while it was happening. Probably after. And when, at last, he picked up, I just wanted him to tell me that she was okay. That everything was okay. That she was with him. That maybe she was wounded, but she would survive. I wanted him to tell me that they’d been able to escape and run through the Parisian night. I imagined I could already hear the nervous laughter of two survivors. I waited for him to wake me from my nightmare.

  “I can’t tell you anything.”

  A silence as heavy as the words he speaks to me now, at this café. And, with that silence, the horizon of doubt spread all over. The darkest despair and the craziest hope. Hélène, at once dead and alive.

  Now I know. So, between two events in the story of which he is the hero, I realize why he didn’t tell me that night that she had died, in his arms. I realize he is not yet the survivor I see. He is still there, trapped in that scene that is still being played. And when he apologizes for not having been able to tell me, I don’t blame him. In his movie, the characters don’t die. But this is not his movie. That night, November 13, is the story of the moon that will never rise again. He doesn’t know it yet.

  Minute after minute, I become the story he is telling. I note the setting. Commit it to memory. I know that Melvil will soon ask me how Mama died, I know he will want to know everything. So I stay calm. I listen quietly, a spectator to the tragedy of my life that has already begun, which did not wait for its narrator.

  When he has finished, we talk about this and that, trying to pretend that everything has not collapsed. We talk about his wound, about Melvil’s naps, about his shop, which he has reopened. Suddenly everything feels so normal, almost happy, and for a moment it is as if we are teenagers again.

  The beer glasses are empty. We promise never to leave each other’s lives.

  STAY STRONG . . .

  November 20

  10:10 a.m.

  Now, when people ask me “How are you?” they don’t expect the usual formulaic response: “Fine, and you?”—the tacit authorization to move on to another subject of conversation because everything is fine.

  With me, everyone knows that everything is not fine, that after I give my response we will not move on to today’s weather, last night’s TV show, or the latest office gossip. Today, when I am asked, “How are you . . . ,” the delivery is slower, the “are” elongated to draw out the question and delay a potentially embarrassing silence. The person’s head leans, generally to the right, one eyebrow is raised, generally the left, and the person’s mouth is pursed as if to say: “I’m ready to hear everything.” Then there is the look that attempts to dive inside me like a child’s hand dives into a candy jar, hoping to grab, right at the bottom, his favorite pink one. For me, the pink candy is my grief.

  People want to meet me, talk to me, touch me. I am a totem. Assessed, measured, quantified, as if there were a Richter scale of sadness and they felt sure that, with me, they were facing
the Big One. One of those massive earthquakes that happen only one to five times a century. Magnitude 9. Description: “Devastating.” Effects: “Mass destruction of areas over a radius of more than six hundred miles around the epicenter.”

  So I tried to give a reply as conventional as “Fine, and you?” A reply that has the double advantage of ending, before it has even begun, the diagnosis of my emotional state, and giving back the initiative in the conversation to the person who started it. I ended up with the default option of “As well as can be expected,” which allowed me to descend one step on the scale. Magnitude 8. Description: “Major.” Effects: “Considerable damage of all buildings, up to dozens of miles from the epicenter.” But that is not enough.

  So I give a reassuring smile. The same for everyone. Lips closed, one corner of my mouth lifting only slightly, the other a little bit more, my eyes creased. The effect is immediate. Magnitude 7. Description: “Very strong.” Effects: “May cause severe damage over a vast area; near the epicenter, only adapted buildings will survive.”

  My “As well as can be expected” is one of those buildings. It is that little hut that is photographed after the catastrophe, the one that is left miraculously standing while everything around it is in ruins. It may not be much to look at, but it’s still there.

  I keep up appearances. I take the other person by the hand, and reassure him by showing this cardboard city that acts as the set for the movie of my life that I let people see. The streets are clean, the inhabitants peaceful, life seems to go on as normally as possible. But the buildings are only facades, the inhabitants merely extras, and behind this apparent normality, there is nothing, nothing at all. Except, perhaps, this anxiety. What will happen when everyone has moved on to another movie? Will I be alone here in my abandoned set?

  “I’m truly sorry for everything that’s happened. Stay strong . . .”

  I don’t have a ready-made response for that. “See you soon” is a promise; “Take care of yourself,” an invitation. But “Stay strong” is a life sentence. After trying to relieve me of the weight of this grief during the time it takes to have a conversation, the other person hands it back to me, intact. Two little words that reduce my Cinecittà to ashes. Most conversations end like that. The facades fall to the ground, the extras leave the set, and I am unmasked.

  THE FINGERTIP

  November 21

  5:30 p.m.

  Half past five in the afternoon is a wretched time of day. A stray, pointless hour. The one we would like to erase. The walk is over. Dinner is not yet ready. Melvil is too excited to play. I am too tired to be attentive. We are bored. We avoid each other, gauge each other’s mood. Who will give in first? We wish that time would speed up.

  Half past six, at last.

  “Bath time!”

  Our faces light up when I proudly announce this. Bath time is a moment we love to share. Melvil is a little fish in an aquarium. I am the boy who sticks his nose to the glass to watch him swimming. Sometimes I dip my fingers in the water to play. He comes to the surface to nibble them, and wriggles with pleasure. The day’s worries sink quickly to the bottom of the tub, creating a silt of fears, tears, and vexations that whirl down the drain with the bathwater.

  Without her, it is not the same. This was a moment for the three of us. A ritual. I held Melvil tight, while Hélène washed him. Afterward we played, sang, sloshed and splashed around, we laughed.

  Today, we don’t laugh so much. We act as if. As if all this still had some meaning without her. Sometimes, I even half expect her. Tell myself that she will open the bathroom door and join us. Start singing again.

  “Time to come out!”

  My little fish squirms in my arms. He is upset. She was the one who took care of him when he came out of the bathtub, in a delicately choreographed dance. Her hands slid over his shameless little body. He wriggled his toes with happiness at being cuddled like that. She put her nose on his navel, which had been their link. He laughed like he did when he was tickled. She brushed his hair like a little girl brushing her doll’s hair. His chest swelled with pride at all this attention she lavished on him. At the end of this dance, the two partners left each other with a kiss.

  Tonight, I learn a new step. I have to cut his fingernails. I have never done it before. And this time I cannot wait for Hélène to return. I sit him on my lap. He doesn’t flinch. With his little hand in mine, I move the scissors closer, unsure which finger to start with. He fidgets impatiently. I cut the first nail.

  A cry pierces the silence.

  I look at him to reassure myself. He looks at me, surprised. I was the one who cried out. I have cut off the tip of his thumb. I shouldn’t have started with the thumb. I felt something jamming the blades, but kept pressing. I examine his hand. In fact, it’s a bit of skin that I cut off. His thumb, which I imagined amputated, is intact, but the tip is skinned, raw. It’s not bleeding. I put his thumb in my mouth. I feel as if it’s his heart beating between my lips. A little heart, doubly wounded.

  What if he thought I wanted to hurt him? That I did it on purpose! What if he was afraid of me now? Instinctively, I turn around. Look for her. She is not there to reassure me. Not there to guide me. Not there to take over for me.

  The vertigo of solitude. There is only me. And I still have nine nails to go. I feel ashamed. I feel so small. Like a child who wanted to play at being Papa but who didn’t know the rules. But this is a grown-up’s game, and I have lost. I cut his thumb. I want to give up, to climb under the bed and hide. I long for those arms in which I too could cry. For those arms that would do what I am still too small to do. I’m not up to this.

  He is still looking at me, more and more surprised. He is not crying. He is not afraid. He is there. I am there. We are a team. Two adventurers. He is waiting for me to finish so he can play.

  I try again, and I have the impression that he is guiding me. Look, Papa, you do it like this. And we get there. The nail clippings fall one by one to the floor.

  THE RIGHT TO DOZE

  November 22

  9:00 a.m.

  I have just dropped Melvil at day care. He didn’t cry. I move slightly to the side so he won’t see me watching him, behind one of those windowpanes in the center’s glass facade. It is like a big bowl where we can see the fish swimming around. Sometimes we tap on the glass to get them to notice us. He is already playing with his musical book. It is a journey, in the space of a few pages, around the world of instruments. The bandoneon played by a llama, the balalaika by a bear. A fox in a Venetian gondola plays the mandolin.

  At the day-care center, everyone knows. When I arrive each morning, every person I see wears a mask. The carnival of the dead. Even if I tell them the fable of a man who will not lose control, I cannot persuade them to take off the masks. I know that, for them, I am no longer me: I am a ghost, the ghost of Hélène.

  Melvil is alive. Almost as soon as he gets there, the masks come off. He enters on tiptoe, says good-bye to me, smiles, and one burst of laughter is all it takes for the funeral faces to fall to the bottom of the toy chest.

  It is time for me to go home.

  I pick up the mail before walking upstairs. The mailbox is barely even open before a flock of envelopes escapes from it, paper in different shapes and sizes scattering on the floor around me. There are thick envelopes, containing very long letters, a whole life shared with me. There are kraft envelopes, filled with children’s drawings for Melvil. There are simple postcards. For a moment, at least, words have replaced the little box’s usual stack of bills.

  I open the first envelope. Read the postcard inside it as I climb the stairs. Kind words sent from the United States. At the door of the apartment, I pick up a note left by a neighbor: “If you need me to help with your son, don’t hesitate to ask. Your neighbor across the hall.”

  I put the letters on the living room table. The color of one of the envelopes catches my eye.
An old-fashioned off-white. A missive from another age. The paper has a letterhead. The man’s name is Philippe. I imagine a gray-haired gentleman sitting at his writing desk. I slip inside his words. He is reacting to the message I posted on Facebook. His letter is beautiful. I feel snug, curled up in this envelope, where the sun shines. Then, at the bottom of the page, like a signature, these words: “You are the one who was hurt, and yet it is you who gives us courage.”

  Watching from a distance, you always have the impression that the person who survives a disaster is a hero. I know I am not. I was struck by the hand of fate, that’s all. It did not ask me what I thought first. It didn’t try to find out if I was ready. It came to take Hélène, and it forced me to wake up without her. Since then, I have been lost: I don’t know where I’m going, I don’t know how to get there. You can’t really count on me. I think about Philippe, the author of this letter. I think about all the others who have written to me. I want to tell them that I feel dwarfed by my own words. Even if I try to convince myself that they are mine, I don’t know if I will live up to them. From one day to the next, I might drown.

  And suddenly, I am afraid. Afraid that I won’t be able to meet people’s expectations. Will I no longer have the right to lack courage? The right to feel angry. The right to be overwhelmed. The right to be tired. The right to drink too much and start smoking again. The right to see another woman, or not to see other women. The right not to love again, ever. Not to rebuild my life and not to want a new life. The right not to feel like playing, going to the park, telling a story. The right to make mistakes. The right to make bad decisions. The right to not have time. The right not to be present. The right not to be funny. The right to be cynical. The right to have bad days. The right to wake up late. The right to be late picking Melvil up from the day-care center. The right to mess up the “homemade” meals I try to make. The right not to be in a good mood. The right not to reveal everything. The right not to talk about it anymore. The right to be ordinary. The right to be afraid. The right not to know. The right not to want. The right not to be capable.