No Touching Read online

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  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously.

  Copyright © Editions Albin Michel – Paris 2020

  First publication 2021 by Europa Editions

  Translation by Tina Kover

  Original Title: On ne touche pas

  Translation copyright © 2021 by Europa Editions

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

  Cover Art by Emanuele Ragnisco

  www.mekkanografici.com

  Cover photo © Kseniya Ovchinnikova / Getty Images

  ISBN 9781609456924

  Ketty Rouf

  NO TOUCHING

  Translated from the French

  by Tina Kover

  NO TOUCHING

  PART ONE

  I DANCE, THEREFORE I AM

  1

  Today, I don’t exist.

  Tomorrow, I probably won’t, either.

  This weekend, I’ll knock back a few Diabolo mint citron sodas on my own. I’ll lick my fingers, all of them, after scarfing down some peanuts.

  I look down. The graveled concrete slabs wink at me. They sparkle like the sand crystals in playground asphalt. I line my feet up on the crack between two slabs and then jump with both feet. My own personal game of hopscotch.

  At this rate, I’ll miss the bus.

  I really couldn’t care less.

  Today is the first day of school.

  2

  I know the five-thirty A.M. sidewalks by heart, the bus stops, the crosswalks, the metro with its anti-slip strips on the platforms. This is my Way of the Cross: five bus stops, forty minutes on the metro, two changes, seven minutes’ walk, another station, thirty-five minutes on the train. On the bus, and the metro, and the train, and sometimes even while walking, I read erotic novels. Last year I got through The She Devils, Thérèse the Philosopher, The Solar Anus, The Story of O, and Punishment of a Cock. Two hours of eroticism, paper-and-ink-style: pages and pages of filthy language that I flip through the way you reel off a rosary, my prayer at each station before the Calvary of the high school. Today, I slipped a volume of Apollinaire into my bag, thinking that starting the year off with a masterpiece might help me get going. “He squeezed those regal buttocks and had inserted his index finger into an arsehole of exquisite tightness.” The poet’s prose is better than the fresh-squeezed orange juice and vitamins I had at breakfast. But the book slips out of my hands; it’s impossible to read when your eyes are full of tears. The Eleven Thousand Rods will have to wait.

  The aluminum gates are in exactly the same place as last year, staring at me from their thick gray bulk. I look down; it creeps me out, this Alcatraz. How many times have I imagined myself backing up, turning around, walking away forever? I don’t dare calculate the amount of time I’ve already spent here, or the number of times I’ve asked for a transfer. Every year I feel like I’m acting in the same movie—or perhaps I should say the same scene is playing me. This year is no exception: same building, same colleagues, same inevitable chaos, same three classes, same syllabus. I stop walking. One, two, three, four . . . I start moving again, I must. I press the button to be buzzed in, but the gate doesn’t open. The janitor’s voice crackles through the speaker, telling me to push. I force the heavy gate open with difficulty.

  “Oh, hi, Joséphine . . . You’re late, too!”

  Madame Louis, the math teacher, has looked back at the screech of the gate. I lengthen my stride as she moves slowly toward the front door. I look down. I have no desire to see the concrete expanse of this place again, the graffiti-covered benches, the central hub of the building with its two wings, the endless rows of identical windows stretching away on each side. Like huge pincers ready to crush the air. I prefer to focus on my sequined ballerina flats, keeping rhythm. “Slide, slide, slide, Madam Slug. Slide, slide, slide, Mister Snail.”

  The teachers’ lounge smells like bad coffee and cheap aftershave. Nausea grips me. Some of my colleagues are hanging out here; others, more disciplined, are undoubtedly in the meeting room already, waiting for the principal’s welcome-back speech. I don’t want to talk. I can feel my voice deserting me, my jaw clenching in a forced smile. The same smile, I’m sure, that I can see on some of the faces around me. What a mess. It’s like they’re hung over but without having partied. They’re as drab as their clothes: gray spots and faded brown. Do I look as lifeless as that? The only face I’ve been looking forward to seeing just smiled at me. Martin pulls me out of my dreary reverie by giving me a hug. He teaches French and is the only friend I have in the school.

  We find seats in the very back row of the meeting room. The principal starts his long-winded spiel.

  “I want to thank you for your hard work last year; an 89.9% average on the baccalaureate exam is a job well done. Our school’s been given a good ranking because of it; we’ve moved ahead of André-Malraux. You know how important our reputation is to me . . .”

  I pretend to raise my little finger, like I want to say something. That makes Martin smile.

  “But I’m sure we can aim even higher. This year I want to see perfect scores. And I know you’ll do whatever needs to be done for every student to pass the bac.”

  The sound of rustling and soft, stifled laughter ripples through the room. Martin’s face darkens and he looks down. I nudge him with an elbow and whisper in his ear, low:

  “If I may affirm my personal creed . . . I believe in the all-powerful average, like student X, who achieved the miraculous result of graduating with a 20.3 out of 20. I even believe that, this year, we can have more graduates than we have students.”

  I love imitating the principal, and Martin thinks it’s funny too. It’s my way of making things less miserable. I feel a little stronger when I’m with him. Brave, even, sometimes. But today, my body isn’t helping me at all. I make a dash for the exit, a tissue pressed to my mouth. My stomach turns over. I head for the bathroom. To vomit, or shit, or read Apollinaire—anything but listen to that speech in the stilted language of the Ministry of National Education. I need to calm down. I think ahead to when I’ll start to feel better. In a few hours I’ll be back home with my new scented candles, corset laid out on the bed, stockings tucked away in a dresser drawer, high heels on the bedside table. It makes me feel better to think of the moment when, dressed in black lace and stilettos, I’ll swallow a Xanax, or two. One more day forgotten in a haze of lingerie and benzodiazepines. For now, though, there’s nothing but my exhaustion. I only slept a few hours last night. The anxiety of the new school year, made longer by a dream, was stronger than the Xanax. A nude dancer was swaying her hips onstage and I, the only woman in an all-male audience, was drinking champagne and watching her dance. I orgasmed as I slept, and the pleasure woke me, along with the need to pee.

  I emerge from the bathroom.

  I don’t know where I am anymore.

  3

  I fainted right in the midst of my colleagues, who had gathered for the general meeting. I went down like a ton of bricks, knocking over two or three chairs. Caused quite a commotion. Spectacular, according to Martin. That’s me, the heroine of back-to-school prep day: low blood pressure. Fainting. Ambulance. Sick leave.

  The body falters but refuses to give way. I’m a philosophy teacher. I resist. That’s what philosophy is for: objecting to the idea that our existence is a pointless exercise in exhaustion. And I know what I’m talking about; I’ve been marinating in it forever. It started when I was a kid and
would visit our neighbor, a university professor who’d never had children. Three times a week, at around five o’clock, I tasted the delights of philosophy with her. At eight years old, existence and metaphysics tasted like hot chocolate and Petit Beurre shortbread.

  My doctor prescribed medical leave without batting an eyelash, told me to stop taking beta-blockers and avoid sad things.

  “Number one, beta-blockers are the only thing that keeps my migraines away, and number two, my whole life is sad, almost.”

  “Maybe you should think about talking to someone.”

  “Talking to someone? About something so small?”

  I hadn’t even finished the sentence when my eyes began spurting fat tears. I couldn’t stop. I stayed in his office for a good hour.

  Something so small? God, what a loser I am! All these “small” things that make up my life are turning into a real dumpster fire, and fast. How have I ended up such a hopeless mess? No recognition, no money, no happiness. And the unbelievable idiocy of having decided to be a teacher. Seduced by a bunch of pretty talk about values, I let myself get fucked by the illusion that I was carrying out some noble mission. Educating people, what a wonderful profession. And the vacations. Vacations I usually spend working, and never too far from home.

  See, I always fall into the same trap. Asking myself questions that bring up other questions, and always lead to a complicated answer, never a simple yes or no. In philosophy, we call that a problematic. But there will be no dissertation today, because the days to come are stretching out in front of me with their parade of promises: nights without insomnia, waking up without crying, actually being able to digest food. Happiness, as simple as a healthy body.

  The doctor was sympathetic. I’ve got a whole six days of sick leave ahead of me.

  4

  It started raining, and I didn’t have an umbrella. That’s why I went inside. I stepped through the curtain of light, walked down the red carpet, and paid a hundred and twenty-five euros, with a free bottle of champagne thrown in. Screw getting caught, and the hangover. That was nine months ago, the last day of summer vacation. At ten minutes to midnight, sitting in a plush seat at 12, avenue George V, I slipped into a dream. The dancer onstage was naked, swiveling her hips. Slightly more swaybacked than the others, her head held high, she winked naughtily at a man in the audience. Her lipstick was blood red. A string of pearls hung between her ass cheeks.

  That night, the real world ceased to exist. I felt alive. Ever since then, when even the Xanax won’t put me to sleep, I go out very late instead of lying in bed. I roam around Paris with no goal except losing myself. No watch, no phone. The only destination that matters to me is the underground place of my absence. I wander the streets at random, and the next day, drunk with fatigue, I hurt a little less. I can’t think about anything but sleep. It takes urgent, overriding needs to make the pain go silent.

  Last night I spent another hundred and twenty-five euros, drank another bottle of champagne, watched the same show. The desire to see the dancer came back like a need, magnified by the night into a dream. She’s still there, onstage, in her all-powerful nakedness. I envy her desperately. Not just her body, though I’d love to know what it’s like to have a perfect body. I envy her because she’s nude. Perfectly nude. I compare myself to her, just for fun: I may not have a smile like hers, but I have the right lipstick, that red that makes you a woman, Rouge Dior No. 999. I bought it, even though I’ll never wear it. The pleasure of owning it is just as deep as my qualms about wearing a red that intense. Teachers don’t buy Christian Dior cosmetics. They’re too expensive. The red is too red. To give myself the courage to wear it, I signed up for a trial lesson at a striptease school I found by chance. That “chance” that doesn’t exist. You can hold a master’s degree in philosophy, and have cellulite and stretch marks, and dream of being a nude dancer. You have to cling to something, and what better to cling to than yourself? The body is weightier than an idea. The dance class was exactly how I imagined it would be: really interesting, but it didn’t encourage you to continue. It’s hard to love your body. I signed up for a year’s worth of classes.

  At first, I ignored the huge mirror in the studio. But being there, right in front of a mirror I couldn’t muster up the courage to look at myself in, it was unavoidable. I started out by focusing on individual parts of my body. First, the ankles. Then the eyes—the gaze is the most important thing. And last, my cleavage. A good chunk of my meager savings went into Cellu M6 treatments, and my embarrassment started to vanish along with the cellulite. One day, I looked straight into the mirror. I watched a foot in a red stiletto sketch a rond de jambe and come to rest elegantly on a chair, a pair of breasts tilt toward a thigh sheathed in black fishnet stockings, a hand sliding along it with still-timid grace. The foot, the breasts, the thigh . . . they were mine. I left the studio. In the changing room, my whole body trembled. I let it. Tears made little black circles beneath my lightly mascaraed eyes.

  Every week, I wait eagerly for Friday evening at 6:30. An hour and a half when I feel alive. So a student spat on the doorknob that I was the first one to turn? I cling to my boa; its feathers will be my wings. The youngest girl in my class called me a fucking whore? I learn to make my nipple-tassels spin in circles. The principal refused to convene a meeting of the disciplinary committee? I buy new stockings that I’ll wear at home, in my kitchen, in bed.

  Last week, I was accepted into the dance school’s intermediate level. This is where you learn to dance in twelve-centimeter stilettos. As I was jotting down the address of a high-heeled shoe store from one of the school bulletin boards, my gaze fell on a glossy-haired brunette whose green eyes were fixed on me as she fingered the shoulder-strap of her push-up bra. Her scarlet lips whispered in my ear: “Want to become a dancer at Dreams, Paris’s hottest club for striptease à la française? If you’re a beginner, we provide high-quality training for free. Auditions every Saturday (by appointment). For more information or to book an appointment, call Andrea at 06 12 18 76 95. Please bring a pair of high heels, lingerie, and a robe to auditions.”

  Along with the shoe store’s address, I tucked Andrea’s number into my bag.

  5

  Philosophy’s pointless, Madame.”

  I’m setting my books down on the desk when Hadrien’s voice rises from the last row in the classroom on the left. I unbutton the right sleeve of my blouse and pick up my pen. The coursework log is empty. I look up at the thirty-three students in senior class L.

  “What year is it?”

  I know September is over, and it’s only my third week back at the high school after sick leave, but already I’m having trouble remembering the date and even the year. Something is blurring my perception of time, like a thick sheet of bubble-wrap separating me from the world.

  “It’s 2005, Madame.”

  Hadrien has a teasing smile on his face. He’s the brightest and the most inconsistent student I’ve ever had. A young man of seventeen, stagnating in that part of life Kierkegaard called the “aesthetic stage, living only in the present and, consequently, doomed to despair.” Hadrien can recite passages from Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil from memory, like an actor playing to his audience, and sometimes he relieves the boredom of hours spent in the classroom by trying to control the tone of the burps he emits in the direction of the window. Exuberance clings to him like a second skin. Exhaustion, too.

  I’ve enjoyed watching him ever since he became my student. He’s become my distraction here at school. I imagine him losing his youth somewhere in a beer glass and rediscovering it on the football field, launching himself wildly at the goal. He’s a good attacking midfielder, according to my colleague in Phys Ed. The class responds to his charisma, but Hadrien isn’t a leader. Just a boy with talents to be used for good or evil. I often notice him squirming in his seat, gazing absently at his notebook with its torn-out pages, the end of his pen chewed like a piece of
gum.

  “Philosophy’s pointless, Madame.”

  “Very good, Hadrien; you’ve been studying. I’m honored, and I don’t mean that sarcastically.”

  The other students, surprised at first, come noisily to life, tossing questions at me like rocks, about the usefulness of any of it: the bac, the student councils, the nicotine and suffering. I decide not to try to control the barrage of questions and write the date in the coursework log. My eyes stray toward the door. What if I just walked out? The students aren’t even looking at me, too absorbed in their desire to do nothing. I wonder if I exist.

  “Philosophy’s such a headache . . .”

  “This stuff doesn’t accomplish anything . . .”

  “Madame? Madame, my stomach hurts. Can I go and see the nurse?”

  “Philosophers are nutjobs . . .”

  “Can I go to the bathroom, Madame? I’ve gotta piss!”

  “We’re never going to earn a living from philosophy . . .”

  I start trying to shout them down.

  Is it even possible to shout louder than them?

  It’s ten o’clock in the morning, and I’m already wiped out. My eyes are prickling, and I’m sure I’m going to cry.

  “Cut it out, you assholes, you’re pissing her off!”

  Silence falls at the sound of Hadrien’s voice. A wave of excited tittering sweeps the room. They’ll listen to me for at least fifteen minutes now; better rise to the occasion, swallow my tears and tell them about Diogenes, the madman who lived naked in a barrel and walked around barking like a dog, urinating and masturbating in public. The body—that gets their attention, especially the naked part. I seize the opportunity to introduce the discourse on the quest for virtue. Starting out with something concrete is always a good way to ease into a subject, it’s their personal philosophy. They aren’t wrong, really.