Flesh and Other Fragments of Love (2 page)

2. THE CORPSE

PIERRE

I was walking on the beach.

At first I saw

a dark tangled mass

that I mistook for a pile of seaweed.

I've always been drawn to

those long strands of black algae.

I find the minute details of marine vegetation

as fascinating

as the fine line where the sky meets the sea.

Simone told me,

Go explore while I finish arranging everything.

She knows I like to go for a walk alone, sometimes.

Get the lay of the land.

I thought, that was nice, very considerate of Simone.

She had guessed, once again, what I wanted

and she was trying to accommodate me.

I felt a wave of affection for her.

I picked up my shoes in one hand,

a walking stick in the other.

I felt a bit old.

I thought this vacation in Ireland was going to be good for Simone.

Good for both of us.

And I was happy.

But before long I was annoyed when I thought about the scene. Irritated, actually.

Go explore while I finish arranging everything.

Behind this offer of freedom was a desire to control that I hated.

Once again, Simone is telling me what I should do,

meting out my freedom.

Go explore while I finish arranging everything.

In other words:

I consent to your being free from me, as long as I agree on when and how you'll be free, for instance, free to take a walk on the beach in Ireland where I have decided we'll spend our vacation, and by the way, let me remind you that I will arrange everything while you go exploring.

Simone arranges everything, and wants to arrange me too.

Lock me into her tomb.

Something will have to happen

during this vacation in Ireland,

something…

Then I started.

The seaweed was actually long, tangled hair.

*

SIMONE

Strange, isn't it?

PIERRE

What?

SIMONE

That body.

PIERRE

Yes.

SIMONE

That's all people can talk about in the village.

*

PIERRE

I was walking on the beach.

I didn't see her hair.

At first I saw

seagulls,

circling quite low,

dozens of gulls.

They were hovering almost on top of each other

in their immobile flight,

forming a kind of roof over a strange scene:

a body clothed in sand reveals its perfect shape,

intact.

Lovely, sensual curves,

long, delicate bones,

so graceful the gulls don't dare go too close.

It feels as if they are watching over a sleeping body.

The drifting has come to an end,

immobility invites contemplation.

Slowly, the birds let a few feathers fall,

they land on the corpse and form a shawl.

Nights are cool in Ireland.

*

SIMONE

Strange, isn't it?

PIERRE

What?

SIMONE

That woman. That drowned body.

PIERRE

Yes.

SIMONE

That's all people can talk about in the village. She lived in New York for a few years. No one had heard from her.

*

PIERRE

I was walking on the beach.

I didn't see the gulls.

At first I saw

open hands,

as if they had just strewn the seashells and the algae.

The nails of a mermaid, the fingers of a goldsmith,

the underwater hands of

a sea nymph.

I can't resist their frozen beckoning and their resemblance to mine,

human.

So walking along the shore, happy as the king of a deserted kingdom,

a kingdom where the presence of another person would have been unbearable,

I discover a stranger's hands.

Normally, I would have hated those hands, but this time, I know they can't destroy my kingdom.

Perhaps because of the gulls who don't fly away and refuse to be distracted from their meal.

A world where a man doesn't bother birds is not a normal world.

The shadow of my body covers the body washed ashore.

Never has anyone shown such abandon in front of me,

never have I known such intimacy,

never has anyone behaved as immodestly as this corpse,

indifferent to everything.

Suddenly nothing seemed freer or more impertinent

than death.

*

SIMONE

Strange, isn't it?

PIERRE

What?

SIMONE

That Mary, that woman who drowned.

PIERRE

Yes.

SIMONE

That's all people can talk about in the village. She was a nurse, in Sligo, before leaving for America. She lived in New York. No one around here had heard from her.

*

PIERRE

I was walking on the beach.

I didn't see her hands.

At first I saw

eyes

two blank holes.

Two eyes eaten away to the brain.

Two wells staring at me

with all their dark emptiness.

An incredibly attractive emptiness.

Like the void that hypnotizes.

An inner agitation I had forgotten.

That's all people can talk about in the village.

They don't know if she fell or if she threw herself into the sea.

One day I saw a dead horse at the foot of the cliffs in Ballyshannon.

Around here, the cliffs crumble like cake.

Strange, isn't it?

*

SIMONE

What?

PIERRE

That Mary, that woman washed ashore.

*

MARY

You were walking on the beach.

Will you swear to tell the truth,

the whole truth,

nothing but the truth?

You were walking on the beach.

You didn't see right away.

You smelled, of course.

But you won't say that.

You won't talk about the smell.

Infinitely bland.

Bland and sticky.

You won't talk about the smell of my death

that you discovered

walking on the beach.

You'll talk about my hair like seaweed,

the gulls like a shawl,

my mermaid hands and

my eaten eyes.

But will you say what I said to you?

I said, look, Pierre,

look how dead I am, and yet, so full of life.

Look:

moss has grown

green as the Emerald Isle

in my mouth, my eyes, my nose.

Look how hospitable I am,

look how inhabited I am.

Colonies are exploring me.

I am a fertile land,

a new world,

a garden.

Tiny fish are swimming in my stomach.

I am an aquarium,

a hive,

a den.

I inhale and I sputter from every pore.

I am an eruption,

a geyser,

a fountain.

Look how I open up.

How I breathe through the incisions in my flesh,

like so many mouths smiling on my limbs.

I am being sculpted,

pruned,

shaped.

Death is opening me up and soon it will turn me inside out, like the sheepskins they turn inside out to make jackets.

My body had to be split open

so I could finally abandon it to life,

to the appetite of animals.

Ultimately, I'm much more alive now that I'm dead.

But you won't say that.

*

SIMONE

Strange, isn't it?

PIERRE

What?

SIMONE

That Mary, with her gaping holes.

PIERRE

Yes.

SIMONE

That's all people in the village can talk about. She was a nurse. She got pregnant, her parents kicked her out, she left for America. She was forced to abandon her medical studies. In order to support her son.

She was exhausted. I understand her. Motherhood is insurmountable exhaustion.

PIERRE

Stop.

SIMONE

Why? It's true.

PIERRE

Stop saying you understand her. You don't know her!

SIMONE

I asked around. The rest is easy to imagine.

PIERRE

So?

SIMONE

So, nothing. I understand her.

PIERRE

You're presumptuous.

SIMONE

And you're jealous.

PIERRE

Jealous of what?

SIMONE

Jealous because Mary and I have something in common, despite you, despite the fact you want to keep her to yourself.

PIERRE

What do you think you have in common?

SIMONE

We're both women, mothers, we understand certain things, our ways of being and feeling are similar. We're sisters.

PIERRE

Female solidarity is a figment of the imagination. You women spend your days envying each other, you flatter each other, but you curse each other in secret, wish each other the worst misfortunes. Backstabbing is a female sport, you murder each other in your dreams.

SIMONE

Oh, we know, you always say,
women are women's worst enemies.
How original. But behind all that, there is profound respect and the most intimate kind of complicity. And you can't stand being excluded.

PIERRE

What I can't stand is your describing Mary as if you knew her. That woman drowned and no one will ever know why. You want to turn her life into a good story. But her life will never be a good story.

SIMONE

So what is her life, then?

PIERRE

It's a mystery.

SIMONE

And I'm not mysterious, right?

If only I were mysterious, you would be forever fascinated,

the way you are by this dead woman we know nothing about, we only know that her death was mysterious,

therefore, her life is, too.

How lucky she is, to be dead and mysterious.

There's no mystery about me now,

I tell you everything, or almost,

and what I don't tell you, the things I hide don't make me a mysterious person in your eyes,

since you don't suspect that I could hide anything from you…

I'm so… spontaneous,

that's the problem, isn't it?

There doesn't seem to be any mystery about me,

but you know what, Pierre, I hide all sorts of things from you,

I have hidden all sorts of things from you…

do you find me mysterious now?

There, are you happy, you made me get carried away

and now you can say,
you get so carried away, Simone,

you got carried away again,

and I hate it when you get carried away

do I get carried away

no, I control myself, I stay calm

and you always get carried away, Simone,

you women are always getting carried away

and pitying yourselves non-stop.

So stop pitying yourself, stop pitying yourself, stop pitying yourself.

But the truth is, Pierre, you give me no choice but to pity myself,

so I do.

Yes, I pity myself because part of me has disappeared,

because I can see your life without me,

like a landscape where I'm absent,

and I pity myself because I see your life where I can be seen, behind the window, walled into the house

with the children,

and I pity myself for being the wife you cheat on,

the wife who feels cheated while you feel more and more fulfilled.

Yes, you're like a flower that never stops blooming, unfolding its petals,

disgustingly scented and colourful,

like that flower, what's it called,

like that flower with the firm petals and the erect pistil,

indecent, free,

while I,

almost wilted from a lack of soil, rain and sun,

and most of all, from a lack of seeing myself in your eyes,

I am shrivelling.

Look at me,

your gaze is a vacuum,

look at me,

will you ever see me,

if only you could see me, you would pity me too,

with all your heart.

If only you could see me, you would pity me,

you would say:
Poor you, poor you, poor you,
and you would be right:

Poor me!

The children will be leaving home soon,

they'll go off to live their lives,

without me,

and without them I won't know how to live,

I've forgotten how to live without children,

but you haven't.

You know perfectly well how to live without children,

that's what you've always done!

You're always leaving me for women who are lively, gay, carefree!

How can you expect me to be lively, gay, carefree?

Where would I find the time to be lively, gay, carefree?

Time is against me in the cruellest way.

Time is robbing my youth, my beauty, my mind!

And soon I will be nothing but a corpse, like Mary!

You are my penance.

That's right:

my punishment.

That's why I met you!

For some unknown reason,

I deserved to be punished!

Go away!

PIERRE

I'm leaving.

SIMONE

Go away!

PIERRE

I'm leaving.

SIMONE

Go away!

PIERRE

I'm leaving.

SIMONE

Go away!

PIERRE

And so on and so forth….

3. BLOOD AND TEARS

PIERRE

Simone and I break up, regularly.

I'd go so far as to say that our separations are heroically constant,

our love life feels like one unending separation.

When I see Simone clinging to me, begging, sometimes I think she actually enjoys our repeated divorce scenes.

She is excessive by nature.

She's drawn to excess,

the more monumental,

baroque,

extravagant,

the better.

She prefers wild, harsh landscapes to peaceful countryside,

crashing breakers to docile ripples.

SIMONE

There are two possible scenarios.

First scenario:

Pierre leaves me.

I throw myself at his feet,

and I cry until the floor is wet.

I cling to him with all my might.

I beg him to keep me,

I confess everything,

I promise him everything,

I ask for forgiveness,

I blame myself and I say

So many years have gone by and I'm none the wiser!

I kiss his feet,

aware of how shocked our daughters would be to see me in this position.

What my daughters don't understand

is that dignity is not necessarily something I care about.

I am prepared to repent outrageously,

prepared to become a puddle,

as long as he finally takes me into his arms.

Second scenario:

I'm the one who leaves him.

I say I'm leaving,

I'm leaving

I say it several times,

I'm leaving

but I never leave,

because Pierre doesn't cry, Pierre doesn't shout, Pierre doesn't beg me.

Pierre doesn't say a thing.

And in no time at all, I've run out of insults.

So I end up throwing myself at his feet, I apologize, I cry until I turn into a puddle and I beg him not to let me leave,

which brings us right back to the first scenario.

My daughters find me pathetic.

They're right.

Strange, isn't it?

PIERRE

What?

SIMONE

That Mary, that slut.

PIERRE

Why are you getting so carried away?

SIMONE

Because I envy her.

PIERRE

How can you envy her, she's dead?!

SIMONE

She's dead, but my situation is worse: I'm going to die some day!

PIERRE

Well, I guess, seen that way…

SIMONE

What are people saying in the village?

PIERRE

Apparently she was going out with a married man no one ever saw again.

SIMONE

Did she love him?

PIERRE

I don't know. You ask strange questions. Apparently she was a rather cold woman, distant, poised.

SIMONE

The opposite of me, in a way.

PIERRE

In a way.

*

MARY

I got to know blood, globule by globule.

Blood sucked in and blood pumped out of the heart,

its vital course and the many ways it could flow in the wrong direction, or escape,

I never ceased to marvel at all that.

This knowledge made all men seem the same to me.

Why choose one when they are all irrigated by similar globules.

That night, I wanted to lose my virginity.

Make some of that precious blood flow.

Any man would be fine, as long as he knew what to do.

I wanted to join the girls who know.

But they know no matter how much we long to discover the New World,

it's sadly similar to the one we left behind.

Only our way of looking at things changes,

for a while, at least.

Before long, we admit there is no love in our desire for someone else,

there is no love in our desperate need for someone else,

everything is mechanical.

We get married without love,

we make love without love,

we build cities without love,

we light them at night without love.

There is no love in their countless streets

where we pace and pass houses where there is no love,

where a mother protects her children without love

like a bird roosts on her eggs, without love.

And all that, the cities, the coasts, the moors, the ports, the mountains,

the bleak ties that entangle people,

in all of that, there is no love.

Love doesn't exist.

Only blood and tears are real.

No love in the doctor's acts.

Only hygiene, calm, authority.

No love in those endlessly repeated acts,

examining throats, eyes, passive bodies,

feeling glands,

checking for tumours,

there is no love in any of that.

And yet that is all the sick long for,

otherwise they would hide to lick their wounds

and wait for them to heal.

The sick long to be examined with love,

to be told
you'll be all right,

Don't worry, you're not going to die.

You're not going to die.

Not you.

I love you too much to let you die.

SIMONE

(bleeding between her thighs)
Pierre! I'm bleeding!

I'm wounded! I'm bleeding.

I'm bleeding the blood of the world!

All of humanity's blood, drop by drop, month by month,

assimilated in my belly.

The hemorrhaging is endless.

Blood and tears form the rivers that flow since life began.

Long rivers of despair in which the Ophelias of this world drown regularly.

Someone spots something pale in the dark water, then long hair.

I'm sinking!

I'm sinking!

Pierre! I'm sinking!

An incessant seeping forms rivulets, drops, streams, currents, threads, trickles, lumps, bubbles, jets, clots,

fountains of oil, lava, magma,

floods of viscous, milky, clear, thick, warm, murky secretions,

red, brown, black, raspberry torrents,

porridge, jam, jelly, silt, compotes of me,

all of me in this endless tide,

I will spill all of me in long, gushing spurts.

I'm afraid, Pierre.

I'm afraid of becoming dry, parched.

Pierre.

Look how I'm pouring.

Look how I'm leaking.

Look how I'm flowing.

I'm an old pen,

a faucet,

a leaky pail.

I am overflowing,

I'm drowning, flooding.

There's no saving me.

Help me, Pierre!

Rescue me.

Stop me.

Irrigate me.

Irrigate me,

before I dry up!

PIERRE

You're so dramatic, Simone.

SIMONE

I'm not dramatic, I'm tragic.