One day in June, I found myself standing at the grave, feeling perplexed by the card I was holding. I had just swapped the card with its painted Oriental pattern from the compartment for a new letter. The card was decorated with a turquoise wooden door, surrounded by sweeping arabesques, and the door bore a quote.
When one door to happiness closes,
Another one opens.
But often we gaze so long
At the shut door
That we fail to see
The one that has opened for us.
I was just wondering how I should interpret this poem, when I heard the sound of quiet footsteps. I turned around and caught sight of Cathérine. She was holding a bunch of violets and watching me with interest. How long had she been standing there?
‘Salut, Julien,’ she said, taking a quick step toward me. ‘What are you reading?’
‘Nothing!’ I quickly stuffed the card into my satchel.
She fell back a little step. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean . . . I didn’t mean to pry, excuse me.’
‘No, no . . . it’s all right. It was just . . . ’ I left the sentence dangling in the air.
She placed her bunch of violets on the grave and smiled easily.
‘It’s so nice out today, and I got off of work early. So I thought I’d visit Hélène.’
‘Well,’ I said, smiling back. ‘It looks like we both had the same idea.’
As we walked side by side down the cemetery path, I was struck by a notion.
‘Hey, Cathérine . . . do you know anything about this quote?’
After a moment’s consideration, she shook her head. ‘No, I don’t think so. Is it Tagore? I only know one quote from him, which my music teacher once wrote in my autograph album. “The burden of being me becomes lighter if I can laugh at myself” – or something like that. Why do you ask?’
She had no idea. Or she was a really good actress.
‘Oh, doesn’t matter.’
As we walked toward the exit, we ran into Sophie, who was busy storing her tool bag in the small shed.
Sophie greeted me, ran her eyes quickly over the blonde woman walking next to me, raised her eyebrows, and gave me a telling wink. Cathérine studied the delicate dark-eyed creature in her dark cap.
Dearest Hélène,
It is Saturday evening. Earlier this afternoon, Arthur had Giulietta – a pert little girl with red hair and freckles from his nursery school – over to play for the first time. I imagine that you must have looked a lot like her when you were a child. Arthur introduced me to her after Giulietta’s mother dropped her off.
He said: ‘This is my Papa. He writes books.’
Giulietta was clearly impressed, and she wanted to know how long it took me to write one. If only I knew that myself! The two of them disappeared into Arthur’s room, where they spent hours feverishly painting pictures. But then they were struck by the unfortunate idea of embellishing the wall over Arthur’s bed. As they were doing this, I was sitting at the desk, writing away on the new novel. It will be hard for you to believe, chérie, but I’m actually making progress – not much, about three or four pages a day, but they are really good ones. I have no idea if Jean-Pierre Favre will enjoy what I’m writing, since it’s turning into a very different book than what he is expecting. And will the publisher in it actually dance in the moonlight? I doubt it at this point. But the good thing is that I’m back to writing regularly.
Anyway, I was sitting there, half listening in the direction of Arthur’s room where the two children were chatting and laughing a blue streak. Then everything turned quiet, with an occasional giggle or whisper thrown in. With a smile, I wondered what was going on in there, but I didn’t think much more about it. At one point, I heard Arthur say: ‘Let’s use that one. It’ll go better,’ and Giulietta squealed back: ‘Oh yes!’ and then, in a tone that reflected knowledge of doing something quite forbidden: ‘But we shouldn’t do that.’ I then slipped over to the bedroom and cautiously opened the door. I couldn’t believe my eyes!
The two of them were standing calmly on Arthur’s bed, eagerly fingerpainting the white ingrain wallpaper. The little pots of fingerpaint were practically empty.
‘What are you doing?’ I cried in shock.
‘We wanted to paint a really, really big picture, Papa,’ Arthur declared innocently, as he wiped his smeared hands on his trousers. ‘Together! But the paper was too small for that.’
‘We made art!’ Giulietta cried, her eyes glowing. She looked like a little Papagena in her paint-spattered dress.
I gazed at the bright suns, trees, flowers, clouds, birds, and people, and suddenly I couldn’t help laughing. Some of Míro’s works didn’t look much different from this.
‘This one’s Giulietta . . . and that’s me,’ Arthur announced, pointing at two figures with giant heads and tiny bodies, who were laughing with wide mouths and small pointed teeth.
They had round, spiral eyes, boxy feet, and four fingers per hand. One of the figures had bright red hair that sprang out from its head in wiry curls, crowned with a giant pink bow.
I’m not exaggerating when I say that the figures looked like Martians. However, the two names that had been written in spidery letters underneath the figures were unmistakably sublime, despite their deviation from their standard forms.
ATUR + JULETA
‘Wow!’ I said, for lack of anything better.
‘See, Giulietta, my Papa thinks it’s cool.’
They both stared at me expectantly.
I decided to be the cool father and to accept what had happened with as much composure as I could muster. With a sigh, I dug out fresh clothes from the closet for the two young artists, and I informed Arthur that I didn’t want to find similar murals on any other walls in the apartment. And then I ordered pizza for us all.
As I put Arthur to bed that evening, he declared: ‘That was a wonderful day, Papa.’ He looked at me with sparkling eyes and sighed contentedly. ‘Giulietta had fun too.’ That was very important to him. He suddenly sat bolt upright. ‘Do you think Maman would also like to have a picture from me?’
‘I’m sure she would,’ I concurred, ruffling his hair. ‘But it shouldn’t be so really, really big.’
‘I know . . . ’ he giggled. ‘Otherwise it won’t fit in the coffer.’
I was momentarily dumbstruck by his choice of words – he had probably heard it on one of the treasure-hunter films that he loves to watch these days.
I glanced one last time at the ‘painting’ over his bed and shook my head, before turning off the light. I can only hope that Giulietta will ‘go with him’ for a very, very long time – otherwise we’ll have to paint over the little girl Martian.
This is why you’ll soon be receiving not only a letter from me, Hélène, but perhaps also a small artistic contribution from Arthur.
As I write this letter, the card I found in the ‘coffer’ on Friday is sitting in front of me.
I have read the quote from Tagore over and over again, but I still don’t know what I should think of it. Which shut door am I staring at? Is that perhaps a reference to your grave? But what sense does that make when this door seems to somehow be permeable and open to me?
And then I have to wonder if any new doors have opened in my life. And who actually left the card for me? Was it you, my beloved Hélène?
On days like this, I tend to doubt that. And yet I so want to continue to chat together – you can see that I keep writing and telling you about my life without you, just like you made me promise.
When I was at your grave yesterday, Cathérine suddenly popped up, and she stared curiously at the card, which I was still holding. She claimed not to know the quote from Tagore, but could it really be coincidental that she appeared at the grave at that exact moment?
As we left the cemetery together, we ran into Sophie. The sculptor, remember? I told you about her. The two of them sized each other up like two tigresses, and later Cathérine asked rather sharpl
y who that girl was who looked like a chimney sweep. How did we know each other?
When I explained that Sophie works at the cemetery, restoring and repairing the graves, her interest seemed to fade.
Women! They’re all mysterious creatures. But not nearly as mysterious as the answers I’ve been getting to my letters. Where are these letters leading me, Hélène? Are they even leading me anywhere? Or are they simply a nice pastime, a kind of self-gratification for a man who has lost his wife and can’t stop feeling sorry for himself, and thus clings to the last little trace of hope? Clings to a dead woman who is lost for ever? What kind of pointless game is that?
But what am I saying?! No, my love, forgive me! None of my letters to you are pointless, whether you are the one receiving them or someone else. I have so loved writing them.
And now I am standing here just like Orpheus, who wished so hard for his beloved Eurydice to return from the realm of shadows and who still ended up ultimately losing her. Because he doubted, because he looked back to see if the dear figure was actually following him, because he didn’t hear any footsteps and didn’t know if Eurydice was actually there.
I will never doubt that you’re here, Hélène! I can’t see you, but I know you exist.
I want to open all the shut doors and let in the light that you always were for me and perhaps still are.
Always
Julien
17
Orphée
The following Saturday, I arrived completely out of breath at the small arthouse cinema on Rue Tholozé, which shows both contemporary and classic films. I was clutching my two tickets and was eager to know what was waiting for me here. I was a little late because I’d taken Arthur over to my mother’s apartment, where he was going to spend the night. When we got there, we realised that he’d left Bruno at home. Arthur won’t sleep anywhere without Bruno, so I had to run back to Rue Jacob to fetch his teddy bear.
The day before, when I was at the cemetery, I’d almost overlooked the two tickets. Not wanting to believe that the secret gravestone compartment was really empty, I looked closer and ran my fingers all around the cavity until I discovered the lavender pieces of paper that my envelope had inadvertently pushed against the back wall.
The tickets were for the Saturday evening show, reserved seats on the ninth row at Studio 28 on Montmartre. As if he had a sixth sense about such things, Alexandre called earlier in the day from his shop to see if I’d like to do something that evening. He wanted us to go out, and I said that I already had plans.
‘Really? You have plans. What for?’
For a moment, I considered asking him to come with me to the theatre, but something stopped me. It was the thought of the mysterious stranger who might turn up at the cinema tonight to claim the second ticket. So I said that Cathérine had asked me to go to a film with her. Alexandre gave a long whistle and said he hoped I’d have a good time with Mademoiselle Balland.
Ironically, as Arthur and I were walking up Rue Bonaparte hand in hand, Cathérine appeared, heading toward us.
‘Salut, you two,’ she said in greeting. ‘Are you off to do something fun?’ Her eyes fell on the child-sized backpack I was carrying.
‘I’m spending the night with Mamie.’ Arthur smiled. ‘She’s making me cherry clafoutis.’
‘That sounds delicious! Cherry clafoutis, mmmm . . . I’m quite jealous. It’s one of my favourites, too.’
Cathérine smiled questioningly at me, her pretty arched eyebrows lifting slightly. She had assumed her Julie Delpy look again. Groaning inside, I smiled back, but I had no desire to provide an explanation.
‘Well, have a good evening, Cathérine. We need to hurry since my mother’s expecting us,’ I said in farewell.
I was sure she was still watching us in astonishment as we strode past the Deux Magots Café and crossed the Boulevard Saint-Germain.
I told my mother that I was going to the movies with Alexandre. She nodded happily, commenting that she was glad I was getting out a bit these days. This way, everyone was well and falsely informed.
By the time I dashed up the steps and into the small theatre, the other guests had already gone into the screening room. I cast my eyes around the lobby, hoping for the anonymous owner of the second ticket to materialise. The only person still in sight was an elderly gentleman standing a little irresolutely at the ticket counter.
I caught sight of the black-and-white poster in the display case, and my heart seemed to start pounding even faster than it had after jogging up the Montmartre Hill from the Metro station.
I stared mesmerised at the old photos of Jean Marais and Maria Casarès, and read the title of the film that was being shown this evening. It was Jean Cocteau’s Orphée.
I quickly pushed my tickets toward the man sitting at the ticket counter. ‘Is it too late for me to get in?’
‘You’re in luck, Monsieur. The film hasn’t started yet.’ He tore the tickets. ‘Row nine – will someone be joining you?’
Was anyone else coming? I had been so hopeful, but it didn’t look as if anybody was waiting for me. It could hardly be the old man who was standing around so uncertainly. I shook my head.
‘No . . . I . . . I have one ticket too many. Feel free to give it to anyone who might like a seat.’
‘Oh, I’d love to have the ticket,’ the old man chimed in, who might have been old but was obviously not hard of hearing. ‘All that are left are seats in the first two rows, but however much I love Cocteau, I hate getting a sore neck even more,’ he explained to me as we walked into the darkened room and felt our way to our seats.
I murmured: ‘Of course.’
I sat down in my seat, and was glad the film started only a few seconds later. The red curtain lifted as the noisy strains of melodramatic music began, sparing me any further conversation.
I admit that I was relatively speechless. In my last letter, I had described myself as Orpheus – and only a week later, I received tickets for the film Orphée.
I couldn’t have asked for a stronger sign! I leaned back in my seat and breathlessly followed Cocteau’s masterpiece, which I had never seen and which gave me more than one puzzling sentence to mull over.
The film was a retelling of the old myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. In this version, Orphée is a successful poet who has lost all of his inspiration and ideas. His rival, a young boozy fellow, who is accompanied by a stern princess dressed in black – apparently his patroness – is hanging around the Café des Poètes, the café favoured by poets, in a drunken haze and is hit by a car a short time later. The princess instructs her chauffeur to load the injured man into her black car and orders Orphée to come along as a witness.
While his pretty blonde wife, Eurydice, anxiously awaits his return, Orphée falls completely under the spell of the dark princess. At first he has no idea that she, Madame la Mort, is actually Death. The princess has designs on the poet, and she attempts to entice him with mystical sentences she is able to project through the car’s radio. Orphée is fascinated, even obsessed, by these sentences, which sound like something from a surreal dream: ‘A glass of water can illuminate the world’ or ‘Silence retreats more quickly – twice.’ However, when the cruelly neglected Eurydice has an accident on her bicycle and dies, he decides to fetch her back from the underworld. With the help of the circumspect chauffeur Heurtebise – who is in reality a deceased student who had turned his gas on when his girlfriend left him – and a pair of special gloves, Orphée is able to pass through the bedroom mirror into the realm of the dead, where stricter laws apply than do on earth, and where there are no ‘maybes’. Mirrors are the portals through which the dead can pass. Orphée is torn between his fascination with the Princess of Death and his pretty, naïve wife, who is expecting his child. He is allowed to take her out of the underworld, but is forbidden from ever looking at her. One day, their eyes meet by accident in the rearview mirror of a car, and Eurydice at once disappears. However, at the end of the film, Madame la Mort has a c
hange of heart. She renounces love and, in order to grant the poet immortality, Orphée as well. She turns back time: ‘Humans must be allowed to fulfil their fates.’
I lost myself in the film and its images, which exerted a unique fascination. It was as if the viewer were wandering through a strangely beautiful, rather spooky dream in the hope of seeing what was otherwise unseeable.
Was I a fanatic like Orphée? Who was my black princess, and who was Eurydice? Did I love death, or did I love life? I absorbed every image, every sentence, and when the red curtain lowered back over the screen, I woke up dazedly, as if from a deep sleep.
‘It is still great art,’ the old man next to me whispered approvingly as the lights went up. ‘Thank you again for the ticket, young man.’
I nodded and stayed in my seat for a few more seconds.
As I stood up and glanced down the gradually emptying rows in front of me, I heard a silvery laugh.
I had to look twice to confirm that it was really her. There, two rows in front of me, stood a delicate girl in a white dress, chatting breezily with her friend. Her dark hair was loose and pulled back by a sparkling barrette.
I think it was the first time I’d seen Sophie wearing a dress. She looked exquisite. I had only seen her in overalls, and for a moment I stared admiringly at her as she laughed brightly once more.
Was that really Sophie?
At that moment, she turned her head a little to the side, and I recognised her heart-shaped face.
‘Sophie?’ I called quietly across the rows of seats. And then, louder: ‘Sophie?’
She turned toward me, her face a single question.
‘Julien?! What are you doing here? What a surprise!’ she cried, and we worked our way down the row of seats until we could meet in the aisle.
‘This is my cousin, Sabine.’ She introduced her companion, who walked behind her like a queen, her ash-blonde hair pinned up and her posture perfect. Sophie shrugged. ‘Sabine dragged me to this film, but I must admit it wasn’t all that bad, was it?’
Love Letters from Montmartre Page 15
