When Philippe thought of his father, he thought of someone holier-than-thou who toed the line in front of his wife. Philippe had dreamt of being the son of Luc, his uncle. Mother Nature had got it wrong: he was born to the sister, when he would have liked to be born to the brother.
Just as Eloïse had mentioned his parents, he remembered that his father hadn’t needed directions, hadn’t asked him for the address. He had gone there as if he knew the way. When you left the highway, the village of La Clayette was signposted, but nothing indicated which way to turn to reach the château. But when Philippe was a child, his parents were always arguing because his father had no sense of direction and his mother got annoyed. If he hadn’t got lost that day, maybe it was because he had already been there before.
Eloïse was staring at him while he was replaying this grim journey in his mind. Despite the horror written all over his face, she thought him handsome. She tried to remember Léonine’s features, but couldn’t. The four children had disappeared from her memory. She was forever searching for them, but no longer found them. All that remained to her were their voices, when they had asked questions about the ponies. She hadn’t told Philippe that Léonine had lost her doudou, and that, together, they had hunted everywhere for it. Léonine had said to her, “It’s a rabbit that’s the same age as me.” Until she could find it, Eloïse had found a little forgotten bear in the storeroom for her. And she had promised Léonine that the following morning, she would search the whole castle for it, and would find it.
Philippe brought her back down to earth:
“I want you to swear, on Léonine’s life, that you will never speak of this to anyone.”
Eloïse wondered whether Philippe had just heard her thoughts. She was incapable of uttering a word. He insisted:
“The two of us, we never saw each other, never spoke . . . Swear!”
As though in court, Eloïse raised her right hand and said, “I swear.”
“On Léonine’s life?”
“On Léonine’s life.”
Philippe wrote down the landline number for the house at Brancion cemetery and handed it to her.
“In two hours’ time, you call this number, my wife will answer. You introduce yourself and tell her that I didn’t come to the appointment, that you waited all afternoon for me.”
“But . . . ”
“Please.”
Eloïse felt sorry for him, so she agreed.
“And if she asks me questions?”
“She won’t ask you any questions. I’ve let her down too often for her to ask any.”
Philippe got up to pay the bill. He said a brief goodbye to Eloïse as he picked up his helmet, and then returned to his motorbike, parked outside the movie theater.
Glancing at the people coming in and out of the various screenings, he remembered his mother’s words, “Trust no one, do you hear me? No one.”
Almost seven hundred kilometers. It would be dark when he arrived at Charleville-Mézières.
* * *
Philippe watched his parents for a while through the sitting-room window. They were sitting side by side, on their ancient sofa covered in faded flowers. Like those on abandoned tombs. Those that Violette couldn’t bear, and would remove.
The father was asleep, the mother gripped by a TV show, a rerun. Violette had already seen it. A love story between a priest and a young girl, set in Australia, or some other faraway land. Violette had secretly cried at some parts. He had sensed her wiping away her tears on her sleeve. His mother was staring at the actors, her lips pursed, as if she thought they were making wrong choices and she wanted to stick her oar in. Why had she picked this soppy program? If the circumstances hadn’t been so serious, Philippe would have laughed.
Philippe had grown up in this house that, right now, seemed like a stage set. Over the years, the shrubs had grown, the hedges filled out. His parents had had the chain-link fence changed to a white picket fence, like in American TV shows; the façade’s roughcast resurfaced; and two lion statues installed on either side of the front door. The granite wildcats seemed bored stiff at this house stuck in the 70s. But his parents had to show the neighbors that they were public-sector management. Both retired from the PTT, the postal and telecoms service, he having started as a postman, she as an admin assistant, they had both climbed the ladder and become low-grade managers. And when there had finally been some money, they had put it aside.
Philippe still had the house keys on him. He’d been carrying the same key ring around since childhood, a miniature rugby ball that had lost both its shape and its colors. His parents had never changed the locks. What for? Who on earth would want to go in there, to find the father lost in his prayers, the mother in resentment? Two gherkins in a jar of vinegar.
He hadn’t set foot in this house for years. Since he had met Violette. Violette. Not once had they invited her. They had always looked down on her.
Chantal Toussaint screamed when she saw her son standing at the door of the sitting room. Her cry woke up her husband, who jumped.
As he was about to open his mouth, Philippe saw portraits of Léonine hanging on the walls, two taken at school. That reminded him of Geneviève Magnan, her smile in those corridors reeking of ammonia. He suddenly felt dizzy and gripped the sideboard.
Violette had taken down the portraits
