Кристин Анго: Incest

We went on a walk. We’d arrived by airplane. We didn’t have a car there. He had just gotten his pilot’s license. He had rented a plane and we flew there from Reims, he from Strasbourg. I was going to be able to tell Véronique at school. He asked me what Véronique’s family name was, how it was spelled, and explained the etymology, where she lived, her father’s profession, viticulturist, Foureur champagne. We’re taking a walk in the forest surrounding Le Touquet, the pine forest, the area is filled with beautiful houses. He writes articles in his field, linguistics, he has a book in progress. He’s an admirer of Champollion, he’s very interested in the Iberian language, it will be his major work. He wrote an article on the pronunciation of w in French. People think it’s v , because of they way wagon is said with a v sound, but it’s oueu according to French rules of pronunciation. Wagon is an exception, from German, Wagen, der Wagen . We pass the houses, each more beautiful than the last, he makes jokes, he’s in a joking mood: that one is fifty thousand copies. That one there, oh, that one, it’s at least one hundred thousand. I’d have to write a detective novel to get that one, he jokes. I, who have never seen anything, I laugh, fascinated. My book might not sell many copies, it’s a difficult subject, linguistics, which doesn’t reflect on its quality. That one, oh two hundred thousand. A million. One and a half million. That one, fifty thousand. One million. Two million. One hundred and fifty thousand. We laugh. We had just been to see the airplanes.

The lock

Easter holidays one year later. In Strasbourg, in the family apartment. They’re all away on vacation. My vacation is their empty apartment. I sleep in the parents’ bedroom with my father, in the marriage bed. I see the children’s room, their little universe. They’re much younger than I am, eight and ten years difference or six and nine. They don’t know me, they don’t even know I exist. Yes, I know, I’ve already said it, let me repeat myself if I want. I’m there for a week. It’s a long week. We’re used to weekends, sometimes long ones. He works. I don’t know how to take care of a house. I don’t know how it’s done. I know how to do two or three things, I have two or three routines, I see what my mother does, but I don’t have the reflexes. He works. I’m on vacation, not him, he comes home for lunch and in the evening. I’m bored, I look at the house, the décor, Elisabeth’s taste, in all it’s cute. When I get home my mother will say “I don’t like cute things.” In the bathroom there’s a rather large glass jar filled with costume jewelry and another filled with cotton balls. There are printers type set drawers with tiny trinkets. It’s not the apartment I’d visit later with Claude (at the time of the Codec when there was nothing left), a large duplex, very large, with terraces, just a few steps from the Orangerie, the public garden he adores, which he tells me about. He explicates everything. Iberian, Latin, the Orangerie, etymology, German, the pronunciation of w in French, politics, racism, animals, plant names, everything, the Egyptian pharaohs, the origin of languages, language families, Noah, Shem and company, Indo-European, Hindi. It’s all clear. In the morning, we eat breakfast in the kitchen. At noon he comes home. He sees the milk left out, the bottle of milk, I’d forgotten to put it away, don’t I know that milk spoils? That it’s undrinkable if it’s not kept cold? He throws a tantrum. His arguments are endless. And above all the lock:

We go out, it’s lunchtime. The door closes behind us, we’re on the landing, the keys were left inside. I get yelled at. I’m not in charge of the keys, am I? That’s not the question. Why should it be me, just me, who’s responsible? I’m not the one in particular who was supposed to lock up. I can’t take it anymore. What is going on? Why am I being yelled at? I don’t get it. That’s not the point. Of course it’s you who are responsible. Don’t you know that when you are at someone’s house, when you’re not at home, you always enter second, after the owner, who opens the door and at the same time offers entry to the visitor who only enters then. Always. It’s a basic rule of politeness. I’m surprised you don’t know it. And conversely, when you leave the house, you go out first so the owner can bring up the rear and lock up his house behind everyone. The laws of hospitality, he’s an expert. He’s an expert on customs, how to open, how to close? How to pass in front of an older person? The owner is the first to have contact with door when you enter, and the last to have contact with the door when you go out. Now we need to find a locksmith. You think I’m enjoying this. It will cost a fortune. I won’t be able to find one before two o’clock. There’s only one thing to do, go out, go for a walk, we’re forced to, the keys inside, money, wallet, everything. Me: But why did you go out if you still needed to get things? I thought you were done. I thought I could leave because you were outside? Even if I didn’t know that rule of politeness, that basic, fundamental rule. Now the locksmith, the lock, it will cost a fortune. (He would never have said a shitload.) A fortune. He is very very very very very very very very very very very very, very angry. I’d like to run away. I wish I could escape. I want to see my mother. When I got home I almost told her. I can see myself again at the station. I told her “it was horrible.” What, how? His character. His character was my answer. She told me she understood, that she knew him, that she wasn’t at all surprised. That a whole week was surely too long. It’s the first time I let my disappointment show but not about the real keyhole, let’s say. Wandering around the streets with him for two hours, it was horrible, waiting until we could call a locksmith, in neighborhoods where everything was closed for the lunch hour, in residential neighborhoods, where there’s nothing anyway, he didn’t have his car keys, nothing, we couldn’t even go to another part of town, he had to go back to work, he would be late, that wasn’t the worst, but being locked out because of your stupid mistake, and having all these worries that I could do without, and the fortune it’s going to cost to get the locksmith to come.

Gare de l’Est

I give this example, but the same thing happened in other places. I can picture it very clearly. I was intolerable because of X, my character was bad, I irritated him, because of X I was intolerable, I exaggerated, I said something unpleasant, I don’t know, I don’t remember, he had enough reasons. He’d been counting on spending a few days with me, well, no. Enough. We were supposed to be together until Sunday, well, no, enough is enough. Maybe I think that he’ll enjoy driving all the way to Strasbourg, so then, I shouldn’t complain. No point insisting, now he can’t stay. He is in such a state, that it’s enough. That’s it. I’m fourteen or fifteen years old. I’m young, I’m still little even. To wait for the next train to Reims in some station and it’s cold. To return to my mother, hoping she hasn’t made other plans. It was my father, my father who wanted to see me, but he’s tired of me, he wants to go home, he’s going home, he got his car, he left, he didn’t look at the train schedule, he left me at the Gare de l’Est, with my bag, he gave me money to buy a ticket. He didn’t offer to wait with me, the two hours or three hours or four hours before the next train, it’s cold in the station, there are plastic seats on the left side where people are sitting, no one waits as long as I do. He couldn’t wait with me, he had to get back, right away, Strasbourg isn’t next door. Stuck there, alone because of my bad character or having said the wrong thing. Anxiety, tears, I hide, I have my bag. Luckily I have my bag. My bag is the only friendly thing in this enormous station.