The Woman Destroyed (12 page)

They are killing me the bastards. The idea of the party tomorrow destroys me. I must win. I must I must I must I must I must. I’ll tell my fortune with the cards. No. If it went wrong I’d throw myself out of the window no I mustn’t it would suit them too well. Think of something else. Cheerful things. The boy from Bordeaux. We expected nothing from one another we asked one another no questions we made one another no promises we bedded down and made love. It lasted three weeks and he left for Africa I wept wept. It’s a memory that does me good. Things like that only happen once in a lifetime. What a pity! When I think back over it it seems to me that if anyone had loved me properly I should have been affection itself. Turds they bored me to death they trample everyone down right left and center everyone can die in his hole for all they care husbands deceive their wives mothers toss off their sons not a word about it sealed lips that carefulness disgusts me and the way they don’t have the courage of their convictions. “But come really your brother is too closefisted” it was Albert who pointed it out to me I’m too noble-minded to bother with trifles like that but it’s true
they had stuffed down three times as much as us and the bill was divided fifty-fifty thousands of little things like that. And afterward he blamed me—“You shouldn’t have repeated it to him.” On the beach we went at it hammer and tongs. Etiennette cried you would have said the tears on her cheeks were melting suet. “Now that he knows he’ll turn over a new leaf” I told her. I was simpleminded—I thought they were capable of turning over new leaves I thought you could bring them up by making them see reason. “Come Sylvie let’s think it over. You know how much that frock costs? And how many times will you ever put it on? We’ll send it back.” It always had to be begun again at the beginning I wore myself out. Nanard will go on being closefisted to the end of his days. Albert more deceitful lying secretive than ever. Tristan always just as self-satisfied just as pompous. I was knocking myself out for nothing. When I tried to teach Etiennette how to dress Nanard bawled me out—she was twenty-two and I was dressing her up as an elderly schoolteacher! She went on cramming herself into little gaudy dresses. And Rose who shouted out “Oh you are cruel!” I had spoken to her out of loyalty women have to stand by one another. Who has ever shown me any gratitude? I’ve lent them money without asking for interest not one has been grateful to me for it indeed some have whined when I asked to be paid back. Girlfriends I overwhelmed with presents accused me of showing off. And you ought to see how briskly they slipped away all those people I had done good turns to yet God knows I asked for nothing much in return. I’m not one of those people who thinks they have a right to everything. Aunt Marguerite: “Would you lend us your apartment while you’re on your cruise this summer?” Lend
it hell hotels aren’t built just for dogs and if they can’t afford to put up in Paris they can stay in their own rotten hole. An apartment’s holy I should have felt raped.… It’s like Dédé. “You mustn’t let yourself be eaten up” she tells me. But she’d be delighted to swallow me whole. “Have you an evening coat you can lend me? You never go out.” No I never go out but I did go out: they’re my dresses my coats they remind me of masses of things I don’t want a strumpet to take my place in them. And afterward they’d smell. If I were to die Mama and Nanard would share my leavings. No no I want to live until the moths have eaten the lot or else if I have cancer I’ll destroy them all. I’ve had enough of people making a good thing out of me—Dédé worst of all. She drank my whiskey she showed off in my convertible. Now she’s playing the greathearted friend. But she never bothered to ring me from Courchevel tonight of all nights. When her cuckold of a husband is traveling and she’s bored why yes then she brings her fat backside here even when I don’t want to see her at all. But it’s New Year’s Day I’m alone I’m eating my heart out. She’s dancing she’s having fun she doesn’t think of me for a single minute. Nobody ever thinks of me. As if I were wiped off the face of the earth. As if I had never existed. Do I exist? Oh! I pinched myself so hard I shall have a bruise.

What silence! Not a car left not a footstep in the street not a sound in the house the silence of death. The silence of a death chamber and their eyes on me their eyes that condemn me unheard and without appeal. Oh how strong they are! Everything they felt remorse for they clapped it onto my back the perfect scapegoat and at last they could invent an excuse for their hatred. My grief has not lessened
it. Yet I should have thought the devil himself would have been sorry for me.

All my life it will be two o’clock in the afternoon one Tuesday in June. “Mademoiselle is too fast asleep I can’t get her to wake up.” My heart missed a beat I rushed in calling “Sylvie are you ill?” She looked as though she were asleep she was still warm. It had been all over some hours before the doctor told me. I screamed I went up and down the room like a madwoman. Sylvie Sylvie why have you done this to me? I can see her now calm relaxed and me out of my mind and the note for her father that didn’t mean a thing I tore it up it was all part of the act it was only an act I was sure I am sure—a mother knows her own daughter—she had not meant to die but she had overdone the dose she was dead how appalling! It’s too easy with these drugs anyone can get just like that: these teen-age girls will play at suicide for a mere nothing: Sylvie went along with the fashion—she never woke up. And they all came they kissed Sylvie not one of them kissed me and my mother shouted at me “You’ve killed her!” My mother my own mother. They made her be quiet but their faces their silence the weight of their silence. Yes, if I were one of those mothers who get up at seven in the morning she would have been saved I live according to another rhythm there’s nothing criminal about that how could I have guessed? I was always there when she came back from school many mothers can’t say as much always ready to talk to question her it was she who shut herself up in her room pretending she wanted to work. I never failed her. And my mother she who neglected me left me by myself how she dared! I couldn’t manage any reply my head was spinning I no longer knew where I was. “If I’d gone to
give her a kiss that night when I came in.…” But I didn’t want to wake her and during the afternoon she had seemed to me almost cheerful.… Those days, what a torment! A score of times I thought I was going to crack up. School friends teachers put flowers on the coffin without addressing a word to me: if a girl kills herself the mother is guilty: that’s the way their minds worked out of hatred for their own mothers. All in at the kill. I almost let myself be got down. After the funeral I fell ill. Over and over again I said to myself, “If I had got up at seven.… If I had gone to give her a kiss when I came in.…” It seemed to me that everybody had heard my mother’s shout I didn’t dare go out anymore I crept along by the wall the sun clamped me in the pillory I thought people were looking at me whispering pointing enough of that enough I’d rather die this minute than live through that time again. I lost more than twenty pounds, a skeleton, my sense of balance went I staggered. “Psychosomatic,” said the doctor. Tristan gave me money for the nursing home. You’d never believe the questions I asked myself it might have driven me crazy. A phony suicide she had meant to hurt someone—who? I hadn’t watched her closely enough I ought never to have left her for a moment I ought to have had her followed held an inquiry unmasked the guilty person a boy or a girl maybe that whore of a teacher. “No Madame there was no one in her life.” They wouldn’t yield an inch the two bitches and their eyes were murdering me: they all of them keep up the conspiracy of lies even beyond death itself. But they didn’t deceive me. I know. At her age and with things as they are today it’s impossible that there was no one. Perhaps she was pregnant or she’d fallen into the clutches of a lezzy or she’d got in
with an immoral lot someone was blackmailing her and having her threatening to tell me everything. Oh, I must stop picturing things. You could have told me everything my Sylvie I would have got you out of that filthy mess. It must certainly have been a filthy mess for her to have written to Albert,
Papa please forgive me but I can’t bear it anymore
. She couldn’t talk to him or to the others: they tried to get to her, but they were strangers. I was the only one she could have confided in.

Without them. Without their hatred. Bastards! You nearly got me down but you didn’t quite succeed. I’m not your scapegoat: your remorse—I’ve thrown it off. I’ve told you what I think of you each one has had his dose and I’m not afraid of your hatred I walk clean through it. Bastards! They are the ones who killed her. They flung mud at me they put her against me they treated her as a martyr that flattered her all girls adore playing the martyr: she took her part seriously she distrusted me she told me nothing. Poor pet. She needed my support my advice they deprived her of them they condemned her to silence she couldn’t get herself out of her mess all by herself she set up this act and it killed her. Murderers! They killed Sylvie my little Sylvie my darling. I loved you. No mother on earth could have been more devoted: I never thought of anything but your own good. I open the photograph album I look at all the Sylvies. The rather drawn child’s face the closed face of the adolescent. Looking deep into the eyes of my seventeen-year-old girl they murdered I say “I was the best of mothers. You would have thanked me later on.”

Crying has comforted me and I’m beginning to feel
sleepy. I mustn’t go to sleep in this armchair I should wake everything would be mucked up all over again. Take my suppositories go to bed. Set the alarm clock for noon to have time to get myself ready. I must win. A man in the house my little boy I’ll kiss at bedtime all this unused affection. And then it would mean rehabilitation. What? I’m going to sleep I’m relaxing. It’ll be a swipe in the eye for them. Tristan is somebody they respect him. I want him to bear witness for me: they’ll be forced to do me justice. I’ll call him. Convince him this very night.

“Was it you who phoned me? Oh, I thought it was you. You were asleep forgive me but I’m glad to hear your voice it’s so revolting tonight nobody’s given the slightest sign of life yet they know that when you’ve had a great sorrow you can’t bear celebrations all this noise these lights did you notice Paris has never been so lit up as this year they’ve money to waste it would be better if they were to reduce the rates I shut myself up at home so as not to see it. I can’t get off to sleep I’m too sad too lonely I brood about things I must talk it over with you without any quarreling a good friendly talk listen now what I have to say to you is really very important I shan’t be able to get a wink until it’s settled. You’re listening to me, right? I’ve been thinking it over all night I had nothing else to do and I assure you this is an absurd position it can’t go on like this after all we are still married what a waste these two apartments you could sell yours for at least twenty million and I’d not get in your way never fear no question of taking up married life again we’re no longer in love I’d shut myself up in the room at the back don’t interrupt you could have all the Fanny Hills you like I don’t give a hoot but since we’re still friends there’s no reason why we
shouldn’t live under the same roof. And it’s essential for Francis. Just think of him for a moment I’ve been doing nothing else all night and I’m tearing myself to pieces. It’s bad for a child to have parents who are separated they grow sly vicious untruthful they get complexes they don’t develop properly. I want Francis to develop properly. You have no right to deprive him of a real home.… Yes yes we do have to go over all this again you always get out of it but this time I insist on your listening to me. It’s too selfish indeed it’s even unnatural to deprive a son of his mother a mother of her son. For no reason. I’ve no vices I don’t drink I don’t drug and you’ve admitted I was the most devoted of mothers. Well then? Don’t interrupt. If you’re thinking about your fun I tell you again I shan’t prevent you from having girls. Don’t tell me I’m impossible to live with that I ate you up that I wore you out. Yes I was rather difficult it’s natural for me to take the bit between my teeth: but if you’d had a little patience and if you’d tried to understand me and had known how to talk to me instead of growing pig-headed things would have gone along better between us you’re not a saint either so don’t you think it: anyhow that’s all water under the bridge: I’ve changed: as you know very well I’ve suffered I’ve matured I can stand things I used not to be able to stand let me speak you don’t have to be afraid of scenes it’ll be an easygoing coexistence and the child will be happy as he has a right to be I can’t see what possible objection you can have.… Why isn’t this a time for talking it over? It’s a time that suits me beautifully. You can give up five minutes of sleep for me after all for my part I shan’t get a wink until the matter’s settled don’t always be so selfish it’s too dreadful to prevent people
sleeping it sends them out of their minds I can’t bear it. Seven years now I’ve been rotting here all alone like an outcast and that filthy gang laughing at me you certainly owe me my revenge let me speak you owe me a great deal you know because you gave me the madly-in-love stuff I ditched Florent and broke with my friends and now you leave me flat all your friends turn their backs on me: why did you pretend to love me? Sometimes I wonder whether it wasn’t a put-up job.… Yes a put-up job—it’s so unbelievable that terrific passion and now this dropping me.… You hadn’t realized? Hadn’t realized what? Don’t you tell me again that I married you out of interest I had Florent I could have had barrowloads and get this straight the idea of being your wife didn’t dazzle me at all you’re not Napoleon whatever you may think don’t tell me that again or I shall scream you didn’t say anything but I can hear you turning the words over in your mouth don’t say them it’s untrue it’s so untrue it makes you scream you gave me the madly-in-love jazz and I fell for it.… No don’t say listen Murielle to me I know your answers by heart you’ve gone over and over them a hundred times no more guff it doesn’t wash with me and don’t you put on that exasperated look yes I said that exasperated look I can see you in the receiver. You’ve been even more of a cad than Albert he was young when we married you were forty-five you ought to understand the nature of your responsibilities. But still all right the past’s past. I promise you I shan’t reproach you. We wipe everything out we set off again on a fresh footing I can be sweet and charming you know if people aren’t too beastly to me. So come on now tell me it’s agreed tomorrow we’ll settle the details.