The Erotic Potential of my Wife (13 page)

Justine was not the problem. Justine had a body that would have made any teenager fantasise, as well as any man who took himself for an eternal teenager. She had an unusual style in bed. But time, in its most clichéd tragedy, had thwarted their erotic games. Ernest was lying to himself; he knew it had less to do with the passing of time than his unalterable love for women. He had cheated on her with Clarisse, and the marks of her nails had almost put an end to their marriage. Perhaps things ought to have happened this way? By weakness (marriage makes you weak), by fear of a certain solitude common to these situations, they had found each other again. She had forgiven him, which meant that she had not been able to envisage a life without him. She remained persuaded that this woman had been his only mistress. She was wrong; Ernest had not ceased creating all sorts of stories to live out. Obsessed by women, their movement and their grace, he could not recall any moment of his life where a woman, unknown or almost known, had not haunted him. During his lunch breaks he sometimes walked in the street just to see women walking. This tyranny in fresh air made him a slave seated in the sensual dictatorship.

Why was he telling him all that? Hector found this story very common. He did not think there was anything pathological to such a passion. Many men loved women in an excessive, hysterical way. He did not understand that Ernest envied him for his fixed passion. His passion for the washing was monogamous. Not only did he only love his wife, but in addition he loved a precise action of hers! For all men exhausted by the incessant movement of stiletto heels, Hector seemed like a restful oasis. What he considered a pathologic tyranny was a sterilised paradise. Ernest longed to love Justine insanely when she washed the windows. He too wanted to experience sedentary sensual fascination.

Alone, Hector felt disgusted. The people we admire do not have the right to expose us to their weaknesses. This brother who had been a role model had just flown away like a deflated balloon. His wife had stopped him feeling guilty, his brother had just mythified him, he who had been the fifth wheel of a social coach had suddenly become a stable man. At that pace, it would not be long before he would be considered charismatic. ‘
A stable man
’: the expression fascinated him. People would soon ask him for advice, and he would know how to answer. He would read the pink pages of
Le Figaro
, and would finally vote for the Right. While he was daydreaming (you would think that they had spread the word), Gérard showed up unannounced.

‘My sister’s not here?’

‘No, Brigitte is not here.’

‘That’s good. It’s you I came to see.’

Before, no one ever came to see him unannounced.

Hector and his brother-in-law had not seen each other since the famous blackmail affair that ended in torture. It goes without saying that no one else knew about this; enemies in violence often unite in silence. They both maintained a wonderful memory of their sportive, and extra-sportive, afternoon. They hugged an instant too long for this Saturday. Gérard scrutinised Hector’s face, and, as a connoisseur, admired his scarring prowess. There was practically no souvenir left from the beating. Not even the teeth; two new ones filled the void with the charisma of their calcium.

Hector offered a coffee, or any kind of beverage that would prove his convivial spirit. Gérard, for many weeks, had thought a lot. His brain, not being in the habit of such a use, almost overheated. The motive of his reflections: the lie of his life. It was not possible to continue like this! He was not allowed to be loved and admired for false pretences. Before his brother-in-law’s threat, he had however forgotten that it was a pure product of his mythomania. He had rehashed his false exploits so many times that he had persuaded himself he had won Ouarzazate-Casablanca. If everyone believed him, it had to be true. And then, there were the friends from the photomontage (the neighbours): they too used the photo to prove their presence on the podium of the famous race. So the three of them recalled the race from time to time, inventing more and more extravagant details every time. How not to believe it in such conditions? Until the day Hector had come to shake up the myth of his life. After the attack, he could no longer look at himself in the mirror; you did not cheat on the other side. He remained persuaded that his life, without this event, was not worth anything in others’ eyes.

In others’ eyes
.

Hector repeated this expression in his head. Everything seemed very simple to him. His whole life, in accumulating the most absurd objects, he too had wished to appear important by building a material identity for himself. Raised by a moustache and a soup, his benchmarks had produced hot air. Ouarzazate-Casablanca was a collection like any other. Every person found his fantastical nourishment. The guiltless Hector explained to Gérard the extent to which he should not say anything. He needed to assume and conserve the sources of his happiness.

‘Are you happy when you talk about this race?’

Gérard’s lit-up face was worth all the talk. He was not allowed, under the absurd pretext of transparency, to remove himself from his greatest climax. For this was his way, the admiration he provoked in the eyes of those he loved. The search for enlightenment could seem sane, but it did not necessarily make you happy. We should not seek to annihilate our lies and impulses. To admit them should be sufficient. He thought back to his brother and his suffering under the dictatorship of women. He could now find the words. Gérard was observing Hector’s face. After a silence, he confirmed that he should above all not admit anything. It was advice from the one who had wanted to denounce him! He understood nothing. And it was a feeling that Gérard knew well, not to understand.

Convinced by his brother-in-law not to say anything, Gérard breathed easy again, judging absurd these introspective weeks. He knew deep down that he would never have been able to confess. Like in the Romand affair, he would have been forced to gun down his parents while telling them the truth. His sister finally came home. He found her beautiful, but did not comprehend her full radiance at that moment. It’s true that she was feeling better and better. Brigitte threw herself on her brother, so happy was she to see him. She felt his muscles, and surmised that his recent disappearance resulted from a great occupation to tone and tighten his athletic physique. He answered that she was entirely right, not without having winked discreetly in Hector’s direction. The latter gave him a knowing glance. When you live on a well-oiled lie, things roll really easily. Others spend their time making hypotheses, asking questions, so that all that the liar needs to do is to answer yes or no.

Brigitte, as a sublime homemaker, was never taken by surprise when a familial guest invited himself. There were always two or three nibbles (stylish expression) that could be heated hastily. She could even be heard laughing in the kitchen, alone and happy. ‘Is she not slightly bordering hysteria?’ her husband asked himself. And then, he thought of something else, not to drift towards another urge for washing which would have been awkward in front of Gérard.

The phone rang.

‘I’m in the kitchen, can you get it, my love?’

Hector stood up. It was Marcel. He was not angry about the nudist dinner. What a relief! Hector had not dared call him after what had happened; he was far too embarrassed. Marcel’s voice was incredibly sparkly. Laurence was very close since her heavy breathing could be heard. She whispered: ‘So, what’s he saying?’ Marcel had placed his hand on top of the receiver to answer Laurence: ‘Just wait, how do you want me to talk to him, if you stick to me like that! Let me first relax the atmosphere!’ If Marcel had always been incredibly nice with Hector, this conversation seemed to surpass all these moments of niceness. We could frankly say that Marcel was sucking up to his friend. He was saying that it had been an age since they had seen each other, he missed him, the four of them should go on holiday together, and soon another dinner (not one allusion to the exhibitionist scene), etc. Finally, he asked how Brigitte was.

Marcel stopped and caught his breath. Yes, how is she? Hector admitted that he had detected the beginnings of hysteria in his wife, and laughed. Marcel quickly joined in the laugh. Finally he dared to ask: ‘Well, Laurence and I, we would really like … well, this could seem weird to you … that Brigitte come back to wash our windows …’ Hector burst out in laughter; it was incredible having such funny friends. And in seeing Brigitte go out of the kitchen, he hung up because they had to eat.

Once seated at the table, Brigitte asked what they had wanted, and especially if they were angry for the other night.

‘Not only are they not angry … But Marcel just made a joke, asking if you want to come and wash their windows!’

‘Ah that’s funny. They are taking their revenge …’

Gérard did not understand anything about this conversation, so he took matters into his own hands, and evoked Ouarzazate-Casablanca, against all odds.

Brigitte visited her parents. She tried to see them once a week. When Hector did not use it as an opportunity to go to his mother’s, he joined Brigitte with pleasure. His parents-in-law would have been ideal parents. Simple, kind, attentive, it was even possible to discuss this, that and the other with them. Since a few months ago, they had aged terribly. Especially the father who couldn’t easily walk anymore. His whole life he had adored leaving the conjugal home to go on walks, more or less long. He often went to smoke cigarettes in cafes, and play cards while telling misogynist jokes. His relationship had surely held together because of these escapades. Not being able to walk anymore, what bothered him the most was incontestably to see his wife all day long. Old age reduces couples’ vital space. You ended up on top of each other, as though you were preparing for a concession. At that age where there was nothing left to say to each other, it was necessary to string platitudes together. Brigitte took the role of referee during these visits. She relished the good points, and did not seek to reconcile them. Her father spoke less and less; it hurt her not to be able to find any topics of conversation that interested him anymore. He never wanted to talk about the past. And finally, neither about the present nor the future. So, she would observe him, this old man who was her father. His face creased by skin as tight as the time left in his life. Far from depressing her, watching him made her think more than ever that she had to profit from life. Her father’s face, in its decrepitude, had surely weighed in her attitude during her marital crisis.

Brigitte always turned up in a really vivacious way; and, before sinking back to his daily nothingness, her father would sigh: ‘Ah, that’s my girl!’ She would go out shopping for groceries with her mother, she always brought gifts to enliven the place. During her last visit, Brigitte’s mother had alluded to their wish to leave France, to go to a home in Toulon. It would clearly be a great deal more difficult for her and her brother to go to see them; was that not a distancing strategy, like plopping down in front of death’s door? She did not really want to think about it, she was focusing on concrete things. She spoke again about Mrs Lopez, the adorable cleaning lady her mother had fired for an obscure reason: ‘She does not know how to do anything as it should be!’ It was maybe a way of punishing herself for not being able to do it anymore. Brigitte lost her temper and said that they really needed to find someone else. They weren’t really going to embed themselves in filth? She asked her father what he thought: he did not give a shit. So Brigitte did not have any other choice than to give the place a quick hoover, and dust the furniture. When she saw the filthiness of the windows, she did not dare. She smiled, especially in remembering the dinner at Marcel and Laurence’s. And then, she launched into it. The context was so different!

In seeing his daughter get busy, her father got angry at her mother: ‘Next week, I don’t want to hear anything about it, you are going to call Mrs Lopez!’ That was exactly what Brigitte wanted, to put some life back into this place, get her father to invest himself once again in their daily lives. She washed the windows so well that her mother was surprised … She said to herself ‘You would think she does this every day’ without knowing how right she was. Her husband kindly asked her for something to drink; it had been almost three decades that he had kindly asked his nagging wife for anything. His throat had suddenly become dry. She was thirsty as well. However, she was sure she had drunk a glass of water not five minutes ago.

After two minutes of tremendously efficient washing, Brigitte turned around. The vision reminded her of Marcel and Laurence. Her parents, for the first time since so long, were sitting next to each other. United in contemplation.

‘How beautiful you are, my daughter!’ exclaimed her mother.

The father, for his part, felt embarrassed, encumbered by a sensation as gentle as it was unhealthy. He could not allow himself to admit it – it was his beloved daughter – but it seemed to him that he had felt a slight twinge of excitement. She had such a gentle way of cleaning the windows, so … how to say it … well … so …

‘Maybe we don’t have to call Mrs Lopez … if you don’t mind my darling … you could clean the windows from time to time …’

Brigitte had perceived emotional fragility in her father’s tone. His feverishness was touching, Brigitte agreed to do it. She had punctuated her agreement with a delicious pout, in the manner of naughty girls who are always forgiven. After having washed the windows, she kissed her parents with tenderness. She felt that something strange had happened. You could believe at that moment that they were finally going to be happy. Her father made an effort that had seemed inhuman to him until now, in pulling himself off his armchair to sit down straight at his wife’s side; on the porch, they made signs together to say goodbye. On the way home, Brigitte let sweet thoughts drift inside her. It seemed to her – and it was a sublime lunacy – that she suddenly possessed the gift to keep them alive.