Love Letters from Montmartre

by Nicolas Barreau

  I pulled myself up against my pillow. What was she doing?

  ‘Julien, we need to talk,’ she explained quietly, as she sat down on one of the armchairs across from the couch. ‘It’s about Arthur.’

  ‘What about Arthur?’ I asked in alarm. ‘What’s wrong? Is he being bullied at nursery school?’

  The newspapers were constantly running articles about children being marginalised and made fun of by their classmates.

  ‘No, no, that’s not it,’ she began hesitantly.

  ‘Then what is it?’

  Her cheeks suddenly flushed bright red. ‘Today Arthur asked me if I was going to be his new Maman.’

  ‘What?! Where’d he get that idea?’ I cried suspiciously.

  ‘I asked him, and he told me that he ran into Madame Grenouille this morning on the stairs. She said something about him being an unfortunate little boy whose heartless Papa had already forgotten his dead Maman, since he had a new girlfriend, that teacher whose apartment he was visiting in the evenings. “You’ll soon be getting a stepmother, you poor, poor boy!” she added.’

  ‘That old witch!’ I could feel the adrenalin shooting through my veins. ‘I could wring her neck!’

  ‘Bad idea, otherwise Arthur will also be without a Papa. But how did she know?’

  I sighed and leaned back into the pillows.

  ‘Well,’ I said shamefacedly. ‘She saw me that time as I . . . you know . . . left your apartment early in the morning. She was just suddenly there at her door, giving me the evil eye.’

  Cathérine gave a brief chuckle before turning serious again.

  ‘You need to talk to Arthur and explain it to him somehow,’ she declared. ‘I told him that we’re just good friends.’ Her gaze was doubtful, and her eyes held something I couldn’t identify. ‘That was the right thing to do, don’t you think?’

  ‘Definitely,’ I confirmed. ‘You handled it just fine, Cathérine. I’ll talk to Arthur later.’

  ‘Good.’ She stood up, picked up her briefcase, and opened the living-room door again. ‘See you tomorrow.’

  She raised her hand in farewell, and I waved back.

  ‘And . . . Cathérine?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Thank you. For everything.’

  That evening, I watched Robin Hood with Arthur again. We sat together on the sofa – he in his pyjamas with the brown teddy bears, me in my striped ones. A large bowl of crisps was sitting between us, which we were sharing companionably, and Arthur was huddled under a blanket. He crowed with delight every time Robin Hood played a trick on the Sheriff of Nottingham. At the end of the thrilling adventures, when sly Robin pulled Maid Marian into his arms and little hearts danced around the two foxes, Arthur sighed happily.

  He then looked over at me.

  ‘Papa . . . know what?’ He giggled a little.

  ‘No, but I bet you’re about to tell me, little one.’ I pulled him into a hug, and he rested his head against my shoulder.

  ‘I have a girlfriend, too,’ he explained dreamily.

  ‘What?!’ I looked at him, astonished. ‘Isn’t it a little early for that, Arthur? You’re only four.’

  ‘No, Papa,’ he assured me. ‘Maxime also has a girlfriend.’

  ‘Aha!’ I said. What did I know? I was just the father.

  ‘But mine is prettier,’ Arthur continued. ‘She has red curls like Maman.’ He sighed contentedly and stretched out his legs. ‘Giulietta is the prettiest girl in the Smurf group. Her Maman is Italian,’ he declared proudly.

  ‘That’s . . . that’s great.’ I was a little confused. ‘And – I mean . . . what happens when you have a girlfriend?’ I asked cautiously.

  ‘Oh, Papa,’ he said. ‘It’s really easy.’ He picked up a handful of chips and chewed contentedly. ‘You pick one out, ask her: “Do you want to go with me?” and she says: “Yes.”’ He shot me a quick look. ‘If she heard you, that is . . . ’ he explained, as I bit back a smile. ‘And then you give each other a kiss, and then you’re together.’

  ‘Oh . . . wow!’ I said relieved. ‘And she . . . Giulietta . . . heard you right away when you asked?’

  ‘Yes.’ He smiled, snuggling closer against me. ‘We sit next to each other at lunchtime and save places for each other. She thinks I’m cool, you know.’

  ‘Well, you are definitely a cool dude,’ I agreed, tousling his dark curls and making the snap decision to grab the bull by the horns.

  ‘Know what? I need to tell you something, too, Arthur.’

  He watched me with big eyes. ‘About Cathérine?’ he asked.

  I nodded. ‘Yes. Cathérine and I, we’re friends,’ I began. ‘But . . . but we’re not going together. Understand?’

  He nodded sceptically. ‘But Madame Grenouille said—’

  ‘Madame Grenouille is a silly old woman who likes to say bad things about people and other stupid stuff,’ I interrupted him. ‘She saw me walk out of Cathérine’s apartment one morning while you were still in Honfleur with Mamie. I was just comforting Cathérine, because it was her birthday and she was all alone. I stayed with her that night so she wouldn’t be so sad.’ At least, it wasn’t a complete lie. ‘Does that make sense?’

  Arthur seemed to accept this. ‘It does, Papa. Cathérine also told me that you’re just good friends.’

  ‘Exactly.’ I nodded in relief.

  ‘But you know what else?’

  ‘No, what?’

  ‘It’s all right if you want her to be my new Maman. She’s so nice, not like the wicked stepmother in Cinderella.’ He gave a big yawn.

  ‘You’re right about that,’ I agreed. ‘But still – Cathérine and I are just friends. And it’ll stay that way.’

  He nodded sleepily, and I took him to bed.

  That night I dreamed about a small red-haired girl name Giulietta. She was in the garden in Honfleur, sitting on the big swing under the old pine tree, and was swinging as high as she could, as my son stood behind her and pushed. Each time, he yelled: ‘Higher, Giulietta, higher!’

  *

  A few days later, I left the house for the first time in two weeks. An azure May sky was stretched across Paris, and the trees and flowers were in full bloom in the parks. The sun shone warmly on my face, and in my jacket was stuck a long letter I had written to Hélène over the weekend. Although I’d been sick, there were still several things I could share with her.

  I stepped onto the Metro, where today’s passengers seemed less grouchy than usual. I gazed down at my bright spring bouquet, looking forward to placing it on Hélène’s grave.

  The Cimetière Montmartre was a verdant paradise where nature had exploded over the past few weeks. The birds were chirping in the trees, and the scent of chestnut blossoms filled the air.

  I drank in the mild air as I walked along, and I soon reached the small path at the end of the cemetery where visitors rarely appeared. The last time I’d been here, Arthur had been with me, and Sophie had been working on her angel close by. Obviously, the restoration job was finished, since the stone angel now had both of its wings and was gazing peacefully at the grave it was tending. On the other hand, Sophie was nowhere in sight.

  It was only a few steps further to Hélène’s grave, and for a moment I stared despondently at the bronze angel’s dear face.

  ‘I hope you aren’t upset at me any more, Hélène,’ I murmured, thinking about that last frantic letter that I had deposited over two weeks ago. ‘It’s been a while since you’ve heard from me. I’ve been ill.’

  I searched for a vase for my flowers behind the gravestone, and took a step back to admire how tenderly and brightly they glowed against the ivy. I then pulled the letter out of my jacket, pressed the catch on the back of the gravestone, and opened the secret compartment. As usual, I leaned down to place the envelope on top of the other letters, but froze in mid-bend.

  I couldn’t believe my eyes, but there was no doubt about it.

  The secret compartment was empty. All the letters were gone.<
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  And in their place sat a small stone heart.

  12

  More things in heaven and earth

  For the past hour, I’d been sitting on the steps of the Sacré-Cœur, gazing out at the city spread below me. Under a cloudless sky, Paris shone in the midday sun. I was surrounded by life: students encamped across the wide, pale steps as they unpacked their baguettes from their backpacks; tourists clustered further down the hill, uncertain if they wanted to have their photos taken against the ornate white church glittering atop Montmartre or with the magnificent backdrop of the city behind them; couples kissing, content just to be here at this iconic locale high above the city – the epitome of romance for so many people. I too had strolled here one evening with Hélène, had sat beside her on these very steps. It had been quiet then, the city below us a sea of lights.

  I opened my hand, which was still clutching the stone heart, and stared at it in disbelief, as the strangest thoughts swirled through my mind.

  I had stood at the grave for a long time after discovering that my letters were gone, pressing the stone heart against my chest as I stared at the angel. I felt like I’d been struck by lightning.

  ‘My God,’ I whispered as my heart hammered loudly. ‘Did you do this, Hélène?’

  I eventually set my new letter in the secret compartment – looking around before I did so – and shut the little door. And then I left the cemetery, without glancing either right or left. I wandered through the streets of Montmartre like a person possessed – aimless, helpless, too agitated to take a seat in one of the cafés. As if of their own accord, my feet had found the path that led up here to the highest point in Montmartre.

  Once again, I studied the heart nestled in my palm. It wasn’t one of those rose-covered stone hearts you can sometimes find in gift shops. This was more like a simple stone – a shimmering pink – whose natural shape resembled that of a somewhat slanted heart. The kind of stone you might catch sight of, glowing under the burbling surface of a mountain stream, before you happily fish it out and bear it home like a treasure.

  I tightened my fingers around the heart and gazed at the horizon, which had grown blurry in the noon haze. Was it possible? I wondered. Under these special, unique and incomprehensible – at least, by me – circumstances, was this the answer I had pleaded for so ardently in my last letter? Had Hélène sent me a sign? What else could this heart mean except love, eternal love?

  I took a deep breath. You have to calm down, Julien. Just think this all through. I ordered myself to come back down to earth. Signs from beyond the grave, really?! Stuff like that only happened in novels where time travellers pop up in outlandish situations, or coma patients manage to leave their bodies in order to rejoin the outside world. Completely ridiculous.

  But . . . was it really ridiculous? Was it actually all that crazy?

  All of my letters had disappeared. I had witnessed that, at least, with my own eyes. Who knew about the letters? I hadn’t told anyone about them, or about the secret compartment. I thought fleetingly about Arthur, who had recently seen me stick a letter into the compartment – but Arthur hadn’t been back to the cemetery since then, and who would he have told about it, anyway? No, no. I shook my head. The disappearance of the letters had to be linked to someone else.

  In theory, someone might have discovered the cavity in the gravestone and taken the letters out of curiosity. But who would actually do something like that? Who would take such personal letters? From a cemetery?

  Perhaps an author looking for a good story. I had to grin as this thought shot through my mind.

  At the same time, I had seen plenty of strangers standing at Hélène’s grave. Maybe there were crazy people out there who took things from graves and collected them, like those fans who stockpile autographs from their favourite musicians.

  But even if somebody had stumbled across the letters and been unable to resist the temptation to take them, there was still the stone heart. Why would someone leave me a stone heart in the compartment? Who besides Hélène would do something like that?

  An image of the dark-eyed girl, who knew so much about stonework and had chatted to Arthur in the graveyard, popped into my head. Could it be Sophie?

  I suddenly realised how deluded I was being. Pull yourself together, Julien. What would this young, outgoing girl – who already had a boyfriend – have to gain by leaving heart-shaped gifts for a depressed, middle-aged widower? The idea was ridiculous. Dismissing it from my mind, I continued to mull over the possibilities. And the more I considered it, the more intrigued I was by the idea that it was Hélène who had left me this heart as an answer. With this token, she wanted to show me that she had forgiven me for the incident with Cathérine and that she still loved me.

  I gazed up into the sky, and as I sat there on the steps of the Sacré-œur everything suddenly seemed completely logical. Shakespeare’s Danish prince said: There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy. On this sunny day in May, the concept made more sense to me than it had back then to Hamlet.

  There are so many things that happen every day that nobody can explain, I added silently. Sightings of the Virgin Mary. Mirrors that crash off walls whenever someone dies. Two parted lovers who return at the same moment to the bridge where they had first met. Even Albert Einstein, undoubted genius that he was, said that according to the laws of physics, it was possible to travel through time. If you really thought about it, it was obvious that we really had no idea what possibilities actually did exist between heaven and earth. We were only humans with a limited perspective of the horizon. Who knew what might lie beyond?

  I held the heart in my hand, feeling perplexed and inspired by the miracle of it. Then a shadow fell over me.

  A young woman with red hair and freckles was standing in front of me. She was wearing jeans and a light blue T-shirt bearing the words Getting better and worse at the same time, and was holding out her phone, as if she had a call for me from the universe.

  ‘Would you?’ she asked in a charming accent, smiling at me.

  ‘Would I what?’ I replied in confusion, staring at her as if she were some strange apparition. ‘Who’s on it?’

  She gazed at me in astonishment, before shaking her head and laughing.

  ‘Ha ha ha . . . No. I mean, could you take a picture of me, Monsieur?’

  ‘Oh, yes . . . of course,’ I stammered. ‘Sorry about that.’

  Good grief, I’d been a million miles away. I tucked the stone heart in my pocket and took her phone, which was already in camera mode.

  The girl climbed up a few steps and stood in front of the church, whose snowy white dome towered up into the blue sky.

  ‘But you need to get all of the Sacré-Cœur on it,’ she called, posing jauntily for a few shots.

  ‘Merci beaucoup,’ she said afterwards, scrolling through the photos. ‘Yes, very nice. Lovely!’ She glanced up. ‘Say . . . are you from around here?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Great! Could you perhaps tell me the easiest way to get from here to Le Consulat . . . I mean, the restaurant . . . ’ She hurriedly pulled a city map out of her bag, and as she did so a small book tumbled out.

  We both bent down to pick it up and almost bumped heads.

  ‘Oh,’ I said as I handed her the book. ‘Do you read poetry?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, holding the small poetry volume to her chest. ‘I love Jacques Prévert. I’m writing my bachelor thesis about him and I’m spending a semester here in Paris. Do you know his poem about the garden? “Le Jardin”? It’s so wonderful . . . ’

  Her eyes sparkled, and I felt struck by the coincidence.

  ‘Of course I know it,’ I replied. Anyone who has ever been young and in love eventually stumbles across that poem – the most beautiful lines that have ever been written about a kiss. ‘Who doesn’t?’

  As if following a secret script, I almost asked the young student if she might like to join me for a cup of
coffee. However, she spoke up faster: ‘Where is Le Consulat? I’m supposed to meet someone there in a few minutes.’

  We leaned over the map, and I showed her the way.

  ‘If you go along there, you can’t miss it,’ I called after her as she sprinted up the steps of the Sacré-Cœur.

  She turned around.

  ‘Thank you, Monsieur. And I hope you have a nice day!’

  ‘Hey, wait a second! What’s your name?’

  I knew it was stupid, but half of me expected her to say ‘Hélène’, or even ‘Helen’, considering her English accent.

  ‘Caroline,’ she called back with a laugh before she disappeared.

  A few minutes later, I was meandering down the street that ran past Le Consulat when I caught sight of her sitting in the sunshine. She was laughing with a young man. She didn’t notice me when I walked past her, and I found myself amazed by how strangely circular life can be. Events repeated themselves and everything was connected. I wasn’t really a person who believed in signs, but after a day like this, Doubting Thomas would have believed in the Resurrection.

  Of course, I couldn’t know for sure if the heart-shaped stone in my pocket truly was a sign. Nonetheless, like the bird in the proverb who believes that the sun will rise even before daybreak, I believed it was exactly that.

  In any case, my encounter with the red-haired student had given me an idea. When I got back home, I rummaged around my bookshelves until I located the poem by Jacques Prévert. Then I sat down at my desk and wrote my next letter to Hélène.

  My Most Beloved,

  The fourteenth of May will, from this day forward, be especially significant to me. Starting on this day – today – I once again believe that you will be with me always, my angel. Just as you promised me when I was lying in bed with a fever and I dreamed about you. You are more than just a body lying in a cemetery, slowly rejoining the earth. You exist somewhere. The fact that someone dies doesn’t necessarily mean that they are no longer here.

  I went to the Cimetière Montmartre today in order to bring you a letter once again, after all these weeks. But I was astonished to find that the secret compartment was empty. Instead of the small pile of letters which had been building up over the weeks, I discovered a stone heart. It’s sitting here in front of me as I write, and despite all rational explanation, I defiantly hope it is from you, my beloved. The last time I wrote to you, I wished so hard to receive an answer from you, just once. Remember? And now, I can almost believe that I’ve received just that.