I took it and got the hell out of his suffocating room. I could hear Eddie in the living room, still talking to himself. I went to my own room to examine the green notebook.
The edges of it were worn. I opened it to see that the ink had run in parts, but not so the writing was illegible. The handwriting went from small and neat to large and loopy, and in later passages, when it ran diagonally down the page, it was as though it had been written while on the back of a camel or the bow of a ship tossed around in bad weather. Some of the pages were barely hanging on by a staple, and when the notebook was closed, the corners stuck out like bookmarks.
There was a title page, in French: Petites misèries de la vie humaine.
This doesn’t mean little miseries either, as I first thought, but translates, more or less, to “Minor irritations of human life.” It gave me a sick feeling, although it served well to brace me for the story of how I came to be, the story that was located in the following journal, which I reprint here for you to read.
Petites misères de la vie humaine
11 May
Paris – perfect city to be lonely & miserable in. London too grim to be a sad sack with any dignity. O London! You grisly town! You cold gray cloud! You low-lying layer of mist & fog! You dense moan! You drizzling forlorn sigh! You shallow gene pool! You career town! You brittle town! You fallen empire! You page-three town! Lesson from London – hell isn’t red-hot but cold & gray.
And Rome? Full of sexual predators who live with their mothers.
Venice? Too many tourists as dumb as believers feed Italian pigeons, whereas in their own cities they snub them.
Athens? Everywhere mounted policemen ride by, pausing only so their horses can shit on cobblestone streets- horse shit lying in such mammoth piles you think there must be no better laxative in the world than bales of hay.
Spain? Streets smell like socks fried in urine- too many Catholics baptized in piss. Tho the real problem with Spain is you’re constantly frustrated by fireworks- sexual stink of exploding fiestas salt in wound of loneliness.
But Paris – beautiful poor ugly opulent vast complex gray rainy & French. You see unbelievable women, umbrellas, beggars, tree-lined streets, bicycles, church spires, Africans, gloomy domes, balconies, broken flowerpots, rudeness that will ring through eternity, aimless pedestrians, majestic gardens, black trees, bad teeth, ritzy stores, socialists moving their hands up the thighs of intellectuals, protesting artists, bad drivers, pay toilets, visible cheese smells, witty scarves, shadows of body odors in the metro, fashionable cemeteries, tasteful transvestites, filtered light, slums, grime, desire, artistic lampposts, multicolored phlegm of passive chimney smokers, demented cobblestone faces in terrace cafés, high collars, hot chocolates, flashy gargoyles, velvet berets, emaciated cats, pickpockets running away with glittering entrails of rich German tourists, & great phallic monuments in the squares & the sex shops.
It’s no rumor: prancing arrogant Parisians sit cross-legged in cafés & philosophize uninvited- but why is it that when I hear someone make a great philosophical argument I get the same feeling as when I see someone has put clothes on his dog?
With me is Caroline’s last postcard. Typical Caroline. “I’m in Paris ” & an address, some grimy suburb just out of the city. I’ll go there & tell her my brother’s dead, the man she loved, and then…But NOT YET- clumsy love declarations are a high heart risk. Should I see her? Should I wait? The problem with most people is they’ve NEVER been torn in half, not really not right down the middle like I have, NEVER ripped themselves to shreds NEVER listened to the warring factions BOTH make their case so convincing AND so right & they don’t know what it is to have your brain & your body want TWO things each that’s FOUR compelling ideas all at once.
I wonder if I’m reaching out for Caroline in particular or just for someone who knew me before five minutes ago.
4 June
This morning woke to sound of children laughing- that shit me. Even worse- found decision had taken place in my head overnight-
Went into bowels of city then suffocating metro ride out of Paris. Saw four horse-faced people. 14-year-old toughie tried to pick my pocket making me realize I don’t know French word for Hey!
Finally sat on low stone wall opposite small many-windowed building, all shutters closed as if forever. Hard to believe this dirty apartment building housed the woman I love. Commander sensing I was about to linger screeched in my ear so I marched to front door & pounded. Bit my lower lip too tho commander hadn’t ordered it.
Door handle turned slowly & insensitively to prolong immaculate agony. Finally opened to reveal short, stout woman as wide as she was long- in other words, a perfect square.
– Oui?
– Caroline Potts, she is here? I said in perfect English translation of grammatically correct French. The woman blabbered away in her tongue & shook head. Caroline was no longer there.
– And Monsieur Potts? The blind man?
She looked at me blankly.
– Blind. No eyes. No eyes, I repeated idiotically, thinking Well, can I come in & smell her pillow?
– Hello! a voice called out from the upstairs window. An Asian face was hanging there looking for a body to match. Wait there! the face said & ran down breathlessly.
– You are looking for the girl & the blind man?
– Yes!
– I’m Eddie.
– So?
– So nothing. The girl left a month ago, after the blind man died.
– Died? Are you sure?
– Of course I’m sure. I was at the funeral. What’s your name?
– Martin. How did he die?
– I used to watch them from my window. Every day she walked him to the shops so he would know where the holes were in the street, but this one day he went alone. He must have got disoriented because he walked right into the middle of the road and just stood there.
– He was hit by a car?
– No, he had a heart attack. He’s buried up at the local cemetery. You want to see his grave? I could take you. Come on, he said buttoning up his coat, but I hesitated. Something in his manner was unsettling: his hands made delicate gestures & in his voice a conciliatory tone as if we’d argued & he wanted to make it up to me.
– Shall we go and see your dead friend? he asked sweetly & I thought I don’t like this man not that I had any real reason for disliking him but so what? I’ve been disliked by people who couldn’t even pick me out of a police lineup.
Under gray sky we walked up the same color road in dead silence to the top of the hill. The cemetery was only 100 meters away- convenient place to die. The grave had only his name & lifespan & nothing else no little witticisms nothing. I wondered if Lionel died instantly or w/final breath made a banal plan like Must buy milk. Then I thought about all the deaths I knew- how Harry chose his & how Terry was probably shocked by his & how my parents’ deaths must have come to them as a disagreeable surprise like a bill in the mail they thought they’d already paid.