The sun has prevailed over the clouds. Marthe and her friends cross the property, pausing here and there over stubborn flowers. On the ground, the leaves resemble fish suddenly deprived of water. Like a sheepdog, the wind herds them into more or less docile, dying flocks. Hélène collects specimens. The two cats have emerged from their hiding place and follow at a distance.
From the veranda, Lucienne watches them while securing her hat on her head. She grips the railing and descends heavily. “See you tonight!” she calls. They raise a hand without really turning around. A few minutes later, they hear the car leave the garage and disappear along the drive leading to the road.
“Henri and his men will come clear the grounds and prepare them for winter,” Marthe announces.
The others nod. Armand draws closer to Marthe and takes her arm. Gustave does the same with Hélène, for they have reached the steps leading down to the beach. The staircase is steep and crooked. Each of them helps as best they can. Marthe notices Armand grimacing at every step; Gustave struggles with his back. The two women are in better shape, and by clinging to them in this way, the men display less courtesy than a plea for help. Once on the strand, they contemplate the turbulent river, then set off, always in the same direction, since only one is possible, the other side being blocked by a cliff. Marthe has no real neighbours, an advantage when she had to receive people in search of solitude. She turns towards the property. The manor at the far end of the grounds embodies thirty-five years of her life. To her left, she observes the string of four cottages, each overlooking the river, their backs against the cliff. To her right stand the various utility buildings, garages, sheds and the old abandoned stable. She turns back and takes the arm of Hélène, who is waiting in silence.
The sand along the strand is firm and damp, making their walk easier. Armand discusses with Gustave the pieces they will sing together later. The two women walk at a different pace and allow the men to move ahead.
“What are you writing these days?”
Hélène looks at the river, appearing to consider what she might say. Her abundant blond hair, now streaked with long white waves, is working its way loose from the clasp that holds it.
“I’m having great difficulty thinking of anything at all. I can summon up all kinds of stories, but none of them appeal to me. I’m waiting…”
“I have faith in you,” Marthe adds sincerely.
Hélène turns to her with a smile and gently squeezes her arm.
“I know. Yes…”
Gustave stops and calls out to them:
“Hey, girls!”
“Girls!” they snicker.
“Well, what? You are girls!”
“Girls over sixty!” Hélène protests.
As usual, Gustave shrugs at what he considers a mere detail.
“How do you feel about the Cantique today?”
They look at each other and nod happily.
“Okay… ladies, Fauré this morning… and a surprise, something by Luengen.”
“By whom?” Hélène asks incredulously.
“You’ll see! It’s a… girl.”
He says no more and resumes his conversation with Armand.
“I hope it isn’t too complicated.”
Marthe smiles and changes the subject.
“You’ve never written about us, Hélène.”
“Should I?”
“I don’t know… Isn’t there a story to tell about what is happening to the four of us?”
Hélène seems unconvinced, or pretends to be.
“What, exactly? You find something interesting about Gustave and Armand?”
“Come now…”
Marthe pats her arm in mild rebuke, then leans on her, partly to make better headway against the wind. She gazes at the river, searching within the motion of the waves for some invisible thing that is in truth nothing very precise, perhaps nothing at all, the something that allows the mind to reach a safe harbour. She thinks of Léo, convinces herself she thinks of him too much. How many walks did they take together beside this same river? As many as the waves now crossing it? She tries to tally them quickly. Pointless, since there would never have been enough in any case. Had she not believed he would die with her? A shiver runs along her neck as though she might cry, as though the succession of days in her life had been no more than a rosary of heedlessness.
“I’ve been thinking a great deal about Léo since this morning…”
Hélène does not answer. She too looks at the river, at roughly the same spot Marthe has chosen. The women are now some distance from the men.
“Since Léo… it seems to me I say nothing anymore… do nothing.”
Hélène nods. Marthe stops and notices that the two cats do the same. They are playing with something she cannot identify. The river hammers the strand. When one pays attention, one can perceive the unrelenting force of the current, the exponential accumulation of wavelets and foam, the repercussions of the wind upon the water’s surface, the powerful breath of that wind—again, a sea unto itself—whose few remaining winged fish of the season cry out for vengeance, promising to return next spring. Marthe concentrates on the sensations within her body. Her heart is strong, her breathing slow; she feels no real discomfort or true fatigue. As for her mind, it will remain what it has always been: immortal electricity. So?
“I feel I still have many years ahead of me, Hélène, and I don’t like standing still.”
“There’s a time for everything,” Hélène suggests. “Wasn’t stillness what you gave me when I needed it? Do you remember?”
Marthe nods, recalling the striking entrance Hélène had made when they first met. Beset by inexplicable nausea after months of fruitless medical consultations, Hélène had arrived at Marthe’s office, sat down and declared without preamble: “When I was twenty, I was in a car accident. They removed my uterus; I broke off my engagement and became a nurse.”
She had wept at length during her sessions with Marthe. She had come to take refuge in one of the cottages offered by the psychoanalyst. She spent three months there, weeping, walking on the beach, building pyramids of pebbles. Marthe did not intervene; she implored the river to help her client. At the end of her stay, Hélène embraced Marthe and returned to work in the city. The two women continued to see one another afterwards, meeting for lunch or going to the cinema, already in the company of Armand and Gustave. Therapy was never mentioned again. Hélène began to write. A small publisher liked what he read and published her first novel.
Marthe leans a little more heavily on her friend as they walk. She looks ahead. The two men are gesticulating, governed by their conversation.
“Don’t you find Armand strange lately?”
“I haven’t noticed,” Hélène replies. “Perhaps he’s more solitary than before.”
“He seems to be hiding something from us.”
“You think so?”
“He’s more anxious, often wipes his forehead, gets out of breath easily. He might be ill.”
“He would tell us!”
“I’m not convinced.”
“We’ll ask him.”
The briny air carries stories she cannot translate. Bruz must have discovered prey, for he suddenly crouches down, followed by Katou. Marthe thinks of death, so easy and so useful among animals. Bruz is caught off guard when the bird takes flight. Katou begins grooming herself while her companion searches for the place where his prey escaped.
Their walk remains silent; they advance slowly, their steps now synchronized. The cats have discovered a rock and settled on it.
“Have you cried enough for Léo?” Hélène asks softly.
Marthe takes a deep breath.
“Probably not. I’m too proud.”
Always having the right word is the best way to soften one’s sorrow. Marthe continues:
“I was thinking about Léo’s cottage this morning, while I was rocking on the veranda. Maybe I should rent it out.”
“Rent it?”
They look at the two men in the distance.
“To Lucienne’s lovers?”
They burst out laughing.
“No, I don’t know,” Marthe resumes dreamily. “I would leave it to fate…”
Hélène appears to like the idea. Marthe smiles, takes her companion’s arm again and they continue walking. Since the men have been stopped for some time, the two women eventually catch up with them. They have walked far enough to lose sight of Marthe’s property. At this point, the shore bends sharply and the river seems twice as wide. At high tide, it is impossible to continue because the river licks the cliff. But they have a good two hours before the tide comes in, and they take their time contemplating the landscape.
“I’ll never tire of this river!” Gustave exclaims.
“The beauty of this water,” Armand says, “and the vastness of the sky… they’ll still be here after we die. They’ll always be here. They don’t give a damn about us…”
“You’re gloomy today,” Gustave remarks.
“I’m telling the truth…”
“What truth?” Hélène counters. “I don’t give a damn. Life asked me to live, so I live.”
She fills her lungs. The four friends draw a little closer to one another.
“Anyone who loves beauty is necessarily sad,” Armand continues.
Gustave does not look convinced.
“Living is living… Sadness? You drown it in alcohol or women…”
“There goes the macho man again!”
“You like macho men, Hélène. Admit it.”
“What do you know about women?”
“Everything, Hélène. Everything!”
“You’ll have to tell me all about it, because you hide it well.”
“Oh, be quiet,” Armand admonishes them.
“You, the fairy…”
“Gustave!”
Hélène moves closer to Armand, as though she could protect him from Gustave’s taunts that way.
“Let it go, Hélène. It doesn’t matter. We all know our friend conceals a gentle, even feminine heart beneath that thick hide of his.”
Hélène laughs.
“Hmm. Let’s say that.”
“You’re too kind, Armand,” Marthe concludes.
She steps closer and takes his arm.
“And I agree with you…”
She gestures towards the river.
“It is so beautiful and so fragile inside our minds. Our death will carry all this elsewhere; our memories will be free to go wherever they please.”
“Do you think they travel in flocks?” Hélène asks. “Like Canada geese?”
“Who knows?”
“Yes, who knows?” Armand repeats, visibly sad.
“What remains of our loves…”
Gustave’s warm voice mingles with the wind. Marthe loves their company. She tells herself they resemble frail shrubs lashed by a merciless wind. And yet they remain there, firmly rooted in shallow sand.
On the horizon, the river meets the ocean, and there the water is deep, monstrous. They continue their silent adoration. The wind carries Léo’s voice back to her ear. The river reminds her of the extent of his betrayal. She had not expected this, after all those years. She had thought him stronger, truer.
In the distance, a large ship is swallowed by the horizon. Has she lived all these years only to fail like this?
Do her friends think as she does? Gustave considers himself happy simply to be there, contemplating his revered nature. Hélène often closes her eyes and lets herself be lulled. Armand seems, as always, lost. There and not there. Should she tell the two men of her intention to rent Léo’s cottage? Doubt comes over her. She herself is not certain it is the best thing to do. Can she truly put her faith in fate? She questions the river. She is not surprised to receive no answer.
Gustave cheerfully pulls her from her reverie.
“How about we head back to the house and have a go at good old Fauré?”
“Gladly,” Hélène exclaims, “especially since I’m starting to feel cold!”
Gustave said “the house”; Marthe takes note of the allusion. Renting to one or more strangers will be a delicate matter. And yet… She bends down and takes some sand in her hand. One day her bones will be nothing more than this infinite quartz. She feels Hélène’s questioning gaze as her friend waits for her to turn back. The two men have gone on without them. Marthe straightens and wipes her hand on her dress.
“Why is it that women stop crying when they grow old?”
Hélène smiles.
“Do you really believe that?”
Now it is Marthe’s turn to smile.
“No, not really.”
Marthe draws closer to Hélène. The wind is now at their backs, and they talk of this and that until they reach the house.
The sun has definitively won its contest with the clouds. But the wind will never admit defeat. They go inside and gladly return to the warmth of the hearth.