Free The Possibility of an Island by Michel Houellebecq, Gavin Bowd Page B

His wife, a sort of gnome with short white hair, had also spent her life as a tax inspector. Oddly, she believed in astrology, and insisted on doing my horoscope. I was Pisces with Gemini in the ascendant, but for all I fucking cared I could well have been Poodle with Mechanical Digger in the ascendant, ha ha ha. This witty remark won me the esteem of the philosopher, who liked to smirk at his wife’s fads—they had been married for thirty-three years. He, for his own part, had always fought obscurantism; he came from a very Catholic family, and this, he assured me, with a little quaver in his voice, had been a great obstacle to his sexual development. “Who
are
these people? Who
are
these people?” I repeated to myself in despair as I fiddled with my herrings. (When he became nostalgic for his native Mecklenburg, Harry bought his food in a German supermarket in Almería.) Evidently, the two gnomes had not had any sex life, other than, perhaps, one that was vaguely procreative (subsequent events, in fact, were to reveal that they had begotten a son); they simply did not belong to that group of people who have access to sexuality. This did not prevent them from becoming indignant, criticizing the pope, bemoaning an AIDS virus that they would never have the chance to catch; all this made me feel like dying, but I restrained myself.
    Fortunately Harry intervened, and the conversation was raised to more transcendent subjects (the stars, infinity, etc.), which allowed me to tuck into my plate of sausages without trembling. Naturally, there too the materialist and the Teilhardian were in disagreement—I became conscious at that moment that they must have met up with each other often, drawing pleasure from this exchange, and that this could go on for thirty years, to their mutual satisfaction. We got onto the subject of death. After having fought all his life for a sexual liberation he had never experienced, Robert the Belgian now fought for euthanasia—which he had, on the contrary, every chance of experiencing. “And the soul? What about the soul?” gasped Harry. All in all, their little double-act was running smoothly; Truman fell asleep at about the same time as me.
    Hildegarde’s harp brought everyone into harmony. Ah yes, music; especially when the volume is down. There wasn’t even material here for a sketch, I told myself. I could no longer laugh at the idiotic militants of immorality, at the kind of remark: “It is, all the same, more pleasant to be virtuous when you have access to vice,” no, I couldn’t. Nor could I laugh anymore at the terrible distress of cellulite-ridden fiftysomething women, and their unfulfilled desire for passionate love; nor at the handicapped child they had succeeded in procreating by half raping an autistic man (“David is my sunshine”). All in all, I couldn’t laugh at anything anymore; I had reached the end of my career, that was clear.
     
     
    There was no lovemaking, that evening, as we went home through the dunes. We had to put an end to it all, however, and a few days later Isabelle announced her decision to leave. “I don’t want to be a burden,” she said. “I wish you all the happiness you deserve,” she said as well—and I still wonder to this day if it was a bitchy remark.
    “What are you going to do?” I asked.
    “Go back to my mother’s, I suppose…it’s what women generally do in my situation, no?”
    It was the only moment, the only one, when she let a little bitterness show. I knew that her father had left her mother, ten years before, for a younger woman; the phenomenon was certainly becoming more widespread, but of course, there was nothing new about it.
     
     
    We behaved like a civilized couple. In all, I had earned forty-two million euros. Isabelle was happy with half of our assets, and she did not demand any compensation. This still added up to seven million euros; she wouldn’t be joining the ranks of the poor.
    “You could do a bit of sex