Beneath that kindness, I sensed an unstoppable firmness. I was right. I had to battle for a good part of the afternoon to achieve my goal: for Madame Cartier to call Elvire and give her my contact information (since she refused on principle to give me Elvire’s number). Despite the resolution I had hoped for in my last letter, I accepted this solution good-naturedly. Sometimes we cross paths with people we don’t want to disappoint at any price, and Madame Cartier is one of them …
After I left the center I visited the area nearby before going back to my hotel. I was more excited than I had been since the beginning of this adventure. I felt I was close to meeting the person who had been stuck in my mind and had finished my book. Having that intimacy with a stranger must be similar to what having an organ transplant feels like. Someone gave me a part of them so that I could come back to life …
The next morning, my phone rang at eight A.M. on the dot and Madame Cartier announced that she had communicated my request to the party in question. It turns out Elvire lives in Canada and would be happy to speak with the author of a text that she has never forgotten. She is very busy but promised to write to me in the coming days. And you will never guess where Elvire lives … in Montreal! How about that coincidence? Could it be possible that I crossed paths with this woman last month while I was wandering the Quebecois streets?
So there you have it, the report of my trip to the South. I would have liked to come back with more concrete news to impress you with, but tonight I feel the joy of having met someone remarkable. And, of course, now it’s my turn to jump on my mailman friend as soon as he approaches my mailbox, open to the four winds …
Sylvestre
P.S. I want to organize a big reunion at the end of our journey, with all the people who have held my manuscript between their hands. I am going to start saving up to be able to pay for the travel costs in case Waldo lives in New Zealand. What do you think of this crazy idea?
from Elvire Lheureux to Sylvestre Fahmer
RUE DICKSON, MONTREAL, SEPTEMBER 17, 2016
Dear Monsieur Fahmer,
I know that my accent makes any phone conversation challenging, so I have chosen to write to you. I don’t have the pleasure of knowing you, but Madame Cartier told me that you wanted to know how David came to be in possession of your novel over twenty years ago. I remember him very well. In that type of establishment, the exchanges we have with the other residents are intense, even if they never survive the return to normal life. Between the walls of the center, we forget everything of the exterior. We are as though ejected from the world. That rupture allows us to observe ourselves, without distraction, and to accept what we have become. The reflection that the other residents provide us is our only mirror and we cannot take our eyes off of their features. Each face-to-face meeting brings with it an introspection that leaves us disadvantaged, inept, incoherent. To avoid depression unfurling its opaque blanket over us, there’s only one solution: the library.
I am interested in books; certainly through family tradition, but also because I like to write. That activity allowed me to hang on, at a time when my circumstances pushed me to despair.
For you to understand better, I have to tell you more about my situation. I didn’t know my father, but I was raised by a stepfather who fulfilled the role to perfection. Unfortunately, a car accident took him from me when I was only thirteen years old. We had hardly buried him when I was placed in a boarding school for rich people’s kids. I only went back to the family home during school vacation, and each time I found my mother completely depressed. She suffered, she screamed, she cried; to summarize, she forgot me. Until the day when they called me to say that she had chosen a permanent departure. I was only eighteen years old and I was angry enough to use my inheritance for therapeutic and destructive ends.
So I left school and started organizing parties where the local kids could consume every kind of drug and alcohol that existed on the market. The parties continued at an infernal rhythm, and, to shelter all the partiers who had taken up residence in the house, I decided one morning to clear out the room where my mother had piled up my stepfather’s things.
This purging was lifesaving. Anger gave way to sadness. Looking back over all the memories that cluttered up his desk, I cried all the tears I had held back for five years. Would you believe me if I told you that I spent three days locked inside that room? Seventy-two hours during which I ate nothing, just drank (water, what a novelty!), and relieved myself in the adjoining bathroom. It was over the course of this big cleanup of the affairs of the man who had raised me that I found your manuscript. It was still in the original envelope, and the postmark indicated that it came from France. I read it …
When I came out of the office, the house had been rid of all its usual parasites. I think the empty fridge and the unpleasantness of the first-floor rooms was the main reason. I took my first shower in days and called my aunt who lived in France and had invited me to her house countless times after my mother’s death.
The next day, I took a plane to Montpellier. When my aunt saw the state I was in, she contacted a rehab facility capable of getting me back on my feet. That’s how I know Madame Cartier … I spent a year under her wing and when I got out, I resumed my studies in the South of France, staying with my aunt and uncle. Now you know the circumstances of my encounter with David. Our friendship was brief because we crossed paths for only two months in the treatment center. But like all relationships begun in distress, it was intense, and I would be happy to know how he’s doing.
On Tuesday night when I talked on the phone with Madame Cartier, we had so many things to share that she didn’t explain the reason for your search. If you want to know more information, you can call me. We will try to understand each other despite our respective accents (my cell phone number is below).
And if you have the time, can you please send me a copy of your book? I would love to reread it today, now that I’m in a different state of mind, and I would be happy to show it to my daughter.
Thank you,
More soon,
Elvire
from Anne-Lise to William
RUE DES MORILLONS, SEPTEMBER 18, 2016
Dear William,
I hope you will excuse me for not having written to you earlier. I could blame my son’s move, which kept me busy for the end of August, and it would be partly true. But the fact is that I needed some time to digest your words and to know if they changed the image that I had of you.
Of course, my opinion of you has changed. But I can assure you, even after a lot of reflection, that you have not lowered yourself in my esteem. Strangely, I want to say “to the contrary.” Your charm and your appeal were hidden, and it’s a good thing. In learning more about your past, I saw certain cracks that render a person endearing and lively. If I had a fault to attribute to William Grant as he appeared in his home in July, it would be the excess of perfection in his behavior and physical appearance. Today I can assure you that the scars suit you well. I am happy that you gave up, for a bit, the frivolity you’ve displayed until now (you tricked us very successfully!) and I guarantee you that our friendship is solid.
I just received a call from Maggy, who demanded that I tell her more about you. I assumed I had your permission to do so.
In light of the few phrases she choked out, I know that my words were met with sadness. I expected as much. Maggy is habitually a person attentive to others and she will not immediately apologize for having criticized your attitude without seeking to better know you. That turmoil must have knocked her down like a terrible gust of wind. Happily, she is one of those people who get back up after each storm …
Now it’s my turn to be angry with you for your silence while I’ve been waiting impatiently to know how your meeting with David went. Did you bring your mother? Did she react when seeing that man who was so important in her life? So many invasive questions, but I know you will not be mad at me for asking them.
Of course, we can talk a
bout all of this at Christmas, but please, between two planes or over the course of a very long flight, pick up your pen and tell me what you know already!
Assuring you of my indefectible affection,
Warmly,
Anne-Lise
P.S. I heard it’s eighty degrees in London! Are you walking along the banks of the Thames to try to soak up some of the briskness of the water? It’s the same temperature in Paris and it’s difficult to go from the air-conditioning of the office to the sweltering heat as soon as we’ve walked out the door …
from Maggy to William
POINTE DES RENARDS, SEPTEMBER 19, 2016
Dear William,
I’ve made a serious mistake.
You see, for the past few years, I’ve banished all modern communication from my daily life, resolutely rejecting the rapidity of action and reaction that we impose on this new century. I chose to live on the margin of that mission to make time profitable. That’s why I only speak with my friends by letter, hoping to give more value to the phrases that will linger after me.
I was wrong.
The words that I wrote have no more weight than those that spring up without restraint, and most importantly, they don’t get any better the more I think about them. I didn’t keep a copy of my most recent letter to you, but unfortunately, I happen to have an excellent memory. For that reason, I would have preferred that it be destroyed in the mail, or carried off by a tornado. I had no right to get so angry. If my criticisms seemed unfair to you, it’s surely because I cared more for you than I wanted to admit and the mention of memories I was excluded from hurt me. I know the power of the past and I know the influence the dead have on our choices.
Thirteen years ago, I was a lawyer in Paris. I was respected by my colleagues and I had a bit of notoriety within the capital. I fought to defend those forgotten by our society, those that we accuse of every sin because their appearance testifies to a painful existence that we would rather ignore. When they tell their stories, their lives resemble one another’s. They had known abuse, lack of security, attacks of primal racism, from their parents, their employers, their neighbors. And like we all do, one day, they had made a mistake. Their suffering had pushed them to strike, to verbally assault a police officer, their anger had led them to steal a car, their fear had led them to drink one too many. When I crossed their path, I went out of my way to grant them absolution. That word is purposeful. I was a lawyer the way one is a priest: with faith.
I was happy. I gave my clients a second chance, and I experienced the same thing in my private life. Completely foolishly, I was in love. So much so that despite my thirty-seven years, I had just decided to have a baby. Me. The woman defiant of all conformity, the one who had always put her freedom before her life …
On that day, we had an appointment at the hospital for an ultrasound. We were in the car laughing and coming up with ideas for the name of our future child and I can still tell you the songs that played on the radio. I had just suggested Cunégonde, watching for the reaction on the face of the man that I loved, when I saw it contort. Not because of the name, but because a car was heading for us, going the wrong direction.
What happened next is hazy. I don’t know how to untangle the truthful part from the shadowy zone that I created after the fact. My first memories are from the next day, when they told me Richard was dead. The child, still awaiting its name, had not been able to withstand such a brutal accident and she left me, too. In the moment, the miscarriage seemed like a deliverance; I wouldn’t have been able to give life to replace the one that had just been taken from me.
It took me six months to reintegrate into the world of the living, begrudgingly. I started working again. Everyone was nice. They gave me the easiest cases, like the one with the seventeen-year-old who had taken his father’s car to drive his girlfriend home. It was only three miles. He had only had one beer. This was confirmed by all the witnesses. The road was slippery. He had lost control of his car. I remember his angel face ravaged by regret and guilt faced with the consequences suffered by the young woman whose car he had crashed into.
I was not touched by his remorse.
No one in my practice knew the circumstances of the accident that had killed my child and my husband. The other driver had also been a young man. He had collided with our car because he’d had too much to drink, and had gotten off without a scratch. And so my associates didn’t understood why I took my things and deserted the office without a word of explanation. The next day, I left for Brittany. I opened the shutters to my family home and I set down my suitcase in the bedroom. For two years, I didn’t set foot back in Paris.
Anne-Lise sold my apartment and handled all the paperwork, even forging my signature. When she brought the last of my things, she arrived with a job offer. She knew a publishing house that was looking for children’s book authors. I refused. And two months later, I sent them the first draft of a children’s book.
That’s the pathetic story that turned me into the woman with the independence you praise. A woman detached from everything—except, of course, from her past …
I owed you this story, William.
During the few days spent here, we lied. We slid into the skin of the people we could have been, the people we might have dreamed of being, in another life. I had no right to judge you. I hope you will forget the harshness of my words and I pray that they didn’t bruise you too badly.
In friendship,
Maggy
from David to Anne-Lise
AVENUE DU MOULIN-DE-LA-JASSE, SEPTEMBER 20, 2016
Hello Anne-Lise,
A few days ago, I received a visit from William Grant. He came with his mother. Between his busy schedule and the difficulty of obtaining the visitation authorization, the meeting was no simple matter to organize. But William possesses that rare and precious smile that opens all doors—he gets it from his mother.
Denise didn’t say a word, but she stared at me from the second she entered and didn’t take her eyes off of me for the entire meeting. When she left, she took my hand and squeezed it intensely. Her son assured me that it was rather exceptional for her to be so attentive and for such a long time. So I will be happy with that reaction and it will brighten the coming days.
Paradoxically, it’s been a long time since I’ve felt such intense solitude. I realized that outside of packaging candles and going to the gym, I do nothing with my days. For the first time, I felt shut in. You must be thinking, it’s about time I realize I’ve spent nearly twelve years of my life behind bars! Is it because of Denise’s illness? I realized yesterday that she was perhaps shut inside her oblivion so she could experience the same circumstances as me …
Do I seem crazy to you? Probably. That’s why I preferred not to say anything about this to William. However, I encouraged him to bring his mother to Lot, to the house where we had been happy, even if only briefly. He was astonished to learn that I had kept the house and that Denise was still the owner. I’m sure he thought that I had taken back this house to have a place to stay between robberies. In fact, I’ve only returned there one time, when I finished serving my longest sentence, hoping to find a sign of her there. While I’ve been in prison, I’ve dreamed that she was spending vacations there, sheltered from the world. But it seems that she never returned after our separation. Her son wrote down the address. I know he’ll keep his word and bring Denise there, because he too is praying that a familiar place might manage to free her from her own jail.
That’s all the updates that I’m able to give you. Outside, the sky is still blue, but I presume, based on the subdued lighting, that autumn has arrived, and it’s the season I dread the most here. It’s when I miss taking walks through the big forests in Lozère, the nights spent listening to the wind, and the sound of the bugs cracking beneath our steps … Enjoy all of that for me if you return to Belle Poelle.
The hardest thing is not the enclosure of my body, but that of my sight. My eyes are constantly searchin
g for a horizon, for a limit that exists only in nature. The foliage of the trees, the peaks of a mountain, the soft lines of a hill or the curve of an immense sea … Here where I am, there is nowhere I can escape to. Each glance collides with the vertical lines of walls or bars and my field of vision shrinks a little more each day …
Best wishes,
David
from Anne-Lise to Sylvestre
RUE DES MORILLONS, SEPTEMBER 21, 2016
Dear Sylvestre,
Bravo once again! I have been so happy since your call. What luck that Elvire kept the note that was with the manuscript’s package! And a big thanks to her for organizing all the boxes containing her parents’ affairs on Saturday. I can imagine how exhausting that must be. I hope she finds that precious envelope and the name of the sender very soon.
If so, perhaps we will discover why a stranger finished your novel after finding it in an airport … On that note, I have to tell you the horrible dream I had last night: we found our Waldo’s address, we were on our way there, and we arrived in a place invaded by brambles. On the door was a death notice. I woke up suffocating and had to dry the tears I had cried during my sleep. See how much all of this has taken over my mind!
The Lost Manuscript Page 12
