The Driving Force. Michel Tremblay

make perfume last forever … but sooner or later, the bottle’s empty and you’re stuck smelling your own smell! And in my profession, kid, you’re better off not smelling natural, better to smell like flowers, a bouquet of roses, like a whole rose garden! A travelling salesman is more than a bee flying from flower to flower, he’s a bee that brings flowers to flowers.” And you’d douse yourself with the stuff. You put it on your handkerchiefs, your shirt collars and cuffs … Behind your back, Ma always said you used so much of it, when you came out of the bathroom, sometimes the air was so thick you could cut it with a knife. And she was almost right! I’m telling you, we could smell you coming from way off. In your car, in the winter, we’d suffocate, it smelled so strong. Sometimes I’d walk by your bedroom and say to myself, “I guess he’s back,” because I could smell you. But most of the time, it was just a faint whiff, a trace Ma hadn’t managed to get rid of, a smell that wouldn’t go away … A couple of times I heard her say, on the phone, “Alex smells like a funeral parlour! And it’s our own fault.” And … this afternoon … that’s what I was looking for. That smell. I can’t remember it. At all. I couldn’t tell you what it smelled like, I just remember it smelled strong. What does a real lotus flower smell like? Maybe I could’ve gone to a florist’s, but I don’t know if they sell them. This time of the year, or any time. And I wanted to see if what they say about our sense of smell is true, not with real flowers but with my memory of Lotus by Yardley. Not the real smell, I forgot that ages ago, but … Maybe opening the bottle, just now, after shaving you, things would’ve come back to me all of a sudden ...

      He comes back to his father’s wheelchair and crouches down beside him.

      Because I want you to know that I stopped hating you recently. And I was hoping that Lotus by Yardley would jump-start my motor again. Because I feel numb when I’m with you now. I don’t feel a thing when I look at you, and I miss those first times when we were in the tub together and I wanted to drown you. I’m getting close to forgiving you, and that makes my head spin. Because I don’t want to. Because that’s the last thing I want. Not as long as you’re still alive!

      He moves away from his father.

      When Mariette came to set you up here, I hadn’t seen either one of you for ages. I hadn’t even been in touch with you for a long time. I’d decided to forget I ever had a father, and as for my sister, she’s such an incurable nighthawk, I never know when to call her … Listen to me … as if that were any reason to lose touch with your sister … It sounds like one of our old family myths … the incident is true, but there’s so much icing on it, no way you can find the truth. I didn’t see the two of you anymore because I didn’t feel like seeing you, period! The last time I saw you was at Ma’s funeral. And I said to myself, “Never again! Never!” You dared go to her funeral, acting like a grief-stricken widower, after spending your life practically laughing in her face, after cheating on her, humiliating her, treating her like your servant who kept your slippers warm while the master went out to play! They made us sit together on the same bench in the church, even though I didn’t want to—I was sitting on your left, and Mariette on your right. When you started crying, heaving your shoulders, I thought you were laughing, that you’d finally let the cat out of the bag, that you were unable to hide your relief at being free, at last, after all those years in the prison your family had represented to you … But no, you were crying, you were sobbing like a loving husband. You kept it up for the whole ceremony. You were still mocking her in her coffin. Shameless, sure you’d never be punished, sure you’d come out on top as usual! Even the relatives who never liked you were touched. Poor Alex has lost his Madeleine, he loved her so much. I felt like standing up and exposing you right there in the middle of the church. But it wasn’t the right time or place, it was the funeral of the most important person in my life, so I decided to spare you. But I also decided I’d never lay eyes on you again. And I kept my word. Anyway, I admit it was a shock when I saw you again after all those years. Mariette had warned me, but … nothing can prepare you for this kind of thing. You tell yourself: it won’t be that bad, I’ll get through it. I wanted to visit you while you were still conscious. Just in case. In case, something might happen. But what happened wasn’t what I expected … You were already suffering from aphasia. Not only had I never seen someone suffering from aphasia, but it was happening to my father who’d spent his life holding forth, delivering his endless speeches, drowning us, and the truth, in a flow of words, a dense logorrhoea fuelled by alcohol and the desire to trick people, to get his own way. You could hardly manage to say a few words, you had to concentrate, we could see in your eyes how hard it was, and then, instead of the word, “hello,” for instance, you’d come out with the word “helper” or the word “jello” … When I came into this room, you were expecting me, Mariette told you I was coming. You stood up beside your bed, you looked me straight in the eye, you concentrated, I could feel the muscles around your mouth straining, and you said, “Jello!” It was pathetic, it was devastating, I felt like I’d been hit with a ton of bricks, for sure, but at the same time … At the same time, I couldn’t help but think it was a strange twist of fate, almost poetic justice, that the great sweet-talker, the big gabber, the king of eloquence couldn’t even find the words to say hello! I spent, I don’t know how long, maybe two hours, with you that day. And you didn’t manage to say ten sentences. I could read the humiliation on your face because you still had periods when you were completely conscious, totally aware, and you were mortified to have me see you in that state … I told you to talk with your hands, that I realized you were having trouble pronouncing words, and that only made you feel more embarrassed. Then, at a certain point, during a silence that lasted too long, I could see in your eyes that you thought I was happy to see you like that, and that I was staying here so I could enjoy your humiliation, as if the thought that crossed my mind when I arrived had stayed with me, and I wasn’t leaving because I was happy you were aphasic. And you know what? I found that so outrageous, I didn’t even bother to contradict you, or to defend myself. I thought, “If he’s dumb enough to think that, let him think it.” But maybe I was kidding myself? What do you think? Were you the one who was right, in the end? Did you see something in me that I’d censored the minute I thought it, because I found it too ugly? Were those first two hours the nightmare I remember today, or have I just buried the pleasure I felt under the layer of pain, the layer of sadness a good son is supposed to feel under the circumstances? We’ll never know, will we? Because it’s too late for you—and I’d never dare face something like that. Even if I find myself doing things I never would’ve imagined I could do since I started coming here regularly. Some nice things people might say are due to a natural generosity, and other things … like what’s going on right now, and every time I come to visit … talking like this, rattling on to a dying man who’s lost his mind, paying him back, day after day, for his pointless speeches, with more pointless speeches, talk, talk, talking, till I drop, to an inert body, with no hope of remission, on your side or mine, because one of the two parties has withdrawn permanently. I’m exhausted when I leave here, my throat is raw, my nerves are shot, because I dare say out loud things I’d never dare write in my plays because I’d find them either too melodramatic, or too dull! I write crazy, badly constructed, wildly lyrical plays for you, three afternoons a week, and you can’t even appreciate them or dismiss them with a wave of your hand and a sarcastic grin, the way you did with everything I’ve ever written. I make you listen to talk you would’ve hated, but in the final analysis, I’m punishing myself because I know you’re in no state to accept it or reject it. But, at the same time, it’s become my new motor! My punishment has become my driving force! Instead of talking to you in my head, the way I did for most of my life, I can do it for real now, even if I know that I’ll never be able to convince you of anything! I’ll never convince you that I’m talented or that what I write is any good! All my life I’ve tried to avoid writing to please the critics or the experts, I’ve just focussed on the play I had to write, concentrated on what I thought I had to say, and refused to think about what so-and-so might say about this sentence or that speech … but all along I knew I was kidding myself, that there was always one person I wanted to please, one person I needed to convince, like when I wrote my very first play … You committed the most violent act I’ve ever seen anyone commit— you destroyed the only manuscript of an author’s first play. You burned my first play, page by page, with your lighter, with no scruples, no regrets, with the clear conscience of a man