The Woman With the Bouquet Read Free

observe her behavior, with greater ease.
    Although she was not doing anything, she did not seem idle. Various emotions flickered across her gaze, thoughts tightened then relaxed her forehead, her lips closed around a thousand utterances that sought to escape. Overwhelmed by a rich inner life, Emma Van A. divided her time between the pages of a novel open on her lap and the flow of dreams that invaded her the moment she raised her head toward the bay. It was as if there were two separate ships sailing by: the ship of her thoughts and the ship of the book; from time to time, when she lowered her eyelids, their wakes mingled for a moment, wedding their waves, then her own ship continued on its way. She read in order not to find herself alone and adrift, she read not to fill a spiritual void but to accompany an all too powerful capacity to create. Literature like bloodletting, to avoid fever . . .
    Emma Van A. must have been very beautiful, even as an old woman. However, a recent illness—a cerebral hemorrhage, according to Gerda—had relegated her from antique store to junk shop. Since that time her muscles had melted, her body was no longer slim but thin. She seemed so light that you could imagine her bones to be porous, to the point of breaking. Her joints were ravaged by arthritis, and this made her gestures difficult, yet she seemed not to notice, for she was burning with life. Her eyes were still remarkable: large, a faded blue, a blue where the clouds of the north passed over.
    My greeting startled her from her meditation, and she gazed at me, distraught. At that moment, I would have qualified her as anguished. Then a smile came, a real smile, not a trace of hypocrisy, a ray of light in an ocean climate.
    “Good morning. Did you sleep well?”
    “So well that I can’t even remember. I’m going to explore Ostend.”
    “How I envy you . . . enjoy your day, Monsieur.”
    I strolled for several hours in Ostend, never staying for more than twenty minutes in the streets away from the shore, always returning to the promenade or the breakwater, like a seagull called by the air of the open sea.
    The North Sea was the color of oysters, from the green-brown of the waves to the mother-of-pearl white of the foam; these alternating hues with their gem-like, distilled nuances were restful to me, after my brilliant memories of the Mediterranean with its pure blue and yellow sand, colors as vivid as in a child’s drawing. Now these dulled tones evoked the taste of the sea that comes with the delight of eating seafood in a brasserie, and the sea itself was saltier.
    Although I had never been to Ostend before, I was rediscovering memories here, and I let childhood sensations lull my mind. My pants rolled up to my knees, I surrendered my feet to the sting of the sand, then the reward of the water. As in the old days, I went into the waves up to mid-calf, fearful of venturing any further. As in the old days, I felt how small I was, beneath an infinite sky, facing the infinite waves.
    There were not many people around me. Old folk. Is it for this reason that old people appreciate the seashore? Because when they are swimming, they are ageless? Because they rediscover humility, the simple pleasures of childhood? Because, while buildings and businesses record the passage of time, the sand and the waves remain virginal, eternal, innocent? The seashore remains a secret garden over which time has no hold.
    I bought some shrimps that I ate standing up, dipping them into a tub of mayonnaise, then I continued on my stroll.
    When I got back to the Villa Circé, at around six o’clock, I was drunk on the wind and the sun, and my head was full of reveries.
    Emma Van A. turned to me with a smile on seeing my joyfully inebriated state, and she asked with a knowing air, “Well, how was your exploration of Ostend?”
    “Fascinating.”
    “How far did you go?”
    “To the port. Because, quite honestly, I could not settle here without