Nevertheless, that unwise escapade was not in vain, since now we know that after finding Sylvestre’s manuscript at his parents’ house, William Grant kept it for ten years. But with his father dead and his mother suffering from Alzheimer’s, who can tell us how those pages arrived in Lozère?
It’s strange that I have tears in my eyes at the idea that everything might end here and I thank heaven Julian isn’t at home, because I might make another scene. This quest has taken too much space in my existence, I know, but that has nothing to do with what happened to me eight years ago. At the time, you remember, I had just lost my mother, and the emotional affair I threw myself into was nothing but a desperate act, an attempt to restart the beatings of my heart like a cardiac electroshock. That jerk wasn’t important to me, and besides, his writing was rather mediocre. You understand that, so explain to me why Julian looks at me with distrust when I come home an hour late. I thought all that was far behind us and that we were past the age of conjugal suspicion.
With Sylvestre, my curiosity is purely literary. I can’t stop myself from thinking that his novel is something special. Is it the fact that it was written by two authors who don’t know each other? Is it the simplicity of the story that hangs in suspense, those naïve remarks or formulas for simple happiness created by a twenty-year-old man? I don’t know, Maggy, but I have rediscovered the wonder of walking through my own city, the bus driver’s smile at the end of the day, the smell of grass in the early morning when I cross through the Parc Georges-Brassens …
And now, should I share with Sylvestre the impasse we’ve found ourselves in?
Kisses,
Lisou
P.S. Forgive me once again for sending you on that crazy expedition to London. Forget that bewitching city and focus on our escape to Brussels … I promise, over there we’ll avoid all gray eyes …
from Anne-Lise to Sylvestre
RUE DES MORILLONS, JULY 3, 2016
Dear Sylvestre,
Note that I waited for July to respond to you. I’ve been scolded enough on the subject of this book, whether by you or by members of my family. But you can mark this date as when you recovered your property and we put an end to the question “Where’s Waldo?”
Candor is one of my qualities, and I assure you that my decision has nothing to do with your anger. Also nothing to do with any weariness on my part (perseverance is another of my character traits). To catch you up to speed, it was an Englishman, William Grant, who brought your book to Belgium and added a few lines to it. So I sent my friend Maggy to visit London and thank God she returned unscathed (well, almost). She met the man who kept your manuscript for years after finding it in his mother’s belongings in 2006. Unfortunately, the poor thing is no longer in her right mind, and so we’re having a hard time learning any more details about how it came into her possession.
It’s true that my passion for your manuscript worries those around me. My husband and children are afraid that I have become enamored with an author and that I am guiltily concealing my infatuation behind a façade of literary interest. So I will not set out to challenge the memory loss of a woman afflicted with Alzheimer’s and instead I’ll give you the telephone number of her son if you wish to try your luck. Your turn to justify such a trip if you’ve still said nothing to your family …
That’s where we’re at, dear Sylvestre, and in case our exchanges start to taper off, I thank you in advance on my behalf and on behalf of all your readers for this beautiful story you have given us to read and for the resulting benefit it has brought to our lives. You have written a text that’s spanned time and spread fragments of happiness all around it. It has brought about encounters and transformations in people’s lives as only great masterpieces can do.
With all my gratitude and best wishes,
Anne-Lise
P.S. I can’t keep the contact information of all the people who’ve helped me these last two months to myself. They’ve all read your work. So I’m including their addresses in case one day you’d like to correspond with them, which would bring you, I hope, as much satisfaction as it did me.
from William to Anne-Lise
GREAT PETER STREET, JULY 7, 2016
Dear Madame Briard,
Despite what I had planned, I cannot come to Paris in the coming weeks. I beg your pardon, but I’ve been invited to Finistère, where I’ve never been, and suddenly this discovery feels urgent to me.
Nevertheless, I want you to know that I will go to Lozère next. Once there I will track down the clues that escaped me ten years ago when I found your friend’s manuscript. During my previous attempts to sort through the family house, I kept falling on memories that stalled my progress. You see, each object seems to possess the power of recalling a multitude of lost images, as if it had preciously guarded the memory, which is returned to us when we hold the object in our hands. So I’ve put off sorting through the attic, the cellar, and my mother’s former office.
This time, I am up to the challenge and have resolved to find new pieces of information that can help your search.
I will be sure to let you know before my next trip to Paris, and I hope we will have the opportunity to meet then.
Faithfully yours,
William Grant
from William to Maggy
GREAT PETER STREET, JULY 7, 2016
Hello dear Maggy!
Remember me? Say yes, because I took your invitation very seriously.
Before going to see my Belgian friends, I was supposed to stop in Paris, but your enthusiasm has convinced me that I simply cannot die without first seeing Finistère (not that I have a date with the Grim Reaper, but I’m the type to never delay the discovery of exotic lands).
So I will be in Brest the day after tomorrow at 2:15 P.M. Now that I’ve made my decision, I won’t cancel this trip, no matter whether or not you want to see me. So you have a few options: you can be busy, in which case I will explore your region on my own; you can take back your invitation, and I will act in the same way without bothering you any further; but it’s also possible that you have nothing better to do than guide a near-stranger through the Breton coast. If that is my luck, I’ll wait for you until four P.M. at the Brest airport.
I estimate that you will receive this letter the day of my arrival; this is intentional. You will have only a few hours to make your decision, and it’s often when we’re in a hurry that we make the best choices. I typically live my life according to rolls of the dice, even if my specialty is poker. Since I started acting this way, things have become much simpler and I’ve never had a reason to regret it.
Hoping that luck will be on my side once again,
XXX
William
from Sylvestre to Anne-Lise
LES CHAYETS, JULY 8, 2016
I shouldn’t have written you in June. Throw out my last letter. The regular reports you’ve sent me have brightened up my nights. For the past few months, I’ve started to write again, first sporadically, then more and more often, until I felt this pressing need to let go of what had been trapped within me for so many years. I abandoned my old manuscript for a new one which is not at all biographical, or only slightly. All of this I owe to you, and I don’t take that lightly.
If I had known in 2006 that my book would rest some time in an attic in Lozère, that it would soon find its readers, stay with them, and sometimes comfort them, no doubt these last ten years would have been different …
When you’re twenty years old, life seems welcoming, and though we suspect we will have obstacles to overcome, we believe we are ready to confront the assaults of oceans, the sand carried through the sky, and the relentless fury of the big cities. Three decades later, the path seems less straightforward. The summer storms have left behind ruts that make progress difficult. So we look back and tell ourselves that we were ill-prepared, that our ancestors saddled our genes with a weakness that others don’t possess. We tell ourselves we were born too late, or too early. That the problems
we face were planned or else that we missed a badly marked intersection. We tell ourselves above all that airports and train stations have stolen more from us than a few typewritten sheets of paper. But who cares! Today, I look back on my missteps with a peaceful gaze and I observe my novel’s journey as one amuses themselves opening a Russian doll. Each layer reveals a new person hiding another within themselves.
So I thank this mysterious Waldo and I try to imagine him finding my property on the seat of an airplane and carrying it preciously home with him. The ending he invented has nothing to do with the one I would have chosen, but I think it lends more value to the story. If you are not too disappointed by my ungratefulness and we remain in contact despite everything, I will soon call on your experienced reader’s opinion. Will you grant my request or have you crossed me off the list of your epistolary relations?
I understand the worry of those close to you, and I apologize. Reassure them as much as you can, slander my image and the opinion you have of me; all will be justified in the name of preserving your family. Just don’t condemn our friendly correspondence …
Keep in mind that I am not the only one waiting for your response. If you stop our exchanges here, you will force the mailman to modify his route; currently he benefits from passing by my faded letterbox, which allows him to open my gate, cross my land, and take a private path which he doesn’t normally have access to … This way he gains precious minutes on his route and the path is much less hilly than if he were to take the public roads. Take into consideration these unexpected implications of an abrupt stop to your letters.
I hope you’re enjoying the beginning of summer,
Sylvestre
P.S. Thank you for taking the time to write to me in July when you, like most of our fellow citizens, must be preparing for your next vacation in the sun. Now we’re in for six weeks of televised reports on the joys of paid vacation and the easy journey of the luckiest among us: their trips on the highway in single file (what happened to the Bison Futé travel information services of our youth?), their arrival at a camping ground on the Mediterranean coast, their meals on a terrace with a view of the path leading to the toilets, and finally the shots of their love handles on the greasy sand of a packed and noisy beach.
from Maggy to Anne-Lise
POINTE DES RENARDS, JULY 9, 2016
Dear Lisou,
I received the copy of the infamous manuscript. With all you told me about it, I have to admit that it disappointed me. I expected to have my breath taken away, to shake along with the protagonists, to ignore sleep in order to arrive at the conclusion more quickly … and I didn’t feel that way at all. The story is so common that I wondered why you were so enchanted with it.
It wasn’t until the middle of the following night that the words started to take effect and I understood. Once we’ve reached the last page, we feel more vulnerable to beauty. We look at the people we pass with an unusual benevolence, and that indulgence extends to our own reflection. I understand that this story helps us to smile and to put into perspective those trivial things that have the power to weigh on our days. In any case that’s how I felt this morning when I got up, and curiously, at that very moment, I received a troubling letter. I won’t tell you any more about it, my Lisou, but know that I have to make a decision in the next few hours and the idea makes me nervous. No matter what, when you read this, the decision will be behind me, and its implications too. So it’s useless for me to make a list of the drawbacks to following up—or not—on the demand in question.
Don’t worry, I’ll tell you everything in more detail in a few days. Now I have to get going because I have an errand to run (which means that my decision has been made and I thank you for your help, even if involuntary).
In this moment I am more pleased than ever to possess neither e-mail nor cell phone for I know that if I did, you would inundate me from all angles as soon as you read this letter …
Sending lots of hugs and kisses,
Your unreachable friend,
Maggy
P.S. This morning the Brittany sky was covered in clouds again, and this gray day that will unveil all the beauty of the landscape fills me with joy. Here, the blue sky always appears like an imposter that dazzles us with its violent and inappropriate contrasts that halo the South. Today, at least, I know all my thoughts will be calm, and that knowledge pleases me.
P.P.S. No man can understand the feminine sensibility, contrary to what we try to make ourselves believe sometimes. Your Julian is wide of the mark. That’s fine. But his character on the whole is a true blessing. You know at any given moment where his mind is at, and he was always there when the floor gave way beneath your feet. And besides, what do we expect from men if not that endlessly verified certainty that they can never understand us?
from Anne-Lise to Maggy
RUE DES MORILLONS, JULY 11, 2016
You sly little fox!
I know the reason for your indecision, no thanks to you! What have you gotten yourself into? Can you explain to me what you are up to with Mr. Grant? And don’t tell me that I am responsible for this relationship, because I will deny it flat out! When I think of that modern, feminist discourse about your desire for isolation and solitary strolls far from men and the constraints they impose on women! Aren’t you ashamed?
You have to answer me as soon as possible to reveal what “that seductive man with the irresistible gaze” (those are your words!) is doing in Finistère. And don’t lie to me, for I will see that rascal soon enough and I’ll know how to make him talk. Will you at least tell me whether you left your hermitage for his gray eyes, for his delicious accent, or merely for his unbridled talent for adding lines to the ends of manuscripts found in the backs of attics?
Fine! I’ll stop my accusations here and I’ll wait for your version of the facts. But please, don’t be too naïve, and remember that we’re talking about a poker player whose principal strength is bluffing …
Despite everything I’ve just written you, I’m dying to meet this man who’s coaxed my best friend out of her years-long exile.
Talk to you very soon, and don’t be stingy with the details.
Your friend who’s thinking of you,
Lisou
P.S. Remember that the inability to understand women affects British men too!
from Maggy to Anne-Lise
POINTE DES RENARDS, JULY 13, 2016
Hi Lisou!
Have you eaten your warnings? You know they were useless. I simply agreed, just to be nice, to serve as a guide for William during the three days he spent here, as he did for me when you parachuted me into London!
And anyway, I like to walk along the coastal paths at the first light of day and it turns out my guest also enjoys watching nature wake. We talked a great deal and I told him all about your latest obsession. Excited about this adventure, he asked me to guide him to Roscoff, where we found our bartender and his ladylove. On Sunday night all four of us ate together in a restaurant.
I thought of you; you would have loved this meeting between people from all over who never would have crossed paths without your matchmaking. So, despite your insistent and incorrect allusions to my relationship with our devastatingly charming Anglo-Franco-Belgian, thank you for these lovely encounters you’ve set in motion. William has changed his plans and sends his excuses. He won’t stop in Paris after all. He went straight back to Lozère to conduct further research concerning your author before heading back to Belgium and then setting off for the United States, where he will participate in a poker tournament.
He is as enthusiastic as you are about the idea of solving this mystery, but when I spoke to him about those lines he added, he sealed up like an oyster … He told me he was a lover of poetry, but his tone was so fake that I thought he might be the worst liar I’d ever met! (Do you think I should try my hand at poker?)
There you have it, my dear Lisou, the full story you’ve been waiting for. It’s true that I hesitated before opening th
e door of my hideout to a person I knew nothing about, or almost nothing. I finally decided to get over my suspicion, and I don’t regret it. We spent three wonderful days together; my guest was always very considerate and kept a comfortable amount of distance. Also, I can’t remember hosting a less invasive person than William. The first night, he cooked alongside me and we discussed children’s literature. I told him about my profession and I introduced him to Where’s Waldo? (we even searched for the little red gentleman for at least an hour!). William is probably the only Englishman not to know who Martin Handford is (perhaps his Belgian side is to blame) and I remedied that state of affairs. On the other hand, he is unbeatable when it comes to other Anglo-Saxon authors. Before he left, he wanted us to go eat on the coast with a thermos of coffee and a few crêpes. We were there for the sunrise, alone facing the landscape that transforms in each moment. We were sitting across from a somber and brooding sea. After our first cup of coffee, it was covered with golden wavelets, and by the time we left, it had donned that steel armor that suits it so well.
Thanks to you, I met someone unusual (I mean, we’re talking about a poker player!) but very interesting, who I am sure I will keep in touch with in the months to come. So forget your unlikely ideas and instead look into whether you’re available on the dates I’ve suggested below, for your beer-bottle-cap figurine increased my desire to visit Brussels tenfold …
More very soon,
Your still-solitary friend,
Maggy
P.S. Is it true that you bought Bastien a nearly two-foot-tall Manneken Pis? Did you give it to him in the middle of a meeting or did you casually place it on his desk during a coffee break?
The Lost Manuscript Page 5
