The sky is blue now, the path open, the cold biting. They encounter several walkers, well wrapped up like them, hi there, have a good walk. The dense light bears down heavily upon them, emphasizes the crunch of their shoes, accentuates the sweet green scent of the pine trees, ices up the fern fronds even more. Anita feels as if she were moving through one of those landscapes filmed with a special filter that reduces darkness, emphasizes contours, and polarizes colors. It is a truly beautiful winter’s day.
They turn off to the right. The lake is there, bigger and more somber than they had pictured it. Mother and daughter share the same memory at that moment, a stretch of bright water in which green foliage is reflected, great flat stones at the water’s edge, a wooden jetty bleached by the sun, and a laughing man diving in from it.
In the middle of the dark, waterlogged jetty stands a woman they recognize immediately. At her feet a big black bag. Each reacts differently. Anita gasps for breath. Laura utters a cry of surprise.
“Adèle!”
Adèle turns, not, as ever, with her arms open ready to enfold Laura, but with her arms tightly folded, clutching a gray binder and some white sheets of paper. Laura lets go of her mother’s hand, walks toward the jetty.
“Have you seen the swans, Adèle? Are they there?”
“Laura!”
Anita’s intention had been to keep her daughter at her side, calling out to her calmly, but what emerges from her throat is an authoritarian shout. Laura stops, almost slipping over, and looks back at her mother, surprised.
“Stop there, Laura.”
“But I want to see the swans, maman.”
“Stop there, I tell you!”
Anita walks up to the water’s edge. In summer there are masses of yellow flags at this very spot. She stares at Adèle and the gray binder that she recognizes, the one she adds to almost every day, her prop, her dictionary, her memory, her box of ideas, her intimate journal. Adèle’s neck, chin, and mouth are hidden by white sheets of paper, a sight that sends an icy chill through Anita’s body. She does not pause to wonder how Adèle has discovered her manuscript and her binder. She does not pause to wonder why she is here on the jetty. She does not pause to wonder whether Adèle has read them. All she wants is to get them back. Now.
“What’s happening, maman? I’m frightened.”
Anita places a foot on the jetty. Adèle has not stirred, it looks as if she has not noticed Anita, her eyes are only on Laura. She wants to imprint on her memory the image of this child in a pale-pink coat, wearing mouse-gray gloves with little white stars on them, camel-colored fur boots, the soft white scarf, her eyes, her nose, her mouth, the serious, terrified expression visible in her at this moment, the curls straying from beneath her cap. In her now are all the games, all the lovely stories, all the wonder, all the promises, all the questions she asked to try to understand life.
“What are you doing there, Adèle?”
Anita’s voice is sharp, full of anger, but that does not seem to affect Adèle, who goes on looking at Laura.
“Adèle. Give me that binder. Give me that manuscript.”
“No, Anita. It’s not yours. And where’s the rest of it?”
Adèle’s voice is soft as it has always been. When singing, when telling her life story, when taking orders at the Bar Tropical. A monotonous voice that Anita suddenly finds intolerable and lacking in emotion.
“The rest of what? Look, let me explain. You don’t know what it is. It’s a work of fiction. It’s a novel.”
“But the names are here. All I told you’s here. So, where’s the rest of the story?”
“I haven’t written the rest yet! I wanted to talk to you about it, Adèle, I promise you I was going to do it. Tonight, actually! Give it back to me, please, Adèle. GIVE ME BACK MY THINGS!”
Adèle backs away, shaking her head, and Anita begins shouting.
“You know nothing about it, Adèle! You’ve never read a book in your life. You don’t know what it is. Who do you think you are? You don’t exist. You’ve got no papers. No family. You’re nothing!”
Anita stops, stunned by the viciousness of her own words. Her body is leaning forward, her fists are clenched, as if she were preparing to strike Adèle. She tries to calm down, she takes deep breaths, summoning up positive thoughts, happy memories, she closes her eyes. Hush, hush, remember, Anita, only yesterday you still loved her, this woman, you wanted her to stay in your house forever, to look after your child, so that you can go out into the world and write articles about forgotten people, the poor, the unhappy, the exploited, and dine out off your tales of their world. Remember, you liked to hear her singing to your daughter the very nursery rhymes that your mother used to sing to you, but that you say you’ve forgotten, remember how you love her coconut cakes, her banana doughnuts, her curried fish, her green papaya salad; remember how she calmly told you her personal story because you questioned her, because you asked her for details; you told her, you must talk, Adèle, you must emerge from your mourning; you told her you’re in a deep depression and only words can help you emerge from that. Remember how every morning you promised you would tell her
