The Mystery of Henri Pick

by David Foenkinos

  13

  Rouche was stunned by this account of her life. After a while, he said: “I think Jean-Pierre Gourvec loved you. In fact, I think he may have loved you all his life.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “I told you: he wrote a novel. And I now know that the novel was inspired by you, by your departure, by all the things he could never tell you.”

  “You really think so?”

  “Yes.”

  “What is the novel called?”

  “The Last Hours of a Love Affair.”

  “Ah.”

  “Yes.”

  “I would love to read it,” she said.

  For the next two mornings, Rouche returned to Marina’s room to read Gourvec’s novel to her. He read it slowly. Sometimes, the old woman asked him to repeat certain passages. She punctuated them with a few remarks: “Yes, I recognize that. That’s so like him…” As for the sensual, imaginary parts, she believed he’d written what he wished he could have lived. After living in darkness for so many years, she could understand this concept better than anyone. She was constantly creating stories to help her live vicariously what she couldn’t see. She’d developed a sort of parallel life, similar to the lives created by novelists.

  “And Pushkin? Did he ever mention him to you?” asked Rouche.

  “No. That name means nothing to me. But Jean-Pierre loved biographies. I remember him telling me about Dostoyevsky’s life. He liked to discover other people’s fates.”

  “That’s maybe why he mixed reality with a writer’s life.”

  “It’s very beautiful, anyway. The way he writes about dying… I could never have imagined he would write so well.”

  “He never talked to you about his dream of being a writer?”

  “No.”

  “…”

  “When did this novel come out?”

  “He tried to have it published, but he didn’t succeed. I have a feeling that he was hoping to come back to you in the form of a book.”

  “Come back to me…” echoed Marina, with a wobble of emotion in her voice.

  Moved by the old woman’s reaction, Rouche decided not to mention the book’s publication for the moment. She didn’t seem to have heard of its success. Better to give her time to digest this news, and the book itself. As Rouche was preparing to leave, Marina asked him to come closer. She took his hand and thanked him.

  Just once, she shed a few tears. Here was another bridge in her life. The past coming back into the present, after decades of silence. All her life, she’d felt sure that Jean-Pierre hadn’t loved her; he’d been generous, adorable, tender, but he hadn’t shown the slightest indication of what he felt. His novel revealed his feelings, which had been so powerful that he had never loved another woman. She realized now that she had felt the same thing. So their love had existed, and perhaps that was all that really mattered. Yes, it had existed. Just like the luminous stories that she created in the heart of her darkness. Life has an inner dimension, with stories that have no basis in reality, but which are truly lived all the same.

  14

  When he decided to investigate this story, Rouche had guessed that it might have murky depths, but never could he have imagined that it would dredge up so many powerful emotions. Yet there was still something else important that he had to accomplish.

  In his tiny attic, he slept for most of the afternoon. He dreamt that Marina was eating giant oysters that transformed into Brigitte yelling at him because of the car. He awoke with a start and noticed that night was falling. He took out his laptop and started trying to order his notes; he didn’t yet know to which newspaper he would offer his article—maybe to the highest bidder?—but he felt certain that the literary world would be excited by his revelations. All the same, he didn’t want to question the integrity of Éditions Grasset; all the evidence suggested that the publishers had sincerely believed Pick to be the author.

  After working on the piece for almost two hours, he received a text. “I’m in the café downstairs. I’m waiting for you… Joséphine.” His first reaction was to wonder how she knew his address, before remembering that he’d told her where he lived during their nocturnal conversation. His second reaction was to think that he might not have been home that evening. It was a little strange to wait downstairs from someone’s apartment without warning them in advance. But then he thought: in her eyes, I’m the kind of man who has nothing to do except stay at home in the evenings. And, when he thought about this, he realized that she was right.

  He replied: “I’ll be there very soon.” But it took him longer than he’d expected. He didn’t know what to wear. Not that he wanted Joséphine to find him attractive, but… well, he didn’t want her to find him unattractive. When he first encountered her, reading her interviews, he’d thought she was a bit of an idiot. After meeting her at the cemetery, he’d quickly changed his mind. He thought about all of this, standing in front of his wardrobe, as he sank ever deeper into indecision. At that precise moment, he received a second message: “Come as you are. It’ll be fine.”

  15

  They were drinking red wine together. Rouche had wanted to order a beer, but in the end he’d followed Joséphine’s lead. While he was wondering what clothes to wear, he’d daydreamed that some irresistible urge had driven her to seek him out. Perhaps she had come to confess her feelings for him. This was not the most plausible hypothesis,2 but he had reached a point where nothing would surprise him. After some small talk, during which they stopped calling each other vous and started using the more intimate tu form, Joséphine explained the reason for her presence.

  “I don’t want you to publish your article.”

  “Why? I thought you and your mother wanted the truth to come out. I thought you were sick of this whole story.”

  “Yes, that’s true. We wanted to know. And, thanks to you, we now know that my father didn’t write that novel. You can’t imagine how shaken we were by this whole thing. We felt as if we’d been living with a stranger all those years.”

  “I understand. But telling the truth would bring things back the way they were.”

  “No, it wouldn’t. It would just rile everybody up again. I can already imagine the journalists asking me: ‘How does it make you feel to learn that your father didn’t actually write that novel?’ It would never end. And I think it would be humiliating for my mother, who went on television to talk about the novel. She would look ridiculous.”

  “I don’t know what to tell you. I thought it was important to tell the truth.”

  “But what will it change? Nobody cares whether it was Pick or Gourvec. People liked the idea that it was my father. Just leave it like that. Besides, it would cause problems.”

  “Why?”

  “Gourvec has no heir. Grasset wouldn’t pay us the royalties.”

  “Ah, so that’s what this is about.”

  “It’s one of the things this is about. What’s wrong with that? But I can promise you that, even if there were less money at stake, I would still ask you the same thing. This whole story has caused me too much pain. I don’t want to talk about it any more. I want to move on. So, yes, that’s what I’m asking you. Please.”

  “…”

  “…”

  “You see, I met Gourvec’s wife,” said Rouche. “It was very emotional. I read her the novel, and she realized that Gourvec really loved her.”

  “Well, there you go, that was your mission. That’s wonderful. You should stop there.”

  “…”

  “If you like, I could give you a nice present,” said Joséphine, grinning in an attempt to defuse the tension.

  “You want to buy my silence?”

  “You know it’s better for everybody this way. So, go on… what’s your price?”

  “Let me think about it.”

  “Just name it.”

  “You.”

  “Me? Come on, don’t dream. I’m much too expensive. You’d have to sell a lot of books before you
could hope to have me.”

  “All right, then… a car. Would you buy me a Volvo?”

  The conversation went on until the café closed. It didn’t take Joséphine long to convince Rouche. He’d always thought that his investigation would lead to an important change in his life. That was what was happening, though not in the way he’d expected. They seemed to understand each other so perfectly. Joséphine announced that she hadn’t booked a hotel room. Like him, she was apparently the kind of person who didn’t plan their accommodation in advance. They went up to his apartment, and he was not afraid of her judging it as he might have been with another woman. They lay down side by side, but this time in the same bed.

  16

  The next morning, Joséphine suggested that he come with her to Rennes. After all, there was nothing left for Rouche in Paris. He could start a new life, perhaps working in a library or writing articles for the local newspaper. He liked the idea of a fresh start. They drove slowly along the motorway, listening to music. After a while, they stopped for a coffee. As they drank, they realized that they were falling in love. They were the same age, and they were no longer interested in appearances. The first hours of a love affair, thought Rouche. It was wonderful to drink this undrinkable coffee in a gloomy service station, and to know that there was nowhere else in the world he would rather be.

  1Madeleine had lost a child at birth, a few years before she had Joséphine.

  2It had been a long time since a woman had driven three hundred kilometres to see him without warning. In fact, it had never happened before.

  EPILOGUE

  1

  Frédéric liked to put his ear to Delphine’s belly, hoping to hear a small heart beating. It was still too early for that. They had already drawn up endless lists of names. It was obvious they were going to find it hard to agree, so the writer suggested a deal to his wife: “If it’s a boy, you can choose. If it’s a girl, the choice is mine.”

  2

  A few days after this pact, Frédéric announced that he had finally finished his novel. Until now, he had not wanted to show any of it to his editor, because he wanted her to discover it in its entirety. With a certain apprehension, she picked up The Man Who Told the Truth and locked herself in the bedroom. She came out barely an hour later, her face curdled in fury.

  “You can’t do this!”

  “Of course I can. This was the plan.”

  “But we talked about it. You agreed!”

  “I changed my mind. I need everybody to know. I can’t keep silent about it any longer.”

  “This is going too far. You know that we would lose everything.”

  “You might. I won’t.”

  “What does that mean? We’re a couple. We have to make decisions together.”

  “It’s easy for you. You have everything.”

  “I’m warning you, Frédéric. If you decide to publish this book, I’ll have an abortion.”

  He was speechless. How could she say such a thing? To use their child’s life as a bargaining chip in a disagreement… It was vile. She realized she had gone too far, and tried to patch things up. Moving closer to Frédéric, she apologized. In a softer voice, she asked him to think this through. He promised he would. In the end, the awful nature of the blackmail she had attempted made him understand just how fearful she was of losing everything. And she was right: the world would judge her harshly for her scheming. And particularly for having convinced an old lady that her husband had written a novel. Her anger was surely justified. But he had to think about himself. That was only reasonable. He’d been champing at the bit for months, thinking only of that moment: when everybody learnt the truth. At last, the world would know that he was the author of this bestselling novel. She could always respond that what people had loved, most of all, was the novel behind the novel: the pizzeria owner who’d written in absolute secrecy; perhaps this was true, but without his novel, there would be no novel behind the novel. And now she was asking him to keep quiet. He had to remain hidden behind his puppet.

  3

  It had all happened quite simply. Frédéric had accompanied Delphine to Crozon for the first time, several months before. He’d met her adorable parents, discovered the charms of Brittany, and every morning he had stayed in the bedroom to write. The title of his book was The Bed, but nobody really knew what it was about. Frédéric always preferred to write in secret, believing that to divulge the contents of a novel in progress was to endanger it. He was finishing writing the story of a separating couple, with Pushkin’s death throes as a backdrop. He was very enthusiastic about this idea, and hoped that this second novel would be more successful than the first. But that seemed unlikely: apart from a few authors, not necessarily the best ones, hardly anybody sold books these days.

  After a conversation with Delphine’s parents, they went to visit the famous library of rejected books. That was where he had the idea of making people believe that his new novel had been discovered here; it would be a brilliant marketing plan. And, once sales had taken off, he could announce that he was the author. He shared his idea with Delphine, who agreed that it was excellent. But according to her, the manuscript needed an author; not an invented name or a pseudonym, but a real person. That would intrigue everybody. On this point, events would prove her right.

  They went to the cemetery in Crozon and chose a dead person to be the book’s author. After some hesitation, they opted for Pick, because both of them were fond of writers with a K in their name. He had died two years before, and was in no position to contradict their version of events. But they would have to inform his family and get them to sign a contract. Having done that, nobody could possibly suspect fraud. Frédéric seemed surprised by this, but Delphine explained to him: “You won’t receive the money for this book, but once everybody knows you’re the author, you’ll be famous, and that will have repercussions for your next novel. It’s best to go all the way with this. Nobody except the two of us should know the truth.”

  Frédéric took another few days to revise his novel. He thought it possible that Delphine’s mother might have seen his manuscript, with the title The Bed, so as a precaution he opted to change the title. He also changed the typeface, to make it look as if it had been written on a typewriter. The young couple printed it out, and tried to weather the paper, to make it look older. Once they’d done this, they went back to the library with this literary treasure that they pretended to discover there.

  When they presented the story to Madeleine and she reacted sceptically, they thought it would be a good idea to manufacture a sort of proof. So it was that, during their second visit, Frédéric hid the book by Pushkin among Henri Pick’s belongings after saying that he needed to use the bathroom. They had sown their seeds now. But they could never have anticipated what would grow from them. The book’s success surpassed all their hopes, but it also trapped them, in a way. Delphine realized this after the programme presented by François Busnel. Viewers had been so moved by Madeleine that it was now impossible to tell the truth without appearing to be heartless manipulators. This was terrible for Frédéric, who had to hide the fact that he was the author of the bestselling book in France, and to accept his status as an author whose ex-girlfriend hadn’t even heard of his first novel. While Delphine was crowned with all the glory, he brooded on the injustice of it all and decided to write a novel revealing the truth. In this book, he not only recounted the details of the affair, but gave a philosophical analysis of our society’s obsession with form over substance.

  4

  Frédéric accepted Delphine’s apologies, and admitted that he would be putting them in danger if he revealed the fraud they had perpetrated. A few days later, at the start of their summer holidays, they decided to go to Crozon.

  In the mornings, Frédéric stayed in bed and tried to write a new novel, but it was hard. Sometimes he would go out alone and walk along the seafront. During those times, he would think about the last days of Richard Brautigan in Bolinas, on t
he misty California coastline. The American writer, his career in decline, had sunk into a mire of alcohol and paranoia. For several days, he was out of contact with everybody, even his daughter. He died alone. His body was already decomposing when it was found.

  During that stay, Frédéric decided to visit the library in Crozon. The place where this whole story had begun. He saw Magali and noticed that there was something different about her, although he couldn’t put his finger on what had altered in her appearance. Perhaps she had lost weight? She welcomed him warmly.

  “Ah, it’s the writer! Hello there!”

  “Hello.”

  “How are you? Here on holiday?”

  “Yes. And we’ll probably stay several months. Delphine is pregnant.”

  “Congratulations! A boy or a girl?”

  “We don’t want to know.”

  “Ah, so it’ll be a surprise.”

  “Yes.”

  “And have you written a new book?”

  “I’m getting there, slowly.”

  “Well, let me know when it’s coming out. We’ll order copies here, of course. You promise?”

  “I promise.”

  “Actually, while I’ve got you… if you’re staying in Crozon for a while, how would you feel about running a writing workshop?”

  “Um… I don’t know…”

  “Just once a week, max. With the retirement home next door. They’d be so thrilled to have a writer like you.”

  “I’ll think about it.”

  “Oh, that’d be great. To help them write their memoirs, you know.”