Of course, I didn’t die. A walker found me lying in the mud, in the middle of the forest. He called an ambulance, I was taken to hospital. I wasn’t even frozen, just soaked through. I had slept one night in the forest and that’s all.
No, I wasn’t dead, I merely had a bout of pneumonia that was nearly fatal. I had to stay in a hospital for six weeks. Once my lung condition had been cured, I was transferred to the psychiatric wing, because I had tried to kill myself.
I was happy to stay in a hospital, because I didn’t want to go back to the factory. I was fine here, I was looked after, I could sleep. At mealtimes I had a choice of several different menus. I could even smoke in the small sitting room. I could also smoke when I was talking with the doctor.
“You can’t write your own death.”
The psychiatrist said this to me, and I agreed with him, because, when you are dead, you can’t write. But in myself I think that I can write anything, even if it is impossible and even if it is not true.
Usually, I am happy to write in my head. It’s easier. In your head there are no difficulties to get in the way. But, as soon as you write anything down, the thoughts change, become distorted, and everything turns out false. Because of words.
The trouble is, I don’t write what I ought to write, I write just anything, things that no one can understand and that I don’t understand myself. In the evening, when I copy out what I have written in my head all day long, I wonder why I wrote all that. For whom and for what reason?
The psychiatrist asks me:
“Who is Line?”
“I made Line up. She doesn’t exist.”
“The tiger, the piano, the birds?”
“Nightmares, that’s all.”
“Did you try to kill yourself because of your nightmares?”
“If I had really tried to kill myself, I would already be dead. I only wanted to rest. I couldn’t go on living like that, the factory and everything else, Line’s absence, the absence of hope. Getting up at five in the morning, walking, running down the street to catch the bus, the forty-minute journey, arriving at the fourth village, going inside the factory. Rushing to pull on the gray overalls, getting through the crush to clock in, running to your machine, starting it up, drilling the hole as quickly as possible, drilling, drilling, always the same hole in the same part, ten thousand times a day, if possible, our salaries depend on our work rate, our lives.”
“That’s the working man’s life. Be thankful you have a job. Lots of people are unemployed. As for Line . . . There’s a pretty young blonde girl who comes to see you every day. Why couldn’t her name be Line?”
“Because she is Yolande and she will never be called Line. She isn’t Line, she is Yolande. It’s a stupid name, isn’t it? And she is just as stupid as her name. Her dyed blonde hair gathered up on top of her head, her nails painted pink, as long as claws, her ten-centimeter-high stilettos. Yolande is small, very small, so she wears shoes with ten-centimeter heels and has a ridiculous hairstyle.”
The doctor laughs:
“So why do you go on seeing her?”
“Because I don’t have anyone else. And because I don’t want to change. I once changed a lot and I am tired of it. Anyway, what difference does it make, one Yolande or another? I go to her place once a week. She cooks and I bring the wine. We’re not in love.”
The doctor says:
“Perhaps not as far as you’re concerned. But do you know what her feelings are?”
“I don’t want to know. I’m not interested in her feelings. I’ll go on seeing her until Line arrives.”
“You still believe she will?”
“Definitely. I know she exists somewhere. I’ve always known that I came into this world only to meet her. And her, too. She came into this world only to meet me. She is called Line, she is my wife, my love, my life. I have never seen her.”
I met Yolande when I was buying some socks. Black ones, gray ones, white tennis socks. I don’t play tennis.
The first time I saw Yolande, I thought she was very beautiful. Graceful. She tilted her head as she handed over the socks, she smiled, she was almost dancing.
I paid for the socks, I asked her:
“Can I see you sometime?”
She gave a silly laugh, but I didn’t care about her silliness. I only cared about her body.
“Wait for me in the café over the road. I get off at five.”
I bought a bottle of wine, then I waited in the café over the road with my socks in a plastic bag.
Yolande arrived. We had a coffee, then we went to her place.
She’s a good cook.
Yolande might seem prettier to someone who hasn’t seen her first thing in the morning.
Then she is nothing but a little crumpled thing, her hair hangs down, her makeup is a mess, she has large rings of kohl around her eyes.
I watch her as she goes into the shower, her legs are thin, she has hardly any buttocks or breasts.
She is in the bathroom for at least an hour. When she comes out she is the fresh and pretty Yolande again, well groomed, well made-up, perched on her ten-centimeter heels. Smiling. Laughing in her stupid way.
Usually, I go back home late on Saturday evening, but sometimes I stay over until Sunday morning. On those occasions, I also have breakfast with her.
She goes to get some croissants at the baker’s, which is open on Sundays, twenty minutes’ walk from her place. She makes some coffee.
We eat. Then I go home.
What does Yolande do on Sunday after I leave? I don’t know. I’ve never asked her.