Enough About Love

THOMAS AND LOUISE

• •

IT IS LATE. The Thursday evening patient has left. Thomas looks at his Le Monde, rereads the date bitterly. Tomorrow it will be twenty-six years since Piette died. The photo Thomas always keeps on his desk shows her smiling, lying on a bed with pages of notes scattered around her. She is four months pregnant. She will lose the baby in a few weeks’ time, and commit suicide a year later. On the back of the snapshot, Thomas has written out a canzone from La vita nuova, the blue ink is gradually fading:

Sì che volendo far come coloro

So that I desire to be like one

Che per vergogna celan lor mancanza

,

Who, to conceal his poverty through shame

,

Di fuor mostro allegranza

,

Shows joy outwardly

,

E dentro da lo core struggo e ploro

.

And within my heart am

troubled and weep

.

There are some works so luminous that they fill us with shame for the meager life to which we are resigned, that they implore us to lead another, wiser, fuller life; works so powerful that they give us strength, and force us to new undertakings. A book can play this role. For Thomas, it is La vita nuova, in which Dante weeps for his Beatrice. A friend gave it to him shortly after Piette’s death. But Thomas does not believe that his Piette waits for him in a future life, he doubts that anywhere in the infinite plurality of Lewis’s worlds there is a peaceful universe where a happy Piette gave birth to their little boy.

There are two other photographs on the desk: the larger frame holds a picture of his daughters, Alice and Esther, they are five and seven years old, sitting astride ponies, with their mother. The divorce is already under way. The third picture, black-and-white, shows three men, two of them are recognizably Lacan and Barthes. The youngest, in the middle, has the thick black hair of a twenty-year-old, he is smiling, holding a bulging file in his hand. Thomas is now the least identifiable. Piette took it at the Collège de France, in January 1978. It gives the impression that they are the best of friends, Lacan seems to be laughing at a joke the young psychology student has made. If anyone is sufficiently inquisitive to ask about it, he just says, “That’s me with Jacques and Roland.”

From his office, Thomas has heard the door to the gate opening, recognized the metallic click of Louise’s heels on the paving stones in the courtyard and the staircase, and has opened the door before she could knock. He does not really like displaying how eager he is to see her every time, but he is even less keen to affect patience.

She sees him on the landing and smiles. “What if it wasn’t me?”

“I don’t know anyone who walks like you.”

“I’ll sound different when I’m carrying a suitcase.”

“Which means?”

“Soon, as soon as I can find the courage, I’m going to talk to Romain. I’ll tell him I want us to separate. I’ll tell him about you too. Something inside me’s broken and it won’t come back together again. And it’s not just since we met. Do you still want anything to do with me, this madwoman with two children?”

“Yes.”

“Because you do realize I’m mad, don’t you?”

Thomas looks at Louise, smiles. “I’m very happy to have a madwoman. I’ve always wanted to take work home with me.”