Little Maxime had been born on April 1. They had heard every possible joke on the subject, the whole family had one up their sleeve – I forgot his birthday. Ha! Ha! Only kidding, April fool! Calling the boy Maxime, a name that spoke volumes about the family’s delusions of grandeur, had, of course, been a decision imposed by Monsieur Mouchotte.
After the wedding – which had been a complete nightmare: three months with four full-time organisers, family meetings to discuss the guest list, church meetings to rehearse the ceremony, arguments over the menu, squabbles over the invitations, sheer hell – Émilie’s pregnancy had rallied every last one of her relatives who all seemed convinced that she was the first woman to fall pregnant since the dawn of creation.
Émilie was a flamboyant mother-to-be. She proudly thrust out her belly as if it were the outward sign of inner bounty, she sailed past everyone in a queue with a triumphant smile, asked for a chair in every shop, she would breathe heavily until those around her began to worry, and then launch into a detailed description of the primary and secondary symptoms of her pregnancy, sparing no details, telling them about the pain, the diarrhoea, the morning sickness, the restless nights – I thought he was kicking, but no, it was just wind! Oh, the flatulence, it’s because the abdomen is compressed, I tell you it’s really something, the whole thing’s gruelling (she loved the word gruelling), but it was also the “wondrous gift of life”, and when she was in particularly good form, she would burble happily about how “giving birth to a child is the greatest adventure a woman can experience”. Antoine was profoundly depressed.
At first, he had no feelings for his son, neither love nor hatred, the child was simply not a part of his life. Émilie and her mother were forever playing house with this baby he only occasionally encountered. He treated the child as he did most of the babies in the département, he was just one among many.
Then Maxime began to walk, he began to talk and, to his astonishment, Antoine realised that his son was nothing like the Mouchottes. At times he thought the boy took after him and felt flattered, even though this was something he had always found ridiculous in others.
Perhaps he noticed the resemblance because it was what he wanted to see. He stayed on the sidelines, he was content simply to observe. He did not yet know what their relationship held in store.
*
Antoine restarted his car and turned right, he was running more than an hour and a half late, the waiting room was probably heaving. Too bad, they would have to wait, in fact they were always happy to wait, Antoine had rapidly become a popular doctor among the people of Beauval. In his case, at least they knew his mother.
He parked at the foot of the steps, left the keys in the ignition, climbed out, drawing his coat up against the rain, and went into the huge house. He would not stay long, but he had promised he would come, so here he was. Good evening, Docteur, we’d almost given up hope of seeing you, here, let me take your coat, you know what she’s like, she’s very impatient.
Maybe. But she always pretended to be engrossed in something else. Every time he went into her room, she would look up in surprise, oh, it’s you, what brings you here . . .?
Mademoiselle was thirty-one now, but she looked fifteen years older. She was terrifyingly thin, but Antoine knew that her skeletal frame would probably defy death for decades to come. If Mademoiselle had ever longed to die, that desire had faded, like Antoine’s dreams of running away.
He pulled up a chair, rummaged in his bag and, after looking around furtively, took out a bar of chocolate and slipped it under her blanket. The secrecy was merely a ruse, everyone knew Mademoiselle was not allowed chocolate, and everyone knew she ate it anyway, including her doctor, who was her principal supplier.
Mademoiselle lifted a corner of the blanket to look at the label and gave a little pout of disgust.
“You’re a bad loser, Docteur . . .”
They had started playing chess when Antoine had taken over from Docteur Dieulafoy as attending physician at the nursing home, but he never had time to play a full game. Now they exchanged moves by e-mail, it had been her idea. Antoine would consider his strategy while driving to see a patient, send Mademoiselle his move before the visit, receive a response during the consultation and send his next move after he left. Mademoiselle was right, he was not a good loser. It was not the loss itself, but because it was systematic: he had never won a single game, and he brought a bar of chocolate every time he lost a match.
“I can’t stay long, I’m running nearly two hours late.”
“Oh well, your patients will just give up and go home, it might do them some good. When you visit them tomorrow you’ll probably find they’re all cured.”
Always the same old story, like an old married couple.
Antoine clasped Mademoiselle’s hand, her cold, bony fingers wrapped themselves eagerly around his, thank you, see you soon.
Driving back through the rain. Beauval.
The town had changed in recent years. The parc Saint-Eustache had been a roaring success. In peak season, visitors came from all over the region. Family-friendly, close at hand, the concept had proved a winner. Monsieur Weiser had helped the town to turn itself around, his son had been elected almost unopposed. Tourism created employment, the shopkeepers were happy and a town whose shopkeepers are content is a town that thrives.
This change of fortune coincided with the revival of the wooden toy market. What had been considered tacky in the 1990s was once again fashionable. As the French became more environmentally conscious, they suddenly discovered a love of train sets carved from solid ash and spinning tops whittled from pine trees. Employment levels at weiser, wooden toys since 1921, were almost as high as they had been before the financial crisis.
The waiting room was crowded and stiflingly hot, condensation was streaming down the windows.
Antoine cracked open a window, something no-one present had dared to do. He gave a general “Hello, hello”, and a rueful shrug intended as an apology for his tardiness. There was a murmur of approval, people liked their doctor to be overworked, it was a guarantee of his ability.
He recognised Monsieur Fremont, Valentine, Monsieur Kowalski. Docteur Dieulafoy had greeted Antoine’s proposal to take over the practice with enthusiasm. Antoine had been worried that, given the old doctor’s passion for his job, he would be reluctant to retire, he might suggest they work together, interfere in every case, but his fears were unfounded. As soon as the surgery was sold, Docteur Dieulafoy moved to Viet Tri, a city to the north of Hanoi, to look after his mother, the eighty-year-old woman he had not seen in almost fifty years. Before he left, he had given Antoine detailed files on all of his patients and had even insisted on spending some considerable time talking through the more challenging cases.
It was at this point that Antoine discovered Monsieur Kowalski was registered with the practice, though he had not yet seen him in the surgery. With Valentine, he would have to reach a compromise. She would show up six times a year asking for a sick note, usually dragging several kids along so he would take pity on her. Antoine was very lax with her; though reluctant to write out a doctor’s certificate, he always did so in the end. He did not admit it even to himself, but Valentine occupied a strange position in his life; he still thought of her first and foremost as the young girl devastated by her little brother’s disappearance, the sister of the boy that Antoine had killed.
Antoine took his time preparing for the third part of his day, checking his equipment, ensuring everything was in order, slipping his wallet into the top drawer of his desk – the only one that locked – a reflex that owed more to magical thinking than to security, since a ten-year-old with a paper knife would have been able to prise it open in seconds. It was here that he kept Laura’s response to the letter that he had sent her, a hurried screed written in a single sitting: Laura (not “my love”, leave no room for misinterpretation), I’m leaving you (be simple, clear, decisive), a long explanation about Émilie, the only woman he h
ad ever loved, whom he had got pregnant and was planning to marry, it’s better this way, I’d only have made you unhappy, etc. The sort of moronic, mendacious, predictable letter that all cowardly men write to the women they finally decided to dump.
Laura’s answer had come by return post, a large white sheet and, top left, the word “Fine”.
He had folded it, slipped it into the drawer and locked it. And, over time, he had almost forgotten it was there.
Antoine wrote Valentine a sick note for one week, then ushered in Monsieur Kowalski, a lean man with a gentle voice and slow, deliberate movements. Antoine listened to his heart and, as he took his blood pressure, glanced down at the man’s notes, oh yes, Monsieur Kowalski was a widower, he made a mental calculation, he would be sixty-six.
“Probably a virus . . .”
Monsieur Kowalski smiled and gave a fatalistic shrug. Antoine wrote out a prescription, as always he explained the medication and the dosages, he was careful to write legibly, to avoid being overbearing.
He set down the patient file, showed Monsieur Kowalski to the door and shook his hand.
Monsieur Fremont was already getting to his feet when, on a sudden impulse, without taking the time to think, Antoine said:
“Monsieur Kowalski?”
All heads turned towards the door.
“Um . . . could you step inside again for a moment?”
He gave Monsieur Fremont an apologetic wave: If you don’t mind, I won’t be long . . .
“Come in, come in,” he said, gesturing to the chair Monsieur Kowalski had just vacated, “sit down for a minute.”
He stepped around the desk, picked up the patient file and flicked through it again.
Andriej Kowalski, born Gdynia, Poland, on October 26, 1949.
Antoine had one of those sudden intuitions that are so compelling that, at the time, they seem like an epiphany and which, a moment later, seem completely superficial.
But Monsieur Kowalski bowed his head and stared into his lap, and Antoine immediately sensed that he had been right.
For a long moment he said nothing, he did not know how to broach the subject . . . Because at any minute a door might open, and he did not know what was on the other side. And he did not know if he would be able to close it again. He was still holding the patient file. André.
“A few years ago my mother had an accident. She was in a coma for several days . . .” he began without looking up.
“I remember, I heard about it at the time, but she’s better now, isn’t she?”
“Oh yes, she’s fine . . . In the hospital she was delirious . . . She was calling out for people, my father, me . . . I was wondering . . .”
‘“Yes?”
“I was wondering whether she called out for you. Your first name is André, isn’t it?”
“I was christened Andriej, but here people say André.”
Antoine might have been on the wrong track, but the question was nagging at him, so he felt he had to ask.
“And is that what my mother called you?”
Monsieur Kowalski was staring at Antoine and frowning. Would he fly into a rage, get up and storm out, or would he answer . . .?
In a soft voice he said, “What are you getting at, Docteur Courtin?”
Antoine stood up, came around the desk and sat next to Monsieur Kowalski.
He had often met the man, had often stared at him because of the fearsome physique that, in Antoine as in many other people, inspired a sort of inexplicable awkwardness, but studying the man now he found he radiated the sort of tranquil power, that strength a young child often sees in his father.
Antoine’s mind teemed with conflicting thoughts, he did not know how to move the conversation forward.
Monsieur Kowalski, for his part, did not seem at all troubled. On the contrary, he looked as though he would never say something he had decided to keep secret.
“If you don’t want to talk to me . . .” Antoine said, “you’re free to go. You don’t owe me an explanation.”
Monsieur Kowalski considered his decision for a moment.
“I retired last month, Docteur. I have a little house down south . . .” He gave a dry little laugh. “I call it a house, but that’s dressing it up, in fact it’s a caravan . . . but, well, it’s mine. I don’t think we’re likely to run into each other again. I had planned to . . . I never thought that you’d ask me today, straight out, just like that.”
Each phrase he spoke seemed taut, fragile, as though threaded onto a wire and likely to fall, to shatter.
“The reason I mention my retirement is, well . . . a lot of time has passed, these things don’t really matter anymore.”
“I understand.”
Antoine put his hands on his thighs and made to stand up.
But then he paused.
“You know, I was puzzled,” Monsieur Kowalski said, “when I saw you that day in December.”
Antoine stopped breathing.
“I was driving through the forest on the outskirts of Saint-Eustache, and then suddenly, in the rear-view mirror, I saw a boy dashing across the road, crouching in the hedge, the moment I saw him I knew it was you.”
Antoine felt a mounting panic, a terror he had not felt in the four years since he had thought that he was safe, at last. Just when his life was sinking into a humdrum routine like quicksand, suddenly it all came flooding back, the death of Rémi Desmedt, the trek through the woods of Saint-Eustache with the child’s body on his shoulders, the small, pale hands disappearing into the crevasse beneath the fallen beech tree . . .
He wiped sweat from his forehead.
He could see himself on the way back to Beauval, lying in the ditch, watching for cars before crossing the road.
“So I pulled up a little further on . . . I parked the van, got out and went back to see what was happening. I wondered if maybe you needed help. I didn’t find you, obviously, you were long gone.”
Monsieur Kowalski was the sole witness who could have steered the investigation towards Antoine in the immediate aftermath of Rémi’s disappearance. Monsieur Kowalski, who had been arrested and persecuted at the time, and who, four years ago, when Rémi’s remains were discovered, had been taken in again for questioning . . .
“But you—”
“I did it for your mother. I loved her very much, you see. She loved me too, I think . . .”
He bowed his head, his faced flushed, seemingly aware that the secret he had revealed was trite, almost banal.
“I’m sure you’ll find this ridiculous coming from an old man like me . . . but she was the love of my life.”
No, Antoine did not find it ridiculous, he too had had one great love in his life.
“I never admitted what I was doing that day because . . . we were together, the two of us. She was in the car with me. I didn’t want to compromise her. She wanted our relationship to remain secret . . . and I had to respect that.”
To avert suspicion, Madame Courtin had always been cold and distant towards him, offering snap judgements about Monsieur Kowalski that in retrospect seemed terribly cruel.
Antoine struggled to piece things together. Monsieur Kowalski stops the car. What does his mother say?
Sitting in the car, she turns around but she sees nothing, she wonders what he is up to, she does not want to stay there, parked at the side of the road, she cannot afford to be seen with him . . .
Monsieur Kowalski gets out, he looks for Antoine, who he has just glimpsed running frantically towards Beauval, he doesn’t find him, he gives up, gets back in the car and drives off . . .
What did they say to each other?
“I didn’t say anything. It was a reflex, really, I had the impression that . . . how can I put this . . . that it wasn’t the right thing to do.”
This relationship between his mother and Monsieur Kowalski makes Antoine feel uncomfortable, though he struggles not to show it. Not because it was scandalous in itself, obviously, but people are always surprised and
shocked at the thought that their parents could have a sex life – even when they are doctors. That was part of it, but there was something more ambiguous, more complicated, something that would take time and thought to work out, something that depended on the question: when had they first met?
Madame Courtin had started working for Monsieur Kowalski before Antoine was born . . . Two, three years before maybe. When had Antoine’s father left? In his mind the dates, the years, the images were muddled, the ground seemed to be opening up.
Antoine suddenly felt sick.
He turned back to Monsieur Kowalski and saw that the man had got to his feet and was already at the door.
“None of this matters anymore, Docteur. You ask yourself a lot of questions, of course . . . I sometimes wondered . . . And then, one day, you stop.”
This man who had suffered as much as he had was struggling to find the words to reassure him.
Antoine was shivering, as though he had gone out on a snowy day without a coat.
“Really, Docteur, don’t worry . . .”
Antoine opened his mouth to say something, but Monsieur Kowalski had already gone.
*
Two days later he received a small parcel in the post. He opened it at his desk just before beginning his surgery.
It was his watch. With the fluorescent green strap.
It had stopped, obviously.
Acknowledgements
This novel would never have seen the light of day without the essential presence of Pascaline.
I would like to thank my friend Patrice Leconte (Saint Martin) for writing the letter that was needed precisely when it was needed. And on the subject of friends, how could I forget Jean-Daniel Baltassat (Saint Bernard) and Gérald Aubert, my fundamental friend . . . nor Samuel Tillie are to blame, but me alone. I would like to thank them for their help and their advice.
I recognise myself in the words of H.G. Wells, in his preface to Apropos of Dolores:
Three Days and a Life Page 18
