The new hair growing back is not so blonde. It’s now light brown, which seems to cause my parents great consternation. Whenever my father mentions Blandina he makes much of her luminous hair and glances disapprovingly at my head. Initiated women are very fair. As a child, my mother had hair so fair it was almost white, and I get the feeling that was why my father chose her as my future mother. I was extremely blonde too, but none of that matters now.
When my hair grows back I slash aggressively at the locks that fall over my face, so that they now look like a sort of demented staircase. I cut randomly into their thick mass, leaving gaps on the side or the top. I almost take pleasure in disfiguring myself. As for my eyebrows, which darkened long ago, I rip them out with a small pair of pliers that I steal from the cellar and hide under a carpet bar on the second floor. My eyes now look like an owl’s. As ugly goes, you can’t get uglier. My father doesn’t seem to notice anything. My mother, on the other hand, is triumphant: this is proof that I’m crazy!
Once again my father tells me to go and help Raymond. I go down into the tool cellar and he appears right behind me. I’m trapped. A piece of me dies every time. All at once I hear the door to the other part of the cellar open. Raymond is panting like a dog and doesn’t hear a thing. At last something is going to happen to bring an end to this nightmare! I recognize my mother’s footsteps. I’m saved: she will finally know what I’m going through. And it will all be over for him. Here she is…She sees me, our eyes meet, and…she looks away. She seems to abandon her plan to do whatever she came down here for, and walks away.
Only a few seconds have elapsed since I heard that door open. I fall into the very depths of despair. She can’t have failed to notice Raymond pressed up behind me with his arm clasping my waist. She must have seen my distress…Am I so evil, then, that I don’t even deserve a little help?
Winter is coming. My father is still just as afraid of snipers, and is adamant about lowering the mechanical shutters on all the windows overlooking the street before switching on any lights in the evening. For some time now I’ve been responsible for turning the stiff old crank handles to do this. He sometimes watches anxiously while I grind them around and around. Then one day he decrees, ‘From now until the spring we’ll keep the shutters closed.’ My heart sinks at the thought of spending the winter in these icy rooms that will now be plunged in darkness.
My mind endlessly replays that look we exchanged in the cellar. She saw me, and she looked away…Did she see me? How could she walk away and leave me in the clutches of that filthy vampire? Or did I dream it?
In the mornings we attend to my father’s wake-up routine in the dismal half-light. I’m afraid I’ll drop the smooth bowl containing his urine. I’m filled with disgust for him, for myself, for this house and the whole world. When I go to empty the pot in the toilet I sometimes feel so sick that I walk too quickly and spill some on my feet. I stand there horrified. I don’t have another pair of pants or shoes to change into. My clothes will reek of this hideous smell; it will cling to my skin and brand me forever. I feel sick all the time now.
It’s still only September but the temperature is already dropping. I still have to do my thirty minutes of swimming three times a week until October. I dive into the black water as if throwing myself into an abyss. It will be cold forever. Sometimes I think all it would take is to stay underwater and stop breathing…
The days go by, dull and grey. My innate joy has ebbed away once and for all. Whatever I do, tomorrow will be the same, or worse. Only my reading allows me to escape, but the moment I close a book, my oppressive life grabs me by the throat again. When I read Victor Hugo’s Ruy Blas I feel I’m being killed by the poison he takes. And I die alongside Romeo when he drains the fatal vial. I want to get out of here, and dying would be one way to escape. But how to go about poisoning myself? Where can I find a vial of deadly potion?
For want of poison, I fall back on Aspro, the only medicine in the house. The stock is kept in a drawer in the guest bedroom. I manage to get in there one day on my way back down from the schoolroom, and happen to grab an almost full box. I’ve made up my mind: today is the day.
Instead of reading, I take the tablets one by one, using the water sparingly. I go to bed and picture my parents finding me comatose, calling for help and taking me to the hospital. They’re worried, they take care of me, I’m saved and tomorrow isn’t anything like today. But another image immediately overwhelms my mind: my parents are furious, they leave me to suffer, I’m in agony for what seems an eternity. In the end I recover without any intervention, and my teachings become even tougher! No, tomorrow won’t be like today, it will be even worse. I get back up and hide the pink packaging under the carpet: if they don’t know what I’ve taken, I’ll have a better chance of dying.
I expect to slip gently into oblivion, but my mind starts to fight, as it does in my ‘alcohol and will’ training. One part of me is ready to let go but the other part braces itself as it considers the consequences: what if Linda stays locked up, what if no one ever lets her out again and she dies having lost her mind? Who will feed Bibiche and her kittens? All night I flit between nightmares, some sleeping some waking. At 6 a.m. I open my eyes. I’m still here, the day is starting again, the same as ever. I feel a little weird, and think maybe that means I’ll die later. But evening comes, and I collapse exhausted. Can’t even die properly.
____________
1 Have you seen Zozo’s new hat? This is the first line from the Maurice Chevalier song, ‘Le Chapeau de Zozo’.
Nietzsche
When my correspondence courses contradict my father’s teaching, my mother ‘sets the record straight’. For example, the history manual describes Vercingetorix as a brave warrior and a talented military leader who stood up to the Roman legions. But my mother announces flatly: ‘In reality he was just a prize idiot.’ If I point out that in my manual Joan of Arc dies at the stake, when my father says she was saved by the Knights Templar, she says, ‘Don’t waste time on that. Anyway, it doesn’t make any difference now.’
Despite the tight restrictions on my reading, my mind is filling with ideas, some of which my father would find unacceptable. ‘You mustn’t behave like sheep do,’ he says emphatically, ‘and believe things just because you’ve been told them.’ On the other hand, I have to accept blindly everything he teaches me, starting with his religious ideas: ‘Let’s take God and the devil, whom most people consider to be opposites: they are in fact one and the same thing because they are both emanations of the Great Architect of the Universe.’ The notion of a ‘benevolent God’ was engineered by the Church to ‘tame people’s minds’, he tells me. Meanwhile, the notion of the devil was deliberately ‘diabolized’ to repress creativity. For example, the Inquisition used this concept to persecute great thinkers who were looking for different answers to the fundamental questions. By doing this, it set back humanity’s progress.
The world is actually the work of the Great Architect of the Universe. Lucifer, who emanates from him, was the master of light, but he strayed from his path. You have to be wary of what people say about Lucifer. Only the Great Initiates can recognize his hand in certain acts, such as the temptation to turn energies the wrong way.
As for Jesus, he certainly did exist: he was a good man, an Initiate, but not the son of God. Idiot men put him on a cross, but I mustn’t take all those stories about crucifixion at face value. My father explains at length that if you put an eighty-kilo man on a cross with a couple of nails throu
gh the palms of his hands, his hands would tear and he would fall flat on his face. It couldn’t have happened like that. In fact, Jesus ended up tied to his cross with rope. Similarly, Mary was a good woman, but she was definitely no virgin! As sheep are incapable of grasping the significance of a profound message, the Church gives them sensationalism; it’s all they’re interested in.
And as for Adam and Eve, the angels and the saints—with the exception of a rare few Initiates such as Blandina—they’re mostly stories to keep foolish minds occupied. You need only look at Lourdes, ‘a perfect example of a sanctuary for stupidity, built to rob suckers of their money and line the Church’s pockets…’
That said, there are some good things about the Church. Let’s take cathedrals. They were built on ‘energy sites’, by builders who inherited ancient traditions that go back to the architect Hiram of Tyre, who built the perfect temple in Jerusalem to welcome the Queen of Sheba. As his present-day reincarnation, my father knows what he’s talking about. Long ago, cathedrals were initiation sites. If the Initiated proved unworthy of their teaching, stones could come tumbling down upon them. Cathedrals were also sacred places where the poor and unfortunate could shelter from the injustices of the world.
But the problem with the Church is that it cannot tolerate the existence of Initiates independent of its power. Look at the history of the Cathars, true Bringers of Light who were exterminated by the moronic Catholics. As Initiates, the Cathars can be reincarnated. From one life to the next they perfect themselves and accumulate valuable learning. The Church was obviously afraid of their power, but it did not succeed in eradicating them. Their order survived by going into hiding.
The same goes for the order of Templars. They are all superhumans. Their whole organization is based on secrecy, which is why they have not in fact been eliminated as history books claim. They have simply gone into hiding, and they still exist and operate discreetly. My father himself is proof of that. If I follow his teaching diligently, I too will become a Templar and will gain access to the secrets of the universe.
When my father talks about these Beings of Light, he insists I keep my eyes fixed on his, not even blinking. Deep inside me, an alarm goes off, and I secretly resist what he’s saying. But a part of me can’t help listening to these strange and wonderful stories. Like the story of Noah, a truly great Initiate whom the Bible misrepresents. Noah was in fact a clairvoyant who could recognize Beings of Light, both human and animal. He brought them together in the Ark, knowing that all creation was going to be abolished because it had been corrupted by the insatiable pursuit of material wealth. Noah sacrificed himself: like my father, he withdrew from the world to watch over his protégés, so that life on earth could start over after the flood.
Deep down I’m fascinated by Noah. I’m fascinated by Isis, the widow of Osiris and mother of all Freemasons. I’m sometimes summoned to the billiard room to learn about Hermes Trismegistus. ‘Hermes Three-Times-Great,’ my father calls him. A little voice inside me thinks cynically, ‘There’s the number three again.’ But I’m actually dazzled by the large book he has open in front of me. At the bottom of the title page I see: ‘Didier & Co., booksellers and publishers.’ So my father wrote this magnificent book! I have to read a number of rather obscure passages, and stroke particular pages, making a circular clockwise movement three times (there it is again!). His deep voice gets right inside my head, telling me that in this book are the keys to true wisdom. To great alchemy. To understanding the universe. The knowledge held in these pages will pass into my brain. I must receive it; I must open my mind.
I leave these sessions disturbed and anxious. Then my father makes me recite the secret codes that will help me recognize Masons later in life: if I hear someone say ‘It’s raining,’ I have to reply, ‘I can’t read or write, I can only spell, give me the first letter and I’ll give you the second.’ If someone shakes my hand in a particular way, I have to say, ‘I’m seven years old.’ I find this apprenticeship exciting: it means I’ll get out some day, and meet other people. Mostly Initiates, but they’re better than nothing.
I’m assigned to read Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil. He’s an important philosopher and my father is convinced he will ‘help me surpass myself’. I liked Thus Spoke Zarathustra, which I read when I was nine. I was astonished by the words ‘God is dead’, and enchanted by the conversations with animals. I didn’t always grasp the meaning of the sentences but enjoyed the way they sounded: ‘I love mankind’, for example. Nietzsche often writes ‘I love’. This word, which is never ever used in our house, seeps into my mind like warm honey. Even the word ‘superhuman’ doesn’t have the same hard, harsh sound to it in Zarathustra’s mouth as it does in my father’s.
I’m glad I have another book by Nietzsche to read. I tell myself I’ll understand it better this time. But I don’t at all. My father thinks I’ve grasped the meaning perfectly. He tells me the story of Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb, two young Americans fascinated by the concept of a superhuman who has such control over his emotions that he can commit the perfect crime. Leopold and Loeb wanted to prove their own superiority by killing a fourteen-year-old boy. But the crime was far from perfect, because one of them was weak. They were soon arrested and the whole world was fascinated by their trial. My father talks admiringly of Leopold, ‘a true disciple of Nietzsche’, who saw the murder as an act full of meaning that would allow him to become superhuman. On the other hand, he feels only contempt for Loeb, ‘a follower’ and therefore ‘a monster’. The proof of this is that Leopold changed and developed over the years he was in prison, and now lives free and continues to strive towards the light, whereas Loeb was killed in prison.
I don’t really understand the message. Is my father warning me against wanting to prove my superiority by committing the perfect crime? Or is he actually suggesting I should commit one? These questions torment me. When I wake with a start after dreaming yet again that my parents’ bodies are under the table in the schoolroom, I find it even harder to shake off my terror. For a few seconds, I have a horrible conviction that I’ve killed them myself…As part of my initiation…As part of becoming a superhuman.
Mathilde
My meditations on death still happen once a month. I have to remain motionless so that the dead agree to pass into me. They enter by one side, deposit their teachings and leave by the other. Being ‘pure’, I will naturally absorb only the ‘clarity’ of their teachings.
My father brings up the subject of my horrible scars again: he finds them useful; thanks to them he would recognize me anywhere. Because I’m ‘marked on both sides’, whenever he or one of the Chosen Spirits who taught him passes into me, they will know instantly who I am, and feel safe. These spirits have to be extremely vigilant and avoid passing through seemingly pure individuals, who are in fact diabolical decoys, carefully developed by ‘master hunters’. The Chosen Spirits risk being trapped inside these ‘demon’ decoys, who would then be able to siphon out all their knowledge. This would be catastrophic for the survival of the universe.
I don’t know if I prefer to know the reason why I have to be tormented in the cellar or not to know. These spirits terrify me almost as much as the rats. I don’t want masters passing through me, even Chosen ones. I feel sad for my father, who goes to great lengths to inculcate such an unworthy ‘Chosen’ subject with his precious knowledge. At the same time, I secretly resent him for thrusting me, gasping, into this sea of terror. When I fall asleep all sorts of spirits—good and evil, light and dark—seethe inside my head. I find it incredibly hard to shut out the sound of my father’s voice. In the middle of the night the wall opens softly behind my pillow. Two hands come out, clasp my head and start pulling me backwards. I fight and try to scream but no sound comes out of my mouth. I’m drawn into the wall and it closes around me—I’m walled in alive and no one knows I’m there.
This new nightmare recurs so frequently that I’m afraid of falling asleep. I try to change things by lying wi
th my head at the foot of the bed. There’s quite a lot of space between the end of the bed and the chimney. But now it’s the fireplace that opens up and the spirits’ hands emerge, reach for me and take hold of my head. They pull me towards the chimney, and slide me up inside it. I end up in a hidden cell that no one knows exists.
I can’t stand it any longer. If only I could will myself dead. If only my mind could take me far away from this place that I loathe, and take Linda with me. I need to train my mental powers, not to become master of the world, but to help us escape. I make use of my father’s exercises: I focus every ounce of my will as if compressing my brain. I close my eyes tight, imagine my scars opening up and all of me pouring out through them. I become a fluid body which flows into the kennel, carries Linda along with it…and together we wake up somewhere else.
Other times I burrow right inside myself, deeper and deeper, as if I were inside a mountain of ice. My vital functions slow. My father has told me that some prisoners managed to escape from concentration camps by doing this. They slowed their heart rate so dramatically that they were presumed dead, loaded onto carts with other corpses and thrown into a mass grave. Once there, they reheated their bodies by imagining they were over a fire. They came back to life and ran away. So I’m training myself to make my heartbeat more and more faint, but I haven’t yet worked out how to take Linda with me.