Sigh. I don’t know. This story is a tragedy, after all. “There are some worthy people out there, be glad!” is what I felt like telling myself, but in the end, so much sadness! They end up in the rain. I really don’t know what to think. Briefly, I thought I had found my calling, I thought I’d understood that in order to heal, I could heal others, or at least the other “healable” people, the ones who can be saved—instead of moping because I can’t save other people. So what does this mean—I’m supposed to become a doctor? Or a writer? It’s a bit the same thing, no?
And for every Madame Michel, how many Colombes are out there, how many dreary Tibères?
13. In the Pathways of Hell
After Paloma left I didn’t know which way to turn, and sat in my armchair for a long time.
Then, taking my courage in both hands, I dialed Kakuro Ozu’s telephone number.
Paul Nguyen picked up on the second ring.
“Yes, hello, Madame Michel. What can I do for you?”
“Well, I would like to speak with Kakuro.”
“He’s not in, would you like him to call you when he gets back?”
“No, no,” I said, relieved to be able to go through an intermediary. “Could you tell him that, if he hasn’t changed his mind, I would be happy to have dinner with him tomorrow evening?”
“With pleasure,” said Paul Nguyen.
I put the phone down and flopped back into the armchair, and for the past hour have let myself be carried away by confused but pleasant thoughts.
“It doesn’t smell too good in your place, now does it?” says a soft male voice at my back. “Isn’t there anyone who can come to fix it?”
He opened the door so quietly that I didn’t hear him. A nice-looking young man with rather disheveled brown hair and a brand new jean jacket and the large eyes of an amiable cocker spaniel.
“Jean? Jean Arthens?” I ask, scarcely believing my eyes.
“Yup,” he replies, leaning his head to one side, the way he used to.
But that is all that lingers of the human wreck, that ravaged young soul in the emaciated body he used to be: Jean Arthens, once so very close to the abyss, has visibly opted for rebirth.
“You look great!” I say, with my broadest smile.
Which he returns in kind.
“Well good morning, Madame Michel, it is a pleasure to see you. It suits you,” he adds, pointing to my hairstyle.
“Thank you. What brings you here? Would you like a cup of tea?”
“Ah . . . ” he begins, with a hint of his old hesitancy, “yup, I’d love one.”
I prepare the tea and he sits down on a chair and looks at Leo, eyes wide in astonishment.
“Was this cat of yours always so fat?” he inquires, not meaning it in a nasty way.
“Yes. He’s not terribly athletic.”
“It’s not him that smells so bad is it?” With an apologetic expression, he sniffs the cat.
“No, no, there’s something wrong with the plumbing.”
“You must find it strange that I’ve just shown up here like this, especially as we never really talked much, uh, I wasn’t very talkative in those days . . . well, in my father’s days.”
“I’m happy to see you and above all to see that you seem to be doing well,” I say with sincerity.
“Yup . . . I had a close shave.”
We take little sips of scorching tea, simultaneously.
“I’m cured now—well, I’d like to think I’m cured, if you ever can be cured. But I’m keeping off drugs, I’ve met a nice girl—well, a fantastic girl, rather, I must say”—his eyes open wide and he sniffles slightly as he looks at me—“and I’ve found a little job I like.”
“What are you doing?”
“I’m working at a ship’s chandler’s.”
“Parts for boats?”
“Yup, and it’s a fun job. It’s kind of like being on vacation, there. Guys come in and tell me about their boat, the seas they’re about to sail, the seas where they’ve been, I like that, and then I’m happy to have a job, you know.”
“What do you actually do at your job?”
“I’m sort of the factotum, stock man and messenger boy, but I’m learning as I go along, so now from time to time they give me more interesting things to do like repair sails or shrouds, or put together the provision inventory.”
Just listen to the poetry of the language: provisioning a sailboat . . . providing what is needed, with a vision of the future. To those who have not understood that the enchantment of language comes from such nuances, I shall address the following prayer: beware of commas.
“And you too look like you’re doing well,” he says, with a kindly gaze.
“Really? Well, there have been a few changes that have been good for me.”
“You know, I didn’t come back here to see the apartment or the people, here. I’m not even sure they’d recognize me; I even brought my ID card, just in case you yourself didn’t recognize me. No, I came because there’s something I can’t remember, something that helped me a lot, already when I was sick and then afterwards, when I was getting better.”
“And you think I can help?”
“Yes, because you were the one who told me the name of those flowers one day. In the flower bed, over there”—he points toward the far side of the courtyard—“there are some pretty little red and white flowers, you planted them there, didn’t you? And one day I asked you what they were but I wasn’t able to remember the name. And yet I used to think about those flowers all the time, I don’t know why. They’re nice to look at, and when I was so bad off I would think about those flowers, and it did me good. So I was in the neighborhood just now and I thought, I am going to ask Madame Michel, maybe she can tell me.”
Slightly embarrassed, he waits for my reaction.
“It must seem weird, no? I hope I’m not scaring you, with this flower business.”
“No, not at all. If only I’d known the good they were doing you . . . I’d have planted them all over the place!”
He laughs, like a delighted child.
“Ah, Madame Michel, you know, it practically saved my life. That in itself is a miracle! So, can you tell me what they’re called?”
Yes my angel, I can. Along the pathways of hell, breathless, one’s heart in one’s mouth, a faint glow: they are camellias.
“Yes,” I say. “They are camellias.”
He stares at me, wide-eyed. A tear slips across his waiflike cheek.
“Camellias . . . ” he says, lost in a memory that is his alone. “Camellias, yes.” He repeats the word, looking at me again. “That’s it. Camellias.”
I feel a tear on my own cheek.
I take his hand.
“Jean, you cannot imagine how happy I am that you came by here today.”
“Really?” He looks astonished. “But why?”
Why?
Because a camellia can change fate.
14. From Passageway to Pathway
What is this war we are waging, when defeat is so certain? Day after day, already wearied by the constant onslaught, we face our terror of the everyday, the endless passageway that, in the end—because we have spent so much time walking to and fro between its walls—will become a destiny. Yes, my angel, that is our everyday existence: dreary, empty, and mired deep in troubles. The pathways of hell are hardly foreign; we shall end up there one day if we tarry too long. From a passageway to a pathway: it is an easy fall, without shock or surprises. Every day we are reacquainted with the sadness of the passageway and step by step we clear the path toward our mournful doom.
Did he see the pathways? How is one reborn after a fall? What new pupils restore sight to scorched eyes? Where does war begin, where does combat end?
Thus, a camellia.
15. His Shoulders Soaked with Sweat
At eight o’clock, Paul Nguyen comes to my loge, his arms loaded with packages.
“Monsieur Ozu has not come back yet—there’s a problem at
the embassy regarding his visa—so he asked me to bring all of this to you,” he says, with a lovely smile.
He places the packages on the table and hands me a little card.
“Thank you,” I say. “Would you like something to drink?”
“Thank you, but I still have a great deal to do. I’ll take a rain check for your invitation, for another time.”
He smiles again, and there is something warm and happy about his expression: this does me untold good.
Alone in the kitchen I sit by the packages and open the envelope.
“Suddenly on his shoulders soaked with sweat he felt a
pleasant and airy sensation that he could not initially explain;
but during the pause, he noticed that a huge black cloud drifting low in the sky had just fallen to earth.”
Please accept these few gifts with simplicity.
Kakuro.
The summer rain on Levin’s shoulders as he is scything . . . I raise my hand to my chest, touched in a way I have never been. One by one, I open the packages.
A wraparound dress in a pearly gray silk, with a high round neck and a black satin strap to hold it closed.
A purple silk scarf, light and bracing like the wind.
Low-heeled pumps, in leather of so fine and soft a grain that I lift one to my cheek.
I look at the dress, the scarf, the pumps.
Outside, Leo is scratching at the door, meowing to come in.
I begin to cry, quietly, slowly, a trembling camellia in my breast.
16. Something Must Come to an End
The next morning at ten there is a knock on the glass.
A sort of immense beanpole, dressed all in black with a navy blue knit beanie on his head and military boots that must have seen duty in Vietnam. It happens to be Colombe’s boyfriend, a world specialist in the use of the ellipsis in stock polite formulas.
“I’m looking for Colombe,” says Tibère.
Appreciate, if you will, how ridiculous this sentence is: I am looking for Juliet, said Romeo.
“I’m looking for Colombe,” thus spake Tibère, who fears nothing, save shampoo; this becomes apparent when he removes his head covering, which he does not because he is courteous but because it is very warm.
It is May, by Jove!
“Paloma said she was here,” he adds.
And concludes, “Shit, what the fuck.”
Paloma, you are having a good time.
I send him promptly on his way and become immersed in strange thoughts.
Tibère . . . such an illustrious name for such a pathetic demeanor . . . I think of Colombe Josse’s prose, the silent corridors of Le Saulchoir . . . and my mind finds itself in Rome . . . Tiberius . . . The memory of Jean Arthens’s face suddenly takes me unaware, then I see his father, and that outdated lavaliere of his, so ridiculous . . . So many quests, all these different worlds . . . Can we all be so similar yet live in such disparate worlds? Is it possible that we are all sharing the same frenetic agitation, even though we have not sprung from the same earth or the same blood and do not share the same ambition? Tiberius . . . I feel weary, to be honest, weary of all these rich people, all these poor people, weary of the whole farce . . . Leo jumps from his armchair and comes to rub up against my leg. This cat, made obese only by virtue of charity, is also a generous soul who can feel the irresolution of my own. Weary, yes, I am weary.
Something must come to end; something must begin.
17. The Travails of Dressing Up
At eight o’clock I am ready.
The dress and the shoes fit perfectly (12 and 7).
The shawl is Roman (2 feet wide and 6 feet long).
I dried my hair, which I had washed 3 times, with the BaByliss 1600-watt hair dryer, and combed it 2 times in all directions. The results are astonishing.
I sat down 4 times and got up again 4 times which explains why at present I am standing up and do not know what to do.
Sit down, perhaps.
From their box hidden behind the sheets at the back of the wardrobe I have brought out 2 earrings inherited from my mother-in-law, the monstrous Yvette—antique silver, dangling, with 2 pear-shaped garnets. I made 6 attempts before I managed to clip them properly to my earlobes and now must live with the sensation of having 2 potbellied cats hanging from my distended lobes. 54 years without jewelry do not prepare one for the travails of dressing up. I smeared my lips with 1 layer of “Deep Carmine” lipstick that I had bought 20 years ago for a cousin’s wedding. The longevity of such a useless item, when valiant lives are lost every day, will never cease to confound me. I belong to the 8% of the world population who calm their apprehension by drowning it in numbers.
Kakuro Ozu knocks 2 times at my door.
I open.
He is very handsome. He is wearing a charcoal gray suit consisting of straight trousers and a jacket with a mandarin collar and ornamental frog fastenings in matching tones; on his feet are soft leather loafers that look like luxurious slippers. The effect is very . . . Eurasian.
“Oh, you look magnificent!” he says.
“Oh, thank you,” I say, touched, “and you look very handsome yourself. Happy birthday!”
He smiles, and after I have carefully closed the door behind me, before Leo can manage to slip past, Kakuro extends an arm out for me to place my slightly trembling hand on his elbow. Let us hope no one will see us, begs a voice inside, still resisting, the voice of Renée the clandestine. No matter that I have tossed a goodly number of my fears onto the bonfire, I am not yet ready to serve as copy for the Grenelle gossip columns.
Someone’s in for quite a surprise.
The front door, where we are headed, opens before we have even reached it.
It is Jacinthe Rosen and Anne-Hélène Meurisse.
A pox upon it! What am I to do?
We are already upon them.
“Good evening, good evening, dear ladies,” twitters Kakuro, pulling me firmly over to his left, passing them quickly, “good evening, dear friends, we are late, lovely to see you, we are in a terrible rush!”
“Oh, good evening Monsieur Ozu,” they simper, enthralled, turning in unison to follow us with their gaze.
“Good evening, Madame,” they say to me (to me), smiling with all their teeth.
I have never seen so many teeth all at once.
“Until we next have the pleasure,” whispers Anne-Hélène Meurisse, staring intently as we make our way through the door.
“To be sure! To be sure,” chirps Kakuro, pushing the door with his heel.
“Heavens,” he says, “if we had stopped, we would have been there for an hour.”
“They didn’t recognize me,” I say.
I come to a halt in the middle of the sidewalk, completely flabbergasted.
“They didn’t recognize me,” I repeat.
He stops in turn, my hand still on his arm.
“It is because they have never seen you,” he says. “I would recognize you anywhere.”
18. Flowing Water
All it takes is one experience of being blind in broad daylight and able to see in pitch dark to wonder what sight is all about. Why do we see? While climbing into the taxi that Kakuro had ordered, I think about Jacinthe Rosen and Anne-Hélène Meurisse, who noticed nothing of me beyond what they could see (on Monsieur Ozu’s arm, in a world of hierarchy), and I am struck with incredible force by this proof that sight is like a hand that tries to seize flowing water. Yes, our eyes may perceive, yet they do not observe; they may believe, yet they do not question; they may receive yet they do not search: they are emptied of desire, with neither hunger nor passion.
And as the taxi glides through the early twilight, I become thoughtful.
I think of Jean Arthens, his scorched pupils illuminated with camellias.
I think of Pierre Arthens, his sharp eye, with the blindness of a beggar.
I think of these avid ladies, their greedy gaze unseeing, futile.
I think of Gégène,
his sunken eyes with neither life nor force, seeing nothing beyond his own fall.
I think of Lucien, ill-suited to vision, because obscurity often, in the end, proves too strong.
I think even of Neptune, whose eyes are a doggy nose that does not lie.
And I wonder how well I myself can see.
19. They Shimmer
Have you seen Black Rain?
Because if you have not seen Black Rain — or, in a pinch, Blade Runner — it will surely be difficult for you to understand why, when we go into the restaurant, I have the sensation that I am on the set of a Ridley Scott film. There is that scene in Blade Runner, in the snake woman’s bar, where Deckard calls Rachel from a mural videophone. There is also the call girls’ bar in Black Rain, with Kate Capshaw’s blond hair and naked back. And those shots lit as if through a stained glass window, with a brilliance of cathedrals, surrounded by all the penumbra of Hell.
“I like the light in here,” I say to Kakuro as we sit down.
They have led us to a quiet little booth, filled with a solar light circled with shimmering shadows. How can shadows shimmer? They shimmer, that’s all there is to it.
“Have you seen Black Rain?” asks Kakuro.
I should scarcely have believed that between two people there could exist such a congruity of tastes and thought patterns.
“Yes,” I say, “at least a dozen times.”
The atmosphere is brilliant, bubbly, racy, plush, crystalline. Magnificent.
“We are going to have an orgy of sushi,” says Kakuro, unfolding his napkin with panache. “I hope you don’t mind, I’ve already ordered; I want you to discover what I consider to be the very best Paris has to offer in the way of Japanese cuisine.”
“I don’t mind at all,” I say, my eyes open wide, because the waiters have placed before us several bottles of saké and myriad little bowls filled with clusters of tiny vegetables that have clearly been marinated in something bound to be very tasty.