Love Letters from Montmartre

by Nicolas Barreau

  When I caught sight of the empty compartment today and discovered the stone heart there, my own heart stopped, Hélène. I was speechless. In fear, in delight. I strolled through the streets of Montmartre, trying to understand what had just happened. My heart raced for joy, but then I began to wonder. Something like this wasn’t actually possible. Was it? My heart, which wanted so much to believe, and my head, which knew better, struggled for the upper hand. As I wheezed up the old hill, I was caught between ‘impossible’ and ‘perhaps possible’, and when I reached the top I met a red-haired girl on the steps of the Sacré-Cœur who reminded me so much of you. She adores poetry, just like you, although she prefers Prévert to Heine. As we chatted, it seemed I was caught in a dialogue I knew already, and I suddenly had the feeling I was the hero of a time-travel story. This time, though, the red-haired student didn’t have coffee with me, but with a young man. At Le Consulat of all places, Hélène!

  And at that moment, my heart won out.

  I don’t understand how everything is connected, my love. All I know is that we have May, and that somehow – however impossible – I have found you again. I have you again, as once in May.

  And I’m sending you this greeting with all my love, which is as eternal as that kiss in the Montsouris Park that Prévert captured for all time – for us and for everyone who has ever been in love!

  Julien

  The Garden

  Millennia upon millennia

  Will not suffice

  To explain the brief moment of eternity

  When you kissed me

  When I kissed you

  One morning in winter’s light

  In Parc Montsouris in Paris

  In Paris

  On this Earth

  Which is a star.

  13

  Feeling better and worse at the same time

  Alexandre came by that evening. Usually I would have been glad to see him, but I suspected that spending time with him today was not the best of ideas.

  My hunch turned out to be right. My friend might curse like a sailor, but he is remarkably sensitive to even the smallest of changes in those around him. Alexandre had hardly stepped through the door when his radar pinged.

  ‘What’s going on? You seem different,’ he declared as he tugged off his trench coat. He studied me through narrowed eyes.

  ‘Nothing’s going on,’ I replied. ‘Come in.’

  I tried to present a neutral face. Frankly, I felt like I was about to burst with the news about what had happened earlier. I would have loved to tell someone about it all – the missing letters, the stone heart, my impossible theory – but I knew without a doubt that Alexandre would start trying to reel me back down to earth as soon as I started telling him my story. The goldsmith might enjoy creating pieces of jewellery that made women dream, but both of his feet were planted firmly on the ground. Which is more than I could say about myself. Besides, I felt a certain reluctance to disclose anything about the letters I’d been writing. It was the last secret I shared with Hélène, and who knew what might happen if I let the word get out?

  And so we sat in the living room, and I opened a bottle of wine. Alexandre told me about an American couple who had bought out half of his stock today, and then he asked about the ‘pretty neighbour’. I was able to report that Cathérine had taken everything in her stride, and had even teamed up with me against the old battleaxe downstairs. We sipped our red wine, and I lit one cigarette after the other, feeling transparent as I did so. My thoughts kept drifting, but I did my best to pretend that I was actually listening.

  ‘Julien? Hello? Are you still with me?’ Alexandre snapped his fingers in front of my face, and I almost jumped out of my seat. ‘Well, what do you think?’

  I stared at him. I had no idea what he wanted from me.

  Before I could respond, he started talking again.

  ‘You aren’t saying anything because you haven’t been listening! And don’t even try to tell me that nothing’s changed. Something’s happened, I can feel it. You aren’t sitting here like a sleepwalker for no reason.’ He fixed his dark eyes on me and stared hard, then suddenly laughed.

  ‘Come on . . . No, it’s impossible . . . ’ He shook his head in disbelief, and for a moment, I thought he had guessed everything. ‘You haven’t . . . There’s no way you’ve . . . fallen in love?’

  ‘What?!’ I sat straight up in my chair and forcefully stubbed out my cigarette. ‘No, of course not, you idiot!’

  ‘Whoa!’ He lifted his hands appeasingly. ‘It’s all good, no worries. But you have to tell me what’s going on. Come on,’ he coaxed. ‘Tell your old Jim.’

  I had to laugh, then bit my lip.

  He scooted around in his chair in anticipation and leaned toward me. ‘I get it. You have a secret. Is it something good, at least? You don’t seem quite as down as before, so that’s something.’

  ‘I wish I knew,’ I said, recalling the words on the red-haired student’s T-shirt. ‘Feeling better and worse at the same time,’ I murmured.

  ‘What are you babbling about? You’re speaking in riddles, mon ami. Could you be a little more specific? What do you mean, you feel both better and worse at the same time?’

  I exhaled loudly and slid a little further back into the upholstery.

  ‘You wouldn’t believe the day I’ve just had,’ I began with a sigh, sending a quick prayer up to Hélène.

  And then I told him everything.

  I have to hand it to Alexandre. He didn’t interrupt me even once. He occasionally sniffed in disapproval, after which he would take a sip of wine, then return to gazing at me thoughtfully and sympathetically. And once I reached the end of my story, he did exactly what I’d been afraid he would do. He tore everything apart.

  ‘Man, oh man,’ he said, shaking his head in utter disbelief. ‘Now you’ve really lost it, Julien. As you were talking, couldn’t you hear how wild it all sounded?’

  At the moment, all I felt was regret that I had told him anything at all. ‘I knew you wouldn’t see it my way,’ I said. ‘But there are more things in heaven and earth . . . ’

  ‘Esoteric shit,’ he cut in.

  ‘That esoteric shit happens to be from Shakespeare,’ I declared smugly.

  ‘You might not believe it, but I happen to know that already. But – hey, Julien! Wake up! Hélène was a wonderful woman. She was the best, and she will always exist in here, unforgotten.’ He tapped his heart. ‘But she is dead, Julien! She can’t take letters out of gravestones or drop off stone hearts for anyone.’

  I leaped up and marched as resolutely as any general through the open French doors to the back part of the living room, where my desk sat against the wall. I grabbed the stone heart, walked back, and waved it in front of Alexandre’s puzzled face.

  ‘Then what is this?’ I asked.

  ‘My God, Julien, pull yourself together! This is completely absurd, can’t you see that? Listen to yourself. A sign from Hélène! Where are we? In Poltergeist II or Ghost?’

  He took the heart from me and studied it from all angles, shaking his head. He then set it down with a sigh on the coffee table.

  ‘I’m beginning to get really worried about you, Julien. To be honest, the whole thing with the letters seems borderline to me – a secret compartment in a gravestone takes some getting used to – but it’s fine if it helps, and you promised her you’d do it. Hélène was smart. She had something in mind when she asked you to do that. However, it would be best if you focused your activities on people made of flesh and blood and not – excuse me for putting it bluntly – on a body that’s crumbling away.’ His eyes were concerned. ‘That seems twisted all the way around. You can’t keep sleeping with the dead.’

  I crossed my arms and decided to ignore his insults.

  ‘Where’d the heart come from, then?’ I insisted, confronting him with the hard facts. ‘Who took the letters?’

  Alexandre shrugged. ‘I wish I knew,’ he said. ‘It definitely wasn’t
Hélène. I’m sorry, my friend, but I’d bet my right arm on that.’

  ‘Your risk, not mine,’ I replied as he grinned.

  ‘Just give it some time.’

  Neither of us said anything for a few moments. Down on the street, a car revved its engine as it drove by. My thoughts turned back to Hélène and the letter I would drop off tomorrow. And then we’ll see, I thought stubbornly. Then we’ll see!

  But what did I honestly expect? Another answer? That the head of the bronze angel would start speaking to me? I sighed, and Alexandre glanced over at me.

  ‘You have to stop this nonsense, Julien. You’re running yourself into the ground with it.’ He picked up the bottle and topped up our glasses. ‘Believe me, I’d be the first one to shout from the rooftops if Hélène could come back to life. But that won’t happen.’ He leaned forward, pushing away my hand which was already reaching for the cigarettes again. ‘And you can’t keep going through those so fast. This place is as smoky as an Irish pub. Do you want to kill your child while you’re at it?’ He strode over to the window and opened it. The cool air streamed inside.

  ‘Ahhh!’ Alexandre cried. ‘Aspirez, aspirez!’ He inhaled deeply before joining me on the sofa. ‘Look, Julien, even if you were right – even if Hélène did take the letters and leave behind the heart – what good would that do?’

  ‘Then I’d know she was still out there,’ I said quietly.

  ‘But, Julien, you already know that, at least as long as you want to believe it. So okay, let’s assume she’s out there somewhere, like you say. Who knows? Maybe it’s really true, and this very second she’s sitting on that empty chair over there, listening to every word we say. Or she’s invisibly flitting around us like the dead characters in that play by Sartre – what’s it called?’

  ‘No Exit.’

  ‘That’s it, thanks! All right, just for argument’s sake, everything you say is true. What do you gain from it? In a concrete sense? Can you sit with Hélène on the couch and chat? Can you feel her or hold her? Can she lie next to you in bed every night? Can you eat breakfast together in the morning, while you tell her about what you’ve read in the paper? Can she laugh when Arthur says something funny? Can she stand in the kitchen and make her divine clafoutis aux cerises for you? No, none of these things will happen, Julien.’ He watched me. ‘Is that what you’re thinking? Do you really think that some day she’s going to waltz in here with a daisy wreath on her head and take you into her arms?’

  I lowered my head and stared dejectedly at the stone heart.

  ‘But who . . . ?’ I asked helplessly. I picked up the pink stone and clung to it like a diamond.

  Alexandre placed his arm around my shoulders. ‘Julien. Do you really think I don’t know how hard this all is for you?’ he said.

  And we sat once again in silence, as the window clattered softly in the night wind.

  ‘I have to admit it’s all very strange,’ he finally conceded. ‘But I am certain there’s a simple explanation for this “miracle”.’ He flicked air quotes and seemed to be thinking. ‘Did Arthur perhaps tell someone about the secret compartment?’

  I shook my head. ‘No, I asked him about it when I put him to bed. He couldn’t even remember what it was I was talking about. He’d forgotten already. His mind is filled with his own stuff, like his crush on a red-haired girl in his nursery school.’ I couldn’t help but smile, remembering how Arthur had pointed out his little friend when I had picked him up from the nursery.

  ‘Isn’t she pretty, Papa?’ he had whispered.

  ‘He clearly has your genes,’ Alexandre remarked drily. Then he straightened up suddenly.

  ‘Of course, that’s it!’ He slapped his hand to his forehead. ‘Why didn’t I think of that right away? It’s so obvious. The stonemason!’

  ‘The stonemason?! Now you’re the crazy one, Alexandre! The stonemason took my letters and left me a heart – clear as day! The stonemason, whose wife and two grown sons are in business with him, discovered in his old age that he has a thing for young widowers – that’s a good one. Ha, ha, ha!’

  ‘No, wait a minute!’ Alexandre had picked up a scent and refused to be put off. ‘The stonemason who you ordered the gravestone from is the only person who definitely knows about the compartment.’ He thought for a moment. ‘It wouldn’t have to be the stonemason himself. It could be someone in his workshop – or perhaps the master boasted about it to someone, like another client. Who knows? Maybe somewhere out there, an unhappy widow is flitting around who thinks that your idea of the secret compartment is the greatest act of romantic sentiment she has ever heard of. And so she decided to stop by to see what solemn offerings you were leaving behind for your wife. And then she found the letters, all of which she read, of course. Women are like that. Curious and incorrigibly romantic.’

  ‘Hmm,’ I was dumbfounded. ‘You know what, Alexandre? You should be the one writing the novels.’ I was impressed with how deftly he had conjured up this theory. And I had to admit that there could be something to his story about the stonemason. The man did like to talk – a lot. I remembered feeling a little annoyed by that the day I’d picked out the gravestone.

  ‘No, I’ll leave the writing to you,’ Alexandre replied, flattered. ‘But I’d be happy to let you use this splendid idea for your next novel.’ He grinned contentedly, since the evening was ending on a note that both of us could live with. He then drained his glass and set it firmly down on the table.

  ‘I’m telling you, follow up on that guy.’ He chuckled. ‘And it wouldn’t hurt to keep an eye out for pretty widows around the cemetery, especially ones hanging out near the grave. I think that’s the ticket, old chum.’

  ‘I’ll do that, Alexandre, promise,’ I said. ‘I wanted to go to the cemetery tomorrow, anyway. I wrote another letter. We’ll see if that one disappears, too.’

  ‘We’ll see,’ Alexandre declared. ‘Stay vigilant, my friend. You’ll figure out soon enough who’s behind this.’

  I nodded, but as I closed the door behind him I felt strangely uneasy. Wrapped in my own thoughts, I carried our glasses into the kitchen and peeked in on Arthur, who was sleeping peacefully in his bed, his teddy bear clutched at his side. I then returned to the living room and stood at the open window. I gazed into the dark night sky, and my heart tightened.

  14

  He loves me, he loves me not

  The inexplicable changes people. Questions without answers are harder to bear than anything else, and this explains why we go to great lengths to acquire certainty. We strive for truth and understanding – but what about those times when we don’t really want to know what we will eventually discover? When the illusion bursts like a rainbow bubble?

  The following afternoon, as I stepped through the gate of the Cimetière Montmartre, I felt quite strange. My night had been unsettled, and I had no idea what I should wish for – that my last letter would once again be missing, or that it would be peacefully sitting in the gravestone. That there would be a new sign, or that there wouldn’t be even the slightest hint that someone had opened the compartment.

  No one was around at this lunchtime hour. The groundskeeper was the only person to shuffle past me as I strode along the familiar path through the blooming cemetery. Alexandre had planted the seed of doubt in my heart, and as the old man growled a greeting in my direction, I peered at him closely and wondered for a moment if this odd fellow might be capable of playing such a bizarre trick on me. Perhaps he resented people, like me, who entered his stony kingdom uninvited. I glanced around a few times, and had the funny feeling that someone was following me, or that somewhere among the trees, a woman in a black veil was hiding. I wasn’t blind to how strange I was starting to get.

  When I finally reached Hélène’s grave, my heart was racing, and I almost didn’t open the compartment. But I had to.

  I opened the door and felt around for the letter I had dropped off yesterday. It wasn’t there, but my fingers closed around something soft. I
gave a low cry, thinking it was a hand, but when I pulled out the object I laughed in relief.

  It was a little wreath of forget-me-nots and daisies.

  I held it, unsure what to make of it. I studied it closely, spreading the flowers apart carefully to see if perhaps a note was concealed among them, but there wasn’t. Only flowers. Only? While I was away, someone had taken my letter and left the wreath as a sign of something.

  Someone?

  The first thing that came to mind when I saw the flowers was the forget-me-not nosegays from Cathérine. I still remembered vividly running into her weeks ago, when I had brought my first letter. She had admitted that the forget-me-nots were from her. And she had been rather embarrassed, as had I. Was it possible that she had seen something even back then . . . that she’d been secretly watching me? I tried to recall the details of that encounter. No, there hadn’t been anyone close to the grave – I would have noticed. And why would she do something this crazy? Cathérine lived in the same building as I did. She could talk to me whenever she wanted, so she wouldn’t need to lurk around cemeteries and open gravestones. Besides, it occurred to me that she had been at school all day yesterday, and Arthur had spent the whole afternoon at her place, playing with Zazie. The cemetery was locked every evening at six o’clock, and I couldn’t imagine Cathérine scaling the tall green iron gate after nightfall in order to leave off more forget-me-nots.

  I shook my head.

  ‘Julien, you’re seeing ghosts!’ I chided myself.

  And truly I was, because suddenly I felt as if I could see Hélène’s handiwork clearly in the wreath. In my dream, hadn’t she been wearing a wreath of daisies?