Free Desolation by Yasmina Reza Page A

trivialities, and Dacimiento never buys what I like. When I open the fridge now, what do I see? Caramel puddings, cream cheese with fruit, and yogurt drinks. For Jerome, obviously. Jerome, who’s here three times a month, sets the rules in my fridge. Jerome is apparently a particularly precocious child. At the age of two and a half, he can make rhymes. The other day your sister said “bread and butter, see,” . . . “pretty face on me” was Jerome’s immediate response. General bedazzlement. In which I joined. I’m not an expert, maybe it is extraordinary, age two and a half, to say pretty face on me when someone says bread and butter, see. In any case, he’s a coddled, loved, and praised little creature, and he’s off to a good start, as far as I can make out. You, my poor boy, you never had any Pop Tarts or Dannon yogurts (the brand names stick in my brain the moment I close the fridge), I don’t remember your very first efforts at poetry and if I loved you, I certainly didn’t build an altar to your status as a child. Nancy’s and your mother’s version: I traumatized you. The examples they quote me are ridiculous. One day—one episode among others— your mother and I went to see your teacher, you were beginning to read and write. The teacher was satisfied: I’m pleased, she said, he’s become socialized this year; last year he didn’t join in the other children’s games, he stayed in his own world and asked questions that are not appropriate at that age. Your mother and the teacher congratulated themselves on this happy development, and instead of joining in, I gave you the cold shoulder (a child of five!) because I was incapable of being pleased that you were mixing with other children and becoming part of the herd. Another story about school, from later on, you came home from high school with the results of a math test. You had come fifth and you were over the moon at coming fifth (you were usually second from the bottom). Instead of promising you a model Spitfire, I apparently said to you in a disappointed voice, “And why not first?” Upon which you burst into tears, ran into your room, and slammed the door howling, “You’re never satisfied, you’re so mean!” Jerome will certainly be able to tell his father he’s so mean without causing the least upset. In my day, nobody talked to his father like that. I went straight into your room and gave you a hiding.
    The funny part of it is that instead of hardening you up, I produced a weakling. And I didn’t even make an enemy of you. If only you were my enemy, at least! In the spineless perversity of your inertia, I detect indifference, even a whiff of condescension. If I was wrong, I’ve certainly been punished for it. I’ve created a perfect stranger.
    Nancy, who likes to sing your praises—if you go in for generosity, the conciliating stepmother is a favorite tune to play—had this curious thing to say: “One accepts things from one’s children one wouldn’t accept from anyone else.” “How do you mean, my love” (I’m as gentle as a lamb with Nancy from now on), “is that a victory or a surrender?” “Neither one nor the other,” she said, exasperated, “it’s just a fact.” I have never argued with Nancy. During the blessed time when she was depressed, I used to take her indifference for agreement and since she started priding herself on being able to cross swords with me intellectually, I keep my mouth shut. So you are going to be the first to savor the answer I didn’t give her. Children, Nancy, I could have said to her if time’s abrading passage hadn’t separated us as much as it has, children, my dear little Nancy, are the lowest rung on the ladder of human desires. If we conceive them, we do so at least in the hope of having
someone to talk to
at the end of our lives. I am already in the process, Nancy, of accepting my old age and the defeat of my body. I accept that I’ve lost the game of life in the same way that