The Lost Manuscript

by Cathy Bonidan

  You read my only book, so you must have noticed my desire for calm and idleness. My wife’s absence allows me to satisfy both of those needs. As for our daughter, she’s left the nest, as they say, and she flies on her own two wings at the other end of the world, or almost, because she lives in Canada … I know you didn’t ask me about my family, but knowing a bit about yours, I thought it would be a good idea to put us on equal footing.

  For the past few days, following your advice, I have brought my manuscript into the twenty-first century. Yes, yes, you read that correctly. I’ve returned to the first part that I’d written on an old typewriter, which is currently enjoying a well-deserved retirement in a collector’s attic. The act of placing my fingers on a computer keyboard and seeing the text appear in this new format renders the story strange to me, almost distant, like in the early morning when we recall a dream that troubled our night. I’m choosing this metaphor because my little naïve, ridiculous story has nothing of the great fanciful epics that have impacted generations of readers. Nevertheless, it merits a certain homage after all the time it’s been in my thoughts.

  Now I’m rediscovering it through your eyes and I forgive you for using the term “sappy,” which, even though it did upset me, is nevertheless justified. I am astonished at the pages I wrote that seem to be straight out of a Harlequin romance book, when I was already old enough to be considered a “man” and no longer a “teenager.” But you are right, that innocence lends the story an impression of involvement, of closeness. I’m sure there are many of us who are still holding on to the memory of interrupted love affairs, left dreaming of what might have come next, unable to live it.

  You told me to continue writing and I hope you realize you are responsible for this. I’ll take advantage of this to ask for your help: Will you read my new work once I’ve finished it?

  I’ll understand if you refuse. Without knowing you, I can already imagine you raising your eyebrows as you read these lines, disapproving of my audacity. I would react in the same way if our roles were reversed …

  Sylvestre

  P.S. You mentioned that I am ignorant when it comes to the nature of women … what do you mean by that?

  from Maggy to Anne-Lise

  POINTE DES RENARDS, LE CONQUET, MAY 13, 2016

  Hi, my Lisou!

  Can you tell me more about this new project you’re talking about now? Tell me all about your plans, which remind me of the adventures we would have when we were ten years old, both of us corrupted by the characters of Enid Blyton.

  I was thrilled to put back on my detective cap, and immediately went to see Agathe, as you asked. She is, of course, a die-hard fan of Agatha Christie and gave me no trouble when I asked for the name of the person who stayed in the room before you. To preserve the reputation of her hotel, I advised her to contact the occupant herself to ask permission.

  Almost immediately we discovered that the young man was at the hotel with his fiancée for just one night and confessed that he hadn’t taken the time to leaf through the book, though he noticed it in the nightstand. Our two lovebirds didn’t remove it from its hiding place and didn’t deem it necessary to mention to the front desk … They apologized for not doing so and Agathe assured them they had done nothing wrong.

  Don’t be upset, Lisou, you know how determined I am … And so we called the woman who was in room 128 just before the young couple. It turns out that this person is ready to swear on the Bible (or on any other book important enough to have a leather cover) that there was no manuscript in her room. She stayed there for a week and made herself quite at home. A big bookworm, she had tucked her reading provisions into the two nightstands, which were empty upon her arrival.

  Agathe, our Sherlock Holmes in a petticoat, promised to gather all her staff tomorrow morning to question the potential witnesses and solve this mystery. Now I have turned into Doctor Watson, and so I will send you a full report of what happens at this unusual meeting. I have no other updates at the moment, but be assured that the Breton detectives are on the case and will provide you with the conclusion of the story, even if it means missing sleep or another of their usual activities, such as catching sea snails or eating galettes-saucisses.

  Your comrade,

  Maggy

  P.S. I found my house in perfect condition and I applaud your children and their friends for having tidied up so well. Do you know that they even left me a bouquet of flowers on the living room table? They’ve dried, of course, but it still makes for a lovely decoration!

  P.P.S. Forget about Bastien! He’s not worth risking prison over … Try humiliating him instead! You know that old piece of advice for defusing conflict: imagine your adversary completely naked while he gives a speech in front of his audience. But around here, we have something more effective: add to that birthday suit a Bigouden headdress and you’ll feel better, guaranteed!

  from Anne-Lise to Sylvestre

  RUE DES MORILLONS, MAY 14, 2016

  Dear Sylvestre,

  Your letter was the cherry on top of this three-day weekend … You are such a talented writer! And I love how you are trying to manipulate me! How could I refuse reading your manuscript when you’ve opened your heart to me?

  I can confirm what you already know: I am impatiently waiting for the new end of your novel and I’m dying to know what outcome you’ll choose. Will you follow the dreams that you clung to at the time, or remain faithful to reality? Don’t tell me anything … I’ll quietly wait for you to conquer your demons and for your pen alone to decide the outcome.

  In the meantime, I’d like to learn more about your life. What do you do for a living and how do you have so much free time if you have not yet reached the age of retirement (which, you have noticed, retreats gradually as we approach it, like a carrot dangled in front of a donkey in an attempt to keep it moving)?

  As for me, I never stop running around, like your wife, even if my destinations are less recreational: office, work meetings, supermarkets to supply the household, school visits for the higher-level education of my children, and so on and so forth … Give me something to look forward to and tell me when I can finally experience the joy of theater clubs, gymnastics classes, meals at a restaurant, and especially time to relax in the middle of the week! Unless of course you are the descendant of a multimillionaire family, in which case this will never be an option for me.

  And no, I won’t explain to you what I meant about the female behaviors you probably misinterpreted thirty years ago. Holding no degree in female psychology, my only knowledge comes from my age and the fact that I am a woman. I will only say that I am amazed that you were so naïve that you believed that a young woman is not in love simply because she does not say that she is … Why insist on the honesty and transparency of the “weaker” sex when it is not possessed by those of the supposedly stronger sex?

  One last thing: How can you remain impartial about the journey taken by your book? You lost it more than thirty years ago between two airports, I found it at the end of the world (for the Bretons, that goes without saying) and you’re not at all curious to know how it got there?

  You have to admit that it’s rather unbelievable that these pages could travel all these years on the wind and tides without anyone throwing them in the recycling bin. Not that I think your book doesn’t deserve to survive, but our fellow citizens normally demonstrate a certain negligence with things that don’t belong to them …

  You probably think I’m overstepping, but I admit to a typically feminine curiosity concerning this mystery. With my network of Breton relations, I have set in motion a plan that, I hope, will allow us to identify the author of the last pages and to find out how your book arrived in Finistère …

  Your indiscreet correspondent,

  Anne-Lise

  from Sylvestre to Anne-Lise

  LES CHAYETS, MAY 18, 2016

  Does my book really deserve so much fuss? I am astonished at the idea of all these Breton souls trying to find my coautho
r … I hadn’t considered the possibility of meeting him one day and I’m amazed to find that you are ready to smoke him out and make him admit to writing something he might not wish to take responsibility for.

  It’s true that my nature is to be private—my friends would say secretive—and that I have a tendency to be reserved around all people I spend time with. I would never have dared, for example, to ask you questions about your hobbies and your profession as you asked me with such ease. To answer you, I’ll simply say that I am not yet retired, and also not the rich descendant of a wealthy family free from material concerns. No. I am merely lucky enough to be able to work from home, with access to a computer and an Internet connection.

  If it seems I spend my days being lazy, it’s because I only sleep four hours at night and I abuse my keyboard while my colleagues rest their neurons. It’s so I can take advantage of the best hours of the day to stroll or lounge in an armchair with a book in my hand. But don’t worry, you’re not writing to a freeloader, I diligently fulfill the professional duties I am assigned …

  I don’t know whether the frantic rhythm that guides your existence suits you (in which case you would belong, like my wife, to the category of Rodents, a name I’ve chosen because they always seem to be running after something that they alone can see) or if you are the opposite, and you aspire to a more contemplative life and see business as a necessary evil (which would classify you, like me, in the category of Folivora…).

  I hope the weekend you spent on the shore of the Iroise Sea at least allowed you to clear your head. Have you noticed the tyranny we typically exert on our minds? When we order our thoughts to follow a straight path that’s already been drawn rather than allowing it to deviate as it should?

  Try this experiment: isolate yourself from your peers (for example one day when your family is going to a hockey game or a costume ball or any other type of activity, fake a horrible headache that will force you to stay home alone), sit at a window that looks out onto a patch of greenery or, if you are hopelessly surrounded by concrete, choose a tree spurting out of a sidewalk. Sit however you wish, in a chaise longue, cross-legged on a piece of furniture, with your back against your balcony wall, it doesn’t matter, and observe. Begin by contemplating the trunk as if it were the magnificent accomplishment of a great and little-known sculptor, then, slowly, let your eyes climb along the branches until you reach the highest twig you can make out.

  Why? When I do this exercise, my mind surrenders completely. I hope that you will also feel that lightness of being—a state in which nothing is dictated.

  I’ll stop this flight of fancy here because I don’t want you to take me for a Buddhist or an expert of any other form of spirituality, which is not the case. I simply crossed paths with a vocational rehabilitation advisor and those people have a certain talent for distracting our attention from the elements that disturb it …

  Sylvestre

  from Anne-Lise to Sylvestre

  RUE DES MORILLONS, MAY 21, 2016

  Dear Sylvestre,

  Has my curiosity unsettled you? It’s true that as I grow older, I prefer to take the more direct path, in life and in conversation. If you had known me at twenty years old, you would have been amazed by my silence and my restraint, and of course, I would have never bothered you by asking about your life or conducting research on your book without your consent.

  Now that the harm is done, I owe you the details that I now know. The plot thickens around your manuscript and soon we will require the help of a real Hercule Poirot to resolve what I will call henceforth “the mystery of room 128” …

  I have a dear friend, Maggy, who lives year-round in the small Breton port where I spent that infamous weekend in April. Thanks to our long friendship and a natural tendency to drag each other into incredible adventures since the age of ten, she agreed to go to the hotel to find out who had left your novel in the spot where I’d found it (here I am acting like the owner when I only stayed there three nights). After an interview with the staff, we have concluded that the object in question (the term doesn’t do you justice, but it shows you just how much the investigators have entered into their roles) was introduced into room 128 two days before my arrival. I won’t go into the details but, bizarrely, I think we will have to expand our search to all the occupants of the hotel.

  Why, you will ask. I don’t know yet. However, refusing on principle to give up, I came up with a plan likely to get us past this roadblock (perhaps this “us” is a bit presumptuous? If that’s the case, I promise to put a stop to the whole thing).

  I wrote a letter that was sent, with the permission of the hotel manager, to all the people who stayed in the hotel on the date in question.

  Dear Sir (Madam),

  You stayed at the Beau Rivage Hotel on … and we hope that you have a pleasant memory of your stay. In order to assist a guest, we are hoping to find the origin of a manuscript forgotten in one of the rooms of our establishment. If you have the slightest clue to help us figure out where it came from, we would appreciate it if you could please contact the person at the address below.

  We thank you in advance for any information you can give us, no matter how seemingly trivial, and we hope to welcome you very soon for another stay at the Beau Rivage Hotel.

  Blah blah blah.

  Here, dear Sylvestre, is the template I sent to my friend. I have little hope of receiving a response, but at least I will know that I have tried everything to discover the identity of your coauthor.

  Hoping for your support for my plan.

  Your Belgian detective (minus the mustache!),

  Anne-Lise

  P.S. How did you know that I detest costume parties and sporting events? I don’t remember sharing these details and I am surprised by how well you know me already … Am I that obvious?

  P.P.S. I belong to the category of Folivora, even if I had to look up what this curious animal is …

  from Nahima Reza to Anne-Lise Briard

  RUE MAURICE-THOREZ, SAINT-DENIS, MAY 22, 2016

  Madame Briard,

  I’m writing to you following the letter addressed to me by the manager of the Beau Rivage Hotel in Le Conquet. The letter mentioned a manuscript and I know how it arrived in her establishment. I’m the one who put it there, and I left it in room 128 because August 12 (the twelfth day of the eighth month), is an important date for me.

  I don’t know what connection you have to this book, but for you to contact all the clients of the hotel, as you’ve done, it must hold a lot of value to you. Is it yours? Do you know the author?

  I picked it up on the beach in Roscoff on January 17. Flipping through it, I quickly understood that I was holding the original copy and therefore that it was missing from its owner. So I brought it to the bartender of the Bellevue, who was manning the heated terrace nearby. He thanked me, then confessed that he was the one who had placed the novel on the beach, in the hopes of a walker picking it up. I must have been what he had in mind because he suggested I keep it. Apparently it had transformed his life. So I read it.

  Five times. Yes, it took a little while for the words to imprint themselves onto my mind and eventually into my body. Two weeks later, I sat in front of a mirror to do my makeup. Nothing out of the ordinary for you, probably. But I had spent months wallowing in front of the TV in a shapeless tracksuit, eating cakes and watching trash TV, and that sudden interest in my appearance was something of a miracle. Over the following days, the transformation continued. I returned to the Paris area. I went to the office and all my colleagues saw me reborn. At night, I plunged back into this book that I kept on the coffee table next to my couch and, little by little, the weight that I had been dragging around seemed lighter. Until the day when I decided to get in touch with my child. I don’t know you well enough to tell you about my past, and we would need more of a relationship for me to tell you about all this.

  You must be asking yourself why I abandoned the book in that hotel. The answer is simple. When I m
et my son for the first time, I was staying there. I thought of that bartender who had saved me and I wanted to show the same generosity. I decided the guesthouse on the cul-de-sac facing the sea was a good choice, for I believe it’s the kind of place we visit when we have to make a decision that will determine the rest of our lives. This manuscript had already proven its worth twice over and I wanted to give it the chance to help a third reader.

  There you have it, now you know everything, or close to it.

  Cordially,

  Nahima Reza

  from Anne-Lise to Sylvestre

  RUE DES MORILLONS, MAY 25, 2016

  Dear Sylvestre,

  Bingo! I’ve found the person who left your book in room 128! It was a young woman who owes a lot to your words. The glimpse of life outlined in her letter profoundly moved me and I’m sure it will have the same effect on you.

  I’m attaching a copy of her letter for you here.

  Warmly,

  Anne-Lise

  P.S. Do you think you will pitch your story to a publisher once you finish it? Is it really autobiographical? And if so, have you spoken of that part of your life to those who share it today?

  P.P.S. I am annoyingly curious so feel free to ignore the above questions without any hard feelings.

  From Anne-Lise to Nahima

  RUE DES MORILLONS, MAY 26, 2016

  Dear Nahima,