A man who paints
NIGHT HAS FALLEN ON THE FOREST, the house breathes softly like a great animal in a deep sleep. Adam is washing the dishes. On the table lie newspapers, mail, papers of various kinds, a doll, a teddy bear, a bunch of keys. Two felt pens without their caps. Faded peonies stand in brownish water that gives off a smell of sickly sweet decay, their petals scattered around the vase.
He hears Anita coming downstairs but does not turn around. She opens the refrigerator. She is muttering. I had to read three stories. The comfort blanket had got lost. I’ve left the light on.
Adam clenches his teeth. Every day it’s the same old story. Every day the house is in chaos. He turns off the tap and looks out through the bay windows, but they are too dirty for him to be able to catch a glimpse of anything at all. When did things change here, in this house? Whatever became of that sweet and comfortable feeling of the first years? His wife and child safe and warm in the house he had built while he himself was out in the world. He would come home in the evening and something would be simmering on the stove, there would be a partly eaten cake under a glass cover on the table, he would hear laughter in the well-ordered living room. In the evening his wife would talk to him and listen to him, admiring and loving. In those days words flowed like honey. Was that a dream?
“What are you doing, Anita?”
“There was a piece of cheesecake in the fridge.”
“I just threw it away.”
“You did?”
“It was a week old, Anita. Could you put the plates away, please? Or clear the table? Or throw out those goddamned flowers?”
“Hey, take it easy. I’m just going to eat a yogurt and then I’ll do it.”
Adam turns around and for a fraction of a second he feels he is in the presence of a stranger. What has become of his wife with her long hair and shining eyes, her long colorful skirts and her scent of vanilla? The woman leaning nonchalantly against the door of the fridge is thin and dressed in faded, limp clothes. Although there is so much to be done in this house she is slowly consuming a yogurt while eyeing him furtively as if she were a teenager. But she is no longer a teenager, she has a daughter, she has a husband, she has a house, she has a home, and she cannot make do with a yogurt for supper!
“Anita, how long is it since we last sat down to a proper meal together? Have you seen yourself? You’re all skin and bone. Do you eat any lunch on your daily tours of the countryside?”
“Yes, I eat lunch.”
“Who are you kidding? How much longer is this going to go on?”
“What? How much longer is what going to go on? Precisely what are you talking about?”
Anita’s question disconcerts him for a moment. Precisely what is he talking about? Is it really all about her losing weight, about meals not eaten together, about dishes to be washed and windows to be cleaned? What is it about his wife that irritates him so much?
“Do you think I’m wasting my time, is that it? You’d like me to stay home, like a good little girl, cook the meals, do the housework, and spend my time waiting for you, looking after the house. Oh my, there’s such a lot to do here. Oh my, this lovely house! Oh my, this lovely prison!”
“Anita!!”
Adam smashes a plate against the edge of the sink. It breaks with a dull, sly noise, like their argument. He had hoped for something a little more theatrical, but, even so, Anita is surprised. He points a piece of the broken plate at her and then makes sweeping gestures with this fragment of white Limoges porcelain, the Taj Mahal series, a wedding present.
“How can you say that? How can you think that I want to keep you locked up, that I want to turn you into a—what—into a mere stay-at-home mother? That’s what you’re insinuating, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know, I don’t know anymore.” Anita clasps both hands to her head, as if seeking to rearrange and concentrate her thoughts. She senses that this is a battle lost in advance. And yet when she is in her car, bowling along the country lanes, she knows exactly what is in her mind, what she wants, what she longs for. But here, in their house, facing her husband, the words elude her, the sounds are out of sync, her sentences feeble. Now her immigrant’s nervousness comes to the surface, her doubts about language, her hesitations in thought. In the old days, when they were in Paris, Adam used to experience the same hesitations, the same fleeting, nervous feelings, but he has forgotten them. He has forgotten that he was once regarded as a typical provincial, while she is still seen as a typical foreigner.
“I don’t understand. You’ve become obsessed by this region. You’re doing research on the game of pétanque, for God’s sake!”
“But I have to prove myself.”
“Oh no, for pity’s sake! Spare me all that. It was for a match between two clubs and for a piece you were not even allowed to sign! I thought you wanted to write books, novels. You were always talking about it. You wanted to be a journalist. You wanted to write proper articles, didn’t you? Is that what these are, proper articles?”
Anita stares at him, her hands clasping her head again, looking completely lost. Adam lowers his voice a little, takes a step toward
