beats me periodically and that makes me feel a rediscovered tenderness for her because this madness makes me remember her old fragility, I used to love Nancy, I loved her fits, I loved her laugh, she had the laugh I love, your laugh, and Lionel’s. Arthur’s before he became the universal man. She called me at the office to say I’m off to kill myself, do you realize this is the last time you’ll hear me on the phone, I said but where are you, she started to cry, I’m stuck in traffic on the avenue de la Grande Armée, even when I need to kill myself I can’t get out of Paris. That was the Nancy I loved. I went to get her, I took her shopping, she spent a century choosing a face powder or a pair of shoes, she gave it the same sincerity, the same seriousness she had brought an hour before to the idea of killing herself, I waited for her in overheated rooms, sitting on makeshift stools, we came out clutching parcels, she hung on my neck and kissed me, half-laughing, half-crying, and I ended up crying with her and we both cried over how hard life is and the price of shoes, why our paths are diverging like this, why she’s become this socially engaged person, driven from dawn to dusk by the world as adventure, once she didn’t give a shit, now that she’s in love with illegal aliens from Mali she’s no longer in love with me, since she’s come down on the side of generosity, she’s out to kill me. Let’s dance. What we’re listening to is a
Prayer.
Let’s dance, Genevieve, before us there was nobody and after us there will be nobody. The world goes on, but for nothing. Let’s dance. I was born in a country that existed in a different time, on white plains, I am incurably nostalgic for empty villages, empty roads, empty sounds, how am I supposed to follow my wife in all her humanistic bustle? I’m happy to go back into winter where I came from. Maybe that’s the distant place that gave me my taste for gray light and it’s from that distant place that the sounds of strings echo in my ears, continually, like a ghostly relic. Let’s do a spin. I admire how light you are on your feet. Lionel, who watches the world from his window, loves the gray of the sky as much as I do, at least he’s sure, he says, that the weather isn’t pleasing anyone at all, and with a little luck, he says, melancholy will manage to overtake an idiot or two and you’ll feel a little less alone, a tiny little bit less alone, he says, than on those National Cultural Heritage days when you see clusters of happy people going past in shorts like fat bunches of grapes, shorts should be banned in towns, he says, even in small towns, shorts should be permitted in open country and only in open country, and then only in autumn colors, towns should have a ban on shorts and happy people, he says in conclusion. Every day, Genevieve, we talk on the phone. Every morning we call each other, we almost don’t speak to each other anymore except on the phone, we’re that close. We no longer need a face to talk to. Tomorrow morning I’ll tell Lionel that Arthur has bought himself an apartment in Jerusalem. Maybe he knows and he’s had the tact, knowing how coolly I would view it, to keep quiet. I would like to know what Lionel thinks on this matter. And Arthur too, I miss. I miss him. Not just at checkers, where despite the fact that his game had really gone down, he was the only possible partner. Despite the fact that his game had gone down alarmingly, which he did out of friendship, another discipline. I miss him because I laughed with him too. There was a time when Arthur and I could laugh about the general failure of life. Arthur, I don’t know if you know, almost separated from Vera because of a dream. He woke up one morning and said to Vera, “You’re horrible. You’re a horrible woman.” Vera, in his dream, was taking him to lunch. Contrary to their usual habits, Vera is driving the BMW. It’s supposed to be midday, but they’re driving in
Prayer.
Let’s dance, Genevieve, before us there was nobody and after us there will be nobody. The world goes on, but for nothing. Let’s dance. I was born in a country that existed in a different time, on white plains, I am incurably nostalgic for empty villages, empty roads, empty sounds, how am I supposed to follow my wife in all her humanistic bustle? I’m happy to go back into winter where I came from. Maybe that’s the distant place that gave me my taste for gray light and it’s from that distant place that the sounds of strings echo in my ears, continually, like a ghostly relic. Let’s do a spin. I admire how light you are on your feet. Lionel, who watches the world from his window, loves the gray of the sky as much as I do, at least he’s sure, he says, that the weather isn’t pleasing anyone at all, and with a little luck, he says, melancholy will manage to overtake an idiot or two and you’ll feel a little less alone, a tiny little bit less alone, he says, than on those National Cultural Heritage days when you see clusters of happy people going past in shorts like fat bunches of grapes, shorts should be banned in towns, he says, even in small towns, shorts should be permitted in open country and only in open country, and then only in autumn colors, towns should have a ban on shorts and happy people, he says in conclusion. Every day, Genevieve, we talk on the phone. Every morning we call each other, we almost don’t speak to each other anymore except on the phone, we’re that close. We no longer need a face to talk to. Tomorrow morning I’ll tell Lionel that Arthur has bought himself an apartment in Jerusalem. Maybe he knows and he’s had the tact, knowing how coolly I would view it, to keep quiet. I would like to know what Lionel thinks on this matter. And Arthur too, I miss. I miss him. Not just at checkers, where despite the fact that his game had really gone down, he was the only possible partner. Despite the fact that his game had gone down alarmingly, which he did out of friendship, another discipline. I miss him because I laughed with him too. There was a time when Arthur and I could laugh about the general failure of life. Arthur, I don’t know if you know, almost separated from Vera because of a dream. He woke up one morning and said to Vera, “You’re horrible. You’re a horrible woman.” Vera, in his dream, was taking him to lunch. Contrary to their usual habits, Vera is driving the BMW. It’s supposed to be midday, but they’re driving in
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