He must go back to how he was, that very morning. Clear away this sordid past, once and for all. Not feel pity. No, he would not go to that solicitor’s. No. He had torn up his identity papers. Torn up his past.
On the kitchen table, empty coffee cups sitting on gardening magazines. Three scarves and a white cardigan hanging on the coatrack. Her perfume hanging on them. A rose pefume. She was still living there.
He went up to the bedroom. Kicked some plastic boxes containing ghastly dolls. Couldn’t stop himself. If he could have punched the walls, he would have. He found the bedroom repainted, a sky-blue carpet, a pale-pink bedcover, almond-green window coverings and curtains. Hand cream on the white bedside table, books, a blown-out candle. He opened the top drawer of the chest of drawers, underwear the same pink as the walls. He lay down on the bed. Imagined her sleeping here.
Did she still think of him? Had she waited for him? Looked for him?
He had put a lid on the Violette years, but for a very long time, he had dreamt of her. He would hear her voice, she was calling him and he didn’t reply, he was hiding in a dark corner so she wouldn’t notice him, and he would end up covering his ears to stop hearing her pleading voice. For a long time, he had woken up bathed in sweat, between sheets drenched in his guilt.
In the bathroom, perfumes, soaps, creams, bath salts, more candles, more novels. In the laundry basket, lingerie, a short white-silk nightie, a black dress, a gray cardigan.
There was no man in this house. No communal living. So why fucking bother him? Why rake over the shit? To get money? A pension? That’s not what the solicitor’s letter had said. “Amicably . . . no further action.” He could hear his mother: “Watch out.”
He went back downstairs. Knocked over the last dolls still standing. He felt like going into the cemetery to visit Léonine’s tomb, but decided against it.
A shadow moved behind him, he jumped. An old mutt was sniffing him from a distance. Before he had time to give it a kick, the creature had curled up in its cozy basket. In a corner of the kitchen, he saw bowls of pet food on the floor. He gagged at the thought of living with hairs on his clothes. He went out the back of the house, through the door that led to the private garden.
He didn’t spot her straight away. Here, too, all the greenery had climbed upwards, like in Léonine’s storybooks. Ivy and creeper on the walls, yellow, red, and pink trees, beds of multicolored flowers. It was as if, just like the bedroom, the garden had been redecorated.
There she was. Crouching in her vegetable garden. Nineteen years, now, that he hadn’t seen her. How old was she now?
Don’t feel pity.
She had her back to him. She was wearing a black dress with white spots. She had tied an old gardening apron around her waist. Pulled on rubber boots. Her shoulder-length hair was gathered in a black elastic band. A few tendrils were tickling the nape of her neck. She was wearing thick gloves. She raised her right wrist to her forehead as if to wipe away something bothering her.
He felt like wringing her neck and hugging her. Loving her and strangling her. Making her shut up, so she didn’t exist anymore, so she disappeared.
Stop feeling guilty.
When she got up and turned toward him, Philippe saw only terror in her eyes. Not surprise, or anger, or love, or resentment, or regret. Just terror.
Don’t feel pity.
She hadn’t changed. He saw her once more behind the Tibourin bar, her small, delicate form, serving him as many drinks as he wanted. Her smile. Now, wrinkles and strands of hair were mingled on her face. The features were still fine, the mouth still well defined, and the eyes still radiated great gentleness. Time had deepened the furrows on either side of her mouth.
Keep your distance.
Don’t say her name.
Don’t feel pity.
She had always been more beautiful than Françoise, and yet it was Françoise he had chosen over her. No accounting for taste . . . That’s what his mother used to say.
He saw a cat sitting beside her, he got goose bumps, remembered why he was there, back in this wretched cemetery. He remembered that he didn’t want to remember anymore. Not her, or Léonine, or the others. His present was Françoise, his future would be Françoise.
Suddenly, he grabbed Violette, gripped her arms hard, too hard, as though to crush her. Like when a man becomes a torturer to stop feeling anything. He must summon hatred. Think of his parents on the flowery sofa. Léonine’s suitcase in the Caussins’ trunk, the château, the water heater, his mother in her dressing gown, his father stupefied. He gripped Violette’s arms without looking her in the eye, he stared at a fixed point, between the eyebrows, a slight dip where the nose began.
She smelled good. Don’t feel pity.
“I received a solicitor’s letter, I’m returning it to you . . . Listen to me carefully, very carefully, NEVER write to me again at that address, do you hear? Not you, not your solicitor, NEVER. I don’t want to read your name anywhere anymore, otherwise I will . . . I will . . . ”
He let go of her as suddenly as he had grabbed her, her body slumped like a puppet, he shoved the envelope in her apron pocket, and in doing so, felt her stomach under the fabric. Her stomach. Léonine. He turned his back on her and returned to the kitchen.
As he banged into the table, he made L’Oeuvre de Dieu, la part du Diable
