The Confidant Read online

  Oddly enough, Annie replied with a confession.

  ‘I must tell you, Louis, that you have always been the first. The first to kiss me, the first to caress my cheek, my breasts, the first who knew that there were days when I wore nothing under my skirt.’

  Annie reminded me of all those first times; she remembered everything better than I did.

  ‘Why did you never tell me this?’

  She looked up at me.

  ‘What’s the point in telling a man that he was the first? Do you tell the twelfth man that he was the twelfth? Or the last that he was the last?’

  I did not know what to say.

  Did she hope, by pouring out all her memories, that I would forgive her for everything that never happened between us? The truth is, she began to change when she first started spending time with that Madame M.

  Annie stood up abruptly, as if suddenly embarrassed to be near me. She offered me a chicory coffee, apologising that, because of the rationing, she no longer had any real coffee, or any sugar. She was nervous, opening all the cupboard doors as if she didn’t really know what she was doing. Her apartment was very small. I watched her bare feet moving about her few square metres of living space. Her kitchen—a sink and a hot plate—was next to her bed, fortunately, for had she so much as left the room I might have doubted her very presence. I hadn’t seen her for three years. For three years I’d had no news of her at all. At no time did I suspect she might be living in Paris like me. I looked at her fingernails, her peeling red varnish; in the village she never used to wear any. Seeing her again like this: it seemed too good to be true. Outside it was pitch black. I was suddenly overwhelmed by desire for her. She handed me a steaming hot cup.

  ‘So, do you remember Monsieur and Madame M.?’

  How could she ask me such a thing?

  I rang the post office first thing next morning. The postmark indicated that the three letters had been mailed from the fifteenth arrondissement. Perhaps there was a number in the postmark that I had missed and that would indicate precisely which letter box had been used. I could go and put up a poster asking this Louis fellow to contact me.

  But their reply was unequivocal: there was no way to know. I couldn’t exactly go putting posters on every letter box in the fifteenth arrondissement. I had plenty of other things to do, never mind the number of weirdos who would call me for all sorts of reasons, but never about the letters.

  The letters had to mean something to someone, and somewhere in Paris there must have been another Camille Werner who was expecting them. She was the one I had to find. Sure at last that I had hit on the solution, I embarked on a search for all the people with the same surname. Shit! I would never have thought there could be so many Werners in Paris. I really have to stop swearing like this all the time, Pierre is right: it’s not very feminine, it’s hardly the way to make Nicolas come back to you. Shut up, Pierre. Don’t talk to me about him. I don’t go talking about the girls you sleep with, do I?

  I called every Werner in the telephone directory to ask them 1) whether there was anyone by the name of Camille in their family, 2) did they by chance know anyone by the name of Annie? I met with a few polite, reserved ‘no’s. But some of the other reactions were quite surprising. There was one woman who hung up on me, terrified to hear an unfamiliar voice. There was one who didn’t know any Annies, but she knew an Anna, was I sure I wasn’t looking for an Anna? And then there was one who had scarcely had time to pick up the phone before her husband started shouting at her to hang up, telling her it was robbers, that’s what they always do in the holidays, to find out whether anyone was at home.

  But no sign anywhere of another Camille Werner.

  Tough luck, Louis. He would have to go on writing to me for no good reason.

  By Tuesday a new envelope was waiting for me, just as thick, but all alone now in my letter box. The same stationery, a very smooth parchment; the same handwriting—a distinctive capital ‘R’, the same size as a lowercase letter, slipping effortlessly into the heart of a word—and the same smoky scent, a perfume that reminded me of something or someone, but I couldn’t figure out who or what.

  Monsieur and Madame M. were a very wealthy young couple. Both sets of their parents had flawlessly fulfilled their duty as over-zealous forebears by dying unusually young and unusually rich. Their last wills and testaments were dripping with real estate, but the M. couple chose to settle in L’Escalier, to our great misfortune.

  L’Escalier was the name given to a fine estate in the middle of our little village, as out of place as a swan among starlings. Children thought of it as a haunted manor house; young people as a romantic château; and those who had reached an age where one’s sole entertainment was the misfortune of others viewed it as a potential source of iniquitous family disputes. Consequently, L’Escalier belonged more to the collective unconscious than to any ordinary owner. When the M. couple moved in, it was like a violation, and everyone felt dispossessed by the intrusion of these strangers. Everyone except Annie, who was looking forward to an opportunity for new paintings. She had already painted the estate from every angle the high stone wall would allow and, although the wall had crumbled here and there, it nevertheless did continue, like some old guard dog, to dissuade any intruders.

  One morning two servants—a man and a woman—arrived with a load of baggage and furniture. Luxury items were part of the journey; this was a major move. The trunks were overflowing with carpets, paintings, chandeliers and all sorts of artefacts.

  ‘They’re cleaning the house from top to bottom, they’ve piled everything in the courtyard, come and see, it will make a nice painting.’

  I had followed Annie to the elm tree where she was in the habit of sitting. She liked to show me her canvases, to see what I thought of them. Her painting was rather good. She had captured perfectly every trace of the sudden agitation at the house—the shutters flung open, the dust blowing out of the windows, the grounds as they were cleared and began to look like proper grounds again. Annie was quite pleased, except for her portrayal of the man.

  ‘I’ve made a mess of him—he walks with a limp but in the picture you can’t tell. I can’t paint anyway, so when he’s a cripple, it’s even harder.’

  I pointed out to her that it must be a family moving in. She asked me why I thought so. I pointed to the crib and the pram on her canvas. Strangely enough, although she had painted them, she hadn’t seen them. Can human beings sense danger—or fate—to a point where they deny it? Annie was absorbed in a silent reverie. I could tell as much, her brush was already circling round a child caught in its mother’s skirts.

  When I try to understand the reasons behind the whole tragedy, I always come to the same conclusion: if Annie had not been passionate about painting, none of this would ever have happened. I am as certain of this as are those who maintain that if Hitler had not failed his entrance exam to art school the world would have been a better place. The young girl painting caught Madame M’s eye, and that is why she invited her to come in for a few minutes, the time it took for a cup of tea. Otherwise they would never have met; they would have remained strangers kept apart by everything since birth.

  Some people said, ‘Madame M. is bored all on her own’; others added, ‘and she is still so young’. The entire village tried to find an explanation for this unnatural friendship between a bourgeoise from a high-ranking family and their little Annie. After they had rejected the excuse—too humiliating—that ‘rich people like the poor when they are nice-looking’, they finally opted for the commonsense explanation that ‘rich people like artists’, and I think they were right.

  Everyone got used to them spending time together, and were even rather proud of them. Everyone, that is, except me. I took a dim view of their friendship. Annie, who was unsociable by nature, seemed to have found in that young woman the type of person one meets only once in a lifetime: th
e one who can replace everyone else. Once she had got into the habit of stopping off for tea with Madame M., Annie gave up all her other habits, including me. She cut herself off from my life, or rather, she cut me out of her life, without the slightest compunction, and without giving me any explanation as to her sudden detachment. She did not ignore me, what she did was worse: she still greeted me with that horrible little wave that was proof she had seen me, but never again with the other wave that was an invitation to join her. Love is a mysterious principle, falling out of love more mysterious still. One can know why one loves but never, truly, why one has ceased to love.

  Things could have stopped there, I could certainly have swallowed my gnawing irritation, my jealous resentment, but the arrival of Monsieur and Madame M. in L’Escalier was about to turn into an irreversible tragedy.

  So did I remember them?

  ‘Annie, you might as well have asked me if I remembered that we had lost the war.’

  Visibly feverish, she did not stop stirring the spoon in her cup. ‘Don’t compare things that cannot be compared.’ Annie slowly hitched her cardigan onto her shoulders. I could not take my eyes off her; her eyes were riveted elsewhere. I sensed that it was not only our ‘first times’ that she had to tell me about. She had simply reminded me of those times in order to earn the right to tell me what really mattered, the way one forces oneself to inquire politely about another’s general well-being before launching into a monologue where one speaks only of oneself.

  ‘I have something to confess, Louis. I have to tell you what really happened with Monsieur and Madame M. You are the only person I can tell.’

  That letter stopped there, I was going to have to wait to find out what happened next.

  It was precisely the suspense that got me thinking and made me reread it from another point of view—that of my profession as a book editor this time. There was something literary about it and, now that I had noticed it, the same was true about the earlier letters. What an idiot I was not to have realised sooner! My mother’s death must have really made me lose my grip. Those letters were meant for me, all right, it was simply an author sending me his manuscript through the letters. I received too many manuscripts to read all of them, they piled up on my desk, and authors were aware of this, particularly the unpublished ones. That was why these letters didn’t really follow a traditional format; they were instalments of a book that I’d be receiving week after week. A crazy idea, but not stupid. The proof: I was reading them.

  I started observing my authors closely, trying to trap them by insinuating this or that, hoping one of them would betray himself; they must have thought I was going mad. I would study their handwriting, searching for that capital ‘R’ in the middle of all the lowercase letters. I would take a close sniff, ever on the lookout for that woody perfume that came from the letters. I entertained every possibility. Could it be So-and-so? That would be just like him to write a thing about his childhood. It was becoming increasingly common to write about oneself, so if that was it, I would give it to him, straight to his face: that I was expecting a novel from him, a real one. I would aim for his glasses, it would be great if they fell off, I’ve always wondered what he’d look like without his glasses.

  I was convinced the sender of the letters would show up at my desk one day. A stranger would ask to see me, and bring me the rest of his manuscript, apologising for having duped me, but hey, for fifty years he’d never duped a soul and for fifty years no one had paid him the slightest attention, so he’d decided to change tactics.

  And what if it were the little Mélanie? ‘Have any of your interns ever become one of your authors?’ If she thought I didn’t notice what she was driving at with all her questions . . . But no, it was impossible, she was too young, these letters were the work of someone older, you could tell. And besides, she was too pretty to write like that.

  It was Mélanie, in fact, who roused me from my thoughts, one hand over the mouthpiece to keep Nicolas, on the other end of the line, from hearing her:

  ‘Your friend insists on speaking with you.’

  ‘Tell him I’m in a meeting.’

  ‘I did, but he’s already called five times this morning, he said he knows you’re not in a meeting.’

  ‘If he doesn’t want me to be in a meeting, then tell him I don’t want to talk to him. People won’t let go if you lie to them, but they will if you tell them the truth.’

  And if I told him the whole truth, I’ll bet you anything the guy would let go in no time; he’d probably run for his life.

  At any rate I could not go on like that, it was too risky. I decided to go home early, especially as I was sure of finding something in my letter box. It was Tuesday, and I’d noticed the letters always arrived on a Tuesday; my correspondent had the idiosyncrasies of a serial killer.

  In those days I still found the letters entertaining, almost friendly—a touch of mystery, in a world that was completely devoid of it, was hardly unpleasant. And besides, I wanted to find out what happened, what was this terrible tragedy involving Monsieur and Madame M.?

  Not for one second could I imagine what was coming. The unthinkable does exist: I’m proof of it.

  I went to their house nearly every day. I would paint while Madame M. read to me out loud. It was pleasant; she played all the characters. I enjoyed her company. I didn’t even feel obliged to speak, something that had never happened to me with anyone. She was so generous with me.

  She had put an entire room at my disposal. ‘The room without walls.’ That was how she called it because the walls disappeared behind a huge mirror and some heavy red drapes. It was too beautiful to be converted into a studio, but she would not have it any other way. ‘My dear Annie, since I have already told you how much pleasure it gives me . . . ’ And it was the same with all the rest. I asked for nothing, she gave me whatever I needed. When I had finished a canvas, a new one would appear as if by magic. She thought of everything. She even asked a friend of hers to give me lessons: Alberto, a marvellous painter and sculptor. He came from Paris, every Thursday. She was so kind.

  I had certainly noticed that she wasn’t happy, but I had not managed to find out why. As far as I could tell she had all the best things life has to offer.

  In the beginning I thought she must be ill. It was Sophie, their maid, who put this idea into my head. One morning I had not dared go into L’Escalier, there was a car parked in the drive and I thought this might be ‘her new infatuation’. My papa was forever telling me I must not have any illusions, that Madame M. and I did not belong to the same world, that she would replace me soon enough, just you wait. I retraced my steps and went home again. But two hours later Sophie was knocking on our door to ask for news; Madame M. was concerned I might be ill. I told Sophie about the car, and she replied that I was being silly, that I was always welcome at L’Escalier, that since she had met me Madame was improving by the day. Her words worried me. So I asked her if Madame M. was ill. She helped me on with my coat. No, what she meant was that Madame was happy to have me there with her, whether there was a car parked in the drive or not. I could sense she wasn’t telling the truth.

  Roughly two weeks later I had further proof that something was not quite right. This time it was her husband’s car that was parked in the drive. As a rule he had already left for his newspaper office by the time I arrived. I didn’t really feel like meeting him, but I couldn’t just turn around, Madame M. would have thought I was being ridiculous with my scrupulous politeness. She had made me promise I would never again hesitate to come in. So in I went, but I soon regretted it, for they were in the midst of an argument.

  ‘This cannot go on! If I agreed to come and live here, it was so you would feel better, not so you would go on feeling sorry for yourself.’

  ‘I am not feeling sorry for myself.’

  ‘I no longer recognise you. It is not by shutting yourself off from
the rest of the world that you are going to solve your problem.’

  ‘May I point out that it is also your problem.’

  ‘No. My only problem is that I come back here every night and find my wife no longer has a care in the world other than to make sure that I have bought canvases or charcoal or acrylic for her . . . I cannot believe you have no idea what is going on in the world.Honestly! You are worse than the women you are avoiding.’

  ‘I’m not avoiding anyone.’

  ‘What’s the use of trying to talk to you, and anyway, now I’m late . . .’

  ‘That’s it! Leave! Go back to your wonderful world where everyone knows everything that’s going on . . . Go and tell your beloved readers what makes the world go round, and above all don’t bother to explain anything to me, to explain how our world is supposed to go on working with everything that’s happened to us.’