The Day I Killed My Father (14 page)

At our last dinner, as a way of thanking her for all her attention, my father gave her a diamond ring. ‘You make me happy by making my son happy,' he said. Her eyes filled with tears. And, I confess, so did mine.

–19–

My father returned to Paris twice after that. We didn't grow any closer, but a certain cordiality was established, which was my wife's doing. She bent over backwards for him, which included serving as a buffer when I occasionally lashed out, and vice-versa. In exchange, my father gave us more and more money. I even went so far as to think — believe it or not — that this was his way of showing affection. Not that it wasn't, actually … Would I describe my father as needy? I've never thought about it. As I'm sure I've already mentioned, he was always surrounded by women: all beautiful, all fascinated by his looks, all with an eye on his money. Some were even invited to our house, which must have given them hope that they were on their way to landing a good catch. But, just as he did with our domestics, he'd get rid of his girlfriends as soon as he saw signs that they were getting too close. I don't think my father's longest relationship lasted much more than six months …

Do I think my father used women? I don't think you gave that question enough thought. What does it mean to use a woman? Generally, when you say so-and-so used a woman, it's to criticise him for not using her for the rest of eternity, or at least for many years. Because this issue of using women is purely an issue of time … What I mean is that when a woman feels used, it's because, when all's said and done, she doesn't feel she's been used enough. In other words, the phrase doesn't make the slightest sense.

I will try to proceed based on your poorly phrased question. Let's just say that my father liked female company, up to a point. I believe that, during the brief time in which he was with a woman, he loved her. But this love quickly died, not least because of his reluctance to get married again and, consequently, to lose his freedom … The freedom to have other women, you say. Possibly, but I'd like you to try to forget, for a moment, the attitudes that women have established during their long history of resentment towards men. When I said that my father didn't commit to a woman for fear of losing his freedom, I was thinking of something much more banal: the freedom to come and go, without having to answer to anyone. To go to the end of the street, or to Moscow. There is a tendency among women, stronger in some than in others, to control their partners' every move. This makes men's daily lives suffocating. It may even be what makes men become bigger liars, and more deceitful.

Some guys lie not so they can cheat on their wives, but just to get a little fresh air. I read a biological explanation for this several years ago. Women are genetically hard-wired to try to control the men they consider their own. In the past, they did so for fear of losing their reproducers/providers to other women. When a woman was of child-bearing age, or had offspring to feed, such a loss could place her in a situation of social or natural risk. This biological fact, so deeply rooted in modern women, also explains why, as they grow older, they tend to loosen their grip on their partners. Heading towards infertility, and with no offspring to raise, they no longer need reproducers/providers …

You weren't familiar with my misogynistic side? Nor was I … You didn't expect to hear so many clichés issuing from my mouth? My dear, how often are we surprised by what we say, and how often does something that seems intelligent in thought sound frivolous when spoken out loud? But, anyway, you shouldn't underestimate the reach of clichés. The overwhelming majority of people live by them as if they were absolute reality — which, obviously, doesn't make them transcendental truths. Do you know what's just occurred to me? That the clichés in which people imprison themselves are a manifestation of Evil. They ensure that those who become entangled in them do not aspire to elevate their spirit in the slightest; if they did, they might learn, among other things, that Evil itself is part of a higher plan. What I mean is that clichés are among the favourite garments of what we traditionally refer to as the Devil — the fallen angel who wants to be recognised as Evil, but is just a piece of it. I'd like to elaborate on this.

That's an interesting observation of yours: as I tried to work out why my father dumped all his girlfriends, I saw him with loving eyes. Well, that was one of the reasons I killed him. In order to love him.

After almost three years of married life in Paris, I also began to feel asphyxiated by my wife. She was still delightful, but the fact that my day-to-day life was dictated by her pace was no longer such a joy. It was with a certain glee, therefore, that I received the news that she had to spend a month here in Brazil. I was notified of her trip a week before she left, and it took me by surprise. She said she had to resolve some outstanding matters regarding a second inheritance she'd received — this time, from a homosexual uncle who'd died single and left a few assets to his only niece.

On my own, I contacted my aunt, whom I hadn't seen much since I'd met my wife. Their dislike for one another had begun with their first meeting. After that, we still had dinner together — my aunt, her husband, my wife, and I — another two or three times, but this only served to exacerbate their differences. In short, my aunt thought we'd rushed into things. As for my wife, she was smart enough to realise that my aunt had reservations about her.

The fact that my aunt didn't like my wife irked me, but it didn't stop me from thinking highly of her. So much so that I called her a week after my wife had left. We arranged to have dinner together the following night at an elegant bistro. When I arrived at the restaurant, my aunt and her husband were already there. They both looked quite upset — it seemed as if I'd walked in on an argument. The signs were clear: my aunt was shaking, while he was sweating so much that he had to excuse himself to go to the toilet. Before he got up, he looked daggers at her. While he was gone, I took the opportunity to ask what had happened, but all she said was that it was nothing serious; just a little quarrel, like so many others. At first, I believed that that was all it was — a little quarrel — but, because the tension didn't ease up, no matter how I tried to lighten the atmosphere, I started thinking that something more serious had happened.

This impression was confirmed by the odd way she said goodbye to me outside the restaurant. She was making a great effort not to cry, and gave me a more loving hug and kiss than the situation called for. When she hugged me, she whispered in my ear, as if confiding a secret, ‘No matter what happens, remember I'll always be there for you.' That was the last time I saw her. Two months later, she and her husband moved to Milan, where he later died.

–20–

I didn't take what my aunt said too seriously. On my way home, I mulled over what had happened at dinner, and I put it all down to a simple emotional crisis. My aunt and her husband were undoubtedly dealing with the anxieties of middle age; even the happiest marriages can go through rough patches during this period. She was probably asking herself if she really wanted to spend the rest of her days with him, I thought, and vice-versa. I could even imagine her dilemma. Her husband had given her a dream life from a material point of view, and still did. He was also fairly intellectually refined, and had always supported her artistic pursuits, bankrolling exhibitions at prestigious galleries, and showing pride in her woodcuts.

Nevertheless, from what I could tell, they didn't enjoy true intimacy, even though they'd been together for many years. It was hard to believe they knew what was going on in each other's heads, given the degree of formality with which they treated one another. I don't know if this was too hasty a conclusion; nor do I know if a man and a woman, regardless of how much they love one another, can be transparent with each other. Perhaps the idea that it's possible is no more than a romantic fantasy. Perhaps I'm too influenced by my own past, in which there was never such transparency — but the fact is that my aunt and her husband always behaved, in my eyes, like two strangers who find themselves having to share a ship's cabin and, though they discover they are similar in many ways, seek to maintain their individual privacy at all costs, hoping for the voyage to end quickly. So much so that they never had kids, even though they both seemed to like children. When I heard that they were moving to Milan, I was sure of one thing: my aunt didn't like the idea of having to leave Paris. The phrase, ‘No matter what happens, remember I'll always be there for you' was coming from someone who was about to leave and was not at all happy about it.

Isn't it funny how we can turn logic into a house of cards?

After fifteen days, the solitude was starting to get to me. I didn't yearn for my wife, but I missed her. I'll try to explain the difference. Yearning is fuelled by affection, love, friendship. Missing, on the other hand, is pure and simple, and can be fuelled by feelings that aren't necessarily warm. For example, a torturer can miss inflicting torture, or the opposite: the victim can miss his or her torturer. Not that my wife tortured me; far from it. But I'd grown accustomed to serving her — the voluntary servitude that La Boétie speaks of … Sorry? I didn't catch that. Could you say it again, please … Did I, as the tortured one in my relationship with my father, miss my torturer? You've touched on something I've thought about many times, without coming to any conclusion. I gave my father a wide berth, because I couldn't handle being around him, and he did the same with me. But maybe you could say our mutual hatred was so great that I didn't need to be in his presence to feel tortured, and he didn't need to have me in front of him to torture me.

The money he gave me, for example, was a highly effective instrument of torture, even from ten thousand kilometres away, since I knew that in his mental accounting he considered it a write-off. My father and I only had to know that the other existed in order for our hatred (like everything else that emanated from him) to live on … You're right, we fed off it … Go on, ask. I promise I won't be angry … In my relationship with my father, were our positions ever reversed, and did I ever become the torturer? I've already mentioned that when I was a child I tried to humiliate him in front of my mother, playing the know-it-all — I think that's a form of torture, don't you? … You want to know if, afterwards, I ever tortured or tried to torture him in any other way? I killed him. Is that enough for you?

I think we'd best end this session.

–21–

I can't get your question out of my head. I knew you were astute, but not that astute. I feel cornered by you — but cornered in a nice way, because I needed this confession. I'm not sure if torture is exactly the right term for what I did to my father in my late teens. Let's just say that I put him through a lot — and took great pleasure in it.

Remember how I told you that my father once took me to an upmarket brothel? Well, worried that I might be homosexual (or, rather, worried about the prospect of having a homosexual son), he decided to take me to see a psychologist. This idiotic suggestion came from his girlfriend at the time, who saw it as a chance to strengthen her ties with him. It didn't work, of course — the girlfriend's attempt to reel him in, I mean. It wasn't long before he gave her the boot. My visits to the psychologist, however, yielded my father a month of desperation.

He announced that he'd made an appointment for me. When I said that I wasn't going, he threatened to cut my allowance. So I went. The psychologist was a young woman of about twenty-five. I could tell she was inexperienced by the hesitant way she asked me questions. In fact, as I found out later, this psychologist had only just graduated and was an old schoolfriend of my father's girlfriend. Not exactly the best resumé. Add to that the fact that I, almost ten years her junior, seemed twenty years older, perhaps because of all my reading and my continuing battle with my father. It was a perfect scenario for revenge. And revenge I got, with the help of a manual by a youth psychologist that my bookseller had recommended.

I followed the script with thespian diligence. In the beginning, I acted withdrawn, like any troubled teenager who finds himself confronted with a psychologist. Then I started alternating between moments of silence and short sentences, in which I sketched out the story of my childhood and my mother's death. Around the fourth week, I started peppering the things I said with crying fits. To be honest, I didn't cry. I buried my face in my hands, and put on a shaky voice. I rubbed my eyes a lot to make them red before looking back at the psychologist. Following what she'd learned at university, she avoided asking why I was crying. This was something she had to unearth on her own, from what was, supposedly, the wreckage of my distant memory — a practice also recommended by the manual that I was following to a T in the chapter that dealt with how some patients cover up their traumas. These manuals really are very useful.

Anyhow, after a month of sessions, the young psychologist was already sufficiently captivated by what appeared to be her first big case. And what a case she had on her hands! In a particularly poignant session, in which I almost wept real tears, I started talking about a monster that used to appear in my room when I was a child, and lie down next to me. And about how, paralysed by fear, I was unable to stop it from touching and biting me. You can see where I was going with this, of course. In the next session, I put the monster to one side, even though she seemed pretty anxious for me to get back to it. Avoiding the core of the trauma, as I learned in the manual, was common among patients — and I was determined to be an exemplary patient. I only mentioned the monster again some four sessions later, throwing in a few sordid details, such as how it used to stroke me and moan in my ear as it did so. It didn't take much — just over two months of therapy — for my psychologist to start to suspect that I'd been sexually abused as a child. And most likely by my father.