“Léo,”
She sets down her fountain pen, buries her face in her hands and tries to dispel her anger, the many tensions within her. Through the window she sees the snow flowing gently down the wall of the sky. She tries to empty her mind completely, closes the shutters of her senses, listens to her body, rejects her body, stares at the snow; the snow flees. She sighs. Reason prevails. Unfortunately.
She picks up the pen again, strikes out what she wrote and begins afresh in a single burst.
Dear Léo,
I am allowing myself crossings-out, allowing myself to be truthful and impolite. You haven’t changed, my love. Absence—your absence—had erased part of your personality. I thought I had mastered my memories, and your brief letter was all it took to set the record straight.
After reading your stupid missive, I threw it into the snow. No one here appreciated your reply; I don’t suppose that will surprise you. On the surface, you never cared what others thought. I liked that about you. There are too many victims in this world who bind themselves to their own executioner. Too many people who, for fear of understanding nothing, try to paint everyone else’s skin grey. At your side, I stood outside that greyness. Or so I believed.
Armand is better, though the end has come for him. He wants neither to prolong the suffering nor to feed the disease. He refuses most treatments. Chemotherapy has left him pale and doughy. He is fighting in another way and often says he should have lived all along as he is living now. Death is making him exponential.
I too am dying, in a way. I am trying to let the wind blow over our story. Perhaps you will smile when you read these lines. You will see that I have not changed either. But can we change at our age? Would I want to change? Would that not betray the image you possess of me? Yet what audacity, or what pity, to preserve for you, as in a museum, a canvas you no longer want?
Lucienne fought with the wife of one of her lovers. She has a splendid black eye. She won’t say so, but I sense that she is broken, as though she had just lost the innocence she had managed to preserve. In our own ways, we are all afflicted by what is happening to Armand. We are following him, as it were, on his journey between winter and existence.
For now, Hélène and Gustave seem happy. Their boat is watertight. Mine is too, I think. I feel happy, though increasingly old. You must understand that feeling.
I miss you. I miss everything. Two-thirds of the way through my life, you took intensity from me—your intense presence. It did not matter who you were or what you did; I possessed the certainty, I now realise, that I stood on firm ground, that I had taken root in nourishing soil. I lived differently when you were near me. You set me ablaze, and I hoped.
I will not burn your paintings; I am not insane. I am going to sell them at auction. This letter, which you will receive by registered mail, is intended as a reminder of your tacit confirmation that I may dispose of your canvases as I see fit. I don’t believe you capable of objecting, but I do not know the people around you. Perhaps they are more voracious. Are they waiting for your death so they can sink their teeth into your money?
Isn’t it strange that I never tried to learn about that woman? It is because you alone mattered to me, still matter to me. You took that privilege away. You stole it from me. You left like a guilty man. More than anything, the manner of your departure wounded me, as though you were telling me that I had believed in you, in your worth, in vain. My only consolation was abandoning you to these five years of silence. I did not do it out of pride but helplessness. I am breaking that silence as one breaks through thick ice, knowing that, since we are condemned to live through winter, the break will close over again anyway.
So I will not burn your canvases, but exchange them for money. I will travel. I have had your cottage renovated. A young couple will move into it in a few weeks. The woman is pregnant; the man looks a little like you, though I am convinced he does not possess one hundredth of your stature.
I do not understand your absence, and it seems to me that I think my suffering more than I live it. That is why I am surprised when, suddenly, as now, I feel as though I have recovered some of my air.
I have begun burning my books, particularly those containing your many marvellous sketches. You remember them, don’t you? Those drawings you made around the problems of the soul, as you liked to put it. I am erasing everything, but without hurrying. Time has failed to do its work; yours is too monumental. But of our relationship, that invisible and powerful bond, of what we believed was born of the magical and almighty Casimir effect, of our own song, of our union, I want to preserve nothing, either for myself or for the posterity in which you are already being enshrined. I want to appear on no plaque, in no book, in no photograph. You kept me jealously for yourself; your fame is not your heir, and I do not belong to it. There will surely be people who dig up your past. I have no wish to make their task easier, for even your cruelties will appear to them as strokes of genius. They will not understand what happened. They will have only hearsay and dismissals in their hands, and they will excuse your weaknesses, make them the foundations of your immense talent. If I had the courage, I would burn this house.
I would like to feel regret. But I no longer have time to deplore deeds and loves. I could, however, have done without your cowardice. Here is the perfect example that light—your light—also possesses its shadow. I am disappointed and curious. I enjoy thinking that you abandoned me for someone, for something lesser. And then again, no. I have nothing to prove, least of all that. I do not forgive you. You have no need of forgiveness.
She signs, looks at her signature for a moment, sets down her pen, rubs her face and quickly rereads the letter, judging it useless. Her heart, more ecclesiastical, chants something else. She handles the pages as though they were playing cards, toys for a moment with leaving them in disarray, with surrendering in turn to the automatism of passion. None of this makes any sense. She puts the sheets back in order, picks up her pen and takes a blank page.
None of this makes any sense. By selling your paintings at auction, I will produce the opposite effect. I will unleash scandal and myth. I know your importance only too well. But as for my books, only the fire will retain a fleeting memory of them.
It is snowing outside. You always hated winter, but you never truly knew it either. Was it the same with me? I hope I need not believe so.
I kiss you.
She quickly folds the sheets and slips them into an envelope, takes her eau de toilette and sprays it inside, then moistens the synthetic adhesive on the flap, which leaves a bitter taste in her mouth. It is she, rather, who feels ashamed, anachronistic and adolescent. The words, the perfume, the bitterness.
She lies on her bed for a short while, the letter against her breast, falls asleep, dreams, summons too many memories, kills the fatted calf and refuses to sit at the feast: the ordinary fare of her mind. When she gets up, she is overcome by nausea. The analysis was not difficult. Always the same, clinical and dead.
But still.
Still the thoughts, the memories, the traces, the veins of wood still alive. She sits at her dressing table and does not recognise herself, cannot judge the integrity of her complexion, cannot see that mark there on her cheek, or there, the faded russet of a few freckles. She does not feel the oatmeal texture of her flesh. She is elsewhere, close to youth, close to happiness, in that place where her skin had anchored its hungry roots.
Léo Arcand.
A name whose initials are so close to hers, as though she were the logical continuation of her man. “I kiss you,” she sees herself writing again. L.A. M.A. They had long joked that, if they ever had a boy, they would call him Serge. She smiles and immediately stops. Her gaze suddenly lingers on the faded russet of a few freckles, notices the mark there on her cheek; her skin no longer drinks. As a matter of principle, she curses the day she met Léo.
Three o’clock. The young couple will arrive soon. She leaves the bedroom.
Once downstairs, she sees Lucienne asleep in the sitting room. The kettle is whistling in the kitchen. Marthe goes to turn off the gas, returns to the sitting room and sits beside the housekeeper. Lucienne is snoring slightly. Marthe smiles, with ample opportunity to assess the distress of her old servant. A beautiful woman, with delicately rounded features and textured blond hair. The three women possess the same strength and, come to think of it, young Marie-Claire also has a powerful head of hair. She makes a note of the expression. She is forever making notes, accumulating impressions, observations, findings and unanswered questions in many drawers, and has been doing so for a long time. She has never thought to organise the jumble. Champollion would have appreciated the enigmatic quality of her archives. She notes the neologism and goes in circles. She touches Lucienne’s forehead to make sure she does not have a fever. Lucienne starts.
“What?”
Marthe withdraws her hand.
“Forgive me. I didn’t mean to wake you.”
Lucienne struggles to regain her senses.
“I fell asleep. Damn, now I’m behind.”
“It doesn’t matter. We have all the time in the world.”
Lucienne yawns and looks at the time.
“I didn’t sleep much last night either.”
“I can see that.”
“And my cleaning isn’t finished! My God! The water. I’d put water on to boil.”
“I turned it off. Everything is fine.”
The housekeeper relaxes and yawns again.
“Looks like I’m too old for all these emotions.”
Marthe smiles.
“Say instead that it affects you more than you would like to believe.”
Lucienne pouts, conceding the point. She looks again at the clock.
“They’re late…”
Marthe looks at her watch, then the window.
“That’s true, but it has started snowing again, and heavily. The road near the hill can’t be very good.”
Marthe yawns in turn.
“Well!” Lucienne exclaims, springing nimbly to her feet with an agility that never ceases to astonish Marthe. “This may not be a manor house, but it sure is a dormitory!”
At that moment, footsteps can be heard on the veranda. Marthe cranes her neck for a better view.
“It’s them,” she says, getting up and blindly smoothing her hair.
Lucienne goes to the door.
They are barely thirty. They carry their youth around like a security blanket, Marthe thinks. From their first meeting, she knew she would like Marie-Claire. A hazel complexion suggesting possible Indigenous ancestry—she will have to ask her about it—astonishingly dark hair, where one would sooner expect wheat-coloured strands to frame such green eyes, the figure of a young Mediterranean woman and, finally, a white, direct smile. When Marthe kisses her cheeks, a lemony fragrance confirms the sweetness of her personality.
Her feelings towards Luc are more mixed. A handsome fellow, and no doubt that is what bothers her; she is wary. He has the build of a countryman, but his gaze betrays a jaded urbanity, a fatigue, or rather an unease. He does not kiss her, but shakes her hand. He presents her with flowers he had carefully hidden behind his back.
“These are for you…”
Surprised, Marthe flashes him a warmer smile, even if the idea must have come from Marie-Claire. To break the ice, she kisses him. Sweet youth, enviable firmness. It never truly lasts long, a passing nostalgia close to a reflex, to the desire to stop dying a little more each day. She offers the customary “You shouldn’t have.” Lucienne takes the flowers and buries her nose in them.
“That feels good,” she says enigmatically.
Marthe stands aside.
“Come in, come in!”
A brief silence follows, during which the newcomers do not know how to behave, whether they should be polite or friendly. Marthe hurries to put them at ease.
“Shall we go into the sitting room? Would you like something to drink? Tea, herbal tea, beer? What am I saying? I don’t have any beer. Wine, then?”
What is she saying, indeed, offering beer!
“Tea would be lovely, thank you,” Marie-Claire says.
“A glass of water will be fine for me,” Luc says softly.
“I’ll get it,” Lucienne says, carrying the flowers away with her.
“What happened to you?” Marie-Claire asks.
Lucienne waves a hand to show how insignificant the matter is.
“Nothing serious, my dear.”
Marie-Claire does not press her. She takes Luc’s arm, showing that she is happy to be there.
“Your home really is beautiful!”
Marthe smiles as she sits down. The two lovers do the same across from her.
“It’s a lovely place to have a baby,” she remarks.
Marie-Claire shows her white teeth.
“He has started moving.”
“He?”
The young woman nods.
“It will be a boy. I’m certain.”
“Luc will be pleased,” Marthe says, addressing him.
He does not really take the opening she offers, merely smiles and kisses his companion’s forehead. Marthe has difficulty drawing her attention away from him. His presence unsettles her. In the pocket of her cardigan, she touches the letter she wrote earlier. That must be it, she decides. She is angry. For a moment, she concentrates on the sensation. Her heart pounds. She continues smiling at her guests. It lasts only a moment, but inside her it lingers, expands. She thinks she hears sounds, music. It reminds her of her journey to India. She had entered a temple; the contrast between the bright daylight and the calm darkness within had shaken her, almost seized her by the throat. A musician hidden somewhere she could not locate was playing a sitar. She had searched among the colonnades for the source of the sound, but in vain. Her eyes had become blind, and her other senses were not much help either. At last, after a long while, her sight returned. As though the musician now felt watched and exposed, he stopped playing. He was in fact very close to her. He smiled, said something in a language she did not understand. When she failed to answer, he began to play again. She left the temple.
She listens still. As she talks with Marie-Claire and Luc, she tries to understand what is playing within her. Anger? But why is it so calm? She studies Luc’s neck. If anger is calm, it is because desire governs it—the virgin desire that never ceases renewing itself, faithful friend of the present, already dead, already resurrected. They laugh. Once again Marthe inhabits two univers at once. The insistent sound of the sitar toys with her, plays among the harmonics, in counterpoint to a springtime melody.
Marie-Claire often touches her belly. The baby has begun to live its dreams. Sweet, sweet youth, carefree as in the worst clichés, blind above all. Marthe holds back tears. Her letter truly has broken the ice, the wall she erected between herself and Léo. She will have to release some ballast; she secretly calls these two young people as witnesses. She is surprised to find herself loving them more, wanting to become their protector and a grandmother. She questions them about their plans. Marie-Claire wants to refine her cello technique in preparation for her final examination. Luc is starting a new job at a recording studio in town. They were looking for somewhere quiet and say they could not have found a better place. Marthe is pleased and thanks chance, or the attraction of the planets. Beauty is beautiful when it is young.
Lucienne returns with the tea, then goes back for the flowers, which she has placed in a glass jar and sets on the sitting-room table. Everyone says again how pretty they are. Lucienne smells them once more. There is a knock at the door, which immediately opens to reveal Hélène and Gustave.
“We saw you arrive and came to spy on you!” Hélène announces, playing at being a teenager delighted by her own mischief.
“Come in! You barely crossed paths the other day.”
Lucienne flees to her kitchen with one hand over her eye. Gustave and Hélène notice nothing, so intent are they on the newcomers. Gustave vigorously shakes Luc’s hand and kisses Marie-Claire. Hélène takes Luc by the arms as though claiming possession of him and greets him with a European-style embrace, then does the same with Marie-Claire. Marthe is happy to introduce the young couple to those she considers her family.
The conversation continues without Marthe registering it. Everyone speaks in turn, telling the story of their life. The alchemy of human beings is doing its work, thank God, thinks Marthe, who merely takes notes, opens a drawer, almost unconsciously selects the words that will have to be studied and considered again. Marie-Claire is cheerful. Hélène and Marthe exchange satisfied looks from time to time. Gustave takes tremendous pleasure in clowning and steering the conversation. They let him. When Lucienne returns with small cakes, Hélène notices the bruise.
“What on earth happened to you?”
Lucienne turns to Marthe, who encourages her with a look to tell the truth. The housekeeper hesitates and glances at the two young people. When she seems incapable of saying anything, Marthe begins the explanation:
“It was Pedro’s wife… She followed them.”
Gustave begins to laugh, but Lucienne’s angry glare stops him at once and he immediately apologises. Marie-Claire and Luc remain silent, caught between amusement and surprise. Lucienne sits down and tells the story. Gustave cannot wipe the mocking smile from his lips, and Lucienne does everything she can to avoid his gaze. Then they move on to something else when Lucienne gets up to prepare supper. Since it is past four, Marthe invites the young couple to stay and eat.
“Do we have enough, Lucienne?”
“Of course! I planned ahead, what do you think? We have a lovely big dead hen to devour! Pear stuffing, turnips and fennel.”
“Yum!” Gustave exclaims. “Can I stay for supper?”
“It goes without saying,” Marthe confirms.
Lucienne sniffs.
“That’s all well and good, but I’m not Jesus Christ. I can’t multiply the hens!”
“Just make more vegetables and give them all to Gustave,” Hélène suggests.
“We don’t want to impose,” Luc says.
“Don’t worry, young man, you already have!” Lucienne replies.
Luc and Marie-Claire hesitate for a moment, then, seeing the others suppress their laughter, understand the housekeeper’s deadpan humour.
“Shall we go and see Armand?”
“Gladly, Marthe,” Hélène answers, getting up.
“Who is Armand?” Luc asks.
“You see?” Hélène explains, taking his arm. “There’s one missing from our little group.”
Without further unravelling the mystery, Marthe heads for the door, followed by the others.
“It’ll be ready in two hours,” Lucienne warns.
As they open the door, everyone turns up the collar of their jacket.
Gustave. Soon it’ll be hats and scarves! Hélène. Winter already! Time goes so quickly! Marthe. Don’t start complaining! Gustave. Strange how, during winter, it always feels as though time doesn’t go quickly enough! Marie-Claire. Perhaps we are too happy during the warm season… Gustave. Ah, my girl, those are lovely words. That must be why old people find time so long—their happiness is behind them. Hélène. Change the way you look at things, change the world… Gustave. Meaning? Marie-Claire. That happiness is wherever you choose to gather it…
Marie-Claire gives Hélène an amused wink.
“Very well!” Gustave concedes.
The ceiling of the sky is low and dark.
“Still, I’ll never truly get used to snow. No more walks along the river,” Gustave adds.
Their feet crush the snow. Gustave uses the short walk to tell the young couple the history of the property. It had originally been just a summer home belonging to a local family of notaries. Successive generations had enlarged it without much concern for the unity of the whole, adding bedrooms, a veranda and a few outbuildings. Rooms were later rented out to summer visitors, before the house stood empty for several years. Marthe had bought it and restored it, little by little. The old outbuildings had become the cottages. She stops to look at the place she already knows only too well. The others imitate her, waiting for her to speak. She suddenly thinks of her death, of her will. It must be changed quickly. Léo still inherits everything; what a terrible waste that would be. She looks at Marie-Claire, smiles at her, then resumes walking.
Hélène is the first to enter Armand’s cottage, after knocking lightly. She goes in, then returns a few seconds later and tells them with a smile:
“He was asleep in his chair.”
They enter. Armand comes to meet them. Marthe notes that he has not shaved. The two young people are introduced to him. He seems particularly pleased to meet Luc, casting him the frightened yet unmistakable look of a shy homosexual man.
Marthe notices Katou’s eyes piercing the darkness in which the bedroom is immersed. Armand is talkative and apologises for the smallness of the place, for being unable to offer them suitable refreshments. Marthe also detects an odour, or rather the presence of something she finally identifies as air that scarcely moves and solitary thought. Luc has gone to the imposing vinyl record collection covering an entire wall of Armand’s sitting room. He whistles admiringly. Marie-Claire is drawn to the birth charts, displayed in frames of different workmanship and materials, covering the opposite wall.
“Are you an astrologer?”
“Astrologer, pianist, music teacher, excellent at poker—and he likes boys!”
“Gustave!” Hélène exclaims.
“Let it be,” Armand says in a conciliatory tone. “The young people will have to form an opinion of the character sooner or later.”
Gustave is rather proud of the remark. Marie-Claire continues studying the birth charts and realises that everyone’s is there.
“Will you do mine and Luc’s?”
“Of course! I’m curious to see whether they complete these.”
“What do you mean?”
“Nonsense!” Gustave says, winking at Luc in the hope of winning him to his side. But Luc is listening to Armand, who moves closer to Marie-Claire.
“Well, without going into detail, one might say that each of these charts represents a piece of a puzzle.”
He points to one of the charts.
“For example, Marthe has the Moon in Scorpio and, here, Hélène has her ascendant in that sign. Gustave is a Scorpio. I have Mars in Scorpio, as well as Mercury. Scorpio energy is therefore present in our shared lives, which also produces a very interesting composite chart. Here it is… This is the birth chart of the four of us.”
He turns to Marthe.
“I recalculated it without Léo.”
Marthe gives him a faint smile.
“Léo?” Luc asks. “Is he the one who lived in the cottage we’re taking?”
“Yes,” Armand adds. “Léo was Marthe’s lover.”
Marthe scarcely reacts, showing them that Armand’s frankness does not disturb her. Yet she is surprised. She had considered herself the painter’s wife, and Armand’s reinterpretation, doubtless more realistic, leaves a bitter taste.
Armand continues explaining his theory, which she knows by heart. I was his mistress? Nothing more? She easily convinces herself otherwise. They do not know what their nights were like, their passionate conversations. Life with Léo went far beyond a mere carnal tale, even if his long absences may indeed have dissolved a reality she experienced only during rare, precious moments in his company.
“I’m a Scorpio with Scorpio rising,” Luc says suddenly.
Armand looks at Marthe.
“Like Léo,” she says.
“And what does that do?” the young man asks.
Marthe smiles at Armand, inviting him to answer in her place.
“Nothing in itself,” he replies. “Nothing in itself. Except for the eyes and the torment…”
“There, you see?” Gustave insists. “That stuff is useless, absolutely useless!”
“I disagree,” Hélène replies. “It’s the same music, the same world. And Armand is being too cautious. He isn’t saying what he thinks.”
“The Casimir effect,” Armand suggests, looking tenderly at Marthe.
“The Casimir effect,” Marthe repeats, much to Gustave’s dismay. He sighs.
“What is it?” Marie-Claire asks.
Hélène approaches her.
“We’ll have plenty of time to explain.”
Armand sits down again.
“Are you all right, Armand?” Marthe asks.
“Yes, yes.”
Pointing to his liver:
“This fellow is stubborn too.”
Gustave gets up, fetches a pillow from the bedroom and places it behind Armand’s lower back.
“Thank you.”
A silence follows, as though each of them wished to tell the disease, through this polite muteness, that it was not welcome.
“Cancer. I have liver cancer,” Armand tells the two young people.
“Oh! You poor man,” Marie-Claire replies.
She moves closer and takes his hand. Marthe likes the gesture. Armand smiles in return and pats her hand.
Marthe feels Luc looking at her.
“What is it, Luc?”
“You’re all strange.”
“What do you mean?” Hélène asks.
The four old people wait, amused, for the young man’s answer.
“I mean… you’re so… honest, open.”
“Not that open. Armand hid his illness from us for six months.”
“Gustave…” Hélène admonishes. “Let him speak.”
Luc gives a shy smile.
“Well, you don’t know us, and yet you behave as though it makes no difference.”
“We have nothing to hide,” Hélène suggests gently.
“Do you feel comfortable among us, Luc?” Marthe asks.
“Rather, yes…”
Marthe senses in the young man a thirst to be loved.
“It’s true, you’re special,” Marie-Claire adds.
The old people laugh.
“We’ve known one another for thirty years,” Gustave offers.
“We resonate in the same way, somehow,” Hélène adds.
“Oh, sure!” says Gustave. “A bunch of old bells, all cracked!”
Hélène throws a cushion at him. Armand protests:
“Hey! I’m not dead yet. I still need my furniture!”
His words bring back the silence.
“That doesn’t resonate like the rest of us,” Hélène says with a sigh.
“True,” Gustave answers.
Looking at his friends, he says in an unexpectedly sad tone:
“Some of us will weep more than others.”
“Me first,” Armand adds in a muted voice.
Hélène’s eyes fill with tears and Marthe’s grow clouded. Gustave slumps in his chair. Marie-Claire and Luc keep their eyes on Armand, who is lost in thought.
The sound of a bell being vigorously shaken can be heard.
“Oops,” Hélène says cheerfully. “We must hurry,” she explains to Marie-Claire, “because when Lucienne rings the bell, it means we’re already late! Are you coming, Armand?”
“Yes, I’m hungry!”
“So am I,” Gustave adds, “and we’d better hurry, because those two youngsters are going to eat everything!”
Marie-Claire protests, but to no avail, especially when Luc takes Gustave’s side, to the latter’s great delight.
“You bet! She eats for three!”
“You wouldn’t be having twins, would you?” Hélène asks.
“I don’t know. I have my ultrasound tomorrow…”
They leave the cottage, continuing their animated conversation. Marie-Claire draws closer to Marthe and takes her arm. Marthe smiles at her.
“Welcome aboard,” she says.
Marie-Claire returns her smile.
The meal is a joyful one. Lucienne sits with everyone and gives a richly detailed account of her fight with Pedro’s wife, then inevitably talks about her other lovers. Everyone makes merry over it. The food is abundant. Marie-Claire stuffs herself.
“I’m too old to get drunk!” Marthe declares as she pours herself another glass of wine.
“So are we,” Hélène retorts.
“Well, I’m not!” Luc insists under Marie-Claire’s worried gaze.
Alcohol, that skilful matchmaker, loosens tongues and strips away good manners. Everyone drinks, except Marie-Claire, who merely wets her lips again and again in the same first glass of wine, and Armand, who has been forbidden any alcohol. Marthe makes sure they are not bored as they watch the dinner table drift off course.
As it grows late, she invites her guests to spend the night. They accept, since Luc is no longer in any condition to drive. Everyone helps Lucienne tidy up. Armand and Gustave leave first. Hélène stays a little longer before leaving in turn. Marthe shows Marie-Claire and Luc to their room, which adjoins hers.
She then spends a long while in her bathroom undoing her hair and removing her makeup, occasionally struggling against the unsteadiness caused by the alcohol and the overly rich meal. She studies her features, hardened by fatigue and drunkenness. She decides to take a quick shower to encourage sleep. Alcohol no longer agrees with her very well. She regrets it, without attaching much importance to this sign, among so many others, that the machine is gradually failing to keep up. When she goes to bed, she hears the two lovers on the other side of the wall, still awake. She listens and hears only laughter, bursts of happiness interspersed with silence, more laughter, then nothing. They are making love, surely. The thought pleases her. They have no taboos; they are making the place their own. They will be happy, she concludes, over there by the river.
She said “over there” and does not quite know how to interpret the thought. It is late. She closes her eyes. She listens to the lovers. Her hearing is keen. But perhaps she is already dreaming.