Lozere, October 1992
The Pest
'd known him forever, but I never knew his name. He was neither brother, cousin, nor friend to me, oh no, least of all a friend, despite the insufferable, nauseating expression of tenderness that lit up those piggish little eyes whenever his gaze settled on me.
Time and again, he'd ruined my life. I'd even made an attempt on his, but his filthy little fingers clung tight and fast to his filthy little life. He got away every time and came back to taunt me with it, with his repellent potbelly, his teary eyes, his incurable acne, his falsetto, his grubby rags, his inevitable shopping bag bulging with old oysters and plastic conches.
It was his fault I'd become a pariah. Every time a chance had come up for me, he'd chased it off, or embarrassed me so much I couldn't seize it, mired as I was in him and his grotesque notions. How many women had withheld their smiles, how many potential investors their trust, how many taxi drivers their services in the pouring rain-and all because of him? Oh, how well I understood them! I would've done the same: a man who knows, or is known by, someone like him is obviously disreputable.
Let's be honest: not everything in my life was that hopeless. Sometimes he was here one day and gone the next. It so happened that he'd leave me a few months or even years of respite. Disbelieving at first, I'd rejoice suspiciously. A day without him was already a blessing. Two, three-I wouldn't yet dare believe it but bit by bit regained my confidence, I straightened up, I sneaked peeks at women passing by: he wasn't there to elbow me and loudly pronounce the crudest commentary on this or that aspect of their physique. A week went by, the skies cleared, my smile came back, I whistled, I hummed, I snapped my fingers, I laughed out loud alone in the street, I began making plans for the future again!
Now and then I had the chance to get these plans underway and, more rarely, to see them through. That's how I managed to start several businesses and two families… alas! He always wound up coming back, unbridled, more monstrous and destructive than ever. In a few days he'd reduced it all to nothing. My wife would chase me out. My business would collapse. The mailman would hurl my mail at me from far off, as though at a plague victim, and if I were so imprudent as to protest, my own dog would take the mailman's side and bark at me. I'd find myself homeless, ruined, and riddled with debt, alone… no, not alone, that would've been too good to be true! There he'd be, obnoxiously loyal and loving.
Once I tried to place myself under the protection of the law. Still reeling from a incident more unpleasant than usual, I walked into a precinct and asked to speak to the desk sergeant. A patrolman greeted me. I launched right into my tale: "Officer, I'm the victim of harassment."
"I see. What form does this harassment take? Insults? Infringement of civil liberties? Death threats? Insistent, unwelcome sexual advances?"
"No, no," I replied. "He doesn't lay into me so much as people I meet… He annoys them, shocks them, frightens or disgusts them, and their contempt and disapproval reflect on me."
"But you're not the one harassing them. It's him, right?"
"Absolutely! But you have to understand, he's not really harassing them. He's happy just acting like a lout, while treating me in such a friendly and informal way that my acquaintances can't doubt our closeness. A closeness I formally refute, officer!"
"Hmm. I see… "The policeman scratched his forehead for a moment, silent.
"Actually, I don't," he began again. "To tell the truth, I don't see at all. Could you be a bit clearer, more precise: how is this closeness shown?"
I dropped my gaze. "He… he caresses my hands, gazes fondly at me, gives me the most excessive, extravagant compliments!"
"… and?"
I blushed. "Oh, this is absurd! He says my skin is lily-white and soft as a peach, that I'm aglow with health, that my teeth are gleaming-"
I bit my tongue long enough to clear my throat. "He praises my wit, my manners, my diction, my knowledge, my fashion sense, thethe freshness of my breath!"
"And these compliments irritate you?"
"To say the least, sir!"
"So why don't you just slap him in the face?"
"I have! I've insulted him, slapped him, half strangled him, smacked him silly, left him for dead again and again-"
"That bad, is it?"
"Yes!" I said, nodding frantically, heedless of the fact that in the policeman's eves I was changing from victim to victimizer. "I've often thrown him to the ground and trampled him, twisted his cars and nose, broken his fingers, even tried to poke his eyes out!"
"But you never managed?"
"No-well, I thought I did once or twice, but sadly, no!"
"In short: you'd like us to intervene?"
"I want it to stop! I want him to go away! I want him to leave me alone!" I'd raised my voice. The patrolman scowled.
"Calm down now, mister. Mister… I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name?"
I stated my name. He noted it.
"And this individual… What's his name?"
It was inevitable. We were bound to reach this point sooner or later. I felt sheepish, helpless. "I don't know, officer."
He frowned. "You don't know?"
"He never said."
"How exactly do you know each other?"
The pointlessness of my approach was suddenly clear to me. How could I have thought my agony might be relieved by an outside party? I was quiet for a moment. But the officer was getting impatient. I had to give him an answer.
"I met him at Buttes-Chaumont. Well…I think it was ButtesChaumont."
"You're not sure?"
"It's just that it's been more than thirty years since he first showed up in my life, officer. After all that time, I'm not sure anymore. I could just as well have met him in the little square on the rue de Crimee-I was there a lot too back then-but I'm leaning more toward ButtesChaumont, since-"
The patrolman cut me off. "Buttes-Chaumont it is. Well? What happened then?"
"I was playing in the sandbox with a few other kids when he appeared. In the wrong clothes, even back then. Grubby and pimply. His nose was running, and a few big snotty drops had fallen on the half-chewed waffle in his hand. He stepped into the sandbox, walked right up to me, and made a great show of friendship: the first of many! He sang praises of my sandcastles, marveled over the stickers on my little bucket, and grabbed the other kids' rakes and shovels, piling them up at my feet like spoils of war. Then he made me eat his waffle. I got a cold the next day, lice the day after, and two weeks later came down with chicken pox. My troubles had begun."
My voice broke into a sob. Recounting the first station on my long road to Calvary had moved me to tears. I took a packet of tissues from my pocket and blew my nose loudly. Just above the edge of the tissue, I caught the officer's look. It didn't seem quite as compassionate as I might have expected.
"Of course," I said, folding the tissue back up neatly, "if you've never been through that, you couldn't understand."
The patrolman coughed gently. "I understand"
"You'd have to have been through what I've been through. The sandbox was only the beginning of an endless series of encounters. If only you knew-"
Carried away by the desire to convince the officer it was essential he intervene, I gathered myself to tell him everything in the greatest detail.
He stopped me right away. "Let's skip that for now, OK? Where does this man live?"
I grew flustered, and dropped my gaze again. Bad enough that I didn't know my tormentor's name. But how could an outsider ever accept that I'd put up with him under my own roof? For live together we did, for long periods, against my will, of course. I'd change my locks every week, but he'd get in somehow and impose his awful presence on me. If I moved, he'd find me. Even if I fled to the far ends of the earth, it wouldn't be long before he happened by.