–23–

We spent another four years trying to forget we’d taken vows to be together. It was all very schizophrenic: my wife circulated in high society, growing bubblier and bubblier, while I taught night school to a sorry bunch who slept during my classes, tired from the shitty day they’d had. At least I had a good excuse not to go with her to all the dinners and social gatherings she attended. What most irritated me about them was having to spend time in the company of the same idiots whom my father thought had displayed model behaviour back when I was a teenager. They hadn’t deviated in the slightest from the road to total stupidity. The only difference was that now they smoked cigars, slopped gel into their hair, and slept with more expensive whores, while their equally futile wives turned a blind eye.

I still didn’t have any friends (and, by this stage, never would). As is usually the case with teachers, I could have established friendlier ties with my students. I tried, but they were as devoid of inner life as the wealthy folks with whom my wife loved to rub shoulders. It’s amazing how wealth and poverty, by different routes, can have the same effect of emptying people. The only human being in whose company I derived any pleasure was my father’s driver — the one who’d helped me, and kept me company so often when I was a child.

He was different from most poor people, which was why I liked him so much. He wasn’t complacent, nor did he complain about his lot in life. By that, I don’t mean that he was a conformist. He was a realist. He knew how to assess situations in order to make the most of them, or to bow out when necessary. As well, he had no patience for the other employees’ moaning and groaning. Whenever he heard someone complaining about being broke, he always made a point of asking them, ‘OK, but what have you done to try to earn more money?’ I think he would have made a steely executive if he’d had the chance. I once asked him why he hadn’t finished his studies. His answer was surprising: ‘The cost-benefit ratio is no good. To cover the expenses of night school and a second-rate university, I’d have to work for at least eight years in a job that paid six times what I earn now. But even after completing night school and getting a second-rate university degree, I’d never get a job like that.’ It was incredible that a man of the people could be sharp enough not to be sucked in by the nonsensical notion that one had to study to move up in life in a country such as ours. I admired his approach to life, and benefited from it. When I was a child and had my dizzy spells, the driver was always there to try and make me see things as they really were, without the fog of despair … No, he wouldn’t have made a good analyst. You lot usually only make the fog thicker.

My father liked him a lot — not least because he could leave me in his hands on a day-to-day basis. He liked him so much that he invited him and his wife to come and live with us. She took on the role of head housekeeper and, in this position, managed to put a stop to the high turnover of domestics. She taught them to be a reliable, cooperative and, above all, silent team. To paraphrase a butler from the movies, they learned to live as if they didn’t exist. I didn’t really hit it off with our driver’s wife — I sensed in her, from the first instant, a resentment towards the wealthy. At any rate, it was a dislike that had no great bearing on my life, since both she and I avoided saying anything more than was strictly necessary to one another. When she needed to communicate with me, to pass on a message, or something of the sort, she preferred to write notes. I think she was proud of her flowing handwriting and good grammar. Unlike her husband, she’d managed to finish high school. She came from a family of Italian immigrants who’d settled in the countryside — small-time shop owners who’d lost the little they’d managed to make when the economy took a downward turn. In love with her husband, and with no hope of finding a decent job, she’d agreed to run away with him to the big city. It’s what I’d call a classically banal story.

Our driver was also valuable to my father because he helped rid him of personal annoyances — things that had nothing to do with me. He was discreet, and never disclosed details about the special services, so to speak, that he carried out for my father. However, from the little I was told, I deduced what they were. For example, my father had him take large sums of money to crooks who specialised in offshore accounts. Another situation in which he was useful was when it became necessary to dissuade a woman from calling my father after he’d dumped her.

You might think it odd that I appreciate a person who was willing to perform such services. But you must remember that we had already formed a bond long before I found out what his other duties were — the sentences of moral judgements tend to be much lighter when preceded by emotional ties. Generally speaking, this is an error we like to make, as if it confirms our humanity. I’d even go so far as to say that emotional ties formed a posteriori also serve to dilute negative opinions. You, for example, may no longer judge me as severely as you would have before you met me … We don’t have an emotional tie? I’m inclined to think you’re mistaken.

Now, where was I? Ah, yes, my marital problems. My wife didn’t notice I was unhappy, and I didn’t know how to tell her how unhappy I was. It was with some surprise, therefore, that she received the news that I’d decided to start analysis. That night, we had a frank discussion. I told her I couldn’t stomach the parties and dinners with those unbearable people, I loathed my job, and I hoped that analysis would help me find a way out of the condition of artiste manqué. Yes, because I needed to create something. Maybe write a book. I had some interesting ideas, but didn’t feel stimulated enough to organise them — although I’d already tried to do it once, back in Paris, without her knowledge.

She listened to everything in silence. When I finished, she was pensive for a few seconds, then she locked herself in the bathroom. She came out with her face puffy from crying. She gave me a hug, apologised for not paying me enough attention, and said she’d support me in every decision I made. She promised to slow the pace of her social life so she could spend more time with me, and said she’d find herself something useful to do. She asked what I thought about her setting up a catering service, where she could put her Parisian culinary qualifications to good use. I said I didn’t have enough money, and would have to ask my father for help once again. Unless, of course, she used the money she’d inherited from her uncle. I noticed that she squirmed a little at the mention of the money. ‘I think I’ll be able to find an investment partner among those unbearable people you so abhor,’ she said. We then gave ourselves over to desperate, sad sex.