Lovers on All Saints' Day Read Free Page B

neighbor.
    “And watch your manners, if you don’t want a punch in the face.”
    “Let’s go in,” said the woman. “Philippe, it’s not worth it.”
    “Salauds,”
said the neighbor.
    “Vieux con,”
said Philippe.
    “In,” said the woman.
    She closed the door and some bells jingled (they were copper, tied with red and green thread). Philippe took them down off the door hook.
    “That noise gets on my nerves. I don’t know how you can stand it.”
    “Good evening,” said Claire.
    “Every time it opens, every time you close it.”
    “Good evening,” said the woman. “I’m a friend of the family. Anne. A friend.”
    We said hello, and I noticed that Claire didn’t know quite how to introduce me. This was not the moment to go into details about nationality and profession; I was not going to be of any use to her this time, to break the ice in gatherings of strangers. In the living room, two armchairs and a small sofa were covered with white sheets, and both windows had lace curtains. The woman sitting on top of the sheet, at one end of the sofa, seemed like she hadn’t moved in a long time. It was Philippe’s sister, the woman whose son had died. Her eyelids were swollen and she had a red mark on her neck. Her head was hanging slightly to one side, her gaze fixed on some point in the sisal rug. Philippe sat down next to her, and Anne, the friend, sat in the other chair. But it was as if Claire and I weren’t there, as if we hadn’t arrived yet. Claire went over to Philippe; he didn’t look at her. He’d put a hand on his sister’s knee like someone setting down a cup of coffee. And he did not look at Claire. Not once did he look at her.
    No one spoke, the bodies barely moved, and the sound of clothes brushing against the sheets, when that happened, was as clear as a violin in the still air of the room. The only thing I wanted to know was where the dead boy was and if there was anything we could do to help: take care of some of the procedural paperwork, recover the car from the accident site, any of those routine tasks that are terrible because they take us away or distract us from the pain. I said:
    “I’m sorry, madame.”
    Nothing happened. No one looked at me. Philippe’s sister did not move her head. And that was when Claire, perhaps tired of standing like a statue at Philippe’s side, approached his sister, knelt down at the foot of the sofa, and embraced her. It was a simple gesture, and didn’t seem to have any consequences until Claire tried to go back to her place, and the woman’s arms surrounded her and kept her there and her voice released a wail, he’s dead, Claire, my baby’s dead, and I saw the clenched, pale fists against Claire’s black shawl. They were heavy hands and they pressed Claire’s back and clothes, and the fingers wore no rings and her skin was so fair that blue veins were visible in the faint light. Philippe, sitting beside the two embracing women, looked at the bells he’d put on the coffee table. He picked them up, hung them from one finger, and shook them so it sounded like someone had just come in.
    —
    L ESS THAN A WEEK LATER, I had to pass through Brussels again, on my way back from Paris, but I was able to change trains at Midi station and continue my trip to the Ardennes without seeing Claire and Philippe. In the house in Aywaille, as soon as I arrived, I began to organize my notes and write the article. About the bookshop’s bedroom, I wrote: “It’s a child’s room, a child who has not visited in a long time. The doors of a wardrobe have been removed in order to fit a little bed inside it, but there are still checked blazers and winter jackets hanging from the rail. There’s nothing as lonely as the spectacle of abandoned clothing. It smells of mothballs and ammonia, because the bathroom is right next door. From the portraits, which absorb my attention, I discover that this room belonged, some time ago, to Sylvia Beach Whitman, George’s daughter.