The Stalinist's Wife by France Theoret

Author:France Theoret
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Guernica Editions Inc
Published: 2012-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

Life, Separated

THEN I STARTED THE ANALYSIS, Mathieu joined the party. Stalinist papers appeared on his desk a few days after my first appointment with the psychoanalyst. They are the most recent issues, placed in chronological order. The paper is fresh; they have not been read. Mathieu is the member of a group whose goals are announced loud and clear in a single unanimous voice. Just the thought of criticizing his political obedience makes me guilty. I am a Stalinist’s wife. I take the first steps. I go off to a distant neighbourhood to meet a disciple of Freud. My mind is not confused. I do not accept his position, his doctrinaire allegiance. We are antagonists. There is total misunderstanding. I will leave Mathieu.

I live in intense fear when I am alone. Mathieu’s arrival at home brings on a submissive attitude. I find it hard to tolerate his presence. For weeks, I have exhausted myself with insomnia, nervous tremors. We have terrible communication problems. I make every effort to decipher his words and gestures; he does nothing of the kind.

The scene can be described in a few words. Mathieu is about to return from the university. I go in circles in the big room that serves as salon and living room as well as the entrance to the apartment. My decision derives from an absolute necessity. I am at a deadend. I cannot live with a Stalinist without myself becoming a Stalinist. So many years spent secretly deconstructing religious indoctrination for my own guidance are for nothing in the face of a neophyte, a new convert. I keep telling myself I am in danger. I don’t say a word. I will not be indoctrinated.

Mathieu made the decision for himself. That’s how things are at our house. I collect my thoughts. I am going to speak, make myself heard. He comes in with his boots, his winter coat and his leather briefcase, which he sets down on the rug. He takes off his boots, and hangs his coat in the closet.

Did we say hello, or good evening? Words have grown sparse, tense. The only words announcing that I would leave came from my trembling lips. I said it in the most laconic way: I am going to leave. He responded immediately: if you want to leave, leave. He didn’t take the time to think. I was rigid, so was he.

I feel an unease that translates into an excess of words. Those words provoke action, create the gesture that will kick me out into the shadows beyond. Without thinking about the consequences, I have promised to leave. Out of the furthest depths of my despair and the pessimism that was born from my childhood, I thought this demanding man loved me, and that like at the movies, he would cry: don’t leave, come back to me. It was not like a romantic film. On the contrary. The doors to the icy night swung open. Infinite cold. It is the dead of winter. He spoke to me like an enemy.

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