Anne had met Stephan Goetz in Vienna four years earlier. Until his appointment to the Österreichische Institut in Paris, Alexis’s friend had taught German literature at the Lycée Français. Now settled in an apartment on Rue des Martyrs, he invited Anne and Alexis to spend the evening there with him. During dinner, Stephan announced that he would love to translate Alexis’s book about the Secession movement. Then he told Alexis and Anne about his walks in Paris. With her keen sense for detail, Anne had no trouble following him in his poetic wanderings. Stephan had also bought used books and magazines on the history of Paris.
Certain that he would love Anne’s gallery, Alexis took his friend there a few days later. After giving Stephan a tour of the place, Anne led the two men downstairs to the storeroom, something she almost never did.
Standing in front of a large watercolor representing the terrace of a neoclassical palace, Stephan asked, “Who did that?”
“Simonetta Lorenzetti,” Anne said. “An Italian artist.”
Anne placed the canvas under better lighting, and said, “It’s a sketch for the set of Tosca she created years ago.”
“It’s gorgeous!” Stephan said, shaking his head.
The way he gazed at Simonetta’s work, Anne could tell it had stirred something deep inside him. …
46
In early July, hordes of Parisians left the city for their summer vacation. They were all the more happy to head elsewhere as the sweltering heat was turning apartments into furnaces.
“My God,” Alexis said when Anne arrived at his place, “I can hardly breathe.”
As he sank into a couch, Anne said she was going to make some iced tea.
“The more I drink,” Alexis said, “the more I feel dehydrated. …”
Paying him no mind, Anne stepped out into the garden to get some fresh mint. Seeing her enjoy the smell of vegetation, Alexis wondered where she found the strength to come and go as though the temperature was perfect. His head was pounding, and so he got up and headed for the bathroom, where he splashed his face with cold water and swallowed a couple aspirin.
Anne was taking ice cubes out of the freezer when the phone rang. At first, Alexis spoke naturally, but then he listened in silence for a long while and began to pace the room. Anne realized that the call was from Canada.
“Stay at Marc’s,” Alexis finally said.
Anne waited for Alexis to hang up the phone before handing him his drink. He looked preoccupied.
“That was Guillaume,” he said. “His mother made a scene at his girlfriend’s parents’ home. He’s never been so angry before.”
According to Guillaume, Geneviève was in some sort of manic state of mind. Since she did not like Guillaume’s new girlfriend, she had said horrible things about her right to her parents’ faces. Since then, Guillaume had been living with a friend.
“Geneviève is never going to be all right,” Alexis said. He started to pace the room again and added, “She’s always going to poison Guillaume’s life with emotional blackmail and threats of suicide. She did it to me for years!”
While he went through the pile of records, Anne sat on the couch. Looking out the window, she saw that nothing was moving in the garden. If only a thunderstorm would come to free them from this heat, this tension! Hearing the first notes of the Goldberg Variations, she shut her eyes. Bach’s music always had a soothing influence on her. Was it the same for Alexis? Had he selected this music to exorcise his worries?
Night was falling when they first heard the thunder off in the distance.
“Alleluia!” Anne said, walking to the window.
Lightning exploded across the sky, and the wind was rising, but the first drops of rain took a good while to come down. As soon as she heard them pelt the garden’s gravel, Anne stepped outside and, arms outstretched, began spinning around in the rain.
“Come on!” she called to Alexis.
Soon, they were drenched from head to toe. Feeling as though their bodies were reenergized, they hugged and laughed.
“We should head back inside with that lightning,” Alexis said finally.
As soon as they entered the living room, Anne took off all her clothes. Though her hair and body were wet, she didn’t feel like getting dry. Alexis having also undressed, she walked over to him. As he caressed her now cool skin, she wrapped her legs around his waist, and let the full weight of her body rest against his. She whispered in his ear words he couldn’t understand because of the storm raging outside. With only a few steps, he took her to the couch, flipped her onto her stomach, and began kissing her lower back. …
The rain had lost some of its intensity and thunder could be heard intermittently in the distance. Lying on the cushions strewn across the living room floor, Anne could smell the strong odor of vegetation coming off the garden. Through the opened windows, nature was invading the apartment. Alexis, too, was enjoying its effects. A hand resting on her lover’s stomach, he was relaxed, though still worried about his son over in Montreal. He brought his face right next to hers.
“Are you sleeping?” he whispered.
“I was going to ask you the same thing!”
“I was thinking about the two of us.”
“You do that sometimes?” she said, kidding.
They finally fell asleep, and then the bells of the Church of Saint-Pierre woke them up. The sun was shining in the cloudless sky.
“Want to have breakfast at the café?” Alexis asked Anne.
At that time of day, Place du Tertre and its surrounding streets were deserted. After making sure that the chairs and the table were dry, they sat on a terrace overlooking the square where they had spent so much time as kids. While they ate croissants and drank coffee, Alexis’s mind began to wander back in time. Getting a place in Montmartre had jogged his memory lately. With more precision, he could see himself as a boy, going to school, working in his father’s bookstore, playing with his friends. What would have become of him if a little obstinate girl from the neighborhood hadn’t guessed that they were destined to be together?
He watched Anne toss crumbs of croissants at some sparrows. In spite of their hectic night, she showed no trace of fatigue. The idea of having to go to Canada upset him. He really didn’t want to be separated from Anne. In the fall, he would leave for Vienna for one last school year. If all went well, he would also finish writing his biography of Gustav Mahler. Then he would settle in Paris for good. If Anne agreed, they would then make their relationship known to everybody.
“As long as we don’t live under the same roof,” she said when he asked her about it.
“Whatever you want. …”
After closing the gallery for the summer, Anne headed for Cormery to visit her parents. Isabelle and Aurélie had both decided not to go along on the trip.
“Grandpapa and Grandmama are too old!” Anne’s youngest daughter said.
Anne wasn’t thrilled with her daughter’s attitude, but she had to agree. More and more helpless, Monique had come to depend on a nurse with whom she argued most of the time. As for Yves, he did little else than go fishing on the banks of the Indre River. Invariably, the couple took their meals in front of the television, which restricted their conversations. Anne’s parents almost never talked to each other anymore, except when criticizing politicians, today’s youth, and the high rate of divorce nowadays. Anne knew that they had never forgiven François for leaving their daughter to marry another woman.
“Does he take care of the girls?” Monique asked Anne.
“He’s there when they need him.”
“That’s not enough!”
“They’re independent.”
“Independent! Aurélie is only eighteen!”
“They can count on me!”
“Yes, I know, but you can’t replace their father! Besides, you work all the time!”
“Isabelle lives in England and Aurélie is studying hard. The fact that I’m at the gallery is not a problem.”
Monique sighed heavily.
“You always have to be right,” she said.
“I’m not trying to be right,” Anne said calmly.
“If you hadn’t spent so much time working, maybe François wouldn’t have left. But each of you wanted to have a career in an odd field. Me, I spent my entire life taking care of your father …”
“I know, Mama.”
“As a result, we’re still together. It’s not right for a woman to be by herself.”
Anne would have liked to put her mother’s mind at ease by telling her that she had a man in her life, but in return she would have had to listen to a sermon about free unions. She was in no mood for that. Sadly, she realized that she couldn’t wait to leave Cormery. For so many years, her parents had been her role models, but now Anne almost felt like a stranger under their roof.
As soon as she returned home in Paris, she got a phone call from Alexis, who had just hit the road with Guillaume. The first few days in Montreal had been stormy, until Geneviève wound up hospitalized again.
“In the state she’s in right now, it was best that Guillaume and I left together. We’ll see how she is when we come back.”
They were planning a camping trip in Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. They were going to visit lighthouses and hang out on the beach.
“I miss you terribly,” Alexis said before hanging up the phone.
During the ten days Anne spent with Aurélie and Simonetta in a hotel in Lucerne, Alexis was on her mind. This was the first time Simonetta had ever gone on vacation. Though a bit stunned at first by the fun, carefree atmosphere of the city, she admitted to Anne that she was enjoying herself.
Every day Anne slept in, and then sat and relaxed on her balcony until lunchtime. All the while, Simonetta took boat trips on Lake Lucerne. During stopovers in a variety of tree-lined villages and small towns, she took local trains that took her up the surrounding mountains. On a few occasions, Anne and Aurélie went with her on such excursions.
Before dinner, Simonetta ordered a dry martini, which she sipped while waiting for her fellow travelers to meet up with her. One evening, as she was getting up to head for the dining room, she dropped her handbag, spilling its contents on the floor.
“It’s okay,” she told Anne, who was bending down to pick up Simonetta’s things.
Among them was a sketchbook. It was open to a drawing of the lake and mountains surrounding it.
Surprised, Anne pretended like she hadn’t noticed. And so Simonetta had secretly begun to work again!
47
Alexis came back on August 15. Waiting for him at the airport, Anne felt the same trepidation as in the beginning of their relationship. And the flight was late! As soon as he saw her, Alexis’s face brightened. She noticed that he had lost some weight and that he looked tired.
As they drove toward Paris, Alexis told Anne about his vacation. Both he and Guillaume had enjoyed their trip across the Maritimes. They went whale watching on the Saint Lawrence River, they visited a national park that was home to thousands and thousands of gannets, they camped on deserted beaches in Nova Scotia, and slept in cozy B & Bs on Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick. Everything would have been perfect if Guillaume hadn’t dreaded returning to Montreal to his mother.
“No matter how many times psychiatrists tell him that Geneviève is suffering from an illness,” Alexis told Anne, “the kid still feels guilty for not being able to understand what his mother wants out of him. There’s this poisoned link between them, and he can’t get rid of it. I suggested he come to France and continue his schooling here, but he won’t leave his girlfriend. … Thank God, Geneviève is going to remain hospitalized for a good while. Even her parents are relieved about that. They adore their daughter, but they’re at the end of their rope.”
Alexis was thrilled to be back in his apartment. He walked over to the piles of books on his desk and grazed them with a fingertip. The previous day, Anne had come over to make the place nice for him, filling the fridge with the food and drinks he liked, cleaning up the garden, and setting a bouquet of flowers on the kitchen table.
“You thought of everything,” Alexis said, kissing her.
He opened his suitcase and took out the presents he had bought her in Canada: a fancy notebook, colorful pens, and aromatic handcrafted soaps.
Soon, music filled the apartment. Anne began to hum as she made a tomato salad, which she carried out to the garden. During the meal, she told Alexis about her trip to Switzerland.
“Simonetta is trying to keep it secret,” she said, “but she started to work again.”
“Just for pleasure or is she planning a comeback?”
“I couldn’t tell you. I think that passing on her know-how to Aurélie made her rediscover her old passion.”
Anne got up and set a lawn chair down in the shade.
“I think I’m going to take a nap,” she announced.
Alexis wished he could also get some sleep, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to. For a while now, he had a very hard time sleeping well. Right now he was jet-lagged, tired from his trip with Guillaume, and stressed out because of the tension produced by Geneviève.
A wasp hovered above Alexis’s glass of Coke. He shooed it away with the back of his hand. The wasp took off, and then got dangerously near Anne, who was sleeping with her mouth slightly open. Alexis knew that Anne’s lips were sugary since she had eaten some grapes. He hesitated to call out her name because the wasp might sting her if she woke up with a start. He slowly got up and chased away the insect for good with a sharp slap.
“Ouch!” he said, looking at his wrist.
The wasp had managed to sting him.
Anne moved in her chair and opened her eyes.
“You’d be better off inside,” Alexis said.
“Why’s that?”
“Wasps.”
As Anne made her way to the bedroom, Alexis looked at the sting. The pain was now shooting up his arm, and it was beginning to swell. He felt very hot all of a sudden, and his heart was pounding. He splashed his face and hair with cold water at the kitchen sink, but it didn’t help. He then decided to tell Anne.
“I don’t feel well at all. …”
“What do you mean?”
“I was stung by some damn wasp.”
Seeing the size of Alexis’s arm, Anne jumped out of bed.
“We have to go to the hospital.”
“The pharmacy is fine.”
“No way! I’m taking you to the hospital right this second. You can’t mess around with that sort of thing!”
When they arrived at the Hôpital Bretonneau’s emergency room, Alexis had difficulty breathing. Anne had driven as fast as she could on the way to the hospital, her gaze falling on Alexis’s arm every few seconds. It kept getting bigger and bigger. As soon as Anne explained what had happened, the nurse took Alexis to a room, and a doctor showed up almost right away.
“Is this the first time you’ve reacted so violently to an insect bite?”
“Yes, the first time,” Alexis managed to say.
The doctor nodded and then prepared a syringe.
“We’re going to keep an eye on you for a few hours,” he said after injecting Alexis with adrenaline. “Everything should be just fine. But you’re obviously allergic to wasp stings. You’re going have to be careful in the future.”
Anne came over to join Alexis.
“Do you feel better?” she asked.
“At least I can breathe now, and my heart isn’t trying to jump out of my rib cage. …”
He smiled and added, “That was one heck of a homecoming!”
When they were allowed to leave the hospital, Alexis felt okay, except that the meds had
made him drowsy. Once home, he headed straight for his bed, as Anne made some lemonade.
“Are you going to stay with me?” Alexis asked.
“Unless you kick me out.”
Until he fell asleep, Anne remained next to Alexis. Then she stood up to clean the mess they had left behind. Silently, she did the dishes and picked up the clothes lying around. It was still daylight, and so she stepped out into the garden to water the plants and flowers. Then she went to the living room and walked over to Alexis’s desk. There was a sheet of paper in the typewriter. No doubt he was in a hurry to get back to his biography of Gustav Mahler. … Everything about the man fascinated Alexis. Mahler could have followed in the footsteps of Brahms and Schuman, but he instead decided to trace his own musical path. A friend of Gustav Klimt, Sigmund Freud, Adolf Loos, and E. T. A. Hoffman, he had composed symphonies and songs that celebrated nature, love, and death. Next to the desk was a filing cabinet containing Alexis’s personal papers. She knew that three of the drawers were filled with things having to do with their relationship. Just like her, Anne’s lover had kept everything: letters, souvenirs, photos. Even though he was a few feet away from her, she opened her handbag, took out a notebook and a pen, and began writing a note to Alexis saying that she loved him now with the same intensity as ever.
During the next few days, Alexis was healthy, except that he still had a hard time sleeping.
“The older I get,” he told Stephan Goetz, “the harder it is for me to deal with jet lag.”
Anne had invited them both for dinner at her place. With the new school year fast approaching, Stephan had less time for his literary and artistic wanderings in Paris. On the other hand, he had managed to find a publisher for his translation of Alexis’s study of the Secession movement. He was going to sign the contract in a few days, and the book was scheduled to come out the following spring.
I Looked for the One My Heart Loves Page 29