Matthew Licht

Un amour moche

Severine had a big nose and sky-high cheekbones. I only noticed the rest of her when she took off her dress. She wore her swimsuit underneath it. There were still bathing establishments along the Seine, in those days. She dived in without a splash, and disappeared below the dark, turbulent water.

Her father had bought her an apartment on a twisted street that led into Place des Vosges. Even her huge, luminous dwelling existed to intimidate and oppress.

Shortly after she’d installed me at her place, she said she had another lover, a Moroccan, or Algerian, in any case some former French colony. He knew how to sodomize her the way she needed it. The guy was married, with kids, so they could see each other every and then, when he could get away from his responsibilities. That evening, he was free.

This made me pretty angry.

Other evenings, she went for dinner at her parents’ place, in Passy. I wasn’t invited. 

To enrage her father, she’d told him she was living with a disreputable foreigner, a long-haired beatnik. To rub salt in the wound, she added that I’m half-Jewish.

She told her other boyfriend that part too, to madden the poor guy. I wanted to beat him up. I could’ve tailed Severine to find out where he lived, what he looked like. If he knew Severine’s address. All he had to do was show up there, and brain me with a tire iron. Her father would’ve doused us both with gasoline and roasted us alive, damn the consequences. He must’ve known some high-ranking cops.

None of this did anything to diminish my desire for Severine, which made her laugh, cruelly. I imagine she also made Ali, or Mustafa, or whatever the hell he was called, suffer. She tortured her father, who smiled in his army uniform from framed photos on the walls of her glorious pad. 

Those two couldn’t change their relationship with her. I could, and did. I left her a note, scrawled on the cover of her treasured first edition of Proust. Goodbye, you fabulous cunt.

Years later, I saw her again, in an out-of-focus snapshot on one of the so-called social networks. Still strangely gorgeous, with a few extra pounds on her, elegantly dressed, sitting on the lap of a gentlemen unmistakably from Parisian high society. There was nothing else on her page. No need for it. 

Whenever I return to Paris, my aimless rambles always end up in Place des Vosges, like an ant who follows the chemical trails left by his queen.

An artist friend describes Paris as a beautiful town full of ugly things. For me, Severine is Paris. Paris is Severine.

On the métro back to the airport, I always think, goodbye, you fabulous cunt.

J’aime Paris. 

Vive les femmes.