Christine Angot
INCEST
I shouldn’t dedicate this one to you
my beautiful Léonore, and so nice too,
as you asked me to add.
No Man’s Land
I was homosexual for three months. More precisely, for three months I thought I was condemned to be homosexual. I really had caught it, I wasn’t imagining things. The test results were positive. I’d become attached. Not the first few times. It was the looks she gave. I started on a process, one of collapse. In which I couldn’t recognize myself. It wasn’t my story anymore. It wasn’t me. Still, as soon as I saw her, the test results were the same. I was homosexual the moment I saw her. Things turned back into me afterward. Whenever she was gone. Other times, even in her presence, I was myself again. I missed my daughter so much on trips, when I was away for longer stretches, three or four days. The feeling of betraying the only one I truly love. To whom I’d dedicated all my books. Writing is impossible. When you’re not yourself. My sexuality suffered. In the beginning I was dissatisfied. Then. I wasn’t anymore. I was less and less. Except for one thing (I’ll get to it later), that I never enjoyed doing. Something specific, that involves all the rest. Except for once, I remember. I never did it, so to speak. I had become one hundred percent homosexual apart from that. Apparently. The moment I saw her. But for this detail. Remaining fundamentally and profoundly heterosexual all the while. (But, without theory.) One detail that spared me. Otherwise I was completely homosexual. For a short time, but still, three months. There were no men at all in my fantasies, on the contrary, there were women rivals. I was on the sidelines, they were rivals with each other. I was fascinated by homosexuality. No one is fascinated by themselves, I wasn’t homosexual. And yet. I ended up feeling an enormous desire. As soon as I saw her arriving, I was caught. Even now, I still have to. Even at this very moment. Have to stop myself from calling her. Calling her at work, that’s my specialty. It amused her at first. All the “quick calls.” The secretary knew my voice. Of course. Right away. The secretaries recognize my voice. Right away, they know it’s Christine. I keep at it, I’m relentless. I make it clear, I’m not embarrassed. The weapon turns against me sooner or later. I use it. My former editor used to say “she’s a serial killer.” I want to call him too sometimes. My father has Alzheimer’s, typical, I call others. I telephone. Her, I can’t count the number of times. I call again. I hang up. I call back to say, “above all, don’t call me again.” “I don’t want to hear from you anymore.” I don’t get a call. I telephone again. I say “you could have called me back. So you weren’t going to call, hunh? You don’t have the guts! To do the opposite of what I tell you for once. When you know perfectly well… it’s not what I wanted. You know it’s not true, what I say. Not what I want. But the opposite. After three months, you still haven’t figured it out. You know that’s how it is. And if you don’t, well then…” Behaving like a baby. I’m perfectly aware. Not at first, though it was normal to call her at work ten times in an hour. She claims she loves me. For a blown light bulb, an empty ink cartridge, a fax that won’t go through, to read her what I’ve just written over the phone, for some anxiety attack coming on. Etc. Dinner, do you love me, and I forgot to tell you, I thought to myself, I’ll call her or I’ll have forgotten again by this evening. At first, it comes off well, she likes it, it’s spontaneous, it’s a change. Serial killer, it’s part of my charm. I tell her she’s a coward. She tells me I’m crazy. A lack of balance doesn’t scare me, there are others who can’t cope. Like her. People like her. Who have limits. I have none. Her, she has them. Me, I don’t. She can’t stand it. When things get so… neurotic. I get called insane. Several times. Don’t take it as an indictment, you’ve got reasons, it’s just an observation. Some people have limits, you have none. But still, I’m suffering. She can’t take it anymore. She has her limits. Who could? I hang up. I pass the mirror. Despite my face being all flushed, I think I look pretty good. I say to myself, “I’m worth more than this.” I don’t call her back. I say to myself “I’m not going to call her.” I say to myself “how dare she… ten years older than I am… and not all that attractive.” I lie down. Time to move on to something else. There are other things in life than calling Mademoiselle. I decide to read. I like reading. This doesn’t interest me. Coeur furieux, my heart is even more furious. I close the book and try to watch The Last Temptation of Christ. After five minutes I stretch out on the sofa and weep. I don’t just shed a few tears. Pretty soon it’s unbearable. I wonder who to call. Who to talk to about this. What number to dial to start sobbing right after “hello” and then “what’s the matter?” How many phone numbers before coming to my senses again? There are always offers. “If things aren’t going well, call me.” No, her. To see if she loves me to exhaustion, as she claims. If not, then really! “I’d do anything for you,” but not take two hundred phone calls. Right now, this minute! At her place, at work, at the hospital, with a patient in front of her. And then. I don’t call her again. I’m relieved, I’m finally free. Phew, I even say it out loud. I say phew. I pick up the phone and put it on my stomach. I tell myself that it doesn’t mean anything, there’s no reason I can’t have it on my stomach. The remote control is on the ground and still I’m not watching television. So there! Just because the telephone is on my stomach, doesn’t mean I’m going to call. It’s absurd! I’m so much better off without her. I’m not going to go and call her now, just when I’m starting to calm down. Besides, I have nothing to say. Not a thing. Phew. Really, phew. I didn’t want to. I was never homosexual. I was never interested in breasts. Mine included. We finally undressed one day. She said “touch me.” “Never.” I’ll never be able to. I told her, I remember, even though it was a long time ago, “your breasts bother me.” She said “well just your luck, they’re very small.” That’s just it! as long as I’m at it, I’d have preferred they were bigger. When she said “touch me,” that’s not what she was talking about. When someone says touch me… Fine, I put my finger in. You never get a chance to touch something like that otherwise. Léonore has a book about touching called Feely Bugs in the ‘Touch and Feel’ series. There’s nothing like this in it. Not the plush bug, the one with feathers, with lace, or, of course, the leather one, or the lamé one, or the very soft bug, the carpet bug, the sticky bug, the padded bug, the velvet bug or the bug with pleats, or the scratchy one, or the candy wrapper butterflies she collects. When I felt how slimy it was! I pulled back my hand. It’s peculiar. Too peculiar. It was the look she gave me. Even now, I have to keep from thinking of her eyes. I’m still vulnerable. Her look is terrible. For me. No one had told her that before. It seems. Sous-au-cun-pré-tex-te.Je-ne-veux. Devant-toi-surex. Poser-mes-yeux. (Under-no-circumstances. Do-I-want. To-over-expose. My-eyes-in-front-of-you.) She sings that sometimes. The phone is in the other room. I’m calm. Right here, right now. It’s more dangerous when it’s on my stomach. Within reach. I must have really bothered her at work, the number of times I called. Up to a hundred times in a day. I can’t count any more. Sobbing or cold as ice, “you’re hopeless, you poor thing, you poor, poor thing, but poor thing, your medical license should be revoked for failure to provide assistance to someone at risk. What a sham, not a shred of humanity. For someone who’s suffering”… “OK, you want to be friends, I’m calling as a friend, come over.” She didn’t come. “In any case, we can never be friends, we’re not going to see each other any more, it’s perfectly clear, besides sex, did anything ever work between us, more or less – and even then? Take care of yourself, sweetheart, keep an eye on your little savings. When you can’t, you can’t, isn’t that right? We can’t. Take care, take good care, get some rest, yes, you’re tired, my love, get some rest and keep watch over what little capital you have, so it stays untouched. For your legacy when you die. When you’re dead. For your family.” An allusion to the will she wrote when she was eight. Pitou to my godmother. My rabbits to Mama as long as they won’t be killed. My desk to Papa. My books to my cousins. My toys to poor children. My clothes to Françoise. I want to calm down. Take this damn phone off my stomach. I eject the tape of