Josette was driving through the streets in her new car, looking for somewhere to park. A young red-headed girl, accompanied by a small red-headed boy, could often be seen walking along the pavement. But these were not the only solitary women in town: there were many others, blonde, brunette, light brown, dyed or rinsed, grey and black. Each went her own separate way to her private domain, in a green or a blue dress, or sometimes in check pants, equipped with stockings and bra and briefs, or nylon tights; suffering from toothache, or migraine, or diarrhoea, constipation or a cold in the head; depressed or cheerful, jealous, in love; real people. Real people.
In the dining-room of a flat half-way up the dilapidated apartment block, a man sat smoking and reading the paper. A women was there too, darning socks. Her heavy face was weighed down by fatigue. Light and shadow flitted across it like puffs of air. She was there, a massive maternal presence, whose belly had opened and closed again, queening it all unawares over the world, at once triumphant and humble. There was nothing in her; yet she was immovable, solid as a marble statue, a weathered, polished block of quarried stone, and in her water and fire came together, in her, there in the folds of her inmost parts, the hollow seeds of past and future were already concealed. The tree, the green tree with its upthrusting, bursting shoots grew perennially from her belly. But of this she remained unaware.
It was for her, or against her, that everything had been created. Blood, bone, nails and hair, all belonged to her. Outrage her, fling her down and kill her, she would still emerge victorious. She would look up at you with those heavy, liquid eyes, and go on giving birth to you, without hate, without respite. Even in defeat her face would still wear an expression of victory, and her body would contain all the strength of a conqueror.
When those three drunks fought at night outside a bar, it was for her. They threw clumsy punches at each other, and rolled on the ground, and one of them lost his shoe. The other two stopped fighting, went down on hands and knees, recovered the shoe, and carefully put it back on its owner’s bare foot. It was for her, too, that the sadist of Fontainebleau attacked his victims; for her that cars skidded off the highway and piled up in fields.
Century after century, women had given birth in joy and travail. Céline had borne Marguerite, Marguerite had borne Jeanne, Jeanne had borne Eléonore, Eléonore had borne Thérèse, Thérèse had borne Eugénie, Eugénie had borne Cécile, Cécile had borne Alice, Alice had borne Catherine, Catherine had borne Laura, Laura had borne Simone, Simone had borne Pauline, Pauline had borne Julie, Julie had borne Yvette, Yvette had borne Monique, Monique had borne Gabrielle, Gabrielle had borne Claudia, Claudia had borne Gioia.
In the deserted room the voice rose from the tape-recorder through the darkness. It spoke for the yellow walls with flashes of light playing over them, for the bed with red blankets, for the curtainless windows, for the empty ash-trays, for the moths asleep under the coverlets, for each thing in its place, including the creature like a bundle of old rags feeling its way blindly round the room. It said:
I’m going to record on the other side of the spool. I want you to know — Well, perhaps it’s not all that important, after all. But I did want to tell you everything that I said that first time, ten days ago, was untrue. Honestly. I was lying the whole time. But I didn’t know I was lying, and that’s the reason — that’s the reason I spoke to you the way I did. Afterwards I realized the truth. Oh, I didn’t play the tape back — I hadn’t the courage to listen to my own words, all I’d said about me and Paul and the rest of it, because if I had I’d never have summoned up enough courage to send it to you afterwards. It was just remembering what I’d said. I mean, when I told you all that stuff, it was all fairy stories, just plain lies. Well, obviously, everything I said to you, the facts I mean, was true enough — but it was all wrong to tell you. It was stupid, I–I thought one could talk to people in a straightforward way, tell them what one thought, or believed one thought. That’s why I lied to you. I talked on and on, holding the microphone and watching the spools of tape unwind, and it was all pure drivel. An alibi, that’s what it was, a way of hiding the truth from myself no less than from others. Just the same as when I was typing a story, just like it was when I did that thing on Albert the snail or the old woman with an obsession about her trolleybus. Now I know — I know what it was fundamentally in aid of: lying, concealing the truth, oh, everything — You know, it’s an awful thing, not talking. It’s an awful thing never lying, too. That’s what I’d have liked to learn how to do. I don’t know if I’ll manage it. I’m going to try and carry it right through to the end, but it won’t be easy. In any case, when you’ve heard the spool through, please do one thing for me: wipe off what I’ve recorded. Don’t preserve any of it, not one word. Leave nothing but silence in its place. Do you understand? The thing is, I’m always being tempted to wander off from the point — anecdotes. Really, you know, there’s only one thing I have to tell you. I–I don’t know how to begin, though, because it’s really very simple, and it’s not easy to explain something simple without — well, without talking a lot of rubbish, and dressing it up and putting frills on it.
One thing that will make it easier for me is that I’m going to die. It’s true. It’s only a question of moments now. I’ve got very little time left. That tube of pink sleeping-pills belonging to my mother — well, I’ve taken the lot. I’ve still got the glass in my hand, I had to drink nearly a quart of water to get them all down. I’m beginning to have feelings of nausea already, and my head’s spinning. I must act quickly now. I want to tell you everything I left out last time. I don’t know where to begin, though. In a few moments everything will be over. I shall be dead. I hope it won’t hurt. Anyway I know now this isn’t just make-believe. What I’m experiencing is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. I don’t run any risk of, well, of making a fuss about nothing. Not this time. I know what I’m doing is cowardly, but the thing is I couldn’t stand being alone any longer. Loneliness is a horrible thing, you know — that, and knowing you’re past all self-deception. Oh, words used to deceive me all right, well and truly, but that’s finished now. Or will be in a moment or two. Words, words, an endless unnecessary stream of them, all the stuff they teach you and you dish up again thinking it’s your own. And knowing you’re not alone, too. That’s the trouble. No longer being sure what’s part of you and what isn’t, can you understand that? Do what you like, play it flippant, try the couldn’t-care-less line, it’s no good, you’re always screwed in the end. There’s always someone who fixes you — so many people around, everywhere, nothing but people the world over, and things that hurt you, words that raise your hopes only to dash them down more abjectly, and all those emotions — it makes you dizzy thinking how many emotions there are around; love, the sort of love you get in picture magazines, and friendship, hatred, jealousy, rancour, pity, compassion, faith, pride, all that jazz, on and on, never any end to it. And each individual has his own special emotion, and my the trouble he takes over it, waters it like a tender seedling, listens to its complaints, nurses its crises, makes a full-time job of it. I mean, you’ve got to, after all, we’re not animals, are we? Oh, it’s too ridiculous for words. You know, when it comes to the crunch I’m sorry to be shot of all this nonsense. Oh, there were some things I really liked, that’s true. Pity. But as for the rest—! Surely it wasn’t worth all the effort of being born and growing up and struggling through illnesses and going to school — all that just to enjoy a succession of fine delicate emotions? When you’re young, you fall in love. That lands you with problems, right? You fight to make someone else love you. You want to get married, but your parents are against it. You have crises. Crises. Jealousy, too. It’s all so complicated, such a tangle — I mean, civilization’s brought problems to a fine art too, hasn’t it? Well, in the end everything sorts itself out and you get married. Fine. Then there are children, and the problems of education. My son wets his bed at night, doctor, what should I do about it? Or my daughter now, she’s three and a half, she’s a little madam, won’t let anyone order her around. I don’t want to damage her psyche or give her a trauma. What’s the answer? Oh yes, every age-group has its own problems. There’s the midday demon, the menopause, the stepmother’s role. And then old age. Old people are wise, that’s well known. They’ve got their heads screwed on all right, they have their memories, they can’t be really vicious. It’s funny, just so funny …