The summer our marriage broke up, Astrid and I rented a square white house on the Greek island of Naxos. We had already decided to separate in June (or rather, Astrid had decided to leave me for Serge), but it was impossible to cancel the rental or the airline and boat tickets at such short notice. So we went ahead with the ordeal of our last summer as an official married couple. We hadn't told the children anything yet, and we tried to be their normal, everyday parents. We ended up acting so falsely enthusiastic that the children guessed something was amiss. Astrid spent most of her time reading on the sun deck in the nude. She developed a chocolaty tan that made me sick because I knew Serge would soon run his hamlike hands along it, not I.
For the entire three weeks of our grueling stay I felt like putting a bullet through my head. I would sit on the lower terrace overlooking Orkos and Plaka, chain-smoking between steady swipes of lukewarm ouzo. The view was stupendous, and I would admire it through a drunken haze of acute unhappiness. The brown, rounded island of Paros seemed a mere swim away, the sea shimmering ultramarine, dotted with foamy white specks caused by overpowering wind. When I got too desperate or too drunk, or both, I'd stagger down the steep, dusty path to the creek and fling myself into the water. A jellyfish once stung me, but I was so distraught I hardly felt it. Later, Arno had pointed at my chest, and looking down, I had discovered an angry red welt, as if someone had taken a whip to my skin.
The summer of hell. To add to my mental discomfort, the serenity of the early mornings was shattered by the grating sound of bulldozers and drills from higher up on the hill where an overambitious Italian was building a villa that looked like a set for a James Bond movie. Incessant lumbering trucks laden with dug-up earth toiled up and down the little path that passed right in front of our house. Impervious, I sprawled on the terrace, black exhaust fumes billowing in my face. The drivers were friendly, waving to me each time they shuddered past, their monstrous engines a couple of yards from my untouched breakfast.
To top it all, tank water was scarce, the electricity failed us each evening, the mosquitoes were bloodthirsty, and Arno broke the high-tech suspended marble toilet simply by sitting on it. Every night I'd share the bed with my soon to be ex-wife, watch her sleep, and silently cry. She had murmured again and again, like a patient mother with a reluctant child, Antoine, I just don't love you the way I used to, taking me into her arms with maternal gusto while I still shivered with desire at her touch. How is that possible? How can that happen? How can a man ever get over that?
I had introduced Astrid to Melanie eighteen years ago. Astrid happened to be a junior publicist for a rival publishing company. They soon became good friends. I remember the interesting contrast they made: small, delicate, dark-haired Melanie, and Astrid, with her fair hair, pale blue eyes. Astrid's mother, Bibi, is Swedish, from Uppsala, laid-back, artistic, and definitely odd. But charming. Astrid's father, Jean-Luc, is a famed nutritionist, one of those tanned, sickeningly fit men who make you feel like a cholesterol-riddled slob. Obsessed with regular bowel movements, he sprinkles bran over everything Bibi cooks.
Thinking of Astrid makes me want to call her and tell her what happened. I tiptoe out of the room. Her phone rings and rings. She doesn't pick up. The paranoia in me suggests that I should prevent my number from flashing on her screen so that she won't know who called. I leave her a short message. Nine o'clock. She is probably in her car right now, our old Audi. I know her schedule by heart. She has already dropped Lucas off at the local school, and Arno and Margaux at Port-Royal where their lycee is, and she is fighting morning traffic to get to Saint-Germain-des-Pres, to her office on the rue Bonaparte, across from Saint-Sulpice church. She is putting on her makeup at red lights, and men look at her from the next car and think, Pretty woman. Then I remember it's mid-August. She's still on vacation. With him. They are probably back in Malakoff with the children. They drove up from Dordogne this weekend.
When I turn back to Melanie's room, there is an old man with a paunch standing in front of her door. I need a couple of seconds to understand who he is.
He takes me into his arms roughly. I am always startled by my father's abrupt hugs. I never hug my son like that. Arno is at an age where he loathes being hugged, so when I do hug him, I do it gently.
He steps back and squints up at me. Brown eyes protruding, full red lips, thinner now, turned down. His vein-ridden hands seem fragile, his shoulders droop. Yes, my father is an old man. This is something of a shock. Do our own parents see us getting older as well? Melanie and I are no longer young, even if we are still his children. I recall one of our father's carefully nipped and tucked lady friends, Janine, saying to Melanie and me, "It's so strange seeing your friends' children becoming middle-aged." And Melanie had replied with a smooth smile, "It is even stranger seeing your parents' friends becoming old ladies."
My father may look decrepit, but he has not yet lost his spirit.
"Where the devil is the doctor?" he growls. "What the hell is going on? This is a useless hospital."
I say nothing. I am used to his outbursts. They don't impress me anymore. A young nurse scurries by like a frightened rabbit.
"Have you seen Mel?" I ask.
He shrugs. "She's asleep," he grunts.
"She's going to pull through," I say.
He glares at me, infuriated.
"I'm having her transferred to Paris. There is no point keeping her here. She needs the best doctors."
I think of Benedicte Besson's patient hazel eyes, of the bloodstains on the front of her uniform, of what she did last night to save my sister's life. My father sits down heavily on a nearby chair. He looks at me, expecting an answer or a reaction. I give him neither.
"Tell me again what happened."
I do so.
"Had she been drinking?"
"No."
"How can you just drive off the highway?"
"That's what happened."
"Where's your car?"
"It's more or less wrecked."
He observes me, sullen, dubious.
"Why were you two in Noirmoutier?"
"It was a surprise for Mel's birthday."
"Some surprise," he mutters.
Anger rises. He still gets at me, I marvel. He can still do that, I still let him do that.
"She loved it," I say hotly. "We had three wonderful days. It was--"
I stop. I sound like an irate kid. Exactly what he wanted. His mouth twitches the way it does when he is amused. Is Melanie pretending to be asleep? I somehow know she is listening to every word from behind the closed door.
Our father wasn't always like this. After Clarisse died, he closed up. He became tough, bitter, and always in a hurry. It was hard to remember the real father, the happy one, the one who smiled and laughed, the one who tweaked our hair and made us crepes on Sunday morning. Even if he was busy, even if he came home late, he'd make time for us. He would play games with us, take us to the Bois de Boulogne, or drive us out to Versailles to walk in the park and fly Melanie's kite.
He never shows us his love anymore. He hasn't done that since 1974.
"I've never been fond of Noirmoutier," he announces.
"Why not?"
He raises his bushy eyebrows.
"But Robert and Blanche liked it, didn't they?" I ask.
"Yes, they did. They nearly bought a place there. You remember?"
"Yes," I say. "A big house near the hotel. With red shutters. In the woods."
"Les Bruyeres."
"Why didn't they?"
He shrugs. But again, he doesn't give me an answer. I knew he never got on well with his parents. Robert, my grandfather, hated being contradicted. And although Blanche had a softer disposition, she certainly wasn't the doting mother type. And he was never close to his sister, Solange.
Is my father such a hard man because his parents were everything but loving with him? Am I a soft and gentle father (Too soft, way too gentle! Astrid would complain after another fight with Arno) because I
am afraid of breaking Arno's wings the way my father broke mine? In fact, I realize I don't mind coming across as weak, because there is no way I could ever reproduce my father's harshness with my own son.
"How's that good-for-nothing teenager of yours?" he asks. He never asks about Margaux or Lucas. Something about Arno being the heir to the name.
Arno's pale, pointed face comes to me. His spiky, gelled haircut, his sideburns, his pierced left eyebrow. His uneven stubble. Sixteen. A child in a man's body.
"He's fine," I say. "He's with Astrid now."
I instantly regret pronouncing her name. I know he will pounce on it and it will spark an endless monologue. How could I have let that woman leave me for another man? How could I have accepted the divorce? Didn't I know what it would do to me, to the children? Didn't I have any pride, any balls? Des couilles. With my father, it always boiled down to balls. As I brace myself while he launches into full swing, the doctor appears. His eyebrows come rushing down. His jaw bulges.
"You tell me exactly what the situation is, Mademoiselle. Now."
"Yes, sir," she replies very seriously.
And as he turns to open the door to Melanie's room, her eyes meet mine. To my astonishment, she winks.
So he does come across as an exasperating little old man. No one is afraid of him. He is no longer the sharp-tongued, impressive lawyer. And somehow that makes me sad.
"I'm afraid your daughter cannot be moved for the moment," says Dr. Besson patiently, her eyes only barely tinted with impatience.
My father blusters on. "She needs to be in the best of hands, in Paris, with the best doctors. She can't possibly stay here."
Benedicte Besson hardly stirs. But I can tell how deeply the blow strikes by the hardening of her mouth. She says nothing.
"I need to see your superior. The person who runs this place."
"There is no superior," says Dr. Besson quietly.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean this is my hospital. I run it. I am responsible for the hospital and for every patient here."
She says this with such quiet command that my father shuts up at last.
Melanie has opened her eyes. Our father grabs her hand, hanging on to it for dear life, as if this were the last time he will ever touch her. He leans toward her, half of his body on the bed. The way he clasps her hand moves me. He is realizing he has nearly lost his daughter. His petite Melabelle. Her nickname from long ago. He wipes his eyes with the cotton handkerchief he always keeps in his pocket. He cannot say a word, it seems. He can only sit there and breathe audibly.
Melanie is disturbed by this display of emotion. She doesn't want to see his ravaged, wet face. So she looks at me. For so many years now, our father hasn't ever shown his feelings, only displeasure or anger. This is an unexpected flashback to the tender, caring father he used to be, before our mother died.
We sit in silence for a while. The doctor leaves, shutting the door behind her. My father's hand gripping his daughter's brings back all the times I'd been to an emergency room for my children. When Lucas fell from his bike and sliced his forehead open. When Margaux fell down the stairs and broke her tibia. When Arno had the highest fever I had ever seen. The rush. The panic. Astrid clinging to me. Her face as white as chalk. The clasping of hands.
I look at my father, and I am aware that I am silently sharing something with him for once, although he doesn't know it, although he can't see it. We are sharing that bottomless pit of fear you feel only when you have become a parent and something happens to your child.
My thoughts revert to this room and why we are here. What had Melanie tried to tell me just before the accident? That she remembered something during her last night at the Hotel Saint-Pierre. That she had held it back all day. What could she have recalled? I mentally go back to our stay. So many memories had come flowing in. What could this one have been? Why had she held it back? Was that why she seemed strange since breakfast, almost dazed? Sitting next to her by the Gois, I had asked her what was wrong and she'd shrugged it off. Hadn't slept well, she'd mumbled. And all morning long, she had been remote. Her strange mood had only just started to wear off when we got into the car to drive back to Paris in the afternoon.
A bustling nurse enters, pushing a cart in front of her. Time to check Melanie's blood pressure, make sure her stitches are okay. She asks my father and me to step out for a moment. Stitches? Then I remember. Her spleen was operated on. My father and I stand outside, awkward, tense. He seems to have regained his composure, although his nose is still red. I rack my brains to try to think of something to say to him. Nothing comes. I inwardly laugh at the irony of the situation. Father and son reunite by ailing daughter's bedside and are incapable of speaking to each other.
Thankfully, my phone buzzes in my back pocket. I quickly step out of the building to answer it. It's Astrid. Her voice is tearful. I tell her I think Mel is going to be fine. I tell her how lucky we were. She asks if I want her to come with the kids. I feel a surge of pure joy sear through me. If she says things like that, doesn't that mean she still cares? Doesn't that mean she still loves me somehow? Before I can say anything, Arno's raspy voice comes on. He too sounds upset. I know how fond of my sister he is. When he was small, she used to parade him around the Luxembourg Gardens, pretending he was her son. He loved it. So did she. I tell him Mel is going to be stuck here for a while, that she has a cast from her waist to her neck. He says he wants to come and see her. He says Astrid is bringing them. The thought of seeing my family again, all of us together, like the good old days--not just exchanging kids on doorsteps with harassed remarks like "Oh and don't forget her cough syrup, this time" or "Do remember to sign the report cards, will you?"--makes me want to burst out into a song and dance. Astrid takes the phone again and asks for directions. I try to keep my voice cool and collected. Then she puts Margaux on. Soft, whispery, feminine. "Papa, tell Mel we love her and we are on our way." She hangs up before I get a chance to speak to rambunctious number three, Lucas. We are on our way, she said.
I light a cigarette and smoke it with relish. I can't bear the idea of going back inside and having to talk to my father. So I smoke another one and enjoy it just as much. They are on their way. With or without Serge? I wonder.
When I come back to Melanie's room, I find our half sister, Josephine, lolling against the wall. She must have come with our father. I am surprised to see her there. She isn't particularly close to Melanie. Or to me. I hadn't seen her for months, probably since last Christmas at the avenue Kleber. We go to the empty cafeteria on the ground floor. Melanie is apparently resting, and our father is sitting in his car, on the phone.
Josephine is fashionably thin, wearing low-hipped, faded jeans, Converse Star sneakers, and a khaki tank top. Her blond hair is cut short like a boy's. She has Regine's sallow skin and thin mouth and our father's brown eyes.
We light our cigarettes. That is probably the only thing we have in common. Smoking.
"Can we smoke in here?" she whispers, leaning toward me.
"There's no one around," I reply, shrugging.
"What were you and Mel doing in Noirmoutier?" she asks, inhaling deeply.
She never beats around the bush. She gets straight to the point. I like that about her.
"Mel's birthday. A surprise."
She nods, sipping her coffee.
"You used to go there when you were kids, right? With your mother."
The way she says that makes me look at her closely.
"Yes. Our mother, father, and grandparents," I say.
"You never talk about your mother," she says.
Twenty-five years old. Not dumb. A little vain, although to me her gamine looks are nothing to write home about. The fact that she and I share our father's blood has never made me feel brotherly toward her.
"We don't talk about anything much, you and I," she goes on.
"Does that bother you?" I ask.
She twists her rings around her fingers, her cigarette hangin
g mannishly from her mouth.
"Yes, it does. I don't know a thing about you."
People come into the cafeteria and give us outraged looks because we are smoking. We stub out our Marlboros.
"Don't forget I had already left the avenue Kleber when you were born," I say.
"Perhaps. But you are still my half brother. I'm here because I do care. I care about Mel. I care about you."
This is so out of character coming from her that I can only gape.
She smirks. "Close your mouth, Antoine."
I chortle.
She says, "Tell me about your mother. No one ever talks about her."
"What do you want to know?"
She lifts an eyebrow. "Anything."
"She died in 1974. She had a brain aneurysm. She was thirty-six years old. It happened very fast. We came home from school and she had been taken to the hospital. She was dead." I glance at her. "Hasn't Regine or Papa told you all this?"
"No," she says. "Go on."
"That's it."
"No, I mean what was she like?"
"Melanie looks like her. Petite, dark, green eyes. She laughed a lot. She made us all happy."
It seemed to me that our father stopped smiling after Clarisse died and that he smiles even less since his marriage to Regine. I don't want to say this to Josephine, so I shut up. But I'm sure she knows as well as I do that her parents lead two different lives. My father meets his retired lawyer friends, spends hours in his study reading or writing, complains a lot, and Regine patiently puts up with his grumbling, goes out to play bridge at her ladies' club, and tries to pretend all is well at avenue Kleber.
"And her family? Do you ever see them?"
"They died when she was young. They were from a modest rural background. I remember she had a sister, older than she, who she never saw much. And after her death that sister fizzled out of our lives. I don't even know where she lives."
"What was her name?"
"Clarisse Elzyere."
"Where was she from?"
"The Cevennes."
"Are you okay?" she asks suddenly. "You look awful."
A Secret Kept Page 7