Whatever: a novel (15 page)

I raised my eyes, looked her way. She had a somewhat astonished air. Finally she came out with: `That's interesting, the mirror . . '. She must have read something in Freud, or in The Mickey Mouse Annual. In the last analysis she was doing what she could, she was kind. Plucking up courage, she added:

-But I'd prefer that you spoke directly of your problems. Once again you're being too abstract.

-Maybe. But I don't understand, basically, how people manage to go on living. I get the impression everybody must be unhappy; we live in such a simple world, you understand. There's a system based on domination, money and fear - a somewhat masculine system, let's call it Mars; there's a feminine system based on seduction and sex, Venus let's say. And that's it. Is it really possible to live and to believe that there's nothing else? Along with the late nineteenth-century realists, Maupassant believed there was nothing else; and it drove him completely mad.

-You're mixing everything up. Maupassant's madness was only a classic stage in the development of syphilis. Any normal human being accepts the two systems you're talking about.

-No. If Maupassant went mad it's because he had an acute awareness of matter, of nothingness and death - and that he had no awareness of anything else. Alike in this to our contemporaries, he established an absolute separation between his individual existence and the rest of the world. It's the only way in which we can conceive the world today. For example, a bullet from a .45 Magnum may graze my cheek and end up hitting the wall behind me; I'll be unscathed. Taking the opposite example, the bullet will splatter my flesh, my physical suffering will be enormous; will be enormous; at the end of the day my face will be disfigured; perhaps the eye will be splattered too, in which case I'll be both disfigured and blind; from then on I'll inspire repugnance in other men. At a more general level, we are all subject to ageing and to death. This notion of ageing and death is insupportable for the individual human being, in the kind of civilization we live in it develops in a sovereign and unconditional manner, it gradually occupies the whole field of consciousness , it allows nothing else to subsist. In this way, and little by little, knowledge of the world's constraints is established. Desire itself disappears; only bitterness, jealousy and fear remain. Above all there remains bitterness ; an immense and inconceivable bitterness. No civilization, no epoch has been capable of developing such a quantity of bitterness in its subjects. In that sense we are living through unprecedented times. If it was necessary to sum up the contemporary mental state in a word, that's the one I'd undoubtedly choose: bitterness.

She didn't reply at first, thought for a few seconds, then asked me:

-When did you last have sexual relations?

-Just over two years ago.

-Ah! she exclaimed, almost in triumph. There you are then! Given that, how can you possibly feel good about life? . . .

-Would you be willing to make love with me?

She was flustered, I think she even blushed a bit. She was forty, thin and very much the worse for wear; but that morning she appeared really charming to me. I have a very tender memory of that moment. She was smiling, somewhat despite herself; I even thought she was going to say yes. But finally she collected herself:

-That's not my role. As a psychologist my role is to equip you to undertake the process of seduction so that you might again have normal relations with young women.

For the remaining sessions she had herself replaced by a male colleague.

It was around about this time that I began taking an interest in my companions in misery. There were few deranged types, mainly sufferers from depression and anxiety; I suppose that was deliberate. People who experience these kinds of states quickly give up drawing attention to themselves. On the whole they remain lying down all day with their tranquillizers; from time to time they take a turn in the corridor, smoke four or five cigarettes, one after the other, then go back to bed. Meals, however, constituted a collective moment; the nurse on duty used to say

`Help yourselves.' No other word was uttered; each person chewed his food. Sometimes one of the inmates was overcome by a fit of trembling, or began to sob; he went back to his room, and that was that. The idea gradually dawned on me that all these people - men or women - were not in the least deranged; they were simply lacking in love. Their gestures, their attitudes, their dumb show betrayed an excruciating craving for physical contact and caresses; but that wasn't possible, of course. So they sobbed, emitted cries, lacerated themselves with their nails; during my stay we had a successful attempt at castration.

As the weeks went by my conviction grew that I was there to accomplish some prearranged plan - a bit like how in the Gospels Christ accomplishes what the prophets had already announced. At the same time the intuition was dawning that this stay was just the first in a succession of progressively longer internments in increasingly closed and tougher psychiatric establishments. The idea saddened me enormously.

I saw the psychologist from time to time in the corridor, but no real interchange came about; our relations had taken a highly formal turn. Her work on anxiety was progressing, she told me; she had to take some exams in June.

Doubtless I have some vague existence today in a doctoral dissertation, alongside other real-life cases. The thought of having become an item in a file calms me. I imagine the volume, its cloth binding, its slightly sad cover; I gently flatten myself between the pages; I am squashed.

I left the clinic on 26th of May; I recall the sunshine, the heat, the atmosphere of freedom in the streets. It was unbearable.

It was also on a 26th of May that I'd been conceived, late in the afternoon. The coitus had taken place in the living room, on a fake Pakistani rug. At the moment my father took my mother from behind she'd had the unfortunate idea of stretching out a hand and caressing him on the testicles, so adroitly that ejaculation was produced. She'd felt pleasure, but not true orgasm. They'd eaten cold chicken afterwards. That was thirty-two years ago now; at that time you could still find real chicken.

On the subject of my life, post-clinic, I had no precise instructions; I just had to show up once a week. The rest of the time it was, however, up to me to look after myself.

6

Saint-Cirgues-en-Montagne

As paradoxical as it may seem, there is a road to travel and it must be travelled, yet
there is no traveller. Acts are accomplished, yet there is no actor.

- Sattipathana-Sutta, XLII, 16

On 20 June of the same year, I got up at six a.m. and turned on the radio, Radio Nostalgie to be exact. There was a song by Marcel Amont which spoke of a swarthy Mexican: light, carefree, a bit silly; exactly what I needed. I got washed listening to the radio, then collected a few things together. I'd decided to go back to SaintCirgues-en-Montagne; at least, to have another stab at it.

Before setting off, I finish what there is left to eat in the house. This is somewhat difficult as I'm not hungry. Fortunately there isn't much: four biscuits and a tin of sardines. I don't know why I'm doing it, it's obvious that these products keep. But it's been a while since the meaning of my actions has seemed clear to me; they don't seem clear very often, let's say. The rest of the time I'm more or less
in the position
of observer
.

On entering the compartment I'm aware, even so, that I'm gradually losing it; I choose to ignore this, and settle into a seat. At Langogne I rent a bicycle at the SNCF

station; I've telephoned in advance to reserve it, I've organized things well. Then I get on the bike, and am instantly aware of the absurdity of the project: it's ten years since I've done any cycling, Saint-Cirgues is forty kilometres away, the road there is very mountainous and I feel barely capable of covering two kilometres on the flat. I've lost all aptitude, and what's more all appetite, for physical effort.

The road will be permanent torture, but rather abstract, if you can say that. The region is totally deserted; you penetrate deeper and deeper into the mountains. I suffer, I've dramatically over-estimated my physical reserves. And the final goal of the journey no longer seems so wonderful, it becomes more nebulous as I ascend these unavailing and endless gradients without even looking at the landscape.

Right in the middle of one difficult climb, as I'm gasping like an asphyxiated canary, I spot a sign: `Caution. Shot-firing'. Despite everything, I find it a little hard to believe. Who'd be after me here?

The explanation dawns on me a little while later. In fact the sign refers to quarrying; it's only rocks, then, that are to be destroyed. I like that better.

The going gets flatter; I raise my head. To the right of the road there is a hill of rubble, midway between dust and small pebbles. The sloping surface is grey, of a geometric and absolute flatness. Very enticing. I'm sure if you set foot there you'd sink straight down for several metres.

From time to time I stop beside the road, I smoke a cigarette, I shed a few tears and then I press on. I wish I were dead. But 'there is a road to travel, and it must be travelled.'

I arrive at Saint-Cirgues in a pathetic state of exhaustion and I make for the
Parfum
des Bois
hotel. After a short rest I go and drink a beer in the hotel bar. The people of the village have a friendly and welcoming air; they bid me good day.

I hope no one is going to engage me in conversation of a more precise kind, ask me if I'm doing a spot of tourism, where I've come from by bike, if I find the region to my taste, etc. But happily none of this occurs.

My margin of manoeuvre in life has become singularly restricted. I still envisage a number of possibilities, but they vary only in points of detail.

The dinner will settle nothing. Still, I've taken three Tercians in the meantime. And here I am, alone at my table, I've asked for the gastronomic menu. It is absolutely delicious; even the wine is good. I cry while eating, emitting little sobs.

Later, in my room, I will try and sleep; once more in vain. The sad cerebral routine; the passing of a night that seems frozen in time; the images that are disbursed with increasing parsimony. Whole minutes to straighten the bedspread.

Around four in the morning, though, the night takes on a different cast. Something is stirring deep within, asking to be revealed. The very nature of this journey is undergoing a change: in my mind it becomes something decisive, almost heroic.

On 21 June, around seven, I get up, have my breakfast and leave by bike for the Forest of Mazan. Yesterday's hearty dinner has had the effect of giving me renewed strength; I ride supply, effortlessly, through the pines.

The weather is wonderfully fine, pleasant, springlike. The Forest of Mazan is very pretty and also profoundly reassuring. It is a real country forest. There are gently rising paths, clearings, a sun which penetrates everywhere. The meadows are covered in daffodils. One feels content, happy; there are no people. Something seems possible, here. One has the impression of being present at a new departure.

And of a sudden all this evaporates. A great mental shock restores me to the deepest part of myself. And I take stock, and I ironize, but at the same time I have respect for myself. What a capacity I have for grandiose mental images, and of seeing them through! How clear, once more, is the image I have of the world! The richness of what is dying inside me is absolutely prodigious; I needn't feel ashamed of myself; I shall have tried.

I stretch out in a meadow, in the sun. And now it hurts, lying down in this softest of meadows, in the midst of this most amiable and reassuring of landscapes. Everything which might have been a source of pleasure, of participation, of innocent sensual harmony, has become a source of suffering and unhappiness. At the same time I feel, and with impressive violence, the possibility of joy. For years I have been walking alongside a phantom who looks like me, and who lives in a theoretical paradise strictly related to the world. I've long believed that it was up to me to become one with this phantom. That's done with.

I cycle still further into the forest. On the other side of that hill is the source of the River Ardèche, the map says. The fact no longer interests me; I continue nevertheless. And I no longer even know where the source is; at present, everything looks the same. The landscape is more and more gentle, amiable, joyous; my skin hurts. I am at the heart of the abyss. I feel my skin again as a frontier, and the external world as a crushing weight. The impression of separation is total; from now on I am imprisoned within myself. It will not take place, the sublime fusion; the goal of life is missed. It is two in the afternoon.