Lovers on All Saints' Day (3 page)

“There aren’t any people, just animals.”

“Philippe’s seeing someone,” said Claire. “I don’t know if my father’s told you.”

He hadn’t told me. But in some obscure way, I’d deduced it after a series of random comments, and had rejected the idea, and soon the idea had come back to worry me. The strange thing was how Claire told me, as if she were talking not about a potential marital disaster but of help found, as if Philippe, rather than going out with another woman—her name was Natasha, she was English and worked for the European Economic Community—were seeing a psychologist.

“She called the house the other day,” said Claire. “She didn’t even know Philippe was married.”

At a fork in the path, where you have to decide whether to go up the hill until you can see Hamoir in the distance or turn right toward the road to Ferrières, we stopped. Claire had gotten distracted as she walked and her tights were soaked and dirty.

“What are you going to do?” I asked.

“Well, I’m going to wait. This is a phase, you know.”

And then, as if resuming a conversation we’d interrupted earlier, as if the change of topic wasn’t sudden or abrupt:

“When she embraced me, I didn’t think about her. I didn’t think that hugging me might make her feel better. I thought this embrace was happening to Philippe and me, and we would be the beneficiaries.”

She rubbed her hand across her face, looked at it as if her features had become entangled in her palm.

“Maybe all this is a punishment, no? Someone’s punishing me for being so egotistical.”

We got to the little stone church, a construction the size of a doll’s house, where Claire, as a child, used to come and play. It had a rusted iron gate that would no longer budge. It had no Christ, no cross or altar. The interior was nothing but a damp rectangle, the walls devoured by lichen, the concrete floor covered in pine needles. “And what if we prayed?” said Claire; but before I had time to be surprised (Claire was an atheist, as were her parents), she burst out with a short dry laugh. She didn’t say anything more until we reached the place where smoke from the chimneys of Hamoir began to come into view. The grass beside the path was too wet for us to sit down, so we stood there, looking at the green carpet that rolled down toward the first buildings. I put my arm around Claire and said:

“When you want to come back, let me know.”

“Come back, ah,” she sighed. “If it were up to me, I’d stay right here till Judgment Day.”

—

C
LAIRE DECIDED NOT TO STAY
for dinner: at five in the afternoon the sky was already black, and the prospect of driving to Brussels on her own on the dark, slippery highway seemed exhausting. I walked her to the car and asked her to call us when she got home; I noticed something resembling gratitude in her voice; it was as if she wanted to tousle my hair, as one might do to a brother, but she didn’t. I watched her drive away until the red taillights had disappeared. In the living room, Monsieur Gibert had lit a fire; I sat in the upholstered armchair, beside the box of newspaper, and after a while Gibert appeared with an aperitif in hand. I remember that conversation very well, lasting as it did for the entire meal and full of old wartime anecdotes, in particular about the day Gibert rode his bicycle down to Spa and ran into a German soldier younger than he was, just a boy, maybe seventeen years old, and there was in that instant a tremendous understanding in which Gibert wouldn’t take his hands off the handlebars to grab his rifle if the soldier didn’t reach for his cartridge belt. “Who knows if I’d be alive right now,” Gibert said to me, “if one of the two of us hadn’t been afraid.”

The phone rang then and startled us: it was Claire, probably, Claire who was just getting home and maybe found Philippe not there, or found a note from Philippe lying about his whereabouts or whom he was with. I hoped it wouldn’t be, I caught myself hoping with all my might that Philippe was waiting for her when she got home. I stood up to answer when it became obvious that Gibert had no intention of speaking with anyone, not with his daughter, nor with his daughter’s husband, who now had a lover; but I must have taken too long, because when I picked up the receiver I didn’t hear any voice but just an even dial tone. And then I stood there, in front of the telephone, waiting for Claire to phone back, searching without success for something to say, a phrase that might serve as an umbrella or a hiding place for her after driving all the way back to Brussels alone. But when the phone rang—I don’t quite know how to say this—my hands didn’t move. I heard it, I heard the electronic bell and its echo from the house’s other phone, on the second floor, and the cord was brushing against the sleeves of my shirt; I even played with it, untangling it carefully, pushing it with my finger so it swayed like a pendulum. But I didn’t answer. I imagined it was a friend of the family calling; they wouldn’t be surprised that everyone in the house was asleep. I imagined someone dialing, getting the number wrong, from a pay phone, perhaps from a gas station. It might be a young man, well bundled up, just getting off work and phoning his girlfriend to ask her to come and meet him for a drink. I thought about this man; I invented a good life for him. And after a few seconds the phone stopped ringing, more or less the way a trout stops gasping on the shore.

T
HAT AFTERNOON
Michelle came hunting with me. Pierre, the tracker, arrived after lunch. He was wearing his old hat with the feather and a green jacket. His left hand held an invisible rifle. He was impatient, and the yellow laces swung on both sides of his waterproof boots. In the dining room, Michelle swept up the bread crumbs with a plastic-bristled brush, and her blouse slipped off one shoulder, revealing her bra strap.

“Michelle’s coming with us,” I told Pierre.

“But she’s never liked it.”

“Exactly,” she said. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Her tone was lighthearted, but Pierre could tell something was wrong. Out of courtesy, he insisted. Michelle began to refuse again, but I went over to her, with my back to Pierre, took her hands, and asked her to come with us. She bowed her head and her red hair tumbled over her shoulders. When she spoke, her breath palpitated in her unadorned throat.

“I want us to stay here. You have things to say to me.”

“I can say them later.”

“I have things to say to you.”

“We need to get some fresh air, love. We need to forget it all for a little while.”

“Forget it all,” Michelle repeated.

I told her I loved her. I told her we’d come back and keep talking. Look at the afternoon, I said. The sun’s not shining, but there’s lots of light, and I want you to come with us.

Michelle ended up accepting, and while we put on thick wool socks, sitting on the coach-house steps, she told me she was confident. For a moment, it seemed like she really believed it. She turned on the light in the little room and a moth flew outside. She got two pairs of boots out and looked for our jackets while I prepared the Browning and the ammunition. On the gravel courtyard, Pierre was playing with the dogs. He already had his rifle slung over his shoulder.

“It’s difficult,” said Michelle. “I suppose that’s normal. These things have to be difficult.”

“We’ll try,” I said.

“I know, I’m the one who wants to try. But I don’t know if it can work. Be honest: you don’t believe a word of what we talked about.”

It was true. I’d imagined the moment of separation so many times that I was now able to vary the details or the settings as if I were planning a film. Sometimes it would happen at night, after a fierce argument; other times, I’d leave before dawn, like a coward or a thief, aware I could no longer bear Michelle’s sadness or the burden of her tears. Now I was assailed by the certainty that it would all happen sooner than expected. At any moment we’d look each other in the eye and understand there was no longer any solution. That’s what I was expecting: a blow, painless and sharp. Then, as difficult as the moment might be, we’d each start over again on our own. And it would all, undoubtedly, be best for both of us.

—

T
HE PATH WAS COVERED
in fresh mud. I felt the same pleasure as always, the pleasure of setting out from an open space where the stone buildings of Modave were visible, and advancing bit by bit, without changing paths, into the oilseed fields, through those crops of tall stems and yellow flowers where I used to get lost as a boy. Going hunting in the afternoons was different. Mornings meant large groups of old hunters, unavoidable rituals, solemnity. In the afternoons, it wasn’t like that. One went out hunting to breathe the mountain air and to feel the silence and the solitude and the coolness in the trees. Pierre walked in front of us. The dogs ran several meters ahead, stopped to wait for us, then bounded ahead again. Michelle looked beautiful. Her hair changed hue against the corduroy collar of her jacket. The sky was a single cloud the color of smoke, smooth and uniform. Behind Michelle, almost at shoulder height, the stalks of the crop formed an even wall beside the path. A string of black ducks flew overhead, but too high.

“What did you bring?” asked Pierre.

I showed him the barrel of my rifle. The ducks were beyond our range.

“Doesn’t matter. It’s going to be a good day,” said Pierre. “If it’s like this here, imagine what we can find in the woods.”

Pierre was superstitious. He wore the same socks every time he went hunting, and believed the first moments of a day determined what the rest would hold. The dogs loved him. They trotted along at his side, not mine. I said so to Michelle, and she smiled.

For about ten minutes we walked in silence. The landscape around us changed, and after we’d passed the Morés’ place, we crossed the field toward the woods. Pierre split off from us.

“Where’s he going?” said Michelle.

“He’s going around the woods. He’ll go in from the other side, to scare the animals.”

“Toward us?”

“Toward us,” I said.

“I want us to talk,” said Michelle.

“Well, let’s talk now,” I said jokingly. “When we go in the woods, we’ll have to keep quiet.”

“I feel strange. I’m cold.”

“In the woods it’s not so cold, you’ll see. There’s no wind.”

“Are we going to break up?”

I didn’t answer. The furrows of damp earth required concentration: a hunter could break an ankle if he wasn’t careful where he stepped.

“It’s true it’d be better,” said Michelle. “It’s true we’re hurting each other. But I’d like to know what you think. I don’t know what you’re thinking. I’d like to hear what you have to say.”

Fortunately, we arrived at the woods at that moment, so I held a finger to my mouth to hush Michelle. I leaned close to her face, so close that her red hair tickled my lips, and spoke very softly. From here on in, total silence. Don’t speak, step carefully, breathe in whispers. A boar can hear us from many meters away. If there are deer, the snap of a twig can scare them off.

The tracks of an abandoned railway line were covered in moss that sparkled with frost and raindrops from a recent shower. A false floor of fallen leaves covered the grass, and the leaves were wet and soft and opaque and golden, and Michelle liked stepping on them. I held her hand and we began to walk between the rails. The oaks and beech trees filtered out the wind. The air was dense and humid, the light filtered through the bare branches. There in the woods there was no noise. The world was green and gray and brown, there were no shadows, and nothing was moving. I think Michelle was happy.

I pointed to the spot where we’d wait, the place where the hill started down toward an open field. From there, kneeling on the damp earth and feeling its coolness, we overlooked the place the prey would run across, frightened by Pierre from the other side of the woods. I loaded my rifle. It was something Michelle had never seen me do. I tugged a piece of bark off an oak tree and gave it to her to sniff. Michelle inhaled deeply and a bit of dirt stuck to her cheek. She didn’t feel it, because the cold air had numbed her skin, and I wiped it off with one finger in a movement that was very similar to a caress. I motioned to her to kneel down in front of me, so she could get a better view down the slope of the hill and the fallen tree trunks that had been caught up in the undergrowth. She liked the idea and crawled on her hands and knees without worrying about getting dirty. This, I didn’t know why, made me feel sad. Seeing her like that, moved by the shapes and colors that moved me, her eyes open wide like a little girl, made me regret what hadn’t yet happened. When had we failed at this? What words would which of us use to close off the possibilities? I thought back to the time when I’d fallen in love with Michelle. When I met her, she was a distracted and slightly brusque woman who was taking English courses at the University of Liège, but her only interest was in drawing letters to adorn the openings of books like
Le Morte d’Arthur
and
Lancelot du Lac
. This contradiction was emblematic of her way of going through life. On her T-shirts there was often a caricature whose outline, when it was cold, stood out from the pressure of her nipples. She used to ask me to pose for her, and she’d draw deformed figures in which my cheeks were like red peppers and my black hair, as in the Mandrake comic strips, appeared tinted with streaks of navy blue. At that time I loved her and everything was simple, clear, as evident as this uneasy reality, which would conclude with solitude, a necessary solitude but one requiring a sacrifice, a ghost sleeping between us like a small child. Realizing then that everything declines, that nothing lasts, made me think that living on my own would be less difficult. That’s how I was feeling, midway between sad and resigned, when we heard three shouts from Pierre. I looked at my watch. We’d been kneeling on the ground and the moss for half an hour.

Michelle turned and looked at me with her big eyes, asking me wordlessly what that meant.

“That he’s reached the end of the run,” I said out loud.

“The run?”

“He’s run out of woods, Michelle. And not a single animal came out.”

“So? We’re going now?”

“We’re going now.”

“What a shame. It’s so nice here, all so fresh.”

“We didn’t come to look at the landscape. We came to hunt,” I said. “And we haven’t even seen a rabbit.”

—

W
E FOUND
P
IERRE
sitting beside the path, playing with the dogs. Isis was biting the sleeve of his jacket and Pierre was letting her. Othello was lying in a puddle to cool off, and his fur looked like a vagabond’s blanket. Pierre stood up when he saw us coming. He told Michelle he was sorry, that not all days were like this, that it was a shame she’d been bored.

“But I wasn’t bored,” said Michelle. “Just the opposite.”

“Ah,” said Pierre. “Well, well. But next time will be better, I’m sure.”

“I was just fine,” said Michelle. “We had a nice time. I don’t know about you guys, but I was breathing and I felt alive.”

Michelle was walking with her shoulders raised, looking at the sky.

“I want a nice hot coffee,” she said. “Come back and have some
tarte au riz
, Pierre.”

She didn’t want us to talk anymore or, at least, she’d voluntarily forgotten. I was grateful. Michelle felt light. With a bit of luck, it might be contagious.

“A nice big piece, some good coffee, get the fire lit,” said Michelle. “What time is it? I can’t believe there’s still light.”

“It’s starting to get dark now,” I said.

“That doesn’t matter. There’ve been years when you can’t see a thing by this time.”

“I’m glad you came.”

“Me too, love. I feel different now.”

Suddenly, Pierre moved his arm in the air. He pointed at the planted field next to Michelle. I raised my rifle. Pierre snapped his fingers and the dogs understood.

Isis and Othello broke through the curtain of yellow flowers, barking. Then a pheasant took flight and I aimed and the sight traced its movements and the barrel followed its desperate flapping and when the shot rang out the pheasant’s left wing was broken in midair, paralyzed, and I knew I’d hit it, then the body turned sideways and fell slowly, like the silhouette of an airplane, into the yellow flowers. The dogs were barking, but I heard the thud of the body hitting the ground. It all happened in a couple of seconds.

“I’ll get it!” said Pierre, and ran toward where the body had fallen. “I’ll bring it!”

“Come on,” I said to Michelle.

I jumped over the shoulder of hardened earth between the path and the field and began to look for the pheasant. My boots got tangled in the stalks and sunk into the damp soil.

“Where are the dogs?”

“Isis!” shouted Pierre. “Isis!
Cherche!
”

“Do you see it? Pierre? Can you see it?”

I’d only wounded it. A pheasant is very fast on the ground. The flowers reached our waists, and it was impossible to find, unless we stumbled across it or it tired itself out, or its heart had stopped and it was already dead. I tried to look for traces of blood, but all I could see was the earth under my feet. It was like wading across a muddy river.

“He’s going to get away,” said Pierre. “Isis!
Cherche-le, merde!
”

The barrel of the gun was like a machete and I used it to move the stalks out of my way. The damp soil at my feet came suddenly into view and then disappeared again. But the pheasant was nowhere to be seen. We couldn’t hear it, the dogs hadn’t found it, and they leaped among the flowers and kept looking.

“Shit,” said Pierre. “Shit, we’ve lost him.”

“We haven’t lost him,” I said. “Othello! Find him!”

“Useless dogs. We’ve lost him.”

We stopped running. Pierre and I looked like bronze busts on a yellow carpet. We started to walk back to the path. Pierre called the dogs again.

Michelle was waiting for us.

“You didn’t come,” I said. “Looking for it is the best part.”

“I didn’t want to,” said Michelle.

“We lost him. It was a magnificent pheasant and we lost him.”

“You’re not hearing me. I didn’t want to.”

“What’s the matter?”

“The shot hurt my ears.”

I tried to stroke her hair. She dodged my hand.

“It hurts. I can feel the shot inside.”

Michelle touched her head. Her hand was pale in the cold air. The gunshot had upset her.

“Here inside.”

—

P
IERRE LIVED NEAR
the Rue des Trois Maisons, in Modave, so he turned off before we did on the way home. Michelle did not reiterate her invitation to drink coffee by the fireside. We took a few minutes to get away because the dogs refused to follow us when we called.

“I can’t wait to get back,” said Michelle.

“I don’t know if there’s any wood.”

“What?”

“We’ve had the fire burning all week. If there’s no wood, I can go get some.”

“Ah,” Michelle said. “No, it’s not that. I feel dirty. I want to get out of these dirty clothes. I can’t stand wearing dirty clothes.”

It was getting dark when we reached the house. Michelle went in, turned on the courtyard light, and left her boots on the step. I picked them up and carried them into the coach house. In the coatroom, I brushed them off on the doormat, cleaned the caked mud off the soles with an old screwdriver, unloaded the rifle, and looked on the shelf for the .20-caliber box, because in hunting season I accumulated bullets of all kinds in the pockets of my jackets, and sometimes had to go from pocket to pocket and get my ammunition back in order. Then Michelle came in.