Five o’clock. All afternoon, the heat has relentlessly battered the walls of the house as though intent on bringing it down. Rémi has cleaned, gone swimming, read, dozed off, dreamed of Luc again. Cried afterwards from exhaustion beneath the shower; a brief sadness, almost dry. Nothing serious. By the time he stepped out, it no longer showed. The smells of the night had been banished for good, the kisses buried beneath chlorine, fluoride, aluminium, and the other belligerent substances of Western hygiene.
All that remained was to wash his mind, to find the right detergent reasons, to tell himself that true love would always elude him, that his lovers’ bites had never been anything more than bruises on his skin. And that the rare souls strong enough to reach his innermost being had, in the end, been nothing more than burning, wandering rains.
Nothing serious, then. One more disappointment to put away with the others in that secret garden beginning to resemble a damp attic where mould is feasting.
When he was young, he would have given everything to Paul if Paul had not tried so hard to escape him. He would have given everything to that other man, then this one or that one. He has forgotten their names. He would have drunk himself senseless on Victor’s skin, had Victor become drunk on his; he would have given his life for Fernand, if…
There is nothing to be done with all these conditionals. Better simply to adjust his aim, keep quiet, and neither complain nor worry about it. Grind down the gestures of the past and make from them a flour that will nourish him differently. Love differently. Find happiness differently.
It is no one’s fault; no Icarus has yet escaped the labyrinth of men. The secret passage must lie elsewhere, inside the walls themselves. Only actions matter, do they not? One may wash one’s conscience, sterilize one’s skin, yet the caresses remain, like footsteps on nearly dead lava as it hardens around the foot. Happiness? A mad race? Both? A quest? Blindness? All four?
The fatigue of these three skins in as many days, a subtle emery; that is how he interprets it. For the first time, the abrasion is enough to shake his vitality. When will peace come?
He decides to take his mind off things, goes upstairs to his office, switches on the ceiling fan, removes the clothes he has only just put on. Yes, anxious, unable to quiet his movements or make the right decisions. He starts the computer.
After a few electromechanical hiccups, the machine’s intelligence awakens to its symbolic world. The screen comes back to life with an ionized rustle. Writing appears. Messages emerge, almost dreams, so fleeting and encrypted are they. Then the main windows restore order to the technical gibberish. A mouse pointer indicates that everything seems to be working properly. From time to time it becomes an hourglass, witness to unfinished processes, before finally coming to rest, ready to submit to its master’s whims.
At the bottom of the screen, an icon signals the arrival of new mail. Rémi double-clicks. A program opens and informs him that, of the twenty or so messages received, seventeen are spam. He quickly reads their subject lines to make sure the software has made no mistake: “Enlarge your penis,” “Mortgage plan that works!” “My tits are bigger than you can imagine,” “Lottery,” “Free orgasm.” He clicks the “Destroy” button. The program obeys, returning a false invalid-address notice to the senders, which will fool no one. Tomorrow, the cleanup will have to be done again. Three messages remain: Marthe, a software company, his friend Rui.
He opens Rui’s email. Two photographs are attached.
My dear friend,
It is winter here, though one must say the word quickly. I have never known your snow or felt the cold you have so often described to me. I would die instantly! Do not tell me one gets used to it; I will never believe you, handsome liar! I prefer my false seasons and infernal heat. When will you come to Brazil? I am too poor to make it all the way up there.
My students are troubled; I had to discipline three of them today. But they are beautiful, you know. They are lost, but they are beautiful. And the most provocative one is also the one who will do best. He wants to know everything about speaking of love in French, as though Brazilian were not enough for him. He has no need to learn another syntax; his body and his manners—and, of course, his youth—speak better than any foreign dictionary!
Ah, Rémi, I often think of you! Things are not going very well between Helio and me, but that does not matter much after twenty years together. We have been through worse, and we will get through this.
I found this photograph, which I am attaching. A picture of my mother, Dorothy (an Anglo-Saxon name—can you imagine? Me, who hates Americans). It was taken just after her wedding.
Everyone in that family has an unusual name: America, Sophia, Nazareth, and Hugo… Very eclectic, elegant, old-fashioned—and yet they are merely names farmers gave their children in the ridiculous hope that the sound of them might lift them out of poverty. My mother gave us names beginning with the same letter, as fashion then dictated: Raquel, Rebecca, Rodrigo, Rosanna, Regina, and Rui.
Since you enjoy my stories about my country, you will surely like the one about my parents’ wedding. When the time came to marry, João, my father, could not obtain permission from the owners of the mine where he worked to undertake the long eight-hundred-kilometre journey separating him from Dorothy. The owners’ will was stronger than love. My parents had met two years earlier at a party. Their romance had unfolded through passionate letters. My mother often spoke to me of that time, which she cherished above all others. And so Dorothy appeared at city hall accompanied by my uncle Hugo, who passed himself off as my father. The clerk knew the family well and overlooked the irregularity, allowing my mother to board the next boat out of the South and join my father. A short wedding night between two work shifts.
My father left the mine a few months later and decided to become a photographer and settle near the ocean. It is the only courageous act I know of his, and probably the only honest one, the only one to bear fruit. That explains why there were never any wedding photographs.
In the end, I was born into a family of fools, but we are not so bad. What do you think?
I am attaching another, more recent photograph of my mother and me. How she has aged, how I have aged… How beautiful and young we were.
Long kisses,
Rui
Rémi studies the photograph of the young Dorothy. Hair, gaze, complexion from another era. A pretty face, modest clothing. The second photograph shows her weighed down by time, unrecognizable beneath the mask of someone worn away by life. Her gaze is no longer the same. Direct in the first photograph, it slopes in the second, curving inwards.
He clicks “Reply.” The computer promptly provides him with a white window furnished with writing tools.
Hello, my dear Rui.
Your mother is indeed very beautiful.
He lies. She is pretty, nothing more. Perhaps if she had smiled in the photograph… but Rui has often pointed out the strange absence of happiness on the faces of his photographed ancestors.
The story of your parents’ wedding is fascinating. Why not write it down?
It saddens me that everything should be lost forever, both the sparks of our lives and those that lit the sky before us. Take your father’s photographs, for example. Just because he is now blind does not mean everything he accomplished should be forgotten. It is a sin and a blasphemy.
But we have discussed this already. You always answer me with a crooked smile. You are the only one smiling in the recent family photographs. Are you an antidote?
I am on holiday for two weeks. It is very hot in the city.
I celebrated my birthday yesterday. And as a gift, I made love with Luc. Yes, the handsome Luc. Are you jealous? So am I, because I know it will not happen again. He made me promise.
Do not laugh.
A kiss. Take care of yourself.
Rémi.
He sends the message without rereading it. The computer runs its spell-checker, questions Rémi about the names of Rui’s relatives, and suggests replacing them with absurdities. Rémi objects, then confirms once more that he wants to send the message. The computer informs him that it is relaying the email. The screen grows calm again. So quick, all of it, Rémi thinks. Rui may already be starting to read, since they live in neighbouring time zones. In his thoughts, he sends a kiss to the kind Brazilian.
He opens Marthe’s message.
Good evening, my angel.
Ireland is a magnificent country. But are they not all? The entire Earth is magnificent; I am happy to be able to travel across it before I die.
Why did you not answer my previous message?
It is your birthday, I believe. Marie-Claire sent me a note this morning. She seemed worried. She did not say much, but I sensed it.
Did something happen yesterday?
Answer me.
Marthe.
Rémi gives a military salute. He stands, stretches, and sits down again.
Reply.
Dear Marthe,
I left the countryside because I had had enough of everyone knowing everything about everyone else. With this Internet and its global village, I am beginning to grow suspicious. News travels even faster now, and from Ireland you already know quite a bit more than you would if you were here!
Joking aside. Luc and I, yesterday… in the night, beside the river. You can guess the rest. I realized that Lucienne had seen us; I suspect Victor knows, so I imagine Marie-Claire must have some idea.
That manor has become a purgatory for us all. It no longer possesses the charm it had when you and your friends were there. You are dying one after another.
I am anxious and suffocating. I am growing old too, and I am beginning to search for air. In a separate email, I am forwarding you a message from a Brazilian friend. I am sure his story will delight you. You can show it to Hélène, who will surely know what to do with it.
Please come back and visit us.
Rémi.
He sends this almost telegraphic message. Rémi interrupts the spell-checker and insists on sending the email. Above all, he does not want to reread it. He closes his email and opens the video-chat application. It displays Rémi’s favourite forum. Gay Room 1, JO chamber. JO for jerk off. To masturbate. After a few mouse clicks, he gets what he wants. About ten small windows line up. Men caress themselves in community, each in his darkened room, trying to find the most flattering angle for his belly and his often too-soft flesh. A few young Adonises among them. A strange mixture, a strange leaven. He lowers his camera towards his abdomen. He receives requests for private video calls. Instead, he closes the application and searches through the computer’s directories. He double-clicks an icon. The computer asks for a password. His secret garden. He searches further, double-clicks a file. A photograph of Luc taken a year ago beside the river, bare-chested.
He thinks of Stéphane. Unfaithful. He masturbates.