store … That way she could have been sure that I was still following her. But she
couldn’t play my game. It’s not that she didn’t want to; she
couldn’t.
It was almost a question of life or death. She
couldn’t grant me that importance. Nor, of course, could she make it hard for me
by hiding, shaking me off straight away, which would have been a cinch, but it was
doubly impossible because her maternal instinct would have made her sick with worry. The
only option left was to act naturally, to do her shopping as if she was on her own, as
if no one was following her … But she couldn’t do that either! That was the
most impossible thing of all. How could she act naturally, with my eyes boring into her
back, when she knew perfectly well I was a hundred meters behind her, hidden behind a
dog or a trash can? So where did that leave her? All she could do was combine the three
impossibilities, unable to settle on any of them, bouncing from one to another.
Encouraged by my failures (let others be encouraged by success!), I started making it
even more difficult. Instead of a distance of a hundred meters, I made it two hundred. I
lost sight of her at once. The tailing was no longer visual but divinatory. This was a
natural extension of my habit of giving instructions, which had ended up informing my
relation to the world; everything had to be done with the utmost subtlety and finesse
… The fact that I failed was secondary. The methodical imperative came first.
Also, this way, the sense of pursuit was stronger, more intense … to the point
where it all flipped around. When I lost Mom—and, increasingly, I made sure that
this happened at the beginning of the outing—I started to feel that I was being
tailed.
This feeling grew exponentially. I had the brilliant idea of telling Mom about it. My
rashness was breathtaking. At first she paid no attention, but I insisted just enough to
get her worried, before backing off. So many dreadful things had been happening …
She asked me if I’d seen who was following me, if it was a man or a woman …
I didn’t know how to explain that it wasn’t like that, I was talking about
feelings, subtleties, “instructions.”
“You’re not going out any more unless I’ve got you by the
hand!”
Around that time the gutter press was feasting on the bloodless cadavers of boys and
girls, found raped in vacant lots … They had been completely drained of blood. A
vampire plague was sweeping the land. Mom was a village girl, and though not completely
ignorant (she had done a year of secondary school), she was naïve, easily taken in
… So different from me! She not only believed what she read in the gutter press
(if it came to that, I probably did too), but applied it to her own real life. That was
the key difference, the abyss that separated us. I had a real life completely separate
from beliefs, from the common reality made up of shared beliefs …
Anyway, once, during one of our outings … I had completely lost Mom, and I
didn’t know whether to keep going straight, or turn, or go back home (it was only
two blocks away).
The thing was, we had just set out; Mom wouldn’t be back for a good half hour, and
she’d be nervous and worried about me, and maybe cross because she couldn’t
finish her shopping …
A strange woman accosted me. “Hello, César.”
She knew my name. I didn’t know anyone and no one knew me. Where was she from?
Maybe she lived in the tenement, or worked in one of the stores where Mom did her
shopping. To me all ladies looked the same, so she could have been anyone, and I
wasn’t too surprised not to be able to recognize her. The really strange thing was
that she had spoken to me. Because it wasn’t just a question of her identity, but
also, and above all, of mine. I was so convinced of my own invisibility, of the utter
ordinariness of my features, that I felt this could
couldn’t play my game. It’s not that she didn’t want to; she
couldn’t.
It was almost a question of life or death. She
couldn’t grant me that importance. Nor, of course, could she make it hard for me
by hiding, shaking me off straight away, which would have been a cinch, but it was
doubly impossible because her maternal instinct would have made her sick with worry. The
only option left was to act naturally, to do her shopping as if she was on her own, as
if no one was following her … But she couldn’t do that either! That was the
most impossible thing of all. How could she act naturally, with my eyes boring into her
back, when she knew perfectly well I was a hundred meters behind her, hidden behind a
dog or a trash can? So where did that leave her? All she could do was combine the three
impossibilities, unable to settle on any of them, bouncing from one to another.
Encouraged by my failures (let others be encouraged by success!), I started making it
even more difficult. Instead of a distance of a hundred meters, I made it two hundred. I
lost sight of her at once. The tailing was no longer visual but divinatory. This was a
natural extension of my habit of giving instructions, which had ended up informing my
relation to the world; everything had to be done with the utmost subtlety and finesse
… The fact that I failed was secondary. The methodical imperative came first.
Also, this way, the sense of pursuit was stronger, more intense … to the point
where it all flipped around. When I lost Mom—and, increasingly, I made sure that
this happened at the beginning of the outing—I started to feel that I was being
tailed.
This feeling grew exponentially. I had the brilliant idea of telling Mom about it. My
rashness was breathtaking. At first she paid no attention, but I insisted just enough to
get her worried, before backing off. So many dreadful things had been happening …
She asked me if I’d seen who was following me, if it was a man or a woman …
I didn’t know how to explain that it wasn’t like that, I was talking about
feelings, subtleties, “instructions.”
“You’re not going out any more unless I’ve got you by the
hand!”
Around that time the gutter press was feasting on the bloodless cadavers of boys and
girls, found raped in vacant lots … They had been completely drained of blood. A
vampire plague was sweeping the land. Mom was a village girl, and though not completely
ignorant (she had done a year of secondary school), she was naïve, easily taken in
… So different from me! She not only believed what she read in the gutter press
(if it came to that, I probably did too), but applied it to her own real life. That was
the key difference, the abyss that separated us. I had a real life completely separate
from beliefs, from the common reality made up of shared beliefs …
Anyway, once, during one of our outings … I had completely lost Mom, and I
didn’t know whether to keep going straight, or turn, or go back home (it was only
two blocks away).
The thing was, we had just set out; Mom wouldn’t be back for a good half hour, and
she’d be nervous and worried about me, and maybe cross because she couldn’t
finish her shopping …
A strange woman accosted me. “Hello, César.”
She knew my name. I didn’t know anyone and no one knew me. Where was she from?
Maybe she lived in the tenement, or worked in one of the stores where Mom did her
shopping. To me all ladies looked the same, so she could have been anyone, and I
wasn’t too surprised not to be able to recognize her. The really strange thing was
that she had spoken to me. Because it wasn’t just a question of her identity, but
also, and above all, of mine. I was so convinced of my own invisibility, of the utter
ordinariness of my features, that I felt this could
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