Louis Édouard - History of Violence

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For Geoffroy de Lagasnerie

I am hidden on the other side of the door, I listen, and she says that several hours after what the copy of the report I keep twice-folded in my drawer calls the attempted homicide , and which I call the same thing for lack of a better word, since no other term is more appropriate for what happened, which means I always have the anxious nagging feeling that my story, whether told by me or whomever else, begins with a falsehood, I left my apartment and went downstairs.

I crossed the street in the rain so I could wash my sheets on the hot setting at the laundromat down the block, just fifty meters from the door to my building, I was bent double, the laundry bag was so big and heavy my legs trembled under its weight.

It wasnt yet light out. The street was empty. I was alone and as I stumbled along, though I had such a short way to go, I found myself counting in my haste: Just fifty more steps, keep going, just twenty more steps and youre there. I hurried faster. In my impatience for the future, which would, somehow or other, dispatch, consign, reduce this scene to the past, I found myself thinking: In a week youll say, Its been a whole week since it happened, keep going, and in a year youll say, Its been a whole year since it happened. The drops of freezing rain werent beating down but fell in a thin, clammy drizzle that soaked through the canvas of my shoes, the water oozed its way through my insoles and the fabric of my socks. I was coldand I thought: He could come back, hes bound to come back, now I can never go home, hes driven me from my home. The manager of the laundromat was on duty, his blocky chest and head looming up across the rows of machines. He asked how it was going, I said Bad , in the hardest voice I could muster. I waited for him to say something. I wanted him to say something. But he let it go, he shrugged, he turned and disappeared into the little office of his, tucked away behind the dryers, and I hated him for not asking what I meant.

I went back with the clean sheets. I climbed the stairs in a sweat. I remade the bed, but still it smelled like Reda, so I lit candles, I burned incense; it wasnt enough; I took air freshener, deodorant, bottles of cologne that Id been given for my last birthday, aftershave, and I sprayed the sheets, I soaked the pillowcases, even though Id just washed them, until the material foamed with thick clustering suds. I washed the wooden chairs with soap and water, took a damp sponge to the books hed handled, rubbed the doorknobs with antiseptic wipes, dusted the wooden blinds slat by slat, moved and rearranged the stacks of books on the floor, polished the metal bed frame, scoured the smooth white refrigerator door with lemon-scented detergent; I couldnt stop, I was possessed by an almost manic energy. I thought: Better crazy than dead . I scrubbed the shower hed used, dumped several liters of bleach into the toilet and sink (it was two liters at leasta bottle and a half), scrubbed the entire bathroom, it was absurd, I even cleaned the mirror where hed observed, or really admired, his reflection the night before, and I threw away the clothes hed touched, washing them wasnt good enough; I dont know why it was good enough for the sheets but not the clothes. I got down on my hands and knees and scrubbed the floor, the steaming water scalded my fingers, the rag tore the tender skin away in little oblong strips. The bits of skin curled up on themselves. I paused, I took deep breaths, the truth is I was sniffing like an animal, I had become an animal, sniffing after the scent that seemed never to disappear, no matter what I did, his smell wouldnt go away, so I decided it must be on me, not on the sheets or the furniture. I was the problem. I got in the shower, I washed myself once, twice, three times, and so on. I lathered my body with soap, shampoo, conditioner to perfume it as best I could, it was as if his smell were encrusted inside me, between the flesh and the epidermis, and I scraped at every inch of my body with my nails, I sanded away in a fury, trying to reach the inner layers of my skin and get rid of his smell, I swore out loud, Fuck, and the longer the smell persisted, the sicker and dizzier I felt. Then I realized: The smell is inside my nose. Youre smelling the inside of your nose. The smell is stuck in my nose . I left the bathroom, came back with saline, and squirted it into my nostrils; I exhaled as if I were blowing my nose so thatthis was the effect I wanted to producethe saline would get to the entire inner surface of my nostrils; it didnt do any good; I left the windows open and went to go see Henri, the only friend I had who was awake that December 25 at nine or ten in the morning.

My sister is the one describing this scene to her husband. I still recognize her voice even after my years away, her voice compounded, as always, of fury, resentment, irony too, and resignation:

But thats the thing, it didnt surprise me at all and thats exactly what got me so mad, because when he told meand he was sitting right there where you are now, and here I was listening, he always goes on about how nobody listens to him, which I mean, please, thats not the problem, the problem is he never wants anyone else to talk, only him and he never stops, but as I was saying, when he told me how he left the hospital that day and it hit me how he never called me the day it happened, I said to myself: Of course notbut I kept my mouth shut, and at first I just sat there and dealt with it. I dealt with it. I was proud of the way I dealt with it, actually. I patted myself on the back. And I told myself, You knew who you were dealing with, did you really think hed pick up the phone or, heaven forbid, come to visit (here it comes) . Im not saying he should have called me before he called everybody else or told me everything in detail right then and there, its not like I want to be the first person he calls, Im not saying call and spend three hours on the phone, or three days, not at all. All Im saying is call.

But so I let him talk. I dig my nails into my hands, deep, to keep from bawling him out. I could see the big veins come up on my hands while he went on talking, I was clenching them so hard, they looked like beets, and all that time, the whole entire time, I was swallowing my spit to swallow the words I felt rising up in my throat, and I just kept telling myself: Hold it together, Clara. Hold it together.

And finally I told him. douard, I mean. I told all this to my mother yesterday, he says he doesnt want to see her but so what, thats between them, its not my problem. Let them fight (thats not true, shes lying to him, in fact she has tried desperately to make peace between you, shes done everything she could think of, everything, just the way your mother would try to make peace in her own family, as if the role had been passed down from one to the other) . I called her to tell her how hes doing, and I told her, I said, Oh my, you should have seen how it all came out, it just came out all by itself while douard was talkingit really is stronger than I am, I told her, but Maman, you know how I am, Ive always had to say whats on my mind, and its too late to change now, Im too old, Ive been around for a quarter of a century, and thats not the way I do things, it just isnt, I dont care if he wants to harp on bad memories, that doesnt mean I have to shut up, no way, I wont put up with that kind of blackmail. Im sorry, I told her, but no, because if you give in to that kind of blackmail then you dont say anything, and that means you stop ever talking about anything and youre always biting your tongue about something and thats no way to live, so I told my mother what I said to douard: You could at least have tried, it wouldnt have been that hard, for Christ sake, you could have done it, you could have called me that day. Its not exactly complicated, is it, its not like youre a righty with two left hands, you do know how to work a goddamn phone. To think its been almost a year since it happened and he only told me this week. That for a whole year I didnt know anything about it, not until this week.