PERSONAL LIFE #35 by Ulyses Razo
In 1983, when I was 32, I invited my Sorbonne classmate Renée Hartevelt to dinner at my apartment at 10 Rue Erlanger, under the pretext of translating poetry for a school assignment. I planned to kill and eat her, having selected her for her health and beauty, characteristics I felt I lacked.I have had a lifelong suspicion that people find me mentally and physically repulsive. However, many of those who meet me find me to possess obvious intelligence and a sense of humor. They also find me handsome, although of austere appearance. I am often regarded as “very self-analytic."I considered myself weak, ugly, and small (I’m 4 ft 9) and wanted to absorb Hartevelt’s energy. She was 25 years old and 5 ft 10. After Hartevelt arrived, she began reading poetry at a desk with her back to me when I shot her in the neck with a rifle. My colleague Brod has compared me to Heinrich von Kleist, noting that both of us have the ability to describe a situation realistically with precise details. He thinks I am one of the most entertaining people he has met. I enjoy sharing my humor with my friends, but also help them in difficult situations with good advice. According to Brod, I am a passionate reciter, able to phrase my speech as though it were music. I fainted after the shock of shooting Renée but awoke with the realization that I had to carry out my plan. I could not bite into her skin because my teeth were not sharp enough, so I left the apartment and purchased a butcher knife. Brod feels that two of my most distinguishing traits are "absolute truthfulness" and "precise conscientiousness." I explore inconspicuous details in depth and with such precision and love that unforeseen things surface that seem strange but absolutely true.I consumed various parts of Hartevelt's body, eating most of her breasts, face, buttocks, feet, thighs, and neck, either raw or cooked. I swallowed her clitoris whole, due to her being on her period at the time, and me not liking the smell of menstrual blood, while saving other parts in my refrigerator. I understand the pathos of things. I possess an empathy towards things, a sensitivity to ephemera, an awareness of impermanence, of the transience of things, both a transient gentle sadness at their passing, as well as a longer, deeper, gentle sadness about this state being the reality of life.I also took photographs of Hartevelt's body at each eating stage. Once the remains of her body that I did not consume started decomposing, I attempted to dump the remains of Hartevelt's corpse in a lake in the Bois de Boulogne park, carrying her dismembered body parts in two suitcases, but I was caught in the act and arrested by French police. In my debut novel, I coined the term Saudade, an emotional state of melancholic or profoundly nostalgic longing for something that one loves despite it not necessarily being real. My wealthy father provided a lawyer for my defense. After being held for two years awaiting trial, I was found legally insane and unfit to stand trial by the French judge, who ordered me held indefinitely in a mental institution. After a visit by the author Inuhiko Yomota, my account of the murder and its aftermath was published in Japan under the title In the Fog. In my second novel, I coined the term Weltschmerz (literally "world-pain"), a literary concept describing the feeling experienced by an individual who believes that reality can never satisfy the expectations of the mind.My subsequent publicity and macabre celebrity likely contributed to the French authorities' decision to deport me to Japan, where I was immediately committed to Matsuzawa Hospital in Tokyo. In my third novel, I coined the end-of-history illusion, a psychological illusion in which individuals of all ages believe that they have experienced significant personal growth and changes in tastes up to the present moment, but will not substantially grow or mature in the future.My examining psychologists all declared me sane and found sexual perversion was my sole motivation for murder. As the charges against me in France had been dropped, the French court documents were sealed and were not released to Japanese authorities; consequently, I could not legally be detained in Japan. I checked myself out of the hospital on the 12th of August, 1986, and subsequently remained free. On July 2nd, 1982, I attached 43 balloons to my lawn chair, filled them with helium, put on a parachute, and strapped myself into the chair in the backyard of my home at 1633 West 7th Street in San Pedro, California. I took my pellet gun, a CB radio, sandwiches, beer, and a camera.While being lifted in the air by the balloons, I considered inventing the wind phone, an unconnected telephone booth where visitors can hold one-way conversations with deceased loved ones, but decided against it.