Talk about an achievement . . .
I rewind just a little to make sure my demonic (nyuk nyuk) plan has worked. I do a test, and what do I hear? A voice like a constipated duck talking about a motor home . . .
Oh my God. I shut it off immediately.
It’s distressing.
I’m distressed.
Jesus. It’s hard to be yourself, when your self doesn’t inspire you. It’s so goddamned hard.
It’s three-fifteen in the morning. I need another coffee.
I rinse my cup and raise my head, and I see it. My reflection. I see it.
I study it.
I think about Isaac, and Alice, and Gabrielle, and Schubert, and Sophia Loren, and Jacqueline’s rear end, and her wall of solace.
I think about the Justes and I think about my parents.
I think about my job and my life and my meal vouchers and my comfort and my security. About the concept of commitment, my concept of commitment, cash, loot, dough, my benefits, my coworkers, my boss, their promises, and my work contract of indeterminate length.
Indeterminate. How did such a weak word take on so much value?
How?
I look at the toy sitting on my kitchen table, which has turned into a time bomb, and I hang my head again.
I don’t like the idea of hurting Mélanie.
I don’t love her enough anymore to keep up the pretense of being the nice little couple, but I love people too much to take the risk of hurting any of them, even the woman who takes away my movies, my desserts, and my childhood.
Yes. Even her.
It’s damn hard to be cruel when you’re nice. It’s damn hard to leave someone. It’s damn hard to come together the way you have to, to fall in line and speak with one voice when you don’t like authority.
It’s damn hard to give yourself enough importance to make a unilateral decision to change the life of another human being, and how pathetic is it to use the word “unilateral” at twenty-six years old in the kitchen of the small middle-class apartment of the old aunt of your absent girlfriend because you have a job to do at three o’clock in the morning?
Okay.
I feel sort of weak now.
What am I doing?
What am I doing with my life?
What am I doing with my Woof-Woofs?
Ah, fuck. What a pain in the ass.
And on top of everything else, it’s making me use crude language.
Well, I’m fucking annoyed.
Let’s sum up: What you have to do is be selfish. At least a little bit selfish. Otherwise you’re not really alive, and in the end you’ll die anyway.
Right.
Come on, my Yannou. Be brave. Get out your cock and your knife.
If you won’t do it for yourself, do it for your cheesecakes.
Okay, but, stupid question: What do you do to be selfish when you just aren’t? When you were raised in a world where other people counted more than you? And right on an ocean on top of that? You have to force yourself, right? I’ve tried really hard to get on board with the concept, as hard as I could: Me, Me, Me, Myself, My life, My happiness, My nest, but I just can’t quite manage it. It doesn’t interest me. It’s like the Mickey Mouse watch: I waved my arm around to make my mom feel good, but I didn’t really want it. I thought it was ugly.
Head down, jaw clenched, shoulders hunched, arms crossed, chest closed off, I ruminate.
I’m completely curled in on myself. Nothing is getting in from the outside, at all. I listen to the beating of my own heart, I breathe slowly, and I try not to let myself get screwed over by the fatigue and overindulgence that have evidently invited themselves to this particular pathetic summit.
I think.
I think about Isaac.
I don’t see anyone but him, Isaac Moïse, who can take me from one side of the river to the other. I think about his face, his stories, his silences, his looks, his chuckling that is sometimes lecherous and sometimes virginal. His bad faith, his egotism, his generosity, the feeble excuse of the label a little while ago, and the way he’d had of taking my hand at just the moment when I really, really needed it.
I remember his words about politeness, and the tone of his voice when he said them. That gentleness. That gentleness and that cruelty. And I cling to that with all my strength.
I cling to it because it’s the only absolute certainty I can still salvage from this mess, the only one. Yes. Yes, I am that. I am polite.
And because I’m polite, I end up unfolding my body and freeing myself finally from myself, and I press the green button one more time before stashing Misia’s little tape recorder in the bottom of the fridge.
Hopefully Melanie won’t feel the need to make fun of my pimply teenage music and my spinelessness. My Paradise Circus and my Unfinished Sympathy.
And while my old cassette records the sound of the cold, I get my stuff together.
* * *
My duffel bag is ready. Clean underwear, dirty underwear, shoes, razor, books, laptop, amps. That’ll do.
One advantage of not liking yourself at all.
I get the tape recorder out of the fridge and, finally, push the EJECT button.
The compartment opens with a tortured little sound. Tchak! No more shackles.
I write her first name on the cassette and leave it on her pillow.
No. On the kitchen table.
If you can’t be great, at least hang on to your decency.
* * *
I leave my key, slam the door behind me, and go up to the fourth floor.
I set my worldly possessions down at my feet, button my jacket, take out my gloves, sit down, and reunite with my wall.
I give myself up to it.
I wait for Alice or Isaac to open their door.
I need to give them back Misia’s toy, and ask them one last question.