Love Letters from Montmartre

by Nicolas Barreau

  There you go! A square meal and a short walk along the Rue de Varenne will do me good.

  I sometimes think it would be easier if I had a nine-to-five job, off to the office in the morning and coming back home in the afternoon. The days would pass quicker if I did, since I’d be forced to get something done. As it is, I have to manage my own time, and that’s not always easy. It’s good that I have to take Arthur to nursery school in the mornings. There’s no telling what time I’d wake up if I didn’t have to do that.

  I often think wistfully about how we used to drink our first cup of coffee together in bed, before you woke Arthur and headed to the nursery. I used to take it for granted when you rejoined me in bed with our two large cups in hand. But today, I miss that quiet fifteen minutes before the day got started and life took over again. That’s not all I miss.

  Since you’ve been gone, Hélène, the early morning is my favourite time of day – those few precious seconds before I’m fully awake.

  I press my face into the pillow and listen, half-asleep, to the sounds that drift up from the street. A car driving by. A bird chirping. A door slamming. A child’s laughter. Just for a moment, all is right in my world.

  I reach for your hand, murmur ‘Hélène’ and open my eyes.

  And then reality sweeps over me again.

  You are gone, and nothing is the way it should be.

  I miss you, mon amour. How could I ever stop missing you?

  I will love and miss you – until you can be mine again, like once in May.

  From my heart to yours,

  Julien

  5

  Confit de canard

  My parents had a happy marriage. My mother, Clémence, was without a doubt the prettiest girl in the sleepy town of Plan-d’Orgon in the South of France. She grew up in a country hotel, surrounded by chickens and meadows, as well as hotel guests who either spent their vacations here or merely stopped off for the night on their way to the cities and towns of Provence nestled amidst their lavender fields. Les Baux-de-Provence with its defiant fortress, painterly Roussillon glowing in the setting sun inside its ring of ochre and reddish cliffs, Arles with its famous arena and its lively farmers’ markets where you could find red artichokes, black olives and bright fabric balls, or Fontaine-de-Vaucluse where a stroll along the riverbank offered alluring views into the clear turquoise depths of the mountain runoff.

  If my father hadn’t booked a room in this hotel and been smitten by the eyes of the young woman in the pale flowered dress as she floated around the breakfast room like a luminous creature, carrying coffee, croissants, salted butter, goat’s cheese, pâté de campagne provençale and lavender honey to the guests, Clémence never would have left her hometown and would have eventually taken over the hotel from her parents. But as it turned out, she moved to Paris with Philippe Azoulay, an ambitious diplomat fifteen years her senior. During the early years of their marriage, she travelled extensively with him until Philippe took a position in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the Quai d’Orsay. They moved into an apartment on the Rue de Varenne and had a little boy – me. By that point, my mother was already thirty-four, and my father almost fifty. The birth proved difficult, which was why this child, which the couple had longed for so much, remained an only child.

  Despite all the years spent in the big city, Maman never lost her healthy appetite. She is a passionate, accomplished cook, and her love of nature is anchored firmly in her heart. Even though Paris offers no lavender fields or wildflower meadows scattered with poppies and daisies, she loves to roam through the Tuileries or the Bois de Boulogne, because she ‘needs to see something green’. She always says it helps soothe her spirits.

  Years ago, she made frequent weekend trips out to the country to visit her older sister Carole. Since her husband Paul had grown sick and the two of them had moved to the city to be closer to better medical care, the sisters were now constantly at loggerheads. One impetus for this is Paul’s dementia. In his confused state, he believes my mother is his actual wife, which has led to all sorts of wild speculations and jealousy on Carole’s part. Also, the older sister is all the more jealous of the younger one because my mother has supposedly had an easier life, all in all, and has been well provided for since the death of my father. Our summer house in Normandy has been a particular thorn in her side for years.

  When my father died several years ago, after contracting a lung infection that weakened him to the point he couldn’t even stand on his own, my mother inherited the apartment on the Rue de Varenne, as well as the small holiday home in Honfleur, where we had always spent my longer holidays.

  The summers had lasted for ever – or at least, that’s how they seem to me today. They were redolent of pines and rosemary, and I loved that one-of-a-kind fragrance that floated in the air when you ran through the scrubby bushes and low-growing trees on your way to the beach, the dried wood and branches cracking quietly under your feet.

  This was the scent of my childhood, which had been as light and cheerful as those irretrievable summers. The silvery, glittering Atlantic, the fish soup served on evenings down at the harbour, the return home along shadowy country roads, my father at the wheel chatting quietly with my mother while I sat in the back seat of our old Renault, my head resting against the window, drowsy and filled with the feeling of absolute security.

  I can still remember clearly the late breakfasts on the shady terrace with its weathered, wisteria-covered wooden trellis: Maman, barefoot, in her white batiste nightgown, with a shawl pulled over it; Papa, never wearing anything less than proper attire, in his blue-striped shirt, light-weight trousers and soft leather shoes. I don’t think it would have ever occurred to him to wander through town in shorts and sandals, the typical tourist garb you see everywhere these days. He simply wouldn’t have found it elegant enough. He also never would have had breakfast in bed, even though he sometimes carried a steaming cup of café crème to his wife. She, on the other hand, thought there was nothing lovelier than sipping the day’s first cup of coffee before getting out of bed.

  You could say that, in many respects, my parents were quite different. And yet they loved each other deeply. The secret to their marriage lay in a tall measure of tolerance, a lively sense of humour, and a marvellous generosity of the heart. I wish that, like Philemon and Baucis, they could have departed this world together in their old age and become intertwining trees, locked in an eternal embrace. Unfortunately, life will keep changing its stories.

  On the day my father could no longer stand up in order to dress properly to sit at the table, he died.

  He was a truly fine man.

  As I walked into the apartment on Rue de Varenne that day, the smell of roasted meat was already wafting from the kitchen.

  ‘Mmmm, that smells delicious,’ I said.

  ‘I fixed confit de canard. I know how much you love it,’ Maman explained with a smile, hugging me tightly. ‘Come in, come in!’

  I don’t know a single soul who greets people as joyfully as Maman. She laughs and beams as she takes a step backward to allow the other person to enter, which makes you feel unbelievably welcome.

  After untying her apron, Maman tossed it carelessly across a chair and led me into the salon, where a fire was already flickering in the fireplace and the round table was laid for four.

  ‘Sit down, Julien. Carole and Paul won’t get here for a little while.’

  We sat down on the green velvet couch in the bay window that faced the street, and she pressed a glass of crémant into my hand, before holding out a plate full of toasted bread slices covered with a generous layer of pâté.

  ‘You’ve lost more weight.’ She eyed me concernedly.

  ‘Oh, Maman, you say that every time. If that were true, there’d be nothing left of me by now,’ I replied defensively. ‘I’m eating like normal.’

  She smiled indulgently. ‘How’s Arthur doing?’ she asked. ‘Is he excited about our trip to Honfleur?’

  ‘Absolutel
y!’ I took a sip of crémant, which rolled down my tongue, cold and sparkling. ‘He can’t stop talking about your trip to the sea. He’s never been to the house.’

  ‘And what about you? Do you want to come up for a few days? A little fresh wind in your lungs would do you good.’

  I shook my head. ‘No, I’ll try to get some writing done. I need to make some headway with this stupid book.’

  I shrugged and smiled apologetically, and she nodded, tactful enough not to pry for more information.

  ‘But you’re still coming along to the Jardin des Plantes on Sunday, aren’t you?’ she pressed.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘How are you filling your days now?’

  ‘Oh . . . I . . . well, with the usual stuff,’ I explained vaguely. ‘Arthur, housework. Louise came by yesterday to clean, and I went to the cemetery and met Alexandre for lunch afterward. He invited me to come to his spring exhibition.’

  I reached for the wine glass and noticed that my hand was trembling. I really needed to focus on getting healthy again.

  ‘Your hand is shaking,’ Maman declared.

  ‘Yes. I didn’t sleep much last night. Arthur had a nightmare, but he was better again this morning,’ I hurried to add.

  ‘And you? How are you doing? Are you getting by?’

  She looked at me, and I knew there was no point trying to pull the wool over her eyes. You can pretend all you like to other people, but not to your own mother.

  ‘Oh, Maman . . . ’ I murmured.

  ‘Oh, my child.’ She pressed my hand. ‘It will get better. Someday soon. You’re still so young, and even you will laugh again. You can’t spend your whole life being sad.’

  ‘Hmm.’

  ‘You know how much I cared for Hélène, but when I see you so unhappy, I wish I could just speed time along until you found yourself back in a life that made you happy. And then I think, somewhere out there, there’s a girl who can love my Julien.’

  She smiled. I knew she meant well.

  ‘Could we talk about something else, Maman?’

  ‘Certainly. Next week, I’m going to drive to Oxfam to donate some old things. How would you feel if we cleaned out your closets?’ She said your closets, but she actually meant Hélène’s.

  ‘I can manage that on my own.’ There was no way I would let anyone close to Hélène’s closet.

  ‘But you won’t do it on your own, Julien.’

  ‘Why should I give her things away? They aren’t bothering anyone.’

  ‘Julien.’ She looked at me sternly. ‘I also lost my husband and was very unhappy afterward, as you recall. But I can promise you that nothing good comes from hoarding memories. Memories make us sentimental, and if you’re sentimental you can’t move forward. You live backwards. It would be best for you if those clothes disappeared and were serving a good purpose somewhere else. You don’t want to turn your apartment into a mausoleum like that crazy Monsieur Benoît, do you?’

  I sighed and sensed deep down that she was right.

  Monsieur Benoît’s wife had been killed in an accident when I was still in school. She had stepped out to cross Boulevard Raspail without taking a careful look both ways – like all good Parisians, it was beneath her to cross at a traffic light or use a crossing. She simply took off across the street, trusting that everyone would hit their brakes in time, but in this case, a car struck her.

  Jean, Monsieur Benoît’s son, had been a classmate of mine. After school, we sometimes went to his house, knowing that we wouldn’t be disturbed there since his father always came home late from work. I can still recall how annoyed I was that nothing could be touched or messed with in his parents’ bedroom, which was located on the parterre and led to the small garden where we secretly smoked our first cigarettes. Above all, his mother’s mirrored vanity was sacred terrain. Everything on it still sat where it had been on the day of the accident: her brushes and combs, her earrings, her pearl necklace, the glass vial holding the heavy, expensive perfume L’heure bleu, and two theatre tickets that would never be used. The last book she had been reading was waiting on the nightstand, while her slippers sat neatly on her side of the bed and her silk robe hung on a silver hook on the door. And the pale-slatted closet door must have concealed all of the dead woman’s clothes.

  Nothing changed for years, at Monsieur Benoît’s insistence. I remembered clearly how spooky I found that back then, and what I told my mother about that ghost house and my certainty that one day Monsieur Benoît’s sorrow would drive him crazy.

  Was I really on my way to becoming a professional mourner like that weird old mausoleum keeper everyone pitied and poked fun at?

  ‘All right,’ I capitulated. ‘Let’s get it behind us.’

  The doorbell cut off our conversation. Maman walked into the hall and opened the door. The apartment grew noisy the moment Carole and her husband stepped inside. My aunt’s deafening voice could have woken the dead. I couldn’t help grinning at the sound of her loud voice in the hallway, raised in complaints about the capricious weather and the surliness of Parisian taxi drivers.

  A short time later, we were sitting at the table, eating the scrumptious confit de canard that Maman served with a lingonberry sauce and a light Burgundy wine.

  Even old Paul seemed to be enjoying it. In his dark blue woollen sweater, he was hovering over his plate, awkwardly slicing away at the tender marbled meat that disappeared into his mouth, bite after bite. Before retirement, my uncle had been a professor of philosophy, and he had enjoyed teaching us and his three children quotes from Descartes, Pascal and Derrida. His wife Carole, on the other had, was more practical in nature; she had worked in an accountant’s office and had managed their money. It was a real shame that this intelligent man, who could interpret practically any philosophical text and whose motto had been Descartes’s three famous words – cogito ergo sum: I think, therefore I am – had been suffering from dementia for the past few years.

  You had to hand it to Carole: she was always at the side of her increasingly perplexed husband. Thanks to the energetic support of a doe-eyed nurse from Guadeloupe, the two of them could continue living in the Bastille neighbourhood, where they had been able to procure a large, relatively reasonably priced apartment several years ago, before the rents had spiked so sharply. The only problem was that Carole had always tended to be quite jealous when it came to her handsome husband. And she was anything but delighted by Paul’s obvious infatuation with the pretty nurse with whom he laughed and flirted all the time.

  However, even more egregious was the fact that, in his advancing forgetfulness, Paul had started to believe that my mother was his actual wife. This had been going on for some time, to the great irritation and mistrust of my aunt. Paul had always had a weakness for his sister-in-law Clémence, and recently several arguments had arisen in the heat of which Carole accused her sister of having once had a fling with Paul. Maman would vehemently deny this, snapping that Carole was obviously losing her marbles as well. Phone calls between the two sisters typically ended with one or the other of them hanging up in exasperation. Maman would then call me and gripe about her quarrelsome sister, who frequently ended their conversation with a sulky tirade about her joyless life, which would climax in an accusatory commentary on how good my mother’s life was in comparison with her own.

  The world’s displeasures may not be caused by the fact that people, as Blaise Pascal once perceptively pointed out, don’t know how to sit quietly in their rooms, but rather by their tendency to compare themselves with others. Aunt Carole was the best proof of this.

  ‘Carole is on the warpath again today,’ Maman would say. Followed by: ‘I won’t be treated this way. I’m seventy years old, after all. C’est fini!’ Or: ‘My sister caused trouble even when she was a child. She always felt hard done by.’ And finally, in a more conciliatory tone: ‘But she can also be quite nice.’

  And Maman was right about that. Aunt Carole could be quite nice. On her good days, she could ac
tivate her sense of humour and tell funny anecdotes from the past, like about the time she had gone out dancing with her husband until the early morning hours and had danced so exuberantly that she kicked off her shoes.

  Aunt Carole knew all the old family stories, and when she talked about the past, her eyes gleamed. She had moved to Paris before my mother had, and in those early months she had helped her younger sister quite a lot.

  Maman had never forgotten that. And one or two weeks later – once their tempers had settled back down – the two sisters would start talking again, fully aware that they were still sisters, just like always. Knowing that at her age Carole wasn’t in a position to change her ways and that life with Paul was quite challenging, Maman would invite them over to eat. This was one of those days.

  In the meantime, we had reached dessert, a tarte au citron that looked as if it had been painted.

  ‘You didn’t make that yourself, Clémence, did you?’ Carole wanted to know.

  ‘Of course I made it myself,’ my mother replied, annoyed.

  ‘Really?’ Carole studied the tender meringue atop the lemon crème, and prodded it with her small fork. ‘It looks so perfect. I thought you must have bought it from Ladurée.’

  ‘Why do you assume I buy everything from Ladurée?’ The tone was sharpening.

  I was about to intervene when Carole gave a dismissive wave.

  ‘It doesn’t matter. It’s marvellous either way.’ She turned to Paul, who was sitting beside her, and shouted in his ear: ‘You like it too, don’t you, chéri?’

  Paul glanced up from his plate and considered the question for a moment. ‘D-delicious,’ he said, flashing Maman a smile. ‘My wife’s a good cook, always has been.’

  He contentedly shoved the last forkful into his mouth, chewed distractedly, and didn’t notice that Carole’s expression was threatening to slide southward.