Last Lovers

by William Wharton

  ‘I have asked the children not to write you for the same reason. I wanted you to feel there was nothing hanging on to you. It has been hard for them because they love you and worry about you. I share all of your letters with them. So, in a way, you have been writing to them, too. I can’t say it hasn’t been hard for me.

  ‘Sometimes I think you don’t feel I understand what you are going through, that I don’t care, but this isn’t true. It is a terrible thing to feel you have wasted a good part of your life, even if it isn’t true. There is a terrible feeling of emptiness. It’s especially difficult when it isn’t so, and you come to know it, as I did.’

  Here I have to stop reading because I can’t go on. I feel my throat tightening and tears swell into my eyes. I stop. I take deep breaths again.

  ‘Jacques, you do not have to read this to me if you do not want to. It must be very difficult for you.’

  I look across at her and the tears are running down the outside of her face again, the way they always do when she cries. I look away and up at the beautiful day outside. I look down at the letter again, finally I can go on.

  ‘John graduated last year in structural engineering. Your dad is so proud of him, Jack, imagine, a real engineer in the family.

  ‘He has what looks like a good position working for the state, road and bridge building. He has his own apartment, too, and a girlfriend. They’re sort of engaged the way young people do. It’s so much better the way the young arrange those things now, they know each other before they get married, share things more, I think.

  ‘Albie is another artist in the family. He’s in the art department at U. of M. and is torn between ceramic sculpture and stonecutting. He’s an absolute maniac. When I sold the house, I put away part of the money so he can have a studio when he finishes his graduate work in June. You’d be proud of him, he doesn’t let anything get in his way and is covered with mud or pieces of stone dust all the time. His hands always look as if he’s been in some terrible fist fight. He has girlfriends but there doesn’t seem to be anyone special. His sculpture is everything.

  ‘Helen is our reader. With all those boys around her, she had to be. She’s an English literature major and wants to teach. I think she’ll make a good teacher. You remember, she was always so easy to get along with. She’s one of my best friends. She writes letters to you all the time and gives them to me so I can hold them and mail them when I think you’ll want to have them. Maybe the time is coming soon.

  ‘And Hank, our baby, is our first and only athlete. I don’t know where it comes from. He was the star at ASP in Paris in just about everything and he made varsity baseball and the cross-country team at U. of M. in his sophomore year. He’s no great shakes as a student but gets his C’s and a B once in a while to keep his eligibility. He thinks maybe he’ll be a P.E. major and teach, too.

  ‘So, all are well. You don’t have to worry. I just received a promotion at work last month and now do more personnel work and less secretarial. I even have my own secretary, part-time. I go out now and then but there isn’t anyone special. I guess I’m burnt out with men. I have some women friends and we do things together like museums, theater, or go to the movies.

  ‘I write this partly to wish you happy birthday. It’s hard for me to think you’ll be half a century old in a few weeks. It’s even harder to think that next birthday I will be, too. Time seems to fly.

  ‘The other reason I’m writing is because I feel you’re building a new life there in Paris. I want you to know if you want a divorce I wouldn’t make any scene. I’d like to be as generous with you as you were with me in my difficult time. This does not mean I want a divorce myself. I do not. I miss you terribly.

  ‘Would you give my best regards to Mirabelle and wish her every happiness. She seems such a wonderful person and so good to you and for you. I only wish I could have been the one. I think we were too young, Jack, too easily seduced by all the nonsense people come to think makes up a life, but probably actually keeps people from really living. I don’t think either of us appreciated how lucky we were to have our health, our home, each other, and our four beautiful children. Perhaps no one knows how lucky they are with what they have. I don’t think either of us did.

  ‘Could you take some photographs of your paintings and mail them to me? I’d like very much to see what you are doing. You had such a big talent and it was going to waste. What a shame you had to wait so long to develop it. I feel so guilty.

  ‘I’ve been having your mail forwarded from our old house but here is my new address:

  Ms L. Laughton

  4610 Stevens St

  Apartment 3B

  Minn., Minn. 55409

  ‘If you’d like Helen’s letters, and if you’d like the other children to write, let me know and I’ll tell them. Please keep writing. I look forward so to your letters.

  ‘Fondly,

  ‘Lorrie’

  I put down the letter. We’re sitting across from each other, crying. I’m crying for so many things, I can’t think straight. I’m crying for Lorrie and the kids, for myself, for my stupidity; all I had to do was wait. But mostly I’m crying for us, for Mirabelle and me. It’s as if we’ve built a whole city, a civilization, on top of two old ones, hers and mine. The remnants, the remains, keep jutting up through the surface every time we try to dig, to build. No matter how beautiful the world we create for ourselves, the old ones are always there, ready to erupt. I reach across and take Mirabelle’s hands. She squeezes mine.

  ‘She loves you very much, Jacques. I did not know that.’

  ‘I don’t think I could make myself believe it anymore, Mirabelle, and therefore couldn’t get it across to you. I didn’t really know until right now with this letter. I was blind.’

  ‘No, do not say that. I am blind. You still love her very much, too, do you not.’

  ‘Yes, I do. I don’t think I ever said I didn’t. I’ve always loved her. I know I did a wrong, stupid thing to her, but I was blind then, blinded by my own selfish emotions.’

  ‘Perhaps, but I think you behaved better than most men would have. You did give her the freedom she thought she wanted. Even she did not know what she really wanted then, did she?’

  I find myself about to break down and sob. I hold tighter on to Mirabelle’s beautiful, sensitive hands, then let up, afraid I’ll hurt them. Must I hurt everyone I come near?

  I swallow the sobs, try to control myself. We sit like that for what seems a long time. The tears have run off or dried on Mirabelle’s face. She smiles at me.

  ‘What will you do now, Jacques?’

  ‘I’m trying to think that out. First I’ll write to Lorrie, thanking her for this lovely letter. I’ll tell her how much I’d love to hear from the kids, especially Helen’s letters over such a long time. I’ll ask her to write more often to me here.’

  I look into Mirabelle’s eyes. She’s so calm, radiant.

  ‘I’ll tell her I don’t want a divorce. It doesn’t make sense.’

  I pause. She definitely smiles at me.

  ‘And will you go back home to them?’

  ‘Not now, Mirabelle. I’m not ready. I’m happy here, with you. I’m not sure I want to live in a condominium in Minneapolis, even with Lorrie. I’ve changed. My life is here now, with you, my painting, this quartier, this apartment. I’m not sure she’d have me back anyway.’

  ‘She will take you back, Jacques; she loves you. I know I would want you back, no matter what.’

  She pauses, squeezes my hands again.

  ‘When is your birthday? You said nothing about it to me. I think this letter is Lorrie’s special birthday present for you.’

  ‘I guess it is what I’ve wanted, Mirabelle. You’re right. But as Lorrie says, we don’t always know what we want, not really. My birthday is less than two weeks from now, on the seventh of September. I’d forgotten it. I didn’t mean to keep it secret from you. In a certain way, I’ve almost forgotten what time is, how much time I’ve lived, how mu
ch I haven’t. Our life seems “out of time” somehow. I don’t think I could ever leave it.’

  ‘My birthday is the tenth of September, Jacques, we have almost the same birthday. I have been keeping it a secret from you; I shall be seventy-two-years old. I cannot believe it myself. I have felt like a young girl these days with you. In my mind you are only slightly older than I am. We are children together, playing house. It has been like that, has it not?’

  ‘Why don’t we truly celebrate our birthdays, Mirabelle. Let’s go to the fanciest restaurant in Paris and dine in style. You wear your best clothes and I’ll buy myself some new clothes for my birthday present. All right?’

  ‘What a wonderful idea, Jacques. We can pretend we have been married a long time and are celebrating our twenty-fifth anniversary or even our fiftieth, and enjoy each other.’

  I quickly reopen the letter from Lorrie and look at the date. She wrote it on the twenty-first of August, our anniversary, our twenty-fifth anniversary. That’s why she wrote it and she didn’t even say anything!

  ‘What is the matter, Jacques, you moved so fast and are now so still?’

  ‘Mirabelle, she wrote this letter to me on our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. I didn’t even remember it. God, I feel terrible. I guess I’m still my old self.’

  Mirabelle seems to stare at me, absorbing this information.

  ‘Why do you not telephone her, Jacques? Tell her you forgot but that does not mean you love her any less. You could use the phone in the box by Le Drugstore. She would understand.’

  ‘I don’t even know her phone number, Mirabelle. I’ve gotten so out of touch. Besides, what’s the difference of a few days, now. I’m going to sit down here now and write her a long letter, I have too many things I want to say to ever say them on a telephone. I hate phones anyway.’

  Mirabelle rises and brings paper and a pen to me. She puts her hands on top of my head.

  ‘Be kind to her, Jacques. Tell her everything you think you must say, but be kind.’

  She takes down her little sack with the grains and her leather satchel with her tools for the pigeons.

  ‘I shall come back when the bells ring.’

  She leaves. I read Lorrie’s letter over again several times. It’s the letter I thought I always wanted, thought I’d never get, and now I don’t know what to do.

  I stare at the blank sheets of paper, trying to put things together in my mind. It is so hard to try to be honest.

  28 August 1975

  Lorrie dearest:

  Thank you for your wonderful letter. It has brought me back to life. This does not mean my life here has not been pleasant and rewarding but it has brought back to my inner being, the life we lived together.

  I’m terribly sorry I forgot our anniversary, our twenty-fifth anniversary. I’ve lost all count of time, so that, until I read your letter, I did not know my fiftieth birthday was so near, either. It is difficult to explain how far I am in my mind now from clocks and calendars. When one lives intimately with someone who is seventy-one and blind, minutes become so precious they are not counted, it takes too much time to count.

  Please ask the children to write, and I would very much appreciate Helen’s letters. I promise to answer any letter I receive.

  I’m sorry your life has not been more happy. I thought I did what I could to make it so, make it possible, but now I see I was mistaken. It is so difficult to know what is right, even when one’s intent seems right.

  I won’t be coming back to you for a while, Lorrie. I hope someday this will be, that you can accept me, and the children will forgive. For now I must stay here, it is where my life is. My work, my sense of worth, is tied in with where I am, what I’m doing.

  Mirabelle is out feeding her pigeons and I’m writing on our kitchen table. It is warm and the sun comes bouncing into the courtyard window. As I’ve already written you, we’ve fixed up this apartment so it is most pleasant. I hear the sounds of Paris outside and wish I could share them with you.

  Mirabelle thinks I should go home, try to reintroduce myself into your lives. I don’t think so. I think all I have gained these past hard long months would be lost if I left now. My artistic development is at such a delicate, fragile point, it could all collapse easily and I would be as nothing again.

  So, please bear with me, all of you. Know that I love you deeply and hope someday to be with you again. My fondest dream is to have you here with me, but I know that is not possible. It is an impossible, unrealistic dream.

  It was so rewarding to hear the progress all of you have made in your lives. It makes me very proud of you. It’s wonderful that each of you is discovering yourself and carving out a place where you belong. Doing that, knowing what you want and then doing what is necessary to achieve it, is the main thing at this time in your lives, at any time, in anyone’s life.

  I stop. I don’t know what else to say. So many things I want to talk about are private between Mirabelle and myself, it would be a violation of her. I reread what I’ve written and end the brief letter ‘with love and admiration’ and sign it both ‘Jack’ and ‘Dad.’ I’d thought it would be a much longer letter and am surprised how quickly it was written.

  I fold it and slide the two sheets of paper into one of Mirabelle’s envelopes. I write the address Lorrie gave me on the outside, stick stamps on it, print PAR AVION in the lower right-hand corner of the envelope. I write my name and this apartment’s address up in the left-hand corner. I almost write ‘Jacques.’ It’s become my name. I go out and drop the letter in the mailbox of the post office at the corner of rue du Four and rue de Rennes.

  I find Mirabelle out under the statue with her pigeons. She turns to me.

  ‘Did you decide not to write the letter?’

  ‘It’s done, Mirabelle, written and mailed.’

  She has two pigeons on her hand and she’s feeding them grains. She turns her attention to them.

  ‘So what will you do?’

  ‘If you want, I’ll stay with you, Mirabelle. Nothing is changed except I am a much happier man. If you will have me, I would like to live as we’ve been living.’

  There’s a long pause. I watch as she goes through all her motions with the pigeons. They aren’t afraid of me anymore at all. I think if I put out a finger they’d actually try to land on it.

  ‘I would like that very much. Are you certain?’

  ‘I’m not sure of anything anymore, Mirabelle. But for now I know what I want.’

  Just then the bells begin ringing. The birds fly around in circles. The combination of the birds’ wings rustling and the bells ringing drowns out the sound of traffic. August in Paris is mostly tourists. A good part of the French are gone and won’t be back for another few days when the grande rentrée begins.

  Mirabelle rolls up her kit, tucks her sacks and kit into her satchel, stands up, brushing off some of the grains and husks that have fallen on her lap. I take her arm, lean down, and kiss her on the side of the neck.

  ‘What marvelous food have you prepared for us to eat, loved one? Maybe I don’t love you after all, maybe it’s only the food you cook.’

  Mirabelle holds tight on to my arm, her cane between us. She squeezes my arm.

  ‘Jacques, I have a camera that belonged to Rolande which you can use to take photos of your paintings. I shall give it to you when we are home. We are having a blanquette de veau, if you really want to know.’

  She smiles up into my face, the sun is on hers, lighting the transparency of her skin, showing in its harsh glare the fine network of lines, the pale brown spots across her forehead, some tiny veins that have broken out in her cheeks. I lean down and kiss her again.

  ‘Jacques! You are getting worse than the pigeons.’

  She can’t suppress a giggle. Who would think a seventy-one-year-old woman could giggle like that. I hold her closely and we enter the rue des Ciseaux just as the last bells sound behind us.

  After we eat, Mirabelle gives me the camera. It’s a real ol
die. It has a snap-open lid with a bellows to give it some focal length. I check, but there don’t seem to be any light leaks. There will be some problem with parallax taking photos of paintings, but I can work that out. It takes 120 film. I haven’t bought anything but 35mm since I was a kid.

  But I buy some film, make some estimates from the ASA and DIN readings, along with the charts on the descriptive material which comes in the box, and decide to take my chances without a light meter.

  I stand the paintings in a shaft of sunlight just coming into the room, lighting the paintings so the texture and stroking of the impasto will show. It takes me most of the afternoon to take the pictures. I have almost twenty paintings and there are eight more I’ve sold. I’m wishing I had those eight back. God, it’s hard not to be possessive of the things and people you love.

  When I get the pictures all taken, I carry the rolls down to the photo shop. They say they’ll have them ready in three days. Maybe then I’ll have things more in mind and I can write a better, more complete letter. I know I’m still in a state of shock.

  That afternoon I don’t feel like painting. Mirabelle and I go over to a shady part of the Luxembourg Gardens and spread out on reclining chairs in the dappled sunshine near where the beehives are. It’s great being relaxed, listening to the buzzing of the bees, feeling the sun, smelling the grass and different flowers. We don’t talk much. It’s so intimate just being quiet and alone together. I reach over and take her hand, pull it across my lap.

  ‘We are like lovers in the park, are we not, Jacques?’

  ‘We are lovers in the park, in the Luxembourg Gardens in Paris, France. Don’t forget it.’

  ‘I will not forget it but I cannot believe it either.’

  We walk home in the beautiful summer evening. The sky is silver-gray, with thin streaks of mauve. I’ve never tried painting in this kind of light but I think of it now. The problem is the light in a sky like this changes so fast, is so temporary. I look down at Mirabelle, holding my arm. She didn’t bring her cane.