“No thank you.”
“Well, an apple then.”
“Fine.”
“All right?”
“Yes.”
“Does the light trouble you?”
“No.”
“I'll switch off the ceiling light, if you like.”
“It's nothing, Marie-Thérèse.”
She's already stood up. She presses the switch to the left of the door. The neon ceiling light and a wall spotlight go out. All that remains is the light on the exhaust fan and the strip lights that illuminate the counter, an absurdly intimate atmosphere that, when she asked, he approved, for, he observes, he can find no reason to resist her action, if she wanted to plunge the entire kitchen into darkness he wouldn't perceive it as inconvenient, he has no opinion, as well the glare of the neon as darkness, he thinks, as well words spoken as fruit cut up in silence. He has said, it's nothing, Marie-Thérèse, and she has gotten up to switch off the ceiling light, a pointless gesture, since he's not troubled by the light, a misguided solicitude, that both touches and irritates him. Instead of saying, It's nothing, Marie-Thérèse, why not admit everything, and even lay it on a bit thick to alarm her, what's the point of holding things back with this phony decorum that's already been undermined by his knitted brow, the Veinamitol, and his pathetic hand pressed to his eyelids, why not create a bit of atmosphere and say, Marie-Thérèse I have a serious genetic defect, at any moment, in any part of my body, one of the blood vessels could become blocked, even as I speak, I already have a thrombosis of the eye that is complicated by glaucoma, it might occur in my heart or in my brain, before the end of our evening together I could, for example, be struck down by a heart attack, and whether you switch your ceiling light on or off, Marie-Thérèse, makes no difference. The same goes for your essential oils, my poor Marie-Thérèse. I bear you no ill will but I hope you can gauge how ridiculous it was to recommend oil of garlic to me. Oil of garlic to a man with hyperhomocysteinemia! My wife, Irene, also urges miraculous brews on me. In her case not from ignorance, but from malice. Internal lotions for the venous system, prescribed by the girl who waxes her legs. Irene cannot tolerate my whining. She's the one who talks about my whining. As if I whined all the time, which isn't true, or which may have become true owing to the fact that, never having known the solace of any kind of tolerance in her, I've ended up emphasizing my complaints, even dramatizing them, in the paradoxical hope of being taken seriously, of melting the other, arousing her compassion. It's true that with my wife, Irene, I exaggerate my suffering and in a general way always have done, whatever my ills were, but I did it to attract her to me and that was a great mistake, Marie-Thérèse, because suffering cannot be communicated, any more than the sense of rejection, which is also called loneliness, can be, any more, which is worse, than grief can be, indeed I'm forced to wonder what can be communicated. Until now I've never had anything serious. All kinds of ills, yes. More or less everyday ills, yes. But nothing serious. I didn't tell you in the Wrangler, Marie-Thérèse, but my father had cancer of the colon. A cancer of a hereditary type, apparently. I'd come to accept the idea of cancer of the colon. My hypothetical worst case, since you need to have one, was the colon. The day I had a polyp-free colonoscopy I told myself, you're in the clear, nothing can happen to you. A little colonoscopy once every five years and you've nothing to worry about. One morning, Marie-Thérèse, I wake up, I have a flickering sensation in my left eye, I cover the other eye with my hand, and I become aware that my vision's blurred. I say to Irene my vision's blurred, she replies that's all we needed. I say to Irene the sight in my left eye's all hazy, she replies it's a speck of dust, it'll pass. Two days later I tell her I have a thrombosis, she sighs and says that's the last straw. The beautician's lotion is a thick, revolting concoction with a base of virgin vine, concentrated silica, and, I read on the label, because whereas you read instructions for electrical household appliances from start to finish, Marie-Thérèse, I read the labels on medicines from start to finish, of witch hazel. Witch hazel? I timidly dared to ask a woman who is, after all, a project leader at Issy-les-Moulineaux, a space communications buff. Witch hazel, that's right, she replies with an impatient shrug. You've swallowed far worse in your life. Where was I, Marie-Thérèse? What was I saying? You're lighting a candle on the table, we've gone back into the living room, I see, I'll go wherever you want, I'll sit wherever you want, the kitchen, the living room, it doesn't matter. The pathways I love, the trails that twist and turn who knows where, are far away.
Marie-Thérèse lights a white candle like an altar candle. From the flame she lights her cigarette. Then she says, do you want to see Alice's letter? Adam watches the thread of black smoke disappearing. He says, show me. Marie-Thérèse lays her cigarette down on a trefoil-shaped ashtray and goes off to fetch the letter.
Alice's letter is addressed to Marie-Thérèse Lyoc, Domaine des Hocquettes, Suresnes 92, Francia. Barely legible over the Spanish stamps, the postmark reads 1971.
Adam takes the sheets of paper out of the envelope. Four pages, covered right up to the edges in handwriting that is instantly recognizable and instantly painful.
MALAGA, SATURDAY AUGUST 14
Mujer (my burden!),
There's never any paper at all in the shithouses in Spain or Morocco, it's still as disgusting as ever and even though you wrote to me on some kind of toilet paper, which was a relief because I thought you were turning bourgeois, I don't use it despite my catching dysentery in the south of Morocco! I've got the cramps and heartburn, etc., it's such a “pain in the ass” that for the past four days I've stopped smoking … cigarettes. I'm here at the station, on the way back to Paris, a lot of hesitating, as I wanted to stay with Nordine at Diabet (a mile and a half from Essaouira, look on the map, dear). You can live on nothing down there, it's a village where the only people are hippies and Moroccans, but they're not stupid pricks, they take no notice of the hippies, don't regard them as strange animals the way people do everywhere else. Not a single tourist, it's really paradise. My parents would never have been able to find me down there, impossible. When I got here I found a letter from my father that starts like this: “The little notice you take of us speaks volumes for your inability to fulfill your most basic obligations. Am I to assume that you take a similarly casual view of your examination at the start of the new term and, beyond that, the year ahead? I must remind you that there's more to life than running after guitar-strumming morons on the beaches of the Costa del Sol.” You can see what that kind of language does for one's morale! The truth is I find it hard to see myself going back to the lycée. To begin with, I've forgotten everything, absolutely everything, and, besides, for the past three weeks I've been stoned, this is the first day I haven't smoked, not taken my little dose of brain vitamins. You knowghita tea, opium tea? In Morocco everyone's high, even the customs men smoke, you smoke with the policemen, who are great, out in the street, in the cafes, everywhere, you never hide and it costs nothing. For seven francs you can get a pound of very good kif The truth is I can't see myself remaining in Suresnes. Nordine wants to come and meet up with me after working in San Sebastian for a month and we'll go off to Amsterdam where he's got something fixed up. He wants us to get married, have a son, and travel. He's very nice, I like him. I've even talked to him about Tristan and also Julio, who's waitingfor me in Madrid to go off to Argentina and do craft work there. He wants a son, too, it's an obsession, I don't know what's got into them, that they all want a son (apartfrom Tristan). I need to make my mind up once and for all which of them is the best for me, and stay with him and forget all the others because things can't go on like this (at the moment it's going fine).