What strikes Linden is the quiet: no more car motors, roar of buses, screeching of horns; only the mild slush of rain and water mingling with the murmur of voices. From time to time, the boat halts so that the rescue crew can confer with other colleagues, or residents in need of help or information. A dinghy jammed full of journalists and photographers swishes past them. He locks eyes with a young woman on board, camera around her neck, whose jaw drops when she recognizes him. Quickly, she snaps his picture, gives him a grin and a thumbs-up. Monique tries to console a middle-aged woman talking to them from the second floor of her building. The woman says she can’t sleep, hasn’t been able to since Sunday, since the water arrived. Her ailing husband has acute rheumatism, but he won’t leave the apartment, and things have gotten even worse since the rats. Yes, rats have invaded the entire building, scurrying up from the flooded cellars. It is hell, she mutters, absolute hell. Monique and Franck try to convince her to go with them to a temporary accommodation with her husband, where it will be warm and dry, with no rats, but the woman won’t hear of it. She won’t have her stuff pinched; they’d both rather stay and put up with the discomfort than leave. As they draw away, after having provided the woman with water, bread, batteries, and other goods, Franck says that this is precisely what they are faced with: people refusing to budge, people who simply don’t understand the flood is not over, far from it. These people have no more TV, no more Internet, only the radio, but even the frequent warnings emitted there are not paid attention to. The only thing the municipal team can do is to bring these people supplies every day.
When the boat turns right into rue Saint-Charles from rue de Javel, Linden is confronted with the tall redbrick building where he lived for three years, on the corner of rue de l’Église. He has not been back here since Candice’s death, nearly six years ago. How disturbing it is to see all the shops shut, barricaded against the elements: the supermarket, the dry cleaner’s, the optician’s, the Japanese restaurant, and some, like the flower shop and the Greek takeout, plainly devastated by the flood, or pillaged. He remembers how teeming this street was on market days, how challenging it was to tread the sidewalks because of the mass of customers. Today, there are no pavements, no crowds: only desolation, silence, and ripples of water. It is as if the images of past and present of the same place have become irreconcilable to him. His old neighborhood is hardly identifiable, yet painfully familiar. Linden stares up to the balcony on the sixth floor, heart hammering. His eyes want to look away, but he forces himself, flinching as he does so. This is where his aunt fell to her death, at noon, on Wednesday, June 6, 2012. He had been told by Tilia that a salesperson in the women’s clothing boutique on the opposite side of the street had seen Candice standing there for a long time, until she clambered over the balustrade and dived, headfirst, arms outstretched, like an angel, the lady had said: a beautiful and tragic angel. The lady had also admitted that she would never forget the noise Candy’s body made when it plummeted down into rue de l’Église, in front of the bakery, where Linden used to buy pains au chocolat and croissants for their breakfast. It was not a market day, and the street was less full. The ambulance came swiftly, but it was too late. Candy’s death had been instantaneous. The boat lingers over the exact spot where she probably fell. Monique and Franck talk to the proprietor of the bakery, whom Linden does not remember, or maybe it is a new owner. The man wants to know when his insurance money is going to come through. They’ve all been patient, but if it goes on raining, and if the river keeps on rising, what’s going to happen to them all in this miserable district?
“Linden, are you all right?” asks Oriel suddenly, placing a hand on his shoulder.
The rain thrumming down on Linden’s face mingles with his tears. At another moment, in another time, he would have shrugged off her hand; he would have told her he was fine, just fine; he would have gone on with his photographing. Today, he finds his nerves are raw; he can’t hold anything back, not anymore. When he looks up at the balcony, it is almost as if he can see Candice standing there. He struggles to find the right words. This is where my aunt committed suicide. They sound so horrible, he can’t bring himself to pronounce them; he can only cry silently, hugging the Leica to his chest. Never had he imagined it would be so tough coming back here; but then he realizes he has never talked about Candy’s death to anyone, not even to Sacha. The shock of it has not left him, after all these years. He manages to mutter a couple of words to Oriel; this is where he lived, with his American aunt. When Oriel’s small, cold hand clasps his, he knows she understands, and that she has probably guessed the reason for his grief. The boat glides toward place Charles-Michels and Beaugrenelle, now entirely submerged. The huge shopping mall seems unlit and forlorn, guarded by a floating police patrol. The abandoned skyscrapers of Front de Seine soar into heavy gray clouds.
Lowering her voice, Oriel says her boyfriend died in the November 2015 attacks, rue Alibert, in the tenth arrondissement. He was having dinner with friends in one of the cafés that were targeted by the terrorists, where fourteen people were killed. She had been dating him for only six months, but they were in love, and happy. On the night of the attack, which had plunged France into unspeakable horror, Oriel had been with her mother, who had a slipped disk and could not move. She had planned to dine with her mother and then meet her boyfriend later. Just as she was about to join him at ten-thirty, her mother’s TV program had been interrupted by the news of terrible incidents throughout the city. In the confusion and panic that ensued, Oriel discovered she could not make her way to the other side of the capital. Paris was on lockdown; incessant sirens shattered the night and citizens were ordered to stay home. Her boyfriend’s cell phone did not pick up. She rang the number till dawn. A long, anxious wait began. Two days later, her boyfriend’s parents, whom she had met only twice, called her to say they had identified their son’s body. Listening to her, and taking in the dejection of his old neighborhood, somehow takes the edge off Linden’s pain. He is able to step back from it and tell Oriel how sorry he is to hear this, how dreadful it must have been. She says she has never been to rue Alibert, and she never will. She did not bring flowers and candles there like thousands of other Parisians. On the first anniversary of the tragedy, she took roses to the Bataclan concert hall, on boulevard Voltaire, where over eighty people were killed, the same bloody night of November 13. It was her way of paying homage to all the victims, and to her boyfriend.
Later, after walking back in the rain to place Cambronne, Linden and Oriel stop at a café on avenue de la Motte-Picquet. It is a relief to be in a dry, warm place, tucked away from the wretchedness of Javel. They order hot chocolate and tea, and then Oriel says, simply, “Tell me about her. Your aunt Candice.”
Candice instinctively understood him, ever since he was a child. He felt closer to her than to his mother; it had always been that way. As a result, from early on, he had sensed a smoulder of umbrage from Lauren toward her sister concerning him. It was never expressed, but it lurked there, and he felt it worsen when he came out to Candy, not to his mother. The day Candy killed herself, he was in Tokyo. It had been a frantic, mad rush to get back in time for her cremation, and he hadn’t made it. He still bore the brunt of that. In the letter she left on the kitchen table, Candy explained nothing; there were only details about the fact she wished to be incinerated, and no Mass. There was nothing about why she committed suicide. But he knew. He knew why she had done it. It was that man, that J.G., who had kept her waiting for years, who promised, but who never gave, and who ultimately wed a young woman. Candy had continued seeing him after his marriage. She had admitted to Linden she couldn’t help it, that she loved J.G., that she needed him. She met him in hotels at lunchtime, and it was sordid. Linden had felt hatred toward this unknown man, whose face he didn’t even know. He remembered J.G. calling late at night, talking for hours. Candy had been at his beck and call. What was so special about this guy? he wondered. What did she see in him? She had a fine personality
; she deserved better than shitty J.G. He explains to Oriel the odd rivalry between Candice and Lauren. He was well aware they were close, that they cherished each other, but the competition existed, and it prevailed. He somehow felt it was more his mother’s fault, but he couldn’t quite pinpoint why; perhaps it stemmed from their childhood, from a tradition their parents instilled back when they were little girls growing up in Brookline. Lauren didn’t possess Candy’s calm attitude, her tact; his mother was blunter than her sister, less pensive. Candy was labeled the intellectual, which Lauren begrudged. Physically, they were both lovely, but Candy’s appeal was considered quieter, more elegant, whereas it was said Lauren’s exuded sensuality. He misses his aunt. He has not stopped missing her, since that June day. And earlier on, as they passed rue de l’Église, the pain sparked up, rekindled. When he saw the balcony from which she’d thrown herself, he had felt nauseous. How and why had she decided to take her own life? All sorts of details came back to haunt him. Imagining her getting dressed that morning, choosing her clothes. He had been told she was wearing a pale pink dress. Why that one, in particular? Did it have a story? Did she wear it for J.G.? Had she known, as she slipped into it, that she was going to die in it? Wednesday, June 6, 2012. What had that date signified? Did it have an implication for J.G., for her? He had puzzled over that date so often. It was the anniversary of D-day, he had noticed, as had his mother, his grandparents, but surely that had nothing to do with it. Fitzgerald and Martha Winter, her parents, had no ties to World War II. Lauren had said the date was probably random, and for all they knew, Candy had gotten up and gone to the window, and that was it. In summer, they’d sit there, he and Candy, on two Ikea folding chairs and sip Chardonnay, watching the sky flush pink in the evening. She’d put their clothes out to dry whenever the sun peeked out, even if the landlord disapproved. And what about Mademoiselle, her new cat? Linden shared his aunt’s passion for cats; he had adored Muffin, who had lived up to the ripe age of fifteen. Candy had never known his own two felines, Moka and Leporello; she died before he adopted them with Sacha. In June 2012, Mademoiselle was only six months old; she was a mischief-maker, a green-eyed black-and-white minx. When he Skyped his aunt, it was a delight to see Mademoiselle prance around the room, and Candy laughing out loud at her capers. Candice must have gone out on the balcony without Mademoiselle. Did she lock her up in another room? Candy was so careful, so protective of her cats; she spoke to them as if they were human beings. What had she told Mademoiselle on that final day? He never found out who had adopted the kitten. When Linden had left Candy’s apartment in 2000, at eighteen for a tiny room under the eaves on rue Saint-Antoine, he had missed her. That minuscule place—a chambre de bonne, as it was called, a maid’s room—was the first witness to his new routine of living alone. It had been tough spending his first winter there: The room was freezing, badly heated, and then, he discovered, stifling in summer. He worked at a photo lab just on the other side of place de la Bastille, where he earned a meager salary, enough to pay his rent. Later, he started at Gobelins, École de l’Image, and his parents and Candy helped by financing his studies. Every two weeks, he’d go back to rue Saint-Charles for dinner. She used to invite an interesting mix of people whenever he came. She was an excellent cook, another thing he missed in his new home. She had many friends, she was popular, but deep down, she was lonely, he knew. She dreamed of a family, a husband, children, a home—everything her sister had, and that she didn’t. It was her solitude that killed her; of that, Linden was certain. It was those nights, alone, when she could have shared them with someone she loved, and who loved her in return. His grandparents had never gotten over her death; they had aged overnight, and had not regained their sprightliness. Fitzgerald had passed away in 2013, and Martha followed suit a year later. When Linden had arrived in Paris in June 2012, his devastated mother and sister had greeted him, drained by the past few days. They had gone through all Candy’s belongings, and there were photographs, books, and letters concerning him, which they handed over to him. They had sorted out her furniture to be sold, or to be sent down to Vénozan; they had spoken to the staff and the pupils at the university and school where Candy taught English; they had done it all. Back in New York, it had taken Linden a while, perhaps a month or two, to muster up the courage to open the large envelope. Candice’s handwriting resembled his mother’s—irregular, slanted to the left—but he could tell them apart. In one letter, dated September 2005, she mentioned going for a weekend in the Loire valley with J.G., and she had written his name instead of his initials, Jean-Grégoire. Linden had all of a sudden remembered the man’s surname, de Fleursac-Ratigny (he had poked fun at its length and complication), and then it was easy to look him up online. He had found what he needed in a couple of clicks: J.G. lived on the outskirts of Paris; he had four children, between the ages of ten and sixteen. J.G. must have been quite good-looking twenty years ago, when Candice met him: slim, dapper, and dark-haired. How and where had they met? Linden couldn’t remember; some party, he believed. J.G. was currently retired from a family printing business. It was equally easy to find his telephone number and address. Almost too easy, he remembers.
The café where Oriel and he sit is now jam-packed, full of people charging their phones and coming in to shelter from the cold and the rain. It is a cheery place, decorated in tints of red and brown; the waiters scuttle by, balancing heavily laden trays expertly on their shoulders. Darkness has settled in. Oriel orders Sauvignon for both of them. Can she have the rest of the story, please? She really wants to know what happened next. Did he end up calling that dreadful man? Linden smiles, and chuckles.
“You need to stop smiling like that,” complains Oriel. “You’re just too sexy.”
Linden is tempted to tell how her pleasurable it is to be with her, how he has enjoyed sharing this moment with her. He’s been talking for the past twenty minutes, and a weight has lifted off his shoulders, despite the toll of the day and the sorrow of evoking Candy’s suicide. He takes the Leica out of his bag and aims it at her. He often does this when he feels words are needed and he cannot find them; the camera in front of his face acts like a shield. Oriel holds up her palms, half exasperated, half flattered, then finally unwinds and gazes back at him. He takes a couple of images, capturing the fiery glow in her gray eyes. When he puts the camera away, she grasps his hand, caressing the inside of his palm with her forefinger and staring right at him. There is no ambiguity in her expression or her gesture. He lets her play with his hand, not pulling away. After a while, she asks him if he is in love with someone. He answers that, yes, he is; he is in love with Sacha. She raises her eyebrows, repeats the name, softly. Is Sacha a man? He replies Sacha is indeed a man, that he met him five years ago, and that he lives with him in San Francisco. He waits, expecting more questions, and ready to answer them if they come. But they don’t come. Oriel sips her wine, and her hand has left his. She says nothing for a while; the silence between them is not awkward. Then she says, “Tell me about the Jean-Grégoire thingy.”
Linden called J.G. at home two months after Candice’s suicide, and the man had picked up the phone himself. It was noon in New York City, and the end of the day in France. Linden had said right away that he was Candice Winter’s nephew. J.G. had been taken aback, but he had not been unfriendly; he had just asked circumspectly, what Linden wanted. What Linden wanted? Well, he wished to know if Monsieur de Fleursac-Ratigny (what a mouthful of a name, and Oriel snickers) was aware that Candice Winter had died. Silence on the other end of the line, then a cough and a mumble, and the clearing of a throat. Yes, he was aware. Very sad indeed. Linden hadn’t liked J.G.’s voice, high-pitched and discordant. He had wondered if Madame de Fleursac-Ratigny was around, if she was eavesdropping, if she had any inkling her husband had been having an affair with a lovely, charming American woman called Candice for the past twenty years. With the same restrained tone, J.G. had asked if he could call Linden back. Linden had given him his mobile number, never expec
ting to hear from the man again, but to his surprise, he did ring back, three hours later. J.G. sounded disheartened. He admitted he had been deeply shocked by the news of Candice’s death. How had he found out? Another clearing of the throat. Well, Candice had written to him, announcing she was going to kill herself. He got the letter the day after she died. It had been a dreadful shock and he couldn’t display his grief because of … Because of his wife. His wife never knew. He felt terrible. He felt guilty. He knew he would carry that pain and that guilt for the rest of his life. That would be his cross to bear. There was just one more thing. J.G. didn’t care what Linden thought of him. Linden could think what he wanted. It didn’t matter; but what Linden had to know was this: He had loved Candice. He had loved her deeply; he had loved her more than he had ever loved any other woman. J.G. had hung up without another word.
Linden stops talking. He lets the noisy café take over his silence. Oriel’s eyes are full of sadness.
* * *
Linden stands under the shower for a long time, savoring its warmth. He can’t help thinking of the people he saw this afternoon, confined in their freezing and dank apartments. This Parisian trip appears to have ripped him open, rubbing salt into old wounds, creating new ones. Overtiredness and melancholy invade him. He tries to pull himself together as he gets dressed, but images flit back to trouble him: his father in the hospital, Tilia’s unbearable tale, the sixth floor from which Candice flung herself. Is it because he is a photographer that he sees these pictures so clearly in his mind? How can he erase them? He concentrates on his home; he thinks of its pale blue walls, the scent of amber, fragrant souvenirs from a visit to the Marrakech souks; Leporello basking in the sun, Moka bouncing up to greet Linden, like a dog would. Invoking the cats does him good, imagining their fleecy fur, the rumble of their purrs, how they race each other up and down the steep staircase. He visualizes Sacha in the kitchen, wearing shorts and a T-shirt, loins clad in a tattered apron purchased in Naples (which he refuses to throw away), engrossed in a mouthwatering recipe, hair tied back in a ponytail, while some opera (Lucia di Lammemoor or Turandot) resounds vigorously through the room. This was originally Sacha’s house. He had been living there for some time before they met; Linden went to join him four years ago. Linden knew San Francisco before moving there, but now he realizes he could not live anywhere else. He loved it from the start. After Paris and New York, the country boy he was at heart felt he had found his base at last. It had to do with the ocean views, the rosy sunsets, the nearby wilderness, the botanical gardens. Here, unexpectedly, nature rules, just like back home. The cold, blustery wind makes him think of the mistral raging down the valley at Vénozan. He doesn’t mind the fog, the sudden rain, the humid chill. The clang of cable cars appeals to him. The sight of the Golden Gate Bridge never wearies him, nor does the giddiness of the steep lanes on Russian Hill. Even those things people criticized about San Francisco—the lack of parking spaces, the stink of urine down in the Bay Area, the constant gentrification that was nibbling the city’s soul away—all that never got to him. What Linden enjoys most about San Francisco is living with Sacha. He likes imagining the man he loves as a dark-haired boy roaming these very hills. Sacha grew up in the neighborhood, on nearby Liberty Street, where his parents, Svetlana and Dennis, still live. Linden got to know Sacha’s neighbors: elderly, coquettish Mrs. Lester, who insisted on being called by her first name, Zelda, and the Leine family, who came from Uppsala, and who invited them every June to their midsommar party, a Swedish tradition that celebrated the summer solstice with dancing and merrymaking. Torn between hilarity and lust, Linden watched Sacha frisk expertly around the maypole, a tall wooden post adorned with flowers. Linden had never shared a place with a lover before, had never wanted to; his independence had been precious. It had all changed when Sacha asked Linden to come live with him. The narrow blue house in Noe Valley became their haven. It was a crooked three-story Edwardian built in 1903, with a mission-shaped dormer, a cathedral ceiling in the top bedroom, stucco walls, and period fireplaces. It faced south and west, so that its bow windows always caught the sun.
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