Villa Bunker (French Literature) (10 page)

106.
While she was busy writing this letter, she heard it again. This time, the noise seemed determined to penetrate the thick walls, to travel across the room until it reached her. She’d just sat down to write a letter that would of course go unanswered, and which she would soon forget after she’d sent it, she tried to forget each letter she sent, a forgetfulness that would protect her, immunize her against the disappointment and rancor, this was the only way she could continue writing me. It (the noise) seemed to emanate from someone who wanted to be seen, while still remaining in the shadows, someone hesitant to make himself known, yet quietly insistent. It was an intentional noise, directed at her, she thought, aimed at her, and no one else; it was trying to distract her, to get her away from her writing, insinuating itself into her consciousness. It was the early warning signs of a presence, complete with everything that was threatening, worrying, and even reassuring about that presence, and for some reason, which she was unable to explain, she also sensed something familiar in it. She’d stopped writing her letter in mid-sentence (as the noise had seemed to demand), she knew at once that she would have to find out what it was before she could get back to her writing, and yet—she thought furtively—she wasn’t sure what she would do if she found something, she couldn’t swear that she wouldn’t be forced to tear up, in a few minutes or a few hours, those pages covered in her writing, because perhaps she wouldn’t be able to pick up the thread again, perhaps in reading these words she’d written earlier, she wouldn’t be able to ascribe them any meaning. It hadn’t even crossed her mind to ask my father or to let him know, she’d somehow known she was the only one who could solve the noise problem; and then, really, the very prospect of going to see him upstairs was just too discouraging. He hadn’t heard a thing, probably, and anyway he would just say again: It’s just a stray cat, or a rat, without remembering that he’d said the same thing last time. He was more than capable of that, since arriving in the villa, repeating sentences without thinking, oblivious to everything, especially to her uneasiness. The best-case scenario was that he’d perhaps try to reassure her, offering to inspect the villa to prove that there was nothing to worry about, that the villa was completely vacant, and that they were safe—but she was convinced, and there was nothing he could do to sway her; he would never rid her of the idea they weren’t alone in the villa. And even if he were to convince himself that he’d heard something too, even if he were to pretend to look with her, climbing the stairs, opening the bedroom doors, inspecting the corridors, this would only push the noise away. It was too difficult to explain why, but now she was sure she’d been listening for this noise for weeks, maybe even years, and that she alone could hear it. Had she given up the piano simply in order to be more receptive? This noise, she’d said, had put her on the path to something, and now that it’d returned, she couldn’t avoid looking for whatever it was any longer, so as to get to the bottom of things. So she’d stood up and she’d gone upstairs, the thought that she could get lost, that no one would come to her aid, making her vaguely apprehensive all the while. She’d opened doors, discovering snapshots of the villa left on ledges or strewn on the floor, abandoned photos testifying to my parents’ failure to live like normal people in the villa, like normal people living in a house where each object tells a story, and where there are stable, stationary places, places where they could have lived, and where things would have happened, things that would have formed a kind of context. She found nothing. Once back downstairs, she glanced indifferently at the letter, and had trouble recognizing her own writing. The sentences she’d written now seemed far away, almost misleading. She was again convinced that I wasn’t bothering to open her letters, she’d always basically suspected that I was capable of acting unjustly, or at least in a manner unworthy of a son, but she’d never quite had the nerve to admit to herself that I’d always been cold, egotistical, and that my eyes and voice had always contained the potential for real viciousness; now she knew, however, that I was a being capable of outright malice, and she wondered (it was the first time she’d formulated it this way, and she wasn’t quite sure if it was a question or a statement): Did I manage to not understand my son.

107.
The night before, my father had come in the middle of the night to lay next to her, without taking his clothes off. She couldn’t remember how long it’d been since the last time she’d seen him, she’d felt him smiling in the dark. He smelled bad. She ended up falling asleep. The next morning, he’d disappeared.

108.
She’d found it, or rather him, the next day in a small bedroom on the third floor. The thing was quite small and frail, and at first she’d taken him for a child still groggy from waking up, or perhaps he was under the influence of some medication? The general shape of his body and his narrow skull suggested some kind of pathology. He was sitting on the edge of the bed in his underwear. From the very first instant, she found the sight of him inevitable, unavoidable. This is what she told herself, as though it were all perfectly obvious: He’d been there for days and perhaps weeks, he’d waited patiently without showing any interest in what was going on outside his bedroom, and he’ll be no more willing to leave now than before. She never managed to figure out his age; he was short, or gave an impression of shortness, and there was something insipid about his features, he had a smooth face upon which emotion hadn’t left any visible marks. She stared at him, trying in vain to locate some sign, anything that would have allowed her to identify him, and then she’d asked him how long he’d been there. Her words dangled there in the room, just out of her reach, and she felt in much the same predicament. She inspected the room, trying to recall the last time she’d been in this part of the villa, searching for a clue (for example, clothing or crumbs) that would prove he’d been there for days—she doesn’t know why she needed to know he’d been there for some time.

109.
There was something evasive about his manner, out of focus, he seemed about to disappear from one minute to the next. Nevertheless, they were in the same room, and the only way out was through the door, which she was blocking as though she were afraid he might try to escape. She was still standing in front of him, he was seated, or more to the point hunched over, perched like a bird on a limb. He’d lowered his face. Was he by chance trying to communicate to her his feelings of distress? She wasn’t convinced. How long have you been here, she’d muttered. You’ve been keeping an eye on us, weren’t you? You’ve been watching our every move, and you were waiting for the right moment to make yourself known. She was certain, however, that he wasn’t listening, and that perhaps he couldn’t even hear her, something in his head was keeping him in the background, far away from her, as though he were located very, very far away, thousands of light years away, and so she was thinking that this face was only an image, an image that had crossed layers of time, and she should keep in mind that this wasn’t his real face. We didn’t notice you, but you were there, she’d added, making sure to articulate clearly with a pause after each word, and you were listening to us, weren’t you? He was watching her, and he somehow seemed older now, due simply to the fact that his head was now raised, there had been a slight movement of his chin, his eyes, which were the basis of this metamorphosis, aging him. He looked as though he was trying to solve a complicated riddle. That is, unless my speech constitutes some sort of problem for him, like an equation to be solved, she thought. Or maybe he was deaf, that’s all, can you tell if someone is deaf just by looking. She couldn’t stop looking at him, nor stop trying to find clues in his unreadable face. She was finding it difficult to recall his traits. Could he at least get up, stand on his own legs, she’d wondered. Was he able to move about normally? He seemed so weak, exhausted, like after a long trip. She told herself she mustn’t frighten him, that he must be exhausted after his long confinement in the bedroom.

110.
She didn’t know what he was feeling, and she wasn’t sure what it meant for him to be discovered in someone else’s house. He had nothing to do with this place, that was for sure, he couldn’t possibly stay here any longer, she was repeatedly saying these things without really managing to convince herself—but was he at least dimly aware that he was an intruder, a stowaway of sorts? He had nothing to do with this place, so far as she could tell, but what could he possibly have to do with anywhere else?—that’s what you would inevitably wonder if you saw him, and then you would inevitably feel sorry for him. She was telling herself that he’d escaped from a mental hospital, that she’d better call the asylums and clinics in the area, to see if any patients were missing, she was looking in the phone-book, writing down the numbers, and these simple, precise acts were helping her to lend a semblance of order to a situation that could have easily become confused, and even have degenerated, if she hadn’t reacted. Every day, dozens of madmen were slipping their guards’ notice, escaping from psychiatric institutions and blending in with their surroundings. Sometimes they were never heard from again, did they ever take refuge in abandoned houses? People who were stark raving mad just going up in smoke, disappearing into thin air. She had this image of fugitives running in their pajamas through the forest, scratches on their faces, on the exposed parts of their bodies. And perhaps he’d indeed believed that the villa was one of those vacant houses where he could take refuge, seek asylum. And there was something more upsetting about this idea than she’d initially reckoned. She’d thought the word asylum for a second time now (pronouncing it in her head), and the proximity of the word asylum to the word villa had given her a jolt of panic. She remembered how, in the first months of their stay, she’d paid particular attention to all those words that were disappearing from their vocabulary—she never knew to what extent this forgetting was intentional: words they were burying in the deepest recesses of their minds, but why? And as she stood in front of that diminutive being, she thought that she’d too long held this secret word (asylum) inside her, and now that it had slipped out, it was exerting its corrosive power upon the walls and floors of the villa.

111.
But then again, assuming the drugs were rendering him senseless, how long would he remain in this state of torpor, and what would happen when the sedatives wore off? Might he suddenly become dangerous? But the drugs haven’t affected his ability to feel, she reasoned. The proof being that he tried to communicate with us by using those noises, which were his words, so to speak, but we, of course, couldn’t understand. She thought of all those sounds that escape from us without managing to become words, wondering too if anyone had ever thought to codify all the verbal content hidden behind simple movements. But then again, he couldn’t have been unaware of their presence, he had to have picked up on their comings and goings, their expeditions into the spaces of the villa, and if he’d sat there for so long without signaling to them, it’s because he had a reason to do so. Unless of course he’s deaf, she thought for the second time. But then why hadn’t he seemed startled, or even slightly concerned, when she’d opened the bedroom door, as though he’d expected her to walk in, almost like he was already familiar with her? Neither apathy nor indifference, she’d thought, but rather a limited ability to make out what was happening to him, to see the shape of the events that nonetheless involved him intimately. For example, she was now in the same room with him, and still she wasn’t sure he was aware of being there with her. He was still sitting on the bed, unreal, and she was standing in front of him, but he was no more concerned about her than he would have been in the presence of an object, a piece of furniture.

112.
All these new connections forming in our brains when we are faced with the unknown. We have to get used to unconsciously modifying an untold number of parameters, just to take in this new face, these unheard-of gestures, the sound of a new, perhaps unique voice, so as not to confuse a stranger with someone else. Our consciousness becomes trained—unwittingly—in a new way of seeing, of perceiving.

113.
Actually, She’d never seen a crazy person before. Was she going to have to adjust her vision, change her way of seeing, in order to see him properly, in order to see him and not someone else? What did she have to lose? He might bite her hand, start beating his head against the wall. She’d heard all kinds of stories about the sick and insane, locked up in padded rooms and heavily sedated. She felt no fear in his presence, however. She wasn’t worried, she didn’t feel threatened by him. She wasn’t sensing any violence in him at all, she was convinced he wasn’t capable of violence. And even if someone had told her he’d escaped from a cell in a psychiatric hospital, she wouldn’t have been afraid, and she wouldn’t have tried to get away from him. He seemed rather like a foundling (and apparently she was the one who had found him, at least that’s what she was telling herself), and she was the only one who knew he’d been found there, a few minutes or a few hours ago, right there in the same room as her, and perhaps she alone knew he existed.

114.
Talk to me if you want. I’m speaking but I can be quiet too. I can make myself as fragile as you, I can act as if I’m not really here. As she finished speaking these sentences, she was blinded for a moment by the realization that something wasn’t right with their structure; she thought she could see a break or a slight crack in them, somehow, as though she were examining an X-ray of an injured limb in a light box. She heard herself say again: You don’t know who I am either, without being sure that her words were reaching him—she saw her words as still floating in midair, her sentence drifting by like a sad cloud. And introducing herself, saying her own name, gave her a real start, almost made her turn and run, as if it hadn’t happened to her in years, hearing her name spoken aloud. She was also perhaps aware of how pathetic her attempts were to lend a touch of normalcy to a situation that remained, despite everything, rather complicated, to put it mildly. But why, after all, should she care if the situation seemed natural, why should she try to strip it of all its ambiguity, why should she continue to act in his presence as though it were normal for him to be here?