Читать книгу Undressing Emmanuelle: A memoir - Sylvia Kristel - Страница 11

7

‘Is Hans here?’ asks the customer.

‘No, he no longer works here.’ Aunt Alice’s voice is terse.

The customer is surprised, his hands trembling on the reception counter.

‘But where has he gone?’ he persists, mournfully.

‘We don’t know, and do not wish to know.’

‘Very well …’

The customer takes his key and starts up the stairs. He hesitates, stops, grabs the banister, and brings a hand to his face. We are watching him.

‘Surely he’s not crying?’ asks Aunt Alice. ‘Do you know him?’

‘No.’

I go off to pace up and down the lounge. Yes, I know him. I recognise that scarlet coat with the black fur collar, that skin blistered with rampant acne. It’s the man that ‘Uncle’ Hans used to kiss in the kitchen. I had walked in silently, thinking I was alone, it was late and I hadn’t eaten. ‘Uncle’ Hans was holding the man by the neck, clasping him, eating the man’s mouth. Their movements were intense, they seemed to be hungry for each other. The man had his back to me. ‘Uncle’ Hans was facing me. He saw me immediately, paused for a moment, then resumed his gobbling of the man’s mouth. They were moaning a little. ‘Uncle’ Hans held my fixed gaze, then shut his eyes, and reopened them straight onto me. He stared as if he wanted to scream something at me, his suppressed rage perhaps, his desire to see my bubble explode, my sheltered, mute, dreamy little girl’s world.

I was witnessing desire and I didn’t like it. I was hearing pleasure and it wasn’t nice. I inched imperceptibly backwards, holding ‘Uncle’ Hans’s gaze.

My soles skated along the lino as I noiselessly left that invisible circle created around two bodies that wanted each other. I had walked into intimacy and I walked straight back out again.

I often ask myself about this world that comes to life so noisily behind closed doors. What are they doing? Personally, I always prefer a bit of light, a door ajar, so I can glimpse other people’s lives, like old people at windows. Doors close on intimacy, desire, secrets.

I pay attention to everything. I have noticed that there’s an energy stronger than anything else, which brings people together at nightfall, when work and the noise of the city cease. It magnetises them. In the bar I watch bodies touch each other under tables, see women offer up their necks. It’s an adult energy about which I am curious.

Why are my mother and father exempt from this energy? Why don’t they come together? My mother doesn’t offer her neck up like the other women. No, my parents don’t embrace, not even behind their bedroom door. I know. My brother sleeps in their room. I walk in there without knocking, quietly, apparently innocent and lost, determined to find out the truth. My parents are rarely in there together. Callas the dog growls and guards my father closely.

My parents are always heading in opposite directions. When my mother goes to bed, my father gets up. When my father undresses, my mother is waking up. There is no circle around them, no intimacy.