The Postman's Fiancée

by Denis Theriault; Translated by John Cullen

  A nurse came to deliver Bilodo’s meal. Tania turned on an electric candle for a bit of ambience. She set her mobile phone to play some music and then unwrapped the Greek salad she’d brought from the Petit Malin. She had taken up the pleasant habit of eating with Bilodo when she visited him after work.

  ‘I’m not hungry,’ Bilodo declared, considering the contents of his tray with a mistrustful eye.

  Tania understood his reluctance: on the plate lay two slices of a mysterious meat, and beside them were a pathetic islet of purée and a few limp green beans.

  Evening after evening, Bilodo picked at his food, barely touching whatever was offered him – and Tania had to confess that the menu was enough to discourage all gastronomical ambitions. She suggested he share her salad, but he repeated that he wasn’t hungry. Tania wanted him to regain his strength, so she kept up a flow of encouraging words, insisting that he should at least eat his dessert. Bilodo removed the plastic lid concealing the sweet of the day, a slice of lemon tart only distantly related to the magnificent concoction, served under the same name, that Mr Martinez produced at the Madelinot. Bilodo’s tart, as it happened, was shop-bought and canary yellow in colour.

  ‘Lemon tart! Your favourite dessert,’ observed Tania with feigned enthusiasm.

  ‘Really?’ said Bilodo. ‘I don’t remember that.’

  Lifting the slice of tart, he sniffed at it with one sceptical nostril. As she watched him, Tania suddenly remembered what Justine Tao had told her about sensory memory – a mere smell could suffice to cause the click! Wasn’t there a risk that the lemony scent of the tart would remind Bilodo of the gentle citrus fragrance that perfumed Ségolène’s haiku?

  ‘Give me that tart!’ she cried out.

  Tania snatched the dangerous pastry from his hands. Unable to think of a more effective way to make it disappear, she devoured it in three mouthfuls. Swallowing with some difficulty, she noticed that Bilodo was gaping at her in amazement.

  ‘I adore lemon tart,’ she explained, trying to justify her fit of gluttony. ‘It’s my favourite dessert.’

  ‘You said it was mine,’ said Bilodo, surprised.

  ‘I said that? I meant to say it was mine, of course. I can’t resist a lemon tart,’ Tania confessed. ‘But you, you hate it. In fact, you’re allergic to citrus fruit.’

  ‘Whew, thanks for warning me.’

  ‘What you love are cream puffs. They’re your guilty pleasure,’ Tania declared categorically. ‘I’ll bring you some tomorrow. But first you have to eat, at least your soup.’

  ‘All right, but only because you want me to,’ Bilodo conceded.

  He thrust a spoon into his soup and began to swirl it around the bowl. Tania relaxed a little. She felt a vague urge to vomit. ‘I’ll have to be more careful,’ she thought, counting herself lucky that Bilodo had swallowed, without flinching, the whopper about his citrus allergy – she felt she’d come close to disaster. On the other hand, there was every reason to hope: Bilodo didn’t remember that he was mad about lemon tart, a sign that his amnesia remained as deep as ever.

  It was the thirtieth of October, and Tania’s footsteps echoed in the now empty apartment on rue des Hêtres. The movers had quickly cleared everything out. All that remained were two boxes that Tania would take with her when she left. One of them held certain personal effects of Bilodo’s, which she planned to disperse around her apartment so that he would feel a little more ‘at home’. The other box contained the totality of his poetic correspondence with Ségolène, as well as his other papers and those of Grandpré. Tania had considered burning all that, but, restrained by a sort of superstitious doubt, she hadn’t been able to steel herself to do it. In the end, she’d decided to entrust the box and its explosive contents to Noémie, who would keep it in her own apartment, out of harm’s way.

  Tania was just giving the floors a final sweep when she heard the clack of the letterbox. Anxiety froze her for a few seconds. Then, peeking cautiously into the foyer, she was relieved to discover that the post wasn’t a letter from Guadeloupe but a large envelope from the publishing house to which Bilodo had submitted the collection of Grandpré’s poems. Inside the envelope was a contract for the publication of the manuscript Enso, together with a note from the editor. The latter expressed his keen desire to publish Enso; pointing out that nearly two months had passed without a reply to his telephone message of the twenty-ninth of August, he was, he wrote, taking the liberty of sending the enclosed contract, and he asked Grandpré to let him know quickly what his intentions were. Tania was tempted to imitate Grandpré’s handwriting and sign the contract, but she discarded the idea, fearing that at some future time the published work might fall into Bilodo’s hands and evoke some undesirable memories. Refusing to mortgage the future like that, Tania put the contract in the box containing the haiku. Then, leaving behind Bilodo’s past as well as his ghosts, she left the apartment on rue des Hêtres with the firm resolve of never returning there again.

  It was Halloween evening in the hospital. To enliven the atmosphere, pumpkins had been placed more or less everywhere, and the staff had organized a trick-or-treat itinerary for the child cancer sufferers in the oncology department. When she entered Bilodo’s room, Tania found him distributing treats to a pack of young, leukemic vampires and other pint-sized monsters. For the occasion, he’d found a way to make himself a mummy costume out of toilet paper. Tania was touched to see him laugh, plainly having fun with the little patients. ‘He’d make a good father,’ she told herself, ovulating at the thought.

  With a red carnation stuck in his buttonhole, Gaston Grandpré was lying on the flooded asphalt. It was just after the accident, in the steady downpour. The dying Grandpré fixed his eyes on Tania’s and spoke in an evanescent voice: ‘Swirling like water...against rugged rocks...time goes around and around...’

  Grandpré hiccupped strangely, and the flabbergasted Tania realized that he was laughing. It was a hoarse, ghostly laugh. Grandpré was laughing as though at a painful joke. Then he stopped, strangled by a coughing fit. The light went out of his eyes. He expired. The clenched fingers of his right hand loosened, releasing their grip on a blood-stained envelope. Tania had just enough time to see that this was a letter addressed to Ségolène before it slid into the gutter, where a stream of reddish water flowed. Borne along to a storm drain, the letter swirled around for an instant and then was swallowed up into the bowels of the earth...and Tania awoke, dismayed by her morbid dream.

  Shortly afterwards, in the shower, Tania absentmindedly dropped her bar of soap. Bending down to pick it up, she yielded to the fascination of the water that swirled around her feet before vanishing down the drain and thought again about her dream – about the bloody letter the sewer had sucked down, and about the dying man’s enigmatic words:

  Swirling like water

  against rugged rocks,

  time goes around and around

  Those words were not unknown to her. They constituted the opening haiku in Enso, Grandpré’s collection of poems. Apparently, the incident with the publication contract had given rise to her troubling dream. It was meaningless, Tania decided, but she couldn’t manage to remain entirely convinced; on the contrary, in spite of herself, she had a feeling that the meaning of that cryptic poem was a matter of vital importance.

  13

  New brainstorming sessions with Justine Tao failed to allow Bilodo to reconnect with his past – much to Tania’s satisfaction. Only the ceaselessly embellished tale she told him about the halcyon days of their love was capable of quenching his existential thirst. Physically, however, Bilodo was making a rapid recovery. He was already endeavouring to move his broken leg. In November, he was deemed ready for physiotherapy. He gave it all he had. Three weeks later, he was roaming through the corridors on his crutches, escaping from his room at a snail’s pace. Weary of mouldering in the hospital, Bilodo clamoured for permission to leave. His doctor, finally yielding, released him, but not before making him promise not to set
foot in a post office again, for any reason, before March. Bilodo had to continue his therapy and undergo other examinations, but in all other respects he was free.

  Tania had seldom felt more nervous than on the fourteenth of December, the day of Bilodo’s liberation, while sitting in the back seat of the taxi that was taking them ‘home’. She helped him climb the exterior staircase and then led him into the apartment they’d supposedly begun to share eight months before. For greater plausibility, Tania had placed some of Bilodo’s things here and there. Propped on his crutches, Bilodo surveyed the living room. With the exception of Bill, who was propelling himself through the water in his fishbowl, Bilodo obviously recognized nothing. Tania led him into the kitchen and continued to the bathroom, where she’d carefully laid out his toilet articles. Next she showed him the minuscule guest room, which was furnished with a sofa-bed, and then escorted him to the final room.

  ‘Our bedroom,’ she said.

  The space was filled with sunlight. Tania had repainted it and added a second chest of drawers, into which she’d put Bilodo’s underwear and other folded items of clothing. She opened the wardrobe and showed him his hanging garments as well as his postman’s uniforms.

  ‘Very nice,’ said Bilodo, a little dejectedly.

  ‘Is this all right?’ asked Tania, afraid of having neglected some crucial detail.

  ‘It’s all fine. I’m happy to be back home. It’s just that...I was hoping it would jog my memory a bit, but I don’t remember anything about it. Nothing at all.’

  ‘That’s normal,’ said Tania, indicating that Bilodo shouldn’t worry.

  Tania prepared their supper. Bilodo ate in relative silence. Apologizing for being so uncommunicative, he confessed that he was concerned about what would happen next. Money wasn’t a problem; the compensation he was receiving from his salary insurance freed him from all pecuniary worries. What Bilodo found particularly bothersome was the question of how he was going to occupy himself during his convalescence. He explained that work was among the things he valued most in life, and that the prospect of such a long period of idleness made him uncomfortable. What would he do with himself?

  ‘Get better and get well,’ Tania asserted. ‘That’s the only thing that matters.’

  After supper, they put some logs in the fireplace and watched television. Sensing that Bilodo was as nervous as she was, Tania tried to relax them both by copiously filling their wine glasses, but the tension only increased as bedtime approached. Tania was simultaneously excited and fearful, like a teenager preparing to ‘do it’ for the first time. Bilodo, meanwhile, kept flicking between the channels, manifesting no desire whatsoever to move on to serious matters, and seeing that time was passing, Tania decided to take the initiative before she was too drunk: ‘It’s late. Let’s go to bed,’ she whispered.

  ‘Yes,’ Bilodo replied, turning off the telly. ‘But I have a favour to ask. Would it bother you if I slept in the guest room?’

  ‘...’

  ‘This is all so new to me. I’m a little confused,’ he pleaded.

  Stoically facing this disappointment, Tania assured him that she understood. They performed their ablutions and then bade each other good night while standing at their respective doors. Tania fell onto her bed, satisfied, despite everything, that this crucial day, the day of Bilodo’s ‘return’, had passed without a hitch. It had ended on a somewhat discouraging note, but after all, it seemed normal that Bilodo would need time to adapt. Tania consoled herself with the thought that the nights to come would be all the hotter.

  The following evening, Tania ran a fragrant bath for Bilodo, lit a few candles and put on some atmospheric music. Nevertheless, he cited his aching leg as an excuse for preferring to go to bed alone. The shadow of a doubt passed over Tania, but she respected Bilodo’s modesty.

  The evening after that, Bilodo went to the guest room and closed the door without offering so much as a token excuse, as if the matter were resolved from then on. Disenchanted, Tania had to admit that something was wrong.

  ‘Bilodo?’ she called, tapping gently on the door of the guest room.

  ‘Yes?’ he answered from the other side.

  ‘I’d just like...to say good night.’

  ‘Thanks, you too.’

  And then silence. Tania leaned her back against the door. She had naively imagined that planting Bilodo in her home would be enough to bring a passion that had been sprouting for so long into full flower, but the reality was different; two weeks after his arrival, they were still sleeping in separate rooms. Nevertheless, Tania kept trying to excite his senses. She went to the beauty salon and got herself a vampish hairdo, she went to the nail salon and got herself some pretty fingernails, she scented herself with a new perfume supposed to fire masculine desire. She bought a scandalous bestseller and deliberately left it lying about more or less everywhere, and she did her yoga routines in the middle of the living room, attempting to impress Bilodo with her flexibility. But these erotic signals had no apparent effect. Raising the audacity bar a notch, Tania formed the habit of leaving the door ajar while she had a bath, hoping that Bilodo would see that as an invitation to enter the bathroom, or at least to peek at her through the opening in the door, but not so much as an eyeball appeared in the crack – it was enough to make her chew up her soap! She updated her supply of lingerie to include some alluring nighties, in which she paraded around right under Bilodo’s nose, but such manoeuvres seemed to arouse in him nothing but embarrassment: he’d avert his eyes and take refuge in the guest room, to Tania’s great chagrin. She was reduced to listening to him snoring on the other side of the door while she stared at her beautiful, useless fingernails.

  Bilodo’s state of mind was hard to define. He didn’t seem unhappy. He smiled frequently. If asked how he was doing, he said everything was fine. But for all that he remained distant and laconic. When Tania came home from work, she’d find him playing a video game, from which he would disconnect only reluctantly. She assumed that his inactivity was weighing on him, that he felt bored. From time to time, like someone emerging from a trance, he’d eye her up and down, bizarrely, as if he could read her. Those strange looks gave Tania the jitters and nourished her dread of being unmasked; they haunted her even in her dreams.

  ‘What are you complaining about, Tania Schumpf? Don’t you have what you wanted?’ she would think, reasoning with herself when she started to get the blues. Besides, Tania agreed with her inner voice: all was not so dark, things could be worse, and in fact, the glum atmosphere was sometimes punctuated with happy moments. For Christmas, Bilodo presented her with a bracelet of finely worked silver, and she gave him a chain with a little locket containing her photograph: ‘So you’ll never forget me,’ she whispered as she put the chain around his neck. After that, he was more than willing to watch The Remains of the Day, one of Tania’s favourite films; she’d chosen it deliberately, because it best symbolized their relationship. Tania knew the film by heart, but she savoured every frame as though for the first time, overjoyed to let herself be carried along by the plot in the company of Bilodo, and to feel him quiver at the same moments she did. In the end, when Stevens, the butler, stood in the rain and waved his final farewell to Miss Kenton as the bus carried her away, both of them – Tania and Bilodo – burst into tears, which gave Tania an exhilarating feeling of complicity.

  A delicious moment, but brief, and the following day Bilodo fell back into apathy. Video game, supper, solo beddy-byes: it had taken only a few days for that monotonous routine, that nocturnal apartheid, to become established. Tania’s confidence was shaken; what would it take to stimulate this impassive postman’s ardour? Was it going to be necessary for her to get the Canada Post logo tattooed on some part of her body?

  Now ready to consider last-resort solutions, Tania purchased some of the Haitian love philtre whose aphrodisiac virtues her friend Noémie had extolled. That very evening, finding Bilodo no more amorous than usual, she poured a triple dose into his beef
stroganoff. After supper, Tania put on some bossa nova and asked Bilodo for a dance. She didn’t let herself be discouraged by his embarrassed refusal and pulled him against her. Swaying languorously to the rhythm of the music, she put her arms around his neck and kissed him – tried to kiss him, that is, for the speechless Bilodo allowed it to happen without any reaction. Tania was forced to recognize the sad, obvious fact; every part of him remained stony, except for his member, which she realized was desperately flaccid.

  Detaching himself from Tania’s arms, Bilodo notified her that he was going to bed.

  ‘Wait,’ she said, grabbing one of his hands and holding him back. ‘Why are you so distant?’

  ‘I’m tired,’ he offered as a pretext.

  ‘Bilodo, I love you,’ she declared fervently.

  ‘So do I, but I feel empty,’ he replied, his eyes dead. ‘I believed my thoughts would clear up when I came back home, but I’ve still got this big blank spot inside my head...I’m a stranger in my own skin.’

  Bilodo withdrew. Hearing him close that bloody guest-room door one more time, Tania sighed bitterly and set about finishing the bottle of wine by herself. Shortly afterwards, taking advantage of one of those brief moments of amazing lucidity that drunkenness sometimes provides, she admitted that she’d made a stupid mistake by trying to entice Bilodo into her bed when he clearly wasn’t ready for it. Apparently she’d been going about things the wrong way from the beginning; it was Bilodo’s heart she must address first, not his senses. Only later, once Bilodo was re-endowed with his emotions and his ability to love, would the moment come to let the flesh exult.

  Before anything else, it was Bilodo’s soul that Tania had to touch.

  Returning home from her job that snowy New Year’s Eve, Tania was pleasantly surprised to find the video game turned off. Bilodo was sitting at the kitchen table. He was doing calligraphy.