Lovers on All Saints' Day (6 page)

“You had it all worked out,” I accused her. “You’ve known for a long time, and you made us carry on with this farce.”

I imagined her naked, letting the hot water hit her face, or leaning on the wall of the shower with her eyes closed and the cascade of her hair stuck to her shoulders. How had she decided? Had she thought of me, of a history of my mistakes? Had she recalled any happy moments, perhaps ones that I didn’t even remember, to then confirm how much everything had changed? I could think back, too, but the only thing that came into my head would be the coolness of the air this morning, when I got home and Michelle was waiting for me. It was cold air, but it didn’t have the harshness of winter; it was air that was pleasant to breathe, and I had breathed it avidly and had felt that every lungful was cleansing my body. At that moment, the world was as simple as bread fresh out of the oven. The spirits of the night of the dead had gone back into hiding, and Michelle was waiting for me.

“Are you sure? Is there nothing we can do?”

Michelle covered her face with her hands.

“Almost all my clothes are at my parents’ house. I took them when I went to visit, just in case.”

“And if someone helps us? If we were to see someone?”

“I’m ready,” said Michelle. “I can leave this afternoon, if you want. So we don’t drag this out.”

I felt sorry for both of us. Out of fear of feeling faint, I kept my eyes fixed on the bare match between my fingers. I realized I’d stopped understanding, that I’d lost control of something: the immediate course of my own life, Michelle’s emotions, or, simply, the idea of a splendid renovation I usually glimpsed like a prophecy when I thought of us splitting up. And the most uncomfortable aspect was to feel that some semblance of truth was about to be conceded to me and I hadn’t managed to know what it was about. I closed my eyes to listen to the voice that perhaps wanted to speak to me, to show me something about this moment. But nobody spoke in my head. Maybe this moment didn’t have any meaning, after all. Maybe pain and loss had meaning only in religion or in fables. Maybe it was futile to look for meaning in the shapeless vertigo that now, for the first time, filled me from within.

“And now what are we going to do?” I said.

“I don’t know,” said Michelle. “We’re going to be fine, I imagine.”

—

T
HAT AFTERNOON
, after I dropped Michelle off at the station in Aywaille, after waiting with her for the orange train that would take her to Liège and seeing her get into the car and put the yellow knapsack I once brought her from Paris in the luggage rack, after asking her to call me when she arrived and hearing her say
I promise, I’ll call as soon as I get in,
after saying good-bye and walking out of the station along with the rest of the relatives and friends who’d been saying good-bye to their relatives and friends, after all that, I decided to pass through Saint-Roch before going home. But the trailer was closed, and I peered in the window and the kitchen was not working and the oil was not boiling. It seemed strange to me that a place like that would close on Saturdays. I looked at it from the outside: things are bigger in daylight. I waited awhile, then went to look for Zoé at her house. I didn’t find her there, either, but I found something better: there was a note hanging on the gray mailbox, stuck with insulation tape, that Zoé had left for someone. I read:
I won’t be long, attendez-moi
. And trying to imagine who would be waiting for Zoé, trying to investigate the plural request and the circumstances of the day, I thought that Zoé wasn’t so alone after all, if she had people willing to wait for her on a Saturday at five o’clock in the afternoon. I realized then that the note was written on an English postcard, and I thought Graham would have brought it back from some trip, and from the caption under the image I found out it was a bronze plaque in Liverpool, perhaps near the port, and that those English words,
courage and compassion joined
, were an homage to the musicians who’d died in the shipwreck of the
Titanic
. I put the postcard back in its place and made sure it was well stuck, pressed the insulation tape firmly, because it would be terrible if the wind blew it away and Zoé’s friends left without waiting for her due to the breezes that usually blow in the Ardennes. I drove out of the neighborhood before Zoé returned, and on my way I imagined her going out to get the wine she hadn’t been able to offer me the night before, or buying some pastry at L’Épi d’Or for her guests. Of course, it was also possible the note was not directed at any friend, but at strangers who were coming to fix her hot-water heater or dishwasher or maybe leave her a bundle of firewood in anticipation of winter. That was also possible and I knew it. But I preferred to hold on to the other idea.

T
HE NIGHT BEFORE,
at around nine, Xavier Moré had arrived on foot at the Lemoines’ house. He suddenly appeared in the kitchen, filling the doorway, looking like an old scrounger. His skin was as dry and rough as blotting paper, and the wisps of white hair across the top of his head looked like paint peeling off a clay wall.

“I’ve come to get my car,” he said.

Georges and Charlotte looked at each other.

“Why don’t you come in and have a hot drink?” she said. “We’re just finishing dinner.”

“I don’t want anything. I just want my car.”

Several months earlier, Jean Moré, Xavier’s only son, had asked Georges if he’d keep his father’s old Porsche in the barn. “He’s still drinking a lot,” he’d said. “I’d rather chauffeur him around than see something happen to him on the highway.” The strategy worked out well: Xavier began to get used to being a passenger, even seeming to forget he’d ever sat behind a steering wheel. Meanwhile, the Porsche slept in Georges’s barn, surrounded by bags of manure and rusty shovels.

“The car’s here, but we don’t have the keys,” said Georges. “Your son has them.”

“That’s a lie,” said Xavier. “The keys are here, too. I want it. It’s mine and I want to drive it.”

Georges listened closely: there were no traces of alcohol in Xavier’s voice. He couldn’t remember the last time anyone had arrived on foot. It hadn’t happened since wartime, when they were young enough to walk the five kilometers between their houses without breathing any heavier. More than once they’d gone as far as the border by bicycle, unconcerned about the risk of running into German soldiers, to buy potatoes at lower prices. But now they were old men, and old men don’t walk alone, at night, braving the autumn cold of the Ardennes. Georges took Xavier by the arm, led him to the table like a blind man, and Xavier accepted a glass of port: no matter that he’d suffered an attack of gout a couple of weeks earlier that had forced Jean to hire a nurse from the Rocourt hospital. Georges wanted to say: Don’t worry, think of tomorrow. Tomorrow everything will have changed, one goes hunting and forgets the bad things.

“I don’t really know why I came,” said Xavier.

“You wanted to see us,” said Charlotte.

“Well, yes. But it wasn’t urgent.”

“I have an idea. Why don’t you stay overnight? You can’t go back at this hour.”

“We could call a taxi,” said Georges. “There’s a car service in Aywaille—”

Charlotte cut him off. Her blue eyes reproached him for something.

“We don’t need any taxis. The guest room is made up.”

“This is stupid,” said Xavier. “My Porsche is sitting in your barn and I want to take it. What has my son told you, might I ask? I’m fine. Do you think I’m drunk?”

“We’ll call Jean,” said Georges.

Xavier lifted his arm and the wine in his glass was illuminated with a yellow light. He threw the glass down on the wooden floor, hard. But the glass didn’t smash: its stem snapped off with a quiet sound, and the port spilled out, forming a long puddle.

“Merde,”
said Xavier.

He fell back in his chair, his head in his hands. “Just as well. The doctor said I wasn’t allowed any.” He didn’t look at Charlotte, but said:

“I wanted to talk to you.”

“Well, talk to her,” said Georges.

“It was nothing. I was feeling lonely, it happens to us all.”

“All of us,” said Charlotte. “But that’s why there’s—”

“Not to you two, of course. You’re the happy family, the little house on the prairie.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” said Georges.

“Nothing, nothing. Don’t get paranoid.”

Then there was a knock at the door. Xavier smiled, and in his smile there was a bitterness Georges had never seen.

“There’s my son, flesh of my flesh, blood of my blood. It’s touching. Everyone worries so much, they notice I’m not home and go out looking for me.”

—

B
UT ALL THAT
had been the night before. Today, Georges didn’t want to worry about bitter thoughts. Charlotte took his hand and he felt the roughness of her skin. He adored that roughness, and hearing his wife’s smoker’s voice, and stroking her gray hair, calmed him. Xavier chose his life without anyone forcing him to do anything. The past was far behind them, everyone made their own selves. That was terrible, but it was true.

He poured himself some coffee and thought he could add a few drops of cognac without harming his aim. The mountain cold had stayed in his hands, and as he lifted the warm coffeepot his fingers thawed out. It was almost eight in the morning and the room was beginning to fill up with people and voices. Hunters crossed the paved courtyard with long strides; through the window Georges watched them arrive. The rubber soles of their waterproof boots barely dented the silence. Some of them left the back doors of their four-by-fours open, and the dogs barked from inside their cages when a tortoiseshell cat ran past toward the lake.

Georges knew the routine by heart. Jean Moré, the host, was welcoming the hunters, and at his side was Catherine. Tradition forbade a hunter’s wife serving as a beater, but they didn’t concern themselves about that. Sitting at the dining room table, standing in the faint light coming in the window, or trying to warm up in front of the fireplace were the rest of the beaters. They had fluorescent jackets flung over their shoulders and hunting horns hanging around their necks like medallions. It was the same team as ever, except for the presence of a novice toward whom Jean was feigning tolerance.

“Gentlemen.” Jean raised his voice. “I’ll ask you to finish up your drinks and come outside. It’s time to get started. I don’t want the morning to slip away before we’ve all done what we’ve come here to do.”

“Well,” said Georges. “We’re getting under way now.”

“Go and kill lots of boars,” said Charlotte. “And bring them back to me, and I’ll cook them for you just the way you like them, and we won’t share them with anybody.”

Georges kissed her on the forehead.

“I’ll go, kill ’em, and come back,” he said. “Like in the movie.”

There wasn’t yet complete daylight in the yard. The sky was still overcast. In the inner courtyard, figures cast no shadows. On the paved surface, boots surrounded Jean with a murmur of rubber. The hunters wore green, but no green was the same as the next. Their jackets were thick fleece, adorned with yellow edges like fine epaulets and deer embroidered on the lapels, with buttons like coins on the sleeves and deep pockets in which nothing jangled, no keys, no matches, because those were garments for the hunting season, and no daily or habitual objects, nothing betraying domestic life, would ever be forgotten in their pockets.

“The circle, gentlemen,” said Jean.

The hunters surrounded him. Jean gave out the orders of the hunt speaking with his trumpet in one hand and a lit cigar in the other. Jean was one of the most respected hunters in the Ardennes, as his father had been, and Georges still felt moved at seeing the son of his best friend acting as
maître de chasse
.

“I have little to tell you, gentlemen, because you all know the rules. No shotguns, rifles only. Do not fire into the encirclement or toward rocks. The first boar is off-limits, as are females, roe deer, and stags.”

He kept quiet for a few seconds, as if looking for a way to round off his speech. After a moment, he let his cigar get soaked in the drizzle, took two steps toward the barbecue, and threw it in with the firewood.

“That’s it,” he said. “Good luck, and good hunting.”

The group dispersed on the other side of the gate. Each hunter seemed to have arranged beforehand which four-by-four he’d be riding in. The doors opened, the cars began to spew brightly colored supplies—red and purple plastic cylinders that looked like pieces from a children’s board game—green arms checked rifles, opened and closed portable stools, and the beaters pulled on their orange vests.

Xavier was leaning against Georges’s four-by-four. He held a black umbrella and a folding stool, the leather of which had been mended several times. Georges approached him without speaking. He patted him affectionately on the back and a cloud of dust came off his coat.

“How are you?”

“Fine. How else would I be?”

It was as if they hadn’t seen each other the night before. Georges decided to play along. He helped Xavier stow his rifle behind the backseat, with his own guns. Like several of the hunters, Georges couldn’t help bringing his old Browning shotgun on the hunt, even though he knew full well that its use would be forbidden. Balanced among the guns was a big mushroom he’d picked on the way there that fit perfectly, and wouldn’t get too knocked around along the way.

“Hope your dog doesn’t eat it,” said Georges.

Stalky, Xavier’s dog, was a golden retriever, old like his owner and tired from hunting with him for more than twelve years. An illness had damaged his sense of balance some time ago, and he walked with his head tilted to one side as if he were looking at a crooked picture.

“My dog doesn’t eat mushrooms,” said Moré.

“I know,” said Georges. “I was joking.”

“Yeah. Well, don’t make ridiculous jokes.”

They went across the Route de Modave and headed toward Aywaille, and only stopped at the north edge of the forest long enough for the beaters, sheathed in their fluorescent vests like neon scarecrows, to get out with the dogs and each take up their positions. The varied barking of the beasts and a mélange of their names filled the air. Stalky barked, too. “You’re not getting out yet,” said Xavier. “You’re staying with me.” From the other side of the grounds, a narrow track that would only allow the vehicles to proceed single file—one car behind the next, bumper to bumper—led to a field that the hunters would cross on foot on their way to their positions. The barbed wire along the edges of the track was almost grazing the doors of the four-by-fours.

“Why are they stopping?” said Xavier.

“Here comes your son.” Georges leaned out the window. “What’s going on, Jean? Why are they getting out?”

“This is where we’re going to leave the cars, Monsieur Lemoine,” said Jean Moré, who was coming along assigning positions. “Park as close as possible to the one in front, to leave space.”

“Give me the keys,” said Xavier.

“I have things to get out of the back, too,” said Georges, and then asked Jean: “Where’s my stand?”

“In front of the woods.” Jean pointed.

“Give me the keys,” said Xavier.

“Yes, yes, don’t be impatient,” said Georges, and took the keys out of the ignition and handed them to Xavier without looking at him. “And your father? Where should he go?”

“On the corner of this side.” Jean’s hand moved through the air, indicating the precise angle the trees established. “If there are any boars, these are magnificent positions.”

“They’re useless positions,” said Xavier.

“That’s not true, Papa.”

“If you were assigned that spot, you’d be offended.”

It was true, but Georges kept quiet. Being patronized this way had stopped mattering to him quite a while ago. With his dry hand he reached for an apple in the glove compartment and stuck it in his right pocket; he felt the warm contact of the fleece and his arthritis let up for an instant. Xavier, who did wear gloves, criticized him for his stubborn refusal to cover his hands on these freezing mornings. By the time Georges got out, Xavier had already unloaded all the gear they needed. Stalky was beside him, howling. Georges checked his door. Before letting go of it, he asked:

“Have you got the keys?”

“Don’t worry, you can close up. I’ve put them safely away.”

“Okay. But don’t let them jangle.”

“Don’t worry,” said Xavier, “I won’t be moving much. You’re a lucky man.”

“Nonsense, our positions are as good as each other. They’re spots for old hunters. But we are old hunters.”

“I was talking about Charlotte,” said Xavier.

His eyes had reddened and his skin was turning pale: it was almost possible to see the blood retreating from his forehead and cheeks. Two or three times in the last few years, always after too much wine, Xavier had come out with some brusque comments about Charlotte. This was the first time he’d touched on the subject while sober. Georges, however, confronted the matter with the false tolerance of someone talking to a drunk.

“No hard feelings,” he said.

“Of course not. She chose you. She stayed with you. What hard feelings could there be? Don’t be a hypocrite.”

“All that’s past. The only thing—”

“All right, all right,” said Xavier. “Spare me the philosophizing, I beg you.”

He can’t stand seeing us,
thought Georges,
he can’t stand
seeing what we’ve attained.
They went their separate ways. In front of the southern edge of the forest was a pasture where three Limousin cows were grazing. Georges looked to the right and to the left: Xavier, hunched over, was heading to his position with Stalky trotting eagerly at his side, and the complicity or harmony that had developed between the dog and his owner over the years was plain to see; on the side nearest the road, the crowd of younger hunters broke the line of the horizon. The vision of the armed silhouettes reminded Georges of those images of men disembarking in Normandy during the war. He walked patiently toward the spot he’d been assigned. He was, for the first time since the day began, truly alone. He was grateful. He stopped, inhaled the cold air, and all the mountain smells, manure and pine, rain and damp moss, washed over him like a wave. Every once in a while, an isolated engine broke the silence, and the only noise that Georges heard, while he settled down, was the sound of the joints of his portable stool as he unfolded it over the dead leaves. Soon, as he loaded his rifle and shotgun, he heard the echo of the metals colliding and, when he finally sat down, putting his gun across his lap and leaning his rifle against an oak tree, the uneven chorus of horns that announced the beginning of the hunt. Suddenly, the image of a Flaubert book and a train ticket to Nancy came to mind.

—

T
HE DAY
G
EORGES TURNED FIFTY
was also Jean Moré’s initiation to the hunt, Jean having killed his first boar that very morning. Charlotte organized a gathering at home for friends of the family and some fellow hunters. The boar’s head rested on its side on the lawn, beside the stump of an oak tree. The hunters shouted, let’s see him wearing the head, put it on, and Georges eventually lifted the head and set it on Jean’s head like a hat. Not much blood spilled, but enough to give Jean’s black hair the look of a cow’s placenta, and the baptism was complete. Georges would later think that eating with hands dirty with boar’s blood wouldn’t have been so bad. But, at that moment, it hadn’t occurred to him to act any other way. He went inside through the kitchen door and his eyes took a couple of seconds to adjust to the darkness. He found Charlotte sitting on the floor beside the gas stove, surrounded by pheasant feathers. She had her apron on; she was not crying, but she was panting as if she’d been running. On top of the plastic tablecloth was the pheasant they’d be eating later, its throat slit and innards now cleaned out. On the other side of the bird, the Flaubert book: a blue hardback with gold lettering.