“Yes, I am her son.”
“Can you hold on, please?”
“Of course.”
I make out a couple of muffled words, some rustling and crumpling. Then the man’s voice: “Hold on, sir, I’m transferring you to Donna’s office.”
She finally says, “Antoine Rey.”
“Yes.”
“You must be in your forties, I presume?”
“Forty-four.”
“I see.”
“Did you know my mother, Madame?”
“I never met her.”
I am puzzled by her answer, but my English is too stilted for me to react fast enough.
She goes on. “Well, you see, June told me all about her.”
“What did she tell you about my mother? Can you tell me?”
There is a long hush. Then she says quietly, so quietly I have to strain my ears to make out her words, “Your mother was the love of June’s life.”
From where I sit, the countryside scuttles by, a drab blur of gray and brown. The train is too swift for raindrops to settle on the windowpanes, but I know it is raining. It has been wet for the past week. Sodden, end of winter weather at its worst. I crave Mediterranean luminosity, the blue and white of it, the scorching heat. Oh, to be somewhere in Italy, on the Amalfi coast, where I went years ago with Astrid, the dry, powdery scent of pines swaying on rocky coves, the sun-kissed, salty breeze strong on my face.
The high-speed train to Nantes is jam-packed. It is Friday afternoon. Mine is a studious passenger car, people reading books or magazines, working on their laptops, listening to music from their earphones. In front of me, a young woman writes zealously in a black Moleskine notebook. I can’t help looking at her. She is outstandingly attractive. Perfect oval of a face, luxuriant chestnut hair, fruitlike mouth. Her hands are exquisite too, long, tapered fingers, graceful wrists. She does not look up at me once. It is only when she glances outside from time to time that I can glimpse the color of her eyes. Amalfi blue. Next to her is a fleshy guy dressed in black who is engrossed in his BlackBerry. And by my side is a seventy-year-old woman reading poetry from a small book. She looks impossibly British, a mop of silver hair, aquiline nose, toothy smile, and immense hands and feet.
From Paris to Nantes is barely a two-hour trip, but I am counting the minutes, which seem to be crawling by at a snail’s pace. I haven’t seen Angèle since she turned up for my birthday in January, and the yearning for her seems bottomless. The lady next to me gets up and comes back from the bar with a cup of tea and crackers. She flashes a friendly smile at me, and I smile back. The pretty girl is still scribbling away, and the man in black finally puts his BlackBerry down, yawns, and rubs his forehead jadedly.
I think of the past month. Mélanie’s unforeseen warning after Blanche’s funeral: Whatever you find out, I don’t want to know. Solange’s hostility when I mentioned June Ashby’s name: I remember nothing about her and your mother. And the emotion in Donna Rogers’s voice: Your mother was the love of June’s life. She had asked me for my address in Paris, that day, on the telephone. A couple of things she could send me that June had kept and that maybe I would like.
I had received the parcel a few weeks later. It contained a stack of letters, some photographs, and a small reel of Super 8 film. And a card from Donna Rogers.
Dear Antoine,
June kept these preciously till she died. I am sure she would be happy thinking they are now in your keep. I don’t know what the little film reel is, she never told me, but I’d rather you find out for yourself.
All best to you,
Donna W. Rogers
As I opened the letters with slightly trembling fingers and started reading, I thought fleetingly of Mélanie, wishing she could be there with me, sitting next to me in the privacy of my bedroom, sharing these precious vestiges of our mother’s life. The date read “July 28, 1973. Noirmoutier, Hotel Saint-Pierre.”
Tonight I waited for you on the pier, but you did not come. It grew cold, and after a while I left, thinking maybe it was difficult for you to get away this time. I told them I just needed a quick walk on the beach after dinner, and I wonder if they believed me. She always looks at me like she knows something, although I am sure, perfectly sure, that nobody knows. Nobody knows.
My eyes teared up, and I sensed I could no longer go on reading. It didn’t matter. I could always read them later. When I felt stronger. I folded the letters away. The photographs were black-and-white portraits of June Ashby taken by a professional photographer. She looked rather beautiful—strong, arresting features, piercing eyes. On the back of the photographs was my mother’s round, childish handwriting: “My sweet love.” There were other photographs, a color one of my mother wearing a blue and green evening dress I had never seen, standing in front of a full-length mirror in a room I did not recognize. She was smiling into the mirror at the person taking the photo, who I assumed was June. In the next photograph, my mother was in the same pose, but stark naked. The dress lay at her feet, a crumpled blue and green heap. I sensed my face growing red, and I quickly averted my eyes from my mother’s body, a body I had never seen in the nude. I felt like a Peeping Tom. I did not want to look at the other photographs. Here was my mother’s love affair exposed in all its blatancy. Would it make any difference if June Ashby had been a man? I forced myself to think about this, hard. No, I did not think so. At least not for me. Was the fact that she was having a lesbian affair more difficult to stomach for Mélanie? Was it worse for my father? Was that why Mélanie did not want to know? I felt relieved that my sister was not here with me after all, that she had not seen the photographs. I then picked up the small Super 8 reel. Did I really want to know what was on it? What if it was intolerably intimate? What if I regretted watching it? The only way to find out was to have the film converted to a DVD. It was easy to locate a place on the Internet that did just that. If I sent the film first thing next morning, I would receive my DVD in a couple of days.
The DVD is now in my backpack. I got it just before I left to catch the train, and I have not yet had time to view it. “5 minutes,” reads the data printed on the cover. I take it out of my bag and finger it nervously. Five minutes of what? The expression on my face must be overwrought; I feel the pretty girl watching me. Her eyes are inquisitive, not unkind. She looks away.
The daylight dims as the train dashes forward, swaying slightly as it reaches its full speed. Another hour to go. I think of Angèle waiting for me at the Nantes station, and then the wet ride on the Harley to Clisson, thirty minutes away. I hope the rain will have abated. But she never seems bothered by rain. She has all the right gear.
I take my mother’s medical file out of my bag. I have read it carefully but have learned nothing from it. Clarisse started seeing Dr. Dardel just around the time of her marriage. She often had colds and migraines. She measured 1 meter 58, smaller than Mélanie. She weighed 48 kilos. A tiny wisp of a woman. All her vaccines were in order. Her pregnancies were supervised by an obstetrician, Dr. Giraud, at the Belvédère Clinic, where Mélanie and I were born.
All of a sudden a loud, ominous thwack is heard, and the train lurches sideways violently, as if its wheels have struck branches or a tree stump. Several people cry out in shock. My mother’s file slinks to the ground and the English lady’s tea spills all over the table. She exclaims, “Oh dear!” and dabs at the mess with a napkin. The train slows down instantly and comes to a shuddering halt. We all wait in silence, looking at one another. The rain beats down on the windowpanes. Some people get up, try to peer outside. Panicked murmurs arise from each side of the coach. Nothing happens for a while. A child whimpers. Then a cautious voice is heard on the loudspeaker: “Ladies and gentleman, our train is blocked due to technical difficulty. More information to come. Apologies for the delay.” The stout man in front of me lets out an exasperated sigh and grabs his BlackBerry. I text Angèle and describe what has happened. She texts back almost instantly, and her message makes my blood run cold.
/>
I hate to tell you this, but that’s not a technical difficulty. That’s a suicide.
I get up, startling the English lady, and walk toward the head of the train. Our coach is situated in the front, near the engine. Passengers in the adjoining carriages are just as restless and impatient. Many of them are using their phones. The noise level gets increasingly louder. Two ticket inspectors appear in their dark uniforms. Their faces are positively morose.
With a sinking heart, I know Angèle is right.
“Excuse me,” I say, cornering them in the small space between two coaches, near the toilets. “Can you tell me what’s going on?”
“Technical problems,” mumbles one of them, wiping his damp forehead with a shaking hand. He is young, and his face seems awfully white.
The other man is older and perceptibly more experienced.
“Was it a suicide?” I ask.
The older guy nods grimly. “It was. And we’ll be here for a while. Some folks aren’t going to like it.”
The younger guy leans against the toilet door, his face paler than ever. I feel sorry for him.
“It’s his first time.” The older guy sighs, taking off his cap and running his fingers through thinning hair.
“Is the person . . . dead?” I manage to ask.
The man looks at me quizzically.
“Well, when a high-speed train is going that fast, that’s usually what happens,” he grunts.
“It was a woman,” whispers the younger man, his voice so low I can hardly hear him. “The driver said she was kneeling on the tracks, facing the train, her hands clasped as if in prayer. There was nothing he could do. Nothing.”
“Come on now, kid, get a grip,” says the elder man firmly, patting his arm. “We need to make an announcement. There are seven hundred passengers on this train tonight, and they’ll be here for another couple of hours.”
“Why does it take so long?” I inquire.
“The body remains have to picked up one by one,” says the older inspector wryly, “and they’re usually stretched along the tracks for several kilometers. From what I just saw, with the rain and everything, it’s not looking good at all.”
The younger man turns away as if he is going to be sick. I thank the other man and stagger back to my seat. I find a small bottle of water in my bag and drink hastily. But my mouth still feels dry. I text Angèle.
You were right.
She texts back:
Those are the worst suicides. The messiest kind. Poor person. Whoever it was.
The announcement finally comes. “Due to a suicide on the railway, our train will experience considerable delay.”
People around us groan and sigh. The English lady stifles a little cry. The fat man bangs his fist down on the table. The pretty girl had her earphones in and didn’t hear the announcement. She digs them out.
“What happened?” she asks.
“Somebody committed suicide and now we’re stuck here in the middle of nowhere,” whines the man in black. “And I have a meeting in an hour.”
She stares at him with her perfect sapphire eyes.
“Excuse me. You just said somebody committed suicide?”
“Yeah, that’s what I said,” he drawls, brandishing his BlackBerry.
“And you’re complaining we’re going to be late?” she hisses in the coldest voice ever.
He stares back at her.
“I have an important meeting,” he mutters.
She looks at him scathingly. Then she gets up, and as she heads to the bar, she turns around and says, just about loud enough for the entire carriage to hear, “Asshole.”
The English lady and I share a drink at the bar, some Chardonnay to cheer us up. It is dark now, and the rain has stopped. Huge floodlights illuminate the tracks, revealing the gruesome ballet of policemen, ambulances, firemen. I can still feel the thwack of the train hitting that poor woman’s body. Who was she? How old was she? What despair, what lack of hope could have led her here tonight, waiting in the rain, kneeling on the tracks, her hands joined?
“Believe it or not, I’m on my way to a funeral,” says the English lady, whose name is Cynthia. She gives a dry chuckle.
“How sad!” I exclaim.
“An old friend of mine. Gladys. Tomorrow morning. She had all sorts of grisly health complications, but she was terribly brave about it. I admired her very much.”
Her French is excellent, just a trace of a British accent. When I comment on it, she smiles again.
“I’ve been living in France all my life. Married a Frenchman.” She winks.
The pretty girl comes back into the bar coach and sits not far from us. She is talking on her phone, waving her hands about. She looks agitated.
Cynthia goes on, “And just as we hit that poor person who decided to put an end to his or her life, I was in the middle of choosing a poem to read at Gladys’s funeral.”
“Did you find your poem?” I ask.
“I did, indeed. Have you ever heard of Christina Georgina Rossetti?”
I grimace. “I’m not very good with poetry, I’m afraid.”
“Nor am I. But I wanted to choose one that was neither morbid nor sad, and I think I have at last found it. Christina Rossetti was a Victorian poet, totally unknown in France, I believe, and wrongly so, for most talented in my opinion. Her brother Dante Gabriel Rossetti stole the limelight. He was rather more famous. You may have seen his paintings. Pre-Raphaelite stuff. Rather good.”
“Not very good at paintings either.”
“Oh, come on now, I’m sure you’ve seen his work. Those somber, sensuous ladies with flowing auburn hair, full mouths, and long dresses.”
“Perhaps.” I shrug, smiling at the expressive way her hands suggest abundant bosoms. “What about the sister’s poem? Can you read it to me?”
“I will. And we shall think about the person who just died, shall we not?”
“It was a lady. The ticket inspectors told me.”
“Then I shall read this poem for her. Bless her soul.”
Cynthia takes the poetry book out of her bag, slides her oversize owl-like glasses over her nose, and begins to read in a loud, theatrical voice. Everybody in the bar coach turns around.
“When I am dead, my dearest,
Sing no sad songs for me;
Plant thou no roses at my head,
Nor shady cypress tree:
Be the green grass above me
With showers and dewdrops wet;
And if thou wilt, remember,
And if thou wilt, forget.”
Her voice goes on, soaring through the sudden hush, above the grating, scraping noises of whatever is going on outside, which I don’t want to think about. It is a poignant poem, beautifully simple, and somehow it fills me with hope. When she finishes reading, some people murmur their thanks, and the pretty girl’s face is tearful.
“Thank you,” I say.
Cynthia nods. “I’m glad you like it. I think it is fitting.”
The girl comes up to us timidly. She asks Cynthia for the author of the poem and writes it down in her notebook. I ask her to join us, and she sits down gratefully. She says she hopes we didn’t think she was rude—what she said to the man in black earlier on.
Cynthia scoffs. “Rude? My dear, you were remarkable.”
The girl smiles ruefully. She is unusually good-looking. Her figure is exceptional, swelling breasts only just visible under a loose, dark sweater, long line of hip and leg, round buttocks under tight Levi’s.
“You know, I can’t help thinking about what happened,” she whispers. “I almost feel responsible, as if I killed that poor person myself.”
“That’s not what happened,” I tell her.
“Perhaps, but I can’t help it. I keep feeling that bump.” She shivers. “And I keep thinking about the man who was driving the train . . . Can you imagine? And with these high-speed trains, I guess there’s no way you can brake fast enough. And this person’s family. I heard you sa
ying it was a woman. . . . I wonder if they’ve been told by now. Has she even been indentified? Maybe nobody knows. Maybe her loved ones have no idea that their mother, sister, daughter, wife, whatever, is dead. I can’t bear it.” She starts to cry again, very softly. “I want to get off this awful train, I want this to never have happened, I want this person to be still alive!”
Cynthia takes her hand. I don’t dare. I don’t want this lovely creature to think I’m coming on to her.
“We all feel the same,” says Cynthia soothingly. “What happened tonight was dreadful. Horrible. How can anyone not be upset?”
“That man . . . That man who kept saying he was going to be late,” she sobs, “and there were others too. I heard them.”
I too will be haunted by that thwack. I don’t tell her, because her awesome beauty is stronger than the hideous power of death. Tonight I am swamped by death. Never in my life has death hovered to such an extent around me, like the buzz of a persistent black moth. The cemetery my apartment gives onto. Pauline. The carcasses on the road. My mother’s red coat on the petit salon floor. Blanche. Angèle’s feminine hands handling corpses. That faceless, desperate woman waiting for the train under the drizzle.
And I am glad, so glad, relieved even, to be but a man, a mere man who in the face of death feels more like reaching out and groping this gorgeous stranger’s breasts than breaking into tears.
I never tire of Angèle’s exotic-looking bedroom, with its saffron gold ceiling and its warm, cinnamon red walls that make such an interesting contrast with the morgue she works in. The door, window frames, and baseboards are painted midnight blue. Orange and yellow silk embroidered saris hang over the windows, and small Moroccan filigree lanterns cast a flickering, candlelit glow on the bed, which is covered with fawn linen sheets. Tonight there are rose petals scattered over the pillows.
“What I like about you, Antoine Rey,” she says, fumbling with my belt (and I with hers), “is that underneath that romantic, well-behaved, charming exterior, those clean jeans and crisp white shirts, those lovat green Shetland sweaters, you are nothing but a sex fiend.”