The Dead of Winter

by Lisa Appignanesi

  Unframed canvases lean against the walls as if Madeleine has forgotten to hang them or simply couldn’t make up her mind where they belonged. By the window stands a vast terracotta urn, the gift, no doubt, of some Roman admirer. It is stuffed with every conceivable variety of dried branch and flower.

  When Madeleine and I first lived together, what I thought of as her mess irritated me. I like a certain sparsness, a certain order. I like to know where I can find things. But Madeleine never seemed to leave the house without coming home with some object happily retrieved from a tip or a flea market or a junk shop. Her dressers and wardrobes burgeoned with jewellry and scarves and belts and bric a brac. She rarely wore or looked at these things. It was simply enough for them to be there as if her business were the recovery of lost objects.

  Sometimes she would remember something that she wanted and set up a frenzied search, only to turn up with a treasure she had quite forgotten. This seemed to make her inordinately happy. Then every so often, she would dump random armfuls of things into black bags and we would transport them to charity shops. And the whole process would begin again.

  I came to realise that for Madeleine a home was an evolving space, a living environment. It didn’t matter whether its basic structure was large or small. Even the regal house in Neuilly on the outskirts of Paris which was the fruit of her stardom and which would have imposed its own bourgeois order on anyone else, had no impact on her ways. Her reckless disorder took it over.

  She had no predetermined ideal of the way things should look or be. She didn’t, in any real sense, care. What she needed was the casual chaos. And a degree of unpredictable flux. It fed her in some indefinable way, charged the motor of her talent.

  Since one person’s comfortable clutter is another’s insupportable mess, my study grew a closed door, a lock, and a contrasting clinical precision. So, too, eventually, did my bedroom.

  In the shorter arm of the L-shape which makes up the capacious central space of Madeleine’s apartment stands an elegant ash table with six high-backed Macintosh chairs. The table is covered in Christmas cards. A tall blue-enamelled vase perches at its centre. Lillies, waxy-white and huge, sway from its depths. I touch them and shiver. They are alive. They have out-lived Madeleine.

  I glance into the kitchen. Two plates stand on the counter. They bear a complement of crumbs, a piece of crust, a smattering of jam. The sink contains a couple of unwashed mugs, a few knives and spoons, two long-stemmed glasses. The fridge is all but empty: a sliced loaf, a tub of margarine, a carton of milk, a bottle of Don Perignon. For Madeleine, it is all surprisingly tidy.

  I force myself to interrogate these objects with an objective eye. I want to know the truth, don’t I? If the kitchen displays two of everything, there was someone with Madeleine on the day she left for Ste-Anne. But perhaps only someone at breakfast. And the night before, if the wine glasses are anything to go by.

  I find myself rushing to the bedroom, then pause to take a deep breath before I open the door and switch on the light. To my astonishment, the bed is neatly made, the white habitant coverlet tucked and seamlessly stretched over its vastness. Which proves nothing, I chide myself. Madeleine is quite capable of making a bed. A partner is capable of making a bed. But if there was a partner, could it have been the man with the pony-tail? Or someone else?

  With an edge of irritation, I start to rifle through her commode, her night-table drawers, in search of papers, in search of the day-diary which should have been in her bag but wasn’t. Perhaps the police have already taken that. Though it is uncertain what it might reveal. Madeleine was never an assiduous planner. She would hardly have noted D-Day.

  That thought gives me pause. If Madeleine decided to take her life, it would have been as impetuous a decision as all her others. She wouldn’t have thought. If she had thought, she wouldn’t have done it. Her grandmother’s sorrow would have stopped her. No, it could only have been the organic cumulation of a mood which said, ‘Enough!’ And a concatenation of circumstances provided an opportunity, a sudden brainstorm.

  Emotions swarm through me, crowd out the clarity I strive for. Why does my mind keep thrusting aside the clues Madeleine herself gave me - her depression at the killings? Why does it ever and always keep returning to the notion of a lover. Is it a buried desire for vengeance which has me imagining a single hated man who is ultimately responsible for Madeleine taking her own life? As if Madeleine were a fragile and bereft woman. Some love-lorn girl who had no resources to fall back on.

  I swat at these thoughts, vexatious wasps, and remember that I have come here on an errand -- the journals Mme Tremblay is certain Madeleine sporadically kept. If the police haven’t already found them, the study should have been my first port of call.

  The room extends along the front of the building and has the same dramatic view as the salon. I have only been in here once before. Perhaps, despite my imaginings, this study was more private to Madeleine than her bedroom.

  A desk which is really a long refectory table covers the length of the window which is also the width of the room. But for a tiny cleared space at its centre, it is buried in papers, manilla envelopes and a multitude of brightly coloured folders. Two ornate tins hold piles of pens and pencils. There are plants everywhere. Books, CD’s, cassettes and thick cardboard box-files line the back wall.

  If Madeleine has kept up old habits, I know the contents of these boxes. They are filled with the scripts that over the years have been sent to her. These, for some inexplicable reason, she never throws away. The floor is littered with more of them. And with newspapers. In the far corner, there is a garrishly painted rocking horse, like an old-fashioned fairground animal. A large rag doll sits astride it. On the opposite wall there is a chaise-longue in deep blue velvet.

  I sit in the desk chair and start to comb through a heap of papers which bear no visible order. If there were a suicide note, then presumably the police have already taken it away. I thrust aside some bills and find a letter from Marie-Ange Corot, Madeleine’s agent in Paris, asking her if she might be interested in a medium-sized part in a film that promises well. Attached to this letter is a stack of fan mail which I only glance through cursorily.

  These letters puzzle me. At the back of my mind has been the thought that Madeleine’s despression has been linked to a bleak patch in her career. Her last two American films didn’t do well at box office. She had told me that she wasn’t interested in working in Hollywood anymore. It was one of the reasons she had taken on Hedda. But here was a clear offer.

  I put aside my thoughts and glance through more correspondence. There are invitations, letters from friends abroad, both male and female. Nothing out of the ordinary, were it not that Madeleine is dead. In this room, so replete with her presence, that fact becomes increasingly hard for me to keep at the forefront of my mind. More and more, I feel like a snooper, who at any moment will be caught in the act. Superstitiously I look over my shoulder and have to force myself back to the task.

  I open an orange folder and a young bearded face leaps out at me. It takes me a few minutes to recognize Marc Lépine, the university assassin. Madeleine has clipped newspaper stories of the event, not only from local papers, but from farther afield, Toronto, the US, France. The files have the authentic note of an obsession. For one thing, there is a neatness about the clipping and filing - the stories of the victims separated out from accounts about the killer, his family, his schooldays - which is not in evidence in any other of her papers.

  It suddenly occurs to me that there might be a practical reason behind Madeleine’s fixation. The police never allowed the papers to publish Lépine’s hit list. But perhaps they questioned individuals. Madeleine may have known her name to be on the list. Contini will be able to find out about that.

  At the bottom of the Lépine file, there is a crumpled sheet of paper, a letter, half-written, crossed over. I don’t know who ‘Mon cher Armand’ is, but my heart pounds with unnerving speed as I scan the first li
nes. ‘I can’t go on. I really can’t.’

  As I read, it comes to me that Armand is the director of Hedda Gabler and Madeleine is asking to be replaced. ‘I hate to let you all down, but you’ll have to find someone else. By Christmas at the latest.’

  There is no date on the letter. I have no way of knowing whether a version of it was sent.

  I put the Lépine files to one side. Beneath them the bright colours of a magazine catch my eye. Its contents shock me. This is no magazine but a mail order brochure for guns and rifles. A felt-tipped pen has circled all the semi-automatics on offer as well as tiny pistols, the kind that fit easily into a handbag.

  Madeleine’s fear is suddenly as real to me as if it were my own and an armed marauder had entered the room. I throw the magazine to one side and go in search of a drink. Had she ordered a pistol for herself, I wonder as I uncork a bottle of wine. I swallow a large mouthful without tasting it. Is the pistol perhaps already here, stored somewhere in the apartment, a security shield against women-loathing men? But if so, why didn’t she use the pistol?

  All the stories I have been telling myself start to unravel. Once more, I force myself to remember that I am here for a specific purpose which is not my own. I am here to save Madeleine from any potential scandal. If they are still here, I must find those journals Mme Tremblay is certain exist. I almost pick up the phone to ask her whether she has any idea what they look like, but a glance at my watch tells me it is already far too late to ring anyone.

  Bottle in hand I trudge back to the study. More quickly, now I rifle through folders, looking only for Madeleine’s flowing hand, her black ink. I have just put a publicity folder to one side when a single sheet of paper flutters out from between two files.

  It is in her writing and the text assaults me with the steely coldness of a bayonet.

  I want to creep into a dark hole and die. I want to become utterly invisible, a heap of ash caressed only by the wind. How could you? I thought it was you. Now I am certain. Perhaps you see it as an act of love. A strange love it is which wants only to fathom and control.

  I stare at this text with no date and no addressee for I don’t know how long. Then, with a shiver, I fold it into my jacket pocket. I know the addressee. I know him only too well. Quickly, I start on another pile, reversing the order this time, turning the whole thing upside down. It is then that a small green diary magically appears on a corner of the desk like some precious long-lost ring. The police have hardly been thorough.

  My fingers grow clumsy. I can barely make them turn the tissue-thin pages. But apart from the sixth which has been blacked out in thick ink, December holds very little. Lunch with me is marked as P 1.00 and the name of the restaurant. P’s also signal performance evenings. I remember this coding from way back.

  What I have forgotten is the excellence of Madeleine’s memory, for which the diary is an almost uncessary prop. There are a few other dates with letters of the alphabet I can’t be certain of. And then on the 20th a letter, it could be T, it might be F, ‘arrives!’ After that there is nothing. The diary is blank. Because it has nothing to tell or because Madeleine willed it so, I don’t know.

  With sudden fury, I crush my fist against the desk and fling the diary to the floor. Why is Madeleine being so obstinate? Why won’t she yield any of her mystery? Why can’t she simply tell me what all this is about?

  I do not realise I am sobbing her name until the walls hurl it back at me. I steady myself. The wine bottle is almost empty. A glance at my watch shows me it is half past two. Where have the hours gone? I am in no state to drive home. Nor have I accomplished my mission. Despair threatens. I can feel it paralysing my limbs.

  Before it takes me over completely, I open each of the box files on the shelf in search of something that might be a journal. As I replace the final one, I tell myself that here, at least, the police have succeeded. Or, alternately, that Madeleine has left her purported journals in the house in Neuilly, perhaps even in Los Angeles. Or that she has thrown everything significant out, has accomplished another of her periodic evacuations. For there are other things missing, too. Things that should be here, but that I can’t find. things that I don’t want to think about, but that I need to locate. Yes, need too.

  In the bedroom, I start again. I am not a good detective. Madeleine robs me of the power of clear-sightedness. I am too interested. Stray objects keep usurping my attention. A pair of shoes I remember because of the way they make her foot arch. A crumpled silk-velour scarf in which her fragrance lingers. I read these objects and they give me clues to Madeleine’s life, but not her death. There is a crucial final chapter missing.

  I lie on the bed and try to cast myself into her mind and body.

  The sliding wardrobe door is half open and an assortment of dresses peeks out at me. Shoes too. And one of those large glossy hatboxes I didn’t know still existed.

  The hatbox. My eyes return to it. It seems to speak to me. A low, throaty voice.

  With shaky hands, I lift the box onto the bed. I edge off its shiny lid. Colours leap out at me - the deep yellow of sunflowers, the lush green of art nouveau vines, the blues and reds of delicate Indian silk prints, faded watery pastels like ink blots streaming down a porous surface. One by one I place the notebooks on the bed and stare at them.

  The need to open them, to read, is overwhelming. Yet I hesitate. It is a breach. Would Madeleine forgive me the transgression? I lie back on the pillows and finger the texture of covers. Perhaps if the books are dated, I can pick out only the last, the final chapter.

  The sprawl of my body reminds me of something I haven’t wanted to remember. I have lain here before. Madeleine and I slept here together once. It was the first time in too long. Just after she had bought the apartment. I handled the transaction for her.

  The day the bed and the sofas arrived, she invited me over, invited me into this room. It was summer and she was wearing some kind of clinging dress which left her back and shoulders bare. The deep gold of the California sun was on her skin and her voice had a husky resonance as she murmured, ‘Let’s.’

  I had forgotten the nature of passion. I don’t know if it died an ordinary death or I killed it off. In any event, Madeleine reminded me of its fierce beauty. It was only ever like that with her. Perhaps it had to do with her laugh or her acrobatic grace or her generous, almost gratuitous desire which asked for nothing in return. Or simply the fact that we go so far back. But we both felt it. And recognized its impossibility.

  Afterwards she curled into me and told me I was her earth. She had to keep coming back to me. I grounded her. She laughed her mischievous laugh then and added, ‘But generally, I prefer flying.’

  I pick up one of the notebooks, the shiniest one with the sunflowers, and open it at random.

  Back from Europe. The farm is lovely. Star is happy to see me. And Michel and François and Mme Laporte. But Ste-Anne is deadly. A dump. A year is a long time. I rode for hours this morning then stopped off for breakfast at the Rousseaus. Pierre doesn’t want to know me anymore. Too bad for him. I’m not going to give him the present I bought. I’ll give it to Michel instead.’

  I have chosen badly. There is no date here, but I can supply it. August 1966. We were still children, but I thought I was a man.

  The thudding of horse’s hooves reached me in my room. I looked out and saw Madeleine tethering Star to the porch. Her presence made me unaccountably nervous and if my father’s voice hadn’t insisted, I would have remained hidden.

  As it was, I could barely make myself meet her eyes. All I could focus on were her legs which looked inordinately long in her riding boots. And her voice which was distant, formal, too Parisian as she shook my hand.

  I squirmed uncomfortably and looked out the window while my father plied her with questions. The weather was unbearably hot. August mug had set in, the kind that barely lets the sun break through the clouds. Perspiration gathered in my armpits. My fresh shirt was already sticky. I didn’t want to hear th
e marvels of Paris and London chanted by a girl with a stuck-up voice.

  Maybe I was simply guilty. Earlier that summer the miracle had happened. With Anette, a waitress in a local diner, I had finally made my way to that mysterious place where ‘the fruit of thy womb’ resided. As a result, Madeleine felt alien to me. She inhabited the innocence I had so recently left behind that the fragile reality of the distance between us had to be established with an almost brutal coldness. Also, I knew I had only a week left with Anette before the walls of Jean Brébeuf closed round me once more.

  Madeleine and I effectively lost touch after that. Mme Tremblay had determined that there had been more than enough of nuns and convent education. And the ordinary French state schools in the area were simply not good enough for her granddaughter. She sent Madeleine off to board with acquaintances in Montréal who had a daughter her age. Together the girls went to an English language high school in the west of the city.

  When our two families met that Christmas, Madeleine and I were cool with each other. The following summer I had a job at Le Devoir. It was the year of Expo 67 and the city had spawned a whole new island of wonders - national pavilions containing every kind of invention. The Americans had built a vast Buckminster Fuller geodesic dome. The Russians had included a miniature hydroelectric dam in their exhibition. Visitors poured into the city. Theatre troupes arrived from every corner of the world. The whole thing proved so engrossing, that I didn’t bother going home to Ste-Anne. Then university took me over. Between work, the occasional articles and the stimulus of the decade’s politics, I rarely if ever thought of Madeleine and a childhood which I felt I had left behind.

  I skim Madeleine’s notebooks. I have found the one that follows on from the sunflowers. I am not really reading. I am only capable of looking for my name. The rest can come later, if Mme Tremblay allows it.