Invisible Love (6 page)

Geneviève was not crying. She sat as pale and stiff as a marble statue, staring into the distance, above people's heads. It was as if everything had died in her. She showed no emotion, looked nobody in the face, and replied to the condolences mechanically, as if she had sent an automaton in her place.

At the end of the row, next to the harmonium, Eddy sat huddled in his wheelchair. His face was completely expressionless. Was he grief-stricken, or pleased that this false son who wasn't even his had finally gone? His true thoughts lay hidden within his crippled body.

Jean and Laurent managed to maintain their dignity during the service, but broke down when the coffin was lifted. To think that David, their David, young, handsome David, was lying lifeless in the wooden box being carried through the church by his friends . . . Pushing back their chairs, they rushed out, reaching the front steps before the cortège, ran to their car and drove home, where they took refuge, closing the shutters to give free rein to their despair.

 

*

 

The two men had changed.

Up until now fate had spared them, but after the scandal of David's death they relaxed their vigilance. They did nothing to hold back the wrinkles, the white hair, the sadness. They aged overnight.

Their lives had become meaningless.

Reaching the age of sixty, Laurent, having lost interest in his profession, took early retirement.

As often happens, this sudden cessation of activity proved fatal. He complained of discomfort, then of shooting pains. Finally, a medical examination revealed that he had multiple sclerosis, a disease whose worst characteristic is that it can develop in various unpredictable ways. Laurent knew he was doomed, but did not know if he had one year or twenty left to live.

At the beginning of his martyrdom, he would join Jean in the shop, and make an effort to help him. But eventually the pain made it impossible for him to move. First he was given crutches. Then a wheelchair was ordered for him.

When the chair was delivered to Avenue Lepoutre, Laurent exclaimed venomously, “Well, Jean, you once wondered how you would react if your love was put to the test, now you're going to find out.”

Jean went to Laurent and placed a finger on his mouth. “It's a test for you, not for me. I'm not forcing myself to take care of you, I'm not making any sacrifices, I love you.”

Laurent, unable to bear being diminished like that or the way other people looked at him, became aggressive, picked quarrels with the friends who visited him, drove everyone away then, like a petulant child, complained of being alone. Biting, wounding, killing with words was the last power he had left, the last proof of his virility. The only thing in him that was getting any stronger was his anger.

Jean had the idea of buying a house in Provence. That would allow them to get away, to enjoy the sun, the countryside . . . even find some peace, perhaps? He purchased an eighteenth-century residence in gilded stone, installed a manager in his shop in Brussels, and moved to France with Laurent.

When Laurent died, one Christmas Eve, Jean's first thought was to kill himself. Then, standing by the glittering tree, around which lay gifts that would never be opened, he thought of the people who would have to be informed, the funeral arrangements that would have to be made, all their affairs that needed settling . . . It would be cowardly to just slip away and leave strangers to deal with such thankless tasks! Out of respect for these strangers, he put off his suicide.

He returned to Brussels with Laurent's body, purchased two lots in the cemetery at Ixelles, and arranged a simple ceremony.

At the lawyer's office, the old fellow insisted on reading a document Jean had hoped he would never have to hear: Laurent's will. As he already knew, Laurent had left everything to him. The lawyer took the opportunity of his visit to advise him to make a new will of his own. The existing one was out of date, given that the two people it mentioned—Laurent and David—were both dead.

Jean thought about this. These last few years, during which he had hidden the gravity of Laurent's condition, had isolated him from his friends and colleagues, his former customers, his distant relatives. Nobody had been there to share his ordeal. Who had been generous to him? Who should he be generous to?

He had several ideas, all possible, none tempting. Finally, exhausted, he was about to ask the lawyer to suggest some charities when an image came back to him: the image of Geneviève leaving the hospital, pushing her paralyzed Eddy in his wheelchair. She knew what he had been through! She had been through it herself! Hadn't she devoted her time to a disabled man, hadn't she lost loved ones—her Giuseppe who had returned to a self-imposed exile in Italy, and above all her David?
Her
David?
Their
David . . . Laurent had loved him so much . . .

He burst out laughing.

The lawyer thought he was feeling dizzy.

“Are you all right, Monsieur Daemens?”

“Perfectly all right.”

Since, in Laurent's eyes, David had been Jean's child symbolically, why shouldn't Jean regard Geneviève as the mother of his son?

“There's a woman I was more or less married to once. I'd like to leave everything to her.”

And so Jean dictated the will that transformed Geneviève Grenier, maiden name Piastre, who had married in Sainte-Gudule Cathedral one April 13, into his sole heir.

 

*

 

After that, he decided to let himself die.

Alas, his good health kept him alive. There was nothing he could do about it. Sadness, boredom and revulsion were enough to ruin his life, not to end it. Idly reading classic novels, he envied the old days when people died of sorrow. Madame de Clèves languished away, so did Balzac's heroines . . . Not him. But then they were women. Did they suffer more than men? Was it his gender that stopped him from dying of emotion?

After five aimless years, he at last took to his bed with a bad case of flu. Determined as well as meticulous, he made sure he did not call the doctor until it was too late.

When he sensed that his time was almost up, he closed his eyes and thought about Laurent. Deep inside him, something still remained of the Catholic faith of his childhood, and he hoped that what he had once been taught was true: he would soon be reunited with the man he loved . . .

He passed away with a confident smile on his lips.

 

 

* * *

 

 

From the balcony of her apartment, Geneviève gazed down at the lawns and pink sandy paths of the elegant avenue where the globular street lamps stood out against the chestnut trees. In their linen suits, residents were walking their dogs, rare pedigree breeds that paraded nonchalantly, as stylish as their masters. Geneviève had just moved to 22 Avenue Lepoutre. Was “moved” the right word, when this apartment contained ten times more furniture than the van had brought from the Marolles?

Her children would be here soon, and she still hadn't solved the mystery of her benefactor.

In his houses, Jean had burned the documents, letters and photograph albums that might have told her something about his life. She hadn't been able to learn much through gossip either, because the building no longer had a concierge, and a firm of interchangeable Turkish workers had taken care of maintenance for the past ten years. Moreover, the former neighbors had moved, and the new ones had caught mere glimpses of a solitary old man. The few clues she had gleaned added up to a confused and discouraging story. According to some, Jean was a misanthrope, according to others he had carried on a mysterious affair with a married woman, while others still had an even more absurd version: that he'd had a homosexual relationship with the man whose grave she had seen next to his. People can be so wicked . . . She couldn't imagine a virile man like the one she had seen in that photograph in the arms of a boy . . .

The doorbell rang. Her children were arriving.

She was going to have to come up with an explanation.

Minnie was the first. No sooner had she given her mother a hug than she began walking admiringly around the apartment. Five minutes later, Johnny and Claudia arrived. They at least went to the trouble of having an innocuous conversation with her to start, but then also launched into an exploration of the premises.

“I've made tea and had a cake delivered,” Geneviève announced.

At the words “had a cake delivered,” she sensed a tension in the air, and realized that she had started to sound like a rich woman.

Once seated around the table, they looked at her, an identical question in their eyes.

“Yes, I won't hide it from you, my dears, I was left a lot.”

And as her children listened in amazement, she listed the possessions and real estate that she now owned. It was her way of demonstrating her good faith, of showing them that she was holding nothing back. In reality, she was preparing the ground for what was to come.

Impressed, they fidgeted impatiently in their chairs.

Then she cut the raspberry gateau, a local specialty, and served the tea. She hoped this would provide a few moments' respite, but it was not to be.

“But why?” Minnie cried.

“Why what?” said Geneviève with difficulty.

“Why did the man leave you all this?”

She studied the three faces in front of her. From their expressions, she could guess the answer they already carried within them. Of course, like everyone with whom she had brought up the subject, they assumed she had been Jean Daemens's mistress, the only theory anyone found credible. She was going to have to fight, to justify herself, to convince them to accept something inconceivable, a pure mystery.

Pushing her cup away, she sat back in her high-backed chair.

“I'm not going to lie to you.”

They were staring at her, openmouthed, willing her to say the words.

Without understanding what was happening inside her, she heard herself say, “Jean Daemens was my lover. Yes, Jean Daemens was the love of my life.”

Shocked, she said to herself, “Forgive me, Giuseppe.”

They were waiting, so she continued, “We loved each other very much. I was going to tell you twenty-five years ago, I was going to introduce him to you and announce that Eddy and I were separating, and then . . . your father became sick. I didn't have the heart to leave, I made up my mind to take care of him . . .”

Much to her own surprise, her voice was shaking. Telling this story moved her. Was it because there were so many truths hidden beneath the lies?

Minnie put her hand indulgently on her mother's and asked in a calm but sad voice, “Mom, why didn't you tell us this after Dad died?”

“Jean didn't want it.”

“Why?”

“It was very hard for him.”

“Because he'd lost you?”

“It was more than that.”

Geneviève's ears were burning: she knew what she was about to say and could hardly believe it. Her lips stammered the words, “Jean was your brother David's father. He never got over his death.”

Then she was choked with sobs and was unable to continue. What was the point, anyway?

Her children rushed to embrace her, to kiss her, to reassure her. She did not usually reveal her feelings like this, and they were not only stunned by their mother's secret, but overcome by the depth of her emotion.

Geneviève Grenier, dry-eyed Geneviève, who hadn't shed a tear since David's death, Geneviève Grenier, maiden name Piastre, who had married Eddy Grenier fifty-five years earlier, on the afternoon of April 13 in Sainte-Gudule Cathedral, let herself go, protected by her own deception. She wept at last for her wasted life, her lost love, and the son that death had taken from her.

In memory of Emmanuel Lévinas

 

 

 

 

F
or several decades, Samuel Heymann had been the doctor of this village in the Hainaut, much appreciated as a practitioner in spite of his austere demeanor. At the age of seventy, he had unscrewed the brass plaque on his gate and informed the villagers that he would no longer be treating them. In spite of their protests, Samuel Heymann had refused to change his mind: he was retiring, and his neighbors would now have to travel three miles to Mettet, where a competent, newly trained young colleague had just settled. For half a century, nobody had had any complaints about Dr. Heymann, but nobody really knew him.

When I settled in the village, all I was able to find out about him was that after his wife's death, he had raised his daughter by himself, and that he had always lived with the same dog.

“The same one?” I asked in some astonishment.

“Yes,
monsieur
, the same,” replied the owner of the Pétrelle, the only café, which was situated opposite the church. “A Beauceron.”

Not knowing if he was pulling my leg, I cautiously said, “A Beauceron usually lives . . . ten or twelve years.”

“Dr. Heymann has owned a Beauceron called Argos for more than forty years. That's how old I am, and I can confirm that I've always seen them together. If you don't believe me, ask the old-timers.”

He pointed to four craggy-faced old men, slim beneath their vast tartan shirts, playing cards beside the TV set.

When he saw my astonished expression, he burst out laughing. “I'm joking, monsieur. What I meant was that Dr. Heymann has stayed loyal to the same breed. Every time one of his Beaucerons dies, he buys a new one and calls it Argos. At least he can be sure he won't get the name wrong when he yells at it.”

“How lazy can you be?!” I exclaimed, upset at having been taken for an idiot.

“Lazy?” he grunted, wiping the zinc counter with his cloth. “Hardly the word I'd use to describe Dr. Heymann.”

In the months that followed, I was able to ascertain how right he was. The doctor was anything but lazy! In fact, the man never relaxed: at the age of eighty, he still walked his dog several hours a day, cut his own wood, ran a number of associations, and maintained the vast garden of his ivy-covered blue-stone manor house. Beyond this rather grand building, the houses stopped and there were just fields and meadows and groves, stretching all the way to the distant forest of Tournibus, a dark, green line on the horizon. This frontier location, on the borderline between the village and the woods, suited Samuel Heymann, a man who moved in two worlds, the human world and the animal world, chatting with his fellow villagers then setting off in the company of his dog for long walks together.