Margaux nods, her chin set.
"It's not easy seeing someone you love dead. Maybe your dad should come with you."
My daughter looks up at him, taking in his bad, florid skin.
"She was my best friend, and I saw her die," she says in a clenched, tight voice.
She will be saying that sentence for the rest of her life. The mortician nods.
"Your father and I will be just behind the door in case you need us, okay?"
She stands up, smoothing out her clothes, her hair. Her face once again looks years older. I want to hold her back, to protect her, to wrap her up in my arms. Will she be all right? Will she be strong enough? Will she collapse? Will this damage her forever? I fight the urge to grab her sleeve.
The mortician leads her to the next room, opens the door for her, and lets her in.
Suzanne and Patrick appear with their son. We hug and kiss in silence. The little boy is pale, tired. We wait some more.
Then Margaux's voice is heard. She says my name. Not Dad, but Antoine. She has never called me that before. She says my name twice.
I enter the room. It has the same proportions as the one in Angele's hospital. I recognize the familiar, dominant smell. I allow my eyes to flicker toward the body laid out in front of us. Pauline seems very young. I come closer. So young, so frail. The shapely body appears to have shrunk. She is wearing a pink blouse and jeans. Converse sneakers. Her hands are crossed on her stomach. I glance finally at her face. No makeup. White, pure skin. Her blond hair combed back simply. Her closed mouth has a natural look to it. Angele would approve.
Margaux hovers near me. I put my hand on the back of her head, as I did when she was small. She doesn't shrug me off the way she has been doing lately.
"This is something I don't understand," she says.
She slips out of the room. I stand in front of Pauline's body, alone. Astrid will not see this. She is still in Tokyo, flying back for the funeral on Tuesday. Serge and she could not change their reservations at the last minute. The last time she saw Pauline was probably at Malakoff, a week or so ago. When Astrid lands, Pauline will be in her coffin, ready for burial. She will never lay eyes on Pauline in death. I don't know whether this is better for her or not. I have never faced this sort of situation with my ex-wife.
As I stand here, I think of my father. Like Pauline, my mother died in a couple of minutes. Had my father stood like this in the hospital morgue, contemplating his wife's body, trying to cope? Where was he when he was told his wife had died? Who had called him? No mobile phones in 1974. He was most likely at his office, which in those days was near the Champs-Elysees.
I stare at the dead face in front of me. So young. So fresh. Fourteen years old. I put my hand on her head, gently. Compared with Margaux's head, Margaux's living warmth, Pauline is stone-cold. I have never touched a dead person in my life. I leave my hand there. Goodbye, Pauline. Goodbye, little one.
The dread that I felt last night while I was holding Pauline's bag engulfs me. Her colorless face suddenly seems to melt into Margaux's face. I shiver. This could be my dead daughter. I could be looking at my daughter's dead body. Touching her corpse. I try to stop myself from trembling. I wish Angele were by my side. I think of the comfort she could give me now, her common sense, her inner knowledge of death. I try to imagine that it was Angele who tended to Pauline's body, with the care and respect I know she gives her "patients."
A hand on my shoulder. Patrick. He says nothing. We both stand there and look down at Pauline. He can feel me trembling. He squeezes my shoulder, in silence. I go on shaking and think of everything Pauline could have become. Everything that was in store for her that she will never know, that we will never know. Her studies. Traveling. Boyfriends. Independence. Her career. Love. Motherhood. Middle age. Growing old. Her entire life. What lay ahead and what is no more.
The dread in me abates, and anger takes over. Fourteen years old. For the love of God, fourteen years old. Why do these things happen? And when they do, how on earth do you pick yourself up and move on? Where do you find the courage, the strength? Is religion the answer? Is that where Patrick and Suzanne find solace? Is that what is helping them now?
"Suzanne dressed her. Alone. She didn't want anyone else to do it," says Patrick. "We chose her clothes together. Her favorite jeans, her favorite blouse."
He reaches out and softly strokes his daughter's cold cheek. I look at the pink blouse. The image of Suzanne's fingers painstakingly doing up that long line of buttons against Pauline's lifeless skin comes to me and weighs down on me with all its horrific might.
Margaux needs to be with Suzanne and Patrick. I guess it's her way of staying close to Pauline. As I leave la Pitie, I check my phone. There is a voice message from my sister. "Call me, urgent." I find Melanie's voice strangely quiet, but I am so upset by what I have just seen, Pauline's body, that I don't mention it when I first get her on the phone. I then tell her hurriedly about Pauline's death, Margaux, the horror of it all. Astrid's absence. Margaux's period. Pauline's body. Patrick and Suzanne. Suzanne dressing Pauline--
"Antoine," says Melanie pointedly, interrupting me. "Listen."
"What?" I say almost impatiently.
"I need to talk to you. You need to come now."
"I can't. I'm about to head back to the office."
"You have to come."
"Why? What's up?"
A short silence.
"Because I've remembered. I remembered why I had the accident."
A bizarre apprehension plucks at my heart. I've been waiting for this moment for the past three months. It is now here, it is at last here, and I don't know if I can face it. I don't know if I am strong enough. Pauline's death has drained me.
"Okay," I say weakly. "I'll be right over."
The ride from la Pitie to Bastille is a slow one, even though I am not far from Mel's place. The traffic inches on. I try to remain calm behind the wheel. I then spend ages looking for a parking place on busy rue de la Roquette. Melanie is waiting for me with the cat in her arms.
"I'm so sorry about Pauline," she says, kissing me. "How awful it must be for Margaux . . . This is the worst timing . . . It's just that . . . It has come back to me. This morning. And I had to tell you."
The cat jumps down to come and rub itself against my legs.
"I don't know how to say this," she says simply. "I think it will be a shock to you."
"Try me."
We sit face-to-face. Her delicate fingers play with the bracelets around her wrist. A clicking sound that gets on my nerves.
"During our last night at the hotel, I woke up. I was thirsty, I couldn't get back to sleep. I tried to read, drank a glass of water, but nothing worked. So I slipped out of my room and went downstairs. The entire hotel was silent. No one was awake. I went through the reception area, the dining room, then finally back upstairs. That's when it happened."
She pauses.
"What happened?"
"You remember room number nine?"
"Yes," I say. "Clarisse's room."
"I passed that room on my way up. And then suddenly I had this flashback. It was so powerful I had to sit down on the stairs."
"What did you see?" I whisper.
"Our last summer--1973. I was frightened. There had been a storm. It was my birthday, do you remember?"
I nod.
"I couldn't sleep that night. I crept down the hotel stairs to our mother's room."
She pauses again. The cat purrs against me.
"The door was not locked, and I opened it very gently. The curtains were drawn back, and moonlight lit up the room. And then I saw that there was somebody in the bed with her."
"Our father?" I say, startled.
She shakes her head.
"No. I drew nearer. I could not understand. I was only six years old, remember. I could make out Clarisse's black hair. And she was holding somebody in her arms. Not our father."
"Who?" I gasp.
Our mother, w
ith a lover . . . Our mother, with another man. With my grandparents and us, her children, sleeping only a couple of rooms away. Our mother. Her fuzzy orange bathing suit. Playing with us on the beach. Our mother at night with another man.
"I don't know who it was."
"What did he look like?" I say heatedly. "Had you ever seen him before? Was he staying at the hotel? Could you remember him?"
Melanie bites her lip and averts her eyes. Then she says softly, "It was a woman, Antoine."
"What do you mean?"
"Our mother was holding a woman in her arms."
"A woman?" I repeat, stunned.
The cat jumps back up on her knees, and she hugs it fiercely.
"Yes, Antoine, a woman."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes. I came close to the bed. They were asleep. They had thrown the sheets back, and they were naked. I remember thinking that they were both beautiful, very feminine. The woman was tanned and slim, and she had long hair. I couldn't tell what color it was in the moonlight. It seemed a silvery blond. I stood there and looked at them for a while."
"Do you really think they were lovers?"
She smiles wryly. "Well, at six years old, I had no idea, of course. But what I remember very distinctly is this: the woman's hand was cupped around one of Clarisse's breasts. It was a possessive, sexual gesture."
I get up, pace around the room, and stand by the window, looking down at the noisy rue de la Roquette. I find I can't speak for a minute or two.
"Are you shocked?" she asks.
"In a way."
Again the click of the bracelets.
"I tried to tell you. You knew something was wrong. And then I felt I just couldn't hold it back anymore, so on the way back--"
"And did you ever tell anyone about this the next day," I interrupt, "after it happened?"
"I tried, the very next morning, while we were playing on the beach with Solange. But you wouldn't listen. You shooed me away. I never spoke about this to anyone, and it slipped away from me little by little. I forgot about it. I had never thought about it again until that night at the hotel, thirty-four years later."
"Have you see this woman again? Any idea who she was?"
"No. I don't remember seeing her again. No idea who she was."
I come back to the chair facing Melanie. "Do you think our mother was a lesbian?" I ask her, my voice low.
"I've been asking myself that very question," she says levelly.
"Do you think this was just one affair out of the blue, or do you think she'd been having affairs with women for a while?"
"I have not stopped thinking about all this. The same questions, and no answers."
"Do you think our father knew? And our grandparents?"
She gets up to go to the kitchen and boils some water, puts tea bags in mugs. I feel dazed, like after a sharp blow on the head.
"Remember that fight you witnessed between Clarisse and Blanche? You told me about it by the pool."
"Yes," I say. "Do you think it could have been about that?"
Melanie shrugs. "Maybe. I don't think our bourgeois, respectable grandparents were very open concerning homosexuality. And this was back in 1973."
She hands me a mug of tea, sits down.
"And what about our father?" I say. "What does he know?"
"Maybe everybody in the Rey family knew. Maybe it made a scandal. But it wasn't talked about. No one talked about it."
"And then Clarisse died--"
"Yes," she says. "And then our mother died. And so no one talked about it ever again."
We are silent for a while, facing each other, sipping our tea.
"Do you know what upsets me most about all this?" she says finally. "And I know that's why I had the accident. Even just talking about it hurts me here." She lays a hand flat out on her collarbone.
"What upsets you?"
"Before I tell you, you tell me what you find upsetting."
I take a deep breath. "I feel like I have no idea who my mother was."
"Yes!" she exclaims, smiling for the first time, although it is not her usual, relaxed smile. "That's exactly it."
"And I have no idea how to find out who she was."
"I do," she says.
"How?"
"The first question is, do you want to know, Antoine? Do you really want to find out?"
"Of course! Why are you asking?"
The crooked smile, again.
"Because sometimes it's easier not to know. Sometimes truth hurts."
I remember the day I discovered the video on Astrid's camera of Serge and Astrid having sex. The shock of it. The shattering pain of it.
"I know what you mean," I say slowly. "I know about that pain."
"Are you ready to face that pain again, Antoine?"
"I don't know," I answer truthfully.
"I am," she says firmly. "And I will. I can't pretend nothing happened. I don't want to shut my eyes to this. I want to know who our mother really was."
Women are so much stronger than we men, I think, listening to her. Yet there is nothing physically powerful about her. In fact she appears more fragile than ever in her slim jeans and beige sweater, but such force exudes from her, such determination. Melanie is not afraid, and I am. She takes my hand in an almost motherly gesture, as if she knows exactly what is going through my head.
"Don't let this get you down, Tonio. You go on home and tend to your daughter. She needs you. When you're ready, we can talk about this again. There is no hurry."
I nod, stand up, feeling light-headed. A lump in my throat. The idea of facing the office, Florence, the workload awaiting me seems impossible. I kiss my sister, head to the door, and as I'm about to step out, I turn around and say, "You say you know where to find out."
"Yes."
"Where?"
"Blanche."
Our grandmother. She is right, of course. Blanche must have answers. Some answers. But whether she will want to give us those answers is another matter.
Instead of going to the office, I drive straight home. On my way there, I leave a message for Florence, stating briefly that I won't be coming in for the rest of the day. I make myself a cup of coffee, light up a cigarette, and sit down at the kitchen table. The lump in my throat is still there. My back aches. I realize how worn-out I am.
Pauline's dead face keeps wafting back to me. And the vision of what Melanie revealed. The moonlit room that I did not see but I can all too well imagine. Our mother, her lover. A woman. Am I stunned because my mother was unfaithful, or am I even more shocked because she was bisexual? I'm not sure what upsets me more. And what does Melanie feel about this, being a woman? Am I less shaken because I imagine a lesbian mother is a softer jolt for a man than having a gay father? A shrink would have a field day with this.
I think about my gay friends, both male and female, Mathilde, Milena, David, Matthew, and what they told me about their coming out, how their parents reacted. Some parents accepted and understood, others went into total denial. But what do you do, I wonder, when you find out late in life that one of your parents is gay? No matter how open-minded you are, no matter how tolerant, it comes as a bolt from the blue. Especially if that parent is dead and is no longer around to answer your questions.
The front door bangs, and Arno comes loping in, followed by a sullen girl with black lipstick. I can't make out whether it's the usual girl or another. They all look the same--goth gear, metallic bracelets, long black clothes. He waves, grins. She barely says hello, stares down at the floor. They go straight to his room. Music blares. A couple of minutes later the door bangs again, and Lucas appears. His face lights up when he sees me. He comes rushing into my arms, nearly knocking my coffee over. I tell him I needed to take a break today, that I left the office. Serious little fellow. He looks so much like Astrid that sometimes it hurts just laying eyes on him. He wants to know when his mother will be back. I tell him Tuesday, for the funeral. I wonder, suddenly, whether the funeral is a good idea f
or him. Isn't he too young? Should he be there? He's only eleven. Pauline's funeral frightens even me. I ask him gently how he feels about it. He bites his lip. He says that if we are both there, Astrid and me, maybe he'll feel up to it. I say I'll talk it over with his mother. His small hand covers mine. His lower lip trembles. This is the first time he is confronted with death. Somebody he knew well, somebody he grew up with, as Pauline had spent countless summers and skiing vacations with us. Someone who was only three years older than he is now.
I try to comfort my son. Am I any good at this? When I was his age, my mother had died and no one had comforted me. Was that why I was useless at reaching out, offering tenderness and support? Are we not forever shaped by our childhood, its scars, its secrets, its hidden pain?
When Saturday comes around, Margaux is still with Patrick and Suzanne. It appears that she needs to be with them, they need to be with her. If Astrid had been here, would our daughter have stayed home? Is she not here because she feels I cannot comfort her, I cannot help her? I hate asking myself these questions, but I feel I need to. I have shied away from them long enough.
Arno goes out, as usual, mumbling something about a party tonight, coming back late. When I mention his low grades, his upcoming report card, that maybe he should be studying instead of partying, he sends a withering look my way, rolls his eyes, and slams the door. I instantly feel like grabbing him by the scruff of his neck and kicking his bony ass down the stairs. I have never hit my children. I have never hit anyone in my life. Does this make me a good person?
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