I KEPT THINKING ABOUT LILY SAINTE-MARIE OVER the next days. It made me sadder and sadder. What had I been doing on stage reciting revolutionary poetry and acting like I was at the top of the world? My mother was alive and well and she had not loved me.
We were at each other’s throats after Adam left. It was just the two of us again. This was suddenly worse to me than having nobody. We started picking on each other over all sorts of tiny, stupid things.
One morning a week later, I glared at Nicolas over the breakfast table. Loulou was standing at the counter, busy mixing up batter for an angel food cake. Everything about Nicolas was bothering me. It seemed as if his hair hadn’t been washed in a week. His stupid nose seemed to be taking up his whole face. I didn’t like the way he smoked. He inhaled half the cigarette and made the filter sopping wet. It was grotesque.
“Stop giving me the stink eye,” Nicolas said. “I’m just trying to eat my toast like a regular guy. Just your average Joe.”
“You changed the settings on the clock radio.”
“Where are you going with this?”
“I have a job and I’m going to school. If you’re going to change the clock radio, then I’m going to be all screwed up.”
“I knew that’s where you were going. I am a man that doesn’t even need time. And you, on the other hand, are very important and are very much in need of the time.”
“I only want to be able to hear the alarm when it goes off.”
He put the cigarette butt out in his egg.
“Why don’t you put your cigarette out in an ashtray like a normal human being?” I asked.
“You’re questioning my humanity now. This is grand. That’s the only reason that you’re going to school, isn’t it? So that you can lord it over me.”
“And another thing: don’t use my toothbrush. I’m going to gag until there’s no gag left in me if I find that you’ve used my toothbrush.”
“I’m going out because you’re driving me up the wall. You’re just looking for things to get irritated at me about.”
And of course he was right. That was exactly what I was doing. But I couldn’t stop.
“Did you take five dollars from my pocket?”
“Certainly I did.”
“You think that my pocket is a bank.”
“Since when did you become a member of the bourgeoisie? When did this house become too small for you? When did you start needing a bedroom with a princess bed? You think you’re too good for me. Well I’m too good for you.”
He slammed his fists down on the table. Then he pointed his finger at me.
“Because just remember that the two of us were in the same stinking womb together. We were rejected by the same mother. You think that if I wasn’t there, she would have said, “Oh look, a sweet little girl.” Oh no, no, no. She put us both out together. She was disgusted with the two of us. Because you were born unwanted just as much as I was.”
Nicolas was trying to put into words what I was feeling. I hoped myself that he would be able to do it. Then I wouldn’t have to have all these strange thoughts that made me feel like I was worried about something but couldn’t put my finger on what it was. But he wasn’t getting it right. Or anyways he was sort of getting it right. He was right that it had something to do with him.
“You’re just looking for someone to look down on. But why don’t you just go look in the mirror? You want to pretend that you’ve done something with your life, although I can’t imagine what on earth that is. Who do you think you are? Sitting there and criticizing me.”
“Just don’t change the settings on the clock radio.”
“The clock radio actually belongs to me. So I can do whatever I like with it.”
“Fine, but don’t touch my shit either.”
“Those striped socks that you have on, they’re mine. I was planning on wearing them today, so I’d prefer if you took them the fuck off.”
“Fine.”
I pulled off the socks and tossed them across the table at him. One hit him in the chest and the other one landed in his coffee.
“Ah, disgusting. What’s the matter with you?”
Loulou turned to us, holding up the cake bowl and spoon. He had no idea that we were arguing.
“Who’s going to lick the batter?” he called out.
Loulou didn’t know about us having gone to see Lily. I wondered if he even remembered the Lily Sainte-Marie story. We were much more sensitive to Loulou’s feelings than we were to one another’s. Whatever else, Loulou had woken up every day and made us breakfast whether we wanted it or not. The least that we could do in return was to pretend that all his hard work paid off and that it never crossed our minds to want our mother. We didn’t want to confuse him terribly by having him get to know our personalities.
“You know what Saskia told me once?” Nicolas said, completely ignoring Loulou. “She said that the worst thing about me was you. That I never did anything without checking in first. That you were a control freak. And that it wasn’t very fun having to date the two of us.”
“And I suppose it’s my fault you didn’t put a condom on your dick.”
Nicolas picked up an orange and threw it at the window. The glass shattered.
“Whoa!” Loulou said. “What on earth is happening now?”
I flung the cooled coffee from my cup at my brother. He grabbed the trash can and dumped it on my head, while I opened up the fridge and started throwing the eggs at him.
I ran down the hallway, and Nicolas chased me into the living room. He picked up a lamp and started swinging it at me as if it was a sword. I stood up on the couch. I threw a jar filled with pencils at his head. He pulled me off the couch and we were wrestling on the floor, smacking each other on the head.
Loulou came in with his hands in the air, yelling at us to knock it off. The teachers used to sometimes separate Nicolas and me in class because we would erupt into fist fights. We just went crazy on each other, slapping and kicking and pulling each other’s hair. I think it affected the teachers’ sense of propriety to see two children whacking one another brutally and then walking hand in hand two hours later.
I stood up and ran out of the living room and back into the kitchen. Nicolas came after me and slid across the table to cut me off. He knocked over a vase of flowers and the change dish and grabbed me by both hands and pinned me against the wall.
“Calm down, Nouschka. Just calm down.”
When I stopped struggling, he let go. He straightened himself out. He grabbed his jacket and walked out the front door, slamming it without saying a word. I was so frustrated that I sat on the kitchen floor and wept.
The thing is that Nicolas and I were afraid to be without each other. And whenever you are dependent on someone, then you naturally start to resent them. Everybody is born with an inkling, a desire to be free.
We had tried all the other crazy, violent things that other people did to end their relationships. We had humiliated and belittled and smacked one another. But nothing ever worked. He was furious with me now. But he would be distracted in fifteen minutes by a pretty girl or a song on a jukebox that he liked and he wasn’t going to be mad anymore. No matter what we said to each other, it didn’t seem to mean a damn thing an hour later. It gave this strange sense of futility to everything that we did. As if each day had just been a dream that we were waking up from and had no consequences.
I went and sat down next to Loulou to watch television. Loulou was out of breath, as if he’d just run around the block. He always got that way when he was decompressing after one of Nicolas and my fights. I wasn’t mad anymore, just tired too. Sometimes I thought that if I could fall madly in love, well, that would change things.