Instantly, he regrets the call. There was no hint in the journalist’s voice of any particular reaction, not the slightest positive note to make him believe that she would be happy to see him again. He’s no longer hiding it from himself: he wants this young woman, he desires her – and at the same time he hates himself for having allowed this thing to happen. This thing. He assigns no precise words to the unsettling feeling that takes possession of him when he thinks of her. It’s some dark thing that the city’s humid heat exacerbates and that takes him by surprise, leaving him breathless and so ashamed that he shuts his eyes before the framed photo of his wedding that faces him every night when he looks up from his bed.
Claire Langlois is late. Antoine hopes she won’t come. But when he hears a car parking in front of the house, his heart races faster, a sign of how anxious he is to see her, and how let down he’s been by her absence.
He barely recognizes her when she comes in, accompanied by a photographer. She’s wearing faded jeans and a loud red blouse so different from the lacy dress, light and airy and so flattering, that she had on when they first met. She has pulled her hair back into a childlike pony tail.
She does not apologize for being late, just introduces the photographer: Tom Linton, early twenties, very fair hair, sandals, shorts, and a stained T-shirt. He’s excessively muscular. Antoine’s eyes go immediately to the tattooed tapestry coating his arms.
Tom, without a word, inspects the room, sees where the light is coming from. The heat is stifling. Antoine prepares a pitcher of lemonade and invites them to sit down. Tom empties his glass in a gulp. Claire drinks hers in little sips, and finally gives Antoine a small smile.
“If you don’t mind, Monsieur Ste-Marie, we’d like to begin with your wife’s study.”
He leads his guests into the former summer kitchen where Alice had set up her work space.
It’s an annex to the house that arcs its way into the backyard. A tremendous glass wall lends the room a joyous luminosity, tempered by the foliage of the columnar maples at the back of the garden. In winter, the room changes its nature completely, surrounded as it is by the dazzling whiteness of the fallen snow. Alice used to pull down the shades so as not to be blinded. The room is Zen-like. Not much furniture. Two low bookcases, a simple board on trestles by way of a worktable. From her armchair, Alice could watch the squirrels chasing each other in the maples, jumping from branch to branch. She called her office her “aquarium” and described herself, mockingly, as an “authorfish.” When she was about to write, she would say that she was going to make bubbles. And she began making bubbles after she left her job in a communications firm where she composed copy and ads vaunting products as disparate as video games and kitchenware. Given the surprising popularity of her first two novels, she opted to live by her pen despite the misgivings of Antoine, who advised her to wait a few years. How could she be sure that her next novel would be as successful as the others? Alice did what she wanted and had no regrets. She liked to say that advertising had been her only school. There she had learned to form sentences with a specific end in sight. “Words are never innocent. They mask the secret intentions that guide the reader, call up pictures for her, awaken desires, create needs,” she would repeat.
Claire, entering Alice’s office, comes to life. She walks around, bends down to read the titles of books on the shelves, touches the worktable with reverence.
“It’s a very beautiful space.”
“Yes. Alice loved it.”
“I’d like Tom to take a few photos of the office from the garden. Would that be possible?”
“Everything is possible.”
Antoine slides the glass door open. The garden’s wetness invades the room. Tom goes out and takes a few shots.
“Can I move this?”
Tom points to a box on the worktable.
“It would be better if we don’t see it.”
Antoine gets up and goes to move it out of the room. Claire follows him.
“Have you just bought it?”
“What?”
“That, the iMac. You haven’t taken it out of its packing case.”
“Ah, no. In fact, it’s … it’s my wife’s Christmas present … I wanted to surprise her … I … I was never able to give it to her, she died … as you know … just before …”
“Yes, I know, just before Christmas.”
Antoine has just lied to her. He himself doesn’t know why.
“I’m going to buy myself the same thing.”
“Good choice.”
“Did your wife always write on the computer?”
“It depended.”
“On what?”
“Actually, I don’t know. Alice didn’t talk to me about her work as a writer. You understand, it was a … personal zone. I know that she took a lot of notes when she was travelling. She always had a notebook on her.”
“Interesting. A notebook. Could we …”
“Yes?”
He moves closer to her, he can smell her perfume.
“Could we get a few shots of her notebooks? We’ll lay them out on the work table.”
“Well, that would be a bit complicated. Alice’s papers are all in boxes. After her death, I stowed them away, but in no particular order.”
“That’s too bad.”
“If you want, you can come back tomorrow, that will give me time to find them.”
“Not possible. Tom won’t be available.”
“Do we really need him?”
Claire looks at him with amusement.
“Monsieur Ste-Marie, if I come back alone, it would be to do what sort of photos, exactly? And with what equipment?”
Antoine blushes. He wasn’t expecting such a reply. Was she making fun of him? The wry smile that came along with the question makes him think so. But her self-assurance and her gaze don’t seem to be closing any doors.
“You’re not answering my question.”
“I’m looking for the best way to reply.”
“That’s so hard?”
“Listen Claire, I don’t want you to mistake my intentions.”
“Don’t worry. As for your intentions, I’ve understood them very well.”
Philippe puts on his coat and goes out, bareheaded, into the cold wind. He goes to Vincent’s, knocks on the door.
“Good evening, Rachel. Is Vincent here?”
“He’s gone to the tavern to watch the hockey game. He’s rooting for Chicago, can you imagine? He must be the only person in Chicoutimi who’s not a Canadiens fan. Rooting for the Blackhawks! I don’t understand my brother.”
“Do you know what tavern he went to?”
“The same as always. Let’s Talk Business. You know where it is?”
* * *
In front of the massive tavern door lit by a naked bulb, Philippe hesitates. He’s never gone into such a place. He knows you’re supposed to be eighteen. But no one asks for ID when he enters the room packed with young people who are clearly not of age.
From the bar’s ceiling, remarkably low, hang fluorescent lights daubed in red that make for a hot, stifling atmosphere. Spotlights in the corners light up, dreamlike, the smoke from cigarettes uncoiling in tortured threads. People are drinking beer from bottles and shouting to make themselves heard. The music, too loud, mingles with the sound from the television.
Philippe is dizzied by this chaotic scene with its outbursts of hysterical laughter. Couples embrace, others make discreet trips to the washrooms to smoke something other than tobacco. The boys are long-haired. Many sport bushy revolutionary beards that could have belonged to the loggers that were their fathers. The girls drift by in cotton skirts or loose Indian robes, no makeup, hair long. They drink “grosse Black,” roll cigarettes. Despite the arrival of spring, coats and scarves still hang over the backs of chairs.
Frozen in the tavern’s doorway, Philippe is discovering a new world that strikes fear in him.
For the office, it’s done.”
&nbs
p; “Thanks, Tom. Well. Monsieur Ste-Marie, if you’re still up for it, it’s your turn.”
“The photo of the husband, right?”
“I told you, our readers will love it. They’ll be delighted to see at last the face of the man who shared the life of Alice Livingston.”
“I have to admit I find that hard to believe.”
“What do you think, Tom?”
“We can try the living room.”
“In front of the big painting?”
“Yes, that would be good. I’ll go and get the tripod with the light from the car. I don’t think it’ll be bright enough there.”
Tom disappears. Claire and Antoine, in silence, go back into the living room.
“Another glass?”
“Yes, it’s really hot today.”
Antoine pours her some lemonade. Claire goes up to the big painting.
“I can’t see the painter’s name.”
“Actually, it’s a friend of my wife’s who did it. A woman.”
“Interesting.”
“It was a present.”
“It’s special. It will make a great background.”
The painting represents nothing. It’s neither figurative nor abstract. A pure sensation of purplish colours to attract the gaze first, and then make it uneasy. Alice didn’t like the painting, and called it The Blot. Antoine, on the other hand, is drawn to what throws it off balance. He sees there a cry for help, as if the light, imprisoned in those tortured pigments, stunned by their entanglement, were trying to free itself. Alice would have been happy to confine it to some dark corner of the house, but Antoine had made her understand that a gift of that magnitude, especially from a friend, deserved a place of honour.
Tom comes back with his gear. His T-shirt is damp with sweat. He’s whistling.
“What you’re whistling, is it The Magic Flute?”
“Don’t know it.”
“An opera by Mozart.”
“Don’t know, I just whistle whatever.” Tom resumes whistling, as he sets up the light.
“It’s Papageno’s theme, clearly.”
“No, I swear.”
Antoine himself sings the notes to prove that he’s right. Claire and Tom burst out laughing at the same time.
“Monsieur Ste-Marie, Tom’s pulling your leg.”
The ground slips away from beneath his feet. The complicity he now recognizes between Claire and the whistling photographer causes a sudden malaise. Tom flicks on the spotlight.
“Stand in front of the painting and turn your head toward me.”
Antoine obeys Tom, grudgingly.
“Think of something that gives you pleasure, and keep your eyes open as long as possible.”
It’s his turn to feel the heat and to sweat. He’s much too heavily dressed for a day that’s so humid and sticky. On Claire Langlois’s first visit, his appearance was far from alluring. He’d worn shorts that were just as absurd as Tom’s, but with a lot less panache. This time, he’d taken care to put on long pants and a jacket over a stylish shirt. He’d spent a long time in front of the mirror to get his hair just right. The result is pathetic.
“Place yourself at an angle now. No, not with the legs, just the body, turn just the top of your body toward me. There. Don’t lower your head, look at the lens, smile …”
Claire has positioned herself behind Tom. She’s watching Antoine with obvious pleasure.
“We’ll try one more. This time, do nothing at all. Let your arms fall along your body. Stand up straight. Don’t smile. Everything has to be in your gaze, can you give me that?”
Give what? Antoine is more and more uncomfortable.
“Don’t be so stiff, you look as if you’re in pain.”
He tries to relax, but feels awkward and ridiculous. And he can’t stand the patronizing way Tom is speaking to him. He hates being treated like a child. Yet Tom is only doing his job.
“This one is really the last. Think about someone you love.”
Antoine feels more like exploding: think of someone you love! Who does he think he is, ordering him to think of someone he loves? Why in hell should he be obeying this lump of muscle? What does he think? That he’s going to take off his clothes in front of him?
And yet he is thinking about someone when Tom takes his last shot. He’s thinking of his son. At that moment, his desire for Claire goes up in smoke.
Philippe thinks he recognizes Vincent near the bar, then sees he was mistaken. Making his way awkwardly through the tables, he sees that the tavern has a second room at the back, darker, more suffocating. Set up in a corner, a television set is showing a hockey game. Philippe goes closer and finally spots Vincent. He’s sitting at a table with a girl in his arms. His throat dry, Philippe approaches him. He pronounces his name, but there’s so much noise that Vincent pays him no attention. Philippe touches his shoulder. Vincent turns and gives him his widest smile.
“You’ve come to watch the game? What a surprise! Here, take my chair, I’ll get another one. Simone, take care of my best friend.”
Vincent disappears, leaving Philippe speechless. After hesitating for a moment, he sits down.
“It’s still one-one.”
“What?”
“The score. It’s one-one.”
“Oh. I’m Philippe.”
“I know. Vincent’s talked to me about you. I’m Simone.”
Vincent comes back with a chair. He leans over Simone, kisses her neck, then sits down.
“It’s so tense! We’re in overtime.”
“I haven’t come here to talk about hockey.”
“So what do you want to talk about, Philippe?”
“Never see Laure again.”
“I see you’re up on the latest developments.”
“You’ve ruined her life.”
“Don’t exaggerate, I’ve only destroyed a tiny piece of what she is. She’s been waiting for that for a long time. Now it’s done. And believe me, I have no intention of seeing her again. She’s totally boring. Keep her for yourself, go ahead, the road is clear.”
“Don’t be vulgar.”
“You think I wanted to sleep with her? I didn’t force her, she threw herself at me. You know, your ideas about purity of heart, that’s all ridiculous. And I’m not repeating everything she said about you, I’m being polite. In the end, she’s sorry for you.”
“You’re lying.”
“Understand this: she loves me! At least she thinks she does. But she’ll forget me and go on to the next. And one day she’ll set her sights on someone for all the right reasons, and she’ll know what she’s doing. And on that day, she’ll thank me. Ask Simone what she thinks. She knows all about it. And she’s behind me a hundred percent. She couldn’t care less if I’ve slept with another girl. By the way, you should read her poems. Simone is talented. Her writing’s not all hearts and flowers, no way! Tell him, Simone, what you think of this story.”
“Vincent’s right. He can sleep with whoever he wants, it’s none of my business. He’s free, and so am I. I’m not his property and he’s not mine. And that changes nothing about the sincerity of our feelings.”
“It’s a philosophical position. A position that Simone and I are acting on with the greatest intellectual rigour.”
“A position of egotists. You don’t understand a thing about true love. You’re cursed.”
“Listen to him, Simone, we’re cursed!”
Suddenly there’s a huge eruption in the tavern. For a moment Philippe doesn’t know what is happening. People are launching insults and starting to jeer. The Blackhawks have just scored the winning goal, one minute and eleven seconds after the beginning of overtime. Vincent, standing on his chair, is the only one who applauds.
“The Canadiens lost!”
For the first time in his life, Philippe feels hatred for someone. He leaves the bar but Vincent doesn’t notice his departure. He’s too busy celebrating his victory.
Antoine is anxious. He’s waiting for Alice to g
et back, she’s gone to see Félix. He’s eager to know how their first meeting went. For three weeks now, Félix has been writing to Alice every day. Increasingly personal letters in which he bares his heart to the person who describes for him the fancies of her soul, reminding him of Anaïs’s enthusiasms, their exchanges concerning life’s mysteries and the new world to be made.
It’s almost midnight when she finally returns.
“So?”
“I’m in love.”
“Very funny, Alice.”
“Not all that funny. Félix is handsome, romantic, sensitive. The opposite of you.”
“Be serious. How’d it go?”
“As expected.”
“Perfect.”
“Where are you going, Antoine?”
“To his place.”
“Now?”
“Have to strike while the iron is hot.”
* * *
When Félix opens the door to him, Antoine is out of breath from racing to the student residence. Without giving his friend time to open his mouth, he shoots him a question.
“Do you still believe in the resurrection of the dead?”
“You’ve come here in the middle of the night to ask me that?”
“You told me once that on the day of the Last Judgment you would be reunited with Anaïs. Do you still believe that?”
Félix remains silent. Antoine approaches him.
“Yes, I still believe it.”
“Even after what just happened here tonight? Don’t look surprised, I know she was with you.”
“Just what do you want?”
“To end a discussion. I’d like you to talk to me some more about the purity of your feelings.”
“Are you jealous? You’re spying on us, is that it? I don’t understand. You’re the one who urged me to reply to Alice’s letters.”
“Are you in love with her?”
“That’s my business.”
“And your eternal love for Anaïs, what about that?”
“That changes nothing about what I think or what I feel. To love Alice is also to love Anaïs.”
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