The List of My Desires (13 page)

But the final part of the book is cruel. In Marseille, Solal strikes Ariane and makes her sleep with her former lover; the
belle
behaves like a graceless prostitute. And then comes the ending in Geneva. As he closes it, Jocelyn wonders whether the book comforted his wife by making her think that she had gone beyond ‘the boredom and lassitude’ that consumed the romantic lovers, and that in her own way she had discovered a love of a perfection not to be found in expensive clothes, hats and hairstyles, but in trust and peace.

Perhaps
Belle du Seigneur
was a book about loss, but Jocelyne read it to assess what she had saved.

He wants to go back now. He has plenty of words for her, words he has never spoken before. He knows what
symbiosis
means.

He is afraid to telephone. He is afraid to hear her voice. He is afraid that she will not pick up the phone. He is afraid of silence and sobbing. He wonders if he shouldn’t just go back, arrive this evening at the peaceful dinner hour, put the key in the lock, open the door. Believe in miracles. Believe in Reggiani’s song, with words by Dabadie.
Is there anybody there? / Anyone I can see? / I can hear the dog from here. / So if you are not dead / Open the door to me. / I know that I’m late home.
But suppose she has changed the locks? Suppose she isn’t there? He decides to write a letter.

Later, weeks later, when he has finished the letter, he takes it to the post office in the Place Poelaert near the Palais de Justice. He is worried. He wonders, several times, if he has put enough postage on it. It is an important letter. He watches the hand throwing his letter full of hopes and new beginnings into the basket; other letters soon fall in with it, covering his, suffocating it, hiding it. He feels lost. He
is
lost.

He goes back to the big, empty house. There is nothing left in it but the white sofa. He has sold or given away everything else. The car, the TV set,
The Bourne Trilogy
, the Omega watch, he couldn’t find the Patek, but he doesn’t care.

He waits on the white sofa. He waits for a reply to slide under his door. He waits a long, long time, but no reply comes. He trembles, and over the following days, when nothing happens, his cold body goes numb. He no longer eats or moves. He drinks a few mouthfuls of water every day, and when all the bottles are empty he stops drinking anything. Sometimes he sheds tears. Sometimes he talks to himself. He says both their names. That was the symbiosis, only he didn’t see it.

When his death throes begin, he is happy.

T
he sea is grey in Nice.

There’s a heavy swell far out. Lacy crests of foam. A few sails moving in the wind, like hands calling for help, but no one can catch hold of them.

It is winter.

Most of the shutters in the apartment buildings on the Promenade des Anglais are down. They are like medical dressings on the well-worn façades. The old people are shut up at home, watching the news and the bad weather forecast on TV. They chew for a long time before swallowing. They are suddenly making things last. Then they go to sleep on the sofa with a little woolly rug over their knees and the TV still on. They must hold out until spring or they’ll be found dead; with the rising temperature of the first fine days, disgusting smells will seep out from under doors, up chimneys, nightmarish. Their children are far away. They won’t come back until the first warm days, when they can take advantage of the sea, the sun, Grandpa’s apartment. They’ll come back when they can take measurements, draw up plans: enlarge the sitting room, give the bedrooms and the bathroom a makeover, fit a new fireplace, put an olive tree in a pot on the balcony so that they can eat their own olives some day.

It’s almost a year and a half ago that I was sitting here on my own, in the same place, at the same time of year. I was cold, and I was waiting.

I had just left the nurses at the Centre, alive, appeased. In those few weeks I had killed something in me.

A terrible thing called kindness.

I had drained myself of it like pus, like a dead baby; a present someone has given you only to take it back immediately.

An atrocity.

It’s nearly eighteen months since I let myself die and be born again as someone else. Colder, more angular. Grief always refashions you in a strange form.

And then Jo’s letter had arrived, a small highlight in the mourning of the woman I was then. An envelope sent from Belgium; on the back, a Brussels address in the Place du Grand Sablon. Inside, four pages of his untidy handwriting. Surprising phrases, new words that might have been taken straight from a book.
Jo, I know now that love can stand up to death better than to betrayal.
*
His writing was full of fear. The gist of it was that he wanted to come back. Just like that. Back home. Back to our house. The factory. The garage. The small items of furniture that he made. Back to our laughter. And the Radiola TV set, the low-alcohol beer, his friends on a Saturday, my only real friends, he called them.
And you.
He wanted to come back and find me as I was. I want to be loved by you again, he wrote, I have realised that
to love is to understand
.
*
He promised. I’ll persuade you to forgive me. I was afraid, I ran away. He swore. He made declarations. I love you, he wrote. I miss you. He was suffocating. I know that he wasn’t lying, but it was too late for these careful, pretty words.

My merciful curves had melted away. The ice was taking shape, and it had a cutting edge to it.

He had enclosed a cheque with his letter.

Fifteen million one hundred and eighty-six thousand and four euros, seventy-two centimes.

Made out to Jocelyne Guerbette.

Look, I’m asking you to forgive me, said the figures. Forgive my betrayal, my cowardice; forgive my crime, my lack of love.

Three million three hundred and sixty-one thousand, two hundred and ninety-six euros, fifty-six centimes had vanquished his dream and his self-disgust.

I expect he bought his Porsche, his flat-screen TV, all the James Bond films, a Seiko watch, a Patek Philippe, maybe a Breitling, shiny and flashy, several women younger and more beautiful than me, depilated, Botoxed, perfect; he must have had some bad experiences, as people do when they have a treasure trove – remember the cat and the fox who steal the five gold pieces given to Pinocchio by Mangiafuoco? He must have lived like a prince for a while, as you always want to do when fortune suddenly comes your way, to get your revenge for not having it sooner, for not having had it at all. Five-star hotels, Taittinger Comtes de Champagne, caviar; and then whims and fancies, yes, I can easily imagine my thief developing them: I don’t like this room, the shower drips, the meat is overdone, the sheets are scratchy; I want another girl; I want friends.

I want what I’ve lost.

I never replied to my murderer’s letter. I let it slip out of my hands – the sheets fluttered for a moment, and when they finally came down they were reduced to ashes, and I began to laugh.

*
Adapted from André Maurois (1815–1967), ‘Love can stand up to absence or death better than to doubt or betrayal.’

*
After Françoise Sagan (1935–2004), ‘To love is not just to love well but above all to understand.’ (In Qui je suis.)

M
y last list.

Go to the hairdresser, have a manicure and depilation (for the first time in my life get someone other than me to remove the hair from my legs / armpits / bikini line – well, not the full Brazilian, all the same).

Spend two weeks in London with Nadine and her red-headed lover.

Give her the money to make her next little film (she’s sent me the screenplay, from a short story by Saki, it’s brilliant!!!)

Open a savings account for my rascal of a son.

Choose a new wardrobe (I’m a size 10 now!!!! Men smile at me in the street!!!!).

Organise an exhibition of Maman’s drawings.

Buy a house with a big garden and a terrace with a view of the sea, maybe at Cap Ferrat, where Papa will be comfortable. Above all, don’t ask the price, just write the cheque, casually
.

Get Maman’s grave moved to near me and Papa. (In the garden of the house mentioned above?)

Give a million to someone at random. (Who? How?)

Live with him. (Well, beside him, really.) And wait
.

And that’s all.

I
did everything on my last list with the exception of a couple of details

In the end I did have a full Brazilian wax – it’s odd, very little girl-like – and I haven’t decided who to give the million to yet.

I’m waiting for an unexpected smile, a small ad in the newspaper, a sad but kindly look; I’m waiting for a sign.

I spent two wonderful weeks in London with my daughter. I found my way back to the old times, when Jo’s cruelty made me take refuge in her room, and she stroked my hair until I was as calm as the surface of a lake again. She thought I looked pretty, I thought she looked happy. Her lover Fergus is the only Irishman in England who doesn’t drink beer, and that made me a happy mother. One morning he took us to Bristol and showed me round the studio where he was working; he lent my face to a florist whom Gromit was passing as a tiny dog pursued him. It was a lovely day, like going back to childhood.