Ravel by Jean Echenoz

Author:Jean Echenoz
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781620970003
Publisher: The New Press

SEVEN

TECHNIQUE NUMBER 2: While spending hours tossing and turning in bed, seek the best position, the ideal accommodation of the organism called Ravel to the piece of furniture called Ravel’s bed, the most even breathing, the perfect placement of the head upon the pillow, that state in which the body becomes confused with then fused with its couch, a fusion capable of opening one of the doors to sleep. From then on Ravel need only wait for the latter to come get him, watching for this arrival as if for an invited guest.

Objection: on the one hand, as previously noted, it is this very waiting, this position as lookout and the alertness it entails—even if he tries to ignore them—that risk preventing him from sleeping. Moreover, once this position is found, the encouraging torpor that follows, holding out the dazzling prospect of sleep, frequently breaks down: a little short circuit or loose wire can turn up who knows where, and everything must be redone. Even worse, this fresh start now requires recovering a little lost ground, it’s discouraging; Ravel lights his bedside lamp, then a cigarette, which he stubs out after a few coughs only to light another one and it’s endless.

He could perhaps try sleeping with someone, after all. At times sleep is easier when one is less lonely in a bed. He could always take a shot at that. But no, nothing doing. No one knows whether he ever loved, amorously, anyone—man or woman—at all. We do know that when he summoned the courage one day to propose marriage to a friend, she burst out laughing, exclaiming in front of everyone that he was crazy. We know that when he tried with Hélène, asking her in a roundabout way if she wouldn’t like to live in the country, she also declined the offer, although more gently. But when a third woman, as tall and imposing as he is short and slender, made him the same offer in the other direction, we also know that he was the one who laughed till he cried.

We know that young Rosenthal found him, one time, in a brasserie at the Porte Champerret, where Ravel seemed to be on excellent or at least quite familiar terms with a group of whores who’d set up headquarters there. We know that this same Rosenthal was able to overhear a telephone call between Ravel and one of the girls, who was very upset that he preferred giving Rosenthal his lesson to sharing a little of his bed with her. We know that one day, taking leave of Leyritz, Ravel mentioned casually that he was off to the brothel, but perhaps he was joking about it. So we know few things, although we can assume some of them, including this taste—perhaps for lack of anything better—for brief encounters. In short we know nothing, practically nothing except that one day, when Marguerite Long17 encourages him to marry, he addresses the subject of love for once—and once and for all: this feeling, in his opinion, never rises above licentiousness.

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