It was the first time I was hearing the sound of his voice since he had entered the rose nursery. In the car, he hadn’t said a word. He had just searched for music on the radio.
The woman at reception replied that, in that season, the restaurant was closed during the week. She would have two salads and some club sandwiches sent up to our room.
We hadn’t asked for a room.
Without waiting for a response, she handed us a key, for room 7, and asked whether we’d prefer white, red, or rosé to accompany our supper. I looked at Gabriel: when it came to alcohol, he did the choosing.
Finally, the lady at reception asked how many nights we would be staying, and then it was me who replied, “We don’t know yet.” She took us up to room 7 to show us how the lights and television worked.
On the stairs, Gabriel whispered in my ear, “We must look like we’re in love, for her to offer us a room.”
Room 7 was pale yellow. Its colors were those of the Midi. Before disappearing, the lady from reception opened a bay window leading to a terrace; the sea was black and the wind gentle. Gabriel placed his navy coat on the back of a chair and took something out of it that he handed to me. A small object covered in wrapping paper.
“I’d come to give it to you. I never thought that, by entering your rose nursery, we’d end up here, in this hotel.”
“Are you sorry?”
“Not on your life.”
I removed the wrapping paper. I discovered a snow globe. I turned it over several times.
The lady from reception knocked and pushed in a trolley, which she left in the middle of the room. She apologized and left as fast as she’d arrived.
Gabriel cupped my face in his hands and kissed me.
“Not on your life” are the last words he uttered that night. We touched neither the food nor the wine.
The following morning, I called Paul to tell him that I wouldn’t be back immediately, and then hung up. Then I informed my employee, asking her to look after the rose nursery on her own for a few days. Somewhat panicked, she said, “I’ve got to deal with the register, too?” Yes, I replied. And hung up, without saying goodbye.
I thought I would never return. Disappear once and for all. Not face up to anything anymore, particularly Paul’s look. Run away like a coward. See Julien again, but later, when he was older, when he would understand.
Neither Gabriel nor I had a change of clothes. The following day, we went to a boutique to buy some. He wouldn’t allow me to choose beige, and bought me colorful dresses trimmed with gold. And sandals. I’ve always hated sandals. People being able to see my toes.
During these few days, I felt as if I were in disguise. Someone else in different clothes. Those of another woman.
For a long time, I wondered whether I was disguised, or whether it was myself that I had found, discovered for the first time.
A week after our arrival in Cap d’Antibes, Gabriel had to attend court in Lyons, to defend a man accused of homicide. Gabriel was certain of his innocence. He begged me to come with him. I thought: One might be able to abandon roses and one’s family, but not a man accused of murder.
We returned to Marseilles to collect Gabriel’s car, parked a few streets away from my rose nursery. I would leave my van, and the keys hidden on the front left wheel, as I often did, and we’d go to Lyons together.
When I saw Gabriel’s car, a red convertible sports car, I thought how I didn’t know this man. That I knew nothing about him. I’d just had the most wonderful days of my life, and what then?
I don’t know why, but it reminded me of those holiday romances. The handsome stranger on the beach you fall madly in love with, and see again, all stiff in his clothes, on a gray Paris street in September, having lost all his summer charm.
I thought of Paul. About Paul, I knew everything. His gentleness, his beauty, his refinement, his love, his shyness, our son.
At that very moment, I saw Paul at the wheel of his car. He must have just left the rose nursery. He must have been looking everywhere for me. He was very pale, lost in thought. He didn’t see me. I would have liked his eyes to meet mine. By not seeing me, he left me the choice. Return to him, or get into Gabriel’s car. I saw myself in a shopwindow. In my green-and-gold dress. I saw that other woman.
I said to Gabriel, who was already at the wheel of his convertible, “Wait for me.” I walked to my rose nursery, went past it, there was no one there. My employee must have been in the gardens, at the back.
I started running as though being chased. Never have I run so fast. I went into the first hotel I came to and shut myself in a room to cry in peace.
The following day, I returned to my work at the rose nursery, put my beige clothes back on, placed the snow globe on the counter, and then went home.
My employee told me that a well-known lawyer had come to the rose nursery the day before, that he had looked everywhere for me, like a madman. That he didn’t look as good in real life as on television, smaller.
A week later, the newspapers announced that the lawyer Gabriel Prudent had got the Lyons man acquitted.
63.
The absence of a father strengthens the memory
of his presence.
At the trial, apart from Geneviève Magnan, just one thing had struck him, obsessed him: Fontanel’s face. His suit, his
