Low Heights

by Pascal Garnier

  Édouard was sitting in a chair, his morocco-leather briefcase flat on his knees. He was wearing a dark suit, white shirt, red tie and black shoes. There was a strong smell of aftershave emanating from him. Like a traveller on a station platform, he was waiting. For what? He would have found it very difficult to say. He knew only that he had to wait. Outside it was still dark. The 100 watts pouring from an imitation Venetian chandelier lit him cruelly but he seemed scarcely to notice. With age you become patient, giving time no more value than it deserves; you put it in your pocket with your handkerchief on top and take tiny sips of the present like a glass of port. Oh yes, of course! It was coming back to him. He was waiting for his driver, who was to take him to Maître Billard, his lawyer’s. Smiling, he tapped his briefcase. Everything was there, neatly arranged. Half of his possessions would go to Thérèse, the other half to Jean-Baptiste. The split seemed equitable. One person would be able to live out her days in peace and the other finally to embark on a life worthy of the name. You had to know how to wipe the slate clean. Which young man has never done anything stupid? Besides, there were mitigating circumstances. An orphan, a child who’d been given life without an instruction manual. He was entitled to a second chance. It was for him, Édouard Lavenant, to give him that and he felt great pride and a profound relief. No one would be able to reproach him for being a bad father, no one …

  He thumped his fist on the table and a silver saucer flew across the room before landing, spinning, on the marble floor of the entranceway. The cymbal clash spread in concentric waves throughout the house.

  Thérèse appeared, hair untidy, rubbing her eyes, one heavy breast escaping from her dressing gown, pulled on in a hurry.

  ‘Whatever are you doing here?’

  ‘Waiting for my driver. I’ve got an appointment with Maître Billard.’

  ‘It’s five o’clock in the morning!’

  ‘Oh …’

  ‘You need to go back to bed.’

  ‘But I’ve been to sleep, I’m dressed …’

  ‘It’s too early, Édouard. Come on, I’ll help you.’

  Once undressed he’d fallen asleep again immediately. Thérèse, on the other hand, lying next to him, found it impossible to go back to sleep. She was suffocating in this house with its clutter of hostile objects which, every time she moved, immediately seemed to gather together to block her way. Unable to bear it any longer, she got up and opened the window wide, in desperate need of air. The fluffy foliage of the unnaturally green plane trees stretched, dripping, the whole length of the avenue. On the pavement opposite, two women hurried past, clutching an umbrella. The smaller of the two looked up at the window and for a split second her glasses captured the street lamp’s gleam. Thérèse recoiled. She could have sworn the woman had given her a slight nod.

  Thérèse was waiting for Édouard in one of those imposing brasseries in Place Bellecour which make you feel as if you’ve gone back a hundred years: lofty ceilings, over-ornate mouldings, murals with pastoral scenes in pastel colours, gleaming brass, polished wood, waiters with long white aprons and handlebar moustaches. The clientele was in keeping. Beyond the window the square with its brick-red ground made you think of an enormous tennis court, with the equestrian statue of Louis XIV as an incongruous centrepiece. It would no doubt be hot today. Mist was rising from the freshly watered pavements, with a smell of hot damp cloth.

  She had woken Édouard at eight o’clock. He had no memory of having been awake earlier, but as he seemed in a particularly good mood Thérèse hadn’t mentioned it. After breakfast he had insisted she accompany him, something she had gladly agreed to (any excuse to get out of the house) while refusing to go up to the offices out of decency. She wouldn’t want people to think …

  All this seemed slightly mad, illogical, but Édouard’s enthusiasm was so infectious that she felt ready to follow him to the ends of the earth, all the more so as this would probably be no further away than Lake Geneva. She didn’t care about the distance; for once she was resolved to take a train that was going somewhere. Édouard needed her, more today than yesterday perhaps.

  She saw him go past the café so quickly she had no time to knock on the window. Then he reappeared, going in the opposite direction in just as much of a hurry, talking to himself and shaking his head. Suddenly, instead of coming into the café, he crossed the road, paying no attention to the cars screeching to a halt in front of him, walked across the square and began going round and round the statue. Thérèse paid for her drink and rushed over to join him.

  ‘Now, Thérèse, what have you been doing? Our plane leaves in two hours; we ’re cutting it fine.’

  ‘Two hours? What about our luggage?’

  ‘We ’ll buy everything once we’re there. You’ve needed a new wardrobe since birth. Taxi!’

  Satolas Airport had been rechristened Saint-Exupéry and no one had informed Monsieur Lavenant.

  ‘Saint-Ex! What a name. Saint-Ex! Well, if that’s progress …’

  The car smelled of new plastic. An unidentifiable orange furry creature was bouncing on a length of elastic beneath the rear-view mirror.

  ‘Couldn’t you take that thing down, it’s getting annoying …’

  ‘No, M’sieur. It was a gift from my children.’

  ‘Well, at least switch off the radio!’

  ‘Yes, M’sieur.’

  ‘Right, my secretary has booked us a hotel in Geneva. We ’ll hire a car locally and then we’ll look for a chalet higher up in the mountains. Oh, Thérèse … Old age! That poor Billard is going completely gaga, yet he’s ten years younger than me. I had to repeat things ten times for him and he kept replying, “Are you really sure, Édouard? Really sure?” It’s terrible to see someone I’ve been friends with for thirty years in that state. But now everything’s arranged. It was time Jean-Baptiste took over!’

  ‘Jean-Baptiste?’

  ‘Of course Jean-Baptiste. Until there ’s proof to the contrary, he ’s my only son!’

  ‘But Édouard …’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Jean-Baptiste is dead!’

  Édouard’s face froze. His lower lip began to quiver and his eyes to blur. He turned his head towards the flat-roofed buildings with signboards on top which lined the road.

  ‘Don’t ever say that again, Thérèse.’

  His good hand reached for Thérèse’s and she took it. It was dry and cold, perhaps because of the air conditioning.

  Thérèse had never travelled by plane. Airports were not like railway stations. Everything was cleaner, well looked after, hushed voices, a sort of hospital where people would just disappear without a trace, never die. Paradise was within arm’s reach, no doubt because of the proximity of the sky. While waiting for Édouard, who had gone off somewhere, Thérèse watched the planes taking off for Bangkok, Rio de Janeiro, Toulouse, Milan, Lille, Strasbourg … The people you came across here weren’t the same as those in the street. They smelled of elsewhere, wore different clothes, walked differently – more slowly, as if weightless. Here nothing was far away so you didn’t hurry.

  ‘Here, Thérèse, this is for you.’

  Édouard was holding out a small bag embossed with the logo of a famous parfumier.

  ‘You can open it on the plane. Let’s hurry.’

  Later, while Édouard was asleep with his head on her shoulder, she opened the package. It was a star-shaped bottle, filled with blue perfume. She sprayed a little on the back of her hand. It smelled of altitude, the blue sky above the clouds, a landscape she was discovering for the first time in her life.

  ‘What are you doing, Thérèse?’

  ‘Er … I’m making the bed.’

  ‘You’re making the bed. Would you like to do the washing up as well, while you’re about it? Let me remind you that we’re in one of the most opulent hotels in Geneva.’

  Thérèse blushed. She hadn’t been able to resist. She liked making the bed in the morning and to tell the truth she wouldn’t have objected to the w
ashing up either. Having been up since six, after washing and dressing as unobtrusively as possible she ’d had nothing else to do, and ensconced herself on the balcony between two big ornamental vases, eventually feeling like one of them herself, until room service had arrived with breakfast.

  ‘Leave it, I’ll see to it. Monsieur is still asleep.’

  The waiter, accustomed to fantasies of love affairs with servants, had given her a conspiratorial wink, which shocked her deeply.

  ‘I’m sorry, Édouard. I can’t just do nothing. It makes me feel …’

  ‘Helpless?’

  ‘A bit.’

  ‘Wealth always does that to begin with, and then you get used to it.’

  ‘I don’t think I will.’

  ‘Now put your jacket on, we’re going out. You want things to do, you shall have them.’

  The morning’s shopping was a veritable Way of the Cross for Thérèse. They visited an incredible number of boutiques, each more luxurious than the last, and each time Thérèse came away more humiliated. As soon as she entered, even the most junior salesgirl would look her up and down, shooting her a contemptuous glance which made her even more gauche, stupid and inarticulate. She felt dirty, ugly and out of place, and if Édouard had not made all the decisions for her she would, from shame, have rushed to throw herself in the lake with a stone around her neck.

  ‘Well, Thérèse, do you like this dress? Would you like to try another size?’

  ‘No, no, it’s fine.’

  In the intimacy of the final fitting-room cubicle she dissolved into tears before her grotesque reflection. Never had she felt so miserable.

  ‘Right, now you need a handbag. Hermès is just next door.’

  ‘Please, Édouard, I’d like to go back to the hotel. I don’t feel well.’

  ‘Already? True, it’s nearly one o’clock. Let’s go for lunch. We still have the whole afternoon ahead of us.’

  It was nice on the terrace. There was a cool breeze from the lake. The fillets of perch were excellent, the service impeccable, yet it was as if something like an imperceptible odour of putrefaction hung over this perfect world, accompanied by a worrying ticking sound. It was probably coming from Lake Geneva, the dull beat of an army on the march. It was as if all the clocks and all the watches had agreed to start an inexorable countdown which made you await with terror the imminent alarm bell announcing the attack.

  ‘Dessert?’

  ‘No! Thank you. Excuse me, Édouard, I don’t feel very well. I’m going back to our room.’

  ‘Do. I’ll join you in a minute.’

  Thérèse made her way unsteadily across the restaurant terrace, among the mummies with their clinking jewellery and shrill laughter, their skeletons jerking like miserable puppets. Their plasterwork make-up was flaking off, and underneath there was nothing, nothing but dry, white bone.

  The room was littered with the packages Édouard had had delivered. It looked like Christmas gone wrong. She collapsed onto the bed and took refuge in sleep, her cheeks glazed with tears, the source of which she would have been unable to identify.

  Tiny white yachts were racing one another on the blue waters of the lake, delicate angel feathers scattered by the whistle of a ferry as it returned to the landing stage. On the right, the proud water jet plumed over the city, lending an iridescence to the view of the mountains, but Monsieur Lavenant only had eyes for the magnificent pair of yellow Westons he had bought himself. Squeezed into the cane armchair on the balcony, legs outstretched, he banged them together. They reminded him of a pair of ducks. He would probably never wear them. They were simply beautiful, like Cécile … He had wanted her and he had got her, solely for the pleasure of snaffling her from the pack of suitors who trailed after her with their tongues hanging out. It was as stupid as that. Cécile was a two-way mirror through which he could enjoy the ever-recurring spectacle of others’ covetousness, of the thousand and one base deeds motivated by the desire to possess what one hasn’t got. If they had only known, poor things …

  Monsieur Lavenant glanced over his shoulder. Thérèse was still asleep, one hand beneath her cheek, her presence confirmed by gentle snoring. It was reassuring.

  ‘I could get some bread while I’m about it …’ Édouard couldn’t get the little phrase overheard in the street that morning out of his head. A man talking to himself outside a bakery. A phrase necessitating no metaphysical dissection, but which, unlike the many others one feels compelled to fill with sense, had the merit of saying what it meant. “I wasn’t thinking of it, but since I have no bread left and I’m outside a bakery, I might as well get some bread.” Contained in these simple words was all the good sense of humankind, which ensures we are still alive, standing, humble and irrefutable. The same good sense, no doubt, which had moved Thérèse to make the bed.

  Make your bed and lie in it.

  Ill-gotten gains profit no one.

  Once a thief …

  Slow and steady …

  The pitcher goes to the well so often …

  A never-ending list of ridiculous proverbs appeared before his eyes, like driving-school slides showing improbable scenarios.

  ‘I’ve had it up to here with good sense! What the hell’s she doing – is she dead or something?’

  He flushed the loo several times without closing the door. Thérèse raised one eyelid, like a monitor lizard.

  ‘What time is it?’

  ‘Time to go for an ice cream.’

  Her new natural-linen dress let the air through so deliciously that Thérèse blushed, as if she were out walking naked. By contrast, the too tight straps of her gold sandals were cruelly wounding her swollen feet. Édouard was wearing a suit that matched her dress and his yellow shoes captured the sun’s rays beautifully. The two were like a team of horses. A couple of sickly-looking joggers in matching tracksuits ran past them, each on the verge of a heart attack.

  ‘Have you noticed that old couples dress the same? Such a lack of taste!’

  Quai Wilson, Quai du Mont-Blanc … To rest their feet, which were killing them though they didn’t say anything to each other, they stopped for a moment in front of the statue of Empress Sissi, sited at the spot where she is supposed to have been stabbed by an Italian anarchist. Thérèse found it disappointing.

  ‘She doesn’t look like Romy Schneider.’

  And in fact the unpleasant bronze sculpture was more reminiscent of the horrible bunches of gladioli people give their mothers-in-law at Sunday lunchtimes than of the legendary actress’s graceful outline.

  ‘Do you know, she didn’t notice anything at the time, a punch at most. She and her lady-in-waiting got into the boat and it was only in the cabin that she knew she was mortally wounded. How many of us are in that same situation, believing they’re still alive when they’re dead? It’s a mystery. One acts as if … And it works!’

  They chose to have their ice cream at the Bains des Pâquis, a bathing place created by building out into the lake. Access was by a raised wooden walkway which gave you the impression of stepping onto the deck of a ship. The architecture of the rows of changing cubicles separated by duckboard pathways must have dated from the early twentieth century. It exuded an old-fashioned charm which the reggae music coming from the bar could not dispel.

  The naked bodies of young Adonises glistening with suntan oil mingled uninhibitedly with the three-piece suits of respectable bankers, and mothers chasing after their shrieking offspring. Some were cruising, others having tea in the most civilised manner. Thérèse and Monsieur Lavenant took the table furthest from the bar, because of the music.

  ‘This need for music all the time is crazy! It’s everywhere: in shops, in the street, even in the hotel toilets! What’s so frightening about silence?’

  They ordered ice creams with exotic names, which turned out just to be scoops of vanilla and chocolate hidden under a layer of grated coconut. Opposite them, imperturbable, the water jet kept up its insolent ejaculation. Out of the corner of her ey
e, while she sucked her spoon, Thérèse stole furtive glimpses at the perfectly tanned youths brushing against each other suggestively, without eliciting the slightest disapproval from the worthy citizens.

  ‘Honestly, really …’

  ‘Honestly what?’

  ‘But … See for yourself!’

  ‘What is there to see?’

  ‘Those youths there … they’re that way inclined … In front of all those children. Honestly …’

  ‘What’s it to you? At least that lot don’t reproduce, that’s something. Tomorrow we’ll begin our search for a chalet to rent, as high up and remote as possible.’

  ‘Oh yes! I admit I feel out of place here. Édouard?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘There’s a man looking at you very intently.’

  ‘A man? Where?’

  ‘Over there, leaning on the bar. It’s funny … he could be you … He’s coming over!’

  Against the light Édouard could not make out the man’s features, but the silhouette seemed familiar.

  ‘Excuse me, are you by any chance Édouard Lavenant?’

  Now the man was leaning over the table, his face appeared as plainly as his own reflection in a mirror. Except for the moustache, the close-cut hair, that sallow complexion and eyes with dark rings like two holes in an old pair of socks, this was his ‘certified copy’.

  ‘Jean!’

  ‘Yes. Allow me to sit down – this is quite a shock. Forgive me, Madame, I haven’t introduced myself. Jean Marissal, a very, very old friend of Édouard’s. If I’d thought …’

  Thérèse had heard it said that everyone on earth has a double, but that two of them should be intimately acquainted seemed almost miraculous.

  ‘How did you recognise me after so many years?’

  ‘Oh come, Édouard, how could I fail to recognise my own face?’

  ‘Of course, that was stupid …’