Our Life in the Forest Read online

  I’m a robot like the others.

  I’m tired of it all.

  I have to hurry.

  They must all be out digging somewhere.

  They say you have to turn the page. You often hear those words, even in the forest. In fact, some even want to drop the whole business. But before turning that page, I’d like us to read to the bottom of it. All of it, even the fine print, the footnotes and the appendices, everything. I’d like to be certain, if one day someone finds this notebook in the forest, buried in the tin, perhaps with my bones, I’d like to be certain that, before it’s destroyed, or, I don’t know, they say I made it all up, or they make fun of it, anyway, I’d like to be certain that it’s read to the end. That’s all.*

  I have no idea how I’m managing to write. How I managed to get to this point.

  Perhaps we’re only digging to escape from any more organ removals, and not in order to save the world.

  Sometimes I imagine myself in the tin. I see myself, in the tin, all squashed up, still alive, I have no idea how, still writing, all contorted and no longer even managing to read what I’m writing.

  Safe place, my arse.

  I remember our bodies used to function like computer mice. Perhaps I’m still moving my hand, my arm, a tiny bit and it’s still writing, almost without me. Ha!

  And if my bones are found with my writing, if I’m still here, mummified or whatever, with my skull empty and the electrical box lying at the bottom, durable and still beeping, still sending those damn electrical impulses into oblivion, in the tin, in the forest or what will be left of it, in the smoking debris of the burnt-out forest, the electrical box fallen into the hollow of my cranium and still issuing orders and imposing thoughts which, had they reached my consciousness distinctly, would have appalled me, I would like you, please, to read this as a prayer, I would like you to consider my poor bones, my poor dry cellular tissues, to consider them with the tenderness that elephants reserve for their dead. Apparently, in the past, when there were elephants, wild elephants or almost wild, when you could still see elephants living in nature, apparently they would come to a stop in their slow and thoughtful walking. Apparently they stopped when they found bones of other elephants. They contemplated the long, empty ribs over the missing heart, the enormous skull over the lost thoughts, the long tusks (if they hadn’t been poached), the spinal column that was as long and sturdy as a railway line. They stopped and, with their flexible trunks, they clasped the blanched bits of bone and lifted them up, and they held them gently, in the air they were breathing, for those who were no longer breathing. And they set off again, heavy and pensive, contemplating the world with their sad little eyes, for those who no longer saw it. If you find these bones in this tin, I would like you, please, to think for a few seconds about the woman who once breathed here.

  I’m in the forest and I can no longer breathe. I can no longer see very well. I can no longer make sense of anything at all. I can no longer see the trees, because I’m probably being kept inside the tunnels. I’m cold.

  It feels like I’m alone now.

  * * *

  * I also forgot to say, or I’ve barely touched on it, so I’ll quickly add a footnote—that’ll teach me not to write an outline—that we didn’t really have much of a clue about what to call ourselves. I mean, us, the visitors to the Centre, the awake ones, the mobile ones. ‘The awake halves’ sounds nice enough, but when we nodded off at their bedside, holding their hand or whatever, the only difference between them and us was the chair and the bed: one collapsed on the chair, the other lying down in her white cloud.

  * For the sake of caution, I can’t tell the whole story here. You should simply be aware that these two items were used as offensive weapons—thanks to me, I’m telling it like it was—in our grand escape plan for the halves.

  * I’ve no longer got time to check if this is the correct word.

  * I helped him, thanks to the two weapons hidden at Romero’s place.

  * Variation on a quotation from the Russian writer Alexey Rybnikov.

  * I’m not trying to justify myself about anything, but I’d like to point out again that if I didn’t take an active part in this operation, I provided logistical support, as well weapons (two).

  * And don’t go thinking that I’m not certain I’m not a non-person.

  MARIE DARRIEUSSECQ was born in Bayonne in 1969. She has written more than twenty books. In 2013 she was awarded the Prix Médicis and the Prix des Prix. She lives in Paris.

  mariedarrieussecq.com

  PENNY HUESTON has translated three earlier books by Marie Darrieussecq—All the Way, Men and Being Here: The Life of Paula Modersohn-Becker.

  PRAISE FOR OUR LIFE IN THE FOREST

  Selected for the PRIX DU ROMAN FNAC

  Selected for the PRIX LITTÉRAIRE DU MONDE

  ‘The reader will be captivated by Darrieussecq’s hypnotic style.’ Le Monde

  ‘The title could be “Our Life in the Future”, but reducing this book to a dystopian tale is doing it a disservice…A journal from beyond the grave, as time runs out…And a profound novel about loneliness.’ Libération

  ‘In this exceptional novel, the author of Pig Tales describes a world in the future where surveillance is omnipresent and clones rule…’ L’Observateur

  ‘Marie Darrieussecq is a writer of the body: the human and animal body, the body in metamorphosis, the absent or foreign body, the sexually aroused body, the grieving body…and now android and robotic bodies…She returns to her favourite literary subjects: the extremes of experience; that which is strange, monstrous; the relation between creator and creation.’ Lire

  ‘Once again, Darrieussecq gives us a passionate investigation into the deficiencies, transformations and lapses in our humanity… A little like Ray Bradbury in Fahrenheit 451, she shows how literature is our best means to disrupt functionality.’ Focus Vif

  ‘A disturbing dystopian tale in which tragedy and irony work together…Ingeniously and brilliantly, Marie Darrieussecq’s sparkling tale adds to the classics of futuristic fiction. Even more profound than the social and political resonance of this novel is the theme of loneliness.’ Télérama

  ‘Reading Marie Darrieussecq is a true delight for the soul.’ Ouest-France

  ‘In this brilliantly executed dystopia, Marie Darrieussecq writes with rare skill about the concerns of our time—the senseless destruction of the planet and transhumanist madness. Outstanding.’ Le Matin Dimanche

  ‘There is one surprise after another in this moving novel. In gripping, spellbinding prose, Marie Darrieussecq prepares the way into the future with passion and lucidity.’ Madame Figaro

  ‘Who would have thought Marie Darrieussecq would write a thriller? This brief, feminist and political novel is perhaps her most inventive…With wit and elegance, the author takes us into a narrative full of tension, and with the same humour as in Pig Tales. Once again, she creates an absurd world, and denounces the failings of our society.’ Les Inrockuptibles

  PRAISE FOR MARIE DARRIEUSSECQ

  ‘Marie Darrieussecq reads the testament of Modersohn-Becker—the letters, the diaries, and above all the paintings—with a burning intelligence and a fierce hold on what it meant and means to be a woman and an artist.’ J. M. Coetzee on Being Here

  ‘Being Here is a luminous tale about the courage of the lone female artist.’ Joan London

  ‘I love the way Marie Darrieussecq writes about the world as if it were an extension of herself and her feelings.’ J. M. G. Le Clézio, Nobel Laureate in Literature, 2008

  ‘Her gifts are dazzling.’ Observer

  ‘Preoccupied with what is both strange yet familiar, this clever novel, All the Way, is both personal and universal—and without the slightest trace of sentimentality.’ Libération

  ‘From Los Angeles to Cameroon, via Paris, Marie Darrieussecq’s novel Men is constantly on the edge of the fictional and the documentary. Romantic and creative passions merge with political and ethical vis
ions…The character of Solange is the embodiment of a desire to grasp everything, in the intensity of the moment—and the same spirit animates Marie Darrieussecq’s writing.’ Le Magazine Littéraire

  ‘The issue of otherness is crucial, as is that of the couple. Are the characters a couple, or are they just the sum of one another? This novel, Men, and its romance is a surprise from Marie Darrieussecq, but she proves herself to be, as ever, a socially aware writer.’ Paris Match

  ‘There are few writers who may have changed my perception of the world, but Darrieussecq is one of them.’ The Times

  ‘This internationally celebrated author illuminates those parts of life other writers cannot or do not want to reach.’ Independent

  textpublishing.com.au

  The Text Publishing Company

  Swann House

  22 William Street

  Melbourne Victoria 3000

  Australia

  Copyright © 2017 P.O.L Éditeur

  English translation copyright © 2018 Penny Hueston

  The moral right of Marie Darrieussecq to be identified as the author and Penny Hueston as the translator of this work has been asserted.

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright above, no part of this publication shall be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book.

  Originally published in France as Notre vie dans les forêts by P.O.L Éditeur in 2017.

  This edition published by The Text Publishing Company in 2018.

  Book design by Jessica Horrocks

  Cover images by iStock

  Typeset by J&M Typesetting

  ISBN: 9781925603781 (paperback)

  ISBN: 9781925626766 (ebook)

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the National Library of Australia