Invisible Love (2 page)

Could it be that she had a brother she never knew about, a twin brother? . . . No, that was absurd! Her parents would have told her! And he would surely have made his presence known to his own sister sooner or later, wouldn't he?

That brought up a new question: why hadn't this Jean Daemens put in an appearance while he was alive? Why had he shown signs of life only after he was dead?

The mystery man was still smiling from the dark gray stone.

Geneviève had the embarrassing impression that her benefactor was staring at her out of his photograph. “Th-thank you,” she stammered. “Thank you for your gift—it was wonderful, and so unexpected. Only, you'll have to explain sometime, won't you?”

The light hit the portrait. She took that as a promise.

“Good. I . . . I'm counting on you.”

Suddenly she burst into nervous laughter. How could she be so foolish as to talk out loud to a gravestone?

Turning her head, she discovered next to it—in plot number 4—a similar grave to Jean Daemens's. More than similar—exactly the same! Apart from the name and the photograph, everything—the size of the stone, its color, the thin brass cross—was the same as its neighbor: the same gold lettering, the same typography, the same overall design.

“‘Laurent Delphin,'” she read. “Oh, look, this one died five years earlier.”

This similarity suggested a connection between the two graves, or rather between the two men. Geneviève examined the photograph. It showed a handsome, fair-haired man of about thirty, whom she found just as attractive as Jean Daemens. No, it was time to put a stop to this speculation.

“I'm going crazy . . .”

She turned back to Jean Daemens with an apologetic expression on her face, made a slight bow, and noticed that, unlike the other graves, his had no flowers. Had he foreseen that nobody would ever lay flowers on his grave? Vowing to come back soon and leave a bouquet, she set off back to the gate.

“All the same,” she said to herself as she turned off the avenue, “what a magnificent looking man!” Whereas that morning she had considered herself lucky to even receive such a gift, she now felt flattered that her benefactor was so handsome.

Which meant that the mystery of his intentions was becoming more unbearable to her with every passing second.

“Why? Why him and why me?”

 

 

* * *

 

 

Fifty-five years earlier, the bells of Sainte-Gudule Cathedral pealed out. In front of the altar, the young and beautiful Geneviève Piastre, fine as a lily in her white tulle dress, was marrying a strapping lad named Édouard Grenier, familiarly known as Eddy, who was blushing in embarrassment in his hired suit—in his job as a mechanic, he was more used to overalls. The two of them looked radiant, full of enthusiasm, impatient to be happy. It was thanks to an uncle that they had been able to have their wedding in this prestigious cathedral, where even the royal family held their celebrations, rather than in their gloomy neighborhood church. The priest cosseted them like two precious pieces of confectionery while, behind them, family and friends looked forward eagerly to celebrating until late into the night. It was obvious that Geneviève was entering on the happiest days of her life . . .

It would never have occurred to her to look beyond the rows of seats occupied by her guests and see what was happening at the other end of the vast cathedral, close to the main door through which she had entered, heart pounding, on her father's arm.

In the shadow of the penultimate column, protected by the statue of Simon the Zealot holding a golden saw, two men were kneeling in meditation, their demeanor not so unlike that of the couple occupying the limelight up there at the altar.

When the priest asked Eddy Grenier if he would take Geneviève as his lawful wedded wife, one of the two men, the brown-haired one, uttered a firm yes. Then, when the priest asked Geneviève the corresponding question, the fair-haired man blushed and also consented. In spite of the distance separating them from the ceremony, they were acting as if the minister of God, there in the yellow light of the stained-glass windows, were addressing them.

“I now pronounce you man and wife,” the priest said, and as the official bride and groom kissed each other on the lips, with the figure of Christ looking down on them benevolently, the unofficial spouses did the same in their corner. Just as Eddy and Geneviève exchanged rings to the sound of a hymn played by the organ, the brown-haired man took a case from his pocket, extracted two rings, and discreetly slipped them on his and the other man's fingers.

Nobody had noticed them.

And nobody paid any attention to them when, once the service was over, they remained on their knees, praying, while the wedding party dispersed down the central nave.

During the ritual congratulations in front of the cathedral, the two men continued to meditate in the charitable half-light. When the cheering and the car horns had subsided outside and they at last made up their minds to move, they came out onto the top of the empty steps, with no photographer to record the moment, with no family members to celebrate their happiness by throwing rice and applauding, and with no witness other than the Gothic tower of the town hall, at the top of which the archangel Michael was slaying a dragon in the dazzling sunlight.

They rushed to the brown-haired man's apartment at 22 Avenue Lepoutre and closed the shutters. They were freer than Geneviève and Eddy: they didn't need to wait until nightfall to express their love for each other beneath the sheets.

 

*

 

Much to his own astonishment, Jean had fallen in love with Laurent.

Since he had reached adulthood, Jean had amassed a great many fleeting encounters, and had had many lovers for whom he had felt nothing. His sensual appetites had turned him into a hunter, and he had spent hours cruising bars and saunas and parks and smoky nightclubs—he hated cigarette smoke—his head battered by music he also hated, in search of prey to take home with him.

He had thought he liked this carefree, dissolute existence until he met Laurent, but from their first kisses, he realized that it was neither as wonderful nor as audacious as he had thought. It might have provided him with pleasures, orgasms, narcissistic ecstasies, but it had also bred a kind of cynicism in him. His lack of commitment had turned him into a Don Juan, doomed to endlessly start over again. He had reduced other men to the satisfaction their bodies gave him. The more he had assuaged his sexual urges, the less he had appreciated the company of men. He had fucked so many of them that he had stopped respecting them.

Laurent had restored his taste, his esteem for life. This fair-haired young man, an electrician at the Théâtre Royal du Parc, put as much enthusiasm into talking or shopping or cooking as into making love. Everything excited him. His arrival had started a revolution in Jean, helping him to discover love where previously he had known only physical pleasure. Being of a vigorous temperament, Jean reacted to this upheaval by going to extremes: he praised Laurent to the skies, showered him with gifts, smothered him with kisses, and threw himself on him with a desire that was insatiable.

That was why Jean had been so determined to consecrate their relationship. Since society did not allow the legal union of two men, he had come up with a subterfuge. It was not that Jean and Laurent found being in a sexual minority any kind of burden. They were both too glad just to be alive for that. They even derived a kind of pride from their situation as outsiders, the pride of those who, knowing they are rare, feel the thrill of the initiated: they were part of both the visible world and an invisible world, ordinary society and a clandestine society. Day by day, they hardly cared that what was granted to the masses was denied them! But if they really wanted it, they would have to get it by trickery . . .

And so it was that they married simultaneously with Eddy and Geneviève, in Sainte-Gudule Cathedral, on the afternoon of April 13.

It was pure chance that had led the two couples to share the service, and their connection would have stopped there if Laurent had not made the romantic gesture of tearing the wedding announcement from the town hall notice board. A few days later, he stuck this paper in their scrapbook, and then made a copy of it, this time celebrating the union of Jean Dae­mens and Laurent Delphin, a fake they both regarded as completely genuine.

Thanks to its presence in their scrapbook, the surname Grenier became familiar to them. Consequently, when the newspaper
Le Soir
announced the birth of Johnny Grenier, the son of Eddy and Geneviève, they lingered over the paragraph, deeply moved. That morning, they felt—perhaps for the first time—a purely homosexual feeling, the painful realization that their love, however strong it was, would never bear fruit.

They attended the christening.

This time, the uncle who had previously landed Sainte-Gudule Cathedral had been unable to find Geneviève and Eddy a more elegant venue than their parish church, Notre-Dame-Immaculée, where a wheezy harmonium stood in for an organ and the priest's spluttered sermon oozed from ancient gray loudspeakers that looked like lampshades. This did not bother Geneviève, engrossed as she was in the joy of motherhood, or Jean and Laurent, who were overwhelmed by this birth. Only Eddy was upset. There in the middle of the yellowish church with its grimy pews, its rudimentary stained-glass windows, its dark statues of polished wood more overloaded with plastic flowers than a concierge's lodge, the mechanic had come down to earth: he was twenty-six, and he was bored by marriage. Yes, Geneviève was as lively and passionate as ever, and still in love with him, but married life made him feel guilty about everything: meeting his pals in a bar, drinking too much, talking too much, casually flirting with girls, wolfing down junk—cones of French fries or bags of licorice—rather than the dishes lovingly prepared by Geneviève, lying late in bed with his hands behind his head and the radio blaring away, lounging about the apartment in his shorts, in other words, behaving as he had before. He hated having to watch his step, forcing himself to improve, to become clean and reasonable and responsible and faithful. It was against nature! Did he have to endure all that just so that he could have sex with his wife as often as he liked? It seemed a high price to pay . . . Worse still, when he saw that red-faced brat Johnny screaming in his swaddling clothes, he foresaw that things weren't going to get any better.

Although he was making an effort to put on a good show during the ceremony, his moroseness did not pass unnoticed by the two men sitting at the back of the church. Jean and Laurent were shocked. Didn't the stupid lump realize how lucky he was to be starting a family? What an oaf! They shifted all their sympathy to Geneviève, who was radiant.

The next day, they had a baby carriage delivered, with a note, supposedly from the local social services, congratulating the new parents.

 

*

 

Life resumed for the two couples. Each was moving at its own pace toward its own essential truth.

Jean and Laurent felt no diminution of their happiness. After conceiving a number of artistic projects that would allow him to work with Laurent in the theater, Jean had resigned himself to the fact that he had no talent. Feeling no bitterness, he had bought a shop with his father's money and had started selling jewelry. Since he had good taste and women liked him for his good manners and excellent advice, the business soon prospered.
L'Atout coeur
became the place to go for the fashionable ladies of Brussels.

Jean and Laurent were in the full flower of their love. They did nothing to hide the fact that they lived together, but nor did they flaunt it. They felt no shame, but nor did they protest. Live and let live, summed up their position. Nevertheless, influenced by libertarian ideals, society was becoming more tolerant, and the government responded to militant pressure by outlawing discrimination against those who loved their own sex. Although Jean and Laurent appreciated this relaxing of attitudes, their own viewpoint hadn't changed. Existing on the sidelines, out of sight of prying eyes, contributed to their happiness. They were still those illicit spouses who had married in the shadows, concealed behind a pillar in the cathedral.

Made all the sharper by this lack of outward show, their physical passion for each other was as strong as ever.

Eddy and Geneviève were launched on quite a different path. Johnny's screaming and whining and illnesses had provided Eddy with an excuse to grow more distant. After his day's work at the garage, he would spend hours with his buddies, drinking or playing cards, and only come home to sleep. Geneviève had noticed this, but instead of complaining she blamed herself: the reason Eddy was turning away from her was because she was too exhausted to take care of herself, because she was breastfeeding, because the only things she ever talked about were diapers, washing, and baby food.

A daughter was born.

Eddy suggested calling her Minnie, like Mickey Mouse's girlfriend! Excited by the idea, he loved to whisper this name to her every time he lifted her in his arms and would laugh until he was breathless. Horrified as she was, Geneviève, fearing that Eddy's fragile love for his children might turn to hate if she objected, accepted the name in the hope that it would help Minnie to capture her father's affection.

Jean and Laurent were traveling abroad at the time and were unaware that there had been a second baby. Although Geneviève was disappointed not to receive a gift from social services as she had the previous time, she consoled herself by using the sophisticated baby carriage she already owned.

 

*

 

Ten years passed.

Jean and Laurent thought about Eddy and Geneviève from time to time, but vaguely, with a kind of languid nostalgia. Those faces were part of their youth, and their youth was slowly receding. They made no attempt to find out anything about that other couple that existed only within the gilded frame of their happy memories.