The Woman With the Bouquet (2 page)

“Because if you do recover, it means that in any case it wasn’t worth it.”

My jaw dropped.

She examined me intensely then declared in a peremptory tone, “From a truly essential love, one does not recover.”

At which point, her hands went to the wheels of her chair, and in three seconds, she was back by the window, just as I had found her when I arrived.

Upstairs, I discovered the rooms were tastefully, elaborately decorated, with a feminine touch, and the old-fashioned aspect merely added to the charm.

After I had looked around, I chose the “blue titmice” bedroom, so named because of the fabric on the walls, a sort of faintly Japanese cotton canvas whose faded hues conveyed a subtle refinement. As I was settling in, I struggled to clear a spot amidst all the knickknacks to put my own things, but the décor, like a baroque sculpture made of shells, only made sense by virtue of its profusion.

Gerda recommended a few restaurants, entrusted me with a set of keys, and left to head off on her bicycle to cover the six miles from here to her home.

I decided to try the inn that was nearest the Villa Circé, and save any walking for the next day. I was already drunk on the sea air, and fell asleep the moment I stretched out under the heavy quilt that covered my bed.

In the morning, after the copious breakfast that Gerda brought me—mushrooms, eggs, potato croquettes—I was not surprised to find Emma Van A. in her place by the window.

As she had not heard me come down, and the daylight was pouring boldly into the room, I could see my landlady’s features, and observe her behavior, with greater ease.

Although she was not doing anything, she did not seem idle. Various emotions flickered across her gaze, thoughts tightened then relaxed her forehead, her lips closed around a thousand utterances that sought to escape. Overwhelmed by a rich inner life, Emma Van A. divided her time between the pages of a novel open on her lap and the flow of dreams that invaded her the moment she raised her head toward the bay. It was as if there were two separate ships sailing by: the ship of her thoughts and the ship of the book; from time to time, when she lowered her eyelids, their wakes mingled for a moment, wedding their waves, then her own ship continued on its way. She read in order not to find herself alone and adrift, she read not to fill a spiritual void but to accompany an all too powerful capacity to create. Literature like bloodletting, to avoid fever . . .

Emma Van A. must have been very beautiful, even as an old woman. However, a recent illness—a cerebral hemorrhage, according to Gerda—had relegated her from antique store to junk shop. Since that time her muscles had melted, her body was no longer slim but thin. She seemed so light that you could imagine her bones to be porous, to the point of breaking. Her joints were ravaged by arthritis, and this made her gestures difficult, yet she seemed not to notice, for she was burning with life. Her eyes were still remarkable: large, a faded blue, a blue where the clouds of the north passed over.

My greeting startled her from her meditation, and she gazed at me, distraught. At that moment, I would have qualified her as anguished. Then a smile came, a real smile, not a trace of hypocrisy, a ray of light in an ocean climate.

“Good morning. Did you sleep well?”

“So well that I can’t even remember. I’m going to explore Ostend.”

“How I envy you . . . enjoy your day, Monsieur.”

I strolled for several hours in Ostend, never staying for more than twenty minutes in the streets away from the shore, always returning to the promenade or the breakwater, like a seagull called by the air of the open sea.

The North Sea was the color of oysters, from the green-brown of the waves to the mother-of-pearl white of the foam; these alternating hues with their gem-like, distilled nuances were restful to me, after my brilliant memories of the Mediterranean with its pure blue and yellow sand, colors as vivid as in a child’s drawing. Now these dulled tones evoked the taste of the sea that comes with the delight of eating seafood in a brasserie, and the sea itself was saltier.

Although I had never been to Ostend before, I was rediscovering memories here, and I let childhood sensations lull my mind. My pants rolled up to my knees, I surrendered my feet to the sting of the sand, then the reward of the water. As in the old days, I went into the waves up to mid-calf, fearful of venturing any further. As in the old days, I felt how small I was, beneath an infinite sky, facing the infinite waves.

There were not many people around me. Old folk. Is it for this reason that old people appreciate the seashore? Because when they are swimming, they are ageless? Because they rediscover humility, the simple pleasures of childhood? Because, while buildings and businesses record the passage of time, the sand and the waves remain virginal, eternal, innocent? The seashore remains a secret garden over which time has no hold.

I bought some shrimps that I ate standing up, dipping them into a tub of mayonnaise, then I continued on my stroll.

When I got back to the Villa Circé, at around six o’clock, I was drunk on the wind and the sun, and my head was full of reveries.

Emma Van A. turned to me with a smile on seeing my joyfully inebriated state, and she asked with a knowing air, “Well, how was your exploration of Ostend?”

“Fascinating.”

“How far did you go?”

“To the port. Because, quite honestly, I could not settle here without sailing.”

“Oh, yes? You would only stay here on condition that you could leave again? A typical male remark.”

“You’re quite right. Men become sailors and women . . .”

“. . . the wives of sailors! And then their widows.”

“What is one waiting for, when one spends an entire life above a port at the ends of the earth?”

She was aware of how incongruous my statement was, and she gazed warmly at me, without answering, encouraging me to go on. And so I did: “Is one waiting for a departure?”

She shook her shoulders to rule out that hypothesis.

“Or a return, rather?”

Her large gray irises held my gaze. I thought I glimpsed a shadow of a pain, but her voice was firm, denying it: “One remembers, Monsieur, one remembers.”

Then she turned her face to the open sea. Again she was so absorbed that I was no longer there; she stared out into the distance the way I would contemplate the blank page, and in her dreaming she ventured out there resolutely.

What was she remembering? Nothing under this roof spoke of her past, everything belonged to previous generations—books, furniture, paintings. It was as if she had come here like a magpie with a stolen treasure, and she had put it down, and had only bothered to replace the curtains and the wallpaper.

Upstairs, I asked her niece, “Gerda, your aunt has told me that she spends her days remembering the past. In your opinion, what is she remembering?”

“I have no idea. She didn’t work. She was an old maid.”

“Really?”

“Yep, for sure. We never saw no men around Aunt Emma, poor thing. Ever. The family knows that. Know what, as soon as you say gentleman or marriage, she snaps shut like a clam.”

“A broken engagement? A fiancé who died in the war? Some disappointment she thinks of as her tragedy, and that she’s still nostalgic about?”

“Not even! Back in the days when there were more of us in the family, uncles and aunts tried to introduce suitable suitors. Oh yes. Very acceptable fiancés. One fiasco after the other, Monsieur, can you believe it?”

“It’s odd . . .”

“To stay on her own? Yes indeed! I know I couldn’t . . . I may not have married the most handsome man round these parts, but at least he’s there, he gave me children. A life like the one my aunt has had? I’d rather commit suicide right away.”

“And yet she doesn’t seem unhappy.”

“You got to give her credit: she doesn’t complain. Even now, when her strength is leaving her, and her savings have melted like butter, she doesn’t complain, does she now! No, she turns to the window, she smiles, she dreams. Basically, it’s not much of a life she’s lived, but she’s had her dreams . . .”

Gerda was right. Emma lived elsewhere, not among us. Wasn’t there something about the way she carried her head, her oblique face on her long slender neck that made it tilt to one side, that gave the impression her dreams weighed too heavily with her?

After that discussion, I secretly began to call her the dreamer . . . the dreamer from Ostend.

The next morning, she heard me come down and she pushed her wheelchair over to me.

“Would you like to join me for coffee?”

“With pleasure.”

“Gerda! Would you bring us two cups, please.”

For my benefit, she whispered: “Her coffee is like dishwater, so weak it wouldn’t arouse a newborn baby.”

Gerda proudly brought us two steaming cups, as if our desire to chat over her brew paid homage to her culinary talents.

“Madame Van A., I have been quite upset by what you suggested the first evening.”

“What was that?”

“I have recovered quickly from the affair that drove me away from Paris: so I did not lose a great deal by putting an end to it. If you remember, you had asserted that one can only get over something if it is not important; on the other hand, one never recovers from an important love.”

“I once saw lightning strike a tree. I felt very close to the tree. There is a moment when one burns, one burns up, as it were, it’s intense, marvelous. Afterwards, all that is left is ash.”

She turned to the sea.

“And no one has ever seen a tree struck by lightning, even if it survives, turn back into an entire tree.”

I had the sudden impression that this woman in her wheelchair was that tree, rooted to the earth . . .

“I get the feeling you are talking to me about yourself,” I said gently.

She shuddered. An abrupt anxiety, akin to panic, caused her hands to shake, and her breath came more rapidly. To regain her composure, she picked up her cup, drank from it, scorched her lips, and fussed that it was too hot.

I acted as if I believed her little charade, and I cooled her coffee for her by adding some water.

Once she had recovered, I went ahead all the same: “I want you to know I’m not asking anything of you, Madame Van A.; I respect your privacy, I won’t try to invade it in any way.”

She swallowed and stared at me as if to test my sincerity; I withstood her scrutiny. Convinced, she eventually cocked her head and murmured in a changed tone of voice, “Thank you.”

The time had come for me to give her one of my books—I had bought it the day before, and now I took it from my rear pocket.

“Here you are, I’ve brought you the novel I find the most accomplished. It would make me very happy if you would read it at some point and share your thoughts with me.”

She stopped me, as if stunned.

“Me? But . . . that’s impossible.”

She lifted her her hands to her heart.

“You understand, I’ve only read the classics. I don’t read . . .”

“New books?”

“That’s it, recent publications. I am waiting.”

“What are you waiting for?”

“For the author’s reputation to be confirmed, for his work to be considered worthy of belonging in a real library, for—”

“For him to die, is that it?”

It came out in spite of myself. I found Emma Van A.’s bad grace with regard to my gift revolting.

“Well then, say it: the best authors are the dead ones! I assure you, it will happen to me, too. One day, I will be consecrated by my ultimate demise and perhaps the next morning you will read me!”

Why such resentment? What difference did it make whether this old maid admired me or not? Why did I feel the need for her to be interested in me?

She sat up straight in her chair, trying to raise herself as high as she could, and although she was lower than me, she looked me up and down: “Monsieur, given my age, and my repeated strokes, do not be presumptuous: in all likelihood I shall leave this earth before you do, and soon. And my disappearance will confer no talent upon me. No more than yours will on you, for that matter.”

Her wheelchair spun around; she wove her way among the furniture in the library.

“It is sad to say but we have to accept it: we shall not meet.”

She stopped the wheels by the picture window that looked out on the waves.

“It sometimes happens that two people who were meant to set each other ablaze do not experience the great passion for which they were destined because one is too young, and the other too old.”

And she added, her voice broken, “It is a great pity, for I should have liked to read you . . .”

She was sincerely remorseful. Honestly, this woman turned my thoughts inside out. I went up to her.

“Madame Van A., it was grotesque of me to get carried away like that, silly to bring this present, and hateful to want to impose it on you. Forgive me.”

She turned to me and I saw tears in her eyes, usually so dry.

“I would like to devour your book but I cannot.”

“Why not?”

“What if I do not like it?”

Just the thought of it made her shudder with horror. There was something moving about such extreme behavior. I smiled to her. She noticed and returned my smile.

“It would be dreadful: you are such a good person.”

“If I were a bad writer, would you no longer think me a good person?”

“No, you would become ridiculous. And as I have such a high opinion of literature, I could not bear for you to be mediocre.”

Integrity, such integrity, too much integrity: she vibrated with sincerity.

I wanted to laugh. Why such anguish over a few pages? Our predicament suddenly aroused a bemused tenderness.

“Let’s not get angry, Madame Van A. I will take back my novel, and we’ll talk about something else.”

“Even that is not possible.”

“What is not possible?”

“To speak. I cannot tell you whatever I want.”

“What’s to stop you?”

She prevaricated, looked for help all around her, scanning the shelves to try to find support, almost found an answer, stopped, and then said, exhausted, “My own self.”