The Woman Destroyed (11 page)

He doesn’t answer. Either he’s not there or he doesn’t
want to answer. He’s jammed the bell he doesn’t want to listen to what I have to say. They sit in judgment upon me find me guilty not one of them ever listens to me. I never punished Sylvie without listening to what she had to say first it was she who clammed up who wouldn’t talk. Only yesterday he wouldn’t let me say a quarter of what I had to say and I could hear him dozing at the other end of the line. It’s disheartening. I reason I explain I prove: patiently step by step I force them to the truth I think they’re following me and then I ask “What have I just said?” They don’t know they stuff themselves with mental earplugs and if a remark happens to get through their answer is just so much balls. I start over again I pile up fresh arguments: same result. Albert is a champion at that game but Tristan is not so bad either. “You ought to take me away with Francis for the holidays.” He doesn’t answer he talks of something else. Children have to listen but they manage they forget. “What have I said, Sylvie?” “You said when one is messy in small things one is messy in big ones and I must tidy my room before I go out.” And then the next day she did not tidy it. When I force Tristan to listen to me and he can’t find anything to reply—a boy needs his mother a mother can’t do without her child it’s so obvious that even the crookedest mind can’t deny it—he goes to the door flies down the stairs four at a time while I shout down the well and cut myself off short in case the neighbors think I’m cracked: how cowardly it is he knows I loathe scenes particularly as I’ve an odd sort of a reputation in this house of course I have they behave so weirdly—unnaturally—that sometimes I do the same. Oh what the hell I used to behave so well it gave me a pain in the ass Tristan’s casualness his big laugh
his loud voice I should have liked to see him drop down dead when he used to horse around in public with Sylvie.

Wind! It’s suddenly started to blow like fury how I should like an enormous disaster that would sweep everything away and me with it a typhoon a cyclone it would be restful to die if there were no one left to think about me: give up my body my poor little life to them no! But for everybody to plunge into nothingness that would be fine: I’m tired of fighting them even when I’m alone they harry me it’s exhausting I wish it would all come to an end! Alas! I shan’t have my typhoon I never have anything I want. It’s only a little very ordinary wind it’ll have torn off a few tiles a few chimney pots everything is mean and piddling in this world nature’s as bad as men. I’m the only one that has splendid dreams and it would have been better to choke them right away everything disappoints me always.

Perhaps I ought to stuff up these sleeping things and go to bed. But I’m still too wide awake I’d only writhe about. If I had got him on the phone if we’d talked pleasantly I should have calmed down. He doesn’t give a fuck. Here I am torn to pieces by heartbreaking memories I call him and he doesn’t answer. Don’t bawl him out don’t begin by bawling him out that would muck up everything. I dread tomorrow. I shall have to be ready before four o’clock I shan’t have had a wink of sleep I’ll go out and buy petits fours that Francis will tread into the carpet he’ll break one of my little ornaments he’s not been properly brought up that child as clumsy as his father who’ll drop ash all over the place and if I say anything at all Tristan will blow right up he never let me keep my house as it ought to be yet after all it’s enormously important. Just now it’s perfect
the drawing room polished shining like the moon used to be. By seven tomorrow evening it’ll be utterly filthy I’ll have to spring-clean it even though I’ll be all washed out. Explaining everything to him from
a
to
z
will wash me right out. He’s tough. What a clot I was to drop Florent for him! Florent and I we understood one another he coughed up I lay on my back it was cleaner than those capers where you hand out tender words to one another. I’m too softhearted I thought it was a terrific proof of love when he offered to marry me and there was Sylvie the ungrateful little thing I wanted her to have a real home and a mother no one could say a thing against a married woman a banker’s wife. For my part it gave me a pain in the ass to play the lady to be friends with crashing bores. Not so surprising that I burst out now and then. “You’re setting about it the wrong way with Tristan” Dédé used to tell me. Then later on “I told you so!” It’s true I’m headstrong I take the bit between my teeth I don’t calculate. Maybe I should have learned to compromise if it hadn’t been for all those disappointments. Tristan made me utterly sick I let him know it. People can’t bear being told what you really think of them. They want you to believe their fine words or at least to pretend to. As for me I’m clear-sighted I’m frank I tear masks off. The dear kind lady simpering “So we love our little brother do we?” and my collected little voice: “I hate him.” I’m still that proper little woman who says what she thinks and doesn’t cheat. It made my guts grind to hear him holding forth and all those bloody fools on their knees before him. I came clumping along in my big boots I cut their fine words down to size for them—progress prosperity the future of mankind happiness peace
aid for the underdeveloped countries peace upon earth. I’m not a racist but don’t give a fuck for Algerians Jews Negroes in just the same way I don’t give a fuck for Chinks Russians Yanks Frenchmen. I don’t give a fuck for humanity what has it ever done for me I ask you. If they are such bleeding fools as to murder one another bomb one another plaster one another with napalm wipe one another out I’m not going to weep my eyes out. A million children have been massacred so what? Children are never anything but the seed of bastards it unclutters the planet a little they all admit it’s overpopulated don’t they? If I were the earth it would disgust me, all this vermin on my back, I’d shake it off. I’m quite willing to die if they all die too. I’m not going to go all soft-centered about kids that mean nothing to me. My own daughter’s dead and they’ve stolen my son from me.

I should have won her back. I’d have made her into a worthwhile person. But it would have taken me time. Tristan did not help me the selfish bastard our quarrels bored him he used to say to me “Leave her in peace.” You ought not to have children in a way Dédé is right they only give you one bloody headache after another. But if you do have them you ought to bring them up properly. Tristan always took Sylvie’s side: now even if I had been wrong—let’s say I might have been sometimes for the sake of argument—from an educational point of view it’s disastrous for one parent to run out on the other. He was on her side even when I was right. Over that little Jeanne for example. It quite touches my heart to think of her again her moist adoring gaze: they can be very sweet little girls she reminded me of my own childhood badly dressed neglected slapped scolded by that
concierge of a mother of hers always on the edge of tears: she thought I was lovely she stroked my furs she did little things for me and I slipped her pennies when no one was looking I gave her sweeties poor pet. She was the same age as Sylvie I should have liked them to be friends Sylvie disappointed me bitterly. She whined “Being with Jeanne bores me.” I told her she was a heartless thing I scolded her I punished her. Tristan stood up for her on the grounds that you can’t force liking that battle lasted for ages I wanted Sylvie to learn generosity in the end it was little Jeanne who backed out.

It’s quietened down a bit up there. Footsteps voices in the staircase car doors slamming there’s still their bloody fool dance music but they aren’t dancing anymore. I know what they’re at. This is the moment they make love on beds on sofas on the ground in cars the time for being sick sick sick when they bring up the turkey and the caviar it’s filthy I have a feeling there’s a smell of vomit I’m going to burn a joss stick. If only I could sleep I’m wide awake dawn is far away still this is a ghastly hour of the night and Sylvie died without understanding me I’ll never get over it. This smell of incense is the same as at the funeral service: the candles the flowers the catafalque. My despair. Dead: It was impossible! For hours and hours I sat there by her body thinking no of course not she’ll wake up I’ll wake up. All that effort all those struggles scenes sacrifices—all in vain. My life’s work gone up in smoke. I left nothing to chance; and chance at its cruelest reached out and hit me. Sylvie is dead. Five years already. She is dead. Forever. I can’t bear it. Help it hurts it hurts too much get me out of here I can’t bear the breakdown
to start again no help me I can’t bear it any longer don’t leave me alone.…

Who to call? Albert Bernard would hang up like a flash: he blubbered in front of everybody but tonight he’s gorged and had fun and I’m the one that remembers and weeps. My mother: after all a mother is a mother I never did her any harm she was the one who mucked up my childhood she insulted me she presumed to tell me.… I want her to take back what she said I won’t go on living with those words in my ears a daughter can’t bear being cursed by her mother even if she’s the ultimate word in tarts.

“Was it you who called me?… It surprised me too but after all on a night like this it could happen you might think of my grief and say to yourself that a mother and daughter can’t be on bad terms all their lives long; above all since I really can’t see what you can possibly blame me for.… Don’t shout like that.…”

She has hung up. She wants peace. She poisons my life the bitch I’ll have to settle her hash. What hatred! She’s always hated me: she killed two birds with one stone in marrying me to Albert. She made sure of her fun and my unhappiness. I didn’t want to admit it I’m too clean too pure but it’s staringly obvious. It was she who hooked him at the physical culture class and she treated herself to him slut that she was it can’t have been very inviting to stuff her but what with all the men who’d been there before she must have known a whole bagful of tricks like getting astride over the guy I can just imagine it it’s perfectly revolting the way respectable women make love. She was too long in the tooth to keep him she made use
of me they cackled behind my back and went to work again: one day when I came back unexpectedly she was all red. How old was she when she stopped? Maybe she treats herself to gigolos she’s not so poor as she says she’s no doubt kept jewels that she sells off on the sly. I think that after you’re fifty you ought to have the decency to give it up: I gave it up well before ever since I went into mourning. It doesn’t interest me anymore I’m blocked I never think of those things anymore even in dreams. That old bag it makes you shudder to think of between her legs she drips with scent but underneath she smells she used to make up she titivated she didn’t wash not what I call wash when she pretended to use a douche it was only to show Nanard her backside. Her son her son-in-law: it makes you feel like throwing up. They would say, “You’ve got a filthy mind.” They know how to cope. If you point out that they’re walking in shit they scream it’s you that have dirty feet. My dear little girlfriends would have liked to have a go with my husband women they’re all filthy bitches and there he was shouting at me, “You are contemptible.” Jealousy is not contemptible real love has a beak and claws. I was not one of those women who will put up with sharing or whorehouse parties like Christine I wanted us to be a clean proper couple a decent couple. I can control myself but I’m not a complete drip I’ve never been afraid of making a scene. I did not allow anyone to make fun of me I can look back over my past—nothing unwholesome nothing dubious. I’m the white blackbird.

Poor white blackbird: it’s the only one in the world. That’s what maddens them: I’m something too far above them. They’d like to do away with me they’ve shut me up in a cage. Shut in locked in I’ll end by dying of boredom
really dying. It seems that that happens to babies even, when no one looks after them. The perfect crime that leaves no trace. Five years of this torture already. That ass Tristan who says travel you’ve plenty of money. Plenty to travel on the cheap like with Albert in the old days: you don’t catch me doing that again. Being poor is revolting at any time but when you travel!…I’m not a snob I showed Tristan I wasn’t impressed by deluxe palace hotels and women dripping with pearls the fancy doormen. But second-rate boardinghouses and cheap restaurants, no
sir
. Dubious sheets filthy tablecloths sleep in other people’s sweat in other people’s filth eat with badly washed knives and forks you might catch lice or the pox and the smells make me sick: quite apart from the fact that I get deadly constipated because those johns where everybody goes turn me off like a tap: the brotherhood of shit only a very little for me please. Then what earthly point is there in traveling alone? We had fun Dédé and I it’s terrific two pretty girls in a convertible their hair streaming in the wind: we made a terrific impression in Rome at night on the Piazza del Popolo. I’ve had fun with other friends too. But alone? What sort of impression do you make on beaches in casinos if you haven’t got a man with you? Ruins museums I had my bellyful of them with Tristan. I’m not an hysterical enthusiast I don’t swoon at the sight of broken columns or tumbledown old shacks. The people of former times my foot they’re dead that’s the only thing they have over the living but in their own day they were just as sickening. Picturesqueness: I don’t fall for that not for one minute. Stinking filth dirty washing cabbage stalks what a pretentious fool you have to be to go into ecstasies over that! And it’s the same thing everywhere all the time
whether they’re stuffing themselves with chips paella or pizza it’s the same crew a filthy crew the rich who trample over you the poor who hate you for your money the old who dodder the young who sneer the men who show off the women who open their legs. I’d rather stay at home reading a thriller although they’ve become so dreary nowadays. The TV too what a clapped-out set of fools! I was made for another planet altogether I mistook the way.

Why do they have to make all that din right under my windows? They’re standing there by their cars they can’t make up their minds to put their stinking feet into them. What can they be going on and on about? Snotty little beasts snotty little beastesses grotesque in their miniskirts and their tights I hope they catch their deaths haven’t they any mothers then? And the boys with their hair down their necks. From a distance those ones seem more or less clean. But all those louse-breeding beatniks if the chief of police had any sort of drive he’d toss them all into the brig. The youth of today! They drug they stuff one another they respect nothing. I’m going to pour a bucket of water on their heads. They might break open the door and beat me up I’m defenseless I’d better shut the window again. Rose’s daughter is one of that sort it seems and Rose plays the elder sister they’re always together in one another’s pockets. Yet she used to hold her in so she even boxed her ears she didn’t bother to bring her to reason she was impulsive arbitrary: I loathe capriciousness. Oh, Rose will pay for it all right as Dédé says she’ll have Danielle on her hands pregnant.… I should have made a lovely person of Sylvie. I’d have given her dresses jewels I’d have been proud of her we should have gone out together. There’s no justice in the world. That’s what makes me so mad—the
injustice. When I think of the sort of mother I was! Tristan acknowledges it: I’ve forced him to acknowledge it. And then after that he tells me he’s ready for anything rather than let me have Francis: they don’t give a damn for logic they say absolutely anything at all and then escape at the run. He races down the stairs four at a time while I shout down the well after him. I won’t be had like that. I’ll force him to do me justice: cross my heart. He’ll give me back my place in the home my place on earth. I’ll make a splendid child of Francis they’ll see what kind of a mother I am.