Incest

I’m twenty-eight years old, no one in the village knows he has a child, in addition to the other two, an additional child, an older girl, that it’s me, and that I ended up going by Angot like him. With regard to acknowledgment, there’s something I wanted to say:

Tough luck

Yesterday, in a conversation with my mother, I’m talking about what happened. She asks her question, “would it have been better…?” Because of something his sister said on the phone that shocked her “one more headache, as if there haven’t been enough headaches already, now he’s going to have another child.” My mother thinks of the poor baby about to be born, none of this is the baby’s fault. My aunt had to put up with a lot, she repeats, I tell my mother that it’s classic, just like my father who must have had to put up with some difficulty or other, to get the upper hand and, in the end, to lose his mind. My mother goes: well, I’ll tell you something: tough luck. No, not tough luck. I explain. I feel neither hatred nor love. She thinks she understands and says “yes, that’s it (her implication ‘like me’) indifference.” No, not hatred, not love, not indifference, it’s my father, not forgiveness, not indifference, nor love of course: acknowledgment. There, that’s it, acknowledgment. He didn’t acknowledge me, but me, I acknowledge him. He’s my father, I acknowledge him. I acknowledge him as my father. He is my incestuous father, I acknowledge that. I am his incestuous daughter, he is my incestuous father, I acknowledge him, he would not acknowledge me, but I acknowledge him. Léonore is his granddaughter, she could have been his daughter, that’s enough.

Digression, I recount a dream

Léonore is his granddaughter, she could have been his daughter, that’s enough. Phew. That’s what I just wrote. And this is the dream I had last week. A quick look backward. Claude and Judith, the daughter of my psychoanalyst in Reims, Jean-Claude Brot, from a long time ago, more than fifteen years, Claude and Judith, she’s blond, about twenty-five years old, they’re attracted to each other, they’ve talked about it, it’s a matter of time. I was sure as soon as I heard that she was going to medical school in Montpellier, she wants to be a psychoanalyst like daddy, she met Claude, she reads my books, she knows who I am, I shaped her father as an analyst, I was his most important patient. Things are taking shape. It’s New Year’s Eve, they’re attracted to each other, apparently she told him some “powerful things.” But when she feels a strong emotion, she represses it. That’s one of her problems. But it’s on my back that they profit. They get a frisson of incest over my body. I shudder. I shiver. It’s a mise en abyme like the vache-qui-rit label that sends you running to the toilet with the urge to vomit. A few days ago I dreamed that Claude and Judith had a child, the child of incest will soon exist in a debased form. Yes, yes, comparisons are always tough. Yes, yes. Yes. Yes… Not tough luck. No, not tough luck. It’s not enough for me to describe rejecting the monster, I live it. I live it, and often at night. I spent an awful day. I take advantage of this to tell Jean-Claude Brot, if he reads this book, that he shouldn’t have talked about me to his children, that was a huge mistake. Even if he said “the young woman,” they were able to recognize me, the proof. He should have talked about me only in work groups, he should have been able to manage. He should refund the cost of my analysis because he ruined everything, blabbermouth. I’m not a topic of discussion. Or for a thrill. I thought about telephoning you, Mr. Brot, but honestly, do I want to spend my life calling out everyone who pulls some shit or other? I’d end up in an ocean of slime. I’ll write and that’s it. My ambition: the extent to which I’m limited, merely to write about that. I can hear you: as for that, Christine Angot, no one is making you say this. Exactly.

Tough luck