Read Online Adam Haberberg by Yasmina Reza - Free Book Online Page B

ago, I can see time has passed, I can see our old age under the white light of the street lamp, and when I don't want to look at anything and close myeyes I can see a piked shoe. At first, Doctor, I thought it was a car, you know, one of the long American ones. But now I remember those men in baggy trousers and long shoes on the squares in front of churches in my children's encyclopedia, I can see this teasing fluorescent green harbinger of death and it makes me think of our ancestors, I can understand all that, Doctor, I can picture all that, I can tell myself these are fragments of existence that I'm picturing, these are fragments of the universe I'm grasping, I can make links between the lake and the shadowy seagulls and the ducks, the restaurant and the curtains, I can imagine who lives up there in the housing development at Grigny, I can link my life and that of Marie-Thérèse, I can recall our life in Suresnes and imagine time as a climb up an immense, grievous, fatal staircase. My children, I can see them, too, in our apartment, I know what they're doing and I see their pajama-clad bodies. My wife, Irene, I can see too, even if I know nothing of her life. Even if I know nothing of her life. For I no longer know who she is and she doesn't know who I am. There are people I see three times a year whom I know better and who understand me better. When we go out she laughs, she goes into raptures, she takes umbrage, I simply don't understand this public animation, she nevergives me secret looks—or only to reproach me for my absence—she never glances my way to convey one of those sweet, unspoken messages, I don't exist. She cheerfully makes jokes about us. The scientist and the poet, she dines out on that in company, her coarse banter disguises a gruesome pairing that she hasn't believed in for centuries, but without ever looking at me, I mean really looking at me and perceiving the extent to which this charade is painful to me. When we visit a place she makes idiotic comments in a voice that sets my teeth on edge, cultural observations she considers relevant that have no bearing on the actual facts of the case, in ringing tones that shatter the atmosphere, and if I say to her don't talk so loud or tell me later, or I don't give a damn, Irene, she gets on her high horse and falls into a silence so terrible there's no place else to go except the darkness of the crypt. I can see the book I shall never write, my unfulfilled dreams, I can see them, yes, Doctor, my unfulfilled dreams are like an archipelago within me, I can still just make it out, even though it's receding and its colors are fading, and it grows heavier and heavier within my body. I brought off
The Black Prince of Mea-Hor
because it's set outside the world, I can't picture the world. I can see only scattered fragments, shards, I can make no sense of it. I'm not capable ofrenting bicycles for my family because I'm simply not capable of grappling with
the idea of joy
, pedaling along amid the idea of joy kills me. Whistling along amid salt breezes with happy families is beyond my strength. If I get onto a bicycle with the little one on the saddle behind, what'll overcome me is the desire to weep. To avoid having the desire to weep, one would need to have made a success of everything else, to feel oneself in one camp or the other. Whistling along in single file with your wife and children amid the salt breezes is not the least you can do, it's the ultimate achievement. Yes, Marie-Thérèse, I can see the seagulls, they come from a long way off, tumbling over the little dunes and headlands. I can see them.
    “Let's go in,” says Marie-Thérèse.
    He follows her. As she walks she jingles her keys. They make their way into the white apartment block. They make their way into the elevator. He sees himself in the mirror, holding the package from the pharmacy.
    Marie-Thérèse opens the door to her apartment. She switches on the light. She hangs up her coat and scarf