Impurity

by Larry Tremblay

  “I didn’t sleep a wink. I shouldn’t have given you those letters. I didn’t have the right.”

  “Here, I’m giving them back.”

  At once Philippe stows the small metal box.

  “Did you read them?”

  “Of course. If you want my honest opinion, I thought they were rather …”

  “Yes, tell me what you think …”

  “… drab.”

  “Explain.”

  “I don’t know Laure, but it’s clear that she has suffered a form of brainwashing from you. All she does is repeat over and over, more and more naively, your own dubious ideas about life, love, eternity. You’re harming her.”

  “Laure is perfectly able to think by herself and I’ve never imposed a thing on her. Between us there’s always been a free exchange of reflections. And in any case, we don’t have to prove that purity of the heart exists.”

  “And I’m going to prove to you that it doesn’t.”

  Leaving his son’s apartment, Antoine doesn’t go directly home. The evening is warm, but a light breeze keeps it from being stifling. He parks on avenue Bernard and orders a beer at his usual café. He chooses the same brand that he drank at his son’s place. He feels bad. If only he could go back to that spoiled conversation, apologize, question Jonathan, listen to him. Something rattled him just now: he felt betrayed.

  Back at his house he fixes himself a sandwich and watches the news on TV. The John F. Kennedy Junior story is nearing an end. He zaps for a good hour, unable to quit savouring the very last drop of news about the “national tragedy.” Two days earlier, President Clinton had given his okay for burial at sea. The ashes of the three victims were scattered off Martha’s Vineyard, a few kilometres from the accident site, to the sound of a brass quintet playing the naval hymn “Eternal Father, Strong to Save.” The official funeral took place the next day in New York. The ceremony wasn’t broadcast on either TV or radio. Senator Edward Kennedy delivered the eulogy to his nephew. Caroline Kennedy, sister of John-John, quoted a well-known passage from Shakespeare’s The Tempest.

  Antoine realizes that during these days of scrutinizing the Kennedy family’s agony, he has forgotten the sorrow in which the death of his wife has plunged him. As if his own grief has lost its topicality. He knows that stating the matter in such terms comes close to pettiness. Grief cannot be reduced to a news item on television, quickly buried by another, more current one. It is a state that puts us in relationship with the deceased. Antoine turns off the TV and, to redeem himself in his own eyes, thinks back to the funeral of his wife. He does not speak during the ceremony organized in tribute to her. Louis-Martin Vallières, Alice’s publisher, monopolizes the microphone to recall the main stages in the career of the prolific writer she had been. He praises her rigour, her intuition, her ability to understand the period in which she lived.

  “She had a rare talent for creating characters who resembled her contemporaries without ever falling into self-indulgence. She had a gift for captivating her readers from the very first line.”

  Then he reads some passages from her work and finishes with a saying of Confucius: “If we don’t know life, how can we know death?” According to the publisher, Alice Livingston had at length put into practice the thinking of the Chinese philosopher. Antoine is the first to be surprised. Never had his wife mentioned Confucius in his presence, nor does he remember seeing any of his books in the house. Does the publisher want to wrap his favourite author in an aura of wisdom? Going to get a beer in the kitchen, Antoine howls the words of Prospero that Caroline Kennedy had spoken: “We are such stuff / As dreams are made on, and our little life / Is rounded with a sleep.” That’s what he would have read if he had found the strength to speak. Alice deserved to have Shakespeare recited at her funeral as much as John-John.

  Going back to the living room he notices the red light on the telephone, indicating a message. He starts the voice mail:

  “Are you there? Are you listening to me? Maybe you’re too big a coward to answer. What is it about my new life that bothers you? The fact that Frédéric is twenty-five years older than me? He loves me with a love that makes me grow. The very opposite of yours. Is that what’s bothering you?”

  Laure leaves her place to go to school. Vincent follows her. It was easy for him to find her whereabouts thanks to information gleaned from her letters. He’d thought she was blond; her hair is black. He’d pictured her as tiny, introverted; she’s tall and slim, walks with her head in the clouds. He follows her three mornings in a row, making himself less and less discreet. Finally, she is the one who approaches him, which was what he was hoping for.

  “You’ve followed me on three mornings. Can you tell me why?”

  He walks away without a word.

  The next day, pursuing his plan, he goes on the offensive. He writes her a long letter in which he expresses how dazzled he was when he spotted her by chance coming out of her school. Since then, he hasn’t stopped thinking about her. He apologizes for having followed her. He even dares to tell her that one night he’d spied on the shadow her body cast on the curtains in her bedroom. He promised not to do it again. Anyway, why bother, since she has discovered his little game. He asks for one thing: that she answer his letters. He will wait for her like the light of dawn after a night filled with bad dreams.

  A week goes by. Nothing. He writes her a second letter, longer and more hopeless. Now, he writes, he is nothing but a heart that sighs, a pair of anxious eyes watching for the mailman’s arrival. Laure answers him in a few lines. She begs him to leave her in peace. Begs so hard and so effectively that Vincent knows now that he has won. Laure no longer resists his urgent letters. He takes malicious pleasure in writing them, using a slushy vocabulary, syrupy turns of phrase, taking his inspiration from Laure’s letters to Philippe.

  The young woman agrees to meet him and turns up at the rendezvous knowing what’s going to happen, fearing and desiring it equally. She is intimidated, sitting across from him on the restaurant banquette. She examines the face of the man she has been confiding in for weeks, revealing the lurches of her soul. She had not really looked at him the time she’d approached him on the street. Laure likes his meticulously blue eyes and his blond hair, long like that of the rock musicians she’s seen on TV. She is surprised by the energy he gives off. The style of his letters made her think him a gentle guy. But Vincent is angular, sharp. She is hungry and thirsty for his body as if everything she’d eaten and drunk before meeting him had let her down.

  Before long, Alice and Antoine are inseparable, except when they go to class – then they get together in the school cafeteria. They finish the evening in Antoine’s apartment, where they make love for hours. One night she suggests they go to see Love Story at the Capitol. The cinema on rue Racine hasn’t had such a success for years. Lines stretch along the sidewalk despite the February cold. The film, adapted from a global bestseller by Erich Segal, has drawn tears from millions of spectators. It stars Ryan O’Neil and Ali MacGraw. You have to be heartless or cold not to be touched by the very simple story: two young and attractive people fall passionately in love. Oliver comes from a rich and respectable family, Jenny from a modest one. They marry despite the disapproval of the young man’s father, who disinherits him. They live happily together until Jennifer discovers that she has leukemia.

  “Admit that you cried when Jenny dies at the end of the film.”

  “I nearly fell asleep. Work on your critical sense, Alice.”

  “Where you’re concerned, you’re absolutely right.”

  “Follow the example of Simone de Beauvoir.”

  “She cried when she saw that film, I’m sure she did.”

  “She’d never go to see a film like that.”

  “Bigot.”

  “I’ll tell you again, you ought to follow her example.”

  “You mean write?”

  “Not that. Think about the notion of love. Beauvoir and Sartre both had multiple affairs. But that
took nothing away from their love. They created new loving relationships based on transparency and their critical sense.”

  “You believe everything you read.”

  “Love Story just reinforces the myth of unhappy romantic love: to love is to suffer. Also, there has to be a victim. And it’s often the woman who pays. Who dies in the film? Not Oliver. Love Story would have been a flop if the man had been the one with leukemia.”

  “I, on the other hand, would have been even more deeply moved.”

  “Seriously, Alice, do you believe in the kind of love that movies sell us?”

  “It’s not a question of believing or not believing.”

  “Really? Hollywood-style love is part of a vast campaign of collective stupidity. Our society is based on lies. Open your eyes. They want us to believe that there’s just one way to love: you love me, I love you, a woman, a man, and it’s all settled once and for all.”

  “I love you, you love me, what’s the problem?”

  “In spite of your posturing, you’re still naive. You know who you remind me of? Félix. A guy who’s brilliant, but totally insane.”

  “So I’m brilliant but totally insane.”

  “In a way, yes.”

  “Thanks for the compliment.”

  “You aren’t finishing your chicken?”

  “I’ve lost my appetite.”

  Alice goes to the ladies’ room. Antoine takes advantage of her absence to check that he has sufficient money to pay the bill. Just enough. He’d invited Alice out to eat after the movie. When she comes back and sits down, he is certain that she has been crying.

  “Are you angry?”

  “Antoine, if I had an affair with someone else your subtle notions about love would be gone in a flash.”

  “Sleep with Félix.”

  “What?”

  “Sleep with him, and you’ll see if my subtle notions about love would be gone in a flash.”

  “Why Félix? Because he’s as crazy as me?”

  “He’s in love with a dead woman.”

  “His cousin, I know, you told me.”

  “He’s sworn eternal love to her. It’s appalling, it’s childish.”

  “It’s his business.”

  “He’s ruining his life.”

  “It’s his life, not yours.”

  “You don’t understand.”

  “What? What don’t I understand?”

  “He lives in a world of dusty lies.”

  “You don’t think he’s actually still mourning?”

  “Absolutely not. He needs to face reality, shake off his illusions.”

  “Like me, right?”

  Antoine asks for the bill, pays. They get up, put on their coats, and head for the exit.

  “The more I think of it, the more I think my idea is brilliant.”

  “What?”

  “That you sleep with Félix.”

  “Do you realize what you’re suggesting?”

  “I realize perfectly well.”

  “If that’s how you express your love, I have to say it’s kind of twisted.”

  “You don’t understand a thing. I want you and me to embark on an existentialist experiment. We have to think outside the box. Find new ways to experience human relations. We’re young, we aren’t going to stupidly repeat what our parents did.”

  “And Félix in all that?”

  “Exactly, Félix.”

  “Could you be clearer?”

  “Never mind, you don’t understand a thing.”

  “Stop telling me I don’t understand a thing.”

  They leave the restaurant. At once, powerful gusts wrap them in snow.

  “Coming to my place?”

  “Not tonight, Antoine.”

  He explores her body without modesty, patiently opens it. Doing so, Vincent feels unhealthy joy. His gestures are not so much caresses as deliberate, thoughtful acts. Laure, surprised, exhausted, lets out a cry of pleasure in which her pain is drowned. After their lovemaking, she insists on leaving before Vincent’s sister, Rachel, with whom he shares the apartment, comes home. She couldn’t tolerate another person’s gaze on their love, love that has been made, not merely dreamed, feared, hoped for, love that has an odour.

  Alone again, Vincent rolls a joint, savours it slowly. He looks at the blood-stained sheets. A satisfied smile lingers on his face. “Nice job, I’ve just saved her from years of mental confusion. She knows now what love does to a body. As much good as ill. It’s up to her to choose. It’s Philippe’s turn to lose his illusions.”

  The next day he goes to Philippe’s and, without even saying hello, hands him a small metal box.

  “What’s that?”

  “The proof that I was right.”

  Then leaves without another word. Philippe opens the box. In it he finds letters. He takes one out of the package. He recognizes the delicacy of the paper, the slight scent of lavender that it gives off, the violet ink that Laure likes to use. His heart panicking he realizes that Laure has written them to Vincent. There are around thirty, often very short, but giving a clear idea of the content of those that Laure received from her correspondent: he was pursuing her.

  He goes immediately to Laure’s school. After an interminable hour-long wait, the four o’clock bell signals the end of classes. He tries unsuccessfully to spot her in the wave of girls escaping through the school’s front door. He finally decides to go to her place. Laure’s brother opens the door.

  “Is your sister here?”

  “No, she’s at our grandmother’s. She had a fall this morning, and Mom and Laure have gone over to help her out.”

  Philippe rushes out. Back home, he watches nervously as night falls behind his bedroom window. The Chicoutimi cemetery that lines the college campus gradually disappears in a dense shadow. A lugubrious dusk swallows up the last patches of snow.

  The first thing that Félix sees on entering Antoine’s apartment is a huge poster of Che Guevara.

  “Pretty big place you’ve got here.”

  “Yes, not bad for a basement.”

  “I wanted to talk to you about something. Actually, it’s about you and … someone else.”

  “I’m intrigued.”

  “It’s kind of annoying. I’m getting letters from Alice.”

  “And?”

  “Aren’t you surprised? You and Alice are a couple.”

  “No, we’re not.”

  “You’re often seen together.”

  “We like to talk about things or go to movies, that’s all.”

  “But I thought …”

  “In her letters, does she say that we’re together?”

  “Not really.”

  “So? Have you answered?”

  “Hardly! Because I thought that …”

  “And her letters, what does she write about?”

  “Alice writes about me as if she knew me. And I wondered if …”

  “If what?”

  “… if you’d told her anything about me.”

  “I’ve talked about you, obviously. Only good things.”

  “She has a gift for guessing my innermost secrets. It’s unsettling. Sometimes it feels as if Anaïs is writing to me from the realm of the dead. I know that she sometimes has her eyes on me at college.”

  “That’s idiotic, you could see each other every day.”

  “In her last letter, she wrote that she’s waiting for my reply to speak to me. I found that incredibly moving, such thoughtfulness.”

  Antoine goes to the fridge for two beers.

  “So are you going to answer her?”

  “I don’t know.”

  An hour later Félix leaves the apartment. He didn’t touch his beer, he was so wrapped up in his conversation with Antoine.

  “You can come out now, Alice, he’s gone.”

  She leaves Antoine’s bedroom, from where she has heard everything.

  “Well? What did you think?”

  At last, he decides to call Laure at her grandmot
her’s. With sweaty hands, he dials the number. Laure answers. He is so surprised that he stammers.

  “It’s me, Philippe.”

  “I didn’t recognize your voice. Who told you where I was?”

  “Your brother. How’s your grandmother? Is it serious?”

  “She sprained her ankle. We’re spending the night with her and tomorrow morning Mom and I will go home. I’ve already lost a day of school. What … What exactly are you calling about?”

  “Laure, do you know what I’m holding in my hands? A little metal box. Inside it are the letters you wrote to a guy named Vincent.”

  “Who gave you those letters?”

  “He wants to hurt you.”

  “Who gave them to you?”

  “He did, who do you think? Don’t see him again.”

  “You can’t give me orders.”

  “He’s manipulating you. It’s just a game for him.”

  “You’re jealous.”

  “When he gets what he wants from you, he’ll move on to another girl.”

  “It’s too late.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re going out of your way to not understand. I was at his place last night.”

  “You …”

  “Forget me.”

  “You’re just a whore.”

  “My mother’s coming out of the kitchen.”

  “God will punish you.”

  “I don’t want her to hear me.”

  “You heard me, God will punish you!”

  “I’m hanging up.”

  “Laure! Laure!”

  Antoine is now coming every day to the Fleur d’oranger. He sits on the terrace, hoping to see Claire Langlois once again. No matter if he looks up from his paper and glances furtively at the female silhouettes going by on the sidewalk, luck is not with him, there’s no sign of her. He decides to call her. Awkwardly, he explains that a photo session would be fine with him. He’s thought it over. Now that his wife is no longer there, he has to do everything possible to make her work a success. The journalist shows no surprise, thanks him politely. They arrange to meet the next day.