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To all the books we’ve read.
To all those we have yet to read.
Because like sandmen,
they sprinkle into our daily lives
a few words or phrases
that work their way into our subconscious over time.
And change us.
Discreetly, but irrevocably.
This is a true story. Or almost …
When we happen to witness a slice of life that occurs before our eyes, we have very little power over where it leads. We observe the protagonists and imagine their feelings, their fears, their hopes.
Of course, sometimes we are wrong.
But we often feel close to the truth and charged with a mission: to recount, one day at a time, the events that we’ve observed. Of course, if we do this, we risk being surprised by the outcome.
And what if the ending disappoints us?
It’s a possibility.
So, if you accept this risk, if you appreciate uncertainty, read these letters, one by one, submitting to the peaceful and unpredictable rhythm of mail delivery …
Only the places and the names of characters have been changed.
from Anne-Lise Briard
RUE DES MORILLONS, PARIS, APRIL 25, 2016
Dear Madam or Sir,
I am sending you this package very late, please forgive me.
After discovering it in room 128, someone else would have immediately handed it over to the reception of the Beau Rivage Hotel; nevertheless, if you were to ask those who know me, they’d tell you just how lazy I can be in my daily life. So don’t take this postponement to mean that I don’t like your book. Not at all. I will even admit to you: I read it.
I had just opened the nightstand to the right of the double bed, which as it happens was quite comfortable, when I was delighted to find the distraction you provided me. You see, I had forgotten to bring a novel to keep me company this weekend on the shore of the Iroise Sea … Since I can’t fall asleep without first reading a few pages, I become very annoying when I’m deprived of the pleasure. Thanks to you, my husband didn’t have to deal with my rotten mood.
Anyway, it was on page 156 that I found—between two chapters—the address to where I’m sending these pages. I hesitated for a long time and, to tell you the truth, my spouse and my children didn’t support my “bizarre” initiative—to use my daughter’s vocabulary, her only excuse being that she’s sixteen years old.
My husband decided it must be an old manuscript turned down by publishing houses and abandoned in a drawer, waiting to attract some desperate reader. My son went even further, arguing that a book in such a bad state and typed on a primitive typewriter must have been lying around in that hotel “for eons” and that its owner would have retrieved it “ages ago” if it held even the slightest interest in their eyes.
I was almost convinced by their arguments, until I arrived at page 164. There, in the margin, was this note:
What’s the point in the end? Don’t lies eventually lead us to the path of truth? And don’t my stories, true or false, come to the same conclusion, don’t they all have the same meaning? So what does it matter if they’re true or false if, in both cases, they signify what I have been and what I am. Sometimes we see more clearly into someone who lies than into someone who tells the truth.
I was so surprised to see that quote! I had stumbled upon an anonymous author by chance and discovered that he also was an admirer of my favorite writer. By stealing these few sentences from him, you reinforced the ambiguity of your text. While I was wondering at page 164 whether I was reading fiction or someone’s life story, you sent me, in an aside, a response from Normand …
And then I discovered the poems on the last page, added in pencil, in a slanted handwriting covered with traces of eraser, evidence that someone had deliberated over the right words. Let me assure you that you succeeded. When I read your words, I felt that slight shiver we feel when the lines we’re reading seem to have been written just for us.
It was at that moment, I think, that I decided to thumb my nose at my family’s advice and return the book, without knowing whether I was sending it to a woman, a man, a teenager, or an elderly person, lugging the manuscript from hotel to hotel, like those believers who protect themselves from the wrath of God by carrying a Bible wherever they go.
The only way to get a response was to entrust the package to the postal services, hoping a creative mailman would track you down at the end of the journey (having never sent a package with an address but no addressee, I’m counting on the amused curiosity of an underpaid employee to help me carry out this return).
If you would be so kind as to acknowledge receipt, you’ll find my name and address on the back of the envelope.
Thank you for the enjoyable reading experience you’ve provided me, even if unwittingly.
Sincerely,
Anne-Lise Briard
from Sylvestre Fahmer to Anne-Lise Briard
LES CHAYETS, LAINVILLE-EN-VEXIN, MAY 2, 2016
I’ve just finished reading your letter for the tenth time … How can I say this so that you’ll understand? This manuscript … it would take so long to explain. And your letter … written by hand and for me alone, reminding me of the letters I received as a child when I was away at summer camp. My mother had that same rushed and slanted handwriting, as if she were trying to recount as much as possible before the mailman arrived. She loved to write and only had the opportunity to do so occasionally. My being away served as an excuse for her to devote herself to that pointless activity, which was put down by everyone around her. Like you, she used terms that were obsolete, practically prohibited, convinced that a fountain pen required more than the everyday lexicon. How she would have appreciated your postponement, thumb my nose, and as it happens! We don’t hear those phrases anymore, especially not in the impersonal and intrusive e-mails that inundate our virtual mailboxes …
So today, once again, I savor the joy and diligence I poured into the responses to my mother, even though I was eager to catch the spelling errors and the vague vocabulary she would always scold me for upon my return. I hope you’ll be more indulgent than she was and keep in mind that I’m out of practice.
I just got your package last night: the address you found belongs to my godfather, who, fortunately, still resides in the same place he’s lived in for the last fifty years …
He was formerly a distinguished chef and it was very difficult for him to accept going into retirement and saying good-bye to his stovetop. That’s why, every Friday night, in his little eighth-floor apartment, he invites a group of regulars to come try out his new culinary inventions. Given that he’s ninety-two years old and has less than perfect vision, you’ll understand why it’s only the adventurous who accept his invitation … Because the mailman is a devotee of the gourmet, unconventional meals organized by my godfather, he’s very familiar with the building and its occupa
nts. So it was easy for him—and even enjoyable—to investigate. After opening the package—and reading the first few pages of the book—he wasted no time making his way through the eight floors of the building to question all the tenants until he finally matched a recipient to that orphan address.
Luckily, my godfather remembered my long-ago writing attempts. He placed the precious package on his dresser and let it gather a layer of dust before he decided to give me a call.
Believe it or not, when I opened it, I could almost smell the salty sea air and hear the rumbling of the surf and the shrieking of the gulls. That feeling has stayed with me since and I’m all the more surprised because I’m not familiar with that region of Brittany where you say you found it. I have never been particularly fond of the sea and, generally speaking, avoid trips and all the disruptions they entail.
So that you’ll understand just how extraordinary your find is: I lost this manuscript on April 3, 1983, on a trip to Montreal. With the arrogance of my twenty-three years, I was hoping to get some writing advice from an acquaintance who was also a well-known literary critic. To show you how much I appreciate the marvelous gift you’ve given me, but also to prove your son right, I’ll admit that I searched for it for months, even questioning the airline and the various people who might have found it. I wrote to the stewards and the flight attendants, as well as the cleaners. I spoke to the shopkeepers in the Montreal airport, and also those in the Paris airport when I returned from my trip. I hoped that a passenger might have left it in a café, or sent it back to the critic whose name was on the envelope. No such luck! I was forced to say good-bye to my first manuscript, which, after that misadventure, was also my last.
And there you have it! Thirty-three years later, you pull it out of a nightstand in a room overlooking the sea, nestled in a hotel in Finistère … But I have to tell you something even more incredible: the original work ended on page 156, where you found my godfather’s address. At the time, I was living with other students and I was afraid they would mock my literary aspirations if the book was sent back to me.
Maybe if you’d known that, you would have noticed that starting on page 157, the style becomes more fluid. My successor was not content merely to finish my book; it seems that on top of it, they did so with a certain artistry.
I am also not the author of the poems in the margins … They must belong to the mystery person who discovered my manuscript, probably under an airplane seat, and took it upon themselves to finish it before abandoning it at the very tip of Brittany. That man (or that woman, since we have no way of knowing) was not thoughtful enough to send me their additions as you have done.
In the years that followed, from time to time I wondered what my life would have been like if I hadn’t lost that manuscript. I imagined rolling the dice of destiny again, brilliantly finishing the book, pitching it to an editor, and experiencing the dazzling ascent of a young writer praised by the literati … As you can see, I entertained these unfulfilled, adolescent dreams for a long time.
Speaking of unfulfilled, you didn’t say anything about the story! What am I supposed to think about your silence? A stranger returns this manuscript to me, even though she is under no obligation, thanks me for a pleasant read, reveals implicitly that she’s passionate about literature, and yet doesn’t even tell me what she thinks …
Never mind, forget I said anything. And thank you for sending me these few lines that will keep me company from now on, like the nostalgia of a bygone youth.
Sylvestre Fahmer
P.S. I noticed that you slipped the card of the Beau Rivage Hotel into your package; I’ll be sure to book a room there should reckless footsteps lead me to the area one day.
P.P.S. I hope you’ll forgive my shaky handwriting. I tried my best, but clearly I haven’t had much chance to practice since my summer camp days …
from Anne-Lise to Sylvestre
RUE DES MORILLONS, MAY 5, 2016
Dear Sylvestre,
Thank you for letting me know that you received that rather peculiar package. Now I feel as though I’ve done a good deed and that makes me happy, as it does most people. Like your mother, I have a particular tenderness for epistolary exchanges. For a long time now I haven’t had the opportunity to use my stationery and people respond to my cards by e-mail, or worse, by text. You might notice that I’ve set aside the phone number you sent me so that I could send this letter to your actual address, which conjures up images of the French countryside.
You asked to know my opinion as a reader and I will share it with you. First of all, I was moved by the plot. The narrative could have been sappy, but it’s not. Good feelings abound but, told from the perspective of a man and spoiled with so many inaccuracies on the nature of women, it’s rather refreshing. And the nostalgic reflections, sprinkled here and there by young people, give us a feeling of urgency as if we were embarking on a new day knowing it might be the last. Now that I know that you are responsible only for the first part, I can admit to you without lying that I was disappointed by the ending.
Certainly, as you humbly said, the second half gains fluidity. The style is more striking and sophisticated. The descriptions are written with poetic subtlety without ever stopping the rhythm of the plot and there is a professionalism in the editing that I didn’t see at the beginning of the book … I can be honest about all of this without fear of offending you, because I believe that skill does a disservice to your text. I lost my emotional connection to it in the same way that perfection in a person lessens their charm. I think you’ll understand what I mean.
In summary, the book’s first author introduced a candor and a sensibility that gave me chills, while the second furnished it with a linguistic excellence that would delight a French professor.
If I can give you a piece of advice—and this is merely a formality because I won’t wait for your agreement: finish it! Take back your story and your right to give it its true ending.
The annotation added by our second author (excuse me for this possessive when I have nothing to do with this story) shows that he appropriated your manuscript. That he entered into it without permission and granted it an ending worthy of admiration, of course, but quite different, I’m certain, from the one you would have chosen. While I write you these few sentences, I’m dreaming of what such a meeting could produce: you, the man with the wounded sensibility and sensitive skin, and he, the brilliant storyteller, capable of placing the right word in the right place without fail. But some meetings are not meant to take place and the world is therefore deprived of potential masterpieces …
There you have it, dear Sylvestre, my opinion as a reader. I hope that this will help you to complete your book, for the things we leave unfinished stay with us all our lives like chronic pain that resists the strongest painkillers.
Hoping to read your work again one day, for it is never too late to publish.
Best wishes,
Anne-Lise
from Anne-Lise to Maggy
RUE DES MORILLONS, MAY 6, 2016
Dear Maggy,
I hope the “grown-ups” cleaned up your house before heading back to the city … I know how annoying it is not to find your things in their place when you come back after a long time away. During the few days we spent in the area, I did everything I could to keep an eye on their outings and their visitors, but you know how skilled they are at avoiding my vigilance … I was pretty worried when we abandoned your home to them, even for a short three-day period!
Anyway, they came back delighted with their new independence and say thank you. As for the adults, we took advantage of the sea air and the impeccable service at the hotel you recommended. It is so rare for a mother to feel like she’s on vacation!
Speaking of that hotel, I have a favor to ask you. During our stay in room 128 with the superb view you’re so familiar with, I discovered a forgotten manuscript in the nightstand. At the time, it was amusing, but nothing exceptional, and you will not be surprised to learn th
at I sent it back to its owner.
That’s where things took an interesting turn: it turns out that the author in question had not finished his story and the ending was in fact written by a stranger, perhaps the person who stayed in room 128 before me. In your opinion, what is the likelihood that two writers who have never met could unite their talents to create a cohesive work?
You’ve likely guessed what I’m about to ask … Could you, calling on your friendship with the hotel manager, find the contact information of the person who stayed in the room before us? The manager will surely cite the confidentiality guests rightly expect from such an establishment. But if you cannot manage to convince her, who else can? I’m not trying to flatter you, but rather to express my genuine admiration for your ability to persuade others.
I hope we’ll be able to see each other before the summer. I can’t wait to hear the stories from your trip and your thoughts on the countries you visited.
Talk to you soon.
Your friend,
Lisou
P.S. The situation isn’t getting any better at the office. If you found a terrible poison in any of those distant countries that would pass undetected in an autopsy, send me a barrel of the miraculous product … My hatred for Bastien has only increased since my return and it’s time for this rivalry to officially come to an end!
from Sylvestre to Anne-Lise
LES CHAYETS, MAY 9, 2016
I didn’t expect to hear back from you so quickly, and the fact that you prefer to communicate by letter makes me want to write you back on the spot. To tell you the truth, for the last two years, I’ve turned off the ringer on my phone, which goes to an answering machine that serves as a buffer. I have an insatiable need for silence.
Tonight the house is empty, and I can breathe more deeply when I’m alone. My partner is always running from one activity to another without ever taking a breath and, right now, she’s on her way from a gymnastics class to a rehearsal for her theater club to a meeting for an events committee, or perhaps she’s enjoying dinner at a restaurant with one of her friends. Believe me, her busy schedule has guaranteed the longevity of our relationship more than all the therapy we could have had.
The Lost Manuscript Page 1