Happy about the news, Alexis thanked his friend, and added, “I’m going to miss you at the school.”
Though Alexis had a good rapport with his other colleagues, none were as close to him as Stephan.
On the last Saturday of August, Alexis and Stephan went together to the Musée National Gustave-Moreau. Anne would have liked to tag along, but she had to get ready for the gallery’s new season. Her assistant wasn’t going to come back until September 1, and so things were peaceful. Though Claire Fournier was very competent, Anne had a hard time dealing with her short temper. She was going over the mail when Aurélie phoned her. A friend was inviting her to her parents’ house near Poitiers.
“When are you coming back?” Anne asked.
“September 3.”
With nostalgia, Anne realized that her daughters had become adults without her really seeing the time go by. As for her marriage to François, it was like something that had happened eons ago. On a few occasions, they had seen each other to talk about matters concerning their daughters. The meetings were cordial, but they both wanted to keep them as short as possible.
Anne looked over the gallery’s finances. Since its opening, the gallery had tripled its sales revenues. That meant financial security for both her and Benjamin. In order to avoid risks, they still refused to exhibit the work of artists who were too highly rated. After she had finished, Anne glanced at her watch. Alexis and Stephan should have arrived forty minutes before, and it wasn’t like them to be late and, even less so, not to call if they were running behind.
As she grew impatient, the ringing of the phone startled her.
“Anne! It’s Stephan.”
He sounded out of breath.
“I’ll be right there,” he said, before hanging up.
Why did he say ‘I’ll be right there’ instead of ‘we’? Anne wondered. And why hadn’t he been more explicit? She lit a cigarette, but put it out after one puff. Then she phoned Alexis’s place. No answer. She had a bad feeling. Something had happened.
Stephan’s expression told her she’d been right in thinking that.
“Anne …” he said, his voice faltering.
“What’s going on?”
“It’s Alexis …”
“Did he have an accident?”
Stephan nodded. In his silence, he was trying to make Anne say the words he himself couldn’t utter.
“He got hit by a car?” Anne said.
Stephan took a deep breath.
“After we left the museum,” he said, “we went to the terrace of a pub for a beer. We were there for fifteen minutes or so, and then he told me he wasn’t feeling well. Then he just passed out. Some people came over, and one of them was a doctor. He gave Alexis CPR while we waited for the paramedics to arrive. They got there in no time.”
As Stephan spoke, Anne was trying to convince herself that this was only a bad dream.
“They took us to the nearest hospital,” Stephan continued.
“He was still unconscious then?”
“He never woke up,” Stephan muttered.
Anne had the impression that she had just fallen off a cliff.
“You mean …” she said.
Stephan grabbed Anne by the arm and tried to make her sit down, but she pulled herself free.
“This can’t be,” she said. “I don’t believe what you’re telling me.”
Stunned, pain was beginning to invade her entire body. It was like some beast was gnawing away at her guts, her throat. In a fog of tears, she saw that Stephan was also crying. He managed to tell her that the doctor at the hospital said that Alexis had suffered from a ruptured aneurysm.
Anne was speechless for a moment, and then blurted out, “A ruptured aneurysm … ?”
“The doctor asked me if Alexis had had some kind of trauma lately,” Stephan said.
“Well, he was worried about his son …” Anne said, realizing that the words that had just came out of her made no sense.
“The doctor also asked me about Alexis’s family medical history, and if he’d had some kind of allergic reaction recently. I had no idea what to tell him.”
“An allergic reaction … Not long ago he had a bad reaction after he was stung by a wasp. I took him to the emergency …”
For Anne, it was as though some sort of double was speaking in her place. All notion of reality had left her. Not only did she no longer feel like herself, she had the impression of talking about someone else altogether.
Alexis had told Stephan about his relationship with Anne. When the head nurse asked him who should be notified, he replied that he would take care of it.
“I want to see him,” Anne said.
“The … place,” Stephan said, not wanting to utter the word morgue, “doesn’t open until tomorrow morning.” Putting a hand on Anne’s shoulder, he said, “I’m sorry to bring up the topic, but is there someone we should contact?”
“His mother … My God, how am I going to tell her about this?”
“Alexis told me she lives in Lyon?”
Anne nodded.
“I can take a plane down and tell her myself,” Stephan offered.
Anne pressed him for more details about what exactly had happened to Alexis, but Stephan wasn’t able to say much. Traumatized by what he had been through, devastated by the loss of a close friend, he was trying not to have a breakdown. Unbearable images kept coming back, particularly those of the paramedics doing all they could to revive Alexis. Filled with a feeling of helplessness, he hated himself for not being able to better support Anne.
“I should go home now,” Anne muttered.
“You’re not going to be by yourself, are you?”
“No, I’m not. How about you?”
“A cousin of mine is on vacation in town and he’s staying at my place.”
Before leaving the gallery, they agreed to meet the following morning at Hôpital Saint-Louis. Huddled up in the backseat of a cab, Anne looked at the streets that were so familiar to her, streets that she and Alexis walked so many times. For the first time, it truly dawned on her that he was gone. A wave of sadness overwhelmed her. She could hardly breathe. Trying to smother her sobs, Anne rolled her scarf and pressed it against her mouth. In front of her apartment building, she paid the fare.
“You sure you’re okay, madame?” the taxi driver asked her.
Unable to say a word, Anne nodded and got out of the car. She stood on the sidewalk for a couple of seconds, then turned her back on her building, walked over to the next street, crossed the intersection, took a few more steps, entered an apartment building, went up some stairs, and knocked on a door.
“Who’s that?”
“It’s me.”
A few seconds later, Anne collapsed in Simonetta’s arms.
48
Anne spent the night at her friend’s. Simonetta, shaken by the tragic event, remained at Anne’s bedside. Though she had figured out that Anne and Alexis were together, she had no idea that the two had known each other since they were kids.
The next morning, Anne and Simonetta headed for Hôpital Saint-Louis. Stephan was waiting for them there. Like a sleepwalker, Anne stepped into an elevator and then shuffled down a long hallway.
Standing in front of the morgue’s door, she turned to Stephan.
“I don’t want to see him,” she said. “He has to remain alive in my memory.”
As they walked away from the morgue, Stephan said, “There’s some paperwork to be filled out. You want to come with me, or do you want to wait at the front desk?”
“I’ll go with you.”
Sitting behind a desk, the hospital clerk handed them the death certificate for the undertaker.
“Today is Sunday,” he said. “Nothing will be done until tomorrow.”
That gave Stephan time to take
a plane down to Lyon and come back with Alexis’s mother.
They rang Anne’s doorbell that evening, just before midnight. Her eyes red, her face grayish, Madame Messager looked like an old woman. Neither she nor Anne said anything to each other at first, but they didn’t need to since they shared the same sadness, the same emotions.
“Nobody in the family has ever died of an aneurysm,” Madame Messager finally uttered, her voice trembling. “Was he complaining about anything?”
“He had headaches sometimes,” Anne said.
Though she was exhausted, Madame Messager phoned Guillaume’s grandparents in Montreal. The grandfather was the one who picked up. Stunned by what he was hearing, he took a while to react.
“I think you should be the one to tell Guillaume,” Madame Messager told him. “I don’t think he should learn about this over the phone. Besides, you’ll be there to support him physically. What do you think?”
As the conversation continued, Anne learned that the young man had just undergone an emergency appendectomy. As for Geneviève, no one was to tell her about Alexis’s death before talking to her psychiatrist.
In accordance with Alexis’s wishes, his mother bought a plot at the Cimitière de Montmartre. The sun was shining when the hearse came to a stop near the grave. Four men slowly carried the casket. Anne clutched Simonetta’s arm. The scene was surreal to her, as though it wasn’t really happening. She raised her head and saw the pedestrian bridge where Alexis had joked about the dead here being lucky for resting in such a cheerful part of town. In a few minutes, he would join them! Before the casket was lowered into the grave, Stephan read a poem by Goethe. Then he said a few words about Alexis, and he had some soothing words for his mother. She stood next to the grave, surrounded by friends of hers. Anne preferred to stay in the background with some acquaintances of Alexis’s who flown in from Vienna. Among them was the director of the Lycée Français, as well as a few teachers. When she walked over to the grave that Alexis’s body had just been lowered into, Anne shook from head to toe. While mourners went over to Madame Messager to offer their condolences, Simonetta took Anne aside. Anne wondered how she could have coped without her friend.
So that her relationship with Alexis remained a secret, Anne asked Madame Messager if she could retrieve the souvenirs, photos, and letters that had to do with her.
With dread in their hearts, the two women drove to Montmartre. Though they were trying to be strong, they both knew that stepping inside Alexis’s apartment was going to destroy them. Overwhelmed with emotion, Anne had a difficult time unlocking the front door. Only Stephan had been in Alexis’s place, to get some clothes for the deceased. While there, he had closed all the shutters. Flipping the switch, Anne lit up the apartment. Everything was in its place. There was a sheet of paper in the typewriter. On the desk, next to a pack of cigarettes, was a bouquet of roses that Anne had picked from the garden. The flowers were withered already. A jacket of Alexis’s was lying on an armchair. His mother wanted to see the sunlight, and so she walked over to the shutters and opened them. With something akin to shyness, Anne headed for the living room. With a fingertip, she grazed an apple in the fruit bowl sitting on the sideboard. Everything was so normal, it looked as though Alexis was going to come home any minute now. Did Madame Messager have the same impression?
“You know better than I do where he kept his papers,” she whispered.
Anne opened the filing cabinet’s drawers and filled a large bag with letters and photos. She didn’t look at any of them as she did so. Then she removed from their frames all the photos of herself and Alexis scattered about the apartment.
“Make sure there’s no trace of me in here,” Anne told Madame Messager. “Guillaume doesn’t know about his father and me. … Might as well keep it that way.”
Because of his surgery, Alexis’s son hadn’t been able to attend his father’s burial. Overcome by the news, angry at not being able to get out of bed, he had long phone conversations with his grandfather, who was trying to answer the boy’s questions.
“I ended up giving him Stephan’s phone number so that he could tell him exactly what happened.”
“What about his mother?” Anne asked. “How did she react?”
“Even though things between Alexis and Geneviève were extremely complicated, she’s very sad. Thank God, she’s not allowed to leave the clinic. I don’t think I’d be able to deal with her on top of everything else!”
For Aurélie’s sake as well as that of her friends, Anne got up in the morning, got dressed, and went to work with the feeling that she was two people in one. The first one did what was expected of her, while the second was lost in a haze of questions and memories. Every time she was alone, all Anne thought about was Alexis. Sometimes she felt his presence right next to her, as though he had never left! But that was a fleeting sensation. Why should she keep on living knowing that he would never again fall asleep in bed with her, that she would never again hear the sound of his voice? She could hardly breathe when she received Alexis’s books, his records, his typewriter, along with a few other items that he had liked from Madame Messager. Spread around her apartment, the objects linked Anne with a past that had become her compass.
In spite of the circumstances, the opening of the Lorenzetti exhibit was a success. Stephan, who was one of the visitors, discovered the impressive breadth of Simonetta’s work. Unfortunately, there was a red dot under the watercolor he had seen with Alexis in Anne’s basement storeroom. Someone had been quicker than he in buying it.
“You still like it?” Anne asked him.
“I love it. … But it’s been sold.”
“No it hasn’t. It’s yours.”
“What do you mean, it’s mine?”
“It’s a present. In memory of Alexis and your friendship with him.”
Moved, Stephan noticed that Anne’s face had come to life. It was the first time since the tragedy.
A short time before Christmas, Isabelle announced to her mother her intention of marrying an Englishman who was working in an ad agency. They were going to live in London, but the ceremony would take place in Paris. Intensely involved in the wedding preparations, Anne was busy beyond belief. She helped her daughter pick a dress, planned the wedding ceremony and the reception, and sent out invitations. She and Madame Messager welcomed Isabelle’s future in-laws at the dinner rehearsal. Things went smoothly between Anne and her ex-husband throughout the entire evening.
“Everything went great!” Anne told Simonetta.
The following day, Anne felt great joy at the sight of Isabelle and her husband exchanging vows. Agnès and Gilles were there, and so was Thomas, who served as a witness, posing for the official photos. In a few weeks, Anne’s godson was also going to get married, to the cute brunette standing next to him with love in her eyes.
The following year, Aurélie moved out of the apartment. With Benjamin’s help, she had found an internship with a New York–based designer. Anne never would have imagined that both her daughters would be living abroad, and the apartment seemed terribly empty to her. Thankfully, Agnès stayed with her when she visited Paris, and so did Alexis’s mother.
Not a week went by without Anne and Madame Messager chatting on the phone. As soon as he had fully recovered from his surgery, Guillaume had gone to visit his grandmother in Lyon. Then, he had spent some time in the Montmartre apartment he had inherited from his father. He was even considering settling there for good.
“His father has become a role model for him,” Madame Messager told Anne.
“What does he plan on doing?”
“He might study law here. Learn Japanese. And stay away from his mother. …”
The year 1981 was coming to an end. At the age of fifty, people still told Anne that she looked young and cheerful, the opposite of what she felt. As a kid, her parents had always told her that it wasn’t proper to display yo
ur emotions, and she had managed to heed their advice since Alexis’s death.
The gallery was still doing extremely well, and Anne’s professional reputation in the Paris art world was second to none.
“You did even better than I thought you would!” Amanda told her.
From her home in Mougins, Anne’s former boss still provided her with information about up and coming artists. However, Amanda had no desire to go back to work.
“I just enjoy life!” she said.
Anne had almost forgotten the meaning of those words! And yet, almost imperceptibly, her days were punctuated with small moments of joy: smelling the flowers on her balcony, watching children walk by the gallery, inviting friends over and cooking for them. She also stopped taking the meds that had been like a crutch for her. What she couldn’t do, however, was go to California, where Phil’s work was now in high demand by collectors. On the other hand, she began listening to Mahler’s music again, and read once more the book Alexis had written about the artists of the Secession movement. Next to the French edition of the book in her bookcase was Stephan’s German translation. That friend through good and bad times had returned to Vienna, where he now worked as a cultural officer for a private institution. Anne would probably accept his invitation to join him at the next Salzburg Festival. Simonetta, who had also become a friend of Stephan’s, would go along with Anne. She had no doubt that she would come back with drawings and watercolors that she no longer tried to hide. …
These few steps toward some sort of emotional recovery were shaky. Anne admitted as much to herself, especially as spring was bringing back to her mind the effervescence she felt just before meeting Alexis again at the gallery. It had been fourteen years since she had taken so many risks to draw him to Paris. Fourteen years that she would never, ever regret. …
1982
Anne stared at the name engraved on the headstone. What was the link between the name alexis messager in gold letters on the marble and the man who had promised to always look after her? That his memory would be symbolized by a piece of stone didn’t satisfy her at all. She certainly didn’t need such a convention to remember him. Not a day went by without him being present in her life. He was with her when she made decisions, when she took risks. Since she had recovered from the shock of losing Alexis, Anne had chosen to live her life well until it was her time to leave this world. Doing otherwise would be a betrayal of Alexis, whose own life had been cut short so quickly and unfairly.
I Looked for the One My Heart Loves Page 30