“That’s not true.”
“Maman, I was behind the door in the bathroom, I heard everything.”
Diane looked at her mother’s stunned face and saw that she had not been lying: she had forgotten.
“So I was a bad mother?”
“Not with Nicolas. He is fine. I often run into him on campus.”
“And you too seem fine.”
“No, I’m not fine. I am cold, remember?”
“Yes. You always have been.”
“No. I wasn’t when I was little. I forced myself to be cold in order to accept the way you were.”
“I never mistreated you.”
“Maman, I left home when I was fifteen.”
“Yes. I never understood why.”
“And yet you told the whole town that I couldn’t get over the death of my grandparents. Did it never occur to you that I left because of you?”
“No. It was because of me?”
Again Diane could tell that her mother was being sincere. At university and at the hospital she had often observed people’s incredible ability to forget: they forgot what didn’t suit them, or rather, they forgot when it suited them to forget—in other words, very often. Now she could sense the intensity of her mother’s pain, and the sincerity of her forgetting.
“You do know that amnesia is not an excuse, Maman?”
“An excuse for what?” said Marie, who didn’t even realize she had forgotten.
Diane was tempted to tell her everything. What stopped her was her fear of going too far. She didn’t know whether this too far included the risk of killing her mother, but she did know that no act and no words would bring her relief. On the contrary, instead of setting her free, a confession would drive her deeper, perhaps forever, into the hell of that childhood she had had such difficulty leaving behind.
Could Marie have behaved differently? Diane thought not. Her mother lacked the wisdom; it was impossible for her to take stock. What would be the point of reproaching someone who was incapable of self-analysis, especially with so many years to make up for?
The woman who was looking at her with pained curiosity seemed innocent. What absolved her was neither the passage of time, nor her forgetting; it was her demon. Diane recalled how she herself had nearly fallen into the abyss, when she had seen her mother showering Célia with such exuberant love, while deliberately depriving Diane of it. Marie lived in that abyss. The fact she had fallen into it because of some absurd stupidity in no way detracted from the tragedy of her fate. What she had inflicted on her eldest daughter was merely the expression of a warped narcissism of which she had no inkling.
“Are you still jealous, Maman?”
“What are you talking about?”
So her mother was that oblivious. Having said that, if she did not realize she had been jealous, perhaps she did not know whether she had been cured of it. How could she find out?
“Is Célia as beautiful as you were? I haven’t seen her for ten years.”
“Oh, yes,” said Marie. “She is such a lovely young woman! My pride and joy! And yet, I have to say that you are even more beautiful than she is,” she added, and Diane did not see a single bitter crease at her lips. “Why don’t you come back home? You’re only twenty-five, we could try to make up for all the lost time.”
She is still every bit as stupid, Diane thought, and sighed. Obviously she would love for me to come and fill in, now that Célia has gotten out of it.
“It’s too late, Maman,” Diane said simply.
“Too late for what?”
“You know I’m an intern, now. I spend my life at the hospital.”
“Apparently you are frequently seen with a woman my age. A professor.”
“There you go, gossiping again.”
“Who is she?”
“She’s an assistant professor in cardiology. Her name is Olivia Aubusson.”
“Olivia? How funny. That’s the name I had chosen for you.”
“Really?”
“Yes. Your father objected.”
“I have to go,” said Diane, who had heard enough. “Be a good mother to Suzanne, Maman.”
“Of course I will,” replied Marie, as if it were self-evident. “Goodbye, my daughter.”
How sorry Diane was to be on duty that night! She needed to talk to someone. If only she could have gone to see Élisabeth. But, she would never get to sleep that night, so, she thought, she may as well work.
She stayed for hours at the side of an old lady who was allergic to solitude.
Thoughts whirling, tumbling, racing: what her mother had said became so muddled that insignificant words now seemed to contain a dangerous hidden meaning. She was incapable of determining which was more hurtful: the present suffering of this woman who had been a goddess to her, or the negation of her childhood hell. Diane did not belong to that category of people who see their tormentors’ torture as a form of expiation. Even if she approved of what Célia had done, she thought it was terrible that she had had to run away and abandon her child in order to keep herself from doing harm. As for Marie’s offer to take her back into the fold, she found it downright offensive, a dreadful irony of fate.
Was she crazy to think she had detected sarcasm in her mother’s allusion to the fact that Olivia and she were the same age? How could they even be compared? Marie had reached the age of the vanquished, Olivia that of the conquerors. Finally, Marie’s revelation regarding the name she had almost given her made her sick to her stomach.
In the middle of the night she felt an urge to tell Olivia everything that had been said. An hour later, she swore to herself she would do no such thing: her experience with this exceptional woman was completely unlike those kinds of friendships where secrets are shared—not that she didn’t trust her, but because she would have blushed to confess to such weakness. Who was the author who said that every life was reduced to a miserable little pile of secrets? It was out of the question, she could not share her pile of secrets with Olivia. She wanted to rise to her level, not invite her friend to wallow with her in the mud of her past.
In the end, she would have been happier had this conversation with her mother never taken place. Home is where it hurts: the pain she was feeling made her realize she had reconnected with her childhood home.
At six in the morning she went off duty. Classes began at eight, she wouldn’t have time to get any sleep. She sat through her lectures like a zombie, then joined Olivia for lunch.
“You look like death warmed over!” said Olivia.
“I was on duty last night.”
“But you don’t usually look like that the next day.”
Diane could sense she was about to give way. To stop herself, she changed tack completely.
“Olivia, I’ve been thinking: you ought to apply for your habilitation1.”
“What’s got into you?”
“I’ve been thinking about it for a long time.”
“And this is why you look like a corpse?”
“You always joke about it. In fact, you’re laughing so you won’t cry. It’s so unfair that you don’t have your habilitation.”
“I don’t care.”
“If you really didn’t care, you wouldn’t talk about it so much.”
“I only talk about it to bad-mouth the ones who do have it.”
“Precisely. But you deserve to be a full professor.”
“Stop right there, you don’t know what you’re getting into. To apply for the habilitation, you have to have published a dozen articles. I would be incapable of publishing a single one.”
“But it’s not as if you lack subject matter, or the talent to write them.”
“The journals that matter for the habilitation are all American. You have to submit your articles in English, electronically. Two obstacles I cannot possibly surmount.”
“I’ve always been very good at computers and at English. We can write your articles together.”
Flabbergasted, Olivia stopped eati
ng, her fork raised.
“You don’t know what you’re saying. Even if you weren’t completing a cardiology internship, this represents an impossible amount of work. You couldn’t do it all at the same time.”
“I’ll bet you I could.”
“And why would you do it?”
“Because it makes me sick that you’re not a full professor. None of our professors deserve to be, apart from you. It’s an imposture.”
“If I decide to go through with this, those same imposters will be my judges.”
“Is it worth a try, though?”
“I never made fun of them in public. I showed some regard for their susceptibilities.”
“Well then, it’s decided.”
“Diane, it will take at least two years of back-breaking work.”
“All the more reason not to waste any time. Let’s get started right away.”
“This means that for two years, you won’t see anyone but me.”
“We get along well. Finish your salad, Olivia, we have our work cut out for us.”
Diane felt she had been rescued. She could think about something else besides her mother. As for the prospect of intensive collaboration with this wonderful woman, it filled her with enthusiasm.
In 1997, almost no one had a laptop. In Olivia’s office at the university there was a big desktop computer.
“I have no idea how to use it,” Olivia confessed.
Diane set two chairs in front of the IBM. Over the two years that followed, the two friends spent all their free time on those chairs. They often stayed there until three or four o’clock in the morning. On Sundays, they brought picnics.
“Who is looking after your daughter?” asked Diane.
“Stanislas is an excellent father. He drives her to school, goes home to work, and is always back there when school gets out. And do you have anyone missing you?”
“No,” said Diane, who thought the question had been deftly put.
She was lying. A few days earlier, Élisabeth had grilled her:
“Are you sexually attracted to Aubusson?”
Diane gave her best friend the look Caesar gave Brutus before uttering his final, historic words.
“I wouldn’t be shocked, you know,” said Élisabeth.
“Nor would I. I’m not shocked. But it’s not true.”
“What a pity. I would have preferred it if you had been.”
“That’s quite something!”
“If you desired that woman, I would understand your attitude. But now it completely baffles me.”
“Writing these articles with her is truly fascinating.”
“So fascinating you can do nothing else? So fascinating you’ve stopped sleeping?”
“Exactly.”
“How much do you weigh now? Ninety pounds?”
“Leave me alone.”
“Are cardiologists required to be that thin?”
“The majority of heart conditions stem from overeating and obesity. I prefer to set a good example.”
“But you look like a skeleton!”
As it happened, Diane agreed with her. But whenever Olivia saw butter, cheese, or meat, she reacted like a believer in the presence of the devil. All she ate was raw vegetables with a little dry bread.
The first time one of her articles was published, Diane opened a bottle of wine. The older woman looked at her warily.
“It’s good for your arteries!” Diane protested.
“Then just a drop.”
Despite the austerity, Diane loved collaborating with her. They were able to draw diagrams on the computer that delighted Olivia with their precision. When she saw them reproduced in the journals, she was jubilant.
“Our rigor has won over the Americans!”
Diane was proud of her use of the word “our.” And so proud to be supporting such a brilliant woman! What did it matter that she only got three hours sleep a night and never took any vacation? As for her academic results, they had never been better.
Six months before the date set for her habilitation defense, Olivia offered her a position as a junior lecturer.
“I’m nowhere near good enough.”
“Of course you are. You’ll be top-notch.”
Three months later, Diane gave her first class. It was a success. “I’m not yet twenty-seven and I’m already teaching at university! Thank you, Olivia,” she thought, impressed.
Nicolas invited her to his wedding. She wrote him a very kind letter, apologizing for not being able to attend. “It’s a combination of circumstances,” she explained. “I’ll make up for it later on, as soon as I have more time.” Offended, Nicolas did not reply. Diane was hurt, but what was she to do? She had her classes to prepare, her dissertation to write, her shifts to cover and above all, she had to coach Olivia for her imminent habilitation defense.
Her father called to express his indignation:
“Your own brother’s wedding, you could at least take the time off to attend!”
Diane found it difficult to stay calm. This man who had never bothered to find out why his daughter had left home at the age of fifteen: he was offended, in the name of the family, by her refusal to attend some high-society do.
“Papa,” she replied, “try to understand: I have just started teaching at the university, I’m working on my dissertation—”
Her father interrupted, brightly: his daughter was teaching at the university! Such a prodigy had every right. “Congratulations, sweetheart,” he stammered, and hung up. Diane figured that within the half hour he’d have gone around informing the entire town, inflating his own ego. Far from feeling proud, she was angry.
1 Roughly the French equivalent of tenure for university professors.
It was a good thing the habilitation process was nearly over! It enabled her to move on to other things. The event itself was quite entertaining. Olivia introduced Diane as her research assistant, and this gave Diane permission to attend the session. It was in no way a forgone conclusion: Olivia had to convince a jury made up of professors who were infinitely less brilliant than she was, without alienating them for all that. She did not hesitate to resort to the customary formulas of flattery: “Owing to the expertise which Professor Pouchard has so kindly imparted to me,” or “As Professor Salmon has pointed out in his brilliant article,” and so on. Olivia had to demonstrate the coherence of her twelve recent American publications, and this she did, superlatively.
For Diane, this was a successful conclusion. Her friend was awe-inspiring: her eloquence, intelligence, and skill. She thought back over these two years of intense work, their complicity, their moments of despair, the difficulties they had overcome together. To have played a leading role in such a meaningful accession seemed to her to be the most significant thing she had ever done.
At the end of her presentation Olivia went to sit with Diane and the jury retired to deliberate.
“You were wonderful,” said Diane. “Bravo!”
“Really?” murmured Olivia, in a trance.
After an agonizing wait, the jury returned. Yves Pouchard proclaimed that Madame Aubusson, with the congratulations of the jury, would henceforth be granted the title of full professor. Olivia crushed Diane’s hand before going to shake each juror’s.
Once they had left the auditorium Olivia told Diane she would never forget to whom she owed her title.
“The custom is for the newly appointed professor to host a little party. We’ll have it the day after tomorrow in the room where the proceedings were held. You’ll be able to meet my husband at last—and I’ll finally be able to see him again!”
“Can I help you organize it?”
“I think you’ve helped me enough as it is, Diane. You have your own dissertation to write.”
Forty-eight hours without Olivia seemed very strange, after having spent most of the past two years in her company. She was glad to see her friend again on the evening of the party.
“Diane, allow me to introduce Stanislas,
my husband.”
He was a good-looking man in his fifties, slim and elegant.
“I will let you get acquainted,” said Olivia, going off to greet the other guests.
Talking to Stanislas turned out to be a laborious task. He hardly listened to her, and when he did, it was worse. Agitated, he inquired, “Why are you asking me this?” when she had not questioned him at all. And if she did ask him something, he didn’t answer. Finally she realized it would be better to say nothing. Silence had an immediate calming effect, and his features relaxed into a pleasant expression. Diane then excused herself, and went off to speak with others. It wasn’t easy, no doubt because she was twenty years younger than the majority of the guests, and they all seemed to wonder why she had been invited to the party.
The high point of the evening was Olivia’s speech. She stepped up to the podium, visibly moved.
“At the age of fifteen, while reading Alfred de Musset, I came upon these famous words of his: ‘Strike your heart, that is where genius lies.’ As adolescents we have such moments of lightning intensity, and I knew at once that I would devote my future to the study of the human heart . . . ”
Diane, stunned, did not hear another word.
Olivia’s peroration was met with thunderous applause. Yves Pouchard proposed a toast. No one noticed that the young woman had left the room.
The following day, Diane wondered why the incident had upset her so. Alfred de Musset belonged to everyone. After two years of uninterrupted collaboration, it was normal that Olivia had ended up confusing their memories. She swore to give it no further thought.
She met her friend for lunch as usual.
“It went well, yesterday,” she said politely.
“It did.”
Olivia cheerfully filled her in on countless details. Diane was relieved Olivia had not noticed her early departure.
“What did you think of Stanislas?”
“Ah. What can I say?”
The older woman burst out laughing.
“Forgive me, I should have warned you. His specialization in mathematics is topology.”
“What’s that?”
Strike Your Heart Page 6