Yasmina Reza - Desolation

We clink glasses in silence. And in silence she and I contemplate, I by dint of twisting around so that I can see him reflected in the glass, the remains of Jean-Louis Hauvette, murderer of Leopold Fench.

The remains don’t amount to much, if truth be told, but then what would remain of an old man sitting alone at a table on Place des Ternes, watching the shadows of passing traffic behind a window?

“Were you angry at him?”

“Terribly.”

“Until this evening?”

“No, not anymore, this evening,” she murmurs, stricken.

We agree that pity has a catastrophic effect on all forms of vitality.

By hating him unflinchingly (and Hauvette was all the more to be hated because unjustly accused), Genevieve had kept Hauvette in focus. She had saved him from old age and oblivion. For as long as anger and resentment lasted, their pitiful story endured too. A slightly hunched back, a general air of solitude, and Genevieve was undone. Everything was undone. Because the only reality is subjective. Enter pity, and Genevieve, Hauvette, and even Leo had all reverted to insignificance. Enter pity and the eroding effects of time (are they the same thing? yes) and the episode in the rue Charlot and the death that followed, and the life that followed, are no more than minute, infinitesimally minute dislocations.

Disturb God.

Take a little step back so that He can enter the world, every day, and several times a day, and your whole life long.

I cannot boast of having taken it. That little step. Not even for a single day. Not even once, I’m ashamed to say, my boy, without expecting a response, without hoping for a hearing. The Jew, the real Jew, says to God, I have obeyed You, come, I’ve made room for you in our world, and I ask nothing, absolutely nothing, from you.

Disturb God. This, yes, this I have done. But you see there are no laws that govern this enterprise. And life, my boy, doesn’t like being disturbed. Mankind aspires to comfort. To disturb life is to take the road of genuine desperation.

“Genevieve, everything beyond the immediate moment is unreal. Soon all three of us will be dead and buried. Let’s invite Jean-Louis Hauvette to join us.”

“How do I look?”

“Beautiful.”

“Old?”

“No.”

“So go.”

Jean-Louis Hauvette is finishing a sole. I say, excuse me, and I tell him that a woman he hasn’t seen for a long time would like to speak to him. He listens to me and turns round toward Genevieve. Then something happens that is totally unforeseen. Genevieve looks up in my direction, makes a gesture I don’t understand, and starts to laugh, laugh uncontrollably, into her napkin. Jean-Louis Hauvette looks at her for a moment and turns back to me. “Who is it?” he asks.

“Genevieve Abramowitz,” I say.

“I’m glad I amuse this person. I have no idea who she is,” he says, sticking a fork into his last potato.

“But you are Jean-Louis Hauvette, aren’t you?” I try stupidly.

“Not at all,” he says, dismissing me.

My son —what should I have said?

Are you going to go on and on fucking around like this? A little thrill in Malaysia, a little dose of culture in Jordan, then three months off with more people who like to fuck around in the Luberon. The world is within reach of absolutely anybody these days. And everything is familiar, everything is overrun. Not one place left untouched . I finally have a certain sympathy for the Afghans and all religious fanatics in general. You’re not going to go visiting them, at least. Whole herds of you aren’t going to go trash the slopes of Pamir.

My son.

Did you open the fridge? Have you taken in the sad sight of the fridge? Here or in the rue Ampère, same fridge, same sad sight. Nancy doesn’t give a damn, she’s above these trivialities, and Dacimiento never buys what I like. When I open the fridge now, what do I see? Caramel puddings, cream cheese with fruit, and yogurt drinks. For Jerome, obviously. Jerome, who’s here three times a month, sets the rules in my fridge. Jerome is apparently a particularly precocious child. At the age of two and a half, he can make rhymes. The other day your sister said “bread and butter, see,”. . “pretty face on me” was Jerome’s immediate response. General bedazzlement. In which I joined. I’m not an expert, maybe it is extraordinary, age two and a half, to say pretty face on me when someone says bread and butter, see. In any case, he’s a coddled, loved, and praised little creature, and he’s off to a good start, as far as I can make out. You, my poor boy, you never had any Pop Tarts or Dannon yogurts (the brand names stick in my brain the moment I close the fridge), I don’t remember your very first efforts at poetry and if I loved you, I certainly didn’t build an altar to your status as a child. Nancy’s and your mother’s version: I traumatized you. The examples they quote me are ridiculous. One day — one episode among others— your mother and I went to see your teacher, you were beginning to read and write. The teacher was satisfied: I’m pleased, she said, he’s become socialized this year; last year he didn’t join in the other children’s games, he stayed in his own world and asked questions that are not appropriate at that age. Your mother and the teacher congratulated themselves on this happy development, and instead of joining in, I gave you the cold shoulder (a child of five!) because I was incapable of being pleased that you were mixing with other children and becoming part of the herd. Another story about school, from later on, you came home from high school with the results of a math test. You had come fifth and you were over the moon at coming fifth (you were usually second from the bottom). Instead of promising you a model Spitfire, I apparently said to you in a disappointed voice, “And why not first?” Upon which you burst into tears, ran into your room, and slammed the door howling, “You’re never satisfied, you’re so mean!” Jerome will certainly be able to tell his father he’s so mean without causing the least upset. In my day, nobody talked to his father like that. I went straight into your room and gave you a hiding.

The funny part of it is that instead of hardening you up, I produced a weakling. And I didn’t even make an enemy of you. If only you were my enemy, at least! In the spineless perversity of your inertia, I detect indifference, even a whiff of condescension. If I was wrong, I’ve certainly been punished for it. I’ve created a perfect stranger.

Nancy, who likes to sing your praises — if you go in for generosity, the conciliating stepmother is a favorite tune to play — had this curious thing to say: “One accepts things from one’s children one wouldn’t accept from anyone else.” “How do you mean, my love” (I’m as gentle as a lamb with Nancy from now on), “is that a victory or a surrender?” “Neither one nor the other,” she said, exasperated, “it’s just a fact.” I have never argued with Nancy. During the blessed time when she was depressed, I used to take her indifference for agreement and since she started priding herself on being able to cross swords with me intellectually, I keep my mouth shut. So you are going to be the first to savor the answer I didn’t give her. Children, Nancy, I could have said to her if time’s abrading passage hadn’t separated us as much as it has, children, my dear little Nancy, are the lowest rung on the ladder of human desires. If we conceive them, we do so at least in the hope of having someone to talk to at the end of our lives. I am already in the process, Nancy, of accepting my old age and the defeat of my body. I accept that I’ve lost the game of life in the same way that one loses at solitaire, I accept that, just as I accept these days that things are slowing down, I can even accept that there’s nothing going on, provided my body holds out a little longer, I accept that my light is slowly going out and I accept the ordinary death that will step into my place. I am in the process, Nancy, of accepting how modest a chapter in time mine has been.