Free Desolation by Yasmina Reza

rolled down the window, and yelled, ‘Beat it, you piece of shit,’ and to me, pointing to him, ‘Bravo, Genevieve,
first class
!’ He roared off and I never saw him again. Two days later he was dead.”
    We clink glasses in silence. And in silence she and I contemplate, I by dint of twisting around so that I can see him reflected in the glass, the remains of Jean-Louis Hauvette, murderer of Leopold Fench.
    The remains don’t amount to much, if truth be told, but then what would remain of an old man sitting alone at a table on Place des Ternes, watching the shadows of passing traffic behind a window?
    “Were you angry at him?”
    “Terribly.”
    “Until this evening?”
    “No, not anymore, this evening,” she murmurs, stricken.
    We agree that pity has a catastrophic effect on all forms of vitality.
    By hating him unflinchingly (and Hauvette was all the more to be hated because unjustly accused), Genevieve had kept Hauvette in focus. She had saved him from old age and oblivion. For as long as anger and resentment lasted, their pitiful story endured too. A slightly hunched back, a general air of solitude, and Genevieve was undone. Everything was undone. Because the only reality is subjective. Enter pity, and Genevieve, Hauvette, and even Leo had all reverted to insignificance. Enter pity and the eroding effects of time (are they the same thing? yes) and the episode in the rue Charlot and the death that followed, and the life that followed, are no more than minute, infinitesimally minute dislocations.
    Disturb God.
    Take a little step back so that He can enter the world, every day, and several times a day, and your whole life long.
    I cannot boast of having taken it. That little step. Not even for a single day. Not even once, I’m ashamed to say, my boy, without expecting a response, without hoping for a hearing. The Jew, the real Jew, says to God, I have obeyed You, come, I’ve made room for you in our world, and I ask nothing, absolutely nothing, from you.
    Disturb God. This, yes, this I have done. But you see there are no laws that govern this enterprise. And life, my boy, doesn’t like being disturbed. Mankind aspires to comfort. To disturb life is to take the road of genuine desperation.
    “Genevieve, everything beyond the immediate moment is unreal. Soon all three of us will be dead and buried. Let’s invite Jean-Louis Hauvette to join us.”
    “How do I look?”
    “Beautiful.”
    “Old?”
    “No.”
    “So go.”
    Jean-Louis Hauvette is finishing a sole. I say, excuse me, and I tell him that a woman he hasn’t seen for a long time would like to speak to him. He listens to me and turns round toward Genevieve. Then something happens that is totally unforeseen. Genevieve looks up in my direction, makes a gesture I don’t understand, and starts to laugh, laugh uncontrollably, into her napkin. Jean-Louis Hauvette looks at her for a moment and turns back to me. “Who is it?” he asks.
    “Genevieve Abramowitz,” I say.
    “I’m glad I amuse this person. I have no idea who she is,” he says, sticking a fork into his last potato.
    “But you are Jean-Louis Hauvette, aren’t you?” I try stupidly.
    “Not at all,” he says, dismissing me.
    My son
—what should I have said?
    Are you going to go on and on fucking around like this? A little thrill in Malaysia, a little dose of culture in Jordan, then three months off with more people who like to fuck around in the Luberon. The world is within reach of absolutely anybody these days. And everything is familiar, everything is overrun. Not one place left
untouched
. I finally have a certain sympathy for the Afghans and all religious fanatics in general. You’re not going to go visiting them, at least. Whole herds of you aren’t going to go trash the slopes of Pamir.
    My son.
    Did you open the fridge? Have you taken in the sad sight of the fridge? Here or in the rue Ampère, same fridge, same sad sight. Nancy doesn’t give a damn, she’s above these