The Other Story

  What Nicolas missed about his father was his boyish audacity, his endearing craziness. “Your father was as mad as a hatter,” Emma admitted more than once. “Thank God you are the serious type, like me.” His father could not resist a practical joke. Some were downright foolish. Others commanded the utmost respect. Like pouring gallons of bubble bath in the place Victor Hugo fountain just as an “enemy” was walking out of the church with his new bride. The entire place was soon invaded with mountains of foam, like in the Peter Sellers movie The Party. Like letting fifty white mice out of their cages at a famous socialite’s cocktail party (to which he had not been invited). But what Nicolas was the most nostalgic about were the bedtime stories. Nicolas said in a TV interview, “I believe that my father’s fertile imagination, the outlandish stories he used to whisper to me before I turned the light off, somehow shaped the writer I later became.” Nicolas liked to think back to those moments with his father in his bedroom at rue Rollin, the room he grew up in, lined with his Tintin, Astérix, and Picsou books and his posters of Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones and Han Solo. His mother rarely put him to bed. She left that job to his father, who took it seriously. Nicolas lay tucked up under the sheets, his head propped on his father’s chest, taking in whiffs of Eau Sauvage and the scent of cigar smoke that seemed to drape itself around Théodore Duhamel’s person, even if the Monte Cristo had been extinguished hours ago.

  Nicolas’s favorite story was the one about Lord McRashley. (Where did Théodore Duhamel get that name? No doubt from an old Louis de Funès movie called Fantômas contre Scotland Yard, which Nicolas had watched time and time again with his father.) It was morbid and frightening, like a tale by Edgar Allan Poe. Lord McRashley lived alone in a freezing castle, far away, where the north wind would blow, sounding like the howl of ghouls in the deep of the night. Lord McRashley had dinner served by his faithful butler, Jarvis, every evening. Holding a flickering candle in a heavy silver candlestick, followed by an army of black bats, Lord McRashley would then totter up to his rooms, situated at the top of the highest tower of his castle. Up and up the twisting stone steps he went, very slowly, bent over with the weight of years, heaving and wheezing, and every night it took a little longer, as he wasn’t getting any younger. The stern portrait of the late Lady McRashley—all angles and bones—glared down at him as he made his way up. There was a narrow landing with a chair between two flights of stairs, and he always paused to rest there for a moment. There he sat, gasping for air, until he felt strong enough to resume his ascent. The long and narrow landing, as ill-lit as the rest of the stairs, was lined with ancient spotted mirrors, and Lord McRashley could see himself from the back, reflected dozens of times, getting smaller and smaller and smaller. One evening, he happened to notice a black speck at the back of the last reflection. He dismissed it as a blotch on the mirror. But evening after evening, to his growing dismay, the dark blemish seemed to become steadily larger, drawing closer with each mirrored layer, creeping up on him, and he became afraid to go up the stairs, dreading to see the black form looming bigger and bigger each night. Consumed with anguish, he asked Jarvis to come up with him one night, and he nearly fainted when Jarvis vouched he saw nothing, nothing at all, and all the while the hideous silhouette (or whatever it was, and how Nicolas shivered at those very words) had glided even closer. There were no other stairs that led to his bedroom at the top tower, and it was with fear in his heart that Lord McRashley tremulously climbed them, until one fateful evening he saw that the loathsome horror was only one reflection away. He could see it all too clearly now, a vision of abomination, a skulking nonentity, a grimacing and sinister mummy like form, draped in a black cloak. Was it a man? A woman? At that point, his mother usually barged into the room, scoffing. “Théo, is this a proper bedtime story for a six-year-old?” Théodore Duhamel waited till she closed the door again, flashing his down-turned mouth (Those women!) and rolling his eyes at his son, saying, “Well, Nicolas, do you want the end of the story?” Nicolas would clutch his plush rabbit, Thumper (from Bambi), jump up and down on the bed, and yell, “Well, of course. What do you think!” Even if Nicolas knew the story by heart, even if he had heard it dozens of times, he still begged for it. And so Lord McRashley crept up the stairs ever so slowly, candle wax dripping onto his shaking wrist, and even the silent army of black bats did not dare go up with him this time, as if they knew. When Lord McRashley got to the landing, he found he did not have the courage to look up at the mirror. His old knees quaked and nearly gave way, his old heart fluttered painfully, and drops of sweat trickled down his weathered forehead. He finally mustered the strength to raise his face toward the mirror, whimpering like a child, and he hardly had time to utter a strangled moan, because—whoosh!—a black shadow pounced out of the mirror and gobbled the old chap up in one go (while his father’s lean hand grabbed Nicolas by the collar of his pajama top). And that was the end of Lord McRashley.

  “Your father is a hero to you. Is that why you made Margaux Dansor’s father, Lucca Zeccherio, a hero, as well?” Nicolas was often asked. His father was no hero, he told the media over and over. Born in 1960, Théodore Duhamel had fought in no wars, taken no stands, resisted no danger, defended no territory. He had not battled against cancer or some other illness; he had not written a world-changing thesis; he had not invented a revolutionary mathematical formula. He was no artist, no writer, no painter, no musician, no film director, no singer, no athlete. “That scene in The Envelope when Margaux is in a plane with her dad and the plane is hit by lightning, did that really happen to you and your father?” the journalists invariably asked. Yes, it was true, at age ten he’d been in a plane with his father and the plane was struck by lightning, but he’d turned it into a different scene, wrote it in another manner. That was Margaux’s story, not his. He had become accustomed to journalists desperately contriving to find similarities, however minor, between the book and his life, searching for a pattern that he could not decipher and which held no interest for him. “Why did you write The Envelope?” To that very frequent question, he gave one answer: “Because I had that story to tell.”

  Nicolas has dreamed of the thunderstorm episode time and time again since his father died. He also thinks about it whenever he boards a plane. He still sees his father’s long back, ensconced in a green loden coat, the glossy curls of chestnut hair tumbling over his collar. His father told him to go sit by the porthole. “You’ll have a better view, and I need to stretch my legs in the aisle seat.” Those long legs, how vividly Nicolas recalls them, swathed in beige corduroy or jeans, and the leather moccasins (from Florence) casing the thin, narrow feet. This was not the first time Nicolas had flown alone with his father. His mother had remained in Paris, stuck with her students, and Nicolas had been whisked off to Basel with his father, who had to meet a client—a client who never turned up. They ended up buying Swiss chocolates and having an enormous meal at the Trois Rois Hotel. (“No need to tell your mother about the client not showing up.” Nicolas had nodded at his dad mannishly. But he wondered why his mother should not know.)

  The flight was a bumpy one, the bumpiest Nicolas had ever experienced, and he began to feel queasy. The thought of the Rösti and strudel churning in his stomach was not pleasant. The plane bounced up and down dizzyingly, like a frenzied bumper car. Nicolas did not dare take his father’s hand, although he longed to. Now he felt both ill and scared. He glanced up at his dad’s face. Théodore Duhamel appeared to be fast asleep. Nicolas stared at the rich, full mouth, the square chin, the lush eyebrows. Another half hour before they reached Paris. How could his father sleep through such turbulence? All the other passengers were quivering. He wished his mother was there. He would have hung on to her for dear life. He longed for her touch, her perfume, her soothing voice. As Nicolas peered out of the porthole at the billowing black clouds, whispering for his mother, a terrifyingly loud clap was heard, like a hundred lightbulbs exploding at once, and a blue haze bolted smack into Nicolas’s face. The plane
lurched to one side. Passengers screamed in terror. Nicolas sat there, wide-eyed, speechless, certain that his last day had come, that they were all going to die right there and then, that the plane was going to drop down to earth with a crash and they would all perish. All around him, he could hear the worried babble of voices, the scuffle of flight attendants scurrying down the aisle, a baby wailing, and he glimpsed a sea of faces turning back toward him, to where the blue light had blazed with such strength. “Is he all right?” asked the man sitting across from them. “Poor little fellow,” cooed a plump lady in front. “How brave he is!” At last, his father’s tanned, lean hand found its way into his. “This is extraordinary!” gasped Théodore Duhamel, shaking Nicolas’s limp hand with gusto. “Nicolas, you are extraordinary.” Nicolas gaped. What was his father talking about? Had he not realized how frightened his son was? The captain’s grave tone was heard above the din. Everyone went quiet. “Ladies and gentlemen, please remain calm. A rare event has occurred. Our plane was hit by lightning. There is no damage to the aircraft and I’m told of a very brave young gentleman in row fifteen. We shall be landing in Paris shortly, so please return to your seats.” Nicolas blinked. Hit by lightning? He could hardly believe his ears. His heart pumped away like a little drum. “And do you realize,” his father said breathlessly, “that the lightning struck your window, Nicolas? The lightning chose you. Out of all the passengers sitting in the plane, the lightning chose you.” Nicolas glanced up at his father. “What does that mean?” Théodore Duhamel beamed down at him. “It means you are exceptional. Now, I want you to do so something for me, Nicolas. Listen to me very carefully. I want you to write this down right now. I want you to describe exactly how you felt when the blue light exploded in your face. Do you understand? You need to capture this moment before it goes away forever, like taking a photo, but with words. Get it?” Théodore Duhamel pressed on the buzzer and summoned the flight attendant. She seemed flustered and agitated by the event. “Oh, you are the brave boy the captain was talking about! I’m glad you are all right.” Nicolas basked in the unexpected attention. “We need a sheet of paper, please. My son has something important to write,” said Théodore Duhamel in his bossy voice. He handed Nicolas his pen as the flight attendant rushed off to get paper. Nicolas remembers the feel of the pen in his youthful fingers, still warm from his father’s breast pocket, where he usually kept it, next to a cigar case. Théodore Duhamel’s pen was a vintage Montblanc, engraved with the initials T.D. It seemed oddly heavy in Nicolas’s hand, its black coat silky and shiny, and when he unscrewed the top, he saw that the golden nib was dotted with blue ink.

  What was he supposed to write? His heart sank. He did not enjoy writing, the act of it. It was a scholarly, fastidious enterprise, summoning the creased forehead of Monsieur Roqueton, his principal, always ready to pounce should he misspell a word. Why was his father asking him to do this? His father had never bothered with homework. That was his mother’s role; she was a teacher, after all. But he did not want to disappoint his father. Had Théodore Duhamel not said that Nicolas was extraordinary? No, he could not let his father down.

  As the plane circled toward Orly airport in a grove of dark, rainy clouds, but on a smoother glide this time, Nicolas wrote. Unaccustomed to his childish loops, the fountain pen spluttered, but he mastered it, tongue clenched beneath his teeth, and the words came, beaded together, flowing out of him and onto the paper, joyful little creatures set free, giving him the most unexpected pleasure. He wrote a full page, which he anxiously handed to his father as the plane landed. His father’s eyes darted from word to word; then he shouted, “Yes!” making his son jump. “That is it! That is absolutely it! How clever of you to compare the blue haze to Rascar Capac’s crystal globe!” Nicolas had been afraid that linking the incident to Tintin’s adventures with a frightening mummy (one of his favorite reads) might trigger his father’s scorn. On the contrary, Théodore Duhamel raved all the more. He thumped Nicolas on the back so hard, the boy nearly choked. “How brilliant! I knew you could do it!” When they got home, his father read the page to his mother, who listened quietly and nodded her head. She liked it, but she seemed less enthusiastic than his father.

  It was not until a full fourteen years later, when Nicolas sat down to write the first pages of The Envelope with the same sputtering Montblanc, that he experienced the joyful, uplifting pleasure once again. The exact one, the one he had felt in the plane as a boy, the one that swept him into a secret world of which he was the only sovereign. A pleasure so keen, so pure, that he had grinned to himself, remembering Rascar Capac and the blue haze.

  “I’M GOING BACK UP to the room,” mutters Malvina. Her face looks ashen, peaky.

  “Do you want me to go with you?” Nicolas says feebly, making no move to get up, incapable of relinquishing the sun’s golden touch on his skin.

  “No,” she says, struggling to her feet. “I’ll send you a text message if I feel worse.”

  “You don’t want any lunch?” he asks. He’s been looking forward to their meal up by the pool.

  She grimaces and takes off. Nicolas watches her walk laboriously to the elevator. He’ll check on her later. As soon as she is out of sight, his hand reaches for the BlackBerry, like a greedy kid aims for the cookie jar once his mother has turned her back. He now has an unexpected time niche to indulge in one of his favorite activities. He reads his personal e-mails, keeping Sabina for last. Dita wants a reply for her three queries (none of which he is thrilled about, and he wonders at this—how and when did he become reluctant about meeting students in a high school, answering a journalist’s questions by e-mail, or posing for another glossy magazine).

  Alice Dor wonders where he is and why he hasn’t been responding to her e-mails. Nicolas knows she is worried he might take off and give his next book to another publisher. So concerned that she offered Nicolas the most expensive contract she ever proposed to a writer. (Pure folly, thought Nicolas when he signed his name at the bottom of the page, next to hers. How could she pay him that much money for a book he hadn’t even written, that wasn’t even in his head? He hadn’t had the heart to tell her then and there that, no, he had not started to write yet, because he found it much more exciting to travel the world and meet all these people who admired him.) Alice was terrified—yes, that was the word, terrified—Nicolas might be snared and pulled in by all those other publishers out there, swimming around him like hungry sharks, especially since the Oscar. She knew that they had already begun to court Nicolas, sending their lieutenants to invite him to lunch at La Méditerranée, on the place de l’Odéon, at the Closerie des Lilas, or for drinks at the Lutetia bar at six. They would soon finally move in themselves, calling him directly. Nicolas has turned them down politely. For the moment. Alice trusts Nicolas, but how far will these publishers go? She is aware they will up the ante, that the figures can become obscene, and how could Nicolas possibly resist? Nicolas thinks of Alice’s intelligent golden eyes, her deep voice, her surprisingly delicate hands. The woman who changed his life. The woman who sold his debut novel to forty-five countries and to Hollywood. The woman who wrought Hurricane Margaux.

  Alice was a friend of Delphine’s, the same age as she was, nine years older than Nicolas. Delphine’s daughter, Gaïa, and Alice’s daughter, Fleur, attended the same primary school on the rue de l’Ouest. It was Delphine who suggested he show the manuscript of The Envelope to Alice in 2007. She had started up an independent publishing company a couple of years back, one that was doing rather well. She had left a much larger company, taking all “her” authors with her. In that batch was the best-selling Basque writer Marixu Hirigoyen and Sarodj Ramgoolan, a young Mauritian literary sensation, the talk of the last Frankfurt Book Fair.

  “I’m fine,” Nicolas writes to Alice, thumbs flying over the BlackBerry, “just taking some time off. Back on Sunday.” Dutifully, he calls his mother. No answer at the rue Rollin apartment. He tries her mobile, gets her voice mail immediately. He mumbles, “Hi
, it’s me, just checking in. I’m in Italy, with Malvina for the long weekend. Hope you’re okay. Big kiss.” Where could his mother be on a Friday morning in July? Perhaps he should have brought her here to the Gallo Nero, instead of Malvina. Maybe he should start thinking about his mother for once. The last time he saw her, she seemed tired, fed up with her students, with Renaud and his shilly-shallying, and thankful the school year was coming to its end. She had mentioned going to Brussels in July, staying with her sister, Roxane. Perhaps she was there now, in the tall house on the rue Van Eyck, full of Roxane’s lanky teenagers, and then they would all go have lunch at Tervuren, where their mother, the cozy and endearing Béatrice—his maternal grandmother—lived. Nicolas convinces himself that his mother is with her family and not alone in Paris. He finds it morally more comfortable, yet he despises himself for it all the more.

  Next on the guilt list, François. Nicolas sends a text message, choosing the cowardly way out, instead of calling him directly. “Hi, dude! How are ya? Miss u! In a secret place writing my new book, which I’ve nearly finished! Give me some news? Khûbe.” He knew, with a sinking heart, that François would not answer his text message. Even though he signed it “Khûbe,” his old khâgne nickname, it would not soften François. The silence would go on. It would go on until Nicolas actually called François and set a date for lunch, a drink. But would François come? François’s silence stemmed from anger, jealousy, bitterness. He had seen the articles in the magazines (how could he not?), the shoots with Robin Wright, the four-page spread of the new duplex on the rue du Laos, the ads for the watches and the cologne; he had also seen the more serious articles in the Figaro Littéraire, in the Monde des Livres, in The New York Review of Books, analyzing the meteoric success of a young, unknown Frenchman who had touched so many hearts. François could not step into a bookstore, in France, in Europe, in the United States, without being confronted with posters of Nicolas and display stands of The Envelope in every language. “Of course François is jealous of you,” scoffed Lara during a recent lunch. She is Nicolas’s best female friend (meaning girlfriend in the true sense of the word, not a girl he’s slept with, but a girl he’s been friends with since their khâgne years.) “How can he not be jealous of you? Everyone envies you; even I sometimes do.” She cackled at his outraged expression and took another bite of her quiche Lorraine. “Oh come on, Nicolas. For years you are a charming, hopeless, good-for-nothing nincompoop, flunking exams, living off your mother, then an older woman, and all of a sudden you lose your passport, and wham! You write this novel that is read all around the world—by twelve-year-old kids who don’t like to read, by grannies, by housewives and businessmen, by First Ladies and actors. We still love you, but we are jealous. And poor François just can’t say it to your face.”