I have no intention of answering. I was given the cold shoulder and humiliated by his silence for weeks on end. Does he think I’ll come running just because he gave me the honor of an invitation?
After I go to bed, I listen with headphones to one of the tapes I recorded of the Cuban shaman. When I was still pretending that I was just a journalist—and not a woman frightened by herself—I had asked if self-hypnosis (or his preferred term, “meditation”) could make someone forget about another person. I broached the subject in a way that would allow him to understand “love” as “trauma by verbal attack,” which was exactly what we were talking about at that moment.
“That is a somewhat murky area,” he replied. “Yes, we can induce relative amnesia, but since this person is associated with other facts and events, it would be practically impossible to eliminate someone completely. What’s more, forgetting is the wrong approach. You should face things head-on.”
I listen to the whole tape, and then try to distract myself, making pledges and jotting down a few more things in my calendar, but nothing works. Before I go to sleep, I send a message to Jacob accepting his invitation.
I can’t control myself, that’s my problem.
I WON’T tell you I missed you because you won’t believe me. I won’t tell you I didn’t reply to your messages because I’m afraid of falling in love again.”
I really don’t believe any of that. But I let him continue to try to explain the unexplainable. Here we are in a regular café, nothing special, in Collonges-sous-Salève, a village on our border with France that’s located fifteen minutes from my work. The small handful of other patrons are truck drivers and workers from a nearby quarry.
I’m the only woman, except for the one working the bar, who walks from one end of it to the other, overly made-up and engaging the customers in witty banter.
“It’s been a living hell since you showed up in my life. Ever since that day in my office when you came to interview me and we exchanged intimacies.”
“Exchanged intimacies” is a figure of speech. I gave him oral sex. He did nothing to me.
“I can’t say I’m unhappy, but I’m increasingly lonely, though no one knows. Even when I’m among friends, and the atmosphere and drinks are great, the conversation is lively and I’m smiling, all of a sudden, for no reason, I can’t pay attention to the conversation. I say I have an important commitment and I leave. I know what I’m missing: you.”
It’s time to get my revenge: You don’t think you might need some marriage counseling?
“I do. But I would have to go with Marianne, and I can’t convince her. For her, philosophy explains everything. She’s noticed I’m different, but attributes it to the elections.”
The shaman was right when he said we must take things all the way. At this moment, Jacob has just saved his wife from a serious drug-trafficking charge.
“I’ve taken on too many responsibilities and I’m not yet accustomed to it. According to her, I’ll be used to everything soon. What about you?”
What about me? What exactly do you want to know?
All my efforts to resist fell apart the moment I saw him sitting alone at a table in the corner with a Campari and soda in front of him, and he smiled as soon as he saw me enter. We’re like teenagers again, only this time we can drink alcohol without breaking any laws. I hold his icy hands—icy from cold or fear, I don’t know.
I’m fine, I say. I suggest that next time we meet earlier—daylight savings time is over and it’s getting dark fast.
He agrees and gives me a discreet kiss on the lips, anxious not to draw attention from the men around us.
“For me, one of the worst things are the beautiful sunny days this autumn. I open the curtains in my office and see people out there, some walking and holding hands without having to worry about the consequences. And I can’t show my love.”
Love? Did that Cuban shaman feel sorry for me and ask for some help from mysterious spirits?
I expected almost anything from this meeting, except a man opening his soul to me like he is doing now. My heart beats stronger and stronger—from joy, surprise. I won’t ask why this is happening.
“See, it’s not that I’m jealous of others. I just don’t understand why they can be happy and I can’t.”
He pays the bill in euros, we cross the border on foot and walk toward our cars, which are parked on the other side of the street—i.e., Switzerland.
There is no more time for displays of affection. We say good-bye with three kisses on the cheek and each one heads toward his or her destiny.
Just like what happened at the golf club, I am unable to drive when I reach my car. I put on a cowl scarf to protect me from the cold and start to walk aimlessly around the hamlet. I pass a post office and a hairdresser. I see an open bar, but would rather walk to unwind. I have no interest in understanding what is happening. I just want it to happen.
“I open the curtains in my office and see people out there, some walking and holding hands without having to worry about the consequences. And I can’t show my love,” he’d said.
And when I felt like no one, absolutely no one, was capable of understanding what was going on inside me—not a shaman, not a psychoanalyst, not even my husband—you materialized to explain it to me …
It’s loneliness. Even though I’m surrounded by loved ones who care about me and want only the best, it’s possible they try to help only because they feel the same thing—loneliness—and why, in a gesture of solidarity, you’ll find the phrase “I am useful, even if alone” carved in stone.
Though the brain says all is well, the soul is lost, confused, doesn’t know why life is being unfair to it. But we still wake up in the morning and take care of our children, our husband, our lover, our boss, our employees, our students, those dozens of people who make an ordinary day come to life.
And we often have a smile on our face and a word of encouragement, because no one can explain their loneliness to others, especially when we are always in good company. But this loneliness exists and eats away at the best parts of us because we must use all our energy to appear happy, even though we will never be able to deceive ourselves. But we insist, every morning, on showing only the rose that blooms, and keep the thorny stem that hurts us and makes us bleed hidden within.
Even knowing that everyone, at some point, has felt completely and utterly alone, it is humiliating to say, “I’m lonely, I need company. I need to kill this monster that everyone thinks is as imaginary as a fairy-tale dragon, but isn’t.” But it isn’t. I wait for a pure and virtuous knight, in all his glory, to come defeat it and push it into the abyss for good, but that knight never comes.
Yet we cannot lose hope. We start doing things we don’t usually do, daring to go beyond what is fair and necessary. The thorns inside us will grow larger and more overwhelming, yet we cannot give up halfway. Everyone is looking to see the final outcome, as though life were a huge game of chess. We pretend it doesn’t matter whether we win or lose, the important thing is to compete. We root for our true feelings to stay opaque and hidden, but then …