Concerto to the Memory of an Angel (17 page)

“Thank you, Reynaud, thank you. Ask Rigaud to follow up and confirm your analysis. In other words, can we really no longer intervene . . . ”

“I will see to it right away, Monsieur le Président.”

He stood up and saluted. When he reached the door, the president stopped him: “Reynaud! What is the title of the book?”

“
The Man I Loved.
”

“
The Man I Loved?
”

“Yes. A fine title, don't you think, Monsieur le Président?”

Henri nodded to dismiss the general.

What an idiot!
The Man I Loved,
a fine title? No, it was evidence for the prosecution. It may as well have been
The Man I Loved and Who No Longer Exists
or
The Man I Loved and Whom I Was Wrong to Love.
It was a vitriolic title, it was poisoned, an apocalypse, and it was sending a clear message to the French nation: “The man whom you have wrongly loved, the man who you thought was dignified and honest and generous, is nothing better than a bastard,” yes, what it meant was no more than
The Man Who Deceived You
!

“Rigaud!”

He shouted down the telephone. A few seconds later Rigaud burst breathlessly into the office.

“Rigaud, you must go to Canada. Deal with it as you see fit—steal it, pay for it, photocopy it, but bring me a copy of that book as quickly as you can. At once!”

 

Thirty-six hours later, Rigaud landed in Roissy, and climbed onto a moto-taxi in order to reduce the time spent going through Paris, then he rushed into the president's office.

“Here you are, sir, one copy of
The Man I Loved.”

“And?”

“What?”

“You read it.”

“I had no right, I had no instructions, you didn't want—”

“Rigaud, I know you! You read it! No?”

“Yes, Monsieur le Président.”

“Well?” barked Henri.

Rigaud's face went purple, his nose twisted to the right, and to the left, then he said, looking away, “It is magnificent, Monsieur . . . Heartbreaking! The most beautiful declaration of love I have ever read.”

From his pocket he pulled an enormous handkerchief, damp and rumpled.

“Excuse me, just thinking about it, it still makes me cry.”

Crimson, he left the room, blowing his nose.

Disconcerted, intrigued, and worried, Henri grabbed the volume and opened it.

 

“At every moment, in this room where I have come to wait for my end, I feel an inner contentment, all the same. My heart is full, my soul is grateful: I met him. To be sure, I am going to die, but if I have lived, whether it was a little bit or a lot, it is thanks to him, to Henri. And to him alone.

“I often tremble when I think that I might never have gone into that Paris bistro in search of a cigarette, and I might have missed that Formica table where he was—already—rebuilding the world with his fellow students. The moment I saw him . . . ”

 

Henri did not let go of the ribbon of sentences until the last word. When he closed the volume, not only was he sobbing like all those who in future would read the text some day, he was also transfigured: he had found his Catherine again, he adored her once again.

As she was dying, Catherine had composed a song of love—absolute, unprecedented, celebrating this man alone, the one who had enchanted her and filled her with enthusiasm and continually surprised her; the courageous, intelligent, and determined man whom she admired.

Our lives are such that the gaze we direct upon them can make them terrible or marvelous. Identical events can be interpreted as successes or catastrophes. And while, during their falling out, Catherine had interpreted their marriage as the story of a lie, she had since revisited it, during her last months on earth, and she had hunted down a great love.

Destinies are like holy books: it is the reading that gives them meaning. A closed book remains mute; it will only speak once it is opened; and the language it uses will be that of the person intensely reading it; it will be colored by his expectations, desires, aspirations, obsessions, violent impulses, and moments of distress. The facts are like sentences in the book, they have no meaning on their own, only the meaning that one gives to them. Catherine had been sincere in loving Henri, and sincere in despising him; each time, she had rearranged the past depending on what she had felt in the present. On the threshold of death it was love that once again had the upper hand; so the secret golden thread that had stitched the events of their life and gone on to become the thread of her writing was the thread of love.

 

One month after the book's triumphant publication, the nurse who had been in on Catherine's secret was summoned to a private interview with the president at the Elysée Palace. Although he acted very kindly toward her, or perhaps because he was acting so kindly, she asked him to forgive her: while she may have deceived him by not giving him the notebook he demanded at La Maison de Rita, she had been obeying Madame Morel's wishes.

“If you knew how much she idolized you, Monsieur! She waited for you from morning to night. She lived for you alone. Because she knew her end was near, she set herself two goals: to write this book, and not to interfere with your reelection. It was for your sake that she was able to hang on. That Sunday when she saw on television that you had won, she cried and said, ‘That's good, he's won, now I can leave.' A few hours later she fell into a coma. It was her superhuman love that kept her going that long.”

 

Henri Morel's final term in office, while it may have been the topic of much debate among political analysts—how could it have been otherwise?—provided everyone, including his toughest opponents, with an opportunity to admire the man.

Not only did he no longer have any mistresses, but he began to worship his late wife in a way that was all the more sincere for being discreet. Portraits of Catherine—photographs, paintings—invaded the president's private space, even his bathroom. With his own money and the support of a few benefactors he started a charity, the Catherine Morel Foundation, devoted to contemporary art, one of the deceased woman's passions, in order to encourage young artists by means of commissions, travel, and donations. At the same time the president seemed to be making up for lost time by reading the books she had recommended to him long ago. Every evening he would shut himself off in what used to be their shared living room and listen to some of her favorite music, light a room fragrance that she had chosen, and immerse himself in one of the books. And in those pages, even after her death, he could join her and try to continue—or begin?—a dialogue with her.

Pure souls, even abroad, were deeply moved by such unflinch­ing devotion.

Are there any feelings that do not also harbor their opposite in their skin, like the lining of a fabric? Is there any love that is free of hatred? A hand that caresses may later pick up a dagger. Are there any exclusive passions that do not know fury? Are we not capable of killing with the same impulse that unites, the impulse through which one gives life? Our feelings are not protean but ambiguous, black or white depending on their impact, stretched taut between their contradictions, winding snakelike, capable of the worst as of the best.

Love had gone astray in the corridors of time. Catherine and Henri had begun by loving each other, then they had not known how to find each other, then they had appreciated each other only after the fact, one of them blazing with love while the other was full of hatred, and now death had abolished reality and its shortcomings. Memory enabled one to correct errors, to suppress misunderstandings and rebuild. Henceforth, for Henri, too, love had the upper hand. Sincerely.

When President Morel declined a third term and went into retirement, he married his past. Solitary, serene, smiling, the great man devoted his remaining years to writing his memoirs. For the first time in history the secrets of a head of state, while they did indeed describe his ambition and his political accomplishments, were simply entitled, in tribute to the woman he missed and whom he adored above all else,
A Perfect Love Story.

 

 

I got into the habit, with the second edition of my books, of appending the writing journal that had accompanied them, and I subsequently discovered that my readers enjoyed reading what they found there. So for the first time I am adding these pages to an original edition. These are the passages from my diary that concerned the book as I worked on it.

 

Y
esterday morning an idea came to me, so strong and seductive, so peremptory, that in forty-eight hours it actually took over my life, not the least bit embarrassed, changing my plans, the dispositions I'd made, and my questions, and it proceeded to make off with my future. It views me as a partner who must obey. The worst of it? That idea brought its family along with it.

Whereas for me it was enough merely to open the door: now I'm doomed, I no longer have any say in the matter: I have to write.

What was this idea? In his youth a man fails to come to someone's rescue. Through this act, the criminal discovers what a monster he is, then condemns himself and changes radically. Twenty years later, during which time he has become altruistic and generous, his victim finds him. But his victim has also changed radically: his suffering has left him spiteful, bitter, and cruel . . . The path each man has taken has reversed their positions: the victim has become the torturer, the murderer behaves like a good man. Redemption meets damnation . . . What will happen next?

As soon as I wrote it down, along came a cluster of new ideas. The theme of personal evolution through choice or traumatic experience has brought other stories in its wake.

This evening I've already had eight or nine ideas. My joy keeps me from feeling tired.

So one thing is certain: this is a book that is begging to be born.

 

*

 

Contrary to what many people think, a book of short stories is truly a book, with a theme and a form. While short stories may have an autonomy that allows them to be read separately, in my books they are part of a global project which has a beginning, a middle, and an end.

The idea for the book comes before the short stories, summoning and creating the stories in my imagination.

This is how I conceived
The Most Beautiful Book in the World
and
The Woman with the Bouquet.

I don't make a bouquet by gathering scattered flowers, I choose my flowers depending on the bouquet.

 

*

 

Sometimes I write short stories for an event, a cause, a commemoration. These short stories are like loose sheets of paper. If one day I were to gather them together, I would call them
Collected Stories
, in order to distinguish this collection from the books conceived as a work in themselves. They will all fit in a volume, but will not constitute a volume.

 

*

 

“The Murderess . . . ”

As usual, the character to whom I lend my pen has invaded me. Here I am, transformed into an old lady—something I'm used to—a provincial serial killer—something I'm less used to . . . How do the authors of crime novels manage to lead a normal life? I fear for my loved ones . . . Over the last few days I've become as vicious as my killer, I am no longer the least bit charitable, I kill people with my remarks, and it leaves me jubilant. In the kitchen, I see flasks not of oil or vinegar, but poison; I dream of horrible things while I season my sauces. Yesterday evening I was almost disappointed to be serving a mushroom fricassee which contained nothing dangerous.

Even when I'm not writing, my characters won't let me go. They haunt me, and sometimes even speak in my place. Their various roles fit perfectly, like a glove—but that doesn't matter—then they invade my mind. They mobilize everything inside me that resembles them. If the character is bad, then he or she exalts my nastiness.

I have already trembled, when I wrote
La Part de l'autre,
a novel about Hitler . . .

Tonight I was so upset that I thought that to get over this I might start on a biography of Saint Francis of Assisi . . .

Or Casanova?

 

*

 

These stories travel through existence wondering whether they are on the path of freedom or the road to determinism.

Are we free?

The question has endured better than its replies, and it will outlive every reply. For it seems dishonest, or cavalier, or stupid, to affirm anything with certainty.

We are under the impression we are free when we deliberate, hesitate, choose. But isn't that feeling an illusion? Didn't the decision have to be made no matter what? If our brain suggests an option, has it not been conditioned to suggest it? And what if it were a determining necessity, in the guise of free will . . .

Philosophers can choose to follow Descartes—freedom exists—or Spinoza—it does not exist—thus opposing each other yet never declaring a victor. Why? Because their blows consist of arguments, not proof. Theory against theory. With the end result that only the problem remains.

I confess I lean toward the partisans of freedom, like Kant or Sartre, because I have the impression that in my life I have been able to experiment with my freedom. Moreover, I need to believe in freedom for moral reasons: neither ethics nor justice can be well-founded if man is not free, the author of his acts, and therefore responsible; nor can there be punishment or merit, either. Do we blame a stone for falling? Do we punish it? No.

However, if we need freedom for moral reasons, that does not constitute a knowledge that freedom exists. Postulating freedom is not the same as proving freedom exists.

The question remains.

This is the essential intimacy of the human condition: to live with more questions than answers.

 

*

 

This month, October, I'm on a tour of the United States and English-speaking Canada in order to promote the English translation of my first book of short stories. Originally entitled
Odette Toulemonde
, through the magic of translation it has become
The Most Beautiful Book in the World,
for the last story in the book, which must also be the most modest title in the world.

It has been well received. Imagine! This means that France is getting good press these days, because the reception granted to the very rare French books published in North America reflects the health of international relations. I find it amusing to learn that it is typically and almost exclusively French to want to mix anecdotes and philosophy, to speak about serious subjects with a mixture of lightness and depth. Today they applaud. On other occasions I have been faulted for that very thing . . .

During these literary festivals and the public readings where I am obliged to resort to the American translation, the listeners and readers' reactions are enchanting. They then rush over to the adjacent bookstore, where they are occasionally short on books, and they tell me they are fascinated by my sense of detail. And yet there is very little detail in my books . . . But it is through the use of detail that I tell the whole story. An old French tradition, where we say “the blade” for “the sword,” or “the sail” for the boat. It's called synecdoche—using a part to describe the whole—and, beyond style, I apply synecdoche to playwriting as well, to the narrative process.

Indeed, the contamination of synecdoche is surprising in the Anglo-Saxon world, where so many systematically huge books are produced, loaded with detail and descriptions, the result of an immense labor of research and documentation, books where information streams in, hundreds of pages.

I think that the writer's art, like the cartoonist's, consists in making choices: choosing a proper frame and deciding which is the juiciest moment to say a great deal with a few words.

 

*

 

Still in America . . . I feel truly happy to be discovering books and authors that I did not know; I spend evenings with them over a drink remaking the world and rethinking literature, as if we were twenty years old . . . Their humble courtesy and respect for others are touching and inspiring.

This afternoon, in a packed auditorium, several American and Canadian writers gave readings, one after the other. Their texts were good, and yet I got the impression there was something lacking in the food, that it was the sort of nourishment that is not filling.

To be sure, when it's reduced to just a few pages, no excerpt from a novel could be self-sufficient, since it was meant to be part of an entire novel.

So it was easy for me to go up to the podium with an entire short story and delight the audience.

What is wonderful with Americans is their sense of fair play. My fellow writers, far from being jealous of my success, applauded warmly.

Here, too, I realized I had some lessons to learn . . .

 

*

 

In Toronto I chatted with a literary critic. All around us were piles of books, all mixed together, commercial novels with insane marketing campaigns, literary works, novels by sports or television stars who are not famous as writers but who write because they are famous, etc. A sort of nausea overcame me which I could not hide from him.

“How do you manage to sort through all these books, how do you tell them apart?” I ask.

“I count the dead.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I count the dead. More than two, it's a commercial book. One or two, it's literature. None at all, it's a book for children.”

 

*

 

“The Return.”

I wrote it far from home, like the sailor in my story. Going from one hotel room to another, I am tormented by nostalgia for my family. Impatient to be with them again, I have written this text for them so that, when I arrive home, they will, perhaps, understand how much I have missed them, how much I love them and, above all, how much I would like to love them better.

Work fills the hours, the measure of time becomes sentences that are never the same length.

If I could work on my life the way I write a short story, I might become a marvelous person . . .

 

*

 

I could never quite believe that Vancouver actually exists.

Located west of west, at the far end of an America that is itself at the far end of the ocean, this town has always been an abstract, speculative place, like infinity in mathematics. Vancouver seemed like a horizon which, like any horizon, would retreat as one drew nearer, the faraway West, the supreme West.

A faraway West even farther than the East since it was the dreams and determination of men that drove them to venture all that way. I found it hard therefore to imagine that there could be real streets, real people, stores, theatres, local newspapers.

Here I am on Grandville Island, a neighborhood known for its alternative culture, and I am standing opposite glass buildings where quick clouds pass.

I immediately liked the place. And I like the readers with all their different faces, books in themselves, because each one of them incarnates a novel, the story of how they came here, the story of their physique—Indian, Asian, Scandinavian, German, English—the story of their reconstructed lives.

I like Vancouver so much that I welcome it into my short story. It will be the homeland for “The Return.”

 

*

 

Back in Europe, I am smoothing out the first two texts.

The other day I saw someone make a face at the mention of short stories, as if they were a sign the author was lazy or tired, and so I wondered why so little regard is given to this art form in France, despite Maupassant, Daudet, Flaubert, Colette, and Marcel Aymé.

Is it not a petty bourgeois sort of attitude to always prefer the novel to the short story? The same attitude that compels Monsieur and Madame Fromage to buy an oil painting for their living room rather than a drawing? “A drawing is smaller, you can't see it from a distance, and you never know whether it's finished.”

I wonder if it isn't an expression of the bad taste of the affluent. They want their paint thickly layered, chapters with descriptions, dialogues with the consistency of chattering; they want historical information if the novel is situated in the past, or journalistic dossiers if it's set in the present day. In short, they like work, sweat, obvious skill, work you can see: they want to show the thing to their friends, to prove to them that they haven't been ripped off by the artist or the merchant.

“If you've got a novel of eight hundred pages,” exclaims Madame Fromage, “you can be sure the author has put in the work.”

But that's just it, maybe not . . .

To reduce a story to the essential, avoid useless adventures, pare a description back to a suggestion, remove the fat from the writing, exclude any complacency on the part of the author: it all takes time, it demands hours of analysis and critique.

In the end, if Monsieur and Madame Fromage deem the novel to be “more of an art form than the short story,” it is because it is the quintessential bourgeois art.

 

*

 

As I reread the preceding paragraph, I realize that I have fallen into the trap of controversy: binary thought.

Here I am thinking just like those whom I reproach for shoddy thinking: I oppose, I dualize, I praise one at the expense of the other. How stupid! Thinking means accepting complexity, and yet controversy doesn't think, because it reduces what is complex to a duality.

In short, I love novels just as much as I love short stories, but for different reasons.

 

*

 

I have been awarded a prize in Italy for
The Woman with the Bouquet
, my second book of short stories. I get the impression that the critics there understand perfectly what I am trying to do because they know Italo Calvino's
Six Memos for the Next Millennium
by heart, and it is one of my bibles. They are not shocked if an intellectual seeks lightness and simplicity; on the contrary, they applaud because they know how truly difficult it is. With their Latin subtlety they do not confuse simplicity and simplistic.