Incest

We go out, it’s lunchtime. The door closes behind us, we’re on the landing, the keys were left inside. I get yelled at. I’m not in charge of the keys, am I? That’s not the question. Why should it be me, just me, who’s responsible? I’m not the one in particular who was supposed to lock up. I can’t take it anymore. What is going on? Why am I being yelled at? I don’t get it. That’s not the point. Of course it’s you who are responsible. Don’t you know that when you are at someone’s house, when you’re not at home, you always enter second, after the owner, who opens the door and at the same time offers entry to the visitor who only enters then. Always. It’s a basic rule of politeness. I’m surprised you don’t know it. And conversely, when you leave the house, you go out first so the owner can bring up the rear and lock up his house behind everyone. The laws of hospitality, he’s an expert. He’s an expert on customs, how to open, how to close? How to pass in front of an older person? The owner is the first to have contact with door when you enter, and the last to have contact with the door when you go out. Now we need to find a locksmith. You think I’m enjoying this. It will cost a fortune. I won’t be able to find one before two o’clock. There’s only one thing to do, go out, go for a walk, we’re forced to, the keys inside, money, wallet, everything. Me: But why did you go out if you still needed to get things? I thought you were done. I thought I could leave because you were outside? Even if I didn’t know that rule of politeness, that basic, fundamental rule. Now the locksmith, the lock, it will cost a fortune. (He would never have said a shitload.) A fortune. He is very very very very very very very very very very very very, very angry. I’d like to run away. I wish I could escape. I want to see my mother. When I got home I almost told her. I can see myself again at the station. I told her “it was horrible.” What, how? His character. His character was my answer. She told me she understood, that she knew him, that she wasn’t at all surprised. That a whole week was surely too long. It’s the first time I let my disappointment show but not about the real keyhole, let’s say. Wandering around the streets with him for two hours, it was horrible, waiting until we could call a locksmith, in neighborhoods where everything was closed for the lunch hour, in residential neighborhoods, where there’s nothing anyway, he didn’t have his car keys, nothing, we couldn’t even go to another part of town, he had to go back to work, he would be late, that wasn’t the worst, but being locked out because of your stupid mistake, and having all these worries that I could do without, and the fortune it’s going to cost to get the locksmith to come.

Gare de l’Est

I give this example, but the same thing happened in other places. I can picture it very clearly. I was intolerable because of X, my character was bad, I irritated him, because of X I was intolerable, I exaggerated, I said something unpleasant, I don’t know, I don’t remember, he had enough reasons. He’d been counting on spending a few days with me, well, no. Enough. We were supposed to be together until Sunday, well, no, enough is enough. Maybe I think that he’ll enjoy driving all the way to Strasbourg, so then, I shouldn’t complain. No point insisting, now he can’t stay. He is in such a state, that it’s enough. That’s it. I’m fourteen or fifteen years old. I’m young, I’m still little even. To wait for the next train to Reims in some station and it’s cold. To return to my mother, hoping she hasn’t made other plans. It was my father, my father who wanted to see me, but he’s tired of me, he wants to go home, he’s going home, he got his car, he left, he didn’t look at the train schedule, he left me at the Gare de l’Est, with my bag, he gave me money to buy a ticket. He didn’t offer to wait with me, the two hours or three hours or four hours before the next train, it’s cold in the station, there are plastic seats on the left side where people are sitting, no one waits as long as I do. He couldn’t wait with me, he had to get back, right away, Strasbourg isn’t next door. Stuck there, alone because of my bad character or having said the wrong thing. Anxiety, tears, I hide, I have my bag. Luckily I have my bag. My bag is the only friendly thing in this enormous station.