“You’re inconsolable, Genevieve.”
“Ah? . . . maybe. Hauvette,” she says, after another silence, taking a quick glance at the window, “Hauvette was nothing. The important thing in my liaison with this man was that Leo should hear about it. Hauvette in and of himself was nonexistent. The daughter of a mutual friend was getting married. Leo was supposed to come with his wife. Paul Abramowitz was chasing wild salmon in Canada (I had settled the Hauvette question with Abramowitz, made all the easier by the fact that he knew him and thought he was homosexual). I knew that the Fenches would be arriving late because Leo was coming back from the country. My plan was simple and good. To show myself with Hauvette during the first part of the evening and then disappear under some pretext or other before they arrived. You’re interested in these women’s stories,” she says suddenly. “Frankly Samuel, you disappoint me.”
“I’m interested in you, in Leo, in the unreality we were talking about and our return to nothingness.”
“Good, good, good, I’ll go on. I’ll go on,” she said. “Nothing went the way it was planned. The party was in a reception room at the Square du Temple. Instead of arriving late with his wife, Leo arrived early and alone, and without me seeing him come in. He surfaced in front of me, glass in hand, like someone who’s been there some time already (I had been taking care to cling particularly assiduously to Hauvette’s arm in front of any witnesses who might be liable to say to Leo, ‘We’ve seen Genevieve’). I said, ‘Leo.’ He said, ‘Good evening, Genevieve.’ He inspected Hauvette and he said, ‘Monsieur,’ with a nod of the head. At that moment the orchestra struck up ‘Hava Naguila,’ the bridal couple went up onto the platform, everyone applauded them, Leo more warmly than anyone, it seemed to me, and he did something unimaginable to anyone who knew him, he took the hand of a woman, dragged her onto the dance floor, and opened the ball, you might say, in a whirling frenzy, glass in hand, right alongside the bride and groom. Leo, who was the opposite of the life and soul of any party, Leo, whose fantasy and daring had nothing to do with exuberance. This ghastly atmosphere of joy and shared emotion immediately built up and enveloped all the guests, led by Hauvette. At a certain point, I lost sight of Leo. I told Hauvette I wasn’t feeling well, which was absolutely true. I hunted for Leo around the room, someone told me they’d seen him leave, I ran to the cloakroom, there were people arriving and others leaving, I handed my purse to Hauvette, who was following right on my heels like an idiot, I said there’s someone I must speak to, and I hurried outside, half-naked, in mid-winter, no coat, no scarf, nothing. At first I didn’t see him. I started to run in one direction, I had to choose one, I took this street and that, at random, finally where I could see some parked cars I came to a street called rue Charlot, I stopped and I called his name. Farther along this rue Charlot a man halted and I recognized Leo. What is the use of intelligence, Samuel? We are so defenseless in the face of life. ‘Calm down, Genevieve, catch your breath,’ said Leo, opening his car door. ‘It’s all for the best. In some kind of attack of sudden impulse, I’d decided in fact to spend the evening and perhaps the night with you’ (we’d never stayed together a whole night). ‘Thank God your fickle behavior came at exactly the right moment to put an end to such a stupid plan.’ I’m paraphrasing to give you the essence of what he said, Samuel,” says Genevieve, “his words were chosen with such nonchalant cruelty that I can barely reproduce their power to wound. ‘Everything is for the best, my dear. What years of hesitations and agonizing doubts couldn’t bring me to do, you have achieved with decisive grace and the lightest of touches. You’ve finally set me free, Genevieve. And I must admit something to you: while it would have been almost impossible for me to get there on my own, I sincerely envy the ease, the flick of the wrist, with which you eliminated me. Oh, but look who’s coming, look who’s running with all your bits and pieces! Such sedulous devotion, Genevieve, fantastic! Quick, warm her up, Monsieur, she’s shivering, make her as warm as you can, Monsieur, Monsieur . . .?’ ‘Hauvette,’ said Hauvette. ‘Monsieur Ôvette,’ said Leo, getting into his car, ‘take good care of Madame Abramowitz.’ ‘What’s going on?’ asked Hauvette, seeing that I looked stricken. You know, Samuel, what we call courage, pugnacity, are words born of our pride in order to disguise our helplessness when confronted with our fate. ‘Did he do something to offend you?’ he added grotesquely. ‘He’s just wonderful!’ Leo laughed. ‘Monsieur Ôvette, please be good enough to let go of the door, I would like to drive off.’ ‘I don’t like your tone, Monsieur—’ ‘Fench,’ said Leo. ‘I don’t give a shit what your name is,’ snapped Hauvette, ‘I don’t give a shit who you are, I don’t like your tone and I don’t like your effect on Genevieve.’ ‘Monsieur Ôvette,’ said Leo, whose restraint was fraying, ‘if you enjoy indulging in the kind of appalling complication commonly known as an affair, I recommend Madame Abramowitz, I most highly recommend Madame Abramowitz,’ said Leo, who was getting worked up and since Hauvette wouldn’t let go of the car door, he got out of the car again. ‘Madame Abramowitz,’ said Leo, eyeing Hauvette up and down or rather down and up because Hauvette parenthetically was a good head taller than he was, ‘is docile, shy, affectionate, and quick to treachery, she possesses the whole little bag of tricks of contradictory qualities that ensnare you by your basest instincts, one would praise a good household pet, please note, no differently. ’ ‘Genevieve, would you like me to intervene?’ said Hauvette, rising in revolt. ‘Madame Abramowitz likes authoritarian men, my friend, feel free to intervene without asking her permission.’ ‘Shut your face!’ yelled Hauvette in a sudden fit of incivility, seizing a windshield wiper he’d literally yanked off the windshield. And then, I hardly dare tell you this bit,” said Genevieve, “as if this weren’t enough to finish us off, he started trying to threaten Leo with this ridiculous stick (the rubber bit was hanging down off it) and hissing hysterically ‘Get the hell out, get the hell out.’ ‘You know, you got yourself a real daredevil here!’ sneered Leo. ‘One more word to Madame Abramowitz and I’ll slash you,’ yelled Hauvette, pointing his weapon. At that point Leo lost it and with one violent blow he flattened Hauvette’s arm, the windshield wiper, and Hauvette, who crumpled onto the hood. Then he got back into the car, put it in gear before Hauvette had time to get up again, rolled down the window, and yelled, ‘Beat it, you piece of shit,’ and to me, pointing to him, ‘Bravo, Genevieve,
first class
!’ He roared off and I never saw him again. Two days later he was dead.”
We clink glasses in silence. And in silence she and I contemplate, I by dint of twisting around so that I can see him reflected in the glass, the remains of Jean-Louis Hauvette, murderer of Leopold Fench.
The remains don’t amount to much, if truth be told, but then what would remain of an old man sitting alone at a table on Place des Ternes, watching the shadows of passing traffic behind a window?
“Were you angry at him?”
“Terribly.”
“Until this evening?”
“No, not anymore, this evening,” she murmurs, stricken.
We agree that pity has a catastrophic effect on all forms of vitality.
By hating him unflinchingly (and Hauvette was all the more to be hated because unjustly accused), Genevieve had kept Hauvette in focus. She had saved him from old age and oblivion. For as long as anger and resentment lasted, their pitiful story endured too. A slightly hunched back, a general air of solitude, and Genevieve was undone. Everything was undone. Because the only reality is subjective. Enter pity, and Genevieve, Hauvette, and even Leo had all reverted to insignificance. Enter pity and the eroding effects of time (are they the same thing? yes) and the episode in the rue Charlot and the death that followed, and the life that followed, are no more than minute, infinitesimally minute dislocations.
Disturb God.
Take a little step back so that He can enter the world, every day, and several times a day, and your whole life long.
I cannot boast of having taken it. That little step. Not even for a single day. Not even once, I’m ashamed to say, my boy, without expecting a response, without hoping for a hearing. The Jew, the real Jew, says to God, I have obeyed You, come, I’ve made room for you in our world, and I ask nothing, absolutely nothing, from you.
Disturb God. This, yes, this I have done. But you see there are no laws that govern this enterprise. And life, my boy, doesn’t like being disturbed. Mankind aspires to comfort. To disturb life is to take the road of genuine desperation.
“Genevieve, everything beyond the immediate moment is unreal. Soon all three of us will be dead and buried. Let’s invite Jean-Louis Hauvette to join us.”
“How do I look?”
“Beautiful.”
“Old?”
“No.”
“So go.”
Jean-Louis Hauvette is finishing a sole. I say, excuse me, and I tell him that a woman he hasn’t seen for a long time would like to speak to him. He listens to me and turns round toward Genevieve. Then something happens that is totally unforeseen. Genevieve looks up in my direction, makes a gesture I don’t understand, and starts to laugh, laugh uncontrollably, into her napkin. Jean-Louis Hauvette looks at her for a moment and turns back to me. “Who is it?” he asks.
“Genevieve Abramowitz,” I say.
“I’m glad I amuse this person. I have no idea who she is,” he says, sticking a fork into his last potato.
“But you are Jean-Louis Hauvette, aren’t you?” I try stupidly.
“Not at all,” he says, dismissing me.
My son
—what should I have said?
Are you going to go on and on fucking around like this? A little thrill in Malaysia, a little dose of culture in Jordan, then three months off with more people who like to fuck around in the Luberon. The world is within reach of absolutely anybody these days. And everything is familiar, everything is overrun. Not one place left
untouched
. I finally have a certain sympathy for the Afghans and all religious fanatics in general. You’re not going to go visiting them, at least. Whole herds of you aren’t going to go trash the slopes of Pamir.
My son.
Did you open the fridge? Have you taken in the sad sight of the fridge? Here or in the rue Ampère, same fridge, same sad sight. Nancy doesn’t give a damn, she’s above these trivialities, and Dacimiento never buys what I like. When I open the fridge now, what do I see? Caramel puddings, cream cheese with fruit, and yogurt drinks. For Jerome, obviously. Jerome, who’s here three times a month, sets the rules in my fridge. Jerome is apparently a particularly precocious child. At the age of two and a half, he can make rhymes. The other day your sister said “bread and butter, see,” . . . “pretty face on me” was Jerome’s immediate response. General bedazzlement. In which I joined. I’m not an expert, maybe it is extraordinary, age two and a half, to say pretty face on me when someone says bread and butter, see. In any case, he’s a coddled, loved, and praised little creature, and he’s off to a good start, as far as I can make out. You, my poor boy, you never had any Pop Tarts or Dannon yogurts (the brand names stick in my brain the moment I close the fridge), I don’t remember your very first efforts at poetry and if I loved you, I certainly didn’t build an altar to your status as a child. Nancy’s and your mother’s version: I traumatized you. The examples they quote me are ridiculous. One day—one episode among others— your mother and I went to see your teacher, you were beginning to read and write. The teacher was satisfied: I’m pleased, she said, he’s become socialized this year; last year he didn’t join in the other children’s games, he stayed in his own world and asked questions that are not appropriate at that age. Your mother and the teacher congratulated themselves on this happy development, and instead of joining in, I gave you the cold shoulder (a child of five!) because I was incapable of being pleased that you were mixing with other children and becoming part of the herd. Another story about school, from later on, you came home from high school with the results of a math test. You had come fifth and you were over the moon at coming fifth (you were usually second from the bottom). Instead of promising you a model Spitfire, I apparently said to you in a disappointed voice, “And why not first?” Upon which you burst into tears, ran into your room, and slammed the door howling, “You’re never satisfied, you’re so mean!” Jerome will certainly be able to tell his father he’s so mean without causing the least upset. In my day, nobody talked to his father like that. I went straight into your room and gave you a hiding.
The funny part of it is that instead of hardening you up, I produced a weakling. And I didn’t even make an enemy of you. If only you were my enemy, at least! In the spineless perversity of your inertia, I detect indifference, even a whiff of condescension. If I was wrong, I’ve certainly been punished for it. I’ve created a perfect stranger.
Nancy, who likes to sing your praises—if you go in for generosity, the conciliating stepmother is a favorite tune to play—had this curious thing to say: “One accepts things from one’s children one wouldn’t accept from anyone else.” “How do you mean, my love” (I’m as gentle as a lamb with Nancy from now on), “is that a victory or a surrender?” “Neither one nor the other,” she said, exasperated, “it’s just a fact.” I have never argued with Nancy. During the blessed time when she was depressed, I used to take her indifference for agreement and since she started priding herself on being able to cross swords with me intellectually, I keep my mouth shut. So you are going to be the first to savor the answer I didn’t give her. Children, Nancy, I could have said to her if time’s abrading passage hadn’t separated us as much as it has, children, my dear little Nancy, are the lowest rung on the ladder of human desires. If we conceive them, we do so at least in the hope of having
someone to talk to
at the end of our lives. I am already in the process, Nancy, of accepting my old age and the defeat of my body. I accept that I’ve lost the game of life in the same way that one loses at solitaire, I accept that, just as I accept these days that things are slowing down, I can even accept that there’s nothing going on, provided my body holds out a little longer, I accept that my light is slowly going out and I accept the ordinary death that will step into my place. I am in the process, Nancy, of accepting how modest a chapter in time mine has been.