Art? Culture? He shrugged his shoulders.
Obviously he shared the view of a contemporary writer who had twice failed to win the Goncourt Book Prize: “Art and culture are necessary compensations for the misfortune of our lives.”
There was silence as the orchestra sat down. In the warm night air, thick with humidity from the nearby sea, Andreas Scholl began to sing the Stabat Mater by Vivaldi. Thus began the passion between Rosélie and the maestro of Venice. The passion for music differs from the passion you feel for a human being because it never disappoints you.
Domineering? Manipulating?
Stephen also watched over her and took her in his arms on nights when remorse gripped her in its persistent and steadfast embrace like on the very first day. He was never tired or exasperated. He made her drink when she was feverish with remorse, sponging her forehead and kissing her hands.
“You have nothing to be ashamed of,” he reassured her.
Nothing to be ashamed of? Judge for yourselves.
December was drawing to a close. Flanked by the inevitable Andrew, they had not only spent Christmas in Scotland and eaten haggis, but also relived the trip George Orwell made in the dangerous waters of the Gulf of Corryvreckan. Like Orwell’s boat, theirs had capsized and they had almost drowned. They had scarcely recovered from their fright when there came the call from Aunt Léna.
They hurriedly flew to London. But Stephen had kissed Rosélie good-bye at Gatwick, giving a hundred reasons why he couldn’t accompany her. She was no dupe. Nobody can confront the death of a mother.
Rose’s condition had not worsened. Simply, the heart, her poor heart, prisoner of layers of fat, no longer had the strength to pump blood to her brain and vital organs, which were failing. One evening, Meynalda, who slept in Rose’s room to check on her breathing, as reedy as a premature baby’s, thought it had stopped. The room was deathly silent, as the saying goes. Dr. Magne was sent for and certified that, from all appearances, she was still alive. In the morning she was still hanging on. Obviously something was holding her back in her place of misfortune: she was waiting for her daughter before closing her eyes.
And Rosélie took fright, imagining her mother’s long-suffering, obstinate gaze filtering through her swollen eyelids. How could she confront her? She hadn’t been back for three years under the flimsiest of excuses: the move to New York, a study trip by Stephen to Hawaii, and a bout of flu. To make amends, she had spent a fortune at Interflora for every occasion, knowing full well that these expensive bouquets of flowers could not hide the real reason.
On arrival at Orly-Ouest, it was raining. It always rains in Paris. Where is the City of Lights?
I see a damp and melancholic city. Under the Mirabeau Bridge, the waters of the Seine churn our memories, gray and heavy like drowned corpses.
Suddenly, the little courage she had mustered melted away. Her legs went weak, her eyes blurred with tears, and her strength failed her. There was no way she was going to dash to Roissy to catch her plane to Guadeloupe. She dived into a taxi and drove to the Porte Saint-Martin, a district that for her always symbolized desolation.
Hotel du Roi-Soleil. Rooms by the month and by the day.
“For how many days?”
I don’t know, I don’t know.
The room looked out onto a narrow street, a sort of dead end. The electric light, as glaring as an operating room’s, lit up a reproduction by Vincent van Gogh. Rosélie ordered two bottles of scotch and, for a person who didn’t drink, emptied both of them.
When she resurfaced it was night.
Through the window the neon signs for cheap hotels flashed red-green-green-red. A pneumatic drill was hammering her head while a plug of steel wool choked her mouth. She nevertheless managed to get up and leave the room. To call the elevator. To walk straight as she passed reception. To reach the sidewalk. It was still raining. The Ghanaian whores, feminine silhouettes lined up in the shadows of the sidewalk among the garbage cans, asked one another in Ewe:
“Where does the sister come from?”
“Don’t she look like a Malian?”
She entered a café. Soon a man accosted her. Nothing macho, just a young, fair-haired boy, probably a soldier on leave who had smelled a weak, helpless individual. Not long afterward they were back in her room, where he undressed, revealing a white, milky skin with no hair, few muscles, and a limp sex of enormous length. She opened her mouth. He fondled her breasts. But when he was about to penetrate her she collapsed. Who says that men have only a one-track mind and take unfair advantage of women?
Not Lucien Degras. Twenty-four and unemployed since he had left technical college. Ah yes, such is the lot of the majority in our postmodern societies. He listened to this stranger and took pity on her. Three days and three nights she raged delirious in his arms. She left no subject untouched: Rose’s mysterious illness, Elie’s infidelities, her flight and her fears. On the morning of the fourth day, he managed to drag her to a travel agency — L’Agence Hirondelle, Wings Around the World.
By noon he had paid a taxi for her out of his own money, for he had just received his unemployment check. Direction Roissy.
Eight hours later she arrived in La Pointe. The journey had been a nightmare. Babies crying. Children running up and down the aisles. Mothers desperately trying to quiet things down. Fathers calmly reading their papers in the midst of the hubbub. The family had dispatched Aunt Léna to the airport, her face furrowed with reproach. She kissed Rosélie on the forehead without saying a word and took the wheel of an old car she had inherited from Papa Doudou. During the bumper-to-bumper drive to the rue du Commandant Mortenol — there are too many cars on this wretched island! — they didn’t exchange a word. Not one question, such as where were you? Not one reproach, such as she’s been waiting for you for four days. Oh yes, she’s waiting for you.
Rose was lying on her bed, her eyes half open.
When Rosélie entered they widened, stared at her, letting fly those darts, those arrows that would bore into her heart, her mind and soul, rainy season come dry season, at any hour of the day or night; then they rolled upward and glazed over.
Forever.
Meanwhile, fraught with worry, Stephen had moved heaven and earth, including his mother’s retirement home in Verberie, his half brothers, the Hotel du Mont Parnasse in Paris, Cousin Altagras, Lucien Roubichou, and their numerous kids, the airline, and, as a last resort, the central police station.
“Fill in this form with your last name, first name, and address.”
“You’re not French?”
“She’s not your wife? When did she disappear?”
“Did you quarrel?”
In despair, he ended up in La Pointe about the same time as Rosélie. When he found her he hugged her in his arms in an embrace straight out of Gone with the Wind, reported a facetious nephew who was fond of movies.
“It was my fault,” he said, shouldering the blame. “I should never have left you on your own.”
Fearful all this fat would rapidly decompose, the undertakers had invented an ingenious system of refrigeration. They placed an insulated icebox at the bottom of the coffin that needed to be changed only every four hours. The family was dismayed by the stream of strangers filing in front of Rose’s body. They came from all over to get a last look at the recluse, confined to her room for thirty years like a monstrous Gregor Samsa. They elbowed their way into the funeral home, hastily sweeping their breasts with the sign of the cross and getting an eyeful of the horrible sight.
Following these painful events, Rosélie symbolized the ingratitude of children that kills the hearts of so many parents. Worse, she gave no explanation for being inadmissibly late.