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Geography of an Adultery: A Novel - Softcover

Riva, Agnès

 
9781590511107: Geography of an Adultery: A Novel
Softcover
ISBN 10: 1590511107 ISBN 13: 9781590511107
Verlag: Other Press, 2022

Inhaltsangabe

Dissecting a midlife affair, this perceptive, slyly comical debut explores how the spaces that limit our movements can be more exciting than the person we think we want.

Ema and Paul are lovers. Like so many others before them, they met through work. Both are married with children, and they arrange hurried meetings away from prying eyes. Paul’s car, a corner of Ema’s house, a hotel room…But their relationship soon suffers from this too-restricted sphere, and Ema decides to put them both in danger, at the risk of losing everything.
 
Cleverly attaching itself to the locations where passion plays out—whether domestic or professional, safe or transgressive—Geography of an Adultery casts a radical eye on anticipation and desire. With her deceptively cool, clinically precise style, Agnès Riva unravels the inner workings of a private life.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Agnès Riva lives in the suburbs of Paris, where she draws inspiration from its urban landscape. She is the author of the short story “New Life,” which was published in the anniversary issue of the New French Review. Her debut novel, Geography of an Adultery, was a finalist for the Goncourt First Novel Prize and RTL-Lire Grand Prix.

John Cullen (1942–2021) is the translator of many books from Spanish, French, German, and Italian, including Siegfried Lenz’s The Turncoat, Juli Zeh’s Empty Hearts, Patrick Modiano’s Villa Triste, Kamel Daoud’s The Meursault Investigation, and Philippe Claudel’s Brodeck.

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the interior of paul’s car  
 
The interior of Paul’s car is a space rather limited in volume and distributed with a certain stringency. The design of the four ergonomic seats is so precise that squeezing a fifth person into the back would be practically impossible. The front seats are separated by a short armrest half their height; it contains no storage console and provides no place to put such small objects as sunglasses or CDs.
With its leather seats, aluminum door sills, and stainless steel pedals, the vehicle’s passenger compartment expresses its owner’s intention: to possess a car that offers all available comfort and luxury, but in miniature, and for the price of an entry-level model. Paul’s smell pervades the space, assailing Ema every time she gets in the car. It’s a very woody fragrance that mingles the man’s usual cologne with his perspiration, though in more concentrated form.
After their separation, Paul will occasionally pull up next to her on the street, stop, and lower his window to say something. When he does so, inhaling that smell will suffice to unsteady the young woman for a moment, to give her the sensation of being sucked into that cockpit once again.
 
Almost from the start, Paul very clearly spelled out his view of their relationship. He invoked his shortage of time and his difficulties with personal availability, all owing to his family obligations. “We’ll see each other at social gatherings, but face-to-face meetings, just the two of us—those won’t happen very often.” Having already had some experience in this sort of liaison, he also warned Ema about how painful it can be for one partner to try to envision the other’s world, over which he or she has no sort of control. “Spare yourself. Don’t make comparisons, don’t compile a list of all the things we can’t do. Otherwise, you’ll run into a wall.”
Ema made a show of understanding, although she secretly hoped she could cause Paul’s thinking to evolve. She imagined being able to spend time with him far from home and their everyday lives, but since no getaway was currently feasible, she put up with brief encounters in restricted spaces, such as the interior of his car.
 
The car’s internal trim reflects the man. The elegance of the decorative chrome elements, the leather steering wheel cover, the hand-brake handle, and the gearshift evoke Paul’s sporty driving style. The maneuvers he makes are decisive but abrupt. No time is to be lost, no space to be wasted, and that’s why he’s chosen a compact, easy-to-drive car. Once she’s settled in her seat, Ema always feels embarked, propelled forward, with no choice but to follow the motion.

There’s something about Paul’s sudden decisions (to make a detour before dropping her off, to commandeer her for a simple errand in a neighboring town) that Ema finds ravishing, as if the car has a magical power to transport her to an as-yet-indistinct elsewhere. At such times, Ema is overwhelmed by a feeling of confidence and absolute freedom.
“Suppose we take a trip somewhere, right now, just like that?” This is what Paul seems to be on the verge of suggesting whenever his car starts to pick up a bit of speed.
However, despite promising beginnings, these flights never lead anywhere, and sooner or later, the certainty of their pointlessness ends up depressing Ema. As for Paul, he doesn’t seem to share her disappointment, contenting himself with the pleasure of rolling along in silence. Slightly irritated by what she considers his detachment, the young woman reacts by taking hold of the upper assist handle and trying to appear composed.
 
Paul is all the more at ease in his car because it serves as his second home. An expert in buildings and public works, he spends a great deal of time on the road, on business trips that have the added utility of allowing him to catch his breath.
If her lover knows she’s home alone, he’ll call her from his car, sometimes late in the afternoon, while driving from his swimming club to his residence. At such moments, the man sounds more relaxed than usual, having provisionally conquered an obstacle course or, more modestly, returned his focus to himself through his athletic exertions, as if he were never really available except when in motion, when leaving one point and on his way to another.
A perfect extension of his personality, the interior of his car is organized in such a way that everything is close at hand: his sunglasses, which he extracts from the glove box with a swift gesture, leaning slightly toward Ema; the seat belt comfort clip; the climate control, always running full-strength to maintain an indecently high temperature; the jacket he wears at work sites and keeps on the back seat; the safety boots in the trunk; and the short armrest, which allows his hand to pass easily back and forth between the gearshift and the young woman’s knee, provoking discomfort in Ema, as if this automatic gesture shows that she too has been consigned to the domain of handy accessories.
It was to give Ema a ride home from the labor court where they both work that Paul first welcomed her into this very personal space of his. It allowed them to become acquainted.
 
One day, when Paul had stopped the car and a few moments of silence ensued, Ema seized the opportunity to declare her feelings to him. He’d just informed her that he’d lost his mother. It wasn’t the first time she’d heard him speak affectionately about the brave, upright woman who raised him and his brothers and sisters on her own. Now, as Ema listened to his grief, it seemed to her that it was her own mother who had died yesterday. A barrier inside her gave way, and she felt a sudden urge to take Paul’s hand and commune with him. They had been confiding in each other for weeks, but their relationship had not yet dared to speak its name. Ema was tired of her womanish procrastinating; she felt in herself the impatience of a man. She wanted Paul to talk to her about something else. She wanted him to talk to her about love.
“You need to know that I have feelings for you,” she finally said. “And if you can’t say the same, then I think it would be preferable for us both to take a step back.”
“It’s a good thing you spoke first, because I feel it too, I feel the same attraction, and I didn’t know how to admit it,” Paul had replied.
Clearly quite disturbed, he had sat silently for a while before he spoke again, and a powerful sensation of vertigo had seized Ema; she felt like someone standing on the edge of a cliff, uncertain whether she’s going to fall.
Since that first time, when she dared to put some words in a blank space, the inside of the automobile has become an environment favorable to intimate effusions.
 
The sound of the car doors closing them in brings their first relief, the satisfaction of finally being at some distance from the outside world. The atmosphere changes instantaneously, as if the banging of the doors were a signal.
Nevertheless, Paul doesn’t drop his guard; he stays on the alert, inspecting the street and the pedestrians through the windows. “Our relationship must be absolutely clandestine,” he often repeats to Ema, his tone a little stern, perhaps briefly congratulating himself on the young woman’s reasonableness, a character trait he’s taken for granted ever since they first started seeing each other.
Most of the time, they park the car in town, not far from the labor court but always in an isolated spot. If they find they must settle for a place on the same street as...

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Verlag
Other Press
Erscheinungsdatum
2022
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
1590511107
ISBN 13 
9781590511107
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
160
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