The Life to Come

by Michelle De Kretser

  ‘Now this, you see, is fascinating,’ said the man. His voice was sonorous and clear, the voice of an educated Frenchman, designed to instruct. ‘One recognises the model, of course, she is Camille Claudel. Rodin added those hands—they have nothing to do with her. Notice the title.’ His companion’s eyes rolled to do his bidding as if they had come loose in their sockets. ‘It refers to a painful episode in the life of the couple. But what is of ontological interest is obviously the plinth.’

  Céleste moved away. She was standing near Fugit Amor when the sun slipped free of clouds. Light, flowing into the room through the tall windows, polished the parquet. It entered the marble lovers. Marble lips, toes, nostrils turned translucent, individual crystals sparkled.

  Later, walking with Pippa in the grounds, Céleste said, ‘Did you notice that someone had kissed the bust of Clémenceau? An atrocity—magenta lipstick.’

  The hedges, savagely pruned, were giving off a cold green scent. Céleste ran her palm along one, discovering how the sharp little twigs pricked. Pippa’s shoes were dusty from the gravel while hers remained immaculate—how come? She told Pippa that she was reading George Meshaw. ‘His sentences are like gunfire.’ Céleste aimed two fingers at the hedge. ‘Bang bang bang. And the way everything is closing in on that guy—I feel I can’t breathe, reading that book.’

  ‘I know what you mean,’ said Pippa. ‘George’s writing’s sort of…abstract but oppressive, isn’t it? You never learn what his characters look like, but by the end of the novel you feel like you were stuck in a lift with them for hours. But a lot of critics—men, I mean—really like that kind of thing. You can only get so far if men don’t like your work.’

  ‘Oh, don’t get me wrong. I couldn’t say I’m enjoying his book but I think your friend’s great,’ said Céleste.

  It was true. At the same time, she was aware of drawing blood.

  Light rushed down the avenues, fleeing into the distance. Two women went by, in beige trenchcoats with tinselly saris underneath; the younger one’s mouth was coloured an appalling pink—Céleste’s eyes met Pippa’s. A roaring child followed a few paces behind. When the lipsticked woman turned and spoke to him, he shouted, ‘Don’t interrupt! I’m crying.’

  ‘To be honest, museums depress me,’ said Pippa. Her red scarf lent a rosy cast to her face. ‘What am I meant to feel looking at all that stuff? Paris is so crushing.’ She broke a sprig from a hedge and began driving her thumbnail into each leaf. ‘I’ll be glad to get back to Sydney,’ she announced. ‘Everything hasn’t already been done there.’

  Céleste realised that she could see Pippa in ten years, even fifteen—she was wearing leather trousers. She no longer wrote novels, but had a weekly television show in which she cooked a meal for a celebrity. Over dinner, eaten on a penthouse terrace overlooking Sydney Harbour, they discussed the book the celebrity had written. They mostly talked about the food, which was just as well. Pippa said, ‘Cooking with fresh, organic ingredients is my way of honouring life.’ She gazed out over the billionaires’ view and added, ‘It’s the simple things. Always.’ Now and then she thought of Alice Munro.

  ‘Incredible!’ said Céleste. ‘Look at this—I’ve translated en effet as in effect.’

  ‘Also, your shoes need polishing,’ said Yvette. ‘It’s not a question of vanity, it’s a matter of looking after your belongings so that they last. When I think of what you squandered on those shoes!’

  ‘Why won’t you tell me what I want to know about my father?’

  ‘Ridiculous child! Always looking over your shoulder.’

  Sabine’s widowed great-aunt, who lived in an old people’s home in Besançon, had been ill, and it was decided that Sabine ought to visit her. Telling Céleste, Sabine said simply, ‘She is rich.’ Fortunately, the old woman had never been fond of small children, and in any case Jennifer had a ballet exam, so the girls were to remain at home with their father. Sabine said, as if it had already been arranged, ‘We’ll have a whole night together at last.’

  On the train, Sabine played Sudoku on her phone—she was training her left brain, she explained. ‘My work is creative, so it’s necessary to compensate.’ She interrupted her game to google a test. Céleste saw the silhouette of a ponytailed woman on the screen. As she looked, the woman began to spin on her heel.

  ‘Which way is she turning?’ asked Sabine.

  ‘This way.’ Céleste drew a circle in the air with her finger.

  ‘You’re left-brained. I knew it: logical, good with words.’

  Céleste stared at the phone. ‘Do you really see her spinning the other way?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  ‘That’s amazing. I can’t believe that we’re looking at the same image and registering two different things.’

  ‘That’s because you’re left-brained—you’re uncomfortable with anything you can’t explain straight away. I’m the opposite, creative and intuitive, so a little chaos doesn’t disturb me at all.’

  Céleste watched hedges blur in the window of the TGV. George Meshaw’s novel lay unopened on her lap. She felt predictable and dull.

  In Besançon, their hotel lay at the end of a cobbled yard. Their room was ready, but the manager asked if they would mind returning in an hour or two—the hotel’s website was being updated, a photographer was expected, and she didn’t want her best room disturbed. She led Céleste and Sabine up two flights of white-walled, paint-smelling stairs and unlocked a door. The room behind it swam in green light from the wisteria climbing in over the balcony. Here, too, the smell of paint prevailed. ‘It’s the most charming room in the establishment,’ said the manager in her thrilling smoker’s voice. She looked no older than Sabine but had paused to wheeze on each landing. She inserted a mauve plastic fingernail into a keyhole and hooked open a door that was flush with the wall. ‘Leave your bags here for the moment,’ she said, indicating the cupboard, which contained two pillows. Near the window hung a picture of what appeared to be a bright blue bird trapped in orange branching coral. Sabine was studying it intently. Céleste realised that she, too, was looking anywhere except at the bed.

  The town was built of a pale stone that looked dingy even in the sun—in winter every house would have a grey face. Saturday shoppers crowded the streets. A man with his arm in a cast was surveying the window display of a unisex shoe shop called Ladyboy. Like all the young men these days, he had a beard and hat that made him look like an Impressionist painter. Sabine stopped to cast a professional eye over the offerings in a florist’s shop. ‘You see?’ she said. ‘People here don’t mind roses that have opened. In Paris, nothing will persuade them to put their hands in their pockets for anything but a bud. They’re so limited.’ Having lived in Limoges until the age of two, Sabine often assumed a detached, Olympian view of the deficient Parisian mind.

  They strolled on, past the market, past a motionless carousel in a square. In a park beside the river, a woman was wheeling a whippet in an old-fashioned pram. ‘Is it an accident? Does she need help?’ Sabine hurried forward. The woman explained that the dog had grown too old to walk but still enjoyed un petit tour de la ville. Stretched full length, the whippet was beached wood: grey and motionless, his adventures behind him.

  Vauban’s citadel, overlooking the old town, could be seen from the path that ran beside the water. Sabine pointed the other way, to her aunt’s house. It lay across the river on a wooded hill, a gleaming white cube with windows that were mirrors in the sun. ‘After dinner, the two of us used to sit out on the terrace, drinking Irish whiskey and singing. Once there were soldiers in the citadel and they sang with us. Tante Rosalie didn’t like soldiers—she called them vulgar.’ Sabine lifted her arms, stretched. She had taken off her jacket, and her halter-neck dress displayed the square shoulders that even quite recently would have been thought ugly. ‘That was the summer I turned sixteen,’ she said, and sighed.

  ‘What did you sing?’

  ‘My aunt’s favourite was David Bowie. What does it mean
exactly, “funk to funky”?’

  ‘No idea.’

  ‘But if you had to translate it?’

  ‘I wouldn’t.’

  Tante Rosalie, like her husband, had been born into a colonial family, explained Sabine, leading Céleste across a bridge. Her husband had seen what was coming in Algeria. He sold his hotels and his cork factory, and the orchards his grandfather had planted, and pulled out in ’53. In France, he bought commercial real estate in three cities, including Paris. Certain phrases, such as springtime in the Atlas Mountains, would cause him to tug his moustache. Tante Rosalie always made her own couscous, the grains incomparably fine. All through the difficult winter of 1961, her husband lived for a weekly radio broadcast called ‘Algiers a Hundred Years Ago’. He died on the same day as de Gaulle, who had betrayed him and every Frenchman by granting Algeria independence. All this was family legend, but Sabine herself could attest to the smell of the house. In widowhood, Tante Rosalie started to keep cats—by the time she went into the home, she had thirty-six. ‘She used to put down bowls of meat and forget about them.’ Sabine’s hand made the tipping gesture that signifies drink. ‘She was old, even twenty years ago. And so thin. Her rings were superb, these enormous stones. They slipped around on her fingers. Once I found a ruby in the cats’ meat. After that, I checked the bowls every day.’ Sabine added, ‘What they say is quite true, you know: Algeria was never just a colony. I know it for a fact, from my family.’

  Céleste didn’t say, Funny how you never hear an Algerian say that.

  The road curved and began to climb. Presently, they turned off onto a narrower road where logs had been stacked under blue tarpaulins, ready for winter. Trees grew close to the verge and filled up all the distance. The town had disappeared; it might never have existed. Céleste’s notion of space having been formed in Australia, she still thought of France as a small, urbanised country—the claims of its trees, swift and far-reaching, were always a shock.

  A broad track led up through the woods. It took them to a gate, spiked and chained and set into a long brick wall: Propriété privée. Défense d’entrer. Beyond the gate, the beech trees stretched. Sabine said, ‘I was sure we could see the house from here.’ She passed her hand across her eyes, a magician’s gesture, and then stared around, as if a fresh arrangement of their surroundings might have been conjured into sight.

  ‘Wait here,’ she commanded. Explaining that she recalled a smaller gate, around to one side, she was already moving off. At first Céleste could see her stepping through ivy; then she disappeared. By the time she came back, Sabine had remembered cherry blossom. ‘At the back of the house. There was no garden to speak of, and no one had pruned the cherry tree since my uncle died, but it blossomed every year.’ She combed her fringe with her fingers and said, ‘It was a waste of time to come here.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Céleste. For several minutes, the only picture in her mind had showed Sabine arrayed on leaf mould with her pink frock ruched about her hips. A snail with a butter-yellow shell passed in close-up; a cartridge case lay beside Sabine’s spread hair.

  ‘The whole place is overrun with nettles,’ said Sabine, as if answering a silent entreaty. ‘We’ll just have time to get back for lunch before I visit my aunt.’

  She talked incessantly on the way down of what Céleste would never see: the view from the terrace of the house, the room that had been hers—its two awkwardly spaced windows, ‘like eyes set just a little too far apart’.

  At the bridge, Céleste said, ‘See that guy over there? He’s the second man I’ve seen here with his arm in plaster.’ Then she asked, ‘What happened to your aunt’s cats when she went into the home?’

  ‘She had a friend who used to visit her. He might have rescued one of the kittens.’

  They dined in a restaurant by the river. The foyer held a tank of trout, who had turned their tails to the room and were nosing at the darkest corner of the glass. Sabine was rather silent. She had spent the afternoon with her aunt, who seemed pleased to see her. Very soon, however, the old woman slipped away into a different world. ‘Over and over, she said, “Please don’t, Alain, please don’t.”’

  ‘Who’s Alain?’

  ‘Some bastard.’ Sabine went on, ‘My aunt shares a room with a lady who has MS. The only visitor she has is her mother. Her mother’s ninety and lives in Clermont-Ferrand, so she can’t manage the trip more than once a year.’ Sabine had counted nine shades of brown in that room. All the time she was there, a voice further along the corridor shouted, ‘Help! Help!’ No one took any notice. ‘But you know the worst thing in that place? The staff wear T-shirts that say, We make each day the best it can be. My God!’

  While Sabine was at the nursing home, Céleste had showered and turned down their bed. But when Sabine returned, she had to call each of her children as well as Bernard. A text from Jennifer had informed her of a crisis: Bernard’s mother had fixed Jennifer’s hair in such a way that four strands had stuck out of her chignon all morning, and Jennifer’s life was ruined. After a soothing conversation that went on and on, Sabine called her mother, to report on Tante Rosalie. Céleste, lying on the bed, could hear Sabine’s voice on the balcony. The words ‘incoherent’ and ‘disgusting’ recurred, but Céleste could think only of the long night they would spend together, the long waking. On the back of the door, a list of instructions on what to do in case of a fire had survived from an earlier era: Gardez votre sang-froid, it began.

  That night Céleste woke at around two. The mattress sagged, and Sabine was lying more or less on top of her. When Céleste stroked her shoulder, Sabine rolled away, heaving herself out of the dip. She put out a hand, very white in the darkness, and moved it across the wall. Céleste breathed quietly, listening as Sabine settled back into sleep. Half an hour later, she was still thinking of trout and cats and the empty, frightening years that waited. Sydney appeared: it was a wooden house opening on to blue water. That led to Pippa, who had left Venice and was travelling south. Pouring wine on the last evening in her studio, Pippa had said, ‘Did you notice that, the way I twisted the bottle? I learned that from you.’

  Céleste rose and dressed. Passing the reception desk, she almost upset a bowl of water set in the middle of the floor—to absorb the smell of paint, she supposed. She was carrying George Meshaw’s book, with the vague idea that she would find somewhere to sit and read for a while. But the breakfast room was locked, and the lobby contained no chairs.

  She crossed the yard and the vaulted carriage entrance, and pressed the button that opened the heavy street door. The night was cool, and Céleste had dressed hurriedly in whatever came to hand. She walked briskly to keep warm, and when she came to a crossroad, chose the street that led uphill. It took her past a church, and the walled gardens of villas. Where it came to an end, a single streetlight showed a flight of steps. They ran up through trees and then—Céleste could sense rather than see its bulk—to the citadel. She climbed up to the road that ran past the fortifications. There was another street lamp, and a watchtower in the angle of a wall. Céleste went inside and peered through a deep-set, slitty window. Lights pricked the town below; they showed her the glistening vein of the river.

  Pictures of Sabine appeared and faded in Céleste’s mind like stars. She saw her that afternoon by the river, her exact shoulders, with hills behind her face. In the restaurant where the two of them had dined, the trout would still be looking for a way through glass. Sabine, glancing at their tank as she passed, had murmured, ‘Pauvres bêtes.’ She avoided the fish on the menu and ordered grilled lamb.

  They had arrived as the restaurant opened, wishing to return early to bed. When their plates had been cleared away, the waitress said, ‘Alors—un petit dessert, mesdames?’

  Céleste glanced at Sabine and replied, ‘No, thank you.’

  ‘I shouldn’t,’ began Sabine.

  ‘Allez!’ said the waitress, in a tone of huge indulgence. ‘What are holidays for?’ And then, as Sabine still
hesitated, ‘I’ll bring you a menu.’

  She brought one for Céleste as well and went away again. Sabine read through the list of desserts with care. ‘Ganache au chocolat,’ she murmured. Then she snapped the menu shut and laid it aside, saying, ‘I mustn’t. When I wore my polka dot skirt last week, I had to leave the button on the waistband undone.’

  ‘Let’s just get the bill, then,’ said Céleste.

  ‘You don’t know how lucky you are not having a sweet tooth.’

  Céleste looked around, but the waitress was busy elsewhere.

  ‘If you ordered something, I could have a spoonful.’

  ‘Sure. What would you like?’

  ‘Anything. It doesn’t matter. I’m only having a spoonful. Get whatever you want.’

  Céleste consulted her menu. ‘The apple tart, I think.’

  The waitress was bearing down on them. ‘I would have ordered the île flottante,’ said Sabine. ‘Of course, it’s more fattening.’

  Céleste asked for an île flottante and two spoons.

  In her lookout, the smell of old stones grew overwhelming. Moist cold was seeping up through Céleste’s sneakers as if she were standing in an invisible stream. A distant car shrieked like a bird. She made her way back to the stairs and started down between trees that were soft black walls. Almost at once, in the flowing dark, she missed her step and dropped her novel. Her weak knee raged as she crouched, low-growing branches in her face, her fingers encountering only damp leaves and earth. The dark world closed around her, ribbed with tree trunks. At last she found the book. Afterwards, walking through the lighted, silent town, she clutched the novel as if it were a talisman, an object with no use but whose loss, standing in for all others, would be vast.