‘Yes, Einstein, I already thought about that. But Cathérine doesn’t make the shortlist of suspects for other reasons. First of all, she wasn’t at the cemetery the day the wreath appeared. Secondly . . . ’
‘Secondly?’
I told him about the poetry book.
‘Hmm,’ Alexandre replied. ‘Hm. Hm. Hm. That actually doesn’t sound much like Mademoiselle Balland. What’s the poem about?’
I explained the poem and read him the final underscored lines.
‘That sounds more like Hélène, don’t you think?’ I asked cautiously.
‘No, I don’t think so,’ he said. ‘Not at all. The opposite, actually.’
‘What do you mean?’ I asked unwillingly.
And then my friend Alexandre laid out a completely different interpretation of Prévert’s verses.
‘Well, it’s pretty straightforward,’ he said. ‘You shouldn’t let yourself turn as cold and stony as all those gravestones, nor should you shut your heart off from a new love. Love will give you a sign – at the cemetery, which is where all your memories of Hélène keep driving you. Love will suddenly stand before you, wanting to save you if only you’ll let it. It’s already holding out its hand to you, understand?’
Perplexed, I didn’t say anything. ‘Well . . . ’ I said, ‘that’s the way it is with poems. You can interpret them all sorts of ways, like the statements from the Oracle of Delphi. Anyway, I thought about Hélène straight away.’
‘Why am I not surprised?’ Alexandre laughed. He seemed to be enjoying this game. ‘You never think about anything but Hélène, my friend.’
‘And how does the stone heart fit into your theory?’ I asked, disgruntled. Maybe it had been a mistake to tell Alexandre about everything that was going on
I thought about that first discovery, which was still sitting on my desk. It had started everything – the stone heart Hélène had left for me as a sign that she would love me for ever. And it couldn’t have been an accident that I had received this sign at the moment I needed it the most, in the midst of my despair.
‘That fits perfectly, old chum,’ Alexandre replied. ‘You should finally open your stony heart to life again.’
I didn’t say anything. I could hear echoes of my mother talking.
‘So back to Cathérine . . . ’ Alexandre mused. ‘Or someone else who has you in their sights. What about that girl from the cemetery?’
‘Sophie?’
‘Could she have something to do with it? Maybe she’s rather smitten with the nice young widower. After all, she spends all her time pottering around the graves.’
At the start, I had thought it might be Sophie. Sophie, who had someone to say the words ‘Love you, too’ to on the phone. ‘No chance, she has a boyfriend,’ I declared, thinking about her voice, which I had suddenly remembered as being very tender.
‘How do you know that?’
‘He calls her all the time. And she calls him Chouchou and is completely in love. Besides, she’s too down-to-earth for . . . poetry.’
‘Fine,’ Alexandre replied, striking ‘the sculptor’ from his list. ‘Who else do you know that reads poetry?’
‘No one. Hélène.’
‘Julien! Please . . . I sometimes think you’re going soft in the head. What about your publisher, that . . . What’s his name? Fabre?’
‘Jean-Pierre Favre,’ I corrected.
‘Yes, what about him? The elegant gentleman standing at the grave? This Favre is bound to be super-sophisticated, a man of words and imagination – he’s got to have poetry on his shelves. Maybe he’s afraid you’ll never finish your book and wants to lead you back to the right path.’
‘And that’s why he wants to attract my attention to the cemetery?’
‘No – away from the cemetery, but you don’t want to listen to me.’
‘What a ridiculous idea! I might as well claim you’re behind all this, Alexandre. After all, you’re the one who engraves lines of poetry on your necklaces. I bet you’ve used at least one line from Prévert, right? I wouldn’t put it past you.’
‘Cold, freezing cold,’ Alexandre said.
Neither of us said anything, and I sat in bed and plucked aimlessly at my scarf.
‘Well then . . . ’ Alexandre eventually said, and I was interested to hear what might come next.
‘ . . . the only one left is Elsa L.’
He chuckled, and this idea was so funny that I couldn’t help laughing as well.
‘Want to get together tonight?’ Alexandre asked. ‘We might come up with a better explanation.’
‘No and no,’ I replied. ‘My mother bought tickets for a children’s performance of The Magic Flute. We’re taking Arthur to see it this afternoon.’
Maman was convinced that it was never too early to start a child’s cultural education. ‘The Magic Flute is just the thing for a four-year-old,’ she had insisted when she saw my arched eyebrows. ‘Besides, Arthur will turn five yet this year.’
‘Well, enjoy the enchantment,’ my friend quipped. ‘See you soon.’
My beloved Hélène, the sunshine of my night,
I feel so torn, dear one! I want so much to believe that you’re the one taking my letters and leaving me signs, and sometimes I believe this completely, no matter what Alexandre says.
When I discovered the Prévert poem, I was certain you had to be the one behind it – who else would give me poems? And wasn’t this the perfect answer to my own poem? But then, once again, just like right now, I ended up thinking that all of this couldn’t be possible. I’m writing to you, and at the same time, I’m wondering: To whom am I actually writing? Who is reading my letters? And yet, I can’t stop writing them. What would the alternative be? No letters to write and no responses to receive? And besides, I promised you, dearest, and I’ll keep writing and hoping until I reach the thirty-third letter. I’m just not sure what to hope for.
That I will have you again, as once in May? That my life will take a happier turn?
Back when I made you that promise, Hélène, I had no idea that writing these letters would lead me on such an adventure. This is what it has become for me – an adventure full of riddles that only Alexandre knows about. Or is there someone else who does, too?
Oh, Hélène, I don’t know any more what I should wish for! No, wait, I do know. I want all this to keep going, this strange game of big questions and small answers! If I were to imagine that suddenly I’d stop finding things in the secret compartment, that everything would end, that this contact would break off – I don’t know how I’d handle that! It would feel like I’d lost everything a second time.
You once told me that writing the letters would possibly help me – and you were right, my clever wife. When I write these letters to you, I feel distracted. They knit my life back together, open a new perspective, keep me going. And the prospect of finding an answer at the grave naturally heightens these feelings all the more.
It’s all so crazy – I can’t risk telling anyone else about what’s happening. If I do, I’ll be considered a candidate for psychiatric treatment. And yet, what I want to do more than anything is cry the news out to all the world: It feels like my letters are being read and there are answers for me. For me, Julien Azoulay.
All of this is saving me, Hélène. It is carrying me through the hardest experience I’ve ever had, and somehow it is giving me hope, however ludicrous that might seem.
On Sunday, Maman and I took Arthur to a performance of The Magic Flute. It was performed outdoors by an independent theatre group, at the Montsouris Park. A little stage had been especially constructed. It was a children’s performance, but it was all so magical. We sat there enchanted, holding each other’s hands – Mamie, Arthur and I. We chuckled over Papageno’s mischief and Papagena’s funny ideas. And we trailed along behind Pamina and Tamino, as their great love saw them through all sorts of tests and trials.
Maybe a time of tests is waiting before me, too. I want to be strong, darl
ing, and to not lose heart. And to keep believing that everything is going to be fine. At the moment, this is all I have: my belief.
I’m waiting on a sign – a sign from you – and long to kiss you a thousand times over.
Julien
16
The shut door
May ended, and the grief that had clapped my soul in irons turned into feverish expectation. If I had previously ‘functioned’, more or less, I was now overstimulated and ruled by a general nervousness that even my small son noticed.
‘Papa, you keep shaking your foot,’ he declared one day when we were sitting together at the kitchen table
I no longer seemed to be as numbed by unhappiness as I had been. When we went to the cinema, I even managed to follow the adventures of the young orphan boy in My Life as a Zucchini. Afterwards, we bought a crêpe with Nutella from a stand located on the Boulevard Saint-Germain, behind the old church.
‘I’m glad you’re laughing again, Papa,’ Arthur declared contentedly.
During the week, I tried to write my novel, which was slowly beginning to fill with very different content than my original intention, and on the weekends I did stuff with Arthur. I occasionally met Alexandre, but I avoided talking about the vanishing letters. Whenever he asked about them, I’d crack a joke and say it was all quiet on the cemetery front.
From time to time, I even spent an evening with Cathérine on the balcony. Ever since Madame Grenouille had tarred and feathered the two of us, we had been accomplices, and the awkwardness that had existed between us since that memorable night had been displaced by a friendly, neighbourly relationship – at least, so I thought at the time.
I ate lunch at Maman’s every Wednesday, and when the weather was fine, we took Arthur out to the Bois de Boulogne on Sundays. Much to his delight, we sometimes rented a rowing boat, and I would steer it across the lake, manoeuvring between the other families and the lovestruck couples as he crowed and chuckled in delight. We would also occasionally take a small boat across to the Chalet des Îles in order to sit in the sun and savour a tarte framboise. This was the outward part of my life.
However, there was also still ‘the secret’, and the disquiet that had taken hold of me. It grew throughout the week, until Friday morning when Louise came to clean and I left the house to travel to that hill in the north of Paris which had obviously become my fate.
Each time I went to Montmartre, my thoughts would begin to vibrate. It felt like I was electrified. What would I find in the gravestone this time?
Because my request was always answered: the strange game with the letters and the signs had continued. I received a reply to every one of my letters. And in response to each sign, I wrote another letter. I felt like I was riding some kind of high. This feverish back and forth reminded me of the unfortunate, yet inspired, Cyrano de Bergerac, who carried on his romantic correspondence behind a façade. I longed for these small signs from the secret compartment, which I carried home like precious treasures. I would puzzle over them, interpret them. They gave me something to do. I couldn’t give them up. My letters continued to vanish from the compartment, and the gravestone never failed to feed my yearning.
After I took Arthur to see The Magic Flute, I discovered a little music box in the gravestone. It was about the size of a matchbox and was covered in white card stock, through which you could easily make out the cut-out shapes of Papageno and Papagena, as they danced together in their feathery costumes. I excitedly turned the little crank on the side, and the mechanism played a melody:
Risk a lot, gain a lot!
Come, you lovely music box,
Let the chimes ring, ring
So they can sing.
It sounds so lovely,
It sounds so pretty!
Larala la la larala la la laralala!
I placed the music box on my nightstand, and whenever I felt down in the evenings, I would pick it up and play the cheerful little song, which floated silvery through the darkness.
The next time, I found a lavender-coloured rose as an answer to my letter, followed by a glowing red pomegranate. One day, a brochure from the Musée Rodin was even sitting in the compartment.
Although Maman lived on the same street – Rue de Varenne – I had never visited this small museum, which sits in the government district, set apart a short distance from the lively Boulevard Saint-Germain. And so, one Wednesday after I had lunch at my mother’s, I strolled restlessly through the magical little park that surrounds the old museum building. I circled Rodin’s Thinker, a little baffled by the figure sunk for eternity in contemplation on his pedestal in the garden, and The Burghers of Calais, in their tight-knit group. I walked through the green boxwood sphere, entered the museum, and viewed the smaller works by Camille Claudel on the first floor – the woman who’d first been Rodin’s pupil and then his unhappy lover, and who had created several atmospheric artworks. This had been before the great master left her and she went insane in her lovesickness, spending the rest of her days in an asylum.
I walked around the sculptures, examining their details closely. I also studied the other museum visitors through narrowed eyes and tried to figure out why I was actually here.
It is an odd feeling to search for something and to have no idea what that something is. But weren’t our entire lives just such a search? The search for the ‘lost land’, as Henri Alain-Fournier summed it up in his Le Grand Meaulnes?
For a long time I stood, sunk in thought, in front of a graceful sculpture of two lovers, merging into one another and twisting to the side in a waltz step. This work, bearing the simple title La Valse, had been created by the unfortunate Camille, and I suddenly wondered who was leading me in my secret waltz.
I spent an hour in the Musée Rodin. After I left, I sat on a bench and was glad that I had finally come here, though I was none the wiser for my visit.
So I kept going. I wrote to Hélène without knowing if she was the one actually receiving my letters. I wanted to believe that she was, but my rational side caused me to doubt and accused me of being a hopeless idiot. At some point, I simply stopped worrying about everything. I lived inside my own world, which was like a lovely dream, and I indulged in the idea that everything would resolve itself eventually – and that is what actually happened.
However, not until much later, as summer began to wane. And only after I had finally grasped something important.
Yet during these weeks, in which spring advanced and the days grew brighter and warmer, I was left alone with my thoughts. I didn’t talk much about my visits to the cemetery and my new raison d’être, not even with Alexandre. On the one hand, life went on – at least for everyone else. On the other hand, I had decided it was advisable to keep my secret to myself, trusting that one day I would understand everything.
The only person who couldn’t help knowing about my regular visits to the Cimetière Montmartre was Sophie. Although I didn’t see her every time, I was always grateful for her warm attention, her droll comments, and the jaunty way she sometimes cocked her head. Besides, she continued to inform me whenever she spotted someone at Hélène’s grave. She jokingly referred to herself as my ‘best spy’, and agreed to occasionally join me for a cup of coffee or a glass of wine as a thank you.
These casual meetings never lasted long, and there were no repeats of supper at her favourite little bistro – the one and only time she had invited me out. All the same, I found in Sophie a friend, freely offering her thoughts and suggestions, and cheering me up when my spirits were obviously flagging.
One day, as we were having lunch together once again – this time in a street café on Rue Lepic – Sophie looked at me thoughtfully.
‘May I ask you something, author?’
Uh-oh. Questions that start like this never bode well.
‘Of course,’ I replied as I unwrapped a sugar cube.
‘Why are you so interested in who stops by Hélène’s grave? Are you afraid you might have competition?’ She cocked h
er head and pursed her lips. ‘You are the undisputed champion at the cemetery, Julien. Cross my heart on that one.’
She leaned back in her chair, and a sunbeam got entangled in her hair.
I laughed in relief. But then I looked in her eyes, perhaps one heartbeat too long, and I was suddenly struck by the tempting thought that I should simply confide in this girl who seemed to be game for almost anything.
‘You know, Sophie . . . ’
She watched me expectantly, as my courage seeped away again. Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea. Or was it? I felt myself start to flounder.
‘Yes?’
‘I sometimes want to tell you something, but I . . . I don’t trust myself to,’ I said lamely.
‘Oh.’ Her eyes took on a strange look, and instead of one of the sarcastic remarks that tripped so lightly across her lips, she remained silent for a long time.
I too didn’t know what to say, and the awkwardness between the two of us grew with each passing minute.
‘Well, just tell me whenever you do trust yourself,’ she said.
It wasn’t hard to see that she had completely misinterpreted my comment. She probably thought the idiot from the cemetery had fallen in love with her.
‘No, no . . . that’s not it . . . ’ I replied, starting to stutter. ‘It . . . it has nothing to do with us, Sophie,’ I tried to remedy the misunderstanding. ‘It is . . . kind of . . . a secret.’
‘Ah, okay . . . so, it’s a secret,’ she said, before we both started laughing somewhat sheepishly.
Later, whenever I thought about this strange interchange, I sometimes wondered if it had all been a misunderstanding, or if perhaps the entire truth had somehow been hidden within this misunderstanding.
Something had changed. I was no longer sad every hour, not even necessarily every day. And whether it was Sophie or my secret mission that kept leading me back to the cemetery, I had begun to shift my gaze away from old memories and to look forward once more, to the next letter, the next response, the next time.
Love Letters from Montmartre Page 14
