Concerto to the Memory of an Angel (12 page)

In the indecisive gray light of daybreak they left the hotel, went down toward the lake, and took the road along the shore, driving cautiously through the thick fog that clung to the banks.

“Stop, we'll park here,” ordered Axel.

The Chinese man from the previous night stood stiffly by the side of the road, waving to them.

They left the car behind. In the stagnant air there drifted a musty smell of mulch and dead branches.

The Chinese man bowed and pointed to a low-lying wooden craft at the end of a dock made of ash-colored boards.

Following his orders, Chris helped Axel, as delicately as possible, to slide from his wheelchair into the boat; as soon as he was seated on the rear thwart the invalid pushed him away, exasperated.

Then they moved off, the throttle on low to keep as silent as possible. The Chinese man's silhouette at the water's edge thinned, melted, and faded away into the dawn mist.

“Where are we going?”

“You'll see.”

Chris wondered: what was contained in the bags lying between them on the floor of the boat?

The farther the skiff moved from the shore, the deeper it went into the pea soup. In the middle of the lake, where the mist had erased the shores and the mountains in an icy world, Axel cut the motor.

“This is where the voyage ends.”

“Here?”

“Here, in the middle of the lagoon.”

With that word, Chris grasped at once what his companion had in mind. The opaque Alpine lake stood for the blue inlet under a Thai sun: Axel wanted Chris to know what it was like to drown. Instinctively, he leapt to his feet, ready to dive in to escape.

“Don't move!”

Axel had pulled a revolver from his pocket and was aiming it at Chris.

“I'm not joking,” he insisted. “Sit down. If you don't do as I say I'll shoot.”

Chris sat back down. He opened his mouth to try and bargain with him.

“Shut up! Today you're going to listen to me.”

Despite his peremptory mannerisms, Axel was trembling. Was it from the cold, the emotion, fear, anger? There was not a nuance on his expressionless face, all muscles gone as a result of the coma; only his puckered mouth betrayed any tension.

“One day you chose a medal with the number one over me. Naturally, you may not have known that I might die as a result, but between winning and helping me you did not hesitate. This time you won't win. Open the bags.”

The steel weapon glinted with flashes like lightning.

Chris leaned slowly toward the satchels. They were very heavy, and he dragged them closer across the floor. He opened them and found they were filled with lead weights tied together, with straps at either end.

“Fasten the straps around you.”

Chris started to protest. The only answer he got was the barrel of the revolver against his forehead.

Chris reluctantly began to do as he was told.

“And do it properly! Make those knots more complicated, nothing that you could undo!”

Axel squeezed his finger against the trigger.

Over their heads a crow gave a shrill, desolate cry.

Suddenly Chris stopped stalling and set to work. Energetic and resolved, he applied himself. Axel noticed this, with some surprise, but made no comment.

“There,” exclaimed Chris, “I have my ballast. What next?”

“Oh, you're in such a hurry . . . ”

“There's no point hanging around, since I know how this is going to end. You want me to jump in the water or do you want to kill me right here?”

“Calm down. Anyone would think you're enjoying this.”

“It seems necessary to me.”

“Calm down, I said. We'll go at my pace. I'm the one who organized all this, not you.”

“I disagree. I did too. Some of it. I'm responsible for what you became.”

“A millionaire?” asked Axel with a burst of laughter.

“No, a murderer. Do you remember what Paul Brown, the American who was in charge of the music workshops, used to call us? The rivals, Cain and Abel. I was the bad one, Cain, and you were the good one, Abel. I was the one who was supposed to kill his brother. Which is what I did.”

Axel stared at him, full of hatred.

“Ah, so you do feel guilty, after all?”

“Very. And now look: you're Cain and I'm Abel. It's stupid, no? In twenty years, we have swapped our roles. You are nothing but an explosive mix of suffering, exasperation and hatred. You were a prodigy and I've turned you into a monster. How could I be anything but ashamed?”

Axel aimed the gun at him, ready to fire.

“Shut up.”

Chris went on, vehemently.

“I ruined you, Axel. You became the opposite of what you were. I knew an angel, and I've made you a demon.”

“Shut up. I am responsible for what I have become. It's what I wanted: ‘Never again,' I said to myself when I came out of the coma, ‘I will never, ever, be a victim again.'”

“Strange. ‘Never again,' is also what I promised myself when I got back to Paris: ‘Never again, I will never be a murderer again.'”

They reflected for a moment on the irony of the fate which, with a single event, had turned a bastard into an altruist and a saint into a crook.

The shifting fog, deep and light, a white obscurity, settled all around them, soundlessly, burying them beneath its thick muffling cloak.

Axel continued, pensively, “When I met you this week at the café, you were speaking to one of your hopeless adolescents about ‘redemption.' I had not heard that word for years, or even thought about what it meant. You radiated so much conviction that I realized you must be speaking about yourself. After abandoning me like some old fish hook at the bottom of the lagoon you set about your redemption. That's when I understood that I had taken a road leading the other way; I was going down, while you were ascending. What is the opposite of redemption? Decadence? Damnation? Yes, it must be damnation . . . When I say that word, I am in pain, I feel like a victim all over again.”

“You've got it wrong. Even if you may always be a victim of other people, you can avoid being a victim of your own self. It's in your power. It depends on you alone.”

“I no longer have the strength, Chris. Once you become a cynic there is no going back, you have no ideals, you don't care about anything except pain. And ever since I found you the pain just won't go away, it's getting worse. Because the situation has changed . . . I used to hate you. Now I hate myself. I can see myself with your eyes, I can remember who I used to be, I compare. What do I have left, Chris, what do I have left?”

If he had removed his dark glasses, Chris would have seen that Axel's eyes were filled with tears.

He stood up.

“There is something I can do for you.”

“No one can do anything for me.”

“Yes. I can. I can help you become a good man again.”

“Impossible. In the first place, I don't want to.”

“I'll make you.”

Chris reached out and took up the lead plates, looked into the fog to his right and jumped.

It all happened so quickly that Axel did not realize what was going on until he heard the splash of the body in the water.

Chris's head remained above water for a second, no more, the time it took for his muscles to try and resist and for his eyes to find Axel's. Then the weights took him to the bottom.

There were no bubbles. Chris must have been holding his breath instinctively.

Axel stared at the widening concentric circles until the lake became smooth again.

He mused that he ought to be satisfied. It was his will speaking the lines to him because in his inner self he felt nothing.

Suddenly air bubbles broke the surface; emerging from the depths the sound had a human resonance, as if it were coming from a person's mouth, expressing joy at being once again in a human element, of having escaped from a hostile environment.

The sensation was unbearable to Axel. He had just realized that his companion was in the throes of death.

“Chris!” he shouted.

His vibrant cry rose into the indifferent silence where the mountains slept. It faded. There was no answer.

Then, to rescue Chris, Axel flung himself into the water.

 

For years old Queraz, an occasional fisherman, a Savoyard with a face weathered by a life spent outdoors, would tell his eager listeners and any tourists who cared to listen a story that had been troubling him.

One morning when he was teasing the fish on the promontory by the road leading down from the Combaz chalet, a rocky overhang that can be useful on days when you don't feel like taking the boat out, he had witnessed an extraordinary scene. As was often the case in November, a thick shifting fog was dancing listlessly over the lake, veiling and unveiling the water in turn. For an instant old Queraz could see a boat in the distance; the engine was switched off, and two men were speaking, peacefully. Then the fog had shrouded the scene. He saw the boat again when one of the two men jumped into the water, carrying packets. A diver? The other shouted, sounded worried, then he too slipped into the lake. Two minutes later, when visibility returned, Queraz saw two heads on the surface, yes, it looked as if the second man had fished the first one out, but they'd drifted away from the boat. A sudden gust of wind spoiled the show. At least ten minutes of murk followed. Finally, when the air was clear once again, there was nothing there but the solitary boat in the middle of the water. Where were the men? At the bottom of the lake or on shore? Drowned, or safe? He thought he must have dreamt the scene.

After a week of thinking and hesitating old Queraz had a drink to give himself some courage and went to tell his story to the gendarmes.

“If anyone reports the disappearance of two people,” answered the brigadier with a laugh, “we'll come and get you to tell your tale. Until then, go sleep on it.”

Because of the telltale signs on his breath, the officers of the law had not paid attention to the illiterate man.

It had so annoyed old Queraz that from that day on he had begun to smoke dark unfiltered Gauloises and developed a habit for absinthe, the local Alpine spirit.

His brain was ruined by alcohol, and he was on the verge of forgetting the vision he'd had when another event came to remind him of it.

Ten years later, as it happened, when it had been decided to empty the lake in order to clean it up, two corpses were found. On a bed of silt two bodies lay intertwined, head to tail, like twins curled up in their mother's belly.

No one ever found out who they were. However, because the workers who discovered them were struck by the similarity of their skeletons, the stony promontory opposite the spot where they had come to die, and where old man Queraz had witnessed their ultimate attempt at salvation, came to be known as the rock of Cain and Abel.

 

 

S
he had come home to flee the streets, but now no sooner was she between her four walls than she wanted to go out again. Her malaise was getting worse by the day: nowhere did she feel at ease.

She looked all around her for some detail— a painting, an object, a piece of furniture—that might reassure her, restore her confidence, connect her to her past. In vain. The apartment on the top floor of the palace was depressingly tasteful: everything, from the tiniest molding to the fabric on the chairs, had been designed by one of the very best contemporary interior architects; if you so much as moved an armchair or threw a colored sweater over the combination of beige and lemony wood, it would destroy the harmony; any trace of a different, personal life, oblivious to the artist's obsessions, would be blasphemous, a blatant obscenity. She felt like a perpetual stranger here, in this décor that was supposed to belong to her.

She did not want to turn on the lights, and she sat down on the sofa as if she were visiting.

It was a dreary day; only the gleaming silver boxes gave off any light. Outside, snow was falling indolently. You could hear cars in the street accelerating with a muffled roar.

Catherine mused that her life was like a Sunday afternoon—long, morose, full of indefinable hopes and vague regrets, where bitterness prevailed and prevented her from enjoying the little there was left to enjoy.

At a loose end, she picked up the magazine her private secretary had left for her. A portrait of herself and her husband was on the cover, with the headline,
A PERFECT LOVE STORY
.

She immersed herself in the magazine with a smile. Her face was elegant, fragile, as diaphanous as bisque porcelain.

“A Perfect Love Story . . . What imagination!”

With the tips of her fingers, nails painted the color of red currant jelly, the flamboyant tones of auto bodywork, Catherine leafed through France's most popular weekly magazine, a gossip rag that nobody bought, of course, but which, miraculously, everyone had read and where, now, photos of herself and her husband were splashed across several pages. Under each pose was a caption repeating the title of the article,
A PERFECT LOVE STORY
. Henri and herself smiling to the camera, holding hands, shoulder to shoulder, affable, smart, well-groomed, poised—or rather carefully posed in their impeccable presidential apartments.

“Do we make a handsome couple?” wondered Catherine.

She was at pains to answer; with an eye that had become professional after twenty-five years of political experience, she knew that the photographs were superb, but what about her and her husband? To be sure, their defects were well hidden by make-up, and touch-ups could emphasize their qualities, and both of them were wearing clothing that showed them to their best advantage. Yes, they had triumphed over the ravages of time, they were looking their best, and matched their own iconic selves; did they, however, make a handsome couple?

“Would I like this couple if I had just met them?”

It was difficult to reply. Once she managed to stop thinking about the fact that they were the ones being examined, she still saw a powerful twosome, a man and a woman who were a cut above other people. And this, oddly enough, displeased her. Despite her social ascension, somewhere inside her there was still the student from the École des Beaux-Arts who had chosen to be a nonconformist, who had chosen to take a degree that would lead nowhere, a wild young girl who preferred to eat pasta for months on end rather than remain under the yoke of her parents, the free woman who had met Henri in a bar near Assas, never thinking for a moment that their affair might last. Twenty-five years later the Bohemian student found herself handcuffed to glory, frozen in the role of an official personage, Madame Morel, first lady of France, wife of the president of the Republic, pinned inside the gilded frame of the Elysée Palace.

“Well, one thing is for sure: I would not want to spend any time with that woman on the photograph.”

She condemned herself out of hand: suit made to measure out of a fine cloth of elegant simplicity; heels high but not too sexy; hairstyle as solid as a helmet; modest demeanor. She had become bourgeois. The metamorphosis had occurred gradually, against her will. In the beginning, Catherine didn't give too much thought to the clothes she wore, and willy-nilly she would pile on dresses, shirts, long skirts and Indian vests that were colorful and cheap and which she was in the habit of picking up for a song in the working-class neighborhood near the Gare du Nord where she rented a garret room; at the most, to justify her choices, she would have said she liked the dry feel of cotton in thin layers against her slender body. Then, on her husband's arm, as he rose through the ranks of power, her casual style had begun to attract attention: while her outfits may have been of no concern to her, people had begun to comment on her devil-may-care attitude. Her indifference to fashion was seen as clever, a deliberate PR strategy hatched in her husband's communications offices; when people spoke of Madame Morel, they would either begin or end their discussion with her wardrobe, sometimes to praise her, more often to make fun of her. To put an end to the sneering she had relented and begun to dress in a more conservative style, emptying her closets of her hippie rags to fill them with outfits designed for women of her age who were in positions of responsibility. A question of dignity . . .

“Dignity! You understand, my poor Catherine, you come across as a frump who's convinced she's dressing ‘in a dignified way.' The morons have won the battle: they've contaminated your brain.”

She looked more closely at the photograph of the cold hallway of the Elysée where she was shown greeting the German chancellor: she could not bear to see herself like that. To be sure, she was perfect, attractive and elegant, but how could she stand there smiling, playing the role so well, never revealing for an instant that she was ill at ease. They'd stuck her with a role she did not want, that of a politician's wife; she had started as the wife of a deputy, then of a deputy-mayor, then of a minister, and at each step she had lost a little bit more freedom; after a disastrous election she had become the wife of the leader of the opposition, and that had actually been rather amusing, the best period; finally, unfortunately, these last few years she had been thrust into the position of the president's wife.

“No one would believe me if I admitted that my life has been a failure.”

She turned the pages of the feature and laughed when she saw the photograph showing them in the Salon Doré, poring rapturously over an art book; the journalist had written, “Madame Morel is trying to share her passion for contemporary painting with her pragmatic husband.” Yes, the scribbler was right, she had tried for thirty seconds, one minute at the most, the time it took to take a photograph, no more; and what's more, she had said any old thing when she pointed to the reproductions: why couldn't she have said something intelligent, Henri wasn't listening, it was all staged, just a silent tableau in a crèche.

“And what about Henri? If I were meeting him today for the first time, what would I feel?”

This thought was more interesting than the previous ones. She scrutinized her husband on the glossy paper.

“Play the game, Catherine, erase your memories, pretend you don't know him.”

She shivered: he made an impression on her.

Yes, he did make an impression on her, with his rogue's lips, his ironic eyebrows, his perfect teeth, his black hair as brilliant as a raven's wing, his powerful neck emerging from a blue suit with an irreproachable collar. How could this be? After twenty-five years of marriage, she trembled as she looked at his strong hands, as if they were made to encircle a woman's waist; how touching, that hooked, determined nose, which expressed his energy; she was overcome by the dark flame burning in his eyes. So, could she fall in love with this man if she met him today?

Catherine looked up and became lost in thought, her heart in an uproar, as she contemplated the snow-covered garden. Seagulls were crying, shrill and furious, over the frozen ponds of the Elysée Palace.

This revelation was disconcerting to her: was it good news, or bad?

Bad! It was so useful to think that everything had died since they'd become prisoners of their roles. Why wake up a statue? I don't know if, at the Musée Grévin, the wax figures would like to be restored to life, if Joan of Arc would like to roast again, or Louis XVI to feel the guillotine's blade, or if Juliet would look forward to a new fatal adventure with that idiot Romeo. No, you can't bring old dolls back to life, you have to let them get covered with dust, and fade, and be buried in oblivion, to quietly leave behind the memory of the living. That was how Catherine Morel had been intending to live for years. So it was not good news to find she desired the fifty-year-old that Monsieur Morel had become, and not just Henri, the young man with wild hair she'd once known, and who had been embalmed alive in a president's suit. Not good news at all.

And yet . . . If only it were true . . . If they could remove the glaze of routine . . . If they could burn for each other once again . . . If they were better suited to their roles . . .

Instinctively she headed toward Henri's room where, like Bluebeard's wife, she was not allowed to enter. In actual fact she went there often because his bathroom, during the day, remained a mysterious place, without him and yet full of him, with the lavender smell of his towel, his toothpaste, the cold water on marble, the aloe foam; mysterious with the drifting ghost of her man; mysterious because he never allowed her to go in there with him; mysterious because this corridor led to a place of pleasure, preceding the night, when bodies would be entwined in sheets. A vestibule to love . . .

She sighed. Unfortunately this den had not been leading to any pleasure for a long time now . . . For all they slept in the same bed, Henri and Catherine no longer touched one another. The wearing of time, again . . .

She went back into the drawing room, picked up the magazine, and inspected her husband on the photos.

“This man is attractive because I don't know him. For example, I assume he'll be just as forthright as his attitude suggests, as frank as his smile. Yet I know . . . it's too late . . . I know who he is, what he is capable of . . . I know that . . . ”

At that very moment President Morel appeared, dressed in blue, flushed, perspiring, a tight smile on his lips.

“Ah, you're here?” he said, surprised, somewhat brusque. “I thought you were out shopping . . . ”

“Sorry. Nothing tempting in the boutiques, I came home quickly.”

He came closer, intrigued.

“Are you all right?”

Was he truly worried or was he pretending?

“I'm fine. I was reading this feature about us.”

“It's a good one, no? Rigaud is very pleased with it.”

“Well, if Rigaud is pleased . . . ”

She would have liked to add, “If the President's director of communications is satisfied, then the President's trophy wife must keep quiet,” but she refrained from voicing her thoughts.

“Everybody thought you were magnificent,” he declared, heading for the bathroom.

“Who is ‘everybody?' Did you order a survey? Organize a referendum?”

“Everybody means the men in my cabinet.”

“And the women?”

“The same.”

Behind the half-open door he rummaged in closets, swirled water, moved flasks around.

For a split second she felt like causing a scandal, suspecting he might be on his way to see his mistress; she couldn't care less about adultery, it was of no interest to her at all, because he'd been cheating on her for years, but she thought it was unfair, vulgar, scandalous that he behaved in this way, showering her with oozing flattery while he was getting ready to go and see another woman. She very nearly blurted, “Will you pay the same compliments to your tart as you did to me while you were dolling yourself up for her? If she's not a complete and utter slut, she'll be annoyed. As I am.” But she merely added with a sigh, “Chores waiting?”

“A meeting at the University at Jussieu.”

He used these official visits as a pretext, that she knew, to visit his mistresses beforehand; he was well-organized, and only his chauffeur and bodyguards, men he could trust, would help him indulge in his little misdeed; the car would be parked just outside the building while he dispatched his business; with his Pompadour he would have just enough time to come, but not to make her come. Basically, there was no reason why she should envy them, the busy man's adoring doormats . . .

She smiled and put on one of his favorite CDs.

Henri came out of the bathroom knotting his tie over a clean shirt.

“Goodbye then, Catherine, see you tonight.”

“I doubt it. I'll be at the theatre. Schmitt's latest play.”

“Oh really, is it important?”

“For people who like the theatre, yes; for everyone else, it doesn't even exist. Put your mind at rest: I'll be there for both of us. As usual, I'll make the sacrifice.”

“You may complain, but you love the theatre.”

With a jaunty air he came over and proffered his lips, like a busy man who takes the time to be tender. At that very moment she caught a whiff of his perfume. She stiffened. Where did that perfume come from? Who had given it to him? Who had chosen that unfamiliar fragrance? There could be no more doubt about it: he had a new mistress, a regular. Prostitutes don't give perfume, only a sentimental volunteer would have the nerve. While ordinarily Catherine would hide thoughts of this nature, she heard herself say, “Who gave you that perfume?”

“But—but, you yourself did.”

“It wasn't me.”

“Ah . . . I thought it was . . . ”

“No.”

“Well. I don't know . . . I didn't pay attention . . . I get so many gifts . . . Rigaud, maybe?”