I Looked for the One My Heart Loves (8 page)

“I want you to try anyway!”

Though they got along well, Anne didn't talk about her private life unless Amanda asked how her children were doing. In spite of her many friends, her outings, her travels, the gallery owner felt lonesome. She never stayed home in the evening. Whether eating in fancy restaurants, or going to a concert or the ballet, she just had to keep moving.

“What do you do to avoid looking tired?” Amanda asked her assistant. “You haven't changed one bit since I first met you! Of course, you're still young, but …”

Walking past a shop window, Anne looked at her reflection to see if what Amanda had said was true. A draconian diet and the dance lessons she was taking on Rue Vivienne got her back in shape after her two pregnancies. Her slim figure enabled her to obey the dictates of fashion. After the Brigitte Bardot look, with the ballet pumps and the skirts inflated by multiple half-slips, she had adopted Audrey Hepburn's style. Straight or gathered-at-the-waist skirts, white long-sleeved blouses, black V-neck sweaters, twinsets, trench coats: all very charming and classy. Anne's brown hair grazed her shoulders. Her bangs fell on her eyebrows, and the color of her eyes kept changing. Slate gray, they sometimes took on shades of blue or green. Most striking, though, was their intensity. At once sharp and dreamy, they left no one indifferent. Some men hit on Anne, but she pushed them away with a laugh. In her quiet and well-balanced existence, there was no room for fantasy.

1967

12

Anne glanced at her
watch
, and then began to run through the pouring rain. Her daughters would worry if she was late. Edith had just called to say that she was sick and wouldn't be able to pick up the girls from school.

Disheveled, her clothes a mess, Isabelle was in the school playground, arguing with a much taller boy. She looked surprised at the sight of her mother.

“Edith is sick,” Anne explained.

“Is it bad?”

“Just a stomachache. She went home.”

“You're all wet!”

“I forgot to take an umbrella with me.”

Anne then noticed Isabelle wasn't wearing a raincoat.

“It was nice out when I left this morning,” the girl replied.

Aurélie came over. She wasn't wearing a raincoat, either.

“Let's take shelter in the pastry shop,” Anne said.

Sitting with her two daughters, Anne decided not to feel guilty for leaving the gallery early. Spending a little time with the girls was so nice. Isabelle was the spitting image of François. Full of energy, she couldn't sit still. Dolls and girls' toys never interested her. She much preferred the model planes that her father bought her. Aurélie, for her part, was into dressing up like a fairy or a princess, jewelry, and tea parties. The oldest was blonde with an elongated face and bright eyes. The youngest could have been in commercials: wild curly hair held in place by a headband, green eyes, an irresistible smile! As she drank a glass of orange juice, Anne noticed a ring on her middle finger.

“That's new,” she said.

Aurélie nodded.

“Tristan gave it to me,” she said. “He found it in a box of candies.”

Back in the apartment, Anne took off her wet clothes, and put on jeans and a blouse. François had told her he wasn't going to be home for supper. Not only was he working long hours, he was also going on business trips. Sometimes he was away for days, even weeks at a time.

When he was gone, Anne organized Sunday outings with Agnès and her son. Everyone climbed into the new Peugeot. Depending on the weather and what the three kids felt like doing, Anne would head for the Jardin d'Acclimatation, a children's amusement park with a zoo, or the Cirque d'Hiver. Agnès was going through a difficult period. Her husband was rarely home, though not for the same reasons as François. Eric loved to play poker. It had become an addiction.

“I'm sure we're in debt,” Agnès said.

Anne was worried about her friend. Agnès had no money of her own. She was dependent on her husband. If he decided to gamble away their assets, she would be in a world of trouble. She had never held a job, and so she would have a very hard time getting hired somewhere. Thomas, their only son, had just turned twelve. Anne adored her godson for his inquisitive mind and sense of humor. Never running out of ideas, he had a knack for inventing games and coming up with stories that awed Isabelle. Watching her daughter, Anne noticed looks that spoke volumes about her fascination with Thomas. This brought Anne back to her own youth, a time of self-delusion and unrequited love. …

In all honesty, Anne believed she had managed to erase Alexis from her mind. When she did think about him, which was less and less often, she pushed the thought away. That was until the day she was leafing through the latest issue of a magazine for art professionals. An article about the relationship between authors and surrealist painters grabbed her attention. Reading it, she found comments that corresponded to Amanda Kircher's views. Curious to see who had written such a pertinent paper, she flipped to the end of the article. Alexis Messager! At first, she thought that her mind was playing tricks on her. But the author of the article was indeed Alexis Messager. It must have been someone else with the same name! Until Amanda arrived at the gallery, Anne wasn't able to concentrate on anything.

For a few minutes, the two women talked about their day. Over the years, Anne had taken over the daily management of the gallery and had stopped telling Madame Kircher about the gallery's small problems so as not to upset her. Amanda, whose sole passion was to discover and launch artists, didn't want to bother with administrative headaches. Anne took care of contracts, insurance, customs matters, the transportation of the art pieces …

“If I didn't have you,” Amanda kept saying, “I probably would've sold the gallery.”

“You would've regretted it right away.”

“I would've become an art broker.”

“You wouldn't have enjoyed it as much.”

“You're right.”

Today, Amanda was in the best mood she had been in since coming back from the French Riviera, where she spent every summer.

“I just got a letter from Simonetta Lorenzetti.”

“The set designer?”

For months, Amanda had been trying to meet this Italian woman who, after achieving great success creating sets for operas and plays, had retired to a two-room apartment, where she lived like a hermit. At the height of her career, as the most famous producers were fighting over her, she had decided to disappear.

“I thought she'd never answer my letters,” Amanda admitted. “If only she could let me have the model of one her sets …”

Normally, Anne would have shared Amanda's enthusiasm. But she had just picked up that magazine, which brought down the walls she had so carefully erected against her past. Since the start of her conversation with Amanda, she had been holding back a thought and, until it was possible for her to speak, she remained tight-lipped. … Finally, Amanda mentioned the exhibition scheduled for April, one that she wanted to give particular attention to.

“We have to send those two Max Ernst drawings to the framer,” she said. “As for the Dalí, did you talk to the insurance broker?”

As soon as Anne felt the time was right, she went all in. Amanda had been planning to have someone write the catalog of the upcoming exhibition with a history of the gallery, and an interview with its owner, as well as a description of the works that would be featured in the show.

“You should check out the article I just read in this magazine. I think you're going to like the author.”

The following day, Amanda asked Anne to contact the writer in question.

“I like the way he's tackling a topic that a lot of people write about, but not always very intelligently.”

Anne wasn't sure whether she should feel thrilled or berate herself. She could always “fail” to find the contact information for this Monsieur Messager. …

But unable to refrain herself, she called the magazine's main office in Lyon.

“Monsieur Messager freelances for us. He doesn't live in France.”

“Okay,” Anne said, her voice half-choked. “Can you tell me where I can reach him?”

After what seemed like an eternity, the receptionist gave her an address in Montreal. Alexis did tell her he was going to teach in Canada! As soon as she hung up the phone, Anne felt like she was going to be sick. Her head was pounding.

Back home, she found her daughters in the tub.

“Their homework is done,” Edith said.

Anne heard the front door open, and she went to greet her husband. François's lips were cold when he lightly kissed her on the cheek. Christmas was fast approaching, and it was chilly.

“I promised the girls you'd put them to bed,” Anne said.

While she was busy in the kitchen, she could hear the girls' high-pitched screams and bursts of laughter. They were no doubt having a pillow fight. With a smile, she put out her nice plates, crystal glasses, and a couple of candles. Every evening, she repeated this same ritual so that she could enjoy a pleasant moment with her husband, letting him take his mind off of work. At Dassault, François had kept going up the ladder. After having worked on the Mirage V project, a military aircraft that had been launched the previous May, he had tackled other challenges that thrilled him. When he joined in her in the kitchen, his hair was disheveled and his tie was undone, pulled to one side.

“I can just imagine the mess in that bedroom of theirs …” Anne said.

François looked sheepish, and she headed for the girls' room. She found Isabelle and Aurélie jumping on their mattresses. As she put her daughters to bed, she felt tears come to her eyes. Was she so emotional because she had found Alexis?

At the gallery, Anne put a sheet of letterhead into the typewriter and began a letter addressed to Alexis Messager. After reminding him who she was, she mentioned her work at the gallery and the fact that she regularly read the magazine that had published his article. Would he accept a writing job for Madame Kircher? The exhibition would take place in four months. She included with the letter information about the pieces that were going to be exhibited, as well as clips of articles about the gallery's previous shows. When it was all done, she remained still. The idea of tempting fate like this disturbed her deeply. Sick and tired of hesitating and feeling guilty, she took advantage of the fact that it was lunchtime to walk out of the gallery and slip the letter into a mailbox. There! No turning back. …

As the year-end holidays approached, the gallery closed for a few days. Anne took the opportunity to take her family to Cormery to visit her grandmother and brother. After a very rough period following her husband's death, Yvonne had begun enjoying life again. The presence of her granddaughter and her family raised her spirits even more. She loved Isabelle and Aurélie. As soon as the girls set down their suitcases in the vestibule, all of her time was devoted to their wants and needs. She even baked for them: cream puffs, lemon charlottes, puff pastry tarts, fruit cakes, everything smothered in Chantilly cream. François, who had a sweet tooth, ate even more of it than his daughters. He even snuck down to the kitchen at night when everyone was asleep. Looking for a slice of cake or a bit of chocolate mousse, he checked out the pantry and the fridge. One night, as he returned to their room, Anne asked if he wasn't afraid he wasn't going to fit into any of his clothes if he kept it up.

“You weren't sleeping!” François said.

“Not since you went downstairs to stuff your face with sweets!”

“So you're spying on me!” he said, laughing.

“
Shh
, you're going to wake up my grandmother!”

François joined Anne in bed. Holding her tight in his arms, he slipped off the pajama top she wore on winter nights. It was actually one of his that she liked to borrow. His hands on her skin made her shiver. Far from Paris and their professional worlds, they felt freed from the routine they had settled into. Their breath mingling, they rekindled the burning passion they had experienced at the beginning of their marriage. …

They managed to keep it up every night until the end of their stay. During the day, Anne was dedicated to her family. She played Monopoly and Clue with her children. She refrained from correcting her parents when they made outdated remarks. The Chastels came to Cormery for both Christmas and New Year's Eve. Suffering from rheumatism, Monique had a difficult time moving around. Seeing her mother drag herself from one chair to another made Anne sad. She couldn't help comparing her to Amanda Kircher. The two couldn't have been more different. One stuck to her principles, worrying about what others thought, the other thriving on her passions and nonstop discoveries. Thanks to the gallery owner, Anne had freed herself from a too-rigid education. Ever since, her parents had looked at her like she was an alien! So did her brother! When she thought of the turbulent boy that Bernard had been, it was shocking to see him so serious, so reasonable. Whenever he wasn't in his shop, he was out hunting or fishing. Sometimes he met up with buddies at the café to play foosball while sipping a glass of white wine. Sometimes François joined them. Both he and Bernard hated to lose, and so their games were heated battles. Bernard had gotten married later in life to a young woman named Odile who had left her hometown of Loches to live with him in a house near the abbey. In veiled terms, Yves and Monique Chastel discussed their exasperation at the fact that their daughter-in-law still hadn't given birth to any grandchildren. When the conversation turned to that topic on New Year's Day, Anne decided to grab her coat, put on her heavy boots, and step outside. The local villagers were busy celebrating and feasting, so there was no one outside, not even a passing car. In order to protect herself from the cold, Anne turned her collar up and began walking faster. Tomorrow, she and François would fill the Peugeot's trunk and head back to Paris. Would she find an answer to her letter when she walked inside the gallery? Until now, she had forced herself not to think about it.