Strange Landscape — Tony Duvert [UPDATED]
a translation of the first chapter of Paysage de fantaisie
I’m cold but my teeth don’t chatter it would be a pleasant sound joyful my hairs stand on end I feel hot underneath the winter continues dead entrails watch fearful bodies lost no voices to which to listen a rumbling this tense flesh says nothing
the bodies of others I have loved without understanding I’m there where I think I have seen something parched confounded petrified
jaws clenched tongue between shrivelled or in slaver dissolved if it laughs two farts or three from my gullet will up and burst on the palate I’ll feel their passing less agreeably than those from the arse less stinking less alive but I don’t laugh I feel nothing my cock is rotten my limbs rigid
surely in the end the cadaver will be seen will be loved will be carried off on a man’s back there will be a room in which it can sit in a brothel perhaps straight-backed on an armchair I will preside will decorate will make look pretty sitting there in black skin yellow blueing greenish cheeks hollowed out lips brown as old dry leather I will receive impressions images virtual bodies furtive laughs I can no longer find my eyes I open my lids my eyes see nothing register nothing they are dead or there is really no one here how beautiful such things are lively eyes their soft warmth touch closed eyes kiss them I have wanted this I am most tender
I kiss them on the lashes would like to arrange a face around them seek draw a face I move badly in myself I no longer know the right spots no longer recollect that must be towards the arse my arse I can feel it a touch sat on velvet padding an armchair’s spring so many precautions to take for an arse a precious part no doubt but too obscure no face by there I search higher there is nothing either or a bit of a presence a round silence something exact merry puerile and all white that I contain it is like a little ball with which to play I like it would be happy to have it if I knew its name and what it does
useless trying I don’t have the strength at present I can make out vague movements before me those are the others the other bodies they are standing they are not afraid to wreck themselves the arse me thus I am sitting frit
unidentifiable unclear the fault my eyes it is cold my eyelids flutter but it’s cold fever and my lips moved me I see myself better now morsel of tissue or numbed flesh wet through with damp with great wavy hair down to the shoulders I must be a dog or a woman not simply long hair and I have a prick it smells bad down there don’t lend it your nose
black bedroom and armchair it’s a brothel I was brought here I was found on a street corner I was dying starving wounded I can’t make the people out I know there are some they must be black against black I can only make out movement the darkness slips gets agitated murmurs the room is made of packed black bodies ceiling walls and door I would need to see a window
there are none there has to be one and open since I’m cold I get up I take a couple of steps down the street up to a porch and I put myself back to bed a guy passes he is wearing a hat and a grey overcoat he looks at me a while I open my eyes wide and open wide my mouth grimacing to show a hole without a single tooth the blueish tongue the black splits of my lips he approaches and smiling finds me beautiful with my fine white teeth my curly blonde hair my beggar pose he wants to photograph me he’s a spectacle-wearing Englishman in shorts he says Click? I shrug he clicks and disappears I can wallow I wasn’t put to bed they left me in a bare room on an armchair they explained nothing to me they told me who I am I believed them I really want to believe whatever small round silence rebounding again in me too many images now with this white and supple ball it fit well in the palm I had hands I played
these wounds they brought me here they tied me to a chair bolted to the floorboards the wood is steeped in blood my eyes bleeding staining everything with blood I see a black abyss below my stomach I imagine a tumid penis straight up high they torture me I spit a life word for word with these nights these mornings I speak they tear me to shreds and voices emerge
I hear cascading cries hurried bitter hoarse an inhuman voice leaves a human body my clothes stay glued to wounds my head is scalped they did not succeed in closing my eyelids after I died I have eyes that gape like a swallowed egg
I wake up they pick me up under a porch they lock me in a dirty room they torture me there I like that they call me a sadist and a faggot this word faggot something in my life I don’t know what it has to do with the arse I believe in the thing I sit on and a chair under that funny notion
he unbuttoned the top of his overcoat he took out a wallet I nodded yes I got up his car wasn’t parked far away once at his place he photographed me above all when I opened my mouth and the hole could be seen I left
I crawled here for shelter I freeze recovering the words I said there is a faggot round unknown silence a black place I am alone my teeth don’t chatter I am hungry other winters pass they are mute dying I no longer sing there was an arse like that thing that was beautiful and its softness warm embrace the arse I have desired it I have loved them all approach touch me I can no longer see
my heart beats it’s hard mechanical brutal a noise between my lips my tongue stirs it emerges to lap the air is cold my bones crack a little when I move I withdraw my tongue and clench my jaw I look hard at the lower stomach a gobbet hangs on my cheek I shake my head its my cheek itself which is hanging I must have bled a lot they haven’t yet finished with the razor
I walk a little further I reach a metro air vent I lie down on the grill from which warm air smelling of farts feet breath arises a young man nice to look at stops there against a tree and takes out his dick which he tosses slowly without paying me any mind it’s a good kids good dick that would fill up asses well without causing them to suffer he has pale very curly hair a slack and cheeky foreskin
I look like myself from time to time it makes one happy my stomach smells very bad there is a frothy fog of old hair and I don’t know what within
they open me up and corpses come out of me they were asking for others and other images other memories every pleasure my flesh has consumed
he does himself back up and leaves I didn’t see his sperm fall I approach the tree there is nothing I run my hand through the dust not a glob of come going back to his place he must have pulled from a bin an old black shoe for his penis and for his somnolence the mad vagina of a woman’s boot
I decided to go back down the street I pulled on an overcoat and put on a hat my dense hair stuffed inside I was ridiculous I notice a man more ridiculous than me he was curled up under a porch he was old he smelt of urine but not shit he doesn’t eat enough to shit or only rarely little balls of turd like a defecating goat there was nothing better but a beautiful eye which closes with laughter or the final dream each night
that one we can’t forget I see it always the same thing a little window wide open in a great yellow wall where a sheet hangs I dream of it and immediately wake I have screamed with fright in the dark my throat still tense outside it is night kicked to the foot of the bed my sheets give off fine perfume tart scent of the prick of a child who wanks too much with a wind that flows dissipating it
the children the night the garden the wind shuddering the full moon mute laughter my simple dreams through that window into the shadows and the cold the four walls are covered in rough black material stretched poorly the light comes from a shell-shaped wall light in the corner of the ceiling and can barely be seen when we walk we find the floor very springy several rooms therefore have no furniture their entire floors are nothing but a mattress we can revel ten or twenty on them with no fear of banging into each other they are like madman’s cells they put me there then with a chair which pitches on the sprung and probably washable loving floor
sat on a chair a black armchair we would wait I wait it’s a game the ball rises glows slightly centres itself it has shapes I am all around I suffocate the winter bursts I have fever I locked myself away it was stormy like every night and brown grey the garden where shadows writhed there were at least ten I waited patiently on the chair they were nowhere
unbearable the summer when in short dirty pants I would come against the wall of the house bathed in sun a passerby dressed in grey saw my slug which had shot too far he approached and put his hand on my backside muttering that he liked eyes liked mine I kept quiet they lined me up there they pose you abduct you choose other spots and start again I was naked I no longer came I watched the garden no one noticed I had disappeared
he stands close to a tree and touches his penis my look embarrasses him he closes his foreskin by pulling the end which he tightens like a purse by its strings sperm fills the sack and bathes his soft glans sticky and hot shit down of trousers crotch thick with the liquid crap that slides out him he looks for the end of a string in his pocket to tie up his foreskin he saw in an open bin a pair of coachman’s boots riders’ he thinks of a long supple whip which glistens with a flash he picks up a boot he holds it under his arm like flowers they are faded their uppers leak with rot
someone passes leans and I get punched I see red circles I pick myself up he continues they are using scissors and a crop I almost remembered it waking up and I also discover a hard thing laid out that hurts they sat me on it they brought back guts I taste it I have nothing left I take shelter my legs up against myself
at the foot of a yellow wall and little anthills in the grey grass a beautiful morning is dawning they noticed me I was moaning for their pleasure they were unknown invisible I pleased them we were in the country the movement of a ball isolated shapes boy tree house sun no trees at all it’s the street today
I will soon be able move my hand I will almost have my entire body I will be able to touch what I do not have I will be able to imagine what moves chattering teeth stripped gooseflesh a breeze which dries out something wet on my skin there are bits of cloth on my skin I grab one it comes off I scream
I hear my own voice a gargling it is very slow it is not mine it doesn’t come from anyone else I squeeze my ribs so air passes through the source of the noise the pipes where it vibrates and in long interminable obscure echoes I found them again I heard a thousand voices at once murmurs laughter there is gauze on my cheek a plaster hanging
they hid my wounds to show me to the others the people in black who filed by forming a circle observing me curiously my lips opening my eyes closing they had forgotten a chinstrap I dribbled from the mouth we thought me dead but they picked me up I will have to dry out soon
white childish silence misty higher untouchable he navigates or rather little by little raises and spreads the arse and thighs he re-enters me everywhere a long breath reinflates my rubber parts they unfold harden stiffen up there is blood the blood returns they explain nothing to me they have to wait we wait and I will see three spotlights and me in the centre Mr shouted Attention I was paying attention I had a sweetie in my hand I wanted to eat it but I didn’t have the right until after
I’m hungry they throw slaps to get me used to it then blows with the cutting edge of a hand and my skin splits open with every strike my body gets stiffer and my cries more and more faint
too tired to scream I frustrate them I don’t have the strength they think up inserting a long beer bottle the shape of a rocket into my anus they lift me and make me fall to shatter the bottle my stomach churns and the well-suspended bottle holds fast they waver they daren’t knacker me I saw sperm twinkling they immediately stopped and removed the bottle from me I was exhausted there was no one in the streets I went home by foot I fainted
petrified by cold and darkness I wandered they have nothing to fear the biggest dressed in grey appointed me and the others took me captive took me away I satisfied them they grew attached to me and left me several days to suffer darkness and hunger they could see it through to the to end see all my blood and what after remained on a row of chairs there I saw others naked lined up blackened they were like me but without any water in them
before always before these are the first days I would like to understand another time here this countryside I have forgotten I stayed silent this countryside a hand on my buttocks it lifted me up astride his hand and turned me over in his arms like an infant he felt around for my fly with his nose what was he looking for
my hands the vent keeps them warm fear keeps them cold
they swap me move me I accept they make decisions for me every minute confirming what I am I listened to them delivered their voices insisted on certain words I tried to understand them and retain them I knew the word child I repeated it they told me they had locked me in there nightmare ground I rolled about in the night obscene dream you have to look around and get up to find a source of noise of light something vertical to get me upright against it something horizontal to sleep alongside without capsizing without vomiting nobody is coming back I was sweating from fright an electrical storm the heart beats too fast the sulphur yellow wall where the gaping window would be outside the burning rain soon the sky all around
the river ran at the bottom of the village under a bridge the houses were set on a slant on the hillside and the sun spread there from the steeple up high to the pastures below with chalky paths leading to woods of chestnut and pine brooks separated the fields the meadows and water snakes slipped into them we would go soak our feet and hands in them we were afraid of vipers but when we played we didn’t think about them anymore we gathered reeds and irises there was a big meadow there and in the middle a place for ball games had worn it away
I could hear an arm on the right and the other to the left but I am touching nothing the walls are too far away the ground gives way underneath me and spawns me I don’t know where
he would have seen these boots and wouldn’t have resisted there aren’t many things to desire in the street you immediately notice them and become a wolf it’s because the people throw their rubbish out on the pavement a little before or after dawn but I was in a street without people it happened elsewhere I had to get moving to be less cold see the world and he helped me picking me up by the elbow and jacket collar I was surprised that he led me towards this beautiful country house next to the water he cut through a field I was too heavy to support he lay me down close to pile of stones I waited for a long time luckily I was in the shade this sharp wind this sun would have hurt me he enters the house by a service door lights appear in the windows two tiny windows open capriciously on a large wall face opposite me and people dressed colourfully come out into the garden they are carrying Venetian lanterns swinging them and approaching I found it better to cry I start as soon as their lights fall on me and the women exclaim But who is this little child we’ve never seen before? they are good women because of their made up eyes and long silk dresses where an erect penis makes a lump
the ceiling must be quite high but I’m not sure and it makes no difference I’m no longer afraid of anything it’s darkness no danger no worrying noises no other presence I fall asleep I can forget whatever I want[read Chapter 2 here]
Tony Duvert (1945-2008) was an essayist and writer of subversive and experimental literature. Associated with the Nouveau Roman, and admired by the likes of Roland Barthes and Claude Mauriac, his fifth novel, Paysage de Fantaisie (Les Éditions de Minuit), was awarded the prix Médicis in 1973 . An advocate for sexual freedoms of the most extreme kind, despite his critical success, Duvert withdrew from the literary world and ended his life in poverty, all but forgotten, his body discovered several weeks after his death.