“Maybe you’ll be able to talk to your father now. At last,” says Lauren. A silence ensues, humming with all sorts of possibilities. Lauren is the first to break it. Does he remember that first dinner with Sacha? Of course he does! How could he forget it? Maialino, a restaurant overlooking Gramercy Park, fried artichokes as starters, prosecco sparkling in their glasses. Lauren goes on to describe how Sacha, whom she had barely met, made her laugh within the first ten minutes of their meal. She couldn’t even recall what the joke was about; all she can see is herself choking with mirth into a napkin. Was it one of his imitations? Sacha was awfully good at impersonating famous people.
Lauren talks with more ease now. Her expression is less strained. There is one more thing she wants to say. Occasionally, people have strong reactions when they hear her son is gay. Well, last summer, for example. She was at a ladies lunch at Grignan, an elegant do at a pretty restaurant, down by the historic washhouse. She usually did not attend these events, because it meant dressing up and resorting to small talk, but a neighboring friend she was close to was also going. There was a table under the arbor, decorated with bouquets of roses, and a delicious meal. She was seated next to an emaciated woman from Montbrison who wore pearls: Madame Moline. Lauren was told Madame Moline had a splendid house up in the hills, with a magnificent garden, and she remembered Paul’s having gone there to assess the trees when the Moline family moved in, a couple of years earlier. Madame Moline was thrilled to hear Lauren was Paul’s wife. She had a warm remembrance of him; his knowledge of trees was immense. How lucky Lauren was to be married to such a remarkable person. And did Paul and she have any children? Lauren nodded yes, a daughter and a son. Madame Moline, while picking at her food jadedly, appeared to be most interested in the Malegarde family. She wished to know all about Tilia and Linden. What unusual names! Their father had chosen their names, Lauren said. And so Tilia was an artist in London and Linden a photographer based in San Francisco? Any grandchildren? Yes, Mistral, seventeen, a student. And what about Linden? Was he married? Lauren smiled. No, but he was planning to be. Madame Moline stretched her red lips into a smile. An American fiancée, like his mother? A young American man, Lauren told her. Madame Moline’s lips seemed to shrivel. She frowned. A man, she repeated. Yes, said Lauren brightly, a young man. And because Madame Moline seemed completely lost, she added, “My son is engaged to a young man.” Madame Moline blinked. She opened her mouth, dabbed it with her napkin, and still no sound came out of it. (In spite of himself, Linden chuckles. His mother’s mimics are hilarious.) Lauren then said in a clear voice that her son was homosexual and that he was in love with a man. Madame Moline looked rattled; she kept staring at Lauren as if Lauren had grown a beard, or turned blue. Finally, she managed to articulate how very brave it was of Linden to have chosen to be a homosexual, very brave indeed. Lauren gazed back at the lady and said firmly that her son had not chosen to become homosexual; he was born that way. And she was proud of him, proud of who he was. Madame Moline took Lauren’s hand. Her skin was parched and her fingers bony. Lauren was so incredibly courageous! Such unconditional love was admirable, like those mothers whose sons were in prison and who still loved them, even if they were murderers. Linden interrupts her, saying he cannot believe what he is hearing. Lauren smiles ironically. It is true; it is all true! Another close friend once admitted to her, when he found out about Linden, that he would have hated having a gay child. She had read such pity and distaste in his eyes that it had made her want to slap him. Another friend had crooned: Oh poor you, what bad luck! Perhaps the nastiest remarks were the flippant ones that were meant to be funny. Oh, so her son was gay? Well, wasn’t that something to do with the mother? Did Lauren mollycoddle him, or what? In the end, wasn’t it all Lauren’s fault? She had learned to distance herself from this, even if at times those remarks still stung her.
As he takes Lauren into his arms, hugging her close, Linden realizes it never occurred to him that his mother could be criticized because of her son’s homosexuality. It seems unexpected and unfair that she, too, would have to go down that dark road of intolerance, of rejection. Her words ephemerally resuscitate the suffering of his own journey toward self-acceptance, the rebellion against the shame others had persisted in sustaining around him.
Lauren steps away from her son and strokes his face. Her eyes are wet again.
“I’m so proud of you, Linden. I’m sorry it’s taken me all this time to tell you.”
* * *
There is no more public lighting in this part of the capital. Ahead, the motorboat waits in the darkness. The glow of flashlights guides Linden and Oriel along the narrow metal walkways of desolate rue de Bourgogne. Three policemen greet them; the divisionary commandant, Bruno Bouissy, and his two adjutants. Linden cannot distinguish their faces, but he makes out weapons carried against their bodies. For the second night running, the commandant says, gangs of pillagers have been reported in the district. The seventh arrondissement is a traditionally wealthy one; that’s why the looters are active here. They have also been targeting the eighth, specifically rue du Faubourg-Saint-Honoré, with its numerous luxury boutiques. They’re looking for jewelry, for leather goods, for cash. They’re very organized, apparently; they come in silently on paddleboards and canoes, sometimes improvised ones, created with planks and crates fastened together, making the most of the unlit streets. They carry stepladders and mallets. How do they operate? Very simple: A couple of them guard the boat while another climbs up the ladder, smashes a window that hasn’t been shuttered, and breaks in. Then valuables are hauled down with bags. It takes only a few minutes. Most of the apartments here have been evacuated, but a few stalwart dwellers remain. No one hears the gangs, and even if someone does, most residents are terrified. Landlines are out of order, and mobiles no longer function in the area, so the police cannot be summoned. The only way to fight the thieves and arrest them is to patrol the streets by boat, incessantly, but there aren’t enough dinghies, and there aren’t enough men. Crime is on the rise, in rhythm with the water, points out Commandant Bouissy. People are freaking out, worrying about how they will make ends meet, how they will eventually be reimbursed. Several shops have been plundered, and it’s getting worse near Nanterre and Gennevilliers, northwest of Paris. There is little solidarity, one of the captains adds grimly. Oriel says she hates this egocentric world where selfies rule, where no one bothers to find out if their neighbor is all right. As they climb into the fluvial brigade motorboat, Linden notices it has stopped raining. This is the first time it has relented since he arrived on Friday. Oh, but the rain will be back, says the adjutant driving the boat. That is the problem; it will be back.
The night air is icy, burdened with the stink of putrefaction and drains. The moon peers out from behind clouds, casting a supernatural nacreous light on the flooded streets. Paris looks like an obscure and sinister Venice, a drowned metropolis gradually sinking into oblivion, incapable of putting up a fight, yielding to the unhurried and lethal violence of its demented river. The commandant tells them he has never seen anything like this in his life. The past four days have been crazy. The Seine’s power of destruction is unimaginable. This morning, he flew over the hub of the Parisian agglomeration, Île de France, by helicopter and what he saw was unreal. The river has altered the landscape, gobbled up quaysides, park, and streets, transforming places into different ones, redrawing maps, doing as it pleases. The ravages in the suburbs, all along the river’s course upstream and downstream, from Melun to Mantes-la-Jolie, and beyond, are dreadful. Even within Paris, despite all efforts, some neighborhoods are not getting the same consideration. Priority is going to the eighth, where water now threatens the presidential palace, and the big department stores on boulevard Haussmann, Printemps and Galeries Lafayette, have been closed in haste. They can’t keep up with the general panic and the delinquency, the burgled shops, the suffering, the commandant admits sadly. They are not prepared for this. They have learned to deal with terrorism, b
ut faced with the unleashed frenzy of nature, they are powerless. The truth is, he adds, the government is overwhelmed, trapped in a skirmish between the prefecture, the city hall, and the mayors of suburban towns, while experts blame climate change, excessive deforestation, environmental degradation, but at the end of the day, no one comes up with solutions.
Motor quietly chugging, the boat turns left at the bottom of rue de Bourgogne into rue de l’Université, passing through marooned place du Palais-Bourbon, its crowned statue now encircled by a pond. Farther on, in the distance, to their left, Linden can glimpse the bulk of the Invalides, its golden dome glistening in the moonlight. The Seine has swallowed up the esplanade and all intersecting streets, creating a boundless lake. The wind blows violently; the water slaps against the boat. When they get to the other side, nosing into the continuation of rue de l’Université, the wind can no longer reach them. The silence is even more profound here, the darkness, too. The tall buildings around them seem abandoned, sepulchral, as if no one had ever lived there. The boat glides left into rue Surcouf. Why here? Linden wonders. Why back here? Why this street? He almost smiles at the irony of it. Why do these trips bring Linden back to untold stories of pain and regret? First Candy, now Hadrien; first rue Saint-Charles, and now rue Surcouf. Because of the gloom, he can’t read the numbers above the doors, but he knows it is number 20. Commandant Bouissy explains that the river level, compared to that in other streets, is very high here. The sector comprised between boulevard de la Tour-Maubourg and avenue Rapp is much lower than elsewhere, situated in a hollow basin. This is where the flood is the deepest, he says, in all of Paris, worsened by the gush coming underground through the RER train rails right beside the river. Parisians with ground-floor lodgings here have water up to their ceilings. There are no lights visible through the windows, just the flicker of candles here and there. Slowly, the policemen shine their search lights over the façades, and although Linden’s eyes follow the yellow circles of light roaming over stone, he sees none of it. He is nineteen years old again. Third floor, door on the right. The silkiness of Hadrien’s skin, the heat of his mouth. Eighteen years ago, but it still feels like now. He has not forgotten anything. One spring morning, a young man had walked into the photo lab near Bastille where Linden worked. The young man, who was about his age, had the loveliest smile he had ever seen. He seemed shy, incapable of looking Linden in the eye, at first. He was there to have a couple of black-and-white prints duplicated and framed. Linden hardly noticed the photographs; he saw only the young man’s hands, slim and tanned. Since Philippe, there had been no serious boyfriends; just affairs, none of them important. Linden often felt lonely in the small room he rented on rue Saint-Antoine; his daily existence seemed dreary. The blue-eyed stranger and his shy, sweet smile somehow gave him hope. Later on that day, as Linden left the lab to go home, the young man was waiting a little farther on, on rue de la Roquette. That was how it began. Linden took him back to the tiny room beneath the roof. Hadrien had caressed Linden’s face, kissed him slowly and ardently. In Hadrien’s arms, Linden felt as if he had found a secret place where he felt safe. They met again, and again, always at Linden’s place. They had to be careful; Hadrien lived with his parents, and he had not told them he was gay: He had even invented a girlfriend so that they would stop asking questions. Hadrien studied history at the Sorbonne. He was an only son. He was a gentle young man, serious and earnest. Linden remembers his voice, soft-spoken and melodious. Their affair lasted a year, and it gave Linden hope and confidence; he felt less lonesome. Hadrien’s love filled up the emptiness. Sometimes, they talked about the future. Hadrien was afraid of his parents’ reaction; he wasn’t ready to tell them. His father, especially, often made homophobic remarks, saying gays should be locked up, or hanged. He felt his mother might understand better, but he was too scared to tell her. There was no one he could talk to, or turn to. Not even his friends. How lucky Linden was to have been able to tell his aunt so easily, and how wonderful her reaction had been.
Linden’s reminiscences are interrupted by the loud sputter of the walkie-talkie. Apparently, the police caught a gang red-handed on nearby rue Malar—three robbers and their entire booty. The men have been handcuffed and are being taken to the police station on avenue du Maine. Linden nods, pretends to be pleased, but his thoughts are not with the arrest. He sees the door of number 20 now, on the right, next to the restaurant. It is an unpretentious, pale edifice, more modest than the imposing buildings next to it. There is no candlelight at any window. Do Hadrien’s parents still live here? He remembers the apartment well, even if he came here only twice. It was a little dark; the sun never filtered in. The morning it happened, Hadrien’s parents had been away on a trip to Spain. His father was a teacher; he and his wife left at each school holiday. They thought they were safe. They could never have imagined the parents would come back earlier than planned. Hadrien had begged Linden to spend the night with him in the family home. Only one night! They could sleep in the big bed for once. He’d change the sheets before his parents got home. He would cook a fine meal! Linden had not been able to say no to Hadrien’s enthusiasm. Neither of them heard the key in the lock. They were fast asleep, naked, in each other’s arms. The first thing Linden had heard was a strangled yell. He had opened his eyes and seen a middle-aged man and woman standing there. They seemed outraged. It had happened so quickly. The strident shriek of the voices; the father, beside himself, his face scarlet, telling them how repulsive they were, how vile, how nauseating; they were dirty, disgusting faggots. The hands, pointing, like claws. Linden and Hadrien had crawled out of bed, vulnerable, recoiling under a torrent of insults; they had gotten dressed, hurriedly, awkwardly. Tears were streaming down Hadrien’s face. Impossible to forget what the father had said, his words spewing out: Hadrien was not wanted here anymore. He and his poof of a boyfriend were going to get the hell out of here and never come back. Did Hadrien hear that? Was it clear? The venom in that voice, the hatred. Hadrien was no longer their son. It was over! A homosexual son? Never! He was nothing but a failure. He was an embarrassment to the entire family. What would his grandparents think? His aunts and uncles, his cousins? Had he thought about that? And had he thought about him, his own father? His own mother? Hadrien’s father said he wished his wife had had a miscarriage when she was pregnant. There would be no more money for Hadrien, either, ever, nothing, not a centime. Hadrien should be ashamed of himself. People like him were perverts. They were not normal. They belonged in prison. There were medical treatments for people like them. In other countries, homosexuals were executed, and perhaps the fear of that could knock sense into them! Didn’t they see there was no place for them in this world? Didn’t they see nobody wanted them, that nobody pitied them? Linden had dragged Hadrien down the stairs. They had gone straight to Linden’s place on the Métro. They didn’t dare hold hands, but during that long ride home on line 8, Linden longed to comfort Hadrien. Nearly twenty years later, Linden still feels the weight of that moment. He is glad the lack of light is preventing Oriel from seeing his face. Hadrien had never complained; he never mentioned the episode. It was as if something had been broken within him. He lived with Linden for a while, continued his studies, diligently. Then he found a job in a bookstore, moved out, and they no longer remained in touch. It was Hadrien’s choice. A few years later, Linden saw on Facebook that Hadrien had gotten married, that his wife and he had had a baby. There was a family photograph, with Hadrien’s parents in the background, proud smiles on their faces. Linden couldn’t get over the photograph. He showed it to his friends, some of whom had known Hadrien when they were together. One of his friends, Martin, had said Hadrien looked like a lamb being led to slaughter. When Linden moved to New York in 2009, full of exciting projects for his future, the pain he felt when he thought about Hadrien had lessened a bit. He met other men, he traveled, he worked hard, but he knew he would never forget. A year and a half ago, just after his Parisian trip with Sacha, he had received a message
from Martin. Hadrien was dead. Martin had no details; he had read it in Le Figaro’s “Carnet du jour.” Hadrien was thirty-five years old. What had happened? There was no way Linden could find out. He searched online, but nothing came up. Over and over, he had asked himself why and how Hadrien had died. There were no answers, only questions and doubt. He felt the same suffocating torment that came with Candy’s death, the same waves of inconsolable sadness that left their mark.
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