In French Indochina of the 1930s a French girl aged 15 and a half is sexually attracted to a Chinese 12 years older than her. The relationship is doomed to fail, especially “dans un milieu qui me portait très fort à la pudeur” (page 14). Now, at 70, she recalls: “A dix-huit ans j’ai vieilli”, “ce vieillissement a été brutal” (p 10). She confesses: “J’ai un visage détruit” (p 10). What is the purpose of revisiting painful moments that had better be forgotten? It may be to better understand what went wrong. She has written about her mother in other books but not about the hatred she had for her. And then, there are moments from the past that still escape “à tout mon entendement, qui m’est encore inaccessible, cachée au plus profond de ma chair” (p 34). Bitter memories are there in the subconscious but they are scattered. She needs to find a pattern in order to gain a clearer, logical perspective. Why did things happen the way they did? An attempt at reliving the past can help from the therapeutic point of view.
Home?
She came from an unstable family. The mother was a depressive widow, the elder brother was tyrannical, and the younger brother was helpless and scared to death. They were poor. Right from age 10, things were not working out – no celebrations, no Xmas tree, no flowers, mother was always aloof. She was a teacher. She could place no hope on the sons but the girl might one day know how to bring money home. That is why she never objected to the girl’s extravagant dresses, “tenue d’enfant prostituée” (p 33). The brothers have never played together or exchanged conversations. The mother is closer in her affections to the elder brother although she knows he is stealing money to gamble or to take drugs.
In her view, the elder is more intelligent and believes that he loves her the most. Thus, the others are made to feel inferior and stupid. The girl is sent to Saigon to study in a boarding school. She is completely alone. One day as she is waiting for the ferry, she notices a man keenly watching her from a posh car. The attraction is immediate and mutual. There follows a torrid clandestine affair. They know nothing will last: she is of French origin, pubescent, he is Chinese and older in age.
What makes such a young girl go for sex just a few days after the acquaintance? It is not so simple as that but the author emphasizes the girl’s frustrations with her family and her fears of the elder brother’s terrifying behaviour. It may also be to overcome her crushing loneliness, to forget her constant worries or to make the most of her liberty, to escape boredom or to look for human warmth. It could be curiosity or the realization that someone in this world does care for her after all. It could be the sudden opportunity of a better life as opposed to the oppressive one at home. Financial security could yet be another factor.
Tyranny
On one occasion they all meet in a restaurant. The lover will be treated as if he did not exist. They hungrily eat the food he will pay for but conversation is non-existent. The elder brother is cold, indifferent. Intimidated by his unbecoming attitude, the girl feels the lover is nothing to her: “il devient un endroit brûlé” (p 66), “mon désir obéit à mon frère aîné, il rejette mon amant” (p 66). The lover becomes like a shame that needs to be hidden. The author now thinks she can perceive his exasperation and pain at being rejected.
After this, they go for a drink, and again, the brothers “ne lui parlent toujours pas” (p 67). The girl resents the brother’s “attrait maléfique qu’il exerce sur nous” (p 68). She is at a loss to understand his cruelty. The author reveals that “je peux être charmante même je suis hantée par la mise à mort de mon frère” (p 26). He is the mother’s favourite. Inside herself the girl revolts at the unfairness and “je voulais tuer, mon frère aîné, je voulais le tuer, arriver à avoir raison de lui une fois, une seule fois et le voir mourir” (p 13). One admirable feature of this book is we see the inner lives of characters. The author lets us see their inner thoughts and feelings and this holds our attention.
At the restaurant when the lover is humiliated, he weeps. He asks where he went wrong. The girl tells him not to worry: the family situation has always been like this. At home, in folly, the mother shuts the girl in a room to beat her up; she removes her dress and searches for signs of blood. Any suspicious stain makes her yell that there is a whore in the house. She threatens to throw her out and even wants her dead. She thinks a bitch is better than the daughter. She wants her to leave “pour qu’elle n’empuantisse plus les lieux” (p 73). The brother is listening at the door. The sister is sure he is approving the violence. The mother laments that the girl has disgraced the family. The latter feels that the brother wishes the mother to continue beating her. The younger brother flees to hide in the garden, fearing the sister might die.
Uncertainty haunts the book. The lovers avoid referring to the future. A life together is not foreseeable. Besides, the lover’s father is an obstacle. The lover “n’a pas la force de m’aimer contre son père” (p 63). Moreover, the lover’s age “lui fait peur” (p 62). She wants to introduce him to his family and “il veut fuir” (p 63); “il pleure souvent parcequ’il ne trouve pas la force d’aimer au-delà de la peur” (p 63). The girl being too young, the lover fears an arrest by the police. Sometimes he fears that she may prefer someone else.
Style
The lover is not named. The reader has the considerable task of reading between the lines because the writer tends to be suggestive and brief. The mother is badly dressed, this suggests negligence and worry. The daughter is ashamed of the way the mother dresses in the public: “elle nous fait honte, elle me fait honte dans la rue, devant le lycée” (p 32). And “tuyaux des courses” (p 96) informs us of the elder brother’s gambling habits. On another occasion the sister and the brothers go to a hotel. The elder brother mistreats the younger one verbally, thus confirming that he has serious mental issues. The victim does not express his misery but we can read into his heart. In a critical note to Marguerite Duras’ “Moderato Cantabile” (Les Éditions de Minuit, 1958/1980), Dominique Mury writes the following about the author: “Elle dit en ne disant pas. Elle impose en éludant” (p 135). This remark is applicable to “L’Amant” as well.
About the brother she remembers: “Il essaie de me vendre à des clients”, “il l’aurait vendue, elle, sa mère” (p 94). Two short statements but they reveal much about the writer’s feelings of disgust. Duras is deliberately vague. Years after the separation, the lover arrives in Paris and tells her on the phone that he still loves though he is married. Duras has children of her own and many books to her credit. She does not respond. Neither romantic nor erotic, the book is much more about how a dysfunctional family shatters the dreams of a girl. It is about an emotionally and physically battered teenager marked irrevocably by the scars of the past.
