Augustino and the Choir of Destruction (4 page)

to make the same journey across, whatever lies in the past for either of us, we could say we weren't meant to be the motherly sort, I had several children, and you a fruitful career instead and so many lovers and adventures, and finally Jean-Mathieu who gave you the gift of charming companionship, and the art with which you froze time through the play of light on so many faces of writers and poets, and in each photograph recreated a place, a time or an elite spirit fixed, immortal it would seem, like the English poet resembling a crucified Christ emerging from a trellis, how did you capture that tortured pose, and the artist's studio, the office, were not for you, better to go off and travel, intrigued always by the complexity of your subjects, adventurer and portrait-painter, with only the arm of Jean-Mathieu to lean on, around the world you went, while I, often with children to look after, would remain in one place, then suddenly you turn humbly to us and ask where is it, my little cloth bag, how time has passed, and if you were with us tonight, Caroline, I would hold you with joy, for who knows what is going to become of you or me, who can really tell, Mère thought, pretence and lies are the thorny gifts that parents leave to their children, Daniel thought, Vincent would be spending the summer at camp, he'd have everything he could need up there in the mountains, riding, biking, footpaths through the woods, but why so far away from you Papa and Mama and Marie-Sylvie and the beaches and Samuel's boat
Southern Light
, why Papa, they have rooms and dormitories there, and in winter you can travel by dog-sled, catch whitefish, you'll have tasty meals, you'll see, and you'll be back here before the fall, you need to learn to breathe better, Vincent, and there's only the mountain, why not tell the truth, Papa, your inn or your castle is for sick kids, but Vincent, ever docile, said nothing and let his father take him there to woods in Vermont, Daniel thought with shame he had not been truthful, sure they would camp out in tents, in cottages and pavilions and dormitories, they would ride and fish and bike, naturally, two lakes, the view of the turrets and the river, but what wasn't said was that not one of these young campers could exhale properly, at night one could hear the whistling noises from their narrow chests raised up under the sheets by convulsions, the spasms, the contractions, pneumonia or bronchial asthma would go from one child to another, without ever alleviating the nightime breathing difficulties, come, it's time to sleep, they would say at the window as they watched the mist rise over the fir-trees, goodness how could their blood not manage to regenerate itself in such pure air, and through the rooms and dormitories the whistling noises Daniel could not bear to hear, but put his son in the care of specialists in hope of a cure, never would Vincent dare to complain, his father felt the tensing, the spasms, the father who forced these distant visits on him, for all at once, Vincent was the bird flying around, trapped in a prison of cables in Madrid, a pair of bees, flies or horse-flies, Daniel had seen them so often, their eggs frozen in their first winter, Daniel had lied to Vincent once again, he thought, never telling him what had to be said, and what Chuan and Mère were saying about Caroline, that, yes, if she's not here with us tonight, it's because someone won't let her out, because she must be kept inside that residence, what residence Mère called out to Chuan as she disappeared, there was so much for her to do with the friends and husband and son who were looking for her, and Mère stubbornly went on, what sort of residence, a residence for women artists of her ability and social class, idle chatter and slander, Mère thought, none of it could be true, nasty gossip, leave me alone, that was what Marie Curie insisted on, a bit of peace, and said Caroline, I've got my hat and gloves, I want to go out, they've invited me to dinner, but a voice came back, no Ma'am, you're not going out tonight, it's her, I know it, my black governess, Caroline thought, she's got back into this house I used to live in with my mother when I was small, though that was in Louisiana, not here in New England, Charly my chauffeur is waiting for me in the car, or rather the car I gave her, and all the gifts I have given people, all those presents are lost to me now, Caroline thought, for she felt she could no longer run her own life as she used to, what was she doing in a house she was told she could not leave, but a voice — she recognized it from the warm, melodious timbre as Harriet the black governess' — kept saying to her, Ma'am, if we pull up your armchair, you can see the bay and hear chickadees singing in the pine trees, but what's the point if I can't go out and play with my cousin or take my pony out past the dunes, said Caroline, Beauty he was called, do you remember, Harriet, my father and grandfather were wonderful sailors, and we always lived near the sea, I'm sure that's why I'm here by the ocean now, dear, exactly where are we, can you tell me, the walls weren't this high before, and I could play with my cousin, although my upbringing was always too rigorous, in the morning when my mother welcomed her lovers, everything was forbidden me, that's when my cousin and I used to wander off with the pony among the dunes, Beauty, that's what our pony was called, Caroline knew she was repeating the same long sentence whose words eventually faded towards the end, a vague, nebulous sentence, occasionally lit by memories and vivid, elusive images, but it had to be enunciated right to the end, this sentence hammering the brain and the heart, Charly, where is Charly, I really don't like those young people she hangs around with, Madam, please do not use that name, the voice said, my name is not Harriet, I am Miss Désirée, I do remember you, why are you always contradicting me, Caroline said, irritated all of a sudden, I knew you long ago, remember Mississippi, my photographs of the South are famous, remember that mother with two children, that was you, Harriet, erect and so proud with your children, almost a haughty expression, and that's how I photographed you, a poor but majestic woman standing on that veranda with rotted boards, and that other photograph, who could forget that, our shame it was, a restaurant façade with words written in wood and stone: whites only here, reserved for whites, a black passer-by wearing a cap is reading this, remember Harriet, I took that photo myself, how strangely numb I felt, as though I were making a film, photographing without feeling anything, sometimes these poor people, with broken bottles placed in the spindly branches of trees to ward off evil spirits, spelled out on the roofs of their huts, where will you spend eternity, I didn't know we were those evil spirits, it was a way of calling up the dead to help them, strange isn't it, where will you spend eternity like a preacher's threatening finger, the sky seemed close, the plaintive wind whipping into the glass bottles like gunshots, it seemed, how sharp it sounded, I remember, far better to feel nothing, believe me, Harriet, especially when I took pictures of the gazelle-hunt in the desert from my first husband's convertible, that was certainly sobering, killing them while the car tore through whirlwinds of sand, it's always been wiser to numb oneself, we weren't alone in this grotesque appetite for hunting, I remember the cruel falconers in the desert with their trained birds, eagles tracking the buzzards or perhaps some sand-coloured bird behind the odd bush, unless the eagles and falcons cut its throat first, the falconers killed it amid strident cries, and I still hear their shrillness like the sound of bullets, go falcons, kill, kill, and we ate the bird, which tasted like pheasant, wild turkey, falconers who could not eat the meat themselves because it was on offering to Allah the merciful, the compassionate, I heard them praying and offering the slit throat of their prey to the falcons and eagles they prized so highly and raised on the taste of blood, possibly they would one day cut our throats as well, and we expecting none of this, once more by Mère's side in her red dress with ruffles, Chuan was not reassuring, if Caroline has to be confined to the house, she said, you can well imagine, my dear, that it for her own good, so she can detox, what are you talking about, Mère replied, well, you have guessed that our dear friend has been addicted to morphine more and more each day, the stillest waters run deepest, you know, the more quiet and respectable one seems outwardly . . . Chuan's attention swiftly turned to her husband who was speaking very loudly, and she reddened with distress, oh my poor husband is making his speech, I warned him to steer away from certain topics, to lighten up, still Olivier's voice seem to redouble in volume, we are toys in the hands of religious hypocrites who want to tell us what to do, he was saying, beware of those who cling to a land of redemption and oppress us with their prophecies and biblical presages, they build in the desert where a bloodbath is sure to follow, beware these messianic madmen, we are no longer ruled by reason, God, why doesn't he shut up, Chuan said, wait, this arrow will come back at us, Olivier continued to those who were still listening scattered around the pool, only Mélanie seemed to be listening with an air of utter gravity, she knew the retired senator's oratory fire when addressing a crowd, and wasn't there some truth to it when he said we are no longer guided by reason, and what might that mean for the future of her children, she wondered, beside herself at the thought it might be true, were we nothing more than playthings in the hands of madmen, was this our ludicrous fate, was that it for us, to be falcons so falconers could revel in our decay, Caroline thought, imperiously she had demanded that her armchair be moved near the window with the angora cat she never let go of in her lap, the cat Charly had given her, my Charly, one day at a bullfight I filmed in detail at Lima the delirious, enthusiastic shouts of the bloodthirsty spectators burned on my temples, women, men, the killing of the bulls, and this is us . . . as corruptible as the animal hanging on to life amid their cries and their joy, and that image, fixed forever, of three horses in harness and ten men, workers recruited at the last minute, dragging the defeated bull from his dusty arena with ropes, as they will remove me one day, head dragging on the ground, last-minute hires with their lifting gear, and I won't want to go, the laughter and shouting were contagious, the dance of the bull during the rites, always the same ending, I lingered over that image of the bull being led to burial, lying on his side in the dust, feet still raised, their sharp cries, oh I remember, where are my hat and gloves, Harriet, I want to go out and not hear those shouts any more, and that summer trip to Italy in 1946, I think, who was it who went with me, was it Jean, what was his name . . . what did he look like, a short while ago, when I wanted to see him, they told me Italy was the last place he went, he was so close to me, wasn't he, so why has he broken things off, why is he withdrawing, no letter, no nothing, that interference when I phoned him, no connection, no voice, the cries of Charly who really didn't like him, who was he, when his body had been reduced to ashes, I wanted to keep them near me, but they made me give them up, it was at the Palazzo Vecchio, and I had bought a new camera, you should have seen the flash set-up, the pictures, my fevered longing to capture the energy of those shadows, statues, sculptures, bronze horses and eroded clock-towers, Palazzio Vecchio, just him and me alone, the last place he travelled to, they said, I don't remember much of him, but they tell me I was there on no one's Island, The-Island-Nobody-Owns, that's not true though, my hat and gloves, they say they saw me, and dragged him away from me, but that's not true, that word
him
weighed on Caroline's spirit and was just a pronoun referring to a blank face or a sudden absence of any face, but still I knew him well, she repeated to herself, the lightweight scarves he wore, his citronella colognes,
him
, what wavering, what dismay at not knowing who
he
was, didn't we argue in the Paris museum about the pre-Raphaelites, that assertive male tone of voice when
he
insisted there were no precursors to Raphael, and my cheeks were purple with anger, I had indeed succeeded in capturing the energy, the firm shadow of Michaelangelo's sculpture, and there
he
was next to me, saying, put down that camera dear friend, and let's talk a bit, look how full the shadow in that statue is, he was fidgeting impatiently next to me, the walk has put me out of shape, he said, no memory-lapse there,
he
, a hole, an air-pocket, a perforation in the heart, I was holding the little casket, they snatched it away from me, a perforation, open the box where the ashes lie, never mind, I'll forget him, something Adrien whispered in my ear, Caroline, the boat's waiting, Caroline, we'll all slide into that perilous sea, a word, a remark about
him
, I know how much you've loved him, they forcibly took the box from my hands,
he
was the one who would slip into the ocean waters, unfeeling
he
, slipping from my hands by accident, and there was nothing I could do, in the summer of 1946, I had left a tiresome husband for
him
, eyes scarcely find a place in a forehead too vast, how wearisome when everything was so standard and precise, the proportions of shadow in the sculpture, the stimulation of my eye behind the lens, then suddenly this void surrounding a head, was it a beautiful one, off-centre, and here it was bursting out of its frame, fruitless, uprooted, the body and head of
him
, even his name no longer within my grasp, am I to blame, he had not been accessible for quite some time, perforated brain cells and heart, better to picture Italian Renaissance architecture instead and forget
him
, think about him no more, for there is no horizon in the gap of a viewfinder, schools and colleagues will study my photographs, I had no assistant to help me to the Tower of Giotto, they had been thinking of all those Renaissance engineers, then once up there, it was as though the light obscured my vision, veiled it, just as now I am losing the ability to register the light from