Hygiene and the Assassin (8 page)

“And yourself?”

“I may have the face of a eunuch, but I have a big prick.”

“And Céline?”

“Ah, Céline has everything: he's a genius with words, and he has big balls, a big prick, and all the rest.”

“The rest? What else is required? An anus?”

“Absolutely not! It's the reader who must have an anus, to be taken for a fool, not the writer. No, a writer also needs lips.”

“Dare I even ask you what kind of lips you mean?”

“Upon my word, you are revolting! I'm talking about the lips that are used to close one's mouth, all right? Disgusting individual!”

“Okay. Definition of lips?”

“Lips fulfill two roles. First of all, they make words into a sensual act. Have you ever imagined what words would be were it not for lips? They would quite simply be something cold, dry, without any nuances, like the utterances of a courtroom bailiff. But the second role is even more important: lips are used to prevent what must not be said from getting out. Hands also have lips, the lips that prevent them from writing what must not be written. This is indispensable, beyond all proportion. There are writers who are brimming with talent, who have balls and a prick, yet they failed as writers because they said things they shouldn't have said.”

“That's astonishing, coming from you: it's not your style to practice self-censorship.”

“Who said anything about self-censorship? The things that must not be said are not necessarily smutty things; on the contrary. The smutty things you have inside you must always be expressed: that's healthy, lighthearted, invigorating. No, the things that must not be said are of another order—and don't expect me to explain them to you, because those are precisely the things that must not be said.”

“Well that's not going to get me very far.”

“Didn't I warn you, earlier, that my profession consists in not answering questions? Change your profession, young man.”

“So not answering questions is also one of the roles fulfilled by lips, is that it?”

“Not only lips, balls too. It takes balls not to answer certain questions.”

“A way with words, balls, a prick, lips—anything else?”

“Yes, you also need an ear and a hand.”

“The ear is for hearing?”

“You heard me. You are a regular genius, young man. In fact, the ear is the sound box of the lips. It's the inner
gueuloir.
Flaubert struck quite the pose with his
gueuloir
, but did he really think people were going to believe him? He knew it was pointless to holler his words: words holler all by themselves. You just have to listen to them inside.”

“And the hand?”

“The hand is for pleasure. This is devastatingly important. If a writer is not having pleasure, then he must stop immediately. To write without pleasure is immoral. Writing already contains all the seeds of immorality. The writer's only excuse is his pleasure. A writer who does not have pleasure is as disgusting as some bastard raping a little girl without even getting his rocks off, just for the sake of raping, to commit a gratuitously evil act.”

“There's no comparison. Writing is not as harmful.”

“You obviously don't know what you're saying, because you haven't read me—how could you know? Writing fucks things up at every level: think of the trees they've had to cut down for the paper, of all the room they have to find to store the books, the money it costs to print them, and the money it will cost potential readers, and the boredom the readers will feel on reading them, and the guilty conscience of the unfortunate people who buy them and don't have the courage to read them, and the sadness of the kind imbeciles who do read them but don't understand a thing, and finally, above all, the fatuousness of the conversations that will take place after said books have been read or not read. And that's just the half of it! So don't go telling me that writing is not harmful.”

“But you can't totally rule out the possibility of encountering one or two readers who really will understand you, even if it's only intermittently. Don't those flashes of deep complicity with a handful of individuals suffice to make reading a beneficial act?”

“Nonsense! I don't know if those individuals exist, but, if they do, they are the ones who can be most harmed by what I write. What do you think I talk about in my books? Maybe you think I describe how good human beings are, how happy they are to be alive? How the devil did you come up with the idea that to understand me will make someone happy? On the contrary!”

“But complicity, even in despair—is that not a pleasant thing?”

“Do you think it's pleasant to find out that you are just as desperate as your neighbor? I think it makes things even sadder.”

“In that case, why write? Why even seek to communicate?”

“Careful, don't mix up the two: writing is not seeking to communicate. You ask me why I write, and this is what I'd say, strictly and exclusively: for pleasure. In other words, if there is no pleasure, one must stop, imperatively. It so happens that writing brings me pleasure—well, it used to—so much pleasure I could die. Don't ask me why, I have no idea. Moreover, every theory that has tried to explain pleasure has been more inane than the next one. One day, a very serious man told me that when you felt pleasure in making love, it was because you were creating life. Can you imagine? As if there could be pleasure in creating something as bad and ugly as life! And then, that would imply that if a woman is taking the pill, she should no longer feel pleasure because she's no longer creating life. But this fellow really believed his theory! In short, don't ask me to explain why writing gives me pleasure: it's a fact, that's all.”

“And what has the hand got to do with all this?”

“The hand is the source of pleasure in writing. And it's not the only one: writing also brings pleasure to one's belly, one's sex, one's forehead, and one's jaws. But the most specific pleasure is located in the hand that writes. It's a difficult thing to explain: when it is creating what it needs to create, the hand trembles with pleasure and becomes an organ of genius. I don't know how many times while writing I have had the strange impression that my hand was in charge, sliding across the page all alone, without asking the brain its opinion. Oh, I know that no anatomist could accept such a thing, and yet very often that is what you feel. It is such a voluptuous moment, probably not unlike what a horse feels when it bolts, or a prisoner when he escapes. Which leads to another conclusion: is there not something disturbing about the fact that one uses the same instrument—one's hand—for both writing and masturbation?”

“You also use your hand to sew on a button or scratch your nose.”

“How trivial you can be! Besides, what does that prove? The vulgar uses need not contradict the noble ones!”

“So masturbation is a noble use of the hand?”

“Indeed it is! The fact that, all alone, a simple, modest hand can perform something as complex, costly, tricky, and volatile as sex, isn't that amazing? To think that this kindly, uncomplicated hand can procure as much, if not more, pleasure than a woman—who is a high-maintenance nuisance—isn't that admirable?”

“Well, naturally, if that's the way you see things . . .”

“But that's the way they are, young man! Don't you agree?”

“Listen, Monsieur Tach, you are the one being interviewed, not me.”

“In other words, you get off easy, is that it?”

“It may please you to know that I don't feel I've gotten off easy thus far. Here and there, you've been pretty rough with me.”

“Something I enjoy doing, it's true.”

“Fine. Let's get back to our organs. Let me recapitulate: a way with words, balls, prick, lips, ear, and hand. Is that it?”

“Isn't that enough for you?”

“I don't know. I thought there would be more.”

“Really? What more do you need? A vulva? A prostate?”

“Now you're being trivial. No. Perhaps you're going to make fun of me, but I was thinking that you also need a heart.”

“A heart? Saints alive, whatever for?”

“For feelings, love.”

“Those things have nothing to do with the heart. They are the realm of the balls, prick, lips, and hands. That's quite enough.”

“You're too cynical. I could never go along with that.”

“But your opinion doesn't interest anyone, you said so yourself a minute ago. I don't see what is so cynical about what I said. Feelings and love are the business of organs, we agree on that; what we disagree on is only the nature of the organ. You see it as a cardiac phenomenon. I'm not rebelling against that idea, I'm not throwing adjectives in your face. I merely think that you have bizarre anatomical theories and, as such, they are interesting.”

“Monsieur Tach, why are you pretending you don't understand?”

“Now what are you on about? I'm not pretending anything at all, you rude so-and-so!”

“Honestly, when I was talking about the heart, you know perfectly well I wasn't referring to the organ!”

“Oh, no? What were you referring to, then?”

“To sensitivity, affectivity, emotions, don't you see?”

“All that in one stupid heart, full of cholesterol!”

“Come now, Monsieur Tach, you're not being funny.”

“No, indeed, you're the one who's being funny. Why are you saying all these things that have nothing to do with the topic of discussion?”

“Are you daring to imply that literature has nothing to do with feelings?”

“You know what, young man, I think our understandings of the word ‘feeling' diverge. For me, if I want to smash someone's face in, that's a feeling. But for you, if you can weep at the lonely hearts column in a woman's magazine, now that's a feeling.”

“And what is it for you?”

“For me, it is a frame of mind, that is, a fine story crammed full of deceitful ideas of which people convince themselves in order to procure an illusion of human dignity, and to persuade themselves that they are filled with spirituality even when they are taking a crap. It is above all women who invent such moods, because the type of work they do leaves their mind free. For one of the characteristics of our species is that our brain feels obliged to work continuously, even when it serves no purpose: this deplorable technical disadvantage is at the origin of all human misery. Rather than allowing her to indulge in noble inactivity or elegant repose, like a snake sleeping in the sun, the housewife's brain, furious that it is not being useful, begins to secrete idiotic, pretentious screenplays—and the baser the housewife perceives her activities to be, the more pretentious her scenarios become. And all the more stupid in that there is nothing base about running the vacuum cleaner or scrubbing the toilet: these are things that need to be done, that's all. But women always imagine that they have been placed here on earth for some aristocratic mission. Most men do, too, less stubbornly however, because their brains are kept busy with the help of bookkeeping, professional promotion, informing on their peers, and tax returns, which leave less time for wild imaginings.”

“I think you're a bit behind the times. Women work now, too, and they have the same worries as men do.”

“How naïve can you get! They're pretending. Their desk drawers are full of nail polish and women's magazines. Contemporary women are even worse than the housewives of old, who served some purpose at least. Nowadays, they spend their time chatting with their colleagues about subjects as substantial as relationships and calories, which amounts to the same thing. When they get too bored, they get laid by their bosses, which gives them a deliciously intoxicated feeling, knowing they are messing with other people's lives. What better professional promotion for a woman! When a woman destroys another person's life, she views her exploit as the supreme proof of her spirituality. ‘I cause trouble, therefore I have a soul,' is how she reasons.”

“To listen to you, anyone would think you have a score to settle with women.”

“Indeed I do! One of them brought me into this world, although I certainly never asked her to.”

“You sound just like a rebellious teenager.”

“A bilious one would be more like it.”

“Very funny. But a man had something to do with your birth, too.”

“I don't like men, either, you know.”

“But you do despise women more than men. Why?”

“For all the reasons I already gave you.”

“Yes. But you see, I have difficulty believing you don't have another motive. Your misogyny stinks of a desire for revenge.”

“Revenge? Whatever for? I've always been a bachelor.”

“It's not just about marriage. Besides, maybe you yourself don't even know where your desire for revenge comes from.”

“I can see where you're headed, and I refuse to be psychoanalyzed.”

“Without going that far, you might spend some time thinking about it.”

“Thinking about what, for God's sake?”

“Your relationships with women.”

“What relationships? What women?”

“Don't tell me that you . . . No!”

“What, ‘no'?”

“You're not a . . . ?”

“What, out with it!”

“ . . . virgin?”

“Of course I am.”

“Impossible.”

“Absolutely possible.”

“Neither with a woman, nor a man?”

“You think I look like a fag?”

“Don't take it badly, there have been some brilliant homosexuals.”

“You make me laugh. You say that the way you would say, ‘There have even been some honest pimps,' as if there were some contradiction between the words ‘homosexual' and ‘brilliant.' Still, I must protest against your refusal to accept that I might be a virgin.”