Read Online Desolation by Yasmina Reza - Free Book Online

Genevieve has found her smile again, I’m off to a good start. I move on to my vacation in Norway, to Serge Goulandri, our osteopath, whose gradually eroding positivism is a joy to us both, Lionel and me, as we finally watch the first glints of despair dawn over his view of life. During one of his sessions, Goulandri complains that he loses his sense of humor when he’s depressed. That’s because you haven’t hit bottom, Lionel explains. Oh, okay, Goulandri says, nodding profoundly. Genevieve laughs. I move on to my illness, always an entertaining topic, I complain about my stomach, I’ve ballooned right up, Genevieve, I disgust myself, I complain about my stomach and Michel my son-in-law (pharmacists think they’re doctors) says you eat too fast, that’s why you’ve got a poor digestion. In the
Tao-te-Ching,
interjects my daughter, who’s going further and further afield in search of material to shore up the weightiness of her pronouncements, the Taoists say you have to chew each mouthful sixty times before you swallow. To which I reply they’ve never been in Drancy, these guys. 1
    Genevieve is beaming beatifically and we crack open a bottle of Nuits-Saint-Georges. After a quick detour to Dacimiento, I get to you. My son, Genevieve, I start, my son . . . the
my son
comes out really well, the tone is interrogative, which road should I take, where should I begin? But my boy I don’t go anywhere, I halt at the boundary of a subject I launched into, admittedly, in a mischievous tone, I’ve barely said
my son
and a feeling of defeat sinks the jester in me,
my son
I say and I see, far away at the end of a corridor, a child bathed in yellow light, in a Zorro costume, sitting in front of an aquarium. You’re not playing Zorro? I say to him. Papa, play the invincible one, you cry as you run toward me. No, I don’t have time. Oh, please! I do two or three lunges as the invincible one. You wave your sword and try to get me. I dodge around the furniture in our apartment back then, thinking one day I won’t be up to being the invincible one anymore, he’ll catch me every time. Genevieve takes my arm: “Jean-Louis Hauvette!” she hisses in a whisper.
    “Excuse me?”
    “Behind you, there on the right, don’t turn around, it’s Jean-Louis Hauvette.”
    “Who’s Jean-Louis Hauvette?”
    “The man who killed Leo.”
    “Leo was assassinated?”
    “In a manner of speaking.”
    “By this man?”
    “Yes.”
    I turn around furtively and see the back of a man, sitting alone at a table by the window.
    “Can you see his face in the glass?” says Genevieve in a whisper. “Samuel, be nice, stand up, walk past him, and get a discreet look at him.”
    “This man killed Leo?”
    “He’s responsible for his death.”
    “I’m going.”
    I go. I pretend to be going to the men’s room and make a little detour to come back past the window. “I saw him.”
    “Old?”
    “My age.”
    “Good-looking?”
    “Ricardo Montalban after eighteen hours on the bus.”
    “That’s him. Eyes?”
    “Pale, from what I could see.”
    “It’s him. Would someone recognize me, do you think? Have I changed a lot? We haven’t seen each other for twenty years.”
    “Who was he?”
    “My lover.”
    “Genevieve, I’m not following you at all, Genevieve.”
    “Jean-Louis Hauvette was the lover I took to save myself from Leopold,” she says in a low voice, finishing what’s in her glass. “I told you, Leo had no understanding of the speed of life.”
    “And your husband?”
    “What’s he got to do with it?”
    “You’re making me dizzy, Genevieve.”
    “Abramowitz had nothing to do with any of this. My God, he can see me reflected in the glass. He doesn’t recognize me. Women change more than men do.”
    “How did he kill Leo?”
    “The two of us killed him together.”
    Genevieve falls silent. I wait. We sit for a moment without saying a word. “You amaze me,” she says finally. “I would have thought you had more