Franketienne - Ready to Burst

Blinding mirror that condenses the misfortune and doom of the idle pedestrians. Each face is pressured to pay up its share of sweat.

That afternoon, four young men are seated at the entry to a passage on Macajoux Street. Overwhelmed by the heat and by an overall sluggishness, they speak of everything and nothing.

Abruptly passing from one topic to the next, just to pass the time. Searching … in the void. A quest … into oblivion. A way of managing their boredom. From time to time, taking turns, they wet their lips, the tips of their tongues, their palates, with a little glass of sweetened rum. Filled three quarters of the way, the bottle, in which blond cherries and twigs of cinnamon are soaking, is placed underneath Raynand’s chair. He’s the most chatty, the least thirsty of the bunch. Paulin is there, too; he drinks moderately, but smokes quite a bit.

— It’s a superior compound. Quite a nice little concoction. Been macerating for many days.

— Paulin, you’ve heard the latest international news. Seems like things are going from bad to worse in Southeast Asia. The escalation has crossed a new threshold.

— It’s pretty serious. The Vietcong are about to launch a general offensive.

Passing the bottle around, each of them has a small glass. Raynand removes a packet of Splendids from the pocket of his shirt, takes out a cigarette, raps it quickly against the box of matches with light taps, then lights it and blows out rings of gray smoke.

— Roland is getting married on Saturday …

— Brave guy.

— How’s that?

— He does nothing at all in life. Lifts neither light nor heavy loads. Neither straw nor stone. And he’s getting married. Next Saturday. Not a day later.

— It brings tears to my eyes, just thinking about what he’ll have to go through.

— You may be mistaken. Roland knows exactly what he’s doing.

— Well, then, explain it to us.

— Roland’s marriage — it’s a transaction. A sort of investment. A misery insurance policy. But more than anything else, it’s a dirty trick.

— Really, a dirty trick? You’re not just saying that?

— Not at all. A suicide. Pure rubbish, really.

— Okay, now spill it. If you’ve got the goods, then let’s hear what you have to say. Don’t make us beg you for such small potatoes. We won’t talk. And we’ve all got a pretty good poker face, so we won’t give away anything you tell us.

— The girl is pregnant.

— So? Is that all?

— The kid isn’t Roland’s. The real father took off. He refused to marry her. So the girl’s parents had the great idea to buy her a spouse. A sort of cover. Someone to wash her all clean.

— Now there’s a story! This wouldn’t happen to be something you made up?

— I’m telling you, Roland is a serious stain remover, the kind of detergent you use to get out the nastiest dirt.

— What are they offering him by way of compensation for plunging into such shit?

— The girl leaves for New York soon. Roland has wanted to go to the United States for a long time now. This marriage is the best deal he ever could have hoped for. It’s the surest way for him to obtain a residence visa.

— So then that’s the contract. The price of the soap. And then of course once married, he can be shown the door.

— Even if I were offered millions … there’s no way I’d do it. For me — and I’m not even talking about a case like this one — marriage is a dangerous commitment. Single, I always know where to find my feet. I tell them to go left or right, and they obey me. Tied to someone, I’d never know for sure what my spouse was thinking. Or what she’d do at the moment when I’d count on her the most. When I’d count on her fidelity. Woman is an element of the unknown raised to the nth degree. We can live for three centuries and we’ll never finish finding zeros to add on to that equation raised to the tenth power.

— So what do you have against women?

— Nothing, in principle. A lot, in practice. Enslaved for millennia. A commodity in bourgeois society. She isn’t herself. In some cases an object of disdain. In other cases a degraded fetish. So my grievance is just as much with the society that has made women into a condensed form of all its problems. Married, one would live constantly with that stench in one’s nose. And that causes nausea. And I don’t like vomiting.

— And so, are you against marriage?

— I’m against living together, legal unions, and common-law arrangements.

— So what solution do you propose?

— Women must fight. Participate. Her autonomy mustn’t be a gift. But a conquest. Only her active presence can change her situation. Neither laws nor decrees are going to earn her real emancipation. Only her participation in the liberation of oppressed classes, of trampled-down races, can truly lead to her rehabilitation. She’s got to give up all the self-pity and facile romanticism. She’s got to stop begging. Put her shoulder to the wheel. And take what’s owed to her. Not be satisfied with her status as spoil of war shared between men. A trophy for the victors. At the very least, give revolt a try. Not with moaning and supplications. She must assert herself to the world based on her own merit. Not by ruse or low blows. Strike head-on. Not from behind.

— Okay. You say that women must participate. For that, she’ll have to stand beside men.

— Yes, beside men. Everywhere. In the most dangerous places. In the resistance movements. In the trenches. Coming close to death. Living it, not suffering it. Standing, by our side. Before lying horizontal on some bed. And all that depends entirely on her. We do not refuse her participation in those ways. On the contrary, we welcome it.

— All that outside of marriage?

— Outside all affective liaisons. Outside any household. Otherwise, it becomes a tomb in the end. We men must learn also to see women in a different light, less unhealthy, less perverse.

— In the end, you condemn love …

— No. I’m far-sighted. I issue a warning. Besides, in our current context, love — that marvelous sentiment, that vertigo that brings two beings together — only exists as long as those beings don’t live under the same roof. As long as they haven’t become materially intertwined. It’s neither the man nor the woman’s fault. It’s the whole society’s responsibility. On slippery ground like ours, the furniture to change, the wardrobe to update, the car and its mechanical problems, sicknesses, medications, jewelry, perfumes, and even the spice rack — all that leads to the strangulation and, ultimately, to the death of even the most powerful love.

— In that case, Paulin, you won’t have children?

— The way things are right now, I wouldn’t want to have any. I plan to remain available, for the time being. Children are a bunch of fruit hanging on beautiful flowering branches, yes, but too often they hold back the fervor of the tree. Whereas I intend to do with my life as I see fit. Too often, children amount to a long tail that hinders all movement. That keeps you from stepping over the fire. That makes you too cautious. The spouse, the good family man is a sort of mole who retreats into his den, where he thinks he can find safety for himself and his loved ones … False security! The hearth would be a constraint for me. A sort of underground tunnel. Whereas wide-open spaces attract me irresistibly. Have you never noticed with what ridiculous eagerness married men abandon the company of their friends for fear of encroaching on the hour or so reserved for the little wife?

— Really, Paulin, you wouldn’t like to be married someday?

— I’ve often thought about it. And it repulses me, the pitiful little puppy dog trapped in the bond of marriage.