RUE DES PIERRES, BRUSSELS, JUNE 11, 2016
Dear Maggy,
Do you remember how we dreamed of visiting Brussels a few years ago? Well, let’s get back to planning again, please, because this city is magnificent. You can’t resist the charm of the Grand Place with all its shops overflowing with souvenirs and chocolate … When we were young, we would always bring back the kitschiest gifts for our friends and I’m sure we could break a record if we resumed our game here! On that note, I bought a little present that will brilliantly decorate the shelf of your living room …
Tonight I’m writing to you from the hotel I booked for two nights near the chocolate museum … It’s adorable and I’ve eaten very well here during this short trip. I have the window half open; a slight breeze rustles the curtains and I can hear snippets of conversations from the street. As I write this letter, I’m appreciating the tidbits of anonymous lives that are invading my subconscious.
I am alone. How long has it been since I was last alone? We forget ourselves so much by looking at others, getting to know them, trying to exist in their eyes, that when they’re far away, we no longer know who we are. So I’m thinking of your life in voluntary exile and I envy you a bit.
Tomorrow I’ll return to Paris, after a mandatory trip to the Jacques Brel museum. We’ll see the other sites together as soon as you’re able to come back with me. I’ll leave the children with their father, just this once won’t hurt, and they’re old enough to cook some pasta, aren’t they? Speaking of which, I revel in my weekend even more when I think of Julian taking care of the groceries, the meals, and responding (with a smile) to all the demands of our two needy teenagers … Does that make me a bad mother?
I know you’re waiting to hear an update. Donning my detective cap, I went to the neighborhood of Huldenberg as soon as I arrived to visit its famous soccer club. There I met an adorable old woman who could speak to me in French (though at first I thought she was speaking to me in Dutch, her accent was so strong). Eventually I got used to it and we drank tea together in her little house right next to the soccer field. In exchange for this lodging provided by the city, she looks after the area and monitors the comings and goings between games.
In order to convince her to help me out, I told her the entire story of this manuscript (the more I tell it, the more extraordinary I find it!). She listened to me attentively, sipping her tea. Then, eyes shining, she told me that my search wouldn’t stop at her door and that she would help find the man (or woman) who had left the book in her locker rooms. Since good fortune has accompanied me on each step of this journey, I wasn’t surprised to learn there would be a game the next day and that all the regulars were expected to attend.
So, at the end of the afternoon, I returned to the home of Hanne Janssen (that’s her name). She was accompanied by a teenager with a grumpy expression that I know by heart since I see it every day on my Katia’s face. The young girl was sulking, for this novel had resulted in her being grounded for two weeks. Her mother had asked her to return it to her best friend, an old Parisian woman who wanted to read it and must have also told her how to get to the address on page 156 from Paris. Of course, the young girl forgot it on the locker room bench and it disappeared.
Since her mother is currently completing an internship in our capital (talk about coincidence), we agreed to meet before her return to Brussels, two weeks from now. I am so excited … No, I am going to be honest, I am hopping up and down with impatience at the idea of this next meeting!
So to help me endure the wait, I’ve collected a mountain of information on all the sites we can visit during our next trip to the Belgian capital …
Figure out your dates, we’ll organize our escapade as soon as I get back.
Kisses,
Lisou
from Ellen Anthon to Anne-Lise Briard
GARE DU NORD, PARIS, JUNE 15, 2016
Dear Madame Briard,
I’m so sad that I’m not able to meet you in Paris as we had agreed! Unfortunately, I was told this afternoon that my husband has been hospitalized in Brussels with a hernia. It’s not very serious and I know he’s doing fine, but if you know men (I imagine French men are as bad as Belgian men when they’re ill), you’ll understand that he would take it the wrong way if I were to stay in Paris while he’s dying in Brussels!
Since this book moved you as much as it moved me, I won’t make you wait for an explanation on how it came into my possession. I’m going to call the friend who gave it to me and he’ll tell you the whole story better than I could. In any event, I’m quite pleased to know that you found it and its owner. Tell him that his novel is impatiently awaited in Belgium and that it’s never good to stumble en stoemelings.
There are twenty of us in my book club in Belgium and we all loved this story, which showed up right after we started our writing workshop. Our poetry leader is the one who brought it to us. I’ll send him your information so he can tell you more because now I need to get going. Fortunately for my dying husband, the 5:49 P.M. TGV is on time despite your legendary strikes …
At your service,
Ellen Anthon
P.S. I would be very happy to meet you if you come back volle gas to our country. I really enjoyed your city even though Parisians lack a sense of humor (except of course when they’re making fun of my fellow citizens).
from William Grant to Anne-Lise Briard
GREAT PETER STREET, LONDON, JUNE 19, 2016
Madame Briard,
I am writing to you at the request of our mutual friend, Ellen Anthon. I learned that you are interested in a text that was in my possession only a few months ago. It doesn’t belong to me and I don’t know the identity of its author. But the story touched me, and I kept it with me for a while until I gave it up to my Bruxellois friends. My profession requires a lot of moving around; I am not the permanent leader of the association you heard about, but I quite like the people in it and I attend their meetings whenever I’m in Brussels.
Right now, I’m on a trip to London and I think I’ll stay here for a little while because I have some family in the area. Since my mother is Franco-Belgian, I also had a French grandmother and, as a child, spent all my summers in the south of your beautiful country, where I still have a house. Please excuse the bragging: I am merely trying to explain that I am often in France. On my next visit, if you like, we can meet to talk about the book.
I added a few words on the last pages: lines that I left there as if the text were a collective composition inviting each reader to write the next part … Thank you for apologizing to the owner on my behalf for having taken this liberty that was justified only by the pleasure of enjoying a nice moment thanks to his narrative talents.
With my best wishes,
William Grant
from Sylvestre to Anne-Lise
LES CHAYETS, JUNE 22, 2016
It’s now been more than two weeks since I’ve heard from you. I assume from this that you have not taken my advice and that you went to Belgium against everyone’s wishes. Did you think about me at all? Did you stop to think that it might be unpleasant for me to meet the man who finished my work and lent it an appeal that I did not manage to breathe into the first pages?
Yes, this morning I am angry, Anne-Lise, and I wonder whether I should burn this manuscript and put an end to your wanderings. I don’t understand the motivation for your quest; we don’t know each other, and this story is not yours!
You are not the only reason for my frustration: it’s now June and this time of year always plunges me into a state of feverishness leading to bad decisions. I believe we all have an unfavorable month that we hold our breath through each year in order to fight back the noxiousness. Now you know mine. At least I have the good fortune that this month is only thirty days, which diminishes my period of aggravation by about three percent compared to half the population, but it’s nearly seven percent longer for me than for those lucky few who loathe February!
And don’t use my ba
d mood as an excuse to leave me in the dark. Own your indiscretion and at least keep me updated on your discoveries!
Sylvestre
P.S. I’ll wait until July to burn my pages. That way I will not be able to attribute this decision to the bad influence of this cursed month. For a few days now, the heavy heat making its way from Paris to here only reinforces my irritation and the uninspired journalists bring out their usual refrains on the heat wave, as if this eight-letter phrase were their secret password to getting on the 20 Heures news show. Is the weather the same in Belgium?
from Nahima to Anne-Lise
RUE MAURICE-THOREZ, JUNE 27, 2016
Hello Anne-Lise,
I’ve been waiting to answer you. I needed a little while to sort out my life and to try to find time for writing letters again. When I wrote to you, a month ago, I had just seen my child. That possessive is an exaggeration because I abandoned this child at birth. I was barely sixteen years old, but that’s not an excuse; this fact doesn’t change the gravity of my action.
I told my family a story about a high school boyfriend and a birthday party. I was so ashamed. Who could I tell that I had agreed to meet with my rapist? And anyway, I had forgotten everything. When I think about the assault now, it’s as though it happened to someone else, or that someone told the story to me, or that I saw it on a reality TV show. I feel such detachment when faced with the horror of that moment that no one would have believed me if I had recounted the graffiti obscuring the gray of the walls, the color of the sky visible through the skylight, the stench of the trash and the odors of rotting fish that wafted through the half-open door. And how to superimpose on this vulgar scene the joyous soundtrack of the cries of carefree children playing in the town park? Even the blade of the knife that gashed my throat didn’t leave any memory of pain. Just a small, bright red triangle under my jaw that I hid with a bit of foundation for a few days.
At fifteen years old, I repressed my rape so well that I saw none of the signs that should have alerted me. By the time I accepted the reality, it was too late. My parents were there, they supported me despite the disappointment they must have felt. They offered to help me raise my child. I refused.
The birth happened. And life went on. That’s what I wanted. For everything to go back to how it was before. Live the same life as the other girls in the neighborhood again. Go out as a group. Avoid the town basements and confidently mock those girls who give in and refuse to wear skirts to high school. Assume the courage that only teenagers have, get back to the shores of unconsciousness …
But I hadn’t understood that, in the meantime, I had become a mother. A child-mother, a mother without a child, call it what you will.
It all began with little things, a jump hearing a cry on the stairs, a violent pain in my stomach seeing advertisements featuring babies. I would cry more and more often, and my parents ended up calling the adoption service. Once again, it was too late. The child had been placed in a family, there was nothing to do. I started to analyze the faces of all the babies I saw. I became obsessed, to the extent that I paid someone to get the name of the adoptive family. He did. When my parents found out, they sent me to the therapist I had seen after the birth. He was the only one who knew the real circumstances of my pregnancy. He forbade me from going to see my child and advised me to put distance between us. I left to go to my aunt’s, near Paris, thinking that a change of scenery would allow me to forget. It didn’t work. For eight years, I dragged around that guilt and that “sentimental uncertainty.” That’s how my shrink referred to my unhappiness. But he was wrong, it wasn’t a matter of sentimentality; I had left a part of me in a county hospital and I was moving forward, incomplete.
When I picked up that manuscript in Roscoff, I was on leave for depression and I was temporarily back living in my parents’ house. Of course, the story in the book has nothing to do with mine, but it showed me to what extent our existence is insignificant. You might say it’s a strange way to reawaken a lust for life! But it’s not all that strange, because the more our passage on Earth is trivial and fleeting, the more the decisions we make become unimportant, almost forgivable …
In this state of mind, I reached out to my son. He’s named Romain, he lives with a wonderful family and has two little sisters who adore him. His parents told him about his adoption and they allowed me to meet him on April 14. I saw him. And I finally discovered who I was. Perhaps it’s obvious for you if you have children … but for me, that day changed everything. An unexpected, animal violence. From deep inside me, the force that can turn a mother into a saint or a criminal. I understood that, for the being standing in front of me, unaware of the love he provoked, I could now kill, or erase myself. I could remain in the shadows if I knew that that would allow him to be happy. And wait. For the smallest sign on his part.
I know now that his life will continue far from me, but they will let me see him each time he expresses the desire, his mother promised me that.
After that meeting in Brest, I remained in Finistère for a few days, in that hotel where I decided to reintegrate into the world of the living and give my life another chance. And that’s why I placed those words that had sustained me for two months in room 128, where you found them.
That’s the whole story. If you’re now in contact with the people who wrote this novel, I would be happy to have their information. I believe they deserve to know the influence they’ve had on my life.
Affectionately,
Nahima
P.S. You said that we have both “read an intimate and delicate work that was not meant for us.” Do you still believe that? I know that it was waiting for me and that it wound up on the beach that day so that I could regain my path and advance a bit further. Sometimes there is a clear connection between a book and a reader; it can’t just be a coincidence.
from Maggy to Anne-Lise
VINCENT SQUARE, LONDON, JUNE 28, 2016
Hello Lisou!
I’ve arrived! You were right, London is magnificent! Yesterday, I walked until eleven P.M. on the banks of the Thames, I breathed in the sea air which caressed my face as if it had accompanied me here from home. Indifferent to the humid chill that enveloped us, there were dozens of us daydreaming on the shore of the gray, tormented water and I imagine that stroll has inspired more novels than all my coastal trails combined.
Despite my incapacity to understand what is being said around me (or more likely because of it), I feel at home here. Did you feel the same during your trips? It’s a delicious and troubling sensation to feel like you belong in a place where you’ve never set foot …
This morning, I drifted along with the wind, which glides from one intersection to another as if to spread the fragrance of the river. I wandered down streets and smiled, capturing a few unknown words, which I had fun guessing the meaning of according to the speakers’ facial expressions. Then, a ray of sun pierced the heart of the clouds. I settled in its light, on the edge of a terrace, and I observed the people passing by. I discovered England, my eyes amazed by the senseless outfit pairings, my sense of smell titillated by the pungent “fish and chips,” and my hearing captivated by the unexpected sounds.
When it was time to eat, I contacted your Mr. Grant, who fortunately speaks French as well as I do (I promise to work on my English again as soon as I get back). He couldn’t meet today, but suggested places to visit when he found out this was my first time in London. We agreed to meet for lunch tomorrow in a bistro.
Do you realize what you’ve asked me to do? I hate leaving my home, and yet, here I am in this city whose language I don’t speak, initiating an encounter with a stranger who, you admit, you know nothing about! Are you aware he could be a descendent of Jack the Ripper? I could be risking my life for you!
I’ve got to get to sleep if I want to see all of your William’s recommendations tomorrow.
Kisses and goodnight,
Maggy
P.S. I hope your Englishman is not passionate about inter
national politics and planning to launch into a discussion about Brexit. I would then be obligated to say that I have no opinion on the matter to avoid annoying a man who might have precious clues for us …
Note my diplomacy!
from Anne-Lise to Maggy
RUE DES MORILLONS, JULY 2, 2016
My dear Maggy,
I just received your two letters mailed Thursday from the London airport … What happened over there? What did this William Grant do to you? Is it the city or the man who has bewitched you? Is my best friend really the author of these words?
As soon as I entered, my gaze was drawn to a man, alone, sitting at the back of the pub. He was looking outside, a slight smile on his lips as if he were dreaming of happy days gone by. His profile was at once soft and determined and I prayed with all my strength that this man was Mr. Grant. He had barely turned his head toward me before he stood up from his chair with a charming and entirely English stiffness. He took my coat and we discussed the sights I had seen in the city. I had to make a superhuman effort to avoid his gray eyes and I concentrated on the wall decorations in order to speak naturally, as if I regularly had lunch across from seductive men with irresistible stares.
Maggy, tell me you didn’t keep his address or his telephone number, please! What will you gain by falling in love with an Anglo-Franco-Belgian who, to top it off, occupies his time by playing poker? I am sorry for having sent you over there on a whim without doing any research into this man. Obviously he’s a rogue who spends his time seducing women and gambling in casinos! At least I am reassured to know that despite the day you two spent together, you were able to get on a plane that carried you away from this seducer and back to your village, where you will forget this senseless adventure. And drop that silly idea of learning English; it’s a dangerous language. Instead turn your attention to Brittany and find yourself a kind sailor who spends his time at sea and allows you to enjoy the liberty and solitude you went looking for in Finistère.
The Lost Manuscript Page 4
