“Aren’t most men?” I ask, struggling with her knee-high black leather motorcycle boots.
“Most men are sex fiends, but some of them even more than others.”
“There was this girl on the train . . .”
“Mmmh?” she says, unbuttoning my shirt.
Her boots at last clunk to the floor.
“Amazingly attractive.”
She grins, slipping out of her black jeans.
“You know I’m not the jealous kind.”
“Oh, yes, I know that. But thanks to her, I was able to get through those three excruciating hours waiting on the train while they were scraping the poor lady off the wheels.”
“And how did you get through those three hours thanks to this amazingly attractive girl, may I ask?”
“By reading Victorian poetry.”
“Sure.”
She laughs, that low, sexy, throaty laugh I love so much, and I grab her, press her to me, kiss her avidly. I fuck her as if there is no tomorrow. The fragrant rose petals get mixed up in her hair and in my mouth and taste bittersweet. I feel like I cannot get enough of her, as if this is our last time. I am frantic with lust. I yearn to tell her I love her, but no words pass my mouth, only sighs, moans, and groans.
“You know, you should spend more time on trains,” she mutters dizzily as we lie on the crumpled linen sheets, spent.
“And I feel sorry for all those dead people you fiddle with. They have no idea what a good lay you are.”
It is later, much later, after we have showered, after a late-night snack of cheese, Poilâne bread, a few glasses of Bordeaux, and a couple of cigarettes, and after we have installed ourselves in the living room, with Angèle comfortably laid out on the couch, that she finally says, “Tell me. Tell me all about June and Clarisse.”
I take the medical file, the photographs, the letters, the detective report, and the DVD out of my bag. She watches me, glass in hand.
“I don’t know where to begin,” I say slowly, feeling confused.
“Imagine you are telling a story. Imagine I know nothing, nothing whatsoever. I have never met you, and you have to explain it all, very carefully, with all the right details. A story. Once upon a time . . .”
I reach out and take one of her Marlboros. I don’t light it, I just keep it between my fingers. I stand up, facing the old fireplace, with its dying blaze, embers gleaming red through the darkness. I like this room too, its size, its beams, its walls lined with books, the antique square wooden table, the quiet garden beyond that I cannot see, for the shutters are closed for the night.
“Once upon a time, in the summer of 1972, a married woman goes to Noirmoutier island with her parents-in-law and her two children. She is on holiday for two weeks, and her husband will join her on weekends if he’s not too busy. She is called Clarisse, she is lovely and sweet, and not a sophisticated Parisienne . . .”
I pause. It feels strange talking about my mother in the third person.
“Go on,” urges Angèle. “That’s fine.”
“Clarisse comes from the Cévennes, and her parents were simple, rural people. But she married into a wealthy, well-to-do Parisian family. Her husband is a young maverick lawyer, François Rey, well known for the Vallombreux trial in the early seventies.”
My voice wavers. Angèle is right, it is a story. My mother’s story. And I have never told it to anyone. After a pause, I go on.
“At the Hotel Saint-Pierre, Clarisse meets an American woman called June, who is older than she. How do they meet? Perhaps coming down for drinks one evening. Perhaps on the beach one afternoon. Maybe at breakfast, at lunch, at dinner. June has an art gallery in New York. She is a lesbian. Was she there with a girlfriend? Was she alone? All we know is—Clarisse and June fall in love that summer. This is not . . . just an affair, a summer fling. . . . This is not just sex. This is love. A hurricane-like, unexpected, twister of a love. . . . Real love—the kind that comes once in a lifetime—”
“Light that cigarette,” orders Angèle. “It will help.”
I comply. I inhale deeply. She’s right. It does help.
“Of course, nobody must know,” I continue. “There is too much at stake. June and Clarisse see each other when they can during the rest of 1972 and the beginning of 1973, which is not very often, because June lives in New York. But she comes to Paris for business every month or so, and that’s how they meet, at June’s hotel. And then, during the summer of 1973, they plan to spend time together again, at Noirmoutier. And things aren’t as easy, as simple, that summer for June and Clarisse. Even if Clarisse’s husband is not often there, because he works and travels, one day the mother-in-law, Blanche, has a horrible, niggling suspicion. She knows. And that day she makes up her mind.”
“What do you mean?” says Angèle, alarmed.
I don’t answer. I continue my story, concentrating, taking my time.
“How does Blanche know? What does she see? Is it a fleeting glance of longing that lasted a trifle too long? A tender hand caressing a bare arm? Is it a forbidden kiss? Is it a silhouette she spied in the night, flitting from one room to another? Whatever Blanche saw, whatever it was, she kept it to herself. She did not tell her husband. She did not tell her son. Why? Because the shame was too great. The horror and the shame of her daughter-in-law, now a Rey, now a mother, having an affair—and to crown it all, an affair with a woman. The Rey family name could not be soiled. Not over her dead body. She had worked too hard for this. She had not been brought into the world for this. She, a Fromet from Passy, married to a Rey from Chaillot—no, it was unthinkable. It was monstrous. It had to be ended. Fast.”
Oddly enough, I am very calm as I tell the story, my mother’s story. I do not look at Angèle’s face, because I know it must be stricken. I know what my words sound like to her, their reach, their potency. I have never uttered this story, never pronounced that precise sequence of sentences, never said what I am now saying, and each word coming out is like a birth, the shock of cold air on a fragile, naked body slithering out of the womb.
“Blanche confronts Clarisse in Noirmoutier, at the hotel. Clarisse cries, she is upset. There is a scene in Blanche’s room on the first floor. Blanche warns her. She is frightening, ominous. Blanche threatens her, says she will reveal the affair to her husband, her son. She says she will take the children away from her. Clarisse sobs, yes, yes, of course, she will never see June again. But she cannot. It is beyond her control. She sees June again and again, and she tells her all this, but June laughs it off. She is not afraid of a snob of an old lady. The day June leaves for Paris to fly back to New York, Clarisse slips a love letter under June’s door. But June never gets it. It is intercepted by Blanche. And that’s when the trouble truly begins.”
Angèle gets up to stir the embers of the fire, as the room is getting cold. It is late now—how late, I don’t know. I am aware of a leadlike weariness weighing on my eyelids. But I know I need to go to the very end of the story, the part I am dreading, the part I don’t want to have to say out loud.
“Blanche is aware that Clarisse and June are still lovers. In the letter she stole, she learns that Clarisse dreams of a future with June and the children. Somehow, somewhere. She reads this with loathing and revulsion. No, there is no future for June and Clarisse. No future is possible for them. Not in her world. And there is no way her grandchildren, Reys, will have anything to do with this. She goes to a private detective in Paris and explains that she wants her daughter-in-law followed. She pays a lot of money for this. Again, she never tells her family. Clarisse thinks she is safe. She is waiting for the day she and June will be free. She knows she has to leave her husband, she knows what this entails. She is afraid for her children, but in her mind, she is in love, and she believes love will find a way. Her children are the most precious beings to her, and so is June. She likes to imagine a place, a safe place, where she can live one day with June and the children. June is older, wiser. She knows. She knows that two women cannot liv
e together like a couple and be treated normally. This may occur in New York, perhaps, but not in Paris. Not in 1973. Certainly not in the kind of society the Rey family live in. She tries to explain this to Clarisse. She says they need to wait, to take their time, that things can happen quietly, slowly, with less difficulty. But Clarisse is younger and more impatient. She doesn’t want to wait. She doesn’t want to take her time.”
The pain is setting in at last, like a familiar, dangerous friend you let in with apprehension. My chest feels constricted, too small to contain my lungs. I stop and take a couple of deep breaths. Angèle comes to stand behind me. Her warm body presses against mine. It gives me the strength to carry on.
“That Christmas is a dreadful one for Clarisse. Never has she felt lonelier. She misses June desperately. June has her busy, active life in New York, her gallery, her society, her friends, her artists. Clarisse has only her children. She has no friends apart from Gaspard, the son of her mother-in-law’s maid. Can she trust him? What can she tell him? He is only fifteen, barely older than her son, a nice, simpleminded young boy. What can he understand? Does he know two women can fall in love? That it doesn’t necessarily make them evil, immoral sinners? Her husband is dedicated to his work, his trials, his clients. Maybe she tries to tell him, maybe she drops clues, but he is too busy to hear. Too busy climbing the social ladder. Too busy paving his way to success. He plucked her out of nowhere, she was just a girl from Provence, so unsophisticated it made his parents reel. But she was beautiful. She was the loveliest, freshest, most charming girl he had ever met. She didn’t care about his fortune, the family name, the Reys, the Fromets, the real estate, the property, the establishment. She made him laugh. No one ever made François Rey laugh.”
Angèle’s arms snake their way around my neck, and her hot mouth kisses the back of my neck. I steady my shoulders. I am coming to the end of the story.
“Blanche receives the file from the detective in January 1974. It is all there. All of it. How many times the women met, where, when. Photographs and all. It repels her. It drives her mad. She nearly tells her husband. She nearly shoves it under his nose, she is so outraged, so disgusted, so appalled. But she doesn’t. June Ashby notices that they are being followed. She traces the detective back to the Rey residence. She calls Blanche to order her to mind her own fucking business, but Blanche never takes her calls. June gets the maid or the maid’s son. June tells Clarisse to be careful, she tries to warn her, to explain that it all needs to die down a bit, that they should lie low, that they should wait. But Clarisse can’t stand it. Clarisse can’t stand the idea of being followed. She knows Blanche is going to call her in, to show her the incriminating photos. She knows Blanche will force her to never see June again, that she will threaten to take the children away from her. And so one morning, one cold, sunny winter morning in February, Clarisse waits till her children are on their way to school, she waits till her husband has gone to his office, and she puts on her pretty red coat and walks from the avenue Kléber to the avenue Henri-Martin. It is a short walk, one she has often done with the children, with her husband, but not recently, not since Christmas, not since she knows that Blanche wants June out of her life. She walks quickly until she is breathless, until her heart pumps too hard, too fast, but she walks on, heedless, intent on getting there as soon as possible. She walks up the stairs and rings the bell with a trembling finger, and Gaspard, her friend, her only friend, opens up and smiles. She says she needs to see Madame right away. Madame is in the petit salon, finishing her breakfast. Odette asks if she wants some tea, some coffee. She says no, she won’t be a minute, she just has something to say to Madame and she’ll be gone. Is Monsieur there? No, Monsieur is not here today. Blanche is sitting down reading her mail. She is wearing her silk kimono and she has curlers in her hair. When she looks up at Clarisse, she does not look happy to see her. She orders Odette to close the door and to leave them. Then she gets up. Wielding a document under Clarisse’s nose, she snarls, ‘Do you know what this is, have you any idea?’ ‘Yes, I know,’ says Clarisse quietly. ‘These are photographs of June and me, you had us followed.’ Blanche feels an unprecedented gush of fury. Who does this peasant think she is? No upbringing. No breeding. From the gutter. Uncouth, slatternly, coarse little peasant. ‘Yes, I have photos of your disgusting affair. I have it all here, let me show it to you. See? It’s all here, when you see her, where you see her. And now this shall go straight to François so that he knows who his wife really is, so that he sees she is not fit to be the mother of his children.’ Clarisse replies, very calmly, that she is not afraid. Blanche can do just that, Blanche can show it to François, to Robert, to Solange. Blanche can show it to the entire world. ‘I love June and she loves me, and we want to spend the rest of our lives together with the children. This is exactly what should happen, no more hiding, no more lies. I will tell François myself. There will be a divorce. We will explain it to our children as gently as possible. François is my husband, and I should tell him myself because I respect him.’ Blanche’s venom swells, huge, bloated, out of proportion. ‘What do you know about respect? What do you know about family values? You are nothing but a slut. And I will not have you tarnishing our name with your revolting lesbian business. You will stop seeing that woman as of right now, and you will do exactly as you are told. You will maintain your rank—’ ”
I stop, my voice now a mere croak. My throat is parched. I go into the kitchen and pour myself a glass of water with shaking hands. I drink it down in a gulp, the glass rattling against my front teeth. When I go back to Angèle, the most unexpected and uncomfortable image jumps to my eyes, like a slide being propped there against my will.
I see a woman kneeling on rail tracks at dusk, and I see the train zooming up to her at a very fast pace. The woman is wearing a red coat.
“Odette is standing just outside the closed door. She has been standing there since Madame ordered her to leave, her ear glued to the panel, although that isn’t necessary, as Madame is shouting so loudly. She has heard it all, the entire wrangle. She now hears Clarisse’s firm, ‘No. Goodbye, Blanche,’ and then there is a skirmish, the echo of a brief struggle, the sharp intake of breath, an exclamation, but whose voice is it, she can’t make out, and then a dull thud, something heavy falling to the floor. Madame’s voice saying, ‘Clarisse! Clarisse!’ and then, ‘Oh, my God.’ The door opens, Madame’s face is haggard, she seems petrified. She looks utterly silly with the rollers bobbing up and down on her head, and it takes her a couple of minutes to talk, to actually speak to Odette. ‘There’s been an accident. Call Dr. Dardel, fast. Hurry!’ What accident? thinks Odette as she rushes to get her son, orders him to call Dr. Dardel immediately, and comes running back to the petit salon on her squat legs, where Madame is waiting, prostrate on the couch. What accident? What happened? ‘There was an argument,’ moans Madame, her voice strangled. ‘She was going to leave, and I held her back. I hadn’t finished with what I was telling her, and I grabbed her sleeve, and she stupidly fell, she fell forward, and she banged her head on the table corner right there, look, where it is at its sharpest.’ And Odette looks and sees the sharp corner, the glass corner, and she sees how still Clarisse is lying on the carpet, no movement, no breathing, her face drained of all color, and she says, ‘Oh, Madame, she is dead.’ Then Dr. Dardel arrives, the reliable family doctor, the old, faithful friend. He examines Clarisse, and he says the same words, ‘She is dead.’ Blanche wrings her hands, she sobs, she tells the doctor it was all a frightful accident, such a stupid, monstrously stupid accident. He looks at Blanche as he signs the death certificate, pen poised, and he says, ‘There is only one thing to do. There is only one solution, Blanche. You must trust me. Let me do what I have to do.’ ”
I stop. That is the end of the story.
Angèle gently turns me around so I can see her face. She puts both hands on my cheeks and looks at me for a long time.
“Is that how it happened, Antoine?” she says very softly
.
“I will never know the truth. That is the closest I can get to it.”
She goes to the fireplace, leaning her forehead against the smooth wood of it, then glances back at me.
“Did you ever manage to talk to your father about this?”
My father. How can I begin to tell her? How can I describe our last talk, a few days ago? I felt compelled that evening, as I left the office, to confront him. No matter what Mélanie said. No matter how hard she had tried putting me off for reasons of her own. I needed to talk to him then. There would be no more waiting. No more guesswork. What exactly did he know about Clarisse’s death? What had he been told? Did he know about June Ashby?
When I turned up, my father and Régine were having dinner in front of the television. They were watching the news. The upcoming American presidential elections. The tall, thin man, barely older than I am, the one people were calling “the black Kennedy.” My father was silent, tired. Little appetite. Loads of pills to swallow. Régine whispered that next week he was scheduled to stay at the hospital for a while. A bad patch was coming up. She shook her head despondently. When the meal was over and Régine was on the phone with a friend in another room, I said to my father, hoping he’d tear his eyes away from the television, that I would like to talk to him if he didn’t mind. He nodded and gave a sort of grunt, which I assumed was a positive response. But when he finally turned his eyes to me, they were so full of weariness that I was instantly silenced. The eyes of someone who knew he was dying, who could not bear being on the face of this earth any longer. There was sheer misery in those eyes, as well as a quiet submission that stirred me. Gone was the maverick lawyer. Gone was the dictatorial father. Gone was the arrogant censor. I was looking at an old, sick, foul-breathed man who was ready to die, and who didn’t want to listen to me, or to anyone else, anymore.