It was too late. Too late for me to reach out and tell him I cared, too late for me to tell him that I knew he had cancer, that I knew he was dying, too late to ask him about Clarisse and June, too late to risk myself in that territory with him. He blinked slowly, not even puzzled. He waited for me to speak, and when I finally did not, he shrugged weakly and looked back at the television. He did not even ask me what I wanted. I felt as if he had dropped a curtain onto a stage. The show was over. Come on, Antoine, this is your father. Reach out, take his hand, make sure he knows you’re there, even if you can’t bring yourself to do it, make an effort, tell him you do care, tell him before it is too late. Look at him, he is dying, there is not much time. There is no time.
I remembered when he was young, his smile shining out like a beacon in his otherwise severe face, when his hair was dark and thick, not the meager, scanty roots of today. I remembered when he would take us into his arms and kiss us lovingly, when Mélanie used to ride on his shoulders at the Bois de Boulogne, when his protective hand at the small of my back, propelling me ahead, made me feel I was the most powerful boy in the world. I remembered, after my mother’s death, how he clammed up, how the tender kisses stopped, how he became demanding, inflexible, how he criticized, how he judged, how he made me feel wretched. I wanted to ask him why life had made him so acrimonious, so hostile. Was it losing Clarisse? Losing the only person who ever made him happy? Was it finding out she had been unfaithful? That she loved someone else? That she loved a woman? Was it that, that final humiliation, that had broken my father’s heart, broken his soul?
But I asked him nothing. Nothing at all. I got up. He did not move. The television blared on. So did Régine’s voice next door.
“Goodbye, Father.”
He grunted again, not even looking at me. I left, closing the door behind me. On the stairs, I could no longer contain the bitter tears of remorse and pain that seemed to sear into my flesh.
“No, I could not talk to my father. I couldn’t do it.”
“Don’t blame yourself, Antoine. Don’t make it even harder on yourself.”
The urge to sleep takes over like a heavy blanket thrown over my head. Angèle leads me to bed, and I marvel at the gentleness of her hands, those respectful, caring hands that deal with death every day. I drop into an uneasy sleep, like sinking into a bottomless, murky sea. Such strange dreams come to me, my mother kneeling in her red coat facing the train, my father with his happy smile of long ago, climbing a treacherously steep, snowy peak, his face burned by the sun, Mélanie, wearing a long black dress, floating on the surface of a black swimming pool, arms outstretched, sunglasses perched on her nose, and me striding through a thick, overgrown forest, bare feet on muddy, insect-ridden soil.
When I wake up, morning has broken, and for a panic-stricken second I don’t know where I am. Then I remember. Angèle’s place. In her remarkably renovated nineteenth-century house that used to be a small primary school. Situated by a river in the heart of Clisson, that quaint historical town near Nantes I had never heard of before I met her. Ivy creeping up granite walls, two broad chimneys overlooking the tiled roof, and an enchanting walled garden, the pupils’ old playground. I am in Angèle’s comfortable bed. But she is not lying next to me. The space next to me is cold. I get up, patter downstairs. The appetizing aroma of coffee and toast greets me. A pale, lemony sunshine pours through the windowpanes. Outside, the garden is covered with a delicate sprinkling of frost, like icing on a cake. From where I stand, I can just glimpse the top of the ruins of Clisson’s medieval castle.
Angèle is sitting at the table, hugging one knee, deeply immersed in a document. Her open laptop is nearby. As I come closer, I see that she is studying my mother’s medical file. She glances up, and by the circles under her eyes, I can tell she hasn’t slept much.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“I was waiting for you. I didn’t want to wake you.”
She rises, pours me a cup of coffee, hands it to me. I see that she is dressed for the day, wearing her customary black jeans, boots, and black turtleneck.
“You look like you haven’t had much sleep.”
“I read your mother’s medical file.”
Something about the way she says it makes me look at her more closely.
“Did you notice anything?”
“Yes,” she says. “I did. Sit down, Antoine.”
I sit next to her. It is warm and sunny in the kitchen, and after that troubled sleep, those disturbing, vivid dreams, I don’t think I can face anything distressing. I brace myself.
“What did you notice?”
“I’m not a doctor, you know that. But I work in a hospital and I see death every day. I read medical files too, I talk to doctors. I examined your mother’s file while you were asleep. I took notes. And I did some research on the Internet, as well as sending a couple of e-mails to friends of mine who are doctors.”
“And?” I ask, suddenly unable to drink my coffee.
“Your mother had been having migraines two years before she died. Not very often, but strong ones. Do you remember them?”
“One or two. She had to lie down in the dark, and Dr. Dardel would come to see her.”
“A few days before she died, she had a migraine, and she saw her doctor. Look, you can read it here.”
She hands me the photocopied note. Dr. Dardel’s crooked handwriting. I had seen this before. It was the last entry in his notes before Clarisse died. “February 7, 1974. Migraine, nausea, vomiting, eye pain. Double vision.”
“Yes, I saw that,” I say. “What of it?”
“What do you know about brain aneurysms, Antoine?”
“Well, I know an aneurysm is a like a small bubble or a tiny blister that forms on the surface of a brain artery. I know the aneurysm has a thin wall compared with the thicker wall of a normal brain artery. And the danger is when that weaker wall bursts.”
“That’s pretty clear. Good.”
She pours out some more coffee.
“Why are you asking me this?”
“Because I do think your mother may have died of a ruptured brain aneurysm.”
I look at her in dismayed silence. Finally I mumble, “You don’t think there was a fight with Blanche?”
“I’ll tell you what I think happened. But when I do, it will still be up to you, Antoine. You will have to believe what you think is true.”
“You think I’m exaggerating the story? That I’m imagining things? That I’m being paranoid?”
She puts an appeasing hand on my shoulder.
“Of course not. Keep your hair on. Your grandmother was a homophobic old bitch. Just listen to me, okay? February seventh, 1974. Dr. Dardel sees your mother at the avenue Kléber. She has a severe migraine. She is in bed, in the dark. He gives her the usual medicine, and it clears up a day later. So he thinks. So she thinks. So everybody thinks. But the bad news about a brain aneurysm is that it can swell, slowly, surely, and maybe your mother had it for a while in her brain, but nobody knew, and her occasional migraines came from there. When an aneurysm swells up, before it bursts, before it bleeds, it puts pressure on the brain or on places near the brain, like optical nerves, for instance, or face and neck muscles. ‘Migraine, nausea, vomiting, eye pain. Double vision.’ If Dr. Dardel had been a little younger and perhaps a little more dynamic, with those symptoms, he should have had your mother sent to the hospital right away. My two doctor friends confirmed this to me by e-mail. Maybe Dr. Dardel had a busy schedule that day, maybe his mind was on other urgent matters, maybe he wasn’t worried. But the aneurysm in your mother’s brain grew and swelled. And on February twelfth, 1974, a couple of days later, it ruptured.”
“Tell me how you think it happened.”
“It happened while she was with your grandmother, that very morning of February twelfth. The story is the same, your mother in her red coat, walking to the avenue Henri-Martin. But your mother probably doesn’t walk that fast, because she is not feeling
well at all. She is still nauseous, and maybe she even vomited that morning. She feels dizzy, and her step is unsure. Perhaps, most probably, there is a stiffness in her neck. But she wants to confront your grandmother, and for her, this is just the tail end of her migraine. She is not worried about her health. She is much more worried about June. And facing your grandmother.”
I bury my face in my hands. The idea of my mother toiling up the avenue Henri-Martin in pain, her arms and legs weighing a ton, going to face Blanche like a brave little soldier heading out to battle is unbearable.
“Go on.”
“The story continues, similar to yours. Gaspard opens the door, maybe he notices how ashen she is, how short of breath she is, but she has only one goal, tackling your grandmother. Maybe your grandmother notices something too, that Clarisse’s face is alarmingly pale, that her speech is slurred, that she doesn’t seem to stand up straight, as if she were tipsy. The conversation is the same, Blanche flaunts the photos, the detective’s report, and Clarisse says she will stand her ground, that she will never stop seeing June, loving June. And then it happens. Suddenly. Like lightning. The worst pain ever. Like a shot aimed at the back of her head. Clarisse lurches, puts her hand to her temples, and she falls right there and then. Maybe she does knock her head on the table corner, but she’s already dead. There is nothing your grandmother can do. There is nothing the doctor can do. When he comes, he knows. He knows he made a mistake by not sending her to the hospital a few days before. He probably carried that guilt all his life.”
Now I understand why Laurence Dardel was bothered about me asking for that file. She knew a medical eye could easily pick out her father’s malpractice.
Angèle comes to sit on my knees, which is not easy, considering how long-legged she is.
“Does this help you? At all?” she asks softly.
I put my arms around her, nestling my chin in the crook of her neck.
“I don’t know. What hurts is not knowing what really happened.”
She strokes my hair.
“When I came back from school that day, the day my father shot himself, there was no note. He left nothing. It drove us mad. It drove my mother mad. Just before she died, a couple of years ago, she told me how dreadful it was, not knowing why he had killed himself even after all those years. There was no other woman. No financial problems. No health problems. Nothing.”
I hold her tight, thinking of her at thirteen discovering her dead father. No note. No explanation. I shudder.
“We never knew. We had to live with that. I learned to. It wasn’t easy, but I did.”
And it dawns on me that this is precisely what I am going to have to do.
“It’s time,” says Angèle vigorously. We are having our coffee after lunch, and the sun is so exceptionally warm that we are sitting outside on the patio, in front of the kitchen. The little garden is slowly coming to life. Spring is not far. I can smell it tickling my clogged-up Parisian nose. Grassy, humid, fresh, and pungent. Delicious.
I glance at her, surprised. “Time for what?”
“Time to go.”
“Where?”
She smiles. “You’ll see. Put something warm on. The wind can be tricky.”
“What are you up to?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know.”
I used to be edgy, at first, riding behind her on the Harley-Davidson. I wasn’t used to motorcycles. I never knew which side to lean on during a turn, and as a city boy, I was convinced that bikes were too dangerous to be trusted. I had never driven one in my life. And I had never ridden behind anyone, let alone a woman. Angèle drove her Harley every day from Clisson to the hospital at Le Loroux, rain or shine, sleet or snow. She hated cars, being stuck in traffic jams. She bought her first Harley when she was twenty years old. This was Harley number four.
A pretty woman on a vintage Harley gets noticed, I soon discovered. The distinctive throaty exhaust roar of the Harley turns heads, but so does the black leather–clad, curvaceous creature sitting atop it. Riding behind her was much more pleasant than I had anticipated, as I am stuck to her in a quasi-sexual posture, my thighs engulfing her, my crotch glued to her stupendous ass, my stomach and chest fixed to her hips and back.
“Come on, Mister Parisian, we haven’t got all day!” she yells, throwing me my helmet as the Harley growls invitingly.
“Are we expected?”
“Well, yes, we are!” she says exultantly, checking her watch, “and if you don’t get a move on, we’ll be late.”
We weave down bumpy country roads lined with fields touched by the first magical promise of spring. The sun is positively warm, but the bite of the air stays nippy. We drive for what I guess must be an hour or so, but it doesn’t seem long at all. It is in fact heavenly to be tucked snugly behind Angèle, the Harley’s rumbling vibrations strong in my loins, the sun caressing my back.
It is not till I see the signposts for the Gois that I understand where we are. I had never realized how close Clisson was to Noirmoutier. The scenery strikes me as completely different in the wintertime, browner tones, no green. The sand on the shore appears darker too, earthier, but no less beautiful. The first rescue poles seem to greet me, and the gulls circle overhead with piercing cries as if they remember me. The beach stretches far away, dark brown, touched with gray. The dark blue sea sparkles under the sun, and I can see the black, uneven lines of conches, shells, seaweed, rubble, cork, and pieces of wood.
There are no more cars on the Gois, and the tide is closing over from the right, the first lathered sheets of water already covering the causeway. The place is nearly deserted, not like in summer, when thick crowds gather to watch the sea conquer the land. Angèle does not slow down. In fact she drives even faster, and I tug at her jacket to draw her attention, as I cannot be heard through my helmet and hers. She ignores me superbly, gearing the Harley up, and the few people who are parked on land point at us with startled expressions as we rocket past. I can almost hear them exclaim, “Hey, are they going to cross the Gois?” I pull on her jacket, harder this time. Somebody honks loudly to warn us, but it is too late. The Harley’s wheels send impressive sprays of seawater gushing up on either side of us as they hit the paved causeway. I hope to God Angèle knows what she is doing. I read too many stories as a boy about accidents on the Gois at high tide not to know this is a crazy feat. At least thirty people have died here in the past hundred years. And God knows how many more before that. I hold on to her for dear life, praying the Harley doesn’t skid and send us plunging headfirst into the sea, praying the engine doesn’t get swamped by one of those frothy waves that seem larger by the minute. Angèle drives those four kilometers smoothly and with such cocksure self-assurance that I guess this is not her first time.
It is a wonderful, exhilarating ride. And I suddenly feel safe, gloriously safe, safer than I have felt since knowing the touch of my father’s protective hand on my back as a boy. Safe, with my body clasped against hers as we seem to glide over water, over what is no longer a road, for it can no longer be seen. Safe, as I look up at the island ahead, at the familiar rescue poles dotting our way through the sea’s glittering surface, beckoning us as a lighthouse leads a ship to security in the harbor. And I wish this moment could last forever, that the beauty and perfection of it would never leave me. We pull in on land amid the clapping and cheering of passersby who are standing near the cross guarding the mouth of the Gois.
Angèle stops the engine and takes off her helmet.
“I bet you were scared shitless.” She chuckles, a broad smile on her face.
“No!” I gasp, putting my helmet on the ground so I can kiss her wildly, more cheering and clapping going on behind us. “I wasn’t scared. I trusted you.”
“You can. First time I did that, I was fifteen years old. On a friend’s Ducati.”
“You drove a Ducati at fifteen?”
“You’d be surprised at what I did at fifteen.”
“I’m not interested,” I say airily
. “How are we getting back? The Gois is closing over.”
“We’ll take the bridge home. Less romantic, though.”
“Much less romantic. Wouldn’t I love to get stranded on one of those rescue poles with you. I can think of all sorts of things to do to you.”
The huge sweep of the bridge can be seen from where we stand, although it is more than five kilometers away. The road has gone now, entirely swallowed by the water. The sea has regained its supremacy, immense and shimmering.
“I used to come here with my mother. She loved the Gois.”
“And I used to come here with my dad,” she says. “We spent a couple of summers here too, when I was a kid. But not at the Bois de la Chaise, that was too chic for us, Monsieur! We went to the beach at the Guérinière. My father was born at La Roche-sur-Yon. He used to know this spot like the back of his hand.”
“So maybe we both came to the Gois on the same day when we were small.”
“Maybe we did.”
We sit down on the grassy hill near the cross. We sit shoulder to shoulder, sharing a cigarette, near where I sat with Mélanie on the day of the accident. I think of my sister, wrapped up in a bubble of ignorance by her own will. I think of everything I now know that she never will unless she asks me. I take Angèle’s hand and kiss it. I think of the long line of ifs that led me to this hand, to this kiss. If I hadn’t decided to organize a surprise for Mélanie’s fortieth birthday. If Mélanie hadn’t had that flashback. If there had been no accident. If Gaspard hadn’t had that slip of the tongue. If he hadn’t kept that invoice. But another if surfaces. What if Dr. Dardel had sent my mother to the hospital on February 7, the day she had the bad migraine? Could she have been saved? Would she still be alive today? Would she have left my father? Would she and June be living together? In Paris? In New York?
“Stop that,” comes Angèle’s voice.
“Stop what?”