‘Rubbish! She’s got her claws into you too! Which means that you’re going to be of no help to Bernard.’
‘Just be wary of her,’ warned Jules, who was looking down at Hortense.
‘Wary?’ she asked, looking up at him, incredulous.
‘I’ll be very careful,’ I promised, hopefully with just enough condescension to annoy Hortense.
I went to visit Bernard the following afternoon. I called Lulu and she was able to give me his exact address on the rue Véron.
Bernard sounded pleased that I had come when he answered the intercom and opened up the door on the street. I climbed up to the sixth floor and he was waiting at the open door to his apartment when I finally reached it. He asked me inside, offering me a drink, laughing that the roles were reversed.
I accepted coffee and he showed me through to his living room before going off to the kitchen. I had expected the Spartan accommodation of a single, middle-aged man like my own apartment above the bar, but it was tastefully appointed with comfortable, perhaps antique furniture. There was no television, games console, or collection of cds and dvds. The only item of a mechanical nature was an old stereo record player and a collection of vinyl records. There was a bookcase which was given over almost entirely to poetry in both French and English.
‘You met Mathilde, then?’ he asked me when he came back in. ‘Sit down, please. Tell me, what do you think of her?’
‘She seems very sweet.’
He nodded, pleased. I added:
‘And not quite the man-eater that Jules and Hortense have made her out to be.’
‘No, they’ve got her all wrong.’
‘Hortense really doesn’t seem to like Mathilde.’
‘I don’t see how she could have an opinion either way; she’s never met her.’
‘You do realise that her opinions are partly the result of how you’ve portrayed Mathilde to them?’
‘I hadn’t thought of it like that.’
‘She’s prejudiced against Mathilde because of what happened to you when she left last time.’
‘I’ve done everything I can to persuade her and Jules that they’re wrong. I’ve told them how wonderful Mathilde is, what she means to me…’
‘It might be that you just haven’t explained very well.’
‘That must be the reason.’
‘Or…that you’ve misrepresented the situation a little, perhaps?’
‘In what way?’
‘Mathilde told me that she’s offered to leave her husband for you, but you refused to let her?’
‘She told you that? Well, it’s true enough. I’d feel awful if she gave up her life so as to be with me. Our love is my greatest desire, to be with her my only wish, but I know it would be a complete disaster.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘No, and I don’t believe anyone else ever can.’
‘She said there’s danger in it?’
‘And she’s right,’ he agreed, and returned to the kitchen. He called back: ‘This time, though, I think it will all come to a conclusion whether we want it to or not. Our relationship seems to be moving inevitably forward.’
When he returned with my coffee he sat down opposite me and explained:
‘I missed her that day you talked to her in the bar because I had to work; we were installing a new exhibition at the gallery. I was going to the bar the next day but it was raining and I doubted that she’d come out in such weather. By the time I got to your place the rain was heavier still and I decided to carry on and risk going towards her house. Of course, I didn’t know which route she’d have taken. Luckily, though, I remembered that the last time she said she’d come down the steps at the end of the rue de Calvaire. So I carried on towards the Place and there she was coming down the rue de Vieuville.
‘We met at the end of the street and took shelter in the entrance to an old taxi business whose garage doors were open. We were both drenched, and the rain was drumming off the roof and hissing back up off the pavement and the road outside. But inside the dark and dusty garage it seemed like an oasis of quiet and calm. No cars or pedestrians passed. We talked, but it was so cold and we were both shivering…We held each other, for warmth.’
‘For warmth?’
‘I couldn’t stop myself. I took her cold, wet face in my hands and kissed her icy lips. Her eyes became very wide. Surprise? Resistance? I don’t know. Whatever it was she took a time before her lips answered mine.’
‘The relationship is still moving forward then? Slowly though!’
‘I shouldn’t have told you,’ he said angrily, standing up. ‘You’re laughing at me.’
‘No, not at all,’ I lied. ‘It’s just that, in some ways, it all seems a little anachronistic.’
‘In what ways?’ he asked, annoyed.
‘You know; anyone else would have leapt into bed with her, if they’d met their true love again after five years of separation.’
‘You don’t understand…Life is meaningless, but still we live it. Death is meaningless, too. I live only for her love, but love turns to la petite mort, then perhaps le grand morte.’
‘No, I don’t understand.’ I stood up as well. ‘And I know it’s really none of my business…’
‘You’re right, Charles, it really isn’t,’ he agreed, and with his hand he motioned that I should perhaps leave. ‘And it’s no business of Hortense and Jules, or anyone else.’
‘We’re all concerned for you,’ I tried to tell him. I walked reluctantly to the door, Bernard close behind me.
‘So what if I’m making a fool of myself?’ he asked. ‘Maybe I’m a permanent adolescent as Lulu once said. But Mathilde makes me exquisitely happy. I’m not sure that Hortense and Jules will have ever experienced a fraction of that happiness in the whole of their conventional time together.’
‘Perhaps you’re right,’ I agreed, turning to him. ‘But as Jules said to Hortense just the other day, who knows what really goes on in other people’s lives?’
‘I’ve no interest in their relationship.’
‘But what happens next in yours?’
‘Mathilde and I have to make a decision. If she comes back here then it all begins again.’
I couldn’t help but look through the half-opened door into the bedroom. It was tastefully furnished, and had a large double bed with a heavy damask cover over it.
‘But the beginning is also the end,’ he said matter-of-factly.
A week or so later Jules came in to the bar and asked if I had seen Bernard, which I hadn’t. He was concerned because his friend didn’t appear to be at his apartment and had not been in to work for several days.
‘It’s all happening again,’ he said grimly.
‘Mathilde?’
‘Exactly. I hate to think what Hortense will say when she finds out.’
‘She seems to take Bernard’s private life very personally.’
Jules looked me straight in the eye:
‘She and Bernard were a couple before she met me…and before he ever met his ex-wife. Since then Hortense has always looked out for him.’
‘Oh,’ I said, and decided to leave it at that.
Jules’s wife was quite vocal when she came into the bar with him later that evening and questioned me about Bernard and his movements.
‘It’s that bloody woman!’ she insisted. ‘He’ll come back in less than a month, in a complete state, sorrier than he’s ever been. He’ll have emptied out his bank account and his silly little heart. He’s destined to make the same mistake for the rest of his stupid life.’
Jules and I both tried to calm Hortense down, but as Bernard was not there she took her anger out on us. She also drank heavily, which I had seen her do before, but normally she could handle it.
‘You know what I’m going to do,’ she decided at about ten that evening. ‘I’m going over to that house on rue St Vincent and I’m going to see if her husband knows what’s going on.’
‘Don’t do that,�
�� I said, and in return she told me how little she valued my opinion. Jules said that I was right and he too was told in what low esteem she held him. She picked up her glass, saw that it was already empty, and pulled a face.
‘I’ll see you later,’ she said to Jules, and we both watched her leave the bar.
‘Perhaps you should go after her?’ I asked.
‘Would you? When she’s in that temper?’
I had to wait a few more days before I heard what happened when Hortense reached the house on rue St Vincent. She had insisted on seeing Mathilde’s husband; she had barged right into the house. When she explained herself to the poor man he was in tears apparently. It appeared that Mathilde had left him a note several days before saying that she was leaving, but not saying where she was going or why. The authorities were already looking for her, and after her husband made another phone call to the police then they were looking for Bernard too.
But neither Bernard nor Mathilde were discovered. The police suspected foul play at first. It was reported that the bedroom of his apartment appeared to have been the scene of a fight, but this was later denied. I was interviewed on three different occasions but I am sure that I was unable to be of any help. Back at the bar I was also interviewed by my customers, but they had less interest in finding out the truth than they had in gossip. The disappearance of Bernard and Mathilde was a mystery, and one that was avidly discussed by my regulars. The most fanciful and the most mundane solutions were frequently suggested, but, without any proof, who was to say what had happened? Hortense and Jules claimed that Bernard and Mathilde were still somewhere in Paris, perhaps living in the suburbs under aliases. Lulu was convinced that they were both at the bottom of the Seine, bound together by a heavy chain that stopped them from floating to the surface. I didn’t offer an opinion; I just served the drinks, listened to the theories of my customers, and hoped that wherever Bernard and Mathilde found themselves they were together.
The story died away, and after a couple of months so did my customers. I don’t know why, but my takings slowly declined over the following year and I finally had to admit that I was losing money. A new bar, The Umbrella, started up two doors down from me and was suddenly the place for people to go to. I was forced to give up the lease on my premises, and I took a job running the bar in a nightclub near the Champs-Élysées. That was a hard time for me. I worked all the hours possible so as to pay off my debts and the club where I was now employed was rough. Fights were common most nights, and if the customers weren’t in trouble with the police then the owners often were. I developed something of an alcohol problem and had a succession of sordid relationships. I was not proud of myself.
When the nightclub closed down I was looking for work again. At that very time, by coincidence I saw an advert for a job working in the very bar I had once run on the rue des Abbesses. It struck me as particularly cruel, but I needed a job and I had some fondness for the old place. I telephoned and went around that afternoon for an interview.
I took the Metro to Abbesses. It was raining hard and it was dark when I emerged into the Place from under the Guimard canopy. It was strange to walk past shops I had once known and into a bar that was so little changed since I used to run it. The patron was a business-like older woman who was amused when I told her my history, but she was not particularly impressed. I suspect that she was worried I would be just as unsuccessful in her establishment if given a second chance there. She told me that she would get back to me after she had interviewed another couple of candidates.
As I passed by I looked into The Umbrella; my old competitor for customers. It looked a little tatty and down-at-heel after just three years, and this gave me some comfort. Then I saw somebody inside whom I recognised.
I went in and walked up to where she was sitting alone at a table.
‘Can I buy you another coffee?’ I asked Lulu.
She looked confused, and then there was a slight flicker of recognition, but that was all. I could tell she wasn’t going to be able to remember why she might recognise my face. I introduced myself quickly.
She accepted a glass of wine. After we had caught up with our news our conversation inevitably turned to Bernard and Mathilde.
‘Neither of them have ever been in touch with friends or family since their disappearance,’ she said.
‘I remember you were convinced they were at the bottom of the Seine.’
‘They’ve never reappeared to prove me wrong. The authorities say that their separate bank accounts have never been accessed. There’s been talk recently of them being declared officially dead in absentia, but it may have to be a few more years before they can do that. Besides, another lead was uncovered recently.’
‘Really?’
‘Haven’t you been living in Paris? Apparently a man fitting the description of Bernard attempted to sell a bracelet in Aubervilliers and for some reason the jeweller became suspicious. The man ran off and the bracelet was handed in to the police. It’s thought to’ve once belonged to Mathilde.’
‘Can they prove it?’
‘They’re not sure, because it wasn’t something that her husband had ever bought for her and properly documented for insurance.’
‘She had a little diamond bracelet, I remember.’
‘That Bernard bought for her?’
‘I think so. I saw it, once…’ I said, but suddenly she didn’t want to talk about them. Soon she had an excuse to leave and I finished her wine for her. I ordered another for myself and sat there on my own thinking of Bernard and Mathilde and the story they had left behind them. I decided that people would still be talking about them for years to come, whereas I was nothing; nobody. Feeling rather sorry for myself I walked out into the failing light of that autumn afternoon, into an enveloping rain, and looked both up and down the rue des Abbesses. And then, in the distance, down by the Place, I could see a couple arm-in-arm. My mind was primed to think of Bernard and Mathilde, I know, and I couldn’t quite believe what I thought I had seen. I stood there arguing with myself until I realised that running after them was the only way to resolve the matter.
When I got to the Place they were not there. They did not appear to have continued down the road, and neither were they walking away up the rue Yvonne le Tac or rue de la Vieuville. I rushed down into the Metro but nobody was there who looked even remotely like them. Nevertheless, I was sure it had been Bernard and Mathilde. I wandered around the Place, hoping that they might reappear from within a shop or a café but I was disappointed. After a quarter of an hour, as I was considering going home, a gendarme appeared. I told him whom I thought I had seen.
I know that he did not take me seriously. I looked a little wild; I was wet-through and I’d been drinking. I could see that he did not consider me to be a reliable witness, and when he asked me where I worked and I said I was unemployed he closed his notebook. He said I should go home and I reluctantly did as he suggested.
I returned to Abbesses the next day, and the next. It was to no avail, but I was pleasantly surprised to go home one evening to a message saying that I could have a job, after all, in my old bar.
I was pleased to be back, but I became a little obsessed by thoughts of Bernard and Mathilde, I admit. Every few weeks I would rush from the bar having thought I’d seen them, separately or together. Sometimes I would mistake other people for them, locals and tourists, but occasionally my quarry would disappear into the crowd. When I was not working I would often wander around the area, an eye on the faces in the streets and in the other bars. I would walk over to the rue St Vincent and back again, taking the various different routes that linked Bernard’s old apartment to where Mathilde had once lived.
After a while I tried to restrain myself, only following those people that seemed the most likely to be Bernard or Mathilde, not just those who vaguely resembled them from a distance. And then, one evening the following winter, I was locking up the bar after a busy night. I was physically tired, it was dark and raining feroci
ously. The water was running down the granite sets in the street. I hurried towards the Metro at Abbesses, but for some reason my eyes were drawn across the Place. I saw, obliquely, the dark entrance to the garage at the bottom of the rue de Vieuville. I thought, momentarily, that I glimpsed somebody inside and I could not stop myself from investigating. I continued across the Place and entered the dark, cold garage.
I could see nobody within, and turned to look back out at the rain which was now hitting the street so hard that it ricocheted back up into the air. It was reverberating on the roof, but I still heard a quiet sound behind me. When I turned a small, dark woman stepped out of the shadows further back inside the garage. I recognised her odd but not unattractive face; her hooked nose, small mouth and wide chin. Her eyes were wide and dark.
‘Mathilde,’ I said, and she smiled, the corners of her mouth rising, her cheeks lifting and the shape of her eyes changing in that astonishing fashion.
‘Yes,’ she said walking over to me very slowly. ‘I know you. You were a friend of Bernard’s.’
Her voice was so quiet I could barely hear her.
‘What happened to you both?’
‘La vie…la mort…’ she said simply. ‘It is all the same. La petite vie, la petite mort, la grande vie, la grande mort…’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘No, nobody else can.’
‘But I’d like to try?’
She took two further steps toward me and drew my face down to hers. I don’t know what made me think she might kiss me on the lips, but I had completely misread and misjudged the situation. Her cold lips barely touched my cheek before she pulled away.
‘You must stop looking for us,’ she said quietly.
I must have looked confused, disappointed even, but she did not seem to notice, or was too polite to show it. She stepped back and her expression was inscrutable. I hoped that she might at least smile again, but she did not. She slipped back into the shadows.
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