The Gaze (31 page)

B-C says that it’s only in miracles that sweet water and salt water don’t mix, and he doesn’t like miracles. What he wanted was to take bits and pieces of my stories and other people’s stories and mix them all together. When he’d done this, there’d be only a single thread holding it all together: himself!

But what attracted him most were the unseen sides of people. B-C is always interested in the unseen, and wanted to make the invisible visible. Just like the prince’s wife in the story, who wanted to know what was behind the fortieth door. The most important thing was to pry open the lock. Once he’d opened the door and seen what was inside, there remained no reason to delay there. Anything forbidden or hidden in the world…anything suppressed or very respected…in short anything that was kept out of sight was within B-C’s area of interest. For this reason, whenever he looked at a person he was trying to find their hidden parts; he took great pleasure in discovering their memories, their secrets, the things that were most private to them. Once he’d completed his discoveries he’d got what he wanted, and he’d start looking elsewhere for new discoveries.

As long as there were things about me he didn’t know, I remained unprocessed material for the Dictionary of Gazes. That meant he would stay with me until he’d discovered what was left to be discovered. Later…just as he never took another look at material he’d already used, he would soon tire of me. He’d set off in search of new material, something new to occupy himself, and who knows, perhaps even a new life.

I couldn’t digest the fact that in his eyes, I’d been material for the Dictionary of Gazes from the start. All this time I thought we’d been living a love that was resistant to the gazes of outside, and that, in spite of everything, flowered in privacy. I have to confess, I thought our relationship was based on a mutual desire the like of which would be difficult to find. Perhaps with B-C I drank all of the passion I hadn’t lived in my life in a single gulp. In that case everything was very simple. Just like him, I have an issue with eyes; with seeing and being seen. I was just as much on display as he was. And all that we had long-suspected separately, about what this chronic disease resembled, revealed itself layer-by-layer when we came together. This is what had attracted B-C. That was all.

So after putting all the pieces together, I knew why he was with me. That is, if there was any love involved in this, I knew the reason for it. And what we call love is condemned to dry out the moment there’s a reason for it.

This is why I was looking into B-C’s eyes with pain. When he’d come home and learned that I’d read the Dictionary of Gazes, he hadn’t at first been able to discern what had distressed me, but as the minutes passed he began to understand the reasons for the change in me. And now that he’d once again wrapped his face in an inexpressive blankness, devoid of all emotion, I couldn’t make out what he was thinking. His eyes had once again fled behind frosted glass or a curtain of wax; I couldn’t guess what he was feeling. I don’t know how long we sat across from each other without speaking or moving. But his silence was such an unaccustomed thing for me that it hurt my ears. Then he stood up slowly. He came to my side and held my wrist.

‘If you want, let’s go out in disguise tonight,’ he said.

‘All right, let’s go out,’ I said, unable to control the trembling of my voice.

There was nothing to argue about. And we didn’t argue. I started looking for the suitcase I’d brought when I came. I couldn’t remember where we’d put it away. But B-C’s voice stopped me. ‘You stay,’ he said. ‘You know, I was going to leave anyway.’

There was nothing to talk about. And we didn’t talk. I didn’t turn my head. I didn’t look in his direction. I didn’t have the heart to watch his departure.

Love is a corset. In order to understand the value of this you have to be exceedingly fat. It can quickly wrap up and control the fat that’s been gathering layer by layer over the years, spreading out in its stickiness, heaping up in a gelatinous mass. Then you can stand outside your own work and watch the power. Love is a merchant of dreams. Worn-out and cast-off dreams will pick themselves up, clean and shine themselves, deck themselves out, and in their new state laugh at their owners. Love makes a person more beautiful. It plays fearlessly with appearances, that is, with qualities, that is, with mirrors. It makes peace between the taking of offence and mirrors, it increases the lonely with mirrors.

Love is a corset. The day will come when, in the least expected place, at the least expected moment, one of the clasps will burst, or its threads will unravel. Before there’s even time to understand what’s happened, the fat will have long since come out into the open. In the midst of this confusion, your body returns to its former state in the blink of an eye. Love is a corset. In order to understand why it lasts such a short time you have to be exceedingly fat.

Because something will always happen to spoil the fun. An unravelled thread, for instance, that gets caught in the front door of the building, or that can’t be completely removed from the article of clothing it belongs to. Like a hole that causes a balloon to leak, or the sudden cessation of continuity, or not turning at the corner…or an unhealed wound, or an unrealised dream, or a stain in one’s pupil, or a crack in the plate…or an uncompleted task, or an unformed substance, or an unfinished story…some things are always lacking something. However much we vomit out, at least one mouthful of the cake we’ve eaten will remain in the seclusion of our stomachs; like a weight that clings to our ankles and won’t allow us to levitate, no matter how much we inflate ourselves and no matter how many jugs of milk we drink. And no matter how clean we might be, every cleaning of the eyes leaves some dust hidden under the carpet; a memory we can’t forget or cause to be forgotten. There’s always something left over. There’s always something lacking.

I could have followed B-C. Because he was unique, because it was worth not breaking it off with him, and not being stubborn about his absence. I could have chased the giant rhythm of his dwarf heart through the streets. Because he’s much more agile than I am, who knows how long I could have followed his trail; or…

…I could have decided not to follow B-C. I could have gone far from here, never to see him or to be seen by him, and remain forever unprocessed material for the Dictionary of Gazes; down the steep hill to hell, with the heaven of the Hayalifener Apartments at the top.

But now I…

…was going to do something else. Because I was hungry!

I was so hungry it was as if I’d always been left hungry. As if I hadn’t been stuffing myself all my life. I was a big lie, a huge denial. I was a failure. No matter how I tried, I simply couldn’t lose weight, I can’t be free of the pincers of my body. I was stuck. I couldn’t stop thinking about my fatness for a moment. I was alone. I’d become closed within myself, afraid to look within. I was apprehensive. I was apprehensive about everything, but mostly about myself. I was angry. I couldn’t control my nerves when people watched me in order to add colour to their lives or to have something to talk about. I was restless. I was bruised by tossing and turning in bed as if my dream was a river. I was unhappy. Like my stomach, my unhappiness grew the more it was fed. Of course it was possible to exist outside of these things; but I wasn’t there. Now I am in the belly of hunger.

I’d never been this hungry before.

I opened my mouth wide. I opened my mouth so wide that the hydrosphere was afraid I would drink up all the water and finish it; it decided to sacrifice all of its fish on the wet, mother-of-pearl alter in order to appease my hunger. I ate all of its fish. Before long, I shouted angrily from the top of a mountain of fish bones, ‘Where are your oysters pregnant with pearls, your sluggish octopuses, your hideous monsters, your sweet, sweet starfish, your treacherous whirlpools, your sunken ships full of hidden treasure?’

The hydrosphere hurriedly placed a whale stew in front of me.

I opened my mouth wide. I opened my mouth so wide that the earth feared my teeth would sink into its core; the fruit of all the trees came to me quickly on a command from underground. I finished all the fruit. Then, from the bottom of a hole caused by ripping trees out by their roots, I cried angrily, ‘Is this the extent of your generosity?’ It anxiously covered up the mole hills. I paid no attention. ‘How about the mushrooms that don’t even know that they are poisonous, your fat and delicious rocks, your wirehaired maize, your bountiful fields, your missing buried chests; your hilarious landslides…where are they?’

The earth hurriedly placed a vegetable garden in front of me.

I couldn’t eat my fill. My mouth didn’t close. As one corner of my lips collected drop after drop of water, the other corner collected balls and balls of dirt. Neither water nor dirt could satisfy my hunger. I saw that it wouldn’t work, so I decided to try air.

I turned on the gas.

I didn’t know why I did this, I wasn’t aware of what I was doing. Nor of what might happen. Until now, whenever I was seized by an eating crisis, I had eaten whatever I found without thinking, and didn’t look for taste in what I ate. If I looked for taste could I be called a glutton? Again, I did what I always did. Now the hydrosphere and the earth must have heaved a sight of relief, seeing that I had turned my attention to the atmosphere. The gas started filling me. I felt myself being inflated. My brain was being numbed. As my brain was numbed, what I knew was being erased, and the numbers were decreasing. As the numbers decreased, ounce after ounce of weight was lifted from me. I was getting light-ter. Time was going backwards. And it wasn’t obliged to continue flowing in a straight line from yesterday to today. When time lurched backwards, a person realised that somehow everything could have been different.

Everything could have worked out differently. That means every story can be told differently.

Of course if it hadn’t been necessary to see everything, if it had been delivered at the beginning…

   ‘TWO!’

One night, for no reason, Madame de Marelle told her husband she wanted to redecorate the mansion. She got to work right away. Every morning she walked from room to room with maids following her, rearranging some of the furniture, and having the rest removed to make way for new furniture. One day, she entered an unused room in the attic. There, at the bottom of a chest, she found a rather large box. A relief in the shape of an eye glittered on the lid of the box. The box was locked and it seemed the key was missing.

‘What’s in here?’ she asked as she fiddled with the lock.

‘There is a picture, ma’am,’ the eldest of the maids said. ‘Just a picture.’

‘A picture, ma’am,’ said the eldest of the maids. ‘Just a picture.’

‘Fine, where’s the key?’

At the same moment, she thought of how to open the lock. She took out the long hair-clip she always used to fasten her hair. Her hair fell over on her shoulders. She began trying to pry open the lock with the sharp end of the hair-clip. But the old servant seemed to be disturbed by this. ‘Don’t take it out of the box’ she whispered. ‘According to the villagers, the young man in the picture is so beautiful, everyone who sees him suffers. Particularly…virgins in particular loose their heads over him.’