At that precise moment, Edgar and the rest of the troop marched into the confined space of the changing rooms, raising the noise and smell levels. Some of the kids were chanting ‘We are the champions!’ and imitating the victory signs of their stadium idols, others snorted angrily and wore the expressions of would-be presidential candidates learning the fatal outcome of a bitterly contested election. Edgar laughed, rubbing the heads of the disappointed kids, finding the words to comfort them. A family trait, apparently. I stood up and headed for the adults’ changing room. Before leaving, I wanted to thank Isa.
‘Thank you, Isa . . . or Dora? What am I supposed to call you? I must say, I don’t understand—’
‘Both, captain. My name’s Isadora. Like the dancer, Isadora Duncan. Mum was a dancer. Papa . . . Papa calls me Isa, and everyone else either calls me Dora or Isa, so it’s up to you.’
I collected my sports holdall and slowly left the sports ground, taking the time to digest all this news.
I was exhausted.
As I walked through the gates, Edgar caught up with me and wouldn’t let me go. Literally. He invited me to dinner at his place – their place. I protested, for form’s sake, but then I very quickly accepted.
I entered their world. I wanted to.
*
Edgar and Isadora lived with Charlotte. It was their choice, and they made a happy household. Their apartment was where I had first met Edgar, but it felt very different without the extra fifty people in it. Although it was small, they each had their own room, their personal space.
‘It’s important for everyone, especially schoolgirls,’ Edgar had joked, giving his daughter a knowing wink.
Charlotte was on night duty at the hospital that evening, so it was just the three of us. Isadora took me into her den. Seeing the posters of footballers, I felt my legs turn to jelly. I had to lean against a wall to stop myself from crumpling. Her room was so similar to Louis’s, it was disturbing. Now, I understood the bond between them, their shared passion – the attraction of those ecstatic victory gestures on glossy paper. The champions were jubilant, exuding extreme pride and elation. Visceral snapshots of fleeting joys, so enthralling. I didn’t dare ask Isa about her relationship with Louis. She held out a scarf, signed by some obscure player. She teased me gently, wondering how it was possible not to have heard of Zlatan Ibrahimović. I replied, ‘It’s easy, you see . . .’ then I handed back the precious scarf. With a solemn expression, she placed it in my hands like an offering, asking me to give it to Louis when he woke up. Because he was going to wake up, she just knew it. I hugged her and began to cry. She pushed me gently away, forcing herself to laugh, saying, ‘Oh no, you’re not going to start that again . . .’ More role reversal. I thanked her, saying I was sure Louis would be thrilled with her gift. She thought so too.
We ate pizza, sitting on the floor. Edgar had put on the soundtrack from Jane Campion’s The Piano as background music. I recognized it at once. An excellent choice – that was one of my favourite films, and the music was quite simply astounding. My mental portrait of Edgar was becoming clearer. Edgar was a man who easily managed to gain the respect of a whole group of adolescents, a man who showed such consideration for his daughter and had created with her a complicity based on mutual respect and teasing, a man capable of rolling in the mud in the morning and of being stirred by Michael Nyman’s exquisite piano playing in the evening, a man with a generous smile and dark, sad eyes, a man who must enjoy great success with women, but who seemed oblivious of his powers of attraction. That week, I’d seen the mothers simpering when they came to pick up their children . . . and ‘Edgar this,’ and ‘Edgar that’. I sensed in him a tumult of joys and sorrows. Isadora had spoken of her mother in the past tense. Who was he? What had he been through? I was increasingly intrigued. I was in turmoil, and I wanted to know more.
After only a few minutes, we were using the informal tu, and I’d begun to let go, to relax. Louis stayed in a corner of my mind, all the time. Everything brought me back to him. Allowing myself to eat with others was a big step for me. I told myself that these people were in my son’s precious notebook, they were important to him, and that Louis had implicitly approved our friendship because it was he who’d pointed me in the direction of Isadora and Edgar. By staying, I was entering my son’s world, in a way. I was aware that I was enjoying it a great deal.
At around ten o’clock, to my amazement, Isa announced it was her bedtime – whereas I used to have a nightly battle with Louis to get him to go to his room. She kissed us, and Edgar went to tuck her up.
I was left alone for a few moments. The contrast with my own living room was striking. My place was all designer chic, sterile, impersonal. But, here, the untidiness was part of the decor. Magazines lay on the floor, a few games too. The top of the solid wood sideboard was covered in dusty knick-knacks, but no one could blame those who lived there. I could see immediately that they had better things to do than dusting. They were busy living. Here, everything was vibrantly alive.
I got up and gathered my belongings.
‘Thank you again, Edgar, it was really delicious.’
‘Not true, of course. Industrial pizza, not a great cook . . . but it’s kind of you to say so. But why are you on your feet? You look as if you’re about to leave. That’s out of the question. I won’t let you give me the slip again.’
‘I’m not giving you the slip, Edgar. I don’t know whether you’ve noticed, but I’m spending my days with you, at the moment.’
‘Again, not true. You’re spending a lot of time nattering in the changing room . . . I’m joking. You know what I mean . . .’
A hesitation, a breath.
‘I’d like you to stay.’
He came over to me and gently put my coat and bag down on the sofa. His hand brushed mine, or was it no accident? I felt a shiver run through my body.
I stayed.
Edgar offered me a herbal tea. I retorted that I wasn’t an old lady yet, and that I’d rather he uncorked another bottle of wine. During the course of the evening, under the combined effect of the alcohol and the whispering, ‘so as not to wake Isa’, Edgar opened up. I didn’t ask anything. He was the one who talked, spontaneously, freely. Several times, I said he didn’t have to tell me anything, but he told me he wanted to. Needed to.
I learned their story. Heartbreakingly sad. As bleak as he and Isa were joyful.
3
Princes and Princesses
17
15 to 10 Days
In Vino Veritas
A few years ago, Isadora still had a mother. Edgar had met Madeleine when they were children. They had been madly in love.
*
In the 1980s, Edgar’s father worked in a bank and his mother was a dance teacher. She had a little school in Paradise Street, in Marseille. You couldn’t make it up. Dance was her whole life, which is why she chose the name Edgar for her son, after the Impressionist artist, Edgar Degas, who was famous for his beautiful ballerina paintings, prints of which adorned the walls of the school. Madeleine was one of her students. The best. The most beautiful, too. Madeleine dreamed of stardom, the Bolshoi, the Paris Opera. After his day at school or football training, Edgar always went to the dance school to wait for his mother. While doing his homework, his attention would wander, then he’d go and sit in a corner and watch the dance class, and draw. His mother was hugely proud of his talent. ‘My Edgar will become a famous artist too,’ she was forever saying.
Edgar drew the dancers. As the years went by, his pencil dwelt on the features of one girl in particular. Edgar drew Madeleine, but Madeleine didn’t know it. At fourteen, Edgar finally plucked up the courage to take the first step. He gave Madeleine a portrait, immortalizing her precise movements, the perfection of her arabesque. She was deeply touched. From then on, Madeleine and Edgar became inseparable.
Madeleine loved Edgar’s drawings. She encouraged him to persevere, to exhibit. While Edgar was a student at the Marseille School of F
ine Arts, Madeleine auditioned, failed, picked herself up and failed again. After a few years of this, like many dancers, she opted for security, and began teaching at the family dance school. Madeleine was happy, her life revolved around her relationship with Edgar. He was beginning to gain a reputation, each one of his paintings selling for several thousand euros. He didn’t sell many, so Madeleine’s income brought a welcome stability to this family of artists.
Then, twelve years ago, Isadora came along. Their happiness lasted until Isadora started primary school. Then their world fell apart.
One September morning, Edgar’s parents boarded flight MX484 for Havana. Forty years of marriage was something to celebrate. Family and friends chipped in to send the lovebirds on a second honeymoon. They’d always dreamt of going to Cuba. ‘Retirement is the start of a new life,’ joked Edgar’s mother in her farewell speech to the dance school, which she’d handed over to Madeleine a few weeks earlier.
The plane never reached Cuba. The Atlantic would never yield any information. Every possible theory was put forward: human error, engine failure, terrorist attack . . . The black box was never found. It wasn’t possible for the families of the 337 people who had perished to mourn. But, somehow, they had to start grieving.
Edgar threw himself into his work, but he found his paintings repetitive, depressing. The spark had gone. Madeleine provided for the household’s needs single-handedly. They both protected Isadora as best they could. Madeleine spent more and more time at the dance studio, making it her duty to perpetuate the memory of the woman who’d given her everything: her passion, her school, her son. She seemed exhausted, unsurprisingly, given how hard she worked.
On 20 December 2011 – Edgar would remember the date for the rest of his days – at around six o’clock in the evening, when Isadora was still in her bath, Edgar received a phone call. La Timone Hospital. Madeleine had become unwell in the middle of a dance lesson. The ambulance had taken her to the hospital and they were going to run some tests. Probably exhaustion, they’d said at the time. Edgar hurriedly dried Isadora and hurtled through Marseille’s crowded streets at the wheel of his old grey Clio. His head was telling him that everything would be fine, ordered him to slow down and stop panicking, but his heart told him otherwise. His heart was pounding in his ribcage. It was always one step in front of his head.
The diagnosis fell like a ton of bricks, incomprehensible and yet perfectly clear. Edgar cursed his heart for having understood too much. Cancer of the intrahepatic bile ducts. Rare. Terrifying. Devastating. ‘Metastasized, the chances of survival are around five per cent. We are very sorry, monsieur.’
For three months, Madeleine fought. She didn’t give up. Three months is a long time. Three months is no time at all. A few hours before she died, Madeleine was still joking with her daughter. Her last thoughts were for her. She must never see me cry. She must remember me as a fighter. Women are able to fight if they are taught to when they are still little girls. I will teach her to fight, until my last breath.
*
Edgar broke off. I had listened to him fervently, without interrupting. As he unspooled the fragile thread of his life, Edgar was at the same time preoccupied and grave, while maintaining a salutary emotional distance. Keeping well away from deep waters so as not to drown. He had such tremendous dignity.
I, on the other hand, was in a terrible state. A tear-stained face, sniffing loudly, soggy tissue. Edgar held out a fresh box. I asked him why he was telling me all this. He replied that it was necessary. That I couldn’t really know him if I didn’t know this about him. It was part of him, and always would be. I almost told him that it was a little presumptuous to think that I wanted to know him so intimately, but I refrained. That would have been very rude, but, most of all, completely untrue, because I absolutely did want to get close to him.
I took a deep breath and poured myself another glass of wine. So did he. Huddled on the sofa, under a patchwork quilt that Isadora had made with Charlotte, I was silent. He went on, smiling openly – this guy was incredible – saying that the rest of the story would be a lot less sad.
*
That year, Charlotte was due to finish her nursing studies. A few years earlier, she’d moved to a tiny apartment in the centre of Paris. Charlotte loved the capital, which isn’t always the case for a girl from the south. She’d fallen crazily in love with the city and with one of its inhabitants. The affair didn’t last, but her love for Paris remained unchanged. During those dark days of their lives, Charlotte put her studies on hold to go and help her brother and her niece. And to save herself. She spent six months with Isadora and Edgar, helping to heal their inner wounds. They healed hers in return. From then on, it was just the three of them. It would always be the three of them. They swore it. It’s the three of us for life, for life. That was their motto. Etched in their flesh.
Then Charlotte had this brilliant idea. They would drop everything. They had no reason to stay in Marseille, and Charlotte needed to finish her nursing studies. They’d find an apartment in Paris that was big enough for the three of them. And they’d recreate what they had lost – a home.
Isadora loved the idea. Edgar could no longer bear to live in Marseille, wandering those streets that reminded him of his lost loved ones. He had to move on. For Isa’s sake. For his own. For their sakes. Charlotte was amazing, there was no other word for it. The bond that united the three of them now was much stronger than that of a brother and sister.
Edgar sold the dance school. The money would enable him to get by for eighteen months, during which time he hoped to find the inspiration to paint once more, but he could no longer do it. Nothing is more volatile than creativity. His savings dwindled and Charlotte’s salary as a nurse wasn’t enough. So Edgar got a grip on himself. He applied for one of the various youth-leader jobs, created by the City of Paris in 2013 as part of their reform of the school timetable, reducing it to four and a half days a week. The work wasn’t well paid and was only part time, so he also ran sports courses at leisure centres to supplement his income. He wasn’t mad about football, he’d played it for a few years when he was a kid, but Edgar loved children. The youth-work qualification he’d obtained when he was sixteen would finally prove useful.
For over two years now, Edgar had been living again. Isadora was his daily ray of sunshine. But she, having been put in ballet shoes at the age of three by her mother, now refused to have anything to do with the world of dance, saying she preferred football. A shell, a necessary protective skin. Edgar no longer drew – that, too, was over. They’d turned a page.
Of course, the past was – and always would be – present, but now Edgar was looking to the future. And what he saw was beautiful.
*
While he talked, I cried relentlessly. Their story was devastating. Heartbreaking.
Isadora, Charlotte and Edgar were survivors. I understood now what made the three of them so radiant: their smiles were genuine.
It was such a powerful message of hope for me . . . After every nightmare, a new day dawns. I’d been waiting for the dawn since Louis’s accident, but I realized that I had to keep moving forward in the dark, that it was still possible to carve out a path, no matter how dense the blackness.
The second bottle of wine was empty. Once again, I asked Edgar why he’d told me all this. Nowadays, he said, he listened to his heart. It was the only thing he trusted. His heart had told him to talk to me, to tell me everything. To be able to open doors, you have to know what is concealed in the dark and not be afraid of it. Edgar knew that my doors would remain closed, that I wasn’t yet ready to speak, and, in any case, he wasn’t asking me to. I would talk later. Edgar’s heart was never wrong. His heart had known, the first time he saw me. From the first moment, in that jam-packed apartment.
I was feeling increasingly uncomfortable. He was talking to me as if we were a couple. I said as much, and he answered that he was aware of it, of course, that it was obvious. I suddenly felt very hot. Other co
nfused feelings mingled with my embarrassment. An inappropriate sense of elation. An intoxication hidden beneath layers of a cracked veneer.
I arrived home at around three o’clock in the morning. Unable to get to sleep, I went into the room where my mother slept. I leaned over her and whispered that I loved her.
Half asleep, she said, ‘What are you doing here, pussycat?’ and threw her soft bony arms around me.
It was exactly what I needed.
18
9 to 6 Days
Rainbow Colours
The next stage of the precious notebook was to go to Budapest, and what Louis had concocted for me to do there was no cakewalk, as my mother put it.
The main challenge was to take part in a race called The Color Run, which claims to be ‘where sport meets fun’. Mum did a Web search and made me watch a video that said it all: thousands of people in white T-shirts and protective goggles having clouds of coloured paint thrown in their faces for every kilometre they completed, ending up a total mess, naturally. I couldn’t see the fun in that, but the runners looked happy.
The Book of Wonders Page 10