“See this patch here?”
“Yes.”
“That is a malignant tumor, Monsieur Vertune, in your wife’s brain.”
“A tumor?” I replied with horror.
“Yes.”
“Cancer, you mean?”
“Yes.”
“Is it serious?”
“Listen, I must be straight with you. The tumor is located in an inaccessible part of the brain. It’s inoperable. We can do nothing for her.”
“There’s no possible treatment?” I asked, in shock.
“Chemotherapy might kill her at her age, and the chances of it doing any good are minimal, if not zero.”
“So does that mean she has no chance?”
“None, Monsieur Vertune, I’m very sorry.”
“How long does she have left?”
“Two months at the most. The tumor is very advanced. I’m terribly sorry, we can do nothing for her.”
I looked up at the image of my wife’s head on the screen, and that huge white patch. Two months. How was it possible? What act of cruelty had I committed to deserve this? Death had taken my father, my best friend, my mother, and was now after my wife. Why was I the target of such misfortune? What would I become without her, my Mathilde, my golden-fingered seamstress?
I went home in a desperate state of mind, hoping that the doctor’s diagnosis was a huge mistake. She wasn’t so old, after all. We had so many things left to do together, so many moments left to share. I wanted to show Mathilde this vast world that I had seen during my years at sea: the smiles of the Indonesian people; the carnival drums in Rio de Janeiro; the sun-kissed beaches of Fuerteventura, where the locals gathered around barbecues come evening. Life’s long hourglass was still running. Mathilde couldn’t die now; it was simply impossible. Her eternal optimism would conquer the evil silently eating away at her brain. We would soon head back to our native Brittany, where we’d welcome our grandson again come summer, frolicking joyfully with him in the wheat fields. The three of us would picnic on the beach and dig for clams; we’d gather crabs, periwinkles, and other shellfish for the feast that was Sunday lunch. We would swim as far as the wooden posts off Kerassel beach that marked the edges of the oyster beds—in my childhood we used to race each other there. Mathilde would have fun with her grandson, preparing his snacks even though he was nearly a teenager, and picking raspberries with him. She’d come out to the garden to fetch us, calling, “Dinner!” with a big smile on her face. She’d walk with us to Logéo port in the dreamy summer twilight and cut reeds to make peashooters, as the majestic moon winked at us kindly from up in the sky. Mathilde couldn’t die. She was immortal. This was all just an awfully bad joke.
I went to see my wife every morning and stayed close to her all day and into the evening, accompanied by Jeanne, who took time off from work. Initially I did think the diagnosis was in error; Mathilde felt very well and walked around the park adjoining the hospital without any problems. Against her doctors’ advice, she wanted to try chemotherapy and then radiation therapy—barbaric concepts that only white-coated doctors understand, not ignoramuses like me. Little by little, the attacks of dizziness became increasingly frequent, the nausea ever stronger, the screaming more and more terrifying. Mathilde frightened me. Her existence was wavering—of that there was no doubt.
In the evenings, when I returned from the hospital, I went to sit in the garden. Our vegetable patch, planted with great care by my wife’s green fingers, impatiently awaited her return. Mathilde loved this little plot of earth above all else—it reminded her of the wide-open spaces of Brittany. She had spent many happy moments there, her hands covered with dark soil, sweating streams when the sun was out. I contemplated her masterpiece, devastated at my having to navigate this ocean of illness without a rudder.
One day, while I was sitting with her, the doctor asked me to step outside for a moment.
“We’re stopping the treatment, Monsieur Vertune,” he said with that implacable scientific logic I hate more than anything.
“Very well,” I replied, understanding that the relentless therapies no longer served any purpose.
“She only has a few days left. Take her somewhere that is dear to her, where she can live out her remaining days peacefully. The hospital can rent you a wheelchair if you wish.”
I wanted to slap him, to thrash him as the inhabitants of my village did the German soldiers. Capitalism displays all of its cruelty, ignominy, and barbarism, even at life’s darkest moments. One day, the balance of the world will undergo a seismic shift, and humanism will topple the sickening dictatorship of profitability. But the stirring of such awareness is not yet in the cards.
We settled Mathilde in a wheelchair and left the hospital.
On the horizon, the pale sun dropped slowly into the sea, capitulating as it did every evening. There was no one about by the little creek near the port of Logéo. I had taken Mathilde back to the landscape of her childhood. She hadn’t spoken for several days; her vocal cords had given up, as had her limbs. Here we were, by that same creek where I had asked for her hand forty-three years earlier. We’d been so young at the time, full of energy and drive. The future lay wide open before us. But life had zipped past without pause. Not a single speck of grit had slipped into its gears to block its progress. Yet we enjoyed the view all the same. We sat, Mathilde in her metal chair, I on the sand. I held her hand tightly. We had accomplished so much together, the two of us.
“I’ve been so happy with you all these years, Mathilde,” I said, not expecting a reply. Nor was there one. Mathilde was too frail to speak. Yet I know she heard me.
That night, Mathilde passed away. We buried her close to her mother in the village cemetery where my parents also lay. Monsieur Blanchart, who had such energy that death didn’t dare approach him, cried silently beside me. His daughter’s cruel fate reflected that of his wife, as if cancer is handed down from generation to generation like a sinister inheritance. I thought about the little seamstress sitting in the shade of her tree, with her spools of thread and her needles. Jeanne and François cried too. As for me, I wandered like a shadow amid the ruins of our life together. The day Mathilde died, I lost my smile, the smile people had reproached me for all my life, the smile I had worn since the day of my birth.
35
There I was. Or rather, there my body was. My mind was elsewhere, lost somewhere on the horizon. The ocean, my playground, my past, stretched out as far as I could see. I was rooted in the big blue just like a tree was rooted in the dark earth. There was something magical about the ocean, something unexplainable, irrational. Every time my energy was diminished, I recharged my soul’s battery by contemplating the ocean’s vastness, as waves lapped at the beach.
Often I had wondered if any other part of nature could be more beautiful than my ocean, without ever finding an answer. I had spent fifteen years aboard cargo ships seeking answers to life in its currents, its swells and breakers, before finally realizing that the truth was always out of reach. So I had abandoned the ocean, sickened by its inconsistency, its hazards. But now everything was different. Mathilde was dead, and I eagerly returned to the seashore to feast my eyes on its beauty, to somehow fill the gaping hole inside left by my wife’s death. Truth be told, this dance of the natural elements in perpetual motion intoxicated me as wine did a drunkard. I had become addicted to its salty spray, its briny tang, its heaving swell and huge rollers. I watched it for hours, sitting on the sand, alone. It had been the same routine every day since Mathilde’s death. I got up around nine o’clock in the morning, had breakfast, then went to sit on the beach until twilight. I came every day, no matter the weather—rain, wind, sun, or clouds—forgetting to live. Every day that dawned was as fresh as a ripe fruit plucked from the tree. I tried to think of nothing—or rather I avoided thinking about Mathilde at all costs. The slightest misplaced thought triggered a torrent of tears, and grief wrenched at my gut.
I would see people on the beach walking with t
heir feet in the water. They threw bread to the birds and were delighted every time one dived down to snatch a morsel. I sometimes wondered which of the two species was feeding the other. Some of the people waved to me, but I didn’t wave back, too preoccupied with not thinking, with escaping hostile reality.
When night fell, I sometimes caught a glimpse of my beloved moon, my full and silent moon, peeping out from behind a cloud, and I smiled at it, at it alone. The moon had been my companion since childhood, and I had a great respect for it, almost cultlike, similar to the Inca with the sun. Contrary to its daytime opposite—proud, arrogant, burning bright with a thousand flames—I found the moon to be calmer, discreet, and soothing. The moon has no need to shine as brightly, no need to be so boastful. It simply glides across the sky at night while the whole world sleeps, without ostentation or prestige, a friend to insomniacs. You can look at it without hurting your eyes, unlike the sun, which blasts your retinas if you try to pierce its mysteries. The moon was my divinity. It soothed my soul’s torments with its pale reflections off the sea, its subtle craters, the many shapes it assumed in the course of its cycles, like those of my personality. I identified with the moon. My moon. My childhood pebble perched up in the sky.
Finally, when the temperature fell and I started to get cold, I returned home, where I lay on the bed and dreamed of my Mathilde when she was still alive, the meals she’d spend all afternoon cooking, her bursts of laughter under the summer apple trees in the garden, our love that had known no limits.
Jeanne worried about me. She called and I assured her that everything was well. The mourning period is a time to appreciate solitude. My daughter encouraged me to start writing again, but I didn’t see the point. My source of inspiration had dried up. Mathilde hadn’t just been my wife, she was also my muse.
I spent one long year like that, just staring at the ocean. And I could happily have continued to do so for the rest of my life, so as not to have to think about anything, to join my wife as soon as possible. But once again, destiny wasn’t interested in what I wanted. It suddenly collared me and dragged me back to reality. Your life isn’t over, it seemed to be saying.
36
Kerassel, Morbihan, 1992
I was resting on my bed one evening when the doorbell rang. It gave me a bit of a shock, since I wasn’t expecting anyone. My bedside clock said 8:30 p.m. I got up in the half-light and peered out the window. A brown-haired man, around forty years old, was standing on my doorstep in a spotless suit. He didn’t look like anyone I knew. Must be a salesman, I thought. Throwing on a jacket, I went to open the door and found myself facing a beaming smile.
“Good day, Mr. Vertune,” said the man, in a Spanish accent.
“Hello. Can I help you?”
“Yes,” he replied, looking me straight in the eye. “I want to thank you.”
“What do you mean?”
“Thank you with all my heart,” he said, bursting into tears.
The man fell to his knees and grasped my legs. I glanced up and down the street to make sure no one was witnessing this embarrassing scene. He sobbed as he clung to me, his forehead pressed to my thighs. Who was this man? And why was he behaving in this way? He was clearly quite distraught, and it pained me.
“Come in, please.” I helped him to his feet.
I grasped his arm and led him into my living room. He sat on a sofa with his head in his hands, trying to hold back muffled sobs. I handed him a tissue.
“What’s the matter?” I asked sympathetically.
“I’m sorry,” he stammered. “It’s nothing, just that seeing you . . . it’s so emotional.”
“Seeing me? What do you mean?”
“You don’t recognize me?”
“I don’t. Who are you?”
The man dried his tears, pulled himself together a little, and leaned back on the sofa. I had never seen him before, I was sure of it. What on earth was he doing in my living room?
“You sure you don’t recognize me, Monsieur Vertune?”
“No, I don’t think so, are you a friend of Martín?” I replied, realizing that his accent was similar to that of my deceased friend.
“No, I do not know this Martín.”
“So who are you?”
“I am Manuel, the son of María.”
I froze. For a second it seemed like my heart had stopped and that the blood in my veins had ceased to flow. María’s son? The child of a mother forced to work the streets of Las Palmas? I couldn’t believe my eyes. I scrutinized him for a few seconds. Gradually his mother’s features became apparent: same eyes, same lips, same round face.
I touched his cheek. “Ma . . . Ma . . . Manuel.”
He smiled shyly. “Yes, Monsieur Vertune.”
“How on earth did you find me? And where’s your mother? What has happened over all these years? Where were you?” I cried, desperate for answers after so long.
“It is a very long story, Monsieur Vertune. But before I tell you, can I please have a glass of water?”
“Of course,” I said, going to the kitchen and returning with the water.
“I am sorry for crying, Monsieur Vertune, but so many memories come when I see you.”
“It’s quite understandable, but please call me Paul.”
“Very well . . . Paul. Your neighbor in Bordeaux, she give me your address here. It was a long journey.
“And María?” I asked impatiently.
Manuel’s face immediately grew sad. I realized that my question had stirred up deeply buried pain.
“My mother came back one day when I was little. She was happy. I remember that day like yesterday. I was in the garden at my grandparents’ house in Málaga, and she appeared and ran to me. She took me in her arms and promised never to leave me again.”
Manuel’s gaze was lost in those memories. His voice held the same nostalgia that I felt in recalling my own memories, the memories of my entire life, of María, of Mathilde, of all the encounters that had made me the man I was.
“She spoke about you a lot, Paul, about your meeting on Alcaravaneras Beach. I went there last year. It is a beautiful beach.”
“How come you speak French?” I asked, intrigued.
“I went to French school in Málaga. It was a way for my mother to thank you for what you did for us. That is why I speak French now. Well . . . I try . . .”
“You speak it very well. Better than my Spanish.”
Manuel smiled.
“When I was a teenager, my mother, she told me the story of Catherine Schäfer. She kept the little photograph of the German girl, the photograph you put in the envelope in Bordeaux.”
“Ah, yes?”
“Time passed, and she started to feel guilty because she could not help you with your search. She could not sleep at night. She told me again and again that you helped her even though it was dangerous for you, and that she felt bad because she was not able to help you too.”
“But I didn’t expect anything from her in return.”
“I know. But my mother wanted to find the German girl. She telephoned everywhere in Las Palmas for the information: hotels, the ayuntamiento, how you say?”
“Ayuntamiento? The town hall.”
“Yes, the town hall. She was obsessed with helping you. She wanted to make a surprise to thank you for what you did for her.”
“Did she find out anything?”
“From Málaga, it was difficult to find information. So one day she went there.”
“To Las Palmas?”
“Yes. She did everything possible. She even hired a private detective with the money she saved. She did everything to find the German girl.”
He pulled a bunch of envelopes from his jacket pocket.
“Here is all the letters she wrote me in that year, 1965. She described all her searches. But after some months she did not find much information, so she went to see her old colleagues.” Manuel looked ill at ease. “I only discovered this later. But I did not blame her for that. My
mother . . . she was a wonderful person.” He smiled again. “One of the prostitutes at the port recognized her and told her to go to this house in the quarter of La Isleta. She went there. Then I never heard anything from her again.”
“Do you know what happened to her?” I asked, horrified.
“On the last letter she sent me, she put the address of the house. I went there two months later because I was worried about having no news.”
“And what happened?”
“A man opened the door and I asked him if he had seen my mother. He invited me into the house, then he hit me very hard. When I woke up, I was tied to a chair. There was blood all on my shirt. The man stood there and he asked me questions about my mother and the mother of Catherine. He wanted to know why everybody look for them. Then he left and I was alone in the room. I screamed and screamed for a long time, and then the neighbor, he called the police.”
“Who was the man?”
“He was the man who . . . who . . . My mother and her colleagues, they work for him, you understand?”
“Yes, he was their pimp.”
“I think the man, he did not like that she escaped ten years before, and when he saw her again he killed her, like he killed the mother of Catherine, because she also wanted to escape. The police, they found three bodies in the . . . under the house, three women’s bodies. The women, they were in . . . how you say, cemento . . . ? Is hard, like stone . . . ?”
“Cement.”
Yes, cemento, they were in the cemento with all their things, their clothes, everything. That is why she did not give me any news. We took my mother back to Málaga and we buried her there.”
“I am so sorry, Manuel, that’s just awful, awful. All that is my fault . . .”
“No. It is the fault of nobody. My mother, she had faith in life, faith in you, Paul. She just wanted to help you, like you helped her.”
A long silence filled the room. I thought of beautiful María, defying danger to find the German girl for me in order to repay my help. I felt guilty about having involved her in all this business by slipping her Catherine Schäfer’s picture in order to rid myself of my cumbersome past. That harmless gesture had plunged her into a fruitless quest. I’d often felt angry at not hearing from her, assuming a kind of ingratitude on her part, without knowing the terrible truth. María had been dead all those years, like Martín, my mother, and now Mathilde. The bodies piled up in my twilight years, and every day, I realized a little more how incapable I was of controlling the phenomenon.
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