Incest

I regretted calling, she was going to call me back, I didn’t want her to. It was done. The damage was done. As they say. On the 26th, in tears before the reading, I might have moved her.

Then, a call to Moufid Zériahen. I’ve been trying to reach him since ten in the morning. I had thought of calling him the day before, on Wednesday, but I held back.

Another process was underway, also by phone, with Marie-Christine. Plans to break up, screams, I made her listen to my ragged breathing, gasps, my hoarse cries, almost groans on some phrases, interspersed with yelling. After certain words, family, obligation, duty, godchildren, cousin, since forever. Another fit was setting in. It was being sparked again. The receiver was slammed down several times, after “it’s over,” “goodbye,” “well, see you some day.” You know. I threw in dry comments, alternating with death rattles, I made her listen to my constricted throat. Not from exhibitionism, not to draw her attention to it, but simply because I was suffering. She said some words, followed her logic, spouted some things that made me puke with horror, or at least scream. Just the thought of it, just picturing it. Imagining certain scenes, to see what it was related to, all the things it brought up. She was poking around in my childhood, stirring it up, not even realizing it. She was the last, absolutely the very last person on earth I could get along with. We had nothing to say to each other, we were complete strangers. She was in one camp, I was in the other. Eight days earlier she was talking about a civil solidarity pact. A dream. I was getting nowhere, it was exhausting. I take the blame for everything. I was trying to destroy her and her cousin, it was that or me, I preferred me, you think that’s not normal?

The morning of the 26th, of Thursday the 26th, I worked. Alain Françon is staging Les Autres, Sujet Angot, and No Man’s Land as one play, I’d suggested combining the three, to make them all one language, my usual stew, my classic incestuous mix, which I wasn’t repressing up to that point. ‘Everything can always be mashed together’ could have been my motto.

Late that morning, I don’t know which of us called the other. She did, I think. She’s free after two thirty, to get together before the reading if I want or to go for a walk. After the blow with the Christmas… I ask if she’s joking. If it helps for her not to come, she agrees not to. Implacable reasoning, repetition of the reasons for Christmas, Nadine needs support, you don’t suddenly let drop people who have helped you at some point, she has a family, turn of the century morality, nineteenth century, I spew at her. Intolerable notions of loyalty and fairness. So ancient and arbitrary, to be honest. So vile.

When I recount my day on the 27th, Friday the 27th, you’ll be treated to Nadine’s phone call, you’ll see, it’s something else.

To summarize. A few dozen phone calls, at half past noon she asks me – I was in tears – if I want her to come over at two thirty. I tell her it will be too late, that I’ll be dead by then. We hang up and I go lie down.

At two o’clock Denis rings, we had a rendez-vous, I was in no condition to speak. Marie-Christine telephoned, hung up, called back. Two good hours have passed before she hangs up, saying “I’ll be right there,” without giving me time to say “no,” I could feel her exasperation. It was about four o’clock, about two hours before the reading. I wasn’t ready. I hadn’t prepared, I hadn’t showered, I didn’t have the strength to get to 20 Rue de la République, to say hello to Anne and Gil who had invited me to the CRL. I knew if I did, at what cost?

I called Moufid Zériahen. He was in.

—It’s Christine Angot. I have a reading at six o’clock, I’m not in any shape to do it, I’ve been having an anxiety attack since yesterday noon.

—Come right away.

—I can’t, I don’t have time. (Marie-Christine was going to come over. Unless I were to stand her up. After all!… Like Christmas.)

Despite all that she inflicts on me, I haven’t stopped loving her yet, what masochism. Paranoid, that’s certain, delusional, too, masochist, I’d have to check. The doorbell. It’s her. Moufid must have heard the bell. I tell him:

—I’d like you to say something that will calm me down.

I weep.

I go into another room with the hand-held phone.

—A few words.

—In that case, I need you to tell me a bit more.

—It’s about Christmas and Nadine, Do you remember?

—Yes, I do.

—Do you remember Marie-Christine told me she’d try?

—Yes, I do.

—She called Nadine yesterday, who told her it was impossible. And so she’s going. She’s going to Paris.

—And you’re surprised?

—Yes.

—Those are archaic relationships, you know, what would you have done if your father or your sister called, wouldn’t you have answered?

He’s feeling around, that’s not the issue, no, that’s not it. It’s difficult over the phone.