It was shortly after Tania’s departure that the miracle had taken place.
Inadvertently glimpsing his reflection in a mirror, Bilodo could have sworn it was Grandpré’s face staring out at him! Then he’d recognized his own features in those of the dead man, and he had realized that what he was actually looking at was the result of several months of hygiene neglect. Absorbed in his epistolary idyll, he’d been totally remiss in the care of his person, so much so that he had come to this; with his six-month beard, his long, tangled mass of hair and that red kimono on his back, he bore a striking resemblance to the deceased – so much so, he’d suddenly realized, that Ségolène might not notice a thing.
All at once, Bilodo had felt that it was in his power to reverse his fortune. Euphoric at the thought, he’d composed, in haiku form, a warm invitation to the beautiful Guadeloupian to come to Montreal. In his eagerness to post the poem, he’d gone out in spite of the storm. He’d run across the street towards the postbox that his old enemy Robert, accompanied by another postman, was in the process of emptying of its contents, and...
Bilodo had died that day. The great darkness had enveloped him.
And yet, six months later, here he was, sitting in an aeroplane, alive and well. Thanks to Tania – generous, hypocritical Tania. Bilodo would have liked to believe in the goodness of her intentions, but he just couldn’t; it was now clear that Tania had revived him only in order to take possession of him. She’d manipulated his memory and odiously hijacked his love, providing him with a second life as a carefully programmed slave, fettering him to her desires. She had deceived him. She had taken advantage of him – so to hell with her!
Only Ségolène counted for him now.
‘I’m coming,’ Bilodo whispered, but at the same time aware that he was flying into an immense uncertainty. How had Ségolène interpreted the silence that had followed her last tanka? How would she receive Gaston Grandpré’s unexpected replacement? Wasn’t it highly likely that she would take him for a madman?
The cabin crew chief asked the passengers to prepare for their landing at Pointe-à-Pitre International Airport. Bilodo fastened his seatbelt; soon he’d know where he stood.
Dawn was breaking, and Bilodo still hadn’t come home. The dining-room window filtered the sun’s first rays. Tania opened the computer, logged onto the Internet and checked Bilodo’s credit-card account. Her intuition was confirmed: he had indeed purchased an airline ticket to Guadeloupe. Tania had a vision of Bilodo clasping Ségolène to his bosom, afloat on the long waves of a turquoise sea – a nightmare that would soon become reality unless she could manage to stop it.
After hastily packing a travel bag, Tania made a beeline for the airport. The next flight to Pointe-à-Pitre wouldn’t take off until one o’clock in the afternoon. Obliged to wait, Tania called Noémie, who agreed to take care of Bill, and then called the Petit Malin to notify them that she needed time off to deal with an emergency. It was only afterwards, when she had a chance to reflect, that Tania was struck by the illogicality of the situation: why was Bilodo rushing off to Ségolène?
It seemed absurd. Hadn’t he dreaded meeting her so much that he’d preferred suicide? Was he no longer afraid that the Guadeloupian would discover the truth? Did he expect her to welcome him with open arms? The opposite appeared much more probable; seeing that she was dealing with an impostor, Ségolène would be unable to trust Bilodo and would reject him – the best possible outcome for Tania, who would then need only to gather up the fragments of his broken heart.
In actual fact, it wasn’t possible to foresee what the Guadeloupian woman’s reaction might be. It would all depend on the story Bilodo told her. Was he going to wrap himself in a new web of lies? Would she let herself be moved? The only thing that was absolutely certain was that Bilodo was flying to Ségolène, and that Tania could do nothing about it.
Or maybe there was something: hadn’t she saved the Guadeloupian’s email address?
18
As he stepped out of the airport, Bilodo was struck by the heat and by the contrast between the universe he’d left behind and the one he’d just entered, such as the royal palms above his head that had replaced the frozen streetlights of Montreal. He got into a taxi and gave the driver Ségolène’s address. The city wasn’t far away, but the taxi soon had to come to a stop because a parade featuring costumed musicians and dancers was blocking one of the main roads. The driver explained that they were celebrating the last day of Carnival. ‘Tonight we burn Vaval,’ he said, sounding his horn in vain while the procession of brightly dressed revellers showed no sign of coming to an end.
Bilodo knew what was going on. He had visited Guadeloupe only in spirit, but in his efforts to learn all he could about the natural setting in the heart of which Ségolène glittered like a gem in a jewellery case, he’d read a great deal about the island region and educated himself in many of its aspects, including the local customs. As luck would have it, he had flown to l’île Papillon, the ‘Butterfly Island’, on Ash Wednesday, a highlight of the cultural calendar. That very evening, the last day of Carnival, forty days of festivities would culminate with a big vidé, a general parade, and everywhere, from Basse-Terre to Saint-François by way of Pointe-à-Pitre, she-devils in chequered dresses would burn effigies of Vaval, the wicked king of Carnival who symbolized the troubles of the year just passed.
The taxi dropped Bilodo off in front of a white house that faced a square and was surrounded by other, similar dwellings. He hesitated, suddenly confused. He had come to Guadeloupe in order to explain everything to Ségolène and to express the astronomical depths of his love, but here he was, and the words he’d so carefully prepared to achieve his purpose were escaping him. Nevertheless, unable to retreat, he raised a shaking finger to the doorbell...
‘It’s no use, nobody’s home,’ said a female voice off to his left.
Bilodo turned and saw an elderly woman, no doubt the neighbour, standing on the other side of a little fence and holding a watering can. Proudly planted in the middle of a bed of dazzlingly coloured flowers, she herself was wearing a dress printed with floral motifs so bright that she perfectly mimicked her environment – which was the reason why Bilodo hadn’t immediately noticed her presence. And suddenly he remembered one of Ségolène’s haiku:
My neighbour Aimée
gardens in a floral dress
you would water her
‘Madame Aimée?’ asked Bilodo, taking a chance.
‘Do we know each other?’ the lady responded, no doubt wondering what planet this peculiar individual in the anorak had come from.
‘Ségolène has spoken to me about you,’ Bilodo replied, lightly stretching the truth.
‘Really?’ said Aimée in surprise.
‘Would you by chance know where she is?’
‘Yes, I know where she is. Where else would she be at this hour? She’s at work, of course.’
‘Of course,’ Bilodo repeated. ‘And what’s the name of the school where she teaches?’
‘Fernande-Bonchamps Public School.’
‘Thanks,’ he said hurriedly, leaving Aimée to her flowers and dashing off in search of another taxi.
At the Fernande-Bonchamps school, the head teacher informed Bilodo that Ségolène was unavailable. Then, concerned for the security of his staff, the teacher asked Bilodo to identify himself as well as the reason for his visit.
‘It’s urgent and personal,’ Bilodo declared, producing his passport.
‘Very well,’ the educator said after examining the document. ‘Madame Ségolène is at the Mamelles park.’
‘At the what?’ asked Bilodo, nonplussed. The teats park?
‘At the Parc National des Mamelles, over on Basse-Terre,’ the educator explained. ‘She took a group of pupils there on a field trip.’
Bilodo rented a Peugeot and followed the GPS directions. Indifferent to the stunning landscape filing past all around him, he crossed a mountainous region and then entered the Mamelle
s park, whose name no doubt referred to the round shapes of the surrounding hills. Bilodo parked his car near a school bus. At the ticket window, he learned that the park contained both a zoo and a botanical garden. He paid the admission fee and then ventured along the paths of a forest resembling a jungle, with flower-laden branches and a mingling of perfumes that made him giddy. Bilodo climbed a path lined with orchids and reached a belvedere, a vast esplanade overlooking a panorama of hills whose lush green backs overlapped one another all the way to the Caribbean Sea. There were about a hundred visitors on the belvedere, including some fifty schoolchildren in uniform, gathered around two adult guides. One of them was Ségolène.
There she was, an angelic apparition in a simple white dress. Surrounded by children to whom she was giving a lesson in natural science, she spoke in a clear, lilting voice that to Bilodo’s ears sounded like heavenly music. Ségolène was magnificently there, letting the universe gravitate around her as if that were normal, so near and yet as inaccessible as if she were a thousand kilometres away from the petrified Bilodo. Overawed to the marrow, he sat down on a bench. He judged himself unworthy of her and hardly dared to lift his eyes. Now, so close to his goal, Bilodo realized that the task of confessing everything to Ségolène exceeded his powers. Where could he find the courage to look her in the face without dying of shame? How could he even approach her without faltering? Was he going to remain where he was, unable to make a move, trapped, tormented, writhing inside? Would he take root in that bench, an oversized bonsai slowly but surely colonized by lichen?
A quiet sound – a sort of droning – attracted Bilodo’s attention. Raising his eyes, he saw a hummingbird with iridescent feathers. Hardly bigger than a thumb, the hummingbird was hovering in front of an orchid as if suspended on a wire. Thrusting its tongue into the flower’s corolla, the bird gathered the nectar while beating its phantom-like wings at supersonic speed. It was a gripping spectacle, almost too true to be real. At the completion of its nectar feast, the hummingbird bowed reverently to the flower and then disappeared into the forest, leaving Bilodo with the impression of having admired a living haiku...Suddenly inspired, he pulled out his pen. Bending over the brochure he’d been given at the entrance to the park, he wrote:
Of all these orchids
I swear you’re the loveliest
hummingbird’s honour
It was surely the best way to re-establish contact after such a long silence. That makeshift haiku would revive Ségolène’s memory of their epistolary joys; nothing could better dispose her to hear what Bilodo had to say. But it was still necessary to find a way of placing the poem before her eyes. Preferring to remain invisible, Bilodo spotted a schoolboy with an impish face and motioned him closer. He charged the boy with handing the haiku to his teacher and gave him a coin for his trouble. As soon as the child had turned his back on him, Bilodo scurried into the forest and hid behind a giant fern so that he could watch without being seen. The schoolboy, carrying out his mission, brought the brochure to Ségolène, who read the poem. Visibly flabbergasted, she questioned the young messenger, who pointed at the bench, now empty, where Bilodo had been sitting a moment before. Ségolène scrutinized the surroundings. Hidden behind his foliage screen, Bilodo was in a position to ascertain that the beautiful Guadeloupian was in a state of great agitation. She seemed to be as overwhelmed as he was.
Bilodo followed the bus that took the young field-trippers back to their school; then he waited in his car, keeping an eye on the entrance. Now he was feeling fairly strong, ready to present himself to Ségolène. He would confess the fraud he’d felt constrained to perpetrate, and he would justify his conduct by invoking the love he had borne for Ségolène ever since the first haiku. He would declare that he belonged to her, that he wanted to marry her, and that he wished to live with her right there in Guadeloupe.
Twenty minutes later, Ségolène appeared. She had unbound her hair, which floated freely down to her shoulders – a wild mane the wind wrapped itself in. Going on foot, she entered a maze of narrow streets. Bilodo left his car and followed her at a distance.
It was a lively neighbourhood. Numerous residents were wearing Carnival costumes, which allowed Bilodo to melt into the background without too much difficulty. Entering the great hall of the Saint-Antoine market, Ségolène made her way among the multicoloured, fragrant stalls, with their heaps of fruits, vegetables, syrups and spices, their parakeets, brooms and potions reputed to cure all the illnesses in the world. With graceful movements, she weighed a carambola in her hand, selected some figue-pomme bananas, and then negotiated the price of a bunch of parsley. She didn’t look as serene as she did in Bilodo’s dreams: guessing that she was being spied on, she frequently looked about her. The schoolboy had no doubt described for her the author of the hummingbird haiku; she knew that it couldn’t be Grandpré and had to wonder uneasily who her unknown admirer was and how he knew about her fondness for Japanese poetry.
Her purchases made, Ségolène left the market, walking so fast that Bilodo nearly lost her in the crowd. He tailed her with increased vigilance and soon recognized the square near to where she lived. On this early evening, the place was filled with playing children, and also with adults allowing themselves a moment of crepuscular relaxation. Ségolène crossed the park. Eager to make himself known before she reached her home, Bilodo shortened the distance that separated them. But when he was only a few steps behind Ségolène, two little boys came running up to her; she stopped, bent down, and embraced them both affectionately. Bilodo froze, trying to make himself believe that those were two little neighbours of hers, and she was only their friend or perhaps their favourite babysitter. Then a tall Guadeloupian man stood up from a nearby bench, walked over to Ségolène, and kissed her with unequivocal tenderness. Had a lightning bolt struck Bilodo at that moment, he would not have been more efficaciously zapped. ‘She’s married! The mother of two children!’ he said to himself in despair, horrified by that sweet familial tableau, which to his eyes looked rather like Bosch’s Hell.
Daddy picked up the little boys, pleased to tote that fidgety, laughing load home. Before following them, Ségolène turned around, prompted by some instinct, and saw Bilodo standing before her like a statue. Their eyes locked. Bilodo had the impression of plunging directly into Ségolène’s soul, of instantaneous familiarity, of knowing all she was. And he felt that it was mutual, that she too could see his deepest nature, that he was naked before her, and that she guessed he was the real correspondent, the distant friend, the gentle poetic lover – but also the liar, the usurper, the lunatic. It seemed incredible, but a single look had sufficed to clarify everything between them, without their needing to utter so much as a word.
‘I just came...’ Bilodo mumbled.
Ségolène stood in what appeared to be a defensive position. He would have liked to reassure her, to say something nice, but his brain was empty. Ségolène glanced at her husband, who was going off with the children; as yet, he hadn’t noticed a thing. She turned to Bilodo and addressed him in an imploring voice: ‘Please leave. Go away.’
Bilodo inwardly collapsed.
Shouldn’t he throw himself at Ségolène’s feet and beg her to love him, to follow him with her children, to come and live with him in Montreal?
‘Please,’ Ségolène said again.
Miraculously, Bilodo managed to get a hold of himself. Knowing that unless he parted from Ségolène immediately, unless he went away from her without waiting another second, he wouldn’t have the strength to obey her, he turned on his heels and walked away. Faster and faster. Then he began to run.
In full flight, not looking back, Bilodo realized that he was weeping as he ran.
19
Tania stepped down onto the tarmac at Pointe-à-Pitre International Airport early that evening. She tried to call Bilodo from the taxi, but without success. Having arrived seven hours before her, he’d had all the time he needed to look for – and find – Ségolène. In hindsight, Tania wa
s no longer sure the email she’d sent the Guadeloupian woman had been a good idea. She’d sent it from the airport in Montreal, and in it she’d revealed to Ségolène the truth about Bilodo and warned her of his coming. Informing on him like that had probably resulted in a hostile welcome for Bilodo, who must be furious at her. How would he react when he discovered that she’d followed him to Guadeloupe?
The city was throbbing to the rhythm of the Carnival. Indifferent to such commotion, Tania had the taxi driver drop her off at her hotel, where she immediately refreshed herself in the shower. When she stepped out, a text message was waiting for her – and it had come from Ségolène: ‘I got your message. I met your friend Bilodo today. Call me.’
Like voluptuous fruits waiting only to be nibbled: such were Ségolène’s lips. The beautiful Guadeloupian was studying a photograph on Tania’s phone screen. Bilodo and Tania were smiling in the photo, a ‘selfie’ she’d taken of them on the Place d’Armes during a recent ramble through Old Montreal.
The two women were sitting at a table in a bistro and had already regaled each other with accounts of the bizarre events that had brought them together at this precise point in time and space. Tania had been astonished to learn that Ségolène was married, that she had children and that she had deceived her husband, committing a certain kind of poetic adultery by correspondence. Ségolène, therefore, was no saint. The icon had a few nicks in it, and so the underlying portrait was exposed, the picture of a woman capable of sin, who was human after all – a revelation that had doubtless been traumatizing for Bilodo, who had suddenly found himself confronted with the impossible. Tania’s chances of getting him back had therefore improved, provided that she could find out where he was. On that subject, Ségolène declared herself ignorant: ‘I have absolutely no idea where he might have gone after he left me,’ she told Tania.
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