“Geneviève Magnan committed suicide.”
Philippe recalled the last time he had been outside Magnan’s place, a little over two weeks ago. The cops’ van, the women in dressing gowns under the streetlights. She must have committed suicide after seeing him. He had wept in front of her. “I’d never have done any harm to kids.” Was it the weight of guilt that had pushed her toward death?
Violette added:
“Please see to it that she’s not buried in the same cemetery as Léonine.”
Philippe promised. Even if it meant digging her up with his own hands, he promised Violette.
Violette repeated several times:
“I don’t want her defiling the earth of my cemetery.”
Philippe didn’t take a shower that morning. After hastily brushing his teeth, he got on his bike and left. Leaving Violette behind him, desolate, standing beside a barrier she wouldn’t need to lower for a good two hours.
74.
You’ll see my pen feathered with sunlight,
snowing on the paper the archangel of awakening.
Why does the time that passes
Look hard at us and then part us
Why don’t you stay with me
Why are you leaving
Why do life and boats
That go on water have wings . . . ”
The event room is empty. Just two waitresses finish clearing the tables, one pulling off the last paper tablecloths, the other sweeping up white confetti.
Julien and I are dancing alone on a makeshift dance floor. The remaining lights from a disco ball reflect tiny stars on our creased clothes.
Everyone has left, even the newlyweds, even Nathan, who is sleeping over at his cousin’s. Only Raphaël’s voice rings out from the speakers. It’s the last song. After that, the DJ, a rather portly uncle by marriage, will pack up and go.
I want to draw out the day I’ve just had. Stretch it out. Like when we were in Sormiou, and night had long fallen, and we couldn’t bear to retire to the chalet. Our toes couldn’t bear to leave the water lapping the shore.
I hadn’t laughed like that since then. Since never. I’d never laughed like I did today. I laughed with Léonine, but you don’t laugh with your child the way you do with other people. They’re laughs that come from somewhere else, elsewhere. Laughter, tears, terror, joy, they’re all lodged in different parts of our bodies.
“And there goes another day
In this small life, one mustn’t die of boredom . . . ”
The song is finished. Through the mike, the DJ wishes us good evening. Julien calls out, “Good night, Dédé!”
I’d never been to a wedding, apart from my own. If they’re all as joyful and amusing, I’ll gladly change my habits.
While I slip on my jacket, Julien disappears into the kitchen and returns with a bottle of champagne and two plastic flutes.
“You don’t think we’ve drunk enough already?”
“No.”
Outside, the air is sweet. We walk side by side, Julien holding my arm.
“Where are we going?”
“It’s three in the morning, where do you think we’re going? I’d love to take you home with me, but it’s about five hundred kilometers from here, so we’re going to a hotel.”
“But I have no intention of spending the night with you.”
“Ah, well, that’s a great shame, because I do. And this time, you won’t run away.”
“You’re going to lock me up?”
“Yes, until the end of your days. Don’t forget I’m a cop, I have all the powers.”
“Julien, you know that I’m unfit for love.”
“You’re repeating yourself, Violette. You’re exhausting me.”
And here it is again. It’s like bubbles of silliness, bubbles of joy that rise up to my throat, caress my mouth, shake my stomach with elation, and make me explode with laughter. I didn’t know that this sound, this particular note existed inside me. I feel like a musical instrument with an extra key. A happy design flaw.
Is that what youth really is? Can one make its acquaintance at almost fifty years old? I, who never had a youth, might I have kept it preciously without realizing? Might it never have left me? Is it making its appearance today, a Saturday? At a wedding in Auvergne? In a family that isn’t mine? Beside a man who isn’t mine?
We arrive at the hotel, and its door is double locked. Julien looks distraught.
“Violette, you have before you a prize idiot. Yesterday, I had the receptionist on the phone, asking me to come and collect the keys and entry codes on arrival this afternoon . . . And I forgot.”
I’m off again. I can’t stop myself anymore. I laugh so hard that my peals of laughter all seem to echo each other, as if my sound system were at peak volume. It feels so good, it hurts my stomach. I’m out of breath, and the more I try to catch it, the more I laugh.
Julien watches me, amused. I try to say to him: “You’re going to struggle with locking me away until the end of my days,” but the words won’t come out anymore, my laughter’s blocking everything. I can feel tears rolling down, which Julien wipes away with his thumbs, while laughing all the more himself.
We walk over to his car. We make a funny couple, me bent double, and him, clutching his bottle of champagne, trying his best to move me forward, plastic flutes in both trouser pockets.
We settle side by side at the back of the car, and Julien shuts my laughter up by kissing me. A silent joy takes root deep inside me.
I have the feeling that Sasha’s not far away. That he’s just given Julien directions for planting little shoots of me in my every vital organ.
75.
I’m a stroller, I have “other side of the river” syndrome.
Today, Pierre Georges (1934–2017) was buried. His granddaughter had painted the coffin. Images of moving naivety. She had spent three days painting some countryside and a blue sky on the bare wood. No doubt thinking that her grandfather would stroll around it, in the beyond.
Pierre was called Elie Barouh, like the singer, but before the war his parents, both buried
