‘Do you have any ideas?’ asked Baldabiou.
‘One,’ answered Hervé Joncour.
The next day he let it be known that, in the summer months, he would build the park for his villa. He engaged men and women, in the town, by the dozens. They deforested the hill and rounded its contours, making the slope that led to the valley gentler. With trees and hedges they designed delicate, transparent labyrinths on the earth. With flowers of every kind they built gardens that appeared by surprise, like clearings, in the heart of small birch woods. They diverted water from the river, so that it would descend, from fountain to fountain, to the western edge of the park, where it pooled in a small lake, surrounded by meadows. To the south, amid lemon and olive trees, they built a large aviary, of wood and iron: it looked like a piece of embroidery suspended in the air.
They worked for four months. At the end of September the park was ready. No one, in Lavilledieu, had ever seen anything like it. They said that Hervé Joncour had spent all his capital. They said, too, that he had returned from Japan changed, perhaps ill. They said that he had sold the eggs to the Italians and now had a patrimony in gold that was waiting for him in the banks of Paris. They said that if it were not for the park they would have died of hunger, that year. They said that he was a swindler. They said that he was a saint. Someone said: something is troubling him, some kind of unhappiness.
53.
ALL that Hervé Joncour said about his journey was that the eggs had hatched in a town near Cologne, and that the town was called Eberfeld.
Four months and thirteen days after his return, Baldabiou sat before him, on the shore of the lake, on the western edge of the park, and said
‘After all, sooner or later, you’ll have to tell someone the truth.’
He said it softly, because he didn’t believe, ever, that the truth was good for anything.
It was autumn and the light, around them, was unnatural.
‘The first time I saw Hara Kei he was wearing a dark tunic, and he was sitting motionless, with his legs crossed, in the corner of a room. Lying beside him, her head resting on his lap, was a woman. Her eyes didn’t have an Oriental shape, and her face was the face of a girl.’
Baldabiou listened in silence, until the end, until the train at Eberfeld.
He didn’t think anything.
He listened.
It hurt him to hear, finally, Hervé Joncour say softly
‘I never even heard her voice.’
And after a while:
‘It’s a strange grief.’
Softly.
‘To die of nostalgia for something you will never live.’
They went back across the park walking one beside the other. The only thing Baldabiou said was
‘Why the hell is it so damn cold?’
He said it at a certain point.
54.
AT the start of the new year – 1866 – Japan legalised the export of silkworm eggs.
In the following decade France alone would import ten million francs’ worth of Japanese eggs.
Furthermore, starting in 1869, with the opening of the Suez Canal, the journey to Japan took no more than twenty days. And just under twenty days for the return.
Artificial silk was patented, in 1884, by a Frenchman named Chardonnet.
55.
SIX months after his return to Lavilledieu, Hervé Joncour received in the post a mustard-coloured envelope. When he opened it, he found inside seven sheets of paper, covered by a thick geometric writing: black ink: Japanese ideograms. Apart from the name and the address on the envelope, there was not a single word written in Western characters. From the stamps, the letter seemed to have come from Ostend.
Hervé Joncour unfolded it and examined it for a long time. It seemed a catalogue of little bird tracks, compiled with meticulous folly. It was surprising to think that in fact they were signs; that is, the ashes of an incinerated voice.
56.
FOR days and days Hervé Joncour kept the letter with him, folded in two, in his pocket. If he changed his clothes, he moved it into the new ones. He never opened it to look. Every so often he turned it over in his hands, while he was talking with a farmer, or sitting on the veranda waiting till it was time for dinner. One evening he began to examine it against the light of the lamp, in his study. In transparency, the tiny bird tracks spoke in a blurred voice. They said something absolutely insignificant or something that could unhinge a life: it wasn’t possible to know, and this Hervé Joncour liked. He heard Hélène coming. He placed the letter on the table. She came in and, as she did every night, before retiring to her room, kissed him. When she leaned over him, her nightgown fell open slightly, revealing her chest. Hervé Joncour saw that she had nothing on, underneath, and that her breasts were small and white like those of a girl.
For four days he went on with his life, with no change in his prudent daily rituals. On the morning of the fifth day he put on a fine grey suit and left for Nîmes. He said that he would return before evening.
57.
AT 12 Rue Moscat, everything was the same as three years before. The celebration was not yet over. The girls were all young and French. The pianist played, with the mute, themes that had a Russian flavour. Perhaps it was old age, perhaps some vile grief: at the end of each number he no longer ran his right hand through his hair and murmured, softly,
‘Voilà.’
He was silent, looking at his hands in dismay.
58.
MADAME Blanche received him without a word. Her hair black, lustrous, her face Oriental, perfect. Little blue flowers on her fingers, as if they were rings. A long, almost transparent white robe. Bare feet.
Hervé Joncour sat down opposite her. He took a letter out of his pocket.
‘Do you remember me?’
Madame Blanche nodded, with an infinitesimal movement of her head.
‘I need you again.’
He held out the letter. She had no reason to do it, but she took it and opened it. She examined the seven sheets, one by one, then looked up at Hervé Joncour.
‘I don’t love this language, monsieur. I wish to forget it, and I wish to forget that land, and my life there, and everything.’
Hervé Joncour sat immobile, his hands gripping the arms of his chair.
‘I will read this letter for you. I will do it. And I don’t want money. But I want a promise: don’t ever come back and ask this again.’
‘I promise, madame.’
She stared into his eyes. Then she lowered her gaze to the first page of the letter, rice paper, black ink.
‘My beloved lord’
she said
‘don’t be afraid, don’t move, be silent, no one will see us.’
59.
Stay like that, I want to look at you, I looked at you so much but you weren’t for me, now you are mine, don’t come near me, please, stay as you are, we have one night for us, and I want to look at you, I’ve never seen you like that, your body mine, your skin, close your eyes, and caress yourself, please
Said Madame Blanche, Hervé Joncour listened,
don’t open your eyes if you can, and caress yourself, your hands are beautiful, I’ve dreamed of them so many times now I want to see them, I like seeing them on your skin, like that, please go on, don’t open your eyes, I’m here, no one can see us and I am near you, caress yourself my beloved lord, caress your sex, please, gently,
she stopped, ‘Continue, please’, he said,
your hand on your sex is beautiful, don’t stop, I like watching it and watching you, my beloved lord, don’t open your eyes, not yet, you mustn’t be afraid, I’m near you, do you hear me? I’m here, I can touch you, this is silk, do you feel it? It’s the silk of my robe, don’t open your eyes and you will have my skin,
she said, she read softly, with the voice of a child- woman,
you will have my lips, when I touch you for the first time it will be with my lips, you won’t know where, at some point you will feel the
warmth of my lips, on you, you can’t know where if you don’t open your eyes, don’t open them, somewhere you’ll feel my mouth, suddenly,
he listened without moving, from the pocket of his grey suit a bright white handkerchief stuck out,
maybe it will be your eyes, I will rest my mouth on your eyelids and eyebrows, you will feel the warmth go into your head, and my lips on your eyes, inside, or maybe it will be your sex, I’ll place my lips there, and, opening them, descend, little by little,
she said, her head was bent over the pages, and one hand brushed her neck, slowly,
I will let your sex half close my mouth, entering between my lips, pressing my tongue, and my saliva will run along your skin to your hand, my kiss and your hand, one inside the other, on your sex,
he listened, he kept his gaze fixed on an empty silver frame, hanging on the wall,
until finally I will kiss your heart, because I want you, I will bite the skin that beats over your heart, because I want you, and with your heart in my mouth you’ll be mine, truly, with my mouth in your heart you’ll be mine, forever, if you don’t believe me open your eyes my beloved lord and look at me, it’s me, who can ever cancel out this moment that’s happening, and this my body now without silk, your hands touching it, your eyes looking at it,
she said, she was leaning towards the lamp, the light struck the pages and went through her transparent robe,
your fingers in my sex, your tongue on my lips, you who slide under me, hold my hips, pick me up, let me slide over your sex, slowly, who can destroy this, you inside me moving slowly, your hands on my face, your fingers in my mouth, the pleasure in your eyes, your voice, you move slowly but until you hurt me, my pleasure, my voice,
he listened, at a certain point he turned to look at her, he saw her, he wanted to lower his eyes but couldn’t,
my body on yours, your back that raises me up, your arms that won’t let me go, the thrusting inside me, it’s a sweet violence, I see your eyes searching mine, they want to know how far to hurt me, as far as you want, my beloved, there is no end, it will not end, do you see? No one will be able to destroy this moment that is happening, forever you will throw your head back, crying, forever I will close my eyes wiping the tears from my brow, my voice in yours, your violence holding me tight, there is no longer time to flee or force to resist, it was to be this moment, and is this moment, believe me, my beloved, will be this moment, from now on, will be until the end,
she said, in a whisper, then she stopped.
There were no other marks on the page that she had in her hand: the last. But when she turned it over to put it down she saw on the back some more orderly lines, black ink in the centre of the white page. She looked up at Hervé Joncour. His eyes were fixed on her, and she realised that they were beautiful eyes. She lowered her gaze to the page.
We will not see each other anymore, my lord.
She said.
What there was for us we have done, and you know it. Believe me: we have done it forever. Keep your life safe from me. And don’t hesitate for a moment, if it is useful for your happiness, to forget this woman who now, without regret, says farewell.
She remained looking at the page for a while, then placed it on the others, beside her, on a small pale-wood table. Hervé Joncour didn’t move. Only he turned his head and lowered his eyes. He was staring at the crease in his trousers, barely perceptible but perfect, on the right leg, from the groin to the knee, imperturbable.
Madame Blanche rose, bent over the lamp, and turned it off. A faint light came in through the window, from the parlour. She went over to Hervé Joncour, took from her fingers a ring of tiny blue flowers, and laid it beside him. Then she crossed the room, opened a small painted door hidden in the wall, and disappeared, half- closing it behind her.
Hervé Joncour sat for a long time in that strange light, turning over and over in his fingers a ring of tiny blue flowers. Weary notes from a piano reached him from the parlour: they were losing time, so that you almost couldn’t recognise them.
Finally he rose, went over to the small pale-wood table, and picked up the seven sheets of rice paper. He crossed the room, passed the half-closed door without turning, and went out.
60.
HERVÉ Joncour in the years that followed chose for himself the serene life of a man with no more needs. He spent his days in the safety of a guarded emotion. In Lavilledieu the people admired him again, because it seemed to them that they saw in him a precise way of being in the world. They said that he had been like that even as a young man, before Japan.
With his wife, Hélène, he got into the habit of making, every year, a short journey. They saw Naples, Rome, Madrid, Munich, London. One year they went as far as Prague, where everything seemed: theatre. They travelled without a schedule and without plans. Everything amazed them: secretly, even their happiness. When they felt homesick for silence, they returned to Lavilledieu.
If anyone had asked, Hervé Joncour would have said that they would live like that forever. He had the unassailable peacefulness of men who feel they are in their place. Every so often, on a windy day, he went through the park to the lake, and stayed there for hours, on the shore, watching the surface of the water ripple, creating unpredictable shapes that sparkled randomly, in all directions. The wind was one alone: but on that mirror of water it seemed thousands, blowing. On every side. A spectacle. Light and inexplicable.
Every so often, on a windy day, Hervé Joncour went to the lake and spent hours watching it, because, drawn on the water, he seemed to see the inexplicable spectacle, light, that had been his life.
61.
ON June 16, 1871, in the back of Verdun’s café, before noon, the one-armed player made an irrational four- cushion draw shot. Baldabiou remained leaning over the table, one hand behind his back, the other grasping the cue, incredulous.
‘Come on.’
He straightened, put down the cue, and went out without saying anything. Three days later he left. He gave his two silk mills to Hervé Joncour.
‘I don’t want anything more to do with silk, Baldabiou.’
‘Sell them, you fool.’
No one could get out of him where the hell he intended to go. And what he would do there. All he said was something about St Agnes that no one understood very well.
The morning he left, Hervé Joncour, along with Hélène, accompanied him to the train station at Avignon. He had with him a single suitcase, and this, too, was rather inexplicable. When he saw the train, halted on the track, he put the suitcase down.
‘Once I knew someone who had a railroad built all for himself.’
He said.
‘And the point of it is that he had it made completely straight, hundreds of miles without a curve. There was also a reason, but I don’t remember it. One never remembers the reasons. Anyway: goodbye.’
He wasn’t much cut out for serious conversations. And a goodbye is a serious conversation.
They saw him growing distant, him and his suitcase, forever.
Then Hélène did something strange. She separated from Hervé Joncour and ran after him, until she reached him, and hugged him, hard, and as she embraced him she burst into tears.
She never wept, Hélène.
Hervé Joncour sold the two silk mills at a ridiculous price to Michel Lariot, a good fellow who had played dominoes, every Saturday evening, with Baldabiou, always losing, with granite-like consistency. He had three daughters. The first two were called Florence and Sylvie. But the third: Agnes.
62.
THREE years later, in the winter of 1874, Hélène became ill with a brain fever that no doctor could understand, or cure. She died in early March, on a rainy day.
Accompanying her, in silence, on the road to the cemetery, was all Lavilledieu: because she was a happy woman, who had not spread sorrow.
Hervé Joncour had a single word carved on her tombstone:
Hélas.
He thanked everyone, said a thousand times that he n
eeded nothing, and returned to his house. Never had it seemed so large: and never so illogical his fate.
Because despair was an excess that did not belong to him, he submitted to what was left of his life, and began again to look after it, with the unyielding tenacity of a gardener at work the morning after the storm.
63.
TWO months and eleven days after Hélène’s death, it happened that Hervé Joncour went to the cemetery and found, beside the roses that he laid on his wife’s grave every week, a little wreath of tiny blue flowers. He bent down to observe them, and remained in that position for a long time, which from a distance would certainly have appeared, to the eyes of possible witnesses, singular if not ridiculous. Returning home, he didn’t go out to work in the park, as he usually did, but stayed in his study, and thought. He did nothing else, for days. Thought.
64.
AT 12 Rue Moscat he found a tailor’s shop. He was told that Madame Blanche hadn’t lived there for years. He managed to find out that she had moved to Paris, where she had become the kept woman of a very important man, perhaps a politician.
Hervé Joncour went to Paris.
It took him six days to find out where she lived. He sent her a note, asking to be received. She answered that she would expect him at four o’clock the next day. Punctually he went up to the second floor of a handsome building on the Boulevard des Capucines. A servant opened the door. She led him to the drawing room and asked him to sit down. Madame Blanche came in wearing a dress that was very stylish and very French. Her hair came down over her shoulders, in the Parisian fashion. She didn’t have rings of blue flowers on her fingers. She sat down opposite Hervé Joncour, without a word. And waited.
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