Tears had spurted, fountainlike, trickling along her cheeks, her neck, moistening her chest. The sorrow was slipping away, gradually, teardrop after teardrop, sob after sob, and she felt it departing at last. When Elise had asked her to open her eyes, slowly, after counting to five, Clarissa felt a physical exhaustion she had rarely known, but beyond that tiredness, she found she had to learn how to welcome a novel peace lodged profoundly within her. She knew—she could tell—the pain had gone. She could now get on with her life. The wound was still there, and it would always be, but Clarissa now knew how to live with it, and how to tame it. She had seen Elise Delaporte only a couple of times after that. She hadn’t needed any more sessions.
Adelka’s dark eyes had gone liquid. She took Clarissa’s hand, squeezed it. Speaking in a low tone, she thanked her for sharing such a touching memory. Clarissa said the path to writing had opened up for her shortly after. Freed from her grief, she’d felt the need to explore what she’d experienced in Romain Gary’s and Virginia Woolf’s wake, writers devoted to places, through their writing, their creativeness, but also because they’d chosen to die at home, at the heart of their intimate territories. She’d decided to start with her own emotions, her personal path, but this was set to become a novel, not her story. Adelka said she was engrossed by Topography of Intimacy. It wasn’t at all the type of book she usually read, but she was enjoying it. It was startling, strange, and unexpected. Clarissa approved of her forthrightness. This young woman had nothing of a hypocrite about her. She appreciated that.
The rest of the evening went smoothly. They talked without worrying about the cameras. Adelka opened another bottle of wine, proffered cheese, bread, and olives. She discussed her work, how she recruited her models, where she chose to show her paintings. Clarissa had too much to drink. She wasn’t used to it. Trying not to lurch, she left late, at midnight, telling Adelka she didn’t need to be seen up to the eighth floor. What an idiot, getting sloshed at her age! It was almost funny. Almost. While she waited for the elevator, lacking the courage to go up by foot, she recalled Jim Perrier lived just below, on the third floor. Holding on to the banister as best as she could, she went down. Initials J.P. on the doorbell. She rang. It was probably too late, she knew. Too bad. No response. She waited. Where the hell was he? She tried once more. No answer. This was becoming both alarming and incomprehensible.
The residence cloaked her with oppressing silence. She stood within the cushy stairwell, the walls coated in sophisticated hues, and she viewed it all with abhorrence. She was fed up with being spied on. She had fled François and his repugnant secret, to find shelter here. She thought she had succeeded.
But the C.A.S.A. residence was no haven.
She could not sleep. She was hoping the wine might help her drop off, but the opposite happened. Her eyes remained wide open. She tried herbal tea, a shower, watching her neighbors; nothing worked. Lying on her bed, Chablis at her side, she asked Mrs. Dalloway to show her soothing videos of oceans and lakes. She sank into a semisomnolent state, one she knew only too well since she’d moved in and that she loathed, with the frustrating impression that she could no longer distinguish reality from her dreams. Was she asleep? Awake? She couldn’t tell. The wine had confused the issue. That word was coming back again and again, the same word, like an unrelenting wave bashing into her ears.
That word filling up the entire space, seeping into her skull; she must figure out what it was. In the dimness, while the lake’s surface crinkled the ceiling, she forced herself to regain consciousness. Listen. Concentrate. Listen. Night after night, she heard that voice, that word. One final effort. Now.
That voice. How was it possible? Yet it seemed to be that voice, light as the breeze, as the rustle of leaves, or the murmur of the turning tide. Elise’s voice? Clarissa struggled to remain calm, staring into the dark. No panicking. She had to keep it all in, to reveal nothing. Now, she could only make out silence, but had it really been Elise speaking to her, in the deepest hour, every night? And that word over and over, striking right at her heart?
Her son’s name. Her baby. The name Toby and she had chosen with such care, such love. The name written on the simple tombstone at Montparnasse Cemetery, where their son was laid to rest, and where she never went, because the pain, as soon as she drew near, became unbearable.
Had she
