Marie NDiaye - Ladivine

Whereas he, Richard Rivière, had let himself drift through that counterfeit life because he felt weak and helpless, and then in a way he’d woken up, and revulsion, a sort of horror, of fear, drove him far away, far from Clarisse Rivière.

He was ashamed that he had not gone to Ladivine’s wedding, that he had never met his son-in-law or his grandchildren.

Less because he feared a face-to-face meeting with Clarisse Rivière, as Ladivine thought, than because at the time he was terrified of seeing his daughter. What was she made of, he couldn’t help asking himself, this child born to Clarisse Rivière? Even more than her mother, Ladivine reminded him of the life they’d once led, and those memories left him deeply confused, unsure if he himself had actually lived or had only passed through an interminable dream, an insincere, fabricated dream.

He could bear only the memory of his child’s first years, and the first years of his marriage with Clarisse Rivière. Nonetheless, such memories did him no good.

He tiptoed into the apartment, trying to determine which room Trevor was in — his bedroom, most likely, since he could hear computer noises through the door.

Relieved, he made for the kitchen, only to collide with the young man, who was lurking in the corridor. He started and cried out in angry surprise.

“What are you doing here?”

“Nothing. Meditating.”

And Trevor let out a little laugh, but Richard Rivière scarcely noticed, so often did the boy snicker and cackle for no reason.

Putting on a thick south-western accent, Trevor asked, “So, you sell that heap?”

“Could be,” Richard Rivière answered coldly, brushing Trevor aside with one hand.

Unintentionally, his fingers sank into the young man’s limp, bulging belly through the T-shirt, and he gave him a taut, uncomfortable smile.

Trevor had gained so much weight since moving back that Richard Rivière couldn’t help feeling embarrassed and sad for him, which he did his best to conceal, when his fingers inadvertently grazed the boy’s flabby flesh, behind an awkward display of sympathy.

He felt no trace of affection for Trevor, only those waves of pained, morose pity at the sight of that young man of twenty-two imprisoned in his bloated body, he who, Richard Rivière remembered, was once a slim, agile teenager.

However dour and forced, that pity made him more patient with Trevor’s crass ways.

He walked into the kitchen, and through the half-open window saw his four-by-four in the car park, and the spot where just a moment before he himself had been standing, contemplating the mountains half-hidden by clouds.

Now those clouds had cleared, and he saw the mountains’ glistening peaks, the triumphant, seemingly indestructible sharpness of their snow-covered flanks.

He saw himself too, standing there in his expensive clothes, a fine-looking figure in every way and yet studying the dress and the manner of the man in the raspberry socks with an insecure, already defeated eye, and despite the relaxed, distant air he tried to put on at such times, that man must have known he was being looked at and envied, or worse yet, secretly idolised.

Disgusted with himself, Richard Rivière slammed the window shut. And since Trevor had followed him into the kitchen and he realised he wouldn’t be having the quiet, solitary lunch he was hoping for, he lost his temper, and shouted:

“A hundred times your mother’s asked you not to leave this window open! We’ve already had one burglary, she did tell you that, didn’t she?”

“Probably shouldn’t have bought a place on the ground floor, then,” said Trevor with his eternal smirk, shifting his weight from one leg to the other as if making ready for a fistfight.

Richard Rivière sometimes told himself that with any other overweight, jobless, lonely young man, stuck living with his mother and stepfather as Trevor was, he would see this derision and childish defiance as nothing more than the sad effect of a difficult situation, and if they just tried to give him a hand, even love him a little, show some interest and faith in him, then he would drop that tiresome insolence, that whole mechanism of aggression and immediate, unctuous denial Trevor had put in place on his return.

Richard Rivière knew all that, he knew a case study of such a young man would have filled him with almost unlimited understanding and indulgence.

So why, he often asked himself, could he not give the real Trevor the gift of his sympathy and encouragement?

He chided himself for this when he was alone, vowing to change his attitude towards his stepson, even impatiently looking forward to seeing him again so he could put those good intentions into practice.

Then Trevor was there, ever the same, neither more nor less awful than he recalled, and a sort of cold stupor fell over Richard Rivière, a strange dismay at his inability to feel any emotion for the boy but squeamish pity before his misshapen young body.

The idea of devoting himself to Trevor’s rescue, and especially of affecting warm feelings for the boy, suddenly struck him as preposterous and indecent.

Because it was obvious that Trevor didn’t like him, and wanted no part of his support or solicitude, and even, for some mysterious reason, looked down on him.

That didn’t shock Richard Rivière, didn’t anger him, but it did make him wonder.

How could he have become the target of Trevor’s disdain when he’d always taken pains to bare nothing of his inner self to his wife’s difficult children? How could anyone despise him when they knew him as little as Trevor?

Deciding to act as though he were alone, he made himself an omelette without asking the young man if he wanted any. It pained him to feel rude, but Trevor always refused what he was offered.

Why was he standing there, watching him?

He sat down and began to eat, then glanced at the boy’s face, unable to help it. He knew Trevor found it hard to stand up for too long, and yet he’d not moved since he had come into the kitchen and leaned against the wall by the door.

He was surprised to find the young man looking faintly ill at ease.

Again and again he ran his hand through his ratty, strawberry blond hair, and his pale little eyes, as if pushed deep into his abundant flesh, darted this way and that, avoiding Richard Rivière’s. Below a pair of broad, bright-pink boxers that came down to midthigh, his legs were purplish and swollen.

“Well, sit down,” Richard Rivière snapped.

He pushed away his empty plate. He was so on edge that he’d scarcely even realised he was eating.

And now the omelette was eaten, shovelled in without awareness or pleasure, and it was almost one o’clock, and he had to be at work in forty-five minutes.

Still, he’d sold the car. Why couldn’t he be happy?

Trevor stood where he was, shrugged, and said, very hurriedly:

“So I saw on TV. . that trial, you know, that trial, it’s going to be starting soon. The lady who got killed. . that was your wife?”

“You know it was, don’t you?”

He was breathing quickly and heavily. Trevor’s face went blurry, as if he were seeing it without his glasses.

He mechanically raised one hand to his eyes, feeling the lenses, suddenly tortured by the little pads pressed to the sides of his nose. He tore off his glasses, rubbed his eyes.

He was breathing heavily — pathetically, he couldn’t help thinking. Was that why Trevor looked down on him? Because, at bottom, he was pathetic? But who was Trevor to judge, with his huge legs, his puffy little feet, his fat, spongy breasts?

“I think I do, yeah,” Trevor was saying. “I mean, you never said anything, but. . well, you know, I could guess.”

“So why are you asking?” He sighed.