by Alex George
“Do you need a doctor?”
“I don’t think so. I daresay I’ll live. Besides, I don’t have time for a doctor. I need to get to Montparnasse.”
“Why?”
“I have a train to catch.”
“Oh yes? Where is this train going?”
“Home.”
“And where is home?”
“A long way from here. Somewhere I won’t be found.”
The priest points at Guillaume’s broken nose. “Are you running from the person who did that?”
A nod. “They’ve promised me they can do worse. Much worse.”
“What did you do to deserve it?”
“I didn’t repay a debt.”
“That sounds like a bad business.” The priest sits down. “Do you really have no choice about leaving?”
“I would stay if I could, believe me. But I have no other options. They made that pretty clear.”
“Have you tried praying?”
Guillaume snorts. “For what?”
“Guidance? A miracle?”
“It’s a little late for either, I fear.”
“Oh, it’s never too late.”
“I admire your optimism,” says Guillaume.
The priest shrugs. “You call it optimism. I call it faith.”
The men sit in silence for a moment.
“Do you have family in Paris?” asks the priest. “Will you be leaving anyone behind?”
The smallest pause. “I have a daughter.”
“She’s not going with you?”
Guillaume closes his eyes. “She doesn’t know I exist.”
“How can that be?”
And so Guillaume tells the priest about the Cirque Medrano, the acrobats, and Suzanne Mauriac. He explains how he has stood on Rue Nicolet every morning for ten years, how he watches them from a distance. The priest listens quietly. As Guillaume speaks, he feels a warmth running through him. He has never told anyone about Suzanne, but hearing the words spoken aloud, to another, gladdens his heart.
“What’s your daughter’s name?” asks the priest when he is finished.
“I don’t know,” confesses Guillaume.
“Then may I offer you some advice?”
“Please.”
“Before you catch your train, go and see her.”
“But I’ve never spoken to her!”
“All the more reason to do so now.”
“What would I say, after all this time?” wonders Guillaume.
“It doesn’t matter. Tell her you like her dress, anything. Just speak to her. Look her in the eye, and say a few words. Ask her what her name is, if nothing else.” The priest pauses. “Don’t do it for her, though. Do it for yourself. You’re her father.”
The idea of speaking to his daughter fills Guillaume with both elation and dread. He sits back, lost in thought. “I don’t know,” he says.
“You’ll regret it if you don’t,” says the priest.
Guillaume touches his chest. “I’ve ten years of regret stored up in here already. Every morning when I watch them walk away from me, I collect a little more.”
The priest nods at this. “I have a theory. It’s not especially popular around here, but I believe it anyway.” He pauses. “I believe that God wants us to be happy.”
Guillaume grunts. “Isn’t it more important to be good, rather than happy?”
“Some people think so,” agrees the priest. “But I don’t believe that God put us on this earth so we could be miserable. We only get so many chances at happiness. I think we should take every single one of them.”
“But what if they want nothing to do with me? I might be much less happy.”
The priest looks at him. “Less happy than you are now?”
Guillaume is silent. He is thinking about the sight of Suzanne and his daughter earlier that afternoon, as they walked hand in hand along Boulevard Saint-Michel. He remembers his regret when they disappeared into the crowd, his opportunity to bid a final farewell lost.
The priest is right. Perhaps he has one last chance.
“Listen,” says the priest. “Every once in a while you have to make a leap into the unknown. To do that, it helps if you have a little faith. Or hope, if you prefer.” He stands up. “Spend as long as you need here. But, please, go and see your daughter before you leave. Just knock on her door and see what happens. At least find out her name, for the love of God.” He pauses. “Besides, what have you got to lose?”
To this question, Guillaume has no response.
35
A Reconfigured Heart
“MONSIEUR? ARE YOU ALL RIGHT?”
It is not Elodie who is speaking, but the woman standing behind her. Jean-Paul feels a delirious tumbling within him. He cannot look away from his daughter. He knows those eyes so well. He has been waiting a long time to see them again. Every day he has searched the streets of Paris, hoping for this blood-deep connection, an unbreakable bond across generations. Now that it has come, he almost forgets how to breathe.
“Monsieur? Tout va bien?”
He drags his eyes away from Elodie. The woman is staring at him, a concerned look on her face. Her arms are wrapped protectively around the girl’s shoulders.
“I beg your pardon?” he says, his throat dry.
“Are you feeling quite well? You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.”
Jean-Paul blinks. “That tune you were singing,” he says. “It brought back some memories, that’s all.”
The woman smiles. “Good ones, I hope.”
“Old ones.” He allows his gaze to fall back onto his daughter. “What’s your name?” he asks her. Three small words, but enough to make his voice crack.
“Arielle,” the girl tells him.
No, he wants to say. No, no, it’s not.
“That’s a pretty name,” he manages.
“We were watching the puppet show,” says the woman. “But that last scene, with the little boy—” She pulls the girl closer to her.
Jean-Paul nods in sympathy. Of course Elodie would be upset by it. Anaïs hated anything violent. “It’s just a story,” he tells her gently. “There’s no need to be sad about it.”
“Ah, but she feels everything strongly, this one,” says the woman, stroking the girl’s hair. “Such an imagination! Even fairy tales are real to you, n’est-ce pas?”
Elodie looks at her shoes and nods.
The woman casts an eye toward the puppet theater. There has been no sign of the bearded puppeteer, and the grass in front of the tent is empty now. “It looks as if the show is over, Arielle.”
Don’t go, Jean-Paul thinks. Don’t ever go.
“Perhaps we should go and find a slice of cake for you,” says the woman. “That will cheer you up, won’t it?”
At this the girl turns her head toward the woman and delivers a smile so full of joy, so beautiful, that Jean-Paul can do nothing but stare. The woman grins back at her—and just like that, his dream is shattered.
The crinkle at the edges of the eyes, the delighted twitch of the lips, the upturned corners of their mouths—each smile is a perfect facsimile of the other.
These two beauties are mother and daughter.
Jean-Paul feels the color rush to his face. What a fool he is! He has been bewitched by old memories. The melody that echoed across the years—from shadowed church to sunlit park, from invisible piano to a stranger’s lips—has hoodwinked him. It has lured him down a chasm of impossible longing, whispering fantasies he desperately wants to be true. He looks down at the girl, this child who is not his daughter after all. His heart breaks into a million tiny pieces and then puts itself back together, reconfigured, a little larger than before.
“You should have chocolate cake,” he advises her solemnly. She laughs at this.
The woman takes her daughter’s hand. “Alors, chocolate cake it is!” she declares. She smiles at Jean-Paul. “Never underestimate your memories, monsieur,” she tells him. “They can be ferocious if left unguarded.”
<
br /> The candles flickering in the abandoned church. His baby daughter in his arms.
“Very true,” he agrees. He crouches down so that his face is level with Arielle’s. “Have an extra-large slice of cake, young lady,” he tells her. “Possibly two.”
“I shall!” She giggles.
“Enjoy the rest of your afternoon,” says her mother as they turn to leave.
“Vous aussi.” Jean-Paul inclines his head toward her. She gives him one last smile as they turn and walk away. He watches them go. The little girl, animated by the prospect of cake, is gesticulating excitedly to her mother as they make their way toward the park exit. The woman, he notices, walks with a slight limp. She leans in, caught in her daughter’s orbit. Her whole body tilts toward the girl as they walk. She edges closer and closer, unable to help herself. There’s a physical pull that she cannot resist, just as a compass needle has no choice but to point north. Love skews the body, a gorgeous twisting. Adoration made manifest. Jean-Paul thinks that it is the loveliest thing he has ever seen.
The afternoon sun has begun its slow descent through the cloudless sky.
36
Paris, 1922:
The Second Betrayal
NOT LONG AFTER THE WAR ended, Marcel Proust’s great-aunt sold the building on Boulevard Haussman to a bank, and—appalled at the prospect of a never-ending parade of noisy customers trooping in and out of the place, disturbing his peace—Camille’s employer moved into a smaller apartment on Rue Hamelin.
By then Proust was working with increasing intensity, forgoing almost all social engagements as he feverishly wrote and edited his manuscript. He lay in his bed, surrounded by paper, working frantically. The bell rang incessantly as Camille was summoned for fresh hot water bottles and cups of café au lait.
The fireplaces in the new apartment were narrow and poorly built. Every time Camille set a fire, smoke would billow into the room, causing Monsieur Proust to cough uncontrollably. And so there were no more fires. During the winter of 1921, the apartment was bone-chillingly cold. Proust suffered from a raging fever that didn’t leave him for weeks on end. Camille brought him sweaters that he draped over his shoulders as he worked. Sometimes he was so weak that he could barely hold a pen.
Marcel Proust was sure that he was dying, and he was desperate to finish his book before the end came. He would not rest, would not eat. Camille begged him to see a doctor, but he refused, chiding her that he no longer had time to waste on such trivialities. He struggled for breath while he worked, pale and shivering with cold.
And then, one day that spring, Camille walked into his bedroom and was surprised to find him sitting up straight in bed, with a twinkle in his eye that she had not seen for months.
“There you are,” he said with a smile. “Come over here and see what I’ve just written.”
She went over to the bed. Proust showed her the piece of paper he was holding. There she saw a single word: Fin.
Camille gasped. “You’ve finished, monsieur? Can it be true?”
“Well, there’s still much to be done.” He pointed at the mass of paper on the bed. “Corrections, edits, amendments.” He smiled wanly at her. “Paul Valéry once said that poems are never really finished, only abandoned. I think the same principle applies to novels.”
Sure enough, the following day Proust began correcting proofs of the manuscript at a pace even more frenzied than before.
The trees outside the apartment caused a certain dampness that made his asthma intolerable; still he worked, coughing and wheezing beneath a mountain of paper. On one cold October night he caught a chill, and within days his body was racked with fever.
That was when he finally agreed to see his old physician, Doctor Bize.
The diagnosis: pneumonia. Doctor Bize administered an injection in an attempt to revive the patient. Soon after the doctor left, Monsieur Proust rang his bell. He was lying in his bed, his body turned toward the wall, and he did not move when Camille entered the bedroom. “You must promise me something of the utmost importance,” he began, his voice muffled by the pillow.
“Of course, monsieur.”
“You must never, under any circumstances, let anyone put another needle in me. Do you understand?”
“But if it’s what the doctor thinks is for the—”
“Camille.” The single word hung in the air, reproachful and desperate. “Will you promise me this one thing?” he asked softly. “Can I trust you?”
“You know you can trust me, monsieur,” she replied. Then she remembered the notebook lying hidden at the bottom of her trunk. She was relieved that he was not looking at her. He had always been able to see exactly what she was thinking.
“Yes, Camille,” murmured Marcel Proust, “I know I can trust you. I just wanted to hear you say it.”
She felt sick with guilt. “No more injections,” she said.
“Thank you.” He shuddered. “Those needles! I would prefer to suffer anything than go through that again.”
“And the other medicines?” asked Camille. The doctor had given her a long list of prescriptions on his way out.
“By all means go and fetch them, and then we’ll see.”
But Monsieur Proust did not take the medicines that Camille brought back from the pharmacy, and no amount of pleading could get him to change his mind.
His health continued to deteriorate. His face became sallow and gaunt and he continued to starve himself, existing on almost nothing except for coffee. In desperation, Camille begged Monsieur Proust’s brother to come and try and talk sense into the patient. Robert Proust arrived later the same day, barging into his brother’s bedroom and conducting a brief but thorough examination, ignoring the stream of rich and colorful threats that Camille heard through the bedroom door.
Soon afterward Robert came to see Camille in the kitchen. He sat down heavily in a chair and placed his hat on the table in front of him.
“Et alors?” said Camille.
“It doesn’t look good. He’s having great difficulty breathing. The pneumonia has led to an aggravated inflammation of the bronchial passages.” Robert Proust was silent for a moment, staring at the table. “Marcel has gone untreated for so long that secondary infections have taken hold. There’s an abscess on his lung that I think has given him septicemia.” He looked directly at her. “I fear we have left it too late.”
After that Robert and Camille cared for the sick man together. Proust continued to work on his manuscript, half delirious with the fever that would not relinquish its grip. By the middle of November it was clear that the end would come before long. Camille called Doctor Bize again. Proust lay unconscious, hidden beneath a mound of blankets but for one swollen arm, deathly white, that hung limply down by the side of the bed. The doctor asked Camille if he might administer an injection of camphorated oil.
She turned to look down at the bed. Her beloved employer was dying, she knew that. All she wanted to do was to ease his pain, but he had begged her, implored her, never to allow another needle near him.
Will you promise me this one thing?
You know you can trust me, monsieur.
She turned to the doctor. “Will it help?” she asked.
“Bien entendu,” nodded Doctor Bize.
Marcel Proust’s dying body was motionless beneath the bedsheets.
Will you promise me this one thing?
Camille loved him. She wanted to honor his wishes. But more than that, she wanted to stop his pain.
“Madame Clermont?” said the doctor. “Should I give him the injection?”
She tried to speak but the words would not come. Finally she gave the smallest of nods.
The room was silent as the doctor prepared the treatment. Camille watched as he flicked his fingers against the side of the syringe. The needle was long and glinted in the half-light of the bedroom.
Camille pulled up the bedsheets and looked away as Bize injected the dose into Marcel Proust’s thigh. After a moment the patient r
olled over and looked directly at her. He reached out and grabbed her arm. “Oh, Camille,” he whispered. Then, not taking his eyes off her, he pinched her wrist.
His brittle fingers on her skin.
She wanted him to twist viciously. Instead he relinquished his grip, his arm dropping weakly to his side. They looked at each other without speaking. After all the words that had passed between them, there was no more to be said.
A few minutes later Camille showed Doctor Bize out of the apartment. When she returned to the bedroom, Robert Proust was leaning over the bed speaking softly to his brother.
Marcel Proust lay back in the bed and stared at Robert and Camille as they stood side by side next to the bed. His face was spectral, half hidden by a thick, dark beard. His eyes never left them for a moment.
No more words were spoken.
And then Robert Proust stepped forward. He reached out and gently closed his brother’s eyes.
“Is he dead?” she whispered.
“Yes, Camille. It’s over.”
* * *
The days after Marcel Proust’s death were made tolerable only by the numbing weight of duty. Camille was too busy to grieve. She and Robert welcomed a procession of mourners into the apartment to pay their last respects to the great man. Haughty aristocrats and eminent men of letters stood by his bedside and wept. Renowned artists sketched the dead man’s face. Man Ray took photographs of the body. From dawn to dusk the apartment was full of visitors clamoring for the chance to say a last good-bye. Camille knew that Monsieur Proust would have been appalled at the chaotic spectacle of it all. All he had ever wanted was peace and quiet, and time to write. In rare moments of calm she sat quietly beside her employer’s body. His face was serene, finally at rest.
She helped Robert with the funeral arrangements, and traveled with him in the front car of the funeral procession. The small cross of flowers that she had chosen was placed in the middle of the coffin.
* * *
Several days after the funeral Camille walked past a bookshop on Rue Hamelin. The shop’s window was lit up, casting a bright glow into the cold gloom of the winter’s day. Every book Marcel Proust had written was on display, each one arranged in groups of three. Camille stood and stared at this act of tribute, and wept.