Marie-Claire plays for them for the first time. Suite No. 1 for Solo Cello recreates in the manor’s great sitting room the fragile atmosphere of a fashionable evening at the beginning of the twentieth century. Marthe imagines the masters of the house in those days, surrounded by their friends and parasites, listening with the utmost seriousness while suppressing yawns and flatulence. She smiles at the thought and observes her guests: Armand holding her hand, a little groggy; Gustave sitting on a chair, his face coloured by boredom and alcohol; Hélène smiling; Lucienne pressed against her Dimitri, who has eyes only for his sweetheart; Rémi barefoot, curled up in an armchair.
The young couple moved in three weeks ago. Time is suddenly passing too quickly.
Marie-Claire’s long hair catches on the cello. Luc rises, stands behind her and discreetly frees the strands. Marie-Claire smiles and answers him by attacking a melodic descent more delicately. They already form a single body, Marthe thinks: the way he gathers the hair, loosens his hold when she leans forward, then moves quickly at the right moment to guide it—a kind of tai chi of love.
She likes the young man. Since arriving, he has shown himself kind and hastens to help anyone who asks. As soon as he returns from work, he stops to say hello and asks whether he can be useful. Resourceful and good-natured.
Lucienne too has recovered her youth. Dimitri will be leaving soon. Courteous and fond of good living, he speaks to them only in approximate English and often joins his crewmates at the harbour. Their ship suffered serious damage on its last voyage and will leave dry dock in a few days.
Marthe and Dimitri had only one brief, somewhat laborious conversation.
“I vant to brring Louchienne vit’ me…”
“Do you have money? Do you have children?”
“All dead. Terrible fire.”
“I see.”
Sitting beside her Dimitri, Lucienne had waited for Marthe’s decision, almost frightened. Marthe had disliked being placed in that position of authority.
“You do whatever you want with your life, Lucienne.”
“That’s not the point, you idiot.”
The spontaneous insult had not shocked her, but rather forced her to descend from precisely that position of authority in which she had placed herself.
“When do you want to leave?”
Lucienne had blushed and almost immediately begun to cry.
“Misery upon the little world…”
Marthe had smiled despite herself. Lucienne never used the same oath twice.
“Come now. You aren’t leaving tomorrow morning.”
“No. We were thinking of spring.”
“It will be a great change for you.”
“Oh, that… What happens if I can’t get used to it?”
“You’ll come back.”
“You’ll have found a new housekeeper.”
“I may still be travelling. Besides, Armand’s cottage will always be there for you. It is time you retired too. You are not my housekeeper, but my friend. You know that.”
They had embraced, while Dimitri, deaf and powerless, witnessed their tears and displays of affection.
Marthe returns to the present, lets Bach’s music rock and guide her, rests her head against Armand’s shoulder. He does not react. She glances at Gustave. Armand’s long stay in hospital left him idle and lost. Since November was snowy, he remained shut inside his cottage. His good nature has darkened.
On Armand’s right, Hélène has leaned against him, just as Marthe has. As in every winter, she grows more secretive and willingly immerses herself in writing. Yet she possesses the ability to surface and reclaim her place in everyday life, to laugh with Rémi, then help Armand manage his suffering. She does the dirty work, Marthe thinks.
Marthe herself would not lift a finger… Distance is all she knows. No, no and no. Why this anxiety, this severity? She searches and searches; she senses her blood warming, her heart beating faster. “You do not have the happiness you deserve; it has gone, flown away. That happiness was a lie, and you will never forgive yourself for such blindness, no matter what you do. You are not violent enough.” She closes her eyes and draws her thoughts back to the boundary of reality. That is better, she tells herself. Reality is beyond price, white as the hardest snowfield. She orders herself to be at peace and remembers the first commandment: “At your death, you shall think without cease.”
Armand breathes heavily. He has grown terribly thin, scoured by treatments that swept through him indiscriminately. On returning from hospital, after the crisis during which his diseased liver had swollen, he showed her photographs of himself as a young man. “You see, I’m travelling backwards now; I’m returning to the weight of my youth. I was handsome when I was young. Slender, everything one needed to please.” Rémi had whistled admiringly. Armand and he get along well. The young man accepts his silences and moods, makes him coffee and moves his chair without asking every five minutes how he feels.
She turns her attention back to them. Rémi is mischievous, sometimes provocative, but his restlessness subsides beside Armand. She had taken him under her wing and now sees him caring for another person with a tenderness she had not suspected in him. In thought, at least, she tries to breathe in the air of the moment.
There is the music, invasive, awakening the woodwork, playing with the evening shadows. Above all, there are the people. Two worlds, in fact. Old souls which, like lighthouses, cast their long arms of light towards the sails of new souls. Her friends, like her, seem immersed in their labyrinths. The bow dances; Marie-Claire dances. With the body of the cello against her belly, the child must be listening, gills wide open, to this omnipresent vibration. Marthe envies her for living what she herself could not live. Her mind, trained to greater rigour, immediately corrects the impression and insinuates doubt. She agrees so she can be rid of it. It is too easy to stop there, at reason. Her old bones demand better clay.
Marthe recognises the final movement of the Suite, a gigue which, like the rest of the work, oscillates between lyricism and rigour. Marie-Claire suspends a final stroke of the bow and looks at them, smiling.
They applaud, some warmly, while those less familiar with this kind of music do so politely. Luc kisses her; Marie-Claire rises, bows obsequiously, then accepts another kiss from Luc. The least musical among them are visibly relieved that it is over. Marthe would gladly have remained seated to hear the other suites. Armand asks to be moved towards the piano.
“Pay no more attention to me,” he says.
Rémi pushes the wheelchair towards the piano. Bach, Armand announces, to remain in the spirit of the evening. Marie-Claire sits beside him. The young woman often visits him, bringing her cello.
Luc is talking with Rémi. They have nothing in common but their age and their extraordinary kindness. Someone knocks at the door. Rémi hurries to answer. Junior. Marthe smiles. Here too, she succeeded, more easily than she would have thought. A week after meeting him at his office, Junior came to see the paintings. Through his lawyers, Léo had faxed her an official attestation of ownership. Again, it was too easy, too quick, Marthe thought. Had she wanted a fight? Junior stayed the night that very evening. Rémi explained the next day that they already knew each other, saying no more. He was making himself at home quickly; Marie-Claire and Luc were doing the same; Lucienne wanted to begin a new life; Gustave was preparing his escape; Hélène accepted the path laid out before her; Armand continued his Great Apprenticeship, as he called it, stressing each word. “A curious lesson,” he had added, “since it will be forgotten as soon as it is learned.”
Junior comes forward to greet her.
“You missed a fine concert,” she says.
“Rémi just told me. I apologise for being late. My father isn’t well. I think he is reacting badly to retirement. My grandfather did the same. He died a few months later.”
Rémi draws him away to join the younger people. Hélène turns towards Marthe.
“A lovely little family, isn’t it?”
“Indeed,” she replies, taking her friend’s arm as Hélène sits beside her. “We’re almost in the way, don’t you think? They’ve made themselves at home.”
“We gave them free rein. That is what you wanted, isn’t it?”
“Certainly. It is simply so quick. Have I opened Pandora’s box?”
“You don’t know your own power, my dear. I envy those two,” Hélène says, pointing to Rémi and Junior.
“So do I. Men’s sexuality is so simple.”
“Whereas we women,” Hélène continues, “when we find an orgasm, we shut it in a jar, slip a ring around it and hope it never tarnishes. And if it does, we polish and polish, but it’s useless, because the fool of a husband will always find the neighbour’s silverware brighter.”
“You’re in fine form tonight…”
“That’s what I’m writing about, as it happens. A love story.”
“Is it progressing?”
“I don’t quite know. I’m waiting to see what happens next.”
Hélène looks at her to make it clear that the story concerns Marthe and Léo.
“Is your heroine beautiful and intelligent?”
“Yes. She has a great deal of money. It makes the story easier.”
“Pfft… and what do you think will happen?”
“Who knows? I haven’t found her a lover yet.”
“She could become a lesbian.”
“Come now, at her age…”
“Precisely. You think women who eat pussy are less interested in cuddling?”
Hélène laughs. Marthe sighs.
“What if I was only ever a friend to Léo? What if I confused everything?”
“Léo adored you.”
“Then why did he leave?”
“If you’re still asking the question, it means you still love him.”
“Of course I love him. I love gleaming silverware…”
Hélène smiles at her. Armand plays pianissimo, making Bach weep rather than trying to reproduce the master’s mechanical faith.
“How long do you think he has left?”
“That depends on him.”
“Truly?”
Hélène does not answer. Rémi and Victor burst out laughing; Marie-Claire seems proud of whatever she has said to them.
“I went to see the paintings upstairs with Junior two days ago,” Hélène says.
“Oh! I didn’t see you.”
“You were in your office. Junior doesn’t look it, with that overly black tie, but he knows paintings. He did a master’s degree in art criticism. Can you imagine? All that, only to end up a notary! He spoke about the red painting, which he particularly likes.”
“It is a terrible painting. Like vinegar and blood.”
“He said much the same. Above all, he drew my attention to the tremors in the drawing.”
“The tremors?”
“Yes. They aren’t obvious at first glance. Would you like him to show you? He took photographs and wanted to come back to discuss them with us. Wait, I’ll fetch him.”
Hélène rises, speaks for a while with the young people, then particularly with Junior, who listens and nods eagerly. They return to Marthe.
“Shall we go upstairs?”
“What about the others?”
“We’re going upstairs for a moment to see Léo’s paintings,” Hélène announces. “Is anyone interested?”
Armand, lost in his notes, does not answer. Lucienne shakes her head while continuing to smile at Dimitri, no doubt accusing one another of all the pleasures to come. Gustave raises his glass. Faced with these answers, Rémi offers Marthe his arm. The group heads towards the great staircase.
Marthe remains silent while Rémi chats cheerfully with Marie-Claire. It is all happening too quickly, she repeats to herself. What is there in this canvas that she has not seen? Doubt makes her dizzy.
Hélène opens the door and switches on the light. Marthe holds her breath.
“You had never come back in here?” Hélène asks, seeming to read her surprise.
“No…”
“I recreated the arrangement.”
“I understand,” Marthe tells her quietly, though cutting her off sharply.
“Only the true light is missing.”
Marie-Claire and Luc exclaim; Hélène smiles at them. They tour this small private museum. They stop before The Casimir Effect. Marthe feels Rémi watching her. She gives him a faint smile to show that she is all right. Even so, she takes a deep breath.
Everyone gathers around Léo’s large unfinished canvas.
“The Red Painting,” Victor announces. “It is the only title by which it is known, and it will appear as such in the catalogue I am preparing. Simon and Courville commissioned me to compile it.”
Hélène turns towards Marthe and gives her customary conspiratorial wink. Marthe shivers.
“It is a small world,” she says, stressing “small” as though trying to make them understand something else.
She clutches Rémi’s arm. His eyes question her. She answers only by leaning more heavily against him. Junior continues, launching into an interpretation of the work. She has never liked this structural, codifying and normative discourse. The others seem to appreciate it; she hears only words, semblances of truth, hypotheses valid solely because they can never be verified. That or astrology… She waits for him to come to the point, to the tremors he detected. She steps forward, trying to find them before he explains. She moves closer, impolitely disrupting Junior’s speech and forcing him to stop.
“Could you come to the point?” she asks gently.
She cares nothing for the discomfort she creates. She stares stubbornly at Junior, who blushes.
“I was getting there,” he says nevertheless in a confident tone.
He conceals his hand well, she thinks.
“There… beneath your name. Arcand is known for the control of his brush, for his regular pointillism, even in all this.”
With a broad gesture, he encompasses the painting’s waves and clouds.
“Despite the apparent cacophony of the lines describing the turmoil of a storm, one immediately notices the symmetry of the drawing, the canvas’s almost rigid structure. After laying out the composition, the painter always returns to populate each enclosed region with a myriad of substructures that ultimately produce a distinctive final architecture, uniquely Arcand’s.”
Life, she thinks. Léo always wanted to imitate organic tissues, not by reproducing them, but by trying to recreate the rhythm of pulsations, the relief of sweat, the sound of blood forcing its way through capillaries. “I want to go that far,” he often said.
“Well, there, beneath your name, those dots across the lower two-thirds are placed haphazardly; they appear random.”
They all move closer, notice it and confirm the observation with the “ohs” and “ahs” she is beginning to detest.
“And what do you conclude?”
Why has she suddenly begun addressing him formally? She searches and quickly recognises anger before what she fears most. He will tell her Léo is ill; he will try to excuse him without knowing a single true second of their history.
“I don’t know,” he says, to Marthe’s great surprise.
“You don’t know…”
“Not really. I thought you might be able to tell us, since you knew him better than anyone.”
She is speechless. He is subtler than she believed, or more polite. She observes him. He seems to be hiding something; she recognises it from having seen it countless times in her patients, that feint of the eyes, that stiffness of expression. He doubtless wants her view before elaborating his theory.
“This canvas is unfinished,” she says in as detached a tone as possible. “Léo did not paint as you describe. What he first drew on the canvas was rarely respected. He used it as a framework, certainly, but generally so he could depart from it more effectively. His strength lies precisely in painting those ordered little dots without a plan; he retained that from his Automatist period. Léo is compulsive. Whatever he cannot control, he avoids until he has found the idea, the strength to use something new. That”—she points to the irregular dots—“is uncertainty, his weakness.”
“His shame?” Hélène suggests.
Marthe turns towards her.
“Who knows? You’re the writer. What do you think?”
“It’s a large canvas.”
“Yes. Two metres by three.”
Hélène laughs.
“No, I mean it is a magnificent work. Don’t you agree, Junior?”
Marthe feels his gaze. She turns towards him.
“What is it?”
He seems to hesitate, then takes a photograph from the inside pocket of his jacket. So he did know something more about the canvas. He led her on.
“I took several pictures of the work. Since it is unsigned, I must make certain it is authentic.”
“Authentic! As though I could be lying!”
“Please don’t be alarmed. It is normal procedure. We all know the truth of it, but some prospective buyers will ask questions. May I continue?”
Marthe submits. Hélène moves closer, seeming to understand her irritation, and takes her arm. Marthe responds by leaning against her.
“Obviously,” Junior continues, “this is only a photograph taken with a makeshift camera.”
“A latest-model Minolta. Hardly makeshift!” Rémi says ironically.
They laugh; Junior colours.
“Very well, a Minolta, but the photograph was not taken under ideal conditions, which will be quite another matter when they come tomorrow to photograph the works. So these pictures were taken with the means at hand, then digitised with the means at hand.”
Rémi bows to him with a comic flourish.
“When I brought this section of the image onto the screen, I realised that my camera had captured hues invisible to the naked eye. By enhancing this shift towards blue on the computer, a distinct pattern appears—more precisely, a given name.”
He approaches Marthe and shows her a photograph, then a colour printout. She turns pale. Slowly, she hands the documents to Hélène, unable to say anything.
“My God,” Hélène whispers.
“Who is this Augusti?” Junior asks softly.
Marthe looks at the painting and tries to see the name of Léo’s child without artificial assistance, but cannot; her eyes blur. Hasty conclusions assail her heart.
“Please leave me alone.”
She brushes her hair slowly. It is nearly midnight. She repeats that everything is moving too quickly and feels weary, aged. The hour is long and sad. Her heart, shocked and above all chilled, does not know whether to try to understand or dictate clumsy actions.
Everyone has gone home. Rémi has shut himself away with Victor, Lucienne with Dimitri, and the children, as she calls Marie-Claire and Luc, have returned to their cottage. Which of them are making love? She is not accustomed to this sort of voyeurism. She simply no longer has the age, or the opportunity.
He has succeeded, the great painter, the great lover, the man of her innermost being. He has succeeded in hurting her still more. How is it possible? She catches herself moaning, nothing but a flower starved of water and sun. So Léo is not a coward but a demon. She clenches her teeth. To devise two signatures, display her name in mockery, conceal his progeny within it, give pleasure to critics and art historians, flee far from her because she is too upright, honest, too dry.
She stops brushing. Her anger runs aground before the image returned by mirror and thought. The wrinkles have reached her youth, but not the fire beneath her skin, in her blood. Water that cannot reach the cavern of her womb. Is bodily fertility the only measure of success? She knows it is not, yet everything in her story seems determined to lead in that direction.
Failure of the body, failure of the mind. Failure of action? She sets down her brush, rises and opens her dressing gown. The mirror calls her to order. “What are you doing?” it seems to ask.
“I’m looking at myself. I have the right.”
“Tell me, mirror, tell me who is the fairest? I was dreaming. Was I naïve? Tell me.”
“Were you happy?”
“Yes.”
“Truly?”
“I believe so.”
“Your beauty carried you away.”
“Was it great?”
“You know it was. Even old, you possess the languor of reeds, the eyes of a Modigliani woman.”
“Léo told me so constantly.”
“He loved you in his way.”
“That sounds like a compromise.”
“Or like a naked old woman looking at herself in a mirror, seeking consolation or delusion?”
“Forget it.”
She picks up her dressing gown.
“Who do you think you are deceiving?”
“You.”
“Look me in the eyes.”
“I am looking at you.”
“Forget him.”
Someone knocks at the door.
“It’s open,” she says, giving the mirror one last look, too honest, too much like her.
Rémi opens the door.
“Yes, Rémi?” she says, tying her dressing gown.
“May I come in? I saw the light.”
“Yes.”
“You aren’t asleep?”
“Neither are you?”
She indicates a chair beside hers; she sits again and resumes brushing.
“I’m not accustomed to having someone in my bed.”
“Lucienne says the same about Dimitri.”
“Then I’m normal.”
She smiles at him.
“Aren’t you cold in only your underwear?”
He stretches and thrusts out his chest. She finds him almost vulgar, but refrains from saying so; she has not the strength tonight. Men are made that way. She feels ridiculous brushing her hair and searches for composure.
“I’ve never felt the cold. I should have put on a dressing gown, I know. I only meant to walk along the corridor, then I saw the light.”
“It’s all right…”
“It’s strange to feel so comfortable here, in this house,” he says thoughtfully, his voice almost weakened by shyness. “For a long time I was strangely prudish, and now I walk around half dressed in front of a beautiful stranger.”
“She is not such a stranger, especially since she could be your mother.”
“I do feel as though I were returning to childhood, coming to watch my mother brush her hair.”
“That doesn’t make me any younger!”
“My mother was young when I was young!”
“You’re right. I am the one making myself old, because I am sadly old.”
She stops speaking. She has been brushing the same strand since he arrived.
“Who is Augusti?”
She hesitates; her back sags.
“His son. I thought Junior knew all about it.”
“Well, he didn’t. He’s completely shaken and afraid he hurt you. He thinks Augusti is Léo’s secret lover.”
She laughs.
“A fine projection…”
He stretches again.
“You should go to bed.”
“I’m not really tired. Besides, Victor snores.”
She laughs.
“You’re already finding faults in him.”
“That isn’t it. He is a charming man, but I don’t want to become attached.”
“When people say that, it is because they have already begun to cling.”
“You win! You know too much about the human race, Marthe. It will be your ruin,” he says teasingly.
She stops brushing.
“I am already lost, Rémi. My mirror tells me so constantly. I am falling from still greater heights. Yet I tried. I am prepared to abandon this house, to flee, to begin again, but I am old, weakened. It is not very original. That is where I am. I have failed because I still desire, because the sight of an almost naked young man stirs me more than I would like…”
He rises, stands behind her and begins to massage her. His hands start at her neck. His skin is warm. In it, she recognises the future.
“Oh, my God! Am I that tense?”
Rémi’s movements seem to discover every reef of her sorrow.
“You never told us you massage so well. We’ll open a shop for you. Why does a man like Léo amuse himself with shame and secrets? I don’t even know how old Augusti is. For all I know, he is of age and Léo is preparing to marry him off. For all I know, I was never more than a mistress to him.”
He says nothing and continues his hunt for tension. She gradually surrenders. He reaches the base of her back and takes his time. The beams there are cracked. She feels her body sway. The turret of her bones struggles to withstand the wind. She moans when his fingers press too hard. What is there—arthritis? Tension? The same pain?
She sighs. He moves his fingers, imitates waves, warmth, draws the arc of her shoulders and insists again upon the most fragile places. Under these expert pressures, Marthe’s skin bursts open, releases the floodgates. She remembers and tries to draw in as much of this unexpected water as possible. At the same time, utterly unprepared for it, she lets her tears escape. He continues; she grips the piece of furniture before her and releases a long cry.