Apocalypse Baby. Виржини Депант

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СКАЧАТЬ thoughts, and searching criticism. Fear of being untrue to himself had surfaced briefly, but the siren hopes of making a huge literary comeback were growing inside him, the warm welcome he’d get when he visited his publisher’s office, the endless invitations to prestigious dinners, the voicemail full of requests for interviews. It would be worth cheating on his talent if it succeeded. He went on taking cortisone while reading the proofs, and the effects didn’t wear off. When he wasn’t writing, he was talking, talking to anyone and everyone, he who was usually so reserved. It had been a sparkling season. He probably never would have stopped if he hadn’t one evening watched the transmission of a pre-recorded music program made in the ministry of culture, in which he’d taken part alongside the minister. He’d spoken well, brightly and incisively in the short interview he’d had, so he wasn’t worried as he waited to see himself. On the wide TV screen, he’d wondered with amusement who that great fat whale was in his tight gray suit, fidgeting nervously alongside the other guests. And then he’d recognized himself. His wife and daughter, the first gently, the second rudely, had pointed out to him that he’d been putting on weight these last few weeks. But seeing himself every day in the mirror, carried along on a wave of euphoria and creative energy, he hadn’t realized it. Until that evening, watching TV, he hadn’t taken in how much he’d changed. And then he had seen himself, flopping about, sweating like a pig, his red face reduced to a pair of obscenely joyous cheeks, and talking nonstop, nobody being able to curb his logorrhoea. That very night, the packets of cortisone, hitherto carefully kept in the bathroom, went into the garbage bin. Thereafter, he was to regret not having listened to the advice of the doctor friend who had warned him, as he bent over the precription pad, that he was renewing the pills for the seventh time in three months, and that he should be aware of the risk of stopping them suddenly. He hadn’t taken him by the scruff of the neck, put him up against a wall, and shouted, “Watch out for what happens if you stop taking the meds,” which would at least have been clear. The doctor friend, whom he called Dr. Drug during his season on Solupred, was rather easygoing, and like many in his profession, insensitive to other people’s pain. He had merely said in a gloomy tone, “You’ll have to come off these sometime, so let me know before you do, and I’ll tell you how to handle it.” But when François had seen himself looking so grotesque, he had felt he should give up the pills at once. He regarded himself proudly as a strong-willed character, his book was written, that was enough, no more foolishness. The first day, he’d thought it an interesting experience, if he’d had the strength he’d have taken notes, since he had never suffered so much pain. No corner of his anatomy escaped the disaster. By the end of the first week, he told himself he wanted to die, that he was an imposter, his friends were useless, his wife old and ugly, his daughter a fat little fool, he’d never have any literary reputation, his books wouldn’t survive him, everyone despised him, he’d never written a good sentence in his life. These moments of lucidity exhausted him. He came to think that suicide was the only strategy that would validate his work. Tortured by fearful hunger and early-morning cramps in all his muscles, he began the second week in a state of complete collapse. It was at that point that Claire had packed him off to see her osteopath, a woman of immense strength who had set about trying to break every bone in his body before putting him on to a vitamin diet of such complexity that simply adhering to it had monopolized all his energy: Spirulina, fermented beetroot juice, and fresh almonds . . . he endured such delights as these, plus an hour’s jogging every day. By the eighth day of this regime, which he followed religiously, the depression began to lift and leave him in peace; he no longer had the strength to feel any emotion. Progressively, he was regaining something like the physical appearance he’d had before the cortisone, and the mental capacity to pass a whole day without looking up at the ceiling of every room planning where to attach the sheets he intended to hang himself with. But just as he had kept a bit of a paunch, he had retained a vague sensation of unease. And a solid addiction to vitamin B6. And then, four weeks after the publication of the novel from which she knew he was expecting so much, his daughter Valentine had disappeared.

      Valentine. The gap left by her absence. The guilty feeling of relief that followed from it. Valentine has never been easy. He has no illusions about that. It doesn’t stop him from loving her, knowing that she’s the woman of his life, the only one he has truly cherished and protected, the only one who’s truly made him laugh. But it’s never been easy. Children are women’s work really. He can see that with Claire and her two daughters, quite different. It’s all so upfront. Claire’s perfectly happy to see to the older girl’s dental braces, to check in on the younger girl’s dancing classes, their school grades interest her, she gets along well with their teachers. Even what they have to eat for tea can be a subject of conversation. He loves his daughter. But the high maintenance he’s had to do alone really pisses him off. It gets in the way of writing, going out, listening to a record in peace, reading a book in the morning, having some private time with Claire. Constant annoyance. Children are a rope around your neck, anything else is manageable. And even so, when Valentine was little, it was quite sweet, the Aristocats slippers, showing her Buster Keaton films, getting her a Cosette costume for the school party. There’d been hassle, but there’d been fun as well. But these last years she’s exhausted all the concern of which he was capable. And she knows it. He’s had enough of Valentine’s escapades. The phone calls from school, when she was caught “up to no good” with boys in the bathrooms. What kind of “no good,” how many boys, he had taken good care not to find out. Five schools in two years. The same scenario every time. An astronomical sum spent on psychologists who hadn’t the slightest idea what was the matter with her. It wasn’t rocket science, she just wanted to make as much trouble for him as possible. She wanted him to ditch Claire, like he’d ditched his other women. Valentine’s unlucky, she’s turned out to look like him. He recognizes himself in her face, her figure. She might have inherited her mother’s looks, but the older she gets, the clearer it is that she takes after him. Okay in a man. But for a woman . . . He understands why she’s unhappy. When she wears short little dresses like other girls her age, she looks like a rugby player. But that’s hardly enough reason to make him suffer as she does. She’s full of energy. Naturally, in their teens, they don’t tire easily. And she employs it full time to get on his nerves. It’s never been easy. When her mother walked out, the little girl was like a poisoned souvenir of how things had been between them. Vanessa. Vanessa had been called Louisa when he met her. She’d decided to change her name one day. Vanessa liked change. The clear memory of the years spent with her. Fourteen years later, and it seems like yesterday. The cruel illusion, when he wakes up, that she’s beside him, still tortures him with piercing sharpness. And Valentine is the living proof of that failure, of his great love story. Having been abandoned by the same woman, they were tied together forever, and by the same token separated. And Valentine had become the ideal pretext for his mother to invade their lives. Just what he needed. His mother, every day or almost, in the house. His mother who never says anything openly pejorative, never asks indiscreet questions, but who looks disparagingly on everything he does. His mother is too fond of him to admit that he’s a failure, living off her money. But at heart that’s what she thinks. A silent comparison between his father and himself. The businessman and the writer. For example, his mother cuts out every article she can find about the digital future of the book, brings it to him, and if he doesn’t read it at once, summarizes it for him. This is her way of letting him understand he’s made a mess of everything in his life. A life dedicated to books, when books will soon have vanished from the face of the earth. The same way she has just hired a private detective to find the child. The point of this is to make him see he hasn’t stirred himself enough. As if it isn’t obvious where the kid is. What’s he supposed to do? Go down there and beg her to come back? What’s the point? As if he didn’t beg hard enough fourteen years ago?

      From the other end of the corridor, the cleaning woman calls that she’s finished the ironing and is going home. He glances at his watch, twenty to twelve. Of course, she’ll count it as a full hour. The timid treasure who came to work for them two years ago has changed a lot. The Italian journalist is late. And already he’s not that bothered to meet her. But his books haven’t been translated into Italian for a good while now, and a favorable interview for La Repubblica might bring him into the public eye. She’s developing a project on the French literary landscape, he’s flattered that she has contacted him. But it’s СКАЧАТЬ