by Inès Bayard
* * *
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She hasn’t been out for a week. She goes without washing more and more frequently, staying in bed in the dark for whole days. Laurent emails her every evening to ask if everything’s okay. Marie has lost two or three kilos. Her body looks flaccid and white like a battery hen’s. The apartment is soon reduced to a pitiful state, filthy and untidy. On her sheets a repulsive smell mingles with the sweat from her tired, bloated body. She’s stopped depilating her pubic hair and her vagina is dirty, dotted with tiny white particles. By neglecting to wash, she’s refusing to comply, without expending any energy at all.
After two days of isolation she started masturbating for whole afternoons at a stretch, taking her pleasure to suit herself, independent of the false reflection of gratification that a man’s attention produces in a woman when she reaches orgasm. She keeps herself going as best she can with the medication she finds. She takes several sleeping pills a day to make the time pass more quickly. No more links with reality or the outside world: she has stopped charging her cell phone and her Internet connection serves only to maintain a link with Laurent. She never turns on the TV. She doesn’t want to hear other people’s noise. More often than not she lounges on the sofa producing slime like a snail. Her hollow face and desperate eyes are the last pleas of someone condemned to death.
Marie is sad, she’s so ugly, her face and body already ruined. At just thirty-two and destroyed by a lack of life, she sometimes feels as if her blood has stopped flowing, as if it’s stagnating in her exhausted limbs. She tries to survive, to keep her head above water without for a moment envisioning having enough energy to keep on getting up in the morning. Seeing her own smile in the large windows in the living room breaks her heart with self-pity and self-loathing. She must have communicated a fear of loving into her womb, into her entrails that have long since been bogged down in the bitterness that she hopes to pass on to her son. She’s afraid of her body’s weakness, of her mind’s progressive disintegration, of her failed gestures. Everything about her betrays mediocrity, her every attempt to plow on with a dignified life reinforces her intrinsic infirmity, and yet she gets the impression she’s still just about breathing. This could go on for years, but the baby is crying somewhere far away from her. He’ll be coming back into her life.
Dear Laurent,
You don’t know who I am or the state I’m in as I write to you now. You don’t know your own wife. I watch porn films like you. Sitting on the sofa with my laptop on my knees and my panties around my ankles, I drive my fingers into my dirty, hairy pussy and bring them up to my mouth, they smell disgusting, but I really like it. I stopped washing myself and brushing my teeth. I’m not working, not talking, not tidying up, not doing the housework, not changing the sheets or my clothes, not airing the rooms, I stopped flushing the toilet, stopped depilating my pubes, stopped wearing makeup, I’m filling my face with sleeping pills, I stopped throwing my pantyliners in the trash and I have fast food delivered every day. I don’t have any contact with anyone, except once, yesterday, with the checkout girl when I went down to buy some bottles of Coke. I’m not happy but I’m not unhappy either. I’m just waiting for it to be over and most of all avoiding anything energetic. I think a woman can be totally liberated when it’s not her mind that makes the decisions but her body.
I was raped. You didn’t notice anything. Had in every orifice from my pussy to my ass, my ass to my mouth, on the seat of a car while you ate and drank happily with your boss in a restaurant. I didn’t say anything. I went to bed like a good girl, with my body burning, my vagina distended, rubbed raw, bleeding. You went right on destroying my body, ramming it with your fat cock and your fingers.
Thomas isn’t your son. He’s just the product of my assault. I wanted to kill him before he was born by falling down the stairs at my parents’ house. I also tried to make myself miscarry in the hospital by driving a penknife into my womb but the doctor didn’t give me time to do it so I gave up. I carried that child of misery for nine months. I’ve never been able to wash him because his penis disgusts me. I used to smother him in nice-smelling cream so you didn’t notice the stench coming from his cot when you came home from work. Your first intuition was right. I did try to throw him out that night when you saw me on the balcony. I’ve been lying to you from the start and you didn’t notice a thing, you forgive me, you keep justifying my behavior, saying I’m tired and stressed. Roxane, my parents, Sophia, or even Paul—your great gynecologist friend—never tried to understand me. I hate Thomas. I’d like to see him lying dead in my arms someday. I want this nightmare to stop at last. I’ve felt trapped, humiliated, tormented. And I’ve made some choices. I’ve chosen my options as best I could, out of instinct and conscience.
While I’m waiting for you to come back, I’m devoting a lot of time to the pleasure of doing nothing, to be sure everything is just fine. Right now, it’s my pussy that decides when I should masturbate, my body that rejects or accepts personal hygiene, the only resistance to this fatalistic approach comes from what’s left of my sensible mind. Lying in sheets stained with blood and sweat, I can finally make out the possibility of feeling my body quite independently of your male opinion, judgment, and will. A neighbor from the second floor came and rang the doorbell earlier. He complained about the stink in the corridor but I didn’t open the door to him, because I now think throwing things in the trash is just another modern pastime we should avoid.
Marie
Marie saves the letter as “MLT”—Marie Laurent Thomas—and shuts down her computer. Everything is perfectly in order, she feels a sense of total relief. Her only thought now is that just “ML” would have been enough.
The shrill bell on the intercom rings through the apartment. It’s five thirty p.m. and Marie’s still in bed. She struggles to open her eyes to squint at the red numbers on her alarm clock. She remembers yesterday evening. She felt like having cocktails with vodka and pineapple juice. As she drained her third glass she realized she’d taken two sleeping pills a couple of hours earlier. The combination of alcohol and medication sent her into a deep sleep at just six in the evening. She gets up. Her head spins. She’s going to throw up. The bell is still invading her home. Someone’s determined to disturb her. She hasn’t tidied the apartment. She traipses into the corridor, crushes an orange juice carton. The sticky liquid spills over the floor. She kicks aside several greasy fast-food boxes, slides along a wall to reach the front door. Her husband’s entire collection of miniature cars crashes to the floor. The broken pieces roll away, disappearing between the deep floorboards. Marie can’t open her eyes properly, the sleeping pills are still having a powerful effect. With one last effort, resting her elbows on the console table in the hall to stay on her feet, she manages to grab the handset of the intercom. Knowing she won’t be able to articulate a single word, she waits for an answer.
“Marie? It’s Mom.” Her mother is bringing the baby back. Marie drops the handset. Her mother yells to be let in, Marie automatically presses the button. Her body sways forward, backward, in every direction, like a lonely boat in the middle of a storm. She’s lost all her bearings, lost the energy to justify herself, fight her corner, clean, tidy up. Her brain isn’t getting enough blood anymore. It’s too late. She wants to lie down. She heads back to the living room and brushes the leftovers of pizza onto the carpet.
She hears her mother arrive and open the door. “Marie? Where the heck are you?” Then silence. Marie wants to sleep. She can feel her mother’s concern. Thomas is in his buggy, whimpering. “What the hell happened here? You…you need to get some fresh air in here. Marie! What is this?” Irene shakes her daughter’s inert body. She surveys the room. Marie tells her she took some sleeping pills the day before and that she’s still under the influence of them. Her mother gets up, draws back the curtains and opens all the windows one by one. A fresh breeze floods the apartment. There’s air inside again. Irene starts tidying up: with
a garbage bag in one hand she picks up the detritus strewn all over the floor. “I’m going to make you a big mug of strong coffee to wake you up.” Marie hears water running. Her mother helps her to her feet, strips her completely naked. There’s dried blood on her thighs. Her pubic area is dirty, her armpits give off a strong smell of sweat that pervades the whole bathroom, there are long trails of white and yellow in her panties. Irene lifts her up to help her into the scalding water. Marie’s hands are filthy too, her black nails cling to her mother’s skinny arms while Irene battles with all her strength to hold her upright in the bath. Marie closes her eyes, her head leaning on the edge of the tub. Her face is gaunt, pained, puffy in places like an old hobo who has spent all her winters out of doors. “You relax. I’ll be back, I’m going to clean up the apartment and deal with Thomas. I’m staying here tonight.”
In the kitchen, Irene gathers all the plates and things piled up in the sink and puts them into the dishwasher. She doesn’t understand her daughter. She remembers Marie was always a mysterious little girl. As a child, she never lied, but she told the truth only if asked direct questions. Marie’s father also cultivates this tendency for secrecy. Irene’s cell phone rings. She comes back into the living room from the kitchen that’s strewn with trash. It’s Laurent: “I can’t get hold of Marie. I’m kind of worried. Is everything okay? Are you at the apartment with her and Thomas?” Irene says she is, reassures him, tells him everything’s fine and there’s no need to worry. He’s coming home tomorrow evening. She’ll have time to clean everything up and deal with her daughter before he’s back.
She spots the pile of broken photo frames in the corner of the living room. She picks up the picture of Thomas and Laurent and puts it on the sideboard. “I forgot to put them back.” Marie is standing behind her mother. Water drips heavily from the ends of her wet hair.
“You can explain tomorrow if you want to. Right now, off to bed with you or you’ll fall over.”
Marie drifts away, dragging her feet. She isn’t ashamed. There are few women who are genuinely misanthropic and dare to shoulder the onus for not being productive and sociable. A man’s sloppiness is often seen as more natural, an expression of free-spiritedness even. A woman’s goes against nature. Over the course of this short week, Marie has felt rather proud that she belonged to this new generation of women who don’t do a fucking thing and whose only progeny is their own pleasure. Irene works her way through the chaos left by her daughter. Thomas watches from a distance, still strapped into his buggy. Impotently witnessing the catastrophe of his birth.
Marie is rested. She goes to pick up her husband from Charles de Gaulle Airport. His flight from New York is on time and the arrivals gate opens at last. Laurent appears with Julia. They walk side by side, joking together, patting each other’s shoulders. Marie feels anger build inside her. Her hands tighten on the handle of Thomas’s buggy. Wrapped in his big sky-blue blanket, little Thomas is quiet. Laurent is happy to see his family and hurries over to them. He goes to his son first, then turns to his wife. Julia stands to one side. “I’ll take a taxi home.” Laurent offers to drive her home instead, but she politely declines. She doesn’t want to get in the way of their reunion, and gives Laurent a furtive wave. As they go their separate ways, Marie feels that Julia and her husband exchanged a strange look, like the embarrassed little smile someone might direct, with lowered eyes, at a stranger in a nightclub.
In the car Laurent starts describing his trip to Marie. He says how relieved he is to be going home where he can relax with her and Thomas, and not be subjected to endless working dinners with his client. Irene stayed at the apartment last night to look after her daughter. The two women didn’t talk. Marie didn’t explain the state she was in, and her mother didn’t dare ask her what had happened. Laurent is home at last and everything will go back to normal.
* * *
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For the first time since Marie returned to work, her young coworker Mathilde’s office is empty. “The poor little thing’s been ill for more than a week. No one’s had any news.” Marie decides to message her on the cell phone number that Mathilde gave her when they first met. She feels lost without her. Every day for months now Mathilde has helped her use the new tools introduced by the bank, reach her targets, and apply the marketing techniques she learned at college. Her absence is difficult to bear this morning.
Marie’s phone vibrates in her hand. Roxane again. Yesterday Marie’s sister left her three messages to which she’s had neither the time nor the inclination to reply. Roxane wants to know if everything’s okay since Laurent came home. She’s there if Marie needs her. Her final words sound like some sort of last chance: “You can call me whenever you like. I’m here for you, always. I love you.” Irene must have told her the mess Marie was in when she brought Thomas back. The apartment buried under trash, Marie collapsed on the sofa, drugged on sleeping pills, her body dirty and her mind exhausted. Her family are beginning to notice the first signs. Most people think secrets can be kept more easily with passing time, but that’s not true. In the early days, a liar stays alert, vigilant, attentive to the tiniest thing that might destroy the whole construction. Usually no one notices anything, but the logic of the setup is gradually established in people’s minds. They reconstruct the narrative piece by piece, grasp its incoherence, and eventually assemble the rest with elements from their own imagination, elements that inevitably prove right. Marie drives these thoughts from her mind. She’s not watching one of those films where the viewer has no idea from start to finish. She’s the leading lady. She’s the victim who knows everything. She’ll never let her story be completely revealed. She doesn’t deserve to lose everything now.
* * *
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It’s six o’clock and Laurent is due to pick up Thomas from the day nursery this evening. Marie makes the most of this freedom by strolling along the boulevard Magenta. Rain spatters onto her coat. She forgot her umbrella at the office, a major mistake for anyone who lives in Paris. The little stores are still open. She’d like to buy a good steak for Laurent. She’ll serve it with a pepper sauce and roasted potatoes. She’s about to go into the butcher’s shop when she suddenly notices some tables outside a bistro on a street corner across the avenue. “If you’re not coming in, shut the door!” The butcher’s powerful voice startles Marie and she slams the door noisily, to the astonishment of all the customers.
She goes over to one of the bistro tables. Lit up by the infrared heating element on the terrace is Mathilde, Marie’s young coworker, slumped in a chair. She’s unrecognizable. Her eyes stare vacantly. Marie is standing in front of her, only a few yards from her table, but Mathilde hasn’t noticed her. She downs her glass in one swallow. Judging from her state, Marie guesses the drink must be strong liquor. The clothes Mathilde is wearing are the same as she wears to work but they’re badly crumpled and have stains on them. Her hair, soaked from the rain, has been pulled carelessly into a topknot. She clutches clumsily at a passing waiter to ask him for another whiskey and Coke. He tells her she should maybe think about stopping. She retorts that he should go fuck himself. Marie steps slowly closer and says her name quietly. Mathilde doesn’t seem to recognize her. Marie sits at the next table to talk to her. She asks her what’s going on, whether she can help her, why she’s stopped coming to work. Mathilde ignores her for several minutes, rambles aimlessly, calls her a “hopeless case” because of her kid, and sets off on meaningless alcohol-fueled rants. Marie would like to help her but decides she must give up. Now’s not the time. She’s about to leave when Mathilde grabs her by the sleeve of her coat. Her face lights up at last, then tenses. Tears spill over her cheeks, streaking them. She sobs, her hands shake. “Why do men do that to women? I didn’t do anything, didn’t ask for anything! I was happy at the bank, you know…With you I could make myself useful…and…I’d rather die than go back there. Never again!” Marie freezes. Her limbs stiffen. She can’t stay sitting, her
vagina hurts. She’s ricocheted back to that night all over again. The sky was the same, dark and damp. Did he take advantage of her in the car too? Was she subjected to the same torments? How long did her rape go on? Did he come inside her? All these questions remain unspoken. No advice, no guidance can be offered. Marie is overpowered by, broken by her responsibility. This poor child was raped by the same man and almost certainly in the same way as she herself was. Mathilde lets go of Marie’s coat and sips at the dregs in her glass. Marie goes up to the bar to pay Mathilde’s bill. She lifts the young woman’s slender body and supports her under her shoulder to reach the taxi stand opposite the bistro. The girl isn’t heavy. He can’t have found it difficult getting the better of her. Child’s play for a man of his strength.
Mathilde falls asleep in the taxi. When they arrive outside her building, Marie helps her out and goes to the door with her to be sure she gets into her apartment safely. Mathilde lives in a small studio of about thirty-five square meters. The exotic decor suits her: vibrant, young, exciting, full of life. Marie looks at her exhausted, damaged body as she lies down on the sofa, her stained jeans and her dirty hair straggling over the orange cushions. Mathilde doesn’t seem to belong in her studio at all now. Nothing makes sense anymore.
Marie slips away, closes the door softly, and goes back out to the taxi to go home. It’s her fault. If she’d reported the rape the CEO wouldn’t have found another victim. Mathilde’s traumatized expression in the red glow on the terrace, her features strained with anguish, her breath reeking of liquor—it could all have been avoided if she, Marie, hadn’t been such a coward. She’ll never forgive herself. She feels as if she’s suffocating in the taxi. She arches her body, can’t bear the rain relentlessly striking the windshield and the repeated military-sounding noise of the windshield wipers, like sharp thrusts of the hips. “Stop! Let me out here, I want to walk.” The driver refuses, protesting that they’re half way down a wide avenue and there’s nowhere to pull over. Marie opens the door with the car still moving. The driver slams on his brakes. Marie throws a twenty-euro note onto the dashboard and alights in the bustle of the avenue de l’Opéra, to the driver’s receding yells. The fresh air and driving rain whip her face, awakening her energy. The facade of the Opéra Garnier lights up both sides of the avenue. The entrance to the Métro station is teeming with a dense crowd of people, swallowing and spitting back out thousands of travelers over the course of a day, the old subterranean walls constricting, suffering for want of air. Marie wanders aimlessly, she’s jostled, pushed, knocked over, and elbowed several times. She wants people to hurt her, wants them to make her pay for her silence. Her torture isn’t cruel enough, the price she’s paying is too low.