Incest

He compared the size of our breasts, me, my mother, Elisabeth, and Marianne, his mistress at the time. I was jealous of Marianne. She was a student, she was doing political science, she was young, she was free, he was in love with her, he hadn’t seen her for a while. She was an important part of his life, a student, young, free, making love to quite a few guys, including a Black man he saw her with once. Sometimes she just did it if she thought she’d “get pleasure” out of it. She could have been his daughter, I was jealous of her but not of Elisabeth, Elisabeth’s crotch smelled of “rotten fish,” he never licked her. That was something he didn’t like in general, he would tell her, he couldn’t tell her the real reason. But he told me. Another thing, the grimace she made when she came, he didn’t like seeing her face at those times. He had told her, but she started doing it again, maybe she didn’t realize what she was doing with her face, otherwise she would have paid attention. A German, a certain Brigitte, my mother remembered, me, I don’t recall her name. This German woman’s breasts, grapefruit, me, oranges, my mother, lemons, Elisabeth, oranges and not a bad figure besides, a lovely waist. And nice, above all very nice, very attentive. Stupid, but nice. Two problems, her face and her vagina. Marianne, lemons, “that can be touching, too, small breasts or no breasts at all.” I’ve had enough. One morning, with Marie-Christine, I started telling her about it all again. I told her about the clementines, the milk, the lock, she knew about it, the politeness, the complete lack of grammatical mistakes, perfect accent when speaking other languages. The rotten fish, Marianne, of whom I was jealous. The picture I had of Philippe and Mouchi, he gave it to me when I met him at fourteen. I wanted to have at least one photograph of them. Mouchi had a little tweed coat, she was smiling, one day my uncle said that Philippe looked like me. It was a big event. My mother didn’t comment on these resemblances, or didn’t notice them. I also told Marie about “you have very soft skin, like your mother,” I told her about it stroking her back gently. She left to take her dog Baya for a walk after, along the edge of the Lez, she left me alone to write before doing one or two Christmas shopping errands. We were planning on spending the 25th together. She was landing at the airport at twelve thirty. We had all of Christmas day together, Frédéric, who is coming down from Paris by train early in the morning of the 24th, will be there, my mother and André, and of course Léonore. Who, like me, has my father’s hands and feet.

I could listen to anything, with me anything was possible, the clementines and above all talking. Marie-Christine was telling me this morning “there is a kind of naïveté, anything is possible, he can do anything, he is above everything.” Perversion, Marie-Christine was saying, Lacan called it père-version, the version of the father. As soon as I met him, there was only his version, the one reference, the only right one, above the others, above all others. And the Latin, German, English, Spanish, Iberian, Czech versions, not counting slang or dialects, the Angot version. Even religion was nonsense. Phrases:

I had soft skin.

I could get myself very handsome men.

I was beautiful.

I was free.

You could talk about anything with me, it’s very rare to meet someone like me (as open).

I was intelligent.

Do you like being a woman? I didn’t care for that question. When I saw it coming, I always felt uncomfortable. Without really understanding why. The question seemed to imply “because I wouldn’t,” but maybe that wasn’t it. In any case, I gave an answer I liked even less than the question. An answer I will be ashamed of all my life. I would answer “at the moment, yes.” Next to Soylent Green it’s my worst memory.

I’ve got a hard-on, I can’t help it.

When I saw you and you were just a little baby in your crib, I wasn’t interested. You didn’t interest me. (It was hard to get his interest. Mine too.)

We looked alike. We recognized each other as in a mirror reflected from a distance. Unbelievable.

I had breasts the size of oranges.

A tight vagina, very tight, and fresh. Marianne too, hers was fresh, but maybe not as tight. She slept with a lot of men. He hoped I’d enjoy the same sexual liberty later.

The idea of a cool fountain. In the morning, at night.

Another phrase from much later:

I’m eighteen, I’m with Pierre, he’s very handsome but we haven’t been making love often for some time. I see my father one day, nothing happens, it’s tense, he interrogates me about my life, I show him a picture of Pierre, in black and white taken in a plane, he’s suntanned. I tell my father that I’m not very sensual. He doesn’t agree: that’s wrong, it’s the man’s fault, or else “one is less sensual at 18 than at 15.”

German