by H
The model is not looking at the photographer. Even though she is facing the camera, her eyes are elsewhere, lost in thoughts whose content we cannot fathom. Between the fingers of her wedding-ring hand, palm pressing on the stone edge, is an unlit cigarette. Her other hand absently fiddles with the little chain around her neck, the tip of her index finger hooked over it and partly hiding the ring suspended from it. Is it the frontal nature of the shot, the harsh light, that breaks up the surfaces and hardens her features? The thin grass and the wind bothering her? The photograph, which was probably to be a memento of a shared moment, does the precise opposite: it is pure solitude. Nathalie Hivert’s face is transfixed, drained by a subdued melancholy that leaves on its surface only a coating of plaster-like heaviness. And her faraway gaze, lost in invisible wanderings, is the poignant symptom of a distress that nothing could mask or quell. This time, all the efforts of silver nitrate, gelatin, developers and paper are useless. Despite the photonic imprint stolen from her on that autumn day, that woman was already gone.
Ashford, 18 February (email)
Dearest Hélène,
What are you doing, what are you reading, what’s going on in your life?
And if you don’t have other plans, would you come to Geneva with me next weekend? As I said to you on the phone, Jean is asking for me all the time.
All my love,
Stéphane
Paris, 18 February (email)
Dear Stéphane,
As if you had to ask! Yes I will Yes, as Molly Bloom would say, come with you to Geneva. And we can stop off to see Jean on the way back; I’m dying to meet him. Did the nurse tell you exactly what happened?
I’ll be waiting for you at the flat on Friday. You know the way, but you’ll need the new magic number: B220.
A tender kiss,
Hélène
Ashford, 25 February (email)
Dearest Hélène,
It was so hard to say goodbye last night. I envy Bourbaki, who must have taken advantage to hog the other pillow (that cat thinks he owns the place). The weekend went like a dream: Philippe and Marie thought you were delightful. And they’re right, because you are. On the other hand, I don’t think they believed in our … ‘friendship’ – strange the discretion that makes us keep our relationship secret, as if we ourselves were afraid to believe in it.
Here, my trees can make eyes at me, but all I can think about are yours (eyes, not trees), and you have no idea how much the thought of this three-week field trip to Hawaii is getting me down. I leave in four days, when really I want to do the exact opposite, i.e. whizz over to Paris and join you, instead of flying off to the other side of the world. I do hope you’ll be good enough not to forget me while we’re apart.
When I got back, I opened the envelope that Jean’s nurse had given me; I should have taken the opportunity to do so on our last evening, but I had other things on my mind, as you’ll have noticed, and I more or less decided to leave the envelope unopened. I’m sorry you weren’t allowed to see my godfather when we visited him, but he was too agitated to concentrate on a conversation. He was very anxious to get me to understand what he wanted to give me.
His nurse eventually found the object among his things: a large, thick, brown notebook in which he kept a diary (I didn’t know he had this habit). The volume I have is from 1972–3. But I can’t read it, because he wrote the whole thing in Russian. Although I don’t know the Cyrillic alphabet very well, I think I can recognise the name ‘Natasha’, which recurs often. I also found, in glassine paper, a series of negatives, but I’m not sure what they represent: a snowscape? I have taken them to an elderly photographer in London to develop. He’s charging a small fortune given the age of the film, but he’s promised to print them within three days.
So I’ll Fedex the diary and the prints to you before I leave. Do you think you’ll be able to translate it? Or have it translated? I am almost certain that it contains the key to our mystery.
But, for the time being, the mystery I’d like to resolve is the one that would enable me to turn the clocks forward. I miss you, Hélène.
Stéphane xxxxxxx
PS I’ve finally heard back from the rehab centre in Rue Suzanne-Lilar, who I wrote to last month. They did some research: in 1972, it was a general medical practice.
Ashford, 28 February 2008
In haste, before I leave, here’s Jean’s notebook. Wasn’t able to collect the photos in time to send them to you. I’ll pick them up on the way to the airport.
I’ll be thinking of you.
A thousand kisses,
Stéphane
Paris, 1 March (email)
Dear Stéphane,
Thank you for that long phone call from the other side of the world, which must have bankrupted you. I’m picturing you now sipping a long drink on the beach, turquoise waters lapping at your feet, enjoying the company of some voluptuous local woman. A cliché, I know! You lucky thing, invited to spend three weeks on an island paradise and all you can think about is getting back to Europe.
OK, I’m winding you up but 1) I’m flattered and 2) I can’t wait for you to come home either. I’m like a child counting down the days on the calendar. Honestly, at our age!
Your Fedex parcel arrived safe and sound. Only a thousand kisses? That’s not many, but I suppose I’ll have to make do. Joking aside, I’ve begun to flick through the diary. It does indeed talk about my mother. But I’m not used to the cursive writing and I’m finding it very tricky to decipher. It took me almost an entire evening to transcribe the first two pages. The Russian is quite complex and I’m only understanding about one word in three. You said your godfather spoke Russian, but are you sure he wasn’t in fact Russian, or born into a Russian-speaking family?
So far I’ve managed to work out that the beginning of the diary talks about photographic jobs and somebody called Friedrich, who’s supposed to come to Geneva but doesn’t turn up.
The edges of the last page had been glued to the back cover to make a pocket. I carefully slit one side open with a Stanley knife. Inside, I found a photo of my mother, which I’ve scanned and attached. There’s no place or date written on the back.
Nataliya must be thirty-something in the picture, which would tally with the dates of the diary entries. But how sad she looks. She could be a different person from the bubbly girl in the choir photo and at the lunch. She doesn’t look well. Since she mentions a clinic twice in her diary, I wonder whether she was ill. If the whole accident story was not yet another lie to cover up the real reason for her death. A ‘shameful’ disease, as people used to say? Or tuberculosis, which was kept strictly hidden from children?
I’ve sent an email to Boris, one of my lecturers at the language school, and I’ll go and see him this week. He’s bilingual and has agreed to translate the diary for me for a fee. We’ll have to wait a little while for it, but it’ll be much quicker than trying to do it myself.
With a bit of luck, we’ll have it in time for your return.
If I were playing the game and being tactical, I should probably feign a certain indifference, but I’d be wasting my time: I miss you terribly.
Kisses, my globetrotter,
Hélène
PS How about you? Have you had time to look at the photos?
Hawaii, 2 March (email)
Aloha, my love!
While it’s probably grey in Paris, I’m basking in the sun on my forty-fourth-floor balcony, sipping a chemical concoction so full of sugar that my blood-glucose level is alarming.
There’s an unobstructed view over the island’s biggest car park, I think, with a patch of blue that looks vaguely like the sea at the far end. I’m struggling with the jet lag. Classes start the day after tomorrow. This afternoon my American colleague and I are meeting for a guided tour of part of the city, if I’ve understood correctly.
No time to look at the photos, which remained in my checked-in suitcase during the journey. I’ll write more about them as soon as I
can. As for the photo you sent me, that chapel looks familiar; I’m sure I’ve been there before. But when?
On that note, I’m going to take myself off for a walk for a few hours until it’s time to meet my colleague: I’ll take loads of pictures for you, I promise.
Kisses from under the palm trees,
Stéphane
Paris, 3 March (email)
Dearest exile,
Tell me about this walk then: colourful streets, clear blue seas, lush vegetation? I need photos, details!
It’s grey and horrible here – as usual. No magical tree has sprung up beside the Seine, and I haven’t had time to go to the language school. The one thing I absolutely mustn’t forget is to go and see Sylvia’s solicitor; I’ve made an appointment for later in the week. It’s the last thing I feel like doing.
I miss you.
Kisses from me and from Bourbaki too,
Hélène
Hawaii, 4 March (email)
Dear Hélène,
Sorry for my belated reply. Yesterday, I dozed off in the middle of writing the email I meant to send you. My excuse is that I gave my first seminar at the university, and my body’s protesting at changing time zones so fast!
In reality, this ‘paradise island’ is a very strange place. Endless blue lagoons, plus palm trees, minus the Grand Hôtel des Thermes, honestly, you’d swear it was Saint-Malo … right down to the temperature of the water, brrr. At times the wind is almost cold and you’re shivering, and two minutes later you’re boiling hot under a scorching sun. The proof that the biologist’s ability to survive resides in the speed with which he adapts: I hurriedly went off to find the shop that sells those ghastly university baseball caps with huge visors that the students all wear. I bought one for you too; it’ll wow everyone at your Parisian dinner parties.
On the other hand, I marvel at the vegetation. Here I’m able to observe specimens that I’d only seen in botanical gardens, or in photos. You’ll say that’s why I’ve travelled eleven thousand kilometres, but it is strange to be able to touch plants that for me were mostly abstract images. I’m looking forward to the excursion to Big Island this weekend: another hour’s flight, but I think it will be worth it. Be prepared to sit through endless slide shows during our long winter nights (which I sometimes find myself dreaming of, like the staid old Englishman I am at heart).
With love,
Stéphane
5 March (text message)
A goodnight kiss from here as you wake up there. Thinking of you. Hélène.
5 March (text message)
Day here, night over there, I constantly see your face.
Stéphane
Paris, 6 March (email)
Dear Stéphane,
It was so nice to hear your voice first thing this morning! You’ll have gathered Bourbaki was happy to hear from you too from his enthusiastic meowing (though for the sake of scientific objectivity, I must point out this cat had not yet had his breakfast). I’m really glad the trip is going well. But I’d be even gladder if it could hurry up and finish.
Last night I went for a coffee after work with Boris, the lecturer at INALCO, to hand him a copy of the journal. I asked him to translate only the passages pertaining to two people by the names of Nataliya and Pierre, without going into any more detail. He promised to call me in ten days or so to let me know how he’s getting on. I stayed on the café terrace after he had gone and smoked a cigarillo, breaking all my good resolutions. I felt strangely on edge, as if by showing these pages to an outsider, I had thrown a boomerang that would come back and hit me. I couldn’t stand the cold any longer and went home. I think it must be this grey weather that’s getting me down. Or being without my favourite lover. One or the other.
A thousand kisses,
H.
Honolulu, 7 March (email)
Dear Hélène,
Your favourite lover, as you call me (just you wait), is getting ready to board a Hawaii Airlines flight to visit the volcanoes on Big Island and risk his life (well, I’m exaggerating a little) to bring you back some magnificent photographs.
I’m joking, but I sensed a note of anxiety in your last email. I’m sorry to have burdened you with those documents before leaving. I should have waited until I was back, so as not to be so far away from you if you discover something that upsets you. We have already suffered that kind of situation. But from now on, we must tell ourselves, we’re in this together.
I think I know where that last photo of your mother was taken. I’ll tell you on my return from the island.
In the meantime, love and kisses,
Stéphane
PS I’ve racked my brains, but I simply can’t figure out who the telephone number I saw in the diary belongs to. And yet I’m convinced I used to know it by heart, and even dialled it when I was a child. It’s really annoying me.
Paris, 10 March (email)
Dear Stéphane,
No news is good news, though given your current location, it wouldn’t surprise me to hear you had no reception.
It’s been quite a difficult day here. I went to see the solicitor straight after work: a very affable man, accompanied by a blushing intern looking awkward in his suit. My parents had clearly had their wills drawn up some time ago; everything has been left in good order, with no debts to pay. I’m to inherit the apartment on Rue de l’Observatoire, a number of bonds which will enable me to pay the inheritance tax, and a studio flat in Brittany. So here I am, a home-owner in Paris at going on for forty. As I listened to the will being read out, I pictured Sylvia with her slim glasses perched on the end of her nose, settling each item patiently and methodically, as was her way.
Her only stated wish was that if possible their shared library of books should not be dispersed. That was not my intention in any case. I am, however, going to try to find a way to have it moved from Rue de l’Observatoire. I couldn’t face living there without them, surrounded by memories … Anyway, if you’re ever in need of a Parisian pied-à-terre, from now on you’ll be spoilt for choice.
Once he had finished reading, the solicitor told me he had something else he’d been keeping in trust for me: a small leather case Sylvia had given him three years earlier with instructions to pass it on to me after her death. The solicitor doesn’t know what it contains; he put a lock and chain around it and has given me the key. Since I had nothing to carry it in, the intern handed me a plastic FNAC bag. I took the métro home with the bag on my lap, thinking what bizarre ways our parents have contrived to remember themselves to us. As I write, I haven’t yet mustered the courage to open the case, which is still sitting on the kitchen counter. I’m beginning to be wary of the surprises our families have kept in store for us. Give me a ring when you can.
Thinking of you,
Hélène
Hawaii, 10 March (email)
Dearest,
Back safely from Big Island, it was magnificent. I’m exhausted. Will write again very soon.
Love and kisses,
Stéphane
Hawaii, 11 March (email)
Dearest Hélène,
I’ve only now managed to find the time to write to you, what with my teaching and recovering from the expedition to Big Island (extraordinary, breathtaking scenery). If you behave yourself, I’ll bring you here one day. Despite the view over the car park and the plastic-wrapped pasteurised fruit, I’m beginning to find this place increasingly interesting. Earlier, on the campus, I picked a hibiscus flower off the grass and in my mind I put it in your hair. For a second I sensed your presence beside me, so real that it left me feeling perturbed.
While I understand your reticence, I’m burning with impatience to find out what the leather case the solicitor gave you contains: if I were in your shoes, I don’t think I’d be able to stop myself from peeking inside, like a little boy dipping his finger in the jam jar. I’m willing to bet that it contains the explanation to everything you and I have been trying to understand over the last year. And that’s what
we hoped for from the start, isn’t it?
Meanwhile, do you remember I told you that the photograph of your mother reminded me of a familiar setting? Now I know where it was taken: not far from Besançon. As a child I used to go for walks near that little chapel, sitting on my father’s shoulders, or with my grandmother Séverine. There is now little doubt that our parents used to see each other, even though they were both married. But what I can’t understand is how Nataliya came to be there: I find it hard to imagine Pierre bringing his woman friend (his mistress?) into his mother’s house. Or maybe they were holed up in a nearby hotel, in secret? But why there rather than in Paris or Geneva? It’s a mystery.