Once I was nestled in the heart of nature, the dizzy spells became more infrequent, but I had definitively exhausted my human capital. I could no longer tolerate people. For a long time, I concealed this handicap from those close to me by claiming that chronic fatigue confined me to the village, then to the house. The horizon drew closer …
Stifled by that enclosure, my wife and my daughter fled, each on the arm of a savior. My affliction worked its way into my life in an insidious manner and it wasn’t until it destroyed my family that I finally confronted it.
So I had to push my boundaries. Alone. For two years now, I’ve inched back toward civilization. I exchange two or three sentences with my neighbors and I can drive my car again, as long as I avoid big cities and human contact. I am what they call antisocial.
I would have liked to come to Lozère. Truly. I would have gone alone. During our years together, I never discussed that part of my life with my wife. This attitude will seem juvenile to you coming from a man of my age, but it’s because I know that no woman (nor any man, I can assure you) wants to learn that she was chosen because her husband lost all hope of finding the love of his youth again one day.
Don’t think I’m a bad person; I’m not saying that I regret the years spent or the joy experienced with my partner and my daughter; I will admit that the love I described and which so moved you has not manifested in my life since that time long ago when I wrote those pages. I am sure that my wife would have been perceptive enough to understand that if I had put this text in her hands. But there is no chance of that happening now, since we’ve been separated for four years …
I know that I wasn’t clear about this, and I don’t deny creating false allusions to a family life. Since your first letter, I thought that a correspondence with a single man would cause more problems for you than a literarily motivated discussion with a married man who is supposedly stable. Since I wanted to continue writing to you, I preferred to keep quiet about my situation. I was silent about my affliction and my isolation for the same reason.
I fulfill my professional obligations at my own pace and without any administrative oversight. The reports I submit aren’t read for several weeks, and I assume from this that my work no longer holds much value for the firm that employs me. I suspect the human resources manager has found a dead-end street for a deranged individual. I’m not bitter. One day, I might even start to develop a limitless admiration for a society so organized that it has a solution for each problem, a lid for each pot, and an administrative pigeonhole for each individual, no matter the irregularities they develop …
There you have it. Now you will better understand my inability to join you in Lozère. I will be with you in spirit but I cannot do more than that.
Sylvestre
from Anne-Lise to Sylvestre
RUE DES MORILLONS, JULY 23, 2016
Dear Sylvestre,
Thank you for entrusting me with what you shared in your last letter. I found it very moving, and once more you’ve managed to make me smile …
Men always think they can triumph over their roots … that’s not the case. Our roots infiltrate us from birth and we gain nothing by trying to hide them. Now that you’ve accepted it, can’t you move forward, even if it means dragging around your past? Do you need to live in permanent confinement to hear the sound of the wind and feel the power of nature? And even if you do, come to Lozère! I called William, who confirmed what I suspected: the hamlet we’ll be in is only four houses, one of which is occupied full time … His farmhouse is very large and extends down a slope as fine as the summits of the Pyrenees. On the inside of the house, there are lots of rooms and you can have an entire wing to yourself to escape to if our chatting becomes unbearable. This place was made for you, Sylvestre, so bring along your misanthropy and act like a curmudgeon, it won’t be an issue. Once there, you’ll find unusual people whose wounds are real even if you don’t know about them yet. We can’t move forward in life without getting some scars along the way. Come see us, and you’ll feel less alone in your sadness.
If you come by car, you will drive through a silent country, full of scattered villages forgotten by the capital and you will see that there exists an entirely different France from the one of those people who spend their Sundays at Auchan or their paid leave on the beaches of the South. Seeing all of this might do you a world of good …
We are preparing your room. See you next week.
Your friend,
Anne-Lise
from William to Anne-Lise
BLOSSOM AVENUE, FLUSHING, JULY 24, 2016
Dear Anne-Lise,
I’m thrilled that you’re planning this trip to Lozère and I will make sure to get through all my meetings as quickly as possible. I am excited by the idea of a trip shared by book lovers … I told my neighbor, and she is happy to have people nearby for a few days and will figure out getting permission for my mother to leave. Each time she returns to her house I hope she will have a flash of memory that will return her to me for at least a few hours … So far, that’s never been the case.
I take it that Maggy spoke to you about me, which makes me quite happy. If my gray eyes brought me moderate success at twenty years old, they are no longer enough to guarantee me the attention of women. I hope to be noticed more for my mind and my kindness than for the color of my gaze.
Over the last few days, I’ve realized that I do have a certain appreciation for those in exile incapable of pronouncing two words of English, and it’s incredible that it’s taken me so long to realize it … I know I can trust you to keep these words far from the ears of the one who might be frightened by them …
See you very soon,
William
P.S. As you can see, mail manages to fly over the Atlantic no matter the direction of the wind, and I remain convinced that it reaches me faster here than when I am hidden away in Lozère! I’m trying, by writing to you at Belle Poelle, to show you the charms of the Americans, who are not in reality how you think of them in France, with, let’s say, that ancestral condescension toward all those countries lacking a few centuries of history …
from Anne-Lise to Julian
BELLE POELLE, JULY 30, 2016
My Julian,
This trip is lovely!
I know you get daily updates from Katia, who uses and abuses her cell phone as soon as she thinks she’s out of my sight, and believe me, you would have loved being on this vacation with us. For three days now, we’ve lived in this farmhouse in Lozère like a post-1968 commune (don’t worry, minus the orgies and the drugs!). William is charming. He arrived two nights ago, two days earlier than we expected. He matches perfectly with the image I had in mind. He’s a very handsome man, with a smooth face and groomed hands. He possesses a natural distinction that the French typically associate with English lords. He pampers everyone and I have to admit that his clear gaze can turn the heads of romantic souls (which is not me, don’t worry).
And you won your bet: Sylvestre joined us yesterday morning. However, we were both wrong about his appearance. He is as somber as William is luminous. While we had imagined him as a pale and sickly man, used to working at night and hiding away during the day, there suddenly arrived a tall, strapping fellow with tanned skin shadowed by a three-day beard. Despite his outdoorsman physique, he doesn’t exude the quiet strength we anticipated. Probably because of his disheveled brown hair or his tormented gaze through immense and bottomless black eyes. For the first few hours, he was withdrawn and examined us in silence. Then together we reread the end of the manuscript, and the afternoon was a succession of ramblings on the identity of the second author.
Then William showed us the series of photographs from 1996. In one of them, you can in fact glimpse Sylvestre’s book. It’s open on the table as if someone had left it there to go get themselves an aperitif. To find out as much as I could, I gathered a small bouquet of flowers and went to invite the neighbors to dinner. That very night, there were eight of us at the tab
le: their daughter Alice, who works in Alès as a librarian, came with them. I hit it off with her immediately and took advantage of a moment alone to tell her everything.
She read the novel that very night and brought it back to me this morning at breakfast. We had coffee together, the two of us wrapped up in our jackets, because, at this altitude, the mornings are cold. With a view of the waking nature and a magnificent lifting of the fog, Alice told me about the conversation she had with her mother last night.
The day the photo was taken, it was one of her uncles who had brought the book over. It was almost with relief that her mother finally told her about her younger brother, referred to as “poor David” by the entire family. Until then, merely saying his name was enough to put a stop to any conversation, clearly provoking Bernadette’s sadness. Bringing up her baby brother had become taboo and so the younger generation hesitated to mention their uncle, who had clearly taken a wrong turn.
David was the youngest of seven boys and girls, and Bernadette, Alice’s mother, was the eldest. When he was little, he was a gifted child. He had an ease with people and was brilliant in school. When he was eleven, the village teacher convinced his parents to send him to a boarding school in Alès, where he excelled in math and in literature. He was the only child of the family to get his baccalureate and everyone already imagined him as a lawyer. That excellence led him to Marseille to continue his law studies. In order to save money, he lived with a friend whom he’d met on the port where he unloaded boats for a bit of money. From then on, it seemed that the young, promising man found it more lucrative to associate with his roommate and his friends, who specialized in robbing villas. He was arrested several times, but his knowledge of the law allowed him to escape from overly harsh punishments for a while and his first prison sentences never exceeded a year. Until the day when the police went to arrest him at Belle Poelle, where he was charged with organizing a bank robbery …
Bernadette was even more traumatized than her brothers and sisters, because David had always been her favorite. Think of what she must have gone through when he received ten years in prison … Well, he didn’t learn his lesson, because he went right back to his illegal activities when he got out, after eight years behind bars. Arrested again a year ago (now here’s a man who follows through on his ideas; nothing can deter him from his choice of career!), he is currently detained at the Villeneuve-lès-Maguelone, where he has several more months to go.
Talk about unusual characters: first a poker player, now we have a bank robber!
In any event, there hasn’t been a family reunion since the dramatic arrest of the baby brother. Bernadette remembers the day when David gave the manuscript to William’s mother; sharing a passion for literature, the two of them talked about the book as they made dinner. After that, of course, Bernadette forgot all about it and never asked David about the book, which means we don’t know how the novel arrived in his possession …
Yesterday, William’s mother spent the day with us. She was pleasant company, despite her distant gaze, which, though it’s the same color as her son’s, has lost all its vivacity. She sat for a while near the window that looks out onto Mount Lozère, a half smile on her lips, erased at regular intervals by an expression of inexplicable panic. She doesn’t speak; words stay blocked behind her lips, which she keeps tightly shut as if she feared the words might escape her. The only time we saw her liven up was when Sylvestre took out his manuscript and placed it on the table. Then something incredible happened: the old woman got up from her armchair to take it. She stared hard at it for several minutes, then she started to caress the cover while chanting the name “David.” All discussion stopped in the large room; we were stunned by this newfound energy. How can a recollection still slither through the haze of a mind without memory?
William gently took the pages from the hands of his mother, who smiled a final time before sinking back into her own world. In that moment, the story of the manuscript seemed far away; we were all lost, panicked, like her perhaps, at the idea of this illness lying low in the shadows, ready to swallow us up, too, at the bend of the road. The disease that eats away memory is surely the most awful of all, because it erases our past day by day, making us disappear little by little, until we’ve never existed.
Despite the difficulties we encountered, you can see the progress we’ve made, since we managed to figure out the book’s journey up to 1996 after Sylvestre lost it in 1983. You see, our unfailing determination has paid off and we are able to brazenly turn back time. Don’t worry, I don’t plan to visit the Villeneuve-lès-Maguelone prison; I’ve delegated that task to William, who’s promised to see about visiting as soon as he’s back in Brussels (he leaves Tuesday night; he’s quite the traveler).
You realize this book’s journey is so extraordinary there could be a novel written about it?
As our beloved daughter must have told you, we’re leaving Tuesday morning to avoid the weekend traffic (she’s been so sweet to me since we arrived in this house, I think she appreciates the ambiance of the place, and if only for the pleasure of seeing her smile again like when she was a child, I absolutely do not regret this trip to Lozère).
Can you prepare a nice big meal for us that night? We’ve been eating very well since our arrival here (yes, yes, even Katia).
XO,
Your Lisou
from William to Anne-Lise
CHAUSSÉE SAINT-PIERRE, BRUSSELS, AUGUST 3, 2016
Dear Anne-Lise,
I learned something earth-shattering yesterday that I absolutely must share with you.
After you left for Paris, I left Belle Poelle and went to Belgium to speak with my cousin, Ilana. She had been close with my mother, and I was hoping that their relationship would allow her to explain my mother’s astonishing reaction to the manuscript. My cousin knew something; it was clear from the way she lowered her head and blushed. I had to beg for nearly an hour before she finally agreed to talk to me about it!
Ilana is my age. As children, we spent our vacations together at my maternal grandmother’s house. We grew up far from each other, but each summer was the opportunity for joyous reunions and I kept no secrets from her. I’m not sure whether the inverse was true, because Ilana is one of those people who always listens to others and never speaks about herself. She could have been a nun, but she became a psychologist who treats children and teens. She lives only for her job; she was never married and didn’t want to have a family. Make no mistake, she’s the most joyful person I know and she’s always surrounded by friends and loved ones. Helping them is her greatest joy.
Naturally, she supported my mother after my father passed away. They lived on the same street, and saw each other every day, and her presence reassured me. Before getting sick, my mother opened up to Ilana and told her all about her life. I never asked her to tell me her memories—I probably thought I had time …
I confess that what Ilana told me disturbed me. David gave this manuscript to my mother, but it was not a simple book exchange. He was in love and the feeling was mutual … He was forty-six, my mother fifty-five when David’s imprisonment separated them. According to my cousin, their romance began a year and a half earlier, during a meal at Bernadette’s. Ilana spoke of love at first sight and assured me that the two wrote to each other for a long time before giving in. Also, according to her, if my mother wanted to return to Lozère before getting sick, it was partially because the letters from her beloved were saved in a chest there.
I never saw the chest in the farmhouse, but I’m going there next week to have another look. I hate what I’m about to do, believe me when I say that, Anne-Lise, but I need to know the truth, and the scene we witnessed seems to corroborate my cousin’s story.
I didn’t tell Maggy my plan because I imagine she’ll be outraged at my indiscretion. In Belle Poelle, I forced myself to keep my distance. And that took a lot of energy because I couldn’t get a read on her charming but detached demeanor … If you have any insight into h
er feelings, please enlighten me …
On my end, I will keep you up to date about my discoveries (because after all, this “chest” could in fact be one of the old wooden trunks stashed in the attic!).
I know that I’m distancing myself from your literary quest. I hope that you will not be angry with me for having chosen you as a confidante now that certain parts of my past are crumbling like the neglected vestiges of an abandoned family house.
Your friend,
William
P.S. You can write me back in Lozère, because I don’t think I will stay here more than three days … Too many questions lure me back to France once more.
P.P.S. Your cousin? Still alive?
from Anne-Lise to Maggy
RUE DES MORILLONS, AUGUST 6, 2016
My dear Maggy,
Did you arrive back home safely? And how are you tolerating your isolation after such a delicious adventure in communal life?
On Thursday morning I had a hard time getting back into all the projects I had ditched on my desk that I have to submit to my cousin before the 13th. For the first time in two years, I passed him in the hallway without feeling the urge to gouge his eyes out. However, he hasn’t changed. He walks around like a young dynamic executive (past his prime with his gray temples), his two cell phones in hand, constantly holding his MacBook Air, which always seems to supply an adequate response to any question asked. He measures his success by the number of tweets about him and only gets his news on social media … No doubt you would love him; I’ll introduce you whenever you want.
Fortunately, the transformation of my daughter made up for that unpleasantness. Even you observed just how good the trip to Lozère was for her; in fact, the metamorphosis continues in Paris. She has been a different Katia since returning home. She’s always smiling, and although she still considers housework an awful activity, she now shows an interest in my hobbies and in the people I spend time with. She won’t stop talking about Sylvestre and William, as if they were members of the family. The latter, especially, made a strong impression on her; she absolutely wants us to return this winter to see Lozère covered in snow … I agree with you, that man’s gaze possesses something magical that has transformed my rebellious daughter into a civilized adolescent.
The Lost Manuscript Page 7
