Then he had gone quiet. He had had a few gulps of coffee, looking troubled, silently going over what Philippe had just told him. Was this extraordinary version of events to be believed? Fontanel supposedly setting fire to the kitchen? The children inhaling a toxic gas? Letellier had ordered an espresso from the bistro’s waiter with just a flick of his hand. He was clearly a regular there. Everyone said “tu” to him.
When Letellier had learned of Geneviève Magnan’s suicide, he hadn’t been surprised. Since that night, she had been just a shadow of her former self. You only had to see the state she was in at the trial. The last time he had spoken to her was the day the wife had come to wait for him outside the restaurant where he worked. He had called Geneviève in a panic to tell her that she had come asking him questions. Philippe heard himself asking, aggressively:
“What wife?”
“Yours.”
“You must be confusing her with someone else.”
“Don’t think so. She said to me, ‘I’m the mother of Léonine Toussaint.’”
“What did she look like?”
“It was dark, I don’t really remember anymore. She was waiting for me outside the restaurant, on a bench. You didn’t know?”
“When was this?”
“About two years ago.”
Philippe had heard enough. Or said enough. He was there to ask questions, not be asked any. He had got up, grunting goodbye, and Letellier had watched him leave without understanding. As he had turned, Philippe had thought he had seen Violette on the sidewalk, behind the window. I’m going nuts. He had driven straight home to Brancion.
For the first time, he had found the cemetery house empty. For the first time, he had gone all round the avenues to find her, but in vain.
Who was Violette, really? What did she do when he went off for entire days? Whom did she see? What was she after?
Violette had come home two hours after him. She was very pale as she came through the door. She had stared at him for a few seconds, as though surprised to discover a stranger in her kitchen. And then she had handed him a piece of paper: “Léonine was asphyxiated?”
On the washed-out paper he had recognized his handwriting, the names scribbled on the back of a tablecloth had almost disappeared. The ink had run so much, they were virtually illegible.
Violette’s question had hit him like an electric shock. He had tried to think of a lie but couldn’t, had spluttered, as if Violette had just caught him in the arms of one of his mistresses:
“I don’t know, perhaps, I’m looking . . . I’m not sure I know . . . I want . . . I’m a bit lost.”
She had gone up to him and stroked his face with infinite tenderness. And then she had gone up to bed without a word. Hadn’t laid the table or prepared supper. When he had stretched out beside her, she had taken his hand and asked the same question, “Léonine was asphyxiated?” If he said nothing, she would just keep asking the same question.
So, Philippe had told her everything. Everything, apart from his relationship with Geneviève Magnan. He had told her of his conversations with Alain Fontanel, that first time when he had beaten him up in the cafeteria of the hospital he worked at; with Lucie Lindon in the doctors’ waiting room; with Edith Croquevieille in Epinal, in the underground of a supermarket; and with Swan Letellier that very day, in a bistro in Mâcon.
Violette had listened to him in silence, his hand in hers. He had spoken for hours in the darkness of their room, without seeing her face. He had sensed her attentiveness, her hanging on his every word. She hadn’t moved. Hadn’t asked any other question. Philippe had finally asked her the one he was dying to ask:
“Is it true that you went to see Letellier?”
She had replied without thinking:
“Yes. Before, I needed to know.”
“And now?”
“Now I have my garden.”
“Who else did you see?”
“Geneviève Magnan, once. But you already know that.”
“Who else?”
“No one. Just Geneviève Magnan and Swan Letellier.”
“Do you swear to me?”
“Yes.”
87.
No remorse. No regrets.
A life fully lived.
Even today, when I watch Fanny, Marius, or César on the television, I get tears in my eyes as soon as I hear the first lines, even though I know them by heart. They are tears of childhood, joy, and admiration combined. I love the faces of the actors, Raimu, Pierre Fresnay, and Orane Demazis, in black-and-white. I love their every gesture, their looks. The father, the son, the young woman, and the love. I would have liked to have a father who looked at me how César looks at his son, Marius. I would have liked a youthful romance like that of Fanny and Marius.
The first time I watched Marius, the first part of the trilogy, I must have been about ten years old. I was alone at my foster family’s. If memory serves, the other children had gone off on holiday, or to visit relatives. It was summer, there was no school the following day. My family had friends around, they had set up a barbecue in the garden. They gave me permission to leave the table. When I went into the dining room, I was confronted by the big television, which was on. And that’s when I discovered this story with no colors. The film had started about half an hour before. Fanny was weeping over the checked tablecloth in the kitchen, opposite her mother, who was slicing the bread. The first line I heard was: “Come, now, you ninny, have your soup, and don’t go crying into it, it’s already too salty.”
I was
