Кристин Анго: Incest

The good thing is she’s a doctor. She prescribed respiratory rehabilitation and spinal physical therapy. After three months of homosexual torsion, it was necessary. (I’m not kidding.) The physiotherapist asked me what kind of work I did to put my back in such bad shape. Writer. He didn’t ask any more questions. He understood. Breasts, I didn’t dare touch them. The clitoris, I had no idea where it was. I didn’t like going out with her and having people think I was trying to get my bearings. She came to make up Léonore’s eyes to look Japanese for the carnival. My little daughter, Midi Libre wrote about her. Slanted eyes fill with tears when they burn, Mister Carnival. For the little Japanese girl, the parade took a different turn. The school children didn’t stop singing or doing their folk dance. Except for the little Japanese girl, whose kohl was running. Giraffes when I’ve got starving children right next to me. A lesbian, when I’ve got my daughter crying next to me, burns Mister Carnival. But, Mister Carnival, forty years ago it could have been her in a camp of deported homosexuals. I dream! I dream: I loved seeing her, seeing her walk in the door. And with Léonore. Pitou my heart watched over her. That was her dog Baya’s nickname. She was very homosexual, she had everything, a female cat, a female dog. I was fascinated. Clara always wanted to be the mother. She’s always quick to say it, she says it fast. All that’s left for her, Léonore tells me between sobs, is to be the second mother. But she’s not allowed to have children, a little cat, or a little dog, that’s it. It has made me sick. I’d caught it. For three months I was truly beside myself. I wanted to keep on. I felt strong enough. But that’s it, I drank the dregs. Léonore cares less and less for playing the boy in their games, since Clara absolutely insists on being the girl. With a wave of his hand he cut short any discussion: How much time? Muzil told me “the doctor doesn’t give the truth straight out, but gives the patient the means to figure it for himself, by talking in a roundabout way.” The lack of a cock, I was conscious of it and regretted it. A game of mirrors, I fell victim to it and regretted it. After a certain time I had no pretensions to perfection. I tried. I rebelled now and again. I wore skirts. The head doctor prescribed Muzil massive doses of antibiotics. I love women, I love animals, I love men, I love Italy, I love the color red, I love Léonore, I love life, and dogs too.

Her first letter: It’s from René Char. It’s for you: Push your luck, seize your happiness, and take risks. After seeing you, they will get used to you. The second: The air I always feel almost lacking in most human beings, if it blows through you, has a profusion and a sparkling ease. I live marvelously with you. That is our extraordinary luck. Twenty after twelve. I have before me the letter from Africa, Guibert’s book, the magazine Eurêka, Libération on Viagra, her father’s notebooks, the animal clones, the telephone. She didn’t call me this morning. I’m exhausted. I was asleep. Léonore woke me. At the door, knock knock. No Marie. I’m alone. A photographer just called me, he wants me to write something, to accompany photographs of goals in football matches. And also: Of course I’m moved when I think of you when I see you, of course the idea of not seeing you not holding you in my arms not making love with you anymore is unbearable. Your absence, this solitude in which you’re with me despite it all is a strange kind of test I’d like so much to be able just to be near you to have you in my life For the first time I truly feel the absence Suffering is hard it’s necessary Maybe I’ll lose everything I’ll lose you I don’t know I think about you way too much I think about you almost all the time Kisses. I don’t want to call her. That feeling has evaporated. Yesterday, before he left, Claude said, it’s only with you that I feel energized like this. What do you mean? I can’t explain, energized. I want to do things with you, feel these surges with you. Not just to pass the time, energized, exhilarated, I really want to. I didn’t feel energized at all. I didn’t feel like going to the cinema, to a restaurant, on a trip, or on vacation. No particular desire to do anything together, no particular exhilaration with her. And yet the test results were positive. Her breasts were small, but still they were hers. It fascinated me. I pictured her with other women. I wasn’t jealous, women touching each other fascinated me. She was standing in a field that was mown very short. She’d had the dream in New York. Her father was with her. The field was very flat, the grass cut very short. Maximum visibility. And yet, you could hear hunters, shots. Unbelievable, that hunters would dare shoot in a space that was so open, with such visibility, leaving the animal no chance. Yes, they would. A little deer arrives. Its eyes are both calm and terrified. She sees it, she says to her father: It’s not possible. The hunters won’t shoot. But they do, not only that, but they shoot it in the ear, such a fragile spot. The little deer, calm and terrified. I was the calm and terrified little deer, of course, or else she was. Writing that, I recapture our love. I love her. I’m going to call her. I dream. A house, the two of us. Two storeys. Léonore is there. It’s all fine. I write. She leaves for work. She comes home, I’m there. I go to pick Léonore up from school. Except for Thursdays, Thursdays she goes, she takes her to shore with Baya. The two of them throw pebbles into the sea. Baya looks for them in the water. Oh! no, she’s not cold. Look at all her fur. I’m not homosexual. I was for three months. I thought I was condemned to be homosexual. I really was caught. But I refused to sleep at her place. In that house full of animals. With a pool. When you think of all the ways to live, it’s also amazing you don’t die. Swimming in the pool. Taking a bath. Nine o’clock, taking a shower. Deciding on May 8th “I’m not going to wash today.” Or telephoning, crying, waiting, making the restaurant reservation for tonight, feeling a bit bored, waiting for friends to go on a picnic (not me), it’s a gray day, it will clear. Feeling energized, listening to music. Coughing, feeling low. Doing errands in the morning, all the stores will be closed in the afternoon. Getting a hard-on, making love. Masturbating, pissing, feeling deflated, thinking about something, crying, returning from Africa. Reading. Not loving. Feeling bored. Seeing your daughter again. Waiting for me. Waiting for my call. Not calling. Knowing I’ll end up doing it. Maybe not. This time. Maybe not right away. Letting me take my time. Turning me over. Maybe I’m writing. Maybe I’m with someone. Seeing us from the window across the street while watering the bonsai plants. Leaving for London, asking a friend, Claude, for example, to water the bonsais while I live across the street. Unlocking the house. Yelling in the street. Like last night. Someone did, for at least two hours. Saying to yourself, it’s noon, she said we’d eat together. Waiting for me to call. Knowing I will. She’ll call. I called. There were women in the camps for deported homosexuals. Classical music was playing over the speakers. The SS stripped Jo. They shove a pail onto her head. Brunette, breasts bared, her slender hips, her torso, her neck with her thin gold necklace. The cosmetics of her gaze. The kohl is running. A tinplate bucket. They sic the guard dogs on her. She thinks of Baya, the dog she adored. Pitou my heart. The dogs barking around her. My darling What I’d like most is to be able to live close to you With you, you for me and me for you, with other close friends, intimate friends sometimes, to live and create a space for us. I dream. We choose things we love. Pitou my heart watches over her. More and more often, I find myself saying us for you and me, thinking of you when I picture the time to come, life, the future I love you you know don’t forget it Let’s be together. I just called her. It was busy, there was the click of call waiting. She didn’t take the call. I called back. She still didn’t answer. I called again, it rang, then the answering machine. I left the following message: What’s going on? I call you, it’s busy, you don’t take call waiting. I call back, I get the answering machine. What are you doing? Maybe she took Baya out for a walk right after hanging up. I doubt it, I called back right away. Maybe she decided she didn’t ever want to hear my voice again after such a night. Last night on the phone “I’m suffering” and “I’m so unhappy, leave me alone.” Then I reversed, we ended the call saying we’d see each other tomorrow, in other words, today. Maybe she changed her mind again over night. Yesterday I’d decided to break up, definitively this time. No, I wasn’t sure I really wanted her to go to Avignon with me. Much less to Paris next month. In fact, we may never see each other again. Ever. I sensed sobs in her voice and backtracked. When she said “you had me convinced of things, I believed in…” I was touched, “in love…,” “a few days ago you told me you would always love me and that you’d never forget how I am with you, all I do for you, but no, you have to take off.” We’d already broken up in February. I told her “I need to be alone.” She replied “me too.” At night, Léonore was in bed. I called her, I shouldn’t have. The conversation derailed, things went south again. Then I watched Muriel , the two girls drive off in a taxi at the end of the movie. I called her, spontaneously, she was happy, she said I wrote you, I went for a walk, I thought about you all day. I’ll tell you about it tomorrow. Tell me. No, I’ll tell you tomorrow. I don’t know if we’ll see each other tomorrow. We agreed we’d take Léonore to the theater. After that we’ll split up. We’ll see. Well, we’ll see. Tell me what you were thinking. I was thinking that I loved you and of all the things about you that I can’t stand. Well, we aren’t seeing each other. I can easily go to the theater with Alexandra, don’t put yourself out. I spent an excellent day without you. She slammed down the receiver. Five minutes later, it rang. I said some things again. Again she slammed the phone down. I went to brush my teeth and take my medicine. I called her back, she had unplugged her phone. I called her again four times. She didn’t answer, she had unplugged her phone and fallen asleep. Later, she admitted to me that she’d heard the first ring. She didn’t want to answer, hearing the ring was enough for her. And the others, the other rings? She’d put in earplugs. I know when I’m a pain in the ass too. I won’t admit it, the day I admit it will be a masterpiece, no one wants to say it. No one can say it. When they’re a pain in the ass. No one. I live by making do, I won’t say more. I have a hard time putting up with being nailed, for much too long now, I won’t say more. Three months. Not all the time. Men who don’t nail you or women who would be inclined to but only with fingers. Marie told me “you know there are women who take Viagra to improve their performance.” Claude, “you know that in the United States, they wanted to make the goals larger? So there’d be more of them. To make it more appealing to the spectators.” On Saturday morning, after the telephone train wreck, I called her yet again. To ask her, OK, then, so what do we do? I’ll spare you the details, but there was a lot of yelling. She finally came over around two. As soon as I see her it heats up. Then cools down, she can feel it, there’s a little nib, a little nub, a little old stub that’s missing. I made her read what I wrote about football and while she did I read her letter. With her doctor’s handwriting, very large. A day like all the others without you. A colorless day, bland. (She doesn’t use punctuation.) A day like all the others without you A colorless day bland A sharp feeling of missing you and yet I don’t move I don’t take a single step towards you (There’s no punctuation at all. No limits, the metals are mixed, fusion, mixture, no commas, no periods.) A day like all the others without you A colorless day bland A sharp feeling of missing you and yet I don’t move I don’t take a single step towards you I listen and know that you are in me I can feel you move in my stomach It’s my stomach that speaks to me most clearly about you I let myself be carried away I want the risk of loving of this particular love with you so unique and sometimes so intimate along with the terrible lucidity that comes with it I am proud of you proud of myself with you, of the love you bring me but is it meant for me this love The words your words are they meant for me If just once I felt I was born of real love This absence of love turns all my own attempts barren Aborted love aborted fate maybe that’s what it is and maybe that’s my true fate Maybe I’ll never get beyond it Maybe I’ll go from one pair of arms to the next in search of a gesture a face that really speaks to me of love that would address something truly unique to me Single destination of a word that was lost of a love not built of a life that is self-destructing yes I want to belong and I want to love to love you to be loved by you But I’m left with nothing I think of love and I feel invaded I’m afraid of never being able to and if I’m never able to Then what’s the point of continuing Yes I’m afraid and the more I’m afraid the more I keep at a distance from you the more I flee from your face your arms You understand but you can’t stand it and I can’t either I love you. I call Léonore Marie-Christine and I call Marie-Christine Léonore I didn’t know when they put her on my chest that that’s what having a little girl was like the Holy Virgin separated from the Child I was crying don’t laugh at Marie my husband watched over us, Joseph, I was the mother of Christ and the Christ, Marie-Christine’s fingers were six years younger, I was giving birth to Léonore Marie-Christine Marie-Christine Léonore Léonore Marie-Christine Marie-Christine Léonore Léonore Léonore Léonore Marie-Christine Léonore Léonore Léonore. Léonore Marie-Christine Marie-Christine Léonore. Léonore Marie-Christine. Marie-Christine Léonore. My little love my little sweetheart my gold my treasure my love my little love Marie-Christine Léonore Léonore Marie-Christine Marie-Christine Léonore Giving birth I became homosexual giving birth to Léonore Marie-Christine Léonore Léonore Léonore Léonore-Christine we should go to that restaurant In Copenhagen The Léonore-Christine Léonore Marie-Christine Léonore Léonore My treasure Okay the goal the goal in the football match. Léonore knows it’s the World Cup. They hear enough about it at school. I called Pierre Blanc, the photographer, he was pleased I’d started. Very pleased, they will pay me what I asked. He seemed happy, very happy. On Saturday night, at her place, I put on Alain Chamfort. L’éternité c’est quand je prends ta bouche Pas le nombre d’années que purgent les condamnés . I find eternity on your lips not in the number of years prisoners spend behind bars. She talked to me about Yassou, the scars from the black dog’s teeth are still visible. I talked to her about Léonore right after that. What made you think of Léonore all of a sudden? Yassou, the little cat. I put on the last Alain Chamfort recording Saturday night, she was in the other room putting a new bandage on the cat. I saw her cross the entire length of the large room. When she approaches from a distance. When I see her entire body coming towards me. Especially if she’s smiling. And especially if her eyes are shining. Or if she’s speaking with other people. I see her through the window. Like yesterday. Or three little knocks on the wall. From the other room. They’re far away, beautiful, they’re going to sleep. Sleep, yes, I’ll knock on the wall. Of course. And also, when I’m going to bed, kisses and a caress, yes, of course. We went on a bike ride yesterday. I lost my science magazine. What are animal clones good for? All the questions the French are asking. What is locked-in syndrome? You’re not addressing another cause of dysfunction: aging. And yet we know that vaginal dryness and discomfort during intercourse exist. Marie is allergic to cypress, of course, the tree of cemeteries, but of Italy as well. A sting, as if by chance, a sting from its stinger gave her a headache for twenty-four hours. My love It’s Saturday you just left and I feel so deeply that I’m with you I have your strength and your desire in me and my desire and all this makes me want to live to move forward to wait for you to follow you sometimes to show you the way or to take your path it’s often one that’s difficult even for mules we don’t have hoofs only our hearts our hands our mouths Our words and they’re so often full of doubt But also filled with a certainty of evidence of a Love we share for a long time I hope maybe forever. She rarely talks about it but now and again she tells me it hurts her feelings that I don’t ever lick her. I lick her arms, her stomach, her chest, often. Lower, I can’t stand it, it’s what I didn’t like. She doesn’t care for the term to lick. (Didn’t care for it.) For her, it’s licking the plate clean. A greasy plate. She says fingers of course, but what you touch with your mouth… I’m the first woman who won’t do it to her, four or five times maybe, or six, not at all after that. It gave her the feeling there was a part of her body I didn’t like. I let a little time pass, I knew I would go downstairs. I didn’t want to go home right away. She was in a hurry to accompany me home, she started work at the hospital very early the next morning. I felt so good in her arms, I wanted to stay there for a while. And I knew that if I licked her, she’d be in less of a hurry. She was no longer in a hurry. I cried, tears on my cheeks with the vaginal secretions of Marie-Christine Léonore-Christine, at that restaurant, we let the champagne flow. Léonore. Léonore. Marie. Marie. Christine. I was crying, it was fusion, I was her, in complete homosexual delirium. Totally delirious. I dove back in. The last glass, once you’ve drunk it, you’re usually not supposed to drink even another drop of alcohol. Licking, crying, she was covered with vernix, she was all black and purple when she was just born, when they laid her on my chest. I would have licked her like mother cats, mother dogs do, if the doctors hadn’t been there watching. Yesterday she was crying. The last water lily. I am raw from missing you But it feels necessary the whole trip back the temptation to get near you was so strong But impossible to move towards you to bring on and suffer the violence of impossibility. Léonore was in La Grande-Motte at my mother’s. Marie told me about the cat, Yassou, I started crying Léonore my own little kitten. She offered to go, to go on a bike ride with her, to take her to lunch, to go for a walk because she was sad. Afterward, in any case, she went to the beach with her grandmother, we’d go back. Tomorrow Sunday with you a Sunday for the two of us a life for us a book for us I love you. I called, she was so happy. We went for a walk. Marie rode André’s bike, I rode my mother’s, Léonore rode her little pink bike, we went for a walk along the lakeshore. It was hot, we went into the pine forest. It was hard to ride, the sand, the pine needles. We decided to leave the bikes. To walk along the golf course with Baya. Baya, of course. The three of us and Pitou my heart. A man in a Jaguar explained the possible paths. Léonore objected, she knows them, she could have told us. We’re allowed to walk there, there are cars, but only once in a while. We felt good together. I carried Léonore on my shoulders for a while, she’s big, too heavy now. We went into the forest a ways. We stretched out on the ground. It was nice. We got up. We started for home. Léonore asked me if we could go to Île de Ré this summer with Baya to celebrate both birthdays because Baya was born, like her, on July 9th. Then she whispered in my ear “Marie-Christine is homosexual, isn’t she.” It was my mistake, I said some things that were not appropriate for her age, from one generation to the next, words are less serious, I told myself, perversity shifts. We went to a restaurant. Then we had to part. She was staying with my mother, I was going back with Marie-Christine and Baya in the Saab. She cried, it took us an hour to leave, we parted, we went back, we reasoned with each other, we went back until my mother came and got her. She cried the entire afternoon apparently. Marie-Christine said: I’m exhausted, I’d like to sleep, for me this is not an ideal Sunday. For me, it is, with my little girl in a pine forest it was an ideal Sunday. We argued. For me it’s an ideal Sunday. Well not for me. Well it is for me. I was homosexual for three months, I’ve recovered somewhat. I’m going to stop, it’s a matter of weeks, of months, not years. Baya, Yassou, Muzil, I can’t go on. I was in a good mood. I went to the watchdog committee against Front National, it got me out for once after three months. I went to pick up Léonore from school. We ate. I put her to bed. Things were fine. One o’clock in the morning, I couldn’t sleep. I took some pills. I fell asleep. She had an earache, she woke me up, I yelled at her. My psychoanalyst told me it wasn’t serious if I took myself for Christ. My readers are my saviors. Readers, choosers, the chosen one. Gold, l’or , Léonore, Marie. There it is, it’s simple. Let go of everything, no man’s land, not even a scrap of heaven, Don’t keep even the slightest thing that might distract you, let go of every obstacle. Tear up all the little notes. Quarter past three Sweetheart I love you. I would have liked to be near her always. Léonore cried when I left her at school. Marie and I argued on the phone yesterday. She said “calm down, I’ll call you back,” I hung up. I went to bed, Léonore was having nightmares, she whimpered in her sleep. I got up several times to caress her. Her whimpering didn’t stop, it started again, I had to get up several times. And finally miraculously I murmured softly into her ear “mama loves you, mama’s here,” the nightmares stopped. Before our argument, Marie-Christine said she was aware of the no man’s land. It went downhill after that. Authorities in Bavaria were recommending that a sign be tattooed in blue ink on the buttocks of those infected. I’d always taken precautions with the poet, even when he begged me to treat him like a bitch and I used him like a dildo for Jules. I’d smelled a very strange sweat emanating from our three bodies. I kept myself from coming in the poet’s mouth because cocksucking was what most excited this little hetero who whined that girls wouldn’t blow him, and as substitution or some reverse projection he wanted to be taken like a whore. He finally wrote me, as if with regret “According to the blood tests, I don’t have AIDS.” All this young man thought about was suicide or glory. My love I don’t want to let you read this letter written in a moment of sadness of complete loss of self-confidence. Don’t ever look at me again. That’s how the letter began. We talked some more about homosexuality, things went downhill. Bringing friends to the evening she’s hosting on Saturday is out of the question. She swore she would kiss me on the mouth in front of everyone. Telling me the whole time that we had no future, dragging me into the dirt even though I’m untouchable, relegating me to a caste. I was and I would have liked to remain that way, I think. I would be so again. One day, in an interview, “are you an untouchable?” I answered yes right away. In India they have no rights, no possessions, no one can mix with them. I just telephoned her. Last night I unplugged the phone, this morning I wasn’t home. I unplug it more and more often, I leave the answering machine on, I’m not there when she calls, I’m outside, I’m with other people. I listen to the messages. She’s destroyed, I think. Still, I called her back at the hospital. She wants to buy me a bicycle, she wants us to go get it this afternoon. To all her suggestions, no. You don’t have to. Yes, since I suggested it. It wouldn’t be the first time you reneged. I’ll pick you up at three. You don’t have to. I’ll call, you can leave the answering machine on. You don’t want the bike. Saturday, I’m having a gathering for you, you’re telling me you might not come. I told her I was falling apart, my feelings weren’t the same, “you know, I don’t love you as much as before.” We agree to meet at three. For two hours. Is it true that you don’t love me as much as you used to? I say that because I love you more than before. Oh! of course, it’s the Angot logic, oh! yes, you’re right.