Whatever

A Novel

Michel Houellebecq


First published in French as Extension du domaine de la lutte in 1994




Part One


1

The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light.
Romans XIII, 12

Friday evening I was invited to a party at a colleague from work's house. There were thirty-odd of us, all middle management aged between twenty-five and forty. At a certain moment some stupid bitch started removing her clothes. She took off her T-shirt, then her bra, then her skirt, and as she did she pulled the most incredible faces. She twirled around in her skimpy panties for a few seconds more and then, not knowing what else to do, began getting dressed again. She's a girl, what's more, who doesn't sleep with anyone. Which only underlines the absurdity of her behaviour.

After my forth vodka I started feeling pretty groggy and had to go and stretch out on a pile of cushions behind the couch. A bit later two girls came and sat down on this same couch. Nothing beautiful about this pair, the frumps of the department in fact. They're going to have dinner together and they read books about the development of language in children, that kind of thing.

They got straight down to discussing the day's big news, about how one of the girls on the staff had come to work in a really mini miniskirt that barely covered her ass.

And what did they make of it all? They thought it was great. Their silhouettes came out as bizarrely enlarged Chinese shadows on the wall above me. Their voices appeared to come from on high, a bit like the Holy Ghost's. I wasn't doing at all well, that much was clear.

They went on trotting out the platitudes for a good fifteen minutes. How she had the perfect right to dress as she wished, how this had nothing to do with wanting to seduce the men, how it was just to be comfortable, to feel good about herself, etc. The last dismaying dregs of the collapse of feminism. At a certain moment I even uttered the words aloud: 'the last dismaying dregs of the collapse of feminism.' But they didn't hear me.

Me too, I'd clocked this girl. It was difficult not to. Come to that even the head of department had a hard-on.



I fell asleep before the end of the discussion, but had a horrible dream. The two frumps were arm-in-arm in the corridor that bisects the department, and they were kicking out their legs and singing at the top of their voices:

If I go around bare-assed,
It isn't to seduce you!
If I show my hairy legs
It's because I want to!

The girl in the miniskirt was in a doorway, but this time she was dressed in a long black robe, mysterious and sober. She was watching them and smiling. On her shoulders was perched a giant parrot, which represented the head of department. From time to time she stroked the feathers on its belly with a negligent but expert hand.

On waking I realized I'd thrown up on the moquette. The party was coming to an end. I concealed the vomit under a pile of cushions, then got up to try and get home. It was then that I found I'd lost my car keys.


2

Amid the Marcels

The next day but one was a Sunday. I went back to the area, but my car remained elusive. The fact was I couldn't remember where I'd parked it. Every street looked to be the one. The Rue Marcel-Sembat, Rue Marcel-Dassault... there were a lot of Marcels about. Rectangular buildings with people living in them. A violent feeling of identity. But where was my car?

Walking up and down these Marcels I was gradually overcome by a certain weariness in relation to cars and worldly goods. Since buying it, my Puegeot 104 had given me nothing but trouble: endless and barely comprehensible repairs, slight bumps... To be sure, the other drivers feign coolness, get out their nice official papers, say 'OK, no problem', but deep down they're throwing you looks full of hatred; it's most unpleasant.

And then, if you really wanted to think about it, I was getting to work on the métro; I rarely left for the weekend anymore, having no where I wanted to go; for my holidays I was mainly opting for the organized kind, the club resort now and then. 'What good's this car?' I repeated impatiently while marching along the Rue Émile-Landrin.

It was only, however, on arriving at the Avenue Ferdinand-Buisson that the idea occurred to me of putting in a claim for theft. Lots of cars get stolen these days, especially in the inner suburbs; the story would be understood and readily accepted by both the insurance company and my colleagues at the office. Anyway, how was I going to say I'd lost my car? I'd pass for a practical joker, right off, a fruitcake or weirdo even; this was extremely unwise. Joking about such matters is not the done thing; this is how reputations are made, friendships formed or broken. I know life, I've grown accustomed to it. Saying you've lost your car is tantamount to being struck off the social register; let's definitely talk theft, then.