“There is another thing I must tell you, Paul.”
“What?” I replied sadly.
“When I returned to Málaga, after I buried my mother, I joined the police. Maybe to get revenge for her death, who knows? I worked hard and I became a detective. But I thought about that Catherine Schäfer for many years. And then a couple of months ago I returned to Las Palmas for vacation and to remember my mother. I visited the whole island, I went everywhere, it is magnífico!”
“Sadly, I only visited Las Palmas.”
“Ah, that is a pity. You must go see Roque Nublo, this big rock, so big, up in the mountains. You can see all of the different Canary Islands from there when the weather is good. Magnífico. Well, I went to the police station and I showed them my detective badge, and they allowed me to look in their archives. I found the information about the case and all the evidence, which was not much. But there was this small plastic bag, and inside there was the photograph of Catherine Schäfer and your address. I put them in my pocket, and that is how I found you! Here, I give them back to you.”
He handed me the little black-and-white picture of the German girl, which brought back memories of my childhood, the liberation, the killing of the German soldiers in the village square, Mathilde’s smile. I felt a twinge in my heart.
“One last thing,” Manuel continued. “In the plastic bag, from the mother of Catherine Schäfer, there was a rent receipt with her address. She did not live in the quarter of La Isleta but nearby, in Guanarteme, opposite Las Canteras Beach. I went there. An old woman, she opened the door. She told me she owned the house for forty years. She rented a room to people who stayed a short time. She remembered very well the German woman, Martha, she told me.”
“Yes, Martha, that’s her!” I said, thinking of the nameplate on the building in Frankfurt.
“She told me Martha had a daughter, Catherine. And that Martha was saving money to go to Argentina. She had friends there who could help her.”
“Argentina?”
“Yes. When Martha disappeared, the old lady, she found the address of the friends in Argentina and she wrote them. They replied after a few weeks and said to send the daughter to them. She did this, with the money Martha saved.”
“So Catherine Schäfer has been in Argentina all these years?”
“Yes. And you know what? I telephoned the Spanish consulate in Argentina, pretending I needed information for an investigation about Catherine Schäfer. Two weeks later they sent me this envelope. Take it, Paul.”
I took the envelope, slipped my fingers inside, and withdrew a piece of paper. It was written in Spanish, but in the middle of the text there was an address: Catherine Schäfer, 180 Avenida Luis María Campos, Buenos Aires.
“Is she still alive?” I asked.
“Yes. La vida da muchas vueltas,” he said with a smile. “Life, it is full of surprises.”
“Thank you, Manuel.”
“Thank you for saving my mother, Paul.”
The past suddenly resurfaced, all those questions that had remained unanswered, all those moments left up in the air. Life was offering me a fresh chance to make good on a promise I’d made when I was a child so many decades ago. I only regretted that Mathilde and Martín were no longer alive to share my joy at completing my quest.
I called my daughter and told her the story. She was astonished. Manuel stayed the night at my place and left in the early hours, after giving me a big hug. He invited me to vacation with him in Andalusia, where I would be received as a king in memory of my friendship with his mother. The next day, I bought three plane tickets to Buenos Aires. Jeanne and François would come with me. Finally I would be able to bring this whole story to a close. My grandson would be happy.
37
The plane flew over the ocean. Looking out the window, I could make out tiny white dots here and there, the lights of ships. Their crews must have been sleeping at that hour, and I hoped that the swell was being gentle with them. François snoozed peacefully beside me, the tired little boy’s head resting against my arm. Jeanne was reading a book. From time to time she would glance at her son and adjust his blanket.
It’s funny, but although I had seen much of the world during my many years at sea, this was my very first time flying, and it fascinated me. Here we were, over thirty thousand feet high, traveling at astonishing speed. At takeoff, I had been surprised by the plane’s power, the noise of its engines, its violent acceleration in taking to the air. I watched the landscape pass beneath us, mesmerized by the earth’s beauty from above: meandering rivers sculpted into the rock, huge mountains looking like lowly hills. Then, as we left land behind and I saw the Atlantic, I was filled with a surge of emotion as I thought of my former life on the ocean waves. I recognized the Strait of Gibraltar, the coast of Morocco, and, further on, the Canary Islands.
As we flew over the rounded rocky shape of Gran Canaria, the view was superb. I thought about María and Martín, the three of us running through the streets of Las Palmas. Time goes by so fast, I thought. The chapters of the book of life follow each other ceaselessly, the pages turning before we can reread the important passages.
Night was falling, the horizon darkening, drawing its infinite blanket of stars over our heads. The moon seemed suspended in the sky, levitating. It was full, as full as my life, my joys and hardships, my dreams and renunciations, my glories and failures. I missed Mathilde. She was the main absence on this trip, she who had been so interested in my story. I’ll return to writing sooner or later, I thought. I wondered if Catherine Schäfer really lived at this address, if there hadn’t been a mistake, if it was someone else with the same name. I hadn’t had the courage to call the number, for fear of disappointment. And anyway, I’d been wanting to discover Argentina for some time, so I figured I might as well kill two birds with one stone.
A stewardess walked down the aisle and offered me a beverage; her hair was up in a bun, and there was laughter in her almond eyes. I declined her kind offer and dozed off, dreaming of my wife, my sweet wife sitting up there in heaven.
The plane landed a few hours later. François and Jeanne were now awake beside me. Though the boy had slept all through the flight, like me, he was impatient to know the end of the story. We touched down rather hard, shaking the passengers, who applauded, reassured to be on the ground again. After retrieving our luggage, we walked outside to be greeted by a horde of taxi drivers shouting at us, each boasting the merits of their own cheap and fast service. Jeanne, who spoke Spanish, negotiated a price with one of them, and we drove to our hotel along a traffic-clogged highway. Our driver chattered away without pause, and Jeanne politely agreed with everything he said, hoping he’d eventually shut up. On the edge of the city was a vast shantytown: rickety sheet-metal roofs and huge piles of garbage, the stench, considerable. The inhabitants, disadvantaged by a cruel accident of birth, attempted to eke out a living as best they could amid the filth of these slums, the kind of people you see on street corners and cruelly ignore as you pass by. Yet it’s not really them we’re scared of, but the reminder that a twist of fate could put us in their shoes, on the streets without a penny to our names. In order to flee this reality, we adhere to a code of silence that nobody dares break.
The taxi stopped at a red light as we entered town. A disabled man stumbled between the cars, supporting himself with a pair of crutches. The drivers ignored him when he knocked on their windows, not even deigning to look at him or give him the slightest token of compassion. The taxi moved off as soon as the light turned green, as if offering us a chance to escape this miserable man, whom the bloodred traffic light had forced us to look at for a few moments.
“Buenos Aires,” said the driver, pointing at the avenue we were driving down. “Avenida Nueve de Julio!”
“Gracias,” I replied.
We turned onto a side street, then made several more turns onto identical-looking streets before drawing up in front of our hotel.
“¡Ya estamos, chicos!” 2
he said, proud of himself.
“Gracias,” I answered again.
Inside the hotel, the receptionist took our passports and handed us the keys to our rooms. I asked her politely if Catherine Schäfer’s address was far from here. She replied that it was just a few blocks away. We went up to our rooms and rested for a few hours.
That evening, I took my daughter and grandson to a restaurant where tango dancers put on the most beautiful show. We clapped, enraptured by their graceful performance. Then we returned to our hotel and slept. A big day awaited us.
* * *
2 Translation: “Here we are, kids!”
38
It was very hot that next day. The sun beat down on the Argentinean capital, turning the city into an oven. We spent the morning walking through the streets of Buenos Aires, which were filled with impressive jacaranda trees that tinged everything mauve. They delighted François, and he scampered among the blossoms that had fallen on the sidewalk. A few street musicians were playing here and there, happy to be living freely despite their precarious financial situations. This is a nice place to live, I thought.
In the afternoon we decided to head toward the address Manuel had given us. As we turned onto the Avenida Luis María Campos, I felt all the weight of the years settle on my shoulders, all those encounters, all those paths taken, all those choices, all those moods. The air was full of the sweet scent of the jacaranda blooms drying in the sun. When we reached number 180, my legs wobbled and I had to grab hold of a doorway so as not to fall. Jeanne took my arm.
“Are you OK, Papa?” she asked.
“I’m scared, Jeanne,” I replied, anxiety gripping my chest.
“Shall we leave? It’s fine if you want to . . .”
“No, I want to see her. But I’m scared that it’ll bring everything back. All these years spent looking for her, all those people I met along the way. I’m scared she won’t want to listen to me. Or, worse, that she simply won’t care about the whole stupid business.”
My daughter, who increasingly resembled her mother, looked me straight in the eye.
“Papa, this has been such an important part of your life. It doesn’t matter what happens today, you’ll have pursued your dream as far as you could, like you always have. We’re all so proud of you.”
I remembered María’s face when we had docked in Bordeaux, beautiful María paralyzed with fear at the idea of seeing her son again. I had gently reassured her, just like my daughter was doing now. Roles are never etched in stone. They vary according to the situation.
“And my father, Jeanne, do you think he would be proud of me today?”
In her eyes was nothing but calm assurance.
“Your father was always proud of you, Papa. But he could never find the words to tell you.”
As I looked at my daughter I didn’t doubt her words for a second. Jeanne was right. My father had been proud of me in spite of his hatred. I finally understood this, thousands of miles from the place of my birth, here on the continent of great revolutions, with the image of Che Guevara floating over the city. Why the hell hadn’t my father said anything, preferring to take his secret to the grave rather than admit his pride in having a son different from the others, more sensitive, more educated? Ego is the cancer of life, eating away at the heart unless it is controlled.
I rang the bell at number 180, determined to be done with all this, to exorcise once and for all the demons of my childhood, my adolescence, my whole life. A few seconds later, a young woman opened the door. Jeanne served as interpreter.
“Hello, what can I do for you?” she asked with a smile.
“Hello, I am looking for Catherine Schäfer,” I said confidently.
“Yes, that’s my mother, she’s here. Who shall I say it is?”
“Paul Vertune and his family.”
“Does she know you?”
“No. But I have known her a long time.”
“Ah, very well. Stay here.”
She disappeared and then returned a few moments later, beckoning us to enter. We followed the young woman down a corridor, Jeanne and François supporting me. My hands were moist, my heart pounding. The girl in the photograph was here, behind these walls. I had sought her for years, praying that nothing had happened to her.
“My mother is in the garden. She’s waiting for you, sir.” The young woman clearly sensed the importance of this visit.
Jeanne and François stopped. I looked at my daughter, her face streaked with tears.
“It’s up to you now, Papa. Go fulfill your destiny. We are all so proud of you. Aren’t we, darling?” she asked François.
“Yes. The little girl from the port is going to find her father. That’s the end of the story,” he said, beaming with joy.
Moved, I kissed my daughter and my grandson, the young woman silently watching us. I advanced down the corridor, my hands trembling, a little unsteady on my feet, clutching the picture of Catherine Schäfer. Life is a big wheel that carries us aloft to contemplate the panoramic view, then takes us all the way back down again to realize the chance we’ve had. At that precise moment, as I stepped into the garden, I felt like I was right at the top of the big wheel.
And I saw her. Catherine Schäfer, the little German girl from the photograph, lying on a sun lounger in the shade of a tree. She had grown old but I recognized her immediately. It was definitely she. Everything suddenly coalesced in my mind. I thought of my birth, the priest and the doctor, my father, long Sundays spent digging for clams with my brothers as the smell of the sea filled our nostrils, the washhouse, my schoolmaster, the fields of wheat with their golden ears swaying in the ocean breeze, my mother’s perfume, my father’s gaze, his coffin descending into the ground, the dark years, the war, the bombs exploding all around, the German officers, Catherine’s father dying in front of me, the passing time that never stops, Jean, the drill sergeant, my military service, Frankfurt, Mathilde—my beautiful Mathilde—our first meeting, our long walks along the beach, our awkward teenage kisses, my marriage proposal, Bordeaux, our house, our life together, Jeanne, Martín, the ship, the cyclone, my novel, our happy summer in Andalusia, Mathilde’s passing, María, Manuel, life and death—everything they give and take from us. It all mixed together until the emotions were a whirlwind encircling me, the eye of the cyclone of existence, swept by sea winds and breakers. I wept copious tears.
Catherine Schäfer stood up, disconcerted. She had her father’s eyes, blue as the ocean, overflowing with kindness. As I walked toward her, the thought struck me that my whole existence was like the phases of the moon, waxing and waning, riddled with craters, which, when I looked closer, wore a wide smile.
EPILOGUE
Kerassel, Morbihan, 2009
It happened in September. During a heat wave, bizarrely, as if the cycle of life had returned to its starting point, the large hands of the clock tired from having revolved for an entire life. One could have sworn that everything was identical, that the natural elements had conspired to meet, as they had eighty years before. The sun beat down on the fields, causing the hard earth to crack, drying out the leaves of plants, which begged for rain. An occasional light breeze off the ocean cooled this furnace a little, caressing our reddened cheeks. Everyone was there, standing by the open grave into which the casket of Paul Vertune, my grandfather, was slowly lowered. The men, well dressed despite the heat, cried openly—not crocodile tears but real ones, heavy with meaning. History blurred the detail of this identical scene, as it always does in its haste. Paul Vertune slipped onward to his destiny.
My mother, Jeanne, sought comfort in her husband’s arms. She was an orphan now, the orphan of a deep love that had never known any limits. Paul Vertune’s book of life was complete, shelved away in a secret library among billions of other works.
My name is François Lasserre. I’m twenty-nine years old. I am Paul Vertune’s grandson. The day my grandfather died, I decided to pick up my pen and write his story.
He lost his memo
ry at the end of his life, because of a dismal disease, an illness that gradually deprived him of his past, ripping out his memories like weeds. Alzheimer’s is a strange infirmity, the paradox of an increasing life expectancy, as if the body has let go of the mind’s hand on the path of passing time. Soon, Paul Vertune no longer recognized his daughter, or me, or anyone else. He became a shadow on the wall.
We were forced to put him in a retirement home, since he had become quite verbally abusive at times and physically resisted our attempts to wash him, as if his body simply wouldn’t accept any violation of his privacy. Sometimes when I went to see him in the park adjoining the home, I watched all those elderly people sitting on their metal chairs, waiting for death like one waits for the subway. I hated the enormous waste of this bottomless well of knowledge and wisdom, which so-called civilized western societies no longer attach much importance to.
Luckily, the retirement home was by the sea, not far from where my grandfather grew up, and he would spend hours watching the sky and the kelp-covered beach, without any comprehension of what he was doing there. Sometimes, when his illness granted him a crack of lucidity, his eyes would suddenly light up. I never knew what he was thinking about in those moments. His words were incomprehensible, no longer conveying the images in his mind. But I’m sure he saw all the people who had counted in his life, all those little heroes we each are in our own way—you who are reading this, sitting on your sofa or on the subway or elsewhere.
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