Happy Are the Happy (9 page)

Yesterday I whipped Juliette with the dog’s leash, I said. Lionel said, you have a dog? Robert was in his kitchen, making a spaghetti dish for us with a Neapolitan sauce. That’s the way I prefer to see them, my two jackass friends. Sitting around a kitchen table. Without the women. On our own and at our worst,
dixit
Lionel. I beat my daughter with the dog’s leash, I repeated. After an argument caused by her insolence, just as she was leaving the room I said, and don’t slam the door! She slammed it all the harder. I picked up the leash, which was lying around somewhere, caught her in the hall, and gave her a thrashing. I didn’t feel at all sorry or embarrassed, but rather a sort of relief. That child carries on a reign of terror in the house, she screams at us in this incredibly shrill voice. When Anne-Laure found out I’d whipped our daughter with the dog’s leash, she went mute and her features got all distorted. She makes faces like a character in the Yiddish theater to signify her contempt. It’s something new. Then she left the room and came back a few minutes later, resolutely silent in that punitive way women have, to display the cuts on the arm and back. I said, serves her right. Juliette, her face all red and swollen, looked me up and down and said, I hate you. I thought she looked cute, and she spoke in a normal tone of voice. Anne-Laure said to me, you ought to see someone. Do you think I need to see someone? I asked. Lionel said, I didn’t remember you had a
dog. —Actually a long rat. Call that a dog. This wine is really good. Brunello di Montalcino 2006, excellent. I’ve got no more patience with women. The other day I had my mother talking on the telephone, Anne-Laure in front of the mirror finding wrinkles, and Juliette yelling at her sister, and I said to myself, what the fuck? I’m going to ask the paper to send me somewhere far away. How about Paola? Robert asked, do you still see her? —Yes. But I’m going to stop. You haven’t said anything to Odile, have you? —No, no. Why are you going to stop? —Because there comes a moment when the conventional woman starts to show through the courtesan. The only girls I like are the kind that go to sailors’ bars, and yet I somehow wind up captivating semi-intellectuals who invite me to poetic evenings. She’s worth a lot more than you are, Robert said. —The very thing I have against her. And by the way, what’s with Virginie Déruelle? Anything happening there? Who’s she? Lionel asked. A little thing he met at his gym and wants to pass on to me, Robert said. —And passed on to you. —Whatever. —Fine, so tell. Robert laughed, pulled a long strand of spaghetti out of the pot, and said, taste it, is it cooked enough? Should I give it a little longer? —It’s good. Tell us! —No. Even though his friends gave him invaluable advice before he set out on his little adventure, he’s content to live it all by himself, I said to Lionel. At that same moment, we heard howling music coming from somewhere in the apartment. —What’s that? It’s Simon, Robert said, he’s going to get us kicked out of the building, the little asshole. He abandoned the pasta and went running down the hall. The music stopped cold. We could hear them parleying at great length. He came back with his younger son, who looks like a really nice little boy.
I would have liked to have a son. Robert said, if the neighbors knock on the door, your brother can deal with their shit on his own. And I’ll be behind them one hundred percent. What would you like? Some milk? Antoine muttered, some black currant juice. —Not at night, not after brushing your teeth. Black currant juice, Antoine repeated. —Why don’t you want milk, you like milk! I want black currant juice, Antoine said. Shit, give the kid some black currant juice, I said, what the hell difference does it make? Robert poured him a glass of black currant juice. —Now go on, buddy, back to bed. Robert drained the spaghetti and poured it into a dish on the table. Lionel said, we had the same problem with Jacob for years. The neighbors spent their lives knocking on our door or ringing our bell. And how is Jacob? Robert asked. Is he still doing that internship in London? Lionel nodded. An internship in what again? I asked. —He’s with a record company. —Which one? —It’s a small label. —Is he happy? —He seems to be. Robert was busy serving us. He grated some Parmesan cheese. He chopped up some basil and strewed it on the sauce. He set out the condiments, Sicilian olive oil, chili oil. He refilled our glasses. It was good to be together, just us three. I said, it’s good to be here, just us three. We drank toasts. To friendship. To old age. To the quality of the old folks’ home we were going to wind up in. And let’s drink to the rare honor of basking in Lionel’s presence, Robert said. Lionel tried to protest. Go on, admit it, I said, he’s right, you’re never free. It’s easier to get an appointment with Nelson Mandela than with Lionel Hutner. Hey, hey, where’s your sense of humor, I was just kidding. You’re the only one of us who’s managed to be happy as part of a couple. I’m sure that
takes up a lot of your time. The door opened and there was Simon, Odile and Robert’s older boy. A child’s body topped by wavy brown locks, mysteriously sticky and brushed down over his forehead, a sign that he was concerned with style. What’s the problem now? Robert asked. We’d like not to be disturbed anymore, if that’s possible. —Is there any black currant juice left? Oh, wow, pasta, awesome, can I taste it? —Fix yourself a plate and disappear. I contemplated the joy and excitement in the boy’s eyes while he stood there in red pajamas he’d grown out of and formed the spaghetti, tomato sauce, and Parmesan into a little mound on his plate. I waited until he picked up his black currant juice with his free hand and left the room, and then I said, he’s happy, that’s a disposition. You can’t be happy in love unless you have a happy disposition. My dear young friend, Robert said, keep it up and you’ll manage to ruin the evening. Concentrate on the pasta. Do I hear any compliments? Excellent, Lionel said. —When we die, Anne-Laure and me, the balance sheet will be cataclysmic. But who’s going to worry about figures? I will have ruined my life, and I totally won’t give a shit. I’m thinking about starting judo in September. I want some pasta too, said Antoine, who had just reappeared. You already ate, you’re such a pain in the ass, the two of you, go back to bed, Robert bawled. —Why does Simon get to eat twice? —Because he’s twelve. That’s bound to convince him, I interjected. Robert grabbed a plate and threw a handful of spaghetti on it. No sauce, just Parmesan, Antoine said. —Go on, get out of here. Robert uncorked another bottle of Brunello. We’re not hearing much from you, I said to Lionel. Lionel looked funny. He was staring at the bottom of his glass and turning it in his hand. Then he announced in a sepulchral voice,
Jacob’s been committed. Silence followed. He said, he’s not in London, he’s in a mental clinic in Rueil-Malmaison. Can I count on your complete discretion? Not a word to Anne-Laure, Odile, or anyone else. Of course, Robert and I said. Of course. Robert filled Lionel’s glass. Lionel took several consecutive sips. —Do you remember how much he liked … how he was infatuated with … with Céline Dion? As soon as he spoke the name, Lionel broke into a spluttering laugh, an irrepressible laugh, his eyes red and misty, his body shaken by spasms. We were petrified to see him laughing like that. He tried to say something else, but it seemed that all he could do was to repeat that name, never with entire success, because his voice was strangled and every attempt was drowned in a tragic hilarity. He wiped the tears off his cheeks with the palms of his hands. We weren’t sure where those tears had come from, whether from laughing or weeping. After a brief while, he calmed down. Robert patted his shoulder. We stayed like that, the three of us, seated around the table. Not understanding anything and not knowing what to do. Eventually Lionel stood up. He ran water in the sink and splashed his face several times. Then he turned to us and said, making a visible effort to utter the words, Jacob imagines he’s Céline Dion. He’s
convinced
he’s Céline Dion. I didn’t dare look at Robert. Lionel had spoken that last sentence with extreme solemnity, and he was examining us with terrified eyes. I thought, as long as I don’t look at Robert, I can project empathy. As long as I ignore Robert, I can keep the sorrowful mask Lionel needs on my face. He was the happiest child on earth, Lionel said. The most inventive. He’d create landscapes in his room, archipelagos, a zoo, a parking garage. He organized all kinds of shows. Not just music shows. He had a
shop where you used fake money. He’d shout, shop’s open! I don’t know why, but that evocation of Jacob’s shop plunged Lionel into an uneasy reverie. He started staring at a point on the tiled floor. Then he said, you’re right, you have to be disposed to happiness. Can it be that it’s bad to have such a disposition in childhood? I’ve asked myself that question. Can it be the case that being a happy child doesn’t augur well for the rest of your life? As I looked at Lionel, standing there in the middle of the kitchen with his belt cinched too high and his shirt tucked in wrong, I reflected that it didn’t take much to make a man look vulnerable. Behind me, Robert said, come back here and sit down, old buddy. I made the mistake of turning toward him. For the length of a second, our eyes met. I don’t know which of us cracked first. We hunched over the table, suffocating with laughter. I remember grabbing Robert’s arm in an effort to make him stop, I still have the sound of his unruly guffaws in my ears. We got to our feet, still laughing, and implored Lionel to forgive us. Robert took Lionel in his arms, I pressed myself against them, and we embraced him like two ashamed children hiding in their mother’s skirts. Then Robert broke away from us. At the price of a level of concentration that I imagine was pretty intense, he’d managed to recompose his features and give himself a serious face again. He said, you know we’re not making fun of you. Lionel was magnificent, he smiled amiably and said, I know, I know. Once again, we sat at the table. Robert refilled the glasses. We drank more toasts. To friendship. To Jacob’s health. We asked Lionel some questions. He said, Pascaline’s been impressive. I know how worried she is, but she maintains a cheerful spirit, she stays positive. Don’t tell her you know about this. If she brings up the subject
with you someday, you had no idea, he said. We promised not to tell anyone. We tried to talk about something else. Lionel got me started on my recent reporting assignments. I told them about the inauguration of the Jewish memorial center in Skopje, Macedonia. The outdoor ceremony with the attendees sitting on plastic chairs. The sound of a fanfare coming from far away, like the sound of a mechanical toy. The three Macedonian soldiers, skinhead types with shaved skulls, long cloaks, and horizontally outstretched arms, carrying a cushion on which there was something that looked like a soda can and in fact turned out to be an urn containing the ashes of people who died in Treblinka concentration camp. The whole thing completely grotesque. And one month later, fanfare redux in Rwanda. The eighteenth anniversary of the genocide, commemorated in the stadium in Kigali. Guys surging through a gate something like the lions’ entrance in
Ben Hur
, goose-stepping and throwing batons. I said, why do all these massacres have to end with fanfares? Yes, good question, Lionel remarked. And we started laughing again, all three of us, probably pretty loaded by then.

In the bus the other day, a man – quite a corpulent fellow – sat next to the window on the seat across from mine. It was a while before I took any interest in him. I raised my head only because I could feel his eyes on me. He was scrutinizing me in an immensely serious, almost divinatory way. I did what one does in such situations, I boldly held his gaze to demonstrate my indifference and returned to other contemplations. But I was uneasy. I felt the persistence of his interest, and I even wondered if I might not toss a remark his way. I was giving this notion further consideration when I heard, Hélène? Hélène Barnèche? I said, do we know each other? He said, as if he was the only one in the world, which was moreover the case, Igor. It wasn’t so much the name itself as the way he pronounced it that I recognized at once. A way of drawing out the
o
, of slipping a little pretentious irony into those two syllables. I repeated the name, stupidly, and scrutinized his face in my turn. I’m a woman who doesn’t like photographs (I never take any), who doesn’t like any image, whether cheerful or sad, that’s capable of rousing the emotions. Emotions are frightening. I wish that life, as it advances, would gradually erase everything behind it. I couldn’t connect the new Igor to the one in the past, neither his physical consistency nor any of the attributes of his magic. But I remembered the period of time that had borne his name. When I met Igor Lorrain, I was twenty-six and he
was hardly older. I was already married to Raoul, and I was working as a secretary at the Caisse des Dépôts. Igor was a medical student. At the time, Raoul spent his nights playing cards in the cafés. A friend of his named Yorgos would bring Igor along to the Darcey, a café in Place Clichy. I was there almost every night, but I’d leave early and go home to bed. Igor would offer to give me a ride. He had a little blue Citroën 2CV that had to be started with a crank by opening the hood because the radiator was dented. He was tall and thin. He was hesitating between bridge and psychiatry. And above all, he was crazy. It was hard to resist him. One evening when we were stopped at a red light, he leaned toward me and said, poor Hélène, you’re so neglected. And he kissed me. It wasn’t true, I didn’t feel neglected, but in the time it took me to ask myself whether I was or not I was already in his arms. Neither of us had eaten, so he took me to a bistro near Porte de Saint-Cloud. It didn’t take long for me to understand what I was dealing with. He ordered two plates of chicken and green beans. When we were served, he tasted his and said, hold on, put some salt on it. I said, no, I think it’s good the way it is. He said, no it’s not, it’s not salted enough, add some salt. I said, it’s fine like this, Igor. He said, I’m telling you, put some salt on it. I put some salt on it. Igor Lorrain came from the North, like me. He was from Béthune. His father worked in river transport. At my house, we never laughed, but his was even worse. In our families, the slaps came hard and fast, when they weren’t punches or objects thrown at your head. For a long time I used to get in fights for a yes or a no. I hit my girlfriends, I hit my boyfriends. In the beginning I used to hit Raoul, but he just laughed. I didn’t know what else to do when he
annoyed me. So I’d whack him one. He’d bend over extravagantly, as though stricken by one of the plagues of Egypt, or else grab both my wrists with one hand and laugh. I never hit Damien. After I had him, I never hit anyone anymore. On bus 95, which goes from Place Clichy to Porte de Vanves, I remembered what had bound me to Igor Lorrain. Not love, not any of the other names for feelings, but savagery. He leaned toward me and said, do you recognize me? Yes and no, I said. He smiled. I remembered that I’d never been able to answer him clearly in the old days either. —Is your name still Hélène Barnèche? —Yes. —Are you still married to Raoul Barnèche? —Yes. I would have liked to answer at greater length, but I couldn’t say
tu
to him. He had a fat neck and long, salt-and-pepper hair tied back in a strange way. In his eyes I could still see the potential for dark madness that had captivated me in the past. I gave myself a mental once-over. My hair, my dress and cardigan sweater, my hands. He leaned forward again and said, are you happy? I said yes and I thought, what a nerve. He nodded, putting on a little affectation of tenderness, and said, you’re happy, good for you. I felt like smacking him. Thirty years of tranquillity swept aside in ten seconds. I said, and you, Igor? He settled against the back of his seat and answered, me, no. —Are you a psychiatrist? —Psychiatrist and psychoanalyst. I made a face to indicate that I wasn’t acquainted with those subtleties. He made a gesture to indicate that they weren’t important. He said, where are you going? Those four words knocked me sideways.
Where are you going
, as if we’d seen each other yesterday. And spoken in the same tone as in the old days, as if we’d done nothing in life but go round in circles.
Where are you going
pierced me through and through.
A confusion of feelings clouded my thoughts. There’s an abandoned region inside me that craves tyranny. Raoul has never actually
had
me. My Rouli has always thought about gambling and enjoying himself. It’s never occurred to him to keep an eye on his little woman. Igor Lorrain wanted to tie me to him. He wanted to know in detail where I was going, what I was doing, and with whom I was doing it. He used to say, you belong to me. I’d say, no I don’t. He’d say, tell me you belong to me. I’d say, no. He’d squeeze my throat, squeeze it hard until I said, I belong to you. On other occasions, he’d hit me. I’d have to repeat the words because he hadn’t been able to hear them. I’d struggle, I’d trade blows with him, but he always overcame me in the end. We’d wind up in bed, comforting each other. Then I’d run away. He lived in a tiny one-room top-floor apartment on Boulevard Exelmans. I’d run away down the stairs. He’d lean over the banister and shout, say you belong to me, and as I raced on down I’d say, no, no, no. He’d catch up with me and jam me against a wall or the elevator cage (sometimes neighbors would pass), and he’d say, where are you going, you little bitch, you know you belong to me. We’d make love again on the stairs. A woman wants to be dominated. A woman wants to be enslaved. You can’t explain that to everyone. I tried to restore the man sitting across from me on the bus. An old, worn-out beau. I didn’t recognize the rhythm of his body. But his eyes, yes. And his voice. —Where are you going? —Institut Pasteur. —What are you going to do there? —You’re asking too much. —Do you have any children? —A son. —How old? —Twenty-two. And how about you? Do you have children? —What’s his name? —My son? Damien. And do you have children? Igor
Lorrain nodded. He looked out the window at a billboard for heating systems. Could he have children? Obviously. Anyone can have children. I would have liked to know what kind of woman he had children with. I wanted to ask him if he was married, but I didn’t. I felt sorry for him, and for me. Two people, practically oldsters, lurching around Paris, bearing their lives. On the seat beside him he’d put a threadbare leather case, a sort of briefcase. Its handle was faded. He seemed very much alone. His way of holding himself, his clothes. People can tell when no one looks after you. Maybe he has someone, but not someone who looks after him. Me, I pamper my Rouli. One might even say that I bother him. I choose his clothes, I dye his eyebrows, I stop him from drinking and eating the entire bowl of salted nuts. In my way, I’m alone too. Raoul is sweet and affectionate (except when we’re bridge partners, then he undergoes a metamorphosis), but I know he gets bored with me (except when we go to the movies). He’s happy with his pals, he’s invented an existence for himself outside of ordinary reality and exempt from the duties everyone else has. My friend Chantal says that Raoul’s like a politician. Politicians are always absent even when they’re there. Damien has moved out. I even forced myself to encourage his exit. While cleaning up his room, I came across remnants from every stage of his life. When I opened a box full of painted chestnuts one evening, I sat on his bed and cried. Children go away, it has to happen, it’s normal. Igor Lorrain said, I’m getting off here, come with me. I looked at the name of the stop, which was Rennes-Saint-Placide. I said, I’m getting off at Pasteur-Docteur-Roux. He shrugged his shoulders as if that was the least conceivable destination. He stood up. He said,
come, Hélène.
Come, Hélène
. And he reached out his hand. I thought, he’s nuts. I thought, we’re still alive. I put my hand on his. He drew me through the other passengers to the exit door, and we climbed down off the bus. It was a fine day. Men were working on the roadway. We had to slip through a labyrinth of cinder blocks and particleboards to cross Rue de Rennes. People were rushing in both directions, jostling one another. Everything was very loud. Igor held my hand tight. We ended up on Boulevard Raspail. I was infinitely grateful to him for not letting go of me. The sunlight was blinding. I made out, as if for the first time, the rows of trees lining the boulevard, the plant beds with their blue-green wrought iron fences. I had no idea where we were going. Did he know? One day Igor Lorrain had told me, it was a mistake to put me in a human society. God should have put me in a savanna and made me a tiger. I would have ruled over my territory without mercy. We walked toward Place Denfert-Rochereau. He said, you’re still so little. He was as tall as before, but thicker. I had to run a bit to keep up with him.