Happy Are the Happy Read online

  Odile Toscano

  Everything gets on his nerves. Opinions, things, people. Everything. We can’t go out anymore without the evening ending badly. I find myself persuading him to go out, yet on the whole I almost always regret it. We exchange idiotic jokes with our hosts, we laugh on the landing, and once we’re in the elevator, the cold front moves in. Someday someone should make a study of the silence that falls inside a car when you’re returning home after having flaunted your well-being, partly to edify the company, partly to deceive yourself. It’s a silence that tolerates no sound, not even the radio, for who in that mute war of opposition would dare to turn it on? This evening’s over, we’re home now, and while I undress, Robert, as usual, is dawdling in the children’s room. I know what he’s doing. He’s checking their breathing. He bends over them and takes the time to verify unequivocally that they aren’t dead. Afterward, we’re in the bathroom, both of us. No communication. He brushes his teeth, I remove my makeup. He goes to the toilet room. A little later, I find him sitting on the bed in our bedroom; he checks the e-mails on his BlackBerry and sets his alarm. Then he slips under the covers and immediately switches off the light on his side of the bed. For my part, I go and sit on the other side, I set my alarm, I rub cream into my hands, I swallow a Stilnox, I place my earplugs and my water glass within reach on the night table. I arrange my pillows, put on my glasses, and settle down comfortably to read. I’ve hardly begun when Robert, in a tone that’s supposed to be neutral, says, please turn out the light. These are the first words he’s spoken since we were on Rémi Grobe’s landing. I don’t answer. After a few seconds pass, he raises himself and leans across me, half lying on me, in an effort to reach my bedside lamp. He manages to switch it off. In the darkness, I hit him on the arm and the back – actually I hit him several times – and then I turn the light on again. Robert says, I haven’t slept for three nights, do you want me dead? Without raising my eyes from my book, I say, take a Stilnox. —I don’t take fucking sleeping pills. —Then don’t complain. —Odile, I’m tired … turn off the light. Turn it off, dammit. He curls up under the covers again. I try to read. I wonder whether the word tired in Robert’s mouth hasn’t contributed more than anything else to our drifting apart. I refuse to give the word any existential significance. If a literary hero withdraws to the region of shadows, you accept it, but the same doesn’t go for a husband with whom you share a domestic life. Robert switches on his lamp again, extricates himself from the bedclothes with uncalled-for abruptness, and sits on the edge of the bed. Without turning around, he says, I’m going to a hotel. I remain silent. He doesn’t move. For the seventh time, I read, “By the light filtering through the dilapidated shutters, Gaylor could see the dog lying under the toilet chair, the chipped enamel washbasin. On the opposite wall, a man looked at him sadly. Gaylor approached the mirror …” Now who exactly is Gaylor? Robert’s leaning forward, his back to me. He maintains that position while he says, what do I do wrong, do I talk too much? Am I too aggressive? Do I drink too much? Do I have a double chin? Come on, let’s have the litany. What was it this time? Well, you certainly talk too much, I say. —It was so damned boring. And disgusting. —It wasn’t great, that’s true. —Disgusting. What the hell does he do, this Rémi Grobe? —He’s a consultant. —Consultant! he exclaims. Who’s the genius who invented that word? I don’t see why we inflict these ridiculous dinners on ourselves. —You’re not obliged to go to them. —Yes I am. —No you’re not. —I most certainly am. And that dumb bitch in red, the one who didn’t even know that Japan doesn’t have the atomic bomb! —What does it matter? Who needs to know that? —When you don’t know anything about Japan’s military defenses, and who does, then you shouldn’t join in a conversation about territorial claims in the China Sea. I’m cold, I want to pull up the comforter, but it’s stuck under Robert, who inadvertently sat on it. I tug at the comforter. He lets me try to pull it out from under him without lifting himself an inch. I haul on it, groaning slightly. It’s a mute and completely idiotic struggle. In the end, Robert gets up and leaves the room. I turn to the preceding page to figure out who Gaylor is. Robert reappears fairly quickly. He’s got his pants back on. He looks for his socks, finds them, puts them on. He leaves the room again. I hear him in the hall, opening a closet and rummaging around. Then he goes back into the bathroom, or so it seems to me. On the preceding page, Gaylor’s in the back of a garage, arguing with a man named Pal. Who’s this Pal? I get out of the bed, step into my slippers, and join Robert in the bathroom. He’s wearing an unbuttoned shirt and sitting on the side of the bathtub. I ask him, where are you going? He makes a desperate gesture that means I don’t know, it makes no difference. I say, do you want me to fix up a bed for you in the living room? —Don’t worry about me, Odile, go to bed. —Robert, I have four hearings this week. —Please leave me alone. I say, come back to bed, I’ll turn off the lamp. I see myself in the mirror. Robert’s got the bad lights on. I never use the ceiling lights in the bathroom, or if I do, I turn them on together with the spotlights over the washbasin. I say, I look ugly, she cut my hair too short. Much too short, Robert says. That’s Robert’s style of humor: half teasing, half disturbing. It’s supposed to make me laugh, even in the worst moments. And it’s also supposed to disturb me. I say, are you serious? Robert says, how can that jackass be a consultant? In what? —Who are you talking about? —Rémi Grobe. —In art, in real estate, I don’t know exactly what. —A dabbler with his fingers in everything. A bandit, most likely. He’s not married? —Divorced. —Do you think he’s good-looking? We hear a sliding sound in the hall, followed by a little voice: Maman? What’s wrong with him? Robert asks me, as if I knew, and in the instantly anxious tone that sets my teeth on edge. We’re here, Antoine, I say, Papa and I are in the bathroom. Antoine appears, dressed in his pajamas and practically weeping. —I lost Doudine. Again! I say, are you going to lose Doudine every night? You shouldn’t be worrying about Doudine at two in the morning, Antoine, you should be sleeping! Antoine’s face crumples in slow motion. When his face crumples like that, there’s no way of stopping his tears. Robert asks, why are you bawling him out, the poor kid? That question requires me to call upon my entire capacity for self-control. I say, I’m not bawling him out, but I don’t understand why he doesn’t put Doudine on a leash. She can just be tied up during the night! I’m not bawling you out, sweetie, but this is not the time to worry about Doudine. Come on, let’s go back to bed. We head for the boys’ bedroom. Antoine’s sniffling, Doudiiine, as Robert and I march down the hall in single file. We enter the bedroom. Simon’s asleep. I ask Antoine to calm down so he won’t wake up his brother. Robert whispers, we’re going to find her, little hamster. Are you going to tie her up? Antoine whines, not making the least effort to lower his voice. I’m not going to tie her up, little hamster, Robert says. I switch on the bedside lamp and say, but why not? We can tie her up at night in a way that will be very pleasant for her. She won’t feel a thing, and you’ll have a little piece of string, like a little leash, and you can pull on it when … Antoine starts to wail like a siren. Few children can achieve such an exasperating command of plaintive modulation. Shh, shhh, I say. What’s going on? Simon asks. —There! Now you’ve waked up your brother, bravo! —What are you all doing? Doudine’s lost, Robert says. Through half-closed eyes, Simon looks at us like we’re crazy. He’s right. I crouch down to peer under the bed. Since I can’t see much, I start running my hand all over the bottom of the bed. Robert’s rummaging in the comforter. With my head under the bed, I mutter, I can’t understand why you’re not asleep in the middle of the night! That’s not normal. When you’re nine years old, you sleep. All of a sudden, I feel her, jammed between the slats and the mattress. I’ve got her, I’ve got her, I call out. Here she is! Quite a pain in the ass, this Doudine … Antoine presses the stuffed animal against his mouth. —All right, beddy-bye! Antoine gets into his bed. I kiss him. Simon wraps himself up in his covers and rolls over, turning away like someone who’s
just witnessed a distressing scene. I switch off the lamp. I try to push Robert out of the room. But Robert stays. He wants to compensate for Mother’s harshness. He wants to reestablish harmony in the enchanted room of childhood. I watch him bend over Simon and kiss him on the back of the neck. Then, in darkness I’ve increased as much as possible by leaving the door just barely ajar, he sits down on Antoine’s bed, tucks him in, nestles the comforter around him, and wedges Doudine so she can’t escape. I hear him murmuring tender words and wonder whether he’s starting one of the stories about Master January’s forest. In former times, men would leave to hunt lions or conquer territories. I wait on the threshold, jerking the door back and forth from time to time to make my irritation known, even though the marmoreal position I’ve adopted should be sufficiently eloquent. Robert finally stands up. We traverse the hall again, in silence. Robert goes into the bathroom, I go into the bedroom and get back in bed. I turn over. I put on my glasses. “Pal was sitting at his desk. His plump hands rested on the dirty blotter. He was informing Gaylor that Raoul Toni had come into the garage that very morning …” Who’s Raoul Toni? My eyes are closing. I wonder what Robert can be doing in the bathroom. I hear a footstep. He appears. He’s removed his pants. How often can this particular threat be made in the course of a married life, this madness of dressing and undressing? I say, do you think it’s normal for a nine-year-old to still have a cuddly toy? Of course, Robert says. I still had one when I was eighteen. I feel like laughing but I don’t show it. Robert takes off his socks and his shirt. He turns off his bedside lamp and slips under the covers. I think I know who Gaylor is. Gaylor’s the guy who’s been hired to find Joss Kroll’s daughter, and I have a hunch Raoul Toni has appeared already too, at the raffle in the beginning … My eyes close. This thriller is not thrilling. I remove my glasses and switch off the light. I turn so that I’m facing the night table. I notice I haven’t pulled the curtain far enough over, it’s going to let the light in too early. Too bad. I say, why does Antoine wake up in the middle of the night? Robert replies, because he can’t feel Doudine. We both stay where we are for a while, each on one side of the bed, staring at the opposite wall. Then I turn over, once again, and press myself against him. Robert puts his hand on the small of my back and says, I ought to tie you up too.

  Vincent Zawada

  While waiting for her radiation therapy session at the Tollere Leman clinic, my mother scrutinizes every patient in the waiting room and says, in a barely lowered voice, wig, wig, not sure, not a wig, not a wig … Maman, Maman, not so loud, I say, everybody can hear you. What are you saying? my mother asks. You’re muttering under your breath and I can’t understand you. —Have you turned your ear on? —What? —Where’s your hearing aid? Why don’t you have it on? —Because I have to take it off during the radiation. —Put it on while we’re waiting, Maman. It’s no use, my mother says. The man sitting next to her gives me a sympathetic smile. He’s holding a Prince of Wales beret in his hands, and his pale complexion is in keeping with his outdated, English-style suit. In any case, says my mother, digging around in her purse, I don’t even have it with me. She goes back to people-watching and hardly lowers her voice when she says, that one there, she won’t last a month. Notice, I’m not the oldest person here, that’s reassuring … Maman, please, I say, here, look, there’s a fun quiz in Le Figaro. —All right, if it makes you happy. —What vegetable previously unknown in France did Queen Catherine de’ Medici introduce to the court: artichoke, broccoli, or tomato? Artichoke, my mother says. —Artichoke, right, good. What was Greta Garbo’s first job when she was fourteen: barber’s assistant, lighting double for Shirley Temple in Little Miss Marker, or herring-scaler at the fish market in Stockholm, her native city? Herring-scaler in Stockholm, my mother says. —No, barber’s assistant. Oh, right, says my mother, how stupid of me, since when do herring have scales! If I may be so bold, madam, they’ve had them a very long time, says the man sitting next to her. I notice his tie, gray with pink polka dots, as he explains, herring have always had scales. Really? says my mother. No, no, herring don’t have scales, they’re like sardines. Sardines have always had scales as well, the man says. Sardines have scales, news to me, says my mother. Did you know that, Vincent? Like anchovies and sprats, the man adds. In any case, I deduce from this conversation that you don’t keep kosher! He laughs and includes me in his attempt at familiarity. In spite of his yellowing teeth and his sparse, graying hair, he has a certain style. I nod my head amiably. Fortunately, my mother says, fortunately I don’t keep kosher. As if it’s not enough that I don’t have any appetite anymore anyway. Who’s your doctor? the man asks, loosening the knot in his polka-dot tie a little and arranging his body for conversation. Doctor Chemla, my mother says. Philip Chemla, the best, there’s nobody better, he’s been keeping me going for six years, says the man. And me for eight, says my mother, proud of having been kept going longer. Lung too? the man asks. Liver, my mother answers, first breast and then liver. The man nods like someone who knows the song. But I’m atypical, you see, my mother goes on, I don’t do anything the same as everybody else, every time Chemla sees me, he says, Paulette – he calls me Paulette, I’m his pet patient – he says, you’re completely atypical, translation: you should have croaked a long time ago. My mother laughs heartily, and so does the man. As for me, I wonder whether a return to the quiz isn’t well overdue. He’s really a wonderful doctor, my mother goes on – by now she’s beyond all control – and I find him personally very attractive too. The first time I saw him I said, are you married, Doctor? Do you have children? No children, he said. I said, you want me to show you how it’s done? I press her hand, dry and withered from her medications, and I say, Maman, listen. What? says my mother, it’s true, he was delighted, he laughed his head off, I’ve rarely seen an oncologist laugh like that. The man nods approvingly and says, he’s a true gentleman, Chemla is, a real mensch. One day, I’ll never forget it, he said these words to me, he said, when someone steps into my office, he honors me. Do you know he’s not even forty? My mother couldn’t possibly care less about any of that. She pursues her own line, as if she hasn’t heard a thing the man said. Last Friday, she goes on, speaking louder and louder, I told him, Doctor Ayoun – he’s my cardiologist – is a much better physician than you are. That’ll be the day, says Chemla. Oh, but he is, I say, he complimented me right away on my new hat, but you, Doctor, you haven’t even noticed it. I feel I must move. I get up and say, Maman, I’m going to ask the receptionist how much longer you have to wait. My mother turns to her new friend and says, he’s going to smoke, my son’s going outside to smoke a cigarette, that’s what that means. Tell him he’s slowly killing himself, and him only forty-three. Ah well, that way we’ll die together, Maman, I say. Look on the bright side. Very funny, says my mother. The gentleman in the polka-dot tie pinches his nostrils and inhales like a man preparing to deliver a decisive communication. I cut him short to explain that I’m not going out for a smoke, even though a nicotine fix would do me a world of good, I’m just going to talk to the receptionist. When I return, I inform my mother that her radiation will start in ten minutes and that Doctor Chemla has not yet come into the office. Ah, that’s just like Chemla, he and his watch don’t get along, he can’t imagine that we might have a subsidiary existence outside this office, says the man, happy to let the sound of his voice be heard again and hoping to hold the floor. But my mother returns to the attack at once and declares, I’m on the best of terms with the receptionist, she always puts me at the top of the list, I call her Virginie. My mother lowers her voice somewhat and adds, she adores me, I say to her, be a sweetheart and give me the first appointment, my dear Virginie. She’s delighted by that, that personal touch. Vincent, my love, shouldn’t we bring her some chocolates next time? Why not, I say. —What? You’re muttering under your breath. I say, it’s a good idea. We should have been able to get rid of Roseline’s vanillekipferl before now, my mother says, I haven’t even opened the box. She doesn’t kno
w how to make them, you think you’re eating sand. Poor Roseline, these days she quivers like a bunch of keys. You know, she’s a different woman since her daughter disappeared in the tsunami, one of the twenty-five bodies that have never been recovered, and Roseline believes she’s still alive. Sometimes that irritates me, I feel like telling her, sure, right, she’s being raised by chimpanzees that have given her amnesia. I say, don’t be mean, Maman. —I’m not mean, but sometimes you have to be fatalistic, everybody knows the world’s a vale of tears. Vale of tears, one of your father’s expressions, you remember? I answer, yes, I remember. The man in the polka-dot tie seems to be lost in some rather somber thoughts. He’s bending forward, and I notice a crutch lying beside his chair. It occurs to me that he’s suffering in some part of his body, and I tell myself that other people in this waiting room on the basement floor of the Tollere Leman clinic must also be suffering in secret. You know, says my mother abruptly, leaning toward the man with an amazingly serious look on her face, my husband was obsessed with Israel. The man straightens up and smoothes the creases in his pinstripe suit. Jews are obsessed with Israel, but not me, my mother goes on. Me, I’m not at all obsessed with Israel, but my husband was. I’m having trouble following my mother along this tangent. Unless she’s trying to correct the misimpression caused by the scaleless fish. Yes, that’s it, maybe she wants to make it clear that her whole family is Jewish, including her, despite her ignorance of some fundamental dietary laws. Are you obsessed by Israel too? my mother asks. Naturally, the man replies. I approve of his concision. If I had my way, I could discourse at some length on the profundity of that reply of his. My mother, however, has a different apprehension of things. When I met my husband, she says, he had nothing at all, his family ran a notions shop on Rue Réaumur, a tiny place, a real dump. By the end of his life, he was a wholesaler, he owned three warehouses and an apartment building. And all that, he wanted to leave all that to Israel. —Maman, what’s got into you? What’s this tale you’re telling? It’s the truth, my mother says, without even taking the trouble to turn in my direction, we were a very close, very happy family, the only black spot was Israel. One day I told him the Jews didn’t need a country and he almost hit me. Another time, he threw Vincent out of the house because he wanted to take a trip down the Nile. The man prepares to make a remark, but he’s not fast enough. By the time he opens his pallid lips, my mother has already segued into Chemla wants to give me a new treatment, I can’t take Xynophren anymore, my hands are falling into shreds, as you see. He wants me to have another round of chemo, a chemo drip this time, which is going to make me lose all my hair. Maman, that’s not certain, I say, Chemla said one chance out of two. One chance out of two means two chances out of two, my mother says, sweeping aside my statement with a gesture, but I don’t want to die like they did in Auschwitz, I don’t want to face my end with a shaved skull. If I have this treatment, it’s good-bye to my hair. And at my age, I don’t have enough time for it to grow back. And it’s good-bye to my hats, too. My mother shakes her head and mimes distress. She’s been holding herself bolt upright while talking nonstop, stretching her neck out like a pious young girl at prayer. I don’t delude myself, you know, she says. I’m here in this dreadful room, chatting with you, but only as a favor to my sons and Doctor Philip Chemla. I’m his pet patient, he enjoys taking care of me. Just between us, these radiation treatments are useless, they do no good whatsoever. They’re supposed to make me see as well as I used to, and every day my eyes are worse. Don’t say that, Maman, I say, the doctor explained that the treatment wouldn’t produce immediate results. What are you saying? my mother asks, you’re muttering under your breath. The results aren’t instantaneous, I repeat. Not instantaneous means not guaranteed, my mother says. The truth is that Chemla’s not certain about anything. He’s groping around. I’m his guinea pig, fine, someone has to do it. I’m a fatalist. When my husband was on his deathbed, he asked me whether I was still an enemy of Israel, the homeland of the Jewish people. I answered, but no, of course not. What do you say to a man who’s not going to be around much longer? You tell him what he wants to hear. It’s strange to cling to such idiotic values. In your final hour, when everything’s about to disappear. A homeland, who needs a homeland? After a while, even life is an idiotic value. Even life, don’t you think? my mother says with a sigh. The man reflects. He could make a reply, because my mother seems to have suspended her babbling, and on a curiously meditative note. But at that instant a nurse calls for Monsieur Ehrenfried. The man grabs his crutch, his Prince of Wales beret, and a Loden overcoat that’s lying on the chair next to him. Still seated, he leans toward my mother and murmurs, life, maybe, but not Israel. Then he braces himself on his crutch and laboriously gets to his feet. Duty calls, he says, bowing, I’m Jean Ehrenfried. It was a pleasure. You can tell that every movement is quite difficult for him, but he continues to show a smiling face. The hat you’re wearing today, he says, is that the one that elicited compliments from your cardiologist? My mother touches her hat to verify her answer. No, no, she says, this one’s the lynx. The one I wore to Doctor Ayoun’s office is a kind of Borsalino with a black velvet rose. The man says, my compliments on the one you’re wearing today, it brought a touch of class to this waiting room. It’s my little lynx toque, says my mother flirtatiously. I’ve had it for forty years, does it still look good on me? It looks perfect, says Jean Ehrenfried, saluting her with a whirl of his beret. We watch him walk away and disappear behind the door to the radiotherapy room. My mother thrusts her bruised hands into her purse. She pulls out a compact and a lipstick and says, he’s got a bad limp, the poor man, I wonder if he hasn’t fallen in love with me.