Fresh Water for Flowers

by Valérie Perrin

  He climbed a wall to get out; it was late. He gave a big kick to the road-side door, got on his bike, and sped off like a madman.

  It must have been about 10 P.M. when he found himself back on the road of the house Magnan lived in. There were cops inside, their van was parked outside. Neighbors in dressing gowns were talking under the streetlights. He told himself that Fontanel must have hit her too hard.

  Philippe turned straight around and headed back east without stopping. Once there, he went directly to L’Adresse, where bodies were on the house.

  71.

  Through the open window, together we looked

  at life, love, joy. We listened to the wind.

  IRÈNE FAYOLLE’S JOURNAL

  October 22nd, 1992

  Yesterday evening, I heard Gabriel’s voice on the television news. I heard him talking about “defending a woman who left me.” Of course, he didn’t say that, my mind distorted his words.

  Paul was helping me prepare supper in the kitchen, the television was on in the room next door. I was so surprised to hear the sound of his voice again, the sound of my most wonderful memories, that I dropped the saucepan of boiling water I was carrying. It clattered onto the tiles and my ankles got splashed. It made an almighty racket, Paul panicked. He thought I was shaking because of my burns.

  He ushered me into the sitting room and made me sit on the sofa, facing the television, facing Gabriel. There he was, inside that rectangle I never watch. While Paul flapped around, applying wet gauze to my smarting skin, I saw images of Gabriel in court. A journalist said he had been defending in Marseilles that week. That he had got three men acquitted out of five accused of conspiring to escape. The trial had concluded the previous day.

  Gabriel was in Marseilles, so close to my life, and I didn’t know it. But anyhow, what would I have done? Would I have gone to see him? To say what to him? “Five years ago, I ran away in the street because I didn’t want to abandon my family. Five years ago, I was afraid of you, afraid of myself. But you should know that I have never stopped thinking of you”?

  Julien emerged from his bedroom, said to his father that I should be taken to hospital. I refused. While my husband and son were debating it, and before I finally found a tube of Biafine cream in the medicine cabinet, I watched Gabriel waving his beautiful hands around in front of the journalists. I saw the passion he put into defending others in his long black robe. I wanted him to pop out from the screen, to be Mia Farrow in that Woody Allen film, The Purple Rose of Cairo.

  And me? Would he have defended me? Would he have found mitigating circumstances for me on the day that I dumped him?

  How long had he waited for me at the wheel of his car? When had he finally set off? At what moment had he realized that I wouldn’t be coming back?

  Tears started rolling down my cheeks. Against my will.

  Paul switched off the television.

  I collapsed in front of the black screen.

  My son and husband thought it was due to the pain. They called the family doctor, who inspected my burns and said they were superficial.

  I didn’t sleep all night.

  Seeing Gabriel again, hearing his voice again, I realized that I had missed him too much.

  * * *

  The following morning, Irène looked up the phone number of Gabriel’s office. It was still in Saône-et-Loire, in Mâcon. She asked for an appointment with him, was told that she would have to wait several months, that Mr. Prudent’s schedule was very full, but it would be quicker with one of his two associates. Irène said she had the time, she would wait for Mr. Prudent. She left her name and phone number—not the home one, the rose nursery one. She was asked which case it was about, there was an awkward silence, and then Irène replied, “A case Mr. Prudent already knows about.” She was given a date, she would have to wait three months.

  Gabriel rang her two days later, at the rose nursery. That morning, Irène was just raising the shutters when the phone rang. She thought it must be a flower order and ran to answer it, out of breath. She had already grabbed her order form and a pen, its lid chewed by her employee. He said, “It’s me.” And she said, “Hello.”

  “You called my office?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m in court all week in Sedan. Want to come?”

  “Yes.”

  “See you later.”

  And he hung up.

  On her order form, Irène had scribbled “Sedan” in the “Message from sender” box.

  One thousand two hundred kilometers to cover. She would have to travel the length of France. In a long, straight line.

  She left Marseilles at around 10 A.M., took several connecting trains. At Lyon-Perrache station, she powdered her face and dabbed some gloss on her lips using the mirror in the restroom. It was April, she was wearing a beige raincoat. That made her smile. She gathered her blond hair into a black elastic band. She bought a sandwich, a toothbrush, and some lemon-flavored toothpaste.

  She arrived in Sedan at around 9 P.M. She got in a taxi and asked the driver to drop her off outside the court. She knew she would find Gabriel in the nearest café or restaurant. Irène knew that Gabriel wasn’t the sort to return early to his hotel. He worked on his files on the corner of a table. Between a glass of beer and a plate of fries. Between a glass of wine and the daily special. Gabriel needed to feel life all around him. He hated the silence of hotel rooms, the bedcovers, the curtains, the TV switched on just for a presence.

  She caught sight of him through a window, sitting at a table with three other men. Gabriel was talking and smoking at the same time. They had stained the tablecloth, and undone their top buttons. Their ties hung on the armrests of their chairs.

  When he saw her come in, Gabriel raised a hand and called out to her:

  “Irène! Come and join us!”

  He said it to her as if she just happened to be passing by on her way home.

  Irène greeted the three other men.

  “Let me introduce you to three of my colleagues, Laurent, Jean-Yves, and David. Gentlemen, let me introduce you to Irène, the love of my life.”

  The men smiled. As if Gabriel were joking. As if Gabriel could only say such a thing as a joke. As if there were many loves of his life in his life.

  “Sit down. Are you hungry? Yes, you must eat. Mademoiselle Audrey, the menu, please! What will you have to drink? Tea? No way, one doesn’t drink tea in Sedan! Mademoiselle Audrey, another bottle of this, please! A Volnay 1982, you’re going to see . . . or rather, drink a marvel. Come and sit beside me.”

  One of Gabriel’s colleagues got up to make room for her. Gabriel took Irène’s hand and kissed it with his eyes closed. Irène saw that he was wearing a wedding ring. A white-gold band.

  “I’m pleased you’re here.”

  Irène ordered fish and listened to the conversation from afar. She felt like a groupie who has crossed the country to spend the evening with a rock star, who’s in no hurry to be alone with her because it’s a foregone conclusion. The night of love owed him after the concert.

  Irène felt like disappearing. She regretted coming. She wondered how she could get up, find an emergency exit, a door at the back, to run to the station and return home, slip between her clean, aloe vera-scented sheets. Discreetly, she asked the waitress for a green tea. From time to time, Gabriel returned to her, asked her if all was well, if she wasn’t cold, thirsty, hungry.

  Gabriel and the men finally rose, as one, from the table. Gabriel went to the bar to settle the bill. Irène followed on, in silence.

  Outside, it started to rain. Or maybe it had been raining for ages, Irène hadn’t noticed. She felt increasingly uncomfortable. She thought about how she had brought nothing with her. Just her handbag, a few banknotes, and a checkbook. She thought that she was crazy and all this wasn’t like her. She who was usually so sensible. She felt pathetic
, like a cheap groupie.

  Gabriel borrowed an umbrella from the restaurant, saying he would return it the following day. He took Irène by the arm and followed close behind the other three. They walked in the same direction. Gabriel gripped her arm very tightly.

  In the lobby of the Hôtel des Ardennes, they all picked up their keys at reception, all took the lift. Two of them got out on the third floor. “Good night, guys, see you tomorrow.” The third man at the fifth floor. “Good night, David, see you tomorrow.”

  “7:30 in the breakfast room?”

  “O.K.”

  Between the fifth and seventh floors, they found themselves alone, face to face. Gabriel didn’t take his eyes off her.

  The lift door opened onto a dark corridor. They walked to room 61. Irène smelt the stale smoke as soon as he opened the door. Orangey walls, faux Moroccan stucco.

  He entered before her, saying, “Sorry,” went to switch on the lights in every corner of the room, and then disappeared into the bathroom.

  Irène didn’t know what to do with her raincoat, or herself. She remained frozen at the entrance to the room, like a marble statue, a mannequin in a shopwindow. She looked at Gabriel’s half-open suitcase, his spotless shirts. His sweaters, his pairs of socks. She wondered who had ironed his collars, folded his laundry.

  Gabriel came out of the bathroom, smiling.

  “Come on in, get undressed.”

  Irène must have made quite a face because he burst out laughing.

  “Not completely. Take off your raincoat.”

  “ . . . ”

  “You seem very quiet.”

  “Why did you ask me to come?”

  “Because I wanted you to. I wanted to see you. I always want to see you.”

  “And that wedding ring, what’s that about?”

  He sat on the bed. She took off her raincoat.

  “Someone asked me to marry them, I couldn’t have said no. It’s hard to say no to a woman who asks you to marry her. And bad manners. And you? Still married?”

  “Yes.”

  “So, we’re even. One all.”

  “ . . . ”

  “I often dream of you.”

  “Same here.”

  “I miss you. Come closer.”

  Irène sat close to him, but not touching him. She left a space between them, drew a line.

  “Have you ever cheated on your wife?”

  “With you, I wouldn’t be cheating on her, I would be betraying her.”

  “Why did you remarry?”

  “I told you, my wife asked me to.”

  “Do you love her?”

  “Why ask me that question? Would you leave your husband for me? I don’t have to answer you. You’re a shackled woman, Irène, tethered. Get undressed. Completely. I want to look at you.”

  “Switch off the light.”

  “No, I want to look at you. No coyness between us.”

  “Do you think your three friends thought I was your tart?”

  “They’re not my friends, they’re colleagues. Get undressed.”

  “You get undressed at the same time as me, then.”

  “Agreed.”

  72.

  Jesu, joy of man’s desiring.

  May the inventor of birds make a hero of me.

  It’s still raining. The windshield wipers sweep across our faces.

  On the back seat, Nathan has fallen asleep. I turn frequently to watch him. It’s been a long time since I watched a child sleeping. From time to time, we catch songs on the radio, and then, as the road bends, they get lost. Between snatches, Julien and I talk about Irène and Gabriel.

  “After the Sedan episode, they saw each other often.”

  “How does it feel, knowing all that about your mother?”

  “Honestly? I feel as if I’ve read the story of a stranger. In fact, her journal, I’m giving it to you, I don’t want it back. You can keep it with your registers.”

  “But I . . . ”

  “I insist. Keep it.”

  “Have you read it all?”

  “Yes, several times. Especially the parts where she mentions you. Why didn’t you tell me that you knew each other?”

  “We didn’t really know each other.”

  “You have an extraordinary way of twisting things, Violette, of playing on words . . . I always want to get you to spit it out. You’re worse than the lot I have in custody . . . Honestly, I wouldn’t like to arrest you . . . I’d go mad questioning you.”

  I burst out laughing.

  “You remind me of a friend.”

  “A friend?”

  “He was called Sasha. He saved my life . . . By making me laugh, like you do.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  “It is one. Where are we going?”

  “The Pardons.”

  “ . . . ”

  “It’s the name of a road in La Bourboule. It’s where my father was born. Where some of my family still live . . . They even get married, occasionally.”

  “They’re going to wonder who I am.”

  “I’ll tell them you’re my wife.”

  “You’re crazy.”

  “Not enough.”

  “What are we going to give the young couple?”

  “They’re not that young, in fact. They’d both lived a bit before they met. My cousin is sixty-one and her future husband around fifty. There’s a gas station about twenty kilometers away, we’ll find them some jokey presents. And also, Nathan needs to get changed.”

  “I’m already changed.”

  “You’re always changed. You live changed . . . You’re always dressed for a ceremony, whether it’s a wedding or a funeral.”

  I burst out laughing for the second time.

  “And you? Aren’t you getting changed?”

  “No, me, never. It’s jeans and sweater in winter, jeans and T-shirt in summer.”

  He looks at me and smiles at me.

  “You’re really going to buy your wedding presents in a gas station?”

  “Really.”

  While Julien is filling up on gas, I go to the shop with Nathan. I hold his hand. An old habit. Those gestures you never forget. That are part of us, without thinking. Like a hair color, a familiar smell, a resemblance. It’s been such a long time since I held the hand of a child. I’m so moved, feeling his little fingers gripping mine. He’s humming a tune I don’t know.

  I feel lighthearted wandering around the shop. Nathan is wide-eyed at the galaxy of chocolate bars and sweets beside the registers.

  I stop outside the door leading to the men’s restroom.

  “I’m not allowed in there, I’ll wait for you here.”

  “O.K.”

  Nathan goes off to lock himself in with his bag of clothes. He’s back out five minutes later, proudly sporting a three-piece suit of light-gray linen and a white shirt.

  “You look very handsome, Nathan.”

  “Got any gel?”

  “Gel?”

  “For my hair.”

  “I’ll go and see if they sell any here.”

  While we scour the many shelves for gel, Julien buys two novels, a recipe book, a box of cakes, a barometer, table mats in every color, a map of France, three DVDs, a compilation of greatest film scores, a globe, aniseed balls, a man’s rain jacket, a lady’s straw hat, and a stuffed toy. He asks the cashier to wrap it all up in gift paper. The cashier doesn’t have any. And adds, with a smile, that we’re not at the Galeries Lafayette here, but on the A89. Julien finally finds a large canvas tote with the WWF logo, and fits everything inside it. Nathan asks him to buy some colorful labels to stick on the bag and brighten up the panda, giving it bamboo and a blue sky. Julien replies, “Brilliant idea, son.”

  I feel as though
I’m another woman, that I’ve switched lives. That I’m in someone else’s. Like Irène, when she swapped her beige for brightly colored clothes and sandals in Cap d’Antibes.

  Nathan and I finally unearth the last pot of “steel-strong” hair gel, which had ended up beside two razors, three toothbrushes, and a packet of wet wipes. We let out a triumphant cheer. I burst out laughing for the third time.

  Nathan is delighted and goes off to do his hair in the toilets. He emerges with his hair sticking out in all directions, he must have slapped the whole pot on his head. Julien looks dubiously at his son, but says nothing.

  “Do I look handsome?”

  Julien and I say yes at the same time.

  73.

  No express train will take me towards bliss,

  No old banger reach it, no Concorde have

  your wingspan, no ship sail, except you.

  SEPTEMBER 1996

  Philippe’s days had always followed the same pattern. Get up at around 9 A.M. Breakfast made by Violette. White coffee, toast, unsalted butter, cherry jam with no bits. Shower and shave. Ride bike until 1 P.M. Take country roads, dice with death daily by accelerating where he knew there was never a cop or speed trap. Lunch with Violette.

  Mortal Kombat, his video game, on the Mega Drive until 4 or 5 P.M. Bike ride until 7 P.M. Supper with Violette. Then he’d set off on foot for the Grand-Rue, saying he needed a walk, to meet up with a mistress, or join some debauched gathering at L’Adresse. In that case, he’d go by bike and not return before one or two in the morning. If he didn’t feel like doing a thing, due to a rainy forecast or extreme lethargy, he watched the television. Violette remained near him, reading or watching his chosen film.

  Since he had caught her with the cemetery keeper, a fortnight ago, Philippe didn’t see Violette the same way anymore, he watched her out of the corner of his eye. He wondered whether she was thinking about that old man, whether she phoned him in his absence, whether she wrote to him.

  For the past week, when Philippe came home, he pressed the phone’s “last call” button, but always fell on the unpleasant voice of his mother, whom he’d phoned the day before, or the day before that, and hung up on it.