“Or else quickly get dressed to go home to their legitimate wife.”
“Who’s waiting in their bed.”
“Personally,” I say, “I like it outdoors. If I close my eyes I see a dark alley, a moon above.”
“When you said outside, it wasn’t an alley I’d imagined. My concept of a romantic fantasy is different. I’d choose a beach at sunset. Alone in the world. Lost in the universe.”
“A beach, okay, but not alone in the world. I’d need people looking on.”
“Oh, really – an exhibitionist?” “We’re talking about fantasy.” She fills our glasses.
“So let’s drink to fantasy. Let’s drink to phantoms.”
“I’ll continue,” I say. “The beach at twilight. Our shapes are blurred, but our gestures defined. We undress each other standing up, face to face.”
“Yes.”
“No. The image isn’t exciting enough. Too realistic.”
“It was a good start, though.”
“It’s only a start.”
Not long ago I lived with a man, but I wasn’t in love. Philippe. I mean that our lives drifted apart, with no feeling of togetherness, in a quiet apartment, prettily decorated. I close my eyes to remember. Here’s what comes to me: a tiny kitchen and his angular, bony body, his white chef’s hat, his large apron. At the same time, aromas fill my memory: poached fish, white butter sauce. I remember chilly mornings, curled up in the big bed, him leaving for work, a tie, never the same, around his neck. Ties, his weakness. I made fun of his outdated elegance. Distinguished apparel, he corrected. When he came home, his briefcase would be overflowing with files. Urgent, as he’d say. Urgent, darling, my love. Swamped. Completely insane this week. And you, my love, did you have a good day? Me?
He was one of those people who mutter Israeli-Arab conflict, or inflation, price wars, corruption, sighing heavily, sadly nodding their heads. The weight of the world lay on his shoulders, immensely heavy. Sometimes he stooped. “Everything is political,” he stated, “we can’t do anything about it.” “I don’t want everything to be political.” Seeing me burst into tears rendered him helpless. “Why cry?” he asked. How to know why? “We are comfortable,” he continued. “We have everything to be happy for. Why are you crying?” “I have too many tears.” “Too many tears? Come on!” “My novel is too sad.” “They always finish happily, your novels.” “That’s what’s so sad.” “I don’t understand you,” he sighed. “Me neither.”
“I would like to have been a Carmelite nun,” I say. “You, a Carmelite nun? Hard to imagine…” “I would have sung hymns in a pure voice, carried candles, worn a cowl, with only my soul for beauty. I would have loved Jesus to madness. Or I’d have liked to be a courtesan.” “Maria Magdalena, now.” “Covered with men and jewels. Jesus loved her. She will be greatly forgiven because she loved a great deal.” “His last temptation.” “Lost in the world or outside it. A lost woman. Burned, burning, to the very end of my flame.” “You’re talking nonsense. Aren’t you happy?” “And you?”
I lived in limbo, mechanically translating insipid novels. Nothing resembled life, yet it was life. Nothing resembled love in the least. Love, it seemed to me, should be a generous feeling. As so often happens, we failed to give enough. Yet sometimes there were tender words, considerate gestures, flowers on the table. Books lying about on the arms of chairs, music playing in the house.
Days go by, hair whitens, hands age, veins appear, sad wrinkles set in around the lips. The back begins to ache, teeth become loose. The voice acquires a hoarseness some find charming. The body becomes dry and brittle, like a bare tree in winter. One day the body no longer responds. I dread that day. Betrayal, sinking. Everything will have passed me by, I won’t know how to have hung onto it. Balance: zero. I could have spent my life next to him without anything ever happening to us. I would have had an eventless life, a lifeless event. Sometimes sadness, sly and insidious, would creep into my chest, like a needle probing my ribs. I wasn’t happy and yet I wasn’t looking for happiness.
“How does the idea of aging strike you?”
“That’s in the survey?” She is surprised.
“No.”
“I’m scared of it, of course.”
“And death?”
“I don’t think about it.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t want to die.”
“I think about it all the time,” I say.
“Why?”
“Because I don’t want to die.”
“We can’t escape it.”
“That’s why I think about it.”
“It doesn’t help.”
“I don’t think of why, but of how. I worry about the way I’ll die. I think of suffering.”
“I’d like to go quickly,” she declares. “I hope to feel nothing.”
“I’m mostly scared of violence. I’m scared I’ll be murdered.”
“Oh. But why? Do you lead such a dangerous life?” “All lives are dangerous. I’m scared of the violence of life.”
“And you travel alone!”
“Violence is everywhere. Who can protect us?”
“Stop! I’ll start to get scared too!”
“I want to die in a bed all in white, old and venerable, surrounded by love. I want my children and grandchildren to bend over to capture my last words.”
“I don’t want to die of AIDS,” she says.
“Or burn to death.”
“Or drown.”
“Or die in an earthquake or an explosion. Or buried under rubble.”
“Nor of hunger or thirst,” she continues.
“Not in war. Not in a concentration camp.”
“Not of cold.”
“Not in a plane crash.”
“Don’t even mention it! You’re asking for trouble.”
“Not devoured by a lion, or squeezed to death and swallowed by a boa.”
“How awful!”
“Not tortured, mutilated, my body hacked to pieces, buried in the woods, thrown in a green plastic bag at the end of a dead-end street.”
These images would come to me when I watched the news on television. Philippe said: “You’re obsessed with morbidity, poor darling.” I protested: “What do you think? I do it on purpose? You heard the news, the same as I, you read the newspaper, right? You spend your life reading the newspaper. Does it leave you indifferent?” He exploded: “What’s gotten into you? I’m not the one assassinating children!” He explained: “Whether I’m indifferent, as you say, or whether I cry doesn’t change the facts.” He went on: “It’s as if you’re making me responsible.” And I answered yes, we are all responsible. But I didn’t know in what way.
When he’d see me get depressed as I read about atrocities, he’d shake his head, dejected. He’d put his arm around my shoulders. To console me, he also told me it’s always like that, as well you know, always the same thing, in every century, in every country of the world, no one is safe, it’s always war in the twisted brains of some people. You just have to go on living. “As if nothing happened?” No, his words didn’t console me. He continued: