THIRTY-SEVEN
You’re asleep, I’m not. You fell asleep in my arms without completely leaving me but now you really are fast asleep, already.
Propped on one elbow with my head resting on my hand, I watch you. You snore almost imperceptibly. Your eyes are closed, your mouth half open, and your lips sketch that very soft, very rare smile — and this is not a cliché—that belongs to you alone. You’re beautiful, free. Thoughts come to me: What are you dreaming about? Where are you at that moment? Who are you that I’m so afraid of losing you, why do I so want you to be mine, why am I sure you’ll never be completely mine?
I’m ashamed of this longing for ownership that I can’t quite put my finger on. It reveals my share of the terror that a woman’s freedom to desire arouses in men. I don’t like the dumb beast in me awakened by the fear that one day you’ll no longer desire me. I wish I could be serene, feel no more doubt.
I lie on my back, I can’t get to sleep.
THIRTY-EIGHT
Stay a couple more minutes, you say. We had said goodbye for the last time, yet again. But then my cell phone rang and it was you, we talked, possibly just to hear each other’s voices one last time. I was about to hang up: “Stay a couple more minutes.” It’s okay, I stay a couple more minutes. I don’t say anything and neither do you, I can just hear your breathing, from time to time. Your breathing is more devastating than any words you could have said. Time passes, I walk up the street, reach my building and go in, but I stay in the lobby, leaning against the wall. We stay like that in silence, for a long time. I’m sure that, like me, you’re filling yourself up with this shared silence, in anticipation of a much longer one to come, one we won’t be sharing anymore.
THIRTY-NINE
Of course, this little book is coming to an end and I’m regretting it already. I promised myself I would be strict, but just remember: a text telling me you’re going to do four things (the first was to have your ears pierced); me almost like a teenager the first (and only) time I met your parents; your little boy deciding to hit me by way of a greeting at Luc’s concert; you, at the wheel of your car, on the first day, struggling to fasten your seat belt and, when I try to help, uttering a polysemic “Oh, are you getting involved?”; you at your house, wearing a black dress and a doubly secret ring; your voice reading Dorothy Parker to me on the banks of the Seine; your hand dragging me into the corner of the kitchen where the neighbors can’t see us; you kissed avidly under a porch in the Jardin des Batignolles; and you, again, always you, coming down the stairs of a library where I’m doing a reading of one of my books, discovering my public persona, feeling thrilled and in love.
FORTY
My die has finally come to rest on this surface. I promised a lack of logic and yet there has been some: this last memory is imaginary, it happens at some time in the near future as I write to you now. I don’t know where we’ve arranged to meet, I don’t know if we’ve even really split up, I only know the date, around January 10.
I look at you and say: “I have a present for you. For your fortieth birthday.” I produce this tiny book. You read the title, leaf through it for a moment. You may be moved, perhaps very moved. I know what you want more than anything: for me to work. This is a piece of work, and you can tell. You know that every sentence was written and rewritten, not just for you but for everyone else too, you sense that what you have in your hand is the raw material for another piece, a longer one, still to come. But, in spite of everything, this is a book, a book that really was written for you.
I won’t add, “I wish it had been longer,” because that’s not true, or “I wish I’d had more time,” because I did have time, almost too much. I wish I could have written it in a week, been caught up in writing it and not in the upheavals of our relationship. That is not how it happened, I wasn’t granted that whole week.
Because I myself am moved, disarmed, I might quite easily whisper an “I love you,” already regretting that sometimes that’s all I can think to say to you.
And if you can read one more sentence, and these few words, then a real declaration could never bring a real book to a conclusion.
YVES AND ANNA
• •
YVES LETS ANNA READ Forty Memories of Anna Stein, and leafs through his newspaper, trying to take an interest in articles. She has not looked up at him once, has read the book straight through, in twenty minutes.
Anna puts the book down.
“Thank you,” she says again.
THOMAS AND LOUISE
• •
IT IS THE LAST SUNDAY IN FEBRUARY. Thomas has taken Louise, Judith, and Maud to the races in Vincennes. They have never seen trotting races, or any sort of horse racing, period. Louise could not make up her mind because it was drizzling, it was windy, it was cold, but she wanted to please Thomas. They are in the grandstand, to the west of the track.
“The second race will start in two minutes” is called out over the loudspeakers.
“I haven’t been for years. When I was ten, I used to come with my grandfather, he always bet on the second and fourth races, very small stakes.”
“Could we bet too?” Judith asks.
Thomas is in favor, but as he turns to Louise, she scowls.
“Absolutely not,” she says. “I know all about these places. They launder dirty money.”
“How does money get dirty, mom?” Maud asks.
“Just for one race,” Thomas persists. “Coming here and not betting really would be a shame.”
“Please yourself,” Louise sighs. “But I’m not putting one centime of my money into this.”
“Great,” says Thomas. “Come on, girls, we’re having a go at it.”
The betting booths are close by. They are back in a flash, the girls holding slips in their hands.
“I backed Cabbage Patch Hurricane to win, mom,” cries Judith. “He was sixty-seven to one!”
“And I backed Oscars Night to place,” adds Maud. “At thirty-eight to one!”
The girls’ excitement raises a smile from Louise.
“They really are a dead loss, the pair of them,” Thomas says apologetically, “but the girls liked their names so much. They spent ten euros each. Is that okay? It’s pretty reasonable.”
“Twenty euros in all? It’s far too much, Thomas. It’s ridiculous.”
“The second race will start in one minute,” says the announcer.
“The horses are on the track over there,” Thomas explains. “They’re going to line up in front of us for the start, and when the pistol’s fired, they’ll set off at top speed, turn over there to the east and come back in front of us for the finish.”
“Which one is Cabbage Patch Hurricane?” Judith asks.
“He’s number 12, over there. With the purple hat.”
The little girls are startled by the bang of the starting gun, then they giggle at their jumpiness and start screaming the names of their respective horses. Thomas roars with laughter, Louise is embarrassed.
“Not so much noise, girls, you’re disturbing other people.”
The geldings are already tackling the sweeping turn. Judging by the commentary, Judith’s horse is in quite a good position. The favorite, Piet van Dresde, has slightly grazed his pastern and is not at his best. His rival, Orus de Bruxelles, is finding the heavy going difficult. The others are giving a mediocre performance. When the horses cross the finish line, the commentator announces: “First: number 12, Cabbage Patch Hurricane. Second: number 10, Oscars Night. Third: number 3, Piet van Dresde.”